Final Flight

Several of the tour guides were pilots who expounded with youthful enthusiasm on the thrills associated with flying off and onto the carrier.

“Are you a pilot?” the Frenchman with a Japanese camera asked Lieutenant Tarkington.

“No, sir. I’m an RIO — that means Radar Intercept Officer — on F-14s. Those are the sharky-looking jobs down there with the wings that move backwards and forwards.”

The Frenchman stared. “Ze wings?”

“Yeah, the wings move.” Tarkington pretended to be an airplane and waggled his arms appropriately. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Judith Farrell roll her gaze heavenward.

“Oui, oui. Formidable!”

“Yep, sure is,” the irrepressible Tarkington agreed heartily.

When their turn came, Tarkington led his followers into “Pri-Fly,” a glassed-in room that stuck out of the top of the island over the flight deck and offered a magnificent view. Here, he explained, the air boss, a senior commander, controlled the launch and recovery of aircraft. As Tarkington drawled along a helicopter came in to land, settling gently onto the forward portion of the landing area. Several of the group took pictures of the air boss standing beside his raised easy chair with all his radios and intercom boxes in the background.

Tarkington’s group then packed themselves into the minuscule island elevator for the ride down to the flight deck level. Somehow the lieutenant ended up jammed face-to-face with Judith Farrell. He beamed at her and she stared at his Adam’s apple. The machinery was noisy and the whole contraption lurched several times. “Nobody’s died in here since last week, ma’am,” he whispered.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘ma’am,’” Farrell said, refusing to whisper.

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the door opened, they went down another ladder to the O-3 level and then through a myriad of turns to a ready room. The tourists were greeted by an officer who gave a little explanation of how aircrews planned and briefed their missions in ready rooms like this throughout the O-3 level. He showed them the closed-circuit television monitors around the room on which the only show playing during flight operations was the launch and recovery of aircraft on the “roof,” the flight deck. And he got some laughs with his explanation of the greenie board that hung on one bulkhead. Every pilot in this squadron had color marks recorded for each of his carrier approaches, which his squadron mates witnessed in glorious detail on the television monitors. Green was the predominate color and symbolized an OK pass, the best grade possible. Yellow was a fair grade and a few red spots recorded no- grade or cut passes. Apparently a pilot’s virtues and sins were recorded in living color for all to see.

Back in the passageway one of the reporter-photographers delayed the group almost three minutes as he repeatedly snapped an apparently endless, narrow passageway that ran fore and aft. At this level the openings in the frames that supported the flight deck were oval in shape and only wide enough for people to pass through in single file. “Knee-knockers,” Tarkington called them. The passageway appeared to be an oval tube receding into infinity. The photographer got a shot of a sailor in the passageway over a hundred yards away that later appeared in a German newsmagazine. The picture demonstrated visually, in a way words never could, just how large, how massive, this ship truly was.

“It’s very noisy,” one of the visitors said to Toad, who nodded politely. The hum and whine of the fans inside the air conditioning system was the background noise the ship’s inhabitants became aware of only when it ceased.

“What is that smell? I’ve noticed it ever since we came aboard,” Judith Farrell said.

“I don’t really know,” Toad replied as he examined her nose to see if it crinkled when she sniffed. “I always thought it was the oil they used to lubricate the blowers in the air-conditioning system, or the hatch hinges, or whatever.” All the other visitors were inhaling lungfuls. “You don’t notice it after awhile,” Toad finished lamely.

The photographer was finished. They went down another set of ladders and back to the wardroom where they had begun the tour.

“I sure am glad you folks could come out today for a little visit,” Tarkington said as he shook hands with the men. “Hope we didn’t walk you too much or wear you down. But there’s a lot to see and it takes a little doing to get around.” He turned and gazed into Judith Farrell’s clear blue eyes. “I just might get up Paris way sometime this summer, ma’am, and maybe you could return the hospitality and give me a little tour of Gay Paree?”

She favored him with the smallest smile she could manage as she ensured he had only her fingertips to shake.

“I hope you enjoyed your tour,” Captain Grafton said to the group.

“Very much,” the Italian woman replied as heads bobbed in agreement.

“There’s more Kool-Aid,” Grafton gestured toward the refreshment table, “if you’re thirsty. Please help yourselves. The boats will be leaving in about five minutes to take you back to the beach. Your tour guides will escort you to the quarterdeck. If you have any unanswered questions, now is the time to ask them.”

“Are nuclear weapons aboard this ship, please?” The question came from one of the Frenchmen.

“The American government can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard any ship.”

“But what if a war begins?” Judith Farrell asked loudly.

Grafton’s face showed no emotion. “In that event, ma’am, we’ll do the best we can to defend ourselves in accordance with American government policy and our commitments to NATO.”

“Isn’t it possible the presence of this ship in these waters adds to international tension, rather than lessens it?” Farrell persisted.

“I’m not a diplomat,” Grafton said carefully. “I’m a sailor. You should ask the State Department that question.” He glanced at his watch, then at the junior officer tour guides. “Gentlemen, perhaps it’s time to take these folks to the quarterdeck.”

As his group prepared to descend the ladder from the quarterdeck to the carly float Lieutenant Tarkington again shook each hand. To Farrell he said, “I sure am glad I had the chance to get to know you, ma’am. It’s a small world and you just never know when or where we’ll meet again.”

She brushed past him and was three steps down the ladder when she heard him say loudly, “I’m sure you’re a fine reporter, Judith, but you shouldn’t work so hard at playing the role.” Teetering on her heels, she turned and caught a glimpse of Tarkington’s face, dead serious, as the man behind her on the ladder lost his balance and almost sent her sprawling.

“Don’t forget the Toad, Judith Farrell.”

* * *

A week later the Tangiers police received an enquiry from Paris about the J’Accuse reporter. He had not returned from his trip nor had he filed a story. At the hotel where he had reservations, the bartender, a retired merchant mariner from Marseilles, identified the reporter from a black-and-white photograph which pictured a middle-aged man with thinning hair and heavy jowls. The bartender gave a tolerably accurate description of the young woman to the police, but he had not overheard any of the couple’s conversation. The reporter’s bed had not been disturbed and his luggage was missing when the hotel maid entered the next morning. The bartender ventured the opinion that the woman was not a prostitute, and this professional observation caused police to make fruitless enquiries at every other hotel in Tangiers that catered to foreigners. Where the pair had gone after they left the hotel bar was never established.

An official of the French government asked the American embassy in Paris if the J’Accuse press pass to the United States had been used, and was informed several days later that it had. Two weeks after the event a photo of the missing journalist was shown to the naval officers who had guided the tours. The ship was then at sea in the Mediterranean. None of those who viewed the picture could recall the individual, so that information, for whatever it was worth, was passed via the embassy to the French authorities.

The American embassy CIA man reported the disappearance to his superiors, and U.S. Naval Intelligence was routinely informed. Apparently the incident was too unimportant to be included in the summaries prepared for the National Security Council. After all, the group had not been shown anything classified or anything that was not shown as a matter of course to any visitor to the ship. Notations were made in the appropriate computer records and within a month the incident was forgotten by those few persons in the intelligence community who were aware of it.

The reporter was never seen again. Since he was divorced and his only daughter lived in Toulon with children