Once the bow was pointed generally in the proper direction, Jamison turned to the two men inside a large protective steel cylinder on the bridge. “All engines ahead one third. Helmsman steady on 150.”
“All engines answer ahead one third, coming to course 150, aye sir,” replied the men in the conning station. The ship’s four gigantic bronze propellers began to turn at the command of the engineers below and Iowa began to move under her own power down the channel.
The Iowa made her way through the industrial section of the waterfront and turned right into the main channel. The Captain called down to the chief engineer on the “bitch box,” an intercom system on the ship. “Cheng, are we up to standard speed?”
Commander Kimberlain, the Chief Engineer or CHENG, was eagerly awaiting that order. “Ready and willing, Captain. The systems seem to have steadied out pretty well.”
“Mister Jamison, you can take it up to fifteen knots whenever you want.”
Jamison grinned. “Been waiting for the last fifteen minutes, Captain. It should be no problem at all.” The speed was increased and a foamy wake appeared behind the ship as she sped into the darkening bay.
Captain Hammond sat back in his chair and took in the view. He was seated on the starboard side of the bridge where the bridge windows formed a corner. From there he looked out over the forward part of the ship, over the top of turret two and past turret one along the tapered bow coming to a point nearly 300 feet in front of him. Men were scurrying about the deck doing their routine duties, but he could also see Bos’n Patnaude up forward wearing a white plastic helmet with a set of crossed anchors stenciled on the front. The captain watched as a young sailor came up to Patnaude with a coffee cup in his hand. He handed the cup to Patnaude, who took a sip. Hammond could almost see the old man’s eyes roll back in delight.
The Captain glanced at his watch. It was only 8:30 in the evening. They had been ordered to time the transit through the Bay Area after dark. The ship seemed to be running normally and he started getting a good feel for how she maneuvered. He glanced at the OOD. In the dim glow of the last rays of the sun he could tell the lieutenant was paying attention to all the details of a ship in transit — even more so since there was a pilot technically in charge going through the bay. When little things came up, he took care of them without much of a sweat. “OOD, how is the steering gear doing? I understand there were some occasional problems in the past.”
Lieutenant Lopez walked over to the captain. “Nothing has been reported, Captain,” he said. Then he walked to the big armored door and looked in at the helm and lee helm. “Golden, you have any problems with the steering at all?”
Petty Officer Golden shook his head. “No, sir, everything seems to be working okay. It’s just like it was before,” he said. Golden had been on the ship back in 1988 and 89. He could probably tell them a lot about this ship.
“Good enough,” said Hammond, who walked over to hear the report personally. “Golden, did you ever hear of steering problems when you were aboard before?”
Golden nodded as he made an adjustment in the steering to stay on course. “Yes, sir, but that was when operating at flank speed. The pressure from the engines can overpower the hydraulics. You have to watch it, especially anything like a full or hard rudder. Otherwise it’s okay,” he said. The whole time, he never took his eyes off the gyro repeater in front of him.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Boats,” Hammond said. He returned to his seat and continued talking with the OOD. “I thought I had heard something like that on these ships. How do you like this duty, Lopez?”
Lopez smiled a crooked smile. His teeth were a little uneven, but that didn’t seem to bother him. “Well, Captain, she’s not like my first ship. I was on a frigate with gas turbines. I swear that thing could turn on a dime, but when they asked for volunteers for this ship, I jumped at it. I mean, when will I ever get this chance again?” he said.
“True enough. How do you like working with all these older guys?” he said a little louder so the others could hear. That got a few smiles from some of the other bridge watchstanders. They were interrupted by the navigator’s report stating they were on track and giving the time to next turn. Jamison shook his head each time — as if he didn’t know where they were, he thought.
“It’s interesting, Captain,” Lopez said. “I got some guys in my division who are old enough to be my grandfather. But I must admit they are handy as hell to have around. It’s almost like having a division full of Chiefs,” he said.
The Captain laughed. “Better not let the Chiefs hear you say that,” he said.
“Too late,” came a cry from the navigation station behind the armored citadel. There were some chuckles around the bridge. Lopez blushed and the Captain sat back and grinned. Hammond had spent the day touring the ship and meeting his people. He took the time to enter each compartment and find out where everything was and how it worked. They were scheduled to fire the guns in three days for some crash gunnery training off of Camp Pendleton. Between now and then he would sit in with the gunners to see how they did their job. Already some ancient Master Chief was drilling the hell out of the fire control types. They were taking bearings on every point and every structure they could to calibrate the equipment and train the crews. He was thinking about this when the Weapons Officer walked up.
“Excuse me, Captain, but I want to do some exercises with my turret crews. We are going to sync in the guns and run some exercises in main battery plot. This will mean the turrets and guns will be moving, but we obviously won’t be loading any projectiles. I need your permission to move the guns. I’ll be moving the turrets first, then some of the 5-inch,” he said.
“Will this interfere with our transit?”
“No, sir, I already checked with Mister Jamison. I’ll still have some of the 5-inch directors providing the bearings and ranges for navigation.”
“Permission granted. Let me know if there are problems.”
“Will do, sir,” he said as he turned and left the bridge. Within a few minutes the warning bells began ringing on the turrets and the massive 2,200 ton structures began rolling along their roller path pointing toward imaginary targets farther inland. It was impressive watching the huge 16-inch guns turning and aiming to the commands of the computers deep below.
The city of San Francisco was under a blackout, but the moon was nearly full. People looking from shore were awed at the sight of a giant black shadow crossing through San Francisco Bay. The few cars out stopped near the Bay Bridge as the ship passed beneath. Something was happening. They had rarely seen ships that big and those were museum pieces. Almost all of them thought the same thing. America was being sneaky. To a person, it made them feel really good.
Su Lynn was slaving over several pots cleaning out the remains of boiled cabbages and other vegetables. Since deciding to stay in the city, Su Lynn demonstrated an amazing talent at cooking, especially for larger numbers of people. What most people didn’t know was that she had acquired this talent from the masterful instruction of her mother and several years of providing food for all the workers at their farm. She had developed a knack of getting the most out of any food. This served well since food was now being rationed throughout the city. All that had been allowed for two weeks was the equivalent of one good meal a day. However, Su Lynn was able to teach a few of the people the basics of gardening. Even now several plots of new vegetables were sprouting in the courtyard of the facility. She had also been able to befriend an older fisherman who still had a boat. In return for cooking for himself and his family in the facility, he would go out when he could and fish. On several occasions he came back with his boat filled with fish and other sea creatures.