Time Between Warriors

By Steve Duncan

A law student becomes obsessed with his fourth generation grandfather who escaped slavery and rose to a Seminole Indian chief fighting Andrew Jackson. His preoccupation leads him to a love affair of unwavering passion with a modern day Seminole Indian Princess and puts the fates of both the law student and the Seminole Indian warrior on an unexpected collision course...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rum Water Eyes Media, LLC
• Release date: Dec 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988341623

Steve Duncan

Steve Duncan is a writer and Professor of Screenwriting. He served as Interim Dean from 2009-2010 and Chair of the Screenwriting Department from 2007 through 2009. He is the author of "A Guide to Screenwriting Success: How to Write for Film and Television" (Rowman-Littlefield, 2006) and "Genre Screenwriting: How to Write Popular Screenplays That Sell" (Continuum Books, 2008). He is a contributing author to Write Now! Screenwriting (Tarcher/Penguin 2011) and The Handbook of Creative Writing (Edinburgh University Press/Columbia University Press 2008). Steve Duncan's produced screen credits include Co-creator and Executive Consultant for the CBS-New World TV one-hour Emmy Winning Vietnam War series Tour of Duty, Writer-Producer for the ABC-Warner Bros TV one-hour action series A Man Called Hawk, and Co-writer of Emmy Nominated The Court-martial of Jackie Robinson, Turner Network Television-von Zerneck-Sertner Films' original movie. Steve has also developed and written comedy and drama projects for Aaron Spelling Television, Columbia Television, NBC Productions, Republic Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Procter & Gamble Productions and Precipice Productions. He holds a B.S., Art Design, Cum Laude, from North Carolina A & T State University and a M.A. in Communication Arts, Television and Film from Loyola Marymount and is a member of the Writers Guild of America West, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Steve holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander, U.S.N.R. Retired.

Book preview

Chapter 1

They slogged deeper into the murky waters of the pitch black Georgia swamp. Behind them, the distant barking of the hounds confirmed their worst fear.

Isaiah!

Will!

Their names echoed through the thick night air like fog horns and the delusion of the nightmare broke when both boys saw the two flickering lanterns through the thick flora drifting toward them, their approach unrelenting, and casting an eerie luster from the sweat that stung their eyes.

To sixteen-year-old Isaiah, the older of the two, the tone of their appeal sounded almost conciliatory, promising them forgiveness if they gave themselves up and saved everybody all the trouble. But he recognized a menacing quality in the tenor of those pleas—so quietly obscured that only those who’d been bamboozled before could discern it. Although distracted by thoughts of what his Master might do to his mother and two sisters, the sounds of the barking hounds kept him moving. Isaiah had anticipated the slave hunters would use the clothes he’d left behind to enrage the dogs’ appetite to hunt niggers. But he was wrong in assuming that stealing away just at sunset would maximize the time between when they left and the drunken overseers—soul-drivers as they liked to call ‘em—made their rounds through the slave quarters to satisfy their carnal appetite for adolescent slave girls.

As they forged on through the swamp, the mud from Isaiah’s feet splattered in his face, and the snarling dogs reminded him that the slave hunters followed mercilessly on their heels. Isaiah dug his calloused bare feet coated in the soggy earth with more determination. But like the swamp itself, he was beginning to fear his strategy was filled with holes. Listening to the heavy pants of his twelve-year-old brother, the end of their escape and a guaranteed dreadful punishment felt all but certain as he doubted Will could keep up this pace much longer.

Will, you go yonder. He pointed to the east, without stopping his steady sludge through the bog’s mushy floor.

Will had to stop; he couldn’t run and talk at the same time. What ‘bout you, Isaiah?

Isaiah stopped too, shifted his eyes between the approaching pursuers and Will. You trust me?

Will looked into Isaiah’s face, focused his mind and nodded his head. His breathing became more labored than before but Isaiah could see in his brother’s eyes the courage to keep trying.

Den keep ya legs goin’ ‘til ya hear me holler for ya.

Though his younger brother possessed the heart of a lion, other boys his age boasted bigger and stronger frames. He didn’t want Will to come along but lost that battle to his mother. Maybelle couldn’t bear to watch the wrath of Master Johnson on her baby boy when he inevitably discovered Isaiah’s escape.

Will somehow mustered up the strength to take off eastward.

Isaiah headed west.

The distance between them increased and so did Isaiah’s dread. The thick foliage whipped at his face as if chiding him for this audacious deed. He didn’t feel a thing—too much adrenaline coursing through him. After a while, he stopped and listened hard. The slave hunters had split up: One moved away from him, the other headed in his direction. It was the result he had hoped for. Isaiah ripped off his sweat-soaked, mud-stained muslin shirt and hung it on the closest tree limb.

He began to run again and made a wide circle, using the Doppler effect of the barking dogs to keep his pursuer within a calculated radius.

I hope Will keep up his strength.

He soon arrived behind his tracker and summoned what remained of his rapidly draining strength to head directly toward him. The hound’s barking became more irate; it had found his bait, alright. Isaiah stopped just long enough to snap off a hefty tree branch. He did it in one determined motion, surprising himself with his own power, and then he picked up his gait again. His feet were numb now; had he taken the time to glance down at them, he would have seen blood blending with the muck. But he kept his eye on the prize, feeling only the ground vibrating up through his legs and torso to the crown of his cranium. Within seconds, the hunter’s light came into clear view. Isaiah stopped, held his breath, focused his ears, and listened hard for the other hunter. But when Isaiah’s hunter snatched his shirt from the tree, the nearby hound went berserk, deafening him to any other sounds. Isaiah peered through the foliage at the hunter as he shoved the wet, foul smelling shirt under the dog’s nose to further engage the beast. He recognized this particular hunter; a cruel and brutal man who often worked for Master Johnson, not just to hunt runaways but to administer severe thrashings. He had a massive physique—broad shoulders, strapping arms with hands like meat hooks and a round beer gut.

I be dere directly, Will.

At that moment, Isaiah decided to use the ferocious barking as his cover. He moved like a melanised phantom and, within seconds, delivered a hard, well-placed deathblow to the back of the hunter’s skull.

He nev’r saw dat comin’.

Isaiah paused for only a blink to stare at the man’s dead eyes shocked wide open. How many times had he wished he could hit a white man like that? Too many, he thought. Now he had. And he didn’t know how he felt about it, exactly. Isaiah trained the slave hunter’s Springfield musket at the barking dog, now frothing at the mouth, signaling its intention to attack.

Now, boy, take it easy, boy. In general Isaiah liked dogs and he didn’t particularly want to hurt this one. But he had to remind himself that this was a Negro dog—and he was doing just that when the canine’s thorough training kicked in and lunged at him with jaws open. Instinctively, Isaiah snapped back the trigger on the musket. The boom startled him, his eyes blinked and his ears were still ringing after the echo of the shot had faded away. Isaiah looked down at the dog that lay at his feet. The bullet had entered his open mouth and cleanly blew out the back of his square head. Isaiah exhaled with a sense of pride, mixed with relief. This hound would never know the blood of another runaway.

With the dog silenced, the night returned to the buzz of the swamp’s native inhabitants, except for the faint barking drifting in from the east that mixed with the ringing in Isaiah’s ears.

I’m comin’, Will!

Isaiah pulled the loading bag off the dead hunter along with the hunting knife. He had never reloaded a Springfield before. Then again, he had never fired one until moments ago. Isaiah had observed an overseer reload the gun many times during hunting trips only because the arrogant Scot insisted he watch and learn. Of course he always gave the order with a crooked grin only an abuser could produce—a grin that seemed to say, your coon mitts will never get to hold the likes of this fine rifle. Now it was his turn to smile. Isaiah couldn’t help but take pleasure in the irony as he tightened his grip on the musket, feeling a sense of power. As best he could recall, he went through the ritual of reloading the rifle: He poured black gunpowder down the barrel, followed by a lead ball, and then finely packed it all with the ramrod that was expediently stored underneath the rifle’s barrel. To finish the procedure, he placed a percussion cap on the nib beneath the hammer.

Slinging the Springfield over his shoulder, Isaiah began to run toward the fading barks of the hound. Still soggy, the ground gave way, but soon his toes dug into firmer earth and he felt liberated as he gained better traction. He picked up his pace. Again, he felt nothing, so that even the cruel sting of the surrounding branches slapping at him like so many angry hands couldn’t slow him down. And again, he trained his mind on one sound—the vicious snarling ahead…

Only thirty minutes before, the sun had thawed into these murky waters and given way to a new moon. He had chosen this night, following one of the hottest days of the year, to aide in their escape: A moonless evening would conceal them and the heat would take its toll on the hunters’ strength since, unlike their trackers, he and his brother were well primed for the heat through years of back-breaking labor in the plantation’s sweltering cotton fields.

Isaiah flashed back to the very moment when he and Will gave their mother and sisters the same promise their father had six years before—to find freedom and come back for them. Tears began to commingle with the hot sweat in his eyes. I kain let ya down, Pa. I know ya be up dere lookin’ on me right now. Ya want me ta make ya proud. Be strong. I know ya do. If any thang bad happen ta Will…

The hound dog’s own resolute bark snapped Isaiah back to the moment and fueled his determination to succeed where his father had failed…

Isaiah broke into a lush clearing. Out of the darkness he saw the hunter’s kerosene lamp illuminating his brother who had fallen to his knees in complete and utter exhaustion. He looked like he was praying. The slave hunter stood a mere twenty yards from his spent prey, musket cocked and trained on Will.

Isaiah ran harder. He could feel every single muscle in his sinewy body strain in a collective effort toward the single goal. Just then the swamp floor gave way again, ingesting his feet into the muck. Deeper and deeper he sank with each energy-draining step. Struggling against the weight of the mud that bound his legs and feet, Isaiah felt as though he were moving in slow motion. He would never reach Will in time. Desperate and helpless to save his brother, he shouted at the top of his lungs, Git up, Will!

The slave hunter whipped around in surprise just in time to see the Springfield draw down on him. Unlike with the first hunter, Isaiah realized he’d never seen this particular peckerwood on the plantation before, but it didn’t matter; he caressed the trigger, his rage an inferno and he looked down the barrel, remembering the lesson taught to him by the arrogant overseer on how to align the back sight with the front sight just perfect, all the while sporting that shit-eating grin of his—telling him it would be a cold day in hell before a buck nigger like him ever got to fire a weapon made with such fine craftsmanship as this one.

Just as Isaiah began to squeeze the trigger, the largest alligator he’d ever seen lunged from the muck and, with one powerful blow of the jaws, snapped the hunter in two. Isaiah instinctively swung the rifle to his right, lined up the rear and front sights again, this time on the ferocious dog, but the hound literary vanished into the teeth-lined maw of another big gator.

Will gone be nex.

And from the look in Will’s terrified eyes, he knew it too. Isaiah! he cried in desperation.

Isaiah willed his feet out of the sucking mud, step by step—the strength to do so powered from the very bowels of his determination to save his brother and arrived just in time to discharge a piece of hot lead into another salivating gator’s open mouth.

Then there was calm.

Stillness you could hear.

Of course, the swamps being home to hundreds of animal species—black bears, otters, white-tailed deer, sand hill cranes, Osprey, Anhinga, and all sorts of insects—it was nature’s own curious brand of silence, but one that Isaiah could accept and was certainly glad to have.

Isaiah filled his lungs with deep cleansing breaths of night air, and stretched the lantern out into the pitch blackness, sweeping it between himself and his brother, searching for signs of new predators. To his relief, he didn’t see any for the moment, so he picked up the other musket and offered it to Will.

Ya know how ta use dat?

No. But I sho gonna learn fast.

The soft radiance from the lamp revealed their mud-splashed faces to any creatures that might have witnessed their clash and wanted nothing to do with these young African warriors, standing there in all their magnificence after a hard-fought battle, their traditional native spears replaced by muskets. Their eyes traded affectionate relief but their hearts continued to pound, expanding and contracting like angry fists looking for something or someone to hit. Each boy felt the same swelling emotion—a combination of panic and satisfaction—something very new for both of them. Isaiah saw energy percolating in Will’s face, the weary boy even managed to crank out a grin for his big brother who’d just saved his natural hide.

When their emotions began to subside, Isaiah went in search of a dry spot on nearby high ground and, with Will’s help, dragged the slain alligator to the clearing they’d made. Isaiah then pulled out the hunting knife he’d liberated from the first hunter’s corpse. The handle, made from polished stag antlers, somehow felt right at home in his big hands. Isaiah didn’t know that particular knife once belonged to a Shawnee brave who’d used it to scalp more than one white soldier during the War of 1812. The steel blade had been carefully honed using a fine whet stone by the dead owner; it had been the man’s idle obsession. As Isaiah began to slice open the soft underbelly of the reptile, the stink that hissed from the creature’s belly nearly made him heave.

As Isaiah continued to work, Will built a spit held together with wet vine, and started a blaze from the lantern’s flame. They used damp branches from a Cypress tree common to the Okefenokee Swamp to skewer pieces of the fatty flesh and roasted the gator steaks to juicy perfection. The smell of the cooked flesh recalled memories that made Isaiah feel like their short escape had happened a decade before. As his teeth ripped into the meat, Isaiah could almost hear Maybelle fussing at him to wipe his greasy hands and not to eat so fast, boy, or yo’ gut gonna bust wide open while you be sleepin’. He took pleasure in the irony of eating prey which had earlier sought to make Will the evening’s main course and he teased him about that while they ate their supper together.

Together.

Isaiah took noble pleasure in the fact they survived this ordeal together.

After their bellies were filled, the boys settled in for the night. They boiled water, let it cool and drank to their satisfaction before sprawling out on a soft bed of damp saw grass. Despite the hearty meal and quenched thirsts, both still felt physically depleted.

They were safe.

For now, Isaiah thought, as he looked at the surrounding Cypress trees all draped with Spanish moss and took in the entire flora surrounding them. The multitude of swamp scents assaulted his senses, sending a chill through him. It was a sensation that should have been welcomed on a sweltering night but their surroundings were so eerily reminiscent that it spirited them both back to the exact same setting: The home they’d run away from. Ironically they already missed the one place they most despised. How many nights had they sat on the edge of the bog surrounding the slave quarters dreaming of the moment they would escape?

Dreaming of this very second.

But now their yearning was for much more than what they left behind. It was for who they’d left behind.

The emotional toll of their escape and near capture hit Isaiah the hardest. By his hand, one white man had died and another gone missing forever. He knew full well that no matter how cruel and sadistic were his hunters; how much blood stained their hands or how much hatred filled their hearts; however deserving they were of their fate—that deed alone put a significant price on both boys’ heads.

Their run for freedom was far from over.

~~~~~

Chapter 2

The SH-60 Seahawk helicopter touched down on the fantail of the USS O’Bannon’s flight deck; its prop wash swatting Midshipman Joshua Isaiah Frazier over the side like a stallion’s tail fanning away an annoying horse fly.

Joshua, wearing the required Navy-issue lifejacket, had plunged into the sea head first. The water isn’t all that cold, he thought, as he flipped over and swallowed what felt like a gallon of sea water. He resurfaced just in time to watch the sleek, five-hundred and sixty-three foot O’Bannon slice on through the blue-green Atlantic at a steady ten knots, rapidly leaving him behind. From this angle, he’d never seen the ship’s sophisticated array of sensors that were perched on its superstructure and weapon systems that lined the decks and suddenly he felt like a stray puppy being left behind by an over-taxed mother that had too many babies in one litter to notice one was missing. Just as panic started to set in, Joshua heard, General quarters, general quarters, all hands to battle stations. The announcement blared from the ship’s 1MC speakers, the main communication system onboard all U.S. Navy vessels. Man overboard. I repeat, man overboard. This is not a drill. This is not a drill.

Despite the growing number of yards spreading between him and the vessel, Joshua could still make out various crew members of the three-hundred and fifty-two-man ship hustling on the weather decks to their assigned battle stations and hear the wail of the emergency sirens. Later he would learn that it was the aft lookout on watch, a seaman apprentice only a few weeks out of boot camp, who had spotted the unfortunate accident on the flight deck and immediately reported it to the bridge using his sound-powered phone.

As a first class midshipman and Officer Candidate Under Instruction serving his final two-week cruise before receiving his commission as an Ensign, Joshua knew damn well he was going to get his ass chewed out for this rookie mistake. The salty old chiefs are going to have a field day with this one, he thought. But he worried more that his little mishap would thoroughly annoy the ship’s Executive Officer.

Below decks, the blare of the emergency sirens sent Commander David Frazier hurrying from his stateroom to the bridge. Make a hole, he said, almost singing the words, as he moved through the narrow passageways ducking the tangle of pipes and wiring overhead like he’d done so many times before. Though in a hurry, he greeted each officer and enlisted man in his path with a military nod while maintaining his command bearing and sense of purpose. He was not an imposing man at six-feet one-inch, but at forty-two years old he still carried the fit form of the ex-college cornerback that he was and they all stepped aside to let their boss get to his destination unimpeded. As standard operating procedure when a ship went to general quarters, or GQ, each warship in the navy required a group well-trained in specific skills to replace the team on watch for maximum operational effectiveness. The new bridge crew, called the Special Sea and Anchor Detail and supervised by Frazier, himself, consisted of an Officer of the Deck (OOD), a Junior Officer of the Deck (JOOD), a Helmsman, a Lee Helmsman and a Messenger of the Watch. At that very moment, the sailors holding each one of these billets made way to the bridge like a pied piper was summoning them.

As Frazier arrived on the bridge, the young officer who currently had control of the ship shouted: Attention on Deck! followed by an exchange of hand salutes as was the ritual of relieving a watch stander.

This is the Executive Officer, I have the conn. The Commander’s tone had a firmness to it that clearly informed the current and on-coming bridge team he was in charge. Nevertheless, Frazier still depended on each of them to do the job well.

Aye aye, sir responded the lieutenant (junior grade). The XO has the conn. I stand relieved.

All eyes turned to Frazier now, waiting for his orders. With his narrow face, square jaw line, and gracious eyes, he looked like the kind of a guy who graced the pages of a U.S. Navy recruiting pamphlet.

Commander Frazier was now the official driver of this sports coupe. He looked out through his windshield, a series of double-paned heated windows reinforced for high impact and filled with dry nitrogen gas to prevent fogging—all of this and wipers for rainy days. But he wasn’t driving your typical souped-up Chevy. The bridge itself measured as wide as the entire ship, some fifty-five feet, and this was the front seat of the O’Bannon where Frazier could easily see where he was going. Just forward of the bridge was the 61-cell vertical launch system mounted in the hull of the main deck which he knew to be fully loaded with eight deadly missiles, with sixteen reloads if needed. And just forward of that was a five-inch gun, its magazine holding 600, fifty-four caliber rounds. Frazier was steering nothing short of a lethal weapon.

He looked beyond the tip of the bow where the ocean stretched before him like an undulating carpet whose colors continuously reflected the sunlight in a kaleidoscope of blues and greens, and he felt like the warrior he was. Every device he needed to drive the ship was here at his fingertips, including the stick shift to the four gas turbine engines that could take this baby up to thirty-three knots if and when he ordered it.

Frazier had taken the wheel to the ship because the skipper had assigned him to this special detail on the team. Serious shipboard emergencies required the best personnel at each watch station and a man going overboard was high on that list. He received the appointment because he drove ships better than any officer in the Battle Group not just onboard the O’Bannon. And he had fleet citations to prove it.

Now, with his elite group in place, he got on the horn and informed the other ships in the formation that precisely one minute from now he would be executing a Williamson Turn—a maneuver used to take the ship back in its own wake to the approximate location where they lost their man.

Just then, Captain Jeff Akins arrived on the bridge. Though he relied on the men under his command to perform their jobs in his absence, he was ultimately responsible for anything that happened onboard his ship. His twenty-five years of naval service were etched in his face, and despite his haggard bearing, he smiled and his weary eyes began to dance the instant his feet hit the deck of the bridge.

Everyone but Frazier yelled, Attention on deck!

As you were, ordered Akins. He locked a gaze with his number two. Don’t mind me, Commander, carry on. Akins had a distinct Southern drawl he had tried to get rid of all his adult life.

Frazier nodded and asked the helmsman, Current course?

Current course is zero three zero, sir, shouted the third class petty officer at the steering wheel. Normally, the station would be manned by a seaman but this team required the best available for the job.

Very well. Right standard rudder, Frazier ordered.

Right standard rudder, aye, sir.

Come to course two-seven-zero, said Frazier to complete the order.

Aye aye, sir, coming to new course two-seven-zero.

Very well.

The ship started turning.

Did you consider sending back the chopper? asked Akins, more curious than anything else.

Yes, sir. Then Frazier added a grin, But I thought it would be more fun to cut a donut.

Akins laughed and asked, Do we know who went over the side?

Commander Frazier turned to the officer he’d just relieved moments before who had remained on the bridge because he wanted to see the XO in action and asked, Lieutenant, do we have a muster report yet?

Yes, sir.

What Dilbert P. Nubb decided to go for a swim? Frazier asked with a straight face but everyone on the bridge was in on the joke.

The lieutenant wanted to grin at the nickname used to describe an incompetent sailor in the fleet, but he hesitated, afraid he might offend the XO; the delay was long enough to worry Commander Frazier.

So, who was it? Frazier inquired again.

Sir, it was Midshipman Frazier, sir.

Shit, the commander replied under his breath. This routine emergency had just taken on new meaning for everyone involved, but especially for him.

You want me to take the conn? asked the Captain, trying to hold back his amusement but failing badly.

Frazier maintained a cool demeanor. Not necessary, sir.

All right then. I’ll be in my at-sea cabin if you need me. In addition to a primary cabin, the skipper had a bunk room near the bridge and spent most of his time there while underway in order to get to the bridge quickly.

Yes, sir.

With that, the Captain chuckled to himself as he left the bridge, he’d rib him later about this one.

The Executive Officer was already watching the ship’s compass wend its way to a new course. He had to work hard to keep his pulse rate in check.

Steady on new course two-seven-zero, sir, announced the helmsman.

Very well. All engines ahead two-thirds, ordered Frazier.

Aye, aye, sir, all engines ahead two-thirds.

Indicate turns for twenty knots, said Frazier as his mind quickly shifted again from the nuts and bolts of changing course to the reason that necessitated it. Now he wondered if he should have dispatched the Seahawk.

Aye, aye, sir, indicating turns for twenty knots.

Very well, the commander said. The delicate precision needed to maneuver a warship demanded that every order is understood both by the officer giving it and the sailor receiving it. This procedure of repeating back all orders might appear to be tedious and unnecessary to outsiders but it served to eliminate communication errors that could lead to deadly mistakes. The manner felt natural to Frazier since he’d grown up in the Baptist church and was quite used to the call and response from the black preacher to the congregation. As far as he was concerned it was no different than answering back to: "can I get an amen?" The O’Bannon fell into its own fading wake like a comfortable old house slipper. Capable of going from a cold start to its highest speed of 33 knots in just twelve minutes, Frazier’s order had her jump to twenty knots—or 23 miles per hour—in a matter of several minutes and now the ship seemed to sprint for the spot where Joshua went into the drink.

Commander Frazier stepped out on the flying bridge. The gusting wind rippled through his service khaki uniform and caused him to squint despite the protection from the bib of his blue ball cap that sported the ship’s name and official designation DD-987 circling a green shamrock. Glinting in the sunlight were Frazier’s water wings—the Surface Officer Warfare Badge issued to those personnel trained and qualified to perform duties aboard United States surface warships. Pinned just above his four rows of service ribbons, often referred to as fruit salad because of their wide variety of colors, the badge depicted waves breaking before the bow of a ship, overlaid on crossed swords—all rendered in gold. To the average civilian, trinkets such as badges and ribbons looked like mere macho decorations. But to men like Frazier, they represented years of rigorous training and expertise that gave him the honor of being called Officer of the Deck. This was more than a title. For Frazier it was a window to his soul. To his character. To his unimpeachable beliefs. And every single service ribbon pinned over his heart meant something: Serving in harm’s way or executing a tough job in a manner far exceeding minimum standards or the ability to expertly handle weapons or even saving an American life on foreign soil. In total, these adornments symbolized Frazier’s pride in belonging to the best damn military organization on planet Earth, maybe even beyond. Esprit de corps, if you will.

He surveyed the waters with his binoculars and to his relief spotted his son bobbing like a fishing cork in the rolling ocean. He couldn’t hold back a grin.

Thank God your mother’s not here to see this, he muttered under his breath and then barked dryly: All engines back full!

All engines back full, aye, sir, echoed back at him.

Very well. Commander Frazier looked over the side down at the waterline and watched the ship slow. Despite complex electronics, the most precise way for a ship driver to gauge when he was at full stop was to look over the side at the water below. If the ship wasn’t moving, he knew for sure he had stopped. When the O’Bannon finally went dead in the water, the commander ordered, All engines stop!

All engines are stopped, sir.

Very well.

Commander Frazier had parked the destroyer on a dime and he ordered the rescue team to bring his son back aboard. During the evolution—what the Navy called every important activity in its work day—the younger officers who had been temporarily relieved of their watch had chosen to stay and they marveled at their XO’s ship handling skills. They knew him to be a strict, but fair officer and would gladly serve with him anywhere in the fleet; they all knew they just might soon have that opportunity at another command. Being an African-American was only a cosmetic description as far as most were concerned. Frazier had earned his way here and anyone who had spent more than five minutes in