Jake’s gaze rested on the Old Man’s accusing eyes.
“You took an oath, Grafton, when you got your commission. ‘I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and obey the orders of the officer appointed over me.” That’s the same oath every officer in the navy has sworn for damn-near two hundred years. And you violated that oath. You disobeyed.” The skipper sat down. “Keep your eyes on that bulkhead, mister.”
When Camparelli spoke again, his voice was more controlled but still bitter. “People are spitting on soldiers and sailors in airports and bus stations all over America. ROTC cadets refuse to wear their uniforms because they’re cursed at and ridiculed. Can you believe that? Americans spitting on the men who had sworn to defend them, on the men who’ve sworn to obey the orders of the elected, civilian government. He pounded his fist on his desk. “For two hundred years the military has obeyed the civilians who were the elected government.
Those civilians were not always wise, not always right, sometimes not even very smart In fact, many presidents of this country have been half-wit politicians with no qualification for the job other than that they fooled a majority of the people. But even the worst hacks are obeyed.
Do you know why? Can you guess?”
Jake stood silent.
“Answer me, Mister Grafton!”
“No, sir.”
“Then I’ll explain it so even you can understand. If the officers at the top ever get it into their heads that they have the right to follow their consciences, to do what they think is right instead of what they are told then the United States is in for a military dictatorship. We’ll be just another chaotic banana republic.”
Jake heard the click of a cigarette lighter. The commander stood again and confronted Jake eyeball to eyeball- His voice was a dry whisper. “You have no right whatsoever to disobey orders. None. You will do as you are told even if it kills you. You will obey even if it costs you your life and your immortal sole, if you have one. I don’t give a flying fuck if your father is the Pope and you have a direct line to God Almighty.
This is our country and our navy we’re talking about, you fool.” Camparelli paced the room. “There are enough weapons in the magazines of this ship to wipe Vietnam or China clean off the face of the earth. What if the captain decided he had the power and foresight to act on his own?”
He paused in front of the still-rigid Grafton. “The backbone of the navy is obedience. America will always need the navy.” He turned and took two steps toward the desk. “And she will need the navy to obey. What you’ve done is wrong. Basic, rock-bottom wrong.”
Frank Camparelli sat down heavily. “So you think this piss-ant war in this shit-hole country is worth compromising the U.S. Navy, huh? You think you can personally whip these commie bastards with an airplane and a few bombs and make good Democrats and Republicans out of them?” The Old Man took a drag on his cigarette. He sighed. “You’re a damned fool, a fool because you haven’t grasped that we have to obey whether or not we all lose our lives or even the goddamned war.
“What’s your problem, Grafton? We’re not aggressive enough in your opinion? Shit! Too bad we can’t arrange it so you can ask Ford and Box if we’re aggressive enough to suit them.”
The silence hung in the air like the smell of a dead animal.
Jake felt his eyes smarting. Cowboy cleared his throat to catch the skipper’s attention and glanced at Jake’s trembling hands. The skipper looked, then averted his gaze.
“When you walk out that door you will go to Sick Bay and inform Mad Jack I want a complete physical done on you. If he approves, I’m sending you to the beach on the morning cargo plane, You’re to take all your flight gear with you. Two new planes are coming in from the States on a Trans-Pac, and I can’t spare any fighting crews to go get them. Take that psychopath Cole with you. An investigation will begin in your absence, and you’ll be questioned when you return. When the new planes reach Cubi, you’ll send a message notifying us of their arrival and we’ll send you an overhead time. Then you’ll fly one of those planes out to the ship and we’ll send a crew in for the other. I want you to report to the duty officer at Cubi when you arrive and each and every morning you are there. Are these orders explicit enough for you?”
Jake nodded.
“Answer me!” The roar was savage.
“Yessir- The orders are explicit enough.”
“Then see that you obey, Grafton. See that you obey.” Camparelli paused, then continued. “Steiger’s confined to quarters without visitors. He’s been ordered not to answer the phone. You will make no attempt to see or speak with him. Now get the hell out of my sight before I personally try to find out what you’ve been using for brains.”
Jake left.
The second class petty officer in Sick Bay told him that he should come back during the 0700 Sick Call. Grafton wasn’t in the mood. “I want to see the Jungle Quack right fucking now, sailor. Find him.” It turned out that the doctor was in his office after all. Apparently he had been on the phone with Camparelli.
Stripped to his skivvies, Jake ignored the prodding and indignities of the routine physical examination. His mind was elsewhere. He saw Morgan and the faces of the men he had known who were now dead. Two had been killed in automobile accidents, but a half dozen or so had died in plane crashes. One had ejected from an F-9 in the training command when it caught fire and had made the long, long fall when his parachute failed to open. He had known Morgan best, but he had also been good friends with a boy from California who had flown his A-6 into the Nevada desert on a night training mission.
Mad Jack looked at Jake’s hands. “Are you fit to fly?” the doctor asked.
“I’m not a doctor,” Jake said. “I just fly the planes. For Uncle Sam. . . .” he added, his voice trailing off. The skipper would have a comment or two about that. Well, Frank Camparelli was right. But so was he. There was a limit to just how much stupidity in high places men ought to endure. If those elected civilians didn’t intend to put on enough pressure to win, then they had no right to waste lives just screwing around. Camparelli makes no apologies for stupidity; he merely accepts it. Maybe the problem is that the admirals and generals never tell the elected officials what fools they are.
“Are you fit to fly?” the doctor asked again.
“What do you think? You flew with me a few weeks ago. Was I dangerous? Was all that medical education your parents paid for in jeopardy?”
“You can put your clothes on.” Mad Jack began scrawling in the medical record.
“What’s your professional opinion, Quack? Are you going to let me drive these flying pigs or aren’t you?”
“What do you want?” the doctor asked. “Do you want to keep flying?”
Jake pulled on his shoes. “I don’t know, Doc.” He spoke slowly, trying to concentrate. “I’ve been flying since I was fifteen. Flying’s all I know.
If this war goes on I expect I’ll die in an airplane.” He picked up his wallet and keys from the desk. “The hell of it is, I really don’t give a damn.”
The doctor looked intently at the pilot. “When we flew to the beach a few weeks ago, you asked me a question that I thought you knew the answer to.
You asked, ‘Is life worth the final smashup?” Well, what’s your answer? Is it?”
“I don’t remember saying that.” The pilot sat with his elbows on his knees.
“I always thought flying worth the sacrifices,” he said at last.
“Life is a hell of a lot more mundane than flying, isn’t it? It’s a lot more complex. Not much glory. It doesn’t have many of those right or wrong, black or white decisions that flying’s so full of.” Mad Jack droned on something about good pilots making rotten choices in life, but Jake’s attention had wandered to the frame prints that hung on the bulkheads. The prints were famous moments in naval history: Dewey in Manilla Bay; Farragut steaming past the forts at Mobile; Monitor and the Merrimack at Hampton Roads.
Mad Jack had another picture. It showed a squad of marines pinned on the beach at Iwo Jima, their faces contorted by the strain of combat. There had been glory there.
TWENTY-ONE
