The Gulf

by David Poyer

  “Our job out here is very simple: to keep the sea lanes open, to our friends and to neutral nations alike, and to defend the right of free passage as laid down in the United Nations Charter and the International Law of the Sea. This has been the Navy’s mission since Bainbridge and Truxtun fought pirates not far from here.”

  He turned aside for a moment. The coughs tore out from deep in his chest. Dan was about to step forward, but Bell recovered. He lowered his handkerchief and glared out at the silent ranks before him.

  “Your efforts over the last months have made me very proud. From the enginemen to the signalmen, the ops specialists, who’ve spent so much time at the scopes … the supply personnel, who keep us fed … and my wardroom, all fine officers. I believe this is the proudest ship in the Navy, and at this moment, I am the proudest man in the world.”

  Lenson looked at him. Yes. There were tears in the Old Man’s eyes. He made as if to help, but Bell stopped him with a short, angry chop of his hand. “That’s all right, XO. I’m almost done.

  “I have not been an emotional man. The service does not entrust its ships to such. But here at the end of our association, I find myself growing emotional. So be it! I’m going home now. Perhaps I stayed too long. I thought it was my duty. That is my only excuse.

  “My only regret is that I couldn’t finish this cruise with you, and stand on the bridge as the first lines go over, and we see our families waiting on the pier. But I have not been given that. So I will say to you now, trust Captain Shaker as you have trusted me. Take care of yourselves. And all of you—go with God.”

  He stepped back shakily. Guerra, behind him, extended an arm. Bell leaned on it, closing his eyes, as the short man in solid gold shoulderboards stood. Dan recovered himself and bent to the mike. “Rear Admiral Stansfield Hart, Commander, Middle East Force.”

  Hart began with a review of Van Zandt’s record. A 3.9 out of 4.0 in the last operational propulsion plant examination. Administrative inspection, outstanding. Second highest re-enlistment rate in the squadron. Battle E’s for excellence in weapons, operations, and engineering, and the squadron E the second year in a row. Dan stood impassively at parade rest, but he felt proud.

  “This ship has prepared itself to go in harm’s way,” Hart rumbled, looking directly at the enlisted. “You men have worked hard and done well. You’re standard setters, and as my staff knows, I’ve mentioned you perhaps too often to less outstanding units. Van Zandt is the kind of ship, and you’re the kind of crew, I’d like with me when I go into battle. I have to compliment Charlie for a job well done.

  “But it’s only half-done. You’re taking a solid hit losing him. But I know you’ll pull together and continue your performance during the remainder of your deployment. I expect it, the Navy expects it, and I know Charlie, too, expects it. We’ll all be sorry to see him go, but I for one am sure he’ll be back with us in not too long a time.”

  Hart stepped back, and Dan moved up again. Bending slightly—the mike had been set for Hart—he said, “Commander Benjamin Shaker.”

  As the oncoming captain stood for a moment, looking down at his notes, Lenson examined his profile. He knew without looking that every other man in the crew was doing the same thing. They all knew about the loss of the Strong. The knowledge was a shadow in their faces. They had no wish to … no, forget that, Dan told himself. He forced himself to pay attention. The relieving officer’s speech was traditionally short.

  “Good morning, Admiral, officers of the staff, honored guests, wardroom and crew of Van Zandt.

  “I know this is an occasion of mixed feelings. You’re losing a fine man. I’ve known Charlie Bell and his lovely wife, Glynda, since we served together on the old ‘Smoky Joe,’ DDG-16.

  “I’ll wait till later to tell you about myself and about my plans. I only hope that I can do half as well here in the Gulf, can establish half as good a record, as he has. I give you my word, Admiral—and to you men, too—I’ll try my best.

  “I will now read my orders.

  “From: Bureau of Naval Personnel. To: Commander Benjamin Shaker, USN. Upon receipt of these orders, you will detach as administrative officer, Commander, Surface Forces Atlantic, and proceed to the port where U.S.S. Turner Van Zandt may be. Report to Commander, Middle East Force, to relieve the present commanding officer. Travel arrangements—” He stopped. “I won’t read that,” he said, and the crew laughed a little.

  Shaker faced Bell then. His hand snapped up. “I relieve you, sir.”

  “I stand relieved,” whispered Commander Bell. Dan bit his lip. For just a moment, he’d seen through the iron self-discipline. The look of a dying man, relieved of a load grown too heavy to bear.

  He’d fought to the end, fought the final adversary, to keep his ship. But now she and all who sailed in her belonged to another.

  * * *

  From the 02 level, half an hour later, Lenson looked aft along the pier. First Division was squaring away the ratguards. Two men from M division were swapping out a shore power plug. The admiral’s sedan was gone. The taxi to Bahrain airport was gone, too. His hand still felt strange from that last handshake. Usually, in the service, you said so long, not goodbye. Almost always, you’d run into a shipmate again.

  But he knew he’d never see Charles Bell again.

  There was a low whine above him and a burst of white smoke shot from the stack. As the whine increased to a dull roar, it turned brownish, then became an invisible stream of heat in the already-hot air.

  Leaning out over the lifelines, he ran his eyes from stem to stern.

  Van Zandt was a guided-missile frigate, smaller than a destroyer or cruiser, but tamped tight with nearly the same weapons and electronics. She displaced 3,700 tons, half again that of a World War II destroyer, but was about the same length. Two 20,000-horsepower gas turbines drove her at thirty knots, almost thirty-five miles an hour.

  Forward on the forecastle was a dual-purpose missile launcher, and below it, inside the hull, a rotary magazine of antiship and antiaircraft missiles. On her port and starboard beams were triple torpedo tubes. One deck above him were the guns, an automatic three-inch Oto Melara and the twenty-millimeter Phalanx. Aft was the hangar and flight deck. The Perry-class frigates had been designed to hunt submarines, but their weapons and electronics made them matches for aircraft and larger ships. They carried a complement of two hundred, half that of the destroyers of 1945, thanks to automation and reduced-maintenance design.

  She was well armed and well trained. But her effectiveness depended on one man. Her commanding officer alone bore the responsibility for training her, steaming her, and for the ultimate test of a warship, her performance in battle.

  Dan put his regret for Bell behind him, as he had for so many. That was one of the lessons of the Navy. You sailed, not with your friends, nor with those you knew were good, nor those you’d sailed with last cruise. You had to sail with the men on your muster.

  In his stateroom, he showered quickly and changed into fresh khakis. Five minutes later he was in the wardroom, pulling out a chair. The air-conditioned chill made his sinuses ache after the 110-degree heat outside. As the last officers filed in, he examined the man who sat smoking a Camel at the head of the table.

  Benjamin Shaker was six even, built with a large chest and short legs. His head was large and his black hair was shaggy in back. It gleamed wet where he’d taken off his cap. His face looked pale among the deep tans of the others. His eyes, narrowed against the eddying smoke, were a startling blue, creased with sun wrinkles. Like all Navy men now he was clean-shaven. His silver oak leaves were rather dull. Unlike the others in the wardroom, he wore a long-sleeved shirt. Rolled neatly above his elbows, it revealed muscular forearms covered with black hair. The steward, Crockett, set a cup of coffee beside him.

  “This everybody, XO?” Shaker said.

  Dan glanced around. The lieutenants, the department heads, were seated. The ensigns and jg’s leaned against bulkheads or perched on the c
ouch. “Yessir, Cap’n.”

  “That’ll be all, thanks,” Shaker said to the steward. When the enlisted man was gone, he stubbed out his cigarette, blinking, and looked around the table.

  “Okay. I’ll be talking to you all individually later, but this might be a good time to get a few things out of the way. I’m talking about Strong.”

  They waited.

  “You all know I was her CO when the Iranians hit her with a Harpoon. You probably also know that the Board of Inquiry exonerated me. The ship was fought well considering we had no warning. The AWACs didn’t pick up the F-14 that fired it because he was in the mountain clutter. Our radar didn’t catch it because they programmed the flight path behind an island; it popped up just before it hit us.

  “We picked it up visually in time to get two Sparrows off. NAVSEA calculates a point-six probability-of-hit on a Harpoon with one AIM-7E round and a point-eight for a two-round engagement. We happened to fall in that out-of-luck two-tenths. The first one missed and the second intercepted just inside arming range. The gun was at Condition Three and we couldn’t get rounds out in time. So we got clobbered. But you also know that Admiral Gyland was relieved for ordering a non-Phalanx, non-NTDS ship to a picket station that close to Iran.

  “I’m telling you this, not to say I’m happy with what happened. We lost the ship and forty-two guys. We lost them because we didn’t expect anyone to attack us. I blame myself. I will never, never allow that to happen again.”

  He waited, apparently for some response, but the wardroom was dead quiet.

  “I happened to see Charlie’s medical report when it came in and I asked for this job. They didn’t have anybody else qualified in frigates on short notice, so I got it. So far, looking around the ship, I like what I see. At the same time, there are going to be some changes. I’ll be talking with the XO about that.”

  Shaker glanced at Dan. “Now. Who usually takes her out?”

  “I’ve been doing the close conning for the last two months, sir.”

  “I’ll take her tomorrow. Later I want the department heads to do it.”

  Dan nodded. It was standard operating procedure. He’d only done it when the captain—the former captain—was unable to. “Yessir. That’ll be day after tomorrow, not tomorrow.”

  “I want to move underway time up twenty-four hours,” said Shaker. “Give us time to shake down before we pick up the convoy. Department heads, any problems with that? Can we fuel, onload supplies, finish any repairs today and tonight, and get under way a day early?”

  Dan saw Guerra wince, and Ron Brocket, the supply officer, suddenly dive for his wheel book. The engineer said, “Uh, we’re testing PLA on Number One right now.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Fuel-oil control valve’s been leaking.”

  Shaker said, “That shouldn’t take you long. Any other hitches? Okay, let’s plan on oh-six-hundred.” He turned to Dan. “That’ll be okay for tide, won’t it?”

  On Van Zandt, the XO was also the navigator. “Yes sir. I’ll get with ops and work out the details with the harbormaster.”

  “Okay,” said Shaker. “I’ll be over at the compound most of the afternoon; they want to see me with the convoy op order. Are there any questions now?”

  Nobody had any questions. He looked around the room once again, then got up. The officers jumped to their feet. He nodded, his face expressionless, and went out.

  When he was gone, Dan kept the department heads for a few minutes, discussing what they had to finish to get under way early. When they were gone, he drew himself a glass of iced tea and stood by the porthole, reviewing his first impressions.

  Shaker seemed confident. He didn’t waste any time taking over. Well, he ought to know what he was doing; he’d had a frigate before in these waters, though an earlier class.

  Of course, there would be changes. Every captain ran his ship differently, according to his inheritance of the trade and his own ideas of leadership. Some were book men, while others didn’t worry over regulations as long as the ship met her commitments. Some were sticklers for etiquette, others relished an earthy style; some were operators, others spent their time in the engine room, greasy as any machinist’s mate; some ruled with an iron hand, others left the reins loose. He remembered those he’d served under. Packer. Sundstrom. Leighty. Fish. Some had been masters at the craft of command. Others were disasters. It was far too early to hazard any judgment about Benjamin Shaker.

  There was one thing different about this situation, though. He’d never served under a captain who’d lost a ship. No matter what a board concluded, it was remarkable Shaker had gotten another command. And he’d know that—know that his margin for error, always slim, was now nonexistent.

  There was another question, too. What would it do to a man’s psyche, his mind, his emotions?

  It occurred to Dan then that if Shaker screwed up, he might succeed to command of Van Zandt. An instant later he dismissed the thought, angry at himself. He had his job as exec, and that was to support the skipper. Anything else would be poor leadership, dishonorable, and possibly, nose to nose with the enemy as they were, dangerous as well.

  He decided to hope for the best. Gulping the last of the tea, he grabbed his cap and headed for the bridge.

  2

  Stonefield, Vermont

  THE dawn light was like golden wires strung through the Green Mountains. It came through the barn door glittering with dust, painted the age-darkened planks red-gold, glowed yellow off a stainless vat. The air smelled of sweet hay and bitter silage, leather and disinfectant, sour milk and manure. It smelled of cow sweat and man sweat.

  John Gordon leaned on a wooden scraper, ankle-deep in the nitrogenous excreta of forty Improved Holstein milkers. He was a narrow man whose slight stoop and Lincolnesque angularity made him seem taller than he was. His hair was long and spiky, black brushed with gray, and his face was made of knobs and awkward planes like some nineteenth-century invention. He was wearing coveralls, a sleeveless T-shirt, and old knee-high rubber boots. Stout-bodied blueflies whined around him in short, angry half circles.

  Gordon had been up since four. His milking schedule was 5 A.M. and 4 P.M. It took only a few minutes to rinse out each stainless DeLaval milker, attach it, and turn it on. Then on to the next stall, the next fidgety stanchion-hemmed cow, her rump shifting like a fat woman waiting for a bus.

  Now he was almost done. Spread fresh sawdust, hose down the milk house, then it’d be time for breakfast and the paper. He wondered what was happening with the Boston markets. And the town meeting was coming on; he’d entered his name as selectman; it was time he tried for a seat.

  He drew the crisp air slowly through his lungs and looked around the barn. Its tenants were outside now, straggled up along a polywired section of the hill with the imperfect randomness of creatures governed by simple wills and simple loves. Four were heifers yet. One should freshen this month. His eyes lingered on a corner stall. He’d just sold Galatea. Twelve years old and with more heifers to her credit than he could remember. The dealer had come yesterday and he’d stood with his hat in his hand watching the closed truck pull out and away down the hill.

  Now the barn filled with the smell of maple as he scattered and leveled fresh sawdust. He propped the scraper against an oak beam covered arm’s-reach high with carved hearts and gouged initials, pulled a coil of hose off a rack, and went next door. A moment later, water leaped forth in a curved, clear cylinder and broke spattering under the bulk tank and around the sink.

  Cleaning, feeding, milking, breeding: That was how a dairyman spent his day. The first was the most time-consuming. Cows were delicate animals. This almost ritual renewal of the floor, for example; without it, there’d be hoof problems before winter. Mastitis was another plague. There was a flare-up every so often, no matter how careful he was.

  He opened a cupboard and tipped disinfectant into a bucket. The chlorine fumes watered his eyes. He sloshed it onto the floor and it ran
in little steaming streams here and there, following invisible channels in the concrete. He scrubbed for a while with a long-handled brush, his lips formed around a whistle that was never born, and then picked up the hose again.

  “John.”

  He turned, the water spattering across the floor. In an oblong of blue-green brilliance stood a human figure. He looked toward it for a moment, not speaking, as if listening to the golden light, or the random drone of flies. Then, moving deliberately, he twisted the nozzle closed and coiled the grass-green snake back into its wonted place. He passed his hand over his hair, bending forward, hesitating a little. Then the rubber boots went squish, squash across the concrete.

  The woman held the yellow envelope against her apron. Her eyes were not so much self-contained or self-assured as past all need for containment or assurance; like the eyes of an oak, if an oak had eyes, or of a waterfall. But to someone who did not know her they might have seemed unexpressive, almost dumb. Faded blue, like her denim skirt. Her heavy, shining hair, the color of clover honey, was braided tightly and pinned up under a figured kerchief.

  “What is it, Ola?”

  “Telegram.”

  Their hands met briefly, her clay-dried fingers to his leather gloves. She looked at him closely, her lips parted. But he was studying the address; had not yet made a move to open it. So she turned, and began making her way back through the yard to a white house, double-porched, toward a clapboard shed in back of it. Its door was all but blocked by a waist-high heap of shattered crockery.

  Gordon glanced around absently. His eyes found the straggling, slow-moving line of ruminating beasts. The distant blue-green, like deep water, of the hills over which Ethan Allen had fought. And above it all, the molten glow of the rising sun.