Death of a Wooden Shoe - U.S. Coast Guard

The old man stayed in the pilot house while Guns and I dashed forward across
the deck and up the ladder to the gun deck. Guns whispered to me that he was
not sure if the gun still had recoil fluid in it.
"What if it doesn’t?" I ask.
"If it hasn’t, we’re gonna get blown off this goddam deck!" he says. I helped him
load the cannon and slammed the big gun shut.
"Okay," says Guns, "go ahead."
"Go ahead with what?" I ask.
"Fire the fuckin’ thing!!" he blurts.
"Up your fantail!" I counter. "You’re the Gunner’s Mate, not me!"
Guns quietly and smilingly cursed me. I stepped back as far as I could possibly
go without falling off the gun deck. Guns gets himself in position alongside the
blunderbuss. The scrubby, rusty old hunk of iron has a curved shoulder brace
and Owens fits his shoulder into it. The aiming apparatus is even more archaic.
One has to align two separate cross wires with the right eye and also the spot
being aimed at. Since the Nanok was on a gentle sea-swell roll, I felt that hitting
even a battleship would be like trying to hit a running mouse in the ass with a
sling shot.
Guns took aim, closed his eyes, held his breath and squeezed the trigger. There
was a colossal ‘Boom!!!’ that I am sure encircled the earth and came back to
echo and re-echo off bergs and distant mountains. Up off the gun deck went
Guns and me propelled by heavy marine plywood decking that had torn loose
and popped us about a foot in the air! The ‘boom’ was so loud it seemed as
though someone had fired into my left ear through my right ear! Thank God there
was recoil fluid in the gun!
In the shortest period of time ever recorded, the deck was filled with the Nanok's
entire crew. The faces looked sleepy but the eyes bulged, and everyone wore
electrified hair. Maggie thought it was "jolly good fun." He was the only one who
seemed to think so. Most of the crew were barefoot and in long underwear. A few
were wearing their ‘Mae West’ life jackets. All wanted to know where the enemy
was. Guns pointed toward the captain in the pilot house. Dicastro appeared
furious but wisely made no comment. Neither did Chiefs McClay or Talledo.
Bos’n Robbins just stood muttering, clenching and unclenching his fists. Although
there were always signs that Maggie had a weird sense of humor, no one now
had any doubt.
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