The sub commander rolled back onto the cot and was instantly asleep, a muscle twitching the left side of his face every few seconds. Grinnel drew Orsino to the lee of the conning tower. "We'll let him sleep," he said. "Go tell that gun crew Commander Grinnel says they should lay below." Orsino did. The petty officer said something exasperated about the gunnery training bill and Orsino repeated his piece. They secured the gun and went below. Grinnel said, with apparent irrelevance: "You're a rare bird, Wyman. You're capable--and you're uncommitted. Let's go below. Stick with me." * * * * * He followed the fat little commander into the conning tower. Grinnel told an officer of some sort: "I'll take the con, mister. Wyman here will take the radar watch." He gave Orsino a look that choked off his protests. Presumably, Grinnel knew that he was ignorant of radar. The officer, looking baffled, said: "Yes, Commander." A seaman pulled his head out of a face-fitting box and told Wyman: "It's all yours, stranger." Wyman cautiously put his face into the box and was confronted by meaningless blobs of green, numerals in the dark, and a couple of arrows to make confusion complete. He heard Grinnel say to the helmsman: "Get me a mug of joe, sailor. I'll take the wheel." "I'll pass the word, sir." "Nuts you'll pass the word, sailor. Go get the coffee--and I want it now and not when some steward's mate decides he's ready to bring it." "Aye, aye, sir." Orsino heard him clatter down the ladder. Then his arm was gripped and Grinnel's voice muttered in his ear: "When you hear me bitch about the coffee, sing out: 'Aircraft 265, DX 3,000'. Good and loud. No, don't stop looking. Repeat it." Orsino said, his eyes crossing on double images of the meaningless, luminous blobs: "Aircraft 265, DX 3,000. Good and loud. When you bitch about the coffee." "Right. Don't forget it." He heard the feet on the ladder again. "Coffee, sir." "Thanks, sailor." A long sip and then another. "I always said the pigboats drink the lousiest joe in the Navy." "Aircraft 265, DX 3,000!" Orsino yelled. A thunderous alarm began to sound. "Take her down!" yelled Commander Grinnel. "Take her down, sir!" the helmsman echoed. "But sir, the skipper--" Orsino remembered him too then, dead asleep in his cot on the deck, the muscle twitching the left side of his face every few seconds. "God-damn it, those were aircraft! _Take her down!_" The luminous blobs and numbers and arrows swirled before Orsino's eyes as the trim of the ship changed, hatches clanged to and water thundered into the ballast tanks. He staggered and caught himself as the deck angled sharply underfoot. He knew what Grinnel had meant by saying he was uncommitted, and he knew now that it was no longer true. He thought for a moment that he might be sick into the face-fitting box, but it passed.