"What's the matter, COB," Garrett asked. "Can't reach the goat locker?"
"Goat locker" was shipboard slang for the quarters shared by a submarine's chiefs, located on the second deck and forward.
"As a matter of fact, Captain, I can't. Seems there's a fish in my way."
"Doing anything urgent? Besides sitting on your thumb, I mean."
"Just watching the Ginny swallowing goldfish, sir." Goldfish indeed. A single Mark 48 ADCAP cost something like two million dollars. A TLAM Tomahawk ran more in the neighborhood of ten million. But to Garrett's mind the cost was less important than the fact that they could be relied upon when it counted.
Garrett smiled. It was a good sign that the Virginia had acquired a nickname already. "Come on into my office. I need to talk to you."
"Sure thing, Skipper."
The captain's office was smaller than some closets Garrett had seen, with just barely enough room for two chairs and a tiny desk. His stateroom was just forward of the office, with a bunk and the only private head — a bathroom and shower — on the boat. Much of the bulkhead space was taken up by communications equipment, a computer monitor and keyboard, and a small printer. Space was cramped, but the Virginia did offer the very latest in computer and communications technology.
"What can I do for you, sir?" Bollinger asked, wedging himself into the visitor's chair.
"Jorgensen told me about the accident."
"Yes, sir. Leaves us a hand short."
Garrett glanced hard at Bollinger, looking for an indication that that had been a deliberate pun. The Chief of the Boat maintained a bland and noncommittal expression.
"How long to get a replacement?"
"Should be able to have someone out from the holding company by tomorrow. I've already put a request through channels."
"Excellent."
"It'll mean delaying our departure, though." Virginia was scheduled to depart New London at 0700 hours the next day.
"Can't be helped."
"If it turns out there's going to be too much of a delay, we could always have them meet us by Sea King, an at-sea transfer."
"I'd rather avoid that if possible." Dangling a man from a harness attached to a cable lowered from a Navy helicopter was acceptable practice in an emergency — when a crewman had to be taken off for surgery, for instance — but could rarely be justified otherwise. The chance of mishap was too high, the advantages too slight, the sea far too cold and unforgiving to try an at-sea transfer in any but the most urgent circumstances.
"Of course," Bollinger replied.
"We can go a man short if necessary. I'm more concerned about the training standards. Number One said the injured man wasn't experienced with the new loading tray. I don't want this accident repeated, not with Mark 48 ADCAPs weighing over a ton and a half apiece, and not while we're at sea."
The loading tray the working party was using on the forward deck was essentially identical to the loading trays used in the torpedo room. Torps were manhandled off their storage racks and into the tray, which allowed them to be slid forward into the torpedo tubes during loading. A certain amount of muscle power was necessary, especially during the urgent heat of combat, and conditions could be less than ideal, in rough water or while the submarine was performing violent evasive maneuvers, for example. The torpedo room crew had better know exactly what they were doing under such conditions, and they'd better know the equipment they were working with, know it better than they knew themselves.
"Sounds to me like we have some drill in our future," Bollinger said, grinning.
"COB, you've just read my mind. This deployment is supposed to evaluate the Virginia and her capabilities for SUBDEVRON 2. But to do that, I first need to evaluate Virginia's crew. Do you copy?"
"Loud and clear, Captain."
"Good. It is my intention to call a meeting of all officers and senior enlisted personnel to work out a training schedule as soon as we're under way."
He was interrupted by a loud clangor from for-ward — another weapon coming down the weapons-loading hatch, bound for the torpedo room two decks down.
He stood up. "I don't think we'll get anything else done while that's going on," he said. "We'll discuss the details later."
"Aye, aye, sir. I'll look forward to it." Another loud clang sounded, accompanied by the echoing yells of sailors and a burst of paint-scorching profanity. Bollinger chuckled.
"What?"
"It just occurred to me, sir. Whoever first called us the silent service was never on board one of these things in port!"
"Makes you wonder about L.A. boats in port, doesn't it?"
Bollinger laughed, nodding. One of the chief claims to silent fame for the Seawolf—and, by extension, for the just-as-silent Virginia—was that they were actually quieter, while under way, than an improved Los Angeles-class submarine tied up at the dock. If the Virginia was this noisy, what did it say about the L.A.?
"Be fair, Captain," Bollinger replied. "Maybe the L.A. boats are quieter when they're under way. I damn well hope that's the case for us!"
"Me too, COB. Right now, they can probably hear us in Beijing."
Bollinger pricked metaphorical ears at that. "Beijing, Captain? Are we headed for the Pacific?"
"Looks that way, COB, though we'll wait and see what the orders say. Until then, keep it to yourself."
"Of course, sir. But it'll help in some of the stores requisitioning, know what I mean? I might have a private word with Lieutenant Kendall." Kendall was the boat's supply officer.
"By all means."
"Thank you, sir."
Garrett tried to catch up on some of the backlogged office work waiting for him on his computer. Like Seawolf, the Virginia was a "paperless" submarine, with all reports, memos, and requisitions handled electronically. That didn't mean there was any less work to do, however, and it seemed to Garrett — a command veteran on both the Seawolf and on Los Angeles boats— that the office workload was getting worse and worse… and backbreaking, nosegrinding worse. At this rate, he would be lucky if he emerged from his coffin-like office once in the course of an entire three-month deployment.
But first, he had an apology to write. Trying to ignore the crash and clang, the shouting and swearing just beyond the thin bulkheads of his office, he began pecking out words on his keyboard.
Surely, he thought, a naval officer had more vital things to do than wading into the cold and murky pool of public relations.
Or of political damage control.
"Both as an officer of the United States Navy and as commanding officer of one of that Navy's submarines, I deeply regret my choice of words during a speech delivered on Thursday, 27 May, at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Virginia…."
5
"Captain, we are ready in all respects for sea."
"Very well," Garrett said, speaking into the headset mike he was wearing. "Transfer the ensign."
A deck party swiftly detached the American ensign from the jackstaff aft, then began securing the jackstaff itself. Virginia, like all recent American subs, had been designed with absolute silence in mind, which meant that permanent deck fittings — the capstans to which mooring lines were secured — all were located along the centerline where the water flow was already disturbed, while temporary fittings, like the flagpole or the secure points where deck handlers could clip their safety lines, could either be removed or hidden away in sealed recesses in the hull.