The Med (6 page)

“Where are they staying? Here?”

“No, no. They're down in Giardini, closer to the fleet landing.” She laughed. “But I came up here on the bus, I couldn't resist it. The view! And it gets you away from the ship, doesn't it?”

“It sure does.” He grinned down at her. “You know what I need, all right. So you've had a week to see the town?”

“I haven't seen squat. We stayed in our room and I read François Bordes and Nan watched ‘The Three Stooges' in Italian and we waited for you.”

He reached out to her in the middle of the street, and looked down into her dark eyes; laughing, slightly hard for everyone but him. She was so vibrant, so alive, that she made him feel stiff and dull. But in spite of that he loved her more intensely than he had ever thought he could love a human being.

“Give me a kiss.”

“I thought you Navy types didn't like affection in public.”

“Pretend I'm a civilian, just for today, all right?” He joked. She put her face up then. But her remark had spoiled something, and he lagged behind as she roamed through the high town.

In the afternoon they became suddenly purposeful, and went sightseeing. Susan dragged him around San Pancrazio, telling him the walls dated from the third century B.C.; the Greek theater; the Naumachia, which reminded him of a model-towing tank. He trailed along with his jacket slung over his shoulder, sweat soaking his shirt, and took pictures. He wanted to put together, at the end of this cruise, an album of all the ports Comphibron Six had visited, along with a few paragraphs of description in his own and Susan's hands. He imagined that someday, when they were old, they would look through it together. At four the sun grew too much for them, and they went back to the hotel and took a shower together and made love again and then napped.

When they woke they had a short but surprisingly bitter argument over where to go for dinner. He wanted to try the hotel dining room. She was sick of it and wanted to go out. In the end they compromised. Dinner at the hotel, and the night out in Giardini, at the base of the hill.

They found a noisy knot of the bachelor officers at the Hotel Naxos bar. He ordered gin and tonics. That was the only drink Susan really liked. The bachelors welcomed them, but Dan felt the conversation become awkward. Once you were married, in the Service, you moved out of their circle and into that of the married officers. After one drink he nudged her and they went out into the night again. They found a bench at the seawall, overlooking the water. It was cool, welcome after the heat of the day, and the wind came in sweet and heavy off the sea, smelling of salt and faraway storm.

“You didn't like them?”

“They were all right. Just … I'd rather be with you.”

“You're sweet,” she said, looking away toward the sea, and his eyes followed hers, out into the dark.

Dark, but blazing and twinkling with lights. The evening was clear. Across the Strait of Messina, only twenty miles wide here at the meeting of Italy and Sicily, Reggio and Pellaro and Porto Salvo glowed like heaps of fallen fireflies. He made out four ships, moving slowly against the fixed lamps of the far shore; a green sidelight, red; two bound south, two north. The traffic would get even thicker as they neared the neck of the strait, a few miles north. He remembered taking the squadron through there a few weeks before. It had been a hairy evolution.

Closer in, swinging a mile or so out beyond the breakwater,
Guam
had dressed ship. The electricians had been climbing about when he left the night before, and now the ship was a pyramid of lights. They stretched white from bow to truck, truck to stern, and multicolored lamps glittered along the edge of the helo deck. It was beautiful to see, a twinkling palace suspended in the darkness; beautiful to see.…

“What's the matter?” she whispered, leaning on his arm.

“Nothing.”

“Yes there is. You're quiet. When you get quiet … come on, talk to me. Is it the
Ryan?
Is that still bothering you?”

“No. I mean, it still bothers me, yes. But that's not all of it.”

“Is it this ship? Is it old Crazy Ike?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice so soft she could hardly hear it above the sigh of wind.

“He's giving you a rough time?”

“Not me, so much … I think he likes me. Red was his fair-haired boy on the way across, but now—”

“Red? Which one is he?”

“The chubby guy—he was the one juggling apples at Stan's party.”

“Oh, him. Lieutenant Flasher, right? He's so silly! I liked him.”

“Anyway, all of a sudden Sundstrom turned against him. I have no idea why, but since then I've moved up to favorite.”

“That can't be so bad. Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that why you volunteered for sea duty again, after the court-martial?”

“You don't know what it's like.” His voice hardened, and she felt afraid, a little. He never spoke to her like that; it was another side of him, the Navy side.

“What do you mean?”

“Forget it. I shouldn't have mentioned it.”

“Dan … don't clam up on me. Don't pull that Academy bullshit. It wasn't your fault! There's nothing to prove! The Board said—”

“I don't care what they said! I keep thinking—damn it, I knew the maneuver was risky. I was only an ensign, but if I'd spoken up, argued with the captain, it might, it might not have happened.”

“Dan. Don't, please. They cleared you and the man above you.”

“The Board hung it on Captain Packer because he was dead and it was neater that way. But none of us on the bridge came off clean, Susan. With that letter of reprimand in my jacket my career is shot unless I pull four-ohs from here on out.”

“Then why are you worried, if
he
likes you?”

“It's nothing I can pin down. He just lets things get on his nerves; he worries, all alone there in his sea cabin … then he gives these crazy orders. He ridicules the officers on the bridge, in front of everybody. He treats the chief staff officer like a plebe. I've never served with a guy like this before. Commodore MacInroe would tear your ass off if you screwed up, but at least you knew where you stood. He wanted a tight squadron, good performance, and he knew what he was doing. I try to give Sundstrom the benefit of the doubt. He's only had the job three, four months. But he seems to be getting worse, not better.” He fell silent, still looking out to sea, toward the ship that was swinging now into the wind. “Don't worry. I can take him all right. But sometimes I wonder … if something happens while we're here in the Med, I hate to think what it'll be like with him in charge.”

“Don't say that! I don't want to hear about that. Nothing's going to happen, is it?”

“Not that I know of. But that's what we're here for, Susan.”

“I don't know what you're here for. I don't know what business the Navy has this far from America anyway.”

They both sensed the argument coming, and neither of them wanted it; they dropped the subject tacitly. She turned to look across the bay. “There's yours—the big one,” she said. “And that other one—didn't you say there were six ships in the squadron? Where are the others?”

“You don't put the whole task force into the same place for liberty, not in the Med. The port authorities don't like it, too many sailors at once. And it's not a good idea if we're attacked.”

“Where are the other ships?”

“Scattered around.
Guam
and
Barnstable County
here …
Newport
and
Ault
in Naples …
Spiegel Grove
and
Coronado
in Palermo …
Charleston
in Civitavecchia. We'll join up after the port visits for the next exercise.”

“I'd like to go to Greece. And maybe one of the islands, look at some of the digs. Moira's on a project in Cyprus. She wrote me about it.”

“Our next port is Iskenderun. Turkey. I guess you could go through the islands on the way.”

“And Yugoslavia…”

“I don't think that would be a good idea.”

“Why?”

“It's a Communist country, Susan.”

“So what? They allow tourists.”

“You say that like it doesn't matter.”

“That they're Communists? Dan, don't be ridiculous. You act like we were at war with them, or something.”

“I just don't think it would be a good idea.”

“Well, is Turkey any better?”

“That's a good question,” he said, thinking of the last exercise. “They don't seem to want to play on our team anymore, as Sundstrom would say. They can't even answer their radios right.”

“I don't see why they have to,” she said. “Here we are, in their ocean—”

“It's everybody's ocean, Susan.”

She twisted, to look up at him. “Dan. Speaking of that—have you thought about what we talked about, before you left?”

“What's that?”

“About your getting out of the Navy.”

He didn't answer for a while. He was looking out at the bay. At last he said, “Some.”

“You promised me you'd think about it.”

“I know. And I am. I'm just not ready to talk about it yet.”

And again they both stopped, unwilling to go farther, and looked out to sea in silence. After a time he put his arm around her, felt the coolness of her bare shoulders. “You getting cold, babe?”

“A little.”

“Want to head back?”

“I ought to stop by and pick Nan up. She'll get worried if she has to go to bed again without me.”

He saw her, just for a moment, not as a wife or lover, but as a mother. He smiled. He had wondered, when Nan was coming, how she would adapt. But she had. “Okay,” he said. “Let's go back to the bar. Jack Byrne has a rental car. Maybe he'll give us a lift up the hill after we pick her up, and we can show them Taormina.”

“All right,” she said, hearing the meekness in her voice and wondering at it. Where did it come from, when she was with him? All her friends said she was so independent, so sure of herself. But when she was with this tall man—her husband on and off, he was gone so long it seemed like that—it all changed.
She
changed, became someone different. She did not like it; she reacted with resentment, and then in surprise heard herself arguing, complaining.…

She made herself stop thinking about it. This was his liberty, and they would enjoy it. They went out of the wind, out of the uncertain reaching and drawing back that was always there when they were together, into the hotel to look for the others.

3

Palermo, Sicily

You could smell southern Italy, Sergeant Silkworth had told the mortar squad, long before it came over the horizon. He had described the flies, the heat, the sewage that fouled the soft crystalline air.

And then, relishing the open-mouthed attention of the privates, he had described its pleasures.

Sweating that morning at formation, Private First Class Willard Staunton Givens, U.S. Marine Corps, slid his eyes beyond the flight deck of the
Spiegel Grove.
Past Corporal Cutford's broad back, beyond the life nets, to where a line of palest blue trembled in the early light. He sniffed.

Once again, the sergeant had been right.

“Ten-hut!” bawled the Top, and the two hundred marines of Bravo Company came to instant and complete attention. They stared out over the starboard side, ranks swaying with the roll of the old landing ship as the officers strolled out. Givens watched the back of Cutford's neck darken. It happened whenever the assistant squad leader saw brass. He glanced sideways at Harner, but the Kentuckian was looking straight ahead, his narrow face as still and empty as a worked-out mine.

“Have them stand easy,” he heard one of them say.

“Bravo Company. At …
ease!
”

With two hundred other men, Givens went back to parade rest with the joint-cracking snap that every marine carried from boot camp and never let decay. Above them, looking down from a crane, two sailors snickered, then went instantly silent as a score of eyes swung up to memorize their faces. The company executive officer—Will could never remember his name—stepped forward and raised his voice over the omnipresent whine of the ship's ventilators.

“Got a message from the colonel last night,” the exec began. “A ‘well done' on the practice landing yesterday. The movement inshore was expeditious. Units hit the beach in good order, with an aggressive spirit. Specific comments on Bravo Company: generally good, but battalion staff heard too much undisciplined chatter on the portable radios. In battle, reports have to be short, military, and to the point. You'll hear more from your noncoms, but in general, a good exercise.

“Today, I figure this is no news to you, we're slated for some well-deserved liberty. We'll be in Palermo for four days. For those who haven't seen the country on previous floats, you can have a good time here. But you can get really screwed up, too. The way to enjoy yourself ashore is to keep a few simple precautions in mind.…”

As he talked on, Givens stared at the back of Cutford's head. A rifle butt, he thought idly, would fit it so fine. Even the plastic Mattel toy shoulderpiece of the M-16 would fit so nice right behind the main gunner's chocolate-dark ear.

These six things doth the Lord hate. Yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief. A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.…

His eyes drifted down to the lance corporal's hands. At attention, they rested curled against the seams of his utilities as if asleep, black-haired, pale-palmed, the index finger of the left hand nicotine-brown over brother-brown.