Smoke and Water

Fading Memories by James Zike

Written June 2008 

         First watch… Always the first watch in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean with nowhere to go and almost nothing to do. Well that’s a lie; there was a huge amount of work to do but not anything fun. At least the stark fluorescent lights help all the pasty night-checkers forget the nothingness of the ocean at night just outside every hatch and doorway. Such was my life on board the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.

          She was a fine ship back when the shipbuilders laid her keel, but forty odd years later, time and the tides had taken their toll on her. Rust hung over the haze gray hull like streamers around every vent-port and catwalk. Tendrils of corrosion slowly crept their way over her once impressive face, but that’s the way of these things, I suppose. One day she’s a proud and able icon of American strength and determination, the next a relic of ages overstaying their welcome.

          Of course, back in spring of 1999 no one could have even imagined that the passing of two other icons would keep the Hawk around. I certainly wouldn't have guessed it. In fact, I would have guaranteed the Hawk would not be cruising back to port, but I'd be going home with wet feet by night’s end. However, at mid-night, affectionately called “balls” by most sailors thanks to the “00:00” time entry on the deck log, I was still more concerned with playing paperboy.

          At 20 years old, I was the oldest paperboy I personally knew, although I couldn't ride a bike down my route. Up and under, through and around every soiled corridor and grubby passageway (p-way) on the ship I paced night after night, delivering the next day’s news. Unlike the shaggy mop-tops and baggy street attire of my younger counterparts, I kept my hair high and tight, and my blue denim dungarees as clean as possible and sharply pressed.

          Over the previous year I studied the ship’s layout through trial and many errors; finding myself lost was an hourly event when I first checked onboard. By now I had learn how to navigate the ship by thinking of it like the belly of a giant cartoon whale, except with p-ways and ladder wells where the ribs were. My office was just off to the left of the whale’s blowhole, and the hanger deck its tongue.

          I had just finished the last round of paper delivery when it started. Like most important things, it went unnoticed at first. It was so significant that it would roust 5,000 people out of their slumber and shake their world for a bit, but not yet.

          Like the sleepers in the coffin racks Uncle Sam had provided, I was just looking for a quick shuteye before I had to get back to work. As I settled into a comfortable chair, the electronic hum of the ship’s speaker system keying on interrupted the hiss of steam pipes and the haphazard clank of mechanics “fixing” aircraft downstairs in the cavernous hangar bay with sledgehammers and duct tape.

          “Fire, fire, fire! Fire in number Three Main Machinery space,” reported the Boatswain of the Watch on the bridge. “Away flying squad, away. This is not a drill.”

          “At this hour?” I thought to myself. “Normally Three Main burns in the afternoon.”

          The Flying Squad, a volunteer first responder fire and flooding specialist group, usually took care of these things. Every time something went wrong on the ship, off they'd go to earn another brush with death. Me, I learned quickly the real meaning of N.A.V.Y.: Never Again Volunteer Yourself. I nudged the door closed with my elbow as I leaned back in my chair to inspect the overhead for any holes, and then move on to my eyelids. That’s when it caught up with my life.

          Looking up where I should have found a rat’s nest of wires, cableways, piping and unsightly brackets holding the whole mess just a few inches above the top of an average person’s head, I saw nothing, or rather nothing distinguishable. Billowing, noxious black smoke rolled and curled around like a circling murder of crows looking for the perfect branch of a dead tree to land on. Somewhere a half a dozen or more decks below me and fifty yards back the angry red flames licked and caressed their way into the dark, deep, hidden parts of the ship. Fire churned out of sight in a vertical void space just behind the bulkhead of my office. The last set of eyes open in this section of the ship, I was the only one onboard that knew about it. I scrambled over to the phone, knocking over chairs and sending carefully ordered stacks of paper into complete chaos in my wake.

          “Damage control center,” the groggy voice of a Damage Controlman responded.

          “This is Journalist Third Class…,” I started but was quickly cut off by a now very annoyed DCman.

          “ Dammit, we don't have time for any interviews or photographs right now! Didn't you hear the announcement; we have an actual fire!”

          “No, that’s what I'm calling about,” I spit out before he could hang up. “My office is filling with black smoke. I believe that it’s related to the Three Main fire.”

          “Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were…,” his voice trailed off for a moment and then stiffened as he continued. “We don't have comms with the Flying Squad Scene Leader. He needs to know about the void space. Set fire boundaries in your space and report to him at the aft bomb handling area.”

          With an “aye aye” I was on my heels in a mad dash to slam every door shut and lock them down airtight. Having completed all the basic shipboard firefighting qualifications, I knew just how important it was for the Scene Leader to know that the fire had gotten around him, and it would take too long for another person to reach him. I had to get the message through or he might not be able to get the fire hoses into a position to stop the fire from spreading. If the flames went too far, got too close to the bomb lockers or too close to the fuel spaces, well most sailors don't even like to think about that. It was up to me to stop that from happening.

          With the bang of each door closing, my mind whirled around the possible routes down through the maze of corridors. I would have to drop one deck below the hanger bay and go most of the way to the fantail, the very back of the ship, a good three hundred yard dash if I could make it on one route. I had to think quickly, fires spread in all directions and eat up corridors that I might need to use.

          Bang. I could dip down the closest “rib” of the whale just aft of my office, the Captain’s ladder all decked out in fresh white paint, teak wood and brass, but that ran along the flaming void so it might be impassible. Bang. I could run forward on this deck and down to the hanger bay. Bang! That should keep all the smoke from my office contained. With a quick look back aft, I noticed wisps of smoke seeping out of the Captain’s ladder, no time to lose.

          I rounded the corner into the dimly lit ladder-well and looked down the dingy steps. Dust and rust clung to nearly every surface I could see, but not one hint of smoke. “That’s good,” I thought to myself since I had to drop down three flights in a hurry. Down I descended from the lofty heights of the blue-tiled officers’ p-way where us paper-pushers skulk to where the warm wash of the reddish-orange lights of the hanger should have held the nothingness outside at bay. That night it found a way in.

          Pitch black had consumed the hanger bay--smoke so thick that no light reached my eyes. I stood there dumbfounded by the apparent emptiness that I found myself in, nauseous and choking on the fumes. I knew that many knee-knockers, dangerous blades and sharp corners on the aircraft waited for me to step into the nothing. They were lurking there, anxious to devour me.

          I couldn’t go any further down, the ladder ended at the hanger deck. I couldn’t go across the hanger for fear of the beastly aircrafts’ sharp teeth, and if the fire was as big as the smoke made it look going forward meant getting trapped up at the bow.

          “Forget it,” I said to myself. “I should just find a spot and burn a few cigarettes or maybe I should go over to the life rafts and beat the line.”

          Before the words even made it out of my mouth, my mind turned to the Scene Leader cut off from any information. He had no idea that the fire had gotten around his boundaries and threatened everyone onboard. I had to go back up and over the top of the ship–it was the only way.

          Huffing and puffing I reached the top landing, pushing a hapless sailor with a bundle of laundry over his shoulder out of my way without a word for lack of breath. So many people, so unaware that their current home was in a fight to the death with a fire hell-bent on sending us to the bottom. My steps hastened at that thought.

          Down the port- side ladder, past the Forward Mess still serving midnight rations, past the Emergency Rooms in Medical reeking of industrial cleaners, past the officer’s staterooms quiet and still like a grave yard. It was all a blur to me as my lungs burned as hot as Three Main. Just ahead of me was the aft bomb handling area and the spot where the Scene Leader was.

          I turned the corner and saw him decked out in a yellow fire-fighting ensemble, mask locked in place and helmet tucked on tight. Just a few seconds more and he would know the real danger the ship faces, but before my legs could get to him, the thick vinyl smoke curtain over the steel doorframe opened and long strands of black nothingness reached out like giant arms. By the time someone was able to close the curtain, the nothing had him. He was gone and I had no one to tell about the vertical void space, my office or the hanger bay.

          Seconds later the loud speakers snapped on again and a much less calm Boatswain of the Watch called out, “General Quarters, All hands man your battle stations!” With that, 5,000 sets of boots hit the deck, and a few minutes later the entire crew locked heads with one of the worst fires any of us had ever seen. With all the intensity of a battlefield, we fought on through the rest of the night, deploying, falling back, and redeploying again and again, until the dawn chased away the darkness outside. As the new day found us exhausted, dripping with sweat, smelling of char and smoke, the flames flickered one last time and died. The horror was over.