guarantee you the members of court-martial were impressed by that.'
'Well… thank you, ma'am.'
'Are you sure you're not interested in becoming a lawyer?'
'No, ma'am! No offense.'
'That's okay, Mr. Sinclair. Good-bye and good luck.'
Paul headed for the door, seeing that everyone else from the Michaelson had now left. He was almost there when Commander Herdez appeared in the opening. 'Ensign Sinclair.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'Would you care to accompany me to the officer's club bar?'
'Ma'am?' Paul looked around, expecting to see other officers who'd been invited to the same location. They must already be on the way there. 'Certainly, ma'am.'
But when they reached the bar it was empty but for one table where Admiral Fowler and Captain Nguyen were already kicking back and swapping sea stories. Herdez stopped briefly to pay them her respects, then led Paul to the far side of the bar. 'What are you drinking, Mr. Sinclair?'
'Rum and Coke, ma'am.'
'A good choice. I'll have the same.' Herdez sat silently until their drinks came, then for a few moments longer, taking an occasional sip of her drink. 'They serve good rum here. Barbados. Martinique. Saint Croix. Have you been to the Caribbean, Mr. Sinclair?'
'Just on training cruises, ma'am.'
'A lot of fine sailors left their bones in those waters, Mr. Sinclair. We carry a considerable burden when we don these uniforms. We need to live up to those sailors' finest moments, and avoid their worst failures. Both as officers and as individuals.' Paul, uncertain as to what if anything to say, waited until Herdez spoke again. 'Captain Wakeman is not the finest officer I ever served under. I know you're well aware of his shortcomings. It's easy to follow great leaders, Mr. Sinclair. They make it easy. You accomplish great things because they make it easy. The challenge for all of us is to succeed when we do not benefit from a great leader.'
'I never thought about that before, ma'am. But that's true.'
'I know how the junior officers think, Mr. Sinclair. I was actually an ensign once, myself.' Herdez smiled sardonically as she took another drink. 'They wondered why I backed Captain Wakeman the way I did, even when the captain's actions were clearly unprofessional or mistaken. You've wondered that, haven't you?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
Herdez seemed to be looking through the far wall of the bar, out through the intervening bulkheads and out into empty space. 'Duty is a very stern mistress, Mr. Sinclair. It left me no alternative. Ultimately, the decision on how to interpret and act upon our orders rested with Captain Wakeman. As your testimony made clear, Captain Wakeman was put in a very difficult position by the wording of his orders and his mission assignment.'
'Lieutenant Commander Garrity said the same thing, ma'am, but I thought the members of the court-martial didn't seem all that impressed by the fact that I thought the orders were hard to understand.'
'They were impressed, Mr. Sinclair. They wanted to be sure you could reason well, but I have worked with officers such as Admiral Fowler and Captain Nguyen in the past. I know they believe it is our responsibility to draft our orders in such a fashion that they can even be understood by an ensign. I hope you don't take that statement adversely.'
Paul couldn't help smiling. 'No, ma'am.'
'Good. You, personally, revealed during your testimony and the cross-examination that you can understand and interpret orders. But if the orders received by you or any other officer favor confusion and convoluted sentences over clarity and conciseness, it is little wonder if those officers are left uncertain as to the proper course of action either before or during a crisis. It is also little wonder if such an officer takes steps of which we disapprove after we have provided so little clear guidance as to proper courses of action, even if the officer is already a paragon of good judgment.'
Paul nodded, not saying what both Herdez and he knew, that Wakeman had been far from a paragon of good judgment.
Herdez looked back at her drink. 'The orders issued to Captain Wakeman in this case only exacerbated the challenge to his personal judgment. He did not rise to the necessary levels of performance, but that is not a criminal offense. The members of the court, by their recommendation that Captain Wakeman's qualifications for command be reviewed with an eye to revocation, obviously believed that failure does indicate Captain Wakeman is unsuitable for further command level assignments.'
'Ma'am, even with those orders, wasn't there something else we could have done? Before something like destroying that SASAL ship happened?'
Herdez glanced at him. 'What you're really asking is if I could have done something else. Correct? Because I was the officer in the best position to do so. But, as I said before, duty left me no alternative but to support Captain Wakeman's decisions.'
'You could talk to the captain in private, couldn't you?'
'Mr. Sinclair, you heard my testimony. You know I did that. But that's as far as it can go. Publicly, I must back the captain's decisions. All of them. And the captain must trust me to do so. Do you understand why?'
Paul stared down at the surface of the bar. 'Not entirely.'
'You will. Someday. For now, let me ask you. Suppose I overruled one thing the captain ordered. Just one thing. What would happen forever after when the captain issued an order?'
'We'd all look to see if you were going to overrule it. Is that why you needed to back Captain Wakeman, ma'am? Because otherwise he wouldn't really be captain?'
She took another drink. 'A good leader doesn't need unquestioning obedience. People follow that leader because they choose to, because that leader has their trust. A poor leader requires unquestioning obedience, because without that a poor leader will lose all meaningful ability to exercise command. Would I have been fulfilling my duty to the Navy if I had caused Captain Wakeman to lose his ability to command the ship?'
'I guess not. Then you're saying the worse a commander is, the better his or her subordinates have to be?'
'In a nutshell, yes. Captain Wakeman's weakness as a commanding officer required corresponding strength from his subordinates. You do understand why?'
The question could have stung, but Herdez' tone was that of a teacher, not a superior annoyed by the lack of understanding displayed by a junior. Paul nodded. 'Yes. It makes sense. I mean, I can imagine if every officer on a ship was messed up, that ship would be a disaster.'
'Exactly.'
'But, Commander, what happens when something like that ship encounter occurs? If we're backing the captain for all we're worth, and he's ordering something stupid anyway, what can we do?'
'What we did, Mr. Sinclair. Follow the orders, then accept the consequences and work toward a just determination of fault.'
'There's no other alternative?'
'I don't know of one.' Another uncharacteristic smile from Herdez. 'Perhaps you'll find one, someday. One that works for you. It's not impossible. I've just never found one.'
'Ma'am, if you've never found an alternative, I don't see how I could.' Perhaps because of the rum, Paul let the words slip out, then flinched inside. Buttering up the XO to her face? Who am I, Sam Yarrow? Yeah, I really meant it, but what a stupid thing to do.
Instead of upbraiding him for the implied flattery, Herdez shook her head. 'Don't underestimate yourself, Mr. Sinclair. You have a great deal of potential. Yes, you require a lot of learning, a lot of guidance. To be truly effective, such guidance shouldn't simply direct you to whatever goal a superior thinks is best. It has to let someone such as yourself realize on their own what they should do, and then give them free rein to do it. As you did. And when a subordinate does that, it gives great satisfaction to those who are endeavoring to lead them.'
Paul took a long, slow drink to give himself time to think. She wanted me to testify like I did. Why didn't she just tell me to do it, or tell me she wanted me to do it? But then I wouldn't have learned anything about myself, would I? And Jen sure as hell wouldn't have been impressed if all I was doing was following the XO's orders. So, thank God Herdez did it her way. But how did she guide me? Sykes. That talk Commander Sykes had with me.
