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  Father Rick stood in the chow line preparing for lunch with the crew. He looked up to see Supply Officer Valente’s sign of the day. It read: “If Any of Our Culinary Selections Don’t Meet with Your Complete Approval, JOIN THE ARMY!”

  As he walked across the mess hall he met Dominic Valente.

  “Dom, I have to tell you how much I love your daily food announcements. This crew needs a few laughs.”

  “Yes, Padre, they do need laughs. What I’m hearing from the crew isn’t good. These people want to go home. I can’t say I blame them. Please keep coming to the mess hall. These sailors love to see you. I’ll personally serve you an extra dessert.”

  Fr. Rick laughed. “Thanks for the input, Dom, and keep up with the great signs. How are we doing with supplies?”

  “It’s becoming a problem, Father. A Union supply ship pulled alongside the last time we were outside of Washington. What I have on my normal list of items doesn’t square with what they have to offer. Come July I think my Selection of the Day sign will read, “Wormhole Road Kill.”

  Father Rick laughed. “I can’t wait.”

  Sampson made it a rule to sit with a different group of sailors at each meal. He spotted a group he hadn’t dined with before and walked toward the table. “Please have a seat, Padre,” said Petty Officer Tyrone Jones. Jones introduced the chaplain to each of the eight sailors at the table, although Father Rick already knew their names. “So what’s new, Padre?” asked Jones.

  “Well, a horse walks into a bar and the bartender says ‘Why the long face’?” The uproarious laughter told the chaplain that they had never heard the old joke before. “Haven’t you guys ever heard of Henny Youngman?” asked Father Rick. Confused looks. Either I’m getting older or they’re getting younger, thought Father Rick.

  “So how’s everything going with you guys?” Father Rick asked. He braced himself for another bunch of sad stories about sailors missing their loved ones. He expected tears, and readied himself to be the shoulder to cry on. What he heard startled him. It wasn’t sadness that he heard but frustration, bordering on anger.

  Tyrone Jones led off. “Well, Padre, you ask how everything is going. It’s weird, sir. Here we are, a bunch of sailors from the twenty-first century, and we’re fixing to pick a fight with people we whupped over 150 years ago. Hey, I’m a black man. If I lived in 1861 and my people were in chains, I’d be looking to do some ass kicking. But we’re from 2013. Our president is a black guy, my brother just married a white girl, my next door neighbor is a Filipino, and my captain is a black woman. This war was over a long time ago. Why don’t we just go home?”

  The table appeared to be in total agreement, with “amens,” “right-ons,” and fist pumping. Seaman Bobby Curtis leaned over and looked down the table toward Father Rick. “Yes, Bobby?” said the chaplain.

  “When I signed up,” said Curtis, “we were fighting terrorists, a bunch of people who wanted to kill us. These Southerners don’t even know who we are.”

  Petty Officer Pete Mosely weighed in. “Padre, when the shooting starts, people are going to get hurt and killed, at sea or on land. If one of us gets popped in this stupid war, it will make no more sense than a drive-by in Detroit. We should bag ass out of here and get back to fighting real bad guys.”

  Petty Officer Ike Ivey had graduated from junior college before joining the Navy. He intended to get his bachelor’s degree when his stint was up. A history buff, he hoped to become a high school history teacher some day. “Father, I’ve been reading a lot about the Civil War. In four years there were 620,000 casualties.” Almost everyone at the table said the same thing, “What?”

  Ivey continued. “These nineteenth-century people are out of their minds. And I mean both Northerners and Southerners. They think it’s a noble thing to march into cannon fire shoulder to shoulder. Now here we are, about to go shoulder to shoulder with these maniacs. We don’t belong here, Padre.”

  Petty officer William Tyson spoke. “I’m from Mississippi, about as southern as southern gets. I’m a black guy and my neighbor’s a white guy. We play softball together. Our kids go to school together. My father is the mayor of my town. He ran against a white man in a town where 80 percent of the voters are white. My dad won in a landslide. This fucking, excuse me, friggin’ war was over a long time ago. It’s like waking up dead guys and killing them all over again.”

  Father Rick realized it was time to talk, not just listen. “So I take it you guys are a bit angry.” The head nodding was unanimous. “I’m going to ask you to consider something. Our involvement in this war is going to be very limited. The purpose, from what I understand, is to cut down on the killing by convincing the South that it’s a terrible idea to continue. It’s not top secret that this ship is going to go through some daily changes in appearance. The idea is to make the Confederacy think that there’s more than one of us. If we do get into actual combat, the idea is the same, to convince the South to give it up, and save a few hundred thousand lives. Then, we steam for home.”

  Father Rick realized that it was important to shore up support for the captain, which is part of the chaplain’s job. “I want you folks to know something, and I’m speaking from the bottom of my heart. Captain Ashley Patterson is the finest officer I have ever served with. I meet with her often. And get this: she cares about you and the entire crew – a lot. She wants to go back to where we came from as much as you and I do.”

  Chapter 44

  Chief Ray knocked on Bradley’s office door. “Enter,” Bradley said. Ray walked into the office, closing the door behind him. He hadn’t noticed how small the office was before, about nine feet by twelve. This was another thing that preyed on Bradley’s nerves. Dashing Ashley had an expansive office while his couldn’t be a quarter the size of hers. “Have a seat, Chief,” said Bradley, “if you can find the room.”

  “The Captain sure has given you some cozy quarters, Commander.” Bradley just waved his hand dismissively.

  “Chief, I’ve come up with an idea to make our weapons moving plan a lot easier. Not only easier, but it will kill two birds with one stone. The SEALs are going to move the weapons for us.” Ray’s eyes widened. He couldn’t believe what he just heard.

  “I don’t get it, Commander.”

  “Here’s the idea Chief. I’ve already spoken to Conroy, the SEAL honcho, and he agrees. I told him that I worried about the riskiness of moving two Zodiacs and two rafts full of weapons on the eve of battle. I said that we don’t know what sea conditions will be like and the danger of losing the cache of weapons is too great. I convinced him that we should move the weapons way in advance of the battle, and set up a defensive perimeter around them.”

  “But if the SEALs are in charge of the weapons what happens to the big plan, the plan to join the Confederacy?”

  Bradley stared into Ray’s eyes. “The SEALs will only look like they’re in charge. We need to have at least six of our people with them.”

  “Our people, Commander?” Bradley asked.

  “Yes, our people. Chief, we have to expand our strength to accomplish our mission. We need bunch of sailors who will want to join us in the Confederacy.”

  “Commander, you’ll be happy to know your old friend has been thinking down the road. There’s a group of good ole’ boys aboard, tough guys to the soles of their feet. In civilian life they'd probably be gang members. There are twelve of them, four first class and eight second class petty officers. These are tough dudes, Commander, and none of them is happy with his current status in the Navy."

  “You haven’t said anything to them have you?” asked Bradley, concerned about the security of their plan.

  “Of course not, sir. I’ve just asked a simple question of each of them. I wanted to see where their minds are on our upcoming operations.” Ray leaned closer and said, “I just asked each of ‘em how they felt about our upcoming war against the South?”

  “And what were their responses?”

  “Commander, these ole’ b
oys are spittin’ mad. I got the clear impression that they’re fixing on doing something. What it is I don’t know, but it’s something. I guess you’re thinking, like I am, that we can give these boys something to do, something for Ole Dixie.”

  “Tell me a little more about these guys, Chief.”

  “Well sir, six of them are gunners mates and work directly for me. Two are boatswains mates, tough guys. One is a boilerman, and the other is an electronics technician.”

  “I want a list of their names. I’ll check the personnel file on each of them. Do they know how to use small arms?”

  “Yes, sir. All of them are checked out with weapons. It’s mandatory for my guys, but the others do it because they’re good ‘ole boys, and shooting comes natural.”

  “But I’m still a little confused about one thing Commander. What about the SEALs?”

  Bradley sat up straight. In his mind, he climbed to the high road.

  “When Robert E. Lee joined the Confederacy, he knew that it would mean taking up arms against people he knew well. He didn’t like the idea, but he knew it was his sacred patriotic duty. The SEALs will become collateral damage in our mission. Once ashore, they will have to be killed.”

  “We’ll meet again soon, Chief.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Chapter 45

  Jeff DeLouker and Nancy Forsyth were in the ship’s maintenance and repair shop discussing the design of the California’s upcoming “costume changes.” They were going over Forsyth’s drawings for the large shed structures that would serve as bogus gun turrets. Both the fore and aft sheds would be eight feet high, and would grow by another eight feet by hoisting four additional walls that would lay collapsed on the roof of the sheds until needed.

  “We’re going to need another member on our committee, Nance.”

  “Who and why?”

  “Father Rick, the chaplain, is the who. Weather is the why. We are going to need a lot of prayer, Nance. If we hit a big storm with all this crap we’re adding to the decks we’re fucked.”

  DeLouker and Forsyth went to Nick Wartella’s office. Wartella invited them in. “How’s our costume change operation going?”

  “That’s what we wanted to see you about Commander. My sidekick here designs stuff that can take a beating, and my team knows how to batten down for heavy weather, but if we hit a major storm we could have a big problem.”

  “Hurricane season is coming,” added Forsyth. “Jeff is right. If we hit a bad storm our costume may get washed out to sea. We can take some heavy weather, no problem. But we don’t have the ability to outrun a hurricane if we don’t know it’s coming.”

  “We all know that our weather forecasting took a hit when we lost our satellites and long range communications,” DeLouker said. “Nancy and I just wanted to give you a heads up, in case you didn’t have anything else to worry about.”

  “You’re both right. Thanks for thinking this through. I’ll talk to the captain.”

  ***

  After Wartella told her about the concerns of his design team, Ashley called a meeting with Ivan Campbell, the navigator, and Lt. Kathy Cooney, the ship’s meteorologist, who is part of the navigation division.

  Campbell and Cooney entered the Captain’s office. “I just got a very savvy heads up from our engineering department,” Ashley said. “They’re concerned that a big storm could compromise Operation Gray Ships by blowing all of their work out to sea. Weather is something we haven’t been thinking a lot about lately, but it’s time to think about it now.”

  “I’ll turn it over to Lt. Stormy here, Captain.” The captain smiled at his nickname for Cooney.

  “I wish I could give you good news, but I can’t,” said Cooney. “After I graduated from OCS I went to Navy meteorology school because I found it interesting. But without the right tools, it isn’t interesting, it’s scary. My job as the ship’s meteorologist had been one of tracking, monitoring, and reporting. I would constantly check the satellite weather reports and the weather faxes. I would also watch CNN and the Weather Channel on our TV hookup, I’m embarrassed to admit. That’s why the job of a modern ship’s meteorologist is part-time. I have other responsibilities in the navigation department. The only thing I have to monitor now is the condition of the sky and the ship’s two barometers. We do have radar, but the range isn’t good enough to keep us out of big trouble.”

  “How good are you at reading the sky, Lieutenant?” asked Ashley.

  “As good as anybody, Captain, which also means as bad as anybody. We’ve all heard, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning.’ But for serious weather forecasting, that’s pure nonsense. A fast moving front, and fronts can move very fast, will blow away any silly saying. Yes, the clouds can tell us a lot, but the situation can change very fast, as many a captain who went down with a ship in a storm found out.”

  “As you see it Kathy, what’s the major problem we have to worry about?” Campbell asked.

  “Here’s what keeps me up at night. Today is May 3. In less than a month from now, on June 1, the Atlantic Hurricane Season begins, or at least it did in 2013. Both of you have been in the Navy a lot longer than I have, so you know the drill when it comes to hurricanes. You head the other way and outrun them. That’s the only way to deal with a hurricane. Even in the early part of the twentieth-century, after ship-to-ship wireless telegraphs came into use, mariners were in a better spot than we find ourselves in. Ships could send warnings to other ships. We don’t even have that capability. Even the hindsight of history isn’t much good. I know we have plenty of historical data on CD-ROMs in our library, but there have been ferocious storms at sea that never made the newspapers. The only way people knew of them was when a lot of ships never returned to port.”

  “I assume that you think the weather stations ashore will not be of much help,” Ashley said.

  “That’s right Captain. They’re primitive at best, lacking the same technology that we’re missing. For example, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, 39 years from now, was (will be?) the worst hurricane in American history, with over 6,000 lives lost. The technology of weather stations at the time wasn’t close to satellite imagery. Simply stated, the people in Galveston didn’t know it was coming. That same problem can apply to the California.”

  “What steps do you recommend, Kathy?” Campbell asked.

  “Sir, I’m making copies of photos of every known cloud formation, and I will be posting them around the ship. We have a lot of old salts on this ship, and maybe one of them may see something that I’ve missed. But even if they do, reading the sky is no substitute for accurate forecasting. It’s the only thing we have. Radar is good, but it will only show us that we’re about to get hit. It won’t allow us enough time to outrun a storm.”

  “Ivan,” said Ashley, “I want you to come up with a list of safe harbors up and down the coast. It may give us a shot at ducking for cover if we realize some big weather is on us. We have to deal with the hand we’ve been dealt. Losing our fancy new Gray Ship costuming may be the least of our problems.”

  Chapter 46

  The Boston Globe

  “Sighting of Amazing Gray Vessel off Coast of Maine –

  Four Fishermen Report a Very Large and Fast Ship”

  By Lucas McPherson, May 4, 1861

  A ship the likes of which has never been seen has been reported by a fishing vessel off the coast of Deer Isle, Maine. According to the Angus Monahan, captain of the Ariana B., a fishing boat out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, he saw a very large Gray Ship approximately a quarter-mile from his boat. “I have never seen anything like it before. It’s the biggest ship of any kind that I’ve seen before, and I’ve been fishing these waters for over 20 years.” He looked at the ship through his spyglass and was able to see structures on her deck that he couldn’t identify, other than two objects that appeared to be large cannons. Three other crewmembers of the Ariana B. were interviewed and they confirmed captain Monahan’s
statement. Although they weren’t close enough to determine the exact lettering on her stern, two of the men insisted that it read “USS California.” Large numbers on each side of her bow read “36.”

  The ship is also extremely fast, according to the fisherman. She was headed in the same direction as their fishing boat and was miles ahead of them within a few minutes.

  There have been at least a dozen other reports of a Gray Ship steaming off the New England Coast in recent weeks, but Monahan and his crew were close enough to give a detailed description of the craft. All four of the men insisted that it must be a ship of war because of the objects that appeared to be cannons on her deck. The Navy Department was contacted but had no comment.

  Chapter 47

  Simon Planck, recently promoted to Petty Officer, was in his 15th session of Pete Campo’s martial arts class.

  “Today,” said Campo, “we begin the ancient art of karate.”

  He called Simon Planck to the front of the class.

  “Petty Officer Planck, look at me, and do exactly as I do.”

  Campo held his left arm tucked against his side, and then thrust his right fist forward, turning his fist inward as he did. He then repeated the maneuver with his other arm. He did this ten times with each arm. Each time he did the thrust of his fist, he let out a shout, “Kia.”

  Planck then went through the series of thrusts imitating Campo’s movements. Campo bowed toward Planck, and then gave him a swat to his left arm, saying, “Great job, Petty Officer Planck.” Campo meant it. In each session, he noticed that Planck honed his new skills with a passion. Planck executed the opening thrusts flawlessly.

  Campo then lined up the class in rows with enough space between each student to avoid injury.

  Planck was exhausted from the series of punching thrusts. Campo surprised him when he told him to stay in the front of the class.