When Lewis and Clark got under way for the next patrol, Mary possessed his undying love and the ring that had been given to him by his grandmother.
When Lewis and Clark returned to Holy Loch, he went directly to her flat, racing up the stairs and through the door like the lovesick puppy that he was. The man in bed with Mary claimed that he’d paid for the entire night but had no interest in a fight. He had no objection if Peter wanted his ring back, so he calmly pulled on his skivvies and headed down the hall for a hot tub.
Each year that passed dimmed memories of pretty, sweet Mary and her lovely accent, until there were months that he never thought about her. Nor did he ever interfere with the painful love lives of his junior officers. His grandmother’s ring remained buried deeply in his jewelry box. Peter remained a contented bachelor.
Yet there was also a contrariness surrounding the XO. At sea he was considered an exceptional submariner, an action-oriented officer who would relish contact with an enemy boat. He especially enjoyed the SEALs who came aboard his submarines, although their stays were short. They were rarely aboard longer than it took to transport them to their lockout point near an unfriendly coast, but he found them more interesting to him personally. Their attitudes were the same as his.
Too many of the younger officers were inordinately intense, no matter whether they were qualifying for their dolphins or competing to become a department head before their peers. It was always a race for them — yet it shouldn’t have been a race, not from Simonds’s view. Regardless of their abilities on paper, too many of this new breed never seemed to become an integral, functioning unit of the submarine, no matter how hard they worked. Peter Simonds wore a submarine like a second skin. He was a natural. And he also took the time to learn from people beyond the submarine navy — like the SEALs.
Simonds found Lieutenant Commander Burch, the SEAL they plucked from the ocean, where he expected he would — in the torpedo room. It was the last space the XO was checking for extraneous noise. He already knew it was secure and there would be no noise until the time came to reload tubes. And at that point such sounds would no longer matter. The torpedo room was also where Simonds knew he’d run into Burch because SEALs found any unfamiliar weapon a challenge.
“I suppose if there was an easy entrance to that missile launcher tucked way up in the bow, I’d have to crawl up there to find you.” There was almost always a happy lilt to Simonds’s hoarse voice. “Can you imagine someone my size crawling through that access trunk just to shoot the shit with you?” He laughed.
There was a single, small hatch leading from the torpedo room into the missile space located all the way forward on the lower level. There were twelve vertical tubes, each one containing a Tomahawk cruise missile, set between the pressure bull and the sonar sphere separating the torpedo room from the bow.
Burch had recognized the other “natural,” in addition to Manchester’s captain, within an hour after he’d come aboard. He understood intuitively why Ben Steel was so confident in leaving the control room to Simonds during the search phase. “I haven’t been shown the missiles, but I’ll take your word for it.” The chief torpedoman was nearby, arms draped comfortably over one of his weapons. “The chief’s been teaching me how to ride one of these devils.”
The torpedo room was the entire width of the submarine, and the area up to the tubes and the instrument panel was mostly for torpedo storage. The torpedoes, close to two feet in diameter and twenty feet long, were cradled on hydraulically operated racks that could be adjusted to shift the weapons from their original storage place to a position where they could be loaded into the tubes. The four tubes, two on each side, canted outward at an angle, surrounded by a mass of gauges, valves, and piping. Between the tubes were the torpedomen’s control stations. The actual firing was done from the control room, although it could be done by hand from the torpedo room in an emergency.
“Are you getting aboard one of those fish before or after it leaves the tubes?” Simonds wandered over and leaned casually against the same torpedo as the SEAL.
Burch was a stocky individual, all shoulders and chest and muscles. “You flatter me. The chief explained what it was like inside one of those tubes. A bit of a tight fit. Looks like I’d have to catch it on the way by.”
The XO pushed his glasses back on his nose. “It’s comfortable in here, isn’t it? Smells good, too. Other than preparing for a firing sequence, I’d prefer to be in here myself.” He took a deep breath and inhaled the intoxicating aroma of grease and metal. “You ought to be here when they’re reloading. Less than seven minutes from the time we fire until we’re ready again. Not quite as fast as being in a gun mount but a hell of a lot more exciting.”
“The chief tells me he can do it a hell of a lot faster.”
“That’s when we don’t have any observers aboard with their goddamn checklists. Seven minutes is what we tell the paper pushers in the commodore’s office. They like doctrine. When the chief’s not running by the book, then it’s really something. Oh, shit,” he exclaimed happily, “you ought to see them when we’re going through an attack sequence — setting up the target solution, firing, maneuvering to avoid counterfire. Christ. Ben Steel drives this thing like a race car, diving, high-speed turns, everything. Then he’s calling down here for the next firing run, never figuring that all these guys have had a chance to do is hold on for dear life. And the chief almost always tells him he’s got at least two tubes ready.” He slapped the side of one of the torpedoes and pushed his glasses back again. “You’d love it,” he said hoarsely.
Burch asked the chief, “How about it? I’m an odd man out on this boat. Need an extra body if the shooting starts? Maybe we can break your record.”
“Well, sir, I figure we’re faster than any boat in SUBPAC now. When the XO reported aboard he promised me we’d be the fastest because he said there was no reason for a submarine if we couldn’t sink everything that came anywhere near us.” He winked at Burch. “He also said I’d end up on shore duty on some ice station counting polar bears if we weren’t the best. What do you think, XO?”
“Not only are you now the best, Chief, you have just been given the opportunity of hiring a SEAL to improve on that. I’ve always had a love affair with these guys myself.”
“You’ve got a deal, sir.” The chief reached across the torpedo to shake Burch’s hand. “Think we’re going to be able to use these babies, XO?”
“That’s a promise, Chief.” Then the XO headed back toward the control room, knowing be would find Steel close by in sonar.
Ben Steel was peering over a sonarman’s shoulder and he sensed his XO’s presence rather than heard him. He removed the large set of sonar headphones and hunched his back to stretch tight muscles. “I was looking for you a minute ago, XO. ID the torpedo room again?”
“The only place on this ship that smells better is the galley, and I sure as hell have been trying to avoid that place,” Simonds answered. “What’s up, Captain?”
“Nothing other than prying, even though I know the job’s already been done. Maybe it’s nerves in my old age.” Steel cocked his head to one side. “Any new and interesting sounds we’re sending through the hull to the curious?”
“Not a thing. This old boat’s quiet as the proverbial church mouse. The way we’re creeping along, we’d have to be clanging away on that church bell to attract any attention.” He pushed his glasses back on his nose. “We covered every inch of the ship, Captain.” As self noise was reduced, even those sounds normally unnoticed by humans, sensor detection range increased. Aboard SSBN’s a computer identified every self noise other than those in the baseline survey.