Hunter gave Fagan a look. He then said, very slowly, “XO, you’re not listening to me. The ship’s office would probably lose that report and not be able to find it."
The light came on for Fagan. With exaggerated emphasis, he said, “Yes, sir, you are right. The situation in the ship's office has become intolerable. I'll have to tighten up on our admin practices because of all this lost paperwork.”
18 Jun 2000, 2325LT (1625Z)
The island rose menacingly on the horizon.
Peering through the periscope, Hunter could clearly make out the rising hump of Mount Guishu, the dormant volcano that constituted the only prominent geographical feature. Although still too distant to make out any details, the sense of dread was palpable.
“XO, we’ll circumnavigate the island at this range conducting a visual and ESM search before we close it anymore," Hunter said to Fagan.
He stepped back from the periscope and rubbed his tired right eye. Buell took the scope and started to slowly rotate it, continuing the search.
Hunter continued, "I want to know if there is any emitter that might be a threat before we get in close enough to do a good surveillance. We'll probably need to get inside three miles to see well enough to get any information usable by the SEALs. That's too close to suddenly find out there's a high-resolution radar on the island. Make sure ESM's on the ball and knows what to look for.”
Hunter turned to Jacobs, standing by the navigation stand, “Nav, the charts around here aren’t very good. I don’t want to find us high and dry on some uncharted coral head either. Have the secure fathometer manned and run continuous soundings.”
As they circled and closed the island, more of its features became visible. Mount Guishu rose almost in the center and sloped smoothly down to the shore on the East and South. On the North side of the island, the slope terminated in shear cliffs that dropped several hundred feet to the surf lapping gently below. This side was not accessible to approach by small boat. The West side appeared to be indented with a small bay. The headland prevented viewing the shoreline on the North side of the bay. A line of breakers was clearly evident across its mouth, hiding a reef that guarded the entrance. Dense mangrove swamp seemed to be the predominant feature near the water line all along the West and South sides of the island. There was no visible sign that man had ever visited this forsaken place.
19 Jun 2000, 0410LT (18 Jun, 2110Z)
Bill Fagan’s eyes blinked open. The damn lights came on again. He wearily jumped from his rack and again stormed off toward control.
He bumped into Jon Hunter, dressed in his sweat clothes, heading aft for his morning workout.
“XO, what’s so important that you’re running around in your underwear?” Hunter asked.
Fagan told him the tale of the mysterious light switch. Hunter chuckled as the story unfolded. Playing practical jokes on the XO was a time-honored tradition amongst the enlisted crewmembers on the boats. The XO was in charge of discipline and generally seen as the “heavy,” compared to the Captain’s “nice guy”. The normal trick was to steal his stateroom door and hide it onboard somewhere. He was then challenged to find it. The crew had tired of that game with Bill Fagan many months ago. This was a more advanced challenge.
Hunter said, “I haven’t seen that gag pulled since I was a JG. My electrical division chief showed me how to set it up. If you did some really good exploring and hand-over-handed the lighting circuit wiring, you would find a relay that the schematic doesn’t show. That relay will lead you to an MJ growler somewhere onboard. That would be a lot of work. If I were you, I would talk to the COB and ask him to talk with Chief Jones. I bet this problem will just go away.
"How is our guest doing?" Hunter queried. Turnstill had been maintaining a really low profile since the night he came aboard.
Fagan answered, "Just eats and sleeps. Speaking of Chief Jones, Turnstill found out about his library of crotch novels and has become a voracious reader."
Hunter snorted, "Figures. In character."
19 Jun 2000, 1510LT (0810Z)
“Skipper, we received a batch of family-grams,” Chief Tyler said as he stood in the CO stateroom door. “Got one for you here.”
Hunter took the narrow slip of folded paper that Chief Tyler handed him. The short forty-word message was the only tie he had with Peg and the kids back in Hawaii. Each word had to be savored to its fullest. He knew the squadron had censored it and every radioman in the fleet had already seen it, but it didn’t matter. He could almost smell Peg’s perfume and feel the touch of her hand as he opened the family-gram. Gazing at the small, framed portraits of Peg and his two daughters, he slowly read the message. The words were sweet, telling a story of a peaceful life at home. It was all summed up in the last few words, “Girls and I are fine. We send all our love.”
20 Jun 2000, 1210LT (0510Z)
Thirty-six hours of circling and monitoring the island produced little new information. A powerful low-frequency surface search radar intermittently swept the sea-lanes approaching the island. An air-search radar was also detected. Neither presented any threat to SAN FRANCISCO as long as she remained submerged, but would warn the inhabitants of the approach of any surface ship or aircraft. No communications were intercepted. Whoever was on the island didn’t want surprise visitors and was not interested in advertising
