Rage of Battle

for the TACAMO, it was already drifting off position. Second, once Roosevelt began to move under power of the “switchblade” prop now sheathed in the forward ballast tank, the resistance caused by the towed array, normally of no consequence when the sub was at full speed, would decrease its five knots to three. He was bothered, too, by a seemingly unimportant incident — the fact that the hospital corpsman had interrupted him about Evans when he was giving his instructions about the MOSS to the electronics mate and sonar operator. It wasn’t the corpsman’s cutting into the conversation that bothered Robert Brentwood, but the anxiety behind it. That could spread faster than the flu that had killed Evans. Or had it? And could the orders he had given the mate and Sonar be carried out before the scheduled TACAMO rendezvous?

He depressed the intercom button for “Control” and told Zeldman to wake him two hours before the ETA of the TACAMO aircraft.

“Will do,” came Zeldman’s breezy reply. Before he lay down on the bunk, Brentwood took off his rubber sneakers, the reason for them — no noise shorts — bringing back Evans’s terrified face. He tried to think of something else, but it wasn’t easy. Civilians, he mused, always thought you got used to seeing death. Maybe you did on the battlefield. Maybe his youngest David, who had fought in Korea shortly after the beginning of the war, was used to it. And Ray — well, no one could hope to know what Ray thought anymore. The photos of David and Ray were on his desk in the antiroll gimbals mounting, as were those of his mom and dad and Lana. Lana was really the loner in the family, but he felt closer to her than any of them. Maybe it was because she was the second oldest of the four. What had happened to her since the spate she’d gotten into in Halifax? What had happened to all of them? It would be months before he would know — if he ever did — his ship crippled somewhere west of the mid- Atlantic ridge, and Soviet Hunter/Killers breaking out through the Greenland-Iceland-Norway Gap. If he was a betting man, he thought he would sit this one out. But fate had thrown the dice and he had no choice.

He lay back and pulled out Rosemary’s picture from his shirt pocket. He had had it laminated with plastic in London. It was crazy, he knew, but if he went down forever — if he was to die in the Roosevelt— the thought of her photo eaten away by the salt, devoured by some shark or other blood-crazed denizen, bothered him. If anyone else saw it, they would just assume he’d laminated it for normal wear and tear. True, too. He kissed her, popped the photo in his pocket, and reached up for his Walkman earphones. They were cold and he held them in his hands to warm them. A dank, sour smell assailed his nostrils. He sat up, peeled off a sock, and sniffed—”Holy”—took the other one off, and, balling them, prepared to pop them in the laundry hamper at the foot of the bunk. The first one was a perfect basket. The next shot was to be the winning goal in sudden death overtime. Seattle and the Celtics, eighty-four apiece. It missed. An omen?

Don’t be damn silly, he told himself, and plugged in the earphones. Rewinding the tape, he heard the high screech-like a torpedo closing. He stopped it, pushed “play,” and lay back. There were a lot of “ifs” hanging about, but one certainty he’d been taught at Annapolis was that when you’re the commanding officer, “there is no possibility of assist.” You had to be alert, and that meant you had to get sleep. “Remember Montgomery,” one of his instructors had been fond of saying. “Delegate authority until you’re needed.” You simply had to wait. He closed his eyes and listened to the timbre of Johnny Cash and “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” Problem was, would they finish the MOSS in time for the TACAMO rendezvous? He was wide awake.

CHAPTER FIVE

As a squally rain swept down from the North Sea over Surrey and Oxshott heath, Richard Spence, in search of Rosemary, pulled up the collar of his mackintosh and, berating himself for not having brought an umbrella, made his way uneasily along the sodden, slippery path, having to stop every fifty yards or so to wipe the condensation from his bifocals. In the fading light the shapes of the trees in the distance momentarily took on the shape of people, of what he wanted to see rather than what was there. Yet despite the foul weather, the pelting of the rain and the wind roaring through the big oaks, Spence found the ferocity of the storm strangely comforting. Compared to the quieter but tension-filled atmosphere of his house, the often brisling animosity between Rosemary and Georgina and the silent, but pain-filled, determination of his wife trying her best to cope with the death of their son, the vicissitudes of nature seemed to him, if not more manageable, then the least of his worries. He felt bad for feeling like this, realizing that for the men at sea, like Rosemary’s Robert and those on NATO’s lifeblood convoys en route from Canada and the United States, the Arctic-bred storms would be met with less equanimity. But at least nature didn’t come with a net of complexes woven about it; its moods were direct and unequivocal. With his daughters — who knew? Georgina’s smile could mean the very opposite of her intent, Rosemary’s bad temper with Georgina the very antithesis of her normal disposition.

He saw a figure on the path about a hundred yards away coming toward him, but whether or not it was Rosemary, he couldn’t be sure. From the walk, it seemed to be a woman, all right, but she was wearing a scarf about her head, the wind taking the cloth to a sharp point like one of the sleek bicycle race helmets that had been so popular following the Tour de France in July. The Tour de France — he wondered if he or the world would ever see one again.

Whoever it was had her head bent down against the rain, facial features hidden by the collar of a dark coat, dark brown like Rosemary’s or black, he couldn’t tell through the smear of the rain on his bifocals, the sweeping curtains of rain increasing in their intensity. He heard a dog barking somewhere nearby, but how close it was, whether it was anywhere near the figure, he couldn’t tell, his hearing these days not what it used to be, the main reason they had rejected him even for the army’s administrative reserve, relegating him instead to the home guard auxiliary. Not even the proper home guard, he thought wryly. In a way, it was worse than being rejected outright — a kind of waiting list of old crocks. Yet inside he felt the same as when he was fifty, and at times stood staring at the mirror in the morning, finding it difficult, except for the few streaks of gray in his hair, to believe he was in his late sixties — that the reflection looking back was him. Sometimes he felt like two different people.

It was Rosemary approaching, hands thrust deep in her brown jacket pocket, scarf whipping hard in the wind like the defiant flag of a surrounded army, reminding Richard of the trapped British Army of the Rhine, which, with the Americans’ Ninth Corps, was still reeling, trying to catch its breath in the Dortmund- Bielefeld pocket.

“Daddy — what are you—?”

“That boy Williams—” he said, his face scrunching under the impact of freezing rain.

“Wilkins,” she said.

“He’s tried to kill himself.”

Her head shot up, rain-streaked cheeks making it impossible to see whether she’d been crying after the row back at the house.

“But—” she began, and stopped, realizing it must have something to do with her. Or did it? Perhaps the school had wanted to notify her because she was the boy’s teacher.

“Rose—” Now Richard Spence faltered, throat constricting, the sound of his voice swallowed by the frenzied sound of the wind in the big, dark oaks. Instead of finishing what he had intended to say, he put his hand on his daughter’s arm, turned her toward home, and began anew, his voice rising through the howl of the storm. “He left some kind of note apparently. The headmaster said the boy wants to have a word with you.” Richard stumbled and had to stop again to wipe his glasses. “I didn’t get any more details,” he lied. “We were rather flustered, I’m afraid, and Mother was worried about you being out in this.”

“Why on earth would he—” began Rosemary, but her words either trailed off or were inaudible to her father as they passed through a new onslaught of rain. She was already beginning to feel responsible for Wilkins, just as her father knew she would.

“I think…” said Richard, his eyes fixed on a branch bending dangerously. “C’mon!” he shouted, indicating the branch. “That’s near breaking point.” As they passed through the thick copse of alder before crossing the road, Rosemary felt his grip tighten on her arm. “I think the headmaster would like a chat.”

She pulled her coat higher against the storm’s rage, the wind’s rushing now like an angry sea, and for a moment she was assailed by fear for Robert, and the realization that the real reason behind her row with Georgina was her growing conviction that she was pregnant. Suddenly she felt guilty about everything, about what she now judged to be her unwarranted retorts to Georgina — she should have dealt with it with grace. She felt guilty about