Cap'n Fatso

by Daniel V Gallery

  So the next few days will get only brief mention in this saga.

  Fatso and Scuttlebutt shoved off, with the official limousine and driver provided by the Israeli Navy, and spent their time in and around Jerusalem. Jerusalem is, of course, a focal point for three of the world’s great religions. It has sacred shrines of the Jews and Arabs, as well as the Christians. Our heros visited all the holy places, and some others too. They had a minor brush with the police when Scuttlebutt accidentally dislocated a citizen’s jaw during a discussion of the Liberty incident in a barroom. But their driver smoothed that over by explaining to the cops that they were official guests of the Israeli Navy and hence enjoyed diplomatic immunity. Outside of that, their relations with citizens and police were quite pleasant. In fact, as they were driving back to Tel Aviv, Fatso remarked, “Hell, there’s no use being an Admiral when they treat ordinary sailors this way.”

  As soon as Fatso and Scuttlebutt were on their way, Ginsberg and the Professor loaded the Commodore’s car with cameras and took off for Suez in civilian clothes, posing as LIFE photographers. The rest of the crew took turns standing watches on the ship and participating in the people-to-people program ashore. This program, a brain child of President Kennedy’s, is supposed to foster mutual understanding between members of the armed forces and indigenous populations. Since all the local boys of military age were out in the desert fostering better understanding with the Arabs, the contacts of Fatso’s lads were mostly with the local girls. Our lads claimed afterwards that because of this, their efforts produced even more mutual benefits and fewer bad reactions than they usually do in foreign ports.

  Late in the afternoon of the fourth day, Fatso and Scuttlebutt returned from Jerusalem. By this time, they were bosom pals with their driver, Moe. All three rode in the front seat discussing life on this earth and what ought to be done about it until they reached the outskirts of Tel Aviv. There Moe insisted that his charges get in back, where VIPs are supposed to ride.

  Many of the streets in Tel Aviv run right down to the shore. Moe plowed through the sand at the end of one of them to the hard beach and drove right up to LCU 1124. There he popped out and opened the door for his passengers, who disembarked like a couple of Admirals.

  Satchemo and Judge looked on proudly from the bridge and the Judge remarked, “We’re going to hafta get a red carpet for that ramp if this keeps up.”

  Fatso invited Moe aboard for dinner. But Moe declined with regret, saying “My old lady would twist my (formal dances) off if I didn’t come right home.”

  “I thought they had women better trained than that, over here,” observed Fatso.

  “They do,” said, Moe. “But my old lady is from Brooklyn.”

  Fatso and Scuttlebutt both offered Moe twenty dollar bills, but he set his jaw firmly and declined, saying “My pleasure. If I can ever be of service to you gentlemen again, just call on me.”

  His chance to be of service came sooner than they expected. As they were bidding each other goodbye and vowing eternal friendship, they heard the scream of rapidly approaching police sirens. The Commodore’s car, heavily caked with mud and dust, burst out of a nearby street and bounced through the sand toward the hard beach, hotly pursued by two motorcycle cops - that is, until the cops hit the soft sand. The car ploughed through the sand, sped along the beach, swerved onto the ramp and drove aboard the LCU with the brakes screaming. The doors opened and out climbed Ginsberg and the Professor, looking as smug as a couple of cats full of canaries au catnip, just as the cops finally made it to the ramp, followed by a crowd of excited natives attracted by the sirens.

  With the cops momentarily baffled at seeing their quarry take refuge on the visiting American ship, Moe stepped in and took charge.

  There was a lot of shouting in Israeli and Yiddish and waving of arms as the cops set forth their alleged complaints. Moe replied in similar dialect, laced with a few emphatic goddamneds. The cops listened dubiously, then looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, mounted their motorcycles, and took off.

  “What got their ass in an uproar, Moe?” asked Fatso, as the crowd began melting away.

  “They claimed they had orders from the Army at Suez to arrest your car. They said your boys also ran through a road block twenty kilometers out of town and they chased them at eighty miles an hour right through the middle of the city.”

  “What did the Army want them for?”

  “They didn’t know - something that happened at Suez.”

  “And what the hell did you tell ‘em, to get ‘em off our back?”

  “I explained that you are guests of the Israeli Navy and have diplomatic immunity. The cops had no idea what that means, but they didn’t want to admit it. So they just let the whole thing drop.”

  “Cops are just as dumb in Tel Aviv as they are in Brooklyn,” Moe added, as he got in the limousine and drove off.

  As Fatso and Scuttlebutt walked through the well deck on the way to the messroom they noted half a dozen holes in the stern end of the car, about the size of dimes.

  In the messroom they were greeted by Ginsberg and the Professor, wearing sheepish grins.

  “Well?” said Fatso. “What the hell have you guys been doing?”

  “We was down at Suez taking pictures,” said Ginsberg. “And boy! We got some lulus - good enough for a big spread in LIFE.”

  “And just how did you get all them holes in the back of the car?”

  “Oh-h-h ... them holes? ... Uh ... we got shot at a little bit,” said Ginsberg.

  “At, hell,” said Fatso. “You got shot into.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said the Professor. “It was just plain luck nobody got hurt.”

  “Who shot at you - the Arabs?”

  “No. The Israelis.”

  “Why would they shoot at you?”

  “Well - there was a sort of a mixup about some movie films we had.”

  “Movies of what?”

  “We got pictures of them executing a couple of Arab spies - real dramatic feature stuff ... and close ups of them giving ‘em the coop de grass afterwards - blood, guts, and feathers all over. Beautiful human-interest stuff. They claimed we weren’t allowed to take pictures of it, and wanted our films.”

  “So?”

  “Well, it turned out later that the films we gave them was blank - and they got mad about it and tried to take all our films away.”

  “So?”

  “So we jumped in our car and beat it.”

  “And they shot at you, I suppose?”

  “No. Not then. That was later, at a checkpoint in the road. When we didn’t stop, they took out after us in a tank. But we was outrunning the tank, so they started shooting at us.”

  “Gawd almighty,” said Fatso. “This will land right in the Ambassador’s lap. Now we have got our ass in a bight.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Cap’n,” said the Professor. “They don’t know we’re in the Navy. They think we were a couple of LIFE photographers.”

  “Driving a U.S. Navy car?” demanded Fatso.

  “By the time we got to Suez, you couldn’t tell what kind of a car it was,” said Ginsberg. “We had a layer of mud and dust all over us that covered up that U.S. Navy on the side. Nothin’ to worry about on that, Cap’n.”

  “Yeah,” said Fatso. “And those cops that chased you right up the ramp - I don’t suppose they will suspect you had anything to do with the U.S. Navy? Cops are dumb anywheres in the world - especially traffic cops - but even a Brooklyn cop might get suspicious about that.”

  At this point, Jughaid and Webfoot returned aboard, having spent the afternoon ashore trying to spread good will and mutual understanding among the local populace. Webfoot had a big black eye and Jughaid a broken nose. Their white uniforms were splattered with red, as if they had been helping to butcher steers.

  As they entered the messroom, Fatso shook his head sadly and said, “Oh my gawd! What now?”

  “We got into a rhubarb,” explained W
ebfoot.

  “Looks like it was a masacree - not a rhubarb,” observed Fatso.

  “No-o-o,” said Webfoot judicially, “I think it was about even - at least until the goddamned bartender called the cops. After that, things got sort of confused.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Well - everybody started pushing and shoving each other around,” said Jughaid, taking over the narrative, “and we sort of nudged two cops off the porch. After that all hell broke loose.”

  “I don’t see nothin’ so awful about that,” observed Scuttlebutt.

  “No-o-o-o,” said Jughaid. “Except this was a roof garden joint, and the porch was on the third floor.”

  “Gawd almighty!” said Fatso. “Did it kill ‘em?”

  “No. This joint was on the waterfront, and the porch stuck out over the bay - so they hit in the water. While they were dragging the cops out of the water it sort of distracted attention from us for a while, so we shoved off and came back to the ship.”

  “So now we’ll have the mayor down here first thing in the morning with a couple of carloads of cops,” said Fatso.

  “I don’t think it’s really that bad,” said Scuttlebutt judicially. “Nobody has done nothing real big wrong. Just traffic violations - -and disturbing the peace a little bit. I don’t think they’ll try to make a federal case out of that.”

  “That’s right,” said the Judge, putting on his official robes, as it were. “And this ship is U.S. territory. They can’t come aboard and take nobody off without going through extradition proceedings in Washington. I think after the Liberty business, they will be glad to just drop the whole thing. Maybe the best thing for us to do is in just quietly get the hell out of here and let them forget it.”

  “The Supreme Court couldn’t decide it any better,” said Fatso. “Let’s see - the next high tide when we can get off i his beach is two hours after sunset. Okay ... We get underway at 9:30 tonight.”

  But that plan didn’t hold up. At two bells of the first watch, half an hour before they were to get underway, a blinker message came in from signal tower at the entrance fort:

  FROM SENIOR NAVAL OFFICER:

  TO COMMANDING OFFICER:

  ADMIRAL REQUESTS YOU CALL ON HIM AT 0930 TOMORROW MORNING. OFFICIAL CAR WILL PICK YOU UP AT 0910.

  “Well - there goes the old ball game, boys,” said Fatso, as Jughaid handed him the message. “Judge, you better break out your law books and study up on court martial procedure. I’m going to need a good defense counsel soon.”

  Fatso spent a sleepless night. The two most probable reasons for this summons seemed to be the desert skirmish and the business of the cops falling off the porch. He could think of no plausible explanation for either one of these incidents. It was also possible that certain really harmless things that he and Scuttlebutt had done in Jerusalem, but which could be misinterpreted, had been brought to official attention. And, finally, there was always the chance that the Israeli naval officials had checked up and found out that he really had no damned business in Tel Aviv in the first place.

  Fatso had known for years, of course, that rank has its privileges. Now he was learning that rank and command also have their responsibilities. He was beginning to see that the things that drive Admirals and Captains nuts are not the perils of wind and wave on the open sea but the jams that well-meaning sailors get into ashore. For the first time, the weight of command responsibility bore heavily upon him.

  Promptly the next morning, Moe picked up Fatso with the limousine and delivered him at the Israeli naval HQ.

  Fatso mounted the steps there with his shoulders back and head up, prepared to accept responsibility, as a Captain must, for the conduct of his men, and to defend as best he could the interests of the United States in the premises, whatever they turned out to be.

  As the Flag Lieutenant showed him into the inner sanctum the Admiral rose, shook hands, and motioned Fatso to a chair.

  “Have a cigar?” he asked, offering Fatso a box.

  “No-thank-you-sir,” said Fatso.

  The Admiral bit off the end of a cigar, lighted it carefully, and took a few puffs on it. Then he drew in a lungful of smoke, and blew out a fairly good smoke ring.

  “I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you by asking you to come over,” said the Admiral.

  “No, SIR,” said Fatso.

  “I hope your visit here has been pleasant and that our people have been friendly.”

  “Yes, SIR,” said Fatso.

  “Have you had any troubles here?”

  “Well - nossir - nothing to speak of.”

  The Admiral purled on his cigar some more, and blew out some more smoke rings. “The thing I really want to talk to you about,” said the Admiral, “is a matter which I would rather not take up officially. It’s a matter which, for various reasons, you may not feel free to explain. If so - I will understand.”

  “Yes, SIR,” said Fatso, thinking to himself, “THIS IS IT. NOW HE LOWERS THE BOOM.”

  “It’s about the salute you fired on entering port,” said the Admiral.

  “Yessir,” said Fatso - certain now that the Admiral had found out that he had no business even being in Tel Aviv, let alone firing national salutes.

  The Admiral picked up a photograph from his desk and handed it to Fatso. It showed LCU 1124 blasting away as she entered port with a beautiful array of various-sized smoke rings to port and starboard.

  “What I would like to know,” said the Admiral, “is how in the world you make those perfect rings? I have asked all my ordnance experts about it and none of them know. Do you mind telling us how you do it?”

  “No, SIR - not at all, Admiral. It’s a pleasure. Ill be glad to,” said Fatso, and proceeded to explain the mechanics of the smoke rings.

  The Admiral broke into a pleased grin at the simplicity of it all, as Fatso revealed the great secret. When Fatso finished, the Admiral shook his head and said, “Well, there you are. It’s just like so many other far-reaching discoveries. After someone has finally made the first wheel, everybody wonders why it took man so long to think of such a simple thing.”

  “Yessir,” said Fatso. “I have some very smart men in my crew. We conducted a lot of tests before we hit on this.”

  “Well - thank you very much, Captain,” said the Admiral, rising and extending his hand. “Next time you come in here, your salute will be answered ring for ring.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Constitutional Rights

  As Fatso returned aboard from his call on the Admiral, Scuttlebutt greeted him at the ramp. “How did you make out, Cap’n?” he asked anxiously.

  “Okay,” said Fatso. “He just wanted some information, which I was able to give him.”

  “It wasn’t about nothing we did in Jerusalem, was it?”

  “No-o-o-o,” said Fatso. “It was about sort of technical stuff. We don’t have nothing to worry about - yet. Now let’s haul up that bow ramp, fire up the engines, and get the hell out of here before we do get something to worry about.”

  An hour later our heroes were leaning over the rail aft of the bridge comparing notes on their adventures in Israel and watching the shoreline drop below the horizon astern. sailors get visible proof that the world is round every time they do this. But of course, right after leaving port, they have more important matters to discuss than the shape of the planet on which we live.

  Since they were leaving a country where all the men had been out in the desert trying to pacify the Arabs, their comments were concerned mostly with the women.

  As the top of the Tel Aviv light was dropping below the horizon Ginsberg said to Jughaid, “Where did you find that cute looking little Jewish gal I seen you with the other night?”

  “Oh - I met her socially at a party,” said Jughaid vaguely.

  “Musta been a kiddies’ party,” said Ginsberg. “She looked too young to be going out with sailors. Did her mother know she was out?”

  “Hunh!” said Jughaid; “that ga
l is older than she looks. She’s a widow. And she can take care of herself in any company.”

  “With her big blue eyes and that red ribbon in her hair, she reminded me of Little Red Riding Hood,” said Ginsberg.

  “She’s more like Annie Oakley than Little Red Riding Hood,” observed Jughaid. “She’s a WAAC in the Israeli Army reserve and an expert pistol shot. She’s got as many medals for pistol shooting as old Shaky Stokes. And she’s a Top Sergeant, too. Her husband was a Private in the army.”

  “Boy oh boy,” said the Professor. “Just imagine being a Private in the army and coming home every night to a cute dish like that!”

  “Yeah!” agreed Scuttlebutt. “And doing what Privates are always saying oughta be done to Sergeants.”

  “Her husband was killed by the Arabs, I suppose?” asked Ginsberg.

  “No. Not exactly,” said Jughaid. “I asked her what did he die of, and she said he had very bad luck. Died of gonorrhea.”

  “Gonorrhea!” whooped all hands incredulously.

  “Hell - that ain’t a fatal disease,” said the Professor.

  “That’s what I told her,” said Jughaid. “She said, ‘HUNH! ... When you give it to me, it is.’”

  Later, when the boys were gathered in the messroom Scuttlebutt asked, “Where are we heading for now, Cap’n?”

  “That’s a damn good question,” said Fatso. “I’m trying to figure it out myself.”

  “Don’t you think we oughta look in on Naples pretty soon to pick up our mail and - er - see if the HQ there has any news for us?” asked Scuttlebutt.

  “Yeah. I suppose we gotta do that pretty soon,” said Fatso. “But we gotta do it the way porcupines make love.”