Larry Bond: Cold Choices

Any open wall space was covered with clipboards or papers taped to the bulkhead. All the papers were taped in exactly the same way, at exactly the same height. The clipboards all hung at the same height as the papers.

Although the stateroom could accommodate two officers, the XO customarily had the stateroom to himself, unless a guest was aboard. Shimko had converted the upper bunk into additional file space, piles of folders and papers arranged with mathematical precision. Even the in and out baskets, full almost to overflowing, managed to look organized.

“XO, sir, this is Electronics Technician Third Class Rountree.” Jerry offered the XO his file.

Shimko took it and then offered his hand to the sailor. “Welcome, aboard. Any issues or questions so far?”

“No, sir,” Rountree replied quickly.

“Good, let me see if the Captain’s free.” He stepped down the passageway to a door with Seawolf’s seal on it. It showed a snarling wolf’s head rising from the blue ocean against a black background. A black banner across the top held the boat’s name in red. Another banner under the seal read, “Cave Lupum”—” Beware the Wolf.” Underneath the seal, a gleaming brass plaque read “Captain.” Jerry could hear music from the captain’s stateroom; it was the bugle solo from the skipper’s favorite song, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” For some strange reason, their captain loved 1930s-1940s-era music. Shimko sighed, rapped once, then crocked the door. “Petty Officer Rountree, sir.”

Jerry heard the music stop, and then the captain say, “Good. Show him in, XO,” and then the door opened the rest of the way. The XO stepped back and motioned for the young sailor to step forward. Jerry and Chief Hudson remained at ease, but Rountree snapped to attention.

Commander Thomas Rudel looked more like a bank teller than a sea captain. He wasn’t tall, didn’t have a barrel chest, and didn’t even have a bellowing voice. Jerry had seldom ever heard him raise it, or even speak sharply.

He didn’t need to raise it. The crew had learned that Rudel was incredibly smart, eminently practical, and at times very funny. The XO tended toward the more satirical “phortune cookie filosophy,” but Rudel’s humor was subtle and dry — you had to listen for it, but it was worth the effort.

“Welcome aboard, Petty Officer Rountree.” Rudel sounded genuinely glad to have the young man aboard. “You’re joining a great boat with a great crew. ‘Great’ means getting the job done, and it means taking care of each other. You can’t do one without the other. Everyone in the chain of command, which now includes you, watches out above, below, and to either side for his shipmates…”

Jerry didn’t mean to tune out the captain’s welcome-aboard speech, but he’d heard it several times, including on his own arrival aboard. And he couldn’t listen to Rudel’s speech without flashing back to his first boat, and his first captain.

Jerry’s tour aboard USS Memphis had turned out well, but that was in spite of Commander Lowell Hardy, Memphis ’s skipper. Where Rudel called on nobler motives, Hardy had ruled by fear. Jerry’s first meeting with his first captain was a preemptive ass-chewing that had left Jerry questioning his career choice.

Hardy had compensated for his intimidating manner by micromanaging the entire boat. Any good submariner was detail-oriented, but focused on his own job. Hardy didn’t trust anyone’s skills or motivation — and the crew had felt it, both the officers and the enlisted men.

Hardy ruled by fear because that’s what he felt. His fear of someone else’s error ruining his record was transformed by the crew into fear of doing anything without first checking with the captain. It was no way to run any naval vessel, much less a submarine. A fire on board had caused serious damage to Memphis, and the crew’s response showed Hardy that there were better ways to lead men.

He’d just started to trust Jerry when they’d been attacked by Russian forces.

Mitchell snapped back to the present when Commander Rudel finished his speech with his trademark line: “Now go work your tail off.” Jerry realized he’d used the same phrase when he welcomed Rountree aboard, but he wasn’t worried about copying Rudel’s command style.

Hudson and Rountree headed aft. Jerry noted the smile on Rountree’s face. The skipper had that effect on people. Excusing himself, Jerry headed forward and down one deck to the torpedo room. He had to find Palmer, and check on the UUVs.

Lieutenant (j.g.) Jeff Palmer was a weak link in Seawolf’s chain of command. It wasn’t enough to have intelligence or determination or even a good attitude. Nobody got through the nuclear pipeline and sub school without those abilities, but they weren’t enough to get Jeff Palmer qualified.

Every submariner had to “qualify” aboard his boat. It meant knowing every system aboard in detail, not just the equipment you worked with in your own job. In an emergency, if the boat suffered some sort of accident or was damaged in a fight, everyone aboard had to know what to do. The candidate had to be able to draw the air, hydraulic, electrical, and other vital systems from memory. He had to find valves and damage-control equipment while blindfolded. In a real emergency, with the lights out, or the air filled with thick smoke, conditions could be much worse. In addition, the initial response to any casualty also had to be memorized, and understood. And it didn’t hurt to have the secondary procedures committed to memory as well.

Both officers and enlisted went through the process. When they qualified, the captain awarded them their “dolphins,” an insignia worn on their shirt. Officers had gold dolphins, enlisted men silver. Like an aviator’s wings, they represented a lot of work, and were worn with pride.

Jerry’s first qualification, aboard Memphis, had been an ordeal, for many reasons. Still, he’d done it in record time, in a single patrol. Normally, an officer new to subs would take about a year and a half to qualify. Palmer had been at it now for seventeen months, and had run into trouble from the very start.

Part of the qualification process were “murder boards,” oral quizzes by a group of officers on a particular topic. Palmer could study the manuals and practice the procedures until they were second nature, but he seized up under any sort of pressure. Too many questions in rapid succession caused him to freeze, or give answers that were obviously wrong. Men who couldn’t handle pressure did not belong on a sub.

Palmer was in the torpedo room, along with Torpedoman Chief Johnson, his division chief, and several of the torpedomen. They were loading weapons for the upcoming mission, which on a Seawolf- class sub took quite a while.

The torpedo room on modern U.S. nuclear subs is located aft of the bow, not in it like the old-style WWII boats. The bow on Seawolf was completely taken up by three large sonar arrays, including a monstrously huge sonar “ball,” covered with passive hydrophones. The eight torpedo tubes, four to a side, were mounted in port and starboard nests complete with individual launching system, and angled outward. Modern guided torpedoes were smart enough to turn after they were launched and head for their prey.

Jerry had been torpedo officer on Memphis, and was still impressed by the scale of Seawolf’s torpedo armament. His old boat could carry a warload of twenty-six torpedoes and missiles. Seawolf could load fifty, and the racks for them filled a two-story compartment. Seawolf’s tubes were bigger as well, thirty inches in diameter instead of twenty-one inches. Unfortunately, the U.S. Navy never developed thirty-inch torpedoes, so the tubes were sleeved to accept the standard twenty-one-inch weapons. The space was crowded with weapons and the machinery to move them, but to Jerry it was as large as a cathedral.