Chapter 21
“Sleep well?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer before beckoning us to follow him out the hotel’s front doors and onto the Via Amendola.
We stuck to the lungomare, which wrapped around the wharf and opened onto a gracious piazza that I’d seen the night before but somehow hadn’t fully appreciated.
“This is Piazza Comando,” said Tom. “But nobody calls it that.”
“What do they call it?” I asked.
He laughed. “Nothing, really.”
On the far side of this larger, less intimate piazza was a traffic circle with a huge anchor stationed in the center of it. “Is that us?” Paul asked.
“Nah,” said Tom. “It’s a memorial to the sailors Italy’s lost at sea. That building on the other side is the Italian Admiralty.”
The two had moved on, but all I could do was stare at that anchor.
There was talk in Charleston of putting together some kind of memorial to the boys who’d died in Vietnam.
My dad had gone to a couple of town halls where the subject had been raised, and he’d come home from one so hot and bothered that he’d pulled out my typewriter and written a letter to Senator Strom Thurmond, saying how it wouldn’t be fair for whatever got built to wind up in Columbia when the Lowcountry had sacrificed so many of her sons.
Tom pointed down the Via Ammiraglio Carlo Mirabello, which disappeared behind a stately two-story building. “Italian navy’s barracks are down that way, and see that pier?”
A bunch of recreational boats were moored in the harbor, and at first I thought he meant those.
“No, no. Beyond all that stuff. Down by that little building.”
We nodded.
“Shore Patrol’s got offices down there. And that’s where you catch the liberty boat to Santo Stefano.”
I had read somewhere that there was a small commissary and an even smaller Navy Exchange, the U.S. Navy’s answer to KMart, on Santo Stefano, but it still struck me as insane that I’d have to board a boat every time I wanted to go grocery shopping. Wouldn’t ice cream melt before I could get it home?
“Once we get your paperwork sorted out, we’ll catch a ride over there, and I’ll get you introduced to everyone,” said Tom, and I wondered if he meant both of us or just Paul.
Tom led us across the street and away from the water where the Via Principe Amedeo wound its way up a small hill.
While we walked, I was tempted to bring up the flyer we’d seen the previous evening, but before I could say anything, Tom stopped in front of a small guardhouse and did an about-face. “Welcome to NSA La Maddalena.”
The only navy base I’d ever been on was Joint Base Charleston, which operated like its own city—complete with residential neighborhoods, schools, a hospital, and even a golf course. The base was so big that when you looked at a map of North Charleston, it was all you saw.
NSA La Maddalena, on the other hand, was a small compound—maybe five or six buildings on a piece of property the size of a Piggly Wiggly parking lot. The whole complex was set into a hillside, and the backside of the property was just a long rockface of exposed granite.
Paul had told me that NSA stood for Naval Support Activity, which I would soon learn was not to be confused with acronyms like NB, NAVSTA, and NAS.
Most navy bases were—for whatever reason—called stations, and if the navy flew planes out of them, they got to be air stations.
NSA La Maddalena existed only to provide operational support to the Gilmore, so we were not to call this outpost, in the middle of the Mediterranean, a base.
The word implied permanence and maybe even the buildup of troops, and when the U.S.
had cajoled Italy into allowing them to moor a submarine tender on Santo Stefano, they had sworn up and down that there would be none of that.
We stopped at the guardhouse, but no one was checking IDs. There wasn’t even a real gate. Just a seaman named Hollingsworth, who was even younger than I was, greeting people as they sauntered past.
Tom introduced Paul but didn’t bother with me. “This is my replacement, Lieutenant Paul Archer. Just got in yesterday.”
Hollingsworth gave Paul a salute, and when Paul saluted him back, Tom made some crack about how Paul was already showing him up, and all three men laughed.
“Welcome to the Rock,” said Hollingsworth.
“Is that what they call La Madd?” said Paul.
“Yes, sir.”
“Like Alcatraz.”
“But with better beaches,” said Hollingsworth. “And much better food.”
“I’ll say,” said Tom before turning to us. “I’ll give you the tour.”
There wasn’t much to see. A three-story stuccoed building, which housed the supply and contracting offices, sat at the compound’s entrance, next to the guardhouse.
In another building was the chaplain’s office, a nursery, and the Personal Property Office, which Tom told us was where we’d go when we had found a place to live and were ready to arrange for the delivery of our household goods.
“There’s also a lending closet in there. ”
“What’s a lending closet?” I asked.
“Pots, pans, that type of thing. Stuff you can borrow while you’re waiting on your temporary household goods to arrive.”
On the far side of the compound was a one-story building that Tom said served double duty as both a chapel and a movie theater. Public Works was located in a Quonset hut behind the movie theater, and there was an empty building that Tom said he’d heard was going to be turned into a rec center.
“There’s nothing here now?” Paul asked as he eyed a bare-bones playground in the middle of a small patch of grass.
“There’s a gym and a bowling alley over on Santo Stefano. But this will be better for dependents.”
We’d circled the compound and arrived back where we started, in front of an administrative building. “Bursar’s in here,” Tom said as he held open the door.
On a bulletin board in the hall were several notices typed up on blue paper.
I peered at one and realized it was a job listing.
The Supply Office was looking for a secretary, and for a second, my pulse quickened.
I could be a secretary. I scanned the qualifications—excellent organizational skills, strong command of spelling and grammar, ability to type eighty words a minute.
I couldn’t type that fast, but only because I had never bothered to practice.
I was about to say something to Paul when I read the last line of the job description and the wind went out of my sails.
Preference will be given to applicants who speak Italian and English.
Tom had seen me reading the notice and circled back to peruse a few of the other ones. “You hoping to work while you’re here?”
Before I got a chance to say anything, Paul answered for me: “Probably not, right?”
I’d always had a job, even in high school, so hearing him say this surprised me. “I don’t know,” I said. “I might want to.”
“Well, this is the Personnel Office, if you decide to look for something,” said Tom. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They like to hire locals when they can.”
“Because they speak Italian?”
“That,” he said. “And I think they figure it’ll be harder to send us packing if we’re employing half the island.”