Launch Code

by Michael Ridpath

‘Is it that bad?’ said Craig.

  ‘No,’ said Vicky. ‘I like it, actually. And I’m pretty good at it.’

  ‘So what’s it like sailing on a submarine, Craig?’ said Kathleen.

  ‘I bet it smells,’ said Vicky. ‘All those men. They don’t take proper showers.’

  ‘Actually, it does smell pretty bad,’ said Craig. ‘At least at first. But you get used to it after a few hours, and then you don’t notice it.’

  ‘How long do you go underwater for?’ asked Kathleen.

  ‘Two months, usually,’ said Craig. ‘Sometimes three. The only limit is the amount of food the boat can carry.’

  ‘And our sanity,’ said Lars. ‘Folks get a bit ratty toward the end of patrol. There’s something called “hate week”, happens a couple of weeks before the end of the patrol when we just all want to go home, see the sky. You get quarrels, the odd fight, guys jumping down each other’s throats.’

  ‘And does your submarine have nuclear missiles?’ asked Kathleen.

  ‘It does,’ said Vicky. ‘And they put Craig in charge of them. He’s the guy who presses the button, God help us.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Kathleen uncertainly.

  I glanced at Donna. The mild amusement had left her face. She saw me looking at her and I averted my eyes.

  ‘There are a bunch of controls,’ I said. ‘Procedures to stop Craig from launching any missiles just because he’s had a bad day and he feels like it.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure glad to hear that,’ said Vicky.

  Everyone around the table laughed. Nearly everyone.

  ‘Doesn’t it trouble you?’ said Donna. ‘That you might bring humanity to an end?’

  Here we go, I thought.

  ‘What troubles me is that I come back from two months away at work to find my wife has run off with an insurance salesman,’ said Craig, bitterly.

  ‘I never liked that woman,’ said Vicky.

  ‘I did,’ said Craig, downing his beer. ‘I still do. That is the trouble.’

  More beer. It was Molson, Canadian, fairly strong. The women were drinking it at the same pace as the men and were getting drunker faster. Craig, Lars and I had had lots of practice, despite the enforced two-month stretches of abstinence underwater.

  ‘No, seriously,’ said Donna. ‘Doesn’t it worry you? That you might be the ones who blow up the world?’

  Craig replied, politely. ‘No. I believe that what we are doing on our submarine is stopping the Russians from winning. We’re in a war against the Soviets. It may be a Cold War, but it’s still a war. And the moment we give up, they win. The world will become communist. Starts with Asia. Then Europe. And then New York City.’

  ‘You don’t really think that, do you?’ said Donna.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And what about you?’ she asked Lars.

  Lars took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘Uh-huh,’ he said.

  ‘And you?’ She turned to me. I thought I saw a flash of hope in her eyes, maybe hope that I would agree with her.

  ‘Craig’s right.’

  ‘So it’s better dead than red, is it?’ Donna said. ‘If we ever got rid of all our nuclear weapons, we could use some of the money to help out all those starving people in Africa and Asia, instead of trashing their countries to make sure the Russians don’t get them. We could stop a nuclear holocaust from happening. We have the power to do it.’

  ‘I disagree,’ said Craig. I admired his patience.

  ‘What do you think, Vicky?’ Donna asked. ‘Do you think your brother should be riding around in a lethal weapon for months on end waiting to blow up the world?’

  ‘Donna, I think my brother is serving my country, and I’m proud of him,’ said Vicky. She said it quietly and firmly.

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Donna, realizing she had gone a bit too far. ‘I’m sorry, Craig. I’m sorry, you guys. I know you think . . .’ She corrected herself. ‘I know you are serving your country, and I know that’s a noble thing to do, and that our fathers’ generation saved us from the Nazis and the Japanese. I get that, and I respect that.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like it,’ said Lars.

  Donna ignored him. ‘But don’t you see that you are just doing what they want you to? You are being brainwashed.’

  ‘And who are “they”?’ said Lars. ‘The “military–industrial complex”? What even is that?’

  ‘Yes, the military. The big corporations, especially the defence companies. President Reagan. Casper Weinberger. It was Eisenhower who came up with the term “military–industrial complex”. He was a general, he should know. They want to make the world safe for American capital and they don’t care who gets hurt on the way. Some of them even think you can win a nuclear war. How can you win a nuclear war?’

  ‘You can’t win a nuclear war,’ I said. I could feel the impatience in my voice. ‘You have to stop one from starting.’

  ‘And you really think riding around in a nuclear submarine helps do that?’

  ‘Yes. It’s called deterrence.’

  Donna snorted. ‘Oh yeah. MAD. Why don’t they just call it crazy?’

  She was referring to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.

  ‘You may call it crazy, but it’s working,’ I said. ‘Have you ever wondered why we haven’t had World War Three yet? When we have the two most powerful nations in the world at loggerheads? When there have been all those flashpoints around the world: Korea, Vietnam, Berlin, Hungary, Czechoslovakia? That Korean Airlines flight that was just shot down? Do you really think if nuclear weapons hadn’t existed we wouldn’t have had a conventional war by now? A bigger and nastier war even than the last one?’

  ‘Everyone assumes the Russians want to attack us,’ Donna said. ‘We have no proof of that. Just what the CIA and the military tells us.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Craig. ‘They shot down an unarmed civilian airliner a couple of days ago. Looks to me like they are attacking us.’ A Korean Airlines 747, which had strayed into Russian airspace, had been destroyed two days before. It was still unclear why, or what the United States would do about it. The Soviets were denying they had anything to do with it, but no one believed them.

  ‘They probably thought it was a spy plane,’ said Donna.

  ‘The Russians don’t want to attack us, because they know we will attack them,’ I said. ‘And everyone will lose. And that only works if they believe that we will definitely respond. Which we will. Which Craig and Lars and I will. That’s why they don’t attack us. And actually, that’s why we don’t attack them.’

  ‘But why do you need so many missiles?’ Donna said. ‘What do you call it, “overkill”? Isn’t one enough? One bomb dropped on Moscow to wipe them all out?’

  ‘It’s because of what you said earlier,’ I said. ‘We all need to make sure that no one can win a nuclear war. That’s what our submarines are for. If the Russians launched a surprise attack on us, took out Washington and our land-based missiles, and our bombers, the Hamilton would still be there, hidden in the Atlantic, ready to take out their biggest cities.’

  ‘And then we all die?’

  ‘No. None of us dies! That’s the whole point. The Cold War has been going on thirty-five years, and we haven’t blown up the world yet.’

  Donna’s blue eyes flashed at me. There was a touch of colour in her pale cheeks. But she was listening to me, I could tell she was listening. The rest of the group was watching us.

  She took a swig from her beer bottle. ‘There has to be a better way,’ she said.

  ‘I hope they find one,’ I said. ‘I really do.’

  There was silence around the table for a moment. Then Vicky broke it. ‘Why don’t we go eat? There’s a good Mexican place a couple of blocks away.’

  The restaurant was indeed good and not too expensive. I noticed that Donna was careful not to sit next to me; I was at one corner of the table for six, and she was at the corner diagonally opposite. Everyone else soon forgot our conversation and even Craig seemed to
forget his wife.

  As the crowd laughed, I smiled almost politely. I couldn’t help glancing surreptitiously at Donna, as she teased Vicky, laughed at something Craig said or expressed horror at one of Kathleen’s stories. She was so warm, so engaged, so alive.

  And so beautiful. She was really beautiful.

  I felt depressed about our argument. Not about the substance: I knew many people thought the way Donna did, and I was as confident as I could be that she was wrong. I didn’t for one moment doubt the worth of what Lars and Craig and I and all the other Blue Crew on the Alexander Hamilton were doing.

  It was more that I felt cut off from the rest of society, or certainly from my own generation. It wasn’t just that millions of Americans didn’t appreciate what we were doing spending four months of the year underwater protecting them from World War Three, it was that they didn’t even understand it. They thought we were the enemy.

  On the submarine, everyone understood. It was like going back to your family: they might not always like you, but they understood you and they accepted you.

  That didn’t seem healthy. If the only place you could be accepted was three hundred feet beneath the Atlantic, that didn’t seem healthy at all.

  Donna spotted me looking at her, hesitated just for a second and then we both looked away.

  Eventually, we all spilled out of the restaurant on to Broadway. The temperature had cooled a little, and a breeze threaded its way from the Hudson through the tall buildings toward us, bringing the sweet smell of New York garbage with it. The taxis roared by in waves, let loose by the synchronized traffic lights.

  We walked back toward Vicky’s apartment, via the 86th Street Subway stop for Donna to take the subway home downtown to St Mark’s Place. Kathleen had already grabbed a taxi across the park to the East Side.

  I was trailing a few feet behind the other four, when Donna slipped back to join me.

  ‘Can I have one of those cigarettes after all?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure.’ I gave her one and lit up myself.

  She took a deep drag. ‘That tastes so good,’ she said. ‘I think I might have had a little too much to drink.’

  ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t get a cab?’ It was dark, and I knew there were no-go areas in New York. I just didn’t know exactly where they were.

  ‘I’ll be OK,’ Donna said. ‘I also know I’ve spent too much money already tonight. Are you all right? You seemed a little preoccupied?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘It was a good evening.’

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry I beat up on you so much back there,’ she said. ‘It was tacky. And I know you really believe what you were telling me.’

  ‘I do,’ I said.

  ‘I should know better. I’ve had non-violence training, you know. They teach you to engage respectfully with the other side. I don’t think I was very respectful.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The people who organize the protests.’

  ‘Oh. I can confirm you weren’t violent.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, I hope you have a good mission, or whatever you call it. You know, it all goes well.’

  What? You mean I don’t blow up the world? I felt like saying, but didn’t.

  We walked on in silence for a block. I saw the subway sign over the other side of the street.

  I had an idea. It was probably a dumb idea, but I had no time to think it through.

  ‘I’m going to see my parents in Pennsylvania for a few days tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Where do they live?’

  ‘Lancaster County.’ The green railings of the subway station were getting closer. I didn’t have time to discuss Pennsylvania geography.

  I stopped. She stopped. ‘Look. I can drop by New York on my way back to Groton. Do you want to come out for dinner with me next week? Thursday evening?’

  She looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘You’re asking me for a date? After how mean I was to you?’

  ‘I seem to be,’ I said, making a brave face of it.

  She blinked. She raised one side of her lip. She clearly found that pretty funny.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK?’ I hadn’t expected that.

  The others had stopped and turned to look for us.

  ‘Where?’ she asked reasonably.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘It never really occurred to me you would say yes.’

  She laughed. ‘All right. How about da Gennaro’s in Little Italy? Seven o’clock.’

  Ten

  I had a knot in my stomach when I woke up the next morning on the sofa in Vicky’s living room. Her roommate, also a banker, had left the city for the weekend, leaving space for the three of us. Barely.

  We took Vicky out for an early brunch, drank Bloody Marys and mimosas and ate steak because we could. The knot was still there. I didn’t tell the others that I had asked Donna out later that week.

  Vicky’s plan with Kathleen and her brother hadn’t worked out, but Craig was in a much better frame of mind, despite a mild hangover, and so Vicky thought she had achieved something. Craig and Lars were returning to Groton that afternoon and I was getting the bus to Philadelphia from the Port Authority.

  In Philadelphia, I caught another bus on to the small town near Lancaster where my parents lived. The knot was still there the whole time. It was definitely Donna-related. Was it nerves? Was it excitement? I wasn’t sure.

  My mom and dad were pleased to see me. They were good like that: they were always pleased to see me. I realized I had been wrong in thinking that the entire world outside the Navy was against me, against the crew of the Hamilton. They were on my side. They were proud of me.

  Of course they could never really understand what life on a submarine was like, but they were genuinely interested. My father had chased Japanese submarines in a destroyer during the war, and he was curious what it was like beneath the waves.

  They showed just as much interest in my sister’s job as a research chemist working for a drug company in Philadelphia. If my father still felt any disappointment that neither of us had shown any interest in the family newspaper, he certainly didn’t show it.

  I left for New York on Thursday morning and got into the city about three o’clock. I pushed myself through the Port Authority bus station crowd of spaced-out crazies, panhandlers and dazed and frightened out-of-towners, and walked the few blocks to Penn Station, to check the time of the last train to New London that night.

  Then I had three and a half hours to kill.

  I continued south, not caring where those New York no-go areas were, having just battled my way through one of them. It was hot and humid and noisy, exhaust fumes from the endless traffic mixing with the aroma of soft pretzels from the carts on street corners. I sweated steadily.

  Eventually I reached Wall Street itself, a narrow dark canyon running downhill between sheer cliffs of stone and glass towers. Men my age in suits and women in National Football League shoulder pads powered along the sidewalks, driven with an urgency that reminded me of a fire emergency drill on the Hamilton. Vicky had said she worked for a firm called Bloomfield Weiss somewhere on an adjoining street; presumably at that very moment she was learning how to ask people to calculate square roots for her.

  An urgent beat emanated from a knot of suits on the sidewalk; something had distracted them. I took a look. A young black kid, no more than twelve, was breakdancing on a mat in their midst, writhing to the bass of the boom-box beside him. The kid was doing well – his upturned baseball cap was half full of coins and dollar bills.

  I walked down the street and found a bench in Battery Park next to an old guy muttering to himself and sipping something out of a brown paper bag. On closer inspection, he wasn’t that old. Forty, maybe even thirty-five. A Vietnam vet. Someone who had lost his life for his country, even though he could still breathe. And drink.

  ‘How are you doin’, man?’ I said.

  He turned, looked at me as if I was crazy, and then carried on with his monologue. I
pulled out a ten from my wallet and offered it to him.

  ‘Keep your goddamn money,’ he snarled.

  So I kept it. A wave of shame washed over me. Shame that I had offered him the money. Shame that I hadn’t insisted that he take it. But most of all, shame that I claimed I was serving my country, when all I was doing was eating, sleeping and working in the safety of a metal tube hundreds of feet beneath the sea.

  This guy had served his country.

  I stared out at the orange Staten Island ferries scurrying across the harbour under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty.

  My stomach flipped.

  What was this? It was true I had only ever had one long-term girlfriend before, Christina, whom I had met senior year in high school. We had made it through three of the four years of college. In the years since then there had been several other women, but none of them had lasted. It wasn’t just that the punishing schedule of months on patrol messed things up. They just weren’t special enough to make the effort, and it took some effort to maintain a relationship in the Navy.

  None of them had knotted my stomach like this.

  I headed back into the heat and bustle of the city. I stopped at an air-conditioned bar on Broadway and had a beer to cool down after all the walking, and to calm my nerves. Thirty minutes to wait. This was stupid. Donna thought I was a mass murderer. She had only agreed to have dinner with me because she felt guilty about being rude. And because she was drunk. She was drunk, wasn’t she? Would she even remember?

  This was going to be a disaster. Possibly a humiliating disaster if we argued again. A change of plan was required. Just buy her a drink and then if things looked as bad as I was pretty sure they would, make my excuses and leave.

  I had planned to get to the restaurant, an old pink building on the corner of Mulberry Street, five minutes early, but I mistimed it and was three minutes late. A bad start: we naval officers are precise about time.

  I walked past the window of the restaurant, and saw she was already there, waiting, alone at a table a few feet away from the window.

  She was looking away from me, toward an old reproduction poster of Ravenna, her lips in that half-smile.