Man the Guns, My Mate

by M. L. Buchman

  But it wasn’t.

  Deborah had been serious about only one man. But Henry Jones, on the very night she’d expected a proposal, had informed her that he wasn’t the sort to wait at home for her while she went to sea. That had been the single hardest decision of her life, choosing the military career. Henry had found himself a comfortable wife who aspired to children and a husband who came home every night. He owned a small chain of fast-food franchises and his wife did the bookkeeping.

  So not her.

  Which meant Professor Roy Wilkinson was no more so.

  But Deborah knew the feeling; deep down in her bones she knew the difference between a man she was enjoying time with and one that she was serious about. In an impossibly short time, the good professor was making definite progress toward serious.

  Had it been only the sex, she could enjoy herself while it lasted, though it had set a new high-water mark since…ever. Had it been only his unthinking kindness or his consistent optimism or his—

  Deborah heaved a sigh. He had definitely gotten under her skin. Way down deep below the surface.

  She wandered the gun, berthing, and even the lowest orlap deck before allowing her circling patrol to return to his locale, even if it did so with the unerring intention of a compass needle aimed at true north. She eased to a station, standing close beside him, where she could see Roy’s notes and sketches in his book.

  “Hello, sir. I’m glad to see you are enjoying our ship.”

  “Thank you, Commander. She’s a beautiful craft.” His smile fully acknowledged his double meaning.

  She too was smiling at the compliment, couldn’t help herself. Roy made it so easy to be happy around him.

  “Are there any parts of the ship you’d like to see that you haven’t yet?” She really hadn’t intended quite such a double entendre. Yet his eyes didn’t even flicker to her chest, though she knew he took an insatiable joy in her breasts; a focus of intent that had always bothered her in other lovers, but she found herself quite enjoying from Roy.

  “Well, there is one place I’d like to go,” he drawled his voice just enough to show that he had not missed the double meaning. Then he looked aloft at the Main Top Platform.

  “If you think you’re going to get any up there, you’re dreaming, Roy.”

  He looked at her in startled surprise. “Uh, I hadn’t really thought of that. But I must say, you do have a way of planting an image in a man’s mind. An image that could be permanent.”

  The way he said the last of it, Deborah was left to wonder at his meaning. They’d had a few good days. There was no way that—

  No. She simply wasn’t going to go there.

  But after the ship closed for the evening, she did lead him up to the Main Top Platform, sixty feet above the deck, and they sat for a long time observing the city at night. The lights were bright in every direction, even the narrow passage to the sea sparkled with small craft, channel markers, and tattered reflections of moonlight.

  “Two dozen Marines used to crowd here,” Roy circled his hand to indicate their perch on the small platform. “During battle, they’d be shooting down at the enemy with their single-shot muzzle-loading rifles. Jostling elbows with the topmen who were frantically resplicing lines cut by enemy fire. The mayhem must have been unbelievable.”

  “What are you doing to me, Professor?”

  “Whatever it is, Commander,” he didn’t turn to face her but instead continued staring out across the harbor, “we’re doing it to each other.”

  “Well, at least I’m not going mad alone.”

  “Do you think it would make any difference if we slept apart tonight or the rest of this week or even…” he trailed off.

  “No.” It wouldn’t.

  “That was my thought too.” Then he did turn to face her and she could just see his dark eyes studying her face. “I feel as if every step I take beside you, I become a better man. Even if I were to simply walk away now, not even come on tomorrow’s Turnaround Cruise, I would still be a better man for having known you. How is that even possible?”

  “Well,” she thought of the secret she’d kept from him these last forty-eight hours that had so consumed her every waking minute. “I have no idea how it’s possible, but you’d better come tomorrow. I’ve been working on a surprise for you.”

  “Wouldn’t miss another day with you for the world.”

  And she knew that no matter how important tomorrow’s trip had become to him after a decade of trying, she was now more important than that. She’d never been that important to any man.

  She certainly liked the way it felt.

  11

  They had spent the night together, sleeping. And when his alarm woke him two hours early, Deborah was already gone. A note on her pillow admonished him against being late, because, she reminded him, there was a surprise waiting.

  He skipped breakfast and was at the dock within thirty minutes, which left him milling at the dockside with the other overeager winners and their guests. He tried to estimate average age of interest in the cruise, but it was too varied. Gender spread was pre-biased toward couples by the one guest rule, and the percentages of lesbian and gay couples didn’t offer him a statistically clear bias either. He found that encouraging; everyone loved the USS Constitution. A symbol that had transcended age or gender.

  When at last they were allowed to board, he felt like a sheep in a herd climbing the gangway. A very happy sheep. They were greeted at the top of the gangway by a phalanx of the ship’s officers in full uniform. His hand was shaken by Commander Jeffries, Lieutenant Walters, and Commander Deborah Reynolds.

  Even touching her took his breath away. He made sure he didn’t linger overlong, but the impersonality of their brief contact was not impersonal at all. Somehow they were past all that and simply both content to be together on the Constitution on a fine July 4th morning.

  When all were aboard, the voyage began. The Navy crew of seventy made a fine show of pulling in lines, accepting the tugboat’s lines, and generally tending the ship. They tied the tug alongside near the stern where it would lend its power to the old sailing ship, but it was the helmsmen of the Constitution at her tall spoked, double wheel that guided their course.

  There were informal lectures, and museum personnel, and spectacle. There was so much to watch, but Roy found much of his attention was on the quarterdeck. Even though not yet in command, he could see how perfectly it fit Deborah Reynolds, every bit of it. In her stance, her calm demeanor, and her air of authority, this is where she belonged.

  Not merely in command of an old sailing ship, but it was almost as if he could visualize the four-dimensional timeline of her standing at each of her career’s commands: the Reuben James and a succession of smaller ships behind her, the Constitution in the present, and perhaps one of the new LCS ships or a destroyer in her future and more beyond that.

  He’d known he was a goner on this woman. Somehow he’d known it from their first meeting, but seeing her in such impossible magnificence he knew that there would never be another woman to match her. Not for him. Not ever.

  That it had been under a week was as meaningless as how quickly he fell in love with ship design. He simply knew. He wanted to push aside the crowds on deck and rush up onto the quarterdeck to tell her, but he resisted, there would be plenty of time for that later.

  Instead, he enjoyed the journey over the same water they had sailed together only five days ago. Part of him wished even now for their small boat and the world’s winds rather than the crowds and the low rumble of the tug. All the years he’d spent imagining this moment aboard Constitution, he never would have thought a part of him could desire to be elsewhere.

  They pulled abreast of Castle Island and the crowds were herded off the foredeck. Knowing what was coming, Roy had positioned himself to be right at the safety line that now stretched across the deck.<
br />
  With a precision clearly born of long drill, the lieutenant exhorted his crew to the loading of the great black cannon. Deborah had remained astern on the quarterdeck, but he had an ideal view as they used block and tackle to back the cannon away from the gunports, ram loads of gunpowder and paper wadding down their maws—but sadly no cannonballs—and haul them back into place.

  Directly opposite Fort Independence, Commander Jeffries called from the quarterdeck, “Salute, Fire!”

  Down the line twenty-one cannons were sparked, firing off with a succession of roaring booms that had everyone covering their ears. Clouds of acrid smoke filled the air and still the cannons roared, jumped back against their rope stops, and ejected their wad and gunpowder plume. He was positioned at the rail and could actually see the tongue of flame that shot from the mouth of each gun on his side. Then the fort answered in turn.

  It was a glorious statement of raw power and a tiny but terrible window into what her true battles must have been like. When the display was done and the breeze had cleared away the last of the gun smoke, the day seemed to shine brighter.

  “We have a special treat for you today,” Commander Jeffries called over the crowd. “A bit of a surprise. To carry it out, I would like to present my replacement who will be taking my place in three weeks when I depart for my next command. The first woman to command the USS Constitution, Commander Deborah Reynolds.”

  There was an enthusiastic round of applause as she stepped forward and Roy’s palms hurt before the crowd quieted once more. He felt blinded by her magnificence and humbled that she shared it with him as she stepped to the fore.

  Deborah rested a hand on her sword hilt—an addition for the day that he hadn’t noticed. Was that the surprise she’d mentioned for him? Even without close inspection he knew that by regulation it had to be a U.S. Navy Pattern 1813 Eagle hilt sword. It would be a beautiful piece and he couldn’t wait to study it more closely.

  “Since 1881,” her voice carried easily over the waiting crowd, “the USS Constitution has sailed only twice under her own power. In 1997 on the two-hundredth anniversary of her commissioning and again in 2012 on the two-hundredth anniversary of her defeat of the HMS Guerriere during the War of 1812. Today we are simply going to sail the old lady because we can. Topmen aloft!” she roared out the last, startling the crowd, and able-bodied seamen in period dress began swarming up the ratlines.

  While most of the crowd had moved forward to inspect the now quiescent cannons, Roy had worked his way aft through the crowd as Deborah was introduced and began speaking. By the time he arrived near the helmsman, the massive sheets of canvas descended with a snap of heavy cloth. He watched in wonder as the six sails of Constitution’s “battle configuration” were released and trimmed. All she had of her full set of forty-two sails, but still an amazing amount of cloth.

  Deborah ordered the tug’s lines released and the old ship moved ahead under her own power. At first it was imperceptible, but she was soon moving neatly across Boston’s outer harbor. The wind was perfect, so she could steer a clear line out past Deer Island and onto Massachusetts Bay.

  Small boats zoomed about her, television helicopters circled nearby.

  But he only had eyes for one person.

  Deborah had spotted him in the crowd. She made it look like a casual one-finger salute; touching her index finger to her temple then sweeping it forward to point at him.

  But the message was unmistakable.

  “For you.”

  He had never received a more wonderful gift.

  Except one: the woman who gave it to him.

  12

  “Two years, Roy.” Deborah was seething with frustration. Roy was doing one of his dense-professor things. “It’s a two-year assignment here. That’s all. Then I’ll be shipping out again.”

  “I know that.”

  “I take command of the Constitution in,” she checked her watch, “twenty minutes.” She so didn’t have time for this. How had it all gotten so serious anyway? Of course he had come to the ceremony. They’d been inseparable for a month and it wouldn’t feel right if he wasn’t here when she took command. But to propose to her now? On the ship’s quarterdeck? The man was totally nuts.

  Roy stood before her just as calmly as could be, making her feel even more that she’d been sleeping with a lunatic.

  “We’ve known each other for barely three weeks, you can’t propose to me.”

  “Four weeks today, and you’re too late, I already have.”

  “But—”

  He raised his hand to stop her next broadside shot. Just as well. They were all bouncing harmlessly off his thick skull.

  “Do you love me? Because that is the one thing I know with absolute certainty. I love you, Commander Deborah Reynolds.”

  “Of course I do.” So much that it scared her. For four weeks they’d been living a romantic idyll that went so much deeper than mere fling or affair. It went all the way off the continental shelf and right out into the depths of the ocean blue.

  “So, we’ll have two great years together.”

  “Then what?” She didn’t want just— Again, he cut her off.

  “Then, if you don’t move on to your next command, I’ll be pissed as hell at you, because the Navy is what you are passionate about. This career is where you need to go.” Roy never swore, not even a little.

  She opened her mouth and closed it again. Could feel the tears rising and knew if she tried to speak they’d come.

  “ ‘But what about us’?” he said the words for her.

  She nodded mute agreement with the question. Didn’t dare do more.

  “I’m not talking two years; I’m talking two lifetimes. Yours and mine. I’ll be here teaching. Whenever you have leave, you come home. If you are assigned to Washington, I’ll come there and do consulting work. Whenever you decide you’re done, and not a moment before, then you come home to stay. Because your home is with me, Commander Reynolds. And don’t even think of denying it, because you know better.”

  She did. She barely managed to suppress the next “But” before Roy continued.

  “There are plenty of wives who’ve awaited their commander husbands. For you I’d gladly wait for each moment we can have together.”

  The man simply took her breath away. Leave it to the Professor to have considered all the angles.

  “As simple as that?”

  “Well, not quite.”

  She glanced at her watch, ten minutes until the ceremony. The newsies and the tourists were already gathering on the deck.

  “Okay, what else does the Professor have up his sleeve?”

  “You will be in Boston for two years.”

  “You know that. Get on with it, man, I’m running out of time.”

  “Getting on with it. Yes. Precisely,” he hit her with one of those happy smiles that she’d so come to love. “I was thinking two years might be plenty of time to start a family. I can raise our child while you sail forth and keep us safe.”

  A child? She’d always wanted children but could never see how it was possible along with her career. But with this man…

  “You think you’ve got it all figured out, Professor?”

  “I certainly hope so, Commander.”

  The other officers and seamen were beginning to gather on the deck. It was not an appropriate place for a public display of affection. Leave it to Roy to have the craziest sense of mistiming.

  But if he was insane enough to ask, maybe she was insane enough to answer, because the answer in her heart was as clear as water and as sure as the Great Deep.

  She held out her hand and shook his when he took it.

  “In that case, Professor, it will be a pleasure.”

  “The pleasure will be all mine, Commander.”

  Then she moved forward to take command of the USS Consti
tution, the oldest ship of the U.S. Navy, while wearing the biggest smile in the U.S. Navy.

  Light Up the Night -a Night Stalkers romance-

  Second Lieutenant Trisha O’Malley waited ten kilometers off the north coast of Somalia for the mission “Go!” moment. She held her AH-6M Little Bird attack helicopter at wave height, exactly at wave height. The long metal skids were practically being licked clean by the rolling crests heading ashore from the Gulf of Aden.

  Through the large openings to either side of the tiny cockpit where the doors would be hung, the smell of the hot night ocean wafted thick with salt and bitter from the dust blown off the achingly dry land. Nobody flew a Little Bird with the doors on. She didn’t know why they even ordered them. The only time they were used was to protect the birds when they were parked in harsh enviornments; a piece of plastic could do that. When they flew, the doors were off. Having them off also added freedom of movement to the tiny cockpit and, far more importantly, the visibility was much better.

  Not that visibility was such a big deal at the moment. Outside the forward glass-and-polycarbonate windscreen, which reached from below her foot pedals to almost above her head, was nothing but impenetrable darkness. That was one of many things Trisha liked about the Little Birds. The console swept up between the pilots’ seats but was confined to a narrow column on the front windscreen that stopped below eye level.

  Flying an AH-6M was as close to flying with nothing between you and the sky as existed. No door beside you and bullet-resistant protection from below your feet to farther back than you could tilt your head while wearing a helmet. Everything a girl needed for a good time.

  The console itself was dominated by a pair of LCD multifunction screens that could be switched at the tap of a button from engine performance to weather radar to digital terrain map. It made her feel like those science fiction movie heroes in superpowered suits, as if rather than flying a chopper, she herself was wearing a weaponized suit that happened to be in the shape of a helicopter.