Independence: A Lifetime at Sea

The ship took twelve minutes to die.

Commander Brendan Michael O’Rourke lived through every one of them, then surfaced into a world where USS Independence no longer existed.

He came up coughing oil and seawater, one arm caught through the strap of a life jacket he did not remember putting on. The Pacific moved black around him. Fire spread across patches of fuel, low orange sheets rolling with the swells, men rising inside the light long enough to scream before darkness swallowed them again.

O’Rourke turned in the water.

There should have been a ship.

A heavy cruiser did not disappear simply because the lights went out. Steel remained. Masts, guns, stacks, cranes, armor, nearly twelve hundred men, years of labor, war, paint, rust, and repairs. All of it should have left something large enough to point toward.

He saw burning oil.

He saw wreckage.

He saw bodies.

He saw the place where Independence had been.

Then the water rolled over his face.

O’Rourke kicked upward and reached for the nearest piece of wood. His fingers struck a plank slick with fuel. Somebody already held the other end.

“Help me,” the man said.

O’Rourke could not see his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“My leg.”

The man tried lifting it.

A broken shape moved beneath the surface.

O’Rourke caught his collar and pulled him closer to the plank.

“Get your arm across.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

The man managed one arm. O’Rourke shoved the plank beneath his chest.

“Hold.”

The sailor coughed.

“Ship?”

“Gone.”

“No.”

“Hold the plank.”

The sailor looked toward the burning water.

“No.”

Men called from every direction.

Help.

Over here.

I can’t swim.

Mother of God.

Who’s there?

Somebody find my brother.

The voices covered the sea farther than O’Rourke could see.

He began pulling men toward the wreckage.

Name.

Injury.

Can you hold?

Who was with you?

Did you see the captain?

Most answers came in fragments.

Fire.

Steam.

Couldn’t see.

Went over starboard.

Saw the bridge go.

Captain was still aboard.

Captain jumped.

Captain went down with her.

Nobody knew.

O’Rourke struck a board against the floating wreckage.

“Quiet!”

The voices fell.

Water moved through the darkness. Men breathed. Somebody groaned nearby.

“We count,” O’Rourke said.

The survivors stared at him.

Rank had survived the ship because they needed someone to answer.

One by one, the men began giving their names.

O’Rourke repeated each of them, forcing every name into memory.

The Navy would find them.

Aircraft would come at first light.

Destroyers would follow.

The United States Navy would not leave a heavy cruiser missing in the Pacific.

He believed that because he had served too long to believe otherwise.

CHAPTER ONE

The Wounded Ship

USS Independence sat in drydock with her belly exposed and her pride still up.

Commander Brendan Michael O’Rourke stopped at the edge of the dock and looked at her before he went aboard, the way a man might look at a fighter sitting on a stool between rounds, blood on his mouth, one eye swollen, still angry enough to stand if the bell rang.

Her gray sides rose above the yard scaffolding, patched in places, blackened in others. Fresh primer showed where steel plates had been cut away and replaced. Scorch marks still climbed from the starboard quarter where fire had eaten paint and blistered metal before the damage-control boys beat it back with hoses, foam, and bare fear.

She should have looked dead sitting there without water under her.

She did not.

Men crawled over her with torches, hoses, and rivet guns. Welders worked beneath the hull, sparks falling in quick orange showers. Cranes moved overhead. Yard workers shouted through the noise. Sailors shouted back. Nobody heard anybody the first time.

The whole place stank of hot steel, oil, wet rope, burned paint, and coffee gone bitter in tin cups.

O’Rourke breathed it in.

Home.

At the top of the gangway, he paused.

The main deck had been scrubbed and painted in sections, but hoses, crates, tools, and open panels remained everywhere. Men pretended the ship was almost ready.

She was not.

The starboard boat davit had been replaced but never tested under load. Forward communications still had wires hanging loose from an open panel. One emergency pump had passed inspection only after three machinist’s mates and a chief cursed it into obedience.

The Navy loved reports.

Reports had a way of making wounded things sound polite.

O’Rourke walked every repair because he did not trust summaries. A cracked steam line looked harmless in ink. A warped hatch sounded small when typed by a yeoman. Either could become a coffin when the lights went out.

Near the aft section, he crouched beside a seam where new plate met old steel.

The weld looked good.

The ship would hold.

Probably.

Probably was one of those words that could kill men if dressed in enough confidence.

A young yeoman hurried toward him carrying a stack of papers.

“Commander O’Rourke?”

“You found him.”

“Captain requests you on the bridge, sir.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Below, two black Navy cars rolled through the shipyard gate.

O’Rourke noticed them because they moved differently from yard traffic. No hurry. No confusion. No painted numbers on the doors. Clean staff cars carrying men who did not ask how repairs were going because they already knew what answer they wanted.

One stopped near the administrative building. The other continued toward the ship.

A rear admiral stepped out.

Another man followed in a dark civilian suit despite the California heat, a leather case in his hand and his attention already fixed on the wounded cruiser.

Chief Abel Cross appeared beside O’Rourke.

“You expecting visitors, sir?”

“No.”

“Inspection?”

“Maybe.”

Cross watched the clean car beneath them.

“Inspection cars got more dust.”

The rear admiral approached the gangway.

Captain Nathaniel Rusk waited above him.

O’Rourke looked toward the scorched steel, unfinished repairs, and sailors pretending not to watch the brass come aboard.

The ship needed time.

Her men needed rest.

Her repairs needed testing.

Her ghosts needed another week to quiet down inside the compartments where fire had taken them.

The admiral reached the gangway.

O’Rourke started toward the bridge.

The Navy had come to take time away.

Continue the voyage in Independence: A Lifetime at Sea, available now in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions.