Store Keeper's Last Voyage

Chapter 8
The next trip, we had already been upriver, and were on our way back, I was on the helm chugging downstream at a pretty good clip, moving with the tide going out, when all of a sudden I felt the boat start to slow down, like somebody had put the breaks on, and begin to rise up like we were going over a small swell at sea. I knew what it was right away, because it had happened before. We had hit a shallow spot in the river that was not there when we came upriver. Fear started to well up in my stomach as the boat was getting slower by the second, and if we stopped, we would be what you call, “Aground”, and we would be sitting ducks for the “VC” if we could not get ourselves off the mud in pretty quick order. It would not take them long to find us, and start firing rockets at us. Their favorite weapon was a B-40 Rocket, that would go through a steel bulkhead like it was not even there, and then explode inside throwing shrapnel all over the place. It was a hand held weapon that might have been called a “Bazooka” in the old days.
The blessing was, we had been moving pretty fast with the current and the tide going out, and we just slowly slid over the top of that mud bank, and chugged on down the river. I looked over at the Craft Master, and smiled, he said, “That was a close one, if you run this thing aground, I’ll shoot you right through the middle with that M-79 grenade launcher”, and I believed him.
Right away I started thinking, “Can I get to that M-79 before he does”? I had been in the Army, and had bayonet training, so if I could get to it first, I stood a chance. Of course he still had the .38 on the radio. The answer was no, he was closer to it than I was. So I decided that if we ran aground while I was on the Helm, I would go over the side, but of course I would probably be dead either way. Early that evening, after we anchored, I looked over the side, and the current was going pretty good out to sea. I had the Mid Watch, (Midnight to four in the morning), and part of my duty was to make sure we didn’t slip anchor and float out to sea.
About 1800 (6:00 o’clock), I went up to pilot house, and over on the starboard wing of the bridge, sat the Store Keeper, drinking from a bottle of whiskey, which I had never seen him do before. He was already pretty drunk, so I questioned him about the Craft Master, but he just said, “I don’t want to talk about it”, so I went down below and had a couple drinks myself, and went to bed. I had to be on watch by quarter to 12.
When I got up, I relieved the watch, took the .45 from the 8-12 watch, and strapped that on, picked up my 12ga shotgun, and went up to the 01 deck where I could walk fore & aft, and keep an eye on everything except the cargo passage ways, which I would go down and check every hour or so, at which time I would throw a concussion grenade over the side, in case there was a swimmer in the water. As far as I know there never was. The grenade would kill anything within 50ft of the boat. I used to think, “I wonder how many fish we are killing with these things”.
The next morning I was supposed to be able to sleep until 0700 because I had late watch, but about 0630, I woke to a commotion going on in the compartment where we all slept. It seems the Store Keeper had peed the bed, and had locked himself in the compartment below decks where he kept all his paper work, and would not come out. The Craft Master was calling him all kinds of foul names saying, “If you don't come out of there right now, I'm going to have your ass”, but he wouldn’t come out. The Craft master said, “When we get back to Saigon, put him and his gear on the dock. I don't ever want to see him again“. He stomped up the ladder and out of the compartment, and a short time later we got underway.
We never saw the Store Keeper again until we docked in Saigon. He came out of his hold with all his gear, and stood on the dock facing away from the boat. About 5 minutes later the truck from Naval Support Activity came and picked him up, and as far as I know, he never looked back at the boat once.

(To be continued)