The Med

by David Poyer

  Back at the card table they scraped chairs together. There were not enough and Washman and Hernandez sat side by side on the lower bunk. Liebo displayed a torn shirt sleeve, Harner grinned slowly around a bruised lip, and Givens rubbed the back of his head with a shade more wince than it really called for. They panted together for a minute or two, and then Cutford rubbed abruptly at his skinned knuckles. “I’d ’ve liked to take out a couple more of the fuckahs,” he whispered. “Young bastards. None of them old enough to show hair yet.”

  The others looked up, uncertain as to whom he meant. Them? There was something strange in the way the older man sat, chafing his palms as if for warmth. Givens saw that he was bleeding, the drops thick and black as road tar against his skin.

  “How old are you, Cutford?” he said softly.

  “Old enough I shouldn’t be wastin’ my time in shitpot little troop-compartment scuffles,” said the corporal sharply, yet still without looking at any of them.

  “Uh … you fought real good,” said Washout.

  Cutford looked at him then, close, and his broad flat nose widened. He gathered his feet beneath him as if to get up, and a jangling musical sound came from under the chair.

  “My guitar,” said Givens, remembering suddenly. “Gimme it.”

  “Get it yourself, Oreo. Crawl under there and fetch.”

  Oh, sweet Jesus, he thought hopelessly, groping under the table, among the butts and scrap paper. What is it with this dude? Is there no way to pacify this anger, this apartness? Looking up at Cutford’s heavy legs, the tops of the athletic socks he always wore showing above the scuffed black of boots, he felt a sudden need to answer what the corporal was continually asking of him, of all of them.

  Only what was the question?

  When he came up with the guitar, leaning it carefully against the smudged bulkhead where the mortar tube had leaned every morning since the far beginning of the float, Cutford was talking about Vietnam. He never had before.

  “Shitpot little scuffles like this … we done this all before, in d’Nam,” he was saying, not remotely, but to Hernandez, who was nodding, eyes intent. “Scuffle around, fart around, grab-ass in the bunkers … it was the heat. It got to you real quick, when you come in country. Heat, man, Alabama was nothin’ to it.”

  Givens eased himself back into Washman’s bunk, away from the level of the corporal’s eyes. The other men grew silent too, waiting with him for whatever Cutford had to say.

  “Heat,” prompted Hernandez. “Yeah, like in the Delta, hah?”

  Cutford looked to him, almost gratefully. He sighed. “Yeah. Hot like that.”

  “Where were you?” whispered Hernandez. “In the jungle? The swamp? The mountains?”

  “Shit, the bush, man, the bush. It was jungle, man. Fucken scorpions all over, find them in the Claymore pouches, you could feel them crawling on you at night, on ambush, couldn’t move…”

  They hung breathless and alone with him, hunters at a campfire, young warriors by the bard; silent in the once-again silent compartment filled with expectant men. The ship banged and creaked. Cutford rubbed his hands.

  “How long was you there, man?”

  “Two tours, man.”

  “Two, Cutford? How come you went around again?”

  The corporal hesitated, just for a moment, looking round at them; then reached into his back pocket.

  The picture was ironed from years in the wallet, an old Polaroid, the green of jungle yellow, faces yellow, sky yellow. Over his shoulder Givens’ eyes found the eyes of other marines. Hand-twisted cigarettes dangled from smiling mouths. One of them was a short man, thin, something gold gleaming yellow against his dark throat. Next to him, his arm over his shoulders, stood a gangly, grinning, friendly-looking boy Will recognized with a shock as Cutford.

  “They needed me,” said Cutford. “Them simple bastards I was with. Off the streets of Watts and Durham and Selma. They needed my black ass. They was going down like … like … we was going down bad. It was sixty-nine, man. They was no more grunts to come. I was a rifleman then. We just went patrol; they just kept sending you patrol, you know, no slack, no break, maybe a day back at battalion if you took heavies, but then, man, right back in the bush. After Tet the Man was scared. He knew what was coming down. It was use the grunt or lose him, and they used us, man. Used us up. I tried to learn them, them simple bastards…”

  “The squad?” said Hernandez.

  “The whole fucken squad,” said Cutford, leaning forward. The little golden charm, twisting on its chain, swung out from his chest and dangled gleaming in the stark fluorescence from the overhead. “The whole fucken squad one night. Overrun by a batt of en-vee regulars. Just me. They only left me.

  “That’s how it was, fuckheads. The Man sends you out there, the ghost officers. They fuck up, the Man don’t pay. We pay, baby, you pay, dickheads like you. I stuck the rest of that tour, and they wanted me to be a warrant. I said, no, fuck you, I’m gettin’ out. And I did.”

  “You got out?” said Liebo, gentle-like.

  “Two years.”

  “Why’d you come back?”

  Cutford looked at him long and hard, then seemed to see the rest of them. His face changed, and he shook his head angrily. He was starting to get up when the 1MC came on. The silence in the compartment went suddenly, electrically a dozen times more silent, the men looking naked-eyed up at where the gray speakers sat screwed to the bulkheads. The boatswain’s pipe shrilled, cutting through the whoosh of ventilators, and someone cleared his throat.

  “THIS IS THE CAPTAIN SPEAKING.

  “AS YOU KNOW, WE HAVE BEEN STEAMING INDEPENDENTLY OF THE OTHER SHIPS OF THE MARG, HEADED EAST WHILE AWAITING ORDERS.

  “A FEW MINUTES AGO, WE RECEIVED DIRECTION FROM CTF 61 FOR RENDEZVOUS AND RECONSTITUTION OF THE TASK FORCE. THE RENDEZVOUS POINT IS SOME FORTY MILES AHEAD OF US, NOT FAR OFF THE COAST OF LEBANON. FOR THE INFORMATION OF OUR EMBARKED MARINES, NOT FAR FROM A TOWN YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD OF BEFORE—A PLACE CALLED TRIPOLI.

  “WE HAVEN’T GOTTEN OFFICIAL WORD YET, BUT THIS WILL PROBABLY BE OUR LAST NIGHT OF WAITING. WE’LL BE LESS THAN TWO HOURS OFF THE BEACH AT THE RENDEZVOUS POINT. ACCORDINGLY, ALL HANDS WILL TURN TO IMMEDIATELY FOR INSTANT RESPONSE IN THE MORNING.

  “I WANT ALL PERSONNEL TO CHECK AND DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR GEAR. THIS GOES FOR EVERYONE, BUT ESPECIALLY FOR THE DECK DEPARTMENT AND THE MIKE-BOAT CREWS. CHECK THE ENGINES AND RADIOS, THE WINCHES, AND THE GATES. MAKE SURE FUEL TANKS ARE TOPPED OFF AND LIFEJACKETS ARE ABOARD—THE SURF AT THE BEACH IS REPORTED HIGH, AND MAY INCREASE TONIGHT IF THIS WIND PICKS UP.

  “OFFICERS OF THE MARINE DETACHMENT WILL MAKE THEIR OWN PREPARATIONS FOR DEBARKATION AS EARLY AS 0400 TOMORROW. THIS INCLUDES WEAPON AND AMMO ISSUE.

  “I WILL CONTINUE TO KEEP YOU INFORMED.”

  The loudspeakers hissed briefly, empty as the eyes of the listening men, and then went silent.

  “Ohhh, shit,” whispered Washman. “Is this … is this the way these things start?”

  Cutford got up. He was still looking at the loudspeakers, and his hands hung loose and open, palms out, fingers slightly up. A drop of blood trembled for a moment, then fell to the floor. It made a dark pool on the tile.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, this is how they start.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “Lemme see Silky about that gear issue.” The corporal turned, took a step, and stumbled over the varnished hollow curve of the guitar. It fell again, chording against ship-steel. He looked down at it for a long moment, and then bent. He held it to his face, looking closely at the pearled fretboard.

  “Hey, Cutford—”

  But he had already gripped it by the neck, like a bat, and aimed and then swung it, fast, the air rushing through the strings and past the sound hole, singing. When it hit the stanchion it shattered suddenly in midair into separate things, uncoiling strips of wood, strings snapping back on themselves, the pearl cracking like plastic. It was as if the music crammed inside, so tig
htly, years and years of it still unheard, exploded the stops and nickeled keys across the compartment, snapping and ringing against the bunk frames and deck and even the plastic covers of the light fixtures. The neck was left in his hands, strings dangling, and he swung it again, and again, against the unscarring steel of the stanchion until nothing was left.

  “I told you it was too fucken big to fit in here,” he said. “Oreo? Din’t I tell you before?”

  “Yeah,” said Givens. “Yeah, Cutford. You told me.”

  The corporal had half-turned toward the hatch, tossing away the remnant. Givens’ savage right must have been unexpected. It caught him low in the gut, unready, and he buckled over for a moment and his eyes widened. Then, too fast for Givens to see or follow, he found himself lying on the deck with his windpipe being crushed by Cutford’s knee. It dug deeper, and he clawed instinctively for the man’s eyes. The corporal avoided his hands easily, grinning, and pinned him tighter. Givens began to see stars. “Nice try, boy,” he heard the deadly hiss above him. “A lil late, a lil slow, but at least you tried. We may make a marine of you yet instead of a Jesus-dreamin’ ofay-lover.”

  His lips moved without voice. “Fuck you, Cutford.”

  “Oh, man, you just said the magic word,” said the corporal. He stood up, grinning, and at his sweaty throat gold swung and glittered like a searching knifepoint. “Okay, dickheads, suit up. They’s sendin’ us to war.”

  24

  U.S.S. Ault

  “Blaney, Mason, Polock—stand by to heave your guts out,” grunted Wronowicz. “Take a breath. Ready—”

  They laid hands on lines, squinting at their knuckles, waiting for his word.

  “Haul!”

  “Uhh!” The held-in air left each man in an explosive grunt.

  Deep in the destroyer, the four engineers strained at the tackle in frozen attitudes of timeless, tremendous effort. Muscles quivering, sweat sheening their bare arms and chests, they leaned into the lifting tackle with all their strength. Yet nothing moved, and they swayed there, locked, frozen in strain like warriors in a frieze. But they were not heroes, they were just machinists and firemen, Navymen, no different from the thousands of others afloat and at desperate work on that sea that night. Each man by himself was alone, individual, locked for the duration of a life into a single consciousness. Yet now, at last, each one of them could feel for a moment part of something larger.

  Wronowicz was too exhausted to muse on or even to notice what they looked like. In the eighteen hours since the breakdown he had left the engineroom once, to wolf a sandwich and pastry standing up in the chiefs’ quarters. He had heard about the air attack on the main body of the formation, somewhere ahead. But he did not think about it for more time than it took to finish his coffee. His entire being through all that night and through the day had been concentrated on one thing.

  On the port reduction gear.

  The first thing he’d had to do was make sure it was really a failed pinion bearing. There were a few other things that could produce that kind of vibration. Loose foundation bolts, for instance. But when he disassembled the strainers the gleam of babbitt, trapped like placer gold in the oily mesh, told him his guess was right. High temperature, vibration, and metal ground to powder in the lube oil. There was only one thing that caused that. A wiped bearing.

  He had locked the shaft, and set the black gang to taking things apart.

  Only the reduction gear did not come apart that easily. It wasn’t supposed to be taken apart at all, not at sea. That was why it was padlocked shut, and the keys kept in the captain’s safe. And that was why in the midst of his men Kelly Wronowicz strained at a lifting tackle deep in the guts of the old ship, in the swaying heat of the engineroom, walled in by metal, floored and roofed by metal. Steel grated under the braced boots of strong men, and the roar of machinery and the sea beat steadily against their ears.

  “Goddamn…”

  “Heave, dammit!”

  “Yuh…”

  “Stewie, give her a tap … see if she’ll move yet.”

  The first-class gauged the distance between himself and the casing, balanced the sledge in blackened hands, and then swung, hard, putting his hips into it. The hammer glanced off, jarring their ears even over the roar. The solid steel cover casting, connected now to the overhead by taut lines of tackle, stirred upward a bit, and then jammed again.

  “Again,” Wronowicz grunted, and they panted, wiped their hands on their dungarees, and set their shoulders once more.

  The sledge clanged, louder, and suddenly something gave. The men lurched backward into the dead turbines. Wronowicz and Polock hauled in line rapidly, hand over hand, gauging the roll of the ship. The tackle multiplied their strength and the chainhoist rattled as the massive hump of the gear cover rose slowly toward the lifting ring clamped to the overhead.

  Wronowicz wrapped his hand in the line and leaned back, looking upward, breathing in great gasps. “Get a steadying line on it. Quick, before she rolls again.”

  “Right, Chief.” Steurnagel twisted rope into a running loop and tossed it over a projecting ringbolt, made the other end fast to a generator mounting. Just in time; the whole fabric of the ship groaned, and the dimness of the engineroom tilted, tilted. As it passed thirty degrees the men began to slide on the greasy deckplates. They cursed, reaching for handholds, and tools slid across the gratings and splashed into the bilges. The casing, two tons of metal suspended in the air, came massively taut against the single steadying rope. Wronowicz backed away, keeping tension on the lift line.

  “Blaney, keep those lines taut. If that bastard gets away from us, starts swinging, we’re screwed but good.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  The destroyer reached the end of her roll and hung there. The men in her guts waited, breathing hard, their eyes on the single rope, taut as metal. They waited for it to part, to release tons of steel in an unstoppable arc.

  The ship groaned, deep, and then began to roll back. Wronowicz moved instantly, sending a second line over the other end of the casing before the first one slacked. Steurnagel sent a third snaking up, and like a bound beast the jacket shifted uneasily, entwined but still dangerous under its net.

  “That do it, Chief?”

  “Looks like it. Stand from under.”

  “Right.”

  Now that the cover was lifted, the gearing itself lay exposed to sight. Wronowicz reached for his hand-rag. Then, on his knees, conscious of the mass suspended above him, he ran his big fingers over the polished metal, poking and prying. The hundreds of intermeshing teeth gleamed under the light, oozing yellow oil like a honeycomb. Steurnagel leaned past him with a flashlight. He tapped delicately with the sledge haft where the gearshafts came through their bearings.

  Solid. Solid. He came to the one he suspected and tapped it delicately.

  Solid. He rocked back on his heels, staring, and the ship rolled and he grabbed for the deck, almost falling. Damn, he thought. Isn’t this it? The low-speed pinion … no, goddammit, where was his mind? This was the high-speed. He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to concentrate. His brain felt like junk iron. Three hours of sleep the night before, then all day down here, it was long past dark, and he was forty-two years old.…

  “Chief, you all right?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He opened his eyes and leaned forward again, ignoring the exhaustion, ignoring the uneasiness in his throat. It had to kick up a storm now, just when you needed a steady keel. They all expected miracles of him. Well, Christ, he thought, that’s what Wronowicz is here for. He breathed deeply and felt a little better. He lowered the sledge again and tapped delicately, deep in the gearing.

  “There. Hear it?”

  “Uh … no.”

  “There?”

  “It sounds a little different, I guess,” said Steurnagel, looking at Wronowicz, not at the gear. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds hollow. Like a busted baseball bat. Hear it?” He tapped again.
>
  “Yeah! I heard it that time.”

  He relinquished the hammer to the petty officer and sat back on his heels, considering. The casing stirred above his head, the roll of the ship catching some rhythm once in a while, but he was no longer conscious of it. The black gang stood behind him, leaning across the now-cold jackets of the port turbines. They were silent, intent as he was. There was no griping, no grab-assing. Whatever he asked, whatever they had to do, they would give it. They all knew what was at stake. On Friday nights ashore Polock and Steurnagel had battered and been battered by their share of “jarheads,” but now they were all the same.

  Or close enough, Wronowicz thought, then concentrated on the job at hand. “Get in here, you jerks,” he said over his shoulder, then, to the first-class, “Stewie, what you think?”

  “Think we ought to replace the bearing.”

  “No spares. Remember?”

  “Oh, shit, yeah.”

  “You and the captain, just memory wizards, both of you … okay, there’s a couple things you can do when you wipe a bearing. Things they don’t teach you in ‘A’ school.” The half-circle of grimy faces watched him, some blankly, others with intelligence, all listening. “The best thing is to replace it, sure. That way you got a inspected, new part in there. But supposin’ you can’t, you don’t got one, then you got to finesse it a little. We’ll have to pull it out to see … but I strongly suspect we’re going to have to do some babbitt work on this one.”

  “Rebabbitt it, you mean, Chief?” said Polock.

  “Jesus no, we can’t do that at sea. You got to have a seventeen-hundred-degree furnace, dam babbitt, pipe dope, mandrel, all that shit … no. That’s shoreside work. What we got to do is see if there’s a clear area we can scrape down and reuse, then maybe shim up with that three-thousandths stock you use on foundations. But we’ll get to that. What’s the first thing we got to do? Anybody know?”

  “Get the bearing out, Chief?” grinned Blaney.