starting to feel better as the aspirin kicked in. But heâd noticed it before in hangovers: Things occurred to you that didnât when your head was straight. Ideas
came loose and drifted around, made different connections than they usually did.
Like now ⦠He found himself musing as he looked down the table how they all seemed the same at first, and how then when you looked closer, all different. Horseheads with his baby face and hurt expression. Kessler, big and slow, in an old green cardigan with a piece of masking tape spotted with blood stuck to his chin. Harper, Deshowits, Vysotsky ⦠He thought about the military people you saw in the movies, in books, how one-dimensional they seemedâeither evil or heroes, but either way, without complexity or depth. It was probably true that they seemed simpler than civilians. They spent too much time with other men, for one thing. They didnât lead examined lives. But beneath that, they were as divided and contradictory as any other human beings.
He sipped coffee and looked thoughtfully around at them, feeling like them, yet unlike; one with them, yet separate. As he had all his life. Nor did he have the faintest idea why.
Â
Â
âNOW all hands to quarters for muster, instruction, and inspection. Officersâ call,â said the 1MC, the general announcing system. As they clambered toward the weather decks, Dan shivered in the morning wind, wishing heâd worn a jacket.
The exec held officersâ call on the 03 level, in the sheltered area between the stacks. The department headsâDan, Quintanilla, Cannon, Giordano, and Cashâaligned themselves in front. The others fell in behind them, spaced around antennas and lockers.
It was a clear morning, and he looked out past the black shoals of submarines and the gray bulks of other ships, over the sheds and cranes of Charleston Naval Shipyard. An oiler loomed in Dry Dock Five, her underwater hull hairy with weed. Beyond that sprawled North Charleston, one of the most depressing places heâd ever seen. To his left rose the spires of St. Michaelâs and the other churches.
And behind him was the Cooper River, sliding like melted silver slowly out to sea.
It felt as if heâd spent half his time aboard in shipyards. But that was usual for new construction. The first year saw you in and out constantly for tests and trials and availabilities. And since she was the last of her class, Barrett had a lot of catching up to do, installing backfit gear.
Backfit was tearing perfectly workable new gear out and replacing it with something even newer. Over the years a class was in production, new gear didnât stop coming out. But instead of trying
to keep up, the Navy accepted the ship as it was originally ordered. Then, after commissioning, it put it back in the yard, tore out the gear that had to be changed, and installed the new stuff. It had always struck Dan as a no-brainer way of doing business.
But after a while, being in the yard got to you. First was the endless noise, a nerve-torturing cacophony of grinders, chippers, the shrill of warning bells, the hiss of compressed air. There were always strangers in the ship, and they left behind dirt and trash. They were stripping an old Gearing- class at the next pier, getting it ready to sell, and the wind carried grit and paint down every time it blew from the north.
Dan ran his eyes over her, feeling nostalgia and fear as his guts recalled Ryan.
Suddenly, before he could throw up his guard, a black wedge drove itself silently between himself and the world. At its foot, a line of white gleamed like bared teeth: the bow of an aircraft carrier, towering sudden and tremendous out of what had been utter blackness.
No, he thought. No! His fingers dug into his shoulder, fighting memory, hallucination, nightmare, with raw pain.
Ryan had been in company with a carrier task group, late at night, several hundred miles west of Ireland. Dan
came loose and drifted around, made different connections than they usually did.
Like now ⦠He found himself musing as he looked down the table how they all seemed the same at first, and how then when you looked closer, all different. Horseheads with his baby face and hurt expression. Kessler, big and slow, in an old green cardigan with a piece of masking tape spotted with blood stuck to his chin. Harper, Deshowits, Vysotsky ⦠He thought about the military people you saw in the movies, in books, how one-dimensional they seemedâeither evil or heroes, but either way, without complexity or depth. It was probably true that they seemed simpler than civilians. They spent too much time with other men, for one thing. They didnât lead examined lives. But beneath that, they were as divided and contradictory as any other human beings.
He sipped coffee and looked thoughtfully around at them, feeling like them, yet unlike; one with them, yet separate. As he had all his life. Nor did he have the faintest idea why.
Â
Â
âNOW all hands to quarters for muster, instruction, and inspection. Officersâ call,â said the 1MC, the general announcing system. As they clambered toward the weather decks, Dan shivered in the morning wind, wishing heâd worn a jacket.
The exec held officersâ call on the 03 level, in the sheltered area between the stacks. The department headsâDan, Quintanilla, Cannon, Giordano, and Cashâaligned themselves in front. The others fell in behind them, spaced around antennas and lockers.
It was a clear morning, and he looked out past the black shoals of submarines and the gray bulks of other ships, over the sheds and cranes of Charleston Naval Shipyard. An oiler loomed in Dry Dock Five, her underwater hull hairy with weed. Beyond that sprawled North Charleston, one of the most depressing places heâd ever seen. To his left rose the spires of St. Michaelâs and the other churches.
And behind him was the Cooper River, sliding like melted silver slowly out to sea.
It felt as if heâd spent half his time aboard in shipyards. But that was usual for new construction. The first year saw you in and out constantly for tests and trials and availabilities. And since she was the last of her class, Barrett had a lot of catching up to do, installing backfit gear.
Backfit was tearing perfectly workable new gear out and replacing it with something even newer. Over the years a class was in production, new gear didnât stop coming out. But instead of trying
to keep up, the Navy accepted the ship as it was originally ordered. Then, after commissioning, it put it back in the yard, tore out the gear that had to be changed, and installed the new stuff. It had always struck Dan as a no-brainer way of doing business.
But after a while, being in the yard got to you. First was the endless noise, a nerve-torturing cacophony of grinders, chippers, the shrill of warning bells, the hiss of compressed air. There were always strangers in the ship, and they left behind dirt and trash. They were stripping an old Gearing- class at the next pier, getting it ready to sell, and the wind carried grit and paint down every time it blew from the north.
Dan ran his eyes over her, feeling nostalgia and fear as his guts recalled Ryan.
Suddenly, before he could throw up his guard, a black wedge drove itself silently between himself and the world. At its foot, a line of white gleamed like bared teeth: the bow of an aircraft carrier, towering sudden and tremendous out of what had been utter blackness.
No, he thought. No! His fingers dug into his shoulder, fighting memory, hallucination, nightmare, with raw pain.
Ryan had been in company with a carrier task group, late at night, several hundred miles west of Ireland. Dan
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