Larry Bond - Cold Choices

Jerry had drawn up the list of charges the day before, with some assistance from others in the wardroom and the chief’s mess. Shimko and the COB had devised most of the punishment themselves.

Living and working in such close quarters, the crew knew each other well. Jerry had easily figured out most of the “charges.” In fact, the only difficult candidate was one of Jerry’s own men — Rountree, who’d reported to the sub just days before sailing. They’d learned a great deal about him, but not the kind of quirks one could poke fun at. Jerry had puzzled for some time before finding an appropriate offense.

Rountree was the last one called, and allowed himself to be marched by the Master-at-Arms to face the King. Even after watching the fates of the others, there was a hint of a smile on his face. Boreas laid into the young sailor. “Petty Officer Rountree, your constant complaints and grumbling have echoed through the ocean, sinking icebergs, corroding ship’s hulls, and driving an entire school of tuna to seek an early death.”

Since Rountree was eternally, unperturbedly cheerful, this brought laughter from everyone, including the victim.

Boreas ignored Rountree’s laughter. “For the crime of extreme glumness, you are hereby condemned to wear this sign.” Jerry pulled a piece of card stock out of his ledger book with a cord attached. Decorated with multicolored happy faces, it read, “Please cheer me up.”

Then the Baby stepped forward with paint and a brush. “And since you refuse to smile,” Boreas continued, “for your shipmates’ sake we will give you one to wear.” Gurgling happily, the Baby painted a clown smile and rosy cheeks on Rountree, even angling the eyebrows to improve his expression. As Jerry expected, the sailor took his ridiculous accusation and punishment with the same good humor he took everything else.

Following their individual punishments, the inductees had to undergo several “tests.” The first involved running from the galley to the bow and back with an ice cube in each armpit. Next came bobbing for icebergs, a fish-identification drill, and as a final ordeal, each initiate had to crawl the length of the torpedo tube and touch his nose to the outer door. Since the metal of the tube, the door, and indeed the sub’s hull were in direct contact with the arctic water, it was just barely above freezing. After emerging into the relative warmth of the torpedo room, each shivering sailor was baptized with ice-cold seawater and his nose was painted a dark Prussian blue.

When the last warm body had been appropriately blessed, they all enjoyed a “celebratory feast” of cold mashed potatoes shaped into “snowballs,” mashed sardines, and “seaweed salad” made of cold boiled spinach and asparagus.

After the proceedings, Jerry retreated to his stateroom and quickly climbed into his coveralls. As he put his props away, he thought about how childish such a ceremony would seem to an outsider. And truth be told, it was pretty childish. But it helped to build camaraderie among the crew, solidified them as a team. Now the new intitiates would proudly display their deep-blue noses, fully vested members of a select club. No Ivy League leadership or management course could do as much.

Severodvinsk

Sayda Guba Submarine Base

Petrov felt the jolt from a door being slammed shut. He then heard a muffled voice through the bulkhead. It was Vasiliy’s, and he wasn’t happy— again. Sighing, he got up to go see what had caused his starpom to lose his temper this time. The last twelve days had been extraordinarily frustrating, and his second-in-command had been angry for most of them. Not without cause, as the submarine base personnel were being as uncooperative as they feared. And with only nine days left, the carefully orchestrated schedule to get Severodvinsk under way on time was in complete chaos.

As Petrov approached Kalinin’s stateroom, he could clearly hear his starpom’s raised voice. He was shouting to himself more than anything else, a method he often used to vent his anger before he hurt someone. Petrov knocked on the door and waited for a response.

“WHAT!?!” screamed Kalinin.

Cracking the door ajar, Petrov asked, “May I come in? Or do you still need time to calm down?”

“No, sir. Please, come in.” Kalinin’s response, while civil, still had fury in it. Petrov entered the stateroom to find his starpom breathing heavily, his face a deep crimson. After shutting the door, Petrov walked over to the small work desk and motioned toward the chair. Kalinin gave a curt nod, his rigidly clenched jaw yet another indicator of his displeasure.

Petrov pulled the chair away from the desk, slowly sat down, and took a deep breath. “All right, Vasiliy, what did they do this time?”

Struggling to restrain his temper, Kalinin blurted out only two words, “Ballast canisters.”

“What about the ballast canisters?” coached Petrov.

“I had Captain Third Rank Kirichenko place a requisition for the ballast canisters over a week ago, and we hadn’t heard anything so I sent him to the armaments section to find out what was going on.” Kalinin started to pace as he described the sequence of events.

Kirichenko was the commander of Battle Department 2, the weapons department, in charge of Severodvinsk’s missile weaponry. Unlike Western navies, the Russians separated naval armaments into two battle departments, one for torpedoes and mines and all other weapons in another.

The Russian Navy’s standardized shipboard organization consists of seven battle departments, Boevya Chast or BCh in Russian, along with several supporting services, such as medical and supply. With the exception of BCh-6, the aviation battle department, Severodvinsk’s organization mirrored the rest of the fleet.

Petrov nodded his understanding and said, “Please continue.”

“Yes, sir,” Kalinin replied a little more calmly. “Well, Boris came back and reported that they didn’t have our requisition. So I took a copy down to them and asked them to fill it as soon as possible. Then this petty bureaucratic asshole tells me he can’t do it because the paperwork wasn’t completed properly. After a brief discussion, he finally told me what he wanted and we submitted the revised requisition on Wednesday.”

Judging from his starpom’s facial features and tone the requisition had been correctly filled out in the first place, but the administrator was probably holding out for an incentive of some sort. Such behavior would irritate Kalinin to no end, and Petrov could only imagine the kind of discussion they had.

“So yesterday this stupid bastard shows up with ballistic-missile ballast canisters! Can you believe that? I told him that we required 3M-55 missile canisters, not something ten times their size! And to be absolutely clear, I told him, again, that we need twenty-four of them.”

Severodvinsk was fitted with eight large vertical launch tubes aft of the sail, containing three 3M-55 Onyx antiship missiles per tube. With each missile and its launch canister weighing close to 8,600 pounds, a loadout of twenty-four missiles meant a little over one hundred tons of weight. Without the missiles on board, or specially constructed concrete ballast canisters in their place, Severodvinsk would not have the proper weight needed to submerge.

“I take it he still hasn’t delivered the canisters,” injected Petrov.

“Of course not!” cried Kalinin angrily. “In fact, this fool’s supervisor came down today and told me they didn’t know where they put the canisters we need. I’m afraid at that point I lost my temper and started screaming at them.”