The Airboss swiveled around, removed his headset. “Howdy, Senior Chief O’Reilly. Skipper, thirty seconds on the A-7. Cameras are rolling.”
Loud grumbling preceded the jet’s approach, and it took about a second for it to bolt past the window.
“I’ll roll the tape in slow-mo for you now,” the Airboss said, fingering a button. “We’re looking for a red streamer on a pin that should have been removed before flight.”
On a TV screen above the windows they saw the A-7’s nose cone slowly enter from the left, and then the cockpit’s canopy and the pilot’s jaw jutting from his crash helmet. The cockpit slid forward out of the frame.
“Zoom in!” Captain Stone barked. The wing’s leading edge and the rack of quarter-ton bombs slid slowly into the frame. “Freeze it now!” Stone ordered. They saw a detonator, rigged with a long strand of gold wire screwed into the nose of each bomb. The bombs were mounted on a gray rack, and the rack was secured to a station under the wing. There were no streamers or pins in sight.
“Order that pilot to shake those weapons.”
The Airboss relayed Captain Stone’s order.
For a tense minute, they waited in silence.
The pilot radioed, “Bombs are hanging on.”
Captain Stone turned his laser-sharp eyes on O’Reilly and said, “We are over two-thousand miles from land, so I’m sure you are aware that this ship is the only place for this aircraft to land. Therefore, right now I want you to tell me your plan for a safe recovery of this aircraft on my flight deck.”
O’Reilly wanted to say, “Captain, let's order the pilot to eject from the aircraft and then we'll send a helicopter to pluck him from the water. That way I can go back to San Francisco, meet up with my beautiful wife, and retire in one piece.”
Instead, O’Reilly said exactly what the captain wanted to hear. “Sir, I’ll have fire fighters, crash crews and a medical team standing by. We’ll be able to—”
Captain Stone listened but he knew he couldn’t do anything to control the situation short of going down on the flight deck and taking charge of the crash scene himself. As O’Reilly spoke, Stone imagined what it would be like trying to direct deckhands who were faced with a jet on fire, on a flight deck crowded with aircraft and explosives. No, he’d rely on O'Reilly, this crash scene leader, if for nothing else than to have someone to blame if things went wrong. Stone knew that a crash, even an accident with injuries on his flight deck, would mean red ink on his next performance evaluation, and that might jeopardize his chances of making admiral.
When O’Reilly stopped speaking, Captain Stone said, “You have an outstanding strategy.”
“Outstanding my ass,” O’Reilly whispered as he climbed back down ladders to the flight deck. “Outstanding if you’re sitting up there looking down on it like it’s a damn board game.”
* * *
Bessy, a Herculean, half-crane-half-bulldozer Caterpillar tractor, custom built for the US Navy, sat chained to the deck behind the superstructure. A gang of deckhands frantically untangled a web of nylon straps and steel cables and hooked them to a big U-bolt on the end of Bessy’s powerful hydraulic arm.
“After you hook on that cradle,” O’Reilly shouted over the growl of Bessy’s V-10 diesel, “I want the steel plow blade attached up forward!” He climbed atop one of Bessy’s gigantic tires and stuck his head inside the cab to speak with the crash and salvage crewman at the wheel. “I want Bessy out there as soon as the Corsair stops on deck.”
“Aye aye, Senior Chief,” the man shouted back.
“I don’t care what anyone says into your headset. I’m the scene leader. I control the situation. You do exactly what I tell you when I tell you. Do you understand?”
“Loud and clear, Senior Chief.”
“Good. After I assess the situation, I will give you an order. You must act instantly, regardless of what anyone says into your headset, and I mean anyone! Including the captain! Is this clear?”
Bessy’s engine roared and black smoke belched from her exhaust stacks as the crewman stomped on the accelerator. He smiled and said, “Roger that, Senior Chief.”
At battle station number one, ten men in silver fireproof suits and oxygen breathing apparatus were standing by. Petty Officer Brewer, O’Reilly’s firefighting commando, looked O’Reilly in the eyes and said, “We’re ready to put down a thousand gallons of fire-resistant foam, and I’ve got three men ready to pluck the pilot out of the cockpit.”
As O’Reilly briefed the crash crew, the A-7 Corsair circled overhead in a clear blue sky. Its engine rumbled like an angry medieval dragon circling its enemy before swooping in for the kill. O’Reilly pressed the transmit button on his radio. “Control, this is O’Reilly. My firefighters and I are ready when you are. Over.”
Airman Conway crouched in the catwalk clutching a fire extinguisher. O’Reilly leaned over and grabbed the front of Conway’s vest. He pulled the young man close and said, “Remove that shit eating grin, and listen closely to a direct order.”
Conway’s smirk vanished, his eyes opened wide behind his safety goggles.
“When I jump out of this catwalk you will be on my heels with that fire extinguisher. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, sure,” Conway said, full of nervous energy. He blinked and licked his lips.
“If I’m close to anything hot you will spray me with cool water. Is this clear, airman?”
Conway’s brow furrowed. “I’ve got your back, Senior Chief,” Conway said. “I’ll be right in there with you!”
* * *
The jet engine’s tremendous roar consumed the ship as the bomb-laden A-7 touched down in the landing area. The tailhook snagged an arresting cable, and the attack aircraft screeched one final time, like a mythical beast pulled down from the sky. The A-7’s landing gear, not designed to support the excess weight of the bombs on the wings, collapsed completely and her tires blew out. Chunks of black rubber and steel belts sprayed across the flight deck. As the magnesium wheel rims contacted the steel of the deck, they instantly scraped away the black nonskid surface, causing metal-to-metal contact and a fantastic spray of silver sparks. The jet lurched forward into a violent spin.
O’Reilly and Conway sprang from the catwalk and bolted toward the landing area. The arresting cable went taut and yanked the jet to a cockeyed stop before it could spin out of control.
The pilot pulled a ripcord between his legs and the cockpit’s Plexiglas canopy shot into the sky. He retracted the tailhook, cut the engine and unbuckled himself from the seat.
Bessy’s diesel roared as she drove out from behind the superstructure into the landing area. Brewer’s team sprayed a blanket of fire-resistant foam around the jet. Two men held a ladder against the fuselage, while a third climbed up and took the pilot over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
O’Reilly was already standing under the port wing.
For several scorching seconds he felt a sense of privacy, almost loneliness. Where the magnesium rim had scraped the deck, it now glowed with an arc welder’s bluish-white brilliance. The blast of heat made the scar on O’Reilly’s right thigh sing. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second, he was young again and he was standing behind that old chief, watching the man run toward a jet on fire. O’Reilly saw the cluster bomb erupt and the blast of fiery bits consuming that old chief, and then he flashed back to the present.
Four quarter-ton bombs hung less than two feet above the intense heat rising from the hot burning magnesium wheel rim. Pressurized jet fuel sprayed from cracks in the underside of the A-7’s damaged wing. The taste of fuel numbed O’Reilly’s lips. It misted around him. It dribbled down the fuselage and splattered on the deck.
Water from Airman Conway’s fire extinguisher splashed on the back of O’Reilly’s neck, flowed down the furrow of his spine.
Flames shot up the side of the jet’s fuselage and instantly bubbled and blackened the paint. Smoke se
ethed from the tire rubber tangled around the burning magnesium wheel.
O'Reilly glanced down and saw flames flashing across the jet fuel puddle, tearing at the blanket of fire resistant foam.
He stepped back.
He reached for the radio transmit button.
Jet fuel ran down, dribbling and dripping on the quarter-ton bombs and he realized, I’ve got an out-of-control situat—
Their eyes closed against the searing orange heat as jet fuel vapors ignited in the air around them.
Fire burned on their faces.
Eyebrows and sideburns incinerated instantly.
The bombs were on fire. The gold wires inside the detonators melted. The detonators spun. In less than ninety seconds, a ton of TNT would detonate on the flight deck.
With flames flashing over his vest and his pants, he ran out from under the A-7’s wing. Conway ran beside O’Reilly, spraying him with water.
Exposed skin on O’Reilly’s hands and neck burned, but he got his thumb to the radio transmit button. “All hands stand back!” He coughed out smoke as he spoke. “Bessy, scuttle this aircraft immediately. Push it directly over the side now.”
As Brewer took O’Reilly in a bear hug with a fireproof blanket, Captain Stone growled in O’Reilly’s ears, “You must save the aircraft!”
Bessy’s steel plow crunched against the Corsair’s tail and pushed it toward the deck edge.
“Not possible, sir,” O’Reilly replied.
Metal screeching against metal drowned out the captain’s curses.
Bessy and the Corsair where like fighting metal monsters engulfed in flames, but quickly the Corsair tumbled over the side of the ship and splashed into the sea.
O’Reilly sat on the deck, hearing none of it. He and Diane were already cruising Arizona highways. They sat in plush velour captain’s chairs, in air-conditioned splendor, looking over an expansive dashboard. A spectacular view filled the enormous windshield. Sandstone bronze and orange mesas rose into a brilliant blue sky above a sage and cactus-speckled desert.
When the corpsmen arrived, O’Reilly mumbled, “Grand Canyon. My girl and I are going to the Grand Canyon in sixty-four days.”
#
Dear Reader,
If you enjoyed this sea story, I would greatly appreciate if you returned to the online bookseller where you purchased it and wrote a review. As an independent author I rely heavily on your positive reviews.
Thank you.
Malcolm Torres
Here’s a sneak preview of
SAILORS TAKE WARNING
A novel by Malcolm Torres
Find out more at www.malcolmtorres.com/
SAILORS TAKE WARNING
Part I
ABOARD THE USS NIMITZ
CHAPTER ONE – Day 1
Kate Conrad leaned out the pharmacy’s dispensing window and handed the man a tube of medicated cream. She was about to tell him to apply it twice daily to the affected area, when the alarm bell rang.
At twenty, Kate was tall with short-clipped sandy hair and blue eyes. Second thoughts about leaving the University of California at San Diego to join the Navy still haunted her, but as a member of the ship’s Flying Squad, she never thought twice when that alarm bell rang.
“Follow the directions on the label,” she said hurriedly while locking the pharmacy. She ran from the medical department, calling back over her shoulder, “And don’t scratch no matter how itchy it gets!”
In the main deck passageway, Kate waited and listened to the bell’s incessant clangor.
It rang from waterproof speakers throughout the ship—a bone-rattling metallic din, threatening to perforate eardrums.
Thousands of sailors looked away from computer screens, set aside power tools and paused conversations. Throughout the multilevel maze, eyes turned toward speakers mounted on bulkheads. Those asleep in narrow bunks under white sheets and scratchy wool blankets startled awake—eyes suddenly open in air-conditioned darkness.
A squeal of feedback squashed the clanging bell, and a computer-generated female voice announced, “AWAY THE FLYING SQUAD. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. FLAMMABLE SPILL ON THE AFT HANGAR DECK, FRAME TWO FOUR FIVE. AWAY THE FLYING SQUAD, AWAY.” The bell resumed its urgent call to action, reverberating against every bulkhead.
Kate Conrad ran aft inside the main deck passageway, shouting at sailors walking ahead of her, “Gangway! Coming through!” After weeks of endless boredom, Kate relished the adrenaline shot as she ran to the accident scene.
The eight-foot-wide corridor was the Nimitz’s main drag compared to so many other narrow passageways, but sailors crammed in, walking two and three abreast. Fluorescent lights glared off the polished green Formica. Bundles of cable, ventilation ducts and myriad pipes carrying water, jet fuel and sewage crammed into the low overhead. Bulkheads marked with weld scars and rows of rivet heads. Fire hoses stowed in compact racks. Watertight doors, battle lanterns and fire extinguishers flew past in Kate’s peripheral vision.
They were the shipboard equivalents of ambulances screaming along crowded boulevards. In passageways throughout the ship, sailors squeezed behind pipes and doors, flattened themselves against bulkheads, like cars pulling to the curb, as Flying Squad members ran past, their black boots booming on the steel, their cries of “Gangway!” and “Make a hole!” punctuating the boredom of shipboard routine.
Frequent drills tested her ability to locate damage control lockers and emergency medical stations hidden away inside the Nimitz’s 1,000-foot-long and 17-deck-high hive of compartments and passageways. She’d studied 3-D schematics of the ship and proved she could find any location blindfolded during blackout and smoke drills.
Jet fuel mist swirled down around a ladder angling at 45-degrees through an open hatch in the deck above. The smell seared her nose; Kate pulled a gas mask tight against her face and exhaled hard to clear it.
Fire Marshall O’Malley emerged from the jet fuel fog. A human tree trunk with the bark peeled off, he shouted orders at sailors distributing extinguishers, mops and buckets in a disciplined frenzy. O’Malley’s fierce eyes stared out through his face shield. “You and you,” he roared, pointing a thick finger at two boatswain mates. “Grab oxygen bottles and a stretcher. Follow EMT Conrad!” O’Malley stared at Kate and shouted, “There’s one serious injury and several overcome by fumes on the fantail. Move it.”
She grabbed her bulky EMT kit from the damage control locker and a fresh shot of adrenaline pulsed into her limbs as she climbed the ladder into the mist. At the top, in the aircraft hangar, she came face to face with the cause of the current emergency.
Jet engine shipping containers—steel cans, each the size and weight of a minivan—were normally stacked three-high and chained to the deck in this area. As best Kate could tell, one container had fallen over and landed on several wooden crates, reducing them to splinters. A second shipping container had fallen over, rolled across the deck and smashed a pipe against the bulkhead.
A fountain of fuel—creating an asphyxiation, fire and explosion hazard—squirted in multiple directions across the hangar, splashed on several cargo containers and misted in the air. Kate saw the cloud of vapor billowing through the open space packed with jet aircraft and aviation support equipment.
Sailors scrambled about dropping bails of rags and tearing open bags of absorbent granules, dropping them on a growing puddle of fuel that sloshed this way and that as the ship rolled on erratic ocean swells.
A jet mechanic in blue coveralls and a scuffed yellow hardhat shouted, “Over here,” hailing Kate and the boatswains.
They splashed through the jet fuel puddle, and followed the mechanic through a shop crowded with partially assembled jet engines. “A shipping container fell on the poor guy,” the mechanic explained. He swung open a big metal door and led the way out onto the fantail, an open deck on the aft end of the ship where sailors throw trash overboard, go fishing and occasionally bury a shipmate at sea.
Passing from the ship’s air-conditioned interior to the scorching humidity, here a few degrees north of the equator, Kate broke a sweat instantly. She pulled off her gas mask and took a deep breath. The oppressive claustrophobia of the ship’s cramped interior fell away. Blue ocean and boundless sky expanded to the horizon.
A crowd stood gawking at the accident victims.
“Give us room here,” one of the boatswains ordered in a thick Boston accent.
“Let’s go, move it,” the other boatswain shouted as the crowd shuffled toward the far side of the fantail.
Kate went directly to the injured man lying on the deck, while the boatswains administered oxygen to several sailors who were soaked with jet fuel and overcome by fumes.
She knelt and placed her hand on his shoulder and saw his grease-streaked brown jersey soaked with jet fuel and blood. She opened her kit and noted his head cocked at an odd angle and his eyes open in a dead-ahead stare. Between baby-fat cheeks, his lips twisted in a grotesque kiss.
She found no pulse at his wrists or neck. She pulled on a pair of Nitrile gloves and a facemask, stuck two fingers between his teeth and pulled his jaw down to reveal a mouth filled with blood. She grabbed a pair of surgical scissors, and in one smooth motion cut his brown turtleneck jersey from collar to hem and pealed back the wet fabric.
Blunt force trauma had crushed the entire left side of his chest. A malicious purple bruise covered his smashed torso. Blood flowed from punctures where fractured ribs pierced skin. Kate pictured the shipping container tumbling over, knocking him down and crushing him—causing massive thoracic trauma. Flail chest—she remembered from training—when ribs are broken in so many places that the shattered sections detach from the ribcage and play havoc with the diaphragm, making it impossible to breath. Fuck, she realized, he’s already dead!
Examining his neck, she found it wasn’t broken. She turned his head to the side. She grabbed a suction device from her kit and tried to clear his airway, but too much blood flowed from his mouth. She dropped the suction device, grabbed a tracheal tube, inserted it in his mouth and pushed it down into his lungs.
Sixty-Four Days, A Sea Story Page 2
