Annapolis, page 76
“So anyway, Jimmy’s headed downstream, right into the mess Horace Church had gotten himself into, and my guys on the boat were screaming at Jimmy to turn around, but he had a death grip on the wheel and he was screaming at his men to fire into the south bank.”
Jack’s voice: “Was this a setup?”
“I never knew, and neither did the intel people. It sure felt like a setup, but there was enough VC activity in the area that two patrols might have found us at once. We’ll never know.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot we’ll never know.”
“Well, it was plain to my guys that Jimmy had lost it, because he was taking his boat right into the space between Church’s boat and the bank, right into a crossfire. I’ll never know what got into him, but at that point, one of my men pulled out a Makarov 9mm automatic that he’d taken off a dead dink—a very cool weapon to be walking around with—and …shit …”
Jack heard Ollie’s voice waver. He stopped the tape. He sat for a moment, thought for a moment more, and asked himself if it was time for the truth, or time for something more. Then he began to write again.…
JIMMY STAFFORD NEVER hesitated from that point on.
He knew that Horace was in trouble, and as long as he couldn’t pour the kind of fire he wanted onto the bank beyond the clearing, he was damn sure going to do what he could to help Horace and the covering boat.
He shouted at Thurlow to open up, and the fifty-cals tore into the south bank of that stinking little trench, beneath those stinking big trees, and sent wood splinters and tracers flying amid brutal steel-jacketed slugs.
This act of bravery—and that’s what it was—allowed CPO Horace Church to turn the full force of his fire onto the north bank, which lit up like Tracer Land at the amusement park.
Then Church came to the side of his boat, made eye contact with Jimmy as he went downstream, and…
JACK TOOK A long drag on his cigarette and started the tape again.
“Only two of the guys on Church’s boat survived. One of them, the navy engineer, Jack Little, said that Church screamed at Jimmy, something like, ‘What the fuck are you doin’? Get out the way and get back upstream. I’ll cover you.’ But Jimmy just kept going.”
Naw, Jack decided. That wasn’t the way the world would read it.
CHURCH MADE EYE contact with Jimmy as he went downstream and gestured that he would go up to the clearing and pick up the last of the SEALs. It made perfect sense, because Jimmy’s boat was already full and a gut-shot POW, who would miraculously survive, was still puking blood all over the deck.
So Jimmy waved back to Church and said they would provide support, because now they were out of position and would have to turn around in that stinking little trench before they could return to the aid of the men in the clearing.
Horace Church shot forward, and at that moment, Jimmy’s boat was exposed to fire from both banks, but he said they’d provide support, and they did.
Gunner’s mate Lester Thurlow delivered withering fire onto the north bank, even though one of his fifty-cals jammed. Seaman Johnson operated a single fifty at the stern until three bullets and a tracer hit him in the back. Engineer Bennett raised the M60 light machine gun to the crook of his arm and sprayed lead up and down the south bank.
Meanwhile, one of the green-faced SEALs was operating the hand-cranked grenade launcher, sending belt after belt of grenades into the woods on both sides.
And Lieutenant James Stafford kept his hand on the helm, guiding that boat despite heavy fire that had already torn through one arm and a leg.…
CLICK.
“I saw Church’s boat kick in the water and come shooting toward us. He was going to save us, not Jimmy. So we hunkered down among the roots of those big mangroves, trying to return fire, but it was pretty heavy. There were two of us SEALs—we’d lost two in the village—and the second POW, who was using my forty-five to do what he could.
“The VC had fired two more of those fuckin’ star shells over our heads, so the whole place was lit up like a roadside rest station for long-haul truckers, and I could see way downstream.
“Jimmy’s boat was not turning around, and I tell you, I cursed that son of a bitch. Really cursed him for running out on us in a firefight.
“Thurlow told me later that one of my SEALs was screaming at Jimmy to turn the boat around, but Jimmy just seemed frozen.”
Jack’s voice: “So he was running?”
“Who knows? Running. Panicked. Courageously trying to draw fire …From where I sat, it looked as if Jimmy’d reached the end of the gauntlet when his boat turned quickly to the left, as if he was going to make the turn and come back up. But it wasn’t a smooth turn at all.
“He could have been trying to turn. Or that could have been the moment when my SEAL with the Makarov squeezed off a shot into Jimmy’s neck, right at the C-1 vertebra, right under his helmet. A shot like that cuts off all your motor reflexes, but you have to fall somewhere, and if the wheel spun to the left when Jimmy went down, that’s how the boat would have gone.
“We’ll never know, because a rocket took that SEAL’s head off about three seconds later, and the boat slammed into the opposite bank.
“Church came whooshing up to us at that moment and …”
Click. Let’s see what we can do to dress that up a little. But be careful of the prose. You’re starting to sound as if you’re writing a battle citation.
TWO MORE STAR shells flickered to life, casting their deathly light down across the scene.
And Horace Church reached the clearing with guns blazing.
At the same moment Jimmy Stafford turned his helm a little to the right, to pick up some extra room, then spun to the left, so that he could swing about and shoot back upstream. This was not over by a long shot, for any of them.
Thurlow was still firing from his forward machine gun, pouring it onto the north bank. Bennett was dead, and one of the SEALs had taken over the single fifty, while the other fired a sidearm into the trees, providing covering fire for Jimmy Stafford.
But just as Jimmy went into his turn, a Vietcong rocket exploded near the stern, killing both SEALs and badly wounding Jimmy Stafford.
He tried to keep to his feet and complete the turn upstream. But a shot from an AK47 struck him in the neck, killing him instantly.
With a tremendous crunch, his boat slammed into the huge roots of the mangroves on the north bank, and VC came swarming. But they had not reckoned with Lester Thurlow of Biloxi, Mississippi, the only survivor of Jimmy’s crew. He fought off twenty-five Vietcong who tried to get at him, firing his forward fifty until he ran out of ammunition, then falling back to the bloody cockpit, where he grabbed the M60 and kept up a furious stream of hot lead, while Horace saved the men still on the ground…
THE REST OF it could flow the way Ollie had told it, so Jack just let the recorder run and basically typed the story up as third person action.
“Church was one brave black bastard, and I loved the sight of that big face, screamin’ down at me to get into the boat.
“The helos were coming now. You could just hear them. And you could feel that chop they make in the dense, humid air. We were almost out. And that was always when I was the most scared. We dumped the second POW into the boat, then Church started pulling me and the other SEAL aboard. And all the while, we were putting up a wall of lead in two directions.
“And then, the dinks broke into the clearing. They must’ve heard the helos, and decided they’d rather put on a suicide charge than let us get away. About fifty of them came flying at us. We cut down half of them, but … but …Jesus, you don’t know what this stuff was like, Jack.”
“I can imagine.”
“My K-bar was gone, and I was out of ammo, but they”—Ollie’s voice grew stronger—“they didn’t call me Bob Hope for nothing. I took out that golf club and brained two or three of them. Stove their fuckin’ skulls right in. And then—a big blinding flash and, Boom! the Sea Wolves were over us, blasting rockets all over the fuckin’ place and sweeping the ground with this line of tracers that was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
“Church spun that boat out of there like it was a Boston Whaler and shot right downstream to Jimmy’s boat, where Thurlow was blasting and screaming and blasting away.
“When he saw us, he picked up the wounded POW, threw him over his shoulder, and jumped from one boat to the other …Man he was strong …and as brave as any man I ever met ….he said everyone else on the boat was dead, and — ”
“Was it over?”
“Remember the fuckin’ fat lady, Jack. There was one final motherfucker, sitting out there with a rocket. Just as Horace leaned on the throttle, I saw it coming out of the trees. It wobbled a little bit, the way they always did before their fins deployed, then it came right at the cockpit …took Horace’s head clean off, killed another guy, Trager, too. Then machine gun fire from the other bank took out those two black guys they called George and Martha … they can be real assholes in the navy when it comes to nicknames. Anyway, that engineer, Little, he took the wheel and got us the fuck out of there. But …I don’t guess I’ve ever left.”
Click.
Let’s give a good last graph.
THEY HAD GONE into hell. They had faced the demons of war and their own demons, too. They may not have wanted to be there, any of them. Call it honor, call it courage, call it the simple commitment of men in combat to look out for each other. But when the time came, they all stood where God put them. Then they went another step. And the baby that Beck Stafford was carrying could be proud of the father he would never see.
AND THAT WAS that. Jack wouldn’t use anything else on the tape, but he played it through to the end.
“When it was over, plenty of medals were doled out. Purple Hearts everywhere. A Navy Cross for Lester Thurlow and a posthumous one for Horace Church. I gave that medal to Simpson myself. And we tried to get one for Jimmy, no matter what he’d done. I guess I felt guilty about draggin’ him in. But that engineer on Church’s boat, that Little, he didn’t like Jimmy for some reason, so, from his angle, it seemed like Jimmy had lost it under fire, which was probably the truth.
“And it was enough of a shadow that Jimmy didn’t get the Navy Cross. The admiral pushed for it, and he saw to it that Little’s report sort of disappeared, along with a few other things. Lester Thurlow was the only one who saw anything up close, and he stuck to his story that Jimmy was trying to do two things at once and just got stuck in the middle, a brave man doing his best under fire.”
“Why do you think Thurlow did that?”
“Well, maybe it was true. And Thurlow was a very astute guy, into black history and all that. When I told him, that Jimmy’s grandfather had recommended Dory Miller for the Navy Cross back in 1942, Lester said he’d always stick up for a Stafford memory. And Lester was a man of his word.”
“Funny how those things work,” said Jack.
CHAPTER TEN
Telling the Story
October 14
Jack was satisfied.
He had done Jimmy Stafford justice… and Horace Church… and Ollie Parrish too. He felt that he had been fair to his brother. And as he wrote the final lines, he remembered what his father had said to him on the dock at Pearl Harbor, the last time they had been together: “What’s good for the U.S.A. is good for the U.S. Navy.”
Now he made several copies of the chapter, took the diskettes and the laptop, and went out.
The morning was cool, the sky clear and shimmering silver. Smoke hung in the air, and the smell of it was strong and pungent all over Annapolis. Jack was glad he’d had Ollie’s interview to occupy him through the night, because he surely would not have been able to sleep.
He dropped a diskette with an explanatory note into the mail slot at Oliver Parrish’s house on Duke of Gloucester Street.
Then he went to the bed-and-breakfast.
The admiral was in the shower when he arrived, so he left the diskette and laptop with Betty.
Then he went to Susan’s room.
She was drying her hair. Her eyes were owlish from lack of sleep. “What are you so chipper about?”
“I finished the Vietnam chapter.” And he gave her a diskette.
“So fast?”
“I’m used to deadlines. But Ollie did all the work. I just put it into words.”
“You wrote what Ollie told you, and you’re still smiling?”
“Just read it.”
“What about Steve? Are you going to give it to him?”
“Just read it.” Then he went to Steve’s room.
Steve was already showered, and the dress blues that he’d been wearing the previous day still looked crisp and pressed.
“You’re headed back?” asked Jack.
“Due at the desk at 0900.”
Jack offered him the diskette.
Steve looked at it as though it might bite him. “Is this about my father?”
“I think you’ll want to read it.”
THEN HE WENT down to the dining room and waited.
Juan came down first, bright and rested, perhaps because he had slept through all the commotion the night before. “Mornin’, Jack.”
“I hope you’re not mad at me for putting you on the spot yesterday.”
“Hell, no. I like bein’ the center of attention. It don’t happen often enough.” Then Juan noticed the sideboard, laden with fruit salads, pastries, and covered dishes. “I like somebody else cookin’ breakfast once in a while, too.”
As Juan headed for the food, Susan came into the little dining room, a heated sunporch on the side of the old house. She gave Jack a kiss on the cheek, but she had no time for questions because Steve Stafford was coming into the room right after her.
“I thought I knew everything that was certain about that night,” he said. “I didn’t know my father made a deal with Oliver Parrish before they went up the river.”
“Why do you think Oliver never revealed what he knew about the phone call to Wayne Morse? Your father wanted to protect his father’s honor. And Ollie kept his word to your father.”
Steve slipped into a chair. “Did you ever wonder why there are only two reports—Oliver’s and Lester Thurlow’s—even though that engineer named Little survived, along with another SEAL?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t worry about things that don’t exist. Lester Thurlow was in your father’s boat. He was the best eyewitness.”
Steve brushed at a piece of lint on his blue jacket, took a deep breath, and said, “Do you think my father lost it under fire?”
“It was a very messy action. But you’ve read the book. What do you think?”
Steve looked into Jack’s eyes, as if to find proof of what he had read. “I’ve always thought it was a very messy action, too. But you’ve given it some perspective.”
Jack grinned. “That’s my job, Steve.”
“Of course,” whispered Susan, after Steve had stepped to the sideboard, “nobody ever called you a reliable narrator.”
Just then, Betty and the admiral came down, and Susan headed for the sideboard, so that they could have a little privacy with Jack.
Betty said nothing. Her eyes were red. She just gave Jack a kiss and followed Susan.
Admiral Tom Stafford sat down next to his brother. “Thanks, Jack.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“Did you talk to Ollie Parrish?”
Jack just nodded.
“Did he say anything about the medical reports? That Jimmy died from a 9mm slug in the neck?”
“He said enough, and I read the reports”—here Jack gave his brother the old reporter’s hard eye—“I never found a medical report of any kind… anywhere. And I never found the report by that engineer, the one named Little.”
The admiral, who always prided himself on outlasting anyone’s gaze, looked down at the tablecloth. “If you know how to do it, it’s very easy to make an unhappy truth disappear in a pile of papers.”
“That’s why I wrote this as a novel. It’s much easier to make up the official record if you don’t have it. Then you get to fill in the blanks the way you want. Of course, I wanted to write it so that Jimmy came home.”
“The part about Jimmy going up the river to protect my secret… is that true?”
“It’s true according to Ollie. But Jimmy would have gone anyway. He was a hero for going. They all were, and that’s how it should be written. You deserve to hear that just as loudly as you deserve to hear about your own doubts. One story is the truth. Let the other one become a legend.”
AFTER BREAKFAST, THEY all went down Prince George Street to the source of the smoke still hanging over Annapolis.
The fire engines surrounded the Fine Folly. Gawkers, too—local folks, a few midshipmen, a few reporters, and a D.C. television crew. A snakepit of hoses covered the street.
The 1907 addition to the Folly was a pile of smoking rubble. But that big burly fire chief had been listening to Jack. He had set his line at the old house and had fought like hell to save it.
The old house still stood, windows shattered, walls scorched, but its structure still sound.
While the others went toward the house for a closer look, Jack and Susan ambled over to Oliver Parrish, who was leaning against a lamppost, his hands shoved into his pockets.
He gave them a glance, then looked back at the house. “Now, nobody gets it.”
“Any thoughts on why Simpson did this?” asked Jack.
Oliver shook his head. “Who the hell knows if he did it at all? He heard me last night, after I’d had a few, saying how mad I was that this place would end up in the hands of men who spend their time looking toward the next war, and—”
“I think they’re trying to stop the next war,” said Jack.
Oliver turned his big square head, his gray-blond crew cut, and his broken nose in Jack’s direction. “I would have been mad if it had gone to you, too, Jack, because you knew about the admiral’s phone call, and you covered his ass.”
