I Pledge Allegiance Page 6

  And then there were those nightmares.

  They started coming pretty regularly the summer between junior and senior years. The news from the war was unavoidable, and in the daytime it would bleed into my head. At night, it would all start churning and bubbling in there, and the explosions would start, and all of us would die. Again. Again.

  “I was thinking, maybe we don’t need to bomb the boats on the pond this year,” Beck said when it was nearing time for our North End rearmament.

  We were walking around the pond, just walking around the footpath that circles it, walking to nowhere, which we did a lot of on good summer days.

  I was surprised by this but made an effort not to seem like it.

  “Huh?” I said casually. “What? Why?”

  Beck is not the type to laugh outright in a guy’s face, no matter how dumb the guy’s being. Instead, he does this kind of relaxed semi-smile where one side of his top lip curls up and he lets his mouth hang open. You’d almost wish he would just laugh at you.

  “Come on, Morris. It was pretty obvious by last year that you weren’t getting much fun out of it. Now I figure the fact that you tell us about your explosive and tragic nightmares every single day probably has some meaning.”

  Every single day?

  “Every single day?”

  “Every single day.”

  “I didn’t think I was telling it every single day.”

  “What did you think, that you were putting on a brave face or something?”

  I had to consider.

  “Yes. Actually, I did think that.”

  “Sorry, man. No brave face. Do you even have one of those?”

  As we approached the boathouse, we ran into Rudi and Ivan, who were hiring out a rowboat for an hour. Rudi never seems to work out that this always winds up with him mysteriously falling into the water at some point, followed by Ivan laughing so helplessly, he only manages to save Rudi — who can only stay afloat so long — at just about the moment of drowning death.

  “I think we’re going to skip the bombing of the fleet on the Fourth this year,” Beck said to them.

  “What?” Rudi said. He got quite flustered at this tipping of the annual rhythm of the calendar, as if someone had suddenly canceled, say, August. He looked nervously back and forth between Beck and Ivan.

  “It’s just, with everything going on, and the nightmares and everything … Morris doesn’t have any fun. So I thought we’d just skip it this time around. Maybe things’ll be better next year.”

  Then it was Ivan’s turn to look perplexed. He stared at Beck, head tilted, trying to make it make sense. He never quite achieved that.

  “No,” Ivan said firmly. “Request denied. Stuff needs to be blown up.”

  “Right,” said Rudi, finally exhaling.

  “Rudi?” Beck said, gesturing toward me.

  I must have had my famously un-brave face on, because at the sight of me, Rudi looked like his dog had just died.

  “Ah, I suppose,” he said.

  “Maybe we’ll go to the Sox game this year for a change. They’re about a million games out, there will be about a million tickets available. We can probably sneak in for nothing anyway.”

  Rudi brightened.

  Ivan did not.

  “Request denied,” he said, more emphatically. “I told you, stuff needs to be blown up. Somebody’s got to do it.”

  “Then I guess you’ll need to do it alone,” Beck said.

  He had to know this would cut very little ice with Ivan.

  “Then I’ll do it alone,” he said. He turned, tugging Rudi by the shirt down the dock toward the rowboats. Halfway down, he spun around again in our direction. “You guys are still making me boats, though, right? I can’t do everything for you.”

  For us.

  I laughed at him, because he was just being so totally Ivan about it all.

  “I’ll make you a boat,” I said.

  Beck, less amused by Ivan, didn’t answer.

  Just as they were getting into the boat, Beck shouted down, “Rudi? You do know he’s going to dump you into the water, right?”

  Rudi was actually offended by this suggestion.

  “No,” he shouted back. “I don’t know that. Why would I know that? Why would he do that?”

  Stepping into the boat, Ivan broke already into the laugh, so loud and hard he very well might not be able to rescue Rudi when the time came.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  History

  The Boston has been around for a while. Commissioned in 1943, it served extensively in the Pacific in World War II. It received ten battle stars for the action it saw there. We don’t have any stars here yet, and I’m okay if we don’t get any. I like it quiet. And the ship, when it’s quiet, holds the most peaceful kind of quiet I have found anywhere.

  I have slept all I want to sleep, and I get up to go on my walk. Once up top I find just a suggestion of daylight that won’t really be here for another hour and a half. The already saturated air is promising yet another muggy long day off the Vietnam coast. Even with the breezes we get out here some distance from the land, this can get heavy. There are some guys on this ship I have still never seen wearing a shirt, and I believe if the temperature ever dips below ninety degrees again I’m going to need a sweater.

  I can only imagine how brutal it is for the guys in-country.

  We are back just south of the DMZ again, supporting the ground troops who call in a request to take out a tank or a convoy or a munitions depot, and big-buddying the Sacramento and the rest of the Seventh Fleet. Sacramento was alongside us yesterday, and I suppose you could say that like a lot of big brother–little brother deals, it’s not completely even. They were restocking us with the big beefy shells we use to pound the senses out of our land targets. The support ships, battleships, are faster than the cruisers, and do a lot of the running back and forth to support us. Like sending the little kid off to get snacks while we sit with our feet up watching TV. If your idea of TV is bombardment.

  We are in good company this morning. One of the fun and surprising parts about living on a warship is that every morning you wake up and the whole place could have changed, with new buildings, new neighborhoods brought in overnight. Running just ahead of us, with the same angle on the coast, is the Australian guided missile destroyer Hobart. I do make an effort not to get all big-kid about this stuff, but the Hobart is a big brute of a thing, a lot like us, and together we make a sight, like a couple of burly mean and feisty brothers who could take on the world and anybody’s navy. Right now we’re lying about a kilometer off the coast of Cua Viet, which is about as north as you can get in South Vietnam. We float, in low light, growling softly, and I would have to say if I were the enemy, I would not be resting easily.

  Also new to the neighborhood this morning are two swift boats, PCF-12 and PCF-19, which are fast becoming famous around here for completely menacing the enemy up and down the coast and deep into the rivers. They are a lot smaller than the cruisers, and faster than pretty much anything else around, so their game is mostly mayhem. The neighborhood is loaded this morning.

  “Hey,” Huff calls down as I pass by beneath his turret.

  He is at his battle station and smiling like a nut, so it must be time for work.

  “What’s up?” I say when I climb up and take in the view from his deck.

  “We’re about to rock,” he says, very excited.

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “Be happy for yourself and stay to watch. Get up here behind me.”

  So I stay and get behind him. I work my molded wax earplugs into my ears and brace myself.

  There is no bracing yourself for this.

  B-boom b-boom, b-boom b-boom, b-boom b-boom, the cannons go off in their two-at-a-time, no-pause-for-breath assault. There is nothing on earth to compare with this sensation, especially from right behind it. The shells soar high into the air, and the explosions even one klick — that’s a kilometer — away feel like
they are happening right under my feet. I can’t resist the impulse to keep looking at my feet, checking, I guess, that the ship is going to hold under me. I look back out, as the relentless pounding continues, and follow the trajectory, the beautiful perfect arc, of a shell I can focus on. When it lands, the entire sky looks like a screen that is projecting a movie of pure fire. We’ve hit a fuel depot for sure.

  Shells begin coming back out our way. Booms get closer, and holes appear in the ocean, followed by eruptions of water fifty feet high. It is reminding me of Jamaica Pond and the Fourth of July. It is so similar — and also very, very different. I am as scared as I have ever been. I am as thrilled as I have ever been. Scared and thrilled are sensations I used to think I understood.

  I wonder where my buddies are. I wonder, even, if we could be blowing them up ourselves. How are you supposed to be sure?

  Every man on board is up and running around now. Battle stations, support stations. Rascal comes up and yanks me by the shirt.

  “What you think, this is some kind of shoot ’em up game? You ain’t on Nantasket Beach today, pal. We got work to do.”

  Rascal is the real electrician around here, and I am his flunky. We are required to answer every call for electrical work, and when things get hot all over the way they are now, we’re not supposed to wait for calls. We rush around from station to station making sure all the electricals are functioning — which half the time they aren’t.

  “It has hit the fan this morning, eh, Mo?” Rascal says.

  I still have my earplugs in, but everything in the world cuts through them now. Everything in this world.

  “It sure has,” I say. Rascal is excited, like everybody else. The Hobart is firing as fast as we are. The swift boats are racing around, off in the distance now, and it appears suddenly like they are in a fight all their own. Something is hovering there, the lights appearing, cutting out, appearing again. They have aircraft of some kind engaging them, and this I have not seen before.

  I’m running up the ladder toward the control room, right behind Rascal. I’m watching everything, ducking from everything, not looking where I’m going. I smash my shin as I stumble on the steel rungs. I scream as my shin feels like shattering glass. But I keep running.

  “Vera is frozen, man.”

  “What?” I say. Now I’m trying to run and watch the action and duck and rub my shin, all at the same time. It would be a good time to be an octopus.

  “Vera, man. Rivera. He froze. Wouldn’t answer the bell. Stayed in his rack. Nobody could move him. He’s gonna get some serious grief coming his way when this is over.”

  One of the early lessons you learn in this operation is, you have to answer the bell. You have to, have to, have to answer the bell. Unless you’re already dead. Then you’re allowed to be a little bit late, but then, still, dead, answer the bell. You do not let your mates down, no matter what. Vera’s main job is just domestic stuff, kitchen and laundry and such. But like everybody, he has duties in battle as well. He’s a sailor, a soldier, a warrior. No excuses.

  We are just to the top deck, nearing the control room, when it all changes again. For the first time, I feel bullets.

  You feel them. Whether they hit you or not, you feel them. Like evil, large, lethal mosquitoes, you feel them buzzing all over, and it doesn’t matter how hard the surface is, you hit the deck.

  “Holy smokes,” Rascal says as he launches himself at the deck.

  I throw myself down with all the force of one of the rockets. I smash both elbows, and they feel the same metallic zing as my shin.

  There are more aircraft now, and it is us under attack. There are small explosions, and I cannot believe I now think of these as small.

  But I do. Because off in the distance I hear a mother of an explosion.

  Smoke, big smoke, is puffing up off the Hobart.

  Rascal and I scramble our way into the control room. The Officer of the Deck is hollering into the radio, and his assistant is relaying orders to all the different battle stations. The big guns continue to pummel the land targets, but the furious action has turned to the antiaircraft guns.

  “American!” the OOD shouts.

  “Negative!” I hear the response come back. “There is no American aircraft activity in the area. Deploy antiaircraft fire. Fire!”

  “Fire!” the OOD shouts.

  “Fire!” his man shouts into his microphone.

  And they fire. It is now official and total mayhem. There is firefighting of all manner, in all directions. The antiaircraft guns are blasting away at several times the rate of the cannons, following the aircraft across the sky.

  The OOD continues with headquarters. “Have we got confirmation?”

  “Negative. There is no American activity within that sector. All activity has been suspended in order to isolate the problem. There is no, repeat, no friendly activity in the area.”

  I almost laugh. This is the truest thing I’ve heard anyone say since I joined the Navy.

  There is no friendly activity in the area.

  As those words come out, there are two almighty explosions. The first is off in the distance, but there’s no doubt something severe has happened.

  The second is closer to home.

  The entire ship shudders, then tilts, and everyone is thrown to the deck. I can see smoke rolling up over the glass where the OOD had been surveying the action. He scrambles back to his feet, shouting into the phone, “Sir, we have been hit. We have identified, in the darkness, one hovering aircraft, rotating blade, gunship. And two jets, possibly F-104, F-2. We’ve been struck by rocket fire.”

  We hear the distinctive sound of jet engines shrinking into the distance. Our guns continue firing for a while, while smoke and fire lap up from a section at the front of the ship. I get up to the window in time to see a shocking sight. PCF-19 goes down so quickly, there’s a splash, a plume of water at the end of it like off the tail of a diving whale. Whoever it was, they just sent one of our swift boats swiftly to the bottom of the South China Sea.

  The Hobart has taken a hit like ours. The sun is coming up now over a scene of carnage. All guns cease, and it’s as if we are all punch-drunk, standing, uncomprehending.

  We’ve taken a beating.

  I thought the American military never, ever lost. That’s what I was taught my whole life. That’s what I believed, right up ’til this minute.

  “What are you two doing here?” the OOD screams at me and Rascal, finally noticing us.

  Startled, Rascal regroups. “Electricians, sir. Here to check all is functioning. Properly.”

  “All is functioning properly here! I suggest you go and check the functionality down there.” He points in the direction of flames toward the bow of the ship.

  We scramble.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Life and Death

  Fragments recovered from the rocket attacks on the ships indicated these were friendly fire attacks. Nobody has been able to put two plus two plus two together to find out who was there firing at us and why it happened.

  Two Australian seamen from HMAS Hobart were killed. Seven more wounded.

  Five American seamen from the swift boat PCF-19 died. Two were injured.

  We got off easy. Nobody got killed, injuries were not even worth mentioning. Or at least by military standards they were not worth mentioning.

  So why am I shaking so much?

  Every time I think I have the experience to make some sense of all this, I am shocked all over again. I thought I knew war and shooting and danger and adventure, but no, I didn’t, and I don’t. See, there is a big fat difference between being taught to shoot at targets in training and doing the real thing in action. There is a difference between being told about injury and death and fear and all the well-known nonsense of battle, and feeling it.

  And more to the point, there is a whopping great difference between dishing all this stuff out and being on the receiving end of it. Sounds like simple common sense, right?

>   Then why are even my eyelids trembling, not even blinking, but dried and petrified like they will never close again?

  I know why. Because the war, the power of it, the wicked reality of the death-and-dismemberment aspect, are coming my way now.

  And what do we get for our troubles? We get a vacation. We get to go home. USS Boston is taking me to the port of Boston just when I need it most. I could kiss them both.

  We are to lick our wounds, repair our holes (just a scratch, everybody keeps saying, just a scratch). Our “holes” are a fairly mangled bridge area, a radar tower compromised to the point of dysfunction, and a lot of twisted and burned structural material across the ship’s once handsome nose. While we get all that cosmetic upgrading, we will also receive a refit. We are to go from “Guided Missile Heavy Cruiser” to “Heavy Cruiser, Attack.”

  It seemed like we were already a heavy cruiser, and attack was our specialty. But what do I know?

  What it means, really, is that our Terrier missiles are being decommissioned. It is all moving so fast. The Terriers, those impressive, hot killer rockets that first caught my attention at the aft end of the ship, have gone from latest thing to yesterday’s news before our very eyes. The Navy has decided technology has passed the Terriers by and they are now obsolete. To me they look just as murderous and handsome as they did yesterday.

  I know it’s stupid, but I’m going to miss them.

  I’m standing, like I did on the trip over, in the middle of the night as we steam through the endless open sea. It’s breezy and warm and you can definitely tell the difference sailing home west as opposed to sailing to war east.

  Or it could just be the smell of home.

  There is no one around as I look up admiring the Terriers.

  Then there’s someone.

  “Why don’t you never sleep, man?”