He was nineteen. His apron still had chili on it. His name tape was crooked.
“What did you say?” Miller asked.
Davis felt the entire mess hall looking at him now, and the attention was almost worse than Miller’s stare.
“I said, Petty Officer Miller,” Davis repeated, forcing the words through a dry throat, “please don’t touch him.”
No one moved.
The sentence was small. It did not accuse. It did not threaten. It asked for decency in the plainest possible shape.
That made it unbearable.
Miller stared at him as if Davis had stepped out of line in formation and set fire to the manual.
“Are you giving me an order, seaman?”
Davis’s mouth opened, but no answer came.
Because the honest answer was no. He had no authority here. None that the Navy would recognize quickly enough.
But another answer sat beneath it, quieter and more frightening.
