The Command

Zebra when they went to general quarters instead of simulating it. Zebra was the highest level of compartmentation, sealing every hatch and scuttle below the waterline. The downside was it stopped ventilation and crew movement. But most seemed to agree. The navy didn’t salute indoors, but you could greet a skipper pleasantly or grudgingly. So far, the reactions were reserved, as if they’d taken in what he said but were suspending judgment.

Spruances had wide, spacious pilothouses, with big square windows angled outward. In the morning sun they flooded the bridge with light. “Captain’s on the bridge,” the boatswain announced, and the officer of the deck came in at once from the port wing, where she’d been examining a collier behind them through her binoculars.

Lieutenant Lin Porter wore her dark hair back in a ponytail. Intense, meticulous, with a roundish Slavic face, Horn’s new engineering officer had taken a grip on the confusion below. She’d demoted two chiefs, fleeted first class up to replace them, and reorganized the engineering office. Porter had served aboard Yellowstone and Recovery before an exchange tour with the newly reunited German Navy, where she’d gained the experience on gas turbine engines she’d need on this tour. She was married to a Marine Intruder pilot who’d probably retire and sell insurance when his squadron transitioned to the F/A-18. Porter reported on the contacts around them, courses, speeds, closest points of approach. Dan liked her no-nonsense, deadpan delivery.

Land was a dark green line sketched beneath scattered clouds. He looked at the chart, glanced at the radar repeater. Satisfied everything was in hand, he went out to the wing. The boatswain of the watch, Antonio Yerega, was taking the cover off the padded leather chair reserved for the commanding officer. Dan was hoisting himself to a position of vantage when Hotchkiss came out carrying her signature loaded clipboard. “Good morning, sir.”

“XO. What’s on your mind?”

“I finally got through to SURFLANT, got the revised services schedule. Nicholson may drop out of a gun shoot Friday. We can have her services if we want. Also, got a call from Com Second Fleet. Admiral Niles is back from Europe.”

Dan asked her to load a briefcase with the ship’s schedule, the current maintenance plan, and the training plan and have it on the quarterdeck when the brow went over. He told her to have one of the junior officers there, too.

* * *

Coming in through the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. The murmur of the plotters, the navigator calling ranges and distances to hazards and obstacles. Horn passed the rocky riprap of the tunnel islands and pivoted to look down the line of gray ships nestled at the Naval Operating Base, Norfolk, Virginia. Dan sat back, trying with all his might to relax.

Ross had let his officers maneuver only in the open sea. Never during underway replenishments and pier approaches, when the danger of collision was highest. It had probably kept his blood pressure down, but the result was they were afraid to handle the ship and uncertain in close quarters.

Dan had decided to work with Hotchkiss first. As the bow passed the clifflike stern of USS Nimitz, she reported, “Sir, I have the conn.”

“Very good, Commander. Watch that offsetting wind.”

He tried to look calm. Spruances had two controllable rotating pitch screws. Below twelve knots, the ship’s speed was a function of the pitch of the blades; the shaft itself rotated at a constant rate. Above twelve, the screws stayed at maximum pitch and the shafts sped up. The turbines reacted fast and had a lot of power. Normally, you approached a pier at an angle, shallow or sharp depending on the wind, and stopped engines to let the ship bleed off speed. But today’s berth was all the way inboard, past a destroyer and an amphib already alongside pier five. The north face of pier six, on their starboard hand, was stacked deep with nested ships, further narrowing their maneuvering margin. Claudia would have to run straight in, despite a brisk northerly breeze, then move Horn bodily sideways, into that wind, to place her alongside the pier.

A crackle of radio from the pilot informed him the tug was made up ahead of the pivot point on the starboard side, with a power tie-up. Hotchkiss opened with a forceful rudder order lining them up, then dropped the pitch to slow. Horn moved along at a good rate, but began shedding speed as she passed the pierhead. “Left five degrees rudder,” Claudia told the helmsman.

She sounded confident, but Dan was getting light in his seat. With a car, you turned the wheels left, the rest of the vehicle followed. With a ship, you put the rudder over and the stern moved. Left rudder, stern moves right, bow swings left, ship goes left — eventually. It was the “eventually” that got you into trouble. His spine was rigid when she said, “Right full rudder.” He sank back gratefully.