Chapter 55

04:35 Saturday, December 7^th, 1991

SEAL Beach (Silver Strand) west of Building S-18

NAB Coronado, San Diego, CA 92155

PT was miserable for Shiplett, Lenore knew, so she'd taken him to a position on the beach not too near the platoon. She coached him through stretching in formation, and through the various calisthenics.

"What did you last score on the PFT?" Lenore was genuinely curious.

"Uh, I passed," Shiplett offered.

"Where have you been doing PT?"

"With the Battalion. I don't think I've seen you there?" He sounded curious.

"You don't think I'm in bad shape, do you?" Lenore laughed.

"Noooo..." he said. Then, "The Gunny!"

"Riiiight," she said, gently mocking him. "Come on, let's go eat."

Five minutes before the morning briefing, two of the platoon stopped on either side of him.

"Come on, Shiplett," Lievano said.

Lenore sat up, intently. Artesano motioned she could follow, with a flick of the eyes. Lenore shot Lieutenant Rudolfs a quick glance across the room, and he gave her a pained look, but nodded.

Artesano dropped back from where Lievano was trotting with an already-huffing Shiplett. "We're going to run up to BUD/s," he told her. "When we get there, keep quiet and out of the way. The instructors don't really appreciate interruptions."

"O-kay," Lenore drew the word out. "I think I'll leave you to it, the Lieutenant wanted me to stay. Be careful with him, please?"

Artesano was still laughing as he broke into a run to catch Lievano.

"This is pretty incredible," Shiplett said, from next to Lenore, in the pilothouse. Ahead of them, in the cool December day, Novotny was sunning himself on the foredeck, while Lieutenant Manasares was reading. Lenore had an easy-listening station from Diego on the deck speakers, and John Cougar was singing a little ditty about Jack and Diane in the background. Below them, Lieutenant Brophy and ST1 (Sonar Tech First) Schreyer were fleecing Chief Vales and GM1 (Gunner's Mate First) Delafuente for a dime a point in a variant of whist Lenore had never heard of, called Pitch. Brophy swore he'd learned it as a kid in New Hampshire, but he had no trace of a New England accent, causing Lenore to take it – and his professed lack of skill at cards – with a grain of salt.

"What do you mean," she answered, "the fact that the Navy has paid for you to have this vacation, the fact that we have this evolution, or that all these guys are lying around in the sun?"

"All of it, and then some," he said. "The things that they do to those guys in training..." he trailed off, shuddering. "But the crazy thing is, I'd like to try someday, I think. They've impressed the hell out of me, and got me thinking maybe I could stand being cold, wet, and sandy for a while, just to belong."

Lenore nodded, understanding him perfectly. The coordinated motions on the deck, when they'd tested the new boom out, moving a two-hundred-kilo load over the side into a rubber boat they dropped, and then had recovered the load and the boat with it, had been impressive. When they'd finished, Manasares had grabbed Lenore's head with both hands and planted a big smooch on her forehead, to the catcalls and whistles of the day's crew. Everyone seemed more cheerful now, knowing they'd be able to get stuff over the side quickly and safely.

Novotny and Lenore tested the radio from fifty-five nautical miles due west of the Coronado Bay mouth, over the horizon. The HF radio worked perfectly, in all modes, on all channels, when they raised the Navy Radio Station south of Coronado. The operator on the far end conducting the test told them they had less than a "one-e-minus-six bit error rate". Novotny seemed pleased, verifying in his book the transmit level they had to have achieved to measure that bit error rate. Lenore nodded, understanding that this was less than one bit in a million mistransmitted, and that this meant that the radio installation was good – and that it was performing better than spec. And that news had her smiling.

Shiplett had watched as first Lenore, then Novotny, ran through the test sequence with the shore station. Lenore was positive this had its effect on Shiplett's opinion of her, too.

Now, as they drove back toward Coronado at twenty knots, the sea sheeting off both sides of the bow, a deep wake behind them, Shiplett grinned at her. "It's pretty awesome," he said, "and I owe the Navy more than I've given, I think."

Lenore smiled. "You can start by doing PT with me and Lynne and my squad," she told him sweetly. He simply nodded.

She knocked on the pilothouse windshield, and when Novotny looked up, made a "come here" gesture with her finger. A moment later, he entered the pilothouse, with a shirt on, she saw.

"When we're twelve miles out, test each of the prick-one-forty-eight stations, okay?" (Lenore referred to the PRC-148 radio.)