“Thanks anyway, sir. But I just type.”
* * *
“Any ideas on the A-6 crash?” Cowboy Parker asked. He was seated in his raised easy chair on the left side of the flag bridge. From this vantage point, he could see the activity on the flight deck without rising from the chair. A stack of paperwork lay on the window ledge in front of him.
Jake told him what Majeska had said. “I think he’s probably lying,” Jake concluded. “We’ve checked these lox systems from here to Sunday and they’re perfect. Jelly Dolan may have had the oxygen system in his Tomcat go out on him, but I don’t think Bull did. The probability of that happening twice without defective shipboard oxygen equipment is astronomical.”
“And you’re damn sure the shipboard equipment is okay?”
“Positive.”
“Did you tell Majeska you think he’s lying?”
“Yes, sir. I did.”
“And he stuck to his story.” Cowboy Parker cocked his head and scratched it. “So if he lets it lay like this, he’ll get hammered in the accident report. And he knows you’ll rip him on his fitness report. He might even be relieved of his command. He’s finished in the navy.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Yet for him that’s preferable to telling the truth.”
Jake held both hands out. “If he’s lying.”
“What the hell could he have done in that cockpit?”
“It’s probably something he didn’t do.”
“But what?”
Jake shrugged helplessly.
“If you know he’s lying, why don’t you relieve him now?”
“I don’t know anything. I have a hunch he probably is. He even hinted he was. But you don’t can a guy on hints or hunches.”
“We have a missing bombardier. What’s his name? Reed? He’s undoubtedly dead. I expect some answers. We aren’t going to flush this down the John and go on our merry way.” Cowboy Parker’s face was devoid of emotion. “If you can’t get the truth out of Majeska, you send him up here to me.”
“Give me some time, Admiral.”
Cowboy turned his face toward the deck below. Sailors in blue and yellow jerseys were busy moving aircraft. The snorting of the flight deck tractors was inaudible this high in the island.
“Has the Wedel recovered any of the wreckage?”
“Some skin panels. A piece of the radome. Half a flap.”
“What do you want me to do in this skit of yours tonight?”
“Let’s cancel the skit. I’m fresh out of chuckles. Just plan on presenting those centurion patches. Maybe make a few remarks.”
Cowboy picked up a document from the stack on the ledge. “See you there.”
“Yessir.” Jake saluted.
* * *
Jake stopped in a berthing compartment on the O-3 level, aft of the arresting gear machinery spaces. The passageway went right through the compartment, which berthed over eighty men. In one small area where two passageways met, the sailors in their underwear sat on folding chairs around a metal cruise box, playing cards. Jake leaned against a bunk support and watched the game. Several of the men acknowledged his presence with a nod, then ignored him. This was their territory and he was a senior officer, an outsider.
The air was musty, laden with the tang of sweaty bodies and dirty clothes. Air circulation in here was impeded by the curtains that isolated the various bunks. The place resembled an old railroad Pullman car. In the last few years the upper echelons of the navy had devoted much thought to improving habit-ability in sailors’ berthing compartments and getting rid of these curtains, yet the curtains remained. A curtain on his bunk was all the privacy a sailor had. Only in his bunk could a man write a letter or read a magazine without someone looking over his shoulder.
Soft music came from one of the top bunks. A male voice sang slowly, clearly,
It was way past midnight,
And she still couldn’t fall asleep,
This night her dream was leaving,
She’d tried so hard to keep,
And with the new day’s dawning,
She felt it drifting away,
Not only for a cruise,
Not only for a day.
“Turn that damn thing off, Willis, you jerk.” The speaker was one of the cardplayers, about twenty, with intense eyes and sandy hair that needed trimming.
“I live here too, Ski,” came the voice from the bunk. The piano was light and haunting.
Too long ago, too long apart,
She couldn’t wait another day for
The captain of her heart
“Don’t you have earphones for that blaster?” called the black man seated beside the sandy-haired guy.
“Yeah.”
“Then either use them or turn the damn thing off, man. We don’t want to listen to that crap.” The saxophone wailed plaintively.
As the day came up she made a start,
She stopped waiting another day for
The captain of her heart.
“I ain’t gonna ask you again, Willis,” the black man said ominously.
The music died abruptly.
“Who’s dealing the fucking cards?”
* * *
An endless army of small clouds drifted across the face of the sea. Jake stood on the forward edge of the flight deck with his hands in his pockets and braced himself against the motion of the ship’s bow as she met the swells. The clouds were puffy and white and cast crisp shadows that turned the water a darker, deep intense blue that was almost black. The clouds and shadows moved from starboard to port, spanking along in a stiff breeze.
The Mediterranean under an infinite sky with the clouds and shadows cast by a brilliant sun — this had been the inspiration for poets and singers ever since the days of Homer, and probably even before. Odysseus had sailed these waters on his way home from Troy, as had Phoenician galleys, Roman traders. This ocean was the living heart of Western civilization.
And now another man lay beneath the waters in a sailor’s grave.
Twenty-three years in the navy, nine cruises, one war — he had seen it and lived it so many times. Flight deck accidents, crashes, lives twisted and smashed and snuffed out … bloody threads woven into this tapestry of young men far from home, young men trying to grow up in a man’s world.
And what of you, Jake Grafton? Have you made a contribution? Has the price you paid made a difference? To whom? What have you done that another couldn’t have done in your place?
Tired and depressed, he walked over to the port side and went down the short ladder into the catwalk. At the for-wardmost portion of the catwalk was a mount for a set of binoculars which a lookout could use when the ship entered or left port, or in foul weather. He leaned against the binocular mount and watched the cloud shadows move across the white-caps.
Being a navy wife had not been easy for Callie. She had grown up in a family where the father had come home every night, where the rituals of dinner and socializing with neighbors and colleagues and going to church on Sunday had all been complied with. Married to Jake, the only rituals scrupulously observed were good-byes and homecomings. Not that he and Callie had ever really had a home, of course, what with two years here and two years there.
Maybe he would have left the navy if there had been children. They had wanted children, and it never happened. It was in the third year of their marriage that they decided to have a child. After six months off contraceptives, they had consulted a doctor. Jake recalled the experience vividly, since he had been required to take a bottle to the restroom and masturbate into it. Never in his life had he felt less interested in sex than he had at that moment, with his wife on the other side of the door and fully aware of what was going on in here.
When at last he emerged from the little room with his semen sample in hand, slightly out of breath, Callie and the woman doctor were discussing the sexual act in graphic, explicit terms — clinical details that somehow sounded more obscene to Jake tha
n any locker room comment he had ever heard. He had handed the sample to the nurse and sat at attention in the chair beside Callie while the women plowed the territory — ovulation and timing and body temperature and the position of the penis in relation to the cervix — with only occasional glances in his direction. “Be fruitful and multiply,” the doctor had said, and sent them forth armed with a complex chart that Callie posted on their bedroom wall and annotated diligently.
He had received telephone calls from Callie in midafternoon at the squadron, joyous proclamations that now was the hour. He remembered whispering embarrassed excuses to the operations officer, dashing madly home, and ripping off his clothes as he charged through the door.
Callie collected a library of sex manuals. He could still see her sitting naked in bed, legs folded, studying an illustrated manual he had purchased from a giggling female clerk whose eyes he had been unable to meet. Their lovemaking became desperate as they experimented with positions, Callie’s hunger a tangible thing. He suspected she was continuing to see the doctor, but he didn’t ask and she didn’t volunteer.
Then, finally, the crying began, hysterical sobbing that continued for hours and he could not console. He had felt so helpless. After almost a month the crying jags stopped. Their love-making became relaxed, less athletic, more tender. Those gentle hours he now treasured as the high points of his life. One day he noticed the wall chart was gone. The sex manuals were also missing from the closet. He pretended not to notice.
And he had spent so many months, so many years, away from her!
For what?
Tired beyond words, Jake Grafton turned and walked aft along the catwalk.
* * *
The squadron skits were over and the centurion patches handed out that evening when Jake finally stood up at the air wing officers meeting in the main wardroom. Apparently no one noticed that the air wing staff officers hadn’t seized this opportunity to make fools of themselves. Every chair in the room was taken and people stood along the bulkheads. Bull Majeska sat in the front row with the other squadron skippers. Admiral Parker had excused himself earlier and left for the flag spaces. The dinner service had been completed an hour before the meeting started, yet the stained tablecloths remained on the tables. The combined body heat was overloading the air conditioning system.
“Okay, gentlemen. Now we find out who the real carrier pilots are and who just talks a good line. Without further ado, the LSOs.” Jake clapped as he sat down, but he was the only one. A resounding chorus of boos made the walls shake.
Lieutenant Commander Jesus Chama, the senior landing signal officer — he was attached to Jake’s staff and flew F/A-18s — stood up with a wide grin and motioned for silence. He was of medium height and sported a pencil-thin mustache on his upper lip. “Thank you. Thank you all. I can’t tell you how gratifying a welcome like that is. It warms our teeny little hearts.” More boos.
“The list, please.” Chama held out his hand with a flourish. One of his fellow practitioners of the arcane art of “waving” aircraft, of scrutinizing an approach to the ship from a small platform beside the landing area and helping the pilot via radio when necessary, handed him a sheet of paper. Chama held it at arm’s length, squinted, and slowly brought it toward his face. When he had the paper against his nose, he lowered it with a sigh and took a set of glasses from his trouser pocket. The glasses were a prop Chama had slaved on for hours in the air wing office. The bottoms of two Coca-Cola bottles were inserted in the frame in place of lenses. Chama had had to heat the plastic frame and bend it to make it hold. He had destroyed three frames in the process. Now he carefully placed his masterpiece on his nose, hooking the earpieces behind each ear.
As the laughter rose to a roar Chama started the list at arm’s length again and slowly worked it inward. When it reached his nose, he shouted, “Third place, squadron boarding average, the Red Rippers.” The VF-11 skipper stood up beaming while his officers cheered and clapped behind him. Everyone else hooted derisively.
The LSOs graded every approach to the ship, and a running score sheet for every pilot was posted in the ready rooms. A squadron average was an average of the individual scores of every pilot attached to that squadron.
Chama handed out the second- and first-place squadron awards, then began on individual awards. After third and second were handed out, he motioned to Jake. “Sir, maybe you better give this last one out, I don’t have the stomach for it.” Jake stood and looked over Chama’s shoulder at his list.
“Him?”
“Yessir.”
“Couldn’t you have fudged it up or something? Everyone knows you guys rig the scores, anyway.”
“Sir!” Chama feigned outrage.
“This is very painful,”
“You must do your duty, sir,”
“I suppose.” Jake sighed and looked through the faces in the crowd for the one he wanted. When he found it, he said, “Okay, Wild, get up here and collect your award.”
A storm of applause followed as Major Wild Blue Hickok, an exchange pilot from the U.S. Air Force, made his way through the crowd. By the time he arrived beside Jake, his face was flushed.
“Wild here, in his grungy air force flight suit, had a boarding average for this at-sea period of 98.2. That’s figured on ninety-two passes over almost four months. Gentlemen, that is one hell of an accomplishment and, so far, stands as a record for United States. Wild, have you ever given any thought to an interservice transfer?”
“No, sir. Not since the air farce announced it’s going to issue leather flight jackets again,”
Howls of glee greeted this remark. After forty years of nylon and nomex, the air force had recently announced leather jackets would soon be issued to combat-qualified flight crewmen as a career retention measure. The navy men were suddenly extremely proud of the fact that the navy — their navy — had never abandoned its World War II policy of issuing leather jackets to its aviators. Wild had been ribbed unmercifully by his navy comrades, many of whom had taken it upon themselves to personally inform Wild that anyone who would stay in any military service to get a leather jacket was a damned fool.
When Wild Blue and the LSOs were finally seated, Jake had the floor to himself. He waited until the crowd was silent. “We’ve been at sea for almost four months, flying every day but three, and you guys have done an outstanding job. You’ve kept the airplanes properly maintained and in the air. We’ve met our commitments. We’ve done the job the navy sent us here to do. I’m proud of each and every one of you.”
He faced the squadron skippers. “I want you gentlemen to let every enlisted man in your squadrons know that I am equally proud of them. Without our troops the planes wouldn’t fly.”
He directed his attention back to the faces in the crowd, the bulk of whom were young pilots and naval flight officers on their first or second cruise. “This profession of ours requires the best that we can give it. Three men who were here for our last little soiree aren’t here tonight. Sometimes your best isn’t good enough, and you have to live with that. Sometimes nobody’s best is good enough. Those are the hazards.”
Out of the corner of his eye Jake saw Bull Majeska staring at the floor. Jake picked out a young face he did not recognize about ten rows back and tried to talk to him. “In wartime officers are promoted due to their ability to lead in battle. In peacetime, too often, they are promoted because they are good bureaucrats. In case you guys haven’t figured it out, the navy is a large bureaucracy.” Chuckles stirred the crowd.
“Pushing paper isn’t enough. And driving an airplane through the wild black yonder isn’t enough. There is something else, something that’s a little difficult to put into words.” All this had seemed so simple this afternoon in his office as he doodled and thought about what he wanted to say.
He put his hands in his pockets and walked to a new position, then searched again for that anonymous, smooth young face he had been talking to. “You have to have faith — faith in yourself, faith in
the guy beside you, faith in your superiors, and faith in the people who work for you.
“You see, a military organization is a team of people who have to rely on each other. The more complex our equipment becomes, the more intricate our operations, the greater the reliance has to be. We can’t function unless every man does his job. We must all do the absolute best we can, each and every one of us. We’ll each do our part. We’ll stick together. We’ll accept responsibility. Not for personal gain, not for glory, not for promotion, not for …” He ran out of words and searched the faces looking at him.
Did they understand? Could they understand? It sounded so trite when he said it aloud. Yet he had believed it all his adult life and had tried to live it.
“You must have faith. And you must keep the faith.” The faces, these faces, tan, black, brown; he had been looking at these faces for twenty years. Even the names were the same, American names, from every dusty, weary corner of the earth. And the nicknames — Slick, Box, Goose, Ace — all the same. He felt old and worn. He walked toward the door and a lieutenant standing near it called the room to attention.
12
Jake Grafton hurried to keep up with Captain James as he loped along over the knee-knockers and down the ladders. Behind Jake trailed the ship’s Damage Control Assistant — a lieutenant commander — and a first-class petty officer with a clipboard. The captain’s marine orderly followed them all.
The official weekly inspection of the ship for cleanliness and physical condition was accomplished by junior officers — lieutenants and below — who each received a group of twenty to thirty compartments, a “zone,” which they toured and graded and commented upon. But Captain James liked to inspect random compartments from several zones, then compare his observations with the written comments of the junior officers assigned those zones. When the official inspectors missed serious discrepancies caught by the captain, or gave a satisfactory or above-average grade to a compartment the captain judged unsatisfactory, lively, one-sided discussions ensued on the bridge near the captain’s chair, with the offending young officer standing at nervous attention and saying “Yessir” or “Nosir” at the end of every one of the captain’s sentences. Consequently, aboard United States the junior officers hunted through the compartments for discrepancies like starving rats searching for crumbs, and the harried sailors worked like slaves to keep the ship clean, with all her myriad of systems in good working order.
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