"Captain on the bridge!" a petty officer announced.
Morris was not impressed. He was appalled to see that the ship's "wheel" was only a brass dial about the size of a telephone's. The helmsman actually had a seat, offset from the centerline, and to his right was a clear plastic box containing the direct-control throttle to the ship's jet-turbine engines. A metal rod suspended from the overhead ran completely from one side of the pilothouse to the other at a height that allowed it to be grabbed easily in heavy seas, and eloquent comment on this ship's stability.
"Have you served on a 'fig' before, sir?" the XO asked.
"Never been aboard one," Morris answered. The heads of the four men on bridge watch each turned a hair at that. "I know the weapons systems; I was part of the design team at NAVSEA back a few years ago, and I know more or less how she handles."
"She handles, sir. Like a sports car," Ernst assured him. "You'll especially like the way we can turn the engines off, drift as quiet as a log, then be up to thirty knots in two minutes flat."
"How quickly can we get under way?"
"Ten minutes from your say-so, Captain. The engine lube oil is already warmed up. There's a harbor tug standing by to assist us away from the dock."
"NAVSURFLANT, arriving," boomed the announcing system. Two minutes later, the Admiral appeared in the pilothouse.
"I have a man bringing your gear up. What do you think?"
"XO, will you see to the provisioning?" Morris said to Ernst, then, "Shall we discover my stateroom together, Admiral?"
A steward was waiting for them below with a tray of coffee and sandwiches. Morris poured himself a cup, another for the Admiral, and ignored the food.
"Sir, I've never handled one of these before. I don't know the engines-"
"You've got a great chief engineer and she's a dream to handle. Besides, you have your conning officers. You're a weapons and tactics man, Ed. All your work is done in CIC. We need you out there."
"Fair enough, sir."
"XO, take her out," Morris ordered two hours later. He watched Ernst's every move, embarrassed that he had to depend on another to do it.
But it was amazingly easy. The wind was off the pier, and the frigate had a huge sail area that invited help. As the mooring lines were slackened off, the wind and the auxiliary power units located on the hull directly under the bridge pushed James's bow into the clear, then the gas turbine engines moved her forward into the channel. Ernst took his time, though he was clearly capable of doing it faster. Morris took careful note of this, too. The man didn't want to make his captain look bad.
From there on it was easy, and Ed Morris watched his new crew at work. He'd heard stories about the California Navy-like, okay, man-but the quartermasters at the chart table updated the position with crisp assurance, despite the unfamiliar harbor. They glided noiselessly past the piers of the navy yard. He saw empty berths that would not soon be filled, and not a few ships whose sleek gray hulls were marred with scorched holes and twisted steel. Kidd was there, her forward superstructure wrecked by a Russian missile that had gotten past her multilayered defenses. One of his sailors was looking that way, too, a boy still in his teens, puffing on a cigarette which he flicked over the side. Morris wanted to ask what he was thinking, but could scarcely describe his own thoughts.
It went quickly after that. They turned east at the empty carrier berthings, over the Hampton bridge-tunnel, then past the crowded amphibious basin at Little Creek. Now the sea beckoned them, forbiddingly gray under the cloudy sky.
HMS Battleaxe was already out there, three miles ahead, a subtly different shade on her hull, and the White Ensign fluttering at her mast. A signal light started blinking at them.
WHAT THE DEVIL IS A REUBEN JAMES, Battleaxe wanted to know.
"How do you want to answer that, sir?" a signalman asked.
Morris laughed, the ominous spell broken. "Signal, 'At least we don't name warships for our mother-in-law.'"
"All right!" The petty officer loved it.
"The Blinder isn't supposed to be able to carry missiles," Toland said, but what he saw gave the lie to that intelligence assessment. Six missiles had gotten through the defending fighters and landed inside the perimeter of the RAF base. Two aircraft were burning, half a mile away, and one of the base's radars was wrecked.
"Well, now we know why their activity has been light the past few days. They were refitting their bombers to deal with our new fighter force," Group Captain Mallory said, surveying the damage to his base. "Action, reaction. We learn, they learn."
