One of these boats had just pulled in. Mimi joined the crowd assembled beside this vessel’s stern as the crew opened the fish locker and began throwing more than a dozen shiny grey bonitos onto the dock. This solidly built fish was of the tuna family, and each one weighed well over thirty pounds. The two proud fishermen responsible for this catch climbed out of the cabin with bottles of beer in hand. Both were slightly overweight white men in their mid-forties. They wore tennis shorts. Polo shirts, and New York Mets baseball caps, with their exposed skin reddened from the sun.
“I’ll take odds that they won’t even bother takin’ home a single filet,” broke a gravelly voice on Mimi’s right.
She looked over to see who had uttered these words, and set her eyes on a silver-haired black man, with a weather-beaten face and kind brown eyes. He wore a yachting cap on his head, of the type made popular by the famed band leader. Count Bassie, and when he saw that he had an audience, succinctly added, “Looks like I’ll be eatin’ good tonight.”
“You don’t mean to say that they’re merely going to give these fish away, after all the expense of catching them,” asked Mimi.
“It sure appears that way, missy,” replied the oldtimer, who grinned and displayed two prominent front teeth made from glistening dental gold.
“What a waste,” reflected Mimi as the crowd began to thin out when the last bonito was pulled from the locker.
The captain of the vessel could be seen shaking hands with his satisfied passengers. He was a big man, with solid, muscular shoulders, and long, curly blond hair, and Mimi decided to wait until the fishermen had departed before asking him the price of a charter.
She stood there on the pier, and watched as the black man who had spoken to her earlier asked one of the vessel’s crew members a question. He must have gotten a positive response, for he broke out in a warm smile and proceeded to pick up a bonito by its tail. He then dragged this fish to an adjoining slip, where a battered, thirty-foot-long wooden trawler was moored.
With a light step, he boarded this ship, ducked into its interior cabin, and emerged seconds later holding a knife.
He broke out whistling as he climbed back onto the dock. Mimi recognized the melody as “Summertime,” from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. This had always been one of her favorite tunes, and she watched him bend down beside the bonito and begin expertly filleting it.
“You look like you’ve done this kind of work before,” remarked Mimi casually.
“I guess you could say that I have, missy. You see, my pappy taught me da proper way of cutting’ up a fish, not long after I first learnt to talk. And I sure been puttin’ this lesson to work ever since, ‘specially since the good Lord saw fit to provide me with my very own fishin’ boat.”
Mimi looked to the wooden trawler and responded to this.
“Do you mean to say that this is your boat?”
“It sure is, missy. I call her Sunshine, for her warm disposition. Charter trips down into da keys are my specialty, and if it’s tarpon you’d be wantin’ at a fair price, you’ve come to da right place.”
Though Mimi had her mind set on a more modern vessel, she liked this oldtimer’s style and once more she went with her instincts.
“I’m not interested in fishing, though I am looking for a boat to take me and a friend to Andros Island.”
“I know those waters well, missy. My cousin Sherman runs a fishin’ camp outside of Nicholls Town. It’s nothin’ fancy mind you, but on a clear night you can see all da way over da Tongue of da Ocean, to the lights of Nassau.”
“Is the Sunshine available tomorrow evening?” asked Mimi.
“As luck would have it, that she is, missy. If da weather cooperates, we can have you and your friend at your destination by sunrise. And we’ll even take you back for the same three-hundred-dollar fare.”
Mimi felt as if a heavy weight had just been taken off her shoulders.
“Mister, you just made yourself a deal.”
“The name’s Alphonse Cloyd, missy. But you can just call me, Al. And don’t worry about packin’ your supper, ‘cause I’ll supply all da grilled bonito you can eat, and even throw in some red-eye to wash it down with.”
Thomas Moore’s first full day spent aboard a nuclear-powered attack submarine had been most interesting.
After the tiring effects of the seasickness patch had finally worn off, he felt rested and refreshed as he began a tour of the three-hundred-and-sixty foot-long vessel. His guide was the sub’s personable supply officer.
Hop had been stationed aboard the Rickover for the last one and a half years, and he knew every member of the crew by their first name. Hop was the only officer not nuclear-qualified, so he rushed Moore through the reactor spaces, preferring instead to concentrate his tour on more familiar areas such as the boat’s galley.
In a space the size of an average apartment kitchen, three men cooked for a crew of one hundred and forty.
Four meals were served each day, with menus ranging from turkey with all the trimmings, to steak, fried chicken, and everyone’s favorite, pizza.
Moore found this food excellent. Because of the rote nature of submarine duty, mealtimes were looked forward to, as special occasions. Finding adequate storage space for foodstuffs was a real problem, and on extended deployments. Hop and his boys had to utilize every available nook and cranny. Canned goods were often stored on the floor, and then covered with plywood planks so that the crew could walk over them.
The galley had a single walk-in freezer, which had to be crammed to overflowing when two-month-long patrols were undertaken.
Another problem unique to submarines was trash management. A group of one hundred and forty men could produce an amazingly large amount of waste each day, and Hop made certain to give Moore a quick rundown on how they managed to dispose of this garbage.
The investigator was especially interested when his knowledgeable guide took him into the room where the trash disposal unit was situated. No stranger to the TDU after his previous experience on the Lewis and Clark, Moore listened with interest as Hop explained how the day’s trash was compacted into corrugated metal shells. The TDU itself operated much like a torpedo tube, and could hold up to five of these slugs before having to be flushed out into the sea below. Moore paid close attention when Hop described the system’s pitfalls, including torn gaskets and jammed ball valves.
With vivid memories of Homer Morgan’s nightmarish confrontation with a malfunctioning TDU ever in mind, Moore followed Hop down into the torpedo room. A young black torpedoman from Kansas City was on watch here, and he readily showed Moore around while Hop took a telephone call.
The Hyman G. Rickover was outfitted with four bow-mounted torpedo tubes capable of firing the Mk 48 AD CAP torpedo, and the Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles. The weapons themselves were stored on a trio of double-layered steel racks, that nearly filled the relatively large, dimly lit compartment. Because of space constraints, several members of the crew used this same rack as a bunk. Two sailors were currently sleeping here, and Moore’s guide kept his voice low as he pointed out the various weapons, and described how they were maintained and prepared for firing. The loading system was totally automated, and Moore noted that only two of the tubes were currently loaded.
From the torpedo room. Hop led Moore up to the wardroom for dinner. Captain Walden had already arrived here, and waited for his guest from his customary place at the head of the table. Moore was seated to Walden’s left, with the XO directly across from him and Hop at the table’s far end. The rest of the places were filled with the officers who weren’t currently sleeping or on watch.