a part in the ongoing hunt for the weapon most carrier skippers feared above
all others. But it was the Viking that was the real backbone of the whole
effort.
Yet with everything they could set to hunting they still couldn’t cover
all the bases. Too much ocean, not enough people. A losing proposition, if
viewed strictly from the technical side of things.
But it was possible to improve the odds a little. The ASW coordinator
back on the Jefferson did his best to think like a sub skipper and deploy
sub-hunting assets where they would do the most good. And Meade, the TACCO,
was supposed to do the same thing on a smaller scale from his station in the
windowless rear cabin of the S-3. Looking for submarines was like a chess
game, with a variety of standard moves and gambits, but in the long run it was
up to the individual players to make things happen.
ASW work was often regarded as the forgotten stepchild of the carrier air
wing, at least by the pilots who flew the more glamorous missions. But the
close-knit fraternity who flew the Vikings and the Sea Stallion ASW
helicopters regarded themselves as every bit as important as any other element
in the Air Wing. From what Magruder had seen so far they were as much masters
of their arcane art as any fighter pilot was of the mysteries of air combat
maneuvering.
He didn’t envy them their jobs. Harrison was a pilot, but nothing like
the glamorous men who flew the Tomcats or the Hornets or even the Intruders.
The other two were more technicians than aviators, with Meade, as TACCO,
trying to outguess veteran sub commanders.
Then there was AW/1 Mike Curtis, the Viking’s Senso for this run, and the
only enlisted man aboard. It had always surprised Magruder that ratings
served in the plane crews of the Vikings and the Hawkeyes. The popular
stereotype, which even life in the Navy didn’t fully dispel, was of aviation
as a game for officers only.
But the special skill it took to handle the electronics aboard a plane as
complex as the Viking was a great leveler. The men in the Antisubmarine
Warfare military-occupation-specialty category were the high-tech elite of the
carrier crew. Though they were often scorned by their own kind, who claimed
that the AW stood for “Aviation Weights”–naval slang referring to someone who
didn’t carry his load of shipboard duties–they earned their special place in
the carrier’s hierarchy. Men like Curtis went through two full years of
specialty training to get their jobs, while the typical enlisted man learned
his specialty in a few short months. Aboard their aircraft, Magruder had
heard, there were few distinctions between AW ratings and the officers they
flew with, and good AWs had little trouble earning commissions and rising to
the TACCO position.
He wondered what sort of a man could fill the demanding job. Curtis had
been quiet throughout the flight except for responses given strictly in the
line of duty. Was he naturally withdrawn, or overawed by the presence of the
Deputy CAG?
“Well, how about it, Curtis?” he asked. “Don’t I get a show? Or maybe
you at least have some words of wisdom for the rookie?”
“I don’t get paid for philosophy, sir,” Curtis said over the ICS.
“That’s for officers to do. Me, I just sit back here and play the most
expensive goddamned video game anybody ever saw.”
He smiled at that. “And what’s the score?”
“I haven’t been beaten yet,” Curtis said. Then, softly, he went on.
“But I’ve never had to hunt ’em for real, you know, sir? I don’t know if
that’s going to be the same.”
Magruder remembered the first time he’d flown in combat, back in Korea.
All the flying time, all the Top Gun practice, still hadn’t prepared him for
the realities of combat.
But the word from the Jefferson said Coyote’s squadron had already traded
shots with the Russians. All too soon Curtis might have his chance to find
out what a real sub hunt, a hunt to the death, was really like.
“It isn’t the same, Curtis,” he said softly. “It’s never the same.”