“Um, yeah. Listen, Commander,” he said, and saw her head snap up in surprise as he addressed her formally, “I just remembered a couple of things that can’t wait. Call air ops and scrub me from the mission. We’ll try to reschedule it in a couple of days.”
“Aren’t you going to go out of qual if we wait any longer?” she asked, a note of concern creeping into her voice. “Tombstone,” she added, pitching her voice low, “is everything okay?”
“Of course,” he said, thinking quickly. “It’s just that sitting here doing the briefing, I started realizing that I had something a little off for lunch. It’s not sitting too well, and I’d hate to be airborne before I — well, you understand. It’s a little embarrassing, Tomboy, that’s all.” He forced himself to use her call sign, and to look her in the eyes.
“Ah,” she said, and her expression lightened. Pilots and RIOs became intimately familiar with each other’s gastrointestinal tracts and the workings thereof. “Gotcha. Our secret, Tombstone. Just like that time that I had to-“
“I gotta scat, Tomboy,” he interrupted. “We’ll pick this up another time, okay?”
“Yes, Admiral,” she said. As he walked to the door of the ready room, he could feel her eyes on his back. While she appeared to have been convinced by his last-minute lie, his deception had only bought him some time. Whatever was going on in his head was his problem, not hers, and it was up to him to solve it before it interfered with their working relationship. As a last resort, he could ask for a different RIO.
Wonderful solution that would be — hurt Tomboy’s feelings and get rumors started around the air wing about his relationship with Tomboy or, even worse, about Tomboy’s competence. Either alternative was unacceptable.
CHAPTER 21
“Damn it, I gave her a direct order!” Bird Dog roared. “Are you listening to me, Chief?”
“I hear you. Sir. So does everyone else on this passageway and two decks up and down.”
“Then if you hear me so well, how come this stuff’s not getting done?” Bird Dog lowered his voice slightly. “Your muster report shows that Shaughnessy scrubbed and waxed the deck in the ready room. Does that deck look like it’s had a mop near it in the last two weeks?”
Chief stared at a spot somewhere on the wall. “It’s not always a matter of giving orders, Lieutenant. There’re some things you just can’t demand. We had some birds down last night, and she thought she could get two of them back up for launch today. It’s a matter of priorities.”
“These are sailors, damn it! They’re supposed to follow orders, not decide which ones they’re going to obey!”
Finally, the chief looked at him. Bird Dog was surprised at what he saw in the older man’s eyes. Anger, outrage, and something more. A certain weariness, as though the chief had been through this same conversation too many times before.
“Let me tell you something about sailors, sir. These sailors, in particular. Your average Blue Shirt is a hell of a lot smarter and more capable than you’re giving them credit for. You know how much an E-3 gets paid?”
Bird Dog shook his head. “I have the feeling you’re about to tell me, though.”
“Somewhere around a grand a month. Plus somewhere to live and all the chow they can eat. Not a bad deal for an eighteen-year-old, you’d think. You’re probably thinking you had a lot less than that to live on when you were that age.”
Bird Dog nodded.
“But take another look at what we expect of them. That same eighteen-year-old is the last checkpoint between you and disaster. Your plane captain — think there might be a thousand ways he can keep you from getting killed? And just how old do you think the kid is that makes sure your ejection seat works? How about the one that packs your parachute, and maintains your flight gear? And what about the kid that gives you a final look- over before you get shot off the front end of the ship? Hell, he’s probably a lot older — like maybe twenty-two or so. The point is, Lieutenant, these men and women you call kids are carrying a hell of a lot of responsibility on their shoulders, far more than you ever did at that age. They screw up, you’re dead before you leave the flight deck.”
“I know how much they do, Chief. We all do. So what’s your point?”
The chief sighed, looked away, and then pinned Bird Dog to the bulkhead with a steely look. “The point is, sir, that they damned well deserve to be treated with a little more respect. And that goes for me as well. We’ve all of us been doing this job just a little longer than you have. You think going through AOCS and leadership school makes you better than them? You better think again, Lieutenant. Because it don’t. It gets you paid more, and gets you out of a lot of the shitty little work details they do — on top of their main jobs of keeping you alive — but it don’t make you a damn bit better as a person. Or as a sailor. And the sooner you realize that, the better you’re going to do in this canoe club.”
“Captain’s Mast, Chief,” Bird Dog said. “I’m tired of these excuses. And if you ever falsify another extra duty report, you’d better count on seeing the old man, too!”
The chief turned and walked to the door. He put his hand on the doorknob, paused, and turned back to Bird Dog. “One thing you need to remember, Lieutenant. Sailors don’t follow orders — they obey them. They follow leaders.”
CHAPTER 22
By the end of the evening brief, cooler air was already starting to seep into the room through cracks around the windows, finally providing some relief from the stiflingly humid daytime temperatures. Bien sighed, and thought longingly of the feel of the evening breeze on his face. The last three hours had not been pleasant, and it appeared that there was no immediate end in sight to the uneasy forced partnership with their northern neighbors. He saw the Chinese commander motion to him from across the room, and regretfully gave up the immediate prospect of getting away from the Operations Center.
“It is time for that final conversation I mentioned,” Mein Low said flatly. “This tactical situation must be exploited immediately.”
“How so?” Bien asked, wanting to buy some time and collect himself. He knew all too well what his nemesis was referring to.
At his early-morning brief, Bien had studied the operational positions of all the forces carefully. The American cruiser, Vincennes, was still meandering around the northern portion of the South China Sea. While she had not yet come close to the Paracels Islands, she was well within Tomahawk strike range of the ragged collection of islands so close to the Chinese mainland.
The battle group, centered around the USS Jefferson, loitered east of the Spratly Islands, slowly patrolling east and west in a corridor that ran from Mischief Reef to twelve miles off the coast of Vietnam. For the last ten days, a lone E-2C Hawkeye had been stationed midway between the Vincennes and the Jefferson, only sporadically accompanied by a U.S. fighter. The American fighter patrols focused exclusively on the areas to the south, staying always outside of weapon release range of the Spratly Islands. It was a strange tactical dispersion, and the positioning of the fighters made little sense to either the Chinese or the Vietnamese.
