Attack of the Seawolf

“Mr. Joseph, get these SEALs and their gear loaded below. The line handlers can help out — we’re not going anywhere till the stuff is aboard. Put the equipment in the sonar equipment space, and make sure it’s rigged for sea. The SEALs will bunk in the torpedo room, and Commander Morris will share the XO’s stateroom with Commander Lennox. You’ve only got a few minutes, so move it.” As Joseph motioned to the line handlers Pacino turned to Morris.

“Welcome aboard. Commander.”

“Thanks,” Morris said, lighting another cigarette.

“One thing, though, Cap’n. I won’t be bunking with you pinky-in-the-air gentlemen in officers’ country. At SEAL Team Seven I preach unit integrity, which means I sleep where my men sleep. You got a problem with that?”

“Mr. Joseph, you heard the man. Put the commander in the torpedo room with the other SEALs.”

Joseph led the SEALs, some twenty of them, down the forward compartment access hatch and into the submarine. Pacino looked over at Morris, who was leaning against a pier bollard.

“Are you guys as good as they say you are?”

Morris took a last puff off the cigarette and tossed it into the brackish water of the slip.

“Captain, SEAL Team Seven is the best there is.”

“Good. You’ll need to be.”

Pacino’s Rolex showed 11:30 a.m. local time. He had wanted to be underway a half hour before, but stowing the gear of the SEALs had delayed them. Almost a ton of high explosives could not just be tossed into the hull.

Pacino stood on the flying bridge, a ring of steel handrails on the top of the sail behind the bridge cockpit.

Beside him stood Lieutenant (j.g.) Joseph, connected to the bridge communication box below by a long microphone cord. Down in the cockpit were Lieutenant Commander Feyley, the OOD, and an enlisted phone talker there to relay communications in parallel with the speaker circuits in case of a failure of the bridge box. Below on deck two dozen line handlers waited, facing a half-dozen of the bases’ men on the pier. The lines were singled up and two tugboats were tied up outboard to help the mammoth craft pull away from the pier.

Pacino looked at the tugboats. Somehow, having to get underway with tugs had always annoyed him. It seemed to announce to the world that the submariners were less than capable ship handlers in restricted waters.

In truth, they were terrible ship handlers Single screw submarines handled like ungainly pigs on the surface, especially at slow speeds. And tied up bowin as they were, they would have to back down to get away from the slip, and subs did unpredictable things when backing down, sometimes obeying the rudder, sometimes turning the opposite way from the rudder order. If he were honest with himself, he thought, he would admit that the prudent course of action would be to go with the tugs, let them pull him away from the pier, let them help him avoid embarrassment from banging the sonar dome into the pier or backing down in a complete circle to get into the channel. After all, he had been in combat before — why would he have to prove himself at the pier with cowboy showmanship?

Besides, the crew would expect him to do the safe thing with an untested submarine. No one would want him to maneuver out into the channel without tugs.

But a thought nagged at him — if he did the cowboy method, and it came off, the crew would immediately know the sort of commander they were dealing with.

He expected to return from this OP with the torpedo room empty and a few Chinese ships on the bottom of the bay. The crew might as well get used to the fact that this would be no milk run. Sea trials were over. The mission, the combat mission, started now.

“Mr. Joseph,” Pacino barked.

“What are we waiting for?”

“The pilot’s still late, sir. A tug is bringing him in now. He should be here in about forty-five minutes.”

A pilot was someone who knew the channel like his own home, who knew the currents and the tides, the depth of each sandbar, each treacherous rock. Another safe course would be to wait for him. Pacino thought of the Tampa. If his ship were held by an enemy, would Sean Murphy wait for a pilot?

“Mr. Joseph, tell the tugs to shove off.”

“Excuse me sir?”

“Cut the tugs loose. We’re going to get underway without them. And without the pilot. Prepare to get underway.”

“But, sir—” “I have the conn,” Pacino said, taking the bullhorn from Jeff Joseph’s grasp.

“ON DECK, PASS THE TUG LINES OVER TO THE TUGS.”

A walkie-talkie in Joseph’s hand squawked: “U.S. NAVY SUBMARINE, THIS IS TUG MASSAPEQUA. SAY AGAIN YOUR INTENTIONS REGARDING TUG FORCES, OVER.”

Pacino took the radio, seeing Joseph’s surprised eyes on him.

“Tug Massapequa, this is Captain, U.S. Navy Submarine.

Take in your lines and clear the slip, over.”

“ROGER, CAPTAIN. ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS, OVER?”

“Affirmative. Clear the slip now. U.S. Navy Submarine, out.”

Pacino handed the radio back to Joseph as the roar of the tug’s diesels sounded over the water of the slip.