USS Louisville
Danny was on the bridge when land came in sight, the tiny speck that was Oahu. Soon, he knew, as they got closer, it would grow and take shape, Diamond Head looming on the right. He’d read once that by some definitions the Hawaiian Islands were the most remote islands on earth, and it certainly always looked that way by sea.
It had been a flurry of activity since they sunk the Boise. They reported the success of their approach and kill, and within hours they’d received orders to return back home. The mood of the crew had been good, if not ebullient, every man there aware that while successful, they’d sunk a submarine of the United States, a billion dollars and over a hundred men. They’d learned that the official report would state that the boat was lost at sea, and that the Louisville had been part of a search and rescue team — the unnamed “US submarine” in the official media reports. Like the XO’s stories, it was just close enough to the truth to be a convincing lie. Everything else was left very vague — the Navy didn’t want any ambitious foreign power to try to locate and raise the Boise, as the US had in fact done with the sunken Soviet boat the K-129 during the Cold War. Captain Michaels had done what captains have always done to keep men from thinking too much, running drills and making them clean, keeping every hand busy so as to not grow too contemplative.
Certainly there would be rumors. And since their entire crew knew the truth, and even though they were sworn to secrecy, some of those rumors would be the exact truth. No matter. The Navy had lost two nuclear submarines before in its history, the Thresher in 1963 and the Scorpion in 1968. The rumors, legends, official reports, and scholarly studies still competed with each other to describe exactly what happened: was it a malfunctioning torpedo or a Cold War intrigue? A bad weld, a frozen valve, or a curse? The Boise would become like the Thresher and the Scorpion before her, like all submarines, really, even those still steaming: a mystery.
They were on the surface, V-12 paired with Jabo once again. They were running man overboard drills, executing graceful Williamson turns to the left and the right, coming right back up their track while the wake was still visible. They weren’t even sounding the alarm or involving the rest of the crew, just making the maneuver, using the theoretical challenge of doing a U-Turn and coming back to the same spot in the ocean as a time-honored way to master the motion of the ship on the surface.
“How was that one?” said V-12, looking for praise.
“It was alright,” said Danny.
“Just alright?”
“Well you’ve done about twenty of them. It should be perfect.”
“You know if you fall in the water you’ll want me up here.”
“If you’re up here I’ll probably jump in the water.”
The lookout behind them acknowledged a report from control. “Captain to the bridge,” he said. Danny and V-12 both stood a little straighter as the captain’s feet rang on the ladder steps.
“How are we this morning?” said the captain. “Both of you learning how to drive my ship?”
“Yes sir,” they both said.
“Turns a little tighter than the Alabama, doesn’t it?” he said to Danny.
“Yes sir,” he said. “I like my chances as a man overboard on this boat a lot better.”
He nodded. “And we don’t have that big flat missile deck to stand on, so that’s a good thing. Probably a lot more likely to have a man overboard here.”
Danny looked at his watch. “Sir, I recommend we start heading toward Pearl.”
The captain looked at his watch too. “Make it happen,” he said.
V-12 began giving orders and getting the ship on track to bring them home. “Here,” said the captain, handing Danny his cell phone. “Give Angi a call. Looks like we’re close enough.”
“You sure?” said Danny.
“Yeah, go ahead. I’m sure she’s dying to talk to you.”
Danny took the phone and dialed Angi’s phone from memory. She answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
She paused for a minute, exhaled nervously. “Wow! I thought you might call.”
“God it’s good to hear your voice,” he said. He forgot that the captain and V-12 were both standing there, just disappeared into hearing the voice of the woman he loved.
“Yours too!” she said. “Danny, there’s a submarine in the news — the Boise.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s missing! It’s front page news here, the families on television are crying every night — it’s awful. Do we know anybody on the Boise?”
“I’m not sure,” said Danny.
“They’re saying it’s lost! Do you know any more about it?”
“Well.”
“Oh,” she said. “I get it. You can’t talk about it.”
In his state room, the XO was sorting through the flood of incoming message traffic, sorting out what had to be acted on right away, all the while looking for the messages he was expecting.
Danny had showed him up — and good. He’d been doing this long enough to know that. But he was second-in-command so whatever success Danny had brought them would be reflected on him as well. And he took some consolation in the fact that Danny would carry this around with him: he was the man who sunk a US submarine. He’d done his job masterfully, and completed his mission, but that fact remained. Danny had killed a boat. In the small world of the submarine force, that would be a cloud looming over him. It was more than superstition, although that would be a factor. But even completely rational men would recognize that Jabo wasn’t a guy you wanted to be around if you wanted a nice quiet career. And the submarine force was small. He and Jabo would cross paths again someday, and the XO would be able to get to him somehow, either by direct attacks or by laying obstacles in his path. Torpedoes or mines.
In the meantime, the XO would do what he could to seize the high ground. In a burst of inspiration he’d dashed off a message to Xerox, explaining to them how’d they’d fixed their machine at sea, an example of can-do spirit that reflected on the best tradition of the sea services. He fantasized that those Xerox executives might seize this, the story of how vital their machines were and how clever these submariners were. The XO’s fantasy even went further, he imagined a time after he got out of the navy when he might go to work for Xerox, the story of the repair at sea propelling him to lofty heights in the company.
A few hours later, outside of Pearl, a tug appeared at their side, and with it an orange, waterproof bag of US Mail. This included a certified letter from Xerox, which the XO was handed in the control room. He eagerly tore it open.
It was a single sheet of paper, signed by a VP of Customer Service. It explained that in allowing a non-certified technician to repair the copier, the Louisville had voided its warranty.