cleaned up?"
"Six to eight hours 'til we can stop using masks, twenty-four 'til it smells good, using air scrubbers alone. We can't exactly snorkel to refresh the atmosphere, can we now?" Jeffrey chuckled. "No, probably not a good idea." Then he realized Willey was being sarcastic. "Keep me posted on the repairs."
Jeffrey and Bell went forward, out of the vast but crowded engine room spaces and through the maneuvering room. The reactor operator and throttleman looked up as they passed. Jeffrey eyed the instrument reading's—nothing wrong there. They squeezed around enlisted men, busy rolling up hoses. They walked into the reactor tunnel, then reached the watertight door. The crewman posted by the hatch lifted the canvas smoke curtain, so they could clamber through more easily.
They came out near the enlisted mess, stepping over gear and supplies mustered there for the Texas mission. Jeffrey waited while Bell drew fresh air from the overhead pipe. Some firefighters rested in an eating booth, recovering from heat stress, heads in their hands, their hair all shiny and curly, soaked with sweat. Assistant corpsmen tended the wounded, ranging from bad sprains or bruises to concussions and deep cuts and burns. The cost of Jeffrey's victory had been very high indeed.
Jeffrey and Bell visited with the men briefly, offering encouragement, thanking them for their efforts. The men seemed listless, tight-lipped, distant, or dazed, several of them in very obvious pain.
The chief corpsman came out of the kitchen area, drying his clean hands with a wad of sterile gauze. He pulled on a fresh pair of surgical gloves. There was fresh blood on his rolled-up sleeves.
A cook-paramedic helped another wounded man stumble from the wardroom toward an open mess booth, where
he lay down flat on the table, his eyes scrunched closed. His head was half concealed in bandages, already leaking more blood, and he breathed from a small oxygen bottle instead of a regular mask.
"Twenty-seven stitches," the corpsman said. "That's a new record for me." He began to examine the next waiting crewman, reading the latest vital signs scribbled on a tag clipped to the patient's jumpsuit, and testing his reflexes.
"Will they recover?" Jeffrey said. He cast his eyes around the mess space.
"Yeah," the chief corpsman said through his air pack mask. "Eventually. Yeah. It'll be much worse on Texas."
Bell took another good breath from the overhead pipe, then he and Jeffrey walked forward. •
When they were out of earshot of the mess, Bell said, "Skipper, we need to talk." Jeffrey and Bell sat in Jeffrey's stateroom, both using plug-in masks now, their faces inches apart. Their air valves hissed and whooshed repetitively. The stateroom door was closed.
"Permission to speak frankly, sir," Bell said.
Jeffrey tried not to bristle. When he was XO himself, he'd always encouraged his department heads to speak their minds freely in private. Since the reshuffling from Captain Wilson's being injured, Bell, as acting executive officer, was Jeffrey's official interface to the entire crew. But there was something in Bell's tone that said this discussion would not be routine. "Permission to speak frankly," said the way Bell said it, by long naval tradition really meant "Permission to leave our difference in rank outside the room."
"Granted," Jeffrey said. He needed Bell's trust, now more than ever. To let a problem between them fester could lead to terrible consequences later, at a personal level or in combat.
"It is my respectful opinion, Captain, and I don't believe I'm alone in this, that you almost just got us all killed."
"We had to go after those German boats. We had to help that convoy."
"Two quiet enemy vessels? With ten torpedo tubes between them? With torpedoes that are smart and pack a bigger punch than ours? That constitutes a superior force, Captain. A clearly superior force. It's your job, with a command that is not expendable, to not risk the ship against a
"Six to eight hours 'til we can stop using masks, twenty-four 'til it smells good, using air scrubbers alone. We can't exactly snorkel to refresh the atmosphere, can we now?" Jeffrey chuckled. "No, probably not a good idea." Then he realized Willey was being sarcastic. "Keep me posted on the repairs."
Jeffrey and Bell went forward, out of the vast but crowded engine room spaces and through the maneuvering room. The reactor operator and throttleman looked up as they passed. Jeffrey eyed the instrument reading's—nothing wrong there. They squeezed around enlisted men, busy rolling up hoses. They walked into the reactor tunnel, then reached the watertight door. The crewman posted by the hatch lifted the canvas smoke curtain, so they could clamber through more easily.
They came out near the enlisted mess, stepping over gear and supplies mustered there for the Texas mission. Jeffrey waited while Bell drew fresh air from the overhead pipe. Some firefighters rested in an eating booth, recovering from heat stress, heads in their hands, their hair all shiny and curly, soaked with sweat. Assistant corpsmen tended the wounded, ranging from bad sprains or bruises to concussions and deep cuts and burns. The cost of Jeffrey's victory had been very high indeed.
Jeffrey and Bell visited with the men briefly, offering encouragement, thanking them for their efforts. The men seemed listless, tight-lipped, distant, or dazed, several of them in very obvious pain.
The chief corpsman came out of the kitchen area, drying his clean hands with a wad of sterile gauze. He pulled on a fresh pair of surgical gloves. There was fresh blood on his rolled-up sleeves.
A cook-paramedic helped another wounded man stumble from the wardroom toward an open mess booth, where
he lay down flat on the table, his eyes scrunched closed. His head was half concealed in bandages, already leaking more blood, and he breathed from a small oxygen bottle instead of a regular mask.
"Twenty-seven stitches," the corpsman said. "That's a new record for me." He began to examine the next waiting crewman, reading the latest vital signs scribbled on a tag clipped to the patient's jumpsuit, and testing his reflexes.
"Will they recover?" Jeffrey said. He cast his eyes around the mess space.
"Yeah," the chief corpsman said through his air pack mask. "Eventually. Yeah. It'll be much worse on Texas."
Bell took another good breath from the overhead pipe, then he and Jeffrey walked forward. •
When they were out of earshot of the mess, Bell said, "Skipper, we need to talk." Jeffrey and Bell sat in Jeffrey's stateroom, both using plug-in masks now, their faces inches apart. Their air valves hissed and whooshed repetitively. The stateroom door was closed.
"Permission to speak frankly, sir," Bell said.
Jeffrey tried not to bristle. When he was XO himself, he'd always encouraged his department heads to speak their minds freely in private. Since the reshuffling from Captain Wilson's being injured, Bell, as acting executive officer, was Jeffrey's official interface to the entire crew. But there was something in Bell's tone that said this discussion would not be routine. "Permission to speak frankly," said the way Bell said it, by long naval tradition really meant "Permission to leave our difference in rank outside the room."
"Granted," Jeffrey said. He needed Bell's trust, now more than ever. To let a problem between them fester could lead to terrible consequences later, at a personal level or in combat.
"It is my respectful opinion, Captain, and I don't believe I'm alone in this, that you almost just got us all killed."
"We had to go after those German boats. We had to help that convoy."
"Two quiet enemy vessels? With ten torpedo tubes between them? With torpedoes that are smart and pack a bigger punch than ours? That constitutes a superior force, Captain. A clearly superior force. It's your job, with a command that is not expendable, to not risk the ship against a
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