“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.
“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.
“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 than 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
