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about not yet having his letter in, as well as a sense of excitement about learning whatever awaited them in their patrol orders. There’d been rumors, of course, especially with the sudden departure. “Okay, Captain. Thank you.”
    “Thank you Danny—thanks for giving the Navy another two weeks.”
    They looked at each other for another moment, Jabo waiting to be dismissed.
    “You know, Danny, it is possible to raise a good family, to be a good family man,
    and be in the Navy.”
    Jabo nodded without saying anything. It was a discussion he didn’t want to have. The captain had a wife, and two daughters, and Danny couldn’t tell him that he thought they all suffered because of the captain’s chosen career. But moreover:
he
couldn’t do it. I can’t spend another sea tour away from Angi, he thought, another year where I see her more in my dreams than in real life. And if the captain asked him in response, don’t you think I love my wife? Jabo would have had to answer: I must love my wife more. It was the one vanity he allowed himself.
There was a firm rap on the door and the XO let himself in. He was agitated, and not in the bemused way he had reacted to the rumor about girl babies. Jabo wondered briefly if his resignation had bothered him that much. He dismissed that idea as the XO stepped back out and waved impatiently at Jabo to exit.
    As they traded places in the captain’s stateroom, the XO said something about the Nav. He shut the stateroom door behind him.
    Jabo walked to his stateroom, grateful for several things. He was grateful that his beautiful wife was pregnant with their child. He was grateful that, as hard as it was, he’d told Captain Shields of his plans to leave the Navy. And, as he walked up the ladder to the control room to take the watch, he was grateful that he’d been able to have that talk with the understanding Captain Shields, and not his predecessor, Captain Mario Soldato. That guy was an asshole.
    •   •   •
    “What’s up?” said the captain.
    The XO remained standing, running his hand across his smooth bald scalp. “It’s the navigator. He’s gone and done something weird.”
    Captain Shields leaned back and laced his fingers across his stomach, his face grim, awaiting details.
    “Lieutenant Maple said that yesterday in control he stabbed himself in his leg with his dividers. Repeatedly. Got blood everywhere. Apparently Maple took a day to think this over before telling me.”
    The Captain raised an eyebrow. “What did you say?”
    “I told him to shut the fuck up about it.”
    “Have you talked to the nav?”
    “No sir, not yet. I wanted to talk to you first, because I know we don’t have much time.”
    The captain paused. “Time for what?”
    “To get him off the boat! Let’s get him off with the fucking mail.”
    The captain waited before responding. He knew the XO had never liked the navigator. In fact, the navigator was a tough man to like. But part of it was that each man was, in his way, a perfect representation of the two different tribes of submarine officers. One was a torpedo-hurling warrior who trusted his instincts. The other, a highly-schooled, bookish, technical expert. The tension between them was as old as the
Nautilus
, the Navy’s first nuclear submarine, and the captain realized that he was probably closer to the nav’s end of the spectrum than the XO’s. “Mike, do you think they have a spare navigator waiting for us on that tug?”
    “Fuck sir, I don’t know. I’ll do it, I’ll be the goddamn navigator. Or let’s give Jabo a battlefield promotion. I trust him more than I trust that crazy fucking Mark Taylor.”
    “That’s enough,” said the captain sternly.
    “Yes sir.”
    They both paused long enough to let some of the pressure out of the room.
    “You really think it’s that bad?” said the captain. “Bad enough to kick the guy off the boat? Scuttle his career?”
    “I really don’t know, captain. Maybe this whole