Sentinels of Fire by P. T. Deutermann

captain told the story. Then I asked if twenty-four hours was a reasonable objective.
    â€œYou don’t want to be here any longer than necessary, XO,” Weems said. “The kamis still attack this anchorage—we’re all sitting ducks, when you think about it. All our gun mounts are manned day and night, and we’ll need you to keep your forties and at least one five-inch mount ready at all times. Besides, your damage is minor, so they want that radar fixed and then you back on station. Oh, and the commodores will expect a call.”
    Commodores, plural? Weems saw my expression. “The ServRon Ten commodore, Captain McMichaels, is embarked here in Piedmont, and your own squad dog, Captain Van Arnhem, is also embarked. Our poor skipper is camping out in his sea cabin for the moment. I believe your squadron commander is going to shift his burgee to the Dixie as soon as she arrives from Pearl. In the meantime, we’ve got ourselves a great sufficiency of four-stripers.”
    â€œRight,” the captain said. “XO, I guess we’ll need to make two calls. ServRon Ten is senior, so he’s first. Then we’ll go see Dutch Van Arnhem, my boss. He’ll understand. Mister Weems, thank you, and we’ll let you get going. Any hiccups, don’t hesitate to come straight to me or the XO here.”
    â€œThank you, sir. One more thing—if any of your people can spare some blood, we’re in short supply on the hospital deck. It’s a bloody mess over there on the main island. If half the stories we’re hearing are true, it’s black-flag time over there.”
    Kerama Retto was about twelve miles away from Okinawa, but even now, here in the wardroom, we could all could hear the thump of bombs, the thud of artillery, and the occasional deep rumble of battleship salvos.
    There was a knock on the wardroom door. The quarterdeck messenger, a deck seaman, came in, escorting a chief petty officer. “Chief Winant from the EOD to see the captain, sir,” the messenger announced.
    â€œSorry, Skipper,” the chief said. “I can come back if you’re in a meeting.”
    â€œCome on in, Chief,” the captain said. “We’re just swapping scuttlebutt here. Coffee’s over there, and then come have a seat.”
    The chief’s face didn’t look to be more than thirty, but his hair was entirely gray and he moved with the care of a man who does dangerous work, in his case explosive ordnance disposal. He got himself a cup, and sat down at the junior end of the wardroom table.
    â€œI heard a pretty interesting story this morning, Skipper,” the chief said. “Something about using a sea-anchor to pull a Jap 250 off your signal bridge?”
    â€œWe did ask for EOD assist,” I said, “but apparently your team had bigger fish to fry down here.”
    The chief grunted. “You might say that, XO,” he said. “Yesterday was about as bad as the day the Franklin got it, and I was onboard for that ordeal.”
    Mention of the Franklin holocaust was jarring, even more so because I’d been serving in her for over eighteen months, and I’d never seen this chief’s face.
    â€œYeah, we heard about that one,” the captain said. “Were there really seven hundred killed ?”
    â€œThey’ll be revising that number all the way home, sir,” the chief said. “We hear there are still parts of the ship they haven’t been able to get into yet. Personally, I think she’s headed for the scrapyard. Then yesterday, we went aboard the new Yorktown to defuse two five-hundred-pounders.”
    â€œWell, that certainly qualifies as a bigger fish,” the captain said. “Our gun boss had had a class on how aircraft bombs are armed.” He went on to tell the chief how they’d “safed” the bomb before yanking it off the 03 level. The chief smiled when he heard the story about the