WW III wi-1

by Ian Slater

  What stoked the nightmarish obsession and knotted his stomach with anxiety was the thought of the coming inquiry, when he would have to explain to the board why he, the captain, had abandoned the USS Blaine while she was still afloat. Of course, he must tell them the truth — but what was the truth?

  He remembered being conscious at the time, but couldn’t remember giving the order to abandon ship, and the worst of it — the worst possible outcome for a captain — was that the Blaine, though badly holed, listing dangerously to port and spewing flame, had her fires doused by monsoon rains that night only to emerge, her fires out, towed in ignominiously by the Des Moines to the shipyards at Nagasaki, where she was now undergoing repairs.

  Whatever had happened, Ray Brentwood knew that as captain of one of the United States Navy’s most modern warships, he was the man responsible. And along with the dead skin of his body now blistering and peeling, revealing pink and custardlike mucous below, Ray Brentwood saw the death of his honor as well as his career and all the dreams he had brought with him from Annapolis, which during the fifteen years he had worked so hard to attain. Exonerated or not, in that deadly phrase of the navy’s, his being named a “party to the inquiry” meant he would never command again.

  Early one morning he had managed, against hospital orders, to ease himself out of bed. It had taken him fifteen minutes, his legs in poor shape but not broken, to shuffle with the stoop of an old man — to straighten up was to stretch the skin — toward the washroom. He had sat for twenty minutes trying to defecate, but the painkillers had constipated him badly and it was impossible for him to do anything. When, slowly, he got up, he risked a look at himself in the mirror, now that some of the gauze had been removed. The only discernible features were his eyes, the rest of what had been his face an angry red of loose and taut skin, the two orifices of what used to be his nose obscenely turned up, one hole smaller than the other where the cartilage had collapsed, his breathing hoglike because of the melted flesh obstructions inside, his lips peeled back, suture scars on scabrous skin seeping. His speech, they told him, should be all right after much of the internal swelling from the operations had diminished. In any case, he would have to continue being fed through straws, daily astonished at how different food tasted when pureed to slop. In the vortex of pain and loneliness, only death seemed to offer any solution, but he’d been brought up a Catholic, and though no longer a practicing one, those early years had marked him too, teaching that despair was a sin itself. Even so, had it not been for Beth and the children, he doubted whether he could have held on.

  He refused to see any of his family, and Robert, the one member who John and Catherine Brentwood thought might have the best chance of getting through next to Beth, because of security considerations covering submarine whereabouts at sea, could not be informed, his Sea Wolf 2-SSN USS Roosevelt being on patrol.

  Beth had been allowed to see Ray only once. And he asked her not to bring the children. She didn’t argue with him, and after she had been carefully robed in antiseptic gown, cap, and mask, she was only grateful that he could not see anything other than her eyes. She could not sit on the edge of the bed, because the slightest change in surface tension over the sheet would cause Ray’s whole body to stiffen in pain, which the doctors called “discomfort.”

  “Do you good in here,” Beth had said bravely. “Lose a bit of weight before you come—” But she couldn’t say “home.” Home had been another place, had been another time, when the world was another place. Everyone and everything had changed forever.

  “I love you,” she said, gripping the bed rail, willing herself again against her heart not to touch him. He mumbled something, his voice nasal and rough like someone with bad flu. Even a cold, they said, would kill him in his present weakened condition.

  The very worst thing, she told Ray’s parents and Lana, was that because of the suturing they’d had to do on his face, he was unable to smile for fear of tearing open the now-closed fissures.

  It was a thing you took for granted, she told Lana as they sat together in the visitors’ room, waiting for the doctor’s latest report. With Ray unable to smile, Beth told Lana, there was no way of knowing he was all right, no comfort for her or for anyone else around her. Lana wasn’t really Beth’s type, Beth had always thought, too busy… always wanting to do something… not bossy exactly but a doer who made you mad with your own inaction… ate all the right foods, and smart. Not that there was anything bad in being vigorous, healthy, or clever, but sometimes after a day with the kids, she felt such a flop compared to Lana. And a little bit of jealousy — here was Ray, disfigured for life, and there was Lana, wife of Jay La Roche. What could she possibly know about their kind of life, with her big cars, always dressed like a fashion plate? Some said she looked like a brunette Grace Kelly. Not a hair out of place. Never disorganized, and nice on top of it all, especially about Ray. But then, she could afford to be. Next week it would probably be Palm Springs or some charity ball for President Mayne’s war bond drive. She could walk away from the pain.

  “… Of course, they might not take me,” Lana was telling Beth. “I used to have asthma as a child. At least, that’s what they told me. Personally I don’t think they were ever sure whether it was more an allergic reaction. Anyway, I had to choose, Daddy said. Asthma or Prince, our dog. I suppose Ray’s told you all about it. I kept the dog. My parents had a dingdong row about that one.”

  “Who mightn’t take you?” asked Beth, trying to disentangle the conversation.

  “The Waves,” said Lana. “I have a year of premed, and they told me before I left New York that—”

  “But what about your husband?”

  Lana was nonplussed. “Beth, haven’t you heard a word of what I’ve been—” She paused. “Well, they say I’ll probably be posted to Halifax. They’re so short of nurses that it’ll be sort of learning on the job.”

  “Where’s Halifax — that in Canada?”

  “Yes, somewhere in Nova—”

  Lana and Beth could see some kind of commotion — several patients, including one in a wheelchair, were hurrying toward them to look at the big TV screen in the visitors’ room. News flashes were coming in that the Nationalist Chinese from Taiwan, under U.S. pressure, were backing off from getting too close to Mainland China. There was some generally poor footage of tanks in a rainy field, the scream of an antitank weapon and the tank upside-down for a minute, the reporter’s rapid breathing caught on the sound track as the camera was righted, the reporter explaining that the tank had just been hit by an antitank missile.

  “Oooh!” said a petty officer stopping by the door, looking up at the TV. “Really? An antitank missile?” He looked across at Lana and Beth. “Some of these TV guys, I tell ya—” He looked back again at the screen and saw two wide red arrows spreading north and south over a green map of West Germany.

  “Where are the French?” the petty officer asked.

  “I don’t think,” said Lana, “France is in NATO.”

  “They are and they aren’t,” said the petty officer. It was only as the man turned round toward her that Lana noticed he had one arm, the other’s shoulder stump covered by a pajama sleeve rolled and pinned up.

  “They’re still in it,” continued the petty officer, “but they wanted their own command structure. Withdrew from the joint command structure in sixty-six. They want the NATO umbrella, so they pay membership, but want to use their forces how they want.” The PO looked at Lana. “Autonomous command,” he said derisively. “You know — like I’m a member of the ball team, but when I don’t want to play, I won’t.”

  “So long as they help,” said Lana, “I don’t care how autonomous they are.”

  “The French help the French, lady,” said the petty officer. “Always looking for a backdoor deal.”

  “Such as?”

  “You don’t come into France and we won’t fight you. We’ll keep out of it.”

  “Who’s you?”

  “Anyon
e who might muss ‘em up. Remember they wouldn’t let us fly through French airspace to hit Libya? Only Maggie Thatcher stood with us. To hell with ‘em,” said the petty officer, walking on. “Only thing I like about the French is French toast; They’ll sit on their butt till Ivan’s got Germany, then he’ll want Alsace-Lorraine and then he’ll want France, and have forty divisions all down the line. Then the Commie C in C can ride down their Champs Elysees on his white horse.”

  “No,” said Lana, “France’ll come in.”

  “Well,” said the petty officer, turning back, “I won’t be there.” It was said with relief but also with regret. Beth envied him in a way. He’d lost an arm, but compared to Ray… Lehman had told them that in the end they might have to consider a porous skin mask that would allow him to go out in public, but he would have to take it off now and then, like dentures at night, to help keep the skin clean. Be best to remove it at night, let the skin breathe.

  What would they do, wondered Beth, if he wanted to make love? Would he still be able to do it after all this trauma? They often said that after combat, high stress, many men just couldn’t do it anymore. If that happened, Ray would get mad. Then there’d be more stress. Maybe she could just do it for him some way that wouldn’t — and she thought of what he must feel: a young man, captain at thirty-seven, clearly marked for promotion, and then — so suddenly, so terribly fallen from grace.

  Thank God the navy would pay the medical bills. Jeannie had said, “If Daddy loved us, he’d let us see him.”

  Beth had torn into her. “Don’t be so goddamned selfish, Jeannie! He’s hurt. Very badly. You’ll understand when you get-”

  “I know,” Jeannie said, sobbing. “But we miss him, too.”

  Beth had folded and taken the children to see him. The nurse informed her that Captain Brentwood did not wish to see anyone yet. Exhausted, Beth looked down at the two children. “If it was one of us all burned up, what do you think Daddy would do?”

  “Come see us,” said Johnny.

  Alerted by the nurse’s station, Lehman intercepted them in front of the burn unit. “I don’t—” he began.

  “They want to see him, Doctor. Once the IVs are taken out, it will be all fine.”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about — she was obviously quite beside herself.

  “Your father-in-law was in this morning…”

  “And?”

  “I’m afraid your husband didn’t want to see him either. He wants to make his own recovery, Mrs. Brentwood. In his own good time.”

  Beth’s hands clenched as she held Jeannie and John, straining for control.

  Dr. Lehman, flashing a smile, had knelt down next to the small boy. “Your Daddy needs a lot of sleep right now. When you’re feeling, how do you say—’yucky,’ well sometimes you just want to go to bed and not see anyone till you’re better. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes,” put in Jeannie. She liked the doctor; he was the kind of father figure she always expected of doctors. “I think the doctor’s right, Mom,” said Jeannie, tugging at her worriedly.

  “Yeah, Mom,” chimed in Johnny. “We shouldn’ta come.”

  Beth had about-turned, her high heels striking the hard, highly polished floor, echoing the full length of the ward. She spoke only once, at the entrance of the hospital. “Okay, that’s it, you two. We are not going to the hospital again until your daddy asks for us. Understood?”

  John nodded. Jeannie became “little miss proper when you’re out.” “Yes, Mother.”

  Beth jerked Jeannie’s arm. “I brought you all the way down here because you pleaded, begged me to do it. Then you embarrass me like this.”

  “We’re sorry, Mom,” said Jeannie.

  Johnny thought about it for a minute. “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “If Daddy dies, do we get all his money?”

  * * *

  Once again realizing she hadn’t been listening to Lana’s plans for a new, hopefully more useful, life, Beth was forced into noncommittal murmurs, trying to cover her inattention.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Parris Island. South Carolina.

  David had heard all about it, laughed about it, and determined it wouldn’t get him down.

  As he’d stepped off the bus in the darkness, David could smell the last of the purple oleander blossoms from the trees that had flashed past the Greyhound as it made its way over the long causeway to the island. In the dim glow of the bus’s cabin lights he could see a DI, peaked scout hat, strap at the back, khaki shirt and pants pressed with knife-edge precision, and could hear the sound of insects from the tidal flats — then a voice. Demented.

  “Shut your fucking mouths! All your shit off the bus into the barracks. Now!” David got such a fright that, rushing back into the bus to get his kit bag, he stumbled on the bottom step.

  “What’s your fucking name?” screamed the DI.

  “Me, sir?”

  “Yes, you. You’re the only goddamned stumble-ass around here. What’s your fucking name?”

  “Brentwood, sir.”

  The DI leaned forward. “I can’t hear you.”

  “Brentwood, sir.”

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “Brentwood. Sir.”

  “Fucking who?”

  “Brentwood. Sir!”

  “Wrong. Your name’s Stumble-ass. What’s your name?”

  “Stumble-ass, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Stumble-ass, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Stumble-ass, sir!”

  “Right. Now get your kit and run!”

  David wished he’d joined the navy.

  Inside the white building there was a sparse barrack room, an antiseptic smell, a line of double bunks down both sides, the same DI standing, hands on hips, waiting for David, the last recruit in after the delay at the bus. It meant he got the only bunk left — right by the door. There was a whisper.

  “Who spoke?” shouted the DI. It was the first thing about a DI that David noticed. They didn’t “roar” like lions, they shouted, a tad below hysteria.

  A black recruit stepped forward, putting his hand up.

  “Put your goddamned fucking hand down until I tell it to move.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “You talk again, string bean, and I will personally cut your balls off. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  There was a long silence, at least five minutes. No one moved. Someone broke wind. The silence continued, then the DI, his voice rolling over the already tired and demoralized recruits, recited the litany of reception in a deliberately unemotional monotone, which made it even more foreboding for the recruits, though it consisted of telling them the obvious: where they were, Parris Island — though some thought it was a nightmare they’d woken up in. Most wanted to get back on the bus, but the bus had gone. The DI informed them that because of the small numbers of the peacetime standing army, training would have to be completed in a much shorter time than usual. If he had his way, he would work the miserable maggots eighteen hours a day, but insofar as Congress in its wisdom had decreed that a maggot had to receive seven and one-half hours of “uninterrupted sleep,” the maggots would have to work much harder than was usual for maggots in order that they might qualify as members of the “world’s finest fighting organization,” the “United States Marine Corps,” and that they were to do exactly as they were told to do, would not speak unless spoken to, and always end a sentence with “sir.”

  Strange insects buzzed and flapped against the gauze, reincarnated recruits, though David, trying to remember from his zoology course whether it was the female mosquito that made the zinging noise or the male. Anyway, it was like the DI: the one you didn’t hear was the one that got you, the one you’d like to kill. One of the fluorescent lights had started flickering. They wer
e still at attention.

  “Stumble-ass!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “What’s in that plastic bag?”

  David was so rattled, he couldn’t think. The sweat was pouring down his back. “Ah — candy, I—” It was some candy Melissa had given him when he’d left.

  “Candy!” bellowed the DI. “Candy, shit! You’re not going to have fucking time to chew fucking candy, are you, Stumble-ass?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Now what?”

  “No, sir. “ David couldn’t believe the obscenity. The only person he’d ever heard talk like this was an Australian.

  “Take off your fucking pants!” the DI bellowed at the recruits, and began walking down the rows. “Oh — lookit this!” A recruit quickly risked a glance to see what the DI was looking at.

  “Keep your fucking head up, turd.” The recruit’s head shot back up and stared ahead, eyes glazed by fear.

  “Oh, look,” said the DI, his bellow daring anyone to look. “What have we got here, limp dink? Valentine shorts.” David could see far enough up the line without moving his head to see the recruit, a Puerto Rican, his boxer shorts covered with valentine hearts. The DI walked around the man once, reversed direction, and walked around the other way. David had never seen a more miserable-looking soul on God’s earth than the hapless Puerto Rican. The DI stood up to his full height, his nose almost touching the recruit, whose head was straining back while at the same time trying to remain at attention without tipping.

  “Who gave you these, Thelma?”

  “Name is Thelman—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth. Your name’s Thelma. Who gave them to you, Thelma?”