I wrote this for an assignment in a Creative Nonfiction class. The story is Ambrose’s, one of many that he told me about his time in the Navy.
The year is 1986. The location is only precisely known to the members of the Ship’s Inertial Navigational System (SINS) shop at any given moment, but for most of the sailors it is enough to know they are on the USS Nimitz, a nuclear aircraft carrier, and that their waters are tropical. They are three months into a six month cruise, and boredom makes any change in routine a noteworthy excitement.
Petty Officer Ambrose Christopher Campbell, Chris to his friends, had already been on one long cruise, and knew some of the tricks required to retain sanity while living in a ship with over 5000 other men. One trick is to make sure that he saw the sky every day, even if his night shift means that the sky is dark when he sees it, stars twinkling above a writhing dark horizon of water. Another trick is to do his job with care. He is an electronics technician under Navigation. He mostly operates, maintains and repairs SINS, a task requiring security clearance that many officers lack. And, because this is the Navy, he performs other duties as assigned.
This work day is like any other on ship. Campbell wears his dungarees, boots and button up shirt. His brown skin, black hair and nearly black eyes aren’t an issue to most of the sailors on the ship. On the ship, what matters more than race, religion or personal opinion is whether a man can do his job and follow the rules.
As Campbell makes his way from lunch break, through the narrow metal corridors of the ship, naked pipes overhead, he has no clue about the incident getting ready to disrupt his routine. The corridors are lined with doorways, higher than the floor and lower than the ceiling. In the event of a flood or fire, areas of the ship can be completely sealed off. Every passage through a doorway requires a high step over the “knee-knocker” bottom of the door and a duck through the low top.
Most of the Nimitz’s sailors are not authorized to enter the SINS shop. To bring someone inside unauthorized is to ask for the “Big Chicken Dinner” (dishonorable discharge). Even most inspection officers can be refused entry, as they lack the clearance to see or inspect the space within. The Nimitz has many spaces like that, known fully only to the sailors whose duties take them there.
Campbell enters the SINS shop through two doors; one from the corridor allows access to a flight of stairs going up, and the second door leads to the SINS shop. This space is crammed with electronic equipment. A magnetic tape recorder is snugged under the stairs, reels turning in blinks of black and white. Shelves hold spare equipment and components. A drafting desk allows the sailor on watch to plot the location information provided by the systems inside. A television provides entertainment and access to ship’s broadcasts, including the nightly prayer.
Taking up a large amount of space towards the rear of the compartment is the binnacle, a gigantic tortoiseshell clinging to the ceiling, viewable through two small windows in its outer protective walls. This machine is a point of absolute stillness in relation to the Earth. While the Nimitz rolled on the tides and the waves, the binnacle rotated on its gyros to maintain its position regardless of how the ship moved. The sailors of SINS use the data from the binnacle, and a lot of math, to determine the ship’s precise position.
Upon Campbell’s return, he becomes the man on watch. A glance reveals no alarms on any of the computer screens. He sits under the stairs at a makeshift desk, and reviews the log book. He then turns to watch the TV. Life on board a Navy ship can be long days of unvarying routine punctuated by sudden emergencies that require decisive, quick, and above all, correct, action.
Sounds on a ship are constant. Even when flight operations are not creating the periodic explosion noises of planes being shot off of the ship, there are boots clanking on metal floors outside, the hum of electronics in the shop itself, the flowing of water to cool the electronics and the other two men in the shop talking.
Under all the noises, Petty Officer Campbell hears something out of the ordinary. A hissing noise that simply didn’t belong. He shuts off the television and shushes his fellows. He unfolds his lean frame from the chair, taking care not to bump his head on the stairs. He edges past the other guys, since there was only just enough room to maneuver one person past another between the equipment lining the walls. He doesn’t see anything that could explain the hiss.
When he turns back, he notices a puddle of water on the floor under his feet.
Flooding is not something taken lightly on a ship. Along with fire, flood is one of the principal dangers to the integrity of a ship. But this shop is located 33 feet above the waterline. For it to have a flood before any lower levels is absurd. Floods start below the waterline, in the depths of the ship. They should certainly not start on the same level as the hangar bay where SINS is located. According to The Bluejackets’ Manual, which is a kind of handbook for enlisted men, “Extreme caution is always necessary in opening compartments below the waterline in the vicinity of any damage.” It contains not a single mention of taking flood precautions above the waterline or when there is no obvious damage.
That puddle of water has absolutely no business being on the floor of that compartment. No alarms have gone off indicating flooding in other, lower, areas. No alarms are indicating a loss of water pressure in the cooling system. Campbell examines the puddle and, from the direction of its spread, looks behind one of the equipment cabinets.
A four inch ventilation pipe is spewing water against the metal backing of the cabinet. It doesn’t matter that this shouldn’t be happening. It is happening and Campbell steps over to the ship’s phone to call it in.
He dials 911, an action that connects him to Damage Control where they can see his precise location before they pick up.
“Flooding.”
“Huh?”
“SINS, flooding. My name is Petty Officer Campbell.”
They begin to interrogate him, standard questions, rapid answers. No one could blame Damage Control for a little disbelief at a report of flooding so high above the waterline. Pranks are one way to pass the time at sea, although calling in a false report of flooding would be a prank in poor enough taste to subject the prankster to severe discipline.
“Water’s coming in pretty fast and I’m going to shut SINS off.”
Shutting SINS off is a necessary, but drastic, step. This navigational system is the way that the Nimitz reports its accurate location to the Pentagon. If the system were to be off for more than 24 hours, then the ship would have to come to a complete stop and wait for an aircraft to approach and confirm their position. Shutting it off in a flood condition is the best bet for keeping the unit functional.
Over the ship wide intercom, 1MC, bells ring out and the call, “Flooding. This is not a drill.”
As the damage control team musters, the level of the water in the room rises. From a puddle to several inches of water in the time it takes for the team to arrive. Remotely, power to the compartment is cut and the ventilation is shut off in case the area needs to be sealed. The damage control team enters with caution, first performing a pressure test to make sure that they can open the door without flooding the corridor.
Under ordinary circumstances, these sailors would not be allowed in SINS, but damage control takes precedence over security clearance. A flood could threaten the ship itself, and every sailor on board has a duty to protect the Nimitz.
The glow of emergency lights, augmented by the headlamps worn by the damage control team, light the space as the flooding is assessed. Pumps, hoses and hand-carried buckets shift the water out of SINS and, eventually, into the ocean. Over the intercom, audible from the corridor speakers in the powerless compartment, more reports of flooding are called out in the spaces above and below SINS.
According to scuttlebut, the only way an enlisted man can hear about events not directly affecting his own shop, a pump in a sealed compartment at the bottom of the ship had been turned on. This pump dutifully pumped water, but no one ever checked on it. It filled its tank, and still pumped. It filled the room, and continued to pump. The only egress left was a ventilation pipe, and so, the action of the pump began to fill it, too. The pipe proved to have some degree of water resistance, but that resistance gave out behind a metal cabinet in the SINS compartment.
The break in routine continued for several hours as the source of the water was located and the SINS compartment became secure again. They mopped up every inch of the floor before they were allowed to bring power back in. One sailor stood on an insulated mat wearing sound powered headphones, a communication device that did not rely on electricity to transmit, while Campbell stood on the bare metal in his damp boots and turned on the power.
He did not fry. The equipment all came back on, and none of it was broken. The few hours’ excitement faded back into the familiar routine of shipboard life.