“Mr. Cooper, are we ready to get underway?” Seagraves said, latching his safety lanyard to a D-ring set into the flying bridge’s handrails.
“Except for radar, Captain. Navigator requests we raise the radar mast and rotate and radiate.”
“No,” Seagraves said. “No sense giving listening electronic ears out there our radar pulse rate signature as a newly constructed boat. Let them guess. Tell the navigator to get by with the DynaCorp yacht radar.”
“Aye, sir. We’re ready to get underway, then, Captain.”
“What about the harbor pilot?”
Cooper looked at Pacino, obviously lost.
Pacino reached for the 1JV phone handset and the 7MC mike at the same time, barking into the 7MC, “Pilot, 1JV.”
Dankleff’s voice answered on the 1JV phone circuit. “Pilot.”
“Pilot,” Pacino said, “what’s the status of the harbor pilot?”
“Officer of the Deck, the harbor pilot is here in control looking at the chart with the Nav. Wait, he is on the way to the upper level and the bridge now.”
“Very well,” Pacino said and hung up. “Captain, harbor pilot is on the way up.”
“Request to lay to the bridge!” an older voice croaked from below.
“Permission to come up,” Pacino said. Cooper pulled up the deck grating and a seventy-year-old grizzled sailor climbed up, wearing a high-viz yellow jacket.
“Afternoon, guys,” the harbor pilot said. He climbed up the steps to the top of the sail and stood next to the captain, the two talking quietly.
“Check the chart and the tides one last time, Short Hull,” Pacino said to Cooper.
“Aye, sir. I mean, yes, Patch.”
“Junior Officer of the Deck!” Seagraves barked. “Are we ready to get underway now?”
“Captain, yes, sir, New Jersey is ready to get underway.”
“Well, then, Mr. Cooper, get underway.”
“Get underway, aye aye, sir.” Cooper glanced at Pacino.
“Take off the brow,” Pacino said, referring to the aluminum gangway between the pier and the upper surface of the submarine. He handed Cooper a megaphone he pulled from under the bridge communication box.
“On the pier!” Cooper said into the bullhorn. “Remove the gangway!”
The diesel cherry-picker crane on the pier rumbled to life, its boom pulling the gangway off the hull and rotating to set it back down on the pier. Cooper looked again at Pacino.
“Just order the pier crew to take in all lines,” Pacino said. “I’ll operate the ship’s whistle. And order the pilot to stand by to answer all bells.” Cooper nodded. “And be ready to order the lookout to shift colors.”
“Pilot,” Short Hull said into the 7MC mike, “stand by to answer all bells.”
“Stand by to answer all bells, Bridge, Pilot, aye,” Dankleff’s voice barked.
“On the pier!” Cooper shouted in the bullhorn, “Take in all lines!”
Pacino watched from behind the shorter man, and as the last line was tossed over from the pier, he reached under the bridge cockpit ledge forward and found the ship’s air horn lever and pulled it aft. A blasting roar came from the horn, the earsplitting noise sounding like the Queen Mary was leaving the pier. Pacino held it for a full eight seconds, the horn notifying all in the river basin that the submarine was getting underway.
“Lookout, shift colors!” Cooper yelled up to the flying bridge. The lookout quickly pulled on the lanyard, and the American flag came up on the mast behind the captain, the flag underneath it the banner of the force, a snarling Jolly Roger skull-and-crossbones on a black field, gothic script stating, “U.S. Submarine Force.”
Pacino lifted the VHF to his lips and hit the transmit button. “Navy tug Massapequa II, take us to center of channel.” The engines of the tug roared as the tug put on ahead turns and maneuvered them to the center of the river. Pacino took a quick look up-river, but the Thames was empty, and there were no vessels down-river either. He looked at Cooper. “Put on ahead one third with a right rudder.”
“Pilot, Bridge,” Cooper said into the 7MC, “all ahead one third, right full rudder.”
“All ahead one third, Bridge, Pilot, aye, right full rudder, and my rudder is right full and Maneuvering answers, all ahead one third.”
“Bridge, Navigator,” Lewinsky’s baritone voice boomed from the 7MC, hold us fifty yards left of center of channel, recommend course one seven five.”
“Pilot, Bridge,” Cooper said, “come to course one seven five.”
“Bridge, Pilot, come to one seven five, aye. Steering course one seven five.”
“Pilot, Bridge, aye,” Cooper acknowledged. He looked at Pacino. “All good?”
“You’re doing a hell of a job,” Pacino said, putting the binoculars to his eyes again and scanning down river. The seaway was still empty.
“Bridge, Navigator,” Lewinsky said over the bridge box speaker, “turn point at Point Alpha is in one thousand yards, new course one three five.”
The submarine and the tug moved slowly down the river, the scenery of the lush Connecticut coastline sliding by, opulent houses lining the river on either side of the nearly mile-wide channel. Eventually the New London Ledge Lighthouse grew large ahead of them and the shorelines to port and starboard were behind them. They’d emerged into the Sound.
“Bridge, Navigator, mark the turn at Point Alpha, new course one three five.”
“Pilot, Bridge,” Cooper called into the 7MC mike, “left full rudder, steady course one three five.”
Dankleff acknowledged. Pacino elbowed Cooper. “Look down channel as we go into and come out of the turn,” he ordered. Cooper looked with his naked eyes, then lifted his binoculars.
“Channel is clear,” he said.
The harbor pilot shook Seagraves hand, climbed down into the cockpit, excused himself, and vanished down into the vertical trunk to the upper level. Pacino leaned over the starboard side of the sail and saw the harbor pilot walk forward toward the tug. Two of the tug’s sailors helped him get back aboard the tug.
Pacino nodded to Cooper.
“Captain, request to shove off the tug,” Cooper called up to Seagraves.
“Shove off the tug,” Seagraves ordered, his face covered by binoculars as he scanned down the channel.
“Tug Massapequa II, when able, shove off,” Cooper said into the radio.
“Roger, Navy Submarine. Fair winds, following seas,” the VHF speaker squawked.
The deck crew tossed over the tug’s lines and the tug’s engines roared as she veered off to the right, circling behind them to return to Groton.
“Tell the navigator,” Pacino ordered.
“Navigator, Bridge, the tug has shoved off.”
“Bridge, Navigator, aye.”
“Once the deck is rigged for dive,” Pacino said to Cooper. “Increase speed to full.”
“Bridge, Pilot,” Dankleff called. “Deck is rigged for dive by Chief McGuire, checked by Ensign Cooper.”
“Pilot, Bridge, all ahead full.”
As the ship sped up, the water climbed up over the nosecone at the bow and splashed up to the leading edge of the sail, breaking on either side and foaming back up over the aft part of the deck. The flags snapped in the wind aft. Pacino smiled to himself. The sounds and sensations of getting a submarine underway always gave him an odd sense of happiness.
“Mr. Cooper, secure the maneuvering watch and station the normal surfaced watch,” Seagraves ordered as he climbed down from the flying bridge. “When you can, disassemble the flying bridge.” He vanished into the bridge access trunk.