The Gulf

by David Poyer

  He decided it might be nice to be friends.

  25

  U.S.S. Turner Van Zandt

  AT exactly 1000, the anchor let go with a jarring rumble, the running chain exploding a cloud of powdered rust, paint, and sand out of the hawse pipe to drift down onto the calm water of Sitra Bay.

  Dan stood on the wing, feeling unneeded. With Bell ill, he’d gotten used to maneuvering, mooring, and anchoring. Judging the wind, tide, current, all the forces that could affect four thousand tons of ship. Then giving the orders that put Van Zandt where he wanted her to be.

  A whistle echoed over the water. “Moored. Shift colors,” said the 1MC. The jack fluttered upward, unfolding to a faint, hot breath.

  But now she was another man’s. He’d had nothing to do that morning but navigate, and the bridge team had been in and out of Sitra so often they could have reeled off the bearings in their sleep. Some of them had looked as if they were.

  “Fifty fathoms on deck, chain tending two o’clock,” said a phone talker. At the same moment, McQueen, at the chart table, held up two fingers, pointing up.

  “Navigator holds us twenty yards north of assigned anchorage,” called Dan.

  “Close enough,” said Shaker. “Pass the stoppers, secure engines, secure sea and anchor detail.”

  “Get some more white lead on that sumbich, slather her down good,” Chief Kellam cried. Dan glanced down. Seamen in dungarees were evening up the stoppers. The rest of the forecastle detail stood staring landward, ball caps shoved back, fatigue and relief plain in their slouched bodies.

  Shaker had pushed his back, too, the scrambled eggs on the bill gleaming in the sun. One black lock, wet from 100 percent humidity, curled over his forehead. In khakis, Dan thought, any director would have typecast him as a hell-for-leather destroyer captain. Big, a little paunchy, but impressive. Three rows of ribbons beneath the Surface Warfare insignia civilians often took for submariner’s dolphins. Above that, the dull gold Command at Sea pin. The crow’s-feet emphasized the eyes, penetrating and cold beneath shadowing brows. He was talking to Turani, whose launch had been standing off as they passed Sitra Beacon. Now, seeing Dan watching, the captain waved him over. “Hey, XO, Mr. Turani’s got an invitation for us.”

  The husbanding agent was wearing the kind of shirt waiters wear in Mexican restaurants. Four ball pens were stuck in his pockets, one in each. “Hello, Achmed,” Dan said heartily, extending a hand.

  “Good morning, Commander Lenson. Nice to see you back. I’m sorry about your pilots.”

  “I am, too, Achmed.”

  “You are all very brave, lions of the sea, and we Bahrainis appreciate your assistance in this troubled time. Let us say this is in their honor. I would like the two of you, and your officers, to join me tonight to celebrate your return.”

  “Thanks. I’m sure some of our guys will be there, but I’m afraid I’ve got a lot of work to—”

  Shaker said, “Oh, horseshit, XO. Come on, enjoy yourself for once.”

  When Dan looked at him, a little taken aback, the captain’s face was open and boyish. The angry man of the night before had disappeared.

  What I want, you want. He said to Turani, “Okay, thanks. We’ll be there. Just tell us where and when.”

  “The Regency. Around nine. I would entertain you at my home, but my wife keeps a strict household. You might find yourselves, ah, inhibited.”

  “Good point,” said Shaker. “It’s been a long, dry cruise. See you there.”

  They stood together on the wing. The glittering bay, beyond it Mina’ Salman, and beyond it Manama, looked just the same, smelled just the same.

  Dan was looking toward one of the moored ships—a new ro-ro flying Italian colors—when he saw a launch clear the pier. He moved around Shaker, who was leaning on the coaming, and swung the Big Eyes around. Even three miles away he could identify the man who stood in the stern sheets, supporting himself with one hand as the boat lifted into a plane.

  “Admiral Hart’s coming out to see us.”

  “What? When?”

  “In about ten minutes. I’m looking right at him.”

  “Oh yeah? Hey, do me a favor. Call Crockett, tell him to lay out some iced tea in my cabin.” Tilting his cap forward, Shaker made for the quarterdeck.

  * * *

  The admiral didn’t stay long. Shaker left with him in his gig, leaving the whaleboat for the beach party that afternoon. Dan called Wise—he had the duty—and told him several things that needed to be done.

  Then he went up to his stateroom. He peeled off his khakis and hung them up. He sat on his settee in his underwear and contemplated the uniform. It hung quietly, stirring a little now and then as the ship moved. The oak leaves glowed a dull gold.

  They told you at Annapolis that was what you saluted, what you obeyed. Not the man, the uniform he wore.

  He no longer believed everything he’d memorized in the halls of Mother Bancroft. Some of it was oversimplified. Some of it was obsolete. Gradually, you modified it, with experience.

  But it wasn’t a bad start.

  Before he knew it he was asleep.

  * * *

  When the phone buzzed, he was lying not in but across his couch. The lights were all on. “Yeah,” he grunted. “XO here.”

  “Dan, this is Al. Sorry, did I wake you up?”

  “S’alright. What you got, Wise-off?”

  “Got a boat alongside from the Bahraini Navy. They say they’ve got remains on board.”

  He propped himself on one elbow. “They’ve got what?”

  “Remains. The lieutenant in charge says they tried to call on the way in but couldn’t raise us on harbor net.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  He was instantly soaked with sweat as he came out under the open sky. The steel deck and every piece of metal was radiating heat after baking all day in the sun. Two Arab officers in British-style white shorts were waiting on the quarterdeck. He returned their salute, looking past them. Their boat rode docilely at Van Zandt’s boom, an orange sack in the bow.

  The lieutenant said that this was all they’d been able to find of the crew. They’d also found floating fragments of gray fiberglass and one uninflated life jacket. The life jacket was stenciled HSL-52. Dan pondered this and then said to Wise, “We better get Doc up here.”

  “I already called him. He’ll be up in a minute.”

  “Here, sir,” said the corpsman a few seconds later. Fitch was a small, bald, middle-aged man with a submissive expression. Dan told him what they had. He nodded thoughtfully, looked at his hands, then edged his way out along the boom. A moment later he was back aboard, slinging the sack over his shoulder like a department-store Santa. He said in a low voice, “You want I should check it over, sir?”

  “Please.”

  “And refrigerate it, sir?”

  “We’ll see. Call me when you figure out what you got. I’ll be in the wardroom.”

  The Bahrainis left after Dan noted their ship and commanding officer in his wheel book. A message would be called for. Though from the looks of the sack, it might have been better to leave whatever it was out where they’d found it.

  Fitch knocked at the door of the wardroom a few minutes later. He edged in and took off his hat. Dan looked up from the message blank. “Yeah,” he said. “What was it?”

  “Body parts, sir.”

  “Whose?”

  “I can’t really say, XO.”

  “Right. Well. Are they … are they black or white?”

  “I can’t really tell, sir,” said Fitch again, respectfully. “Maybe an M.D. could, some kind of pathologist. But not me. Do you want to see them, sir?”

  “No. Where’d you put them? One of the freezers?”

  “Well, no, sir, I didn’t think that was what you wanted me to do. I got some ice cubes from the galley and they’re iced down in sick bay.”

  “I guess that’s better than the meat locker. Okay, thanks, Doc, I’ll let you know what we dec
ide.”

  “We ought to do something pretty quick, sir.”

  “I know. I just want to ask the captain about it, get his input, that all right with you?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s fine, sir.” He nodded, seemed about to say something else, then put on his cap and started to leave.

  Dan sighed. “Fitch.”

  “Yes sir?” He paused.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Well, it was just a thought, sir. That is, what to do with the remains.”

  “Shoot.”

  “We can’t ship them back, sir. That wouldn’t be right for the family. I mean, there’s not enough there even for a closed casket. Couldn’t we hold on to them till we get under way again, and do a burial at sea? I know it’s too shallow to do a real one, with a chaplain and all, but—”

  “That may be the best thing. Thanks, Doc.”

  Fitch left. Dan sat there for a while, playing with a salt shaker, then got up. He got an iced tea and sat down again. After a moment, he pulled the pad toward him again.

  * * *

  When the message was in Radio, the ship suddenly became too small to bear. He showered again and put on slacks and an open-necked shirt. Then he went out to the quarterdeck, slinging a sport coat over his shoulder. Lewis, Loamer, and Brocket were there waiting for the water taxi, which was doing one round-trip an hour from the anchorage to the fleet landing.

  Most of the officers had had enough Arab food, so they agreed on a French restaurant not far from the Mubarraq causeway. At nine, slightly noisy, they piled into a taxi and headed for the Regency.

  The streets of Manama were full of men and boys and a sprinkling of foreigners. The only women were very old and in black chadors. The Mercedes, smelling strongly of the driver’s imitation Chanel, sped them through streets of clothing stores, perfume shops, jewelry shops, the windows shimmering with gold bangles and bracelets, heavy and gaudy to Western eyes, but not without an exotic charm. Dan leaned his head back on the seat. He was counting minarets. The slender needles were crowded in among new apartment complexes, malls, office buildings, cranes, power lines. As the late dusk fell the call to submission floated on the cooling air. Their driver, who had been pointing out where his friends had been killed trying to make left turns, pulled off the six-lane highway, got out, and unrolled his rug to pray.

  The hotel was lit like a cruise ship when they arrived. The lobby was solid with Filipinos, Koreans, technical representatives, oil men. The bar was easy to find. So were Van Zandt’s officers, even in mufti. He followed the shouts and laughter. The sliding doors were open—with night, the air grew cooler, not a lot, but enough to permit human life—and beyond them palms nodded against the stars. Two European women played in the pool, their bodies outlined by light. The junior officers kept glancing their way.

  Shaker had a glass of bourbon in front of him. By his looks, it wasn’t his first. Turani was with him, smoking his Camels, and an older man, a Westerner; Dan didn’t know him. Guerra, Bonner, Firzhak, and Charaler shoved their chairs together as the second wave hove into sight. Dan grabbed a spare from a nearby table and sat on it backward, across from the captain. A pretty Filipina took his order for orange juice.

  The younger pilot was saying, “Another one he used to tell was this story about Adam and Eve. They’re in the bushes; they’ve done it for the first time. Adam comes out and God’s standing there. He says, ‘What were the two of you doing in there?’ And Adam says, ‘Making love.’ God says, ‘Oh yeah? How was it?’ And Adam gives him this big grin and says, ‘It was great.’ So God says, ‘Where’s Eve?’ And Adam says, ‘She’s down by the river, washing up.’ ‘Oh, no,’ says God. ‘Now all the fish are going to smell like that forever.’”

  Turani laughed harder than the rest of them. Dan saw he was nursing a milky-looking drink. Maybe it was milk.

  Shaker turned to them. “You guys just get ashore? You got some catching up to do. We’re telling Schweinberg stories.”

  A moment later, however, he seemed to recall something. He got up, unobtrusively motioning Dan along. Outside, by the pool, he said, “Is everything under control out there?”

  “Yes sir. I checked the ground tackle before I came ashore. We’re riding well, no vibration, no drift. Al’s got the duty section turned to and a watch on the air picture.”

  One of the women was floating on her back. Shaker stared at her absently as he said, “Good. Now listen. That porky guy beside me’s Commodore Ritchie, Hart’s operations deputy. He told me some very interesting things this afternoon after the admiral had to leave.

  “For one, that—this is real close-hold, Dan. Remember that last transmission from Two One? Al must have told you about it, what Chunky was screaming as he went down? Well, it looks like Borinquen didn’t hit a mine. She was hit by a torpedo.”

  “A torpedo?”

  “Keep it down. I gave them the same double take you just gave me. But they had a diver down this morning. The edges of the plates, where the hull was pierced, they’re bent outward. Not in. That’s what a torp does to a thin-hulled ship. It’s just luck it went into an empty tank.”

  He could hardly grasp it. “It’s too shallow, Ben. What did we have there—thirty meters? Less? A submarine’d be skating along on the bottom half the time.”

  “Maybe so. But this could be a 209. Forget I told you this, but we’ve been looking for the one the Shah bought. They may have gotten it running. And hey, if you’re willing to die, what’s a little shallow-water work?”

  Dan chewed it over, feeling apprehensive. They hadn’t picked up a thing on sonar. The AN/SQS-56 was powerful, but built for deep-ocean work. If there was a sub loose, it could wreck “Earnest Will,” wreck the whole concept of escorting in the Gulf. No merchant would dare enter the Strait. And there wouldn’t be a thing the U.S. Navy could do about it.

  It would be the stranglehold the Iranians had always wanted on the West.

  “Second thing.” Shaker looked around the pool; the women were at the far end now, pulling themselves gracefully up, reaching for towels. Wet flesh jiggled gently. “The Iranians have started some kind of coordinated offensive.”

  Dan felt his stomach tense. It was too close to what he’d just been thinking. “What did they do?”

  “Three attacks today. The first two, Boghammers out of Abu Musa. The usual type stuff, hit and run. Two ships hit with rocket grenades. Minor damage, couple of crewmen killed.

  “But then something funny happened down south. A Japanese LNG tanker. Liquid natural gas. It was loaded to the gills, going out. There was a French destroyer two miles away. They said there was nothing on radar, no surface contacts, no sign of missiles or aircraft. Just suddenly this tremendous fireball. Ritchie says they could hear the explosion in Dhubai. The Frenchman took heavy topside damage. No survivors from the tanker.”

  “My God. No survivors…”

  “So now you have the overall picture. Right? Hart’s worried. He’s sweating to get more antisubmarine assets deployed. He’s got P-3s on their way from Sicily and Diego Garcia. He had Klakring out on picket duty. Now she’s reported generator problems. She’s losing power. If they don’t get it back up by tomorrow, he’s going to have to send somebody out in her place.”

  He forestalled Dan’s protest with a lifted hand. “I know, I know, we just come off convoy, it’s not our turn, all that shit. But it comes down to us or Gallery. And they’re as tired as we are. So I volunteered us.”

  “Okay, sir. I understand.”

  He remembered then what he wanted to tell Shaker about. When he got to the details, the captain looked disturbed. He interrupted, “So, what do you want to do?”

  “Doc suggested that we bury it at sea next time we got under way.”

  “Okay, that might work. Yeah. Let’s plan on that, a ceremony. You preside.”

  “Me?”

  “You. Maybe it’ll give you a new attitude toward what we’re doing out here.”

  “What’s tha
t mean, Captain?”

  “It means this.” Shaker leaned closer, exuding the sweet, strong smell of bourbon. “Means this. I don’t intend to let them bastards push me around anymore. From now on, it’s Van Zandt that’s going to be doing the pushing.”

  Shaker waited for a moment or two; then, not getting any response, said, “Well, excuse me, I’m still feelin’ sober. What are you drinking, there, XO? Are you into those godawful fruit things?”

  “It’s orange juice, Captain.”

  “OJ and what?”

  “Just orange juice.”

  “Oh.” He examined Dan with a puzzled expression, then slapped him on the back. “You know what your problem is? You need to bust loose once in a while. Come on, join the human race.” He pulled out a cigarette and strolled away, rolling slightly, not from drink but just from being on solid land again.

  When Dan went back, the party was in full swing. Shaker, Ritchie, and the junior officers were playing ship, captain, and crew. The dice skittered across the wet table and came up sixes. Charaler moaned and hauled out his wallet. A dance band began playing in the next room. The waitresses threaded the room, unloading drinks and joining in the song. Turani clapped his hands over his head and began to dance. Firzhak mimicked him.

  Dan stood a few steps away, watching. Their faces were red, collars loose; Charaler was guffawing so hard, he couldn’t catch his breath. Out of uniform, they could be a group of bankers, salesman, a convention … no. Their haircuts and youth, their trim builds, a certain aggressive boisterousness marked them instantly as military. As did the obvious deference they gave the big man near the window.

  No, not deference. And even more than respect. He was the center of the group. Not by any virtue of rank. By something innate.

  They deserved to relax. This fourth convoy had been by far the tensest and most dangerous. But he didn’t feel like joining them. Shaker was already pressing him to drink, and other things could happen as inhibitions loosened.