U.S. Navy submarines do that. They fling people together, causing them to see only the best points in one another.
Dan Headley was proud to serve on this old ship, and so far he had been impressed with every one of his crew. He especially liked the Chief of the Boat, a big blond former center fielder from the University of Georgia, Drew Fisher. The Master Chief Petty Officer had dropped out of college to try his luck at professional baseball, but failed to make it through a chronic ankle injury.
He had ended up with no university degree, no money, and no career, in or out of sports. “Sir, I didn’t even have a bat,” he had told Dan Headley. “So I just joined the Navy, and kept right on going.”
Drew had risen steadily up through the ranks, and in Lt. Commander Headley’s opinion was not finished yet. It was widely rumored that the former Georgia Bulldogs left-hander was on the verge of accepting a commission, and that a full command might not be that far away.
Drew was only 36 years old, and in addition to his onerous duties on board, he had pushed himself through course after course, gaining qualifications in navigation, weapons, hydrology, electronics, marine engineering. Right now he was working on combat systems and spent a lot of time with Lt. Commander Jack Cressend from New Orleans, Shark’s CS Officer.
In fact the two men were together outside the control room directly up ahead of Dan, and both men greeted him cheerfully. The Master Chief, like Dan, was early for his watch and had already ascertained that Shark’s new XO was some kind of an expert on thoroughbred horses. Right now, in the small hours of the morning, running hard above the towering underwater mountains of the Mid-Indian Ridge, he wanted to know precisely which colt was going to win the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs this Saturday.
Four hours ago Dan Headley had been noncommittal on the big field, four of which in his opinion held live chances. This was not good enough for Drew, who wanted heavy inside information in fine detail, so he asked the Shark’s second-in-command again.
“Come on, sir. Give me your real, true selection.”
“Well, Drew. My daddy raised one of the runners from a foal, big gray colt named White Rajah, trained in New York for Mr. Phipps.”
“Can he run?”
“Course he can run. Otherwise he wouldn’t be entered for the Derby, would he?”
“What did he win?”
“Three races as a two-year-old. Got beat by a nose in the Hopeful at Saratoga. But he improved over the winter. They sent him down to South Carolina for a spell, then he came out and damned nearly won the Florida Derby off a bad draw.”
“That his last race?”
“Hell, no. He came back to New York, won the Wood Memorial over nine furlongs. That’s the best Derby trial in my view: been won by some of the greats, Count Fleet, Assault, Native Dancer, Nashua, Bold Ruler, Damascus, Seattle Slew. The real big guns of the horse game. Christ, Secretariat got beat in it before his Triple Crown.”
“Jeez, sir. You really know that horse stuff, right?”
“Guess so. It’s in my blood. My family been raisin’ racers out in the bluegrass for about five generations.”
“Ah, but you still ain’t told me one bit of real sensitive information about White Rajah.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” replied Lt. Commander Headley. “His granddaddy damned near bit my right arm off when I was a kid. Vicious sonofabitch.”
“Seriously? Jeez, I didn’t know thoroughbred horses were savage.”
“This particular bloodline is very difficult. Got a lot of temperament in there.”
“Then why do people breed to it?”
“Because the suckers can run, that’s why. And a lot of ’em can really run. Like the Rajah.”
“Well that settles it. I’m bettin’ him.”
“You think they got an OTB in the Arabian Sea?”
“Hell, I forgot about that…Do you think I could borrow the satellite link to San Diego?”
“Oh, sure. We’re heading for the front line, in the middle of a world oil crisis, and our overhead link is somehow out of action because the Chief of the Boat is trying to back White Rajah in the Kentucky Derby.”
“Shit, it’s a cruel world, sir.”
“Crueler if he wins, Chief…and you’re not on.”
All three men laughed. There was no doubt. Lieutenant Commander Headley was already extremely well liked, and now he strolled into the control room, wished the commanding officer “Good morning,” and added, “Ready to take over whenever you say, sir.”
Commander Reid looked at his watch. “Seven more minutes, XO. I like to serve a full four hours.”
“Fine, sir. I’ll be right here. No change in the satellite contact, sir? Zero six hundred as scheduled?”
“As scheduled, XO. That’s the way I like it.”
Dan Headley continued to familiarize himself with the control room, which was smaller than he was used to. His last tour had been, fortuitously, on the USS Kentucky, one of the huge Ohio-Class Trident strategic missile submarines. And he had been under the impression he might be awarded a full command on one of those 19,000-ton nuclear giants. But, quite suddenly, he had been posted to the USS Shark, on positively her final tour of duty, to assist Commander Reid, on his last tour of duty. Dan assumed this was because of the rising unrest in the Iranian Gulf area, and there was plainly some concern about the mental steadfastness of the veteran CO.
Thus far Dan had found Commander Reid to be reserved, polite, a little rigid in his thoughts for a submarine commander. And punctilious in the extreme. But he could work with that. So long as they did not come under serious pressure.
At 0400 precisely, Commander Reid handed over the control room. “You have the ship, XO,” he said formally.
“Aye, sir. I have the ship.”
Lt. Commander Headley checked Shark’s speed, course and position. He checked with comms the 0600 satellite contact, and ordered, “Maintain speed twenty-nine, depth four hundred. Course three-five-two.” Then he picked up his telephone and checked in with the propulsion engineer.
The leak on the shaft was no worse. The pumps still were coping easily and the big Westinghouse PWR was running sweetly. The sonar room was quiet. Lieutenant Commander Josh Gandy reported no new contacts of any kind, not that this was likely at such speed.
All through the night, they ran north toward the Arabian Sea, until dawn began to break over the eastern waters, way off their starboard beam. Lieutenant Commander Headley ordered them to periscope depth and accessed the satellite. There was no change in their orders…Proceed to the eastern waters of the Strait of Hormuz in company with the aircraft carrier Harry S Truman. Then replace on station the John C. Stennis Group when it clears the area and runs back south to Diego Garcia.
Both Lt. Commander Josh Gandy and Master Chief Fisher were with the XO when he checked the orders.
“Sorry, Chief,” Dan muttered. “Nothing from OTB. Guess the Rajah’s gonna run without your money to handicap him.”
That was the last joke of the watch, and the rest of it passed slowly, as did the next two days. By 0400 on Friday morning, May 4, the Shark was almost at the gateway to the Gulf of Oman, which leads to the narrow waters of Hormuz. They had crossed the 24-degree northern line of latitude and were currently running 100 feet below the surface with another 250 feet of water under the keel. It would be light in a couple of hours, and, presumably, with the gulf closed, except for Iranian ships and very occasionally Chinese, the seas would be empty, with an inbound queue of empty tankers way over to the west.