Shakey also had a newfound confidence. Stretch, the senior partner, was letting him wave, not because Stretch wanted to avoid waving but because his vision was still not night adapted and because Shakey was handling this pitching deck MOVLAS recovery quite well. As 406 appeared and moved across the ship’s longitudinal axis, Shakey picked up the handle and showed Sponge a slightly low indication. The steady rain pelted him and Dutch as all eyes looked aft toward Sponge. Please help me, God, Shakey whispered into the rain as the wind swirled around him.
“Two-seven Hornet, clear deck!” the phone talker called out.
“Roger, two-seven Hornet, clear deck!” Shakey bellowed back.
In Air Ops, The Big Unit leaned over and murmured to Wilson. “You made the right call. You’re on record.”
Wilson said nothing, but his eyes followed Sponge as his aircraft came into view on the right side of the screen. Shakey is doing good, he thought, taking charge out there. Wilson knew only prayers could help them now. Our Father, who art in heaven…
“Four-zero-six, got a ball?” Shakey called over the radio.
“Four-zero-six, Hornet ball, point-four,” Sponge answered.
“Ro-ger ball, thirty-nine knots down the angle, workin’ a little low… You’re low and lined up left, come right… Come right… Approaching centerline, back to the left, you’re on glide slope… Ooonn glide slope.”
The ship heaved up and rolled right. Air Ops was silent, save for the radio transmissions from the platform. Throughout the ship all eyes were on the PLAT crosshairs, and hundreds of prayers were asked of God to help the young pilot.
“Deck’s movin’ a little. You’re on glide slope, on course. Oooonn glide slope… a lit-tle power, a little right for lineup.”
Sponge lost the ball behind the stanchion and cried, “Clara!”
“Roger, clara, you’re on glide slope, going a little high, easy with it… power back on…”
“Ball!” Sponge sang out again.
“Right for line-up!” Dutch called. The deck steadied out a bit… they were committed.
Wilson saw the Hornet behind the barricade correct the drift. C’mon! he thought.
Shakey kept the calls coming as Sponge approached the ramp. “Roger ball, a little power… Now cut! CUT! CUT! CUT!”
“Right for line up!” Dutch added.
With that, the Hornet fell out of the sky, slamming on the right main-mount, followed by the left main and nose. A twisting motion sent the airframe into the barricade, which enveloped the aircraft in webbing, water and debris.
The LSOs saw the hook catch a wire somewhere in the maze of confusion, and the stress and strain of the arrestment was too much for the overstressed right main. As the main suddenly collapsed, the whole jumble slid down the deck into the centerline PLAT camera, where the wreckage and right wing dragging on deck kicked up a shower of sparks as it veered to the starboard side of the landing area.
On the PLAT image, Wilson saw Sponge’s white helmet move in the cockpit. Sponge then opened the canopy as crash and salvage sailors swarmed the nose, some of them employing foam on a small fire underneath the aircraft. A booming cheer in Air Ops released a torrent of tension and anxiety. Wilson’s air wing shipmates all patted him on the back.
“You got him!” The Big Unit said as he grabbed Wilson’s shoulders. Wilson offered a weak smile in return, feeling he had done pitifully little. Wilson’s eyes met Saint’s scowl before the commander wheeled and left for the ready room.
Sponge had never wanted so much to get out of an airplane. Leaning to the right, his hands raced over the Koch fittings and seat manual release handle that secured him in order to get free of the cockpit. He opened the canopy normally and flipped off a bayonet fitting to let his mask dangle to one side. Instead of breathing fresh air, he gagged on a cloud of CO2 from the crash crew’s attack on the aircraft. He then got splashed by firefighting foam, supposedly pointed at the fire coming from somewhere by the right intake. The foam spotted his helmet visor and obscured his vision as the rain caused it to run down the front.
A hooded sailor wearing a silver fire retardant suit, a chief by the sound of his gravelly voice, climbed up on the leading edge extension. He yelled, over the chaos, to Sponge, “You okay, sir?”
“Yeah! I’m okay!”
“Nice goin’, Lieutenant! Let’s go!”
Sponge pulled himself up and over the canopy sill. The chief and three other sailors grabbed at him as he tumbled down to the deck. He got covered in foam, and some of it splashed into his mouth. Just as he got to his feet and tried to spit out the foam, they began to both pull and push him from the wreckage. Still spitting foam, he trudged 50 feet toward a throng of sailors.
“Sir, you have to get in the stretcher!” a sailor yelled. He pulled Sponge toward a wire mesh stretcher on the flight deck.
“I’m fine!”
“Sir, orders. Get in!”
“Lieutenant, it’s procedure. Get in.” added another unfamiliar sailor.
Sponge tilted his head up and saw an older sailor under the cranial and goggles next to him— maybe an officer, a medical type. He decided not to fight. I’ve had enough fighting for one night. I’ll let someone else take care of me.
“Lie down here, sir. You’ll be OK,” the first sailor said.
Sponge got in the stretcher and the medical department sailors strapped him in. Now on his back, Sponge faced the rain and had to squint his eyes to shield them from the raindrops. He heard the sound of helicopter rotor blades getting louder and louder. Is that guy going to land on top of me? The straps were cinched down to keep him in place, and he couldn’t move his arms. White smoke was still pouring from underneath 406, the Air Boss was yelling orders over the 5MC he didn’t understand, and rain was pelting his face. Sponge couldn’t see well and that scared him. A sailor, or maybe the old medical guy, stood over him and talked into a portable phone. “Pull down my visor!” he yelled, but no one heard him over the din. Then someone bumped the stretcher, which sent a sharp pain into his left thigh.
Sponge snapped. The tension of the past five hours — beginning with the XO’s bullshit brief, followed by launching in awful weather, dodging the embedded thunderstorms during the hop, marshaling in the clag, and finally ending with his night-in-the-barrel foul decks, sour tankers, jinking ships and a pitching deck barricade — turned to rage in an instant. Everyone on this ship really is trying to kill me! he thought.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert K. Jasper, United States Navy, drenched and immobile, had had enough. He took a deep breath, tensed his body and exploded with a roar he was certain could be heard by the plane guard destroyer across the waves.
“Get me outta here! Now! RIGHT Fucking NOW!!”
CHAPTER 15
From the desk chair in his stateroom, Wilson watched the E-2 grow larger in the PLAT crosshairs. When it touched down and rolled out on centerline, the nose gear tires, in a blur, rushed up and over the embedded flight deck camera.