What he knew as home was enclosed between four steel bulkheads; what he knew as family life went on in the wardroom and at captain’s mast. Promotion came, to lieutenant junior grade, to lieutenant, to lieutenant commander, responsibility expanding with his experience. For seventeen years, from eighteen to thirty-five, he lived for nothing but his duty; that was why those hateful words “fitted and retained” hit him so hard, even though he knew that in the service of which he was a part there could be only one commander for every ten lieutenant commanders.
