The frogmen (3 page)

"What pulls the wires?"

"You take all the joy out of life, Amos. Wait until tomorrow, and the chief will show you what pulls those wires."

"I'm counting on that," Amos said. "So put it together, John, and let's find out whether I get sea duty or a court-martial."

When the chief reached their workbench the next morning, they pretended to be working on John's invention. Hingman watched them for a minute and then said, "What's that gadget? I didn't assign you that."

"I was just wondering, Chief," Amos said, "if you ever got zapped fooling around with these things?"

"I don't fool around with 'em."

"I mean," Amos said, "what would happen if I rigged up an exploder you couldn't figure out, and it zapped you?"

"That'll be the day."

"You wouldn't want to make a little bet on it, would you, Chief?"

Some of the other students wandered over to see what was going on.

"What are you talking about, Wainwright? What do you think this war is, some sort of game?"

"Not at all, Chief, but the enemy's always figuring out new ways to rig these things, so wouldn't it sort of keep us on our toes to rig up some ourselves?"

"What kind of bet?" the chief asked.

Amos steadied his breathing. "This. If I zap you, you graduate me. Right now. Today. You call Beach and tell him I'm available for sea-duty orders."

"And if you don't?"

Amos shrugged.

There was real animosity in the chief's eyes. "What a cheap shot. You know something? I looked up your record, Wainwright. You've been on active duty since 1941, and you haven't spent a day of that time at sea, where you could get your tail shot off. So now, when the hot wind's beginning to blow on you, you come up with this. You can't zap me, and you know it. All you want is for me to flunk you out of here so you can get another safe shore-duty billet in another school for ensigns. Well, I got news for you. I'm going to flunk you out all right, but you're not going to get any more shore duty. You're going as far out in the forward area as I can get you sent."

This was even better than Amos had hoped. "You want to go with me, Chief?"

"I've been."

"Okay, have we got a deal? If I zap you I get sea duty. Right now, today?"

"Right now, today," the chief said.

Amos pushed John's exploder across the table. "All right, Chief, take it apart."

There was some noise from the students as they crowded around the table where the chief stood holding the exploder in his hands, turning it slowly one way and then another.

The noise died as the chief put the exploder on the table and began working on it.

The first thing the chief spotted was the slot in the top plate that allowed it to be removed without disturbing one of the bolts. "Smart Ensign," he said, "I thought you had more regard for my intelligence than this. That plunger-in-the-bolthole is the first thing I taught you."

"The wires are still sticking out," Amos said.

"No problem. I'll just bypass the plunger and we're home free."

Amos had to admire the way he worked. Very carefully, doing nothing until he had figured out how to do it right.

When he uncovered the safety switch and relay, he studied them for a long time, examining the wiring and then the two wires leading to the detonator. "Mistake number two," he said. "The wires here aren't the same gauge as these. So they can't be the same wire, can they?" He smiled at Amos, "Too bad, Mr. Wainwright."

But as the chief got deeper into the case Amos saw that John had installed a thin wire spring that was the same color as the case metal and was flat up against it. Some of the other men saw the spring, too, and each nudged the man next to him, because evidently the chief had not seen it.

They waited, tense with hope.

"I'll just rip all this junk out of here," the chief said, picking up a ratchet, "and see what else the ensign has rigged up for me."

The men around the table didn't look at the spring any more for fear their eyes would guide him to it.

Then the chief raised his head and looked at Amos. "Thought I didn't see that spring, didn't you? How many times have I told you men not to touch anything in a mine until you've looked at it?" He snapped his hand out in a dramatic gesture. "Hemo-stat, nurse!"

Grinning, he clamped both ends of the spring in place and then removed the bolts holding it.

Amos, worried now. looked over at John, but John seemed unconcerned. Max stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.

"Hmmm," the chief said, "that spring doesn't hold down anything. Tricky."

Amos felt guilty about taking credit for what John had done. "I'm just making the bet with you, Chief. John Nash is the one who put that mechanism together."

"Oh, two smart guys," the chief said, looking over at John. And then he noticed Max. "What are you doing in here, Maxwell?"

"Waiting for you to get zapped."

"Well, go on out and play with your little footballs.*

"They ran out of footballs."

"Then go tackle somebody."

"You afraid you're going to get zapped, Chief?"

"Everybody's smart this morning. Okay, stick around, Maxwell, and I'll show you who's really smart."

As he went back to work, the class grew quiet. They had wanted to see the chief get it, but now it looked as though it wouldn't happen. He was just too smart, too careful.

"Well, look at that," the chief said as he got deeper into the exploder. "Take a look, gentlemen."

He pointed out the tiny piezoelectric microphone almost concealed in the casing. "Did you think I'd drop a tool or something and make enough noise to set this thing off, Nash?"

"Something like that." • 804185

The chief laughed. "You got everything in here but the kitchen stove."

"That, too," John said.

The chief took a little putty on the end of his finger and carefully coated the face of the microphone. "That takes care of that little ear, so what else have we got in here?" He looked at the pieces of the exploder lying all over the bench. "Worried, smart Ensign? There's not much left of this thing, is there?"

Amos glanced at John again, but John was just gazing idly up at the ceiling.

"Looks like you didn't make it," the chief said as he lifted an entire compartment out of the exploder.

"Well, what do you know? We've got a real problem here." The chief glanced up. "As you look at this, men, be careful not to jar it."

The men leaned over cautiously and looked down into the exploder casing.

Amos looked, too, feeling a wave of disappointment.

This was too simple, too obvious.

In the bottom of the exploder was an ordinary magnetic firing device. It was made up of five slim metal magnets standing on edge and held apart by metal strips. The group of magnets was delicately balanced on a bronze knife-edge.

There was nothing unusual about it. Amos could see the tiny springs that would hold the magnets in the horizontal plane in whatever ambient field the mine was laid. The whole mechanism was supported in gimbals so that it would always stay in the proper position no matter how the mine was tilted.

"What do we do in a case like this?" the chief asked. "We have two choices, don't we? We can either lift those magnets off, being very careful not to let them tilt to either side, or we can wedge them in place and then take the whole thing out. So—end of lesson. Okay, you people, turn to. Zap-the-chief time is over."

Amos said helplessly, "The wires are still sticking out."

The chief stared at him. "The only thing I like about you, Mr. Wainwright, is that you don't know when you're whipped. You want that firing mechanism out? Okay, I'll take it out."

Moving very quickly and accurately, he wedged the magnets in place, removed the bolts holding the gimbals, and lifted the entire device out in one piece.

If Amos had not been staring at it he would not

have seen the two tiny magnets shoot out, one from each side of the casing, and click together.

Even as it was happening, Amos marveled at the beauty of the device. The two tiny magnets had been held out of sight in the casing wall by the stronger magnets of the firing mechanism. As soon as those fields were broken, the weaker fields of the little magnets could form again, pulling them together. And, Amos knew now, pulling the two bare wire ends out of their protective casing of wax so that, in the acid, the connection was made.

Amos had been zapped many times in that old barn, but now, because he was always waiting for it, expecting it, it never hit him very hard.

Not, he thought, as hard as it was hitting the chief.

Beautiful.

Hingman couldn't turn it loose. The electricity slugged him and shook him and wrenched his body. It drained his breath and yanked his mouth open, until at last he slammed the mechanism down on the bench, breaking it out of his hands.

Of all the class, only Max had the courage to laugh out loud. A big laugh, rumbling up out of that wide chest. The rest of them stood there, shaking with laughter, but holding it back.

Amos glanced across at John, who just smiled, held his hands out, palms up, and shrugged.

When the chief could get his breath, he turned on Amos. "Smart Ensign."

"About that phone call to Lieutenant Beach, Chief? Sea duty."

"You'll look real good in a mine sweeper," the chief said. 'Til see to it that you get the lead sweep—right out in front, where the mines are."

As he turned to go, the phone rang, the big gong mounted on a ceiling beam making a clanging, hollow noise that echoed around in Death Row.

It was dark by the time Amos got his bills paid and his clothes out of the laundry and was all squared away to go, with nothing to do but pack his suitcase.

In his room in the BOQ, Beach was sitting with his feet on the table eating a banana and listening to Glenn Miller on his portable.

Amos dumped the laundry on his bed and yelled at Beach over "Jersey Bounce," "Did Hingman call you?"

"Who?"

"Chief Hingman!"

Amos went over and lifted the needle off.

"Don't do that," Beach said, and put it back, skidding it across the record. But he turned the volume down.

"Hingman?" Amos said.

"Call me? No/'

"He didn't?"

Beach looked up. "He did not. Chiefs don't call me, Wainwright. I call chiefs."

"Did you call him?"

"I called him."

"What'd he say?"

"He said, 'Aye, aye, sir.' What did you expect him to say?"

Amos decided that this man really needed rehabilitation—with a ball bat. But he didn't have time for it now.

"The chief is supposed to get me orders for sea duty," Amos said, and immediately realized that he had said the wrong thing again.

"Oh, he is, is he?" Beach searched around among some papers under his feet on the desk. "Well, you've got orders. . . ."

Amos didn't hear the rest of it. He took the orders and skipped everything down to Paragraph 1.

1. Ensign Wainwright is hereby detached and ordered to report immediately to the Officer in Charge, COPRA, in whatever ship or port he may be.

"COPRA? What's that?" Amos asked, seeing now that his orders were stamped in red TOP SECRET.

"That's the trouble with the Navy," Beach said. "It's nothing but alphabet soup. CINCPAC, JICPOA, SOWESPAC. . . ."

"Is it a mine sweeper?" Amos asked.

But Beach was off on one of his standard gripes. "You think you've got problems. Well, just let me give you an example of the things they do to me every day, Wainwright. An ensign marches into my office with that TOP SECRET-PASS BY HAND case and allows me to see one paragraph of the message . . ."

"Yeah, tough," Amos said, "Is this COPRA sea duty?"

Beach wasn't listening. "The paragraph says—now listen to this—the commanding officer will personally select one officer, one radioman, first class, and two other rated men with the training required by Paragraph Three and have them report to VR-2 not later than 1800 tomorrow. You see what a bind that puts me inr

"Yeah, yeah," Amos said. "Tough. Where's VR-2?"

"The commanding officer is off on some secret mission, so how can he select anybody? And how can I? Since, being only a flunky around here, I'm not permitted to see Top Secret Paragraph Three. But— it's my duty to comply with the orders of my superior officers, isn't it?"

"Always," Amos said. "What's VR-2 fly?"

"Either way, I get the sharp end," Beach went on. "But that message came from CINCPAC, and he is senior to my captain, so I've got to stick my neck out and get you people moving."

Amos tried again. "Any idea what this COPRA is?"

"Must be the Civilian Office of Personnel Recruiting Activity."

"Oh, no!" Amos said. "Where's that?"

"Ottumwa, Iowa."

"Iowa?"

"Iowa, Nebraska, somewhere out there. VR-2 will know."

"I can't go there," Amos said in a low, helpless voice. "Hingman promised to send me to sea."

"Where did you get the idea that chief petty officers tell me who to send where, Wainwright?" Beach was really sore now.

But Amos had a brilliant thought. "You told me that I haven't got any orders sending me to this school. So, officially, I'm not here. And, since I'm not here, I can't be transferred to Iowa."

"Listen," Beach said. "I'm doing you a favor letting you leave here without a court-martial."

Amos slammed his cap on and headed for the door. "Just hold everything, Lieutenant. Going to Iowa isn't the deal I made with Hingman."

Beach turned the volume up. "Transportation's coming for you in about five minutes, mister," he shouted over the music. "So you'd better pack up and move out."

Amos stopped at the door. "If I don't. . ."

Beach turned the volume down and looked at him, his narrow mouth set tight. "I can already charge you with unwarranted assumption of authority and get you a general court-martial. Would you like for

me to add direct disobedience of the orders of the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet?"

Amos came slowly back into the room. "No," he said quietly. He got his Val-Pak down and began throwing clothes into it. "Are you going to see to it that this trouble follows me out to Iowa?"