And they were behind. At Ahead Flank, stopping the bare minimum number of times they had to in order to catch a broadcast and a GPS fix, they would arrive at Papa Zulu precisely on time, without a minute to spare. But they would be playing catch up the entire time.
No one on the boat could remember running Ahead Flank for so long. The most strained part of the boat was the engine room, where everything was running at high speed, every back up seawater and coolant pump was on, and nothing could break, or even be secured for routine maintenance. The engineer and his team were managing to keep it together but the strain was showing on both the men and the machinery. Hot bearings alarmed, high pressures caused reliefs to lift, and water levels had to be watched and adjusted continuously.
The pressures in the control room were different and scarier in some ways — they were going fast and deep in an unknown ocean. But other than check course and speed, there was little else the officer of the deck could do except worry about it.
Flather walked into control from radio, a stack of messages in his hand.
“More updates?” said Jabo.
He nodded. He looked exhausted. “All for the chart we’re on: JO91747. I’m just barely keeping up with track.”
“None for the next chart? It looks like we’ll be there in an hour or so.”
Flather flipped up the corner of JO91747 to reveal the number of the next chart beneath it: JO90888. He then flipped through the messages in his hand. “Nothing for 0888. Good for us. All on 1747.”
“Anything to worry about?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I won’t lie, though — this kind of navigation keeps me awake at night.”
Jabo pointed to a faded line that had marked their track…it had been altered slightly, you could see the ghost of the line left by the eraser. “What’s this change?”
Flather nodded. “I don’t know. The navigator did it last night. Steering us a few degrees south, it looks like.”
“But it sounds like there’s nothing on the next chart to worry about, right? Was our original track wrong?”
“There must be some reason. Who knows?”
“Shouldn’t you know?”
Flather bristled a little at that. “I’m trying to keep these charts up, sir. We’re going as fast as we can into an area we’ve never been. I haven’t had time to take a shit, much less ask the navigator to explain everything he’s done. I came up here after two hours of sleep and he’d made these changes. If you’ve got a question, why don’t you ask him? I’d like to know the answer too.”
“Okay,” said Jabo. “Relax. I will ask him.” Flather walked over to the table, sat heavily down on the stool, and began marking up the chart.
Jabo took the sound powered phone off the latch and growled the navigator’s stateroom; no one answered. He tried the wardroom and officers’ study…again no answer. He considered sending the messenger. He had every right to, as officer of the deck, but still there was something mildly untoward about a junior officer summoning the navigator to the conn. He would wait a few minutes; hopefully the navigator would find his way to the control room during the watch.
Jabo turned to the stack of papers on his clipboard, the start of his investigation into Howard’s death. He scanned the yellow sheet of notebook paper that Howard had written.
It was wrinkled, and smudged in some places by moisture. But it was by and large readable, thanks to Hallorann, who’d apparently saved it.
It contained a column of information about the day of the laundry fire in boyish yet earnest handwriting. Each entry was dated, Jabo could see, in a way that mimicked the log sheets. There were lots question marks. Book in Dryer?? Paper towels in dryer??? The document reflected Howard’s youth in a way that would have brought a smile to Jabo’s face, had Howard not been dead, and had he not been accused of sabotage.
Jabo turned to the Machinery Two logs, the last Howard had kept. These too were neat…extraordinarily neat. Each number was centered in its square, everything was legible, everything was perfect. Jabo turned it over to read the comments section.
These too were neat and squared away, the only unusual thing being perhaps the number of comments — Howard was clearly trying hard to be diligent. Jabo scanned the comments. Oxygen Generator #2 drifting to high voltage. Navigator Running on treadmill. Jabo did smile at that. He could review a year’s worth of Machinery Two logs and no one would ever have recorded who was working out on what. Howard was trying to take the most complete set of logs ever taken in Machinery Two.
Gurno appeared in front of him with a concerned look on his face.
“What could be wrong? We’re not getting any traffic at this speed. You guys should be napping.”
“You remember that Freon message you asked me about?” asked Gurno.
“Sure. I wanted you to pull it again for the captain. And for my investigation.”
“I can’t find it.”
“What do you mean?”
Gurno shrugged. “It’s not anywhere, not even on any of the hard drives. And I can’t find a printed copy anywhere. It’s like we never got it.”
“I don’t get it…I read it. I know we printed it out.”
“I know. I don’t know what to tell you sir. It’s fucked up.”
The captain hadn’t asked for it since the night of the casualty, it’s not like he was being hounded for it. But it did relate directly to what had befallen them…and they just shouldn’t be losing fucking messages like that.
“Alright. Go take another look.”
“Aye, aye sir,” said Gurno. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”
Kincaid appeared to relieve him just as the fatigue was settling in solidly. Jabo was trying to think about the cryptic notes left behind by Howard, the missing message, and their position on the chart, how much time they’d made up during his watch. It was all jumbled together in his mind inside a thick weary fog.
“Duggan qualified EOOW while you were up here,” said Kincaid.
“Really? Man, that’s pretty fast.”
“Yep, I sat on his board. He’s smarter than he looks. Going back there to take the watch right now.”
“So Morrissey gets the watch off? Is he qualified OOD yet?” He ran through the watchbill in his mind, calculating how an additional watchstander in the wardroom might somehow add a few hours of sleep to his week.
“Not yet.”
“But if Morrissey gets his OOD board scheduled…”
“That’s right. Then it helps us,” said Kincaid. “So go down there and sign whatever’s left on his card.”
“Not right now,” said Jabo. “I’m fucking exhausted.”
Kincaid stepped up to the conn and scanned the night orders. He scowled.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jabo.
“Why can’t we untag the fucking treadmill yet?”
Jabo laughed. “I think you’re the only one that still gives a shit.”
“Must be,” said Kincaid. “My own private gym. Boats gonna be full of fat fucks when we pull in.”
Jabo took lanyard heavy with keys from around his neck and handed it to Kincaid.
“I relieve you,” said Kincaid.
“I stand relieved,” said Jabo.
“This is Lieutenant Kincaid; I have the deck and the conn.”
The control room watchstanders acknowledged in turn.