Lieutenant Beeker came up behind him. “Was one of those personals for you, Pete?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the strips of paper in his hand. “Bad news?”
Packer quickly whipped Shebeona’s cablegram out of sight. “One was for me. Nothing serious, really. The other seems to indicate your navy has a brand-new admiral.” He handed him the one about Finlander.
Beeker glanced through it and exclaimed: “God! I wonder if this will hold good after we dock. Well, better let him enjoy it while he can. Messenger!” He stuffed it into a yellow envelope and dispatched it to the bridge, then noticed that the Englishman was still leaning over the decoder with a drawn, blank expression on his face. “Are you all right, Pete?”
“I don’t know,” Packer answered. “Everything seems all so god-awfully mixed up. What is happening? Are we at war? Has the whole world been plunged into darkness or is it only us, Beek?”
Beeker peered carefully into his face for a moment and frowned as if he wondered about this himself. He turned to the rows of radio operators and called out: “Hey, Swanson! You’re guarding GB circuits. Anything unusual happening on the outside?”
Swanson shrugged. “No, Mr. Beeker. Nothing much. The President has agreed to meet with Khrushchev sometime soon. There’s some kind of scandal in New York City about rats in the schools. The Green Bay Packers got taken seventeen-nothing. The big news from both sides of the pond seems to be about Jack Paar lousing up the deal in Berlin.”
Beeker sighed with relief, then turned back to Packer and smiled. “You see, everything’s absolutely normal. . . . Look, I’ll run the store for a while if you want to take a break, Pete. You seem pretty beat, boy.”
Packer was suddenly both eager to accept this offer and strangely exhilarated by a fresh flood of nervous energy. “Thanks a lot, Beek!” he exclaimed. “I’ll be back very soon and you can call me immediately if there’s an avalanche of top-secret squawks out of NATONAV 1. But I do need to get down to my cabin right away. As a matter of fact . . . I absolutely have to!”
He left the Communications Center and as he progressed on his downward journey through the Bedford’s pitching decks and passageways, his pace quickened with the full realization that Shebeona wanted him and no war had come between them as yet. At the same time, something near panic gripped him as he remembered that Munceford had her picture now. What madness could have driven him to give away Shebeona’s photograph to that man! Allowing him to possess even a paper likeness of her suddenly rankled Packer as if Munceford possessed her physically. He began to run. Run with a wild, fearful, elated recklessness. And as he whipped around the corner of the passageway leading to his cabin, he violently collided with Commodore Schrepke.
The two men almost fell over and had to claw at each other to keep their balance. Lieutenant Packer’s hand slipped against cold leather and when it clamped down on the man’s waist, it was over something hard and butt-shaped beneath the folds. The impression flashed through his brain that it felt like a gun, but, realizing who it was, he knew it had to be Schrepke’s famous schnapps flask. With a frantic apology, he disengaged himself from the German officer.
Schrepke kept a grip on his arm and pinned him against the bulkhead beneath the red blackout light. “Ah, it’s you, Leutnant Packer! Still in a state of agitation, I see. What has happened to the cool, levelheaded British navy?”
“I’m awfully sorry, sir,” Packer gasped, out of breath and more befuddled than ever. “It’s just been a bad night all round for me.” He was shocked to find this made Schrepke laugh. He had never before seen the German even smile.
“A bad one for all of us, so never mind,” the commodore answered and gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder.
Packer peered into his face and saw that the laughter was not in his eyes, which had a peculiarly restive look of sadness in them. “I have been meaning to also apologize for the way I behaved earlier this morning, Commodore. There was no excuse for it. Especially since I have a feeling you needed me for something. . . . You did, didn’t you, sir?”
“Yes, I did. I thought you and I could do something about all this.”
“All what, sir?”
“It does not matter anymore. Fate was against us and it is too late.”
The sadness had seeped into his voice now and it sounded so uncharacteristic of him that Packer was completely baffled. “Is there something wrong? Can I help you, sir?”
“No, my boy. The wrong which has been done can only be helped by totally obliterating it. This task I must face alone.” The gloved hand crept up Packer’s arm, crossed his shoulder and momentarily brushed against his cheek in a gesture which was clumsily tender. “You know, I would have had a son of your age. I never got to know or understand him either. But I love him just the same.” He pulled away his hand, turned and quickly vanished down the passageway.
Lieutenant Packer remained pressed against the bulkhead for almost a minute, then he shook himself back to reality and slowly walked the remaining twenty steps to his cabin. When he pulled aside the curtain, he found Ben Munceford sitting on his bunk.
“Well, well, good old Peterpacker!” the American exclaimed with a caustic imitation of an Englishman’s English. “Have you come to gloat like Schrepke? To rub my nose in the dirt and tell me what a stupid bastard I am?”
Packer had been glancing back down the passageway, but now he faced Munceford and coldly answered: “No, Ben. I only want you to return Shebeona’s picture.”
Munceford’s head snapped back with a wince. “What? Here we’ve illegally sunk a Russian sub, brought the world to the brink of atomic war and all you can think of is a pin-up of some broad! Jesus! And they call me superficial!”
Packer advanced on him and clenched both fists. “Give her back to me, Munceford. Right now.”
Munceford snickered and squirmed away along the edge of the bunk. “Well, okay, okay! Let me see . . . what the hell did I do with her?”
Packer’s hands lashed out, grabbed him by his shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Give her back!” he shouted and began to shake him violently. But something clattered to the deck as he did it, and when he caught the flash of tarnished silver, it had an instant sobering effect upon him. It was Commodore Schrepke’s flask.
Munceford pulled himself free of the Englishman’s grip and dropped all of his sarcastic manner. “All right, Pete! I’ll get your picture for you. Just spare me any more fits on this ship. I’ve just about had a bellyful of them.” He went to his locker, opened it up and started rummaging in the tangle of dirty clothes. He found the photograph lying in the bottom corner, picked it up and, without a glance at the beautiful girl on it, held it out toward Packer.
But the lieutenant did not reach for it. He was holding the flask in his hand, staring at it with a perplexed frown. “How did you get this?” he asked.
Munceford snapped it out of his hand and shoved the photograph into it instead. “Here! You keep your girl and I’ll keep the booze. Each to his own, okay?”
Packer held the picture as if it no longer mattered in the least. Something like fear was in his eyes as he asked again: “How did you get that flask? It belongs to Commodore Schrepke.”
Munceford flopped back down on the bunk and started to unscrew the stopper. “Sure it does. That Dutchman dropped in on me a while ago. I suppose I disturbed his sulking next door when Finlander’s strong-arm boy brought me down here after I got kicked off the bridge. I’m kind of under arrest, you know. Anyway, he came in to see why I was cursing a blue streak and, by God, I told him. Like I’m going to tell everybody who comes within shouting distance of me from here on out.” He took a deep draft out of the flask and made a terrible grimace. “Christ! What I’d give for a decent shot of real American bourbon whisky! This German rot-gut gags you more with each drink!”
All of Packer’s anger had drained out of him, and he leaned over Munceford with a deadly earnest expression on his tired face. “For God’s sake, Ben! Have you somehow
got yourself raving drunk? If you have, say so. If you haven’t, tell me what you know about Schrepke. Why did he give you the flask?”
“He said he gave it to me so I’d anesthetize myself,” Munceford answered heatedly, “because, he said, he couldn’t stand the screams of cowards. Well, hell! I’m not a coward, I’m only a fool. I wasn’t screaming, I was cursing. When I scream, it will only be to make this story heard in spite of anything he thinks he can do to stop it. He can blow up this ship, he can . . . Hey! Where are you going?”
Lieutenant Peter Packer had suddenly straightened up as if a spring had been released in his backbone, whirled around and hurled himself through the curtain into the passageway outside the cabin. Munceford stared at the rippling blue folds of material as they closed behind him, frowned over the fading sound of his running, then shrugged. “He can ply me with all the anesthetic he wants to. All the Schrepkes and Finlanders of the whole damned world combined won’t shut me up. Besides, I’m a changed man. I’m getting smart. And . . . I’ve kicked the habit!” He turned the flask upside down and let the remaining schnapps splatter on the deck. There were only a few drops left.
12.
Lieutenant Packer shot up the shaft, stumbled into the wheelhouse and was so winded by his long frantic run up from the cabin deck that he fell across the radar pedestal and hung there, gasping for breath. There was a startled shuffling among the relief lookouts and Chief Quartermaster Rickmers squinted through the dark and rasped: “Who is that?” When nothing but agonized panting answered the challenge, Ensign Whitaker switched on his hooded flashlight and directed its beam toward the sound. “Peterpacker! What’s the matter with you, for God’s sake?”
“Is . . . is Commodore Schrepke on the bridge?” the Englishman managed to blurt out.
“No — he’s not in his usual perch, but —”
“I’ve got to see the captain immediately!” The tone of his voice caused another uneasy stirring among the men in the wheelhouse. The helmsman dared a quick, startled glance over his shoulder.
Whitaker moved up to the radar pedestal, thrusting the beam of his flashlight into Packer’s white face. “The captain is in his day cabin with the exec. But I don’t think —”
“I’ve got to see him!” Packer yelled and pushed the flashlight away. He spun around, almost bowled over Rickmers, ran through the blackout curtain of the navigation office and burst into the day cabin, where he half collapsed against the desk.
Captain Finlander was stretched out on the bunk, talking in a low voice to Commander Allison, who was leaning against the bulkhead next to it. Both men stared in amazement at the intruder.
“Captain, sir! . . . I think Commodore Schrepke has gone mad! He’s prowling about the ship with a pistol!”
Allison stared at Packer as if he were the one who had gone mad. It took Finlander a moment to react, then he wearily raised himself and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk. The crumpled radiogram announcing his impending promotion to flag rank fell to the deck and he stiffly bent down to pick it up before saying: “Carrying a pistol does not necessarily indicate insanity, Mr. Packer.”
Allison shot in: “But to break in unannounced on your commanding officer could, and . . .” What he saw in the young officer’s face suddenly made him stop and sharply ask: “Are you sure there is something wrong with him?”
“Sir, I ran into him . . . only a few minutes ago,” Packer insisted, pressing forth his words in painful spurts. “He had . . . an unholstered pistol in his belt . . . said very queer things . . . about totally obliterating a wrong . . . and acted strange with Munceford, and . . .”
“That one’s likely to drive anybody nuts!” the exec snorted. “Pull yourself together, man, and make sense!”
But Lieutenant Packer would not be put off. “Spoke of anesthetizing him . . . said something to me about it . . . being too late . . . was on his way up and . . . he laughed!” Gulping down a very deep breath, he held it for a second in a tremendous effort to get hold of himself. When he let go, his voice rose to a near scream: “Sir! I’m absolutely positive he’s planning to do something awful and it will happen any minute now!”
“Well, son,” the captain said as if he were trying to soothe a hysterical child, “he can’t very well sink this ship with a pistol.”
“Can’t he, sir? A pistol . . . and all the live warheads aboard?”
Allison and Finlander exchanged incredulous looks which contained the first glimmers of alarm. Ensign Whitaker had come to the door and was staring at Packer with a stunned expression; behind him, Chief Rickmers strained to see inside the cabin. The captain passed a hand over his eyes and it noticeably shook. “All right. But before we lose control in another uproar, let’s make sure the commodore isn’t in his usual place out on the bridge.”
“He is not, sir,” Whitaker positively injected.
Now Finlander got up off the bunk, strode over to the desk, pushed aside the sagging Packer and picked up the telephone. “This is the captain speaking. Immediately page Commodore Schrepke and ask him to come to the bridge. This is urgent. Request him to confirm to me by nearest phone that he is on his way.” After hanging up, he checked his watch and looked into the Englishman’s face. “If he does not report in exactly one minute, I’ll have the JOOD take a detail and search the ship. Does that make you feel any better?”
Lieutenant Packer shook his head and whispered so low that only Finlander could barely hear him: “Fate was against us . . . it is too late. . . .” He was looking down at the crumpled photograph of Shebeona, which he still clutched in his hand.
Commodore Schrepke heard his name called over the PA system speaker inside the control turret of No. 2 ASROC launcher. He had been standing in the lee of it, pressing himself close to its steel side, staring out into the black void of the ocean, feeling the bite of the wind and sting of the snowflakes which were once again racing through the arctic night, allowing himself a few weirdly incongruous thoughts for a man about to die. Why had he spent so much of his life on this cursed sea which seemed eternally shrouded by the icy darkness of death? The same sea which had caressed the lovely shores of Marienstrand with gentle sun-dancing waves when a boy first heard her siren call and launched his toy ship upon her. Now she would get him at last, yet much too late. She had long since bared her heart to him and revealed its cold black abyss, which contained nothing but the ghosts of men who had perished as they fought her and one another. She had turned bright devotion into sullen obsession and pride into ignominious oblivion. This cold, cold sea and her cold, cold war!
Schrepke was brought back to his task when the bosun’s pipe shrilled above the sound of wind and his name was called again. He glanced up at the dim mass of the bridge, then peered in through the slit in the control turret’s door. He could see the red light burning bright on the panel and knew that nobody had been into the CIC to close the switches he had opened. Taking off his leather jacket, he let it drop to the deck. Then he pushed the pistol more securely into his belt and started climbing up the steel framework of the launcher.
When he reached the rocket booster and felt the smooth curve of it, he pulled off his gloves and fumbled blindly in the dark for the disconnected power cable. His fingers closed on its coils and pulled. With his other hand he reached for the contact to receive it. For what seemed an eternity his fingers searched along the slick, icy metal. Suddenly the ship’s bullhorn on the base of the mainmast blared out:
“Commodore Schrepke! Are you on deck? You are urgently needed by the captain.” The voice boomed through the darkness with a fearful, detached kind of desperation, and a second later floodlights flared on, one after another. The gray steel ramparts of the Bedford’s superstructure emerged out of the gloom into sharply etched lines of brilliant illumination and deep shadow, all a-swirl in whirlwinds of flying snow.
At the same instant Commodore Schrepke found the connector and drove home the fangs of the power cable. The warhead was armed. With methodical haste he
resumed his grim climb toward the end where waited eleven hundred pounds of high explosives.
A small searchlight on the signal bridge burst on, probed about the decks, then suddenly caught the black figure crawling out on the launcher and fixed it in a glaring halo. A voice yelled: “There he is! There he is! Oh, God — stop him! Stop him, somebody!” But the Bedford dipped and rolled through a wave and seemed to nudge him along his way.
On the bridge Captain Finlander stood hatless in the biting wind, staring with a fatally entranced fascination. “He must have armed the system when I left him,” he exclaimed softly to himself.
The entire bridge watch, excepting the helmsman abandoned to his unyielding duty in the empty wheelhouse, were lining the railing alongside their captain, but only Commander Allison heard his words and was struck by their terrible portent. “Fly down to the CIC” he screamed at Ensign Whitaker. “Run for our lives and kill the firing circuits! Run! Run!”
Whitaker tore himself away with a yell of terror, but Captain Finlander knew that he would never make it in time. Schrepke had almost reached the deadly tip of the missile where the ice-crusted percussion pin waited with a cold gleam in the glare of the searchlight. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Allison lift the microphone of the bullhorn to his mouth and draw in his breath to scream at the German, but he reached out and yanked it away, then brought it to his own mouth instead:
“Why are you doing this, Wolfgang? Why?” His voice rang out from the gray muzzle on the mast, not frantic with pleading, but with a fatalistic resignation which told that he knew the answer to be foregone and was willing to accept it.
Every man on the bridge could clearly see Commodore Schrepke draw the pistol from his belt as he straddled the part of the missile which protruded beyond the structure of the launcher. He turned his face toward them when he heard the captain’s question and as he did that, his hat blew off and crazily fluttered away to vanish in the dark beyond the rushing wake. Then his voice came back to them, answering loudly and clearly without benefit of electronic amplification:
The Bedford Incident Page 30
