There was a very great deal in the speech about America setting sail into the future. In fact, Virginia had already been to sea. Today was her commissioning date, as opposed to the actual date of her launching, which had taken place more than five months ago. Submarines, especially, generally were launched and crewed for a precommissioning shakedown cruise, a short voyage during which bugs in the vessel's design or systems, if any, were found and corrected. In a short while, those ranks of white-clad sailors across the water on Virginia's aft deck would come ashore, replaced by the sailors standing now on the dock. Part of the ceremony today would include the formal change of command, as Virginia's new captain took over from the old.
So far in his career, Garrett had commanded two attack submarines — the USS Pittsburgh, a Los Angeles boat, and the USS Seawolf, though that last assignment had been a temporary command only, with Garrett stepping into the shoes of the sub's original skipper when that man had been killed. Both counted in his personnel record, though, and both had contributed to his knowledge and his appreciation of the men under his command. The crews of both boats had been exceptional — good men, well trained, sharp, professional. Navy training standards being what they were, he had no doubt whatsoever that this crew would be just as good.
Still, there was always a bit of anticipation, even a bit of worry in the promise of a new crew. Those 140 sailors and 13 officers standing out there might be exceptional in training and character, every one of them, as individuals, but how would they shake out as a crew? A submarine crew was as much an individual in its own right as any one of those young men standing in ranks, and, like any organism made up of many smaller cells or living parts, was only as strong as the weakest one within it. How those young men worked together as a team under next-to-impossible conditions would spell the difference between a successful deployment and a failure — and failure in this business could all too easily mean death.
Garrett let his gaze drift from Virginia's new crew to her old. Most of the members of her shakedown crew would be going on to other duty, but a select few would be staying on. Senior Chief Bollinger was slated to be Virginia's COB, her Chief of the Boat, the most important enlisted man on board. He would be the all-important link between captain and crew, more so even than Lieutenant Commander Peter Jorgensen, Virginia's exec. Garrett had already worked long hours with both men, getting to know them and how they thought, getting to know them, in fact, as well as he already knew the Virginia herself. Good men, both of them. Bollinger had been in the Navy for twenty-three years and could be depended on as a sturdy, steadying influence on the younger men. Jorgensen had served as navigation officer on board an L.A. boat before this — the Miami—and had racked up ten years of experience so far in the submariner service.
Another asset Garrett was happy to have on board was Sonar Technician First Class Ken Queensly, "Queenie" to his shipmates. Queensly had been a third class and the junior sonar tech on board Seawolf but had proven himself to be a superb set of ears, one of those proverbial wunderkinder of sonar who, purportedly, could hear someone drop a pocketful of change on another submarine somewhere out in the cold, dark depths, and report the total at sixty cents— a quarter, three dimes, and a nickel, and the nickel had come up "heads."
Exaggeration, of course. Still, a good sonar man could perform acts of apparent wizardry, pulling vital information out of the hiss and roar and throb of the deep. Queenie was one of the best. Garrett was glad to get him.
The senator from Virginia, at long last, droned on to the end of his speech. The president of Electric Boat took his place at the podium once more, this time introducing a senator from Connecticut.
More droning, this time about the jobs that Electric Boat continued to bring to the sovereign state of Connecticut. There was some playful sparring with the Virginian senator over how much better the New London-built boats were than those built in Norfolk. My
God, Garrett thought wearily. How can you joke about that sort of thing?
American submarines—all American submarines, no matter where they were built — were technological marvels, superior in every way to the submarines of other navies in the world.
There was a joking intimation in the Connecticut senator's speech that New London-built boats were just a bit more likely to resurface after a dive than those built at the Norfolk Navy Yard. The laughter from the audience was polite, and just a bit strained. Many of those visitors were family to those who would serve aboard the Virginia, and, Garrett guessed, they didn't like to be reminded of the chance, however remote, of a casualty … the lovely bit of naval doublespeak referring to an emergency on board a submarine.
Garrett wondered if, come next year when the second Virginia-class boat was launched, the Virginian senator would joke about the inferiority of New London boats?
Funny, that that boat would be the Connecticut, launched in Virginia, while this one was the Virginia, launched in Connecticut. That seemed a doggedly bass-ackward way to go about things. Why not build the Virginia in Virginia? It sounded like bad planning all the way around; he hoped the actual design work on this so-called miracle of modern technology was a bit more straightforward, and less tainted by politics.
He remembered again the time a year ago when he'd taken that congressman — what was his name? Blakeslee, that was it — when he'd taken Congressman Blakeslee on a tour of the assembly building where they'd still been putting the Virginia together. He wondered if that afternoon of shared viewpoints had done any good. At least the Virginia program hadn't been canceled altogether. But just because they hadn't chopped off support yet didn't mean it wouldn't happen.
Garrett was little less than fanatical in his support for a military that by law could not take sides politically. It was a real blessing that the military couldn't set national policy. But sometimes it seemed just as bad that civilians were tasked with setting military policy, especially in areas like appropriations and budgets. They didn't have to trust their lives and their sanity to the structural integrity of a narrow steel cigar manufactured by a shipyard chosen by pork-barrel politics, using machine parts supplied by the lowest bidder.
Virginia was a good boat. He'd watched them assemble her, almost plate by plate, and he knew what sheer, sweating labor had gone into her construction. But the pressure to produce a cheaper submarine, using as much off-the-shelf engineering as possible, had been as crushing at times as the pressure at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, 35,000 feet down.
He hoped they wouldn't pay for it later, especially when the payees would be the officers and men who crewed her.
The senator from Connecticut was still talking about the New London shipyard and jobs. God, wasn't this guy ever going to shut up?…
Wallace had tried to listen at first, but it was all too easy to simply stand there, zoning out as the senator's words washed over him and around him like the flag-snapping breeze off the sound. Keeping his head facing rigidly forward, Wallace tried to eyeball the VIP stand. There were several officers sitting there in the chairs behind the senator at the speaker's podium, along with several civilians. Which one, he wondered, was his skipper? What would he be like? Sub school had stressed the godlike authority and power of a submarine's commanding officer, and Wallace couldn't think about the man, whoever he was, without just a touch of trepidation.