The Marathon Watch Page 2

  “But, I didn’t do anything,” Stucky pleaded.

  “No excuses. Someone’s gotta be responsible and you’re it. That’s the deal.”

  BASTARDS

  June 1971, Bay of Naples, Italy

  Operation Marathon: Day 339

  A year earlier, Fireman Stucky’s life bristled with excitement and every day had its discovery. He had liked the navy and he had wanted to make it a career. Now, looking across the bay from the Farnley’s fantail toward the high riprap sea wall and the dingy harbor front of Naples, he daydreamed to help fight off the boredom.

  From where he sat, Stucky couldn’t see much of Naples. The sea wall, and a picket of black rust stained masts that jutted above it, stood like barriers between him and the jumble of dirty low masonry buildings lining the harbor front. Only the masts of the tender Puget Sound and the destroyers nestled to her side were clean, proud and purposeful.

  Everything had changed in the past year. Time had transformed the once mysterious port cities from places of adventure to empty places of alternative imprisonment. Except places like Cannes or Monte Carlo, all harbors struck Stucky as places of dirty decaying despair.

  For some unfathomable reason, even Naples, the dirtiest of them all, had eschewed the Farnley. Denied her rightful place in the destroyer nest, the Farnley lay at anchor in the bay; outcast, shunned.

  Things like that only seemed bad if you cared and Stucky didn’t give a shit. He didn’t have to. Even Chief Ross had quit caring months ago, and who could blame him. The navy had transferred all his experienced men, wouldn’t give him any repair parts, then gave the Farnley a shit-head for a captain. The XO cared, but he couldn’t do anything, and it was anyone’s guess if the captain cared. Normally, crap, like the Farnley, floats, but on the Farnley, it just settled to the bottom and stayed there.

  He still had thirty minutes to kill until liberty call. His first stop, as always, would be Momma Sita’s bar just up from the landing. Stucky liked Momma Sita. She cared. She greeted every sailor with a wide happy smile; the kind that made you believe she remembered you; the kind that made you afraid she would sweep you into a big bear hug of affection. She was cook, bartender, and waitress all rolled into one. Jabbering constantly in her broken English to everyone and to no one in particular, she darted from table to table, her gray print dress and white apron swishing at the terrazzo floor. When she moved, only her jet black hair, combed back tight into a bun, remained motionless.

  Momma Sita was mistress of all she surveyed. Her scolding of those who forgot their manners came in a loud clear voice made sharper by the bareness of the beige stucco walls. On his first trip to Naples, Stucky fell victim to her full rage by simply asking directions to the Gut. With one fist shaking, Momma Sita snatched the bar rag from her shoulder and snapped it in his face. Under a barrage of her broken English, spitting Italian venom, and the snapping bar rag, Stucky retreated into the street. Momma Sita had thrown him out. Good boys who want to make something of themselves don’t go to the seedy, sinful Gut. Momma Sita had her standards; she cared.

  Stucky didn’t care. Tonight he would go to the Gut. Maybe he’d get drunk with Sweeney and Portalatin and wander from bar to bar through the canyon-like maze of narrow, dirty, cobblestone alleys until he found himself a whore. Tomorrow would be like any other day and he’d feel bored, empty and unfulfilled. They would put to sea, and no one would work any harder than necessary to get by. After enough tomorrows had passed, he’d get out of the navy for good. Then what? Probably get a job as a mechanic, or something. He’d worry about that then. Right now he didn’t care. His life was simple. No one cared. They didn’t expect anything of him, and he certainly didn’t want to disappoint the bastards.

  BREAKDOWN

  August 1971, The Aegean Sea off the cost of Greece

  Operation Marathon: Day 399

  Ross hated August north of the equator. The hot, humid August days made engine room conditions almost unbearable. The USS Farnley’s engine room ran hotter than most others, and August had served up its hottest day yet.

  Seated on a battered wooden bench, Master Chief Machinist Mate Ross watched his throttlemen closely. Stucky had opened the throttle valve another eighth turn. Stucky had done that three times in the past five minutes, but they hadn’t increased speed. Something was wrong.

  Ross bent forward to rest his elbows on his knees to think. He hated the Farnley and wished he could just forget the last year of his life. Except dreaming about the day he would leave the Farnley, his present assignment held no hope and no pleasant memories.

  For some reason, the navy had decided to shaft the Farnley, her crew, and him. It wasn’t fair; that wasn’t part of the deal. He was tired and just wanted to get off the Farnley and out of the navy. All he needed to do was survive eleven more months without screwing up.

  Sitting on his bench, Ross twirled his screwdriver in his fingers to help him think. He knew of dozens of problems worth worrying about that could cause an increase in steam demand, but he couldn’t find the strength to care.

  A cockroach scurried across the deck plates toward the bench, providing Ross a mental diversion. It was Elmo, the engine room mascot. On any other ship, Elmo would be a problem, but not on the Farnley. He wasn’t worth the effort.

  There had to be hundreds of roaches infesting the engine room and thousands infesting the ship, but anyone could easily identify Elmo. The crew envied his gift for not caring and for not being bothered by anything. Like all cockroaches, Elmo was the quintessential survivor, so the crew had accepted him as a fellow shipmate and had honored him. After painting a single red chevron on his back, they gave him the honorary rank of petty officer third class.

  In a sharp movement, Stucky spun his throttle open an additional half turn.

  “Stucky, what’s your speed?” Ross yelled over the noise.

  Stucky checked his shaft tachometer and turned his head to see Ross. “One hundred ten revolutions. Making turns for ten knots.”

  “You been holding it steady?” Ross’s question had the tone of an accusation.

  “Absolutely, Chief.”

  “Then why do you keep opening the throttle?”

  Stucky shrugged. “Don’t know. Didn’t think it was worth worrying about.”

  Survive! Ross told himself. How often have you told your men, “Always stay alert down here. Your life and your shipmates’ lives depend on it. The machinery can eat you alive. The high-voltage wiring can fry you, and six-hundred-pound steam’ll cook you dead in seconds.” Pay attention!

  Looking up at the gauge board, Ross saw that the condenser vacuum had fallen. The problem was in the condenser. Ross thought he heard something barely audible over the noise, but he wasn’t sure. He strained to pick the sound out of the cacophony. It eluded him. Perhaps it had been something he felt, or he might have been imagining it. Nothing was ordinary on the Farnley. The engine room was full of sick equipment making unnatural noises.

  The sound Ross had heard before came back, only slightly louder. His ear picked it out of the chaotic racket. He had heard that tormented sound many times. Screaming in agony, a bearing was singing its high-pitched song of death. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and the shock wave of adrenaline blasted through his body. The main condensate pump was about to seize.

  With only one of four pumps operational, the situation was critical. If the pump failed, a wall of water would back into the steam turbines. When solid water hit the high-speed turbine blades, the result would be explosive. The resulting hail of hot metal shards would tear a human body to bits; for anyone aft of the gauge board, death would be instantaneous.

  Ross bolted from his position and slid down the ladder to the lower level. He yelled, “Clear the lower level. Everyone forward. Now!”

  Dropped tools rattled into the bilge as firemen clattered across the web of catwalks. Ross kept moving. Flinging himself over the railing, he dropped the last four feet into the bilge. Standing in a half inch of blac
k, oily water, he confirmed his diagnosis. The high-pitched sound he heard was coming from the pump.

  Despite his forty-seven years, Ross moved with spidery agility. He scaled the web of pipes and ladders. On the main level, he pushed through the excited firemen. Reaching for the bridge intercom, he yelled, “Bridge, Main Control. Request all-stop. We’ve got a problem down here with the condensate pump.”

  The reply was immediate. “Main Control, this is the captain. Negative on the all-stop. If you have a problem down there, fix it.”

  Shit, why does the captain always have to be on the bridge? Ross thought, then pressed the send button again.

  “Captain, this is Ross. If we lose the pump, we lose power and probably damage the pump. We need time. I told you this could happen with only one pump.”

  “Chief, if you have a problem, fix it. You’re not stopping my ship in the middle of the ocean so you can baby one of your pumps. We’re going to continue making turns on both screws. Those are my orders. Do you understand?”

  “I can’t stop the inevitable. Christ, Captain! You could kill somebody down here.”

  “Chief, it’s not inevitable for someone who knows what he’s doing. I’ve had all your insubordination I’m going to take. You have your orders. Make them so.”

  A year earlier Ross would have bristled at those words. He wanted to now, but his pride failed him. It was no use arguing with an ass like Captain Javert. What’s the use? It’s his ship, not mine. Just eleven more months. Just survive. Just follow orders. Ross hit the send button again. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  To the six firemen huddled behind the gauge board, Ross yelled, “All of ya, out of here. Get me a cup of coffee or something, but get back quick when the lights go out.”

  Ross turned his attention to the gauges as the six men scrambled up the ladder like terrified plebes. Stucky, still at his throttle, wiped his sweaty hands on his tattered dungarees. “What now, Chief?” he asked.

  “Just stay on your toes.”

  The look on Stucky’s freckled face told Ross he hadn’t answered the question. Without looking, Ross knew the eyes of the four remaining men were asking the same question. “You’re safe forward of the gauge board,” he yelled so everyone could hear.

  Ross thought about warning Fireman Canterbury and his boiler room crew. With only fourteen months aboard the Farnley, Canterbury was the senior man on the boiler team. Ross cursed to himself, by normal standards it takes four years’ experience to run a boiler crew. Damn this ship! Ross knew what was going to happen. No danger there.

  Ross stepped up onto the wooden bench and stretched to reach the wheel on the main steam stop valve. The warm oily metal on the thirty-inch valve wheel made his hands slip. He wiped his hands on his trousers and tried again. This time his purchase held. With a hand on each side of the valve wheel, Ross stood spread-eagled, like a man crucified on the Farnley’s plumbing. He listened and waited.

  The scream of the bearing became clearly audible. Ross braced himself to close the valve and shut off the flow of steam. The bone-chilling screech from the pump peaked. Ross tugged at the valve wheel. It gave a few inches, then jammed. Steam was still flowing through the turbines into the condenser.

  The pump’s scream rose to a crescendo and abruptly ended. The pump had seized. The turbines’ whine turned into a growing deep ominous growl. Within seconds, the turbines would explode. “All-stop! Close the throttles,” Ross screamed as loud as he could.

  The growl of the turbines held steady for a second then died away as the panic-stricken throttlemen closed their valves.

  Ross watched the stream pressure climb toward the danger zone. With the main engines shut down, the boilers were still producing steam that had nowhere to go; the boiler room crew wasn’t paying attention.

  Within seconds, the steam pressure rose to almost seven hundred pounds and forced the safety valves open. The explosive venting of steam through the stacks was deafening. Ross knew this was a new experience for the boiler crew and would scare the hell out of them. He prayed they would keep their composure and back the boilers down to keep them running. The steam pressure plummeted past six hundred pounds and fell to zero; the boiler crew had shut down the boilers.

  Deprived of steam, the electric generators spun to a stop, and the ship went dark. In Main Control, Ross waited for the battle lanterns to click on. Deprived of electricity, the Farnley’s motors, blowers and other equipment went silent. The only noise was the distant lapping sound of the ocean, and an occasional echo from a drop of water falling into the bilge. A wave of angry despair washed the energy from his body.

  This wasn’t the deal. It wasn’t the way his navy worked. He wanted to be able to do his job, to teach and mentor his crew. He wanted his pride and sense of accomplishment back. Instead, the heartbreaking silence shamed Ross.

  Stucky turned toward Ross. “What happened, Chief?”

  Slowly, Ross retrieved his screwdriver and turned to look directly at the freckle-faced sailor. “Son, we’ve just done got Farnleyed. Again.”

  §

  Minutes earlier, perched in his captain’s chair, Commander Alan Javert had carefully released the intercom’s send button with his left toe, then froze in position as he listened to Ross’s reply of “Aye, aye, Captain.” He worried that the bridge crew would notice his awkward movement. He hated his Ichabod Crane body because it made it difficult to look and move like other ship’s captains. Careful to make his movements deliberate but graceful, he withdrew his foot from the intercom and settled back into his chair to study the horizon.

  Despite his effort, the movement still felt awkward; it was impossible to make his long skinny legs move with the sure grace of an athlete. He told himself that his body wasn’t his fault and focused his thoughts on what to do next. He didn’t know what to do.

  He couldn’t tolerate challenges to his authority. He was the captain. He had to be decisive; that’s what captains were. He couldn’t fall behind schedule and let the world know he couldn’t get the job done. Fearful the bridge crew would see through him, he kept his outward appearance calm as if he’d accepted Chief Ross’s “Aye, aye, Captain” as a fait accompli.

  The knot in his stomach had hardened into a painful tight ball of muscle, and a dizziness swept over him. Fearful he would fall from the chair, he clenched the arms with both hands. With his eyes riveted on the horizon, he hoped its stability would give him equilibrium. He fidgeted and tried to compose himself. Composure was another captainly trait he tried to imitate.

  Javert knew that none of the Farnley’s problems were his fault. He was a good captain with the experience and qualifications for command. His real problem was the incompetent group of disloyal officers and men the navy had given him. Other captains wouldn’t put up with the derelicts he’d been given. He’d done the right thing by putting Ross in his place, but that didn’t fix the pump. He had to do something. Other captains would. If he didn’t do something quickly, the crew would know he didn’t know what to do.

  Anxiously, Javert turned to look across the gray shadowy bridge to find Biron, the conning officer. All he could see was shadows. Half panic-stricken, he started to get out of his chair until he spotted the brown smudge of a khaki uniform in the distance. Standing on the far bridge wing, Biron was leaning on the rail, calmly watching the sea. Reassured of Biron’s location, Javert cleared his throat and settled back into his chair.

  When he took command of the Farnley, he’d forgotten about the cliquish nature of a destroyer crew like the Farnley’s or the Renshaw’s where he’d been the gunnery officer during the Korean War. At OCS, they had told him that the unique culture aboard a ship was almost tribal. He remembered how the crew had revered the captain, loved him, respected him, feared him, and would die for him. At the time, he’d assumed crews always treated their captains that way because captains demanded it. Now he understood he had it backwards; the crew demanded it of the captain. The captain had to come up to the crew’s standards.
>
  At first, Javert had tried to be likable, and failing at that, he tried to earn their respect by being commanding. That wasn’t working either.

  The men had lost respect for him. He could see it in their looks, and he heard it in Ross’s voice. They no longer followed his orders willingly nor paid attention to his wishes. He’d done everything he thought other captains would do. Still, it wasn’t enough.

  The abrupt roar of escaping steam rent the quiet evening air. At first, he thought a CO2 fire extinguisher had discharged, but the sound was far too loud.

  The status board keeper went rigid. “Sir, aft lookout reports lifting safeties.”

  Biron, already back on the bridge, shouted, “Very well,” as he headed for the intercom. Passing the helmsman, he yelled, “All-stop. Rudder amidships.”

  The roaring sound of escaping steam stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

  As Biron reached for the intercom, relays clicked and in unison, red indicator lights dimmed then blinked out. The ship went silent, lifeless, dead in the water.

  Javert, self-conscious about his awkward body, resisted the urge to stand. Carefully controlling his voice, he turned to Biron and said, “Find out what happened and get it fixed. Get the emergency diesel started so we have power. I won’t allow us to fall behind schedule.”

  Without power, the intercom was useless. Biron removed the sound-powered telephone handset from its cradle and turned his back to Javert. “Bridge, Main Control. What’s your status?”

  Javert squinted at the darkness as the aft bridge door opened and a man entered. Javert recognized the boxer like silhouette as that of Lieutenant Commander Meyers, the Farnley’s executive officer. Many people mistook Meyers for a marine due to his thick neck and muscular upper body. Even in silhouette he was hard to miss. Meyers hurried over toward Javert and Biron. “What happened?” he asked.