“Hello there, Stinkpot,” said the Chief of Naval Operations, using the Academy nickname that Admiral Hughes had stamped out among all officers except the few senior to him. “What’s this business that Nasser is screaming about Southeast of Crete? Over.”
“All we know is what we picked up from Cairo radio,” said the Admiral. “It wasn’t one of my ships. Over.”
“Well, you know we looked pretty foolish on that Liberty incident,” said the CNO. “Are you sure nothing like that is happening again? Over.”
“I’ve made an ironclad check on every Sixth Fleet ship out here. There’s nothing east of Crete except a Polaris sub and she’s been submerged all the time. Over.”
“Okay. Thanks, Stinkpot. Over and Out.”
At the Security Council meeting that morning, the CNO led off. “Mr President,” he said, “I can assure you that no U.S. Navy ship was involved in this thing. We have no idea what it is all about.”
“Is this another cloak and dagger job, like the Liberty?” asked the President, fixing a stony stare on the head of CIA.
“This has nothing to do with CIA,” said our head spy. “But I can’t speak for the Defense Intelligence Agency ... The Liberty belonged to them, you know, not CIA.”
“DIA had nothing to do with this,” said SecDef frostily.
The CNO and the CIA glanced at each other, raised their eyebrows and shrugged skeptically.
“Well, then, what do you make of this broadcast from Cairo?” demanded the President.
“It could have been an Israeli ship,” said SecDef.
“Or it might just be propaganda for local consumption in Cairo, where the news hasn’t been very good lately,” observed CIA.
“Or a ship belonging to any one of a dozen naval powers in the Med,” said the Secretary of State.
“If one of our ships had been involved in an incident like this, it would have been reported by radio immediately,” said the CNO.
“So what do we do now?” asked the President. “Should we issue a denial of this?”
“Certainly not, sir,” said the Secretary of State. “So far, all we know is what we overheard on Cairo radio. We can’t take any official notice of that. If they are serious about this, they will send us a formal diplomatic note about it.”
That afternoon the Egyptian Ambassador handed the Secretary of State a blunt note. It said that the USS Turtle, a spy ship, had made an unprovoked attack on a small Egyptian naval craft two hundred miles SE of Crete, firing several dozen six-inch shells at the Egyptian. The Turtle, identifying number U-1, mounted a thirty-foot radar dish, was flying the American flag, and was disguised as a cargo barge. The note demanded an apology, punishment of the pirates, and an indemnity of ten million dollars.
A State Department courier rushed this note to the Pentagon, where a group of flabbergasted Admirals puzzled over it.
“This thing is crazy,” said the Vice Chief. “You don’t try to disguise a ship and fly your own colors from it. There is no USS Turtle and no ship has a number anything like U-1. A ship big enough to carry a thirty-foot radar dish and six-inch guns has to be at least a destroyer. This simply cannot be an American ship.”
“We can’t find any foreign ships that fit this description either,” said the head of Naval Intelligence. “And I can’t imagine how you can disguise a big ship to look like a barge.”
“Maybe they’re seeing little men from Mars,” observed CNO. “After what happened to them in the past five days, I don’t blame them for thinking anything is possible.”
“It could be an Israeli ship,” said the Vice Chief.
“I doubt it,” said the Chief. “If it had been an Israeli, the Egyptians would have been sunk. The Egyptians just got the wrong address on this note. That’s all we can say about it.”
The upshot of all this was that after much skeptical crosschecking by the White House with the Navy Defense Department, and CIA, the State Department answered the Egyptian note simply saying, “This wasn’t our ship.” By this time Nasser was so busy shooting his Generals, sinking ships in the Suez canal, and opening accounts in Swiss banks that the Turtle’s buccaneering was dropped.
Chapter Twelve
USS Turtle Joins Flying Dutchman
The day after the ceasefire in the Near East found peace and brotherly love rampant all over the world except in Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Africa, parts of South America, and some of the big cities of the United States.
That afternoon the USS Turtle was proceeding on duty assigned (in a manner of speaking, that is), alert and ready to defend the maritime interests of the United States against all enemies in the Eastern Med. She was steering course 090 at ten knots, in one thousand fathoms of water, under high scattered clouds, wind NE at three knots.
Since no adversaries were within visual range at this time, the Turtle was not actually at battle stations. Satchmo had the wheel, and everyone else was caulking off in the sun on the well deck.
Suddenly Satchmo spun his wheel hard over to port, let out a yell, and pulled the general alarm. The ship swerved sharply to port and took a list to starboard, as all hands scrambled to their feet and over to the side to see what was happening.
“What the hell’s coming off here?” yelled Fatso at the bridge.
“A gahdam floating mine, Cap’n!” yelled Satchmo, pointing at the water broad on the starboard bow.
Sure enough, there was the top of a round object about five feet in diameter, floating past about twenty feet to starboard.
This sight produced a unanimous awed comment from all hands: “Son-of-a-BITCH!”
Then a large wedge-shaped head poked itself up out of the water alongside the “mine.” Two wise old eyes regarded the USS Turtle gravely for a moment. Then the head disappeared, two big clumsy feet came out of the water on the other side, and the “mine” plunged down out of sight.
“A great big gahdam TURDDLE,” declared Jughaid.
“Yeah. That’s what it was, all right,” agreed Fatso.
“Mah mistake, Cap’n,” called Satchmo, apologetically, spinning his wheel to get back on course.
“Okay, Satch,” replied Fatso. “This ain’t the first a turtle’s been mistook for a mine. I seen old Admiral Halsey himself turn the whole Third Fleet ninety degrees on account of one during the war.”
During the usual discussion of world affairs that evening, the subject of turtles came up.
“Some of them turtles get to be over a hundred years old,” declared Scuttlebutt.
“Yeah,” agreed Webfoot. “When I was in UDT, we had a trained turdle that used to help us find moored mines. Bosco was his name, and he’d come when you called him.”
“Even if that was so I wouldn’t believe it,” declared Scuttlebutt.
“Well, it is so,” said Webfoot. “But he found one mine too many and got turned into instant turtle soup one day.”
“I read in a book one time that turtles travel around the world,” said Ginsberg. “It told about a turtle that was banded in the Galapagos Islands and was caught out here in the Med, halfway round the world from where he was born, six months later.”
“How did he make the trip,” asked Scuttlebutt, “around the Horn or the Cape of Good Hope?”
“How the hell would I know?” asked Ginsberg. “He mighta gone through Suez or Panama easy enough.”
“Don’t you believe a word of what that book said,” advised Fatso. “Turtles spend their whole life right near where they are born.”
“How do you know?” demanded Ginsberg.
“When I was in boot camp,” said Fatso, getting the story-telling gleam in his eye, “Old Bosun Biggs told us all about turtles. The Bosun started out as one of the old-time apprentice boys they used to have back in 1902 when he joined up. They don’t have that rate any more. The Navy decided there would never be any more real sailormen like the Bosun and abolished it. All us boots figured the Bosun must of served with Noah in the Ark. Anyway, he was our instructor in boot camp back
in 1940 when I first shipped. He made the cruise with the Great White Fleet in 1907, when old Teddy Roosevelt sent it around the world. He was a seaman second class then, on the Maine - not the one that got blowed up in Havana, the next one. The Bosun said he went ashore in a swimming party at Pango Pango, and they found this great big turtle asleep in the sand. He musta been damn near a hundred years old. A bunch of them rolled the old boy over on his back and Biggs carved his name and rate on the bottom of his shell. Almost twenty years later, Biggs made the Australian cruise in the Idaho. By then he was a Chief Boatswain. When the fleet stopped in Pango Pango on the way out, he took a swimming party ashore to that same beach and there was a big old turtle asleep in the sand again.”
“Was he still on his back?” asked the Professor.
“No,” said Fatso indignantly. “They had rolled him back on his belly and let him loose back in ‘07. But anyway, they rolled this turtle over on its back, and by Gawd it was the same old guy. There was the name and rate carved in his shell. ‘J Biggs, CHIEF BTSN, USN’.”
“I’ll be gahdam,” commented several listeners.
“So all that stuff about turtles wandering around all over the world is a lot of horse crap,” said Fatso.
This discussion was interrupted by the armed forces radio news. Now that peace had reared its bruised and battered head in the Near East, Vietnam was back in the headlines.
“Washington: At a special press conference today, the Secretary of Defense announced that we are making satisfactory progress on all fronts in Vietnam. He said the recent disorders within the city limits of Saigon have been suppressed. Rockets are still falling around the U.S. Embassy and Army HQ, but most of the large organized units of the Vietcong have been driven back to the suburbs. The body count for the past week has been twenty to one in our favor, and our strategic planners say the VC cannot stand such an exchange rate much longer. The Secretary said it is our firm intention to continue gradual escalation of pressure on the enemy until he sues for peace.”
(The idea is to just barely win the war,” observed the Professor.) The broadcast continued:
“In reply to questions by the press about mining Haiphong Harbor, the Secretary pointed out that merchant ships of many of our allies, including England, France, Japan and the Philippines, use this harbor, and we do not wish to jeopardize noncombatant ships of friendly countries by mining it.”
“With those kind of friends and allies, we don’t need any enemies,” observed the Judge.
“But we’re sure whopping the hell out of ‘em,” said Jughaid.
“How do you figure that?” asked the Professor.
“The man said we’re beating them twenty to one.”
“That don’t mean much,” observed the Professor. “It all depends on how you set up your computers. How many gooks does it take to make it an even swap for one Marine? I figure the break-even point is about one hundred to one. For ten thousand dead Marines, we oughta kill about a million gooks. But that’s a hell of a lot of Marines.”
“This reminds me,” said Fatso, “of the one Will Rogers used to tell about when the Japs first invaded China. He was on a ship going to Honolulu and had a Chinese waiter at his table who brought him the radio newssheet each morning. The first day, it said ten Japs and two hundred Chinese killed. The next day it was fifty Japs and one thousand Chinese. The third day, one hundred Japs and ten thousand Chinese. Each day the Chinaman had a bigger grin, and Will finally asked him how come? He said, ‘Plitty soon no more Japanese.’ We got about the same deal now.”
While the boys were mulling over that story, Satchmo, who had remained thoughtfully aloof during the news, piped up and said, “Cap’n, there’s one thing about that big turtle at Pango Pango that I can’t quite figure out.”
“What’s that, Satch?” asked Fatso.
“How come that turtle knew that Biggs had been promoted from Seaman Second to Chief Bosun?”
“Well, you see,” said Fatso, but before he could explain this point the radio loudspeaker came in with more important news.
“Washington: The Egyptian government today sent the United States a formal protest of an alleged attack on an Egyptian naval vessel by the USS Turtle, southeast of Crete. The Egyptians say the Turtle is a spy ship, and made an unprovoked attack on their ship with six-inch guns. The Pentagon states that there is no such ship as the USS Turtle, and that no U.S. ships were within two hundred miles of the scene of the alleged attack. The State Department is replying to the note saying this was not an American ship.”
For several moments a flake of dandruff falling in the messroom would have made an audible thud.
Then all hands said, nearly in one voice, “Holy cow!” and focused their gaze on Fatso.
“Well, now, whaddya know?” observed Fatso, and for some time, nobody claimed to know anything.
Finally the Professor said, “Looks like maybe we better scuttle this bucket tomorrow and enlist in the Foreign Legion.”
“Let’s not be too hasty about this scuttling business,” said Fatso. “But we gotta decommission the Turtle - that’s for sure. First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll dismantle that radar dish and drop it overboard. I want to cut off those pig stickers we got on our bows and paint our right numbers back on.”
“How about that tank?” asked Scuttlebutt. “Hadn’t we better drop that overboard, too, and get rid of that six-inch gun?”
“Drop a perfectly good tank overboard?” said Fatso, indignantly. “You must be nuts. Them things cost about a hunnert thousand dollars.”
“Yeah. But as soon as they’re issued to the fleet, the Supply Department scratches them off the books. This one is bought, paid for, and expended now. I think we ought to get rid of it as part of decommissioning the Turtle.”
“No-o-o!” said, Fatso. “We’ll hide it under a tarpoleum. It came in damn handy the other day, and the way things are going out here, we may need it again sometime.”
“Of course, they’re bound to find out sooner or later that we’re the Turtle - aren’t they?” asked the Judge.
“That depends,” said Fatso. “Once the U.S. Government sends an official note to another country and says there’s no such ship as the USS Turtle, there just ain’t no such ship, and that’s all there is to it. They would make us scuttle before they would admit they was wrong about it.”
“I dunno,” said the Professor. “Remember the U-2? At first, Ike denied that we had any planes flying over Russia. But we had to take it back.”
“Well, hell. They shot down our plane and captured the pilot. We had to admit it. But nobody’s going to capture us. That’s one reason I ain’t throwing that gun overboard.”
“I’ll betcha if we showed up in Washington now,” observed the Judge, “and claimed we was the crew of the Turtle, they’d burn our records and claim they never heard of any of us.”
“I think you’re right,” said the Professor. “But don’t forget those Russians have got pictures of us.”
“If they try to use those pictures with Charley Noble at the yardarm,” replied Fatso, “everybody will figure the whole business is a phony.”
“What could they do to us, even if they did find out that we’re the Turtle?” demanded Webfoot. “We never done nothing wrong ... except maybe I put a couple of pounds too much TNT in that booby trap that blew up them three Russians.”
“You don’t have to do nothing wrong to get hung when you get mixed up in high-level diplomatic stuff,” said the Judge. “They can run you up to the yardarm just as easy as we did Charley - and for the same reason, too - to improve our image.”
“So - what’s our program now, Cap’n?” asked Scuttlebutt.
“We gotta play it by ear as we go along,” declared Fatso. “I think we oughta just lay low for a while and give them a chance to forget about this ... are you still checking with the Pillsbury every day?” he asked the Professor.
“Yessir, Cap’n,” said the Professor. “Not a word about us on the FOX sch
edule yet.”
“Cap’n,” said Ginsberg; “Why not go into Tel Aviv for a week or so? We could all make a good liberty there while we’re laying low.”
“Hunh?” said Fatso. “We-e-ll now, I dunno ... You can’t just barge into a foreign port and make yourself at home. You gotta make a lot of diplomatic arrangements ahead of time.”
“We didn’t make any in Athens,” said Ginsberg.
“That’s different. Athens is in NATO, and our ships are in and out of there all the time. If the Israelis started asking Washington questions about us, we’d be in trouble.”
“Don’t worry about the Israelis making any trouble, Cap’n,” said Ginsberg eagerly. “After the goof they made on the Liberty they’ll just fall all over themselves to be nice to us. This would be a sort of good-will visit to improve international relations.”
Scuttlebutt was feeling the urge to get ashore again, too. “Cap’n,” he said, “We’re getting a little low on oil. If we keep cruising around out here, we’ll be in trouble pretty soon. We could lay up in Tel Aviv for a week and save a lot of oil.”
“And we’re going to be short of rations pretty soon, Cap’n,” said Satchmo. “If we go into Telly Veeve, I can replenish our supplies.”
“How the hell could we pay for ‘em?” demanded Fatso. “I sure as hell ain’t going to pay for it out of our own private personal funds.”
“We could sell that tank to them,” said Ginsberg. “Well - I don’t mean really sell it,” he added, as he saw a look of scorn come across Fatso’s face. “But we could swap it to them for food. Our contract with the government calls for three square meals a day. This tank was written off the books as soon as they issues it to us. So far as the U.S. Treasury is concerned, its value is zero. So if we use it to get the grub the government is supposed to furnish us, we would really be saving the government money.”
“Abie,” said Fatso, “If you ever get out of the Navy and go to work, I predict you’ll wind up either as Secretary of the Treasury or doing time in Alcatraz - maybe even both!”
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