Chapter Sixteen
You are getting into the chow line, at the front, and as you get your SOS[132], you can hear the Marines oo-rahing on the mess decks and when you walk out to get your bug juice, they are all gathered around the mess decks TV which is hooked up to the French TV and they are watching CNN and you can see this tank busting up through a big sand dune, and all these Marines following with their rifles low on their hips and you see them crouching and shooting, and then there’s a shot of about a thousand helos ripping overhead, and then there’s a shot from a gun camera and you can see this little line of jeeps or something in scratchy black and white and then a little back dot comes whipping in from the bottom of the screen and there’s this big white pot on the television and then there’s some old fart general on the screen telling Wolf what’s going on and then you see a map of Kuwait and the bottom part of Iraq with big arrows stabbing into Kuwait.
The Marines are going nuts and high-fiving and jumping around and then they start to sing the Marine song – from the halls of Montezuma and all that, and then you notice how the squids are all sitting around and they’re watching too, but they are also eating and finishing and getting up to go do stuff and then the 1MC hums and the picture goes out and the Skipper gets on and gives everyone the news – the ground war has started and the Marines are coming up in the south and the Army is winging around to the west and the gators are standing off the coast ready to send in their Marines and the carriers are launching strikes like crazy and the battleships are firing those huge guns they got and then the Skipper says that you are staying where you are for the time being and that everyone’s got to be on watch and people going out on the town need to be extra careful.
After the workday is done – you spent the morning in supply and the afternoon bullshitting in the Deck office and working on the report about what happened with the brow being dropped into the harbor, and you see that the first lieutenant is taking even more official shit about it even though he’s trying to blame it on the first class Jenkins who wasn’t even on the quarterdeck at the time, and the new deck ensign, some academy guy who got on the boat just before you deployed is saying how pissed he is that the boat is in France when all the action is over in the Gulf and the Bo’sun is saying how he’s goddamn glad to be here ‘cause he’s had enough of people shooting at his ass and the ensign is looking at the Bo’sun like the Bo’sun’s some kind of pussy.
After the work day is done, anyways, you get your civvies on down in the deck berthing and head out up on to the hangar bay where that second class Bo’sun’s mate Kendall is waiting and Mike is there and the three of you are heading out to this restaurant Mike went to where they have excellent steaks, and they do, once you get there after walking about four miles up in to the town where the stores are all shut up with big steel grates pulled down and you have to wait around in the empty square until they all get done with their naps or whatever.
At about seven at night, when the sun goes down, the restaurant finally opens up and you three guys go in and sit down and Mike tells you what to order because it’s all in French and while you are waiting for your orders and drinking some pretty good wine and watching the news in French on the television over the bar, the owner comes out and sees you guys and then he points up at the screen and then at you and says you fucking it up pretty good, and Kendall’s says yea that’s right we are fucking it up pretty good, partner, and the steaks are excellent.
And your days go by, slow as shit, reveille-supply-deck office-liberty that sucks now that you are out of money and walking the flight deck on security with a shotgun on your shoulder that you fired maybe ten times and are still not sure exactly how it works yet, and you find yourself standing on the quarterdeck two nights later as petty officer of the watch with the .45 hanging down from the gun belt with the magazines in their little holders and you are aware of the greasy black bullets in the gun but not chambered, not ready to fire, grab-assing a little and shooting the shit with Mr. Pensquod[133], some preppy ROTC shit straight out of college with big round glasses who is down in engineering and taking a lot of shit from MMs[134] and the BTs[135] and you are giving him some advice on how to listen to his chief but carefully, like it is something you learned because you can’t tell an officer how to do things.
There’s some kind of party going on up on the flight deck with the helos all shined up and in neat rows and the white friendship lights hung from the bow to the mast to the stern and a couple of big tents set up with the cooks cranking out the good food they keep for the wardroom and the officers in their mess dress blues with the buttons and short jackets and their freaking swords hanging down and little white gloves on drinking beers and wine and getting hammered with the locals and you can hear some jazz music coming down from their little party.
When you walk out on the brow just to move your legs a little, you see, clear as day, the first lieutenant falling down from the port elevator, down past the fueling station and the little boat deck, and past the hangar deck and just missing the pier and into the oily nasty harbor water and when the water falls back from the splash, you yell man overboard and flick off your gun belt and drop it on the brow and then are up and over the brow rail and into the water in your freaking dress blues, and then taking a mouth of the nastiest fucking water ever, spitting it out, and stroking for the spot where the first lieutenant’s hat floats in the water
The water is pretty warm for March, and you look back toward the brow where Pensquod is holding your gun belt and waving his arms back into the ship, and then with about 20 of the worst strokes in your life you are there, at the hat, which is sort of sinking in and already dirty and then you look down and there you can see the first lieutenant sort of half floating in the muck, and you up end yourself and dive down, and grab his arm and turn and look up to the surface and you go down deeper and wrap an arm around his chest and start pulling one-armed for the light.
And he is heavy as hell and your breath is running out and your lungs are screaming and you are just six inches below the surface, when he wakes up or something and starts fighting you and you let him go, and then watch his eyes get really big and then he latches on to you, and you start back for the top, knowing that you are going to drown here in the shitty black waters of the Toulon harbor.
But then you break through the surface and gasp in deep, and pull the first lieutenant up, and he splashes around and breaths in deep, and you feel something soft hit the back of your head and you reach around and it’s a life ring and you grab it, and then sort of slump the first lieutenant over on to it and he grabs on, and then the guys on the brow sort of work themselves down the ladder to the pier, and then down on to one of those big floating deals that keep the ship from smashing into the pier, you’ll think of the word later, camels, they’re called camels and that’s the word that keeps running through your head as you sidestroke along behind the first lieutenant to the camel where the guys pull you out of the water and you lie there on a pile of greasy rope and look up at the sky – it’s blue-white-red and there’s a few sort of hazy clouds – and breath and breath and breath.
By the time you get up on the pier, the Skipper is down from the flight deck and the corpsmen are there checking out the first lieutenant and he’s still pretty hammered and the word is that he just walked off the side of the flight deck, and Mr. Pensquod slips up behind you and puts the gun belt back on you and you realize that you left it on the brow when you hit the water and that you have fucked up big time.
So the Skipper turns around from looking at the First Lieutenant and he sees you and he says you went into the water after him and you stand up and say yessir and he says are you on watch and you say yessir and he looks at you all wet and dripping and at your gun belt which is dry and then says to you get dried off and report to the XO[136] and you say yessir and then shit real quiet.
You go back up the ladder and across the brow and you look up at the flight deck and see all the people fro
m the party looking down at the crowd on the camel and then you look and see the First Lieutenant with a blanket around him and the Skipper patting him on the back and them laughing and you realize that you are truly fucked.
Because enlisted guys can fuck up and junior officers can fuck up a little but that the senior officers can never fuck up, because the first lieutenant was on the bridge when that container ship laid on its horn and slid by about 20 yards from the boat’s stern and because the Skipper has a girlfriend in Rota and they all went out for drinks while you and your buddies were in a whorehouse, and because they all got twenty years in and you got a little more than one.
And when you hit the quarterdeck Mr. Pensquod is looking at you like you are some poor bastard and you stand there while they call your relief and then you hand over the gunbelt and turn over the watch and then slosh your ass across the hangar bay and then down one deck to the XO ‘s office and knock and are told to enter and you walk in and you see that everything’s already decided.
You stand at attention in front of the XO s desk while that nasty water runs down the inside of your thighs, and you are cold and start to shiver and the XO gets off the phone and goes into his stateroom and comes out with a towel and throws it at you, and you catch it and dry your hands and then run it over your head and around your body and on your legs and then around your ankles, and then you don’t know what to do with it so you sling it over your shoulder and come back to attention while the LN[137] comes in with his little steno pad.
The XO sits back down and does a little legal shit with the LN and then he dictates a quick report about how the first lieutenant tripped over the stanchion and fell into the water and how you were on watch as petty officer of the watch and you jumped in without thinking about it and pulled his ass out of the water and then he looks up at you and asks is all that is correct and you say to yourself throw in that the first lieutenant was hammered and you got it all but to the XO you say yessir.
And then the XO asks you what happened to the gun belt that the Skipper said it was dry when he saw you and you tell him that you flicked it off because you didn’t want to take it into the water with you and he asks did you turn over the watch when relieving the PO of the watch before you and you say yessir and he asks including turning over responsibility for the firearm and you say yessir and he asks you did you drop the firearm on the brow and you say yessir and then he stops for a second, and then he asks how did you retrieve the firearm and then you have to think.
Because Mr. Pensquod is coming along pretty well and he might want to make twenty years and how he’s actually a pretty good officer considering the other dipshits that you get every year if he gets caught putting the gun belt back on you that he’ll get his ass handed to him and then you remember how your boot camp company commander once told a story about a guy who was in deep shit and told some wild story but stuck to it no matter how many times they asked him and got off and so you tell the XO that you went back up on the brow and got the gun belt and put it back on and then went back to the camel.
And the XO looks at you like you are lying sack of shit, which you are, and he asks you a million times about the whole routine and you just keep saying that you went back and got the gun belt yourself and you can tell that he knows that you are full of shit but after a while he starts to smile a little and then he tells the LN to write it down like you said and then he asks you if you want to go to mast or just take the punishment he is about to deliver, and you go with his punishment and he asks for your liberty card and you reach down into your sock and hand it to him and he says that you are restricted to the ship for 30 days[138] and you think that’s not so bad, could be worse.
And then the XO sends the LN out to type up the report and when the door closes, the XO leans toward you and shakes your hand and says dismissed, and you salute and go out of his office and then back up on the hangar bay and past the Skipper and the First Lieutenant and you salute them[139] anyways.