“Probably. The regiment knows about deserts, doesn't it?” The General felt the standard. Yeah, there was still grit in the fabric, from Texas, and New Mexico, and Arizona. He wondered if the troopers who had followed this standard knew that their outfit was being born anew. Maybe so.
6
MANEUVERS
The Navy's change-of-command ceremony, little changed since the time of John Paul Jones, concluded on schedule at 11:24. It had been held two weeks earlier than expected, so that the departing skipper could more quickly assume the Pentagon duty that he would just as happily have avoided. Captain Jim Rosselli had brought USS Maine through the final eighteen months of her construction at General Dynamics' Electric Boat Division at Groton, Connecticut, through the launching and final outfitting, through builder's trials and acceptance trials, through commissioning, through shakedown and post-shakedown availability, through a day of practice missile shoots out of Port Canaveral, and through the Panama Canal for her trip to the missile-submarine base at Bangor, Washington. His last job had been to take the boat— Maine was huge, but in U.S. Navy parlance still a “boat”—on her first deterrence patrol into the Gulf of Alaska. That was over now, and, four days after returning his boat to port, he ended his association with the boat by turning her over to his relief, Captain Harry Ricks. It was slightly more complicated than that, of course. Missile submarines since the first, USS George Washington — long since converted to razor blades and other useful consumer items — had two complete crews, called “Blue” and “Gold.” The idea was simply that the missile boats could spend more time at sea if the crews switched off duty. Though expensive, it worked very effectively. The “ Ohio ” class of fleet ballistic missile submarines was averaging over two-thirds of their time at sea, with continuing seventy-day patrols divided by twenty-five-day refit periods. Rosselli had, therefore, really given Ricks half of the command of the massive submarine, and full command of the “Gold” crew, which was now vacating the ship for the “Blue” crew, which would conduct the next patrol.
The ceremony concluded, Rosselli retired one last time to his stateroom. As the “plankowner” commanding officer, certain special souvenirs were his for the asking. A piece of teak decking material drilled for cribbage pegs was part of the tradition. That the skipper had never played cribbage in his life, after a single failed attempt, was beside the point. These traditions were not quite as old as Captain John Paul Jones, but were just as firm. His ball- cap, with C.O. and Plankowner emblazoned in gold on the back, would form part of his permanent collection, as would a ship's plaque, a photo signed by the entire crew, and various gifts from Electric Boat.
“God, I've wanted one of these!” Ricks said.
“They are pretty nice, Captain,” Rosselli replied with a wistful smile. It really wasn't fair. Only the best of officers got to do what he'd done, of course. He'd had command of a fast-attack, USS Honolulu, whose reputation as a hot and lucky boat he had continued for his two-and-a-half-year tour as CO. Then he'd been given the Gold crew of USS Tecumseh, where he'd excelled yet again. This third — and most unusual — command tour had been necessarily abbreviated. His job had been to oversee the shipwrights at Groton, then get the boat “dialed in” for her first real team of COs. He'd only had the boat underway for — what? A hundred days, something like that. Just enough to get to know the girl.
“You're not making it any easier on yourself, Rosey,” said the squadron commander, Captain (now a Rear Admiral Selectee) Bart Mancuso.
Rosselli tried to put humor in his voice. “Hey, Bart, one wop to another, show some pity, eh?”
“I hear ya', paisan. It isn't supposed to be easy.”
Rosselli turned to Ricks. “Best crew I ever had. The XO is going to be one hell of a skipper when the time comes. The boat is fuckin' perfect. Everything works. The refit's a waste of time. The only thing on the gripe sheet that matters is the wiring in the wardroom pantry. Some yard electrician crossed a few cables, and the breakers aren't labeled right. Regs say we have to reset the wiring instead of relabeling the breakers. And that's it. Nothing else.”
“Power plant?”
“Four-point-oh, people and equipment. You've seen the results of the ORSE, right?”
“Um-hum.” Ricks nodded. The ship had scored almost perfectly on the Operational Reactor Safeguards Examination, which was the Holy Grail of the nuclear community.
“Sonar?”
“The equipment is the best in the fleet — we got the new upgrade before it became standard. I worked a deal with the guys at SubGru Two right before we commissioned. One of your old guys, Bart. Dr. Ron Jones. He's with Sonosystems, even rode for a week with us. The ray-path analyzer is like magic. Torpedo department needs a little work, but not much. I figure they can knock another thirty seconds off their average time. A young chief — matter of fact that department's pretty young across the board. Hasn't quite settled in yet, but they're not much slower than the guys I had on Tecumseh, and if I'd had a little more time I could have gotten them completely worked up.”
“No sweat,” Ricks observed comfortably. “Hell, Jim, I have to have something to do. How many contacts did you have on the patrol?”
“One Akula-class, the Admiral Lunin. Picked her up three times, never closer than sixty thousand yards. If he got a sniff of us — hell, he didn't. Never turned towards us. We held him for sixteen hours once. Had really good water, and, well—” Rosselli smiled—“I decided to trail him for a while, way the hell away, of course.”
“Once a fast-attack, always a fast-attack,” Ricks said with a grin. He was a lifelong boomer driver, and the idea did not appeal to him, but what the hell, it wasn't a time to criticize.
“Nice profile you did on him,” Mancuso put in, to show that he wasn't the least offended by Rosselli's action. “Pretty good boat, isn't it?”
“The Akula? Too good. But not good enough,” Rosselli said. “I wouldn't start worrying until we find a way to track these mothers. I tried when I had Honolulu, against Richie Seitz on Alabama. He greased my ass for me. Only time that ever happened. I figure God could find an Ohio, but He'll have to have a good day.”
Rosselli wasn't kidding. The Ohio-class of missile submarines were more than just quiet. Their level of radiated noise was actually lower than the background noise level of the ocean, like a whisper at a rock concert. To hear them you had to get incredibly close, but to prevent that from happening, the Ohios had the best sonar systems yet devised. The Navy had done everything right with this class. The original contract had specified a maximum speed of 26-7 knots. The first Ohio had made 28.5. On builder's trials Maine had made 29.1, due to a new and very slick super-polymer paint. The seven-bladed propeller enabled almost twenty knots without a hint of noisy cavitation, and the reactor plant operated in almost all regimes on natural convection circulation, obviating the need for potentially noisy feed-pumps. The Navy's mania for noise-control had reached its pinnacle in this class of submarine. Even the blades of the galley mixer were coated with vinyl to prevent metal-to-metal clatter. What Rolls-Royce was to cars, Ohio was to submarines.
Rosselli turned. “Well, she's yours now, Harry.”
“You couldn't have set her up much better, Jim. Come on, the O-Club's open, and I'll buy you a beer.”
“Yeah,” the former commanding officer observed with a husky voice. On the way out, members of the crew lined up to shake his hand one last time. By the time Rosselli got to the ladder, there were tears in his eyes. On the walk down the brow, they were running down his cheeks. Mancuso understood. It had been the same for him. A good CO developed a genuine love for his boat and his men, and for Rosselli it was worse still. He'd had his extra shots at command, more than even he had gotten, and that made the last one all the harder to leave. Like Mancuso, all Rosselli could look forward to now was a staff job, commanding a desk, nevermore to hold that godlike post of commanding officer of a ship of war. He'd be able to ride the boats, of course, to rate skippers, check ideas and tactics, but henceforth he'd be a tolerated visitor, never really welcome aboard. Most uncomfortable of all, he'd have to avoid revisiting his former command, lest the crew compare his command style to that of their new CO, possibly undermining the new man's command authority. It was, Mancuso reflected, like it must have been for immigrants, as it had been for his own ancestors, looking back one last time at Italy, knowing that they would never return to it, that their lives were irrevocably changed.
The three men climbed into Mancuso's staff car for the ride to the reception at the Officers Club. Rosselli set his souvenirs on the floor and extracted a handkerchief to wipe his eyes. It isn't fair, just isn't fair. To leave
