Pauls hand came back to his side and the brothers stood like convicts before the gallows. The silver buckled diver folded the small fabric chart and turned to tuck it gingerly into a wooden shelf positioned ackwardly among the control panels and gauges. The carpentry of the little shelf was a little rugged, the nailheads that showed were of varied and mismatched sizes. Paul began to notice more patchwork repairs and hand crafted furniture carefully integrated around the room. Creature comforts and homey additions had been tacked in or painstakingly welded into the bulkheads, newspaper clippings that had faded gently, pictures of pinup models, pictures of other German soldiers and sailors in exotic looking places.
The heavy dive suits around them seemed to stand as still as stone, like golems awaiting a command from their master. Silver-buckle rummaged in the shelves for things and the other of the original pair that stood in front of the brothers took a lumbering step forward, hand extended outward. For a moment Tom thought about what would happen if they didn’t shake the offered palm, and then he saw the fine stitched repairs and customizations to the reaching hand.
The gloves had been considerably tightened and finely sown like surgical work. What was long ago an underwater salvage glove looked much more like a set of latex pulled taught over strong muscles. His eyes continued along the divers arms, the suit returned to its loose fitting and bulky fit. At the shoulders were stitched on silver braids with a single golden diamond at the far ends. Tom suddenly put two and two together and quickly jabbed Paul, tilting his head forward to shake the still waiting hand. Tom was wishing for all the world they could talk to one another, that he could understand what Tom seemed to pick up. His hand clasped the ancient and taut glove and the silver braided diver gave a short and direct shake and release.
Tom would have said, “That’s the guy in charge. That’s the commander, the fellow with the silver buckle, that’s his chief, the guy who chases the others to ensure work is done.” Instead he simply watched as the hand was offered to him and he shook it.
In the service of the Navy, the Captain ran the ship, the Chief ran the crew. The organization and heirarchy of living and working at sea was organized and heavily structured by necessity. Men would be grouped by tasks required and then sorted by the decks they worked on and then guided by veteran leaders deck to deck. The system was so direly needed that even when the Soviets had attempted to eliminate as many of the ranks as they could, the Russian Black Sea Fleet dutifully stood by the old ways, knowing that to disband such a cornerstone of naval life would destabilize everything. On a ship at sea, the captain was God and his chief was the angry prophet who kept the followers in line.
Tom’s mind reached further back and he tried to imagine if it was Sajer’s face hidden behind the darkened divers bubble. The chief turned around with a sizable metal locker in his arms, the captain gestured to Tom, the larger of the brothers, and then to the metal box. The chief opened it, inside were neatly stacked black books. The lid dropped shut and the chief reached to the front to latch a watertight seal before handing it to Tom. The brothers looked to the Captain who simply pointed straight up.