Sentinels of Fire by P. T. Deutermann Page A

control the lesser guns, the multibarreled forty- and twenty-millimeter anti-aircraft batteries.
    In practice, however, these smaller guns were usually controlled by human pointers and trainers, who concentrated on keeping the stream of projectiles being fired by their guns streaming just ahead of and slightly above an incoming plane. The five-inch could reach out nine miles under director control, but by the time the forties and twenties got into it, the Mark One eyeball was the director of choice. The forties and twenties were for the close-in work, the last ditches of defense. Earlier in the war, Jap bombers would only have to get within a few vertical miles to release their bombs and then turn away. Nowadays, however, the Jap planes were the bombs, so there wasn’t much of a fire-control problem when a kamikaze came, because he came straight at you. It was simply a matter of how much steel-clad high explosive you could put in his way that determined whether or not he arrived in one piece and killed the ship or did a flaming cartwheel into the sea.
    â€œStation Six-Fox reports she’s taking bogeys under fire,” Lanny announced.
    â€œDistance?” I asked. I scanned the plotting boards. Six-Fox was the Waltham, another radar picket ship. She was an older, Fletcher-class destroyer, with five single-barrel five-inch guns.
    â€œFifteen miles southwest, XO,” Lanny said. He pointed down at the plotting table. “Right here.”
    â€œOur radars are not picking up Six-Fox’s bogeys,” one of the Freddies said. “Our CAP says the Japs’re coming in on the deck this time. Zeros, it looks like.”
    Just like this morning, I thought. I picked up my own sound-powered phone handset, switched to the combat action circuit, and called the captain at his station on the bridge. The captain’s talker, Chief Petty Officer Julio Martinez Smith, answered.
    â€œI need the skipper,” I said.
    â€œUm, we thought he was in there with you,” Smith said. Chief Smith was another CPO who worked for me; as chief yeoman, he was the ship’s secretary, or chief administrative petty officer.
    Shit, I thought. “Thank you,” I replied, as if it were perfectly normal for the CO not to be at his station during GQ. I hung up and left Combat, going back down the ladder to the wardroom and through it to his inport cabin. The wardroom was set up as the main battle dressing station, with the chief corpsman and his assistant waiting there with all their medical gear spread out on the table. They were surprised to see me in the wardroom at GQ, but I didn’t have time to explain why I was there. I knocked twice on the skipper’s door, opened it, and found the captain the way I’d left him, sitting in front of his desk and staring at nothing. He looked up, obviously startled when I poked my head in.
    â€œ Waltham under attack from low-fliers,” I reported.
    â€œThey are?” the captain asked. “Go to GQ. They’ll be here next.”
    â€œWe are at GQ, sir,” I said. “I’ve been in Combat. I thought you were already out on the bridge.”
    The captain appeared to be confused. He shook his head. “Must have fallen asleep,” he said. “ Damn! I’ll be right up. How far away is Waltham ?”
    â€œFifteen miles southwest. Our radar doesn’t hold her bogeys.”
    The captain shook his head again. “Fifteen miles—there’s no way we can offer mutual support. They’re doing this all wrong, XO. We should be in a loose gaggle, but close enough so that all the pickets can support each other.”
    I nodded. “Yes, sir, and we maybe should put that in our message to CTF 58. Right now, though, I’m headed back to Combat.”
    â€œRight, right,” the captain said, getting up. “I’ll be up in two shakes.”
    I felt the ship leaning into another turn as the OOD made random course changes,