He looked better when they met again. Amazing what a shower could do. His hair was brushed back and his service khakis pressed. The two officers went aft to the helicopter pad, then down the brow to the dock.
HMS Battleaxe gave the appearance of a larger ship than the American frigate. In fact she was about twelve feet shorter, but seven hundred tons heavier, various differences in her design reflecting the philosophies of her builders. She was undeniably prettier than her American counterpart, her unexciting hull lines more than balanced by a superstructure that looked as though it had been sculpted to sit atop a ship instead of a parking lot.
Morris was glad to see that things were informal. A youthful midshipman met them at the foot of the brow and escorted them aboard, explaining that the captain was on the radio at the moment. After the customary salutes of flag and duty officer, the midshipman led them into the ship's air-conditioned citadel, then forward to the wardroom.
"Hot damn, a piano!" O'Malley exclaimed. A battered upright was secured to the port bulkhead with two-inch line. Several officers rose and introduced themselves.
"Drinks, gentlemen?" a steward asked. O'Malley got himself a can of beer and moved toward the piano. A minute later he was battering his way through some Scott Joplin. The wardroom's forward door opened.
"Jerr-O!" a man with four stripes on his shoulder boards exclaimed.
"Doug!" O'Malley jumped up from the stool and ran to shake his hand. "How the hell are you!"
"I knew it was your voice on the radio. 'Hammer" indeed. The American Navy's run out of competent pilots and scraped you up, eh?" Both men laughed out loud. O'Malley waved his captain over.
"Captain Ed Morris, meet Captain Doug Perrin, MBE, RN, and a shitload of other acronyms. Watch this turkey, skipper, he used to drive submarines before he went straight."
"I see you guys know each other."
"Some bloody fool decided to send him to lecture at HMS Dryad, our ASW school, when I was taking the advanced course. Set back our relations by at least a hundred years."
"Is the Fox and Fence put back together yet?" O'Malley asked. "Skipper, there was this pub about half a mile from the place, and one night Doug and me-"
"I am trying to forget that night, Jerr-O. Susan gave me hell about it for weeks." He led them aft and got himself a drink. "Marvelous job with that Victor last night! Captain Morris, I understand you did very well with your previous command."
"Killed a Charlie and picked up two assists."
"We stumbled across an Echo on our last convoy. Old boat, but she had a good driver. Took us six hours. But a pair of diesel submarines, probably Tangos, got inside and killed five ships and an escort. Diomede may have gotten one of them. We're not sure."
"Was the Echo coming after you?" Morris asked.
"Possibly", Perrin answered. "it does appear that Ivan's going after the escorts quite deliberately. We had two missiles shot at us by the last Backfire raid. One ran into our chaff cloud, and fortunately our Sea Wolf intercepted the other. Unfortunately, the one that exploded behind us amputated our towed array and we're down to just our 2016 sonar."
"So you've been assigned to ride shotgun on us then?"
"It would seem so."
The captains lapsed into shoptalk, which was the whole point of the dinner in any case. O'Malley found the English helicopter pilot while the tables were set, and they started the same thing while the American played the piano. Somewhere in the Royal Navy was a directive: when dealing with American naval officers, get them over early, get a drink in them first, then talk business.
Dinner was excellent, though the Americans, judgment was somewhat affected by the liquid refreshments. O'Malley listened closely as his captain described the loss of Pharris, the tactics employed by the Russians, and how he had failed to counter them properly. It was like listening to a man relate the death of his child.
"Under the circumstances, hard to see what you could have done differently," Doug Perrin sympathized. "Victor is a capable opponent, and he must have timed your coming off the sprint very carefully."
Morris shook his head. "No, we came off sprint well away from him, and that blew his solution right out the window. If I'd done things better, those men wouldn't be dead. I was the captain. It was my fault."
Perrin said, "I've been there in the submarine, you know. He has the advantage because he's already been tracking you." He flashed O'Malley a look.
Dinner ended at eight. The escort commanders would meet the following afternoon, and the convoy would sail at sundown. O'Malley and Morris left together, but the pilot stopped at the brow.
"Forgot my hat. I'll be back in a minute." He hurried back to the wardroom. Captain Perrin was still there.
"Doug, I need an opinion."
"He shouldn't go back out in his current state. Sorry, Jerry, but that's how I see things."
