The Shark Mutiny

ranches. Why, his own family had been doing so for generations, and he was the very first of the Packard cowboys to leave those wide-open spaces for a different kind of wilderness.

At the age of 47, Captain Tex still spoke fondly of the Panhandle city of Lubbock, where he had attended Texas Tech University in the hometown of the legendary rocker Buddy Holly. In fact Buddy had died the year before Tex was born, but the big sea captain spoke of him as if they had been fast friends “back home in Lubbock.”

And there were still sweltering evenings in the Iranian Gulf when the distant cries of the mullahs summoning the faithful on the echoing loudspeakers above the mosques mingled out on the calm water with the unmistakable sounds of “Peggy Sue,” “Maybe Baby,” and “Oh Boy!” drifting out from the bridge of the gigantic Galveston Star.

First thing Captain Tex did when he welcomed a new crew was to make sure they could join in the chorus of “Peggy Sue,” and to make equally certain the cook knew precisely how to make the fabled Texas dish of chicken- fried steak (CFS). He showed them how to pulverize the beef to within an inch of its life with a kitchen mallet, then hand-dip it in egg batter, double-dredged in seasoned flour, before dropping it into searing-hot oil in an iron skillet.

“That’s CFS, boy,” he would rumble in his deep baritone drawl. “Cook that raht, and you’ll get a place on the highest honor role in mah home state. Ain’t but a few cooks can git it just raht, and I want you to join that golden group, hear me?”

There was, however, nothing of the buffoon about Tex Packard. He was a superb navigator, and supremely confident in his own unique ability to handle his city-sized vessel, probably the biggest ship there had ever been, and just about indestructible, with her double hull and watertight compartments. As he frequently reminded his crew, “Fifty years ago the British and French landed an army at Suez with nothing else to do ’cept keep the crude- oil carriers moving.”

He knew the history of the world of tankers, understood that normal life, for millions and millions of people, rested entirely on the free and unimpeded passage of these monster ships.

It was thus a surprise to no one when Captain Tex Packard told his Chief Engineer, his Cargo Officer and his Chief Officer he had no intention of stopping for the goddamned Omani Navy, whatever their problem was. “Christ, you could lose their entire country in West Texas…. We’ll keep steering zero-nine-zero, and make our southerly turn when we’re just out of Oman’s national water, but not far enough into the Iranian side. Right then we’re going straight through. Next stop, the Texas Gulf Coast, and no more bullshit.

“Hold this easterly course,” he ordered. “And maintain speed.”

The Chief Engineer, Jeb Duross, from south Louisiana, said routinely, “This course is gonna take us clear across the incoming tanker lanes. We’d better keep a good watch and a lot of radar.”

“According to the Omanis, ’most every ship’s stopped, waiting for clearance,” replied the Captain. “So I don’t guess we’re gonna get a whole lot of tonnage coming across our bows. Anyway, we’ll pick ’em up miles away. No problem.”

The Galveston Star plowed forward. Twenty knots was a good speed for a VLCC, but she was already late, and at this time Captain Packard was prepared to sacrifice fuel for speed. His ship had a range of over 12,000 miles, and up on the bridge, 100 feet above the surface of the water, Buddy Holly was about to rock the high command of the tanker down toward the Iranian end of Jimmy Ramshawe’s Straight Line.

By now there were several “paints” on the radar, showing tankers making some kind of a holding pattern inside the gulf in the northeastern national waters of Oman. The far side of the tanker lanes, incoming, seemed more or less deserted. There was a depth of 180 feet below the keel, and, in clear seas on longitude 56.44E, Captain Packard made a southeasterly turn, selecting a course that would take him five miles north of the stricken Greek tanker, before he turned due south and went for the Line.

Of course, only Admiral Morgan and Lt. Ramshawe were certain of the existence of the regular three-line minefield, the PLT-3-moored sea mines every 500 yards. The laying of mines in the dark is an inexact science, but in general terms, this meant there was a mine in the path of any ship separated by a maximum distance of around 170 yards.

It also meant that if a ship slid by the first one, missing it by, say, 10 yards to starboard, the next one would come up 160 yards to port, and the next two after that 340 yards to port, and 170 to starboard. It was thus possible to miss them altogether, as many ships had. But it was still the maddest game of Russian roulette ever invented, especially for this particular tanker. The giant Galveston Star was 75 yards wide.

Three miles short of the first line, Captain Packard received a formal warning from one of the Omani Navy Corvettes that it was dangerous to proceed. No one was yet admitting there may be a minefield, and the warning thus had no teeth so far as big Tex Packard was concerned. “Screw ’em,” he confirmed. “We’re outta here.”

Up ahead the seas were clear. At least they were on the surface, and the Galveston Star came barreling down the strait in a freshly developed high wind off the Arabian desert, an early harbinger of the evolving southwest monsoon.

This part of the gulf was a wind-convergence zone, where, in the late spring, the northeasters out of the central Chinese desert, which prevail all winter, gave way to the southwesters from Africa. This year they were early. And strong gusty breezes can catch the massive hull of a VLCC and cause a significant leeway.

The Galveston Star was thus sliding infinitessimally east as she stood fair down the strait, plowing through the short surface waves, having completed her long gentle turn toward the south.

In fact, she missed the first of Admiral Zhang’s mines by at least 150 yards to starboard. But the good news on Line One was almost certainly going to put her bows awfully close to the PLT-3 moored on Line Two.

On she ran for another 600 yards, still drifting very slightly east, closing the gap between her own course and the murderous one-ton, steel-encased hunk of TNT that bobbed on its wire mooring 12 feet below the surface.

The massive bows of the Galveston Star actually missed it completely, and the wash of the widening hull pushed the mine away on its wire. However, it swung back inward, hard and fast, crashing into the port side of the hull, 300 feet from the point of the bow.

At four minutes past 8 P.M. it detonated with awesome force, blowing the plates apart, right through both layers of the hull, blasting a massive hole in Cargo Tank Four. And Buddy Holly was still singing as the onrushing crude oil blew up in a raging fireball above the ocean.

“Stars appear and shadows a-falling…you can hear my heart a-calling…Oh boy!”

Tex Packard could not believe his eyes. And the 420,000-tonner shuddered in its death throes as her colossal weight began to tear the entire hull apart. It was the biggest shipwreck in history, and it was only four miles from the Greek tanker that had been pouring out oil since Saturday. The Galveston Star was wallowing bang on Jimmy Ramshawe’s Straight Line, 12 miles off the coast of Iran.

Captain Packard knew a career-blowing decision when he saw one. And he’d just made it.

“What are you going to do, sir?” asked Jeb Duross, anxiety written all over his face.

“Probably buy a cattle ranch,” replied Big Tex, thoughtfully.

“Actually, I meant right now.”

“Send out a MAYDAY! Radio Oman and Dubai, see if we can salvage any of the cargo, which I doubt. At least not yet, till we can get a couple of big ships out here to start pumping. Meanwhile we just gotta watch the fires. Crude sometimes doesn’t burn, but ours is doing just that, and once it gets started, it’s likely to go on for a long time.”

“Looks like the fire’s inside the ship, and that might be real dangerous,” said Jeb.

“Sure might. She gets much hotter, we’ll have to abandon. Sure hate to leave her, but this stuff can really burn gets hot enough. I’m not planning to be the hero, least not the dead hero…. Have the lifeboats ready, Jeb, and have someone turn off the music, willya?…Just don’t want Buddy singing in a death ship. ’Sides I wanna get mah CDs home to Texas…Buddy wouldn’t wanna be singing to no towelheads.”

All mah life I been a-waiting…tonight there’ll be no hesitatin’…Oh boy!

Midday (local). Fort Meade, Maryland.

Lieutenant Ramshawe had his small office television turned on several minutes early for CNN’s 12 o’clock bulletin, and when he heard the lead item there was no longer any doubt in his or anyone else’s mind.

“We are receiving reports that one of the biggest oil tankers in the world, the four-hundred- twenty-thousand-ton Galveston Star out of the Texas Gulf port of Houston, is currently on fire and breaking up in the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.