“Yes, sir.” Udell rubbed the back of his neck. “Something isn’t right in my mount, down in the handling room. I talked to Mr. Reinhardt yesterday, and he said it was nothing, but...”
Jim frowned and crossed his arms. “What is it?”
“Water.”
He swallowed a comment about being at sea. “Water?”
“My men noticed some drops on the deck the other day. We wiped them up. More the next day in the same place. Nowhere near the doors. Sir, you know we keep things dry down there ’cause of the powder.”
It didn’t seem like a problem—except Udell thought it was. “Mr. Reinhardt said it was nothing?”
Udell let out a growl. “He says we’re on the ocean. He says be more careful. Sir, I joined this Navy twenty years ago, when you and he was still in knee pants. I know when things ain’t right.”
Jim clapped him on the shoulder. “Show me.”
Udell led him to the ammunition handling room directly underneath the number two gun. Racks of 5-inch projectiles and brass powder cases lined the walls. In the center of the small room, the projectile hoist and powder scuttle extended to the gun compartment above. Udell and his crew kept this room spic and span.
“Here, sir.” Udell pointed to the panel boxes by the central column. Three droplets of water spotted the deck, and the petty officer wiped them up with a rag. “Just since I left to find you.”
Jim squatted. The droplets lay beneath the panel boxes. “What’s in the boxes?”
“Controls for the projectile hoist.” Udell unlatched a panel box.
Jim looked inside. The usual switches and dials seen on any control panel. However, the left-hand third of the box was walled off with a tiny padlock securing the door. “What’s back there?”
“Don’t know, sir. And I don’t have a key. That’s not right. I’m the gun captain.”
“And Mr. Reinhardt—”
“Wouldn’t come look.”
Jim jiggled the padlock. “Are the other turrets like this?”
“Don’t know.”
“Let’s find out.” Jim scrambled outside, down a hatch, and into the number one handling room. He greeted a crewman and opened the panel box. Smaller than the panel box in the number two mount. No walled-off area. No padlock.
An uneasy feeling writhed in Jim’s belly. What about all that talk of sabotage at the Navy Yard? Weren’t the men who installed that mount the same men on Mary’s suspect list?
But water? In a locked box? Nothing about it made sense.
“What do you think, sir?” In Udell’s weathered mask of a face, concern flitted in his brown eyes.
Jim scratched at the stubble on his chin. “I don’t know. But I agree with you—something isn’t right.”
“You gonna tell the captain?”
Go straight to Durant over Reinhardt’s head? That didn’t seem wise, and it certainly wouldn’t make Reinhardt warm up to him. But the gunnery officer had already dismissed Udell’s observations. Wouldn’t he dismiss Jim’s too?
But reporting to Durant would create a monstrous wave.
The image of those three drops on the deck filled his mind. He’d talk to Durant in private. If nothing came of it, he’d ask the captain not to say anything to Reinhardt.
He had to do this. He had to make a little splash. Besides, no one would get hurt.
“Come on, Udell. Let’s go find the captain.”
“Thank you, sir.”
