Caribbean's Keeper (3 page)

Wheeler looked at the plot and gave Cole a terse, “Very well, I offer my relief.”

He saluted Cole with a smirk giving away the fact that the radar blip was just a quick joke at Cole’s expense.

Cole saluted back smiling, “You’re such a prick sometimes.” He walked back out on the bridge wing, still smiling a bit at Wheeler’s little prank. They were polar opposites, but as roommates they got along well enough to screw with each other incessantly. Wheeler didn’t dare show it in front of others, but he liked Cole, too.

Not yet eight in the morning, Key West was at last in sight. Soon, the party catamarans would anchor just off the reef and tourists would splash over the side with their cheap pastel-colored snorkels and fins. Cuddy cabins and center-console power boats, crewed by half-drunk and sunburned weekend fishermen, would dot the shallow waters between the reef and the shore. The cruise ships’ engines were still lit off and faint trails of their exhaust were carried north with the sea breeze. Cole looked at Key West and knew the little town of misfits and modern-day pirates was coming alive. He’d spent many nights drunk like any good sailor cavorting up and down Duval Street. He knew the good restaurants tucked into quiet corners where the cruise ship crowd dared not go. He knew the bars that served good spiced rum and had more than a few favorite weathered bar stools overlooking the harbor. Cole daydreamed often about settling down in the little town known as the Conch Republic.

Meanwhile, back on the bridge, more and more members of the crew were taking their positions. They marched up and silently settled in for the slow transit. To Cole, it resembled a clown show. The bridge was barely big enough for six, but each time
Delaney
pulled into port, more than 25 crew members were crammed onto it. There was a navigator, a back-up navigator, Lora overseeing both the navigators, and a seaman to record the minutiae in a little green notebook. They huddled around the chart table and bumped against each other as they went about their assigned tasks. There were two more seamen on each bridge wing as bearing recorders who shouted bearings to landmarks for the navigator inside who compared their references to the GPS position plotted on paper. There were also two lookouts who most often defeated their own purpose by standing next to each other and focusing their efforts on watching the show inside the bridge rather than scanning for potential conflicts ahead.

There was a helmsman and a throttleman who physically manipulated the rudder and throttles respectively. Then there were half-a-dozen petty officers on sound-powered phones who did little but stand by in case of some unspecified catastrophic failure. For the hours-long transit, they would lean against whatever bulkhead kept them out the way and focus all their energies on keeping their eyes open. Sometimes they would laugh, seemingly to themselves, but really because someone had made a crude joke over the phones that only they could hear. There was a chief boatswains’ mate and a senior boatswains’ mate who supervised the deck crew that would ultimately throw the mooring lines over to the pier at the end of a mooring evolution. For the most part, they stood out of the way and passed the time making idle chatter.

Then there were the officers. Lora was the navigator for this evolution and stood by the chart table. In theory she was in charge of the plot, but in reality she stood silent as the enlisted folks around her did their job and paid little attention to her presence. Lieutenant Grouse, the operations officer, was pacing from station to station, making sure everyone was on the same page. Everyone called him “OPS” and he was much older than his peers, having spent his life at sea with the Coast Guard. He reminded Cole more of a grandfather type than a sailor and Cole stayed away from him most of the time since OPS didn’t care much for Cole either. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he kept a low profile, biding his time until he could be reassigned off of
Delaney
to another cutter.

Wheeler barked out commands over the loud and chaotic scene developing on the bridge. He was smart enough to recognize the ridiculousness of it, but played along in the interest of not ending up like Cole. Potts stood in a corner, looping his binoculars around his neck and quietly took in the bridge scene before Walters came up. The rest of the deck officers all grabbed radios or binoculars and did their best to look important.

Cole was tasked with the radar. Still standing on the bridge wing, Cole saw Potts giving him the death stare and picked up on the angry man’s cues ordering him to man the radar. Cole exhaled rather loudly, walked into the chaos of the bridge, and stood over the radar console. Potts passed by him and whispered as he went, “Keep your shit together Cole and come see me after we’ve tied up.”

“Captain on the bridge!” came out from a chorus of watchstanders as Walters’ short frame emerged from below decks. Her curly short red hair was tucked up under her ball cap and her pock-marked face wore its normal expression of anger. She said not a single word to anyone as she made her way to the captain’s chair. It sat against the aft bulkhead, facing forward, elevated above the bridge. She climbed up and sat down, convinced in her own mind that she was the master of this ship. OPS approached her and reported that all stations were manned and ready. She nodded and he backed away without turning his back to her.

Wheeler was next. He saluted her and reported the ship’s position just south of the sea buoy. Again she nodded and instructed him to enter the shipping channel. Wheeler saluted a second time, replying, “Aye, aye, Captain.” He walked back over to the front of the bridge wing and stood next to Potts as
Delaney
crept closer to Key West.

“Who was eating an apple?” Walters asked, her face turning a few shades ruddier. From her perch, she was looking over and down into the trash where Wheeler had tossed it.

The entire bridge went silent. Twenty-something sets of eyes looked around for someone to step forward and take the fall. Cole looked at Wheeler and Wheeler looked back at him with an expression of dread.

“That was me, Captain.”

Everyone stared at Cole. From the console, he turned to face Walters and readied himself for an ass-chewing.

“Figures.” She muttered the words without looking at Cole and shifted her gaze to look ahead of the cutter.

Slowly, the crew went back to their tasks and as they did, Cole caught Wheeler staring at him. When they made eye contact, Wheeler nodded subtly in appreciation. Cole nodded back and
Delaney
continued at a snail’s pace.

The deep, dark blue of open water gave way to shades of green as
Delaney
neared the Key West reef line. Coral heads appeared as dark spots below and only the channel, with
Delaney
in the middle, remained a dark blue. When she passed the reef line, the westerly swells subsided and
Delaney
steadied herself in the calmer waters. Protected by the reef, there was nothing more than a light chop now and the rising sun reflected off thousands of dwarfed crests. Inside the reef, small boats bobbed and motored their way aimlessly about. The palm trees of Key West were close enough now that Cole could see the southerly breeze colliding with and dying against the swaying fronds.
Delaney
inched past the green and red channel markers and veered west around the southernmost point, then north again past the cruise ship terminals.

Cole was busy watching the tourists mill about Mallory Square, less than 100 yards to the east, when OPS barked at him, “Radar, what is this sailboat doing in front of us?”

One of the dozen tourist party boats was idle in the channel, floating between
Delaney
and the Key West Coast Guard base. The radar would do little to determine the sailboat’s course, and Cole knew that OPS yelled at him simply to buy some time and appease Walters. Just as it did every day, the catamaran would set a sail to give paying tourists the false sense of sailing, then motor its way south to the reef. On the radar, it was far too close to interpret, but Cole pretended to plot it.

Wheeler, with a fake irritation in his voice, ordered, “Helmsman, All Stop!”

“All Stop. Aye, Sir,” came from the helmsman, followed quickly with, “Sir, my engines are all stop.”

OPS again asked Cole what the sailboat was doing as the tension on the bridge peaked. The radar plot was pointless at a range of less than 50 yards, but Cole replied back “Sir, they appear to be tracking due south.” It was a total guess, based entirely on the fact that the catamaran did the same damn thing every day. Wheeler, OPS, and Potts all acted the part and exhaled loudly.

Walters squirmed in her seat and her head peered back and forth like a frustrated turtle. “Damn blow-boaters,” was all she could manage in her growing frustration. The Coast Guard base was less than 200 yards away and the delay was not more than a minute, but her anger was real. Cole guessed that she was the only one on the bridge who was actually upset, but the crew did their best to act the part.

As the catamaran started to make some headway to the south, Wheeler barked a new set of commands and
Delaney
slowly aligned herself with the pier. Wheeler knew how to drive the ship, as he had a true sailor’s sense about him. He’d back down on one engine, then forward on the other. He’d reverse both engines, then twist the ship again, each time inching closer and closer to the pier. Potts normally took over at this point, but Wheeler had earned his trust. Cole was off the radar by now and enjoyed watching Wheeler conn the ship into place. With a line over, Wheeler sent out a flurry of new commands, reversed the rudder hard, went ahead for a moment on both engines, then called out to put over the rest of the lines. Wheeler kept his composure throughout the process, and in Cole’s mind would make a great captain one day.

Two dozen boatswain’s mates were now hard at work pulling the 2,000 tons of ship the last few feet to the pier. They worked well together. They could yell obscenities at each other and a moment later be laughing as if nothing had ever come between them. The chief boatswain’s mate and leading petty officer kept quiet for the most part, occasionally barking an order when they saw fit, but for the most part they let their subordinates do their jobs. Cole enjoyed this part of the Coast Guard. The camaraderie of the enlisted men and women was something he’d rarely felt in the wardroom. But just then, he caught Walters fidgeting in her chair with a look of disgust on her face and Cole shook off any romantic notions of the sea services. The southerly breeze pushed
Delaney
gently against the pier, and Cole left the bridge before OPS announced to secure from the sea detail.

g

Cole made his way down a passageway and into his stateroom. Wheeler would take his time on the bridge ensuring that every last detail was accounted for before coming down to their stateroom, so Cole was left alone with his thoughts. He took off his boots, blue pants and shirt, and gave himself a fresh coating of deodorant. After changing into his flip flops, faded cotton shorts, and a wrinkled button-down linen shirt, Cole felt much better than he had all morning. He went over to the sink and washed his hands under the cold water, rubbing them both over his face and through his disheveled hair. Taking his washcloth and soaking it as well, he wiped his face and scrubbed hard, as if to wash away the past few months.

He had not forgotten Potts’ order to see him before he headed out for liberty, so Cole walked back down the passageway again to Potts’ stateroom, where he was already back at his desk, firing off emails. Cole knocked and Potts called him in. Cole took a seat by the door and waited. Potts ignored him for a minute as he proofed the email, hit send, then spun around in his chair and stared at Cole.

“Cole, I told you that your little stunt off Colombia was going to cost you.”

Cole nodded and felt the butterflies forming in his stomach. Perhaps this time he’d be restricted to the ship. With Key West’s bars only a few hundred yards away, Cole dreaded the thought of being stuck on
Delaney
for the next few days.

“Headquarters, on my request and recommendation, has decided to separate you from the service.”

“Do what?” Cole said.

“You’re done Cole. I’ve frankly had enough of your shit and now you’ve managed to piss of Colombia and the rest of the Coast Guard as well. So go pack your things. It’s time for you to move on.”

“That’s it? Just like that, you’re kicking me out?” Cole was floored.

“Cole, you got some real issues you need to work out. I really do hope you sort this shit out and get your act together, but you are not a good officer and I can’t have someone like you in my Coast Guard.”

Cole thought for a moment and replied forcefully, “I think that sailor down below might say different about me.”

Potts just shook his head and ignored Cole as he dug through a stack of papers on his cluttered desk and pulled out a single sheet. He looked down at it and said, “The results of your suitability board came in a few days ago, but I didn’t want to drop this on you while we were at sea. Who knows what you might have done.”

Potts read from the letter, “Lieutenant Junior Grade Cole Williams, due to sustained poor performance, you are officially separated from active service on this date. Your severance pay amounts to six months basic pay and you hereby forfeit all rights and privileges of active duty service.” Potts paused for a second, handed the sheet to Cole, and put his hand out.

Cole thought for a moment that he wanted to shake hands, but that wasn’t the case.

“I need your identification card, Cole.”

Cole dug into his wallet and gave his ID card over to Potts.

“Good luck Cole. Now get off my boat.”

Cole said nothing.

Astonished that it was all over in a matter of seconds, Cole walked back to his stateroom. In his shorts, shirt, and flip flops, the air conditioned passageway was cold and Cole felt the shock overcome his body. Frustrated and angry, he grabbed his sea bag and stuffed a few random bits of clothing into it along with some personal effects, took one last look around his stateroom just to make sure he hadn’t left anything he needed, and noticed his piled-up uniform still on his rack. He paused for a second, then left it there and slammed the door. Down the passageway again, Cole made his way through two watertight doors, into the hangar, and finally out onto the flight deck. His feet felt numb from the air conditioning inside and the sun immediately went to work warming his core. Many of the crew were still tying up loose ends, but the brow was already over. Cole made his way over to the side with his sea bag slung over one shoulder. He could feel a single bead of sweat making its way down his chest.