photos: sunrise in the Straits of Messina, highlighting Mt. Etna - May 2009
There is an undeniable allure to the morning 4-to-8s, inexplicable to the average landlubber. Perhaps the mystique is bred solely of exhaustion; after all, there’s never enough sleep beforehand. You struggle, bleary-eyed, out of the rack, slapping fruitlessly at your alarm blinking coldly: 0230, 0230. You bless all those blue lights in Combat and the red lights in the passageways, because by the time you stumble down to Main Control, you’re not blinking so furiously in that stark whiteness, blowing hot and loud. The forced routine of the round keeps you moving. An apple in one pocket, a granola bar in the other – breakfast an eternity away – and, finally, you emerge wide-eyed into the night air for the last part of the round, topside.Even pulling down on the bar to close the door behind, I’m staring up, eyes trained. Cloudy or clear? crisp and dry? heavy with fog? – I’m picking out stars, wind on my cheek, listening, smelling, smoke shimmering from the stacks, nav lights glowing; I’m forcing my eyes to adjust, judging visibility and illumination, squinting at the horizon, distant and shady. I head aft. If it’s clear, the multiplicity of stars arrests me; and I stare up, sky dense, layers upon layers, blinking, deep into the inky darkness, picking my way across the panoply: Orion, the Pleiades, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper, Polaris. North. I judge our heading, overlaying it on the mental picture I started outlining back in Combat.
On my way forward, my feet gauge pitch and roll, adjusting as I lean into the wind, striding up the weather decks, boats tied down, dim green light of batteries charging, crouched and waiting. Usually up on the foc’sle, time allowing, my feet stumbling over ground tackle, I stop and look out, scan the horizon, wait for relative motion. Other vessels, the lights of land, the greens and whites and reds along that thin line between sky and sea, blinking on and off, some steady, some coming, some going. Aspects, sizes, distances, all compared exhaustively against the radar scope burned behind my eyes. Then, finally, up the ladders and a visual scan around the bridge catwalk, eyes pressed to binoculars, double-checking.
Entering the bridge at last, saluting the officer of the deck, it’s all double-checking now, confirming details etched in my mind. Distance and direction to land, safe water, territorial seas, nearest port. Friendly forces. Shipping. Patrol boxes, tracklines, “hot spots”, hazards. I listen and watch, judge the alertness of the bridge team, check my equipment, darken the bridge: it’s never black enough. Review the logs, the charts, the night orders I wrote (it seems an eternity ago) yesterday evening, before escaping to bed, before the phone calls, answered half-asleep. Engines, radios, intelligence, tasking, and then, the passdown, nodding, knowing the words before they’re said, agreeing.
I wait. I’m sure. I offer my relief.
The start of the watch is slow. That’s normal: I have to get my watch section accustomed, night-adapted, set in their routines. A half hour in, around 0400, and always for break-ins – and they’re inevitably there, aren’t they? it’s the best watch for training – the session starts. We review the plan of the day and anticipate responsibilities, plan actions. Rehearse wake-up calls for the captain and XO. Calculate sunrise; shoot morning stars. Review casualty procedures, in detail; run mini-drills. Memorize Rules of the Road. Calculate time-speed-distance overnight, and to our next waypoint. Watch the sun rise; shoot amplitude or azimuth for gyro error. Knock out checklists. Hunt for bad guys. Sign off boat checks. Secure nav lights; re-set the bridge for day. Smell the sweet scent of breakfast, curling up to the bridge, the only time the watch ever seems to drag, those last thirty minutes with your stomach crying out and well-nourished reliefs finally plodding up the ladder, mumbling lazy, satisfied reports and you hearing nothing, begging only for waffles or orange juice or biscuits and gravy.
It’s gone fast, and now you’re saluting the watch away, checking your logs, a final touch of the cap, heading below. Time to start the day. But, maybe if you were lucky, maybe somewhere, maybe in the midst of all that rush, maybe while the break-in ran for a head call or dug for a star chart or calculated a fix, maybe you slipped outside for a minute, draped over the bridge rail, looking up, looking out, lost in the vastness of sea and sky and stars and sun, the as-yet-unseen sun, golden only in its clouded reflection, not even risen yet; maybe you braced against wind and wiped away rain and tasted the salt spray on your lips; maybe you just stood, still, alone and small, a dot in the middle of the vastness. Maybe you remembered why you’ve done more in the past four hours, before reveille, than many on land do all day.
At the end of our long patrol this spring, we took on perhaps a dozen friends and relatives for the last short leg home, up the California coast. Two nights and a day, a short sojourn after our long adventures. Most hid in the wardroom, watching movies; the unluckier ones spread-eagled on bottom racks, sick. The more curious among them toured common spaces or spectated at special evolutions: getting underway, mooring, boats launched and recovered. Relative, yes; but no passenger, this man.
No; he appeared wordless, a shadow on the morning 4-to-8, settling silent in XO’s chair on the port side, steaming coffee mug in hand, unbidden, dark against the darkness of the foggy night, alert, watching. I suspected he’d made a round of the ship beforehand, likely more thorough than mine. He said little. He’d been in the merchant marines for years, captained ships, run a fleet out of Singapore, lately retired, still youthful, unbowed, eyes bright. He sat and kept watch with us, comfortable, listening, smelling, feeling, looking, poised. Through the sunrise; and then, upon relief, slipped away down below; breakfast called.
Yes, that man – he was a sailor. He knew.
