Morning Colors

by Sharon Timm

  It was time to love again. It was time to live again and be free from the past. Venice was about love and it had given her back the capacity to love. She would have time, in the peace and quiet of her sickbay, to make a plan. She couldn't say what the plan would be, but she knew it didn't include Luca Danieli.

  She still had to decide whether she was staying in or getting out. The other Chiefs had been right, though. She would be foolish to get out. She had a great career behind her and ten or twenty great years ahead. She could finish this sea tour and go back to Shore Duty. She could find someone special to share her life with; someone who could accept her terms and not expect her to walk away from her life for him. Someone who recognized her abilities and gave her credit for her accomplishments.

  The helicopter banked sharply over the glittering blue sea. Sam felt in her pocket for the blue chunk of glass. She pressed it in her hand as the sleek aircraft flared and landed gently on the helo deck of USS FORT DONELSON.

  Sam was given a hero's welcome. The Captain and the XO were both waiting to meet her as she entered the hangar. Doug gave her a quick hug then went back to his duties supervising the flight deck operations.

  Gena was waiting in the hangar with some of the other Chiefs. She wrapped her arms around Sam and squeezed her. "I was worried about you, Sam. Welcome home!" She studied the bruise on Sam's cheekbone, "Ouch!" she said, "What did that to you?"

  "Size ten Bosnian boot." Sam replied crisply. She was not in the mood to talk.

  Sam was surrounded by people who clapped her on the back, shook her hand and welcomed her back aboard the cruiser.

  Jim Buford draped an arm over her shoulders. "I missed you, Sam."

  "You missed messing with my mind."

  "What mind?" he replied.

  "Jerk!" she said.

  "Welcome back!" he said smiling.

  As soon as she could, Sam broke away from the crowd, and went to the Chief's mess. She was hungry. She made herself a quick sandwich, took a shower and changed into a uniform. Her khakis felt good. She was ready.

  For what, she wondered. What would she do now? Would she bury herself in her work and push Luca, Venice and all that had happened from her mind?

  Maybe, she thought, but she slipped the blue glass into her pocket before closing her locker door.

  She walked down the crowded passageway to her sick bay. "Welcome back!" her junior Corpsman said.

  A tall, skinny man was sitting at the desk, entering medical records into her computer database. She recognized him as the doctor who took over for her a week before. She found it hard to believe it had only been a week.

  "Good to see you again, Chief." he said extending his hand.

  Sam shook his hand and glanced around the small medical facility. "Is everything running smoothly?" she asked. The clinic was spotless and orderly. There were no records out of place and her paperwork baskets were empty. Obviously things were running just fine without her.

  "We're holding it together for you, Chief." her corpsman said grinning. "The Doc is doing everything you were doing, and I'm making sure he does it right."

  "Great!" Sam said. She hoped the disappointment she felt wasn't evident in her voice. "I'll be right back," she said.

  Sam walked up the steep, narrow ladder toward the XO's stateroom. The watertight hatch at the top of the ladder was closed and she had to squeeze through the small round opening called a scuttle. She hit her knee climbing out of the scuttle and swore softly to herself. Another bruise. Welcome home, she thought to herself.

  She was overwhelmed by a strange sensation of disappointment and uselessness. She was almost jealous of the doctor who was filling in for her. She'd secretly hoped to find her sick bay a mess. She'd hoped everything would have been turned upside down, requiring her expertise to set it all right. To not be indispensable was a blow to her ego, and she knew it. But, she knew, it wasn't her. The military was designed around standard procedures. Things were done a certain way because the reality of military life was that people would always move on. The new person would step in and pick up where the one before left off. The job at hand would always get done.

  Sam walked toward the XO's stateroom, changed her mind and turned around. She really didn't have anything to talk to the XO about. She opened the watertight door and stepped over the knee knocker onto the weatherdeck. She stood near the lifeline and stared out to sea.

  It was a warm day and the Adriatic was a sheet of polished glass. There were no waves. Sam shielded her eyes and looked up at the engine exhaust stacks. Only one turbine was on line. She looked down the side of the ship and into the water, noticing that there was no wake. The ship was drifting, saving fuel while its powerful radar screens inspected every inch of sea and air for miles. It was a beautiful day.

  Seagulls dove and swooped around the masts of the warship. They reminded her of the swallows at the vineyard.

  Sam strolled slowly along the deck, staring out at the horizon and trying not to think about Luca. Members of the crew who passed her shook her hand and congratulated her for the version of her heroics that they had heard.

  There were several stories circulating on board. None was very accurate. None mentioned the capture or the escape yet each ended with the assertion that the ship was underway because of a sinister plot uncovered by Chief Logan. They were waiting from a signal from shore to intercept a ship. There was excitement in the air. The ship's Boarding Team had been honing their skills for days and there was a team of Italian divers with scuba sleds on board who were also drilling and rehearsing.

  Sam smiled and shook her head. Even back on the ship this peculiar chain of events still held her in its unyielding grasp. More than ever she wished it would just end.

  The meaty hand that draped over her shoulder heralded her friend's arrival. "Hi, Sam," he said.

  "Hey, Doug. What's up?"

  "What's up with you, Sam? You're wandering around on deck staring out to sea and looking lost."

  "Not lost, really," Sam replied. "Just happy this thing is over with."

  "Not quite," Doug said, "but if Gena's right, it will be over real soon."

  "Gena's always right. Did a message come in?"

  "I guess. I just saw her running toward the XO's stateroom with a folder in her hand."

  The speaker behind them blared. "This is the Captain. FORT DONELSON has just received orders to intercept Chief Logan's ferry boat."

  Doug patted her on the shoulder as the Captain continued.

  "Assemble the boarding team on the starboard, mid-ships quarterdeck. Assemble all divers port side. Chief Engineer report readiness for full power to the bridge," the Captain finished.

  "This is it, but I'm not sure any of us know what it is, none of us but you, Sam."

  "Weapons are being smuggled in to Bosnia in a pod under a ferry boat." Sam said in a monotone, disinterested voice. The events of the last week seemed strangely distant and trivial to her now.

  "That explains the divers," Doug said. "And why they are on the port side."

  "I don't follow."

  "The pod probably has a manual release inside the boat."

  Sam nodded. "The Colonel said something about that."

  "Then it makes sense. While the boarding team’s skiff approaches the ferry from our starboard side, the divers slip over the port side, approach the ferry undetected underwater and secure the pod. I had to rig a whole bunch of steel cable on the port side stick-boom winch. Now I know why."

  Doug was right about most of the plan. He got busy as his men launched the rigid hulled inflatable boat, called a RHIB, so Sam wandered up to the pilot house to be at the center of the action.

  The Captain and XO were there. "Maybe I shouldn't have kicked her off the ship, Sir." the XO said loudly to the Captain, so that Sam would overhear.

  The Captain nodded seriously. "Could have caused and international incident," he mused.

  The bridge crew laughed together, and the XO handed Sam a pair of binoculars.
"Seriously," he said, "good job, Chief."

  Sam stared into the radar scope. A blip on the screen was leaving the Venice coast line. The Chief Engineer reported all four turbines on line. "Ready to answer all bells," he said.

  The Captain spoke quietly to the Officer of the Deck. "ALL AHEAD FULL!" was the order. "Fifteen degree right rudder, Steady on course three two zero."

  The enormous craft trembled to life as the muffled, high pitched whine of is four jet engines droned in the background. The rudder settled amidships as the helmsman straightened on course.

  Sam stepped onto the bridge wing. The gentle breeze strengthened as the ship picked up speed. As a precaution, Sam took her red ball cap off and tucked its brim into her waistband behind her. The wind tugged at her blond locks of hair. She stood next to the Starboard Lookout and they scanned the horizon with twin pairs of lenses.

  As Doug had predicted, the ship approached starboard side toward the ferry and hailed them by radio. The wide ferry slowed, disengaged its engines and drifted several hundred yards away.

  Sam crossed to the port side bridge wing and watched the Italian divers slip, undetected, into the water and disappear from view.

  She returned to the starboard side and observed from her vantage point, sixty feet above the water. The Boarding Team raced across the gap between the vessels and boarded the ferry. The ferry boat's Captain met the Boarding Team and welcomed them aboard and they spent a pre-determined amount of time on the civilian vessel, searching in all the wrong places for the contraband. Sam listened to their reports on the radio and imagined the divers below, securing the pod.

  She wondered how they would find the release lever. She didn't have to wonder long.

  When a radio call was received from the port side, a second boat was launched from the FORT DONNELSON. A person dressed in full scuba gear was clearly visible on board. Sam studied the ferry through her binoculars. Two men on the fantail of the ferry boat were watching the operation with interest. They bolted at the sight of the diver. They rushed to a ladder and descended into the ship.

  "We don't have to find the lever! They'll jettison it for us." Sam said to herself aloud.

  The Captain, standing next to Sam, laughed with satisfaction. "Exactly!" he said pointing to the two men who were disappearing from view. "Run below like good boys and release the pod. We've got it all on tape."

  Sam turned and glanced up at the closed circuit television camera that was trained on the other ship recording the boarding operation.

  The boarding team radioed that they were satisfied with the boat. The port side quarterdeck radioed, "Tension on the cable. Port side."

  On that signal, the boat with the diver turned around and returned to the ship. The two men who had run below were back on the fantail of the ferry. Sam watched them through the binoculars; they glowered at her ship, they glowered at her. They had lost. She had won. It was over.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The pod was hoisted on board moments after the ferry retreated from view. It took fifteen sailors to carry it back to the helo deck. Doug's people secured it with a cargo net and attached a helicopter cargo pendant. The Italian divers collected their gear, boarded the helicopter and they and the package were airlifted off the ship. The helo and its dangling cargo turned gracefully in the direction of the setting sun.

  Sam stayed for a moment on the forecastle and watched the evening glow in hues of gold which glittered across the sea. It was a gorgeous sunset. It was the end of a long day and the conclusion of a chapter in her life. It had been a strange chapter. She exhaled deeply, ran her fingers through her hair and went below for dinner.

  Sam quickly settled into her routine. It was good to be back on the ship. The doctor would remain on board for the rest of the cruise so they devised a plan to split the duties. She worked hard every morning and took it easy in the afternoon. The dead time frightened her, though not like it had before.

  She had come to terms with the nightmares of the past. The questions of her immediate past intrigued her, but they did not frighten her as much. She felt a dull ache within her. It was like the ache of loss, but more the ache of lost anticipation. Wondering what might have been was often the more unsettling aspect of her loss. What she worried about now was her future.

  A week passed. Then two. With each day the immediacy of Venice and her ordeal faded a bit more.

  Rumors about what had happened flourished. The stories grew daily but didn't come close to the reality of the experience. She smiled at some, frowned at others but kept her silence. When asked, she declined comment and walked away.

  The dull ache inside her lessened with time. Luca invaded her dreams at night and filled them with tenderness, frustration, anger and fear. The events of the long week in Venice were woven into the dreams and she woke more than once feeling the chill of the cemetery walls in her bones.

  The most unsettling dreams were the dreams of the vineyard. Waking up to the sunrise; helping Anna; walking with Luca through the vine tangled arbors; hearing the haunting strains of a guitar being played among friends. These themes recurred and spun themselves into dreams that ended with Luca's precious voice singing about love that does not return. Sam woke from these dreams sobbing, her face drenched with tears.

  Venice, Luca, and his vineyard, left her alone during the day, and that is when she wrestled with what to do next. She was wrestling with such thoughts when the public address system blared her name and ordered her to the XO's stateroom.

  The Career Counselor was waiting there when she answered the call. The XO met her with a stern look on his face and the counselor, as usual lately, looked a bit peeved.

  "We're running out of time, Chief." The XO was not smiling. "Are you staying in or getting out?"

  "Sir, I have been thinking..."

  "The Career Counselor tells me you have been thinking for the last two months. I need an answer. With the amount leave you have coming to you, Chief, you could have been home two weeks ago. No more fooling around. I need an answer."

  The Career Counselor handed the XO a piece of paper.

  "Before you decide, Chief, read this."

  "What is it?" Sam asked.

  "Hospital Corpsman Chiefs just became eligible for an early separation incentive." the Career Counselor explained. "The message came in today. If you want to get out, you could get a nice severance package."

  Sam's eyes darted around the stateroom. She was cornered. She couldn't get around this anymore. She would have to decide, and the decision just became a harder one to make. She tossed the message on the XO's desk.

  "I'll stay." she said.

  "You're sure?" the XO queried.

  Sam nodded.

  "When do you want to reenlist?" the counselor asked.

  "What is our next liberty port, XO?"

  The XO looked at Sam. "I wasn't supposed to say anything yet, Chief, but we'll be pulling in to Corfu, Greece in two days."

  "Pier-side or anchored out?" she asked.

  "Pier-side."

  "Fine, Sir. Corfu, Greece. First morning in port. Morning Colors, on the forecastle." Sam's decision, once made, was easy to live with. She stopped short at the door, her hand on the knob. "XO? When we get to port I want to take some time off. I didn't get any in Venice."

  The XO didn't answer. He narrowed his eyes and studied her. Smiling, he nodded and turned to the counselor. "Get the paperwork ready," he ordered.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Thursday flew by in an instant and the following evening the ship pulled into Corfu. Sam stayed on board, and woke early the next morning, the day of her reenlistment. She'd slept peacefully the night before. Her dreams were quiet and she woke rested and ready. It was Saturday.

  She had no doubts. She was going to reenlist for six years. It was the maximum term she could sign up for. It would put her over sixteen years of service when it was over. Just four years shy of a retirement. She could retire at thirty-seven, still young enough to start a new car
eer. Maybe then it would be the time to learn Italian, she thought.

  She swung gently out of the top rack and dropped to the floor. She went through the morning routine, only today she dressed in her summer whites. She pinned on her four rows of ribbons, many decorated with gold stars, and centered her crossed cutlasses over the ribbons.

  She sat next to Doug at breakfast.

  "Today is the Day," he commented.

  "Yeah. I guess it is." she said.

  Doug studied her with his piercing eyes. "Are you sure about this, Sam?"

  "Sure, I'm sure," she said. "Why wouldn't I be sure?" Sam stared at her bowl of cereal avoiding contact with Doug's investigating eyes.

  "You never told me what happened in Venice."

  "I had a rough week. Some bad things happened. That's about it," she replied.

  "Really, Sam?" Doug sat back and crossed his arms. "Nothing good happened that week?"

  "What do you mean by good, Doug?"

  "I mean that guy. What was his name? Luca something?"

  "There's nothing to talk about."

  "Meaning there IS something to talk about," Doug insisted.

  Sam looked at her watch. "I have to get ready. I'm reenlisting in twenty minutes."

  "Sure, Sam. See you on the forecastle."

  Sam hated the way Doug could read her like a book. He knew her too well. She thought about Venice as she centered the golden anchor on the band of her hat, placed it squarely on her head and climbed the ladder up to the weatherdeck.

  Corfu was beautiful. The morning sun glistened off the sapphire waters of the port. The white sand beaches glowed and the white buildings with their terracotta shingled roofs gleamed. She breathed deeply savoring the port smells. The salty aroma of the sea mingled with the spice of the gyro shop across the pier from the ship.

  Sam stared at her blue chunk of glass. She carried it with her always, even though she didn't believe, as Doug had suggested, that anything good had happened to her in Venice. She wondered, still, how Luca was. She was sure he would have nearly recovered by now.