Dave Ferman Author

On our second or third visit to Majorca, I was back at my favorite table at my favorite outdoor bar drinking my favorite rum and Cocoa Cola beverage high up on the steepest hill in downtown Palma. Suddenly, I heard the erratic roar of a fast-revving motor cycle engine just below me, followed by a loud series of individual crashes and the sounds of metal scraping and glass breaking, and then somebody who was hurting a heck of a lot.

Somehow I just knew that meant trouble for us, so I slugged down the last of my sipping beverage and ran down the steep hill past the Brit fern bar and around the corner where I found our squadron's Air Intelligence Officer, my boss, laying in the street next to a wiped-out British murder cycle. Even at first glance, I could see that his leg was obviously broken.

Everyone in the black-shoe Sixth Fleet and the various squadron detachments had direct orders to never even think about driving murder cycles while on liberty. Therefore, in addition to his broken leg, my boss was in deep doo doo and in danger of at least a Captain's Mast or worse as soon as he could hobble around with the aid of crutches. That was not good.

So I asked a couple of passing Marine friends to drag the murder cycle around the corner out of sight while I rented a riding horse with saddle for $20 from a nearby stable while another Marine and a kindly streetwalker made Ed comfortable until I returned with the horse. When the Shore Patrol (SP) and Navy corpsmen finally arrived, the cause of Ed's injuries was obvious: he had fallen off a cantankerous but street legal riding horse, which was sad, but certainly not a court-marshal offense.

Hell's bells; we all lie a little.

I never saw Ed again, even after we returned to our new home base at Sanford, Florida, so I was stuck with the $20 rent for the horse. If you are reading this, Ed; with interest you owe me a metric pot-full of ready whipout. I will take cash, personal checks, cashier's checks or anything else that can be converted for me to buy the frivolous stuff that I often purchase.

Later, after the Coral Sea got underway, I heard that Ed was taken by an emergency flight off the carrier to Port Lyautey, and then back to the United States. No one on crutches has any business being on an aircraft carrier at sea.

Here is the crazy part: Ed was not replaced, not even by a junior officer. To everyone's amazement, mine the most of all, I was assigned by default to take over Ed's job as Squadron Air Intelligence guru on an "interim basis." Not only that, but Ed was never replaced while we were overseas.

Air intelligence/mission briefings/planning and coordination for our VAH-7 atomic bombers at the point of the NATO/US spear never missed a beat. We just kept on keeping on. After that, I don't think that I fooled too many in the squadron about my actual assignment, but we continued with the subterfuge just the same, and my life got a bit more complicated as most of the enlisted men toned down or stopped bad mouthing VAH-7 in my presence.

As T. S. Eliot once said: "Human kind cannot bear very much reality"

SAMPLE SEA STORY
"Yankees Go Home In Body Bags"

About 10 minutes after leaving the bridge where the Golden Horn separates Europe from the Middle East, and maybe several hundred yards into the west end of a narrow alley in the maze-like slums of western Istanbul, the low, distinctive clatter of an idling diesel engine—the unmistakable theme song of German automotive excellence—intruded into my subconscious mind. Although not uncommon on the streets of any major city in the world, that sound was disturbingly inappropriate in this extremely narrow, run-down alley in that incredible mass of mazes that forms random clusters of ancient stone and mud brick buildings that were often covered by a thick veneer of something like lumpy stucco. In that fleeting moment between recognition and realization, my pal Guy Garafalo stopped flat footed in his tracks. Something was chillingly wrong, but neither of us knew what the heck it was.

Distracted from our visual search for any unusual nooks or crannies ahead of, and to each side of the darkening, shadow-pocked alley, we both turned, puzzled, to look back over our shoulders along the moldering stone and mud-brick ravine through which we had just walked. As the deepening gloom of the Middle-Eastern twilight slowly enveloped all but the few higher roof tops and minarets, we were amazed to see an antique, black, Mercedes limousine of uncertain vintage try but fail to make a sharp, 90-degree turn into this nameless alley from another much too-narrow intersecting alley behind us. Exceedingly skillful alignment was critical to complete this ill-conceived maneuver on the first try, so the driver behind the darkened windshield backed up and tried again.

"Why the heck would anyone even think of stuffing that hulking bucket of bolts into a narrow danged alley like this?" I asked myself. Barely one car wide, originally intended for horses, push-cart wagons and people on foot, this picturesque but decaying old alley was never intended for any kind of automobile, particularly a luxury-sized limousine from the Bavarian autobahn.

Amused at the eccentricity of whoever was driving that antique limo, I hesitated again as I watched with mounting amazement as the driver backed up again until all but his front bumper and radiator were out of sight beyond the west end of the alley, and were then realigned for a third, more careful attempt at squeezing tightly into the narrow breech between the two furthest hovels.

"That silly clown is gonna' need a whole danged 55-gallon barrel of WD-40 to ram that big hog into this friggin' alley," I mumbled to myself, then chuckled at my own mini-allegory.

Maybe because of the uneven 17th century cobblestone alley, Guy had fallen half a dozen steps behind my impatient lead, and then stopped dead in his tracks.

"That clown has gotta' be flippin' crazy!" Guy said; the amazement in his voice validating what I already knew. Something was wrong, very wrong. Even if that lunatic did get his oversized bucket of precision bolts lined up without scuffing an undoubtedly expensive paint job, he would have barely enough clearance on either side to open even one door of that hulking monster to get out.

"That bozo has gotta' be out of his cotton-pickin' mind!" I agreed.

Suddenly, the more immediately personal aspect hit both of us like a truckload of bricks. With no meaningful clearance to spare between fenders and ancient mud- and stucco-splattered brick walls, not nearly enough safe passage space remained for anyone unfortunate to be a pedestrian at that time and place. In effect, we were staring down a block-long cannon barrel as a tight-fitting cannon shell was breech loaded for launching directly at Guy and yours truly.

As we say in Kansas, we had ripped our britches. Instinctively, we knew that we had messed up miserably and could pay dearly for that mistake. Anyone with even a lick of Middle-Eastern street smarts would have immediately sprinted for safety at the first sight of anything so incredibly threatening; particularly a three-ton Teutonic roto rooter being inserted at the other end of someone's own personal flush pipe. My military "situational awareness" had been asleep at the switch. That tardy realization was almost as distressing as our initial glimpse at impending doom.

Turning around 180 degrees, frantically searching for an escape route in the other direction, both Guy and I quickly verified what we already knew, but did not want to admit even to ourselves. Roughly 80 to 100 yards lay between us and the safety of the next intersecting alley.

"Too far," Guy shouted. "We'll never outrun that big son of a bitch; no way in hell!"

Not a single recessed doorway, nook or man-sized cranny was visible along the unbroken line of deteriorating buildings from where we stood to that distant intersection. Over the hundreds of years that this once-respectable gaggle of low-rent buildings had deteriorated into decrepit hovels, almost all of the windows and doors at alley level had been permanently sealed flush with the outer walls by brick and mortar to discourage transient riff raff and nocturnal burglaries, as well as two desperate U.S. Good Guys looking for a safe haven to avoid being squashed by dangerously inappropriate Teutonic autobahn traffic.

As soon as the massive limousine had finally squeezed its bulk into our scruffy, too-narrow alley, its 12-cylinder supercharged engine immediately revved to a menacing, deep-throated growl as outdated, wide-striped, whitewall tires initially spun unintentionally, then found traction on the irregular cobblestones with an anguished squeal of shrill protest. Simple but effective, the cannon ball from Hell was launched and on the way to make both of us null and void.

Re-energized by the deafening racket, we both whirled back around, looking frantically at the only inset doorway within running distance along the entire lane. However, that sanctuary was at least a dozen yards back toward that rapidly accelerating limousine. Guy and I had one chance and only one chance, but that lay in the wholly unnatural act of running toward, rather than away from onrushing Doomsday.

"Run for that doorway. Back there!" I shouted at Guy just before the lump in my throat choked off all meaningful sounds. Initially slipping on the uneven cobblestones, I frantically dashed toward Guy and the set-back doorway beyond him as the accelerating limousine—now bore-sighting us in the harsh glare of a blinding spotlight mounted dead center on its massive front bumper—screamed like a scalded banshee from Hell. Its sonic energy, surging well ahead of the massive vehicle like an all-engulfing bow wave, reverberated off the ancient stone and mud-brick walls to virtually overwhelm all other physical senses.

For a horrible second or two, which seemed like a heck of a lot more seconds to me, I felt that I was running in slow motion toward an onrushing boogeyman in an incredibly frightening nightmare. Nothing else could be heard over the screaming, thunderous roar of the terrifying monstrosity bearing down on us like the hellish Four Horses of the Apocalypse stampeding side-by-side within that very narrow alley.

With my shocked mind focused way out in front of my body, fixated on the minutest details of the pock-marked, moldering old brick and mortar wall framing the inset doorway beyond Guy—which was possibly the last things I would ever see on the face of God's green earth—I had neither the time nor the agility to go around Guy. So I ran right through him, my 220 pounds taking his 160 pounds with me to safety, barely a split second before we would have become dual radiator ornaments on several tons of onrushing death and destruction.

Seeing that we had beaten that rampaging limo to the only sanctuary in the entire alley, the driver slammed hard on his brakes at the instant he passed within inches of our meager refuge. Immediately, both of his front and back fenders were engulfed in bright sparks as the limo fishtailed against the ancient alley's walls like a hog skidding on ice.

Jammed awkwardly against Guy's backside and the mildewed wall beyond, out of breath and off balance within the narrow doorway, my twisting, overhand throw was more reflex than skill. In the rush of air from the limousine's wake, that lucky throw was hard enough and accurate enough to do the job at that short distance. The impact of an ancient street brick, which I had picked up much earlier as a defensive last-resort, shattered that limousine's rear window with a sharp, resounding explosion like a cannon shot reverberating inside this cavern's walls.

With that, we were out of ammunition. I had used our entire defensive arsenal. But the driver—the dark silhouette of his stylishly long, well-groomed head of hair clearly visible through the gaping hole where his darkly tinted rear window had been—hunched forward and stomped hard on the gas pedal once again to burn twin streaks of acrid rubber down the narrow cobblestone alley. Rear end again fishtailing erratically, his fenders flashed bright balls of flare-like sparks in the gloom as he ricocheted off the old rock and mud-brick walls; first on one side, then on the other side of that ancient alley.

Within seconds, the battle-scarred limousine disappeared around the corner of the wider crossing lane at the far end of the alley in a peal of squalling tires and over-speeding engine, leaving an intermittent trail of black paint scrapings back to our meager sanctuary.

As the occasional vehicles passed by the narrow opening on the far eastern cross road-their bright road lights like flashing strobes momentarily accentuating the faint glow of a single, distant, low-voltage street light-amazingly no one seemed to be aware of the life or death drama that had just unfolded. In their haste to be anywhere else at that gloomy interval between late dusk and total darkness, no one on that distant lane slowed down for even a moment.

"You okay, Dave?" Guy asked, his voice seemingly floating back from the featureless dark shadows.

My ruined night vision mercifully blanked out from the reality of the past few moments, blotting it into a black void hovering as if self-levitated behind a formless mass of swirling fireflies, but leaving a vivid TV-like after-image blur burned into my subconscious memory.

Welcome to exotic Istanbul, ya'll.