Lessons from a gray lady Chapter 1

first installment in a series of stories about being at sea.

Lessons from a Gray Lady

 

Chapter 1

 

I heard a song last night. It was from 1981. It’s August now. I was in the Middle East in August of ‘81. Six to eight knots through the straights and into the gulf. Watches were limited to two hours in the hole because of the heat. Made a pit stop in Bahrain for repairs then haze gray for two more months before seeing land again. It was the best of times and the worst. Some things never change. Situations and conditions may appear different, but humanity exists on a continuum. Always wars and rumors of wars.

 

On the way home after five plus months into the cruise, EN3 Castle killed MR2 Redding with his folding buck knife in the auxiliary diesel room when we were in port in Mallorca Spain.

 

Redding asked for it. He was a big guy, six foot two. He was a dick head of magnificent proportions, an elite bully that most of the guys didn’t like. But did he deserve to die? And what of Castle? Perhaps prison for who knows how long.

 

He was just a kid who snapped under the weight of fear and abuse. Redding rode his a*s for five months and he was visually afraid of the guy. I heard that it was self-defense, but still what would be the lifelong ramifications of Castle’s actions? This kid looked pale and sick in the aftermath, he looked destroyed.

 

Life is not fair. No one came to his aid in the prelude to this tragedy. Redding with his threats that he was going to “kill him”, or at the very least “f**k him up for life”. Redding followed through with the latter promise as he lay bleeding out on the deck plates.

 

He was such a mean b*****d to everyone. What was he thinking in those last few moments of his life? Did he wield that evil grin of his, happy in the knowledge that Castle’s life going forward was sure to be “fucked up”? Or perhaps he embraced God in those last moments and said, “Lord forgive me”. No one will ever know for sure what his final thought was as 100 billion neurons dwindled down to just one, but who we to judge?