The Command

One by one, Lenson called in the women whose pictures Goldstine had taken. He gave them each the warning, showed them the photos, and asked them to explain. Then told them he’d already punished the men who had taken, developed, and distributed the photographs, but that they, too, had to behave like adults when they were representing their ship and their country. One after the other, he restricted them to the ship for forty-five days and gave them a week’s extra duty. One of the women, an English-sounding girl, cried at attention, silently, tears leaking down her cheeks. At that Lenson softened his tone, adding they weren’t on his shit list, he just wanted to make sure they got the message. But she got the same punishment as the others.

* * *

Marchetti was in the passageway one deck down, headed for the chief’s mess to adjust his coffee level before the boarding and search drill, when he heard “Got a minute, Senior Chief?”

It was Commander Crotchkiss. And he was gonna have to be real careful not to forget and call her that to her face. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Want to buy me a cup of joe?”

He held the door for her and wedged himself behind the too-narrow table while the mess crank got mugs. They were the only ones in the compartment. Through the door leading to chief’s berthing he could see the bunk curtains drawn back, jackets and towels hanging from the bunk bars. Everyone was out on deck, supervising. Hotchkiss stirred creamer into the Black Bear. “MIO training this morning?”

“Board and search in fifteen minutes.”

“Live fire? Small arms?”

“I don’t think the Egyptians would like that here in the Canal.”

She sipped. “Chief, I feel hostile vibes coming off you. What’s eating on you?”

“My troop got a raw deal this morning.”

“Which troop?”

“Goldie. Goldstine. The one the skipper whacked for taking the pictures.”

“You think he should have walked?”

“It was on shore. They were letting off steam. If it was some hairy asshole mooning the camera, nobody’d have given a shake about it. But they’re girls, so everybody goes apeshit.”

“You don’t want us here, do you?” Hotchkiss asked him.

“You asking straight out?”

“Sure.”

“Women got no business aboard ship, ma’am. Like this topless business. Goldstine got pulled off the twenty-five-millimeter for this mast, you know that? Captain wanted the fifties and the chain gun manned while we’re at anchor. But what are we doing? Getting distracted by some bullshit nonissue.”

He took a breath, expecting her to snap back, but she didn’t interrupt. So he said, “Level with you, ma’am? They can do a lot of stuff good as the guys can. But that ain’t the point. It isn’t how much they cost. Or what’s fair, or unfair. I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of. That they just aren’t gonna come through when the crunch really comes.”

“Well, we’re here,” Hotchkiss said, coming back at him at last. “So no matter what your personal feelings are, Senior, it’s your job as much as it is mine to make things work out. I hope you agree with me there.”

He said reluctantly, “I know it’s ship’s policy.”

“That’s good. Because I want you to consider putting some of our Horn women on your boarding and search teams.”

Oh, Jesus, no. He barked coffee into his fist. “Well… ma’am … we already have all our billets filled. Both teams.”

“There must be somebody you think would be better off somewhere else.”

Actually, there were; useless goofballs who bitched and couldn’t rappel, losers he’d planned to leave in the boat during any real opposed boarding; but he liked the idea of having to drag along a girl even less. It must have shown, because Hotchkiss said, “If I get you a woman who’s better than one of them, how would you feel about that?”

“You show me one who can pull herself up a thirty-foot line hand over hand, I might take her,” Marty grabbed out of the air. Figuring there might possibly be one or two total steroid Olympic buffarillas who could actually do that, but none he’d seen on Horn could. “Send me one of those and I’ll teach her to do fire and maneuver. But until then I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I’ll send you one you can train,” Hotchkiss said.

He glanced around the mess, made sure the cranks were back in the galley. Then leaned forward, taking her eye to eye. “Ma’am, no. Due respect and all that, but this team will be carrying live ammo. Climbing jacob’s ladders. Rappelling up stacks of containers and busting off locks with sledgehammers and crawling through bilges and holding crews at gunpoint, and most likely sometime during this deployment we will have to tee off on some actual bad actors who do not want us sniffing their assholes. Smugglers. Stowaways. Iranians who hate our guts. We will get in their faces. We will wrestle them to the deck and put cuffs on them. We might even have to light them up if they come at us with a knife or a gun or a cargo hook. I’m not taking someone who can’t react aggressively. It wouldn’t be fair to her, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be fair to the guy whose back she’s supposed to be covering.”