The Intruders

23

Jake woke up in a room with cream-colored walls and ceiling, in a bed with crisp white sheets. A sunbeam shone like a spotlight through a window. An IV was dripping into a vein in his left arm.

Hospital.

His curiosity satisfied, he drifted off to sleep again. When he next awoke a nurse was there taking his pulse. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said and lowered his wrist back to the bed. She annotated a clipboard, then gave him a grin.

“Where am I?”

“Honolulu. Trippler Army Hospital.”

“Hawaii?”

“Yes. You’ve been here almost a day now. You’re just coming out of the recovery room.”

“Le Beau? Marine captain. He here too?”

“Yes. He’s still in recovery.”

“How is he?”

“Still asleep. He’s had an operation. You’ve had one too, but yours didn’t take quite as long.”

“When he wakes up, I want to talk to him. Okay?”

“We’ll see. You take that up with the doctor when he comes around. He should be here in about thirty minutes. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No.”

She busied herself arranging the sheets and checking that he had fresh water in a glass by the bed. He lay taking it in, enjoying the brightness and the cleanliness.

After a bit curiosity stirred him. “What day is it?”

“This is Wednesday.”

“We got shot down…December nine. What day…is it now?”

“The sixteenth of December.”

“We missed Australia.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” he murmured, and closed his eyes again. He was very tired.

He was still pretty foggy when he talked to the doctor, either later that morning or that afternoon. The sunbeam had moved. He noticed that.

“We operated on your left side. Your lung collapsed. Lucky you didn’t bleed to death. And of course you were shot in the shoulder. By some miracle the bullet missed your collarbone. Went clean through.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re also fighting a raging infection. You aren’t out of the woods yet, sailor.”

“Le Beau, how’s he doing?”

“He’s critical. He lost a lot of blood.”

“He gonna make it?”

“We think so.”

“When he wakes up, I want to see him.”

“We’ll see.”

“Bring him in here. This room’s big enough. Or take me into his room.”

“We’ll see.”

“How’d we get here, anyway?”

“The ship medevaced you two to Clark and the Air Force flew you here.”

“I may not be out of the woods, but I’m out of the jungle.”

The next day Flap was wheeled into the room. His bed was placed beside Jake’s. A bandage covered half his head. But he grinned when he saw Jake out of his one unobstructed eye.

“Hey, shipmate.”

“As I live and breathe,” said Flap Le Beau as the nurses hovered around hooking up everything. “The neighborhood is integrating. Better put the house up for sale while you still can.”

“If you don’t stop that racist stuff I’m gonna start calling you Chocolate.”

“Chocolate Le Beau,” he said, savoring it. “I like it. They hung that Flap tag on me because I talk a lot. My real name is Clarence.”

“I know. Middle initial O. What’s that stand for?”

“Odysseus. I picked it out in college after I read the Odyssey. Clarence O. Le Beau. Got a ring to it, don’t it?” He directed the question to one of the nurses, who looked sort of sweet.

“It is very nice,” she said and smiled.

“So how you feeling?” Jake asked.

“Like a week-old dog turd that’s been run over by a truck. And you?”

“Not quite that chipper.”

When the nurses were leaving Flap told the sweet one, “Come back and see us anytime, dearest.”

“I will, Clarence O.”

When they were gone, Flap told Jake, “Don’t worry. I’ll get you one too. Trust me.”

“So what’s wrong with your head?”

“Concussion and blood clot. They had to drill a hole to relieve the pressure. Another hole in my head — just what I needed, eh?”

“The captain laid you out with a butt stroke. I killed him.”

“I figured that or we wouldn’t be here. But some other time, huh? I don’t want to even think about that shit.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s for lunch? Have they told you?”

“No.”

“I am really ready for some good grits.”

“Guess we missed Australia.”

“These things happen. Don’t sweat it. You can make it up to me somehow.”

The following day they were visited by a Navy commander, an officer on the staff of Commander In Chief Pacific — CINCPAC. He interviewed both men, recorded their stories, then when they tired, left while they napped. He came back for another hour just before dinner and asked questions.

“If I can do anything for you gentlemen, give me a call.”

He left a card with his name and telephone number on the stands beside each of their beds.

They had lost a lot of weight. When the nurses first sat Jake up he was amazed at how skinny his legs and arms were.

Improvement was slow at first, then quicker. By the fifth day Jake was walking to the bathroom. He bragged, so Flap got himself out of bed and went when the nurses weren’t there. He had trouble with his balance but he made it to the john and back by holding on to things.

On the eighth day they went for a hike, holding on to each other, to see what they could see. A nurse caught them and made them retrace their steps.

The hospital was half-empty. “Not like it used to be. You were the first gunshot victim we saw in two months,” one nurse told Jake.

“Not like the good old days,” he replied.

“They weren’t good days,” he was told. “Thank God the war is over.”

On the day after Christmas they demanded clothes. That afternoon an orderly brought them cardboard boxes containing some of their clothes that the guys on the ship had packed and sent. The orderly helped Jake open his. Inside he found underwear, uniforms, shoes, insignia.

As he was inspecting a set of khakis, the thought went through his head that he should discard this shirt and buy another.

Where had that thought come from? He was getting out—out of the Navy!

He sat on the edge of the bed holding the shirt, looking at it but not seeing it. Out. To do what? What could he conceivably do as a civilian that would mean as much to him as what he had spent the last six years of his life doing?

He was a naval officer. Lieutenant, United States Navy.

That meant something.

He was digging in the box when he found a letter. It was from the Real McCoy.

Two days later Jake decked himself out in a white uniform and Flap selected a set of khakis. They strolled the grounds. The days were Hawaii balmy with clouds every afternoon. One day they took a taxi to the golf course and rented a golf cart.

Out on the fairways they went over the whole adventure again, little by little, a scene here, a scene there. Gradually they dropped it and went on to other subjects, like women and politics and flying.

One day Flap brought the subject up again, for what proved to be the last time. “So where is my slasher?”

“I think I left it sticking in the captain. But I might have just dropped it somewhere. It’s a little hazy.”

“That was my best knife.”

“Tough.”

“I designed it. It was custom-made for me. Cost me two hundred bucks.”

“Order another.”

Flap laughed. “I can see you are oozing remorse over my loss.”

“To be frank, I don’t give a shit about your knife.”

“You’re as full of tact as ever. That’s one of the qualities that will take you far, Grafton. Ol’ Mister Smooth.”

“And the horse you rode in on, Clarence O.”

“It’s my turn to drive this friggin’ cart. You’re always hoggin’ the drivin’.”

“That’s because I’m the pilot. Why don’t you tell me about some of the ugly women you’ve run across in your adventures?

” “Well, by God, I just will.” And he did.

In the evenings there was little to do, so Jake wrote letters. His first was to his former roommate, Sammy Lundeen. He hit the highlights of this last cruise and devoted a whole page to crossing the line. In the finest traditions of naval aviation, he seriously downplayed his and Flap’s role in the pirate adventure. Luck, luck, luck — he and Flap had survived due to the grotesque ineptitude of the villains and despite their own extraordinarily stupid mistakes, mistakes that would have wrung tears from the eyes of any competent aviator. All in all, the letter was quite a literary effort, first-class fiction. That thought didn’t occur to Jake, of course, when he reread it before stuffing it into an envelope. His buddy Lundeen would chuckle, Jake knew, and shake his head sadly. Good ol’ Sammy.

Instinctively he adopted a completely different tone when he wrote to Tiger Cole, his last BN during the Vietnam War. There was no bullshit in Tiger Cole, and no one who knew him would try to lay the smelly stuff on him. You gave it to that grim warrior straight and unadorned.

He ended the letter this way:

One day Jake penned a letter to Callie. Then he put it in the drawer beside his bed. Each day he got it out, read it through and debated whether or not he should mail it.

She probably had another boyfriend. There was always that possibility. Jake Grafton had no intention of playing the fool, with this or any other woman. So he kept the letter formal, as if he were writing to a great-aunt. He omitted any reference to his adventure with the pirates or the fact that he was just now residing in a hospital room. But on the second page he said this:

He closed with a few pleasantries and the hope that all was fine with her.

On New Year’s Eve he got it out again to read it through carefully.

The tone was wrong, all wrong.

He added a P.S.

In the third week of January he and Flap moved to the BOQ. They continued to visit the hospital on an outpatient basis. Flap took daily physical therapy to overcome the effects of his head injury. The knife wound in his side drained slowly and healed stubbornly. Eventually it did heal, leaving a bad scar.

Jake merely needed a checkup occasionally. His collapsed lung and the resultant infection had been more serious than the bullet hole in his shoulder, which healed quickly, yet by now he was well on his way to a complete recovery. He went with Flap every morning anyway and kibitzed as the Marine went through his exercises. Then they went to the golf course and rode around in a golf cart.

One day they rented clubs. They merely slapped at the balls, since neither man could swing a club with any vigor. Slap the ball a hundred feet, using mostly arms and wrists, get in the cart and drive over to it, slap the thing again. It was crazy, but it felt fine.

After that they played daily. Gradually the shoulders and ribs loosened up and they swung more freely, but neither man had ever played much golf and neither was very good.

They were standing on the carrier pier at Pearl Harbor when Columbia arrived in early February.

“Look who has returned!” the Real McCoy shouted when they walked into the ready room. “The prodigal sons are back!”

“We only came aboard for a change of underwear. It’s been hell, golf every day, hot women every night…”

They were surrounded by people shaking their hands and welcoming them back. When the mob scene had subsided to a low roar, the Real asked Jake, “By any chance did you bring a copy of the Wall Street Journal?”

“I hate to give you the bad news, roomie, but the market is down a thousand points this morning. They’re talking about a depression.”

“Aah…,” said the Real, searching Jake’s face.

“Millionaires are leaping out of windows even as we speak.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

After lunch Jake went to his stateroom with McCoy. He crawled into the top bunk and let out a long sigh. “Feels so good.”

“Got something to show you,” the Real said. From his desk he brought forth a series of aerial photos. “We took these before we smacked that hijacked Cuban freighter. See that big blast area — that’s where the pile was that you and Flap blew up.”

“You guys bombed the Cuban ship?”

“Oh yes. The government of Indonesia thought those weapons might go to some of their own indigenous revolutionaries, so they asked for our help before we even offered it.”

“I never saw anything about it in the papers.”

“They never told the press.”

“I’ll be darned.”

That night the entire squadron went to the O Club en masse. It was an epic party, complete with a letter the next day from the C.O. of the base to the captain of Columbia complaining about rowdy behavior and demanding damages. That night Jake and Flap slept in their bunks aboard ship.

Before the ship sailed, Jake spent a quiet moment with Lieutenant Colonel Haldane. “I’d like to stay in the Navy, Skipper. I want to withdraw my resignation.”

Haldane smiled and offered his hand. Jake shook it.

“There’s one other thing,” Jake said slowly. “I hear that some of the guys are going to get some traps the first day out of port just in case they need to fly during the transit to the States. I’d need too many to get current, but I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d let me and Flap get one.”

“I need up chits from the flight surgeon.”

“That’s the rub. I think I can get one but I don’t think they’ll give Flap an up. The doctors at Trippler want him to do more physical therapy. He still has some balance problems.”

“According to that report we received from CINCPAC, he took a rifle butt in the head.”

“Yessir. One hell of a butt stroke. He had lost a lot of blood by that time and didn’t have the reflexes to minimize the impact.”

“Well, you and Flap take your medical files to the flight surgeon and have him look you over. Then have him call me.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Somehow it worked out. Jake and Flap rode the catapult two hours after Columbia cleared Pearl. By some miracle he didn’t question he got a plane full of gas, so he had to burn down or dump before he could come back into the pattern.

They yanked and banked and shouted over the ICS as they did tight turns around the tops of cumulus clouds. Jake managed a loop and a Cuban eight before Flap begged for mercy. He was dizzy.

Jake smoked into the break at five hundred knots. The air boss never peeped. Better yet, Jake snagged a three-wire.

On the morning of the fly-off Jake took the Pri-Fly duty. All the planes of the air wing were to be launched: the crews were selected strictly on the basis of seniority. Tonight they would be home with wives and children and sweethearts. Jake and Flap were, of course, not flying off. They were riding the ship into port. Flap had an appointment at the Oakland Naval Hospital and Jake was catching a commercial flight to Oak Harbor via Seattle to pick up his car, then he was taking a month’s leave. He thought he would head for Virginia by way of Chicago. Maybe look Callie up, see what she was up to. At the end of the month he would report again to Tiny Dick Donovan at VA-128.

The fly-off went well. One by one every plane on the ship taxied to the catapults and was shot aloft. They rendezvoused in divisions over the ship and headed east.

When the last plane was gone and the angel helicopter had settled onto the angle and shut down, the ship secured from flight quarters. Jake went down to the strangely empty flight deck and walked around one last time.

Not really. He would be back. If not this ship, then another. Once again he savored the oily aroma of steam seeping up from the catapults, felt the heat as it mixed with the salty sea breeze.

He was wandering the deck when Bosun Muldowski approached. He stunned Jake with a salute. Jake returned it.

“Hear you’re staying in, Mr. Grafton.”

“Yep. Your example shamed me into it.”

Muldowski laughed. “It’s a good life,” he said. “Beats eight to five anywhere. Maybe if I had found the right woman and had some kids…But you can’t live on maybes. Didn’t work out that way. You gotta live your life one day at a time. That’s the way God fixed it up. Today do what you do best and let tomorrow take care of tomorrow.”

Jake was packing in his stateroom when the ship docked at the Alameda carrier pier. The Real McCoy had flown off with the Marines — he had earned it. McCoy’s steel footlockers sporting new padlocks sat one atop the other by the door. His desk was clean and nothing hung in his closet. His bunk was stripped and the sheets turned in.

Jake had also turned in his sheets and blankets. Last night he had packed the suitcase he was taking on leave — now he was stuffing everything else into the parachute bags. The suitcase he had purchased in Hawaii. The padlocks for the bags lay on the desk. Net gain after one eight-month cruise: one suitcase and some new scars.

The engagement ring he had purchased for Callie oh those many months ago was the last item left in his desk safe. He held it in his hand and wondered what to do with it. The suitcase might get stolen or lost by the airline, shuffled off to Buffalo or Pago Pago or Timbuktu. For lack of a better option, he put the ring in his shirt pocket and buttoned the pocket.

The telephone rang. “Lieutenant Grafton, sir.”

“Mr. Grafton, this is the duty officer at the officers’ brow. You have a visitor.”

“Me?”

“Yes, sir. You need to come sign her in and escort her.”

“Okay, but who is this pers—?” He stopped because he was talking to a dead phone. The duty officer had hung up.

There was obviously some mistake. He didn’t know a soul in the San Francisco Bay area. He glanced at his new watch, guaranteed to be waterproof to a depth of three hundred feet or his money back. He had four hours to catch the plane from the Oakland airport. Plenty of time.

He grabbed his ball cap and headed for the ceremonial quarterdeck at the head of the officers’ brow. It was on the hangar deck, which was the scene of hundreds of sailors coming and going on a variety of errands, most of them frivolous. Crowds of sailors stood on the aircraft elevators shouting to people on the pier below. Near the enlisted brow a band was tooting merrily.

He saw her standing, looking curiously around when he was still a hundred feet away.

Callie McKenzie!

As he walked toward her she spotted him. She beamed.

“Hello, Jake.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You’ve lost some weight,” she said.

“Been sick.”

“Oh. Well, aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Thunderstruck. I’m speechless.”

She looked even better than he remembered. As he stared her eyes danced with amusement and a smile grew on her face.

“I never expected to see you here,” he told her. “Not in a million years.”

“Life is full of surprises.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

He was rooted where he stood, unable to take his eyes off her and unsure what to do next. Why was she here? Why hadn’t she written in five months? Then a thought stuck him: “Did you come with someone?” he asked and glanced around, half expecting to see her mother, or even some man.

“No.” She reached out and touched his arm. “All these sailors are staring at us. Can you sign me in so we can go somewhere and talk?”

Jake flushed. “Oh, yes, sure.”

The officer of the deck and quartermaster of the watch grinned shamelessly, enjoying Jake’s obvious discomfort. Jake scribbled his name beside Callie’s in the visitors’ log, then steered her away with two fingers on her elbow.

“Let’s go up to the flight deck. Fine view of the bay area from up there.”

Indeed, the view from the flight deck was spectacular. The San Francisco skyline, Treasure Island, airliners coming and going at San Francisco International and Oakland — the panorama would have frozen most people who had spent the largest part of the last eight months looking at empty ocean dead in their tracks. However Jake Grafton was too acutely aware of the presence of Callie McKenzie to give the scene more than a glance.

“How are your folks?” he asked finally, breaking the silence.

“They’re fine. And yours?”

“Okay. Almost called you a time or two.”

“And I almost wrote you. I should have. And you should have called.”

“Why didn’t you write?”

“I didn’t want to influence your decision. To stay in or get out, what to do with your life. This was your decision, Jake, not mine.”

“Well, I made it. I’m staying in.”

“Why?”

Jake Grafton ran his fingers through his hair. “I was looking for something. Turns out I had it all along and just didn’t realize it.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Something worth doing. Something that made a difference. The war was such a mess…I guess that I lost sight of what we’re all about here. It’s more than ships and planes and cats and traps. I realized that finally.”

“I always thought that what you did was important.”

“Your dad didn’t.”

“Dad? I love him dearly but this is my life, not his.”

“So what are you going to do with your life?”

She didn’t answer. She lowered her head and began walking slowly. Jake stayed with her. When she got to the bow of the ship she stood looking across the water at San Francisco with the wind playing in her hair.

“I guess I’m like most modern women. I want a family and a career. Languages have always fascinated me, and I have found I love to teach. That’s the big plan, but some of it is contingent.”

“On what?”

“On you.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s very fair. After all, lady, you shoved me out into the cold to make up my own mind.”

“You were never out in the cold, Jake. There hasn’t been an hour in the last eight months that I wasn’t thinking about you. I’ve read and reread your letters until I almost wore out the paper. Especially that last letter. I think I was wondering too, wondering if you loved me as much as I loved you.”

“You were always with me too,” he confessed, and grinned. “Maybe an hour or two now and then you slipped away, but most of the time you were there.”

Her hand found his. They began strolling along the deck. The breeze was fresh and crisp.

“So why did you come here?” he asked.

“I came to get married.”

He gaped. It was like a kick in the stomach. He had thought… He jerked his hand from her grasp.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” he managed.

“You,” she said, her head cocked slightly to one side, her lips twisting into a grin.

“Me?”

“Who else could it be? I love you more than words can tell, Jacob Lee Grafton.”

“You want to marry me?”

She laughed. He had always liked her laugh. “Do you want me to get down on one knee and propose?”

“I accept,” he told her and seized both her hands. “Where and when?”

“This afternoon. Anywhere.”

“My God, woman! This is sudden. Are you sure?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a year,” she told him. “I’m absolutely certain.”

“Well, I’ll be…” He took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he remembered the ring. He pulled it from his shirt pocket, looked at it, then put it on her finger.

Now she was surprised. “You knew I was coming?”

“No. I bought that for you over a year ago. Been carrying it ever since.”

“Oh, Jake,” she said and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her lips found his.

He finally broke the embrace and seized her hand. “Come on. We’ll need a best man. My BN is still aboard. He and I were going to have lunch together.”

The quickest way to Flap’s stateroom was into the catwalk behind the island, then into the 0–3 level and down. On the catwalk Jake happened to glance at the pier. There was a pink Cadillac convertible parked at the foot of the officers’ brow with four women in it.

Muldowski was walking across the brow. Now he turned and saluted the American flag on the fantail.

Jake cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, “Muldowski! Hey, Bosun!”

The warrant officer looked up. He pointed.

“I’m getting married,” Jake Grafton roared. “Will you give the bride away?”

“When?” Muldowski boomed.

“This afternoon. Wait for us. We’ll be down in ten minutes.”

“Is that the bride?”

“Yes.”

“I may keep her my—” The rest of the bosun’s comment was drowned by music as the band launched into another tune.

The women in the convertible were on their feet applauding. The bosun started clapping too, as did dozens of people on the pier.

Callie was grinning broadly. She looked so happy. What the heck! In full view of the world Jake swept her into his arms.