His musings made him miss the rest of the Connecticut senator's speech and part of the next one as well. He wished he could glance at his wristwatch to see how long they'd been standing here, but he didn't dare. His division officer would be certain to note any infraction while in ranks, and take it out of his hide in extra duty later — if he didn't slap the offending sailor on report.
Another representative from EB — Electric Boat — made a speech, as did a congressman from Connecticut on the Armed Services Committee. They were followed by a few comments by a sleek and silver-haired woman introduced as the wife of a congressman from Virginia who couldn't make it that day. By this time, Wallace's feet had gone, in turn, soundly asleep, awake in an agony of pins and needles, and finally into a semisomnambulant state somewhere between numb and aching. Was it his imagination, or was the temperature steadily getting colder? The bright, partly cloudy sky they'd begun with was gradually giving way to gray overcast, and with the masking of the sun the wind felt colder. He tried not to shiver openly.
Submariners were volunteers, every one of them. He was a volunteer. The training program he'd signed on for had been a good one, but he could have ended up safely working the system at some shoreside billet… or served, perhaps, on board an Aegis cruiser — a computerized miracle of electronics that would have at least given him access to daylight on off-duty hours. Why had he picked submarines, for God's sake?
Jack Heil had a lot to do with it, damn him. Jack had been the closest friend he had in the Navy. They'd met in boot camp at Great Lakes, then gone across the road to Mainside and A-school together. Jack had volunteered for submarine duty, and Wallace had volunteered, too, so they could stay together. Jack had been full of stories about how luxurious life could be serving aboard one of the big boomers, a member of a gold or blue crew alternating with each other in six-month tours ashore and at sea, America's first line of nuclear defense and deterrent. The best food in the Navy, and some of the best perks. Jack made it sound like a freaking country club.
And then they'd shipped out to sub school at New London, and three weeks later Jack had washed out, almost literally. He'd lost it in their first flooding casualty in the simulator tank, punching out a fellow trainee in a shrieking attempt to reach the hatch as ice-cold water came flooding in.
And so Jack was gone, shipped back to the "target fleet," while Wallace continued with the program.
For a time, he'd thought about backing out of the program, but his dad's admonitions to "stick with whatever you start" stayed with him, and quitting at that point would have been an admission that he couldn't cut it, couldn't make the team. He'd done well, graduating fifth in his class. His scores in the various computer classes had been high enough that he'd been offered a very select billet indeed — as a computer technician on board the Navy's newest and most advanced submarine… the USS Virginia.
But now he was out of school, about to set foot on the vessel that would be his home for the next couple of years or so, and all the doubts he'd ever had were crowding back. He'd been through the schools and classes, yeah, but did he have what it took to be a real submariner?
They'd been constantly in-your-face about that during sub school. He might have graduated from the course, but he still had a full year of what amounted to probationary service ahead of him. The schooling would continue as he worked his way through every one of the departments aboard the Virginia, studying and taking tests, "making his quals" in order to prove that he could stand watch anywhere from main engineering to the torpedo room. Only then — and only with an OK from each of the department chiefs and officers — would he win the right to pin on a set of the coveted gold dolphins that were the badge of honor for a real submariner.
Something in the senator's speechmaking just then caught Wallace's attention. "The young men who serve aboard these vessels are the sharpest, the smartest, the very best trained sailors of any navy in the world," the senator was saying. "They are patriots, every one of them, and they deserve our undying thanks…."
Fuck….
Sharpest? Smartest? Best-trained? In theory, yeah, maybe, but right now he felt as though he didn't know a damned thing, that all of that training had been for nothing.
How long, he wondered, before his shipmates found him out?
"They are patriots, every one of them, and they deserve our undying thanks. … "
Well, the congressman had gotten that part right, at least. Garrett glanced at his watch. Couldn't a grateful nation thank its smart young patriots by letting them get on with their work?
The guy was wrapping up, now, and turning the podium back over to the VIP from General Dynamics. He, in turn, introduced Commander Daryl Fitch, Virginia's skipper for her sea trials.
Fitch bounded up to the podium, grabbed the microphone off the stand, and bellowed, " What a beautiful, incredible, and amazing submarine!"
The crowd erupted in wild cheers and applause, and even Garrett and the others on the stand clapped long and hard. After so much pomposity, Fitch's exuberance was fresher than the breeze coming in off the sea, and considerably more welcome. He was a young man, short, with a thick but neatly trimmed black mustache. He and Garrett were friends; Garrett had been aboard during one of the early sea trials — strictly as a passenger — and the two had worked together for long hours just last week, running through the lists and manifests required for the changeover in command.
Fitch's speech was mercifully short and to the point, a litany of praise for the Virginia and her builders. No politics there. The New London shipyard workers were good — the very best — and it was only right to acknowledge their skill.
"In the Virginia," Fitch said, in conclusion, "we have a submarine that can go anywhere in the oceans of the world, go there undetected, go there and carry out her mission, whatever that may be and return safely home. And that is all anyone could ask of such a vessel, and more. I salute her builders. Well done!" Again, the audience exploded into cheers. The majority were probably shipbuilders or Electric Boat execs. "And to her new skipper, I say — with heartfelt jealousy — you are one hell of a lucky SOB!"
Lucky? Yeah, Garrett had to admit that he was that. For a while there, it had looked as though his career was going to be thoroughly stalled, thanks to a letter of reprimand when he was skipper of the Pittsburgh, six years ago. And, since his command of the Seawolf was strictly temporary, a stand-in for Captain Justin, he might well have found himself spending the rest of his Navy career on the beach.
Virginia had been a reward for his handling of the Seawolf during the Taiwan crisis in '03. He was lucky, all right, but determination had a lot to do with it, too. He'd passed on a chance to go before the promotion board — a shot at his fourth stripe — so that he could have her.