Bleecker’s forehead wrinkled, drawing his face as his lips pursed upward. He reached up and scratched the bald spot on the top of his head. “What mail?”
Crocky told Bleecker about the unusual event when they sailed and how Shipley tucked the slender package into the back of his pants along his spine.
“Shit, Crocky, you got more information than I do. Why don’t you do what you usually do and find out?”
Crocky feigned innocence. “What you mean?”
“Take them some coffee and pastries, then read over their shoulders.”
“I’d never do that, Lieutenant; wherever did you get such an idea?” Then they both laughed.
“Besides, they never tell us engineers anything until they need power or we’re about to sink.”
“You let me know if it’s the latter.”
Bleecker turned to leave.
“Thanks, Lieutenant.”
“What for?”
“The early heads-up. I’ll need a working party to help move the stuff.”
“Yeah, right, Crocky. If you can find a working party, you let me know.”
When Bleecker reached the door, he turned. “By the way, Crocky. .”
Crocky raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve taken care of our problem. Let me know if my counseling fails to take. As we both know, not every lesson takes the first time.”
A wide grin spread across the steward mate first class’s face. “I owe you.”
“I’ve lost count of who owes who the most. See you later.” Bleecker disappeared down the passageway.
Crocky figured the mustang was heading aft, to engineering country. Bleecker and he had been aboard the Tang under Richard O’Kane for a couple of missions before the two of them had been detailed to different submarines. Nothing bonded like war. Seeing Bleecker here was a sign of respect. Everyone knew Bleecker seldom ventured from his assigned work compartments unless it was to check maintenance on the values and pipes that pumped water, air, and fuel around the Squallfish. The man had his forward and after engine rooms plus the two battery compartments, and a pump room. It was Bleecker’s empire to run. Without him the submarine would never move.
“You can have yore dark and oily spaces,” Crocky said to himself. He took a deep breath, enjoying the aroma of biscuits cooking. Crocky sure didn’t need to use the excuse of shifting the food from the torpedo tubes to the mess to find out what was going on. He’d know by nightfall, he told himself, wiping his hands on his apron.
The chief of the boat had already told Crocky he needed to shift his supplies out of the tubes. Nope; the only reason Bleecker had swung by was to let him know that he had taken care of Potts. The problem was that people such as Potts never truly changed their colors. They only buried them deeper, until they found an opportunity when no one was looking. He let out a deep sigh. At least his boy Washington would have some peace for a while. “You say something, Petty Officer Crocky?”
“No, I didn’t, and if I did, you’d be the first to know.” He looked around the mess. “Now, where did Santos and Marcos disappear to?”
“Santos said he had to go to the head. Marcos went also.” Crocky shook his head. “That Santos gotta learn how to operate the shitters before he blows himself out the hull.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Crocky laughed. “It only took you one time to learn how, didn’t it.”
Washington scowled. “Ain’t funny, you know, standing there covered in your own—”
Crocky waved his hand and chuckled. “Enough said.” He turned back to his cooking. “When Marcos and De La Santos return, you take them to the forward torpedo room and start moving the food out of the tubes. Skipper wants us to store it here.”
Washington looked both ways. “Where we going to store it? Don’t have room for what we got now.”
“Shut yore whining, boy. There is always room to store something. We just gotta be judicious. Now, check those biscuits. I want the crew to have something hot and special.”
“Judicious?”
“No, hot and special.”
Shipley climbed into the control room. He glanced up at the opening in the deck leaning into the conning tower.
“Evening, Skipper,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Van Ness said. “We are steering course zero three zero, depth one-fifty, sir. Sonar has two surface contacts. Revolutions indicate merchant ships.” Shipley waited a couple of seconds. “And?”
Van Ness’s eyes widened. “Contact one is on a course of two four zero, speed ten knots, range forty-five hundred yards. Contact two is heading toward Iceland on present course of zero one zero, speed ten knots, range six thousand yards.”
“Opening or closing?”
“Both are opening.”
Shipley detected a slight tremor in the young officer’s voice.
Better a tremor while you’re learning than a full-scale panic when it’s too late.
“Very well, Officer of the Deck.”
Van Ness grinned.
Did the officers of today have to look so young, or was he reaching the age where the term “old salt” applied to him now?
Van Ness was his navigator and administrative officer. This was Van Ness’s second cruise with Shipley. Both Van Ness and his XO had arrived on the same day. He wondered for a moment if he was as nervous as Van Ness when he was a junior officer. He grinned his tight-lipped grin with a raised right lip. Yep. He probably was.
“Clifford, may I talk with you a moment?”
“Yes, sir, Skipper.”
Finding where two people could have a private conversation on board a submarine was nigh impossible. In the conning tower, the sailors and the chief of the watch moved forward, giving the two officers as much privacy as a crowded conning tower would permit. Shipley never expected his words to remain private; nothing remained private in the confines of a submarine, and few secrets failed to make their rounds quicker than a shark in a feeding frenzy.
He could tell Van Ness thought he was about to get his butt chewed. He recalled the same beliefs at similar times during his first few years in the Navy.
“You’re doing a good job,” Shipley said quietly. “I need you to do some things.”
Van Ness’s face became a mask of concentration as Shipley spent the next few minutes telling the navigator to work with Weaver to map out the navigation necessary to reach the edge of their mission area. He also cautioned the officer to keep this as closely held as he could for the time being. There was always a chance that CINCNELM would change his mind and orders back to patrolling the Iceland-U.K. gap. He mentally crossed his fingers, but his experience with flag officers who made up their minds was that they had more important things to think about than changing them.
“Captain,” a voice said from the opening in the deck.
Shipley turned. It was Petty Officer Baron, the radioman who worked for Lieutenant Junior Grade Olsson, the communications officer. Seeing Baron as the radioman crawled into the conning tower made him realize that Olsson seemed to be avoiding him.
He didn’t think of himself as a harsh leader or captain, but maybe Van Ness and Olsson did. He would sit with them one night at dinner and see if he could get them to relax.
“What you got, Baron?”
“Captain, received this a few minutes ago from Naval Intelligence in London,” he said, handing Shipley a brown guard mail envelope with signature blocks along the edges of it. “Mister Ols-son asked that I find you and deliver it immediately.”
“Thanks,” Shipley replied as he took the envelope and initialed the cover sheet on the clipboard.