Point of Honor Read online

  “Try to be a little more specific, Chief.”

  “It’s that number two boiler. Sounds like hell again. You need to tell that dumb son of a bitch he can’t hot-rod this thing around like a sports car.”

  Blake shook his head. He’d tried before. “Skipper doesn’t see it that way. He says it’s up to us to deliver whatever he asks for.”

  “He’ll get what he’s asking for, all right. One of these days, all hell’s going to break loose in that engine room. I’m telling you, sir, it ain’t safe down there no more. This ship’s fifty years old. It needs to be retired, like me.”

  “Who’s got the watch?”

  “Chief McKinnon. Nervous as hell about you and me being gone at the same time. Thinks that boiler’s just waiting for us to leave.”

  “If it goes, it won’t matter who’s aboard,” Blake said.

  “Well, if it goes, that freighter won’t be the only ship dead in the water, that’s for damn sure.” The chief stared off at the dark outline on the horizon.

  Blake looked at his watch. “Get everyone we asked for?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Kozlewski handed him the clipboard. Blake ran his eye down the list:

  USS Carlyle (DD949) - Boarding Party Roster

  Blake, D.F., LTJG, OIC

  Kozlewski, F.R., BTC

  Sparks, J.L., EM1

  Rivero, C., SSGT, CMI (TDA)

  Robertson, J.P., BT2

  Jones, M.D., HM2

  Tobin, J.M., MM3

  Kelly, D.L., RM3

  Alvarez, L., SN, Coxswain

  “Kelly?” Blake raised his eyebrows. “What happened to Williams?”

  “Sickbay.”

  “Sorry to hear it.” Blake’s eyes swept the group and fell on a slender sailor with a radio backpack. “But I guess a radioman’s a radioman.”

  “Sure, it is,” Kozlewski said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The chief turned away so his voice wouldn’t carry. “Now you tell me how a little girl like that is going to climb a twenty-foot Jacob’s ladder with a twenty-five-pound radio on her back. I don’t know what this goddamn Navy’s coming to.”

  “It’s coming to the twentieth century,” Blake said. He glanced at Kelly, struck by how different the shapeless dungarees looked on a female form. She stared back and made eye contact with Blake as if to say she knew they were talking about her. He turned away casually and said to the chief, “In the first place, she’s not a little girl, she’s a young woman, and in the second place, she looks pretty healthy to me.”

  “You and the rest of the crew.”

  “I heard Gunderson bragging about her in the wardroom the other day. First in her class at ‘A’ school. Handpicked to be one of the first women to serve on a combat ship. I wouldn’t sell her short.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Blake glanced at the group of sailors forming up. “Where’s Rivero?”

  “Who? Oh, that spic marine. He’ll be along,” the chief said. “All them spics move kind of slow.”

  Blake stared at Kozlewski and shook his head. “You know, for a guy who’s been on the receiving end of that kind of idiotic talk, you’re pretty free at passing it out.”

  Kozlewski shrugged. “All I said was they was slow.”

  “Anyone who can make sergeant in the Colombian Marine Corps can’t be too slow.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Blake looked up as a tall figure in combat fatigues emerged onto the boat deck. He watched the Colombian marine approach with his catlike walk and threw a satisfied glance at the chief. Rivero appeared to be about Blake’s height, six feet, with a heavily muscular frame to match. The sergeant was impressive by any standard. Pressed combat fatigues, boots polished to a dull sheen, well-worn but immaculate Colt M-16A2 assault rifle on his shoulder, two thirty-round banana clips of 5.56mm NATO ammunition stuffed into his flak jacket. With a Ka-Bar Marine combat knife strapped to his right ankle, he looked like a one-man army.

  Rivero came to attention in front of Blake and snapped a smart salute. “Sir, Sergeant Rivero, CMI, reporting for duty, sir.”

  Blake returned the salute casually. “Glad to have you along, Sergeant.”

  Frank Kozlewski peered at the tall marine suspiciously. “What the hell’s ‘CMI’?”

  Sergeant Rivero stared impassively down on the chief. “Corps of Marine Infantry. Or if you prefer, CIM. Cuerpo de Infanteria de Marina.”

  “No, I don’t prefer,” the chief said.

  Blake threw a glance at Kozlewski that told him to knock it off. He could see the other members of the boarding party and the boatswain’s mates working on deck stealing glances at the Colombian. He was quiet and kept to himself, which was grist enough for the rumor mill of a destroyer. Blake had heard all the scuttlebutt: He’d been trained in the martial arts and could kill a man using only his hands; his entire family had been wiped out by drug lords; he had a personal vendetta against the Colombian drug cartels. Blake smiled to himself. The crew of a destroyer was nothing, if not imaginative.

  “All right, listen up,” Blake said after Sergeant Rivero took his place with the group. “As most of you know, our assignment is to board that freighter and determine why she’s stopped in the sea lanes. Our mission is to lend whatever assistance is necessary to get the ship under way, get some power to the running lights, or to help in any way we’re needed. It’s possible there could be illness aboard, so I’ve asked Doc Jones to join us.” Blake nodded at a black hospital corpsman with a canvas medical bag on his shoulder.

  “What did you bring in your black bag, Doc?” someone yelled over the wind.

  “Enough antibiotics to cure all the clap in South America,” the corpsman said, convulsing everyone except Sergeant Rivero, who stared stonily ahead. Blake tried not to smile but couldn’t help himself. He’d heard about Jones from the story that had made the rounds in the wardroom. The corpsman had cured one of the Carlyle’s most chronic malingerers by brandishing a syringe he’d picked up at a veterinary supply house, muttering “about 500 ccs in the groin should do it.” There were some guys you had to like.

  “We’ve spotted a Jacob’s ladder hanging from the port quarter, near the stern of the ship,” Blake said. “We’ll circle once to do a hull inspection.” He nodded to Seaman Luis Alvarez, the coxswain assigned to pilot the motor whaleboat. “If there’s no visible damage, we’ll tie up to the ladder and board that way. Once we get aboard, there’s no telling what we’ll find, so I want everyone to stick together in case we have to beat a hasty retreat. Any questions?”

  John Sparks raised his hand. “Why the hell can’t we get in closer, Lieutenant? That freighter must be two miles off.”

  Blake glanced at the chief, an acknowledgment that he’d been right. Frank Kozlewski had argued against taking the weasel-faced electrician because he had to hear his complaining all day.

  “The skipper wouldn’t be prudent to take the ship in closer without knowing more about it.”

  “You mean the son of a bitch might blow up or something?”

  Blake tensed, beginning to regret his decision already. “I don’t think there’s much danger of that.”

  “Oh, well that’s good,” Sparks said. “Not much.”

  “Anything else?” Blake asked.

  The group stood silent.

  “Okay, let’s load up.” Blake held the boat for the others to board first, aware of the tradition that officers were last in, first out. Settling down in the bow of the whaleboat, he felt the USS Carlyle heave to a full stop. He gripped the monkey lines when he felt the whaleboat swing free from its davits and glanced at the seamen in life jackets struggling to keep their guy lines taut, waiting for the signal to release. All activity above decks had stopped while the crew of the destroyer leaned over lifelines to watch the dangerous maneuver.

  Blake took one last look at the bridge, hoping the exec would appear and call it off. Captain H
ammer stepped out on the bridge wing, shouted something unintelligible through a bullhorn and dropped his arm. The starboard motor whaleboat, with its shoehorned cargo of orange life jackets and combat helmets, glided out on steel cables, then plummeted down a gray cliff toward the surface of the ocean.

  Blake glanced at the wall of steel rising up on the left, then down to the water rushing up to meet them. He felt a spine-twisting jolt as the whaleboat collided with the top of a swell, tossing it against the hull of the destroyer, then pulling it away.

  Bow and stern sling lines were released as the diesel engine spun over with a gritty whine, belching black smoke. Alvarez leaned into the rudder and accelerated away, throwing up a rooster-tail of white spray. Blake glanced over his shoulder and watched the old gray lady receding into the background, ambushed by a feeling of abandonment. He stared at the pudgy figure of Captain Hammer standing on the bridge wing watching him through binoculars, almost able to read his mind. If the mission was successful, Captain Hammer would take the credit. If it wasn’t, Blake would take the heat. Even after he was out of sight, Blake could feel the captain’s eyes on him through the binoculars, could feel the conflict in him, wanting him to succeed, yet wanting him to fail. He had no problem with the captain taking the credit if there was any, but he damned sure was not going to accommodate him by failing. He turned, finally, and squinted through the mist at the dark freighter riding low on the horizon, determined to show the bastard what “ring knockers” were made of.

  Blake gripped the six-inch gunwales of the whaleboat and forced his stomach to stay down. The tiny craft bobbed up on the white crest of a wave, shuddered with its propeller out of the water, and crashed down into a foaming trough, drenching him with a vaporous cloud of spray. He glanced up at the slate-colored dome that covered them, overwhelmed with a feeling of insignificance. Anyone who feels important should spend some time in a twenty-foot whaleboat on the open sea.

  Gusts of wind whipped the boat, yawing it to starboard. Looking back, he saw Alvarez fighting the rudder over a montage of grim faces. He pushed his helmet down and shielded his eyes, squinting through the mist at the freighter coming into view.

  “This son of a bitch is filling up fast, sir.” Frank Kozlewski clung to the seat next to him, peering down at the brown water bubbling up through the deck grids.

  “We’re almost there,” Blake said, staring at the dark form.

  “We better be.”

  “We’ll be okay.” Blake glanced down at the water washing over his shoes. He’d been watching the water level in the bilges since they’d passed the midway point. It was rising steadily now from the waves breaking over the gunwales, as well as from water seeping in through the seams of the dry hull.

  “See anything yet?” the chief asked.

  Blake shook his head. He cupped his hands around his eyes and scanned the weather deck and superstructure. The only movement on deck was a flag snapping briskly from the ensign staff. Red and blue stars. Panamanian registry. He motioned for Alvarez to cut his speed and circle the ship.

  “What are you doing?” Chief Kozlewski said.

  “I want to check the hull before we board,” Blake said, squinting.

  “I don’t think that’s a great idea-”

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” Alvarez shouted from the stern. “We’re shipping a hell of a lot of water.” The coxswain was standing up, pointing down to the bilges. “We better take her in, sir.”

  “He’s right,” the chief said. “We ain’t got time for no hull inspection. Let’s get aboard.”

  “That ship could be sinking for all we know,” Blake said quietly to the chief. He glanced between the water in the bilges and the ship. It was a judgment call. He motioned again for Alvarez to circle the ship.

  Alvarez throttled the whaleboat down and maneuvered along the port side of the freighter while Blake looked over the immense hull. She was a stately old ship, riding low in the water. Gashes of rust stains ran down the black hull, dusted pink from the early morning sun fighting through gray clouds on the horizon. Large rolling waves broke against the hull, exposing flashes of copper-based red paint below the water line.

  Blake tingled with nostalgia, seeing the old freighter up close. He’d been a ship freak for as long as he could remember, spending hours after school sitting on the pier in San Diego, just watching the ships. He’d been fascinated with the Navy ships of the line, but it was the merchant ships from around the world that had captured his fancy. He loved to watch them coming in and going out, with their colorful flags and lyrical names, wondering where they were from, where they were bound, what kind of cargo they carried, what their crews were like. The old intrigue came flooding back.

  “La Estrella Latina,” Sergeant Rivero said behind him.

  Blake glanced up at the bow curving over them and saw the name spelled out in block letters, welded just aft of the rust-stained anchor wells. The Latin Star. A bemused smile crossed his face. There was something about naming ships that brought out the poet in everyone.

  The whaleboat rounded the bow to the lee of the ship and stabilized, shielded from the wind. Blake squinted at the red Roman numerals of the water line marker painted on the bow.

  “Well, is she sinking? Can you tell?” Frank Kozlewski craned his neck to peer at the numbers.

  “This marker just tells you how much hull is below the water line,” Blake said. “Looks like about thirty feet.”

  “Then how do you know if she’s sinking?”

  “The load line.” Blake motioned Alvarez down the starboard side of the ship to a circle painted on the hull with a series of horizontal lines running through it, denoted with various letters. The water was roughly level with a line marked T.

  “What’s all that?” Frank Kozlewski said.

  Blake glanced at the chief to see if he was serious and decided that he was. “The Plimsoll mark. Keeps ship owners from overloading. Named after Samuel Plimsoll, member of the British Parliament. Wrote the act that created it.”

  “What does it say?”

  Blake looked at Kozlewski, resisting the impulse to shake his head. Thirty years at sea and the chief couldn’t read a load line. That’s what being stuck in the engine room will do for you. It was a fate he was determined to avoid.

  “See the line on top that says TF? Stands for tropical fresh. That means you could take her up a tropical river and load her up to that line in fresh water. When you take her back to sea, the density of the salt water would lift her up to the T line. That’s as full as she can be loaded in a tropical ocean.”

  “So that means it ain’t sinking?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, that’s good, because this one is,” Frank Kozlewski said, staring down. “Better kick this thing in the ass, Lieutenant.”

  Blake flinched at the water sloshing over the tops of his shoes. He’d been so fascinated with the old freighter, he hadn’t noticed how much deeper it had gotten. He motioned for Alvarez to head for the Jacob’s ladder.

  Alvarez accelerated down the starboard side of the ship and maneuvered around the stern. Blake looked up at the fantail. The name of the ship was repeated in welded block letters just below the taffrail, with Panama in smaller letters on the line below.

  Alvarez reversed the engine and coaxed the whaleboat toward the Jacob’s ladder. Frank Kozlewski let out a gasp. “Mother of God, look at that.”

  Following Kozlewski’s eyes, Blake looked off to port and saw a high rolling wave approaching like a mountain on wheels. It rolled toward them in slow motion and seemed to pause, looming over them like a cobra with its hood spread. Breaking against the stern of the freighter, it slammed down into the whaleboat, filling it with three feet of water. The boat listed to port, and water began sweeping over the gunwales.

  “She’s swamping!” Alvarez shoved the throttle forward, and the boat labored ahead a few feet before the engine clanked to a halt.

  The turbulence of the water propelled the swamped boat toward t
he Jacob’s ladder. Blake scooped up the boat hook and lunged for the ladder. He missed it by inches as the flurry of water sucked the boat away from the hull. The backlash of the wave pushed the boat back toward the ship, and Blake could tell by the declining momentum that this attempt would be his last chance. Leaning over the bow of the boat, he stabbed the boat hook out as far as he could reach and caught the bottom rung of the ladder. He braced himself, pulled the boat in and secured the bowline. The boat was swamped, but still afloat. He looked back at the boarding party standing knee-deep in water.

  “Let’s go,” he shouted, holding the ladder.

  “Right behind you, sir,” Chief Kozlewski said.

  Blake scrambled up the swaying ladder and jumped over the weather rail, grateful for the firmness of the main deck under his feet. He glanced around and reached down to help the chief up, then extended a hand to Sergeant Rivero. As the Colombian marine turned and pulled Doc Jones over the weather rail, Blake reached down for Dana Kelly. “I can make it,” Kelly said, refusing his hand. A gust of wind buffeted the Jacob’s ladder, catching the radio backpack, pulling her backward. She looked up with a panicked expression as her grip on the wet rung loosened. Blake caught her by the wrist and helped her up.

  “Losing our radio operator is not what we need right now,” he said quietly, helping her over the weather rail. The clean scent of her hair displaced the organic smell of the sea for an instant.

  “Sorry, sir,” Kelly said, her face flushed.

  “Get your radio set up,” Blake said, reaching down for John Sparks. “I want to check in.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Kelly swung the SINCGARS radio down on deck and flipped open the canvas cover.

  Blake and Sergeant Rivero helped Robertson, Tobin, and Alvarez over the weather rail. They stood dripping on the teak deck as Kelly telescoped the antenna.

  “The old man’s going to shit if we lose that boat,” Alvarez said, shivering in the wind.

  “Might be a sump pump in the engine room,” the chief said.