Faking It, Part 1
A story of others’ expectations, by Ian.
This story was originally published on June 8, 2025.
I closed my eyes and drew in that cool, dry morning air from the bridge wing, high above the pier. Sunlight stretched up from behind the eastern mountains into an open sky, now glowing gold and pink.
San Diego harbor, near high tide, showed only small ripples across its surface with the currents approaching slack. The breeze from our port side seemed ready to set the ship off the pier, as if Mother Nature herself wanted to take Johnston out to sea. With this being my first time getting underway as Captain – and only my third day since taking command – I appreciated the help. I wanted this first week to be perfect.
A restless energy pulsed through the ship. The smell of fried eggs, hash browns, and coffee infused the passageways around the mess decks, already filled with sailors at that early hour. Deck division had been up since before sunrise to set out marlin spikes, lines, and all manner of nautical implements in the same way their forebears had done for hundreds of years. And Mike patrolled the decks like every good Executive Officer, or XO, the second in command making sure the crew’s energy stayed focused on taking in all lines on time.
All that activity made me think I ought to do something. I went to the pier and paced along the full length of the ship with my hands clasped in the low curve of my back, taking in every detail of her sides and superstructure through narrowed eyes. At each bollard, I pressed the mooring lines with my boot to gauge their tension. I had seen many captains do this over the last eighteen years and always imagined they had some secret knowledge, some communion with nature, some power to read the wind and seas to divine a plan for moving their ship out to sea. But I felt none of that. I was an actor who didn’t study his part before opening night and hoped the audience wouldn’t notice.
I climbed the ladders back to the pilothouse, now full of people in small groups, each doing its part to make the ship ready, all subdued motion and chatter. The Officer of the Deck asked permission to light off the main engines. I gave the order. Then I floated out to the bridge wing putting on airs of some mystical ancient seafarer.
Up until this point in my career, when things got hard or when I had doubts, I could always look over my shoulder and find someone more experienced standing there who would guide me through it. But I was the Captain. There was no one more experienced.
I looked over my shoulder and all I saw was the chaplain.
“Oorah, Captain.” Chaps Avery spent a lot of time with the Marines.
“Oorah, Chaps.”
We leaned on the rail, side by side, and looked out across the bay.
“How are you doing, Captain?” he said after a few minutes.
I wondered for a moment how honest I should be. He was a chaplain after all, obligated to hold in confidence anything I told him. But still. I was the Captain. He worked for my boss, the Commodore. And some member of my crew could be eaves dropping.
“I’m alright. Excited. Nervous.” I looked around, then said quietly, “Chaps, I’ve never done this Captain thing before. If you can swing it, I could use a little divine intervention.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he smiled. He put his hand on my shoulder, closed his eyes, and lowered his head. I can’t remember exactly how he prayed that blessing for me and the crew, and it doesn’t so much matter. Whatever he said filled me up nearly to the point of overflowing, and for a moment there I didn’t feel like an impostor.
Somebody told me once that when you finally get your ship underway, you leave behind all the stress and troubles on shore, and you become the king of your own little world. With Johnston now clear of the sea buoy and headed toward San Clemente Island, I took a few minutes to sit in my chair on the bridge attempting to conjure the aura of a benevolent king and instead conjuring guilt for even considering it.
That’s when I saw Mike and Madee, Johnston’s Command Master Chief. Mike had just been doing the normal XO daily berthing inspections when he found an empty vodka bottle in the trash in berthing number one. That raised an eyebrow. But we got right to it and tossed around a couple of ideas about what to do next:
Alcohol is not allowed on ships.
We need to make sure that there’s no more on board.
People need to know we will take this seriously.
We’ve got to inspect the ship top to bottom.
The only way to do it is a health and comfort inspection.
Done.
We agreed that, to stay true to our intent, we would inspect each other’s berthing spaces as well – we were all in this together, so no need to leave the XO, CMC, and Captain out of it.
And there I was, in command for three days, giving the order to look through everyone’s underwear. So much for leaving your troubles ashore.
After my order rolled downhill, the ship all at once snapped from the normal underway routine to become a tense hive with every sailor, officer and enlisted, lining up next to their lockers to have someone from uphill dig through their private possessions. Mike and Madee would supervise all of it. The movement, the rumors, the anxiety, the confusion. No one would escape it.
Except the Captain, of course. For all the busy-ness swirling around the ship, I had nothing to do except stay somewhere quiet while the crashing wave of crazy passed by.
A few hours later, Madee found me sitting alone in my cabin. “We’re just about done, and everything is looking good,” she reported. “We haven’t found anything apart from the single empty bottle this morning.”
“Good news,” I said. “Time for my inspection, I guess?”
She smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“Roger that!”
We moved into my stateroom and I opened all my drawers and lockers for her to inspect. I had nothing to hide but I felt incredibly awkward. Not because the CMC was looking through all my personal belongings. It’s just that I had far more storage than seems reasonable, compared to everyone else.
The average sailor has a coffin locker under their mattress and one stand-up locker, and they’re supposed to fit everything from uniforms to civilian clothes to personal items inside that tiny space. Even the CMC doesn’t have much more than that – maybe an additional standup locker and whatever spare surfaces she could find in her office. But I had a wall covered floor to ceiling in large drawers, two giant stand-up lockers, and several nooks interspersed throughout a room bigger than some division offices. I could probably put ten sailors’ stuff in there.
My living accommodations seemed so outrageous I felt ashamed to let the CMC or anyone see it. I could only imagine what kind of person would think they deserve such extravagance. And I hoped that my crew would not think I was him.
This is a fictional post based on true events.
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