“I figured by now you would have painted over the stain,” Alistair offered. “Then it would all be the same color.”
“You trying to piss me off or something? You know that stain is made up of oil, burnt gasoline, and other flammables.”
Jacobs turned and stared at it again. “I’ll try sanding it down and see what happens.” He winced as he lifted his right hand. “That hurt.”
“It wouldn’t if you kept it in the sling like the doctor said.” “He didn’t tell me to keep it in a sling. He put this sling around my neck and ordered me to keep it on whenever I was awake.” Jacobs lifted his left hand and flicked the sling. “Ergo, I have the sling on.”
“I think I was there once when the doctor said the sling was for your right arm.”
Jacobs turned back to the safety line. “I think you heard right. But he didn’t tell me to keep my arm in it all day.” Jacobs pulled a lighter from his pocket.
“Didn’t the doctor also tell you to give those up, at least until your wounds fully healed?” Alistair asked.
Jacobs grunted. “The doctor also told me that Helen said when I returned home I could expect her to wound me again.” “Yeah, Frieda sent me an e-mail saying Helen was still slightly upset over this.”
Jacobs relit the cigar. “Upset is not the word I would have used. I think she threw the rest of my clothes out the window.” “She must have told you that. Frieda told me Helen spent the first few days worrying and crying, wondering how badly you were wounded.”
“That’s good news except… I think Helen wants me well enough to kill me herself.”
Alistair laughed. “I suspect the neighbors have already given the cops a heads-up.”
“I think I will too before we dock back in Pearl.”
The two friends stood silent for a few minutes. Both looked aft across the Pacific Ocean. The slight wake of the ships working to stay in a constant position was the only disturbance to the smooth blue waters.
“The incident got to you, didn’t it?”
Jacobs shrugged. “I’m a master chief boatswain mate. I’m not smart enough to let something like being shot, bombed, and tossed through the air get to me.”
Agazzi jumped back from the safety line and put his right hand over his heart. “Methinks I am going to pass out. This did upset you,” he said emphatically. “Finally, something that has made the boatswain mate master chief sit up and realize—”
“You know those sharks are still milling about in the shade under there,” Jacobs interrupted, pointing below Sea Base. “I still have one good arm, which is enough to pick your hairy ass up and toss it overboard.”
Alistair laughed. “Now, that’s the Jerry Jacobs I know and everyone loves.”
“Does the ancient nautical term of ‘eat shit and die’ mean anything to you?” Jacobs replied good-naturedly.
“Now that you mention it.”
Jacobs pushed away from the safety lines. “I’ve got to get back to my boatswain mates. Doctor wants me to wait another couple of weeks. It’s been a month now.” He looked forward. “And if I don’t get this deck shipshape, I’m going to go squirrelly.” “Who’s running First Division now? Who’s your LPO?”
“I guess Showdernitzel is the nearest thing to an LPO I have.”
“You mean the one they call Mad Mary?”
“Yep. She comes down every afternoon before dinner and tells me everything that’s going on with the division. She told me yesterday the old man is thinking of either putting a junior officer in or transferring a chief over to First Division until I get better.”
“That should be all right.”
“All right!” Jacobs blasted. “The hell it is. There’s no telling how screwed up First Division is now with Mad— Petty Officer Showdernitzel running things. She’s probably got them in flip-flops, short pants, and earrings. All I need is one of these ninety-day wonders or some hotshot Academy grad with visions of John Paul Jones running things.” He pointed once again to the dark stain where the North Korean Y-8 transport had burned. “What the hell do they know about how to remove that burn stain and restore the deck to pristine Navy gray? You can bet your bottom dollar they don’t know shit, and especially some junior officer who is still trying to figure out who is supposed to fold his underwear.”
“Ah-ha! The truth comes out. You’re worried someone will see how replaceable Master Chief Boatswain Mate Jerry Jacobs is.”
“Alistair, anyone ever tell you what an asshole of a friend you can be?” Jacobs replied in a normal voice. “Just a big asshole.”
Alistair raised his hand to shield his eyes from the early afternoon sun. “Looks as if the Air Force is tinkering with their toys again.”
“That’s Chief Master Sergeant Willard standing there with his arms folded. I’m told that him and his flight line crew fought the North Koreans also.”
“From what I’ve read, they had M-16s and while you were washing them down, they were mowing them down.”
Jacobs shook his head. “Alistair, how long did it take you to think that metaphor up?”
Chief Master Sergeant Johnny Willard stood near F-22A Raptor Side Number 223, arms crossed, looking up at Technical Sergeant Danny Grossman. A side panel on the nose of the world’s best stealth fighter lay on the yellow mesh grating of the hydraulic platform. Grossman’s head and arms were inside the opening.
“What does he think it is this time?” Sergeant Lou Thomas asked Willard.
Willard pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, lifted his cap, and ran it across his bald dome. The six-foot-four-inch first sergeant of the Air Force detachment glanced down at Thomas for a moment.
“Who knows? Sometimes an aircraft is a Jonah, built to be a hangar queen; or maybe, as my first chief master sergeant once told me, there are aviation demons on every flight line looking for a home. I think ours have found theirs.”
“It did fly for a few days,” Thomas protested.
“Everything flies for a few days. This one keeps burning out the test chopper assembly. I have no idea what a test chopper assembly is supposed to do, but every time we replace it, we have to order it from the supply depot Stateside because of the cost. And every time we order one, we get a nasty message from the Air Force demanding to know what in the hell we’re doing with them.”
“Tell them we’re trading them to the Navy for real food.”
Willard’s forehead bunched up, causing his heavy eyebrows to bunch into a V. “You don’t like the food here?” “Well, it’s okay, if you like the same thing day after day, night after night.”
“Gawl-damn it!” Grossman shouted from above, pulling himself out of the narrow confines of the opening. The screwdriver in his left hand fell, clanging on the metal grating of the platform steps until it clunked on the deck of Sea Base.
“Jesus, Danny!” Sergeant Melanie Parker shouted, jumping away from the bottom of the platform where she and Snaggles Cole served as safety observers. “You want to kill us down here?” Parker was slightly rotund, with straggly brown hair that always seemed to be trying to escape her head. When her cap came off, the hair flew every which way.
“Yeah, watch the tools, Danny,” Thomas added.
Grossman looked down. “Chief, this assembly is a piece of shit,” he pleaded. “And it’s not easy to get out, much less put in.”
“You did an excellent job replacing it last time.”
“And did you see the nasty message—”
“I saw it, Danny,” Willard replied. He tapped his finger against his massive chest. “Messages are mine to handle, not yours. You just fix the 223.”