“I understand the doctor wants you to rest up a few days. Well, I have to shift my flag. We are going over to the Wisconsin tomorrow. While these guys make some temporary repairs, you stay aboard and heal up. In four days I will send a helicopter to pick you up and bring you over to rejoin us. Take a break, Rod. Of all my staff, you deserve it,” Hustvedt said.
Jeffers said, “Thanks,” then made his way back to his stateroom.
“Okay, what do you suggest?” asked Captain Rhodes. The ship now had over 400 Russian sailors aboard. There weren’t enough racks aboard for each to have his own bed, so there had to be some compromises.
The Supply Officer scratched his cheek. “Well, we do have space for an admiral’s staff, but nowhere near enough. Out of the whole ship, I might be able to dig up about seventy spaces. For the officers we can bring in about ten. I’ll put three in the admiral’s cabin with some sleeping on the couches. Your sentry might not like the idea of having them that close, but they’ll have to get over it. I can put some of their senior enlisted in with the chiefs in their lounge. We can request some extra mattresses to put around the messdecks or down in the storage lockers, but mostly these guys will have to hot bunk it. That means 12 on and 12 off. I would suggest we transfer some to the other ships with us and then ask for an amphib to come take them all off. In the meantime, what do we do with them when they are awake? We can’t keep them down in the messdecks all day. I won’t be able to feed the crew,” he suggested.
“This could be a major security risk,” said the CO of the Marine Detachment. “If some of these guys wanted to damage the ship or do something rash, there wouldn’t be much to stop them if we let them roam free.”
“Yea, but aside from Strike and a few other spaces what’s classified aboard the ship?” asked the engineer. “And with our guys around, they will be watched round the clock.”
Boats Patnaude grunted. “Hell, why don’t we put them to work?”
Rhodes lifted his eyebrows. “What are you thinking Boats?”
Patnaude didn’t back down. “Captain, we have maintenance to do and spaces to get clean. I even have a mess to clean up back aft. I say we portion out some of the crew’s work and get some things done. It will let us keep them busy and keep an eye on them as well,” he said.
“What about the Geneva Convention? I’m not sure we can work these guys,” said the Operations Officer.
“Not if we make it a volunteer thing,” said Rhodes. “It will need to be just some general maintenance but that might work, especially since our crewmen would be there with them.”
“I can even take some to care for the sick Russians in sickbay,” said Doc Dickerson.
Rhodes nodded. “Okay we put them to work. Volunteer only, but I would say they should be getting pretty bored sitting on a steel deck by now with nothing to do. I want every department to come up with a plan to use some of these guys. Let’s get them busy as soon as we can. In the meantime, in addition to seeing about a new First Lieutenant, I’ll get off a request for mattresses of some kind to get these guys a place to sleep. I like the idea of using our storage lockers as berthing. They’re open and ventilated. We can work out head access and showers. Now how do we communicate with these guys?”
“A bunch of them speak some English,” said the Supply Officer. “They can translate to the others. Turns out, they teach English in their schools.”
“Then make this work, people,” said Rhodes. “Keep these guys busy until we can figure a way to get them off the ship. It may take a week or so, so do as best you can.”
The phone woke Jeffers from his sleep. He was still dog tired, but even a short nap had seemed to do some good. He picked up the phone.
“Lieutenant Commander Jeffers, this is Petty Officer Carter, in sickbay.”
“Yes, Carter, what’s up?” he asked groggily.
“Sir, your friend, Lieutenant Chambers asked for you to bring his guitar down to sickbay,” she said. There was something in her voice that caught Jeffers’ attention.
“Sure. What’s it about” he asked.
There was a pause on the line. “Sir, you really need to bring it down. Bring yours as well. I’ll explain when you get here,” she said in a sad tone.
Jeffers sat up in his bed. “On my way,” he said as he hung up the phone. Putting his uniform back on, he grabbed his guitar and headed down the passageway to Chambers’ stateroom. The door was unlocked and he saw the guitar sitting in the corner. With both in hand, he made his way back to sickbay, and hoped his friend only wanted to play for the troops.
Petty Officer Carter was waiting for him when he arrived. Instead of taking him to his friend, she took him back to the doctor’s office.
“Thanks for coming back,” the Doc said. “I wouldn’t bring you back unless I felt it was important.” He sat Jeffers down the chair. “Your friend Chambers is dying. His damage control party was fighting the fires in the hangar deck. After personally rescuing about ten sailors out of a compartment, a fuel line ruptured and sprayed flames all over the place. He still went in and brought out one more, but not without getting seriously burned. The burns I could deal with, but he was caught in the flames and inhaled the fire. His lungs are giving up. There’s nothing we can do for him but make him comfortable. When he asked for you, I had Carter call,” he said.
Jeffers looked stricken. They had talked about this only the night before. He wasn’t sure he could handle it. He looked up at the doctor. “Is there nothing that can be done?”
The doctor shook his head. “Not even if we were at Johns Hopkins. The only thing I can do is ease the pain. I’m sorry.”
Jeffers let out a sigh. “I better get in there then,” he said.
He left the office and Carter took him to a separate room where there were only two bunks. The top was empty. Carter warned him that Chambers had also been blinded by the flames, and to be prepared for the worst.
Chambers lay on the bunk propped up almost to a sitting position. His whole head was burned. There was no hair on his face or head and everything looked a mottled red and yellow. His neck looked the same up to where his uniform had protected him. Chambers’ eyes were opened, but the corneas were white where they too had been burned. As they stepped into the room, Chambers turned his head slightly and asked, “Who’s there?”
Despite the hurt he felt, Jeffers put on a smile. “You look like shit,” he said.
A smile came over Chambers’ face. “Hey. Glad you made it,” he said. Chambers lifted his hand and took Jeffers’ in it. There were no burns on his hands because of the gloves he had worn. Jeffers took his hand in both of his.
“Got into trouble again, didn’t you,” Jeffers said.
“You know me,” said Chambers with a grin. The speech caused him to start coughing. There was blood in the cough. It sprayed over the white sheets. After a few seconds he stopped and lay back. He used a towel in his other hand to dab around his mouth soaking up more blood.
After a short time to catch his breath, he asked, “Remember what we talked about last night?”