USS MULLINNIX DD-944
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St Raphael, France 1959
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Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood
With the sky forked with lightning, the air pungent with the promise of rain, Mullinnix, in the company of USS Laffey, anchored at St. Raphael, France at 0816 on 28 October. Liberty call was announced for the ship's crew. The weather continued to deteriorate throughout the day. Thick clouds turned the water a dark gray with only a few white flecks of foam here and there. Gulls flew low, wings kissing the water, their distorted shadows in a race they would never win. With the wind at 30 knots, the sea rolling, featureless, sheet metal gray, the Captain suspended all boating at 1850.
Orders were given to the engineering department to be on 10 minute standby for getting under way. Word was relayed to the shore patrol parties to order everyone back to their respective ships.
St. Raphael was a relatively small town that spread in broken fingers into the valleys and up the sides of low rolling hills, lush green broken occasionally with clusters of man-made structures lining narrow winding routes that passed for roads. Each cluster constituted a disjointed chain of bars, casinos, cafes, and brothels spread over a wide area causing unobserving sailors to stray far and wide.
They'd headed off to the nearest cluster. There, to overhaul the entire culture of the Navy and maybe even get laid, or at a minimum, drunk. The quartet were greeted by a quaint and tidy southern French village with arched stone bridges, standard French architecture, relatively friendly people and the proverbial sturdy gray stone church built by missionaries.
Hungry, the four stopped in the first bar they spotted that served food. They ordered a couple dozen oysters and bottles of French wine - one each.
"Hey, is it true these things are an aphrodisiac?" asked Benson.
As a BM3, Benson's dungarees should have identified him a working man. His didn't. Pressed shirt, knife-crease in his pants, mirror shine on his boondockers. Ball cap fitted like a major league third baseman. Key chain on his left most belt loop with enough keys to open a car dealership. He had red hair and a narrow nose that ended abruptly above thin lips, all courtesy of his Irish ancestry.
"Not really," answered is buddy, six-foot four-inch Sam "Stretch" McDonald. "I had a dozen in the last port and only 11 worked." Waiting for some laughter and not getting any he added, "Old joke."
"Fuck Stretch! That was as old as the hills on my Granny's chest you crazy fuck."
In his thirties, Stretch was somewhat a small-boned man for his height with light-brown hair, a wide forehead, and an aquiline nose. But his long arms were muscular and his hands large. His skin almost unlined and immense grey eyes.
"E'cuse the hell out of me Mr. Benson, I'll try a little harder next time."
"Macaroy ate here yesterday," Offered Mansen, "And said the seafood is their specially."
"No shit?" explained Benson. "We're only sitting 500 yards from the fucking ocean."
"I'm ordering duck," said Bull.
"In a seafood restaurant? What-the-fuck-over?"
"They swim, right?" questioned Bull.
Laugher. "Now that's how to get laughs, Mr. McDonald."
Wine disappeared faster than the seafood. The friends washed the last of the oysters down with four more bottles then drifted onto Mermaid Street to search out the next stop.
On a good day, Bill "Bull" Frasier was five-feet-six-inch, prematurely bald with a fringe of light brown hair, a round face, and an oddly pointed chin. Large, pale blue eyes were made even larger by the steel-rimmed glasses perched on his long, narrow nose, and he had the plump potbelly of a much older man. Shipmates noticed he walked with a strange jerking limp as though he were dragging the lower end of his right leg after the rest of his body.
Bull wasn't much of a drinker. They say it was the Baptist streak on his mother's side. He would, on occasion, sip happy fuel with his buddies on liberty. After two bottles of French wine however, he was yelling like a litter of new kittens in a clothes dryer.
Minutes erased another, hours replaced hours as the men kept the hangover gods at bay by continually replenishing the empty bottles with the fruit of the grape while the strolled - rather drunkenly - through the outskirts of the seaside town, paying no attention to the weather.
By chance they topped a narrow hill then fell away gently to the seashore. The huge grassed field had a lush green carpet dancing crazily in the stiff sea-breeze that kissed a Mediterranean-blue roaring sea for its horizon. To the left, a little stream flowed briskly beneath a wooden bridge, and two truncated elms with leafy lower branches bending in the wind, their trucks ringed with suckers.
The Med is unlike any other body of water in the world in that on most days it looks at ease with itself. Its surface smooth as glass, complemented normally by a cloudless sapphire sky. Not today. The sky was green. The clouds heavy and gray. The Med's surface was in torment with tops of the waves being knocked off by the strong wind. The waves hissed and clawed a the rocks below with white foam fingers.
"Hey, look boys, there's the Mighty Mux," said Mansen.
Paul Mansen looked at least ten years older than his actual age of thirty-seven. He had an unhealthy pallor, sallow skin, and dark, puffy bags under his pale gray eyes. His uniform failed to hide a spreading belly. He could easily be mistaken for a barroom drunk, or worse. He was from the East Texas oilfields and was the potentate of a straight shooter.
His three friends blinked the wine-film from the eyes and stared at the water rolling with anger. The horizon was threaded with lightning, the air peppered with the smell of brine, the surf brown and frothy with sand sliding back from the beach. The sea surged under Mullinnix’s hull. She was moving! Mullinnix was underway!! Shit!!!
Bull was the first to find his voice. Talking to no individual in particular, "We should have listen to the shore patrol. But hell no, we had to listen to your craziness."
As the only petty officer in the bunch, Benson was trying to figure out if he was supposed to be clueless, angry, or blameless. He couldn't seem to decide, so he took another swig.
"Like I always say, It's better to be wrong with wine than just wrong," said Stretch.
"Go to hell!" Adding, "Man, are we fucked or what?" added a dazed Benson.
"There goes our liberty for the rest of this fucking cruise!"
As every sailor knows, missing ship's movement was an inexcusable offense. They were probably indeed screwed, big time. Their only chance: the SPs that ordered them back to Mullinnix were from the Laffey. Maybe they could tell a convincing enough story at their imminent Captain's Mass to save their bacon. Just Maybe. Maybe...
To be continued...
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