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to Vice Admiral Haydens, the commander of the task force of which DD722 was a part, announcing that the Ebersole had been attacked by an enemy patrol boat, which was sunk in the subsequent exchange of gunfire. By breakfast time a sailor who had been a tattoo artist in civilian life was putting the notch in the pistol grip — painting the silhouette of a sinking patrol boat on the side of Mount 51. And Jones was hunched over a portable typewriter recommending himself for the silver star, the nation’s third highest military decoration. (In the war zone the medal was handed out on a quota basis; shortly after the Ebersole arrived on Yankee Station it received a routine dispatch from Admiral Haydens soliciting recommendations from the destroyer force. Haydens was bucking to become Chief of Naval Operations and he was only too happy to give out the medals, since that made him look good.) The final version, which the XO and Lustig signed and submitted later that day, contained such phrases as “setting a resolute example of gallantry” and “conspicuous disregard for his personal safety.”
    Lustig carried the recommendation to the radio shack for transmission to the aircraft carrier. As he left Ohm buttonholed him in the passageway.
    “Congratulations,” he said, handing Lustig fifty-five one-dollar bills. “Lucky thirteen won the pool.”

    Angry Pettis Spots a White Radish in the Water
    Moments before the bo’s’n’s mate piped lunch, while the ship’s yeoman was running off a special edition of the Ebersole Eagle with the text of Admiral Haydens’ congratulatory telegram in it, Angry Pettis spotted a huge white radish floating past the ship.
    “Hey Mista Moore,” he yelled to the Officer of the Deck, “lookee here — there’s a white radish in the water. Let’s pick it up and put it on the menu.”
    It wasn’t a radish but a dead body floating face down, bloated and chalk white from being in the water.
    “Put the longboat in and see if it’s Oriental or Caucasian,” Jones ordered when Moore called down with word of what they had found. “If it’s Oriental, log it and leave it; if it’s Caucasian, retrieve it.”
    “Longboat away,” Ohm growled into the public address system. Wallowitch, who was the longboat officer, took his place in the bow and directed the helmsman toward the body.
    “We’ll have to turn it face up,” Wallowitch said when they got there. “Pass me the boat hook.”
    The Shrink reached down with the boat hook and tried to flip the body over, but the dull brass point of the hook punctured the carcass and tore it open like soggy tissue paper. Wallowitch turned his head away and vomited. The sailors in the longboat finally managed to wedge the body against the side and turn it over, but they couldn’t tell if it was Caucasian or Oriental because it had no face.
    Stumbling back on board the Ebersole , Wallowitch was shivering and shaken. “I didn’t mean to hurt it,” he said softly. “I swear to God I didn’t mean to hurt it.” And hevomited again and again and again until there was nothing left inside him to throw up.
    The Shrink’s well of humor had run dry.
    The Captain Convenes a War Council
    “We all hate violence, me as much as any man in this wardroom,” Captain Jones began. Gripping the back of the chair at the head of the table with his thick fingers, rocking rhythmically on the balls of his spit-shined Adlers, the commanding officer of the Ebersole warmed to his subject. He was a good public speaker, casual and forceful at the same time, careful to let his normally monotone voice roam back and forth across half an octave, generous in his use of pauses.
    “Reread your history books, gentlemen,” Captain Jones went on, nodding his head and raising an eyebrow to indicate he was making an important point. “Irregardless of what these effete journalists would have us believe, the essence of the American tradition is a healthy distaste for violence. But somewhere