The deck was trembling violently, the vibrations coursing through the ship from the power of the propulsor. Evidently the watch section had kicked their speed up to flank, full out with fast speed main coolant pumps, the reactor power meter needle steady at exactly one hundred point zero percent. The deck inclined upward, then dived downward while heeling to port, then starboard, the boat doing slow corkscrews through the water. The sea state must have risen. The swells must be at least five feet high, he thought.
“Didn’t you have the afternoon watch for the surface run?” Styxx asked, having taken her seat at her pull-down desk. “You shouldn’t be the on-coming officer of the deck until zero six hundred.”
“Yeah,” he said, grabbing his towel. “XO wants me to take Short Hull under my guidance for the dive. So we both jumped watchsections.”
“I take it XO thinks Short Hull has more potential than Long Hull.”
Pacino shrugged. “Who can say who will end up being a slug and who will be a hot-runner?”
He looked down, remembering he was only wearing a T-shirt and boxers. Bunking in with Styxx seemed like XO was playing a joke on both of them. He hurried to the officers’ head, turned on the water and got wet, then shut off the water, soaped up, shampooed, then turned the water on briefly and rinsed, then took a squeegee and wiped down the stainless steel shower enclosure, finishing the shower in less than ninety seconds. “Submarine showers” like this made a sailor long for home and a “hotel shower” long enough for the hot water to run out. He smirked — they’d been underway less than nine hours, and here he was, already longing for the comforts of home.
He carried his dirty clothes and walked back to stateroom three wearing only his towel, and fortunately Styxx had evacuated the room, presumably for the midnight meal. He dressed quickly in his black coveralls, but he’d brought the ones from Norfolk. They still had the emblem of the USS Vermont on the right sleeve. Somehow, he doubted the XO would object.
Aft, in the wardroom, the XO was holding court over the officers seated for midnight rations, sitting in the captain’s chair, his habit when the command duty officer watch was stationed. The CDO watch had the executive officer assuming all the functions of the captain so the commanding officer could get some rest, but that seemed odd with them approaching the Point Delta dive point. Pacino had assumed Seagraves would want to be in control for the dive.
Both Engineer Kelly and Weapons Officer Styxx were seated in their usual seats on the outboard side of the table near the captain’s end. On the inboard side of the table, the XO’s seat was empty with him having commandeered the captain’s chair. The navigator’s seat next to the XO was empty, probably with Lewinsky in control, supervising the chart for the surface run to the dive point, but Vevera was at his usual inboard seat facing the engineer, with Dankleff on his right. The supply officer’s seat was vacant. Varney’s chair and Long Hull’s were also empty. Pacino crossed behind Quinnivan to take his usual seat next to Communications Officer Eisenhart. Short Hull Cooper hurried into the room and plopped down to Pacino’s left. The mess steward came in with a serving tray and served the XO first, then Kelly, then Styxx, going down the table, slopping the thick goo of the beanie-weenies into Pacino’s bowl, then serving the other side of the table, serving Vevera, finishing with Dankleff. Pacino grabbed the large bowl of cornbread and passed it to Styxx, who offered it to Kelly and Quinnivan, then gave it back to Pacino, who loaded up on two portions and handed it down to Short Hull.
Quinnivan looked happily down at his plate as if it were Thanksgiving dinner.
“Ah, lads and lassies,” Quinnivan noted, “there’s nothing quite like the first midrats of a voyage, yeah? And you may not know this, Mr. Short Hull Cooper, but the rules of Quinnivan’s midrats are that we can discuss anything openly. This, people, is one of the joys of serving in the submarine force. In this room, during midnight rations, no subject is off limits, and we all leave our ranks behind. At my table, during midrats only, we are all equals. And I would like this team to come together for this operation, yeah? So I thought we would talk about some things that could get us better acquainted. Certainly, the old guard of Vermont-ers all know the drill. But you, Madam Engineer, and you, Madam Weapons Officer, are new to us, and we’re all new to the Hulls. So let’s talk, okay?”
There was an awkward silence in the room for a moment. Pacino saw Vevera and Dankleff smirking at him and looking at Short Hull Cooper, as if to say, this should be good. Finally, Eisenhart spoke up.
“XO, with your permission, I think it would do me good to talk about relationships. You know, love and sex and what this submarine force does to relationships.”
“Excellent topic, Mr. Easy,” Quinnivan said, the laugh lines at his eyes crinkling. “You see, people, the secret to a good Navy relationship is picking out the right person.”
“We can’t all find people like Shawna Quinnivan,” Eisenhart said. “The perfect wife.”
Pacino had met Shawna several times, before and after Operation Panther. She was a stunning brunette from upper-crust London, and it had been a running joke in the wardroom that she was slumming, having married a rough Irish scrapper like Quinnivan.
“That she is,” Quinnivan said. “So you, Mr. Cooper, are you married, engaged, dating?”
Cooper blushed and put down his spoon. “No, sir. I had a girlfriend senior year, but no one since.”
“Back to you, Mr. Easy. Word on the street is you’ve had some trouble along these lines.”
“Girlfriend dumped him,” Kelly said in a stage whisper to Styxx. “He claims it was because of our long operations, but I think she just woke up to the fact that Easy Eisenhart is a slug.” Perhaps the three worst things a submarine sailor could be called were non-qual, nub or slug.
“Fuck you, Eng,” Eisenhart said, but he was smiling.
“Well, then, lass, what about you?” Quinnivan asked Kelly.
“Me? I gave up on the idea of a committed relationship years ago, XO,” she said.
“Feel free to call me ‘Bullfrog’ during midrats,” Quinnivan said. “Pass the butter, please.”
“Anyway, Bullfrog,” Kelly continued, “the fact is, men are at best a mixed bag. I mean, look at you submariners. All pasty white. Not one of you has a tan. You look like you’ve been hiding in caves. And as men age, pot bellies, male pattern baldness, loss of muscle tone? And that all starts happening at thirty-five. God help you if you stick around another twenty years. And sometime along the road, the main reason for dating a guy pretty much dies unless dosed up on a sex drug. Men smell bad. They’re all hairy. And you kiss a guy? You just get enough bristles on your mouth to give you a rash. And we all know, you men are dogs. Acting like they deserve a woman who looks like a centerfold while they’re at best a three. And men cheat as often as they breathe. So, what the hell, I crossed the street and started dating women.”
Vevera looked at her. “Really, Eng? You? You’re gay?”
Kelly shook her head. “Not really. I suppose I’m sort of half-and-half. I mean, the right guy might actually get my blood pumping, but that would be one chance in a thousand. And he’d have to be one hell of a guy. But mostly, sexually, I think women do it for me. But as for romance? It’s a myth.”
Dankleff swallowed a bit of cornbread and motioned his head for the coffee carafe and poured a cup for himself, looking at Pacino, who nodded and took the carafe and filled his up. The beanie-weenies were not to his liking, but the cornbread and creamy butter had hit the spot.