Pynchon-like submarine moment (in real life)!

[Mark Kohut]

It is the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There are nuke-armed Soviet subs in and around the US blockade who DID NOT get the message [from Moscow] that they were to surface if depth charges went off around--or on--them.

The US kept following one, with four destroyers, until it HAD to surface
[to recharge batteries]. We tried to communicate with the Russians on it. Soldiers had been told not to respond. Officers did not want to address why they were there. 

So, the captain of one of the destroyers brought the ship's jazz band out and had them play. First Yankee Doodle Dandy, maybe of course?-, then some boogie-woogie. Some US sailors were dancing. One Soviet submariner was seen to be tapping his foot at one point and was sent back down into the hot, smelly ship. 

No "communication" happened---but for the music. True.

This ship earlier, loaded with exhausted, heat-stricken, often sick---incredible amounts of vomit to clean up-- Russian navel guys...unable to communicate with Moscow, afraid (nuclear) war had broken out on land ALMOST
fired a nuked torpedo into a destroyer--figuring that they should die by 'honoring' their homeland, themselves as soldiers. 

[Remember the swipe at honor in AtD (which contains everything,remember) alluding to Shakespeare's stab in Henry 4, aprt 2 ]