Ernie: The Autobiography (6 page)

Clearly, my fellow sailor had no such reservations. He said, “Let’s get a whore.”

I said, “Okay, let’s go.” I figured, What did I have to lose other than my virginity?

Then he said, “You take this here with you and when it’s your turn you have to put that on.”

I looked at the little square envelope he’d handed me. I had seen condoms one time in my father’s drawer, stacked in a little plastic container. But I didn’t know what they were for.

“Yeah, okay,” I replied. “Thanks.”

We walked over to a wooden shack with a corrugated tin roof. As I waited outside I heard grunts and groans. After they quieted, the girl came out and looked at me and said, “You’re next, sailor.”

I stuttered, “Okay, sure, I’m coming,” and a few other inanities.

We went in and she was all business. Time is money, as the saying goes. She told me to leave the money on the counter—it was five bucks—then said, “Come on, pull down your pants and let’s go.” I opened my trousers, suddenly realizing that this is where the thing in the envelope went. It was rolled up tight and I started to stretch it out. I thought you had to put it on like a boot.

She looked at me and said, “You’re kind of a greenhorn, huh, sailor?” She laughed and I was mortified, but she put it on for me. The minute she did, bam! it was over.

When I came out, my buddy looked over his cigarette and said “How was it?”

I told him it was great. And it was. I’d even gotten to see the girl’s breasts, which was as undressed as she’d gotten before I finished.

“Well, listen,” he went on. “We got to go get some Salvarsan, then take a shower and get cleaned up.”

I had no idea what Salvarsan was, but we went down to the gym at the YMCA and took a pill. Then we went back to the ship, reported to the officer on deck that we had been with a whore and were told to take another Salvarsan. The pharmacist told me why, and I admit being a little shocked hearing that I’d been exposed to syphilis. The guys kidded me for months.

“Boy, you’re going to get it now, you’re going to get the clap.”

I lived in dread for months until I finally woke up and realized, “Hell, I never even touched her!”

We made our way up the coast to San Diego, California. A bunch of us were taken on a little boat to our assigned ships. We saw all these destroyers and light cruisers and everything else. We finally got to the ship to which I’d been assigned. My God, it was huge. Destroyers were, and are, beautiful ships. They don’t call them the “greyhounds of the sea” for nothing. Mine was an old four-stacker, which meant she was from World War I. She was actually built in 1917, the same year that I was born, and her name was the USS
Lamberton
.

I was told to take my stuff down below and get rid of the hammock. Here, you got a mattress and bunk. We were three deep, bunk style, but the beds hung from chains: one high, one middle and one on the bottom. I got there first and took the bottom. Easier to get in and out.

Most of the time we were towing targets for the fleet. By targets, I mean
huge
bull’s-eyes that they could shoot at with their big guns. Sometimes the targets would overturn and we’d have to go out with a whaleboat and try to turn them back over again. That was risky work, since it was easy to slip overboard. We also had to take care never to go behind the target once it was set up, for obvious reasons.

That’s no joke. Accidents happen. One day we were towing a target for these big aircraft carriers and suddenly we heard a whistle we weren’t accustomed to. There was an airplane above us. A spotter, we called them. Instead of giving directions to hit the target, he had targeted the ship! The chief radioman darted for the radio and shouted for the ships to cease fire. What the hell. The military actually has a pretty good safety record, when you consider how many orders are going to so many people, most of whom are armed.

Apart from being shot at, the only thing that we grumbled about were the long boots we had to wear. If you got caught in the water with long boots on they’d fill up and take you down like a stone. We often made holes in the soles, just in case.

Hauling targets wasn’t our only job, of course. We’d polish brass or scrub the sides of the ship to get rid of the rust or we’d paint the sides of the ship to cover the rust we couldn’t scrape away. I was particularly interested in knowing what made this ship go, and took the wheel whenever I could. Today, they steer with a tiny lever that they just push or pull. But on my ship we had a great big wheel. You stood there for a two-hour shift, trying to keep it on course. Believe me, if that ship was working against a storm or any kind of waves you had to compensate all the time. It was really hard work. But there were times when the sea was calm and you’d steam right along and it was perfect. I was pretty good at manning the wheel and they put me on it when we were coming through the Panama Canal, both ways. Those were two of the greatest trips of my life!

But by far the biggest job most of us had was swabbing the deck. You need to keep it clean because you don’t want people slipping on oil or little puddles of seawater—or vomit. Losing your lunch was a way of life. Our vessel only had a beam of about nineteen or twenty feet, which meant that when it hit a wave you got bounced around from side to side and up and down pretty good. It wasn’t even a sign of weakness to throw up. The destroyer had a way of surprising you with new moves, and even seasoned sailors would lose their lunch.

A lot of the guys got sick right off the bat. We had one poor ensign who used to grab a box of crackers and sit over the hatch of the engine room to keep steady and warm. The captain would come by and just shake his head. There was never any question about whether he was faking it. The guy’s skin color was lime green.

Me, I didn’t get sick at all. Ever since that experience on the
Dante Alighieri
, my body seemed to understand that it had to adjust to being at sea. Maybe it’s something you have to experience young, like getting a vaccination. The only thing that I did have to worry about were the bruises I got when I would hit the “knee knockers,” the edge of the hatches leading to the living quarters. Sometimes the sea would swell and the old girl would pitch, or you’d come around the hatch too fast and
pow
, you’d hit one. You wanted to stop and punch something to help you forget the pain, but you had to keep going because there were people behind you. I’ve still got marks on my legs from where I whapped the hard metal.

Because of the long hours of hard labor, when we needed a break we’d go to the john. Our toilet consisted of a room that had water running through a trough along the side. One half of the trough was for urinals, the other had partitions where you would sit in small booths over the trough.

At any given time there’d be a bunch of guys sitting there, some actually using the john and some just reading a comic book. We had a bosun’s mate named Claude Andrew Babcock. When his cigar was pointing down from his mouth, everything was fine. When it was standing up straight, watch out.

One day he comes into the john, without notice. We had no way of knowing his cigar was up…way up. He stood on the long side, set fire to a large wad of toilet paper, and when the water came sweeping through the trough to clean away the waste, he dropped the pile of burning paper. That fire hit us in the ass and, boy, we came bouncing out of there fast.

He said, “Now, get the hell back to work.”

You talk about people moving in a hurry. Some of us who were there for legitimate reasons didn’t even take time to wipe ourselves.

Most of the time, though, Babcock was a good guy. Unfortunately, things didn’t end well for him. One day after I had been on board the ship a few days, I asked about the bunk next to mine. For some reason, no one had touched it. I asked one of the veteran sailors whose it was.

“Oh, you’ll find out,” he said.

Well, one morning I woke up and the bunk was occupied. I said, “Oh, my God.”

The man who was lying in it had an erection so huge it actually lifted the blankets off his body.

Overall, it was a wonderful ship with the kind of camaraderie I’ve always enjoyed. The men would work together, take shore leave together, shop for the folks back home together, eat Chinese food and visit whorehouses together, usually in that order.

I felt good about my life and experiences, but in one respect I wasn’t getting anywhere. In those days ranks were practically frozen. They had all the higher ranking men they could possibly handle. I made seaman second class, and took the test for seaman first. I passed that. So I was making a fat $63.00 a month, $2.00 a day. That’s not to be sneezed at. But I had ambition and I wanted to get off the deck force, if I possibly could.

One day the new bosun’s mate—who was aware of my dissatisfaction—came over to me and said, “We’ve got an opening in the galley. You want to be a cook?”

I said, “Hell, yes,” so I went to the galley and learned new skills. I cooked everything on the menu—except for spaghetti. I could have made the greatest spaghetti for them, but, I swear, I never landed that assignment. I always got fried oysters or baked beans or hamburgers or potatoes, mashed or hashed or French fried. I even learned to make my own corn bread. But never pasta. Go figure.

Cooking was fun for me, but it was hard in one way. The galley would make you perspire, so much so that you’d have to step outside with just a T-shirt to get a little fresh air. Now, it can get pretty cold and windy on deck, and I started to cough.

Pretty soon they noticed that I was really hacking.

I was sent to see the doc, who told me I had bronchitis. Rather than have me cough all over the food, they put me back on deck—though they gave me relatively easy details since I wasn’t in great shape. Then one day an officer came over and said, “Hey we’ve got an opening for you. How’d you like to become a gunner’s mate?”

I said, “That’ll suit me fine.” So I started studying all about the guns on the ship—firing, cleaning, painting, assembling, and disassembling. I even studied the blueprints. I became a third-class gunner’s mate, then a second-class gunner’s mate, and finally a first-class gunner’s mate. By that time I’d been aboard for four years and I reenlisted for two more.

No sooner had I learned a new set of skills than somebody up top got an idea that we should become a high-speed minesweeper. That meant charging ahead with this mine apparatus that we had, a big par-avane that went down into the water and stretched before us. If it ran up against any mine without the ship hitting it first, you were in good shape. If not, you were sunk. Literally. Upon snagging a mine, a sharp wire would cut the chain automatically and bring the explosive to the surface. There, we were supposed to detonate it by shooting it.

Well, we never did see a mine. I later learned that during World War II the
Lamberton
ran up against a lot of mines around Alaska. I sort of wish I’d been there for that. You form a bond with your ship. You really do. If she’s in danger, you want to be there looking out for her.

Aside from nearly getting blown up by one of our own aircraft, the second worst day of my military career came when I was put in charge of the captain’s gig, a long, light boat reserved for his use. I was the skipper. That was the epitome, let me tell you, to be chauffeuring the top brass to shore. I polished that sucker until it shined. I couldn’t wait for the skipper to come down for the first time so I could take him ashore.

They finally called for the gig to take the skipper ashore. I was dressed to the nines. I had my hat on perfect and I brought the gig alongside. The engineer clicked the bell to signal that we were in position. The skipper came down the gangway and he looked at me and said, “128th Street, New York City.”

I said, “Yes, sir.”

Well, I had polished that boat so beautifully that as I pushed away from the gangplank my foot slipped. I went into the drink between the gangway and the boat with a huge splash.

I came back up again, sputtering under my hat. The captain looked down at me and he said, “No, no, son. I said, ‘128th Street.’”

I’m sure he must have been laughing, because the engineer sure was, I’ll tell you, I scurried back to where I belonged and then steered away. But I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. Neither did he. When he left the ship for good, I took him ashore and he turned and said to me, “I’ll never forget you, Borgnine, checking the bottom of the boat for me.”

I said, “Thank you, sir. Thank you for remembering.”

He was a good skipper, too.

The
Lamberton
was a radio-controlled vessel. That meant in case of war, they could sail her without a crew. The plan was to fill it with explosives and explode it in some port they wanted to disable. There were two RCVs: the
Lamberton
and the
Boggs
. Years later, in Hollywood, the famous show business columnist Army Archerd came up to me and said, “You were in the navy?”

I said “Yes, sir. I was onboard a ship called the USS
Lamberton.
”

He looked rather strangely at me and said, “Did you ever hear of the USS
Boggs
?”

I said, “Sure. That was the ship right next to us in the nest.”

He said, “I was aboard the
Boggs
.”

It is indeed a small world.

In our newest configuration as an RCV, we were sent to Honolulu. However, before leaving San Diego I did manage to get my heart broken a little.

I had this buddy, Vincent Lang. We went ashore and met a couple of girls, a rather tall one and a one a little bit shorter but still taller than either of us. We got to talking to them and started seeing them every time we went ashore. One day we got a car and took the girls up to see the stars at the San Diego planetarium. We had a wonderful day and became kind of chummy and one thing led to another.

No, not that. I mean, we fell in love.

Her name was Millie and I met her father, who thought I was quite a guy. When I shipped out to Hawaii, we promised to stay in touch and I said I’d hop a ship back to the States whenever I could. But one incredibly hot day in Honolulu I got a Dear John letter saying, “I’m sorry, but now I’m married very happily, thank you very much.”