Voyage of the Devilfish

“No pilot, sir.”

“Get under way. Captain. And I guess this is it till January. Oh, Patch, no pirate flag this time. Right?”

“Right, sir.” There was an awkward silence between the two men, friends separated by the gulf shaped by their respective jobs. Adams shook Pacino’s hand. “Well, good luck again, Patch. And good hunting. Pacino walked across the gangway, again struck by how different this day’s underway was from his father’s.

“DEVILFISH, ARRIVING.” Pacino walked forward to the leading edge of the sail, climbed up the steel ladder rungs set into the flank of the sail 25 feet up to the bridge. Stokes and the phone talker were crammed into the small cockpit of the bridge. Aft, poking his head from a trapdoor, a clamshell, was the enlisted lookout. In the crawlspace between the bridge and the lookout cockpit was another enlisted-man phone talker, shoehorned into a tight black hole with no view and no breeze. His job was to act as back-up in case the bridge communication box failed. Whenever the OOD gave a speed or rudder order, the phone talkers simultaneously relayed it to phone talkers in the control room below. Pacino climbed to the flying bridge at the top of the sail behind the bridge cockpit. Steel handrails, temporarily screwed into the top of the sail, were set up above and behind the bridge cockpit. Standing there, Pacino could see for miles. He checked his watch.

“Offsa’deck, let’s lose the gangway.”

A crane on the pier pulled the gangway off Devilfish’s hull. Pacino nodded to Stokes. “Let’s go.” Stokes took the bullhorn and shouted down to the lifejacketed men on the deck and on the pier, “Take in line one. Take in line two.” The linehandlers on the pier pulled the heavy lines from the bollards and tossed them to the linehandlers on the boat. The ship’s bow started moving away from the pier, the current pushing her away.

“Take in three. Take in four.” Stokes leaned over the starboard side of the sail, looking aft at the linehandlers. As the pier sailors tossed the thick lines to the boat’s linehandlers, he picked up his microphone.

“Shift colors!” An air horn at the base of the cockpit blasted an earsplitting shriek for eight seconds, announcing that the warship was no longer pierbound. Simultaneously the American flag was struck on deck, a bigger American flag raised on the temporary flagpole behind Pacino, and on the other lanyard next to the American flag, the Jolly Roger was raised to flap proudly in the breeze. On the pier. Commodore Adams smiled in spite of himself.

Pacino climbed down into the bridge cockpit with the Officer of the Deck and the Junior Officer of the Deck.

“Flying bridge clear. Off’sa’deck,” he said to Stokes.

“Raise the radar mast, rotate and radiate.” Stokes passed orders to the control room, and above and behind them the radar hummed and squeaked as it rotated, helping the control room crew below navigate out of Norfolk. Both periscopes rotated furiously, taking visual fixes as the navigator, an Irishman named Christman with red hair and temperament to match, directed them out.

“BRIDGE, NAVIGATOR,” the bridge communicationbox rattled, “100 YARDS TO TURNING POINT. NEW COURSE, ZERO EIGHT ONE.”

“Navigator, Bridge aye,” Stokes drawled into the microphone.

Pacino looked at the sky and the sea. The wind was stiff and cold, numbing his windward left cheek. The sky was a deep blue with white clouds in layer-thin wisps. The sun was bright but cold and low on the horizon. The southern mouth of the Chesapeake Bay was choppy in the wind. The water looked a dirty green, small whitecaps on every wave. Pacino looked through his binoculars down the channel after the next turn and saw a merchant tanker lumbering down toward them, inbound to Norfolk’s” international terminal.

“BRIDGE, NAVIGATOR, MARK THE TURN TO COURSE ZERO EIGHT ONE.”

“Helm, Bridge, right fifteen degrees rudder, steady course zero eight one,” Stokes ordered. Pacino nodded.

“Helm, all ahead standard,” Stokes called into his microphone.

“Off sa’deck, shift pumps,” Pacino said, “we’re about to haul ass.” The ship began to react to the speed increase of 10 knots, the bow wave rising over the bow until the hull forward of the sail started to get wet and the wake aft to boil white.

Stokes spoke into his microphone: “Maneuvering, Bridge, shift reactor main coolant pumps to fast speed.”

“SHIFT REACTOR MAIN COOLANT PUMPS TO FAST SPEED, BRIDGE, MANEUVERING AYE … BRIDGE, MANEUVERING, REACTOR MAIN COOLANT PUMPS ARE RUNNING IN FAST SPEED.” Stokes acknowledged. He looked at Pacino, standing beside him on the crowded bridge.

“Flank it, OOD,” Pacino said, training his binoculars again on the inbound merchant ship and the Thimble Shoals Channel beyond.

“Helm, all ahead flank,” Stokes ordered.

“ALL AHEAD FLANK, HELM AYE … BRIDGE, HELM, MANEUVERING ANSWERS ALL AHEAD FLANK.” The bridge box sputtered with Rapier’s voice: “BRIDGE, XO. CAPTAIN TO THE IJV PHONE,” requesting that Pacino pick up the UV phone circuit, a more private line than the P.A. speakers.