The man snapped “What the hell? You goddamn Navy guys come in here like you own the place. Hit the road you bastard, or I’m gonna pulverize that dumb face of yours.”
Woody softly cautioned, “You don’t want to fight with me.”
“Wrong, you yellow bastard. It’s you that doesn’t wanna fight with me. You got no choice, buster.”
The young man made a wild swing at Woody’s head.
While a midshipman at the Naval Academy, Ensign Elwood Parnell learned to fight by instinct and his automatic reactions helped him to become a four-time middleweight boxing champion. His feet skimmed skillfully, right foot back on toe, left forward, flat in line ninety degrees to his opponent. His jaw took cover behind a raised left shoulder, while the attempted blow whizzed overhead. Woody waited for the expected left to follow and avoided it with ease. He straightened, anticipating the forward movement the attacker’s effort would give to his head.
Snorting like an angry bull, Woody delivered the first of two-planned solid left jabs to his opponent’s face. Like lightning, snap, the sound of knuckles against skin. No need for a second blow. The man’s knees folded inward and he collapsed like a tall building felled by a well-placed demolition charge.
Unknown to Woody, the young inspector, culpable, but not exposed by Darby Cameron, had received a measure of punishment at the hands of Ensign Parnell.
Bea dropped Dan, Woody and Brent off at Denver’s pier where a mass of humanity stirred about like ants making the submarine ready for sea.
Brent shared a kiss with Bea to whistles and howls from sailors and other passersby. The unmistakable voice of Gary Hansen shouted, “Way to go, Mr. Maddock.”
Bea admonished Brent, “Don’t do anything stupid out there.”
“Make book on it, but it’s you I’m worried about. I’m a lot safer at sea if this Soviet thing blows up. You listen to what Dave says. He’ll know what to do. I care a lot about you, Bea.”
She took a final look at him, “I will, Brent. You come back to me. Hear?”
“Make book on that too!”
They released each other and Brent disappeared into the mayhem on the dock.
Captain Bostwick sat in his stateroom and fumed as he read the transcript of Brent’s testimony. He ignored the issue that confronted young Maddock, the need to state all pertinent facts to assure the defendant got a fair hearing. The Civil Service Board report cast a shadow over Bostwick, so he would not pass it along to SUBPAC. Bostwick hoped the findings would set the stage for a career ending, adverse fitness report on young Maddock, but they did not. Brent’s testimony to the Civil Service Board averted a fatal blow from the captain.
Bostwick muttered, “So the sneaky bastard wants to play games. Well I’ll damn well show him he’s playing in the big leagues.”
Chapter 4
To the east, a red dawn brightened the ridges of Whidbey Island as Denver sped north through Puget Sound en route to the open sea. Brent thought, Red sky in the morning, sailor takes warning and anticipated seas would kick up as the day wore on. He stood the morning watch, 0400–0800 as officer of the deck on the open bridge, his favorite assignment. Here, the blackness of night yields to the morning glow.
Brent developed a theory that his sense of elation, inherited from ancestors, dated back to the dawn of civilization. Early inhabitants of earth hoped each darkness would surely end, but nonetheless felt relief at the actual occurrence.
To the west, Olympic Mountain peaks caught the first rays of the rising sun and brightening skies diminished a scattering of man-made lights on the land below. The sea bore few marks of man’s presence on the planet, but on occasion, even the land view presented unspoiled perspectives. For an instant, Brent beheld Peter Puget’s view of this virgin land as he arrived here over two hundred years ago.
Its beauty inspired Brent to think, God, I love this land!
Brent recalled an evening with Bea and dinner at a restaurant on Lake Union in Seattle. Patterned after a Pacific Northwest Indian Longhouse, it featured Native-American artifacts. Its owner dedicated much effort to perpetuate traditions of the people who lived in harmony with the land since the dawn of time. Native American photographs taken close to the turn of the century adorned the walls. These depicted early tribesmen who passed their lives here feasting upon endless natural abundance.
Another time, they visited the Hiram Chittenden canal locks, built for passage of shipping between Lake Washington and the lower level waters of Puget Sound. A fish ladder bypassed the locks and facilitated annual salmon migrations to the many headwaters that fed the lake. A ladder featured windows to view these magnificent fish, overcoming all odds while heading to the waters of their birth. There, they spawned and then swam further upstream to die so their prodigy could survive by eating fragments of the decaying carcasses that washed downstream.
He decided he would live out his declining years in these robust surroundings.
Denver left Bremerton too early for lingering good-byes to friends and family and would remain at sea two weeks conducting independent exercises during the way to their homeport in San Diego. There, an extended repair period alongside a submarine tender to clean up post-overhaul material discrepancies would afford time for the crew to re-establish home and social lives before Denver put to sea for her next deployment. The captain explained this to his crew on the eve of her departure, but made no mention of the war scare laid upon them by Commodore Danis.
As officer of the deck, Brent guided Denver over the course laid down by the navigator and carried out the ship’s routine as specified in the captain’s night order book. Quiet prevailed below decks as the crew, exhausted from the trying final days at the yard; lay in their bunks for a much-needed rest. Only watch standers remained up and about.
Denver reached the Strait of Juan de Fuca and turned west then submerged for the final leg of her seaward transit.
Later, a stewardsman knocked on the junior officers’ stateroom door then opened it. “Mister Maddock. Wake up. The captain wants a meeting in the wardroom in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you,” Brent replied. He looked at his watch … 0930. He’d slept less than an hour. The morning watch doesn’t get a fair share of sack time, but what else is new?
Shortly, the officers assembled and Olsen summoned the captain.
Bostwick opened with an uncharacteristic jovial voice. “Damn, it’s sure good to be out of the yard.”
General nods of agreement followed.
“Now we get back to the real Navy. No need to say how important it is for us to make the most of the next fourteen days. Before long, we’re back in the squadron and our work’s cut out if we expect to keep that red E hanging on the fairwater.”
Bostwick referred to SUBPAC’s award for engineering excellence won by Denver the previous year.
The captain continued, “Additionally, we can expect an ORSE (Operational Reactor Safeguard Examination) soon after our return. We must be ready.” Bostwick paused and scanned each officer’s face. “Zero tolerance for screw-ups, but you all know that so give the executive officer your training requirements. You know where we need attention. The exec and I will set priorities as we see them.”
Looking at Olsen, who nodded his assent, the captain continued with, “The ORSE is first then we concentrate efforts to insure records are updated. With the yard workload, I know much of that is on hold, but we’ve got to get crackin’. We’ve come out of the yard in great shape. No one will know this unless it’s documented.”