Cafferty leaned on the railing, his cup cradled in both hands and eyes partially shut as he allowed the rays of the hot summer sun to bathe him. He pulled a small tube of cream from his pocket and rubbed some of the ointment on his nose to protect it from the sun. A soft breeze flowed across the bow created by the ship’s twelve knots as it cut through the mirrorlike ocean of the Gulf of Sidra. No natural breeze stirred and no waves broke the surface and the ship-made breeze did little to cool the desert heat coming from the south. The Mediterranean lay quiet, like a mirror on its back reflecting the sky, making the ship appear to be sailing in midair. Its wake the only thing, besides an occasional flying fish, to break the illusion. A school of porpoises played, riding the pressure ridge created by the ship’s bow as it knifed through the still sea. Cafferty finished his coffee and sat the cup on a shelf below the starboard railing. Pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket, he wiped the sweat from his face.
The navigator stepped onto the bridge wing and waited to be acknowledged. After a few seconds, he cleared his throat.
“Yes,” Cafferty said, without turning. He raised his binoculars.
“Sir, we’re five miles to track—” The sudden turn of the captain startled the navigator, causing the junior officer to stop in mid-sentence and stumble backward a step.
“What are you basing our position on?” he asked gruffly.
The captain’s binoculars swung back and forth on the thong around his neck. Cafferty narrowed his eyes, hoping it enhanced his attempt to look stern.
“GPS, sir. We tried a running fix, but the haze over the coastline is hiding the landmarks.” The navigator licked his dry lips.
Cafferty shaded his eyes and looked up.
“Have you thought about taking a fix from the sun, mister, or have we forgotten how to do proper navigation?”
“No, sir, we haven’t, but—”
“Don’t ‘but’ me, Navi-guesser; either you’ve done it or you haven’t and I can tell you haven’t, so get your butt in there and break out the sextant and charts and get me a fix before we arrive on track!”
“Sir, that’ll take me longer than five minutes.”
“Then bring it to me when you figure out how to do a fix from the sun, Lieutenant Junior Grade. That is, if you ever hope to make lieutenant. Now get your act together!
We’re sailing in an area where anything can happen and you’ve done nothing but flip a switch and hope some satellite, sitting overhead, is right. In my eighteen years of naval service I can tell you there are multiple reasons for technological convenience to go wrong. There is no substitute for good, precise stubby-pencil work. Do you understand?
If not, let me simplify it for you: GPS isn’t sailing into danger, we are!”
Cafferty flicked his thumb back toward the bridge.
“Now move it and I don’t want to see you again until you know our exact position!” he said through clenched teeth, never thinking how that order would endanger the ship within the next twenty-four hours.
The navigator scrambled back inside, to the relative safety of the bridge. His knees wobbled slightly as he walked to the navigation table on the port side, unaware of the skipper smiling behind him. Only two more years left and his obligated service was up and the Navy could color him gone.
The lead quartermaster watched the entire episode on the bridge wing. She had seen enough ass-chewings to recognize one. Her officer’s pale face revealed enough for her to know that whatever the ass-chewing was about it meant extra work for the navigation team. She rolled her eyes up and thought. Lord, protect me from scared junior officers and rank-seeking commanding officers.
“The captain wants a sun reading to complement the GPS position,” the navigator said angrily.
“That’s dumb and it’s a waste of time, sir,” she said, grabbing a nearby compass rose. “GPS is exact and even if we do celestial we’re going to be a few miles off. This close to land we need a running fix. It’s more accurate than a sun fix.”
“Don’t argue with me, First,” the navigator said with a low growl.
“Break out the sextant and charts and get busy.”
“Yes, sir,” the first class replied, whipping off a brusque salute and tossing the compass rose onto the navigation table.
“I hope the lieutenant junior grade is aware that the sextant is packed away — God knows where — in the chart room. I’ll have to find it and then it’s going to take a while to unpack it and set it up … not to mention probably have to wash the goddamn thing to get the dust off the lens.”
“We don’t have a lot of time. So hurry up and do it,” he whispered.
“That’s an order. And, we don’t salute inside the skin of the ship.”
“No, sir, and we don’t do celestial when we got GPS either,” the first class replied.
“First, not another word. Go fetch the sextant and quit wasting time arguing with me.”
“Well, sir, the last thing I would want to do is waste time when I’ve been given a direct order.”
The quartermaster sauntered off, enveloping herself with a cloud of curses about “wuss” officers and muttering about the new Navy as she slammed the hatch leading into the chart room.
Cafferty, unable to hear, had witnessed the exchange. It may have been a lax crew he inherited, but, by God, he was going to turn it into a fighting ship if it killed him.
This may be a routine Freedom of Navigation operation to everyone else, but for him it was an opportunity to hone the crew. Knock out the little things that impact the fighting edge a warship needs.
A torrent of nautical terms sprinkled with a stream of colorful curses reached his ears. He leaned over the railing. Below on the main deck, a First Division working party was sanding, scraping, and knocking away flaking paint from the motor whaleboat. A second class boatswain mate paced back and forth behind the nonrated seamen, with a steady stream of circus-quality invectives decorating his professional instructions.
“Boats!” the captain shouted down to the second class.
The second class boatswain mate stopped his dialogue abruptly.
“What the fuck!” the boatswain mate yelled. Holding the ubiquitous cup of destroyer coffee in his left hand he shaded his eyes with his right to see who was shouting at him. Recognizing the captain, he turned the shading hand into a snappy salute.
“Sorry, sir. Didn’t see you.”
“How’s that job coming?” Boatswain mates were the real Navy. They were the true nautical flavor of the Navy, running through history all the way to sailing ships. A language of their own and a job that technology had yet to replace.
“Pretty good, Captain, but we won’t be able to paint the goddamn thing until we turn out to fucking sea again!”
“Why’s that?” Captain Cafferty asked, a puzzled look on his face.
“It’s this shit-sticking sand, sir,” the boatswain mate shouted. He held his hand up, rubbing his fingers together.
“See! It’s everywhere. Captain. Can’t do a proper paint job with this shitty stuff everywhere. It’s like a fine dust. It’ll mix with the paint and we’ll have to redo whatever we paint within two weeks. The ship will need a good wash down when we finish this shore water operation and even then, sir, I don’t think it’ll get rid of this shitty stuff.”
“You’re right. Boats. At least it’ll give us a chance to exercise the seawater wash-down system and see if it really works.”
“Fucking a ditty bag, sir!”
“Carry on. Boats, and let me know if you see anything else I should know about.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the petty officer replied, hiking his pants up as he returned his attention to the detail. Yeah, the captain was a fucking a-okay Joe, even for an officer. He yelled at a seaman to quit goofing off. Yeah, the captain was okay.