“Ah,” Quinnivan said, “that’s the other part of the flea-flicker.” He looked at Seagraves. “Should I tell him?”
“I’ll tell him,” Seagraves said. “Lieutenant Pacino, come on up. You are the new navigator of the USS
Pacino stared. The crowd grabbed him and pulled him to the front of the room. “Thanks, Captain, XO,” he said.
“This will extend your tour on the submarine, Patch,” Seagraves said. “It’s an extra year. But somehow I think you’ll be okay with that.”
“I’m okay with that, Skipper,” Pacino said, barely believing how many things had changed in the hour of the party.
“Before we get to the important part of the day, the partying,” Seagraves said, “I have one final surprise.”
The room grew suddenly quiet.
“Some of you may not know this, but the secretary of the Navy, Jeremy Shingles, was at grad school at Yale and was friends and roommates with a man named Philip Dean Sievers III. Does anyone here know who Sievers is?”
The silence in the room continued.
“Well, I’ll tell you who Philip Dean Sievers III is,” Seagraves continued. “He’s the governor of the great state of Vermont.”
“Oh my God,” Rachel whispered to Pacino. “They’re renaming the boat.”
“There was a phone call,” Seagraves continued, “and, reportedly, a box of cigars and a case of whisky changed hands, and you’ve all guessed it. Now hull number SSN-792 will be renamed the USS
Captain Seagraves and Commanders Quinnivan and Cydice stood on the back yard deck of the Snake Ranch at sunset, all of them leaning against the deck railing and staring at the pink sky.
“Red sky at night,” Quinnivan said. “Sailor’s delight. A good omen, yeah?”
Quinnivan passed out cigars, a cutter, and a torch, and they all lit up and blew smoke into the sky for a long moment.
“So, Mikey,” Seagraves said to Commander Cydice. “You didn’t want us to disclose to the boys and girls that you’re nominated to be the
Cydice blew out a cloud of smoke and looked at Seagraves. “It’s not official until I pass Prospective Commanding Officer School, which is not a given, since the failure rate is, what, thirty percent? And Admiral Patton at SubCom has been ominously quiet about confirming the assignment. There was a slight incident in Hawaii I need to explain away. So I don’t want to jinx it.”
“Incident?” Seagraves asked.
Cydice nodded. “I punched out the squadron engineer. While I was submerged, he was diddling my wife and posting sex videos on the internet with him and her in action.”
Seagraves shook his head in shock and sympathy. “Man, I would have killed that guy. What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s already been given a dishonorable discharge. Fitting, actually, for all his dishonorable discharging into my wife. My soon-to-be ex-wife.”
“I’m sorry to hear, Mikey.”
“Yeah.”
The three men were silent for a moment.
Quinnivan blew a smoke ring and looked at Cydice. “So anyway, in the meantime, you’re playin’ undercover boss at the Snake Ranch, peekin’ in on our scurvy junior officer pirates, yeah?”
Cydice nodded. “I need to wait here for interviews about the thing. I may as well wait while drinking beers with the boys. I have a feeling they’ll cheer me up.”
“Well,” Quinnivan laughed. “Just don’t be doin’ anything those cutthroats can blackmail ye with, yeah? That would make for a very long tour once Admiral Patton comes to his senses and gives you the
Cydice grinned. “Me? I’m a Boy Scout, Bullfrog.”
Lieutenant Anthony Pacino stopped on the way to the parking lot to lean over the observation platform overlooking Graving Dock Number One. He was usually alone when he visited the platform, but this afternoon, the tall, gaunt figure of Ensign Adam Cool Hand Farina was there, looking at the submarine. The sounds from the dock, though muted by distance, were still loud. Grinding, rail mounted cranes’ backing alarms, the shouts of shipyard workers.
Pacino walked up next to Farina and leaned on the rail. For a moment Pacino didn’t say anything. Then he spoke first.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.
Farina snickered. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. People will talk.”
Pacino smiled. “You know, Cool Hand, I’m surprised you asked to join this crew.”
“You are? Why? This is the hottest-running submarine in the fleet.”
