by David Poyer
It was Akhmeed who’d cut her down after the guys taped her to the overhead. The taping wasn’t so bad. What was embarrassing was having to wear a rubber glove on her head. You stretched the latex wrist over the top of your skull and your eyes and your nose. Then blew out until the fingers erected like a rooster comb on top of your head. You had to go around the ship flapping your arms and crowing. She’d come face to face with the exec by the Coke machine. Who’d yelled at her to take the fucking glove off her head and get back to her work space, this was a ship not a frat party.
But now the hazing was over and Chief Bendt had called down on the 4MC to wash down the GTG because they were going into Palma this morning. Helm had shut it down and told her to do the washdown with Sanders. She got her tools together and made sure the temperature was under 110 degrees. If it wasn’t, you could warp the blades spraying cold water on them. She climbed into the isolation module and started disconnecting the air lines and hoses. The ship was rolling and her mouth was watering and she didn’t like being in there. All somebody had to do was dog the hatch and light off the turbine and she’d cook. Nobody’d ever hear her screaming. So she kept the door propped open. She could hear the guys talking outside about why the rotor rings were sparking.
“We replaced the brushes and sandpapered the rings.”
“Is it the rotor? Is it warped?”
“Naw, it’s them rotor worms. They get into it and eat out at it from inside.”
“What kind of zit brain you think I am? You’re fuckin’ so lame, man.”
“Yeah, fuckin’ lame, you scammer. Red on the head like the dick on a dog.”
“At least when I fart you smell something, man. Not just dry old cobwebs.”
“You’re the fucking head of the class, man. Like when they told you to go see the chief engineer and ask her for twelve feet of fallopian tube.”
She climbed out and told Helm he could spin the motor now. You spun it at low speed from the panel, about two thousand RPM. Meanwhile she went up the ladder to the upper level and poured half a gallon of BNB into the wash tank. She didn’t know what the initials stood for, just that it was like a detergent. She cracked the valve to pressurize it, then went back down to the generator and carefully opened the solenoid valve next to the module. A hiss came out of the open door, but you never actually saw any water. It went in the engine and out the exhaust and evaporated when it hit the hot tubes in the boiler. She gave it one shot with the BNB and two rinses with fresh water. Then climbed back in to reconnect.
“You got Girls Go Wild, number eight? I got to get geared up for Palma. One of the hull techs, he was telling me there’s like thousands of English girls there. They hear an American accent, they take ’em off right there.”
Pascual’s voice: “Sure, I got it. Two dollar an hour. Never been looked at. You be the first one.”
“You don’t need porn, dickhead. You need a testicle transplant.”
“Your bitch got you so pussy-whipped, you don’t even read porn.”
“I never said I read it. But I look at it.”
“Save yourself some money. Go to the ship’s store, buy some Baby Ruth bars, and go down to Aux 2. Give them to that Wilson chick, she’ll take you in the trash compactor room.”
“I heard that Borromeo say somethin’ about that, but I figured it was bullshit. He’s so full of it. The great Latin lover.”
“It ain’t bullshit. She’ll clear your fuckin’ tubes. The av mechs snuck her into the back of the bird. Sealed her up airtight, three guys at once.”
“Fuckin’ women at sea. Fuckin’ port-a-pussy… sumbitch thought this one up, he oughta get a fuckin’ medal. This little one you got, she’s got a cute little ass on her. Anybody hooked up with her yet?”
Sanders, sounding confused: “What? Who? Kasson? No, she don’t… she ain’t…”
She put her head out and saw two losers from one of the work centers aft. They looked startled seeing her head come out of the enclosure. She snapped, “Ricochet. Clear those tags and set up for a manual start.” They muttered and drifted off.
…
THEY moored before lunchtime at an industrial part of town. Big heaps and wooden bins of reddish clay rose inland. Somebody said it was what they made Spanish tile out of, like for roofs. She looked ashore eagerly. It was her first overseas port, unless you counted Rota. Fortunately she wasn’t in the duty section. They had to sit for a prelib-erty brief in the mess decks, then everybody went down to the compartment to get ready.
Ina was already dressed when she got there. She had her hair back in braids and was wearing white shorts and running shoes. She looked about fifteen. Which was not necessarily bad, Cobie guessed. Better than coveralls and shitkickers. She waited in line for the shower, thrilled when the water came out hot, and scrubbed the fuel stink off her. Back at her locker, she hesitated between her two civilian outfits. A dark red sundress—God knows what she’d been thinking. Maybe drinking wine in Rome in the Colosseum by moonlight. Uh-huh. Or else jeans and a T-shirt. She unpinned her hair and brushed it out, wishing it would lie straight, but with all the humidity from the hole it kinked up like an unraveled rope.
Patryce Wilson came out of the shower and strode through the compartment naked except for flip-flops. Cobie looked away, remembering the overheard conversation. It was just locker-room bullshit. When a woman acted friendly, some guys took it as an invitation, and once the stories started, everybody had to top them. Like the retards by the generator that morning. “Patryce, you been here before?”
“Palma? Shit, yeah, lots of times. I’ll take you to some cowboy bars. We’ll get shitfaced. Speak any Spanish?”
Cobie said she didn’t, only “Muchas gracias,” and Wilson said that was too bad, Spanish men were fun. “Hey, how about Lourdes?”
“She’s gotta speak Spanish. Don’t Mexicans … yeah. Don’t they?”
The ear-piercing whistle she hated, then the 1MC. “Liberty call, liberty call. Liberty call for duty sections two and three. Liberty expires on board at 0200 for second class and below. Now liberty.”
“You get her, I’ll get Ina.”
“She’s already dressed,” Cobie said to her back. Then looked at her makeup kit, hardened and cracked in the heat of the berthing compartment. With hasty, out-of-practice daubs, she began making herself up.
…
INA didn’t show for the longest time, and Lourdes had to go back for her purse. Everyone had to sign out with a liberty buddy. Patryce told them to sign out two and two, if they signed all four together they’d have to come back together. By the time they finally got to the gate the bus was gone, disappearing over the hill. Patryce said it didn’t matter, they’d go to the mall till the next one.
The mall was built into the side of a hill. They had to climb past about five hundred little motorbikes parked below it. Girls and guys were pulling up and leaving. Cobie eyed the girls. Spandex ran rampant. They wore it tight, black stretch pants, or painted-on jeans with big clunky shoes. The guys were swarthy, with dark hair slicked back, kind of greasy looking. There was a Pizza Hut, but it wasn’t like in the States. Everything was in Spanish and the pizza tasted funny, but they had Tanqueray and orange juice for two dollars a pitcher. The waiter was a hunk. Patryce called him “stud muffin.” Cobie had a glass of T&O and then another, listening to Patryce tell about the artist guy she’d met up at the castle the last time she was here and how she raped his thing.
After that things started getting fuzzy. So instead of one thing, and then another thing, there were scenes, like postcards. Like snapshots in a cruise book. Our Port Visit in Palma.
ON THE BUS TO MAGALOUF
They pull themselves on giggling and screaming and the bus driver gives a sour look but nobody cares. The ship rents the buses and there’s nothing but Horn dudes aboard anyway, and they’re noisy, too. There’s nothing the driver can do.
Looking out as the straining engine carries them uphill and then down, through a city. She blink
s, fascinated at the passing cars, shops, people. All the signs are in Spanish. Sure, what else! This isn’t fucking Bumfuck, Louisiana, anymore. She doesn’t feel exactly safe, in a funny way she’s never felt before. What if somebody asks her a question? She took Spanish at Acadiana High, but right now she can’t remember hello or thank you. Behind them the guys have the windows down, hooting at the babes on the street. They’re smaller than Americans, with long dark shiny hair. Most are wearing dresses, some, the ones who look like office workers, pants suits.
The bus drives for a long time, out into the country, up and down hills and ridges. Then they see the sea again and tall buildings. It looks like Fort Lauderdale, where she went on the senior trip. The guys are going nuts, throwing things out of the window, until a first class tells them to knock it the fuck off if they don’t want to get everybody restricted to the ship for the rest of the cruise.
A paper bag comes back, hand to hand, somebody stole one of the pitchers from the Pizza Hut. The bus bumps, and it runs down her neck onto her shirt and she says angrily, “Shit. Fuck.” And Lourdes is rubbing at it with a paper napkin from her little purse.
THE DAIQUIRI PALACE
Magalouf’s like a TV show about the rich and famous, a long curving beach with hotels and clubs. The Daiquiri Palace is a two-story blue house with an outside bar overlooking the beach, then farther down a little concrete wall. Then nothing but beautiful, fine white sand, and beach chairs lined up like tombstones, that regular, except where people had pulled them together and were lying on them. She has her suit on under her jeans so all she has to do is pull her clothes off. The sand’s so hot it burns her feet, but the water’s warm and blue. Back at the bar somebody’s riding the mechanical bull. They’re yelling and screaming, and when he falls off, everybody dumps beer on him. Then some guy from Oklahoma gets on, and he can actually ride. They carry him around on their shoulders, then pour beer on him, too, and throw him in the water.
SHOPPING ON THE STRIP
There are lots of English girls out shopping. The clerks are Spanish, but they all speak English and French and probably two or three other languages, too. She starts to feel like she didn’t get a good-enough education, listening to them switch from one language to another. She gets to talking with one of the English girls. Everybody goes to Palma or the Canary Islands, she says. Ina here’s from England, Cobie says. The English girl’s curious, wants to know if Ina plans to go back. Ina says no, she’s a Yank now.
Cobie buys a new swimsuit. A two-piece, made in France. It’s expensive, but she really likes it. It makes her look taller. She wishes she wasn’t so damn short.
THE COWBOY BAR
Patryce takes them there in a taxi. She says you can meet Spanish guys there without a lot of Americans around. Cobie isn’t sure she wants to, but they’re following Patryce because she knows where everything is. Only when they get there it’s closed. So then Lourdes says she’s hungry, and they go to another place, all dark wood inside and heavy wooden tables and the menu’s all in Spanish, which Lourdes reads to them. Everything’s roasted meat. Beef and lamb and pork. She’d like chicken, but there isn’t any, so she has beef.
Now it’s starting to get dark. Cobie feels sick, almost like throwing up, from the T&O and the beers and all the meat, but she keeps trying to think about something else and it goes away.
THE TATTOO BAR
Another bar, she’s not sure where, someplace on the Strip. Guys from the ship in back. Lots of mirrors. Paintings on the walls. A little old guy with a beard is hunched on a stool with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and shot glasses on a metal tray painted in an Arabic pattern. The tray’s cool, her mom would like it. Maybe she can find one at one of the shops.
The guys are getting tribal tattoos. Complicated designs on their chests and arms and shoulders. Barbed wire. Lion’s heads. The old guy doesn’t speak English. He pours shots of whiskey and shows them other designs. Butterflies. Teddy bears. Rainbows. Unicorns. He points to her neckline. A rose design looks pretty. She could feature that. But then the machine buzzes and blood runs down the guy’s arm who’s getting tattooed.
She’s scared, but Ina gets a unicorn in a field of flowers, its hooves in the air. Cobie takes another shot of whiskey. At last she lies down on the damp blue plastic and peels down her jeans. The machine buzzes. She bites her lip at the sudden blazing pain, whispering softly ouch, ouch, ouch.
THE DAIQUIRI PALACE, AGAIN
Back on the beach. It’s cool now, and somebody lights tiki torches. Everybody’s drinking daiquiris a woman shakes up at the bar. They go swimming again. Her back stings when the saltwater hits it. There are more girls now, women the guys picked up and brought back to dance and swim. The English girls are going around topless, showing it off like they just invented tits.
Patryce takes her top off first. She teases Ina and Cobie when they won’t. Lourdes tells her she’d better put it back on and stop drinking, but Patryce tells her not to be a poop. They’re not gonna get to do this once they get to the Gulf, she’d better go back to the fucking ship if she’s going to spoil her fun.
Cobie tries to ride the bull, but the shaking makes all the food and booze come up and she hunks all down the front of her new bathing suit. She rinses it off in the house, then goes into the water to wash her front off. But when she comes out her top’s gone from where she left it on one of the lounge chairs. Then somebody hands her another daiquiri, and it’s kind of fun walking around with the night wind on her chest and the guys all trying to act cool, like it’s nothing. They take their shirts off, too, and pretty soon they’re playing drunk volleyball down on the beach.
IN THE BATHROOM
She has to pee bad but doesn’t want to do it in the water. Something brushed her legs the last time she went in and now it’s dark. The light’s off when she goes into the bathroom. She switches it on and sees Wilson’s head in this guy’s crotch. His wet shorts are on the floor and Pa-tryce’s going up and down on him. Bartlett, who runs the ship’s store. A big dude who jokes about how he’ll give them a break on the Slim Jims. Patryce’s eating his Slim Jim now. It’s huge and glistening, almost blue. Cobie stares. She’s never seen a black man’s dick before. His eyes open and he smiles at her over Patryce’s head. She looks away quickly, hesitates, then goes into the stall and closes the door and pulls down her bottom. She has to pee forever, like she’s soaked the whole ocean in through her skin. Meanwhile they’re grunting and thumping on the other side of the partition. Finally she wipes herself and rushes out, bare feet clammy on the concrete. It’s wet with piss and beer and saltwater and gritty with sand.
Outside the torches are still flickering but everything feels different. Her back burns where she got tattooed. She feels sick and dizzy and the beach is going around and around, like when you’re down in the hole and the ship’s rolling. Lourdes is standing alone, hugging herself. Eyes wide, looking scared. Some guy’s shirt’s hanging on the railing. Cobie pulls it on, not caring whose it is, and the next thing they’re on the bus, then there’s the ship, and the ladder, and her rack. That’s the last thing she remembers. In her fucking rack, with the motor droning next to her ear and the ship spinning and spinning like it’s all going down the toilet. Vortex. To
nothing
but
black.
10
FOUR days after they left Palma for operations with the battle group, the word arrived. Along with lessons learned, COMIDEAST-FOR instructions, and rules of engagement. The binder of messages and references was two inches thick.
Dan flipped through it on the bridge while Hotchkiss and Camill stood waiting. The sun glared and swayed. A blue sea was running. A burnt-orange haze glowed around the horizon. Over the years Dan had watched that dirty halo creep farther and farther out over the Med. Roosevelt, Anzio, Cape St. George, and the amphibious ready group lay thirty miles behind them. Horn was out ahead in a screen station, maintaining tabs on aircraft and surface contacts as Task Force 61 plowed toward
far-off Crete, with the sonar chanting its eerie, lilting whine.
He rubbed his temples, glancing at a chart of the northern Red Sea the exec had propped against the window. Operating areas and warning zones were outlined in red and green and purple. He read through tab after tab, orders, mission, rules of engagement, logistic requirements.
Horn and Laboon would detach as the battle group passed 28 degrees east, about the longitude of Rhodes. Operating as Task Unit 61.1.7, under tactical command of Laboon’s captain, they’d transit the Suez Canal and “inchop”—change operational commanders—to Commander, Mideast Force, for duty in the Red Sea. Their mission would be enforcing U.N. sanctions by interdicting traffic to and from the port of Al-Aqaba, Jordan, the transshipment point for imported goods and exported oil trucked out the Iraqi back door.
At its northern end, where it bounded Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Jordan, the Red Sea split into two estuaries. The Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba branched off like an index and little finger extended to ward off evil. The two U.S. ships would be operating either just inside or just outside the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, depending on which sector the Senior Combatant Commander assigned them on arrival. The British, French, and Australians each had a frigate on the Red Sea station. They’d be refueled by an oiler out of Jubail; mail and spare parts would stage out of Sicily via a weekly C-9.
