His response was to chuckle to himself again, clearly finding her words amusing. The fact he was finding her plight humorous irritated her. In fact, thus far, there was nothing about him that didn’t vex her. The door opened and COB returned.
“Sorry, Skipper,” he explained, “No joy on the tea.” COB, after retrieving his coffee cup from the table, resumed his position against the bulkhead. “What’ve I missed?” he asked the XO with a hushed whisper.
Graves nodded toward Kristen with a slightly sympathetic look on his face. “The Lieutenant was just explaining how she’d be willing to sleep in the torpedo room.”
COB shook his head and gave her an amused look. “That’ll never do, Missy.”
Missy?
Kristen let it go and looked back at her captain. “Sir?”
Brodie rubbed his swollen eyes with his left hand, and she noticed the absence of a wedding band on his ring finger. But this wasn’t unusual for submarine captains. Submariners, as a rule, had a tremendously high divorce rate, so she assumed he was divorced. She pushed the meaningless observation aside, suppressing her eye for detail, and focused on the exchange going on between the three men. They clearly were amused by her offer.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Brodie’s tone was not harsh; instead, it was annoyingly matter of fact, and she felt he was treating her like a child.
“Get what, sir?” she asked him and then looked at COB and Graves, both of whom were siding with the captain. It was to be expected, of course, for them to support him. Their loyalty would be to their captain and certainly not to her.
Brodie explained, “In one sentence you say you want to be treated like any other officer on board, but in the next sentence you offer to sleep in the torpedo room.” He shook his head, “Do you honestly think I’d let any of my officers — or crew, for that matter — live like that?”
Kristen now understood his point. All she cared about was staying on board and would accept any deprivation to achieve that goal. “Oh,” she replied simply.
Brodie chuckled again. “Oh, is putting it mildly, Lieutenant.” He then spoke to COB, “Have you any suggestions, Spike?”
COB scratched his razor stubble. His face, although pale like all submariners, looked as tough as leather. “I’d thought we might be able to rig some sort of cabin in the sonar cabinet room, but even with the latest adjustments from the tech boys at Lockheed there isn’t going to be enough room.”
“What about the Deeper?” Brodie asked Graves.
Kristen had no idea what he was talking about, but Graves nodded slightly and glanced at COB. “What do you think, COB?”
COB again thoughtfully scratched and then muttered, “It’ll be a little tight. And damn cold too,” he added. “Those techies keep it colder than a fucking meat locker in there.”
“Spike,” Brodie said easily, apparently not liking the foul language, which Kristen thought would make him an oddity in the Navy where profanity was as much a staple of the service as grey paint.
“Sorry, Skipper,” COB apologized.
Kristen could care less if COB swore; it meant nothing to her. Instead she asked, “Excuse me, gentlemen. But what is the Deeper?”
Graves answered, “It’s the Data Processing Equipment Room.” He then added, “D-P-E-R, we just call it Deeper for short. When the Seawolf was designed, computers were considerably larger than they are now, and every few years we receive routine upgrades to our electronics and computer processing capacity. The newest upgrade was supposed to occur while we were undergoing refit over the next few months, and we’re now putting the spurs to Raytheon and two other contractors to expedite the modifications. We think once they remove the old equipment and bring in the new stuff, there’ll be room in there to rig a coffin rack and maybe a small space similar to what you’d have if we had a cabin for you in officer country.”
Kristen had assumed, incorrectly, they would simply be content to shove her in the torpedo room and act like she didn’t exist. However, it appeared these three men had given the situation at least a measure of deliberation.
Brodie nodded thoughtfully. “What about a head facility?” Brodie asked his two senior advisors. “You can forget the enlisted men’s head. That just won’t work.”
“I’m afraid the Goat Locker is out of the question too, Skipper,” COB replied referring to the Chief Petty Officer’s quarters commonly known as the Goat Locker. “Unless you want a fucking mutiny on your hands.”
“Spike,” Brodie chided COB for his language again.
“Sorry, sir,” COB replied easily, apparently accustomed to apologizing for his language around the captain.
It was obvious to her that when it came to using the bathroom, the Goat Locker wouldn’t work. The chief petty officers were the oldest enlisted men on board, and on most submarines they were truly the duty experts on virtually everything. In essence, the officers gave commands and handled some of the administrative details, but the CPOs ran the boat. It didn’t take a genius to know these seasoned veterans would react angrily to losing one of their few perks — having a head all to themselves. It was a small thing, but on submarines privacy was at a premium.
Graves then chimed in, “Hell, sir, let her use the officers’ head like the rest of us.” But from the looks COB and Brodie exchanged that wouldn’t be ideal either. No submarine was yet designed with the modicum of privacy society expected there to be when men and women lived and worked together. These men had been trying to find a solution to this problem for a while now, well before she’d come on board, which meant they had no intention of simply sending her ashore. There were five head/shower facilities available. One for the chief petty officers, an officer head shared by fourteen officers, two enlisted heads that over one hundred men competed for, and finally the captain had a head adjoining his cabin. Someone was going to be inconvenienced.
Brodie nodded toward the XO. “All right, we’ll try that and see how it works out.”
“The babies are going to whine about it,” COB pointed out referring to the junior officers. “Not to mention their wives,” he added.
“They’ll be fine,” Graves countered.
Brodie set his coffee cup down and placed his folded arms on the table as he leaned closer to her. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, Lieutenant?” he asked in a conversational tone, and despite her suspicion, she didn’t get the feeling he was questioning her resolve. “You’ve already been through a lot to get this far, and you should be commended for your perseverance, but this is where the rubber hits the road.”
He leaned back again, and she thought he looked tired.
“This crew has just come off a long and rather difficult patrol only to learn their leave has been cancelled, and we’re going right back out. Right now, every mother’s son of them hates me, the XO, COB, the Navy in general, and they’ll most certainly resent you, and it’s only going to get worse. We’re about to head back out for at least another four months, and if you’ll pardon my crudeness…” he paused briefly “…in another four months we’re gonna have our hands full keeping these boys from freaking out with each other let alone keeping their hands off you.” He was exaggerating for effect, she assumed. But he clearly wanted to impress on her the seriousness of what she was now part of. “In a few weeks we’re going to be at sea, and you’re going to be trapped in this little steel world. Even at the best of times, it’s a difficult affair.”
Kristen had heard similar words spoken to her before by people trying to frighten her off, but his tone was different. He sounded sincere, but she’d been fooled by false sincerity before and wasn’t ready to trust him just yet.