Ian Slater - World in Flames

Ray had gone over his testimony to the naval board of inquiry a million times. He remembered one moment he’d been standing on the bridge. There was an explosion of glass as the missile had hit, and then he’d been thrown back. The second officer, or was it the third? — covered in blood — was screaming something at him, and the next thing he remembered was thrashing about in the water. The crucial question for the board, and for his peace of mind, which had never been answered, was: Had he been pushed over by the officer of the watch or somebody else who had thought the ship was irretrievably lost? Or had he quit the ship voluntarily?

In vain, his court-appointed lawyer searched for testimony that would answer the question, but all the others on the bridge were dead within minutes of the missile hitting or had died shortly thereafter before any exonerating testimony could have been collected. The fact that the Blaine, one of America’s top-of-the-line Oliver Hazard Perry fast-guided missile frigates, was the first ship hit in the war had made it the focus of enormous public attention. The navy was reluctant, “in the extreme,” as the prosecuting lawyer had advised the board, to lend any solace, even the merest suggestion of it, to any idea that a captain could abandon his post under duress.

The Brentwood case wasn’t simply a matter of naval PR for the Pentagon but was seen as a crucial case not only for the navy but for all the services. With thousands of young officers raised in peace, not having received a baptism of fire, it was considered vital by the chief of naval operations that benefit of doubt, which might properly be extended in a “civil mercantile marine situation,” should not be extended in the case of Capt. John Raymond Brentwood, USN.

Ray Brentwood was then named an “interested party” to the inquiry. It was an innocent-sounding phrase but one that spelled terminal paralysis, if not outright rejection, for the hopes of advancement in any career officer. The decision of the inquiry was to “immediately relieve” Captain Brentwood of his command over the Blaine, which was now being virtually rebuilt from the hull up where the Exocet had blown a bank-vault-sized hole in her forward section. Brentwood was now dubbed “Lord Jim” after Conrad’s character who had deserted his ship and passengers during a typhoon only to arrive in port on another vessel to find his had weathered the storm after all. Ray Brentwood was also told unofficially that he was “damn lucky” not to have been court-martialed. The scuttlebutt had it that two things had saved him from this. First, his family connections — that is, string pulling by his father, retired Adm. John Brentwood, Senior, now serving on the New York Port Authority as director of convoys, and by his younger brother, David, one of the heroes of the Pyongyang raid.

Second, it was rumored that the navy, because of the increasing convoy losses due to the unexpected successes of the renewed Soviet sub pack offensives in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, needed anyone who could tell a bow from a stern. The first part of the scuttlebutt, about his family connections, was untrue. Adm. John Brentwood was the last man to interfere, to pull strings for kin. He abhorred it, fought it all his life. The second part of the scuttlebutt was correct — the U.S. Navy was desperate for trained men, if not to man new ships, then to train younger men who would. And it was this fact upon which Ray Brentwood, now released from the Veterans Burn Unit and waiting at home in Bremerton, Washington State, had pinned all his hopes. Either that or, as his wife Beth had suggested, he could opt for early retirement because of his facial disfigurement.

“Retire to what?” he’d snapped. “Who’d have me anyway? The sea’s the only thing I know anything about — only thing I care about.”

“How about the family, Ray?”

He’d turned on her, the bright sheen of what had been his cheeks stretched tighter than usual over the reconstituted jawbone they’d wired together for ten weeks — all his nourishment had had to be taken by straw. “You know what I mean, Elizabeth. I am thinking of the family.”

He walked away from her and looked out from the living room of their bungalow toward the clutter of gantries, gulls, and noise of traffic below, the latter’s diesel and gasoline fumes so thick that only now and then could he hope to catch a whiff of the sea. Thank God the burn hadn’t taken away his sense of smell. “If they’d only send me to sea again, I—” He spread his hands in utter frustration. “Goddamn it! I have to get back my pride. A coast guard cutter, patrol boat — anything! All I need, Beth, is a command again.”

He sat down on the love seat, tossing his cap on the coffee table, running his fingers through his hair, which by now had all returned except for a mangy patch above the left ear. He was glancing anxiously at his watch. In ten minutes — three o’clock — Washington said it would ring with the Pentagon’s decision. “Make a difference to the kids, too, wouldn’t it? To say I had a command again.”

“Yes,” said Beth softly, “I guess it would. But you’d still be away from us.” He looked across at her. Her love was genuine; he could see it in her eyes and it constantly amazed him. She saw right through him, right to the heart, to his desperate longing for things as they used to be and knowing they couldn’t be the same ever again. It was she, he remembered, who had made the first move in bed on his return from the hospital. Before they had begun, he had asked her to turn off the lights.

“No,” she’d replied, her hand cool, calmly stroking him over the hard, unfeeling scar, looking only at his eyes. “I love you,” she’d said. “You understand, Ray? I love you.” He’d cried and she held him and he wept like a child. “There’s plenty of time,” she’d assured him, and at once he’d felt humiliated — as low as he’d ever been — and grateful, and angry that he should be grateful, and overwhelmed because she meant it.

The phone rang. She looked at him to answer it. “You take it,” he said, not wanting to grab it — sound as if he’d been anxiously hovering over it all day.

“Hello? Yes, he’s here. Just a moment please.” She placed her hand over the mouthpiece and held the phone out to him. “I think it’s the Pentagon.”

She waited as he spoke, biting her nails. Damn it! Why couldn’t he ever give any indication of what was being said? The old navy macho cool.

“Yes, sir,” was all she heard him say, his tone neutral. “Yes, sir. I understand — yes, sir.” He put the phone down slowly.

“Well? Tell me!” said Beth.

“Hi, Mom! — Where are you?” It was Jeannie, home from school. Then they heard John.

“Quickly,” Beth urged Ray.

“Wait till the kids simmer down,” he told her.

“Ray. Tell me!”

He looked down at his cap. “They’ve given me a command. Don’t know what yet. Have to report to San Diego in forty-eight hours and—”

“Hi, Dad!” Jeannie called out, then stopped, letting her school bag slide to the ground. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Beth quickly. “Your dad got one of those darn gnats in his — straight in his eye. Here—” She handed Ray a crumpled Kleenex.

“Ah,” said Ray, turning around to face Jeannie full on. “Little buggers—’scuse me — little beggars. So tiny you can’t see ‘em. Flew right into me.” He blew his nose, then suddenly clapped his hands. “Hey! How about we go out for Chinese?”

“Thought the Chinese were fighting us?” said Jeannie.

“Not these Chinese,” said Beth. “We’ve been eating there for years.”