Spichovich nodded. “She and I go way back. She owed me a favor.”
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Weapons Officer?”
“Maybe I am, Chief Engineer.”
“You’d better hope Lipstick doesn’t guess the truth,” Lewinsky said, looking at the wardroom door.
“When I talk to the XO when he wakes up in an hour,” Spichovich said. “I’ll tell him I need Pacino on my watch section to supervise his quals and watchstanding. He’ll take Patch off her afternoon watch and put the boy on my evening watch.”
“You think he’ll figure out the real reason?”
“Eng, the XO misses nothing. I assure you, he already knows.”
“Polliwog Lipstick, King Neptune commands you to rise to your feet and stand here next to the Polliwog captain of this fine ship!” Quinnivan’s Irish brogue was comically thick and dripping with obscene pleasure.
Lieutenant Anthony Pacino was kneeling on the vibrating, trembling deck of the crews’ mess, the ship shaking from the power of the propulsor pushing against the thrust bearing deep inside the aft compartment, propelling the submarine through the deep sea at thirty-two knots, the speed she made at one hundred percent reactor power at all-ahead flank, full-out. The deck was cold on his bare knees. The tables had been unbolted and stowed, creating a large open space in the ship. Pacino’s wrists were taped together in front of him with five turns of duct tape. He wore a blindfold and his underwear and nothing else. He was smeared with a mushy mix of jello, pasta sauce, soggy spaghetti and the remains of a fish dinner. Louisiana hot sauce ran down his soaked hair into his eyes. In his mouth was a sock that had been soaked in an awful tasting liquid they’d named “Kickapoo Joy Juice.” He was trying hard not to retch.
Pacino did as instructed, the trip from the deck to standing complicated by his tied hands and blindfold, but he was shoved next to Captain Seagraves, who was in the same situation, minus the dirty sock. Next Quinnivan called Navigator Romanov to her feet and she was shoved next to Pacino, the barest impression reaching him that Rachel Romanov stood next to him in nothing but bra and panties, her warm, soft skin a hairsbreadth from his own. U-Boat Dankleff, Easy Eisenhart and Gangbanger Ganghadharan were summoned to their feet and shoved roughly next to the navigator. King Neptune then called upon the Polliwog chiefs to rise to their feet. Chief Firecontrolman Kim, Senior Chief Mechanic Krevin, Radioman Chief Goreliki and Chief Sonarman Albanese were all pushed into the group of officers. Then the first class petty officers, the second class and finally the third class, until all sixty-some Polliwogs stood in front of the King.
“Attention to orders, you scurvy, lower-than-whaleshit Polliwogs!” Quinnivan read from a long text of arcane nautical prose, something handed down centuries ago from the traditions of square-rigged sailing ships, finishing just before the 1MC shipwide announcing system clicked and the deep booming voice of the chief engineer, Elvis Lewinsky, blasted from the mess deck loudspeaker.
“Attention all hands, this is the Officer of the Deck. In ten seconds, the good ship Vermont will cross the equator at longitude west twenty-four degrees, fifteen minutes and twelve seconds. All you Polliwog scum, prepare to become Trusted Shellbacks. Three seconds, two, one, equator crossing! Welcome to the South Atlantic, Shellbacks. That is all.”
“Polliwogs,” Quinnivan shouted. “Remove your blindfolds!”
Pacino did as ordered, blushing as he looked at the other underwear-clad officers, chiefs and petty officers. He couldn’t help noticing Romanov kept her eyes straight ahead, not looking at Pacino. “King Neptune” Quinnivan was costumed in a flowing green cape, purple coveralls, tall rubber Wellington boots and a large gold crown, holding a long scepter with a three-pointed trident at the end.
“Any of you with socks in your mouths, remove the socks and stomp them into the deck!”
Feeling like an idiot, Pacino complied, smashing his bare foot onto the damp sock.
“Now, all of you, give me the USS Vermont battle cry!”
“It never happened!” they all shouted in unison, Pacino screaming with the rest. “We were never there!”
“What? I can’t hear you,” Quinnivan said, cupping his hand to his ear. Three more times he made the crowd repeat the battle cry until finally he looked at them with deep satisfaction. “By the power vested in me by the Universe, the United States Navy and Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, I hereby pronounce you, all of you, Trusted Shellbacks. Congratulations, Shellbacks!”
The veteran Shellback members of the crew clapped and cheered, laughing at them.
“Now get the fook out of here and clean your ragged asses up,” Quinnivan barked.
Pacino waited for Navigator Romanov to finish in the head, then a few minutes more for the more senior junior officers to shower, then jumped in and shampooed the hot sauce out of his hair.
“This is nothing,” Eisenhart said, toweling his hair. “Wait till we cross the Arctic Circle. Now there’s a crossing ceremony.”
“I can wait,” Pacino said.
“Pacino!” Commander Quinnivan bellowed, leaning into the supply officer’s door to the wardroom. “My stateroom! Now!”
U-Boat Dankleff and Lobabes Lomax glanced up at Pacino from the remains of their breakfast dishes. Pacino had skipped working out this morning. The “Grand Convening of the Polliwog Scum” had started at midnight UTC — Zulu time — and had gone on until the crossing at 0140. After all that, Pacino hadn’t seen his bunk until two in the morning and had barely slept but for a short, disturbed dream that the navigator was glaring at him.
“Great way to start the day,” U-Boat smirked, grabbing the coffee carafe.
“Could be worse,” Lomax said. “DCA, what are the nine most frightening words in the English language?”
Dankleff laughed. “‘The captain wants to see you in his stateroom.’”
“Exactly.”
Pacino grabbed his tablet, pushed his chair in and stepped forward to the supply officer’s door, then down the narrow passageway until he reached the XO’s stateroom door. He knocked twice.
“Come in!” Quinnivan shouted.
Pacino entered and shut the door quickly but quietly behind him and stood at attention. “Yes, sir,” he said, staring at the bulkhead straight ahead, reminded of a Naval Academy comearound.
“Relax, Patch, and take a seat. Tea? Coffee?”
What was this all about, Pacino wondered as he sat in the chair next to the XO. Being summoned to the senior officer’s stateroom had made his stomach melt in anxiety, and now Quinnivan offered coffee? Pacino considered saying no to the offer, but thought it would make the atmosphere colder.
“A black-and-bitter would be great, sir, thank you.”
Quinnivan smiled and dialed the galley and asked them to have the messenger of the watch send up coffee. Almost within seconds, a knock came at the door and the messenger — obviously anticipating the executive officer’s habits — brought in a carafe and two cups. Quinnivan frowned at the messenger. “What took ya so long, lad?”
The messenger hastily withdrew, and Quinnivan poured for himself and Pacino. Pacino waited for the exec to say something and reveal why he’d ordered the meeting, but the XO just took a deep pull of the brew and looked at the cup.
“You know why this cup — this simple conveyance of a hot beverage — has two blue lines on it drawn parallel to the rim?” The Pyrex white cup was inelegant, a simple cup adorned only with two blue lines.