A World Ago

by Dorien Grey

  Directly behind us, waiting for the Hyades to move off, was the Mercury, bringing small stores and other gear. Scattered around were oilers, tankers, destroyers, and other supply ships; and far off on the horizon, the Lake Champlain circled with her entourage of destroyers.

  In one of dad’s latest letters, he cautioned me against going inland in any country hostile toward the U.S. Our next port is Augusta, Sicily, which I wouldn’t call exactly hostile—except that we must be back to the ship by sundown, and no one is permitted outside a certain area alone. They are having a tour to Catania and Syracuse, which I want very much to see, as it crops up in mythology and ancient history quite often. Here, beneath Mt. Etna (the only active volcano in the Med) lie the Titans, placed there by the Gods when the former were defeated by the Gods in a war to see who was more powerful. Their thrashing and moans cause the earthquakes and eruptions that plague the land.

  I only have two money-spending ventures in mind for the remainder of the trip—one of them is going to Rome.

  While talking with Nick the other day, I recalled a saying I’d heard a long, long time ago:

  “He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool—shun him. He who knows not, and knows he knows not, he is ignorant—teach him. He who knows, and knows he knows, he is wise—follow him.”

  I enjoy digging up things from the back of my mind, as I do rummaging through my drawers and books at home, or walking down the corridors of a museum and hearing my footsteps echoing from the stone faces.

  Coutre says for me to say hello to mother—everyone in the office likes her by proxy. I wish she’d send some more brownies. Which brings me once again to a favorite topic—I’m hungry. No, I guess I’m really not; eating to me is like smoking to others—I do it when there’s nothing else to do. You’d think I’d put on weight—but no.

  I really have got to finish writing about Paris. I have five typewritten pages and haven’t even started—I’m telling you everything that happened. Well, onward….

  20 January 1956

  I’d just finished typing page 7 of my Paris adventure, and laid it carefully aside when the ship’s intercom announced: “The ship is now passing an active volcano.” I jumped out of my chair, grabbed my hat, and joined the stampede to the hangar deck.

  The night was the black it can get only at sea. Far off, and ahead of us, were the lights of our escort. And directly in the center of my hangar bay “window,” two fingers of blood clawed their way down a mountain. The colors of the fire and the night complemented each other, and blended near the base, where the lava ran into the sea or spread out onto the land. I wondered whether it always acted like that or if it were a special eruption, just for us.

  I ran below for dad’s binoculars, which I said I’d never use, but one doesn’t see a volcano every night. By the time I got back topside, we’d moved so that we no longer looked at the volcano straight on, but had passed around to the side, and were looking at the lava almost profile, so it appeared as thin ribbons. The glasses are so powerful that, at that distance, it was difficult to hold them still. The dark outline of the volcano loomed surprisingly larger than it had first appeared. Through the glasses, the molten rock winked and glowed, like hot coals. This was Stromboli, it and Etna being the only active volcanoes in this part of the world. Yesterday I said Etna was the only one; but I wouldn’t care to walk barefoot over Stromboli!

  Steidinger, one of the cooks, came running in earlier and whispered: “You guys heard the latest dope?” We all said no, and leaned forward in our chairs. “We’re pullin’ in to Honolulu for conversion into five seagoing tugs! Either that or they’re going to cut everything off above the hangar deck and make us a troop ship.”

  The chief informed us this morning that we were going to New York for our yard period, instead of Portsmouth. God, would that be marvelous. He also said we are not going to get a canted deck after all—the Bennington just came out of the yards with her new canted deck only to find out that the added weight slowed her down so much she couldn’t get enough speed to retrieve aircraft when there is no wind.

  Oh, to spend three months in New York! But, I’ll believe it when I see it. Taps almost, so excuse me for now….

  22 January 1956 Sealed at 9:13 p.m.

  Dear Folks

  Had a mail call today, which is somewhat surprising in itself, and got letters from you (1), Lirf, Harry, and Effie (the enclosure). I was happy to hear from everyone, especially Effie. I was also very surprised to hear that she had quit school—her sister has only a few months to live. She’s getting married June 16, the day before we get back to the States.

  We’ve anchored a good distance off Sicily—Augusta is just a cluster of Communist-filled homes. I think we’re out this far so we could make a fast getaway if necessary; also to discourage ardent Communists from swimming out to us with a load of explosives and sending us to the bottom of Augusta Bay. I wouldn’t put it past them. I haven’t gone ashore and have no intentions of it until the tour Wed. Everyone who’s been over say it isn’t worth the boat ride to get there. Only a few paved streets; millions of little children and so dirty we can almost smell it clear our here.

  Mt. Etna is sulking and won’t even put on one little eruption for is—there are quite a few mountains around and I haven’t been able to figure out yet just which one is Mt. Etna.

  I’m almost completely out of stamps, and some brownies would sure taste powerful good (Subtle Hint Department—Method 4371).

  Slowly but surely I’m developing a case of writer’s cramp, this being the fourth letter I’ve written tonite.

  A mere 203 days, and the Navy will be losing one of her most loyal children. She’ll also be losing me.

  With your kind permission, I will now end this fascinating epistle. Someone in the theater once said “always leave them wanting more.” I must learn to do that some day.

  Love,

  Roge

  23 January 1956

  Anchored still, or rather rooted, off Augusta Sicily—the stench from the town, if indeed that backed-up-sewer aroma can come out this far, is gone for the moment: maybe the wind is in the right direction

  Sometimes I think the Commissary Office should be renamed—it is used as a Crew’s Lounge and After Scullery. The cooks flock in at all hours, mostly after seven at night and before seven in the morning. They come armed to the teeth with coffee cups (which they slosh all over and then leave where they set them) and cigarettes (whose ashes cover the floor to a depth of an inch and a half at times). Also, officers inspecting the meals bring their trays in here and eat in the comparative seclusion of the office rather than mingle with the rabble on the mess decks. When they have finished, they get up and leave, and the trays remain behind. I am not now and never have been, nor never hope to be, a steward’s mate; I do not enjoy running dirty trays and cups back to the scullery after each tide of cooks and officers. I do not appreciate being chosen to run and get the Chief and Coutre a cup of coffee ten times a day—neither one of them are pregnant or physically incapacitated that I can see. But they are a Chief Petty Officer and a Second Class Petty Officer, respectively, a fact by which I cannot be duly awed.

  I never knew how aggravating “I” can become until listening to Mordeno for a while. He is the First Class Cook in charge of the bakery, and as I’ve mentioned before, is never without a cigarette and coffee cup. He has a little pot belly and a baby face (an old baby), and he spends far more time in the Commissary Office than he does in the Bake shop. This weekend he had the “duty chief” watch, and was in the office more than ever, with his feet propped up on Mr. Clower’s desk and his nose stuck in a pocket western. Whenever the phone would ring, the conversation would go something like this:

  “Commissary Office; Mordeno speaking, sir.—Yessir, I have.—Well, sir, I think I can have the men in one of my galleys arrange it.—Yes, sir, I sent two gallon jugs of coffee and one hundred and fifty cups to the beach guard.—Yes, sir, I’ll see to it immediately.
Yes, sir, I’ll have it all ready for you—twenty-five men, you say? Well, sir, you send them down and I’ll see that they get fed.”

  Or—and this is the one I really enjoyed:

  “Commissary Office, Mordeno speaking, sir. Yes, sir—just a minute sir.—Hey, Margason, you got a mess cook by the name of Andrews down here?” I say yes, we do.

  “Yes, sir,” says Mordeno, “I have a man by that name….” And he doesn’t have a damn thing to do with mess cooks.

  The crowning glory came one day when Coutre went into the galley to get a roll for breakfast. The mess cook didn’t know him and wasn’t sure if he should give him one. Enter Mordeno from the direction of the Bake shop, coffee cup in hand, to take over the situation. “That’s all right; give him one—he works for me.” Thank God the roll wasn’t jelly filled, or Mordeno would have looked awfully silly wiping strawberry preserves off his face.

  Oh, yes—latest scuttlebutt, hot off the flight deck. This one was caused by the sudden presence aboard of twelve civilian yard workers from the States. It seems that we are going back to the States this Friday!!! We somewhere along the line developed a twisted keel, which puts the flight deck slightly out of line and therefore is responsible for all the accidents we’ve been having.

  Unfortunately, they’re only here to get measurements for our new canted deck (strike Rumor No. #74 regarding “Canted Deck, Our Not Getting”)

  It would appear that there is basis for the twisted keel theory, since we never have been the same since the two kamikazes hit in 1945. The ship, when towed from the Pacific all the way to the east coast for repairs (her bilge pumps going all the while) had a fifteen degree list to starboard. One of her four screws to this day does not function properly, and when sitting dead still in calm water we still have a slight list to starboard!

  24 January 1956

  What’s this? Only five thirty? Will wonders never cease. I can’t give you too accurate a description of the day’s events because it isn’t over yet. About an hour ago, after eating supper, I decided to go to the movie, and went to the compartment to change from dungarees to Blues. When I got back, the office was dark and locked. The OOD was standing by wanting to get the evening meal evaluation chit. He’d been there for some time, waiting for someone with a key, I don’t have one, and had to run all over the ship looking for Coutre or Nick, or one of the MAAs. Nick and Cou had gone to the movies—the MAA with the key was nowhere around. The OOD glanced impatiently at his watch; he shifted his weight from one foot to the other; he paced back and forth. And all the while his face was slowly going through a Dorian Gray-ish transition. At long last he left, the rumble of his parting echoed through the mess decks, though not a word was said.

  Soon the missing MAA showed up with the key, and I grabbed the chit and hurried to the quarterdeck, where I presented it to the OOD with apologies for having him wait. He took it and said: “You’ll have to wait.” I didn’t. I came below to the office and called the Bos’un Mate of the Watch and told him that if ever the OOD signed it, to call us.

  After finishing the paragraph before the one above, the door opened and the OOD himself appeared with the chit, signed. And his comments were favorable. Oh, well, it all goes to prove something, but I’m not sure just what.

  A beautiful night—a steady, not at all unpleasant rain that wraps the whole world in a grey mist. Far off, on the calm grey sea, a liberty boat rode motionless and silent, with two black figures standing, one on the bow and the other on the stern, as though carved out of coal. It reminded me of Charon and his boat on the river Styx. If I were capable of walking on water, I’d like nothing better than going for a long, long walk.

  You know, sometimes I get that way—especially when we’re out at sea; the waves are as large as small hills and capped with white. I wish they would solidify, just as they are, and that I were the only person in the world, and could walk for years in the valleys and on the hills.

  Today’s scuttlebutt—one which is probably true, for a change—we are not going to Algiers because of the unrest there; instead we’ll be going to Valencia, Spain, which ought to be very nice.

  Tomorrow is the day of the tour, so let’s hope it is a nice day. Down to my last roll of film, so picture taking will have to be curtailed for a while. When I first joined the ranks of the “black shoe” navy, I began saving crisp new one dollar bills—the object being that saving fifty cent pieces wasn’t getting me very far, and that $1 bills were nicer. I hoped to wave the accumulated stack in Dad’s face and say: “See, I can save money.” At one time there were sixty-five of them—all crisp and crinkly and neat. Right now there are 47, and the pile is dwindling rapidly. I’ve decided to save crisp new twenties, which will be much harder but more valuable in the long run. Therefore it is my plan to draw my pay only every three paydays, leaving the rest on the books. With much care and less spending on my part, it might be possible. But, knowing me as I do, it is also highly improbable.

  A group of 150 orphans came aboard today—little boys and little girls with scrubbed faces and pink cheeks, wearing white smocks, the older girls wearing red-and black close-knit plaid dresses, long black stockings, and old maid shoes. There are so many orphans in Europe….

  I remember one little girl at Christmas, crying as if her heart would break because she got a teddy bear instead of one of the hundred identical dolls the other girls had gotten.

  It is rumored that the library has gotten some new magazines—the others are from about mid-December. I’ve got to go and see. Excuse me….

  ****

  Dear Folks—just got four letters from home—among them the pictures. I couldn’t have enjoyed them more—of course, I got violently homesick. Oh, well. You don’t know how wonderful it was to see home again, after over a year—you come home to it every night.

  Been showing them to everyone. Wish either I were there or you were here.

  Bye now

  Love Roge

  P.S. They made good time—only 5 days!

  25 January 1956

  One of those evenings when I feel unaccountably happy to be alive and proud to me a member of the human race (a young and slightly retarded species which occasionally shows signs of promise).

  The tour today was nice, but not really worth the money—there was too much riding; two and one half hours to Catania, two and one half hours back, and another half hour to Syracuse, which is in exactly the opposite direction.

  I drew several conclusions from it, however; the principle one being that Sicily is by far the most filthy, unattractive, and uninviting place I have ever seen (and in Europe, that’s going some). Its towns are huddled clusters of hovels, their unpaved streets lined with the thick-walled monotony of crumbling buildings.

  Like the rest of Europe, Sicily is a “land of contrasts,” but the good is so outweighed by the bad that the contrasts are dulled by the realization that there is no hope for improvement.

  Everything is old; even if a building has been recently built it is old. In the towns, bombed out and fallen buildings are everywhere. Those buildings still standing are being held up only by the tattered political posters plastered all over them.

  Never in my life have I seen so many stones; even they are rough, crude, and cumbersome, the color of very dirty linen. Probably because of their abundance they are the chief—no, the only—building material.

  Try building a house just by stacking stones on stones. The finished product is then covered with a very thin layer of plaster and painted some quick-fading color. It seems to be a contest to see whether the paint can fade faster than the plaster can flake off. I’d call it a tie.

  Wood is completely unknown, except on the thick brown doors. These are always open, showing a dark, tiny interior, amazingly dull. Against the back wall, over a heavy brown-stained vanity, is a cross or other religious symbol. Most of the houses are step-down-into; invariably a woman is seated at a table in front of the vanity, or standing in the doorway, with a very small child
peering out from behind her. Other children play in the streets, close in by the walls of the house. School children—all evidently between the ages of six and twelve (I saw none older)—wear black velvet-like smocks with a white collar and a blue string tie.

  Women in solid black trudge the streets, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. Old women, all wrinkles and grey hair, sit stooped on crude, heavy wooden chairs, staring into the past.

  Around the main square, if there is one, sit the men in baggy pants and dirty, patched shirts. Most of them wear suit-coats which may or may not give the impression they once matched the pants. They sit on the same crude chairs, propped back against a cracked wall, like the condemned at a mass firing squad, and watch our busses pass with no interest.

  The young men have long hair and wear ungodly combinations of remnant clothing.

  The war ended in 1945 but no one would know by looking at Sicily. German pillboxes line the roads, some with great jagged holes in the thick cement. The ruins of farmhouses stand gaunt and dead on the rocky ground.

  And the most aggravating thing is that the people don’t seem to care! At one point along the road, two ends of a large bridge reach for each other across a wide, dry river bed. Far below, sections of the bridge lie scattered about, and a large, broken arch leans as though it were wounded and falling. Grass grows on the edges of the bridge and weeds look down from the jagged ends.

  Instead of rebuilding this bridge, the government has built a whole new road, which twists down the steep banks, runs across a new, lower cement span, and then winds back up, to join the road on the other side.

  Why?

  26 January 1956

  A beautiful day, climatically if not emotionally. This morning we played a fascinating new game called “air your bedding.” This happens about once every six or eight months. It was published in the Plan of the Day, that OR and S-2 divisions would air their bedding from 0800 to 1230. My compartment (C-2116) was to place their mattresses on the catwalks between frames 76 and 80. So I trundled my mattress under my arm and set out. And could I find frames 76 to 80? I could not. I went under the assumption that said frames would fall somewhere between 70 and 90—a wild guess. I found frame 98 and walked forward till I came to frame 32—something was wrong.