"Thanks, sailor." A long sip and then another. "I always said the
pigboats drink the lousiest joe in the Navy."
"Aircraft 265, DX 3,000!" Orsino yelled.
A thunderous alarm began to sound. "Take her down!" yelled Commander
Grinnel.
"Take her down, sir!" the helmsman echoed. "But sir, the skipper--"
Orsino remembered him too then, dead asleep in his cot on the deck, the
muscle twitching the left side of his face every few seconds.
"God-damn it, those were aircraft! _Take her down!_"
The luminous blobs and numbers and arrows swirled before Orsino's eyes
as the trim of the ship changed, hatches clanged to and water thundered
into the ballast tanks. He staggered and caught himself as the deck
angled sharply underfoot.
He knew what Grinnel had meant by saying he was uncommitted, and he knew
now that it was no longer true.
He thought for a moment that he might be sick into the face-fitting box,
but it passed.
Minutes later, Grinnel was on the mike, his voice sounding metallically
through the ship: "To all hands. To all hands. This is Commander
Grinnel. We lost the skipper in that emergency dive--but you and I know
that that's the way he would have wanted it. As senior line officer
aboard, I'm assuming command for the rest of the voyage. We will remain
submerged until dark. Division officers report to the wardroom. That's
all."
He tapped Orsino on the shoulder. "Take off," he said. Orsino realized
that the green blobs--clouds, were they?--no longer showed, and recalled
that radar didn't work through water.
He wasn't in on the wardroom meeting, and wandered rather forlornly
through the ship, incredibly jammed as it was with sleeping men,
coffee-drinking men and booty. Half a dozen times he had to turn away
close questioning about his radar experience and the appearance of the
aircraft on the radar scope. Each time he managed it, with the feeling
that one more question would have cooked his goose.
The men weren't sentimental about the skipper they had lost. Mostly they
wondered how much of a cut Grinnel would allot them from the booty of
Cape Cod.
At last the word passed for "Wyman" to report to the captain's cabin. He
did, sweating after a fifteen-minute chat with a radar technician.
Grinnel closed the door of the minute cabin and smirked at him. "You
have trouble, Wyman?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You'd have worse trouble if they found out for sure that you don't know
radar. I'd be in the clear. I could tell them you claimed to be a
qualified radar man. That would make me out to be pretty gullible, but
it would make you out to be a murderer. Who's backing you, Wyman? Who
told you to get rid of the skipper?"
"Quite right, sir," Orsino said. "You've really got me there."
"Glad you realize it, Wyman. I've got you and I can use you. It was a
great bit of luck, the skipper corking off on deck. But I've always had
a talent for improvisation. If you're determined to be a leader, Wyman,
nothing is more valuable. Do you know, I can relax with you? It's a rare
feeling. For once I can be certain that the man I'm talking to isn't one
of Loman's stooges, or one of Clinch's N.A.B.I. ferrets or anything else
but what he says he is--
"But that's beside the point. I have something else to tell you. There
are two sides to working for me, Wyman. One of them's punishment if you
get off the track. That's been made clear to you. The other is reward if
you stay on. I have plans, Wyman, that are large-scale. They simply
eclipse the wildest hopes of Loman, Clinch, Baggot and the rest. And
yet, they're not wild. How'd you like to be on the inside when the North
American Government returns to the mainland?"
Orsino uttered an authentic gasp and Commander Grinnel looked satisfied.