But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it for some reason. The main problem was that in every port they visited, things got more and more out of hand. The Somalis they had first gotten were especially brutal. In one place in the Marshalls, when they didn’t find anyone around, they took everything that wasn’t nailed down and burned the village to the ground. They came back to the ship with armfuls of TVs, VCRs and stereos. When they were told that none of the things would work, they just threw them overboard into the harbor. Something had to be done.
He didn’t know what he could do, but he had to do something. The skipper was definitely losing his mind. And if he actually did get his hands on nukes, and then got the codes for them in some weird twist of fate, what would he do with them? That was the thought that kept Johnson awake at night.
What were the skipper’s plans? Surely it couldn’t only be piracy or robbery . Things that once were valuable were virtually worthless now, including gold, silver and money. They were all equally worthless, because there was hardly anyone left to covet those things. You couldn’t hold nations hostage, because there were no nations left. The very few people that were left were barely surviving as it was. It was all too much for him to contemplate, and even though he was an educated man, it boggled his mind. His thoughts drifted back to Pearl Harbor, to a more pleasant time.
He had met Mary at a small nightclub in Honolulu shortly after he’d reported for duty at Pearl Harbor. They danced and he bought her a few drinks. Into the night they talked, and at the end of the night, they exchanged phone numbers. He had then walked her to the bus stop, and waited there with her like the gentleman he was. When she was safely on the bus home, he walked back to base on a cloud. Several days passed before he decided to call her so as to not look too desperate. It was a short call, and he was sure she was blowing him off. She had said she was at work, and would call him when she was done.
He was pleasantly surprised when in a few hours his cell phone rang and it was her. They chatted for a bit and made plans for dinner the next Friday night. They met at a little seafood restaurant with a view of Waikiki Beach. He was drowned by her beauty, which resulted from a mixed lineage— Pacific Islander, Japanese and European— giving her an unreal glow and a face that was radiant when she smiled. She had unbelievably long hair, dark brown with streaks of gold through it, most probably from being in the sun. He longed to run his fingers through it… or have it splayed out across his bare chest.
They talked about each other; she was twenty-one, worked as a teller at a local bank, and was going to school at night to be a journalist. He told her he wasn’t sure about his career in the Navy, but felt confident that with his engineering degree he could find work just about anywhere on the planet if he decided to leave the Navy. After dinner, they decided to forgo the dancing and instead took a long walk on the beach. After a while, they found a secluded spot far from the hotels and people. They talked some more and watched the moon rise over the water. He decided to make his move. He leaned closer to her and gently kissed her lips. She kissed back, gently at first, then more passionately. They lay back in the white sand and explored each other’s bodies. He slowly disrobed her, and then she had told him that he was to be her first. He didn’t believe her but had held his tongue (smartly, he thought in retrospect), for a few minutes later he realized she was telling the truth when he entered her. They made love silently to the sounds of the breakers crashing over the reef and were lit only by the moon. When it was all over, he lay back looking at the stars. She had her head on his chest and her fingers were playing with one of his nipples. His hands found her hair and he ran his hands over it, and so it began, again…
She had never dated a sailor before, but said she was prepared for the long months of separation. Every chance they could, they would get together, even at odd times, for he being a new junior officer had the worst watches imaginable. They only had a short six weeks to get to know each other, but they made the best of the time they had. On the day the USS Hughes set sail, she was there in her finest dress to watch her lover sail away, hoping to see him again someday. He could see her weeping as he stood on the rail in his best set of dress whites, and wished he could have leapt over the railing and back into her arms.
Not into the nightmare this cruise has become.
“Mr. Johnson, you’re not asleep on watch, are you?”
He jumped in his seat and turned to see the skipper standing there in his starched dress uniform. He had trimmed his beard, and he looked even more cartoonish now than when he first started letting it grow a few months ago. He stood and came to attention.
“No, sir, I wasn’t asleep. I just had my mind somewhere else.”
“Good. My wardroom is small enough without a captain’s mast removing one qualified conn officer,” he said flatly.
“No, sir,” Johnson gulped. Despite the coolness of the air conditioner, he broke out into a sweat. He had been a starting lineman on the University of Minnesota’s football team and was no pussy when it came to facing people, but this man truly frightened him.
“Lieutenant Whatshisname will be relieving you at 2300. Until then, we’ll be in the wardroom if you need us.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain turned and walked aft towards the wardroom, slamming the hatch shut behind him. A wave of nausea swept over Johnson and he rushed out the seaward side wing bridge, leaned over the rail, and vomited until his stomach was empty, then dry-heaved for several minutes after that. When he regained his composure, he straightened out his uniform and reentered the bridge, where he went to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup of coffee. He noticed his hand was shaking violently, and he had to put the pot down. He went back to the captain’s chair, and sat down. His heart felt like it would leap from his chest. After a few minutes he calmed down, angry with himself still for letting that prick scare him like that. But he knew from experience the skipper’s threats weren’t idle, and he could almost imagine himself being tied shirtless to the hangar deck hatch, a smiling Petty Officer Stevens at the ready with his bullwhip.
I’m going to have to watch that bastard like a hawk. He shook his head and wondered what God out there had this sick sense of humor. He heard the hatch open again and jumped at the sound. Turning, he saw one of the East Indian woman from the galley come in holding a plate.
“Ensign Johnson? Captain says I bring you sammiches.”
“Thank you. You can put them by the coffee service.”
She did, and left quietly. He went over to the dish and saw there were several tuna salad sandwiches on freshly baked bread. Well, that was a pleasant surprise. He was expecting curried goat brains, or goat vindaloo, or something equally disgusting. Now that he felt better he was ravenous, and he ate two of the sandwiches standing by the coffee pot. He then took a third, and sat back down.
He looked at the sandwich and wondered if it was dolphin friendly tuna. He’d always heard the horror stories about the way the Japanese caught the tuna and slaughtered the dolphins in the process. The thought quickly passed, and he took a bite of his third sandwich, shrugging.
Meanwhile, down in the goat locker, what the Navy affectionately called the Chief’s quarters on a ship, PO Suplee was lying in his bunk reading a Hentai comic book that he’d gotten off of Nakamura. It was all in Japanese, but he didn’t care; he just looked at the photos. The story was easy to figure out: Girl gets abducted by aliens, after which, girl gets sexually violated by said aliens. It was always the same story, different book.
“What is up with this Jap porn?” he asked no one.
“What up, dogg?” It was PO Stevens.
“Oh nothing, I was just looking at one of those Jap comics from Nakamura. All the tentacles…”
“Dat’s just wrong man. Get yourself some fine readin’ material like this!” He held up the latest and last Playboy to ever be published. “Now dat’s fine!”
“Yeah, she’s hot alright,” Suplee agreed.
“She okay
for a white girl. Me, I prefer the sistas.”
Suplee shook his head. Stevens was as white as he was, but came from some shithole town in Detroit and fancied himself to be the next Slim Shady.
“Yeah, dogg! I had dis one sista back in San Diego. She had dem big ol’ titties and a big ol’ ghetto butt! She suck yo’ dick so hard, your balls would shrink to da’ size a peas, when you nutted!”
Suplee hated when Stevens talked like that. He could speak normally in public, but turned on this ghetto rap when he was with Suplee and the other crewmen. It annoyed the shit out of him, and Stevens knew it. Stevens lit a cigarette and pulled up a chair, sitting on it backwards.
“So what did you and Ensign Johnson talk about today?” he asked with a sly grin.
“Nothing, just college football mostly. He used to play for Minnesota,” Suplee replied in the prearranged cover story they’d both came up with in case anyone got nosy.
“You two talking’ football, huh?”
“Yeah, we were talking football.”
“Wouldn’t be talking anything stupid, like jumping ship, would you?”
“Fuck no. Where the fuck would I go?”
“You got that right. Listen, this is the best gig I ever had. All the booze I want, all the herb, and all the pussy I want. I just go and take it. It’s all okay by the skipper because he knows I’m the man to go to. I’m da’ one who keeps shit in line on this scow.”
“It’s like I said before. Where the fuck would I go, Stevens? I’m just trying to get along, do my job, and take one day at a time.”
“You just keep it like dat. You be cool and when we get back to Pearl and get the nukes the skipper’s been after, we’re going to be kings!”
“How do you figure that?”
“He’ll be in charge, man. No one will fuck with him. He’ll tell them to give up whatever he wants, and if they don’t, we tell them they’ll get nuked. It’s as simple as that. He’ll rule the whole fucking world, and we’ll be his number one compadres!”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Oh, it’ll happen, man. He knows where the nukes are stored in Pearl. It’s all up to us to break into COMPAC and get the codes from his office. He’s probably dead like the rest of them anyway!”
Suplee then thought about his mother back in Iowa, and his little brother running the farm, and his stomach turned. Maybe they really were all dead. If they weren’t, they’d have heard something by now. He was all alone in the world. Alone that is, except for Ensign Johnson in this floating madhouse. Maybe they were the only two sane people left.
“But why take the nukes?” he asked. “Nothing’s worth anything anymore, not money, not gold or silver, not anything. What could be worth more than that?”
“I’ll tell you why, my main man!”
He was getting a huge headache, wishing Stevens would just go away somewhere for a while and leave him alone.
“Power.”
“Power?”
“Yeah, dogg. Power. The old man will have all the power and he’ll be king!” With that Stevens dropped the butt on the deck, crushing it with his deck shoe. He stood and pointed at Suplee. “He’ll have absolute fucking power,” he stated, and walked out of the goat locker.
Suplee was gob smacked. Was it really as simple as that? And had Stevens ever heard the term ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’?
He probably hadn’t. The thought made Suplee nauseous. This occurred at almost the exact time that Ensign Johnson was spewing up the contents of his stomach over the seaward wing bridge. He had to tell him, but not now. He’d wait until tomorrow after they’d set sail. He’d get some sleep tonight and have a fresh outlook tomorrow. That was, if he could sleep at all. He turned off the light over his bunk and put the magazine away. He lay there in his bunk for a long time, bathed in the red lights that lit the interior of the ship after sundown, and wondered what he’d tell Ensign Johnson.
Somewhere off in the distance through the heating and cooling ducts, he thought he heard a girl scream, and he curled into a fetal position, shuddering uncontrollably.
Chapter 10: Intestinal Fortitude
Robyn knelt beside Tim’s still form in the snow, wailing for almost a half hour until she couldn’t cry anymore. She looked up at the sky into the falling snow, which was getting heavier by the minute. Already, a thin blanket covered Tim’s back, and her bare feet were numb. Never in her life had she been more frightened. She brushed the snow off Tim’s back and hitched a few sobs back. She reached under the still body, and with all the might she could muster, rolled him onto his back. She put her hand on his face and realized he was hot, really hot. She bent down close to his face; he was still breathing— short, ragged gasps were escaping from his mouth. He wasn’t dead. He was just sick, very sick, and now she had to try to get him into the camper. But how? Her numb hands and feet forgotten, she stood up at Tim’s head, grabbed hold of the collar of his jacket, and began to pull him backwards towards the trailer. It was slow going; it took all she had to drag his dead weight of over two hundred pounds to the trailer. She stopped for a minute, breathless. After she regained her breath, she again grabbed hold of his collar and slowly dragged him inch by inch up the two steps and into the camper. She had half of him inside now, and he groaned. Now for the really hard part. She had to turn him forty-five degrees, drag him down the narrow passageway through the tiny galley, past the bathroom, and up two feet onto his bed.
This she did with great difficulty, taking almost an hour, and using up all of her strength. She sat on the edge of Tim’s bed and looked at him. He was white as a ghost, and his breath was ragged. She felt his head again, and he was still burning up. Her feet and hands were starting to warm up in the heat of the camper, and little pins and needles attacked her skin from her feet all the way to her knees. She had to get warm herself, or she’d be no use to Tim. She stood on unsteady feet and walked back to shut the door to the trailer, pulled off her t-shirt, and tossed it aside. Grabbing some warm clothes, she quickly got dressed. When she was done, she looked around, and her eyes caught a small wooden plaque Tim had hung on the wall. He’d told her he had taken it from his office when he left Philadelphia. It was the Ranger Creed, carved into the wood, and she had laughed at one part where it spoke of having the ‘intestinal fortitude’ to carry on the Ranger Mission, until Tim had explained what that meant. It meant having the guts to keep on going, even though things looked hopeless.
Well, things couldn’t be more hopeless than this, she thought. It was time to Ranger Up, just like Tim would say.
Robyn knew she had to get his fever down, but at the moment she was unsure as how to do it. She stripped him to the waist with difficulty, and when that was done, she grabbed a few of the small plastic bags from the cupboard, the type you’d get from the grocery store. They had been using them as garbage bags, and had plenty. She went back outside and filled up several bags with snow, bringing them back inside. Going over to Tim, she placed one bag under each armpit, and others along both sides of his head and neck. She had seen this once on some medical drama on TV, and hoped it worked. She then went to the makeshift bookshelf and pulled down a copy of the American Red Cross’ Home First Aid book, and riffled through it. It said to give the patient plenty of fluids. Now how was she going to do that with him out like that? Taking mental notes from the book, she grabbed one of the mason jars and a washcloth and walked back to the edge of the bed. Uncapping the jar, she took the washcloth and soaked up some alcohol and rubbed it all over Tim’s chest.
“Please, Tim. Please get better!” she said to the still form. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you!”
She continued to give him alcohol rubs for several minutes, humming a song she and Tim liked. “Sorry about using up your Christmas present like this, Daddy, but I gotta get your temperature down. You’re burning up!”
It surprised her that she’d called him that, and she remembered saying it earlier too. But th
at’s the way she had started to think of him. He own father had died when she was too young to remember, and she had never really had another father figure in her life. Her mother had rarely dated, and Uncle Jake wasn’t there all the time. Besides, Tim treated her just like a daddy would treat their daughter, she supposed, and she really did love him. He was gruff and grumpy at times, especially in the mornings, but that was one of the things she really liked. He didn’t hide what he was feeling and made sure you knew he was happy with you, or angry with you. He wasn’t phony like a lot of folks she knew from before. He was a great teacher too, patient in a firm way until you got it right, and then he was full of praise. But he let you know right away if you’d done something wrong, and then told you why.
“There, Daddy. That should fix you up some for a while,” she said, placing the lid back on the jar and putting it on the shelf at Tim’s head. She took another washcloth, soaked it with cold water and wrung it out, then folded it, and placed it on his forehead. “You get some rest, Daddy. I’ll just be out at the table if you need anything,” she said lovingly, and bent down and kissed him. She walked back into the main area of the camper but left the privacy curtain open so she could keep an eye on him. She sat at the table for a while, listening to his breathing, and when she was satisfied he was sleeping, she took her new carbine out and loaded three of the magazines the way he’d shown her that morning. The rifle had something else she thought was pretty neat; on the metal folding stock there was a small canvas web pouch for two spare magazines. This she filled with the two other magazines she’d loaded earlier. She stood it up on the counter next to the door so she could get to it in a hurry. She put on the teakettle, made herself a cup of cocoa, and was finally able to relax and get back to her book. She looked out of the window to see the snow being whipped around by wind, which had picked up in the last hour or so. It showed no signs of stopping at the moment, and she couldn’t even see her footprints in the snow. It looked like almost another foot had fallen since she’d first found Tim. She shuddered at the thought of going back out in that, but she knew she would have to soon to get more bags of snow. She shoved that thought to the back of her mind and opened her book, keeping an eye on Tim at the same time.
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