Burial at Sea

It was a sad day among most of the members of the ET Gang.  It was late September and the USS Intrepid (CVS-11) was back from another Western Pacific cruise. It had been my home for about three years.  I was a 3rd Class Electronics Technician and a part of the Electronics Technician Gang.  We maintained all electronic radar and communication equipment on the forty-two thousand ton aircraft carrier. Some of my shipmates would become friends for life. There were some pretty smart boys in the  Electronics Division.
Some were college drop-outs or just plain smart.  But I didn't fit into either category.  Over long periods at sea men can sometimes develop hobbies out of boredom. The sailors on whaling ships of old were famous for scrimshaw. But today hobbies were of a different kind. Many would create vast collections of recorded music on expensive tape recorders in a pre-digital age. Others would create electronic gadgets. One made a homemade lava lamp. And yes one of my shipmates had a pet. Pets are frowned on by the Navy brass. I had once been on a ship that had a beagle for a pet. It was the secret everyone knew about. But there was no dog on the good ship Intrepid. However, there was this kid in our division that did have a pet. I say "kid".  I think I had the right.  I was twenty-three at the time. Richardson* was what was known as a "kiddie cruiser".  If you joined the Navy at seventeen, you enlistment was up before you turned twenty-one. He looked the part too.  He was tall with a mop of very black hair and perpetual smile on his face. He was gangly though not skinny and rather quiet. He worked with another tech on UHF gear. (Our division was divided in to "gang" according to what equipment they maintained.) The ultra high frequency communication equipment was in fairly discrete space that if you didn't know where it was you would not find it.  These techs for this equipment practically lived in this space.  Since the space was hard to find and Richardson and his buddy weren't the most popular sailors in the Division few people knew of Richardson's pet. I once overheard Richardson ask hs buddy Slovak if he had fed Ferdie. After seemingly days of pestering Richardson, he finally admitted that he had a pet on board.  I was hoping it was not a snake. We had recently dropped anchor in Singapore and some sailors had brought snakes aboard.

"Is it a python?" I asked.

"No, nothing like that,"  he answered with his usual smile, "Come on, let's go!"

I followed him through the passageways through hatches an up several levels to the UHF space. It was a very small space located high in the island structure of the ship. On one side was a bank of electronic communication equipment. The indicator lights of green, amber and blue blinked or glowed.  On the opposite wall was a counter space used for a workbench.  There were two barstools there also. On the wall was that famous Farrah Fawcett poster of her in the orange swimsuit. The space was air conditioned unlike our berthing spaces.  Electronic equipment had priority over the human crew.

"So where your famous pet?" I asked, still expecting a snake.  I don't like snakes.

"He's right over there," Richardson said pointing to the workbench. 

"Where?" I saw nothing.

"There, On the bench.  In the jar," he said.

Near the wall at the back of the workbench beside an oscilloscope was a jar with a transparent liquid. It was one of those large jars like the kind pickled eggs inhabit at local watering holes. There was movement in the jar. I moved closer. I could finally make out a small fish.

"That's Ferdie!" And he's almost swam around the world, " Richardson said and added, "Maybe he can get a certificate too!  He came aboard at Norfolk, you know."

This was the Intrepid's last cruise before a lengthy shipyard period in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for extensive repairs. This last cruise was a circumnavigation of the globe. It was a great cruise. Ports of call were Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Subic Bay, P.I., Hong Kong, Singapore, Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan,  Sydney, Australia, and Wellington, New Zealand.  All sailors would receive a large certificate verifying their membership in the Loyal Order of Magellan.

" I don't know, Richie. We'll see what the Chief says. We may have to com-sha one and I could letter it for you," I said, "Thanks for letting me in on your secret."

In a week we would be home. Our families would be waiting on the pier for us.

The sea is sometimes placid spread like a sheet of glass as far as the eye can ssee. But there are places at sea where that is never the case. Terra del Feuga is one of those places. That particular point at which the two great oceans meet south of the continent of South America. We saw high seas and snow there. But closer to home there was another unwelcome body of water. There is a reason the sea off Cape Hatteras is called "the graveyard of ships". Many a seafarer has met his doom there. Our passage would be no different. After a few months at sea, you learned how to adapt to rough seas. If it was extremely rough, everything that was not fastened down was lashed down. When eating in the galley, you held on to your tray with one hand or it would hit the deck. But it was not quite that rough at the Cape. But it was bad for one sailor's pet.
As the ship rolled to starboard, Ferdie's habitat fell to the deck and shattered. As the life sustaining liquid dissipated he gasped for the life giving liquid. With a final flick of his luxurious fins he was gone.
His funeral was a rather simple event. A match box served as a coffin. I drew an American flag on a napkin to drape across it. The three of us committed his body to the sea off the fantail. Richie mumbled some words from Heinlein's "Glory Road".

The next day we met our friends and families. But we would always remember, Ferdie, the black moor who almost swam around the world.