On the pier near the stern another band was assembling. No doubt that was the Naval Air Station band, which tooted for every ship’s departure. Well and good, but Columbia had a band too and apparently the ship’s XO thought there couldn’t be too much music.
Above Jake’s head the tails of aircraft stuck out precariously over the edge of the flight deck and cast weird shadows on the crowded pier. Occasionally he could see people lift their gaze to take in the vast bulk of the ship and the dozens of aircraft. Then the people turned their attention back to their loved one.
Last night he had stood in line at one of the dozen phone booths on the head of the pier. The rain had subsided to occasional drips. When his turn for the booth came, he had called his folks in Virginia, then Callie. It was after midnight in Chicago when she answered.
“Callie, this is Jake.”
“Where are you?”
“On the pier at Alameda. Did you get my letters?”
“I received three.”
He had written the letters and mailed them from Oceana, where he had been sent to do field carrier qualifications with a group of students from VA-42. He had completed his field quals, of course, but didn’t go to the ship. There hadn’t been time. He would have to qual aboard Columbia after she sailed. He needed ten day and six night traps because it had been over six months since his last carrier landing.
“Another letter is on the way,” he told Callie, probably a superfluous comment. “You’ll get it in a day or two.”
“So how is the ship?”
“It’s a ship. What can I say?”
“When do you sail?”
“Seven-thirty in the morning.”
“So when I wake up you’ll be at sea.”
“Uh-huh.”
They talked desultorily for several minutes, the operator came on the line and Jake fed in more quarters, then he got down to it. “Callie, I love you.”
“I know you do. Oh, Jake, I’m so sorry your visit was such a disaster.”
“I am too. I guess these things just happen sometimes. I wish…” And he ran out of steam. A phone booth on a pier with dozens of sailors awaiting their turn didn’t seem the place to say what he wished.
“You be careful,” she said.
“You know me, Callie. I’m always careful.”
“Don’t take any unnecessary chances.”
“I won’t.”
“I want you to come back to me.”
Now Jake stood watching the crowd and thinking about that. She wanted him to come back to her.
He took a deep breath and sighed. Ah me, life is so strange. Just when everything looks bleakest a ray of sunshine comes through the clouds. Hope. He had hope. She wouldn’t have said something like that unless she meant it, not Callie, not to a guy going on an eight-month cruise.
He was standing there listening to the two bands playing different tunes at the same time, watching the crowd, watching sailors and women engage in passionate kisses, when he saw the Cadillac. A pink Cadillac convertible with the top down was slowly making its way down the pier. People flowed out of its way, then closed in behind it, like water parting for a boat.
Cars were not allowed on the pier. Yet there it was. A man in a white uniform was driving, yet all of his passengers were women, young women, and not wearing a lot of clothing either. Lots of brown thighs and bare shoulders were on display, several truly awesome bosoms.
In complete disregard of the regulations, the car made its way to the foot of the officers’ gangway and stopped. The driver got out and stretched lazily as he surveyed the giant gray ship looming beside the pier. The women bounded out and surrounded him.
It’s Bosun Muldowski! Who else could it be? No sailor could get a car past the guards at the head of the pier and few officers under flag rank. But a warrant officer four? Yep.
Muldowski.
He had been the flight deck bosun on Shiloh, Jake’s last ship. Apparently he was coming to Columbia. Now Jake remembered — Muldowski never did shore duty tours. He had been going from ship to ship for over twenty-five years.
Look at those women in hot pants and short short skirts!
Sailors to the right and left of Jake in the catwalk shouted and shrieked wolf whistles. Muldowski took no notice but the women waved prettily, which drew lusty cheers from the on-looking white hats.
With the bosun’s bags out of the trunk of the car, he took his time hugging each of the women, all five of them, as the bands blared mightily and spectator sailors watched in awe.
“The bosun must own a whorehouse,” one sailor down the catwalk told his friends loud enough for Jake to hear.
“He sure knows how to live,” his buddy said approvingly.
“Style. He’s got style.”
Jake Grafton grinned. Muldowski’s spectacular arrival had just catapulted him to superstardom with the white hats, which was precisely the effect, Jake suspected, that the bosun intended. The deck apes would work like slaves for him until they dropped in their tracks.
All too soon the ship’s whistle sounded, bullhorns blared and sailors rushed to single up the lines holding the great ship to the land. The men on the pier gave their women one last passionate hug, then dashed for the gangways. As seven bells sounded over the ship’s PA system, cranes lifted the gangways clear and deposited them on the pier.
The last of the lines were released and the ship began to move, very slowly at first, almost imperceptibly. Slowly the gap between the pier and the men crowding the rails widened.
Sailors tossed their Dixie cups at the pier and children scurried like rats to retrieve them. The strains of “Anchors Aweigh” filled the air.
When the pier was several hundred feet away and aft of the beam, Jake felt a rumble reach him through the steel on which he stood. The screws were biting. The effect was noticeable. The pier slid astern slowly at first, then with increasing speed.
Now the pilot climbed to the flight deck and threaded his way past tie-down chains toward the bow, where he joined a loose knot of men leaning into the increasing wind. Ahead was the Bay Bridge, then the Golden Gate. And the fog beyond the Golden Gate was dissipating.
The ship had cleared the Bay Bridge and was steaming at eight or ten knots past Alcatraz when the loudspeaker sounded. “Flight Quarters, flight quarters. All hands man your flight quarters station.”
The cruise had begun.
Jake was in the locker room donning his flight gear when a black Marine in a flight suit came in. He had railroad tracks pinned to the shoulders of his flight suit, so he was a captain, the Marine equivalent of Jake’s Navy rank of lieutenant. He looked Jake over, nodded to a couple Marines who were also suiting up to get some traps, then strolled over to Jake.
“They call me Flap. I guess we’re flying together.”
The BN had his hair cut in the Marine Corps’ version of an Afro — that is, it stuck out from his head about half an inch and was meticulously tapered on the sides and back. He was slightly above medium height, with the well-developed chest and bulging muscles that can only be acquired by thousands of hours of pumping iron. He looked to be in his late twenties, maybe thirty at the most.
“Jake Grafton. You’re Le Beau?”
“Yep.”
“How come you weren’t at the brief?”
“Hey, man. This is CQ!” CQ meant carrier qualification. “All we’re gonna do is fly around this bird farm with the wheels down, dangling our little hook thingy. This is your bag. You can hack it, can’t ya?”
Jake decided to change the subject. “Where you from?”