He handed the paper to Arneau. “Here is a quick list I made from my notes. You’ll discover more as you make your inspections. Take the COB with you. Senior Chief Boohan may have some insights, and even if he doesn’t, he needs to know what you’re doing so it’ll trickle down to the crew.”
Arneau took the list. “Sir, are we going to tell the crew where we are going?”
Shipley shook his head. “The orders from Admiral Wright say that as few as possible know about this mission.”
“Hard thing to keep from the crew. Think they haven’t already figured it out?”
“I’d be disappointed if they haven’t. I would like to keep it as secret as possible, but I don’t intend to work hard on doing it. Everyone on board has a life invested in the success of the mission. Knowing where we are going and the danger in which we intend to sail will help us better avoid detection. The only ones near—”
A knock at the entranceway facing caused both officers to look up. Lieutenant Logan stood at the entrance.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Shipley asked.
“Skipper, I wonder if my men and I can do some practice runs with rigging the equipment we brought on board.”
“How hard is it to rig the camera to the periscope and the detector to the main induction valve? I thought you had already been practicing it.”
Logan shrugged. “We have walked through it, sir, but I’m not comfortable they know how to do it expeditiously, nor am I sure the equipment will stay mounted once we put it on. Fact is, we haven’t done it at all; just a walk-through. I figure—”
Shipley let out a deep sigh. “How much noise will this make?”
“More if we aren’t allowed to practice doing it so we can rig it once we reach the OPAREA.
“You should have been doing this earlier, Lieutenant.”
Logan looked at Arneau. Shipley followed the gaze and was surprised to find the XO looking angry.
Arneau cleared his throat. “My fault on that, Skipper,” Arneau said curtly. “I refused them permission because of the disruption in the conning tower. As for the engine room, the main induction valves are closed. Hard to make sure something is going to stay mounted when the valves are closed. I told the lieutenant we would do it once we reach the OPAREA. Do it once and do it right.”
Shipley looked back at Logan. “Get with the XO and he’ll arrange some time today for your men to practice, Lieutenant. I guess I’m surprised to discover your men have never done this before this mission. Are you sure the systems will fit where they need to fit?”
Logan blushed. “No, sir; I was told they would, but the officer who was supposed to come on this trip was sick—”
“Sick? Lieutenant Logan, you continue to amaze me with these little tidbits about our mission that you seem to believe doesn’t require you sharing with the skipper of the Squallfish. Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
“It was never my intention,” Logan said quickly, then added, “No, sir; I don’t think there is anything else I’ve forgotten.” Logan scratched his head.
Shipley sighed. It was his fault. He had avoided the intelligence officer for the past few days as he continued drills and preparation for their adventure into the Soviet backyard.
“I’m not sure if they will fit, Captain,” Logan continued. “This is the first time we’ve had an opportunity to take these systems on board a submarine. The Systems Command engineers say they will work, but none of us has worked with them. We’ve been studying the typed manual they sent with them.”
Arneau shook his head. “I can see lots of planning has gone into this, Lieutenant.”
“No, sir — I mean yes, sir; planning has gone into it. We just didn’t know we were going to have to do it so soon.”
“Neither did we,” Shipley said, his thoughts on December 7, 1941. “XO, take care of the arrangements.”
“Listen here, my fine black gang,” Bleecker said, a muscular arm gripping an overhead pipe and one foot braced on the knee knocker of the hatch separating the forward and aft engine rooms.
In front of the World War II mustang stood seven of his ten-man division. Behind him in the forward engine room were the other three. He saw the taller Potts in the rear with the man’s shadow, Fromley, so close he was practically up Potts’s ass. Someone said something.
“Keep your traps shut!” Gledhill shouted, turning to face the other six.
“Yeah,” Bleecker added. “At least wait until I leave before you make any shitty remarks about your division officer.” The sailors laughed. Bleecker smiled.
“I know we don’t have these quarters often.”
“Like in the middle of the afternoon,” Petty Officer Max Brown ad- libbed.
“Brown, see me when this is over,” Gledhill said softly. “Bring some grease so my foot doesn’t hurt you too much.”
“My fine friends,” Bleecker continued, “there is a good chance that each of you may earn your Submarine Combat Patrol pin on this mission. And there is a good chance that none of us may ever be awarded it. And there is more than a good chance that most of you have no fucking idea what it is.”
Bleecker stuck his head back inside the forward engine room. “You three able to hear me?”
When the three acknowledged that they could hear him, he turned back toward the aft engine room and continued.
“We at war, Lieutenant?”
Bleecker shook his head. “No, Otto, we aren’t at war.” Then after a slight pause he added, “Yet.” He looked at the man’s dungaree pants and pointed at the right pocket. “What is that, Petty Officer Lang?”
“What is what?” Otto Lang asked, his eyes wide.
“What is that in your pocket?”
Lang pushed his hand in his pocket and brought out bread squeezed together with a napkin into a moist mess. “It was a biscuit from breakfast,” Lang replied, looking at the biscuit-napkin mess in his hand.
“Get rid of it,” Bleecker said, shaking his head.
“How dangerous is this mission we’re going on, Lieutenant?” Joey Anderson, the 3-M maintenance coordinator, asked.
“My fine gentlemen, we are going into harm’s way.” He poked himself in the chest. “There are only three of us on board who have survived combat patrols where the Japanese rained depth charges on us. That’s the captain, Crocky—”
“The cook?” Potts asked with amazement.
“Yeah, the cook, Potts. And, me; I’m the third. But, then you all knew that.”
“We should,” Potts whispered to Fromley. “He’s told us enough.” Looking up, he saw Gledhill glaring at him from the aft engine room.
“I won’t tell you where we are going, but I think most of you are smart enough to figure it out, and none of us is smart enough to speak Russian. What I will tell you is that we stand a damn fine chance of running into a former ally’s destroyers, who would like nothing better than to relive their lack of experience from World War II and sink us. They can’t sink us if they can’t find us, and they can’t find us if they can’t hear us or we can outrun them.”
Bleecker took his foot off the knee knocker and stepped fully inside the aft engine room. He motioned to the three sailors in the forward engine room. “Move closer.”
The three stepped to the hatch and stuck their heads inside the aft engine room.
“We have to do everything we can to make the engine rooms and the pump room as quiet as possible. Most of the noise that comes from a submarine comes from auxiliary equipment such as the bilge pumps, toilets, evaporators, circulation pumps, and air exchange valves.” He nodded at Gledhill. “Your LPO and I have prepared a list of things we think can bring the forces of evil raining on our Christian heads. The saints who are going to fight the battle of the noise are you.” He swept his finger across the compartment, ending with it pointing at the three leaning through the hatch. “Nothing gets by you; you understand?”