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The watchstanders acknowledged in succession as Jabo signed the deck log, then walked the short distance into radio. He had a few minor matters he needed to take care of before he could lay down and get a quick nap before the real workday of the ship began. He handed off the previous night’s messages to Gurno which he had finally read and reviewed. “Route these to the navigator, please. He’s in control.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Gurno, fresh from a shower and breakfast. Jabo could barely keep his eyes open.

He reviewed and signed some planned maintenance charts for the division. Leaving radio, he briefly considered breakfast, but decided he needed sleep more than he needed food. So he stumbled down to his stateroom, shut the lights off, and closed his eyes knowing that soon he’d be awoken as the day’s drills began with the general alarm; or the flooding alarm; or, maybe, if the XO was in the mood for something exotic, the rapid, high-pitch beeping of the missile emergency alarm. The ship’s tight schedule would somewhat neuter the drills; they would have to simulate emergency blows, snorkeling, and trips to periscope depth, most of the things that made drills fun and interesting. But there would still be drills, and that still required everyone to be awake, no matter if you’d been up all night on the midwatch.

Jabo didn’t fall asleep right away. He was still troubled by his conversation with the navigator. But like all submarine officers, he’d learned that when given the opportunity to sleep, you must sleep, no matter how disturbed you were from the last watch, no matter how pissed you were at the XO, and no matter how depressed you were that you had to wake up in a few minutes for the next round of bullshit. You had to fall asleep fast because you didn’t know how many hours, or days, might pass before you got another chance. That pressure alone had kept him awake on his first patrol, that feeling of panic that he needed to get to sleep in a hurry, but couldn’t. Since then, he’d mastered the art of falling asleep quickly.

Jabo started breathing deeply, pretending to sleep being the important first step. He had a few vivid, happy memories that he retreated into at times like these. All of them were about Angi.

He recalled the time he’d been driving home from the base early one morning, the refit after his second patrol, exhausted after an all-night watch in the engine room during a marathon round of testing on the primary relief valves. As he drove through a pouring rain, the sour smell of the engine room still clinging to his khaki uniform, he was startled to come upon Angi as she ran down Westgate Road. She was running away from him and didn’t see him. She seemed oblivious to the rain, even though she was drenched, from her sleeveless Nike running shirt to her Saucony running shoes, the one luxury she allowed herself on their meager budget.

He slowed down so he wouldn’t pass her too quickly, not wanting to splash her, but also wanting to watch her a little longer. He was struck, once again, that someone so beautiful could love him. She was athletic, but she didn’t like it when Jabo described her that way. She was southern belle enough to think that adjective was an alternative for beautiful, a backhanded compliment in the same way that her grandfather inevitably described bigger girls as “healthy.” But that’s not how Jabo felt — to him there was no better, no more alluring description of his wife’s physical beauty, the way her body was young, strong, and fast. Her shirt clung to her skin in the rain, and water ran down her toned legs, each step sending up a splash that would find its way, eventually, into Puget Sound.

He fell into something that was deeper than sleep, something like an attempt to heal, or hide.

• • •

He’d been asleep two and a half hours when the first alarm sounded, about two hours longer than he’d been counting on. There’d been a debate in the wardroom among the drill team about whether or not they might allow a brief period of snorkeling. The captain finally decided they could, as long as they grabbed the broadcast at the same time and only ran the diesel for about fifteen minutes. This took time to work into the drill plan, which allowed Jabo to sleep for those extra minutes, and when he heard the fire alarm sound, and jumped out of bed and into his poopie suit, he felt good for the extra sleep, felt like a million bucks, hoped he would be he first officer to the scene so he could take charge, put out the simulated fire with non-simulated enthusiasm. When Kincaid’s voice announced after the alarm that the fire was in the Supply Office, Jabo was already sprinting aft, thinking about what hoses were closest, how pissed the Supply Officer was going to be if they moved a single sheet of paper on his desk, and how much fucking fun his job was.

• • •