Travel

In The Maw of an Aircraft Carrier

T. SHER SINGH

My plate was full in 1985.

I had just started practicing as a litigation lawyer. I had only recently taken on responsibilities as a single parent. And, on top of everything else, the daily news brought painful stories of atrocities against my co-religionists in India, the land of my birth.

I needed to get away from it all for a couple of weeks.

So, I fled from our winter to hot and sunny Nassau in the Bahamas, and parked myself in a resort on the south-ocean beach with a stack of books by my side.

During the day I would work at replenishing my tan. In the evenings, I would take the bus into town to take in the sights, sounds and smells, and the nightly Goombay festivities.

One afternoon, I noticed something new on the horizon, way out in the ocean, as we drove into Nassau.

It was an American aircraft carrier visiting the area for a few days. Walking around the waterfront, I came across a wharf flying the Stars and Stripes and, on a whim, asked a sentry guarding a launch if one could visit the ship for a tour.

“Of course not,” was the curt reply. A voice from within the motor launch piped up: “Unless a crew member invites you on board!“

Fat chance I had, a total stranger, of being invited by any of the sailors. They had  better things to do. I forgot about it.

A couple of days later, back in town, I was standing in a cashier’s line in a supermarket, waiting my turn. I had a bulky, unmarked brown bag resting on one arm.

I turned around and saw a sailor -- from the American ship, I could see, from the name emblazoned on his cap! -- standing right behind me. Brashly and half in jest, I asked him if he’d care to take me back to the aircraft carrier as his guest and give me a tour.

He instantly burst into a smile and a drawl, in as spontaneous a fashion as only an American can: “Sho … but ya’al haf ta wait a bit whaal I finish cuppla chores.”

Before long, we were on the dock, boarding a motor-boat that would take us five miles into the sea, to the ship. I offered to leave my heavy brown bag behind on shore.

“Naw,” he said, “Jest tek it with ya.”

In less than a hour, we were on the landing area of the ship. My host introduced me as his guest. Somebody handed me a visitor’s pass. I offered to leave my brown bag at the desk. Naw, I was told, bring it with ya.

I followed my friend up the vertical ladder to the deck above, then more up and down through dark and labyrinthine corridors, over bridges and under pipes, all the way into the bowels of a … well, a city. Of metal.

Finally, after an eternity, as the hum and heart-beat-like pulse grew louder, we arrived in a vast glass-enclosed area. Computers, panels and screens, gizmos galore, and blinking lights everywhere.

This is the control room, the heart and brain of the ship, he announced. He beamed and spread his arms out and swept them across: “It’s my baby.”

He motioned me to leave my brown bag on a chair in his glass-bubble cubicle which seemed to preside over the entire scene. I offered to show him what was in my bag -- I thought he might like its contents -- but he was in a hurry. He was anxious to show me his ship.

He motioned me to follow and then scurried away into a warren like Lewis Carroll’s rabbit, and I ran after him, Alice-like, trying to keep up with his pace.

The next three hours were a journey through a world which would’ve fitted well in science fiction. Cold, grey, shiny, odd-shaped metal everywhere. Elevators. Hangars. Cranes. Lifts. Strange looking vehicles whizzing past in muffled whirrs.

Huge dumpsters, hundreds of them. Bombs lying in them like Mattel toys. Missiles of every size and shape stacked up on giant scaffolds that rose into the shadows above.

He leans over: “We’ve gaat nuclear capability, ya know.” And winks.

Radar dishes the size of harvest moons. Antennae. Jets with wings folded over like bats. An aircraft wearing a huge flat-dish like a beret. Launchers. Catapults. Jet blast deflectors.

Cameras. Control towers. The Bridge. Runaways that go as far as I can see.

I start worrying about my brown bag back in the control room. What if someone spots it? And wonders what’s in it. Calls the bomb squad or something. These people, though friendly, are wide-eyed happy and look less and less rational to me, as my host lovingly passes his hands from metal to metal. He is bubbling like a child let loose in Toys ’R Us.

I’ve had enough. I’m tired, I say.

We head back to the landing area. I hand in my ID card.

I suddenly remember: My brown bag! I can’t leave it behind. These fellas will go berserk if somebody comes across it later, smack in the middle of the control room.

We rush back through tunnels and up ladders and over bridges. I retrieve the bag.

I’m back in time to catch the last boat back to shore.

I clutch my brown bag tightly. I don’t even peek into it until I’m on the bus, well on the way back to the south-ocean beach. I open it. Yes, my mangoes are safe.

I toss all night long. All that hardware. Menacing and lethal. So much trust of a total stranger.

The potential for a disaster is my recurring nightmare.   

March 18, 2013

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