“Am I all right?” Franklin laughed, poking himself in the chest with his index finger. “I’m fine, thanks to you, Pickles.” She smiled.
Jacobs lit a cigar and the two shipmates stood at the safety line, watching the fluorescence of the sea grow as the darkness grew. Periodically, one of the boatswain mates would wander by to report the lack of progress in finding Petty Officer Jolson. Each time, Jacobs’s voice seemed lower in his response.
“Nothing you could have done, you know,” Agazzi said finally after the sailor delivering the report walked away out of earshot.
“Knowing it and feeling it are two different things. If one of my sailors fall overboard, it’s still my responsibility regardless of how short a time he or she is on board.”
The two friends stood there for a while longer. Agazzi looking out to sea, knowing something more was bothering Jacobs, but also knowing that when Jacobs wanted to tell him, he would. The smell of cigar smoke whiffed by every few seconds as the evening ocean breeze shifted upon itself.
Jacobs opened his mouth to say something as two F-22A Raptors did a low overhead flyby of Sea Base. Both men turned at the noise, watching the two aircraft fly by. The white-orange glow of the engines highlighted the dark silhouettes as the aircraft crossed the bow, turned on their tails, and disappeared into the night.
As the noise faded, Jacobs went back to his cigar. “Must be entering the landing pattern,” he remarked.
“How can you tell?”
“You stay topside enough instead of hiding belowdecks in the cool air-conditioned spaces of ASW, you learn the routine.”
Agazzi watched the Air Force ground crew on the other side of Sea Base, chocking down two Raptors that had landed earlier. He counted five of the stealth fighters on the deck. The faint noise of jet engines drew his attention to the port side of Sea Base. He squinted, and motion finally drew Agazzi’s attention to the two aircraft in the pattern as they made their final turn. “Short final” was what he thought the pilots called a modified landing pattern.
The noise picked up in intensity as the two aircraft approached the end of the runway, their wheels down and locked. Any hopes of conversation drowned in the wash of noise rushing across them.
Agazzi watched as white smoke burst from wheels squealing as the two fighters touched the deck. At the forward end of the runway, a pale blue Air Force pickup truck with flashing lights reading “Follow me” led the two fighters toward the ground crew. “How come the Navy doesn’t have pickup trucks on its carriers? he asked himself.
He turned back to the safety line, looking out to sea. Jacobs’s hand was empty. He had tossed the cigar overboard.
“Alistair, bad news today.”
“I know, but you may find him tomorrow, or even tonight. Probably lost belowdecks.”
“No, that’s bad news, my friend, but more bad news.” He put his hand on Alistair’s shoulder. “The master chief list was released by Chief of Naval Personnel today.”
Agazzi nodded, feeling the disappointment well through him. “I wasn’t on it.”
Jacobs removed his hand and looked down at his shoes. He scuffed the soles on the nonskid deck a couple of times. “No, you weren’t. But I wouldn’t give up. I think once they see your fitness report next year and see the battles you’ve been in, they’ll have no choice but to select you. Give it another year.”
Agazzi nodded. He took a deep breath. “I don’t think there will be a next time, Jerry. Frieda and I discussed it before I sailed. If I made it, I would stick around. Been in twenty-two years. Twenty-two years is the right time for me to make it. It would have been right on time.”
“You should have made it.”
“You’re only saying that because we’re friends, and I do appreciate it. I thought I stood a chance this time. I thought having a bachelor’s degree and being a division officer—”
“Other bad news also,” Jacobs interrupted.
Agazzi stopped. “More?”
“Yeah, when they secured from General Quarters, I went down to Personnel and put my papers in. They said it’d take about six months to process and then I’d be retired.”
“No wonder you’re sad. You sure you want to do this?” “Lots of things happening at once can make your mind up for you. You not making master chief was one of the things.” Agazzi frowned. “Don’t get out of the Navy because of that,” he said, miffed over the idea his friend was using his failure to be selected as a reason. “There has to be something more important than that.”
“I didn’t say I was getting out just because you failed to select, Alistair. Don’t go trying that psychological bullshit on me or I may have to gangsta-slap you,” Jacobs said humorously. “It’s time. They say when it’s time to retire, it’s like an epiphany. One moment you love it, and would fight anyone who tried to throw you out or even suggest retiring. Then, in a matter of moments, you’re watching the calendar for that magic day when the Veterans Administration takes over your health and welfare. Just another reason added to many others.”
“Does Helen know you’ve done it?”
“Not yet.”
“She will be ecstatic. She’s been wanting you to retire for years.”
Jacobs laughed. “Yeah, I can hear her now after the first few months. It’ll be something along the lines of having twice as much husband and half as much pay. I think she’ll get tired of seeing my ugly puss around the house.”
“Think you’ll have a little Sea Base to play with Deep Freeze, Deny Flight, and the others you keep naming after your deployments?”
“Naw,” he said with a laugh. “I can’t see the horizontal mambo creating a Sea Base. Besides, you heard her when she was throwing my stuff out the window — she is closing the port down for any more production — thinks six kids is enough. Most likely, once I retire, she’s going make me call them by their real names instead of my deployments. She said Deep Freeze came home from school crying the other day because the teacher corrected her, telling her that her name was Joyce, not Deep Freeze.”
“You sure you going to hang around the house after you retire? Maybe you’ll discover like so many others that there is life after the Navy, but it involves working elsewhere?” “Well, I also found out that if I change my mind, all I have to do is call the Bureau and they’ll tear up the papers.”
The two men laughed, drifting back into that silence of the sea shipmates understand so well. Off in the distance, the faint lights of the fishing fleet of Taiwan were disappearing along the horizon as they headed back toward their port. Behind the two friends, the engines of the Raptors abruptly fell silent. And beneath them the sharks swam vigilantly, marking the boundaries of the surface from the dark Pacific below.