Naval Air Station Hospital, Saturday, 10 May; 0630
The orderly led her into the ICU, past the charge desk, and into the central bay area. The beds were lined up abreast in temporary bays, each bed nestled into racks of life support equipment surrounding the bed on three sides. The ICU was full, with every bed taken, and a double sized shift of green garbed men and women on duty. The air was cool, almost cold, and filled with the sounds of electronic monitors, respirators, and heartbeats of varying strength and intensity. The overhead lights were out, but each bay had a bedlamp. There were other visitors, some sleeping in chairs alongside shrouded figures in the beds. Diane wished for a sweater, and realized her chill was not all due to the ambient temperature. They walked down the line of beds to the last one in the line, to where Quigley had been.
“Here we are, Ma’am,” the orderly said. “Nurse said you can stay as long as he stays awake; then you gotta leave.”
Diane nodded to the orderly, and looked down at the battered figure on the bed.
“Hey, sailor,” she said gently, trying not to cry.
Mike’s normally large features looked small underneath the biggest bandage dressing she had ever seen on his head. He was hooked up to various machines via tubes and wires on both arms. An ugly drain tube ran out from under his head bandage. She noted that his heartbeat seemed strong and regular on the oscilloscope above his bed. His feet were elevated on a stainless steel contraption and bandaged heavily. His puffy eye was less swollen than when she had first seen him, and the skin of his face was pale but clean. A bronze band of Betadine stained his forehead. She sat down in the single metal chair provided with each bed. He looked at her, and then she saw a tear forming in each eye.
“Oh, Mike,” she said, reaching for his hand. “It’s OK. It’s OK. Don’t cry.” She found herself weeping now.
“All those guys,” he whispered. “Everybody beat to hell. Ship all beat to hell. All my fault.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened them and focused on her face.
“Did they get the ship back?”
“Yes, they got the ship back. She’s in Mayport, and everyone’s safe. And it’s not all your fault. The Navy should never have sent you out there all by yourself.”
He gave a small laugh, and winced.
“Navy didn’t send me out. Matter of fact, Navy said stay in and forget about it. Commodore and I did this one all by ourselves. Where is he, anyway—nurse said he was outside.”
“He went home. We had a talk. He told me some of what happened out there. And the Navy is very damned glad you did go out. They know you saved the carrier. They know there was a submarine out there, too. But—” She hesitated.
“Yeah, but,” he continued for her. “Lemme guess. Nobody ever found the submarine. And we’re gonna hear very little in the future about a submarine.”
He closed his eyes again. She wondered if he’d gone back to sleep. She did not want to leave. But then he opened his eyes again.
“He talk to you? The Commodore?” he asked. His voice was getting weaker.
“Yes. We talked for quite a while outside before they let me come in.”
“And he didn’t come in, so you must be the designated messenger, the bringer of the ‘deal,’ right?”
Diane held her breath. She was suddenly afraid of how Mike might react, that he might feel she was one of them, arrayed against him and not with him. Even in his sedated state, he caught her anxiety. But he also seemed to know what was coming. He squeezed her hand.
“As long as you and I walk out of this mess together,” he said. “I love you, Diane.”
Diane felt a rush of warmth in her heart. She wanted to hug him but was afraid to even touch him. Such a big man, and yet he looked eggshell fragile lying in the ICU bed. She put both her hands to her lips, and laughed and cried at the same time.
“And I love you, Mike. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“Look,” he said, “there’s gonna be shit all over the walls over this one. I suppose they’re offering me a graceful exit as long as I keep my mouth shut about the submarine. They’ll take care of the crew, hand out some medals, some good assignments, and spin some tale to explain what happened out there. Am I close?”
He actually tried to sit up, but she gently pushed him back into the bed covers.
“Yes,” she said. She watched him carefully, saw the small spasms in his face as the pain reached for him. She pressed her fingers along his brow, but then felt him frown.
“But there’s more, isn’t there?” he whispered. “I keep my mouth shut, and they let
you
exit gracefully. That’s the other club. The sonsabitches—”
He tried again to sit up, but gave it up with a grunt of pain as soon as his head moved.
Shsshh,” she whispered. “We don’t have to do anything right now. You have to rest—”
He lay back in the bed, seeming to shrink a little. His
eyes stayed closed for a few minutes while she stroked his arm. Then he was looking at her again.
“Your call, Diane. You’re the one who’s going to see the really ugly stuff, getting snubbed by everyone on the base, listening to other wives. They won’t do anything to the crew, and my career no longer exists anyway. But they can walk all over you. You say the word, and I’ll turn my back on the whole bunch.”
She gave him a long look. “I think I’m made of stronger stuff than that, Michael,” she whispered.
“Then we’ll tell ’em no,” he said in a fierce whisper. “Tell ’em I promise not to talk to anybody about a submarine except Sixty Minutes, Twenty-Twenty, the BBC, NBC, ABC, Dan Rabid—”
She grinned, putting her finger to his lips.
“Why don’t you,” she said, “tell the Navy nothing at all?”
He stared at her.
“They’re going to want to know if I’m going to play along,” he warned. His voice was raspy and weak.
“Don’t tell them,” she said. “And you don’t talk to the press. You’re the Captain. If you say nothing at all, your silence is going to get very loud. Every time a reporter asks you a question you just give him an enigmatic smile. The longer that goes on, the more pressure there’ll be on the Navy to come clean. With a ship broken, and all these people hurt, the press will shake this thing like a terrier with a rat. They’ll talk to other people on the ship, on those helicopters. The Admirals aren’t fools—they’ll see pretty quick that a cover up is going to fall of its own weight. They’ll eventually have to come out with it, and that really is the best outcome, because then they’re going to have to decide how to keep it from happening again.”
“The Commodore is always telling me to pipe down,” Mike said with a weak grin. His eyes kept opening and closing. She stroked his cheek.
“Maybe I’ll try it,” he whispered a few minutes later. “As long as you can stand all the B.S. that’ll be coming your way. Hell, the CinC’s staff in Norfolk might even get on your case.”
Diane smiled then, knowing it was going to be all right.
“Somehow, I think I can probably handle the CinC’s staff, Mike,” she said. But Mike had drifted back off to sleep.