The shamal seemed to be holding steady. He could imagine what this was doing to their paint… He picked up the phone to the local command net. The covered net got him the duty officer at CO-MIDEASTFOR. After discussing the storm — the staff officer said it would be brief, it would blow over before morning — he brought up his concerns about their location in the roadstead.
The staffie was surprised he didn’t like where he was. They put visiting units there frequently and had had no complaints before. Dan asked about moving out to the Sitra basin. The staffie said it wasn’t a good idea. There’d been a bad accident in Greece last year. A cruiser’s launch had capsized, drowning eight sailors on their way back from liberty. Since then the Naval Safety Center had reminded commanders to moor or anchor as close as possible to the fleet landings.
Dan said he remembered that message. Well then, the watch officer said. Still, it was his call. Did he want to talk to somebody higher about it, maybe the J-3?
At last he said no. There were warriors, and there were worriers; he’d worked for both, and he didn’t want to turn into another Ike Sund-strom, seeing disaster around every corner. The shrink, back in the States, had warned him inappropriate suspicions of danger were one of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He said thanks and to have a good day, and was signing off when the watch officer said, “Wait a minute. Captain Lenson? There’s something here on my desk about you. COMDESRON Fifty and the COMIDEASTFOR JAG want to see you at 1300 day after tomorrow. You’re on the admiral’s schedule at 1400. Got any idea what that’s about? Over.”
“Yeah, I know what it’s about. Thanks,” Dan said. “This is
The commodore’s mast, of course, only now upgraded to an admiral’s mast — not a good sign at all. He stewed about this while the wind droned on. At 1700 he called the beach again, on the marine telephone frequency. A credit card got him patched to the Regency. When Blair answered, he told her he wouldn’t be able to get ashore that night, the weather was too rough.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, too,” she said.
He could guess what it was. “They want you back.”
“A plane went down with thirty-six troops from the Third Division aboard. The deputy secretary wants somebody in uniform and a civilian side appointee there. He picked the DCSPER and me. I leave at midnight on the MC-18 shuttle. That’s Sigonella, Naples, Rota, Norfolk. The army’ll have a plane there for me to go to Georgia.”
“That’s bad. About the troops … when will you get in?”
“I don’t even know how to guess at that one, but we’ll be in the air fifteen or sixteen hours just to the States. So if you can’t make it tonight …”
“I really can’t, honey. There’s a nasty chop going. It should blow over tomorrow. But I guess that won’t do much for us.”
He listened to her breathing over the air, thinking how much of his family life had taken place over the telephone. “But at least we had time together.”
“Yeah.” He put his fingers to his eyes and squeezed. Jesus, what was happening to him, he didn’t used to feel like this when somebody he loved had to go. “But now how am I going to do without you?”
“Are we getting sentimental in our old age?”
“I’m just going to miss you, that’s all.”
“You’ll do fine, like you did before I got here. And I’ll miss you, too … We’ll both be busy … Think about that house. Don’t just go from assignment to assignment like some mindless pawn. We’ll talk about it. If you don’t…”
“If I don’t what?”
“I want a life,” she told him. “Something more than work, and only being together when you’re in port, or I can fly out to see you … I’m sorry. I want more … or something else.”
He caught his breath as inside him something turned at bay. Not again. Not the same thing that had happened to his first marriage! “You didn’t seem to think it was such a bad way to live,” he said tightly. “I told you it would be this way. You said it’d work. But now, all of a sudden, it’s not enough?”
“Let’s not argue now,” she said. “Look, it was the wrong time to say that. I was going to get to it, but we didn’t have time. So we’ll leave it. Okay? Do your job. Be the captain. I’ll go do my job. And the next time we get together, we’ll talk it out. Okay?”
It was not okay. Bitter words struggled in his breast. He didn’t like postponing discussions. They only got worse if you did. But he could do nothing. He couldn’t go to her. She had to leave. So they talked a little longer, conscious every word they said might be overheard; they did not even have privacy in their farewell. And at last, they said goodbye. After which he sat listening, alone, to the hiss of space in the earpiece echoing the storm outside.
