Chapter 1

Chief Petty Officer Eddie Nolan was on his way to the land of his dreams: Australia. His ship had been selected to join a battle group heading south. Enroute, Eddie’s ship had crossed the equator and he had survived the ancient tradition of the Shellback initiation, something he had despaired of ever experiencing, given that his twenty years in the Navy would be completed within the year. Having dreamed of setting foot on the Australian continent since he was a teen, he considered it a fitting conclusion to his naval career. Sharing the trip was his best friend, Al Tory, the ships’ medical authority, a Chief Hospital Corpsman. The two chiefs, who frequently went ‘on the beach’ together, had already enjoyed several prurient escapades, and were looking forward to more of the same in the Land Down Under. In addition to Australia, the ship would be visiting New Zealand and a couple of the island groups on their return north.

Along with Al, Eddie had welcomed a surprising new member of the crew: his estranged son, Edward Franklin, son of Gloria, his teenage love interest. Edward was now a Third-Class Petty Officer. Eddie knew of Edward, but had only seen him twice, the last being the boys’ high school graduation two years previous. Another man had raised him, and Eddie, in speaking with the ships’ newest crewmember, was surprised his son knew the truth about the relationship between himself and the boys’ own mother. The two had talked at length and agreed to reveal to the crew their real relationship, to put to bed any scuttlebutt due to their close resemblance to each other.

Eddie’s ship and crew started south in May, which would be the Southern Hemisphere’s late summer, early Fall. Prior to making their first port visit in Australia, the ship would be making a short, one day stop in Port Moresby, in Papua/New Guinea. This was a diplomatic stop, letting the top officers aboard glad-hand a few government officials. If you were in a liberty status, you could go ashore, but for a sailor, there wasn’t much there. Eddie did enjoy the architecture of the Parliament House, with all its exquisite craftsmanship displaying the many exotic hardwoods from the surrounding jungles, but the small city couldn’t accommodate even the small crew of Eddie’s ship – in other words, there weren’t enough bars and hookers, and the ones available had all the facial tattooing and beading work native to the culture. Not all that attractive to a horny sailor! None-to-soon, it was underway once more.

The ships’ first Australian port visit was to Cairns (pronounced locally as ‘Cans’) in Queensland, which is a subtropical area close to the Great Barrier Reef. Eddie saw the sights; he did not have a woman. What he did experience was a tour to a wildlife refuge. There, he saw some of the indigenous animals he had always been fascinated with. He watched a crocodile wrangler and saw wombats, koalas, kookaburras, and the Cassowary bird, which he was surprised to see perched in a tree, since they are such a large bird. Something Eddie found charming was for a group off his ship to walk into a store in their civvies, completely invisible to everyone, until they opened their mouths. Then, due to their American, or Yank accent, they received all kinds of looks, good and bad. The same happens in the U.S. when visitors from other countries exhibit their accents. Australia was a real positive experience for American sailors, after being shunned in many countries, including their own.

While in Cairns, the ship offered tours for the inhabitants of the area to be shown what a U.S. warship looked like. On one of the tour days, Eddie was OOD during the day, and he was dressed in his tropical white uniform. It was humid and he tried to be comfortable. Since it was cloudy, they had not rigged a canopy over the quarterdeck. In the middle of the organized tours, it began to rain, and Eddie became drenched, as he had to be at the brow to bid visitors welcome and bid departing guests’ farewell. While performing this duty, he encountered his son, DS3 Franklin escorting a somewhat attractive, and well-built young woman across the brow. Although Edward was wearing civilian clothes, he still performed the formal request to come aboard. Once on board, and awaiting the next organized tour, Eddie’s son introduced his date to his dad. He actually said: