Fiction Friday: Home From the Sea

Oh, a little fiction, but mostly a true story about how coming home from sea is nice. Warning: contains, or alludes to, some ancient naval terms. Skip over quickly if you have sensitivities.
.

HOME FROM THE SEA

By Jimmie von Tungeln

             The huge ship lumbered nearer the bridges, shuddering from the turning of the screw but running true and straight. With a length of two football fields and the height of a ten-story building, it dominated Charleston Harbor, rolling alongside the smaller craft with the disdain of a weary queen. A boat had delivered the pilot nearly a mile back and the ship was still moving unfettered through the treacherous waters, with Castle Pinckney off the starboard bow. Soon the tugs would pull alongside her and begin to ease her gently up the Cooper River like boy scouts escorting a venerable old lady through traffic. Ahead, two massive and ancient bridges spanned the river, inviting the traveler home.

            Tim Hinson, Boatswain’s Mate Third Class of the United States Navy, leaned against a bulkhead watching the shoreline drift by as if it were a movie set. A short while earlier, he had stood on the fantail as the ship sailed between forts Sumter and Moultrie, the scene oozing history into the morning’s light. It would be his last view of the harbor, the end of an era that had begun four long years ago, in 1966—an eternity earlier.

            “Your last?” a voice said, breaking through the sounds of the wind and the ship's deep rumble. Hinson looked to see a young Seaman Apprentice at his side and recognized him as one of the new arrivals to the after deck section, the group that cared for the ship’s rigging and operated the small craft assigned to the vessel. He was a curious young man, completing his first time at sea. His face pleaded for a friendly word.

            Hinson said, “Don’t you have something to do?” He walked to the rail and rested his arm. The two were amidships, away from most of the activity and out of most direct lines of sight.

            “I’m supposed to be fetching some ‘water line’ but I’ve fallen for that one before,” the youth said. “Can’t you cut me a little slack, Boats?”

            “Have they told you to bring them the vertical windlass yet?”

            “Oh yes. I even stood the ‘Mail Buoy Watch.’ I went five places looking for ‘bulkhead remover’ and tried all afternoon one day to find Charlie Noble.”

            “Screw it,” Hinson said, smiling. “Just don’t tell anyone I said you could lollygag.”

            “Someone comes, I’ll ask them where the waterline locker is and skedaddle.” He eyed Hinson with suspicion.  “You gonna sail your hat off?”

            “Now what business could that possible be of yours?” Hinson said. “Did Chief Zelmer send you to spy on me?”

            “There’s a bunch of guys on the …,” he stopped, opened one palm, then the other, chose the left, and said. “uh, port side that are going to sail theirs, if they don’t get caught.”

            “Good for them,” Hinson said. “Maybe if I don’t throw you overboard you will live to sail yours off someday.”

            “Weren’t you in ‘Nam’ before you came here?”

            Hinson turned to look at him. “You got something against that?”

            “Oh no, not me,” the young man said. “But there are some NCOs, officers too, that really resent you.”

            “What makes you think that?”

            “I hear talk,” he said. “They say they give the guys who come here from Vietnam the shittiest jobs on the ship to show them their place. Do you think that is true?”

            “Well, they did make me work with fender-heads like you.”

            “Oh, come on Boats, I’m just trying to pass the time.”

            “Sure,” Hinson said. He unzipped his bluejacket and reached inside. The white sailor’s hat rested against his body rolled neatly into a saucer shape, ready for sailing.

            The youth noticed and said, “Is it really an old Navy tradition?”

            “What, to throw a nosey seaman overboard?”

            “No,” the lad said, “to sail a hat off the ship and into the sea when you come in from your last cruise.”

            “That’s what they tell me.”

            “And,” the youth continued, “you write the names of all your home ports on it?”

            “Yep, of course some have more than others.”

            “How many are on yours?”

            Hinson regarded the other. “Just three,” he said. “Waiting for Vietnam, Vietnam, and two years on this old girl serving with over-inquisitive seamen.”

            “Aren’t you the Coxswain for the Admiral’s Barge?”

            “I was. Next week I’ll be a civilian and they don’t let civilians drive the Admiral around.”

            “Did you ever think of re-upping?”

            “Do you really have shit for brains or is that a look you have practiced?”

            “Actually I have two years of college.”

            “Well good for you,” Hinson said. “The Navy needs educated men. You know what Chief Zelmer says about Bosun’s Mates, don’t you?”

            “No, what?”

            “He says that once there was one on board who was so dumb the other Bosun’s Mates started noticing it.”

            The youth laughed. “He’s funny, ain’t he?”

            “Sometimes,” Hinson said.

            “You know what he yelled at us when we were trying to get underway?”

            “I can’t imagine.”

            “He said we looked like a bunch of monkeys trying to [$#@*] a football.”

            Hinson smiled. He leaned over the rail and watched as the spans of the two giant bridges, the Silas N. Pearman and the Grace Memorial, seemed to move closer.

            “A civilian,” the youth said. “That must be nice.”

            Hinson turned and said, “Lad, would you like some advice?”

            “Sure,” the youth said.

            “Don’t be thinking about civilian life. You’ve a long time to go and that sort of thinking will drive you crazy. Try to enjoy this man’s Navy.”

            “Did you?”

            “At times,” Hinson said, “after I quit fighting it 24 hours a day. Want to know something else?”

            “I suppose.”

            “Don’t look for gratitude because it won’t be there.”

            The youth looked stricken. “You mean they don’t appreciate us out in the real world?”

            “Only in the abstract,” Hinson said. "Oh, they'll brag about you on the 4th of July but make you sit you at the back table in a restaurant. He stopped and seemed to relish a memory. “There was one time recently that was different, but just one since I've been aboard this bucket..”

            “When was that?”

            Hinson said, “Have you heard the crew talk about when the ship docked at Fort Lauderdale?”

            “Oh man,” the youth said. “That sounded like some real fun.”

            “When we were coming up the canal to our berth,” Hinson said, “there were huge condominiums lining the banks.”

            “And?”

            “It was as if people were telegraphing ahead as the ship moved along. Flags started appearing on the balconies and people started waving at us. Of course they were all old farts. One old guy on our side even saluted us.” He stopped and looked away. “That was nice.”

            “So they did appreciate you … us?”

            “Lad,” Hinson said, “that was the first time in three years that I had received kindness at the hand of strangers, and it would be the last of my military career.”

            The youth stared into the water. “The only time?”

            “No,” Hinson said. “There was one other. Long before, when I hadn’t been in much longer than you have.” The ship veered a point or so to port as it started its passage beneath the bridges. “Now,” said Hinson, “if you will excuse me, I have something to do.”

            With that, he reached into his jacket and drew out the rolled hat. With one swing, he sailed it into the harbor as the shadow of the first bridge moved athwartships toward them. It spun itself into a high arc and settled with grace and solemnity on the surface.  Simultaneously, dozens of other hats sailed forth until Charleston Harbor was dotted with white circles dancing on the waves like the stars of a flag waving in the wind.

            Hinson turned to the youth. “One other thing,” he said.

            “What’s that?”

            “Be careful in this city. They hate service men, especially sailors. The cops will beat the hell out of you for looking at them funny.”

            “Don’t the people here appreciate us?”

            “Not particularly.”

            “They’re not patriotic?”

            “Doesn’t matter,” Hinson said. “As my mother used to say, familiarity breeds contempt. And, as I have learned, contempt overrides patriotism any day of the week.”

            The youth looked stunned.

            “Don’t worry,” Hinson said. “It will be just fine. Someday they may even build a monument to us. Just stay away from the officers, go on liberty every chance you get, don’t catch the clap, and don’t volunteer for anything, ever. You will do just fine.”

            The youth’s face broke into a smile. “Thanks Boats,” he said. “Thanks for talking to me. You’re the first one who has … I mean … man to man.”

            “My pleasure,” Hinson said, “Now get your ass back to the fantail and let’s moor this ship. America needs us, whether she knows it or not.” As he spoke, the fantail of the great ship passed beneath the second bridge and the lady was home from the sea once more.

The proud old lady Rolling home.

Saying goodbye ....

Finally said goodbye to the brother today. Time to move on. I let go of a lot of stuff, junk mostly. What I kept were some memories of the best times we ever had together.

It was back in 1970. When I left Vietnam, I wound up on a Navy ship in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the meanest cities to strangers in the U.S. at that time. Meantime, he had enlisted in the United State Marines for reasons known only to himself. After boot camp and schooling, he ended up at Camp Lejeune in southern North Carolina for some sort of advanced training. It was close enough to where my ship docked that we got together weekends when we could.

The people and police in Charleston hated blacks, servicemen, and people who had come there since 1680 in pretty much equal proportions. Scoring two out of three, I needed all the friendly faces I could find. So, brother and I spent some weekends there, often in the company of James Huddleston from Thayer, Missouri and/or Sidney Bussey from Douglas, Georgia. My brother had no civilian clothes, so we all wore uniforms, which meant that it was best for us to stay out of sight as best we could. We three sailors had seen what the local peacekeepers could do to one of our breed after seeing a few of them carried aboard the ship after exceeding some local rule or other.

It wasn’t a pretty sight, so we avoided the good people of Charleston as best we could.

It was enough for us simply to find an affordable motel room and spend time just watching TV, drinking beer, and lying around without being yelled at during a weekend, quite suitable for lonely men far from home. You had to be there. It lasted for several months before an incurable allergic reaction to combat-boot leather ended his career with an honorable discharge, a promotion to Lance Corporal, and orders to Westpac, i.e. Vietnam, laying on the Personnel Officer’s desk.

Once, just the two of us had a little extra money and landed in a pretty nice motel with a friendly bar next door. Too friendly I guess. I woke up the next morning with no memory of walking back. With that great smile of his, he explained it. I had made it fine until we reached the bottom of the stairs leading to our second-floor room. Thereupon, I needed help up, like a sinner being led to salvation.

He wasn’t a big man, my brother. But with muscles toned by the Marine Corps, he was making steady but noisy progress until we were halfway up the stairs. When the manager of the motel came out to check on the commotion, he asked if help was needed.

According to a now long-time family legend, the response was fast and firm. “He ain’t heavy mister. He’s my brother.” I have no proof that it happened that way, but, as they said in the John Wayne movie, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” It's one of the stories he would tell until he died.

So I leave you with this. It’s a song about a wandering performer, but it made me think of my brother and, given his love for all things Jimmy Buffett, I choose it with which to say goodbye.

Some stories are worth telling.
Some may not be.

Morning Thoughts: December 14, 2017

The Cooper River was cantankerous at best, treacherous at its most awful: a real bitch if you want to know the truth. She flowed out of South Carolina into Charleston Harbor, past Fort Moultrie, then Fort Sumter, and out to sea, ruining many a career along the way.

Our ship, the venerable USS Hunley, AS31, lay some distance upriver in a complicated “Med-moor,” meaning she was anchored ass-end first to a fixed pier with her bow pointing downstream. Haughty and snug, she let the river do its worst. A fixed pier and flexible gangway provided access.

That river rose and fell with the tide. The flood-tide just oozed in, raising the river sometimes nearly ten feet. The ebb tide ran out like a man caught in the wrong house. Pity the inexperienced sailor navigating amongst the games she played. A drop of ten feet in a few hours could create currents that played hell with trying to land a boat.

They kept a fleet of small craft across the pier from the ship. I coxswained the barge assigned to the commander of a submarine squadron. Carl Ferguson coxswained our captain’s gig. Jimmy Huddleston drove a boat for a commodore who was destined to be an admiral until a nuclear sub ran aground on the “bitch-mother” river. He disappeared next morning, and Huddleston had little to do. All in all, it was pretty soft duty for us all.

We moored to floating docks that rose and fell with the tide. They were connected to the pier by gangways that rose and fell as well. That’s what caused all the fun.

It happened like this. My crew and I were returning from taking my Admiral’s wife and some friends to Fort Sumter and dropping them off at the main base. A steward came along with snacks, wine, and beer. On leaving us, the Admiral’s wife had given me the usual wink and requested that I dispose of the leftovers as usual, “according to approved naval protocol.” We felt pretty shipshape when we turned to our berthing spot. 

It was high tide, so no currents bedeviled us.We moored without incident. I put the crew to work and invited Ferguson and Huddleston over to share in some leftover wine. That’s when it happened. I was pouring some wine into a coffee cup when my “boathook” leaned through the hatch and said, “You better come see this.”

I gave him a physically impossible but time-honored Navy response. He said, “No, you better take a look.”

Cursing in three separate languages, I stepped out onto our dock. In the space between our dock and the next, someone was tying up a thirty-three-footer to the fixed concrete pier. Did I mention that it was high-tide? “Jack me off with a bilge-pump and call me a snipe,” I said to the boathook. Then I hailed the guys mooring the boat.

Two seamen and a pasty-looking ensign in full dress regalia came from the boat’s port side and looked at me. “Yes?” the ensign said. I stared for a second or two until he looked down at the officer’s stripe on his coat and then back at me. I saluted and he saluted back in his best imitation of Bull Halsey. “Yes?” he said again.

“I don’t think I would moor that boat there,” I said.

“Sailor,” he said. “What is this?” He pointed at his hat.

“Your cover,” I said.

“And what does it mean?”

“Means you’re a line-officer, sir,” I said.

He thrust a fist in my direction and pointed at a finger with his other hand. “Know what this is?”

“It’s a ring, Sir.”

“Not just a ring,” he said. “This,” he said, jabbing at the object in question, “this is a United States Naval Academy ring. Do you have one?”

“No sir,” I said, thinking that he probably knew the answer, but then, being a “napolis Man,” maybe he didn’t.

“I see,” he said. “Now what is your rank?” Had he not worn that ring, he probably would have known already. It was sewn right onto my uniform. I was still in dress whites and my rank was prominent, along with my ribbons signifying my recent service in Vietnam. “Bosun's Mate third-class,” I said.

“Now don’t you think maybe I know a little more about mooring small craft than you do?”

Now that was a stupid question. It took me more courage than old John Paul himself needed when he smart-mouthed the captain of the Serapis from the deck of the “Bonny-Dick” to kept from bursting out laughing like I could hear Ferguson and Huddleston doing.

“Of courser sir.” I gave him my best “Barnacle Bill the Sailor” salute. “By your leave,” sir,” I said, and stepped back into the cabin. I hear a distinct “Harrumph,” ere I sat and resumed what I had been doing.

We drank our wine. It took us into a warm fellowship wherein we became trusted shipmates, brothers tried and true. We talked of ports-of-call and “West-Pac Widows,” then moved to great assholes we had known. All were officers save one Chief Bosun’t mate whom we had worked for, before his wife killed him. Most of the great officer-assholes, we agreed, were ‘napolis men.”

We even talked some, maybe ten seconds or so, about what an exciting and marvelous career the United States Navy offered. This time we all burst out laughing.

We were warm, safe, and contented, proud descendants of men who had once faced canon-fire in wooden vessels over a mile-deep sea in service to their country. Outside, the tide began going out and we could hear the steel rings of our dock screeching against the anchor-columns as we sank.

We could also hear the Cooper River—that muddy bitch—snickering.

My home away from home.