Baa Baa Black Sheep

by Gregory Boyington

  After packing I returned to the bar and was given the hero’s farewell, no doubt the first one since the Marines last fought in Nicaragua. Finally Fella and I were ready to start for the West Coast, but it wasn’t until after the Negro bartender said: “Closin’ time, gentelmun, that’s all for tonight.”

  My parents came down to San Francisco from their apple ranch near Okanogan, Washington, to say good-by and pick up my car. My mother tried to talk me out of going on such a wild-goose chase. She said: “There are other ways of paying off one’s indebtedness.”

  My answer was: “Oh, don’t worry, Mom, I’ll get by okay. I haven’t got an enemy in the world.”

  A feeling of remorse came when I saw Fella standing on the clothes and uniforms, looking out the rear window as my mother and father drove off for Okanogan. The dog seemed to be saying: “Why are you leaving me? What have I done wrong?”

  Most of the pilots waiting to go overseas were two or three years younger than I was, and they had virtually no flying experience other than what they had received in flight school. Some I recognized as recent graduates from Pensacola. There was only one thing to believe, naturally; all of the vast experience was already in China.

  Another thing, these pilots were taking their golf sticks, tennis rackets, and dress clothes. I guessed they were proper in doing this, because the captain had said: “You will be gentlemen in every sense of the word. Wherever you are stationed, you will have an interpreter who will act as a valet.”

  Of course I didn’t know anything about the Orient, other than what little I had learned in school. And I didn’t believe that the United States would ever be at war. But I did stop to realize that anyone with twenty years of combat experience, which means something in most businesses, would have been buried for almost eighteen years. Come to think about it, the underwriters were making book on seven years for military pilots at this time. In addition, their actuarial figures didn’t have a damn thing to do with getting shot at in the bargain.

  And again, I must have been dragging on an opium pipe when Dr. Margaret Chung, of San Francisco, gave each pilot a jade charm on a silver chain to wear about his neck, and said: “You are now one of my many sons. I pronounce you Fair-haired Bastard Number——”

  Later the pilots referred to their charms, because they couldn’t remember the Chinese words, as “The Jade Balls.”

  We stayed in the little-known hotel for a very good reason, but conserving money didn’t happen to be it. How in hell the press never got the early scoop is beyond me! There must have been a minimum of ten bars in each square block in downtown San Francisco, and each of us was in every one of them during the two weeks, as had been the two detachments that preceded us. There was the captain, too, in uniform, with his prized “LaFayette Escadrille,” extra pair of wings, adorning the lower part of his blouse, which was the proper place to wear such an honor.

  Nobody seemed to know who we were, where we were going, or anything else, and apparently didn’t give a damn.

  * * *

  3

  * * *

  Ex-captain Curtis Smith of the United States Marine Corps Reserve was in charge of our detachment. Our recruiting captain had placed him in command, for he himself was remaining in the United States. Smith was thirty-five years old and had held the highest rank previously.

  Smith had plotted the entire trip in minute military fashion, although we were no longer military men. He had planned duties, watches, and even disciplinary measures. When Smith insisted on numerous occasions in gathering us together in platoon front and calling roll, he would address us in the most formal military manner. His bluest of blue eyes reflected like sapphires in the sunlight as he would go into his “Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli” act. The act was delivered in a strong, clear voice from Georgia. I thought at the time, and still do, “What a ham—what a ham.”

  Jesus, how I dreaded Smith’s formations. I had counted on getting away from it all when I resigned, and hoped for something better instead of something worse. How happy I’d be when the trip was over, and I no longer had to listen to him.

  Smith had been at Pensacola, where I instructed. After years in the business world he had just completed a refresher course, and he took the AVG job more seriously than any new Annapolis graduate would have. Standing there, trying to fit Smith somewhere into the future picture, I found myself worrying for the first time.

  Smith undoubtedly made me a little envious, too. He gave the impression of refinement, a department in which I was lacking, but I gave Smith credit for opening my eyes to the fact that a few, himself included, were not going for the remuneration alone. They were going to free the world for democracy, and were willing to give their lives if necessary. And, funny as it may seem, after a lengthy session in his cabin, one lonely blacked-out night at sea, he damn near had me convinced. Looking back, I think that he might have convinced me at that—if he hadn’t run out of whisky.

  When we left San Francisco, I knew that I was trying to escape my own common-sense reasoning. If this was strictly a service deal, our mission to further democracy didn’t quite gel. And I knew it. Hell’s bells, I was twenty-eight years old. I knew that the people I was traveling with couldn’t possibly be as different as night and day from those waiting for us to join them. Everything should have been clear to me then, but it wasn’t. American citizens were getting so much a head on us. Just the same as cattle. The two ingredients necessary to accomplish this human sale were greedy pilots and a few idealists.

  The taxicab stopped at Pier 40. When I arrived, some of my mates were carrying their belongings aboard ship. While Smith was paying the cabdriver, I took an inquisitive glance at the stern of this lady who would lug us halfway around the world. “Bosch Fontein, Batavia,” was in large letters on the stern. The name meant nothing to me, other than that it was Dutch. I don’t recall ever asking what it stood for.

  My concern for Smith’s formations left me as I walked slowly along the pier from the stern to the bow. Perhaps this came from a habit I had acquired in aviation of always walking completely around an airplane before climbing aboard.

  It was midmorning when I boarded the Bosch Fontein, home port Batavia, Java, wherever that was. Carl, a three-hundred-pound mess steward, explained to me later that the home port used to read “Amsterdam.” They had to change the home port because the Germans had occupied their fatherland. The entire ship’s crew had families in occupied territory.

  On many an evening I was with these Dutch crewmen sipping Bols Gin, which was their drink, listening to their tales of home and the rest of the world I hadn’t yet seen. They were gentle, friendly people. There wasn’t enough they could do for us. It was amazing, hearing these Dutch damn England with a far greater hatred than they had for the Germans who occupied their homeland, their loved ones practically in slavery. England was considered the basic cause for all this trouble.

  The lunch, with a choice of numerous entrees, was enjoyed by all. We were informed that this Dutch motorboat had a bar but that it didn’t open until we passed the three-mile limit. The first meal was not just put on to make an impression, for the quality and quantity continued throughout the lengthy voyage.

  The pilots had been having quite a ball in San Francisco, telling anyone interested in listening that they were missionaries. And we were equally loquacious in telling our new shipmates, approximately sixty people we had never seen before. During our first conversations these lovely people listened attentively, refraining from talking about themselves.

  At my table were two men and a woman doctor. But what I did not know, not until after I finished shooting my mouth off, was that the other three members of my table were honest-to-goodness missionaries. And furthermore, there were fifty-five of them aboard—men and women. How phony I felt. My orders on what to say, my passport, couldn’t possibly cover my feeling of embarrassment. If only I had let them talk first!

  Sixteen hundred, the Bosch Fontein was ready to pull ou
t. The recruiting captain, immaculate in a fresh uniform, presented Smith with a packet of sealed orders. He shook hands with us, placing an arm around each, telling us how badly he wanted to go overseas with us.

  The Bosch Fontein was fast for a combination freighter-passenger. She was doing about sixteen knots. As we stood on deck, looking up and back at the Golden Gate Bridge, we knew that we were finally on our way. By 1730 we had progressed beyond the three-mile limit, so the ship’s cocktail lounge was opened. Our twenty-seven gathered together in the ship’s lounge, which was to become our headquarters. Here we were occupied comparing notes upon our newly found traveling companions.

  We were trying to figure out how a clergyman gag would stick with a gang of long-hairs, like we thought these people were. What would we tell them? Or should we merely clamp up and be the strong, silent type?

  There happened to be three strangers in the bar. One I judged immediately to be a pilot because his eyes had crow’s-feet clear back to his ears. And his blue eyes—too blue to be described—peered out under half-closed lids.

  I had noticed this same man all day out of the corner of my eye before the ship sailed. He had been always walking by, as if trying to listen in on our conversation. A German spy maybe, because I darn sure didn’t know German from Dutch. And over to our table he came, saying: “Mind if I join you? I’m Bob Heising.”

  “What is the dope, boys?” he asked. “Where are you going? What kind of a deal have they got you on?”

  “There isn’t any deal,” we tried to answer. “We are members of the clergy. Just what it says on our passports.”

  “Oh, hold on a minute,” he laughed. “Let me in on the dope. I know pilots when I see them. I myself am going over to fly for KLM Airlines in Java.”

  “No, no, we are not pilots,” we repeated, remembering our orders.

  “Oh, now, come on, give me the dope.” He laughed again. “I have drunk myself out of enough jobs around the world to give you all a job.”

  “But, no, we are not pilots,” we tried to say again.

  But again Heising laughed: “When I see an Army Air Corps officer with LaFayette Escadrille wings on the bottom of his jacket, and practically kissing you all good-by at San Francisco, you can’t tell me you are a bunch of clergymen.”

  What the hell was the use, trying to kid a guy like Heising and being ridiculous? The answer: we didn’t. The idea that if you can’t lick them then join them came in handy.

  Bob Heising filled us with tall tales from practically all over the world. He told us about nearly getting killed one time in Mexico City when he and a couple other Americans went to see a bullfight, the reason being that they had persisted in shouting: “Viva el toro” all through the performance.

  Bob enlightened me on the fact that the pay we were getting was inadequate. The Dutch were paying pilots two thousand dollars per month. In defense I threw back: “How about the bonus of five hundred per shoot-down?”

  “Man, have you got rocks in your head for brains?” he inquired. “Or did you spend too long in the ring?” He obviously noticed the scar tissue above my eyes. Bob definitely started me thinking when he told me a different side of the equipment we were going up against. He said: “All Japs don’t wear thick glasses, if any glasses at all. Hell, they wear clear goggles, the same as you do, dope.” Right then I commenced dividing my financial future by denominators of varying size.

  At this time German submarines were knocking off shipping, but the Bosch Fontein’s crew was thoroughly trained in evasive maneuvers. Our pilots, too, stood watches in the crow’s-nest to help make the situation safer if possible. The voyage had its scares. Several times we spotted smoke on the horizon. One time I thought the Bosch Fontein was going completely over because her skipper turned the ship so sharply.

  From sundown to sunrise all ports were closed. No lighting of matches on deck was permitted. All garbage was saved until sunset, then tossed overboard, so that the ship would be a whole night’s run away from any submarine spotting the debris the following morning.

  Of course it took very little time before these genuine missionaries realized that we were traveling under false colors and weren’t missionaries at all. But the manner by which they let us know that they knew was done rather cleverly—not in the Heising manner.

  One day one of the real missionaries came up and asked if I would give the sermon for next Sunday’s services, explaining that the duty was rotated. I had to decline the invitation to lead the services. But I wish now that I had gone ahead and given it anyway, because then—today—I could say: “Well, I’ve done everything now.”

  As it was, the same missionary invited me to the next Sunday service aboard ship. He was one of the younger missionaries, and he himself gave the sermon. But as he did so (I was seated in one of the first rows) he seemed to direct the entire sermon at me and at the group I represented. His point was how horrible it was for people to fight for money.

  This sermon did leave an impression on my soul, lasting for a couple of hours, at least. Then I went back into the old routine of boredom and practical jokes with the other pilots: Three weeks at sea with ex-Captain Smith’s unnecessary regimentation, as I recall, had commenced getting on others’ nerves as well as my own, and one evening a couple of the pilots were putting up a mock fight in the dimly lighted ship’s corridor next to the bar. The fight sounded authentic enough. But I knew that it was a sham when Dick Rossi ran into the bar, pleading for help. Dick winked at me when I offered assistance, so I nodded, and then deliberately lagged behind. Smith officiously stomped from the well-lighted bar and into the corridor where the action was taking place. He held the two ruffians apart by the scruffs of their necks. A third party, unknown to me, planted a well-timed right on Smith’s eye.

  Poor Smith would have held a general court-martial right then and there, and said so, if there had been sufficient military-court experience among us. But unfortunately none of us had ever sat on a court-martial of any type. And again, the dear captain couldn’t possibly try twenty-six pilots. No one seemed to know who had committed the dastardly act.

  Four weeks out the tension mounted still higher, as we were unescorted and zigzagging all over the Pacific Ocean, it seemed. The pilots had begun to snarl at each other in earnest. A few had lost too much in card games. As for the others, I never knew what went on in their heads.

  One day when I was in the ship’s doctor’s office having a bothersome wart removed from my elbow, two pilots brought in the bloody and unconscious form of Bob Prescott. The doctor was in the middle of his cutting on my elbow when Bob came to and realized where he was. Bob reeled and started out of the door, saying: “Just hold everything, Doc.”

  “Vait vun minute. I fix you next,” the Dutch doctor called to Bob.

  But Bob left, saying: “Just wait here, Doc. I’m going out and bring you another customer.”

  At that particular moment I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I didn’t have to wait long. The doctor had just completed my simple operation and was bandaging my elbow when Prescott came back, being steadied by the same two pilots. Upon inquiring I was informed that Bob’s intended customer was six-foot-two-inch, two-hundred-twenty-pound Gunverdal, who wouldn’t have harmed a fly unless in self-defense.

  And I can never forget stopping by one of the poker games Gunverdal was seated in. He was apparently losing a large sum of money, and was laughing so hard that tears were running down his cheeks. Observing all this, I asked: “Gunny, if you’re so far behind, how come you’re laughing?”

  Gunverdal, amid bursts of convulsive laughter, said: “I’m not laughing, believe me, fellows. I’m crying.”

  What a long time without sighting land! The first visible land in about a month came one morning when I awakened to discover islands passing alongside. We were heading west in the Java Sea, north of the Sunda Isle. It was a tremendous relief to see land, even small patches of it.

  About a month out of Honolulu, where we had stay
ed only long enough to take aboard water, the Bosch Fontein had put into Soerabaja, Java, then into Batavia, then back to Soerabaja again, then finally to Singapore.

  It was not that we were completely disinterested in the sight of Soerabaja. Nor were we completely disinterested in the sights of Bali, which some of us got to visit while our vessel was laid up at Soerabaja. But I got a litte sick at one of the sights I saw on Bali. Maybe it was sort of religious ceremony of some kind, or maybe it wasn’t. But a beautiful Balinese girl was being held down on the ground while a priest was filing off her teeth. And even now, today, I can still hear the sound of that file. I had to hurry away. The rest of the scenery, though, I highly approved of. No brassieres and so forth.

  At Soerabaja I said good-by to Bob Heising, never to see him again. But I did hear about him. Three years ago I read in the newspapers that he had flown into the top of Mount Fugi in Japan.

  It would appear—though I don’t really know—that fate had turned off the switch on a great guy for the last time.

  * * *

  4

  * * *

  Leaving Java for good brought no regrets, brought little feeling for that matter, as I was anxious to be on my way. My feelings seemed to parallel my life of travel. I was forever going somewhere but never getting anywhere. For the most part I was always leaving some geographical location just prior to my being asked to leave. By uncanny foresight throughout my life I have been able to sense these critical departure points. Anyhow, I spent a lifetime priding myself that I had never been fired.