Southern Cross .is a romance story told within the framework of Naval aviation in the 1970’s. The events and characters are fictitious, but many of the events and situations are based on personal experience and the experience of friends and associates. It is my first novel.
Kenneth D Cockrell
Captain USNR, Retired
Southern Cross
Kenneth Cockrell
Published by Kenneth Cockrell at Smashwords
Cover by Joleene Naylor
Copyright 2010 Kenneth Cockrell
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Southern Cross
A novel by
Kenneth Cockrell
~~~~~
September 20, 1975
Suspend Cat One! SUSPEND CAT ONE!! The Air Boss screamed the words into the microphone.
It was thirty seconds before three in the morning. Thirty seconds before the last launch of the night. The Boss was tired. Everyone on the flight deck was tired. They didn’t need a problem like this.
But they had the problem and the Boss would have to deal with it. He didn’t know why the airplane had to be stopped. None of his people on the deck had seen anything wrong. But the squadron skipper had called the boss. The message was, ‘stop that goddamn kid from launching!’ His voice was convincing enough.
The dark gray monolith of a ship surged ahead without wavering, unstoppable in the night. Everything remained as it should have been on the flight deck. The catapult officer still signaled the young pilot to prepare for launch, and still waited for the airplane’s external lights to flip on, signaling that the pilot was ready.
The pilot, after hearing the Air Boss’s angry words over his radio, slumped in the ejection seat, the energy draining from his body. He was caught. No chance for escape.
He thought about the girl. It was insane. He was in his airplane, its engine roaring at full throttle on the starboard bow catapult of a mighty aircraft carrier of the United States of America, and she was still right there! Still waiting for the slightest break in his thoughts so she could slip into his head.
He saw her long, golden hair shimmering around an impish, ‘catch me if you can’ smile. “I thought I had caught you,” he exhaled sadly. Without her, his life would have been featureless and poor. And without her, he would never have known what being lost in someone really meant. He was still lost in her.
The young pilot forced his thoughts into the present. Where are they? The Master-at- Arms troops, or maybe the Marines, should be surrounding the airplane by now. They have me. I can’t go anywhere unless the shooter gives the signal.
“The shooter!”
He was still there, twirling the lighted wand above his head. The silent signal said, “The cat is ready. Show your lights when you are too.”
“What’s he doing? Didn’t he hear the Boss’s call?”
Slowly, very slowly, the pilot put it together. He had heard the suspend call, which meant that it had been delivered over the circuit reserved for the airplanes. And that meant that the cat officer didn’t hear it. He was wired into another, separate radio system.
“The Boss called on the wrong radio!” the pilot fairly shouted into his oxygen mask. “And the shooter is still trying to launch me!”
The catapult officer was becoming rather impatient, and a little concerned. The pilot had been running at full power for over thirty seconds, now. Something was wrong. But just then the airplane’s external lights winked on. The recalcitrant pilot was finally ready to go.
What the hell took him so long? It wasn’t really a question. The catapult officer pushed his frustration aside. The first airplane would launch half a minute late, but the captain would get over it. Still satisfied that everything was ready, he pointed the wand toward the bow and touched it to the deck with a flourish.
The Boss’s voiced stabbed into his ears just as the shooter touched the deck, almost causing him to fall on his face. “SUSPEND CAT ONE!” he shouted, this time into the correct microphone. The shooter, startled and off balance, frantically fumbled for the switch on the wand in his other hand and, once it was illuminated, crashed the two wands together in the shape of an “X”, the signal to his crew to stop the shot.
But it was too late. The deck edge operator, after having made an exaggerated display of looking up and down the cat track to see that it was clear, pushed the button. The A-7 bobbled once as the steam power slammed into the airframe, and then was hauled down the track and thrown into the air. The howl of its intake, too long present at the start of the track, was replaced with the crackling roar of its exhaust, which was in turn replaced by the confused din of the flight deck as the A-7 disappeared into the night. The catapult officer and deck edge operator stared at each other through the space vacated by the airplane, now replaced with wispy clouds of steam rushing aft. An awful question formed in each of their minds: “Did we fuck up?”
~~~~~
In a bunkroom on the O-2 level – just below the flight deck – the visitor jumped awake as the catapult slammed into the water brake at the end of the stroke. He had been on the ship only half a day; and was not yet accustomed to the sudden, sharp reports from the flight deck just a few feet above his head. At the same time, he had the sense that he would get used to it. He would be able to do everything he needed to – even sleep – despite the frenzied activity going on around him. Catapult launches would become just another part of a routine day.
But there was something not routine about this launch. Something inside Stan that told him that the noise he heard was different; important. He listened as the same catapult hurled the next airplane into the sky. The sound was the same. Identical.
“It’s nothing,” he mumbled to himself as he slapped the pillow softly and settled his head into a comfortable position. He was very tired; still a long way from being his old self. “I have plenty of time to find the man, he’s not going anywhere.”
~~~~~
The pilot’s heart tried to pound its way from his chest, a not too unfamiliar feeling for him in his three years as a Navy pilot. But this time it wasn’t the rush of adrenaline from a harrowing near miss with another airplane or with the ground. This time his heart pounded with the excitement, and death-like sadness that came with the first truly criminal act in his life. He had stolen an airplane. He raced away from the ship, trying to collect his thoughts.
“What do I do now?” Unable to think clearly, he let himself relax just a little. And there she was again. He didn’t resist.
They stood together after midnight on the deserted beach next to Ft. Pickens National Park. It was almost three years ago. They were only friends. It was impossible to be more, yet it was happening. Now, with a sardonic smile he remembered the lesson she taught him the most forcefully, the precept that makes the world revolve; that the woman is in control of love and affairs of the heart.
“Was it really control?” he asked himself in a whisper. “Maybe she didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe she feels just as helpless as me.”
He gave the dream a few more moments. What did it matter? He was on his way. None of it mattered, now.
~~~~~
The captain sat in his plush leather chair on the bridge. It offered him no comfort. Standing next to the chair was the air wing commander - CAG, and the crazed pilot’s squadron skipper.
The captain said, “I tend to agree with you, CAG. We don’t know what this kid is up to. He could come charging back at the ship and try to go out in a blaze of glory.”
The air wing commander was agitated, his body language clearly suggesting aggressive action. The skipper’s impassive face gave no view to his feelings.
The old man hesitated as the two other officers stood expectantly in the near darkness of the ship’s bridge, the noise of the flight deck far below them and muffled by the bullet-proof glass. He sent the two officers away with specific instructions for each of them. Then, alone in the isolation only known by men in command, he let himself drift away. He already had the blood of four men on his hands. One more wouldn’t matter. We’ll have to shoot the poor bastard down.
Book One
~~~~~
September 3, 1972
~~~~~
Chapter 1
The four young men stood stock still in their room. The room was spotless and orderly to a fault. The men were spotless and orderly, too, if it weren’t for the little rivulets of sweat that discolored their otherwise perfect clothing. They were dressed identically in starched khaki summer uniforms with shiny brass belt buckles and painstakingly polished black leather shoes. These were US Navy uniforms in a pre-metamorphosis state. They were lacking any of the customary decorations that would tell the observer the rank and accomplishments of the wearer. They had none. The collars were devoid of rank insignia and the shirts; blouses, in naval terms, were plain except for a black name tag with white letters placed one quarter inch above each man’s right breast pocket. One of the nametags in the room spelled the word Jumper.
Paul Jumper was the smallest man in the room and right at that moment he couldn’t have felt smaller. He wasn’t terribly short. Just a little below average height at five foot eight. But he was very slim and weighed barely 130 pounds. He had a slim, pleasant face. Not notably handsome, but good-looking in an interesting way. His jaw was strong but not prominent. His nose was just a little large for his face, but set between finely sculpted cheeks that wore a healthy trace of sunburn. His slate blue eyes were clear and intelligent, yet distant, distracted by the vision of an impending, unknown wonder. He could smile a rich, warm smile with his eyes and never move his mouth and he could raise one eyebrow by itself and ask a searching question without saying a word.
His five-week career in the Navy had turned almost every ounce of his weight that wasn’t bone into muscle. He wasn’t an imposing physical specimen on first inspection, but a closer look showed that he possessed the strength and poise of an athlete. It was a poise that Paul himself did not fully recognize.
Paul was twenty-two, and women or flying normally dominated his thoughts and conversation. But today there was one thing alone commanding his attention. Fear.
Nothing was happening, yet, in the room. But ominous noises were drifting down the corridore, belying the pandemonium in the other rooms. During the past twenty minutes the yelling, crashing, and slamming noises had steadily grown from a muffled din where words were not intelligible, to a crescendo of sharp reports where phrases could be discerned. They were not pleasant phrases.
Punctuating the swelling symphony of terror was the muted staccato of leather-soled shoes against the concrete floor of the hallway. Every half-minute the men in the room caught a glimpse of one of their classmates as he flashed by their doorway. The sound of running steps would cease at the end of the hallway, replaced by heavy, rhythmic breathing. After a bit, the running sounds would start again, in the opposite direction.
“What’s he doing?” the four men asked without saying a word. The running man was a humorous side act in a tragic play. No one was laughing.
Room, Locker, and Personnel Inspection. Those were the innocuous words on the weekly schedule. The members of Aviation Officer Candidate School Class 72-13 conjured up collective visions of a thorough and professional scrutiny of their abilities to dress themselves and arrange their rooms in the prescribed military fashion. They had a diagram that showed them how to arrange all their gear. It wasn’t very complicated. They wouldn’t have much trouble putting everything in place and cleaning their rifles, shoes, and belt buckles. What could be so hard about this inspection?
A few weeks before, none of them had ever given a second thought to the luster of a belt buckle. As new reports, unfamiliar with the AOCS curriculum, they believed that academic performance and a strong work ethic were far more important in this, the preparatory phase of Navy flight training. It seemed that the RLP tested them on the most menial aspects of life. The test couldn’t be too hard.
They had been told that passing the RLP inspection was a prerequisite for gaining the freedom to leave the Naval Air Station for the first time since their arrival over a month before, so they were eager to do well. They had no idea how difficult attaining that freedom would be.
Each man in Room 213 was standing at attention one half pace in front of the right; make that starboard, edge of their clothing locker. Closest to Paul was Aviation Officer Candidate Benjamin D Swift. Because of his unlucky position near the doorway, Ben was the room leader. Ben hadn’t yet given much thought to leadership in general, or to being a room leader in particular, but he’d mentally reviewed his duties for today. When the inspecting officer entered the room, Ben would loudly announce: “Room, lockers, and personnel ready for inspection, sir!” Ben slowly turned the required sentence over and over in his head. The excessive repetition and his growing nervousness almost guaranteed it to be misspoken.
They’re going to calm down by the time they get here, he prayed. An inspection should be a calm and orderly business. How can they accurately appraise us if they yell at us? He was willing the behavior of the inspecting officers to conform to his own concept of an RLP. Despite the gathering calamity that was now much closer to his room, Benjamin clung to the ludicrous idea that when the inspectors got to their doorway, the occupants of Room 213 would be treated to a respectful examination of themselves, their meager belongings, and the government furnished room in which they lived.
Benjamin’s hopeful reverie was shattered as the visual-vocal human cataclysm of Gunnery Sergeant Smith crashed into the room. Gunny Smith held Aviation Officer Candidate Swift with a gaze that was at once angry, contemptuous, and as cold as the Arctic. For a long moment Ben was speechless. Before him he saw coal black eyes, ebony skin, and nostrils flaring with barely contained anger. His uniform so impeccably tailored, so perfectly outfitted with shiny insignia and bright ribbons that the Gunnery Sergeant was, at that moment, as imposing as God himself.
Suddenly Ben became vaguely aware that the Gunny was waiting for something. Deep in his gut, he felt the sentence trying to organize itself and fight its way up to his mouth. His brain was issuing commands to his memory, to his language faculties, to his lungs, to his mouth. In its panic the brain was not too careful about the sequence of those commands and Benjamin felt his mouth start moving before the words arrived. When they did they were all wrong.
“Room two thirteen ready for personnel…,” he started to say.
“Shut the fuck up, Candidate!” bellowed the Gunny. “No more fucking noise from you! I come down here to see if I can find one lousy room that’s ready for the Lieutenant to inspect, and what do I get? The silent treatment, followed by useless gibberish!”
The Gunny made a half turn in a mock survey of the room. Benjamin took his first breath since his last word. He was astonished at the ferocity of the outburst and the raw eloquence of the Gunny’s speech. He was relieved that the speaker’s attention was now directed to the entire room, not just its leader.
The Gunny continued: “This place is a fucking pig sty!” He strode across the room, still bellowing. “Your mamas musta’ been pigs! I got a room full of sows’ bastards smelling up a US government facility!”
He produced a white handkerchief from what seemed like nowhere and slid it across the top of the armoire-like clothing locker behind Pete Jeter. No one was really surprised to see a dull gray swipe of dust staining the white cloth, but the Gunny was outraged at the sight of it.
“What is this, candidate?” he yelled.
Pete instinctively moved his head and eyes downward toward the handkerchief, instantly realizing his mistake. Gunnery Sergeant Smith lunged toward Jeter with a mere bend of his waist. No contact was made, but Pete felt as though he’d been physically knocked backward. He rocked back slightly on his heels as the Gunny began shouting again.
“You are at attention, candidate. Do you know what attention is, candidate?” Then in a lower voice, “I think I know why you can’t stand at attention. You’re off balance with this soft gut hanging out in front of you.”
Pete did have a bit of a belly. It was just the way he was built, an inheritance from his mother. His waistline had improved in the past few weeks, but the belly was still there, and it was not ready for the sharp, short punch from the Gunny’s mahogany fist. Pete exhaled sharply, more from shock than the blow. He fought to maintain his balance while the rest of the young men struggled to absorb what had just happened. So little motion had occurred that it seemed that Jeter had gasped without reason. But something had happened. Something had charged the room with a kind of angry energy the four candidates had never before felt.
I didn’t think they could hit us! Paul thought as his knees began to shake. The fear welling up in him was getting difficult to control. He was on the verge of shouting out, “Sir! I want to drop on request”. It wasn’t the first time he’d considered it in the last five weeks. And the other three were each asking themselves the same question; Should I DOR?
The moment was interrupted by the voice of the inspecting officer, who magically appeared at the door of Room 213 at the precise instant necessary to save the careers of four young men.
“What d’ya find in here Gunny, some more girls pretending to be candidates?” Lieutenant Robert Overhouse asked, in a deliberate, sarcastic voice. Was it fun exerting your omnipotence over these pitiful recruits? Did it relieve any of that frustration over not being allowed to kill anyone around here?
LT. Overhouse was the Class Officer of Aviation Officer Candidate Class 72-13, a position he did not particularly relish. He still carried some bitterness over his assignment to Aviation Schools Command, a non-flying job, after his first tour of duty in the fleet. His bitterness was tempered only slightly by the knowledge that he hadn’t been a very good officer in his first squadron and he got the set of shore-duty orders he deserved.
There were some rewards hidden within the otherwise thankless job. The hours were regular and not too long. He could work out in the gym every day while on the job, and he was, after all, living in one of the bachelor paradises of North America; Pensacola Beach, Florida.
But he saw no honor in his role in the military training of the young men in his charge. Quite the opposite; he took almost sadistic pleasure in the transformation forced on the cocky college graduates when they arrived at the Pensacola Naval Air Station to begin their naval career. After relieving them of all cranial and facial hair, treating them to their first performance by a Marine drill instructor, and dressing them in surplus green coveralls, the Navy reduced these intelligent, virile individuals to an amorphous mob of frightened boys.
Most of the class officers marveled at how young and hopeless the new candidates looked. The new candidates’ nicknamed “Poopies”. They wore Poopy Suits and lived in Poopyville for the first ten days of their new lives. For Robert the name Poopy was too good for them. They were maggots. Constant reminders of the lowly job assigned to him.
Still, he felt some enjoyment in watching them slowly regain their confidence and for the most part blossom into better men than they would have been had they never been Poopies. He even occasionally encountered a candidate that he liked. Paul Jumper was one of these.
Robert Overhouse had waited outside the door to room 213 to allow the pre-rehearsed tirade of Gunny Smith a chance to work its magic on the room’s occupants. The act had barely begun when he heard the slap of the Gunny’s fist against the soft, unprepared flesh of Jeter’s belly. He had stepped into the doorway in time to stop any further escalation by the Gunny, and just in time to stop any of the other three men from throwing in the towel. Now, with the situation defused, he waited for Smith to speak.
“Don’t even bother Lieutenant. They’re not worth your time.” The Gunny fumed inside as his cherished chaos was dissolved by the early arrival of the Lieutenant, but he quickly fell into the easy histrionics needed to help break the candidates down.
It wasn’t great system. It caused much higher attrition than anyone should have accepted, but the Gunny didn’t care. The method was to break the candidates down, time after time after time. Then, each time, giving them just a little space to build themselves back up. A small percentage of them would respond well to this curriculum. Some would make it through even though they rebelled against it inwardly. Almost half would quit before ever settling into a cockpit, their desire to fly overpowered by an inability to fathom the relationship between a highly polished pair of shoes and flying a jet.
“Worth it or not, I’ve got to give them a look”, Overhouse said. The Lieutenant strode into the room with the slightest hint of a swagger. He turned so as to face Ben, about two feet in front of him.
“Well, candidate, let’s take a look at you.”
Ben summoned every ounce of concentration he had and looked straight ahead. He imagined he could see a spot on the wall opposite him, ignoring the fact that the Lieutenant’s throat was in the way. He stared with a relaxed face at this phantom spot. He didn’t want to squint, or wrinkle his brow, or in any way show that there was any effort involved in maintaining the straight-ahead gaze of a man at attention. His heart was pounding, confused. He was in the next act of a play before the previous one was really over.
The Lieutenant moved his eyes over Ben, adjusting his body position slightly to give an adequate view. There was so little to an Aviation Officer Candidate’s uniform that the inspection was ludicrous in its simplicity. The candidate had to be able to pin his nametag onto the right spot, and align the front overlap of his shirt with the overlap of the trouser fly. The right edge of the brass belt buckle had to be part of the same gig line. Overhouse looked at the word Swift on the nametag and knew that Ben’s name would ultimately yield to the inevitable call sign of ‘Notso’. He suppressed a smile as he searched for the uniform infraction that would get the ball rolling in their plan for Swift.
There was a plan for each man in the room, a pre-destined outcome to each of their inspections that would allow the right kind of pressure to be brought to bear on the candidate. The enlisted Marine sergeants and the Naval Officers assigned to the class caucused frequently about the progress of each candidate. They had already developed a reasonable sense of the capabilities of each man. They roughly categorized each as a ‘loser’, ‘winner’, or a ‘maybe’. No matter their category, the treatment for each candidate was the same; make their lives miserable. The system wasn’t efficient or fair, and it was not complicated, either. The only consideration the class officers had to wrestle with was how to best deliver the hardship.
For Benjamin Swift, the choice had been easy. To the Lieutenant and the Gunny, Swift was a ‘maybe’ and his eyes held the key to their technique. Benjamin showed them with his eyes that he had difficulty with the concept that flying a Navy jet had anything at all to do with being able to fieldstrip an M-1 rifle or being able to recite the names and titles of the entire US Navy chain of command from himself to the President. Ben always had the look that asked, “Could someone please tell me when this nonsense will stop and the flying instruction will begin?” The Lieutenant and the Gunny were planning to make Ben think the nonsense would never end.
His eyes stopped at Ben’s belt buckle. Ben couldn’t see what the Lieutenant was looking at but he was determined to not make Jeter’s mistake. He could sense that Overhouse had stopped inspecting and was now staring. The dread started forming in his stomach, along with a feeling of guilt over some missed detail on his uniform.
“This brass is crap. Are you girls hiding a dog in your room? ‘Cause your pooch has shit all over your buckle, Swift. Look at this, candidate!” The Lieutenant was getting agitated now but even in the face of the command to look, Ben kept his gaze straight ahead, unaffected.
Overhouse was impressed but didn’t let it affect his performance. “Okay, you don’t want to look. I’ll show you.” With fluid motions of his thumb and fingers, Overhouse unlatched the buckle and, grasping it in his fist, gave a sideways sweep that removed the belt from Ben’s waist with a slap. The brass piece, now thoroughly smudged with Overhouse’s fingerprints, was indeed a disgusting example of military equipment.
“Do you see this dog shit, Swift?” The buckle was a few inches from Ben’s nose. He was looking at the buckle and the Lieutenant’s hand, seeing nothing.
“Yes, sir!”
“You don’t know the first thing about cleaning brass do you, candidate?”
“No, sir!”
“And what is this rope attached to your belt?” A thread was unraveling from the end of the woven cotton belt. The thread was almost a quarter of an inch long. “A veritable Irish pennant. A Singapore snake. This belt is in total disarray.” The belt and buckle hit the wall and clattered to the floor.
The Lieutenant was looking at Ben’s trousers waist. On several of the belt loops a small length of thread was protruding from the stitching that held the loops in place. “Irish pennants everywhere here. Candidate, you got a frigging flag parade running around you.” Overhouse took a step back and allowed himself a glance at Swift’s face. Good. He’s got no idea what I’m talking about. Time to move on. Don’t let him get his balance. He was cool, friendly. “Candidate…..” Smiling now, but only with his mouth. “…drop down to the front leaning rest position.”
“Yes, sir!” Ben was on the floor, supporting himself with his toes and hands. Arms and back straight. The ‘front leaning rest position’ was the starting point for push-ups. It was anything but restful.
“Gunny, could you come over here and supervise this candidate for a few minutes?”
“Yes, sir. I’d be happy to. Anything special you need him to do?” Ben gave a terrified look to the smooth concrete in front of his face. “Naw, I just want him out of my way while I check over his locker. But if he starts to get too tense down there, you could relax him a bit by letting him do a few push-ups.” Ben’s terror moved to a dark sense of dread. He thought, It’s going to be a long morning.
The Lieutenant rifled through the clothing drawers of the locker, delivering a long, loud list of infractions to Swift. Ben couldn’t get most of it, however, because the Gunny had started him into an endless sequence of push-ups, yelling at him if his back swayed or he didn’t take one all the way to the floor. Rolled-up socks and skivvies were flying across the room, coming to rest in improbable locations, odd angles. Ben was near collapse. After fifty-three push-ups, he was down, but not coming up. He had been here before, on number fifty-two. The Gunny’s vicious yelling had empowered his trembling arms to raise him one more time, but it would not happen this time.
“Come on Gunny, forget that baby. He’ll never be a Navy pilot. He can’t even fold his diapers yet.” The Lieutenant stepped over a crumpled tee shirt on his way to Paul. Ben, dazed, his arms quivering, drew himself up to stand in front of his locker. Flying seemed further away now than it did when he started this crazy program. He allowed himself to drift down a broad green path in his mind, knowing Overhouse and Smith had moved on and wouldn’t notice. I could be a pilot without being a Navy pilot. There’s bound to be another way. A different part of his mind answered, You’d be a quitter, and you’d never be as good. You’d always wonder if you could’ve done it and you’d never know. It would haunt you till you die. Ben let it drop. The heat was off him now. He didn’t have to decide anything yet.
The plan for Paul was to pile up the abuse to see how much he could carry. They liked him, after all. Their assessment of Paul was, incredibly, flawless. He was a winner, but not yet aware of it. They had correctly guessed that he was capable, physically, of much more than he thought. He was also a leader unaware that people were naturally following. They had watched the way the rest of the class interacted with him. He didn’t push an idea on anyone; he didn’t think anyone would want to hear. But the others took his reserve for quiet confidence, something most didn’t feel in the situation, and were drawn to him for advice and encouragement.
Today, the Lieutenant had decided, nothing would go right for Paul. He would, with the Gunny’s help, dismantle everything Jumper had worked to assemble. The aftermath of this inspection would leave the candidate with a huge amount of work to do to bring him back to the level of preparedness at which he now stood. And he would be expected to be beyond that level by the time of the next inspection. Paul’s life was to become very busy.
Paul was remarkably well prepared for the inspection. His uniform was crisp and the brass and shoes were gleaming. Since there were few flaws in the presentation of AOC Jumper, the Lieutenant had to create some to get the ball rolling. The belt buckle was smudged like Ben’s. Overhouse ‘accidentally’ stepped on the toe of Paul’s left shoe, gouging the leather. Paul would have to learn how to fill the gouge with scores of layers of polish, and learn how to rub the leather for hours to make the surface smooth again.
To ensure that Paul had a physical memory of the day, the Lieutenant found a reason for him to hold his M-1 rifle at arm’s length in front of him. With his arms stretched straight out from his shoulders, Jumper soon felt his shoulders and elbows burning with rapidly increasing pain. In a few minutes the feeling began leaving his hands and then his forearms. A few minutes more and his arms no longer felt any pain. Red glowing knives were embedded in his shoulders, but his arms felt detached, throbbing slightly and with tingling skin. He watched, a spectator, as his arms sagged, and he involuntarily bent his elbows slightly. The Gunny was yelling something at him, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need the threats from the Gunny to motivate him to hold the rifle up. He would hold it up, because he had been told to do so, until his arms failed.
When his arms did fail, the Gunny was there to take the rifle from Paul. “Lieutenant, mind if I take a look at Jumper’s weapon?”
“Please, be my guest. I’m a little busy inspecting the hospital corners on his bunk.” Overhouse was ripping the blanket and sheets from the bed behind Paul and doing his best to hurl them through the open door of the room into the corridor. The bed had been made up perfectly.
Paul’s arms hung at his side at what he hoped was the correct position of attention. He couldn’t tell because he couldn’t feel them and, of course, he could not look at them to check. Gradually the blood flow, cut off at the shoulders from the strain of the task, returned, bringing with it an awareness of the torn muscle tissue and a savage attack of prickly skin. His arms throbbed at a hot, rapid beat and his hands felt swollen to twice their size. Paul’s chest heaved mightily as he breathed as deeply and rapidly as his nose would allow. Still reeling from the exertion, he watched as the Gunny carried his rifle to the sunlight streaming through the Venetian blinds. Smith had the breech open and was peering into it as he angled the weapon for the best illumination.
“Looks like their brass-shitting dog used this M-1 for a toilet, too, Lieutenant.”
The Lieutenant gave Smith a sidelong glance as he angled his way from Jumper’s area toward Logan, the fourth man in the room. The Lieutenant allowed himself a brief feeling of amusement as he watched the Gunny improvise. Smith had raised the blinds and was opening the window. Paul watched out of the corner of his eye as the Gunny dismantled his weapon and tossed each piece out the window. The smaller parts lay strewn about the sandy flowerbeds and the thick St. Augustine grass. The barrel protruded from the sand at an odd angle for a moment before falling to rest in the low periwinkles. The walnut stock clattered onto the sidewalk gaining the momentary attention of a passerby in the next block.
“I couldn’t stand that sewer smell inside the building,” explained the Gunny, looking at Paul. Then, as if what he had just done was a normal inspection routine, Smith moved on to readdress Jeter.
Overhouse liked the gun-through-the-window act; it had not been planned, but flowed perfectly with the rehearsed parts of the play. He was a little uncomfortable now with the Gunny back in front of Jeter and decided to improvise a little on his own. Approaching Logan, he stopped short and screwed his face into a look of pained disgust. “I can’t even do this, candidate. Give me a thousand four-count jumping jacks! Ready; begin!” Steve hesitated for a count, and then started into the exercise. He couldn’t believe his luck. Jumping jacks were the easiest calisthenics exercise to do. He had, however, never done a thousand of them.
After four repetitions of the routine, the Lieutenant bellowed, “I can’t hear you candidate! Sound off!”
Logan, who had not wanted to be disruptive, began chanting, “One, two, three, ONE! One, two, three, TWO! One, two, three, THREE…”
Having set this bit of chaos in motion, the Lieutenant walked back toward Paul, glancing quickly at Smith and Jeter. Smith was hesitating, wondering now what the Lieutenant was up to.
“Gunny, why don’t we get Jumper to lead Jeter through a set of roaring twenties? Jumper’s bored and the fat-body could use the work.”
“Sounds fine to me, Lieutenant.” The Gunny collected his thoughts for a moment, realizing he’d been redirected. Then, “Out in the passageway, you two! And Jumper, you’re not done till the fat-body’s done!”
The two candidates bolted from the room. They didn’t know yet what a roaring twenty was, but they were the happiest they had been so far this morning.
They sprinted to the end of the hall where the classmate they had seen earlier flying by their doorway was struggling through his tenth push up. Dropping down next to him, Paul whispered, “What’s a roaring twenty?”
Between labored breaths their friend said, “Do one push up here…run down to the other end and do another one….” He struggled to do another push up, then, “Run back up here and do two; back down there and do two more….” He caught his breath again. “Keep going till you’re doing twenty at each end. Then you’re done.” He forced out number twelve, pulled himself to his feet, and lumbered wearily 80 yards down the hall for his next set of push-ups.
“This won’t be bad, and we’re out of that stinking room!” Paul whispered. The two men whipped out a quick one and ran for the other end of the hall. They hadn’t done the math yet to know that they were starting a two-mile run punctuated with 440 push-ups.
In room 213, Overhouse and Smith were rapidly emptying the contents of Jeter’s and Logan’s lockers and turning their mattresses on edge next to the bunks. When they were finished, they looked around the room for a few seconds. Satisfied that they had left enough work for the four candidates, they turned on their heels and strode out of the room. Gunnery Sergeant Smith led the way to the next room.
Benjamin remained at attention in front of his locker. His body sagged involuntarily in relief, but he kept his gaze straight ahead, staring at the opposite wall.
Logan said, “One, two, three, NINETY-EIGHT! One, two, three, NINETY-NINE! One, two, three…”
Lacking any other guidance, the two men saw no reason to change anything they were doing.
Chapter 2
The highway ahead consisted of a pair of low, two-lane bridges stretching for several miles across the brown, choppy water of Mobile Bay. Froth-tipped waves lapped a scant three feet below the concrete spans, whipped up by the gulf wind. The car had no air conditioning and the driver had all the windows rolled down. The hot, humid air swirled into the car, buffeting her gently and tossing her long honey-blond hair around her face. It carried the smells of the sea, something foreign to her. The smell wasn’t pleasant, but it was somehow exciting, a sign of the changes in store for her.
She had lived all of her twenty-two years in Nacogdoches, Texas and had never been too interested in the sea. She had been too absorbed by her life in northeast Texas to give the sea much thought. Most of her energy, since elementary school, had been devoted to her horses. A champion barrel racer, she loved to ride. She also loved to feed, groom, and train the horses. Now, in the new life ahead of her on Interstate Ten, she would have a bond with the sea for the foreseeable time to come. Taking a deep breath, savoring the air’s redolence, she felt that the sense of excitement it gave her was a good omen for the future. Maybe the decision she had made by commencing this drive was the right one.
“So long as I can bring the horses to Pensacola…” she murmured aloud.
The driver stared to the east at the long, low causeway thinking it looked too low to be an interstate highway. This old bridge ought to be a fishing pier. An interstate should be on a taller bridge.
She thought about the bridge with the same attitude she had for everything. In general, things and people did not measure up to her standards. She had come to accept this condition, tolerating it as one of the parameters within which her life would have to be lived. The quality of things could range from very poor to quite good, but even the very best could never meet with her complete approval. In a similar way, the people in her life had a range of skills, personality, and character that was mostly at the high end. She chose her friends carefully. But all of them fell short of her expectations in some area or another, and had to be met halfway by her benevolent indulgence. Despite this, she was not an arrogant person. She cared about people in spite of their flaws.
Her horses were a partial exception to the rule. Occasionally, one of them, with sufficient training from her and while performing her bidding obediently, could gain her approval. In fact, she had felt as one with her mount on several, magical occasions. Sometimes it was while running the barrels, when her body and the horse’s were in harmony and the timing was perfect and the communication between woman and beast was effortless. Other times, she felt the special unity when riding alone and bareback with the sun barely above the trees, the only breeze being the one she and the animal were creating. At these times, the world with its imperfect tenants would fade away, leaving her and her mount, trained by her and guided by her, as the only perfect union living.
The Mazda droned on to the East. It crossed Mobile Bay and climbed the slight rise on the eastern shore. She wondered, again, about the man she was driving toward. Actually, she told herself, the man was going to be okay. It was this new life in the Navy she wasn’t sure of. Her man had promised that it was going to be good. She certainly hoped he was right.
~~~~~
Lunch was corned beef and cabbage with black-eyed peas. Paul had quaffed a glass of water and another of kool aid, bug juice they called it, and was now toying with the cabbage. It tasted okay with enough salt but he didn’t feel like eating. His body was trembling from the morning’s physical exertion, especially his arms, and his stomach was not going to tolerate a large meal. He ate as much as he thought he could without getting sick.
The first swallow of water he took had given him an unusual sensation. As he forced it down, his inner ear cavities were pressurized, startling him and giving an aquatic quality to the sounds in the room. After that he felt off balance, and worried that the morning’s physical exertion had done damage to his head. In part, it was true. Athletes that compete to exhaustion experience the same feeling. The opening to the Eustachian tube becomes enlarged after prolonged exertion and allows a small volume of fluid to enter the tube, upsetting the balance of air pressure between the inner ear and the outside world. This was the first of many times Paul would experience the sensation.
Some of Paul’s reluctance to eat was a fear of swallowing again. However, after a little while he realized that the feeling was no worse than at the beginning, and his body was craving liquid, so he finished the water and bug juice. The strange feeling in his head altered his sense of taste, not helping him face the cabbage. He kept playing with it.
The dining hall was filled with Aviation Officer Candidates from several classes. Some had been in Pensacola longer than Class Thirteen and they knew what the group had been through. Some of them, newer arrivals than Paul’s group, looked at them with wonder and trepidation. Class Thirteen looked like hell. Salty sweat stains decorated rumpled shirts. Most of their shoes were scuffed and their belt buckles tarnished. As a group, the candidates’ shoulders were slumped as they hunched over their food. They were beaten. Overhouse and Smith had made sure that everyone would have a physical memory of the inspection. They all were hoping it was the last physical memory to be made that day. The group was also depressed. It was obvious they had failed the inspection and would, therefore, not be granted their freedom this weekend. Worse, they would have to endure another RLP next Friday.
The class was smaller by two. Two young men decided that the intangible reward of becoming a Navy pilot was not worth the very real torture of the Naval Aviation Schools Command. They had ‘dropped on request’. These two DORs, like the others before them, would not be seen again by the remaining candidates. Ben imagined that the DOR’s had had the same thoughts he did during the inspection. It made him feel a little tougher to think that two other people had not been able to withstand the same temptation.
Jeter wore a glazed look showing that his exhaustion was total. “I’m not going to be able to do another RLP,” he said to Paul. Pete’s body sagged visibly as he spoke.
“Come on, Pete, you did fine.” Paul had answered too quickly, he realized, as he looked at Pete’s face. He thought for a moment then said, more gently, “Listen, Pete, the RLP is over. It just about killed us, but it’s over. We’re beat and we couldn’t do another one right now. But we don’t have to.” Paul was grinning now, trying to spread some warmth over Jeter. “Hell, all we gotta do now is stay awake during Naval History. And that’s all we can do; take this program one event at a time. Don’t worry about the next RLP, we’ll handle it when it’s time.”
Pete was not convinced. “I don’t know, man….”
That evening the four candidates sorted through the debris in room 213, reassembling their beds and re-folding their clothes. Their mood had improved somewhat. Paul had spent all the free time after lunch offering encouragement to Jeter, and it seemed to be working. The men were recounting the cartoon-like events of the day and laughing in a subdued manner; they never really knew for sure when there was a drill instructor or class officer in the building.
“You two looked like dead dogs after the roaring twenties”, Ben was saying.
“That ain’t right!” Paul replied with a grin. “I felt a lot worse than a dead dog!”
Jeter faked a thoughtful look. “Maybe if a dog was being run over by an eighteen-wheeler, and the third or fourth set of wheels had just rolled over him, he could feel about like I did.”
The four of them laughed out loud, their worry of being heard forgotten for the moment.
“But you gotta admit, that was some great conditioning exercise,” Paul mused.
Jeter rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. I want to avoid that condition in the future.”
The pieces of Paul’s rifle were spread out on the table in the center of the room. Tonight, after getting his locker in order, he would give the parts a thorough cleaning and then reassemble them. Then he would quickly polish his belt buckle to an acceptable level before starting the long, painstaking task of renewing his shoes. It looked to be a late night for him.
It would be a late night for all of them, and Ben hadn’t started on his tasks. He pulled out the shoebox of personal items that each of them was allowed. Ben’s smooth, handsome face softened as he fingered his favorite photograph.
It was an ordinary scene, one that had been the subject of thousands of photos in thousands of homes in America. There was a Christmas tree in a small apartment. Under it there were just a few presents. The tree was decorated simply with miniature white lights and a few gold colored ornaments. The last ornament to be added was being held by a young woman obviously posing for the photographer.
“Whatcha got there, Ben?” Paul was watching his friend.
Ben seemed to shake himself from a dream. He woke up smiling. “This, is Jennifer”, he said handing the photo to Paul. His tone was reverent.
“Is she your wife?” Paul hadn’t even considered that any of them might be married.
“No, not my wife, but we’ve been together since last Thanksgiving.”
“Is she back in Texas, somewhere?”
“She should be in Pensacola, somewhere, by now. She’s supposed to call me tomorrow from the hotel. The plan was to see her tomorrow night.”
“Don’t know if that’s gonna happen, now.”
“I know, and she’s not exactly the patient type.”
Paul was looking at the photo. He had taken it in his hand when offered by Ben, planning to be polite by saying something about how pretty she was, or that he was a lucky guy. He was forming the words of the compliment in his mind when he actually looked at the woman in the picture. The words stopped forming. She was pretty. He couldn’t help but notice that. But there was something else about the photo. The girl was looking at him. Of course she was merely smiling for the photographer, who was obviously Ben, but she was looking right into Paul’s eyes. He stared at the picture a little too long. His reverie was gently broken as he noticed Ben smiling at him.
“I know. I’m a lucky guy, right?” Ben was saying.
“It sure looks that way, Ben. She’s a gorgeous girl.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, when we get settled into an apartment, you guys should all come over for dinner. Jen’s a great cook,” Ben lied. He had no idea what Jennifer would think of that statement. “That is, if we ever get sprung from this place!”
The others grunted agreement over the uncertainty of their situation. Paul’s mind lingered for a moment more on the photograph. It was uncanny the way her eyes had captured his. It was also absurd that an inanimate photo could in any way react to him. He brushed it off, as one of his less realistic thoughts of the day. He picked up the barrel and stock of his rifle with only a slight sense of déjà vu lingering in his mind. As he began rubbing the filmy gun cleaning oil over the smooth metal, he all but forgot the photo.
~~~~~
The forest green Mazda passed into Florida, still eastbound on Interstate 10. Florida did not look like the Florida Jennifer was expecting. As far as she could tell, Florida along this highway looked exactly like the parts of Alabama and Mississippi she had just traversed. The roadsides and median were populated with thick stands of pine, not unlike her native East Texas. In the occasional breaks in the forest, the farmland was lush with reddish-brown soil. There was not a palm tree in sight, and she fought to quell a rising sense of unease in her stomach. Ben had said that even though they might not see much of each other for her first few weeks in Pensacola, they would at least be in beautiful, sunny Florida. The thought struck her now that Ben hadn’t seen Pensacola when he made that promise.
She let her mind settle onto her man. The radio station she had listened to in the vicinity of Mobile had faded to broken reception, so she turned it off. She had only the steady road and wind noise, punctuated by the occasional passing truck to hold her attention, so she let Ben fill her thoughts. He had everything she wanted in a man, and she had made a point of cataloging what those things were. Jennifer’s history of relationships with men had been less than satisfying, but she believed that she had found a real catch in Ben. She liked his solid good looks but, more importantly, he possessed a quite satisfactory register of her required characteristics in a man. And, of course, he had fallen hard for her, just as every man before him had done. He worshipped the ground she trod. Jennifer smiled to herself. She felt renewed after reviewing the facts.
She never lacked attention from the opposite sex. Though not a ravishing beauty, Jennifer Tillman had a warm, bright face with penetrating pale blue eyes. She had a natural beauty that seemed to be enhanced by her lack of interest in enhancing it. She let her shimmering hair fall where it wanted, brushing it daily only for its health. She routinely wore no makeup, and when she did apply a little blush for an evening, it didn’t really improve her looks. Her nose was not perfect. It had been broken in a riding fall and still carried the crooked evidence of the impact. But her nose, especially when complimented by one of her crooked little smiles, granted even more interest to her face. She possessed the rare combination of brilliant blond hair and golden brown skin. She was tall and strong and profoundly feminine. She exuded a raw, yet poised sensuality, almost fierce in its power.
Men had always been attracted by her sensuality, weakened by its power. From the sixth grade on boys had been drawn to her, at that time not knowing what was drawing them. By the time her parents allowed her to date, the onslaught of suitors was a torrent. She never knew what it was like to wonder if she would have a date for an important event. Instead, her adolescent agony was in trying to go with someone she wanted to while not crushing the ones she said no to. She was never too successful at this. She tried hard to do the right thing but she was not in control of just how hard the boys fell for her. By the time she was in college she had left a trail of broken hearts in her wake, and each one of them broke her heart a little, too. She learned through this pain to not lead a boy on. She was friendly with all that made advances toward her, but if she sensed no special attraction toward the boy, she would slam the door on him, quickly and cleanly. This method worked well for her except that, over time, she found herself being quite analytical about her feelings for the men that wooed her.
And so her relationships with men became an analytical game. She would watch their advances, secretly grading their technique and analyzing her own attraction to them. Then she would tally up their attributes on her mental score sheet. As her experience with the game increased, she developed a list of must-have characteristics in a man. But as she continued to play the game, a sense of urgency began to develop. She felt a low-grade fear rising up within her from time to time. A fear that there was no such thing as a truly perfect love for her, only men that were drawn to her by her looks. Men with many different characteristics, some of which she considered important to have. How many good characteristics were enough? Was there anything more that should be between her and the right man?
When she met Ben, she realized that there wasn’t anything more to love than she had already discovered, nothing new or magical. Ben was like all the others, but his list of must-have characteristics was so much longer than anyone before him that he presented a near-perfect case. Based on her experience with Ben, Jennifer decided that her analytical method of evaluating men was completely vindicated. There was so much that was right about Ben that she felt entirely comfortable that he was the man for her. Ben was a solid man. He was steady and dependable, handsome in a very down-home way, very sincere in everything he said and did, and, of course, hopelessly in love with her. Perhaps most importantly to Jennifer, Ben had his career planned out. He was going to be an airline pilot and he had a plan by which to achieve this lofty goal. Jennifer liked the fact that Ben had a long-range plan. Not many of the Nacogdoches boys she knew had a strategy beyond getting a reasonable job out of college. The first move of Ben’s strategy was to become a Navy pilot, a move that both pleased and alarmed Jennifer. She was alarmed because the whole concept of the Navy was foreign to her. But she reveled in the idea that her Ben would be a Naval Officer. She had seen the photos of young men decked out in Navy Dress Whites or Blues in the recruiting pamphlets that Ben had shown her. The men in the photos looked stunning and important in their uniforms. Even the very first step of Ben’s plan was exciting to her and the overall strategy promised her a life of comfort, even wealth, with this impressive man.
Despite his extensive list of must have characteristics and his well thought out, long range strategy, Ben was not an entirely perfect man. He was not particularly witty or glib. He considered his words carefully before speaking. He sometimes even appeared dull in a lively conversation. Jennifer saw this not as a serious flaw. It was probably just the way a person was when they were as well organized as Ben. At any rate, it was a small thing. It required only the slightest benevolence on her part to atone for the shortcoming.
Jennifer had been in Florida for thirty minutes now. She emerged from her thoughts of Ben with the realization that it was time to look for the road signs for Pensacola. Ben had written to her that the quickest way to the southwest side of the city, where the Naval Air Station was, was to take US 90 East and follow the signs to the N.A.S. She hoped she hadn’t missed the exit.
~~~~~
The young men of Class 72-13 were assembled in their athletic clothes on the vast parade ground across from the chapel. It was eight o’clock Saturday morning. Paul, Ben, Pete and Steve were standing together, listening to their class officer’s instructions. There was something different about the way LT. Overhouse was speaking to the candidates. The class had noticed this the previous Saturday at their first ‘Field Day’. Although still very much in charge, Overhouse was speaking to near-equals, much as an older brother would speak to his younger siblings.
“I know most of you girls are tired and hurting today, but this is your chance to show me, and yourselves what you’re made of. Those turds from the other battalions don’t have anything you don’t have, and you can whip their asses!”
Overhouse sounded like a high school football coach and this realization planted the seed of an idea in Paul’s mind. As hard as the class leaders rode them to mold them into military men, they also invested the effort to enfold the candidates into their first Navy family. So far, it was only on Saturday mornings, and the motivation was selfish. Each of the twelve class officers wanted their own classes to make a good showing on field day.