This Month's Story
Stones would play inside her head,
And where she slept, they made her bed.
And she would ache for love and get
But stones.
Neil Diamond
We had just finished a rather difficult field experiment and we were celebrating!
Our celebrating was childish, it didn’t matter, we were happy. My phone calls to Washington had said that initial analysis of the daily data we had sent to our NASA/NOAH colleagues had conclusively proved our initial hypothesis was correct: i.e. the surface temperature of the ocean was directly related to the water temperature found at 100 meters (approx. 300 feet).
We were working in the seas of the Gulf of California at the southern tip of Baja California far from Washington. To ensure our results were scientifically sound, we had used a number of ways to collect our data: aircraft infrared sensors, disposable aircraft deep water buoys and four oceanographic research ships, each stationed at the four corners of our 100 mile research square. Each ship equipped with extensive sets of ocean data collectors.
Late in the evening I decided to check what the men were doing on the long pier that jetted out from the front of the hotel. As I walked I could hear the men singing, ‘Yo! Ho! Burn the man down”. As I neared them I became worried. Somehow someone of the small group of enlisted men had ignited one of the aircraft’s smoke buoys and placed it in the sand dangerously close to the pier.
The smoke generated by the buoys used burning phosphorous, the same ingredient that had started the fire Storms in WW2. I was worried someone could get seriously burned; nothing could extinguish a phosphorous fire except by cutting off its supply of oxygen.
As I neared the men on the pier, a rather large man stepped in front of me.
“I hear you’re the person in charge of all this!”
I said “Yeah” and started going around him. He blocked me, shoving a large hand on my chest.
“I’m the captain of the yacht out there and that thing of yours is pouring sooty smoke all over its side. The owner is coming down tomorrow and I want you to put it out and I mean put it out now!”
I looked out toward where he was pointing and saw that what he was saying was true; the smoke was pouring directly onto his boat, but what could I do? The buoy itself was dangerously hot and if the phosphorous should somehow spill on someone, we would have a dangerous burn injury on our hands.
“Look I don’t even know how to put it out. Let me talk to the men and we’ll get it safely moved. Give me a few minutes.”
“I’m not giving you a few minutes. I want you to put it out now, and I mean now!”
There was a woman with him and she told the sailors that were coming back along the pier to see what was going on. She yelled that her husband had a bad temper and they had better do as he said or there would be trouble. She kept repeating this again and again, emphasizing how mean he was when he got angry.
Meanwhile her husband was leaning over me and telling me to ‘put it out now!’ I was getting as angry at his aggressive attitude and finally told him what he could do with the burning buoy. When I said that, there was a loud explosion in my head. When I found myself lying on the wooden deck, I became aware that he had hit me with a sucker punch; a bad one. When I looked up, I saw that he was reaching down to grab my shirt so he could hit me again.
Well, he never got there.
When I got groggily to my feet using the nearby pier railing, I was greeted by an interesting sight. I should mention that that where we stood the pier was about eight feet above the water which in turn was less than three feet deep. Most importantly, the four sailors that had come back were easily as big as the yacht’s captain. Two of them had grabbed him and holding him upside down, was hanging him high above the dark water. He had became very still.
He had hit me pretty hard and I looked confused at the scene. I could see the woman was running, screaming to a small fishing shack at the end of the pier. The people in the shack let its wooden sunshade slam shut and turned off its lights. Near me, the men holding the upside down captain were looking at me.
“Say the word, Sir.”
Then I looked below and saw that the buoy was moving, its base wrapped by a heavy piece of canvas. One of the more sober sailors was carrying it, walking toward a more secluded part of the beach. I turned briefly to the sailors holding the captain and nodded to them. Still wobbly from the hit, I started hurriedly after the sailor with the burning buoy. I was frightened that if the man tripped and some of the burning phosphorous fell on him we would have a serious burn injury on our hands. Behind me, I heard a loud splash and soon running easily beside me singing obscene refrains of their silly song were the other sailors.
Let me stop here and say something. What was happening while interesting, is not really what this story is about.
Let me explain.
As I was running, I suddenly realized there was a young girl about eighteen or nineteen year’s old running with the men. Where had she come from? What was she doing with them? She wore a loose sheath; loose, but not so much as to hide her young figure? I had made it clear when we started the experiment, that the experiment came first; everything else that might bring problems to the experiment would stop. With her with us, we had something that could cause trouble. I slowed down motioning for everyone to do the same.
When we arrived at the point of the beach, we found our impromptu torch bearer had stopped and was digging a hole in the sand. I heaved a sigh of relief. He was unhurt as I realized he was busy burying the burning buoy’s base in the sand. Some of the men hurried forward to help him. Now that we were all together, I asked the small group who the girl was. A sailor patting the mound of sand around the burning buoy spoke Spanish. He turned and offered me what little he had been told by the people in the small fishing shack.
He said she was a deaf mute that had started hanging around the hotel kitchen about a month ago. The hotel staff had begun giving her a brief breakfast and supper and one of the storage rooms to sleep in. During the day, she had been sent down to the fishing shack to help the men there. Since the men there really didn’t know what to do with her, they had her empty the trash cans and keep the pier clean.
As he spoke, I watched her. As we stopped, she looked around at us and stopped as well. Then she did an amazing thing. She began turning in a small circle like a dog, and then settled down in the path made by her turning. Once down, she began intently watching the men talk and sing. Whenever they stopped and laughed, she would laugh as well. This, despite the obvious fact she understood nothing of what had caused the laughter.
There was a bottle of wine which was passed around, but she made a point of not drinking from it. We all began to relax and enjoy the evening. The fire burnt slowly (I think the buoys were supposed to burn for at least an hour), but the group settled down on its lee side and began telling sea stories of other years and old jokes that are always told at times like this.
In truth, it was an enjoyable time and under a mid-longitude star filled night sky; we slowly burnt away, the hard work we had been doing for the last two weeks.
Later, when the last flame was out, we buried the buoy deep in the sand and headed back to the hotel. The Spanish speaking sailor woke the sleeping girl and they joined as went back. Once there, he took her to the back of the hotel where the kitchens were. Later he knocked on my door and told me that all was well. The kitchen staff had been worried about her, especially the large women in charge. In seemed, everyone was glad to see her again and there were hugs and laughter all around.
He gave a big smile when he told me this. “I think they’ve adopted her.”
At breakfast the next day, I went back to the kitchen asked about the girl. They indicated she was down by the pier. Looking down, I could make her out moving near the shed. Realizing I would never see her again, I gave the women in charge some money and asked her to hold it for the girl. There was little more that I could do and I returned to the men eating breakfast.
One last thing, we did see the yacht’s captain at breakfast. He wore a bandage on the left side of his head and his left arm was in a sling. My jaw still hurt from where he had hit me, so I didn’t feel too sorry for him. I noticed he avoided us. When I looked to the yacht, I could see some of the crew cleaning the black soot from the side of the boat.
Later when we boarded our planes and took off, we relaxed on the metal deck and slept the hours away till we arrived at the east coast Naval Air Station where our families were waiting to take us home. It had been a good trip.
* * *
All of this took place many years ago, but in the dark of the night, I find myself still remembering the strange girl and wonder what happened to her. I wish her well.
