“My name’s March Anson,” March said.
“It must have been bad when you were an Ensign,” Gray said. “A lot of puns about Ensign Anson, I’ll bet.”
March grinned. “Plenty,” he replied. “That was the reason I liked my promotion so much.”
“I don’t know why I liked it,” Stan said. “But I just got mine and I’m mighty happy about it. Anyway, my name’s Stan.”
“Now, we’re straight on that,” Gray said. “Anson, you’re the navigation officer, according to my reports, and Bigelow is the engineering officer. There are two others. You’ll meet them a little later in the evening. Corvin is my Exec. He was with me on the Shark. He’s the diving officer, too. McFee was another from the Shark—he’s communications and handles commissary on the side. Bigelow, you may not know, but you’ll take care of the electrical end of things as well as engines.”
“Yes, sir,” Stan said, hoping inwardly that he would remember all he had learned about the many electrical ends of the submarine. “Electricity’s everything on a sub!”
“Well, not quite everything,” Gray smiled. “But it’s pretty important. We can’t get along very well without it, anyway. But if you need any advice or just plain moral support, get next to McFee. He knows electricity backward and forward.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Gray showed them to their quarters. Stan and March shared a tiny cabin that looked like a palatial mansion to them at once because they loved it so much. Then the Skipper asked if they had eaten dinner before they came aboard. They had not.
“Good!” Gray said. “I’m just about to eat. We’ll have it together.”
They went back to the little room that served as officers’ mess and the messboy appeared. Within a few moments they were eagerly eating rare roast beef, French fried potatoes, succotash, with biscuits and hot coffee.