Keith Douglass
Brink of War
1
I could feel the cold radiating in from the steel hatch that led from Flight Control to the flight deck. The air duct overhead was pumping out intermittent blasts of hot air, but couldn't keep pace with the arctic air separated from this compartment by only an inch of steel. The enlisted aviation specialists behind the service counter were bulky and sexless in layers of sweaters, foul-weather jackets, and long underwear. All of them wore gloves and black watch caps pulled down tight over ears and forehead.
They crowded around one point located directly under the counter, surreptitiously elbowing and jostling. From the occasional bliss on their faces, I deduced that somebody had managed to smuggle in a highly illegal, completely unsafe, and critically necessary space heater. It was cached out of view of the officers who'd undoubtedly make them remove it from the space, citing the potential for electrical fires, shock hazard, and class alpha fires should the hot filaments make contact with one of the stacks of papers cluttering their work space behind the counter. A conscientious officer would confiscate it, preventing any one of those highly unlikely risks from escalating into a problem, leaving the enlisted men and women to combat the cold as best they could.
I studiously ignored it. An early Christmas present, guys, and probably the best one you're likely to get this year until you get home.
"My bird ready?"
The chief in charge of the space nodded. Chief Jabrowski, a gnarled veteran of ships and flight decks with almost thirty years in the Navy, was only four months away from mandatory retirement. His eyes were ice blue, framed by a network of wrinkles and creases that marked the face of any man who spent so many years at sea. He had a small, dark mustache, flecked now with the same stray white strands that were scattered around his temples.
His hair was clipped close to his head, almost a Marine Corps cut. Red, windburned skin, wrinkled down to a thin pair of lips curved up in a surprisingly congenial smile.
"Double nuts," he answered. "They're de-icing again now ― can't be too careful in this weather."
I nodded, understanding the dangers of operating in this brutal environment. Even though the day outside was stunningly clear and bright, harsh sunlight spilling across the dark black of the nonskid on the flight deck, there was always the danger of icing as moisture from the air condensed on metal surfaces. I'd spent my share of time in cold weather ops. So had the chief.
Besides, the double nuts bird was worth taking care of. The zero-zero tail number designated it as the CAG's aircraft, and it was usually kept in top shape. Not that that's the only one he flew, but it meant something to the squadron that they'd assigned this bird to me.
And to me. Too many years ago, I'd been skipper of VF-95. I hadn't forgotten it ― and neither had they.
"Any other last-minute problems?" I asked, knowing there weren't or the chief would have told me about them.
He shook his head. "Nary a one." The odd Arkansas twang seemed alien in this near-freezing compartment.
The handler, Lieutenant Commander Bernie Hanks, was now scurrying over to pay his respects. When I entered the compartment, he'd been deep in argument with a yellow-shirted flight deck handler, gesticulating at the carrier's flight deck mock-up behind him and tapping impatiently on the wooden cutout form of an E-2 Hawkeye. I caught the gist of the conversation in a few words, the eternal argument about how and where to place too many aircraft in too little space.
The technician wanted to move the Hawkeye down into the hangar bay for maintenance work, and Bernie wasn't buying it. "Maybe after flight ops, yeah. But not right now. No way, not a chance in hell. And if the helmeted and goggled yellow shirt in front of him didn't like it, well then he could just shit in one hand and-"
A pointed, entirely unnecessary cough from the chief cut the argument short before Bernie could complete the traditional Navy suggestion. No love lost between the chief and Bernie, clearly. Otherwise, the chief would have been a little bit smoother, a little bit faster with the cough and would have saved Bernie the embarrassment of not noticing my arrival.
I let my eyes rest on the chief for a moment, twitched the corner of my mouth to let him know I was on to his game. The bland, completely innocent look I got in return was all the answer I needed.
"Admiral, I'm sorry… didn't notice you-" Bernie began.
I cut him off with a gesture. "No need ― Chief was just filling me in.
I take it we're good to go?"
Bernie nodded. "Green deck whenever you want."
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the service counter. "How bad is that E-2?"
Bernie scowled. "The green shirts think everything is an emergency," he muttered. "You know how it is."
Every specialty on the flight deck is identified by a different color jersey. Yellow, the handlers and flight deck control people, the ones who owned deck space and anything moving on it. White, safety and medics. The grapes, the purple shirts, handled the fueling, and the ordies who loaded weapons on the planes wore red ones. The green shirts were mechanics and avionics technicians, anyone working on the aircraft. Brown, the plane captains who owned the aircraft when the aviators weren't around.
"Pretty bad, Admiral," a much-maligned green shirt spoke up from behind the flight deck mock-up. "We're going to have to pull the engine."
I winced. Although Jefferson was no longer under my direct command ― though it had been years ago ― I took anything that affected her combat capabilities personally. Losing one of the four Hawkeyes ― an electronic surveillance bird the equivalent of the Air Force AWACS-was more critical than turning a fighter into a hangar queen. The Hawkeyes were our eyes and ears in a battle and were capable of controlling multiple flights of U.S. fighters against adversary air. Additionally, although her capabilities were more limited than the AWACS, the Hawkeye could serve as electronic intercept aircraft and provide a whole host of intelligence information.
"What happened to it?" I asked.
"FOD, I think," the technician answered. "Chipped rotor blade. At any rate, we're gonna have to pull the engine. Can't fly the way it is."
Bernie broke in again, apparently not comfortable with letting the technician talk directly to me. A mistake, that ― I'd garnered some of my most important information on how the ship was doing from talking directly to my enlisted men and women.
Batman's enlisted men and women, I should say. They were his now, had been since he'd relieved me as commander of Carrier Battle Group 14.
"Jones, take the admiral out to his bird," Bernie ordered.
"I can find it myself," I said gently.
"If you like, Admiral," Bernie answered, clearly a bit miffed this his courtesy had been rebuffed.
I hadn't meant to be rude. Sometimes the constant immediate deference to my presence and opinions, my every need and want, became entirely obnoxious. If truth be said, all I really wanted out of life in this Navy was what I'd wanted from the very beginning ― to strap a Tomcat on my ass and go screaming through the air until I damn near grayed out from my own G forces.
But times change, and so do duties in the Navy. For me, every promotion meant less and less time in the cockpit, more time spent on administration or training, or any one of the other myriad duties a flag officer acquires along with the additional pay. Sometimes, you almost get nostalgic for somebody who'll tell you you're full of shit.
Just at that moment, two of the people who might be willing to do just that walked into the compartment. One I knew would for sure ― the other would be willing to soon enough, albeit the words would be couched in the gentle euphemisms a junior used to a very senior officer.