Destroyer Squadron 23 by Ken Jones

Author:Ken Jones [Jones, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Mosaic in Fatigue and Frustration

The delicate young man wearing the uniform and insignia of a Commander in the United States Navy stood patiently before the wicketed window of a ticket seller in the railroad station at Miami, and waited quietly until it should please that functionary to notice him. Long exposure to the Caribbean sun had left the officer deeply tanned. Although slight of figure his carriage was erect without giving an impression of tautness; he wore a small black mustache carefully trimmed; he created a feeling of neat precision.

"Yes, sir, what can I do for you?" After a minutes-long interval the ticket seller was back in business.

"I'd like a ticket and a lower berth to Orange, Texas, if it's available," the Commander told him.

The ticket seller turned to a well-pawed book of schedules and tables which he examined with bored impatience before announcing, " No sleepers on that run. No chair cars, neither. But I can sell you a ticket. Round trip?"

"One way, please. Incidentally," added the officer as the railroad man tore a segment from a long bellows of mottled green ticket and thumped it through his date stamp, "just where is Orange? I haven't been able to find anyone who knows."

"Sonny," said the man inclining his head forward and looking with martyred resignation over the tops of his thick-lensed spectacles, "don't ask me that! Th' things people come up here and ask me all day, you'd think I was a swami 'r somethin'! All I know, it's on th' railroad. An' if you get behind th' right engine, this ticket'll get you there. Now let's see ... that'll be twelve-forty-six plus two-thirty-two, plus sixty-one ... an' th' tax'll be ... " His voice trailed off as he computed the total fare upon completion of which computation Commander Luther K. "Brute" Reynolds paid the demanded tariff, put the ticket carefully away in a compartment of his wallet, and sought the information booth to learn how many hours or minutes he might have until train time, and pick up any other available information about Orange. In a crabwise sort of fashion the Brute was off to the wars.

Other of his colleagues had "fit the Battle of Orange" before Reynolds, but none had brought to it the incandescence of hope which burned in his breast, and none had met with more infuriating frustrations than awaited him. Commander Reynolds, a product of the Deep South, had what seemed to him a few perfectly normal desires. After a 20-month tour of duty he had been detached from command of U.S.S. Barry (DD-248), one of the old World War I 1,200-ton four-pipers working on the Caribbean and Panama Sea Frontier. He was finally being given command of a brand new and powerful 2,000-tonner--U.S.S. Charles Ausburne (DD 511), now awaiting him at the Consolidated yards. That was fine; he was happy for the recognition which this new command implied. Indeed, it was an occasion in his plodding progress over the Navy's shallow and long chord of advancement from low to high degree.

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