Guardian of the Shrine

by George Slanger

 

Son of a bitch. The key is just missing. Whoever has it could pour metal shavings in the gears and disable the ship, and if that happens, whoever lost the key--namely me--could be court marshaled. Even if it isn't used to disable the ship, even if it's lost and never found, they'll bury my ass so deep under reprimands, I'll be a Lieutenant until I'm 86. I missed the key when I went to turn in about half an hour ago. I thought I'd lock it back up on my safe, and it wasn't in my shirt or on my desk. I'm sitting here in my stateroom now, at 2330 hours--almost midnight--thinking about all that, trying to retrace my steps and trying to look on the bright side. I always thought I'd like to be famous, and disaster is one kind of fame.

These newer destroyers are air conditioned, thank God, and the air conditioning system is doing what it can, pumping a puny stream of tepid air out of the round ceiling vent. It can't cut the Philippine humidity, though. We're in Subic Bay on the east coast of the biggest island, about 400 miles north of the equator. It's so hot here you break a sweat toweling off after a shower.

Let's see. I took the key out of my safe about 0830 hours this morning. It was the key to the main reduction gear housing in the forward engine room. We're supposed to unlock the gears and inspect them every month. The Engineer Officer (me) is the only one with a key and I keep it in my safe in my stateroom. The gears are in a case about the size of a small cottage. The gears take the power from the steam turbines, which have thousands of blades each about as big as a rose petal and about as delicate, and transfer it to the main shafts which are the size of trees. The shafts turn the big 7-foot propellers that drive a 2700 ton ship through the water at 20 knots.

The gears are amazing. Each one is machined from a single piece of high-carbon steel shaped like a dumb-bell with unequal ends. The gears are machined into each enlarged end. The smaller circumference at one end receives the speed from the turbine and passes it on to the larger circumference of the other end which turns at a slower speed and makes up the difference in power. It's magic the way it works, but it's physics too. If something is turning, then the bigger it is, the slower the outer edge has to move. At the equator you're traveling a thousand miles an hour, and at the north pole, you're standing still, but you're standing on the same planet. It's the same way with gears. On each gear, the circumference of the small end turns fast and the circumference of the big end turns slow. The speed has to go somewhere, so it goes into power. Speed to power, speed to power, all the way through the system.

That's the system I've lost the key to. I've opened the safe and looked through it a half dozen times already, but I guess I could do it again. Every time I do, I have to push past a pile of paperwork, and there on top I see Samson's request chit. He gave it to me this morning. He requests emergency leave to go dome to Waco, Texas. Under "Reason," he's written "To keep my wife from divorcing me." I've already marked it disapproved, which is what I told him I'd have to do. He gave it to me when were where in the Forward Engine Room, getting ready to make the gear inspection this morning about 1000 hours. I was sitting on a big metal tool box we have, and he came over to me.

"Chief said I could give you this," he said. I looked at it.

"We're in the Philippine Islands, Sampson," I said. "You know divorce doesn't count as emergency leave."

"I know. But chief said I could give it to you anyway. I got this letter." he gave me a letter, written on grammar-school tablet paper, the kind that is dirty brown color with wide lines and with chunks of wood fiber scattered through it. I read it several times, with him standing above me, looking pathetic. I can remember most of what it said:

Dear Daryl,

This is the hardest letter I've ever had to write. I don't want to hurt you any more so I am telling you honestly that I have met someone else that I love deeply and want to spend my life with. Tom and I will take good care of little Daryl. Tom likes kids and will be a good step-father to him. My lawyer is sending you some divorce papers. He says it will be simplest if you just sign them at the places marked with an X and send them back. I know you don't want any trouble. I will always remember the good times we had.

Love,
Debbie

Good times. That's a nice way to sum up four years of marriage, isn't it? I've seen these letters before and the chief has seen more. Usually they don't bother the kids. Usually the sailor is already screwing everything that moves in every port we stop in. The marriage half the time was the result of leaky rubber anyway, and when the divorce comes, they laugh it off.

But Sampson is different. He's a tall thin kid, serious looking with a little thin mustache, almost mournful, with hard-scrabble Texas written all over his face and voice. He made third-class petty officer quicker than any kid we've had. His written scores were off the chart, and he knows his engine room like some of our kids know their erect organs. He's the only third-class the chief trusts to bring the engine room up from cold iron to get underway. Lots of times you'll go down to the engine room late at night to check things out and Sampson will be there. He sometimes volunteers to stand cold iron watch for the regular duty when we're in port, like we are now. I've gone down to check the space late at night before I turn in, and found him sitting there on the toolbox, reading a technical manual or his book for second-class, or writing a letter.

When we're underway, it's a pleasure to watch him--always taking that lintless rag out of his pocket to wipe up some little oil spill, and watching those gauges like they told his future. And when something breaks down, he just glows. He'll take everything apart and put the pieces in order. You can't rush him, and he never gets angry and swears at the machines the way most people do, including me. Most people feel the machine is sitting there daring us to get it running, determined to frustrate us. Sampson seems to see it differently. He thinks the machine wants to run and all it needs is help.

I think the kid could go to officer's school someday and I want to help him out with this slut he's married, but I can't. The exec will never approve his leave anyway, and it would just make me look bad to send the chit on up to him marked approved. We're short-staffed as it is and we're working our butts off chasing carriers. There are rumors things are heating up on some place called VietNam which isn't too far from here. If we have to go, we'll need very man we have.

Even if he could get off, what good would it do? He'd go home, maybe throw the guy of his bed, and then what? He'd have to get on an airplane and come back to work and leave her alone. She could have the other guy--or another--back in bed before the other pillow was cold.

I don't see how marriages can work when couples are apart six months out of every eighteen anyway. Some do. I've seen grizzled old chiefs with a mamasan in every port dance cheek to cheek with their wives like newlyweds. Somehow they've worked it out. The wives accept the husband's screwing around. Maybe they do it too. I've heard them call it a WESTPKAC divorce. WESTPAC is navalese for Western Pacific, where we are now, so far west most people call it East. The officers are different. They agonize over their marriages, and when they do cheat, they slip away so no one sees. That seems more natural to me.

I don't know if I could be faithful to wife for six months or not. I think maybe I could. The sex over here isn't that great anyway: some girl grinding her hips against you to get you excited while you dance, but you know it's for money. You buy her out of the bar and go to a little smelly room upstairs and it's over before you can think about it. What I mostly think about is the clap, or about the girl when was seven or eight, playing with her friends and planning to do something with her life besides screw foreigners for a living.

But I'm still retracing my steps here. I was getting ready to do the inspection, talking to Sampson. I told him I'd disapprove the chit, but it was his choice whether to tear it up now, or ask me to send it on, and he wanted to send it on, so I stuffed it, unsigned, in my pocket. Then I took the key out of its little pasteboard envelope and went over and opened the locks one by one. Each gear housing has six inspection ports--square holes cut into the housing, each covered with hinged door. Because the tiniest chip of paint could get into the casing and clog the oil system, the last inch of metal around the inspection port isn't painted. It's stained with a deep royal blue dye that keeps off rust.

A bunch of us where standing around the gar housing--me, the chief machinist mate, my Damage Control Officer (a bright kid from the Academy), Sampson, and Miller, a first-class Petty Officer in charge of the Forward Engine Room. We all stood around and I unlocked the locks, but I didn't open up the doors yet. Then I put the key back in the envelope--I now I did--and buttoned it. I remember. I had with me what we called The Book, a special log with an outline drawing of every gear in the housing. It was kind of like a dental record. You recorded every chip, every nick, every scar on every gear and compared every time to make sure no new damage had been done.

We slipped the locks one by one out of their hasps and lifted the doors up. They weigh about five pounds each and are hinged at top. A catch holds them open. Then we all got out our flashlights and looked in. I told Sampson to go turn on the oil purifier and jacking gear. The jacking gar is just a small motor and gear that turns the whole set of gears at an incredibly slow pace just for inspection. The oil purifier takes any water or scum out of the oil and pumps the clean oil though a set of thin pipes so a little stream of oil runs down on each place where the gears touch.

I took my own flashlight off my belt. An Engineer Officer's flashlight is a kind of symbol. I carry mine on a special leather holster I had made in a shoe shop. I shine it into dark places as I move through the spaces on my rounds, looking for leaks and drips, but mostly just establishing my authority, being the conscience of the petty officers who actually do the work.

First we shined our lights in and took a general look around. Sampson was hanging on the outside of the circle and at first I didn't hear him when he said, "Could I look, Sir?" It was unusual to have a third-class petty officer part of the inspection, but I said, "Sure," and gave him my flashlight. He squatted and looked for a long time, hardly moving. Then he said the damndest thing. He said, "It's holy. It's like a holy place."

Miller said, "Holy. Shit. What do you mean holy. Them's just gears." But I was looking over Sampson's shoulder and I could see what he meant. The gears are solid metal, as good as any metal we have on the ship. They're machined in a flattened S shape, two gentle arcs milled to a thousandths of an inch so they mesh perfectly. Each one has the precisely right diameter figured out by the engineers and milled in by people who really have to worry about getting it right. The oil runs down like cool golden honey on each place where the gears mesh, and it carries away the heat and dirt. Hell, weren't we all like priests gathered in front of the ark of the covenant, unlocking the holy of holies and reading the sacred book? Sampson was just the only one who had seen it.

I let him hold the light for as long as I could and I think he'd be there yet if I hadn't reached out as gently as I could and taken the light away from him. I finally had to tug a little and say, "I've got to finish the inspection, Sampson.

"Sorry, sir," he said, and backed away.

We went on with the inspection, watching one gear after another make its full revolution, watching the honeyed oil run down over the powerful gears and be squeezed out of the delicate meshing of the gear. We found no nicks that weren't already in the book and so we put our names in the book, locked up the inspection ports and went on with our day.

But what had I done with the key? I should have put it back into the safe right away, of course. But I didn't want to go back to my stateroom, so I carried the key around with me in the same pocket I had stuffed Samspon's request chit. I even remember I touched my shirt several times, feeling the hard edges of the cardboard envelope through the fabric.

And then what? I showered before supper, after I got filthy looking in a boiler. And then . . . Yeah, OK. When I showered, I took the key out of my pocket along with the chit, and laid them both on my desk. I remember I thought once more about Sampson and marked "disapproved" in my department head's slot. I must have thought I'd shower first and then lock up the key. But I don't remember locking it up. I think I would have locked it up if I'd seen it when I got back from taking a shower. Maybe I forgot to lock it up because it wasn't there. But if it wasn't there, then somebody took it. But who?

What else happened? After supper, most of the officers had headed ashore for the Officers' Club but I couldn't face another night of that, so I stayed on board and watched a movie. The air conditioning works in the Officer's Club, but it takes the reality out of the air along with the heat and moisture, so you feel like a mannequin, or chilled meat in a display case. You feel pampered and cut off and imperial and you keep sloshing down drinks to stop thinking about it. The movie was "Rio Bravo," and it wasn't bad. Only four of us stayed on board, out of the 13 officers: the duty officer, the assistant duty officer, the radio officer and me.

The radio officer's name is Bob Show. He and some other junior officers have the stateroom next to mine in the suite at the back of the ship. I guess the designers figure that if we take a torpedo at one end or the other, they'll be some officers left to win the war.

After the movie we sat around and drank coffee for a while. I remember Bob said something like, "Did that third-class machinist mate get hold of you?"

"What third-class machinist mate?"

You know, the skinny kid with the little mustache. The one you're always raving how if you had a dozen like him, we'd make 40 knots and burn two quarts of fuel an hour."

"Sampson?"

"Yeah, I think that's the one."

"When was he looking for me?"

"Just before super. I saw him coming out of the stateroom area. I assumed he was looking for you, but I asked just to make sure. He said he was. I told him you were probably in the shower. I told him he should try later."

"He didn't get hold of me," I said.

I hadn't thought any more about it at the time, but what if Sampson had opened my stateroom door, and seen the disapproved chit, and the key, and . . Oh balls!

*******

Well, it's 0200 hours now and I'll be shit for brains tomorrow, but I got the key back. As soon as I remembered what Bob told me, I had a good idea what I'd find when I went to the Engine Room, but I still sprinted there, down the tiled, half-lit empty passageways, through the empty mess hall, the doors slamming behind me. I swung myself out over the hatch and came down that iron ladder like I was headed for battle stations, but I slowed down as soon as I saw out of the corner of my eye what I was looking for: Sampson, in his blue dungarees, all knees and elbows, hunkered down beside the gear housing, shining a flashlight into one of the inspection ports. The room was quiet except for a fan blowing somewhere and the steady, high-pitched whine of the oil purifier and the jacking gear.

I walked up to him slow. He didn't say anything, but it was like he'd been waiting for me.

"Good evening, Sir," he said, just like we were seeing each other on the street somewhere.

"Good evening, Sampson. We squatted together for a few minutes, watching his light play over the honey-coated gears.

"Your key is right here, Sir. I kept it safe." He took the pasteboard envelope out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me, holding it between his index and middle finger like he was tossing a playing card. You could feel the key, heavy inside. I put it in my shirt and buttoned the flap. I didn't say anything.

"I saw you disapproved my request, Sir. I saw it on your desk, beside the key. After I knocked at your door, I opened it. I thought you might be asleep."

"I told you I'd have to turn you down, Sampson. I'm sorry. If I let everyone go home whose marriage was in trouble, I'd be running this bucket by myself.

"I understand, Sir."

"Is that why you took the key? Did you plan to sabotage the ship to get even?"

"No Sir. I never really thought about that. You know I love this ship. No, I didn't put anything in the gears, Sir.

"Then what, Sampson? Did you think we'd court-martial you and you'd get sent back to the states?"

"No, Sir. If I wanted to do that, I've have faked going nuts, like Whitworth did. But I like the Navy. Right now, them machines are all I've got."

"Can you help me understand, Sampson?"

"It's hard to explain, Sir. I guess I just wanted to look at something that runs the way it's supposed to run,. something that isn't fucked up. I thought if I just looked at it long enough, I could believe in something and it would be all right. I can handle it if I can believe in something, believe in something that isn't fucked up."

"I understand, Sampson."

"Thank you, Sir. Are you going to court-martial me? I wouldn't blame you. It's your job to take care of the ship." "I don't know, Sampson. I'll have to think about it. For now, just don't say anything to anyone about this."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Do you think you'll be all right now?"

"I think so, Sir. Lots of sailors have trouble in the marriages. This happens a lot."

"Sure. Your wife may see the light and come back after her fling. Women get lonely, just like we do, but they feel they have to be married. If she doesn't come back, she's not worth your worry anyway. You'll be able to see your boy and you can send money to him."

What if she tries to fix it so I can't see him? Should I sign the papers when they come, or try to read them?"

"Let me read them. We should be able to find a lawyer on the Base here to give us some advice."

"Sure, that sounds good."

"Shall we lock up the gear housing now, Sampson?"

"Sure, I've seen enough. I know it will be there. I can remember it now. Whenever I need it, I can just think of the gears in there, turning and turning, smooth and perfect, and the oil running down on each place they touch, just like it's supposed to. I will like I had x-ray eyes or something. I can just look there and see them, right through the housing. I'll be fine."

"Good. I suppose you sent the regular watch to bed?"

"Yes sir. I told Higgins he could go to bed."

"Do you want to stay on watch now 'till 0400?"

"Yes, Sir. That would be fine. Could I leave the oil purifier running for a little while, just to make sure the oil is good and clean?"

"Sure, why not?"

Together we locked up the inspection ports and I climbed the iron ladder, weary as hell.

He's still down there alone poor devil, guarding the shrine. I suppose he's still got the oil purifier on, listening to it hum. Do you suppose it sounds to him like choirs of angels?