“I’m not sure, Lieutenant. Master Chief, what’s this about?”
“You said your door’s open, Captain. Basically we — that is, some of the chiefs — have a grievance. I’m hoping we can defuse it before it escalates to the official level.” Tausengelt eyed Singhe. “Which would not look good for any of us. As I’m sure the lieutenant will agree, if she takes a moment to think it over.”
She started to speak; Dan held up a hand to silence her. “Let’s hear what the senior enlisted have to say first, Lieutenant. You’ll get to respond.”
Tausengelt said, “Well, basically, sir, we’ve all been excluded from the discussion groups the lieutenant here’s been running. The chat rooms. I believe I informed you about that.”
“You did. Yes.”
“And you said we should run with it and see where it went. But today Chief Van Gogh here logged on under the name of one of his petty officers.”
“He lied to get into the chat room?” Singhe said, voluptuous upper lip curling.
“The petty officer gave me his password voluntarily,” Van Gogh said, his anger just as apparent. “He wasn’t comfortable with what was being said on there. And when I saw it, I wasn’t very fucking comfortable either.”
“What exactly was being said?” Dan asked.
Zotcher held out a printout. Dan ran his gaze down it, noting the exchanges highlighted in yellow. He pursed his lips. The foregrounded quotes seemed to be pretty much the kinds of summary and largely unfavorable judgments sailors had probably always made to each other around the scuttlebutt about their immediate bosses. Anatomically questionable references were made to the location of their heads vis-à-vis their anal canals, for example. But it did feel different seeing it in print. In particular, Zotcher and Van Gogh were coming in for a lot of criticism. At one point, where Singhe, leading a discussion on management styles, had asked the crew members to rate the chiefs in order of effectiveness, they’d tied for last place.
He cleared his throat. “Uh — interesting. All right … Lieutenant? Your response?”
Singhe cupped her elbows in both hands. “My response? The military’s got to follow the path private businesses are blazing, as computerization and the importance of human capital increase. That means a less hierarchical, more direct interchange between the deckplates and upper management. I’m acting to facilitate the transition. You read my article, Captain! Our command structures are too slow, too cumbersome, and they stop us from adapting. Open and uninhibited discussion is essential to that process.” She scowled at the chiefs. “Which is exactly why I excluded these men. Having them in the loop would make frank interchange impossible. As you can see.”
Tausengelt shook his head. “Basically, nobody wants to escalate this. Like I said. But I’m sort of coming in on the middle. I understand the previous CO more or less tolerated this sort of thing. The lieutenant’s … hobby.” Singhe bristled and he amended, “I mean, research. But Captain Lenson may have a different point of view.”
At that moment a sharp, loud crack reverberated through the metal around them. Dan flinched. He couldn’t pin the sound down, but it hadn’t been a noise he liked to hear a ship make in a seaway. He lifted a palm and they all fell silent, but it didn’t come again. He thumbed his Hydra. “DC Central, skipper here. I just heard a cracking noise, below and just aft of CIC.… Uh-huh … Yeah, pretty loud … Right. Let me know what you find out.”
He holstered the radio, both wondering what it had been and grateful for the moment it had given him. “Well, to get back to what we were discussing. My ‘point of view’ isn’t really what’s relevant here.”
Singhe’s angry frown was focused on him now. He chose his words carefully. “I think both sides have valid points. But what really matters here is what Navy regs say. Encouraging discussion — that’s a good thing. But, Lieutenant, I do think — and I know this wasn’t your intent — but encouraging this kind of speech, especially the personal remarks, can be prejudicial to good order and discipline. A lot of it reads like the loudmouths you get on every ship, blowing off steam just because you’ve given them a forum. Isn’t it possible to let the chiefs monitor the discussions? Or even participate? You’d get more informed opinions then.”
Singhe planted her boots farther apart. They all swayed together, as the passageway funhouse-leaned around them. “Then what’s the point, sir? The whole idea’s to surface issues that aren’t being discussed, or can’t be discussed, in the current forums. We have one group just for female crew. You might be interested, Captain, in what goes on. What they have to put up with, when the khaki’s not around.”
Dan couldn’t help his eyebrows lifting. “Are you telling me there’s — what? If there’s any harassment, hazing, criminal activity, I want that reported immediately. Not walled off in some special chat room.”
“Criminal activity? Maybe. Maybe not,” Singhe flashed back, as much to the chiefs as to him. “But let’s get this straight. You’re backing them? Instead of me?”
“Let’s not make this a personal issue, Lieutenant. It’s a question of command philosophy and discipline. We all have to work together, officers, chiefs, and enlisted. Not create splits in the crew.”
Singhe’s face had gone mottled, blood suffusing her smooth cheeks. “Personal? Who’s getting personal here, Captain? Maybe you should be asking them who Molly is. Instead of accusing me of undermining discipline.” She said the last word as if it left a poisonous taste.
Dan looked from her to Van Gogh, who’d paled. “Molly?” Dan asked. “Who is that? Chief?”
“Nobody.”
“Molly’s nobody?”
“Right. There isn’t any such person.”
Singhe shook her head sadly. “Isn’t that the point?”
Dan looked from face to face. Then, abruptly, lost his patience. “Okay, what kind of game is this? We’re on TBMD station. A war’s about to start. Who the fuck’s Molly, and what’s Lieutenant Singhe hinting around about?”
“Yeah,” said Tausengelt, and the steel in his voice this time was for his fellow chiefs. “Who is it? Come on. Give.”
Zotcher and Van Gogh glanced at each other, deflating inside their coveralls. The sonar chief jangled keys in his pocket, avoiding Dan’s eyes. Van Gogh was examining the overhead as if inspecting a diamond for inclusions.
“I get a straight answer, right now,” Dan said, and despite his resolve to stay cool he couldn’t keep his volume down. “Or everybody here’s going to regret it.”
Zotcher looked at his boots, or tried to; the neck brace brought him up short. Despite the seriousness of the situation, and what looked like embarrassment, he also seemed to be stifling a laugh.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll take you down to meet her.”
Dan called Almarshadi and asked him to take the chair in CIC, then followed the party down and aft. Aft and forward, then down again, until they were far below the main deck level and had to wriggle through scuttles feetfirst. Finally he pushed open a door inscribed SONARMEN DO IT AURALLY. The space was so far forward in the stem that its bulkheads slanted inward. He’d poked his head in here during his initial inspection, but now faces turned, more men than one would expect in such a remote space. Guilty, startled faces. And all male.
Rit Carpenter rolled his chair forward and reached for a computer keyboard. Dan’s hand intercepted his wrist. “Rit. I should’ve guessed.”
“Guessed what? Hey, Dan. Good to see you down here with us peons. And who’s this? The beauteous Lieutenant Singhe? Oh, yeah.” The retired submariner had established his own nook, with a black-and-white photo of his beloved Cavalla taped above it and his copies of Hustler and a shot of him with a fourteen-year-old Korean girl, both players naked from the waist up. Dan remembered that girl, and her little friend Carpenter had sicced on him, and how narrowly all of them had evaded a military prison.