Ian Slater - World in Flames

There was an awkward silence, ended by Trainor. “Ah, Mr. President? Captain Brentwood was the commander of the USS Blaine.”

Mayne nodded, readily remembering the ship, for it was the attack on her as well as the NKA forces pouring over the DMZ in Korea that had been the flash point that had started the whole war.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he answered. “Fished him out when some of his men were still aboard, as I recall. Suspected cowardice.”

“We can’t say that for certain, Mr. President,” began Admiral Horton, “but I would advise against appointing someone who has been named ‘an interested party’ in the inquiry that followed.”

“But as I understood it, the evidence was circumstantial,” replied Mayne. “That is, he could have been helped, pushed overboard or whatever, by a member of the crew who had every right to do so if he felt the ship was going down.”

“Yes, sir — it could bear that interpretation.”

“Benefit of doubt, gentlemen,” said Mayne. “Besides, he followed this oil business with some diligence. I say give him a boat.”

The CNO flushed. Mayne’s persistent use of “boat” instead of “ship” annoyed him intensely, particularly as he suspected that Mayne deliberately used it whenever he was being particularly dismissive of naval tradition.

“Give him a boat and put him in charge,” said Mayne. “He’s Johnny-on-the-spot.”

The admiral wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing, keeping his options open. “I should point out, Mr. President, that if we were to do this, Brentwood couldn’t retain his present rank, and it might send out an ambiguous message to—”

“Admiral!” The change in Mayne’s tone was ice-cold. “As your commander in chief, I order you to assign coordination of this operation on the West Coast to Captain Brentwood and to assign him, without delay, command of the fastest, most up-to-date ASW ship afloat. Do you read me?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I want to know — by dispatch rider, if AT and T can’t get this goddamn phone service back in shape — within fifteen minutes the name of the ship to which this Brentwood has been assigned. It’s vital he have no bureaucratic hindrance whatsoever — so he’ll have to be put in overall command of West Coast naval defense as well. Now, if this means slapping a few more gold rings on his sleeve, do it, and do so without delay. Make him an admiral if you have to.” The president turned to Trainor. “Paul!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have an executive order typed up to this effect immediately. I’ll sign so the admiral here can take it with him. And I want it done in five minutes. Get Rosey onto it. She’s the fastest.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Then get me San Diego on the short-wave relay if you have to, and the admiral can inform the base commander there verbally.”

“I can’t use plain language on the phone, Mr. President,” interjected the CNO. “I mean, if the Russians know what we’re up to—”

“Have you a verbal code?” asked the president.

“Yes, sir. I can read out a letter-for-word code. Have you a Bible?”

“My glory, Admiral. Isn’t that the most logical book the Russians would expect for a letter-to-word code?”

“We don’t use the King James version, Mr. President. We use one of the modernized versions.”

“Oh, all right,” said Mayne. “In that case you’re quite safe. No one’ll understand it.”

While they were waiting for typed authorization, Mayne told the chiefs, “One thing the British won’t do is promote quickly in the field. Class system, you see.” He paused. “By God, I hope we haven’t lost Doug Freeman. Now, there’s a general who’d promote in the field. Made a private a captain once in the Dortmund-Bielefeld pocket to get the job done.”

The base commander’s office in San Diego was in a flap. “Frankenstein”—he of IX-44E — had suddenly been propelled to no less than admiral.

“Bullshit!” roared the base commander, Adm. Roger D. Rutgers the Second. “Must be a code screw-up,” he informed the Wave secretary.

“No, sir. We’ve had it confirmed.”

“Well, I’ll be—”

“Sir!” It was the Wave, trying frantically to signal with her eyes that someone was right behind her. “Ah, Admiral…” she spluttered. “Sir, this is Captain — I mean—”

“It’s all right, Sue, calm yourself,” said Rutgers as he saluted and, coming around from his desk, offered his congratulations to Ray Brentwood. Brentwood returned the salute, shook hands, relished it, and wasted no time with small talk. He had a list, a short one, which he presented to Rutgers. Point one — he wanted all commanders of ASW ships in port to report to his office immediately. Two — all ASW ships in port that were seaworthy were to be fully loaded and ready for sea by 0700, only a few hours away.

The base commander pointed out, “with all due respect,” which Brentwood knew was without any respect at all, that the large number of civilian longshoremen involved in the loading of stores would have, by union regulations, to be given at least forty-eight hours written advance notice of any such change in the agreed-upon working hours.

“Admiral Rutgers,” said Ray Brentwood, “under the power invested in me through the president’s executive emergency war order 1347D-5, any longshoreman refusing to load American warships at any time will be shot under the conditions which apply to all alien and/or indigenous saboteurs. And if you don’t have the ships loaded, I’ll shoot you!”

The Wave was speechless.

“In all my years—” began Rutgers.

“Admiral Rutgers, if you don’t do what I tell you and get those commanders to my office right now — none of us will have any years left.”

“Where,” thundered Rutgers, barely under control, “is your office?”

It was the only time that Ray Brentwood had smiled since arriving in San Diego. “IX-44E.”

“What the hell’s IX—?” Rutgers asked Sue, so incensed, he could barely speak. The Wave ran her finger quickly down the long list of auxiliary vessels. “It’s — it’s a barge, sir.”

“A what?”

“Barge, sir. Sludge removal.” she replied, frightened, adding timidly, “propelled.”

“Propelled!”

They said Rutgers sounded like a sea lion bull in the San Diego Zoo.

The chief engineer aboard the USS Roosevelt had managed, by raising more pressure in the lesser-damaged port ballast tanks, to force out more water. For a while, as the sub rose to just over two hundred feet below the ice roof of the surface, it seemed as if, with her “flaps down”—diving planes reversed in the vertical position, ready to “pick” the ice— survival was near at hand. But then she stopped rising, the damage sustained by the ballast tanks under the Alfa’s attack too great to allow further lift.

The emotional roller coaster of depression after the near fatal miss by the Alfa’s torpedoes, the belief that they were trapped, then the mounting excitement as the ship had slowly risen a little, and then the plunge back again into depression as she lay there, was almost too much to bear. But bear it they did, without histrionics or ill temper but quietly now and bravely, as if all the world were watching when they knew the world was not, that they were alone, each submariner’s doubts and fears battened down in the watertight compartments of his soul.

Not one whined about the contaminated atmosphere they now breathed as a result of the radioactive water that had poured into the sub. Depending on where they were in the sub at the time, they had received between 250 and 480 rads, which, in the cold, undeniable statistics of radioactivity, meant that more than 50 percent of these men would the within weeks or months, depending on their individual metabolism. Those who’d received between 100 and 200 rads were already doomed to shorter life expectancy through longer-term cancer, and any children they might have would be subject to the risk of genetic defects, even if old “Bing,” as they referred affectionately to Robert Brentwood, could perform the impossible and get them out of the sub within the next few hours. For some, given what they saw as the utter impossibility of Brentwood ever getting them out of it, it was as if the gods were merely playing with them for their sport, for while monitors showed that the steel hatch covers of the missile tubes were unaffected, the escape hatch covers remained jammed shut.