The crew looked at the wharf in unabashed curiosity.
Capt. Whittaker suddenly grabbed Miss Chenowith and kissed her on the mouth. The crew of the Drum whistled and cheered.
Miss Chenowith freed herself, turned to It. Hammer, and kissed him on the mouth.
The crew whistled and cheered again.
Whittaker and Hammer walked down the gangplank and stepped onto the deck of the Drum. They did not salute the officer of the deck, nor ask permission to come aboard. They just walked on board and went into the conning tower as if they were boarding the Staten Island Ferry.
“Make all preparations to get under way,” Commander Lennox ordered.
The Navy band on the wharf, following tradition, began to play “Anchors Aweigh.”
“Remove the gangplanks, loosen up all lines fore and aft,” It. Rutherford ordered.
Commander Lennox sensed movement behind him. He turned and saw Capt. Whittaker’s head and shoulders coming through the hatch.
“Morning,” Whittaker said cheerfully.
A moment later, It. Hammer came through the hatch.
With a massive effort, Commander Lennox smiled.
“If you gentlemen will be good enough to stand back there,” he said, pointing.
“Sure,” Whittaker said.
“We don’t want to be in the way.”
Both of them waved at the girl on the wharf. Both of them, Lennox saw, wore evidence of her lipstick. She waved back.
“Cast off all lines,” Lennox said.
“Secure all deck hatches. Half left rudder.
Ahead dead slow.”
The Drum shuddered just perceptibly as the engines engaged. Very slowly, she moved away from the dock.
When they were in the channel, moving past Battleship Row, Lennox turned to Rutherford.
“You have the conn, Mr. Rutherford,” he said.
“Take us to sea.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
“And if you gentlemen don’t mind, I would like a word with you in my cabin.”
Commander Lennox delivered a brief, precise, and pungent lecture on the customs of the Naval Service as they applied to submarine service, starting with the information that one was supposed to ask permission before boarding a Naval vessel and touching on such items as the prohibition from entering the bridge without the specific permission of the captain.
And then he warmed to his subject.
So far as he was concerned, he told them, this movie documentary was the dumbest goddamned thing he had heard of in his eight years in the Navy.
In addition to that, he didn’t like the attitude of either of them. He was the captain of a vessel at sea, and when they spoke with him, they would call him either “Captain” or “Sir.” But for the time being, he said, he would be pleased if they didn’t speak to him unless spoken to, and he would consider it a personal favor if they would take their meals in the wardroom when he was not there.
Movie actors in officers’ uniforms ruined his appetite, As far as he was concerned, his business was sinking Japanese ships, not making some kind of bullshit movie. They should conduct themselves accordingly.
Capt. Whittaker and It. Hammer took the speech without comment, which Lennox found disturbing. He had hoped they would argue with him, which would have given him the chance to really eat ass, and possibly even an excuse to throw their goddamned rubber boats and movie cameras over the side.
“Sir,” Whittaker said respectfully, “we will do our best to keep out of your way.”
“See that you do,” Lennox said.
“You are dismissed.”
Once he had finished blowing his top, Lennox was a little ashamed of himself.
He told himself they had their orders too, even if those orders were to make a fucking movie. And now that he had calmed down a little, he understood that he had been something of a prick to them.
They were still several hundred miles from the position in the Pacific where he was authorized to open envelope “2,” but he went to the safe and got it anyway. Maybe, once he knew where they were going, he would be able to suggest to the movie stars something they could take pictures of. Maybe would make up for his having acted like a horse’s ass.
He tore the envelope open.
commander submarine force pacific pearl harbor, territory OP hawaii