Sweet Reason Read Free Page B

was a skunk on a parallel course which ain’t on a parallel course no more but’s heading straight for us.”
    “How far away is this skunk?”
    “Mister Lustig didn’t tell me that either, Captain,” Tevepaugh said in a low voice.
    “Very well, son. Now hightail it back to the bridge andtell Mister Lustig that the Captain sends his respects. Tell him to call the ship to General Quarters if the skunk is less than ten miles from us. You got that?”
    “Yes sir, GQ if the skunk is under ten miles.”
    As Tevepaugh turned to go, the Captain added: “I know you — you’re Taylor, the guitarist.”
    “No sir, Captain, I’m Tevepaugh the guitarist.”
    “Ah yes. Tevepaugh. Well, on your horse Tevepaugh the guitarist.”
    The Ebersole Sounds General Quarters
    Ten minutes later Lustig strode across the pilot house to the three color-coded alarms on the bulkhead (red for general, yellow for chemical, green for collision) and pushed down the red handle. Instantly an electrifyingly persistent DONG DONG DONG DONG DONG DONG DONG DONG reverberated through the Ebersole . As it faded Ohm put his mouth so close to the microphone of the public address system it looked as if he intended to bite into it, and yelled: “This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Now all hands, man your battle stations. Now set condition one Able throughout the ship.”
    The Eugene F. Ebersole , a relic of another era and another war, emerged from its stupor. Men grabbed their shoes and dungarees and raced off toward their battle stations. Doors, some of them presumably still watertight after more than two decades of sea duty, clanged shut, their teeth biting into the bulkhead like some medieval portcullis. In the wardroom, Doc Shapley, a hospital corpsman second class who tended to become faint at the sight of blood, laid out packets of surgical instruments and tapes on the greenfelt dining table, then stretched out on the couch and dozed. Chaplain Rodgers came into the wardroom, pushed aside the surgical instruments and began playing solitaire. At each of the five-inch mounts sailors in battle dress — helmet on, dungarees tucked into socks, shirt collar buttoned — depressed the guns and took out the tampions that were screwed, like corks, into the tips of the barrels to keep out seawater. On the bridge Lustig passed the watch over to the ship’s engineering officer, a thin-lipped, nasal Naval Academy graduate named Moore. “We’re on course two nine zero, speed ten knots, all four boilers with superheats on the line, but since you put them on the line you know more about that than I do.” Lustig smiled at his own joke. “You got it, John?”
    “Got it, Larry,” said Lieutenant junior grade Moore, who didn’t like bridge watches and wasn’t supposed to be up there during general quarters except the Ebersole was so shorthanded there was nobody else free to do the job. In a loud, formal voice, Moore went through the ritual of taking over the watch. “Very well, sir, I relieve you,” he intoned.
    Helmsman Carr and Bo’s’n Mate Ohm raced off down the port ladder as soon as they saw their reliefs coming. Angry Pettis, the signalman, waited around long enough to soul-slap the palm of his black relief as if he were passing the baton in a relay race. Then he started down the ladder — just as a white sailor started up. The two stopped short and glared wordlessly at each other; then the white had second thoughts and backed slowly down. Angry Pettis coyly cocked his head and continued on his merry way.
    Four minutes after GQ sounded Captain Jones stepped onto the bridge. His nonregulation Adler elevators were spit-shined to a mirror finish. His khaki trousers and khaki shirt were creased in all the authorized places. The silver oak leaves on his collar and the gold braid on his blue baseball cap (with the “Swift and Sure” emblem on it) gleamed.Even his double chins, freshly shaven and pink, glistened. Except for a small patch of toilet