1 Naval Communications

 

There's No Life Like It (part 1) – Naval Communications

We lived in a kind of ‘twilight zone’ of marriage. To my civilian friends it seemed a bit surreal. It was a life that allowed for each of us to grow as two independent people during deployments, one with her feet firmly planted on the ground and the other with his feet carrying him through the ship’s engineering spaces. But, when the fleet came home, we were one inseparable couple. Back in the seventies handwritten letters were our only means of communication, and my heart would leap when I saw the familiar handwriting waiting in the mailbox.  We wrote to each other often, but the letters would sometimes not arrive until after the ships had returned home. One letter I received was in beautiful calligraphy. It must have taken hours to write, each character carefully crafted just for me. During deployments we never spoke in person because the ship to shore radio was only for naval communications. I imagine it was also used for emergencies.

I don’t know because, thankfully, I never had an emergency.

What I did whilst he was away on the South America NATO trip could not really have been called an emergency; life-changing definitely, but not an emergency.

What I did was that I moved house.  Long after the ships set sail, our name had come to the top of the married quarters waiting list. I had forgotten we were even on the list because it had been over a year since we applied. Up until then we had made all our big decisions together so when base housing called and said they had a place for us I only paid lip service to the call. Out of courtesy I picked up the keys to take a look. Of course, we weren’t going to take the house. My husband was seven thousand miles away somewhere in the huge Pacific Ocean.

But when I saw the house, my heart leapt. It was the cutest little doll house, standing by itself amongst long boring standard-issue row houses. There was a window in the attic that looked out to see, where I could watch the ships leaving and returning. It was perfect. So perfect that I said yes straight away to the base housing manager. I signed the form. I took a huge breath in. And then it hit me – how could I tell my husband that when he came home, he should not come home to where he thought he lived because he didn’t live there anymore?

Thinking this through, I couldn’t stop chuckling. It was quite hilarious really. But it was also just a little bit of a serious problem too. The solution turned out to be quite easy, for me. I heard that a padre was flying down to meet the ships when they docked at their next top-secret port, (Cartagena, it turned out). I phoned the padre but, for some reason, he did not want to take the responsibility of delivering the message above. You know the one that when my husband comes home he should not come to where he thought he lived. Padres did not to act as go-betweens in the personal affairs of married couples. Instead, when the ship docked in Cartagena, my husband received a message from the padre that simply said he should phone home.

Of course, naval ships do not dock in public spaces and the nearest pay phone turned out to be five miles away. Apparently, Cartagena, being close to the equator, is quite a warm place in which to have to walk five miles. But gosh it was lovely to hear the deep familiar voice. And once my husband cooled down a little, I think he was happy to hear my voice too.