Tipping Point

by David Poyer

  A message he’d gotten loud and clear watching his own COs in the past, both those who’d driven hard and those who’d let the reins dangle.

  “Coffee, Captain?” The gangling, pimply-faced Longley, holding a tray as if tempted to throw it overboard. Skippers no longer had stewards, per se, but they did usually have a culinary specialist to look after them if operations drove hard. He’d seen some men abuse the relationship, using the seaman as a personal servant. The essential thing was that he never show Longley any favoritism. So far it seemed to be working, but not because of any excessive effort on the kid’s part. The steward looked as rumpled and sloppy as usual in a stained white mess coat. “Chili dogs today. You gonna want lunch up here?”

  “Let’s say yes for now. Especially if traffic picks up.”

  “I set your shit, I mean your stuff, up in the at-sea cabin. And your computer.”

  “That’s good. How you been, Longley? Pull any liberty in Crete?”

  “Went to the zoo. That be all, sir?”

  “Yeah. I mean, no. Is the shower still—”

  “It’s unfucked, sir. Just let the hot run for a minute or so.”

  Bart Danenhower stepped up next. The chief engineer was big and bulky, with shaggy Hagrid eyebrows. Fittingly, he was a fan of the Potter books, leaving them in the engine spaces and offices. The CHENG wasn’t brilliant, but he worked hard and told the truth. They had a long conversation about the controllable reversible pitch propellers, which had some kind of leak or condensation no one had ever been able to locate the source of. “We change the filters, though, it goes away,” Danenhower finished. Dan glanced behind him to see who was next. The ship’s medic, HMC Grissett. “Oh yeah,” Danenhower added. “We still got that bug going around. I’ll let Doc Grissy bring you up to speed on that.”

  The chief corpsman said that the sickness among the crew, which had gone away during their time in Crete, had surfaced again. “Got three at sick call just this morning, same symptoms. Dry cough. Chills and fever, spikes to a hundred and four. Muscle pain, lethargy, malaise; diarrhea. Even the people who recover, they feel like shit. Mopey. Slow. There’s some kind of ongoing syndrome here.”

  “What the hell? We replaced the filters. Scrubbed down all the ductwork. Bart?”

  Danenhower spread his hands. “We did it thorough, Cap’n. If it was in there, it’s dead.”

  “But it’s not just up forward anymore,” Grissett added.

  Dan rubbed his face. “The anthrax inoculations?”

  “Bethesda says they’re safe. Anyway, a reaction to that wouldn’t surface weeks, months later like this.”

  Was his ship itself somehow infected? Case after case, fever, chills, lassitude … one man had even died, in forward berthing, without a mark on him. “Okay, we’re not sitting still any longer. Draft another message for Bethesda. Info our chain of command. Outline the problem and the corrective action we took, and ask for immediate assistance on scene. Hand-carry that up through the XO. Clear?”

  “Yessir.”

  * * *

  MAST was scheduled for 1330. Longley brought chili dogs and cold fries up on a tray and Dan ate looking out over the sea, observing a white sail far off. Savo, the tanker, and the containership were maintaining nearly identical speeds, churning along down the coast. Sudan was coming up to starboard, and he checked on the security teams, 25mms, and port and starboard machine guns. No boarder threat had been predicted, but it was wise to be ready. Saudi Arabia slid past to port, tan and violet as the sun glared down and the very sea glowed and shimmered with heat.

  At 1300 Cheryl and “Sid” Tausengelt, the command master chief, came up to discuss the mast case. Tausengelt was older than Dan, small and lean, with receding hair and a deep-harrowed, leathery face. Staurulakis handed Dan the defendant’s performance record, then briefed. Arthur Peeples was an MMSN, a machinist’s mate seaman. He was accused under Article 134.

  “Remind me.”

  “Basically, indecent language, Captain.”

  Dan suppressed his first response, which was that dinging a sailor for indecent language was like … anyway, that was Oldthink. “Uh, okay. Elements of the charge?”

  Staurulakis read, “‘One: That the accused orally or in writing communicated to another person certain language. Two: That such language was indecent. Three: That, under the circumstances, the conduct of the accused was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.’”

  “All right, three elements: that he said it, it was indecent, and it impaired discipline. Got it.” Dan leaned back, considering. Each week the command master chief, Tausengelt, convened a disciplinary review board in the chief’s mess. The DRB’s recommendations went to the XO, who conducted an inquiry and decided either to dismiss the case or to forward it for the CO’s nonjudicial punishment, or as the Navy had always called it, captain’s mast. “Did he admit saying it, Master Chief? What was his defense?”

  “Sir, he admitted saying it, but he told us at the DRB it was a joke. Also, that the words didn’t mean anything.”

  “Yeah, I’m not exactly sure why this case had to come up to me,” Dan told Staurulakis. “The way I read his records here, Peeples is a solid worker. A little rowdy ashore, but not enough to not rate a good-conduct stripe. Don’t we have some bilges somewhere that need scrubbing?” When she didn’t answer he added, “What exactly did he say?”

  She looked off to starboard, squinting against the glare. “He called his supervising petty officer a ‘hucking skunt.’”

  “Um … a what?”

  She repeated the phrase, deadpan. Dan stared at her, then at Tausengelt. The master chief shrugged microscopically and averted his eyes.

  “So, I assume his petty officer is female.”

  “Correct. MM3 Scharner.”

  “And this is symptomatic of something ongoing?”

  “Peeples has a rep for blowing off authority,” the exec said. “Especially if that authority has a double X chromosome.”

  “Okay, I guess … But what worries me is element two. They could reverse us on the grounds ‘hucking skunt’ is not actually indecent language.”

  “Basically, he made that point, yessir,” Tausengelt murmured.

  “It was intended as indecent,” Staurulakis said, but as if she was advancing it as an argument, not an assertion. “Therefore it’s indecent. If he calls the master chief here a rucking fetard, is that indecent?”

  “It’s certainly offensive,” Dan granted.

  “And prejudicial to discipline, if we let him get away with it,” the officer of the deck put in. Noah Pardees had come on at eight bells, noon. Tall, laid-back, dark as any inhabitant of the land to starboard, he honchoed First Division, usually the roughest gang aboard ship. By all accounts, the boatswain’s mates worshipped him. Dan and the XO stared at him. After a moment Pardees cleared his throat and strolled back to the far side, where he buried his face in the radar hood.

  Dan’s next question was, “If it’s a sexual harassment thing, why aren’t we charging him under Article 93?”

  The exec said, “We considered that. But according to the UCMJ, you can’t sexually harass someone senior to you. ‘Any person subject to this chapter who is guilty of cruelty toward, or oppression or maltreatment of, any person subject to his orders shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.’ I know, that doesn’t really make sense, but the specifications and elements haven’t caught up yet.”

  Dan checked his watch against the clock over the nav table. “Look, we convene in five minutes. I need a shower. This guy’s a decent machinist. Possible career material. Bart’s gonna be there to vouch for him, right? But they call masts ‘delayed admin discharges’ now. With nonjudicial punishment in his record, he’s going to find it hard to get advanced. Or even to stay in, if his rate’s overmanned.”

  “He should have thought of that before he called her names.”

  He looked away
from the exec’s flat gaze, sighing inwardly. Solomon would have shaken his head at some of the cases that came to mast. “Okay, let’s go on down.”

  * * *

  TICOS didn’t have a space well suited to holding a legal proceeding. In port, he used the bridge, but that was impossible under way. The wardroom had been cleared, and a fresh tablecloth laid. Staurulakis had set up the varnished lectern at which Dan presided so that he would be backed by the large canvas of the Battle of Savo Island that Tom Freeman, the artist, had donated to the ship. Dan ran down the laminated pages in the binder, making sure he had the names right. Checked the alignment of his ribbons on the fresh short-sleeved tropical white uniform. Glanced at the exec. She ran her eye up and down him, shoes to cap, and nodded. He cleared his throat. “Bring in the accused.”

  The master-at-arms, Chief Hoang Quoc “Hal” Toan, thrust the door open. “Accused: forward, harch. Right turn, harch. Accused … halt. Come to attention. Uncover … two.”

  They halted facing Dan, swaying with the very faint roll of the ship. Behind Dan stood Tausengelt and the exec. Behind the accused, others filed in: the injured party; the accused’s division officer and department head; and, an unexpected addition, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman so curvaceous it was hard to look away.

  Lieutenant Amarpeet “Amy” Singhe. His strike officer, in charge of Savo’s offensive power. To his surprise, Singhe stepped up beside Scharner. Maybe he was imagining it, but he was pretty sure he could smell sandalwood even across the space between them.

  There hadn’t always been that much of it. Space, that is. After dark, in his at-sea stateroom, she’d leaned forward, explaining her plans to flatten the ship’s hierarchy, modernize its management. He’d only just managed not to tumble her, he was fairly certain not unwillingly, onto his bunk.

  He tore his attention off her breasts and focused on the tall, thin young man in front of him. He was white, as was his accuser, which removed one possible complication. At attention, but his eyelids drooped. His pale chin showed dark stubble. Haircut, within current regs. Shoes, polished. Whites, neat and clean. The fingers holding his cap next to his thigh were white too. With tension?

  Dan said, “Seaman Arthur Peeples, you are suspected of committing the following violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: Article 134, in that you did use indecent language to a senior in your chain of command, to the prejudice of good order and discipline. You do not have to make any statement regarding the offense of which you are accused, and any statement may be used as evidence against you. Has the accused been notified of his rights?”

  “Here, sir. Signed and witnessed.” Staurulakis placed pages on the lectern.

  “You are advised that a captain’s mast is not a trial and that a determination here is not a conviction by a court of law. Further, you are advised that the formal rules that apply in courts-martial do not apply at mast.” When Peeples nodded Dan held up the paper. “Is this your signature?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Do you understand this statement? And were your rights personally explained to you by the exec?”

  A hesitation; then a firm “Yessir. I understand.”

  “All right, good.” Dan gave it a beat; looked around the wardroom. Holding mast was the least favorite part of his job. Being judge, jury, and executioner. But he had a pretty good idea what punishment was in order here, or at least what the typical “award” was and thus what the crew would expect.

  The purpose of mast wasn’t justice. As Melville had made perfectly clear in Billy Budd. Discipline first, consistency second—no one liked a capricious captain, or one who played favorites.

  Dan focused on the now-perspiring young face in front of him. “Peeples, it’s essential we know exactly what happened, both from your point of view as well as that of your senior, Petty Officer Scharner.

  “Now, both the chiefs and the XO felt her accusation warranted bringing you up before me. I will advise you personally that what is best for you right now is to come clean. Equivocate or lie, and life can get unpleasant very fast. Understand?”

  A hesitation, then a nod. “All right,” Dan said, trying for a friendlier tone. “Now what’s your side of the story?”

  “Well, sir … the petty officer, she always gives me the dirtiest jobs. I’m not sure why. I just came off watch, and I was tired, and I had the Savo crud—”

  “The what?”

  “That’s what they call it, Captain. Anyway, we’re shorthanded in the gang, and I’m headed for my rack when she tells me I’ve got to tear down the fucking … tear down the damn coolant pump. That’s a twelve-, fourteen-hour job, tear down and rebuild. And she wants it by tomorrow morning. I said, how about Petty Officer Alonso, and she said, she’s busy. And that she doesn’t want any back talk, she just wants that pump back on the line. I admit, I lost my temper. But I didn’t call her what she said I called her.”

  “What did she say you called her?” Dan asked him.

  “A fucking cunt,” Peeples murmured.

  Dan cleared his throat, trying hard not to laugh out loud. “The charge sheet doesn’t say that. It quotes you as calling her a, um, hucking skunt. Is that accurate, Seaman?”

  “Uh, yessir, that’s pretty much accurate.”

  “Is it, or not?”

  “Uh, yessir, that’s pretty much it. That’s what I said, sir.”

  A beam of sun leaned in the window and explored the carpet. Dust motes milled through it. Sand, from the deserts of Arabia, the wastes of the Sudan. Was what he was doing here any more important than the milling of those motes? “What exactly is a ‘skunt,’ Seaman Peeples?”

  “Sir?”

  “You called her that. What is it? I am unfamiliar with the terminology.” God, he sounded so stuffy.

  “A skunt’s like a low-class, um, bitch, sir. Sort of like a skank.”

  “So there is such a word?”

  “I don’t know if it’s in the dictionary.…” Peeples glanced at Tausengelt, as if for corroboration, but the senior enlisted’s visage was iron.

  “Let’s set that aside for the moment, and focus on the fact that you intended it as an insult. Is that correct?”

  This was the come-to-Jesus moment Dan had calculated on, and to his relief Peeples rose to it. How does a fish get caught? He opens his mouth. The seaman said, shamefacedly, “Yessir.”

  “And it referred to her, specifically, as a female?”

  Again the seaman said, “Yes sir,” looking at the deck.

  Dan said briskly, “If you intended it that way, the specific wording, seems to me, is beside the point. Petty Officer Scharner, anything to add? Specifically, on the assertion you habitually award him the dirtiest jobs?”

  The petty officer said, “He’s junior guy in the work center, Captain.”

  “Chief McMottie. Any substance to the accused’s statement that Petty Office Scharner habitually awards the scuzziest jobs to male crew members?”

  The senior engineering chief said, “Not to my knowledge, Captain. But we all had to work long hours, there in Crete.”

  Dan polled the division officer, then Danenhower. Neither supported Peeples, though Danenhower added he was a conscientious watchstander and equipment operator. “He does have a smart mouth on him, but when he signs off on a maintenance job, it’s done right.”

  Dan asked the exec, for form’s sake, if this was Peeples’s first appearance at mast. She said it was.

  He looked at his notes, letting silence fall, to give the appearance of deliberation. A chipping hammer clattered somewhere far aft. To dismiss the case wouldn’t help discipline. He could assign extra military instruction, which would make the kid work extra hours. But that didn’t mean much when you were pulling eighteen-hour days anyway. Plus, usually the chiefs or the exec awarded EMI; it was below the CO’s pay grade. And restriction to the ship didn’t mean squat when they were under way.

  The harshest punishment he could impose was thirty days’ restriction and extra dut
y, reduction in rank to seaman recruit, and dock half Peeples’s pay for three months. Any of that could be suspended, and he’d normally suspend the bust and pay. This way he could give the guy a second chance, and if he screwed up again, he knew he’d get hammered.

  The key was consistency, and Dan cleared his throat. “In previous cases, my predecessor as CO awarded hefty punishments for violating this article. And rightly so. This being my first time holding mast aboard Savo, I don’t see any reason to veer … I mean, vary from that precedent. However, as this is Seaman Peeples’s first time at mast, there may be grounds to—”

  “Excuse me, Captain. If I may?”

  He glanced up, taken aback. “Lieutenant Singhe?”

  Singhe took a step forward, leading Scharner with her. “With all due respect, sir, the typical punishment will not suffice in this case.”

  Dan frowned. “Explain why not.”

  “This isn’t just a case of a seaman mouthing off to his petty officer. However phrased, the fact remains he called her, let’s speak plainly here, a ‘fucking cunt.’ It typifies a widespread and growing problem on this ship: a lack of respect for authority, when that authority happens to be female. We need to make it crystal clear the command supports its female members.”

  The wardroom suddenly seemed a lot quieter. Dan looked from her, to Peeples, to Staurulakis. The exec’s eyes were narrowed, but she wasn’t disagreeing. Then back to Singhe. “Are you acting as some sort of prosecutor here, Lieutenant? Because there’s no such position at a captain’s mast.”

  Singhe said, “I’m acting as a spokesperson for Petty Officer Scharner and the other women in the crew. Since no one else seems to be standing up for them.”

  “There’s no position for female spokesperson, or ombudswoman, or whatever you want to call it.” Dan curbed his angry tone too late, but the comment about “no one else” had stung. He said more evenly, “I’ll take your comments under advisement for the command policy board.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” she said, stepping back. Lifting that goddesslike profile, widening her eyes and lifting her gaze, as if calling on some higher authority as witness.