By R. L. Keller
Master Chief Andrew “Bull” Bullock cringed slightly when he heard the call to report to the Captain’s cabin. While he didn’t think that he wasn’t in any trouble himself – at least any that he knew about – he was not looking forward to the imminent meeting. He was sure that the Skipper wanted a first hand report on why one of his junior officers was now sporting a cast on his left hand. Bull knew the answer; he was one of only five men aboard the submarine Nautilus who did. At least, he was pretty sure that no one else knew.
As
Bull hung up the mic from answering the call, he gave thought to why he was
reluctant to answer the questions he knew were coming. It wasn’t like it was about any of his
‘boys’. Bull had built a good reputation
over his long and storied career in the Navy.
He was known as a hard worker, a man who ran a tight boat, and who took
care of the seamen under his command.
While he tried to keep a respectful relationship with the officers, he
did everything in his not inconsiderable power – especially now that he was COB
– to see that none of them ran roughshod over either himself or his crew. He particularly had little patience for ‘wet
behind the ears’ pups barely out of
Walking
forward toward Officers’ Country he let his mind wander back across the three
months since Crane had come aboard. They’d
been interesting, that’s for sure, and he caught himself smiling. Crane had been a pleasant surprise for the
COB. Not only wasn’t he cocky, he showed
a real caring for the seamen under his immediate command, and tried to get to
know as many of the others aboard as he could.
While he expected his team to work hard and competently, he was also
usually right in the middle of things helping, not just standing back and
issuing orders like so many officers. Afraid
to get their hands or uniforms even slightly smudged, Bull muttered to
himself. That in itself went a long way
to earning the respect of the crew as well as the Master Chief.
Then
there had been that incident with the Skipper.*
The whole boat knew that Capt. Nelson wasn’t feeling well after a slight
diving accident. But in usual Nelson
fashion he’d blown off the corpsman and no one, not even XO Mains, had had the
nerve to call him on it. Then there had
been some kind of scene right after Nautilus docked at
But Bull admitted that Crane’s stock on the boat had risen
decidedly after that, whether or not anyone said anything. And without Crane even acknowledging it. In fact, the young man seemed genuinely
embarrassed by the whole thing. He just
buried himself that much deeper into his work and apparently tried to forget
that it even happened. He’d already
gotten into a bit of trouble with Lt. Worth for doing extra chores when he was
supposed to be taking what little down time JOs were allowed. After they left
While
the crew aboard Nautilus, seamen and officers alike, got along fairly well,
there were still those occasional flairs of temper between men cooped up
together in tight quarters for months at a time. Still, Bull had been surprised one day to see
Lt. Crane get so frustrated with a stubborn bolt on a piece of equipment that
he was ‘helping’ his men fix that he bashed it with the wrench. Of course, then he’d gotten totally
embarrassed when the hit had apparently loosened the nut and it came off
practically in his hand. But he’d taken
his men’s chuckles good-naturedly and simply gotten on with the job. What had happened earlier today, however, was
still a bit of a surprise.
The
day had started like so many others; ‘day’ being determined only by the clock,
as Nautilus cruised submerged a dozen or so nautical miles north of
Lt.
Crane was more and more being assigned duties all over the boat, including the
Instead,
no sooner had the XO set foot through the hatch than they all heard the
unmistakable sound of a bearing breaking.
The engines were immediately shut down.
Mains called to have the reactor backed down, and then called the
This
morning, as the boat skulked around keeping an eye out for other submarines
doing the same thing between
“All
okay down here?” Bull asked, as was his habit.
He’d been tempted lately to skip checking wherever Lt. Crane was
stationed, as the young man had such a knack for keeping things running
smoothly. He was glad this morning that
he hadn’t given in to that temptation.
Crane
took a particularly deep breath and finally looked up. “All’s well, Master Chief,” he answered,
almost – but not quite – in his usual calm voice touched with a quick smile.
“At
least it is now,” came sotto voce from an undetermined source.
Crane
frowned. “As you were, men,” he ordered. But Bull recognized, even in the order, that
there was the lieutenant’s usual respect for his crew, so he was pretty sure
that what had obviously ticked off the normally imperturbable lieutenant hadn’t
been something any of them had done.
“Shall
I take your status report forward, sir?” Bullock offered. He’d done it occasionally, when Crane was in
the middle of something.
Crane,
who had returned to writing on the clipboard, took another deep breath. “Thank you, Master Chief, but I’m still
working on it. Don’t want to hold you up
on your rounds.” He finally sent the COB
a genuine smile.
Bullock
returned it. “No problem, sir. I’ll just go check the Reactor Room. Be back this way in about fifteen minutes.”
Crane
gave him a short nod and continued writing.
When Bullock returned he was still writing, but looked up when the COB
entered the hatch, unclipped several sheets of paper from the clipboard, and
handed them to the Master Chief. Bullock
took note of the fact that there was much less tension in the air so he was
totally unprepared when, as he turned to leave, Crane suddenly reached out and
smacked his left fist into the bulkhead.
An abbreviated yelp escaped and Bull immediately turned back. “Sir?”
Crane
tried to wave off his momentary temper tantrum, but Bull could see the pain
written all too plainly on his young face.
Not wanting to take any chances, Bull reached for the nearest mic. He got a glare from the lieutenant but it
quickly turned sheepish, making him look even younger than Bullock knew him to
be. He went along quietly when the
corpsman decided that an x-ray was needed to determine if anything was
broken. But when Lt. Worth, who’d also
been notified, appeared and asked how the injury had happened, all Lt. Crane
would admit to was “My own fault, sir. I
just slipped when the boat shifted slightly.
It won’t happen again.” A quick
look tossed at the seamen present sent all of them back to their
instruments. Bull stayed long enough
after Crane left with the corpsman to hear Worth query the men for his incident
report. To a man, they all said that
they’d had their backs to the lieutenant and hadn’t actually seen what
happened. Worth then looked at Bullock.
“Sorry,
sir. I was just leaving and didn’t see
it either.” While he knew that it was
wrong, he had no wish to cause trouble after Crane had correctly taken
responsibility for the mishap.
Thankfully Worth had just nodded, taken over the watch, and dismissed
the COB.
It
was while he was walking forward to deliver the status report to XO Mains that
he discovered what had triggered the display of anger. And it took some interpreting of Crane’s
normally extremely neat handwriting to figure it out. Apparently during the final hour of ‘Dog’
watch there had been a slight deviation from norm in one of the electrical
switches. Lt. White had duly noted it,
and that he’d assigned Seaman McAllister to check it. He’d then noted that McAllister had said that
it was fine, and at that point ‘Alpha’ watch had taken over.
Within
minutes, the switch had again created problems.
Lt. Crane had immediately had it checked again – Bullock suspected that
he’d not only done it himself but also probably fixed it. Crane’s report laid no blame for the
mishap. Those things sometimes
happened. Unfortunately, if they had
happened at the wrong time, Nautilus could have been in serious trouble. Especially on their current assignment.
Bullock,
from his own perspective on the crew, translated the report slightly
differently from the written words. Lt.
White was lowest in seniority on the boat only to Crane. He was laid back, easy going, and not a
little naïve. Bullock sometimes wondered
how he’d managed to graduate
Unfortunately,
it now appeared that Crane’s explanation of the accident wasn’t good enough for
Capt. Nelson. It was the only logical
reason Bullock could think of for being called to the Skipper’s cabin. No way was he going to outright lie to Capt.
Nelson – that was the fastest way Bull knew of to find yourself a
landlubber! He also couldn’t say much
against either White or McAllister, except that they might not be best suited
to work with each other. What it boiled
down to was, he had only his own suppositions as to what had ticked Lt. Crane
off. And the Master Chief had been around
for too long to let scuttlebutt like that disrupt an otherwise smooth-running
boat. Squaring his shoulders, he knocked
on the Skipper’s cabin door.
“Come,”
came the order. Bullock entered, closed
the hatch behind him, and stood quietly in the small cabin. Nelson had his nose in a fist full of papers,
but looked up fairly quickly. “I just
have a question or two.” He sent a look
the COB’s way that held a quality Bullock hadn’t often seen from Nelson – one
of badly disguised amusement. It was not
what the COB was expecting at all, and unnerved him even more. “I understand that you were present when Lt.
Crane was injured,” Nelson continued lightly.
“Just wanted your take on it.” He
sent Bullock a benign look.
“Not
sure that I can add anything to Lt. Worth’s report,” Bullock hedged. Chain of command dictated that Worth would
have reported what Crane had told him to XO Mains, and from there it would be
passed on to Nelson. Bullock couldn’t
see any of the crew on ‘Alpha’ watch contradicting what Crane had said. And if they had, it wouldn’t be Bullock
called to clarify; it would be Crane!
Nelson
studied his COB for a moment, and Bull wasn’t made any easier by the look. He got along with Capt. Nelson just fine but,
as COB, most of his contact was with XO Mains.
This kind of conversation was unusual.
And Nelson’s next question didn’t help.
“What
do you think of our newest JO, Master Chief?”
Bull
figured that falling back into old patterns was safest. “What I think of any of the young pups, sir,”
he responded with a slightly derogatory sniff.
“He’ll be okay once he grows up.”
He watched as Nelson worked hard to bury a chuckle.
“Do
you think him klutzy, Master Chief?”
“No,
sir.” Bull answered immediately with conviction.
“And
yet he seemingly slipped – when, by the way, according to all reports from the
“I
haven’t seen the corpsman’s report, sir,” Bull responded, trying to keep from
answering the obviously asked question.
“Humm,”
Nelson replied, and dropped his eyes once more to the sheets of paper. “And you would have no idea, I suppose, if
Lt. Crane had any particular animosity toward that section of bulkhead.” He didn’t look up, but Bull could still see
his eyes sparkling.
“No,
sir,” he answered carefully. “Not that I
know of, anyway.”
“Of
course not, Master Chief.” Nelson
coughed into his hand. Not unusual for a
smoker like Nelson. But Bull got the
distinct impression that it was more to bury a laugh than anything. Once Nelson got himself back under control he
looked at Bullock. “So you would see no
point in questioning Lt. Crane further on the subject. Just one of those little accidents that
sometimes happen despite our best efforts to see that they don’t.”
“Yes,
sir,” Bull readily agreed. “Just one of
those things.”
“And
we don’t need to think about maybe putting down better footing in that area, so
no one would slip again.” Bullock heard
the heavy accent on ‘slip’, and this time had to council his own face.
“No,
sir. Don’t think it would do any good,”
he answered, dead sober.
Nelson
looked at him again for a few seconds.
“Sort of what I thought, Master Chief.”
He tossed the papers on his desk.
“I appreciate your input. I
believe that we’ve cleared up the couple of loose ends that XO Mains had, and
I’ll see that the reports get filed.
Carry on.”
“Aye,
aye, sir,” Bullock answered, spun on his heel, and left. Man, he muttered to himself as he
hurried off to finish what Nelson’s call had interrupted, the old man
cracking jokes about one of the juniors?
What’s this boat coming to?
He shook his head. I’d better be keeping an even closer eye on
the kid. If he’s got the knack of
keeping the lid on the pressure cooker named Nelson, he’s definitely worth
keeping around.
*see
First Duty by R. L. Keller