the interior communications circuits. Finally, he looked back at
Dunway. “Combat says it might be a contact.”
A shrieking roar rose from the flight deck nine stories below them. An
aircraft a Tomcat, by the sound of it turning on the catapult. With a
green deck and permission to launch aircraft, the air boss had moved
ahead smartly. Dunway had only seconds left to stop it. He lunged for
the bitch box.
It wasn’t enough time. Just as his hand touched the toggle switch, he
heard the roar increase, then the sound of an aircraft accelerating
down the catapult. It was followed four seconds later by the gentle
thump of the steel piston ramming against the stops in the bow as the
aircraft broke free of the shuttle and was hurled into the air. He
looked over the small ledge that ran around the ship immediately under
the windows and saw a Tomcat dip down out of view briefly, then rise up
to grab altitude and speed.
“Red deck!” He turned the toggle switch loose without explanation.
That phrase alone would stop all flight operations until they had a
chance to ascertain whether or not there was a contact immediately in
their path.
He turned to look for the JOOD. The young man had disappeared from
beside the radar repeater and was standing in the port bridge wing,
binoculars glued to his eyes.
Dunway saw his face turn pale. The JOOD dropped the binoculars,
turned, and shouted, “Small vessel dead ahead, sir!”
“What’s her course?” He hoped against hope that it would clear their
path by the time they got to it.
“Bearing constant, range decreasing. She’s bow-on to us, sir.”
“Hard right rudder.” Dunway whirled toward the conning officer. “Now,
mister!”
The conning officer repeated the order, uncertain as to exactly why it
had been given but instantly knowing this was no time for discussion.
Dunway stepped behind the helmsman, saw him spin the giant wheel
quickly to the right to the stops.
Dunway moved forward again, positioning himself immediately underneath
the course repeater located in the center of the ship overhead. He
watched the needle, praying for it to move faster, knowing it
wouldn’t.
Turning the ship, even at maximum rudder, was like maneuvering an
office building.
He looked back ahead again. There. Finally visible to the naked eye,
the small, rickety craft came into view. It was no more than a dot, a
black mark against the blue waves and whitecaps. Dunway reached for
his binoculars and held them to his eyes. A rust bucket. She was
riding low on the water, an open vessel with no powerhouse or other
cover in her. Little more than a lake boat, he would have thought.
But jam-packed with people, hanging all over each other and even
spilling over the sides to hold on to the gunwales, their legs dangling
in the water. Badly overloaded, hardly seaworthy, and directly in
their path.
He glanced back upward, saw the course repeater notch slowly to the
right, gave another order. “Starboard engines, back full. Port
engines, ahead full.” The combination of a backing bell on the
starboard shaft and a full-ahead bell on the port shaft would steepen
their turn. Not by much this early in the evolution, but perhaps by
enough.
But even engine orders aren’t instantaneous. They were given to the
lee helmsman, who relayed the command down to his counterpart in main
Engineering. Then, the steam valves were slowly rotated to adjust the
speed of the turbine on that shaft, again introducing a delay.
Furthermore, the giant turbines that drove the four shafts of the ship
did not respond instantaneously either. It all took time. Too much
time.
“What the hell’s going on?” the CO of the ship snapped.
When had he left the bridge wing, Dunway wondered.
How long had he been standing there? The man’s face was now suffused
with rage, his training session interrupted and emergency maneuvers
taking place on his bridge without his having been informed.
“Contact directly in our path. Captain,” Dunway said quickly. He ran
through the normal litany of course and speed, pointing the contact out
to the captain, his eyes still fixed on the course repeater as it