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Grant Telfer, the operations officer, was eyeing the rotation schedule for the watch shift from midnight to 4 a.m., known as the midwatch, for New Year’s Day.

Seaman first class Daryl Weathers, 19, a doctor’s son from Los Angeles, was in the radar room on the bridge, standing the midwatch — midnight to 4 a.m.

I was not sorry when I was called above for midwatch.

It was just after three bells in the midwatch when I heard a yell from my lookout.

Even the sound of the waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the midwatches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony.