The Edge of Honor (56 page)

The board was supposedly only another month away, so unless something spectacular happened, he was fairly certain of promotion. He also focused on the possibilities of shore duty following the Hood tour, while omitting to mention the distinct probability that he would have to make at least part of another deployment during his Weapons officer tour in Hood. He thought of the letter as damage control when he mailed it off the ship.

The boatswain studiously pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened in Olongapo, and Brian was careful not to conjure up any images of his night in Olongapo whenever he grappled with the problem of Maddy back in San Diego. The day after, he had constructed an elaborate set of rationalizations to assuage his guilt over going to bed with—what would you call Josie? Certainly not a prostitute, and not technically a madam—her place wasn’t a whorehouse, any more than the whole town was a whorehouse. Hell, the whole town is a whorehouse, God love it. Hey, dipshit, like the chief said, why are you worried about what Josie is?

How about just an exotic, beautiful, mature, rich, exciting, voluptuous woman who turned you every way but loose?

Yeah, that’s the one. Then he rationalized the problem using the white man’s excuse: It didn’t count; she’s just an Oriental woman. Right. Just an Oriental woman.

Stooping pretty low, boy. And then: This is WESTPAC; there are no married men west of the international dateline.

Everybody goes over into Subic at least once and gets his rocks off. It doesn’t count for anything. It’s not like going out and having a real affair; it’s just a short time in a bar with a hooker. Oh Lord, suppose she gave me something? Who would I go see? I couldn’t go to the doc or that pasty-faced staff doctor—they’d have to report the case to the exec and the captain.

For three days after, he urinated gingerly, holding his breath to see if there would be a twinge of pain. But after a while, embarrassed by his almost juvenile fretting, he arrived at the conclusion that Josie had been one of those secret life experiences, a marvelous woman who had responded directly to his own unabashed admiration, desire, and need and who had given him a night to remember. He wondered whether projecting simple desire like that could ever get the attention of an American woman. He doubted it.

The ship had settled into a routine of in-port work, followed by a diminishing level of liberty ops as wallets thinned out. Brian limited his shore-leave excursions to the main Subic O Club, where he stuck to San Miguel and avoided the lethal Subic Specials. The captain surfaced after a few days and hosted a private dinner for the exec and the four department heads, which he had catered in one of the bungalows reserved for senior officers near the club. It was to be the only time Brian actually saw the captain during the port visit. The entire wardroom attended a “lunch” aboard a visiting British frigate, where Brian reacquainted himself with the Royal Navy’s tradition of serving everything but food at lunch. Several of the WESTPAC officers had to be helped back to Hood after the visit, and Brian, who had remained reasonably sober, had had the pleasure of chiding some of them about LANTFLEET knowledge.

The rest of the time was spent in making repairs to the Engineering Department’s main propulsion plant machinery, refurbishing the motor whaleboat, laying new nonskid decking on the helo flight deck, and painting out the sides after their forty-five day siege up in the Gulf.

The engineers especially wanted repairs done in Subic, because the level of workmanship was so much better and cheaper than what could be found in the union infested shipyards of San Diego.

Brian made one three-hour excursion to the big Foreign Merchandise Exchange with Fox Hudson. He was astonished at the scale of the Exchange, which was a giant warehouse over on the Supply Center, filled with the latest in Japanese stereo equipment and televisions, Chinese tailors and suit makers, Philippine woodwork, and shelf after shelf of guns, jewelry, china, and crystal, as well as Oriental rugs, artwork, and furniture, all at one third their U. S. prices. The Exchange was one of the main objectives of any WESTPAC sailor, outdone only by its Japanese equivalent, building A-33 in Yokosuka, Japan, or a port visit to the fabled city of Hong Kong.

The Exchange was the only way most young Navy married couples could acquire a first-class set of table china or a modern stereo set, and every married man arrived in Subic with his wife’s dream list in his pocket.

Brian, being new to WESTPAC, had come without a list, but he did buy a set of Noritake china, eight goblets of Waterford crystal, and a Mikimoto pearl necklace for Maddy. He would have to save some money before he could indulge in a stereo set, but the ship was scheduled for a final out-chop visit before heading home, at which time he ought to have enough for the set he wanted. Fox Hudson had stocked up on treasures, knowing that he would never be back.

The day after his Exchange run, Brian once again had the duty. He had secretly come to welcome his duty days, which came every third day, as they gave him an excuse not to go ashore at night with the rest of the wardroom officers. Most of the officers felt that they were dutybound to go over into the town and howl, since they were, after all, in Subic and that’s what Subic was for. He settled into a routine of doing his administrative work in the mornings and then spending the afternoons overseeing the Weapons Department technicians as they groomed the weapons systems, which included a complete refurbishment of missile fire-control System Two, damaged by the electrical transients out on the Red Crown station. If he did not have the duty, he would go to the club for dinner, but he was usually back on board by 2100.

After working some accumulated paperwork for a few hours, Brian in his capacity as command duty officer went topside at midnight to watch the liberty party return to the ship. He took his usual vantage point up on the flight deck, where he could look down on the quarterdeck one level below from above the deck-edge floodlights.

The midwatch OOD, petty officer, and messenger of the watch had been relieved at 2345, and at a few minutes after midnight, the first shuttle bus discharged some fairly well oiled cargo up at the head of the pier.

Brian watched as the men struggled up the steep angle of the brow to the quarterdeck, there to be met by the OOD, the chief signalman. If they were carrying packages or bags, the petty officer of the watch would have them open each bag for inspection to check for drugs, liquor, or other prohibited items. If a man was excessively drunk, the OOD would have the messenger, a junior enlisted man himself, escort the individual to his compartment. After that, the theory went, he was on his own, and if he made a spectacle of himself or a mess of the compartment, his division mates would sort him out.

After a half hour of watching, Brian became aware of a khaki-clad figure leaning against the rail high up on the signal bridge who also seemed to be watching the returning liberty hounds. A second tier of floodlights was mounted on the 04 level and pointed down at the pier in the vicinity of the quarterdeck, to ensure good lighting for those who were coming back with somewhat impaired vision. Looking into the lights, Brian could not make out who was up there in the gloom above the floodlights, but he thought it must be Chief Jackson. He decided to check it out.

He walked forward along the port side, past the three inch mount gun tub, across the boat decks, and then began climbing the two ladders needed to get up to the signal bridge. Upon reaching the signal bridge, he indeed found Chief Jackson leaning on the pipe rails, smoking a cigarette and nursing a cup of mess-decks coffee.

“Evening, Sheriff. Watching the sights again?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Holcomb. Be amazed what you see from up here that they might not catch on the quarterdeck.”

Below them, from about amidships all the way forward to the bow, the pier was in shadow, lighted dimly by the streetlights along the frontage road across the pier area, some one hundred yards distant. Only the area around the ship’s quarterdeck was brightly lighted. A corridor of darkness stretched between Hood and the destroyer berthed ahead, where bright lights again flared around the ship’s quarterdeck area. Brian had never noticed the alternating pattern of bright lights and deep shadows before.

“I was back there on the flight deck watching the first batch of liberty hounds come back,” Brian said. “Seems pretty tame so far.”

“Yes, sir; we’re about halfway through our stay, so most of ‘em are getting short for money. But this is when the badasses try to bring their shit on board. First week, all the quarterdeck guys are looking hard, but after that, well, we have to start looking.”

Brian nodded in the darkness. From the pier, the two of them would have been next to impossible to see. They watched as another bus from the front gates discharged a group of happy-sounding drunks. The liberty hounds ambled down the pier to the quarterdeck area in small groups, tossing cigarettes into the water between the ship and the pier before heading up the brow. By the time the fourth bus showed up, Brian was getting a little bored with it all. Most of the liberty party had staggered on board, and the ship was getting quiet. He was about to call it a night when the Sheriff touched his shoulder and pointed down to the pier.

Coming down the pier well behind the last crowd were two individuals who always bore watching, Coltrane and Hooper. The smaller of the two, Hooper, was having a great deal of difficulty with his walking, while Coltrane struggled with what looked like a large leather golf bag.

Hooper led, ostensibly carrying half the weight of the bag, but to Brian’s eye, Coltrane bore most of the weight.

Hooper was issuing his usual steady stream of profane orders, which Coltrane manfully tried to obey. When the pair stopped in the shadows abeam of the boat decks, however, Brian began to pay attention.

“Uh-huh,” muttered Jackson. “Thought so. We’ve got us a little something to sneak aboard.”

“You think those two are into the dope scene?” Brian asked.

“No, sir, leastwise not Coltrane. The guys gave him a cigarette once and he burned his lips with it. Hooper now, he’s a messy drunk ashore; I wouldn’t put anything past that little lizard.”

They watched with interest as the pair wedged the golf bag between two horns of the midships bitts. Hooper tied a hank of line around the golf bag’s handle and threw the other end up into the shadows on the boat decks. In his condition, the tying and the throwing took several minutes. Then Hooper steered Coltrane back down the pier toward the quarterdeck. Jackson looked at his watch.

“You going to nab them on the boat decks?” Brian asked.

“No, sir, I think I’m going to follow ‘em and see where they go with it.

There may be others involved.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“Not at all, CDO. These two could be up to anything at all.”

They quickly went down the two ladders to the boat decks, checked to see that the other end of the line had indeed made it up there, and then hid themselves under the gig davit’s foundations. In about five minutes, Hooper and Coltrane showed up, Hooper with his fingers to his lips and making loud shh-sh-sh-ing noises, and Coltrane nodding obediently, echoing some of the same noises himself. The two of them stumbled around in the darkness for a few minutes before finding the line. There followed a lot of heaving and grunting to bring the bag aboard. They picked it up and began dragging it toward the hatch that led down to the wardroom passageway.

Hooper sat down hard once while trying to maneuver the heavy end of the bag in Coltrane’s direction.

“Jush pick it up, Coltrane, goddamn it. Pick it the fuck up, and help me out heah, man—it’s kinda drunk out, you know what I’m sayin’? Theah ya go, that’s right, don’t drop it, don’t drop it. Theah ya go, yeah, that’s it.

Now let’s drag it over heah to this hatch, and then you goes up—I mean, shit, down the ladder and I’ll hand it down to ya, awright? Yeah, that’s it, oops! Now look it what ya made me do. For Chrissakes, Coltrane, pay fuckin’ attention heah. That’s the way …”

From their vantage point beneath the davits, Brian and the chief watched with some amusement.

“I’d have sworn something in that bag was moving,” Brian whispered as Hooper and then Coltrane ended up on the deck at the entrance to the hatch.

“We’re gonna be calling out the baby doc here in a minute if this keeps up,” replied the chief. “I actually think he’s gone and got Coltrane tanked, too.”

The dynamic duo grunted and heaved the golf bag down the hatch with a great deal of effort and encouragement from each other, Hooper giving orders and Coltrane making incomprehensible sounds in return. Brian had the impression that Hooper could probably even understand Coltrane. When the two had disappeared down the ladder, Brian and the chief hurried over to the top of the hatch. Below them, the bag was already tilting precariously down the second ladder that led to Broadway.

Hooper kept up his steady stream of directions and Coltrane gabbled away in alarm as the bag threatened to drop on top of him. When the noise indicated that they had reached the bottom of the ladder, Brian and the chief quickly scampered down the first ladder and peered carefully over the hatch coaming of the second.

At the bottom, Coltrane was seated in the passageway, the bag between his knees, his arms wrapped tightly around it, while Hooper was trying to extricate himself from the operating wheel of a hatch scuttle positioned beneath the ladder. Hooper directed some interesting invective at the operating wheel, which remained unmoved.

Coltrane was trying to keep the top of the bag closed. Brian noticed a red cloth of some kind stuffed into the top of the bag. He definitely saw the cloth move, independent of Coltrane’s efforts to keep the top closed.

“They’ve got some kind of animal in that bag,” he said to Jackson, still keeping his voice low.

Jackson looked over the edge of the hatch. “Animal?

What kind of animal would fit in a golf bag?”

But at that moment, Coltrane heaved himself up onto his feet, grabbed the top of the bag, and began dragging it down the passageway in the direction of the mess decks. Hooper finally got his feet untangled and lurched down the passageway after him. Brian and the chief tiptoed down the ladder, still not wanting to make their move until they found out what was going on. When they reached the bottom, they could see the two sailors, the bag dragging between them now, stepping through the doorway onto the mess decks, which were darkened down to night lights at this hour of the morning. The only white light came from the galley itself, where the night baker, Poppa Steiner, was bashing dough for the next day’s bread and rolls.