At this point, he doubted whether he had heard the conversation correctly. He was dead sure of the Gregory name, but the more he pondered, the more he doubted the part about Captain Li Chin. Nonetheless, he had not felt much like making an embarrassing entry carrying the plans for the SEAL insertion, and he had tiptoed quietly away, back up to the control room. And there he had sat thoughtfully for at least 15 minutes, running over the conversation he had heard, and carefully committing it to his notebook, in the manner of a lifelong Naval officer, as if ensuring an accurate entry in the ship’s log.
Lieutenant Commander Headley doubted his ability to solve all of the puzzle. But he was determined to take a look around that cabin of Reid’s, and he waited until the CO came into the control room. After formally handing over the ship to the OOD, he said, “Oh, sir. Those insertion plans. I just had a couple of details to fill in…you’re busy now, but I’ll put ’em on the table in your cabin if you like…then you can take a look when you have a bit of time.”
“Thank you, XO. That will be fine.”
Dan Headley headed once more down to the CO’s room, and pushed open the door. The desk light was already on, and the little portrait of Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve stared out across the small room. Dan put the plans on the desk and kept a ballpoint pen in his hand in case he was disturbed. There was a small bookshelf to the left of the Captain’s chair, and Dan leaned over to inspect the half dozen volumes it contained.
There was a travelogue about the south of France, a biography of de Villeneuve, and an account of the Battle of the Chesapeake. A book called
Dan Headley frowned. He could not risk hanging around for long. Quickly he skipped through the pages of the volume on reincarnation, and then pulled out the Oxford companion. On instinct he flicked through alphabetically to page 883, which gave an account of de Villeneuve’s highest/lowest moment: Trafalgar. And he ran his finger over the the French Fleet’s line of battle…
Dan Headley put the books back. He still had no clues to the identity of the mysterious Chinese Captain Li Chin. Nor indeed to “Gregory.” He glanced down to the writing pad on Commander Reid’s desk and could see only a small sketch of a submarine. Beside it was the name Lt. Commander Schaeffer. And through the name were two hard diagonal lines forming a cross, as if to eliminate the name of the late SEAL Team Leader.
Dan shook his head, and left, in a hurry.
The XO made his way up to the wardroom, poured himself some coffee and sat alone in a corner seat, thinking.
Dan thought some more, and decided that he had twice seen him make decisions that went absolutely by the book. Rigid. Unswerving adherence to the rules and regulations. The kind of adherence submarine commanders consistently ignored. The nature of the underwater beast means you have to be flexible. And everyone knew it. Holding hard to the rule book was okay on a peacetime surface ship. But it was often not okay on a combat submarine.
Lieutenant Commander Headley had no member of the crew in whom he could confide. It was simply unthinkable for a senior U.S. Navy executive officer to mention to a colleague, who must, by definition, be of a lower rank, that he, the Exec, considered their commanding officer had lost his marbles.
He also thought it was not anything he could bother Ricky with, since the SEAL commander was trying to prepare his team for the big push into the Chinese Navy base.
He contemplated the prospect of dinner. But he wasn’t hungry, and he walked back to the area of the wardroom aft of the dining room table, where they kept a small library for officers and in fact for anyone of the crew who requested a book on a particular subject.
Dan had no idea what he was looking for. What writings might shed light on a commanding officer who once, certainly in 1980, had believed he was the reincarnation of someone else? And anyway, did it matter? Dan himself had once read that General George Patton had believed himself to have been a major-league warrior in another life. And wasn’t there some story that the General claimed to have known the precise spot where Caesar had pitched his tent when he arrived in Langes, France, to assume his first command?
The XO scanned the bookshelves until he reached the section on psychology, a complicated subject for men who command warships, and an increasing concern in the modern Navy. He stopped at a volume entitled
“I suppose it’s possible this character has adopted the kind of symptoms he believes de Villeneuve may have developed after Admiral Nelson took out twenty of his Fleet at Trafalgar. The most decisive sea battle ever fought. Maybe Commander Reid feels he is supposed to suffer the French Admiral’s pain for him.”
He opened the book and paused at one of the earliest sections of the textbook formula—
The next part was not highlighted, but it contained such lines as, “Reliving the painful memories, images and emotions, i.e., intense fear, horror, helplessness, as if it were happening. Recurring nightmares. Trying to erase the memories. Intense emotional stress in the face of events, present, future or even imagined, which may resemble any part of the traumatic event.”
“Sudden emotional outbursts,” the author wrote, “anger, fear or panic, may occur, for no apparent reason, as the person tries to avoid thinking or talking about the trauma that haunts him.”
These were the words of Commander Reid, uttered in temper, without logic, without concern, and without reason. Dan Headley pictured that scene in the control room last month, as the SEALs tried to fight their way back from their mission.
Was it actually possible that their own CO, as he addressed them, was hearing not just the quiet hum of
