Lomax paused, his face going from exhilarated hilarity of the memory to a sad, hopeless expression. “Fucking Squirt Gun Vevera,” he said. “Now that fucker’s gonna die.”
“We don’t know that,” Pacino said. “Maybe he’ll beat this thing.”
“No chance. My uncle’s an oncologist. I forced Squirt Gun to get a second opinion from Uncle Joe. Joe can’t tell me what his professional opinion is due to doctor-patient confidentiality, but Joe’s face spoke for him. For Vevera, it’s just a matter of time, and not much time at that.” Lomax hoisted his binoculars to his face and scanned the channel. “Let’s get our heads into the operation, Mr. Pacino. Just don’t do what Vevera did. When you back into the channel, do it with a back full bell with right full rudder, and train the outboard to zero nine zero, start it, and don’t stop it until we’re pointed fucking north, you got that?”
Pacino nodded. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry. I did it before. The current was faster in the Thames River than here.”
Just then a voice came up from below. “Captain to the bridge!”
Pacino replied, “Come up, sir.” He bent and pulled up the grating so the commanding officer could climb up into the cockpit.
“Hello, Mr. Pacino,” Seagraves said in his deep baritone, emerging fully into the bridge cockpit. “Mr. Lomax.” Seagraves kept going, climbing up to the top of the sail behind them, to the handrail-enclosed flying bridge, latching his safety lanyard to one of the flying bridge’s horizontal rails.
“Morning, Captain,” Lomax and Pacino replied, almost in perfect unison.
“Mr. Lomax,” Seagraves called, “did you brief your JOOD on the procedure to get underway?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Lomax said, facing the captain.
“Very well.” Seagraves checked his watch. “Brief the navigator on your intentions, Mr. Pacino.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Pacino said. He picked up the bridge box microphone, still selected to the 7MC ship-control circuit. “Navigator, Bridge,” he called.
“Bridge, Navigator,” Romanov’s voice crackled.
“Navigator, Bridge, intentions are to back into the channel without tugs or pilot and proceed to Thimble Shoal Channel unassisted.”
There was a pause. Obviously Romanov was not comfortable with the announcement, but she knew Pacino was on the bridge with the captain and that the departure method, however unconventional, was approved.
“Bridge…” There was a long second as Romanov showed her displeasure. “Navigator, aye.”
The captain looked down at Pacino. “Mr. Pacino, let’s go.”
Pacino noticed that the harbormaster’s civilian pilot was not on the sail, but walking across the gangway to the pier. Pacino pulled up his bullhorn. “On the pier, pier crew remove the gangway!”
The diesel engine of the pier cherry-picker roared as its boom hoisted the gangway off the hull and put it back down on the pier.
Pacino checked his chart and tides one last time. The damned current from the south was pushing the hull against the pier to the north. He’d need to push off the pier with the thruster, the “outboard,” which was mounted on a pedestal far aft and withdrawn into the hull. A hydraulic mechanism could push it down out of the hull by five feet to be in the clear water away from the hull.
He pulled the microphone to his mouth. “Pilot, Bridge, lower the outboard and train the outboard to zero nine zero.”
Dankleff’s voice boomed out of the bridge box. “Lower the outboard aye, and the outboard is rigged out. Train the outboard to zero nine zero, aye, and the outboard is trained to zero nine zero.”
“Pilot, Bridge, aye.”
“Shift your pumps, JOOD,” Lomax ordered.
“Right,” Pacino said. “Maneuvering, Bridge, shift main coolant pumps to fast speed.”
“Bridge, Maneuvering,” Li No said, “Shift main coolant pumps to fast speed, aye.” There was a short pause. “Bridge, Maneuvering, main coolant pumps are running in fast speed. Ready to answer all bells.”
“Maneuvering, Bridge aye,” Pacino acknowledged. He peered down onto the pier and hull and lifted the bullhorn. “On deck,” he ordered, “Take in lines six, four, five, three and two!”
The deck crew chief acknowledged and the pier crew hurriedly took the lines off the pier bollards and tossed them to the crew on the submarine’s deck. Finally the deck chief, the auxiliary division chief, Dysart, yelled up in a gravelly voice, “two, three, four, five and six are in, sir!”
Only line one at the bow held them to the pier. That and the goddamned current, Pacino thought.
As he gave his next order, he felt his armpits melt into sweat. He could feel the beads of sweat on his forehead. His blood was pumping so hard it made a rushing noise in his head. “Pilot, Bridge, start the outboard!” he ordered.
“Start the outboard, Bridge, Pilot aye, and the outboard is started.”
“Pilot, Bridge, right full rudder.”
“Bridge, Pilot, right full rudder, aye, and my rudder is right full.”
“Very well, Pilot,” Pacino called. He looked aft, making sure the rudder was put over to the right, or left as he peered backwards toward the river. Pacino glanced at Lomax. “OOD, be ready to sound the ship’s whistle.” Lomax nodded seriously.
“On the flying bridge,” Pacino called up to the captain and the lookout standing next to him, “Be prepared to shift colors.”
The lookout of the watch acknowledged, his hands on the flag’s lanyard.
Pacino’s heart felt like it would beat clear out of his chest any minute. What if this went wrong like it did with Vevera? Would he himself have Vevera’s cool panache? He seriously doubted it. Pacino bit his lip, his nerves jangling. This was it, he thought. The eyes of the entire crew were on him, the new nub non-qual officer, seeing if he could pull this off. He shut his eyes for just a half second, reminding himself that his father had done this every time he’d gone to sea, and that he himself had done this once before, as a mere midshipman.
“Pilot, Bridge,” he called on the 7 MC microphone, “all back full.”
“Bridge, Pilot, back full, Pilot aye, and Maneuvering answers, all back full!”
Pacino looked aft at the foam bubbling up astern of the rudder. He picked up his bullhorn.
“On deck! Hold line one!”
Pacino looked at the pier, seeing how it was moving away from the stern. The bow was still tied tight to the bollards on the pier. Pacino watched as the force of the outboard thruster battled the current, the outboard trying to pull the stern up-river, the current trying to push it back against the pier. The wake was boiling up around the rudder.
It was time to go.
“On deck,” Pacino shouted into his bullhorn, “take in line one!”
The moment the line was pulled off the bollard and tossed over to the deck, the USS Vermont was officially underway.
“Shift colors!” Pacino shouted aft. “Sound one long blast on the ship’s whistle,” he ordered Lomax. Lomax reached under the cockpit lip forward and found the handle to the air horn and pulled it toward him. An earsplitting baritone shriek roared across the water of the bay, lasting what seemed two dozen heartbeats. Pacino spun to look to the stern, to make sure there was no traffic in the channel and to see if the stern would break south as he intended. On the flying bridge, the lookout hoisted the American flag and the Jolly Roger flag of SubCom, the black field with the white skull-and-crossbones.