The Marathon Watch Page 3

  Biron lifted his head slightly. “Dropped the load. Diesel generator is coming online. Condensate pump, I think.”

  Biron lowered his head, directing his attention to the phone. “Bridge, aye.”

  Biron looked around Meyers to locate Sweeney, the boatswain’s mate of the watch. “Sweeney, tell the lookouts to be sharp. We don’t have radar, and our running lights are out.”

  Placing the phone in its cradle, Biron leaned back against the wood sill so he could speak to both men. “Dropped the load. The emergency generator…” He paused as the distant hesitant popping rumble of the diesel steadied out, “… is online. We should be back on steam in five. Ross says it’ll take fifteen to assess the damage. We seized a bearing in the number two condensate pump.”

  A few indicator lights beamed back to life. The muted bell of the engine order telegraph clinked, and the lee helmsman called out in a subdued, almost apologetic, voice. “Sir, engine room answers all-stop.”

  Biron didn’t speak but nodded his acknowledgment to the lee helmsman. Meyers shook his head in disgust.

  Javert dropped from his chair and stepped directly in front of Meyers, forcing Biron out of the way. With his shoulders hunched and neck thrust forward, Javert squinted down at Meyers. “XO, this is unsat. It’s your job to see that these things don’t happen. Brief me when you find out how long repairs will take. Once we get the problem fixed, I want to know how you’re going to keep us on schedule. I’ll be in my cabin. Do you understand?”

  Meyers’ voice was businesslike. “Yes, sir. And you’ll have the breakdown message in a few minutes.”

  “No! XO, we’ve been over this before about breakdown reports. I told you, they’re only required if we can’t keep our schedule. We don’t know that yet, so no report.”

  “Captain—”

  Javert ignored Meyers’s plea and stormed off the bridge, yelling, “I’ll be in my cabin, XO. You have your orders. Make them so.”

  ASSESSMENT

  August 1971, The Aegean Sea off the cost of Greece

  Operation Marathon: Day 399

  After leaving the bridge, Javert quickly descended the ladder to the second level and stormed through the door to his cabin. Javert raised his hands to protect his eyes from the harsh shaft of light from the battle lantern and searched the black shadows for his chair. After retrieving the chair, he sat and stared at the two framed photographs on his desk. Javert looked at the picture of his wife, Gloria, and his two children. Why? Why must they always challenge me? Don’t worry. I can’t, I won’t let this opportunity go by, he reassured her.

  Eighteen months ago, Javert had thought his naval career was over and that the navy he’d trusted and served for twenty years without question had betrayed him. The navy had not given him a command, and a successful shipboard command was a requirement for promotion. The rules were simple, unforgiving, and absolute. He’d been passed over for promotion three times; if he wasn’t promoted next year, retirement would be mandatory.

  The Farnley was his first command and his last chance. He’d never understood the navy’s reluctance to give him a command. With a few exceptions, his fitness reports were satisfactory. The only bad marks on his record came from his first tour at sea as gunnery officer. Javert guessed that was the reason they wouldn’t let him on the bridge of the Enterprise.

  He’d been angry with the navy. It wasn’t his fault that his assignments kept him away from sea duty. He deserved a chance. The navy owed it to him, and finally, albeit late in his career, the navy rewarded his dedication by giving him command of a ship. When he’d taken command of the Farnley, she was a good ship despite her age. Considering all the newer, sleeker ships, she wasn’t much, but he was thankful because she was his only hope to stay in the navy.

  Javert smiled to himself as his gaze drifted to the picture of him and Admiral Eickhoff at his change-of-command ceremony. The day he took command of the Farnley had been the happiest and proudest day of his life. He remembered how confident he’d been, but his confidence had been quickly shaken; he realized that command-at-sea was different from his previous assignments. The impregnable cocoon of naval tradition, rules and regulations in which he found security and absolute stability had unraveled. Nothing added up anymore; the system he loved so much had suddenly stopped working.

  The overhead fluorescent light buzzed, flickered, then came on. He was proud of the picture; a fleet commander normally wouldn’t attend a change-of-command ceremony. It was a special day for him, but now he had a job to do. He had to follow his orders, meet his commitments, and earn his promotion.

  Other captains never had to argue or reason with their men. There were some honest differences, one professional to another, but nothing like what he had to contend with on the Farnley. On other ships, the men responded to their captains and fulfilled their every wish. He’d done everything they did. He’d been just as assertive, bold, and daring. The navy wouldn’t have given him command if he couldn’t handle it. The problem had to be his officers.

  He’d tried to be their friend. He’d done everything right, but ungrateful officers like Meyers had betrayed him by openly defying his authority, and men like Ross followed their lead. The crew looked up to Meyers and Biron, not him. The crew followed them; they were suborners of his authority. I need to reassert myself and take control away from them. That will be the best for the ship and the navy. Those are my fundamental orders.

  §

  After Javert stormed off the bridge, Meyers looked at Biron and knew they had the same unspeakable thoughts. There was nothing to say, so with his eyes, he warned Biron to remain silent. Mercifully, Biron sighed, hung his head, and slowly walked away.

  Javert’s ranting shamed and appalled Meyers, but now he had more immediate problems, yet he was helpless until Ross got the generators and boiler back online.

  Meyers looked at the shadowy figures of the bridge watch standing at their posts like mute, lifeless mannequins. The unnatural silence and absence of movement on the normally busy bridge unnerved him. He wanted to make something happen, to do something.

  “Do you have any idea why we lost the boiler?” he asked Biron.

  Biron, while cleaning the circular lenses on his glasses, shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I guess someone had their thumb up their butt. In any event, you don’t want to know.”

  The response only heightened Meyers’s frustration. He fully understood its meaning. Detestable as it was, it had become the standard answer to every problem. How he hated those words, “You don’t want to know.” Every day, those words echoed in his head, reminding him he’d been unable to reverse the situation. He wanted to put it out of his mind and tried to focus his thoughts on manageable problems.

  The red lights blinked, and the static hiss of the radios returned, signaling restoration of normal ship’s power. Resigned to his next task, Meyers shrugged. “That’s my cue. I’ll be back after I talk to the captain.”

  Meyers left the bridge, descended the two levels to the main passageway, and headed aft. He didn’t look forward to meeting with Ross or Javert, both immovable personalities. Ross was another of his nagging problems. He hated to see such a good man go to waste, but he’d been unable to pull Ross out of his shell. Ross, besieged as he was, had remained agreeable until a few months ago. Since then, Ross had become increasingly recalcitrant and taciturn. Considering the supply problems, the inability to get experienced men, and the captain, he didn’t blame Ross, but knew he could never tell him that.

  He wished the world were simpler so he could say what he really thought. He couldn’t. The unpopular orders from an unapproachable captain were his problem. As executive officer, his job was to take the heat; be the captain’s lightning rod.

  As he walked down the dimly lit passageway, he felt the scratchy crunch of grit under his shoes. In the soft red light, the passageway with its beige bulkheads and deck appeared immersed in a glowing, bloody-cream-colored mist. Like rough blackened scabs, lint, dust, and dirt
adhered to the deck.

  Meyers didn’t know whether the sight made him mad, sad, or guilty. He’d never seen a ship get run down like this before, and technically he felt the ship’s filthy condition was his fault. He’d tried but wondered if the shortage of officers, the supply problems, equipment breakdowns, and the low morale were just his way of rationalizing his failure. Then there was Javert, who blocked virtually every move he made to enforce discipline. Javert was the biggest problem.

  Every time Meyers tried to assert himself, Javert went ballistic. Somehow Javert’s twisted mind concluded that Meyers’s attempts to do his job were disguised attempts to undermine the captain’s authority. Was Javert a rationalization also? Problems. Problems. He could handle any one of them alone. No one man could handle all of them at the same time. You’re doing your best. Don’t get down on yourself. Just keep trying.

  Meyers stepped out of the passageway, grabbed a nearby pipe for support, and stepped onto the vertical ladder leading to the engine room. As soon as his body was below the hatch, he felt the shift from the relatively cool evening air to the oppressive heat of the engine room with its steamy smell of hot metal.

  Meyers located Ross, who was seated with his legs hanging over the edge of a catwalk, supervising four firemen at work in the bilge. Ross ignored Meyers’s approach and kept slapping the handle of his screwdriver into the palm of his left hand.

  “What’s your status, Chief?”

  “Three hundred and thirty-two days and a wake-up, then I’m outta here.”

  Meyers couldn’t tell if Ross was trying to be funny, conversational, or sarcastic, so he decided to ignore the comment. “The pump, Chief, not you.”

  “Oh, well, looks like we seized a bearing. We’ll know soon as we get the housing off.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “If that’s what you want me to do and if I got the parts, maybe.”

  “How long?”

  “Don’t know. Like I said, we gotta get the housing off first. Sometimes the shaft’ll snap like a twig when a bearing seizes. If it’s a clean break, we’re lucky, but sometimes it gets all twisted up like a spring, and it’s a bitch to get out. Gotta wait and see.”

  “Chief, you’re not helping the situation. We gotta get moving again. What are my options?”

  “Well, if the captain had let us stop for a few minutes, we could have avoided this little fiasco, but—”

  “Chief!” Meyers warned.

  Ross pointed to a pump with his screwdriver and said, “We’re just bolting number four back together. It could be ready in twenty minutes.” Ross pointed his screwdriver at another pump and continued, “Or we can tear that one down and see if it can be fixed. What do you want me to do?”

  Perspiration was beading on Meyers’ brow, and sweat was running down his back. Ross’ deliberate obstructionism was angering Meyers, so he decided to wait Ross out and make him speak next.

  A fireman handed Ross a shiny machined steel rod about eighteen inches long with a blackened donut-shaped ring at one end. Ross carefully grabbed the hot shaft by the rags the fireman had wrapped around it and examined the shaft before holding it up for Meyers to see.

  “Tell the captain he got lucky. The bearing’s burnt to a crisp, but he didn’t break anything else.”

  Meyers felt Ross was pushing, trying to find out how far the immunity of thirty years’ service, two Purple Hearts, and the Navy Cross for heroism would extend. Irritated, Meyers said, “The captain has nothing to do with this. How long before we can get under way?”

  Ross handed the shaft back to the sailor, and with an affected tired shrug said, “Thirty minutes. Want me to fix the other one?”

  “Yes, I’ll tell the bridge you can answer bells at,” Meyers checked his watch, “twenty-two hundred hours.” Meyers paused a minute, then asked, “Do you have another bearing?”

  “Not a new one,” Ross began, giving Meyers a silly grin, “but I’ll ask the tooth fairy to put one under my pillow tonight.” Collectively, the firemen in the bilge turned away to hide their snickers.

  Ross had pushed too far. “Chief, I want to talk to you over here, in private,” Meyers said, motioning to the end of the catwalk. Ross shrugged and followed.

  “I won’t have this!” Meyers began in a low sharp voice. “I know you have your problems down here, but we all do. Under the circumstances, you’ve done better than I could have imagined, but if you don’t stop soldiering on me and stop trying to be a wiseass, I’ll put you in hack till you get out. Neither of us wants that.”

  Ross hung his head and examined his screwdriver as if it held some profound answer. After several seconds, he raised his head and trained his gray eyes directly on Meyers.

  “Sorry, XO. I just get so damned pissed about this. We can’t get this, and we can’t get that. I ask you to expedite repair parts, and I know you try, but nothing ever happens. What the hell’s the use? Seriously, XO, this ain’t my navy anymore, not the one I know. I just want to do my time and get out, but I’m not sure I’ll live that long. Do you realize the captain could’ve killed someone down here?”

  “What?”

  Ross looked at Meyers closely and asked, “You didn’t know, did you?” Ross pointed into the bilge where the men were working and said, “This didn’t happen suddenly. We knew it was coming, and I asked the bridge to stop, but the captain said no. Things got downright hairy. Tell the captain that if it weren’t for Stucky and Burns, the turbines would’ve come apart and the shrapnel would still be ricocheting around down here. If that had happened, you’d be counting body bags, not pumps.”

  Meyers’ heart was pounding, and the heat built in his face again. He wasn’t angry with Ross, or Javert, or anybody. He was angry with something that lacked identity or shape, and that only added to his anger. There was no adversary to attack, no specific problem to solve. He could identify his enemy only as a shapeless, anonymous, insensitive something.

  Meyers wanted to respond but couldn’t. Anything he said would be wrong, so without a word, he turned and walked toward the ladder.

  Ross walked slowly back to his men who had been watching. “What’s a’ matter with him?” one asked in an accusatory voice.

  “Stow it!” Ross yelled. “The XO’s got the hardest job on the ship. He’s caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

  §

  Meyers needed time to calm down before he spoke with Javert. He considered himself a good judge of character and had believed the navy would never give a man like Javert a command; or so he’d thought.

  He understood that commanders had to take risks and gamble the lives of their men in critical situations. The life of every man was important to Meyers. He accepted the risk-taking within limits, but Javert had risked lives merely to be on time for a gunnery exercise. It was senseless, and he couldn’t comprehend the twisted logic. He wondered if he was missing something, but concluded no worthwhile captain would risk life needlessly. It was just another example of Javert’s unsuitability for command.

  Javert’s actions frustrated him, but losing his temper in front of the captain would only do more damage. Meyers tried to redirect his anger by reminding himself that, in the final analysis, Javert wasn’t the real problem. It was the navy that had given him a command, then had promptly gone dumb, deaf, blind, and stark raving crazy.

  Knocking on Javert’s door, he called out, “Captain,” and entered.

  “Enter,” Javert said in a deep, raspy voice while blinking the sleepiness from his eyes.

  “We’ll be back under way at twenty-two hundred hours, about fifteen minutes from now. Ross is bringing pump four online. Pump two will take some time to fix.”

  “Why didn’t Ross have the other pump running?” Javert asked, propping up his body and crossing his arms across his chest.

  The question surprised Meyers. They had been over this yesterday before leaving Elefsis. He assumed Javert was still disoriented from his nap. “The men had it torn down for repairs,
Captain, and were just getting it back together. Remember his status report when we got under way from Elefsis?”

  “What about tomorrow?”

  “No problem, Captain. We’ll be about ten miles from where we wanted to be, but we’ll be well within the firing area. Biron has the new course, and I updated the night orders.”

  “Good, thank you,” Javert said, lying back down.

  At sea, captains, even Javert, were lucky to get three hours’ sleep a day and had to catnap anytime they could to survive. Myers hated to intrude on Javert’s sleep, but he persisted. “There is another item, Captain,” he said, handing Javert the breakdown message.

  Javert immediately recognized it and sat up. “XO, we’ve been over this dozens of times, and you know I won’t release this. I told you that on the bridge. My job and your job is to get the job done with as little muss and fuss as possible, and not bother my superiors with your problems. When will you learn that, XO?”

  Meyers was uncomfortable standing over Javert, so he squatted before answering. “Captain, the regulations are clear. Look, we’ve got lots of problems here and we both know that. I know you don’t want to bitch to squadron or fleet, but this is one polite way to tell them we’re having problems. They can help, but first they have to know our status.”

  “You’re no different from the last engineering officer,” Javert yelled, getting to his feet. “He kept fighting with me over regulations because, just like you, he didn’t understand that every regulation was written for a good reason and must be obeyed. He kept pestering me about supply problems. Then, he demanded… demanded that I shake up the supply system and get him the parts he wanted. Other engineering officers get the job done, but he couldn’t. That’s what he was trying to cover up. That’s why I threw him off my ship, and if you don’t watch out, you’ll be next.”