“Sounds about right.”
“See you tonight for fish?”
“Afraid not. My stomach, you know. I gave my regrets to the JG.”
“Thanks, Gordon.”
“You bet, Commander. See you when you get back.”
31
The party was well under way when Murdock and Ardith arrived at l830. The recreation area of DeWitt’s apartment complex was near the back, with three stationary barbecues and six picnic tables and benches solidly bolted to the concrete slabs.
Ed and Milly met them at the gate and ushered them in. Everyone was in mufti and looking comfortable. Ed and Milly wore their matching Hawaiian flowered aloha shirts.
“About time you got here, Skipper,” Ed said. “Now we can put on the fish before the guys get too bombed to eat.”
The salmon fillets went on the grill and DeWitt, Ching, and Mahanani wielded the spatulas, vying to see who could turn out the best cooked salmon. Maria Fernandez hurried over and grabbed Ardith and Milly, and they walked to a table where Nancy Dobler sat. Soon the four women were in a gab session.
Murdock grabbed a cold beer from a cooler and watched his men. He wasn’t used to drinking left-handed, but he got by. There was no way he could lift the can up to his mouth with his right hand.
Two or three of the men had brought bimbos with them. He had no idea where the SEALs had grabbed up the women on such short notice. A half hour after he arrived, Murdock saw Lampedusa and a slinky little brunette make their way out of the recreation area and head for DeWitt’s apartment. Boys would be boys.
Tony Ostercamp and Bill Bradford got into an argument that Senior Chief Dobler had to settle. They all grinned, tipped their beers, and went to yell at the three cooks.
“Get your plates off the first table,” DeWitt called. “This salmon takes about three minutes on each side, so it’s almost done.”
The men lined up at the barbecues, and then moved back, giving the ladies the first run at the salmon.
Before they could start serving, somebody bellowed from near the gate.
“Hold the chow, you Boy Scouts. Let the real SEAL show up and take charge.” An orderly complete with white cap and uniform powered a wheelchair over the ground toward the grills.
“Jaybird, you roustabout,” Ching yelled. “What the hell you doing out of the pigpen?” Then they all ran to where his wheelchair had hit rough ground. They picked it up and carried it the last fifty feet to the tables.
“Easy, easy, I’m a surgical case here,” Jaybird brayed at them.
“I’ve got some surgery you can do on me,” Franklin yelped.
“How the hell you get out of the hospital?” Murdock asked.
“Got my keeper here, Charlie, and he’s so dry he needs about a dozen beers. Get him some, guys. Charlie has my liberty chit and I’ve got to be back in that bed by midnight. Sort of.”
“Yeah, but who authorized it?” DeWitt asked.
“Authorized it myself. Wrote up the order, made the rank a bit confused, and pushed it through. Nobody gave a damn. Just so I don’t get busted up none.”
“On this salmon you might,” Jefferson barked, and they all laughed.
They moved back to the grills and everyone was served. The meal had side dishes of baked potatoes, three kinds of steaming vegetables, hot rolls, and tea, coffee, or beer.
Another argument broke out, and DeWitt stepped in to calm down Jefferson and Ron Holt.
“Come on, you guys,” DeWitt said. “No fighting at least until you’re half drunk. Then you’ll have an excuse.”
It would not have been a fair fight. They shook hands, then raced for the grills for seconds on salmon.
Murdock and Ardith sat at a table across from Nancy and Senior Chief Dobler. The women talked kids for ten minutes. Then they stood and walked over by the swings, talking all the way. Murdock went to the grill for more salmon.
Three SEALs began singing a loud and bawdy song. Their women for the night giggled, then laughed, trying to join in. Beer flowed and flowed. When the food was gone, DeWitt brought out wrapped ice-cream bars and handed them out.
Murdock stopped DeWitt. “Hey, when did this barbecue get to be a tradition?”
“Few months back after you and Stroh went fishing. Don’t you remember?”
“Sure, but we never caught any salmon.”
“Try harder next time,” DeWitt said, and tossed Murdock two more cold beers.
Murdock noticed more of the single SEALs make trips to the apartment with their girls of the night. There were more songs and bawdy stories. Then Jaybird had the idea.
“Hey, guys. Let’s go down to MacB’s and see what the babes look like.”
“What good could you do them?” Jefferson asked, and they all howled in delight.
“More good than you could ever figure. Who’s with me? Anybody got a van I could roll into?”
Ardith had been enjoying talking with the other SEAL women. Now she came back to where Murdock stood near the grills.
“You can’t let Jaybird go,” she said.
Murdock took her elbow and walked out of the lights into the darkness.
“I can’t stop him. He’s over twenty-one and a SEAL.”
“But isn’t that a rowdy bar with lots of fights?”
“True, favorite hangout of the guys. They can take care of themselves and watch out for Jaybird. Let’s help Ed and Milly clean up this place.”
The SEALs hurried out the gate, and piled into half a dozen cars and roared away. Jaybird’s keeper/orderly didn’t object. He was so drunk he had passed out once already. They would leave him in the car.
It was less than five minutes to the waterfront-type bar where the SEALs liked to hang out and where they had certain privileges.
Twelve half-drunk SEALs and four party-dressed women charged into MacB’s ten minutes later and took over the place. There were fifteen men and two women there at the time. Eight of the white-sided-haircut young men were drinking together.
Tran Khai bumped into one of the white-sides as he eased into a stool at the bar. Train was the first SEAL to get drunk at every outing. The military-haircut man turned and growled. Mahanani loomed over the white-side a second later.
“Hey, my little buddy here is in his cups. He didn’t mean any harm. What say?”
“Who the hell you think you are, sad ass?”
“We’re SEALs and we’re celebrating. Who the hell do you think you are, grab ass?”
“We’re Marines, and we think all SEALs are chicken-fuckers.”
Suddenly the place was quiet. The Marine’s words had rung out sharp and clear in the bar.
Then the Marine threw half a glass of beer in Mahanani’s face. It took only a microsecond for the big Hawaiian/Tahitian to react. His right fist came out and sank four inches into the Marine’s surprised gut. Then his left looped upward, found the Marine’s chin just as he started to bend over to relieve his gut pain. The Halls of Montezuma man arched backward and fell on a table where three civilians sat. The table lost a leg and crashed to the floor with the dazed Marine on top of it.
“What the fuck?” another Marine shrilled.
Four more Marines rushed up, and the civilians from the smashed table jumped away from it, and then headed for Mahanani and Train.
For a moment it looked like seven on two. Then three more SEALs spotted the trouble and waded in. Fists flew, bodies dropped and jumped up. It turned into a free-for-all with all the SEALs except Jaybird in the center of the battle with the eight Marines and five or six civilians who chose the wrong side.
Lampedusa found himself facing a snarling Marine who was almost as drunk as he was. They swung, missed, and swung again, and both hit. Lam came sober in a rush, and jabbed the Marine twice with his left, then swung from the bleachers with his right fist and tagged the corporal on the side of the jaw. The Marine jolted back a step, stood there as his eyes glazed, then dropped to his knees and fell flat on his face on the barroom floor.