still at sea but would have their chance at Sattahip’s facilities later.
Elsewhere, civilian craft motored back and forth closer inshore,
respecting the moored warning marker buoys which preserved Jefferson’s
close-in security zone.
This early in the evening, there was no one waiting at the pier for a
ride back to the carrier. Tombstone accepted a life jacket from the
chief boatswain’s mate in charge of the craft and stepped aboard as the
man at the wheel gunned the diesel engines as if he were revving up a
motorcycle. Line handlers cast off from the bollards, and the mike boat
pulled away from the pier, angling out across the dark water toward the
Jefferson.
Tombstone was in a decidedly confused state of mind. He’d gone into
Bangkok the afternoon before, convinced that Pamela Drake would prove to
be an enemy, someone determined to twist his words in such a way that
he–and the Navy–would look foolish. The interview had been a surprise
in that Pamela had gone out of her way to make him feel comfortable …
and she’d been far more interested in his role as a hero than in the
waste and mismanagement of the United States Navy.
And then there’d been dinner … and this morning’s stroll in Thonburi.
It was strange. If he was any judge of women at all, she’d been as
reluctant to part as he.
There was a stiff breeze over the water, and by the time the mike boat
approached the Jefferson, his uniform shirt was damp where it wasn’t
covered by the life jacket. A float had been rigged at the ship’s
stern, a temporary pier resting on the water and secured to the ship’s
hull lines. The boat’s coxswain steered the craft alongside with
practiced ease as a sailor in dungarees caught the line tossed by a man
standing in the bows. The diesels throttled back to a low, rumbling
idle, and the mike boat bumped gently against the float.
The ladder between the float and the fantail twenty feet above had
wheels which allowed its lower end to roll freely with the movements of
the water.
Waves generated by passing boats in Sattahip Bay set the wheels to
squeaking madly from time to time, the sound interspersed with the
hollow thump of the tires secured to the floating pier as bumpers
colliding with Jefferson’s hull.
Tombstone trotted up the nearly vertical ladder and swung onto the
fantail.
He saluted the colors, then turned and saluted the officer of the deck.
“Request permission to come aboard.”
“Granted,” the OOD replied, returning the salute. “Welcome aboard,
sir.”
The head of a line of men in civilian clothing and orange life jackets
stood nearby, the line itself extending back into the long passageway
which connected the fantail with the hangar deck. A chief was
addressing them in fatherly tones, warning them that the district known
as Klong Toey, famous as a rough waterfront strip in Bangkok, was
strictly off-limits to all Navy personnel. Tombstone started to move
past them and into the passageway when someone called him.
“Stoney! Hey, Tombstone!”
He turned and saw Fred Garrison. The aviator had been off to one side
of the fantail deck, apparently chatting with the camo-clad Marine at
the .50 caliber machine gun which was mounted on the railing as a
security measure when the Jefferson was in port. “Army!” Tombstone
said, using Garrison’s running name. “How’s it going?”
Garrison removed his aviator’s sunglasses and jerked his head toward the
passageway. “C’mon inside, Skipper. I gotta talk to you.”
Past the machine shops, the passageway opened into the hangar deck. A
number of Jefferson’s boats and small craft were stored on cradles at
the aft end of the tWO-acre cavern. Garrison led Tombstone to an
out-of-the-way corner of clear deck space next to the Captain’s launch.
“I had to talk to you before you heard it on the bush,” he said. The
bush telegraph was slang for the unofficial lines of shipboard rumor and
information and was widely regarded as faster and more authoritative
than official channels.
“What is it?” Tombstone didn’t like the expression on Garrison’s face.
That look, mingled worry and sadness, generally meant bad news.