Yankee Station

"They didn't get off!" he yelled hoarsely. "Doesn't that train go to Red China?"

"Can't stop it, Chief," Smythe said. "The blokes run a tight schedule, y'know."

Rumbling cars lurched past them, clearing the ramp, and Mulday spotted Cpl. Baker of the British Military Police across the tracks. His shore patrol partner, Yellow Water Blackaby, wasn't with the corporal and his jaw dropped in shock.

Otis Mulday stood aghast on the platform, eyes glued on fading caboose lights, his heart pounding. Numbly, he watched for a shadowy form to leap off the speeding train, but his probing eyes beheld only lightning flashes over the rain-drenched cabbage field. The train rapidly disappeared into the stormy night of Hong Kong's New Territories.

Cpl. Baker stepped back across the tracks and onto the ramp. Otis angrily lit into him, seizing his arm. "Hey, Corporal! This is your damn war. Where's Indian?"

"Indian? Who's 'e?"

"My shipmate, Chief Blackaby. Where the hell is he?"

"I dunno, Chief. I thought he was already out here."

Otis slumped against a steel post. As a shore patrol detail, he and Blackaby had responsibility for U.S. Navy personnel, not Her Majesty's deserters. He felt engulfed with dread and guilt, knowing he had encouraged Indian to help the corporal in searching the train. Clearly, it was the most dangerous role, and he had stood safely outside. Ironically, he was in more trouble than Indian; the old man would have his ass.

While he was only twenty-six and felt he could lick his weight in wildcats, Indian was a frail, gray old man, struggling to provide for a large family. If he didn't come back, what would they do without him? Everyone would blame Otis for their destitute lives. Would Indian leave them to climb the Great Wall of China? Maybe, and maybe not . . .

The young navy chief knew his C.O. would blame him for Yellow Water Blackaby's disappearance, whatever the reason. Perhaps Mulday had placed an old navy veteran of twenty-five years in harm's way. He should have helped the British himself, or simply refused participation in such a risky search.

"So, where's the damn deserter y'all went after?" Otis asked bitterly.

"Dunno, Matey," Cpl. Baker said cheerily. "He must have gotten off at a stop down the line as the train approached."

CPO Otis Mulday slumped lower. The corporal, whom he had facetiously called "Lord Mountbatton" to himself, had masterminded the great search for nothing. That only made it worse.

* * *

That morning, the giant aircraft carrier, USS James Garfield, CVA-89, had dropped anchor in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor. At the bulletin board in the Chief's Mess, ADC Otis Mulday dutifully read the Plan of the Day for April 25, 1965. When the anchor horn sounded its sour note, he stopped reading the P.O.D. and glanced at the huge clock on the bulkhead.

"Oh-nine-oh-five!" ABC Biggs hollered. "That's me!"

Mulday scanned the anchor pool list, next to the POD. It was Biggs all right.

"Boats has won the damn anchor pool," PHC Bob Keaton growled, dropping die into the acey-deucy box with a loud clatter. "It's five-hundred samoleans."

Groans went up all around the Mess. Mulday had lost two bucks, but it wasn't a big deal to him. The big deal was in getting to Hong Kong. They had arrived from Yankee Station for a few days rest after fifty-five days of bombing North Vietnam. With an officious swagger, the Air Wing Leading Chief swept in and unceremoniously shoved Mulday aside. Grabbing a thumbtack, he posted the dreaded shore patrol list.

A half-dozen chiefs, sitting in the lounge in their wash-khaki-longs, popped out of their seats in front of the battered TV set. Someone had tuned the ancient black-and-white set to a Cantonese language, kick-fighter movie. Like a herd of hungry shoats on his grandpa's farm, they rushed to the feed trough and rooted up close. This time it was the bulletin board instead of the chow line.

Otis forced himself to wait while they crowded around, scanning the list. Disdainfully, he eyed their broad sterns, realizing he had joined a bunch of career slobs. He felt doomed to shore patrol again because he was a junior chief, having advanced to E-7 only six months before. Trying to appear casual after they left, he stepped up and checked, hoping someone had made a typo in his name – no such luck. He nervously ran his hand over his close-cropped red hair as he scrutinized the list for other chiefs in his outfit, Fighter Squadron One-Five-Nine. Plenty of his shipmates' names appeared, but he found little comfort in that.

En route from the Gulf of Tonkin, the ship had made a four-day stop in the Philippines at Subic Bay, a large naval base, to unload damaged aircraft and nukes. He had caught shore patrol the first day in port, at Olongapo, a city infamous for its slums, prostitutes and quack doctors. Few WESTPAC sailors cared for it unless they were Filipino themselves; therefore, he didn't mind SP duty in that port. Even the barbecued monkey was dangerous, but the sidewalk vendors called it chicken. Nobody else cared for the city either, as most of the chiefs hung out at the chief's club while on liberty.

On the other hand, he knew that Hong Kong was a favorite port for R & R. He had been here before. Disappointment lined his rugged features and reddened his face to match his hair. His nose, knocked askew in high school football practice, was twisted out of joint even more than usual. More mature now, he had already decided not to take the Chaplin's tour of the island again. This time, there was no fiancé back home in Valdosta, Georgia to inhibit his activities. Annie had married Rufus Goldstein, the guy who had broken his nose. Worse, she had left a raw wound that had not healed.

The bo'sun piped, "The Officer of the Deck is shifting his watch to the Quarterdeck."