There had been an ever increasing bite to Brighting’s words, and now the insult direct. Rich could feel his adrenaline flow increasing. But he had anticipated this. He would not succumb to Brighting’s famous baiting tactics. He was willing to become a supplicant, was one already. He had already decided he would beg, if necessary. If Brighting insisted on it. He would choke, but he would do it. “Admiral,” he said evenly, as evenly as he could, “please! Nobody knows I’m here. I came over here on my own, to beg your help. I am begging. If you’ll give me a chance, I guarantee you’ll be pleased with my performance, both in training and in New London afterward.”
“What makes you think your performance one way or the other means anything to me?”
There was pressure on the back of Richardson’s neck. He would not be able to stand this much longer. “Admiral, when I first came over to talk about this, you told me you agreed that ComSubRon Ten should get nuclear training. What has happened, sir? Won’t you at least tell me what changed your mind?” This would have to be his final effort.
“I don’t have to tell you anything. I didn’t ask you to come over here. You might consider that it costs thousands of dollars to put one man through my course. I’m responsible for the proper use of that money. You have only a few more years of service before you either retire or they make an admiral out of you. Either way, you’ll have no further use for anything we could teach you. After thinking it over, I decided it would be a waste of government funds.”
“But Admiral,” Rich began desperately, “you told me it was going to be your policy from now on that commanders of nuclear squadrons would be nuclear-trained—”
“Thank you for coming to see me,” Brighting interrupted. He made one last penciled mark in the loose-leaf binder, put it down, picked up another book from his desk, leaned back in his chair and began to read.
“I don’t know how I got out of there without saying something really disrespectful,” Rich told Laura. “He was arrogant and contemptuous. I can’t remember when I’ve been so mad!”
Laura was lying with her arms around him, her head pillowed on his chest. “He was brutal to you,” she agreed, “but there’s more to it than that.”
“He had his mind made up before I got there, that was obvious, and it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have much use for me. After today, I don’t have much for him, either. That won’t worry him a great deal, but I sure agree with you. There’s more to it, and he’s a strange character. I wasn’t even sure he was completely serious, at least not until near the end. For a while I thought he might be testing me somehow, sort of working me over to see how I’d react. That’s routine, Deacon Jones says.”
“Is there any chance he might still be playing some strange game with you?”
“Not anymore. I practically got down on my knees to him, and I think that’s what he wanted, probably. But he turned me down flat, and he was pretty final about it. What I can’t figure out, in spite of what he said, is why he changed his mind. He had plenty of time to think about me. My name was on his desk a month before my first interview with him.”
“You don’t really believe he thinks you’re too old?” Imperceptibly, Laura’s arms tightened. Her head rolled forward, enough for a fluttered eyelash to tickle.
“He knows darned well I’m not too old, and so do you.” He drew her face to his, kissed her full on the mouth. Her lips parted, opened wide and drew him in, as she kissed him back.
Later, when he was nearly asleep, Rich heard her whisper, “I know what the problem is, darling. He’s afraid of you.” She tenderly kissed the back of his hand, held it to her cheek.
“Rich,” Deacon Jones said, “thanks for letting me bust in on you and your family at home like this. Don’t let on I said this — you too, Laura — but I think I know what happened between Brighting and my big boss. Admiral Scott called him on the telephone that afternoon to talk about increasing the total number of nukey poohs. Scott’s been big for this for a long time. He wants all submariners to be nuclear-trained as soon as possible. Eventually the same for all surface engineers, too. In a few years, he thinks, all our submarines will be nuclear, and so will most of our surface combatants. Brighting blew up, because when that happens he won’t have control over who gets anointed, and he knows damn good and well that’s exactly what Scott had in mind.” Jones, in charge of the assignment of submarine officers, was a phlegmatic, serious individual who fit the characteristics imputed by his nickname. As was well known, he had had his troubles administering his job and keeping Admiral Brighting happy too. More than once, in frustration, he had threatened to quit and go back to the farm of his birth. His unhappiness had to be great at this moment, Rich knew, for him to unburden himself to this extent.
“I should think Brighting would want the whole Navy to go nuclear, and the sooner the better. That would be a big personal triumph for him!” Rich said.
“You don’t know Brighting, obviously. He’s made a career of being opposed by the Navy. It’s true that early in the game he had some tough times. Some of them were damn well deserved, too. But he’s been king of the roost for years now, and he does it mainly through controlling the selection of those who get nuked and those who don’t. Nothing else in the Navy has ever worked this way. Assignments are supposed to be the job of BuPers. They are, for everything else. He gets away with it because you can’t have a nuke — you can’t even be aboard — unless you’re a nukey pooh. Also, he’s a holy terror with the civilian contractors working for him, but that’s not my worry.”
“What does this all have to do with me, Deac? Even if it’s all true, it doesn’t affect me. I’m not fighting any personnel battle. That’s up to the people wearing stars. I’m just a four-striper.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Rich. This is what I’m trying to show you. You’re already a captain. You could be an admiral and have your own stars in a couple of years, if the selection board is as smart as it’s supposed to be. You’re the senior person to apply for nukedom. Scott has been supporting your application for all he’s worth. We all think it would be one hell of a great thing for you and the Navy.”
“So what, dammit!”
“So you must be dumber than I thought. Remind me to make a notation on your detail card. You’ve got a Congressional Medal of Honor. You’re a big hotshot skipper of the war. When your name came up for Squadron Ten, Scott personally checked your record from one end to the other before he let us go ahead. So, you’re the chief’s number-one spear carrier in this little fracas. And what do you think Brighting did when all of a sudden Scott’s call let him figure this out?”
“Crossed me off his list?”
“He drew a line through your name that very minute and had the list retyped. That’s one of the things Scott was so furious about. You did Brighting a huge favor, by the way, when you tried to wheedle him into changing his mind. If you’d told me ahead of time, I’d have broken your arm to keep you from going over there.”
“How’s that?”
Jones’ tone of friendly exasperation grew more pronounced. There was a strange expression on his normally composed face. “You only gave Mr. Nukey Bumps his latest chance to show the whole U.S. Navy who its real boss is, that’s all! You think your visit was a secret? I heard about it half an hour after he threw you out. On the carpet in Scott’s office, by the way. That’s why I thought I’d come over here on the QT. By tomorrow the whole Navy will know about it, and Scott is about ready to have you shot at sunrise!”
“It seems to me your chief could have left well enough alone, too, Deac. Calling up Brighting to talk about increasing nuclear quotas right then was not very smart. That’s what did me in, and it also wrecked this little scheme that I was a patsy for. If he shoots anybody, he ought to shoot himself, not me!”