The Cuban sun beat down on my head, scorched through the white cap there, left a soggy ring of sweat where the hat band met my forehead. The Old Man made sure we wore hats, and he posted a notice on the quarterdeck saying no man would be allowed to roam the ship without a shirt on. He was worried about us getting sunburned. He was worried about all that sun up there beating down and turning us lobster red.
But he wouldn’t let us swim.
He said there were barracuda in the water. He knew. He was a big-shot Commander who’d politicked his way through Annapolis, and he knew. Sure. He couldn’t tell a barracuda from a goldfish, but he’d pursed his fat lips and scratched his bald head and said, ‘No swimming. Barracuda.’ And that was that.
Except every other ship in the squadron was allowing its crew to swim. Every other ship admitted there were no barracuda in the waters, or maybe there were, but who the hell cared? They were all out there swimming, jumping over the sides and sticking close to the nets the ship had thrown over, and nobody’d got bitten yet.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, and I sucked in a deep breath, trying to get some air, trying to sponge something fresh out of the hot stillness all around me. I sucked in garbage fumes and that was all. The garbage cans were stacked on the fantail like rotting corpses. We weren’t supposed to dump garbage in port, and the garbage scow was late, but did the Old Man do anything about that? No, he just issued stupid goddam orders about no swimming, orders he...
‘Resting, Peters?’
I jumped to my feet because I recognized the voice. I snapped to and looked into the skipper’s face and said, ‘Yes, sir, for just a moment, sir.’
‘Haven’t you got a work station?’ he asked. I looked at his fat lips, pursed now, cracking and dried from the heat. I looked at his pale blue eyes and the deep brown colour of his skin, burned from the sun and the wind on the open bridge. My captain, my skipper. The Commander. The louse.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘I have a work station.’
“Where, Peters?’
‘The radar shack, sir.’
‘Then what are you doing on the fantail?’
‘It was hot up there, sir. I came down for a drink at the scuttlebutt, and I thought I’d catch some air while I was at it.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He nodded his head, the braided peak of his cap catching the hot rays of the sun. The silver maple leaf on the collar of his shirt winked up like a hot eye. He looked down at the deck, and then He looked at my feet, and then he said, ‘Are those regulation shoes, Peters?’
‘No, sir,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘My feet were sweating in...’
‘Are you aware of my order about wearing loafers and moccasins aboard ship?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then why arc you wearing moccasins?’
‘I told you, sir. My feet...’
‘Why are you wearing white socks, Peters?’
‘Sir?’
‘You heard me, goddamnit. Regulation is black socks. The uniform of the day is posted every day in the midship’s passageway, Peters. The uniform for today is dungarees, white caps, black socks and black shoes. Are you aware of that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you know that we are here on shakedown cruise, Peters?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you know that the squadron commander may pop in on this ship at any moment? Do you know that? What do you think he’d say to me if he found men in white socks and moccasins. What the hell do you think this is, Peters? A goddamn country club?’
‘No, sir.’
‘When’s the last time you had a haircut, Peters?’
‘Last week, sir.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Peters.’
‘Last week, sir,’ I repeated.
‘Then get down to the barber shop after sweepdown, do you understand? And you’d better shave, too, Peters. I don’t like any man in my crew looking like a bum.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I...’
‘Get back to your station. And if I find you goofing off again, Peters, it’s going to be your hide, remember that. Now get going.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
‘Change those socks and shoes first.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And on the double, Peters.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I left him and went down to the aft sleeping compartment. It was hotter down there, and you could feel the sweat clinging to the sides of the ship, dripping from the bulkheads. There was a stink down there, too, a stink worse than garbage, the stink of men living in cramped quarters. I went to my locker and lifted the top, and Ramsey, a Radioman Second, looked down from his sack. He was in his skivvies, and his bare chest and legs were coated with perspiration.
‘Man,’ he said, ‘and I thought it was hot in Georgia.’
‘The Old Man is prowling,’ I told him. ‘You better move your ass.’
‘Let him prowl,’ Ramsey said. ‘That one don’t scare me none.’
‘No, huh?’ I said. I took out a pair of black socks and the regulation black shoes, and then I kicked off the moccasins and pulled off the white socks. ‘Maybe you like losing liberty, huh, Ramsey? If the Old Man catches you sprawled out like that, you’ll get a Captain’s Mast, at least.’
‘You know what he can do with his Mast, don’t you?’ Ramsey asked, smiling and stretching out.
‘How come you’re so brave, Ramsey?’ I asked, putting on the black socks.
‘How come? I’ll let you in on a secret, Dave. You really want to know?’
‘Yeah, how come?’
‘I’m sick, man. I got me cat fever. The Chief Pharmacist’s Mate himself, he said I got to lay flat on my keester. That’s what he said. So let the Old Man come down here and say something, just let him. I’ll tell him just where the crowbar goes.’
‘You wouldn’t tell him nothing,’ I said, smiling. ‘You and the skipper are buddies.’
‘Sure,’ Ramsey said.
‘I think you really like the Old Man.’
‘Only one way I’d like him,’ Ramsey said.
‘How’s that?’
Ramsey rolled over. ‘Dead,’ he said.
I went up to the radar shack after changing, and I got to work, piddling around with a bucket and a rag, wiping off the radar scopes, fooling with the plotting boards, making like I was working. The radar shack was about as big as a flea’s nose, and I’d already cleaned it thoroughly after chow. That made no difference to the Navy. In the Navy, you cleaned it again, or you pretended to clean it again. Anything to keep you busy. Anything to keep you from enjoying a swim when the thermometer was ready to pop.
Gary came in while I was behind the vertical plotting board, and he said, ‘What’re you doing, Peters?’
‘What the hell does it look like I’m doing?’ I asked him.
‘It looks like you’re working,’ he said, ‘but I know that can’t be so.’
‘Yeah, stow it,’ I told him.
‘You shouldn’t be nasty to non-commissioned officers, Peters,’ he said. He smiled a crooked smile, and his buck teeth showed in his narrow face. ‘I could report you to the Old Man, you know.’
‘You would, too,’ I said.
‘He don’t like you to begin with.’ Gary smiled again, enjoying the three stripes he wore on his dress blues, enjoying the three stripes he’d inked onto his denim shirt. ‘What’d you do to the old boy, Dave?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Well, he sure don’t like you.’
‘The feelings arc mutual,’ I said.
‘You like mid watches, Dave?’
‘Whattya mean?’ I asked.
‘We got to stand voice radio watch in port, you know that. Not enough radiomen. I showed the Old Man the watch list. Had you slated for a four to eight this afternoon.’