Work Party
Jul. 7th, 2011 02:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalon500 men at sea in a steel battle ship eat a lot of chow, go through miles of shit-tickets in the process of working it out and need all kinds of shit to keep the whole show staying afloat. They need it plenty and they need it regular. So periodically the ship would need to resupply herself. A ‘Work Party’ would be mustered, and the lowest ranks from all the divisions would marshal in a line to unload the pallets of ‘Squid Fuel’ as it arrived onboard. Usually this would go down while we were docked in port. Sometimes though, when you were on a ½ year cruise to ½ way around the world, you’d have to do a work party at sea. Sometimes, if you were lucky, it would be summer in the Med; the black waves tinted with the luminenence of emeralds lapping gently along the hull and the corona of a golden sun shimmering on a crisp, rejuvenating breeze. The guys trading laughs between passing sacks of rice down a fire-bucket chain of friendly faces. You felt good, the work purged the blood of the drone tension while providing a chance to catch up on interdepartmental scuttlebutt and fresh Sea Stories. Sometimes though, it’d be in the Atlantic in January when the work party went down… and that’s a whole another story.
The loading bay of the USS Telemachus rocks wild between the hammering waves and the full on fury of one mother-fucker of a storm. The deck, soaking wet as it is, rises sharp and plummets sudden off the tempest rolls. The work party do a balancing act dance and many of the crew go down in ass crashing pratfalls. The wind whips around the open bulkheads of the bay, roars down the passage and rips into the skin. A cold, vicious rain finds its way in, each drop a stinging prick against exposed skin. It sends the body trembling. It knots up the muscles. It cascades off the hood of the issued rain slickers so you can barely see the tip of your nose much less the next package of frozen meat, the next box of washers, the next bundle of laundry detergent to be shoved into your raw, empty hands. The fingers go numb. The cargo soaked and slippery. Supplies fumble out grasps, crash, slip and slide right over the side before vanishing into the drink. Curses. Threats. But none of us say what we’re really thinking.
How long until it’s one of us that goes over…?
So it’s hour five of this shit, with only a 15 minute break in the mess hall to shiver down some supper, sneak in a smoke in one of the engine rooms before having to slip back into the empty link reserved for me on the Devil’s Chain Gang.
I’m shot out. Spent. Brain fried and body drained.
The autopilot is starting to flicker out leaving black out flashes and head spins.
Something is thrusted into my arms.
It’s weight squirms through my grip, I quickly pivot around to hand it off but the next set of hands aren’t there. I look up but the Atlantic slaps the hull of the Telemachus sending her to arc up then down…
… and the weight plummets from my hands as friction vanishes beneath my feet and gravity snags me down hard. My chin slams into the edge of a box and before I can recover something grabs me.
The set of hands I was looking for.
“For Fuck’s sake, Babalon… watch it will ya?”
I nod stupidly. I go down to pick up the cargo but it’s gone, I turn around to say something and another bundle slaps into my chest.
Instead of turning around with it I just stand there – zombified.
Everyone started screaming at me but I couldn’t hear them over the werewolf wind and my rubber hood flapping manically around my face.
I muttered something.
One of the Chief’s were there. ETC Phobes. A gruff Midwestern type, with the perpetually widened eyes of the easily pissed.
“What’s the story here, Babalon?” He shouted over the din of storm of work party protests.
I blinked at him…
… The story is simple. A young man joins the Navy to escape the shell of daydreams he had locked himself in and is subsequently driven to exhaustion before being sacrificed to the raging sea…
“I can’t do it, Chief.” I muttered again.
“Why the Hell not?”
“There’s no more…”
“What?
“There’s no more in here. I have nothing left. I need to… I need to just stop.”
“That’s bullshit!” Another voice boomed over the wind from behind the chief. The chief turned around and every swinging dick in the work party present silenced and I glanced over and there he was…
… DCFN Gristle. He was a fellow engineer but I hardly exchanged more than a few words with him.
I went to mouth something but before I could, he repeated himself loud and clear: “That’s bullshit! I mean look at me, Babalon!”
And I did.
A scrawny little fellow, no more than chest high to me, with his regulation approved moustache the heaviest thing on his body. Through the hood of the slicker his eyes glared at me magnified through inch thick lens. Skeletal arms emerged from under the hood and cradled to his bird chest a box just as heavy as mine.
“If I can do it, you can!” He barked.
The entire work party present at the scene just stared at me. I nodded, as if emerging from a trance, to the crew, to Chief Phobes but mainly to ENFN Gristle. I stepped back into place, handed off my load and prepared for the next one.
That was one of the greatest lessons the Nav ever taught me and it came from the smallest member of the work party. That lesson was to endure, and not merely to the limits of your resolve, but rather far beyond them, deep into that grueling distance where the job waits to be done.
The loading bay of the USS Telemachus rocks wild between the hammering waves and the full on fury of one mother-fucker of a storm. The deck, soaking wet as it is, rises sharp and plummets sudden off the tempest rolls. The work party do a balancing act dance and many of the crew go down in ass crashing pratfalls. The wind whips around the open bulkheads of the bay, roars down the passage and rips into the skin. A cold, vicious rain finds its way in, each drop a stinging prick against exposed skin. It sends the body trembling. It knots up the muscles. It cascades off the hood of the issued rain slickers so you can barely see the tip of your nose much less the next package of frozen meat, the next box of washers, the next bundle of laundry detergent to be shoved into your raw, empty hands. The fingers go numb. The cargo soaked and slippery. Supplies fumble out grasps, crash, slip and slide right over the side before vanishing into the drink. Curses. Threats. But none of us say what we’re really thinking.
How long until it’s one of us that goes over…?
So it’s hour five of this shit, with only a 15 minute break in the mess hall to shiver down some supper, sneak in a smoke in one of the engine rooms before having to slip back into the empty link reserved for me on the Devil’s Chain Gang.
I’m shot out. Spent. Brain fried and body drained.
The autopilot is starting to flicker out leaving black out flashes and head spins.
Something is thrusted into my arms.
It’s weight squirms through my grip, I quickly pivot around to hand it off but the next set of hands aren’t there. I look up but the Atlantic slaps the hull of the Telemachus sending her to arc up then down…
… and the weight plummets from my hands as friction vanishes beneath my feet and gravity snags me down hard. My chin slams into the edge of a box and before I can recover something grabs me.
The set of hands I was looking for.
“For Fuck’s sake, Babalon… watch it will ya?”
I nod stupidly. I go down to pick up the cargo but it’s gone, I turn around to say something and another bundle slaps into my chest.
Instead of turning around with it I just stand there – zombified.
Everyone started screaming at me but I couldn’t hear them over the werewolf wind and my rubber hood flapping manically around my face.
I muttered something.
One of the Chief’s were there. ETC Phobes. A gruff Midwestern type, with the perpetually widened eyes of the easily pissed.
“What’s the story here, Babalon?” He shouted over the din of storm of work party protests.
I blinked at him…
… The story is simple. A young man joins the Navy to escape the shell of daydreams he had locked himself in and is subsequently driven to exhaustion before being sacrificed to the raging sea…
“I can’t do it, Chief.” I muttered again.
“Why the Hell not?”
“There’s no more…”
“What?
“There’s no more in here. I have nothing left. I need to… I need to just stop.”
“That’s bullshit!” Another voice boomed over the wind from behind the chief. The chief turned around and every swinging dick in the work party present silenced and I glanced over and there he was…
… DCFN Gristle. He was a fellow engineer but I hardly exchanged more than a few words with him.
I went to mouth something but before I could, he repeated himself loud and clear: “That’s bullshit! I mean look at me, Babalon!”
And I did.
A scrawny little fellow, no more than chest high to me, with his regulation approved moustache the heaviest thing on his body. Through the hood of the slicker his eyes glared at me magnified through inch thick lens. Skeletal arms emerged from under the hood and cradled to his bird chest a box just as heavy as mine.
“If I can do it, you can!” He barked.
The entire work party present at the scene just stared at me. I nodded, as if emerging from a trance, to the crew, to Chief Phobes but mainly to ENFN Gristle. I stepped back into place, handed off my load and prepared for the next one.
That was one of the greatest lessons the Nav ever taught me and it came from the smallest member of the work party. That lesson was to endure, and not merely to the limits of your resolve, but rather far beyond them, deep into that grueling distance where the job waits to be done.