The Chief's Revenge

The Chief’s Revenge

D.E. Shotwell

I woke up with a start and looked over to see the clock.

13:05. Rolled off the bed in a hurry, muttering, “Oh shit, shit, shit, I did it again." The fifth time in eight weeks. The last time I got thirty hours extra duty; this time, it meant a Captain's Mast for sure. Only a week and a half of ET-A School to go, and now my deployment would be delayed by at least a few weeks while I waited on the Commander’s decision.

I quickly dusted off my shoes with a dirty sock to make sure they still shone and adjusted my uniform in the mirror. My uniform had been done by the base laundry for the first time, so my summer whites shone and the creases were sharp, not that it would matter.

A Captain's Mast would mean fines of half pay for up to six months, and the payments on my motorcycle were nearly half my pay already, which would leave me almost nothing for myself. The motorcycle trip my friend Ross and I were planning through Canada back to the East Coast was now doubtful at best.

The late August sunshine did little to calm me as I raced across the empty parade grounds to the education building and leaped up the stairs two at a time. At the top of the stairs I stopped to catch my breath and let my heart stop pounding. It was only 13:10, not that late; the last time I was late 45 minutes. I’m improving, right? I skipped going to the classroom to avoid that embarrassment and went straight to the Senior Chief's office and knocked.

"Enter" boomed from within.

I entered and stood at attention in front of his desk. The room reflected the Chief's personality. Everything had a place and was in its place. The pictures lining the walls displayed a lifetime of service: the Chief as a recruit, all the way to his dedication ceremony when he got promoted to his current rank. He was going over paperwork and looked up when he had finished and recognized me immediately.

“Oh, Christ, you again?” The Chief scratched the back of his head. “Isn’t this the fifth time? I believe you’ve just set a record, but not one you can be at all proud of. This means a Captain’s Mast.”

I kept my eyes downcast and imagined the lecture I had heard too many times already. 

The war isn’t over yet. Being late to a duty station on shipboard could cost other sailors their lives. Do you understand that? Do you want to be responsible for that?

I dared to look up. He was staring at me sternly, "I won't bother with a lecture. It obviously hasn’t had any effect on you.” He took a calendar out of his desk drawer. “The next date for Captain Mast is early September, so you can kiss goodbye to whatever deployment you would have had.” He shook his head. “I should send you OCS."

He didn't mean Officer Training School; he meant Over Choppy Seas as a Bosun's Mate. The bulk of work for newbies was chipping paint and repainting. The job description for a beginner Bosun’s Mate was simply “If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't move, paint it."

There was a knock on the door. “Enter,” the Chief boomed again.

A petty officer stuck his head in the door. “Duty stations for the graduates just came in.”

The Chief waved the petty officer in and took the manila envelope, then waved him out. He opened it, and looked down at the list.  It was the list of deployments for my class. I was number two in the class; I would be number one except for the demerits for being late from lunch.

The Chief ran his finger down the list and stopped. He looked at me again, and a faint smile he was trying to hide crossed his face. He looked back at me, tapped his fingers on the desk, then leaned across and looked at my shoes. Unlike most of the sailors in the class, I still had the shoes that were issued to me in boot camp, the ones I had to spit shine every couple of days to keep passing the frequent inspections; almost everyone else had purchased patent leather shoes that didn't need polishing. I silently thanked myself for having wiped them clean before I left the barracks.

He took a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh, looked back at the list, back at me, and scratched the back of his head again. “Got your uniform done by the base laundry?"

“Yes, sir.”

"Don't call me sir." I had forgotten how he felt about being called sir. Only officers were called sir, and he had no use for officers.

"That's certainly an improvement over how you looked the last time; you looked like you had slept in your uniform."

Truth was, that was exactly what had happened. My lunchtime naps were usually only 20 minutes, but that time, after watching motorcycle races in Peoria on a Sunday afternoon, I had gotten back to the base at Waukegan at 0400 in the morning.

The Chief folded his hands on the desk, looked at the list again, and looked back at me with an almost smile that I wasn't expecting. "I may regret this, but I will let you go this time. You have obviously made an effort to improve your look, and your grades are top-notch. So get your ass out of here and," He pounded his fist on the desk, "Don’t ever let me see you in here again!”

“No, thank you,” I swallowed the sir.

He picked up the duty list and replaced it in the envelope and resealed it. “Give this to your instructor. Dismissed.”

I made a quick exit with my mind racing; could not believe my good luck, wouldn't have been so lucky if I had washed and ironed my uniform as usual. My grades must have been at least somewhat responsible.

The class was well into the afternoon’s lecture when I tried to slip in unnoticed, but the instructor stopped drawing a circuit on the board, and the entire class turned to face me.

"Well, look who’s decided to join us; again." He made a show of checking his watch. "Have you already seen the Senior Chief?”

I nodded.

“What did you get this time? Should be a Captain's Mast, at least."

“No, he let me go with a warning.”

The instructor’s eyebrows shot up.”What?!?” A muttered sound of amazement issued through the class.

“He said I looked good, and my grades are good, so he let me go this time.”

"Christ, some people have all the luck," He hadn’t liked me from the start as I was dating the only woman in the class, an admiral’s daughter he had been pursuing.

I handed him the envelope and he took out the single sheet of paper.

“Well, now I can tell everyone their duty station. Those of you going on to B and C School already know you'll be here; that leaves four of you. Mills, you’ll be on board a destroyer out of San Diego. I do know that base, close enough to the city for some nightlife, but not that I would know about that."

We had all heard his stories of his time in San Diego, so we gave the obligatory laugh.

“Peyton, you'll be at Norfolk, an aircraft carrier being refitted, so if you joined to see the world, forget it. You'll see Norfolk; everybody there seems to hate sailors, so have fun with that."

“Ross, you'll be at Naval Communication Station Diego Garcia." He stopped and snickered, "That's a new base, still being built from what I've heard. You'll probably be living in temporary barracks; in Nam, they call them hootches."

That had to be a base somewhere outside the US. I'd heard stories about bases overseas, and they sounded pretty wild. Exotic women, new cultures, new food, and new adventures. I envied Ross; a ComSta meant not being aboard a ship.

Ross raised his hand, “Where exactly is this Diego Garcia?”

The instructor turned and pulled down the world map. I thought he was looking at India, but he turned and pointed at a dot in the middle of the Indian Ocean. “Right there, a hundred and twenty miles or so south of the equator. I understand the temperature is over 100 degrees most of the year, monsoons rain for months, but think of all the exotic native women you’ll meet!”

“Native women?” Ross was intrigued. “Are there a lot of them?”

“No, they shipped all the natives over to the Seychelles and Mauritius when the Navy got there. Half the damn island is a wildlife refuge.”

“What wildlife”

“The donkeys they used for the coconut plantation. Can’t touch them.”

“Donkeys.” Ross looked confused. “Since when are donkeys wildlife?”

“Since the US Navy designated them as such. So have fun in the sun with the other 1300 sailors. The only woman there is the British Commander’s wife. It is a British island, we just rent it. But you will get isolation and hardship pay, almost nine bucks a month for you newbies.”

My envy of Ross disappeared; he was my best friend in the class, and I felt terrible for him. An isolated base was the last thing he or I wanted. We had all assumed we would be on board ships and traveling the world. The isolation and hardship pay would bring pay up to a whopping $318 a month, but where could anyone on an island spend it?

The instructor stopped, snickered and looked at me with a big grin, “You’ll also be at Diego Garcia.Be sure to keep your uniform clean, there are worse places to be assigned.”

I tried to stay positive as I heard the snickers of my whole class. I thought at least I would be with Ross. My heart sank as I realized why the Chief had let me go this time. It had nothing to do with my grades or my uniform. I was going to be stuck in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a year.  A Captain's Mast would have put someone else on Diego Garcia, and I would likely get on a ship somewhere in the States. I pictured the Chief laughing at his desk; this was his revenge.