"Good." He moved the lever of the bridge telegraph to Full Ahead.
It was now about six-thirty; the fog was breaking up, a little. I decided to climb to the bridge. I entered the wheelhouse; there was no one at the wheel. I took the wheel in my hands, tried to turn it a point or two, experimentally; it was locked in place.
"Remember that I was, once, in accord with them. Passionately, if I may say so, in accord with them. I did whatever they wished, without thinking, hated their enemies, participated in their crusades, risked my life. Even though I only carried trays and wiped up tables. I heard the singing of the wounded and witnessed the burial of the dead. I believed. Then, over time, I discovered that they were lying. Consistently. With exemplary skill, in a hundred languages. I decided to take the ships. Perhaps theyll notice." He paused. "Now. Do you wish to accompany me, assist me?"
"Yes, sir."
He wore a uniform, but it seemed more a stewards or barmans dress than a naval officers. His face was not unimpressive: dark hair carefully brushed, a strong nose, good mouth and chin. I judged him to be in his late fifties. He re-entered the chartroom. I followed him.
"My name is --" I began.
"There are also the submarines," he said. "Six submarines of the Marlin class."
"The ships were being stockpiled against a possible new national emergency," I said. "What on earth is wrong with that?"
"Are there crews aboard the other ships?"
"But why?"
The forty destroyers, four light cruisers, two heavy cruisers, and the carrier were moving in perfect formation toward the open sea. The sight was a magnificent one. I had been in the Navy -- two years as a supply officer in New London, principally.
He had finished his sandwich. A bit of mustard had soiled the sleeve of his white coat, which had gold epaulets. I thought again that he most resembled not an admiral but a man from whom one would order drinks.
"I am not interested in your name," he said. "I am only interested in your behavior. As you can see, I have at my disposal forty-seven brigs, of which the carriers is the most comfortable. Not that I believe you will behave other than correctly. At the moment, I want you to do this: Go down to the galleyand make a pot of coffee. Make sandwiches. You may make one for yourself. Then bring them here." He settled back in his seat and regarded the calm, even sea.
"Objectively," he said, smiling slightly.
"No," he said. I felt however that he had appreciated my shrewdness in guessing that there were no crews aboard the other ships.
"I am taking these ships away from them," he said.
"No no," he said, without looking up. "Nothing like that." Then he said, "A bit careless with your little boat, arent you?"
"You will say: Yes, sir, " he corrected me.
A man entered from the chartroom behind me. He immediately walked over to me and removed my hands from the wheel.
"Youre afraid that well be used for target practice? Hardly." He seemed momentarily amused.
I thought about this for a moment. I decided to shift the ground of the conversation slightly.
I went aboard as the fleet reached the Narrows. I noticed a pair of jeans floating on the surface of the water, stiff with paint. I abandoned my small outboard and jumped for the ladder of the lead destroyer.
He did not answer my question. He was looking at a chart.
This made me angry. "Not normally. On the contrary. But something --"
"Radio?" I asked. "Remote control or something?"
"Is this a test of some kind?" I asked. "New equipment or --"
There was no one on deck. All of the gun mounts and some pieces of special equipment were coated with a sort of plastic webbing, which had a slightly repellent feeling when touched. I watched my empty Pacemaker bobbing in the heavy wake of the fleet. I called out. "Hello! Hello!"
"To be at sea," he said.
There was no other traffic on the water; this I thought strange.
"I am the Admiral."
"I was a messman on the Saratoga," he said, "when I was sixteen. I lied about my age."
"All right."
"More than anything."
"Mothball fleet," he supplied.
"Of course," he said. "You were anticipated. Why dyou think that ladder wasnt secured?"
"What is that stuff used for the mothballing?" I asked.
"It was difficult," he said. He then walked out of the chartroom and seated himself in one of the swivel chairs on posts in front of the bridge windows. I followed him.
I looked again at his uniform which suggested no such thing.
"May I ask where this. . ."
"And then," he said, "think of each ship moving up the Hudson, or worse, being towed, to a depot in New Jersey where it is covered with this disgusting plastic substance. Think of the years each ship has spent moored next to other ships of its class, painted, yes, at scheduled times, by a crew of painters whose task it is to paint these ships eternally, finished with one and on to the next and back to the first again five years later. Watchmen watching the ships, year in and year out, no doubt knocking off a little copper pipe here and there --"
It was early morning, just after dawn, in fact. The mothball fleet was sailing down the Hudson. Grayish-brown shrouds making odd shapes at various points on the superstructures. I counted forty destroyers, four light cruisers, two heavy cruisers, and a carrier. A fog lay upon the river.
Behind us, the vessels were disposed in fleet formation -- the carrier in the center, the two heavy cruisers before and behind her, the destroyer screen correctly placed in relation to the cruisers, or as much so as the width of the channel would allow. We were making, I judged, ten to twelve knots.
"May I ask your rank?"
I wandered about the destroyer until I found the galley. I made the coffee and sandwiches and returned with them to the bridge.
"If its a matter of sealed orders or something. . ."
"Its a polyvinylchloride solution which also contains vinyl acetate," he said. "Its sprayed on and then hardens. If you were to cut it open youd find inside, around the equipment, four or five small cloth bags containing silicate of soda in crystals, to absorb moisture. A very neat system. It does just what itssupposed to do, keeps the equipment good as new."
"No. But ship movements on this scale --"
"Only that?"
"What is your mission?" I asked, determined not to be outfaced by a man with mustard on his coat.
"-- is bound?"
"But what are your intentions?"
"All right," I said. "Yes."
"Something like that," he said.
"You are stealing forty-seven ships from the government of the United States?"
"Why not ask my name?"
"Think a bit," he said. "Think first of shipyards. Think of hundreds of thousands of men in shipyards, on both coasts, building these ships. Think of the welders, the pipefitters, the electricians, naval architects, people in the Bureau of the Budget. Think of the launchings, each with its bottle of champagne on a cord of plaited ribbons hurled at the bow by the wife of some high official. Think of the first sailors coming aboard, the sea trials, the captains for whom a particular ship was a first command. Each ship has a history, no ship is without its history. Think of the six-inch guns shaking a particular ship as they were fired, the jets leaving the deck of the carrier at tightly spaced intervals, the maneuvering of the cruisers during this or that engagement, the damage taken. Think of each ships log faithfully kept over the years, think of the Official Naval History which now runs, I am told, to three hundred some-odd very large volumes.
The "Admiral" drank his coffee silently. Seabirds made passes at the mastwhere the radar equipment, I saw, was covered with the same plastic material that enclosed the gun installations.
