The Mothball Fleet
Overnight to Many Different Cities 作者：唐纳德·巴塞尔姆 投票推荐 加入书签 留言反馈
百度搜索 Overnight to Many Different Cities 天涯 或 Overnight to Many Different Cities 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
It was early m, 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 ted forty destroyers, fht cruisers, two heavy cruisers, and a carrier. A fog lay upon the river.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.
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!"
Behind us, the vessels were disposed i formation -- the carrier in the ter, the two heavy cruisers before and behihe destroyer s correctly placed iion to the cruisers, or as much so as the width of the el would alloere making, I judged, ten to twelve knots.
There was no other traffi the water; this I thought strange.
It was now about six-thirty; the fog was breaking up, a little. I decided to climb to the bridge. I ehe wheelhouse; there was no o the wheel. I took the wheel in my hands, tried to turn it a point or two, experimentally; it was locked in place.
A maered from the chartroom behind me. He immediately walked over to me and removed my hands from the wheel.
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 . I judged him to be in his late fifties. He re-ehe chartroom. I followed him.
"May I ask where this. . ."
"Mothball fleet," <samp>..</samp>he supplied.
"-- is bound?"
He did not answer my question. He was looking at a chart.
"If its a matter of sealed orders or something. . ."
"No no," he said, without looking up. "Nothing like that." Then he said, "A bit careless with your little boat, arent you?"
This made me angry. "Not normally. On the trary. But something --"
"Of course," he said. "You were anticipated. Why dyou think that ladder wasnt secured?"
I thought about this for a moment. I decided to shift the ground of the versation slightly.
"Are there crews aboard the other ships?"
"No," he said. I felt however that he had appreciated my shrewdness in guessing that there were no crews aboard the other ships.
"Radio?" I asked. "Remote trol or something?"
"Something like that," he said.
The forty destroyers, fht cruisers, two heavy cruisers, and the carrier were moving in perfeation toward the opehe sight was a magnifit one. I had been in the Navy -- two years as a supply officer in New London, principally.
"Is this a test of some kind?" I asked. "New equipment or --"
"Youre afraid that well be used for target practice? Hardly." He seemed momentarily amused.
"No. But ship movements on this scale --&quo<q>.</q>t;
"It was difficult," he said. He then walked out of the chartroom aed himself in one of the swivel chairs on posts in front of the bridge windows. I followed him.
"May I ask your rank?"
"Why not ask my name?"
"All right."
"I am the Admiral."
I looked again at his uniform which suggested no such thing.
"Objectively," he said, smiling slightly.
"My name is --" I began.
"I am not ied in your name," he said. "I am only ied in your behavior. As you see, I have at my disposal forty-seven brigs, of which the carriers is the most fortable. Not that I believe you will behave other than correctly. At the moment, I want you to do this: Go down to the ga<big></big>lley and make a pot of coffee. Make sandwiches. You may make one for yourself. Then bring them here." He settled ba his seat and regarded the calm, even sea.
"All right," I said. "Yes."
"You will say: Yes, sir, " he corrected me.
"Yes, sir."
I wandered about the destroyer until I found the galley. I made the coffee and sandwiches aurned with them to the bridge.
The "Admiral" drank his coffee silently. Seabirds made passes at the mast where the radar equipment, I saw, was covered with the same plastic material that enclosed the gun installations.
"What is that stuff used for the mothballing?" I asked.
"Its a polyvinylchloride solution which also tains 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 taining silicate of soda in crystals, to absorb moisture. A very system. It does just what its supposed to do, keeps the equipment good as new."
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.
"What is your mission?" I asked, determined not to be outfaced by a man with mustard on his coat.
"To be at sea," he said.
"Only t<mark></mark>hat?"
"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 electris, naval architects, people in the Bureau of the Budget. Think of the laungs, 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 ing aboard, the sea trials, the captains for whom a particular ship was a first and. 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 e, the damage taken. Think of each ships log faithfully kept over the years, think of the Official Naval History whiow runs, I am told, to three hundred some-odd very large volumes.
"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 substahink of the years each ship has spent moored o other ships of its class, painted, yes, at scheduled times, by <cite></cite>a crew of painters whose task it is to paint these ships eternally, finished with one and on to the and back to the first again five years later. Wat watg the ships, year in and year out, no doubt knog off a little copper pipe here and there --"
"The ships were being stockpiled against a possible new national emergency," I said. "What oh is wrong with that?"
"I was a messman on the Saratoga," he said, "when I was sixteen. I lied about my age."
"But what are your iions?"
"I am taking these ships away from them," he said.
"You are stealing forty-seven ships from the gover of the Uates?"
"There are also the submarines," he said. "Six submarines of the Marlin class."
"But why?"
"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 withe burial of the dead. I believed. Then, over time, I discovered that they were lying. sistently. With exemplary skill, in a hundred languages. I decided to take the ships. Perhaps theyll notice." He paused. "Now. Do you wish to apany me, assist me?"
"More than anything."
"Good." He moved the lever of the bridge telegraph to Full Ahead.
百度搜索 Overnight to Many Different Cities 天涯 或 Overnight to Many Different Cities 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.