He paced, then stopped himself. A bad habit picked up from too many hours on the bridge. “Our destination is the East Med, a combat deployment on a national strategic mission executing a presidential directive. I can’t share what that directive is yet. But my philosophy is, the more you know, and the more our crew knows, the better. At the same time, I trust you to keep classified information within the skin of the ship. I’ll be discussing ways and means of doing that with the Comm-O.
“We’ll have to be combat ready again in as short a time as possible. I depend on you to do your jobs and do them well. If you feel that for any reason you can’t manage that, come and see me and I’ll arrange your transfer before we leave Naples.”
He looked from face to face. “I’m dead serious about that. If you don’t want to be aboard, or feel you’re being tasked beyond your capabilities, you don’t belong on Savo Island.
“I expect you and the chiefs’ mess to set high standards. Listen to your people; keep them focused; emphasize safety. Let me worry about the big picture. I want you obsessed with the details.
“Above all, I believe in meeting our operational taskings. Mission accomplishment has to come first. That’s what we’re sworn to do, and that is what we will do.
“But balanced against that is the welfare of the crew. All too often, we in the Surface Navy are tempted to meet our commitments at the expense of our people. And we can, for short periods of time. They understand. But if we keep shortchanging them, eventually our readiness bleeds away.
“So if you have a problem that affects combat readiness, bring it to your department head’s, or the XO’s, attention. But also if it’s an issue of crew safety, or crew health, or even elementary fairness, and you don’t think it’s being addressed adequately, or we’re not cutting someone the slack he or she deserves, come and see me personally. Night or day.”
He paused. What else? There was so much. Jimmy John Packer’s remarks about command. Old Captain Ross’s story of the three envelopes, when Dan had taken over Horn from him. No, he wasn’t interested in blaming anything on Imerson. That was in the past. Yeah, he’d beaten that to death.
But maybe those were the important things. Get her afloat — check. Get her inspected and under way — that was next. He coughed into his fist and glanced at the door. A curious face lurked outside the porthole, squinting in. “So, get ready to get under way. And once again, if you want off, see me today. After that, I’ll expect everybody to be on the team.”
He nodded once, curtly, and the exec darted like an alert starling to open the door.
He climbed to the bridge again and ate lunch in his chair, looking out over the bay. His steward was named Longley, a pimply young mess crank who seemed tongue-tied in his presence. The anchor watch spoke in whispers. Around 1400 Danenhower, the chief engineer, came up to hand Dan his combination cap, which he’d left in the wardroom, and to report that the forward pump room was flooding. Either the grounding or the retraction had torn off the pit sword, a tube that sensed flow past the hull and thus speed through the water. His guys were pouring a patch, and they expected to have it under control in a couple of hours. Dan asked if he saw any problem getting under way without a pit sword; they could get speed off the GPS. Danenhower said he agreed, they could replace it later. Dan told him he wanted a full-power run if they were cleared to get under way and to start setting up for it. Danenhower nodded as if he’d expected it. He seemed to be the kind of chief engineer a skipper appreciated: not too creative, despite the locomotive engineer’s hat, but detail oriented and, above all, candid. You didn’t want any surprises from the engine room.
No one came up to ask to leave. He hadn’t expected anyone to, but the offer was on the table until midnight.
At last he climbed down and strolled aft along the weather decks, looking out at the harbor, then examining the horizon. The seas marched in from the open Med, and the wind was bracing but not so cold he wanted a jacket. He paused at the vertical launcher, rows of hatches set flush just aft of the helicopter hangar, and discussed VLS readiness with the groom team. No problem there, at any rate; both launchers were fully loaded out and ready to go.
Fahad Almarshadi was on the fantail, shivering as he discussed the inspection with a dripping wet-suited diver amid tanks and suits and regulators laid out on a sheet of green canvas. He fell silent as Dan came up. Dan looked over the side, down into turbid green water. Should he borrow a set of fins? Mask? No, they knew what to look for. “How’s it going?”
The dive supervisor nodded respectfully. “Captain. So far, you’ve got some little cracks on the leading edge of your blades on number two.”
“How serious?”
“Well, hard to say. We’ll finish the inspection, then get out of the water while you turn your screws at low speed. If there’s no vibration, there might not be major damage.”
“How about the sonar dome? I know we snapped off the pit sword.”
“Well, mostly what you got on your dome is scraped paint. She must have come in right between two bumps in the bottom. There might be damage we can’t see, though.”
“What’s your recommendation, Chief?”
“Well, sir, the safe thing would be to dry-dock, check everything out.”
Both men fell silent, watching him. Almarshadi fidgeted, almost dancing in place. Dan looked up past them at Savo’s towering superstructure. High on it the shieldlike SPY-1 arrays stared aft. They didn’t rotate, like conventional radars; their powerful beams were steered electronically, one array to each ninety-degree quadrant. “I need to get under way. Not spend two weeks in the yard.”
The diver looked away. “Well, sir, you’re the skipper. Way it works, I make my report, you decide what it means.”
“Okay, that’s fair. But if you don’t find anything worse than what you just briefed … Fahad, I want to get under way tomorrow at 0800.”
Almarshadi blinked. “Yes sir, but we’re still fueling. And we’re going to need to load food. They’re holding that for us. And a couple of days’ liberty for the crew would be—”
“We don’t have time for liberty. And we can get our loggies replenished from the strike group. I want a full-power run tomorrow. If no problems surface, we’ll press on toward our patrol area.” Dan looked at the radars again. “Which reminds me, do we have any superstructure cracks?”
“Cracks? No sir. Not that I’m aware of.”
He pointed up. “That’s an aluminum-magnesium alloy. Over time, salt water leaches the magnesium out. Once we’re under way, I want a structural-integrity inspection on everything from the main deck up. I also want some kind of steel plates fabricated — armor — around all our deck machine-gun mounts. There are four or five other safety and readiness items I want taken care of right away. I’ll do messing and berthing inspection with you tomorrow.”
Almarshadi nodded, hand trembling as he jotted rapidly in a green wheelbook. Dan thanked the diver, took a last look over the side, and headed forward again.
The Combat Information Center smelled like the inside of a brand-new refrigerator. It looked strange with all the lights on and a seaman in blue coveralls rearranging dust with a push broom. Savo Island’s CIC was much larger than Horn’s had been. Four long lines of seats and consoles funneled toward four large-screen full-color flat-panel displays to port.
The overheads dimmed as Dan strolled toward the displays, flicking off one by one. He stood before them for some time, examining the presentations as a steady rush of icy ventilation stirred the hairs on his nape.