The quartermaster’s line of advance and each position marked with a tiny X on the invisible sheet of plastic covering the chart were straight and efficient. His efforts were normal. All quartermasters tested themselves against the computers. The computers were always correct. The exact position of an SSBN was absolutely critical from one moment to the next since they might be ordered to fire a missile at any time. An incorrect position fed into that missile would mean a complete miss after traveling up to six thousand miles — and for all they knew, the single mistake could mean the end of their country. It was sensible to indulge the quartermasters, not to mention the technicians who maintained the navigational equipment.
So every five minutes the time to course change continued to be summarily announced, and in time visually noted by each member of the watch able to pass by the chart table. At precisely five minutes beforehand the OOD, without realizing why he did it, called the captain in his cabin to inform him of the maneuver.
Buck Nelson was stretched out in his narrow bunk, his pillow carefully folded in half under his head. His original intention had been commendable — to read until he was called to the control room. The light still burned over his head. Some of the handful of papers he’d been reading had slipped off his chest onto the deck when he fell asleep. For a moment the harsh buzzing of the phone became an integral part of a fitful, already forgotten dream, before it gradually dragged him from the oblivion of an exhausted sleep.
Nelson mumbled into the mouthpiece, “Captain here.” The remaining sheets of paper slid off his chest as he rose on one elbow out of habit. “Very well,” he responded, “come to your new course on schedule,” without wondering why he was called.
He hung up the phone and allowed his head to slump back on the pillow for a moment. Waking like that reminded him of the few times he’d been drunk. Buck Nelson accepted the reality of command — never sleeping more than two hours at a time at sea. It was a fact of life. But he would never come to terms with the disconcerting effect of that buzzing phone jarring him awake. That was another fact of life that had no doubt raised his blood pressure every time it jolted him like that. It was something you put up with. A standard course-change report could just as easily be an emergency call — a torpedo in the water! Silly to think about. Yes. But that buzzer sure as hell got your attention, no matter what the reason.
There wasn’t the slightest reason to get out of his bunk for a course change. The OOD had completed the same maneuver a thousand times, and this one would be no different. The point Nelson was making to himself at the same time he felt for his pulse was that commanding officers who reacted to every single evolution aboard their vessels probably weren’t going to continue in that position for long.
Yes, his pulse rate was faster than it should have been. It couldn’t have been that “all ships” message that implied in as few words as possible that an increased alert had been set — no reason why. Relax. That’s it… relax. He’d seen those messages too often. Like all captains, he was certain they were sent by shore-based officers who had nothing better to do. The one he’d worry about would be the launch message. The soul of the engineer took over, relaying the messages to the body, explaining that tension was a state of mind. Only type-A personalities, highly nervous individuals, allowed the tension to rise like that. That was why they weren’t fit to command a boomer. But Buck Nelson is.
If the pressures that were integral to commanding a war machine as lethal as Florida got to any of the C.O.’s for more than a couple of patrols, it would turn up in their physicals. It didn’t matter whether it was found out by one of the meticulous physicians responsible for the health of the men who commanded the boomers, or one of the shrinks who would ask something stupid just before delivering an incisive, demanding question out of left field that dug into your very soul. They had their ways — they learned pretty quick if that tremendous responsibility was getting to the man.
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. Then another. And another. That’s it. Nelson, relax. You have earned this fantastic ship and you don’t want to screw things up with something as dumb as tension … nerves.
This was the ultimate job in the Navy, as far as he was concerned. He was willing to argue that with anyone who claimed it was carriers. When you were promoted out of a boomer, there were big things ahead … as far as status was concerned. Your first star was most likely on the horizon. That was making it. But that star was nothing like command at sea; nothing was quite like command of a Trident ballistic-missile submarine, command of the most powerful weapon yet devised by man.
If an SSBN functioned as it was designed, it would never launch a missile in anger. It would deter. It would simply run around a box in a designated sector and its awesome capabilities would deter the other guy from challenging the effect of more D-5 ballistic missiles than would ever be necessary to wipe mankind from the face of the earth.
That was why it was the ultimate job — because as a single individual you served your country as well as any man ever had if you remained hidden from the other guy and the threat of your missiles kept him in line … just as his kept your nation’s leaders in line. You were accomplishing more than all those people on Capitol Hill simply by the fact that you and your crew and your submarine existed and deterred the other guy. And if you were able to perform that job of deterrence, you were eventually promoted up and out of the best job in the Navy!
Nelson felt for his pulse again. Good. It was slowing down. Relax. That goddamn buzzer could give a man gray hair.
It would be nice to receive a star. Nelson admitted, even nicer to have some Pentagon job where he could get home for dinner with Cindy most nights.
But if that weren’t going to happen, what would he do? The Navy didn’t keep passed-over captains around forever, He’d always wanted to teach, and to get the type of position he’d dreamed of was only worthwhile if you had a doctorate. That’s what Nelson had really been after years earlier — that one final year to complete his doctorate. It didn’t hurt his career either. With that, along with command of an SSBN, there was a certainty of career movement in the right direction. He could be teaching now. But the Navy needed commanding officers, and Buck Nelson had received superior grades on his fitness reports in each command he’d had. So he’d wait.
Cindy did love that academic atmosphere. Oh, how she’d loved MIT and the Boston area. Because they were both older than the average graduate students when the Navy sent him off to Cambridge, it was almost like being part of the faculty. And he did teach some undergraduate classes. As a matter of fact, the two of them used to laugh together after those faculty parties when they were treated like a member of the department — even though Buck was technically a candidate for his doctorate. Yet he was making more money as a student than his professors!
He’d even thought once about resigning in order to teach. But a few weeks in an academic community changed his mind at his age. He learned how they treated each other at department meetings, when tenure was being considered, when applications for graduate admission were being considered. That had settled it. He was Navy. There was no comparison. The men you worked with in submarines were his kind of people, even if a lot of them were no longer interested in advanced degrees. On the other hand, a lot of the professors he met were okay … but sure as hell not out of the same mold. Don’t give up the idea, old boy. a voice murmured from the recesses of his mind. If Bill Crowe could make Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, there’s room for one more egghead at the top.