USS MULLINNIX DD-944

Genoa Italy 1959

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Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood

1959 Mullinnix Genoa, Italy Vistor's Information (PDF)

The 5 September morning mist had burned away. The sun was still low, the water dark and opaque. In the company of USS Laffey, USS Boston, and USS Halfbeak, Mullinnix entered Porto Vecchio, Genoa, Italy at 0826 and moored to Ponte Andrea Doria Pier. The harbor smelled of fresh fish and mild acidity. Knowing where they were and with a small dose of imagination the crew could swear it smelled of pasta and wine.

The name Genoa is believed to be derived from Genua, founded by the two headed Giano, protector of ships and coins. Genoa, as well as being full of mythical origins, has always been a crossroads of traffic and culture between continental Europe and the Mediterranean, thanks to its natural position and the initiative of its inhabitants. After the conquest of the Padana plain in 569, Genoa became the main Byzantine stronghold with its own fleet, uniting the commercial and seafaring sides of the city.

A pub-like atmosphere existed, induced in part by the spread of the British Empire. The aperitivo hour was a favorite of the crew as they could load up on free pasta. With the introduction of Italian television, more and more bars were being populated by crowds of Italians, women as well as men, who left their homes to meet after supper and look at their first Italian public television shows. Shows like Lascia o raddoppia (Double Your Money), a quiz show imported from the United States by Mike Bongiorno, were a huge success. This, coupled with many bars serving more meals like crispy pressed sandwiches, flavorful flatbread pizzas, and succulent skewers than alcohol, made finding a suitable place that served nothing but booze and flesh somewhat difficult.

The areas of the city where the sailors felt most comfortable were dark, downbeat and black like the looks and themes of many film noir released following WWII. Decadent areas, streets smelling of anxiety, pessimism and suspicion, but with a touch of European sophistication. They walked the back alleys. Alleys on edge with tension and insecurities. They cruised the side streets pulsating with fear, mistrust and bleakness. They slept in hotels weeping with loss of innocence, despair, and paranoia. Hotels with winking neon lights that cast sinister shadows on shabby walls. They frequented dingy corridors and fought with hard-boiled dock workers. Stared into the faces of the femme fatales, schemers and grifters who populated this area, looking for sin and corruption.

The underground clubs could be hard to find but were usually well worth the search. The Lukrezia, for example, could only be reached via a narrow alley. Once across the threshold, you maneuvered down a long steep corridor heavy with shadow, following the distant bass-thumping of live music. At a certain point on the left, you reached an intermediary room where they found a bar. The sounds of groaning bullocks, grinding cart wheels, automobile horns and the cries of porters and begging children were sealed off by the thick smoke of the club. The entrance had an eastern-curtain of colored hanging beads. Red lamps, incense and laughter issued out between the swinging beads. A place where, if you hadn’t arrived with any, friendships began and ended at the front door. No histories, no common geographic origins.

BM2 John Berryman scratched the brassy colored bristles on his freckled chin. In a whiskey-tenor voice he asked, "What's your poison Hick'ry?"

"Rum!" answered QM2 Bart Markley from Hickory, Tennessee, "Hold the soda, hold the ice."

Berryman was as salty as they came. Eighteen years in the Navy - all on destroyers. First class petty officer twice, second class three times. He was more jarhead than sailor, mean as the day is long. The more he drank the meaner he got.

Markley, on the other hand, seemed more an illusion than a man. His face had more angles than planes. Tall with sharp good looks - thin Grecian nose. His smile as sharp as the rest of him. He had eyes the color of stone, as if the light had leached the color from them. The two had been drinking steady for several hours and debating what life changing situation they should experience next.

"Let's drink a couple more and then go down to the main bar and see if we can't fall in love. What do you think?" quizzed Berryman.

"Sounds like a plan Boats" answered Markley.

Once the two had applied additional fuel to their boilers, they continued the descent to the main room, a sort of cellar cave where a few tables were laid out circling a small dance floor. On the right, a narrow staircase ran up to a balcony that hung over the narrow bar. Loop earrings and a red shawl framed a young face with large silver-painted eyes. The girl smiled down and waved her fingers like the petals of a flower. The dim red light came from oil lanterns that hung on hooks from the low ceiling. The walls were draped with cheap cloth like the inside of a Moorish tent.

With Berryman's eyes glued to the red shawl on the balcony, the two bellied up to the old bar covered in evaporating sticky sweating glass rings. They sat in tall dark rattan chairs. The bartender was a grey-faced man who was long in the chin with drooping eyelids which made it difficult to see the color of his eyes. He had long tapering fingers, yellowed with nicotine, bare except for a submarine ring - stolen, no doubt, off the last sailor that passed out in his place.

There were no other sailors in the place which was unusual considering the number of ships on liberty. None the less, two beautiful, hopefully promiscuous women found themselves chairs on either side of the two men. Markley found himself staring into seducing slate-blue eyes - the Italian version of Veronica Lake. She had smooth copper skin with the firmness of a hard-boiled egg without the shell. She wore a very large stone. What appeared to a rectangular-cut emerald in the center of a collar of diamonds set in platinum. Fake? They had to be in a place like this, didn’t they? Even so, the presentation on her neck was flawless. The over-all effect sent bolts of energy to his loins, speechless and hopelessly in lust.

The other girl was working her feminine wiles and come-hither sexuality to manipulate Berryman into buying her a drink. With his mind and his eyes still attached to the balcony he announced, "Your SOL lady, I got bigger fish to fry than you."

"S-O-L?" she questioned in heavily accented English.

"Yea, shit out of luck. Now leave me the fuck alone!"

Though she didn't understand the Navy-accented English, she fully understood his scowl. Markley was mystified by his friend. Leaning over to him he said, "I'd rather be chasing one girl than two; it gives me better odds."

"I'm not you." said Berryman.

"You gotta be the dumbest guy ever to shit between two feet to turn that down."

Smiling Berryman answered, "Shit. You look like you're passing a stone Markley. Take your fuckin' flat hat off and look up."

He did. She was still there, smiling. As Markley followed Berryman's eyes up to the balcony, she straightened, blew a suggestive kiss his way, and sashayed into a doorway slightly to her right.

Berryman sat, smelled, and watched the cigarette smoke crawl towards the ceiling. How can it be, he pondered? How can smoke from cigarettes be blue? Lighting a fire to a dried out brown leaf rolled in white paper results in blue smoke? Only one explanation. Human lungs infuse the inhaled smoke with an organic dye, which is enriched with carbon dioxide during exhaling, resulting in blue smoke. He watched his shipmate and his new found love. No blue smoke! Fuck it. "I'm going upstairs Markley. Watch my back!"

"Hey Berryman, were the hell you going? I owe you a drink!” hollered a voice from the narrow doorway.

"Later. Why don't you two assholes sit down and keep Markley out of trouble until I get back," said Berryman. "You think you boys can get that done without fuckin' it up?"

Sonarman both, Jeb Brown and Steve Octavian snatched the empty chairs that sandwiched Markley and his companion. Brown hooked Berryman's throw-away babe with his left paw and whispered something disgusting in her ear while sucking on her lobe. Markley hollered for a round.

From behind the bar, Droopy eyes followed Berryman as he slowly climbed the stairs. Berryman confronted the door, pondered for a moment, reached for the knob and opened it slowly. The door creaked stubbornly but opened to expose the red shawl crumpled at the foot of the bed. Its former occupant laid naked on the bed, her eyes dissecting Berryman's face. Her ass was high and tight, big and generous, round as two halves of a ball. He had never seen anything more beautiful. His stare burned into her flesh like a magnifying glass focused on dry leaves.

He slowing approached the bed swinging the door shut with his right hand. A flash, no, more like a blur. He turned. Lights, stars. Flashing lights engulfed into darkness. Berryman lay crumbled on the floor, the leather-covered sap had found its mark.

Markley leaned into Brown whispering, "Keep these two entertained will ya? Octavian and I are going to check on Berryman."

"What's going on?" questioned Brown.

"I’ve got a bad fuckin' feeling, that’s all. Watch these two. And that fuckin' bartender. We'll be back."

Markley jabbed Octavian and the two headed upstairs. Markley had seen which door Berryman entered moments ago. He knocked lightly. Nothing. He knocked louder. Nothing.

"Watch out," barked Octavian as he laid his shoulder into the door, bursting it into an explosion of splinters. The two shipmates stumbled into the room to find Red Shawl and a small man with a rat face going through Berryman's wallet. They were on them like stink on shit. Markley jumped on Red Shawl pinning her to the floor. Octavian kick Rat Face in the groin as he jumped off Berryman. Rat Face fell back against the bed. Octavian, quick as lightening, grabbed him by his cheap suit coat, stood him up and clocked him with a left.

Markley tried to muffle the screams with the woman's shawl. Octavian dragged Rat Face to a semi-standing position and turning, threw him out the doorway. Rat Face stumbled one step, two trying to get his feet under the momentum of his body. He ran out of floor and crashed through the frail banister. The man was left with nothing to grab but blue smoke.

Brown knew his shipmates well. If they had a bad feeling there was a damn good reason. There was a shitstorm brewing for sure. He saw Droopy Eyes signal someone behind where he was sitting. The girls appeared nervous - high pitched laughter. They’d stopped drinking since Markley and Octavian had headed upstairs. Something was up for sure.

Brown stood up as the door exploded upstairs. Grapping his beer bottle, he threw it at Droopy Eyes, hitting him just above the ear. The girls screamed. Someone else yelled. Snatching two empties, he smashed them against the bar's edge. "You two! Don't you dare fuckin' move!" Brandishing the jagged necks, he spun to confront Droopy Eyes' partner in crime.

The banister exploded. All eyes looked up and watched as Rat Face floated off the balcony like an amateur trapeze performer employed part-time by a two-bit circus. Floating, but losing altitude rapidly. Wham! Rat Face met a round table with his chest. Neither won, it was a tie - table zero, Rat Face zero as he lay motionless atop a pile of fragmented timber. Before Brown could engage droopy's accomplice, the man fled out a narrow side door.

"Behind you!" yelled Octavian from the balcony. Brown spun and faced the bar, Droopy Eyes, blood running down his neck, menacing held a knife at Brown. Yelling, "sorry fucker!", Brown stormed the bar. Octavian grabbed a heavy corner post from the broken banister and flung it hard at Droopy Eyes. It caught him across his forearm, numbing his knife-hand. The knife fell harmlessly to the floor.

Brown flung a broken bottle, just clearing the man's other ear, crashing into the liquor display behind him. Jumping onto the bar, he grabbed the man by his shoulder and raised the remaining bottle above his head, ready to finish him off. Appearing to have just shit his drawers, Droopy had had enough.

"Hold it right there sailor!" yelled the shore patrolman as four of them burst onto the scene. "Drop that fuckin' bottle, now!" Brown backed slowly off the bar.

"Hey Chief!" Looking up, they saw Markley and Octavian holding Berryman between them and Markley holding a struggling naked girl with a red shawl, pinning her arms behind her. "They rolled Berryman here, damn near killed him!"

Berryman was still in the stratosphere but coming around. Blood trickled from his temple down to the corner of his mouth. His eyes trying to focus, his mind clearing slightly. "Yeah Chief, cocksuckers tried to tie my dick in a knot but good!"

"Get down here, the bunch of ya!" yelled the Chief.

Drag-carrying a groggy Berryman and pushing the girl in front of them, the sailors made it down the stairs. Brown walked over to Berryman to see for himself that he was going to be OK.

"The local police will be here in a minute. From the top, give me the short version."

They explained what had happened, included their suspicions that the two women at the bar were in on it with Droopy Eyes, Red Shawl, and Rat Face plus the 3rd man that hurried out the back. The shore patrol took down their stories plus their names, ranks, and duty station.

"What now Chief?" questioned a sobering Berryman.

"We've had our eye on this place for some time. You ain't the first to get rolled in here. We’ve been waitin' to catch them red-handed. Thanks to you boys, I do believe we've got'em." Eyeing Berryman, "If I was you I'd take him back to the ship and let the doc take a look at him."

"Yeah, good idea Chief," said Octavian, "Thanks for everything."

Markley, noting the Chief was a submariner, said, "Chief, just one last thing." He walked over to Droopy Eyes who was standing next to a 6' 2" hunk of E-5 Machinist Mate. Grapping the man's filthy hand, he removed the submarine ring from his finger while spitting flames from his eyes. "I don't think you'll be needing this scumbag. Do you?" Pausing, "I didn’t think so, you pussy mother fucker."

Walking up to the Chief, he handed him the ring, "I think this probably belongs to someone off the Halfbeak. Will you see they get it back?"

Looking down, he rolled the ring around in his large meaty hand, noting the initials crudely carved on the inside of the band. This bust had been personal though the Muxmen hadn't known it.

"It belongs to a shipmate of mine. He caught the same shit in here last month that your buddy got tonight. He thought he'd lost it for good."

"Well, I knew the importance you guys put on your rings," said Markley.

The Chief slowly looked up, with a steady gaze he said quietly, almost a whisper, "Not in this case son. Larson's old man gave him this when he was just a kid. A month later, his sub went down in the Pacific - with all hands. No, not in this case you don't. I'll see that he gets it back. Thanks."

Berryman, leaning on Markley for support, Brown and Octavian headed for the door.

"Hey!"

The four turned. "You guys tell your shipmates on Mux. If they have any trouble here or anywhere else in the Med. Tell'em to find Master Chief Harkin off the USS Halfbeak. Tell'em, I'll take care of 'em."

"Thanks Chief."

The fierce competitive nature between ship's crews can result into knock-down-drag-outs at times. Most of the time - it does just that. But one rule still applies. No outsider jumps anyone from any ship without the combined retaliation of the entire fleet. No one.

To be continued...

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