One day they rented clubs. They merely slapped at the balls, since neither man could swing a club with any vigor. Slap the ball a hundred feet, using mostly arms and wrists, get in the cart and drive over to it, slap the thing again. It was crazy, but it felt fine.
After that they played daily. Gradually the shoulders and ribs loosened up and they swung more freely, but neither man had ever played much golf and neither was very good.
They were standing on the carrier pier at Pearl Harbor when Columbia arrived in early February.
“Look who has returned!” the Real McCoy shouted when they walked into the ready room. “The prodigal sons are back!”
“We only came aboard for a change of underwear. It’s been hell, golf every day, hot women every night…”
They were surrounded by people shaking their hands and welcoming them back. When the mob scene had subsided to a low roar, the Real asked Jake, “By any chance did you bring a copy of the Wall Street Journal?”
“I hate to give you the bad news, roomie, but the market is down a thousand points this morning. They’re talking about a depression.”
“Aah…,” said the Real, searching Jake’s face.
“Millionaires are leaping out of windows even as we speak.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
After lunch Jake went to his stateroom with McCoy. He crawled into the top bunk and let out a long sigh. “Feels so good.”
“Got something to show you,” the Real said. From his desk he brought forth a series of aerial photos. “We took these before we smacked that hijacked Cuban freighter. See that big blast area — that’s where the pile was that you and Flap blew up.”
“You guys bombed the Cuban ship?”
“Oh yes. The government of Indonesia thought those weapons might go to some of their own indigenous revolutionaries, so they asked for our help before we even offered it.”
“I never saw anything about it in the papers.”
“They never told the press.”
“I’ll be darned.”
That night the entire squadron went to the O Club en masse. It was an epic party, complete with a letter the next day from the C.O. of the base to the captain of Columbia complaining about rowdy behavior and demanding damages. That night Jake and Flap slept in their bunks aboard ship.
Before the ship sailed, Jake spent a quiet moment with Lieutenant Colonel Haldane. “I’d like to stay in the Navy, Skipper. I want to withdraw my resignation.”
Haldane smiled and offered his hand. Jake shook it.
“There’s one other thing,” Jake said slowly. “I hear that some of the guys are going to get some traps the first day out of port just in case they need to fly during the transit to the States. I’d need too many to get current, but I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d let me and Flap get one.”
“I need up chits from the flight surgeon.”
“That’s the rub. I think I can get one but I don’t think they’ll give Flap an up. The doctors at Trippler want him to do more physical therapy. He still has some balance problems.”
“According to that report we received from CINCPAC, he took a rifle butt in the head.”
“Yessir. One hell of a butt stroke. He had lost a lot of blood by that time and didn’t have the reflexes to minimize the impact.”
“Well, you and Flap take your medical files to the flight surgeon and have him look you over. Then have him call me.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Somehow it worked out. Jake and Flap rode the catapult two hours after Columbia cleared Pearl. By some miracle he didn’t question he got a plane full of gas, so he had to burn down or dump before he could come back into the pattern.
They yanked and banked and shouted over the ICS as they did tight turns around the tops of cumulus clouds. Jake managed a loop and a Cuban eight before Flap begged for mercy. He was dizzy.
Jake smoked into the break at five hundred knots. The air boss never peeped. Better yet, Jake snagged a three-wire.
On the morning of the fly-off Jake took the Pri-Fly duty. All the planes of the air wing were to be launched: the crews were selected strictly on the basis of seniority. Tonight they would be home with wives and children and sweethearts. Jake and Flap were, of course, not flying off. They were riding the ship into port. Flap had an appointment at the Oakland Naval Hospital and Jake was catching a commercial flight to Oak Harbor via Seattle to pick up his car, then he was taking a month’s leave. He thought he would head for Virginia by way of Chicago. Maybe look Callie up, see what she was up to. At the end of the month he would report again to Tiny Dick Donovan at VA-128.
The fly-off went well. One by one every plane on the ship taxied to the catapults and was shot aloft. They rendezvoused in divisions over the ship and headed east.
When the last plane was gone and the angel helicopter had settled onto the angle and shut down, the ship secured from flight quarters. Jake went down to the strangely empty flight deck and walked around one last time.
Not really. He would be back. If not this ship, then another. Once again he savored the oily aroma of steam seeping up from the catapults, felt the heat as it mixed with the salty sea breeze.
He was wandering the deck when Bosun Muldowski approached. He stunned Jake with a salute. Jake returned it.
“Hear you’re staying in, Mr. Grafton.”
“Yep. Your example shamed me into it.”
Muldowski laughed. “It’s a good life,” he said. “Beats eight to five anywhere. Maybe if I had found the right woman and had some kids…But you can’t live on maybes. Didn’t work out that way. You gotta live your life one day at a time. That’s the way God fixed it up. Today do what you do best and let tomorrow take care of tomorrow.”
Jake was packing in his stateroom when the ship docked at the Alameda carrier pier. The Real McCoy had flown off with the Marines — he had earned it. McCoy’s steel footlockers sporting new padlocks sat one atop the other by the door. His desk was clean and nothing hung in his closet. His bunk was stripped and the sheets turned in.
Jake had also turned in his sheets and blankets. Last night he had packed the suitcase he was taking on leave — now he was stuffing everything else into the parachute bags. The suitcase he had purchased in Hawaii. The padlocks for the bags lay on the desk. Net gain after one eight-month cruise: one suitcase and some new scars.
The engagement ring he had purchased for Callie oh those many months ago was the last item left in his desk safe. He held it in his hand and wondered what to do with it. The suitcase might get stolen or lost by the airline, shuffled off to Buffalo or Pago Pago or Timbuktu. For lack of a better option, he put the ring in his shirt pocket and buttoned the pocket.
The telephone rang. “Lieutenant Grafton, sir.”
“Mr. Grafton, this is the duty officer at the officers’ brow. You have a visitor.”
“Me?”
“Yes, sir. You need to come sign her in and escort her.”
“Okay, but who is this pers—?” He stopped because he was talking to a dead phone. The duty officer had hung up.
There was obviously some mistake. He didn’t know a soul in the San Francisco Bay area. He glanced at his new watch, guaranteed to be waterproof to a depth of three hundred feet or his money back. He had four hours to catch the plane from the Oakland airport. Plenty of time.
He grabbed his ball cap and headed for the ceremonial quarterdeck at the head of the officers’ brow. It was on the hangar deck, which was the scene of hundreds of sailors coming and going on a variety of errands, most of them frivolous. Crowds of sailors stood on the aircraft elevators shouting to people on the pier below. Near the enlisted brow a band was tooting merrily.