Sea King

By J. P. Linstroth

It shook under him, a kind of vibrating jostling, shaking to the bones, 
            he could feel the carriage of the helicopter under him, as if a horse under him
                        riding above the waves their steely glint in the Mediterranean sun
                                                 he trained his eyes on the horizon as did the rest of
                                                               Squadron V likewise, 
                                                                           mostly flying in quintet

The Russians were always beyond the horizon
           sometimes visible, sometimes not, most often not
                 it was tedious but he was good at it too
                              his payload was torpedoes, sometimes depth chargers
                                          his squadron could blow them out of the water on
                                                      command

They were marauders, raiders—like cowboys at sea riding faithful steeds, like Vikings
           on the waves, they rode out onto the horizon, every day from the carrier, his
                      Sea King, his Sikorsky (SH-3),
                                   helo 53

At times it was terrifying, riding out over the waves below and that great expanse of
           ocean the great sea changed, every day different, glinting steel at times, watchet
                      at others, violet at others, turquoise, ultramarine, teal at times, slate and
                                   smalt and navy, sometimes sapphire and jade, purpureal,
                                               plumbeous, and perse too

And yet beyond the azure where sky met wave, there was always the mission
           scanning the horizon for the impossible, for the submarine periscopes, literal
                       black-needles, in the azure beyond, and there was the shimmery haze
                                   in that blue expanse, hiding ebony phantasmagoric shadows in
                                               the beyond in the heat of the summer day at high noon, 

Straining the eyes in such a way as to bring on migraines, training the eyes for the
             miniscule protuberances above waves, a miniature projection like an ant’s
                         antennae and yet flying at night in the ebony expanse had a completely
                                      different feel, especially under a full-moon, its white orb
                                                 dominating the vast emptiness of sea and pitch-coal 

Sky with the great moon disc like a silver coin shining silver and argent over fathomless
            ocean and thalassic mar he felt his Squadron V to be like wolves he imagined
                       himself chasing down a lone elk in a wintery scape, running across deep
                                    snow, tiring the wapiti

Its hoofing snow clumps in panic and yet, those runs across the sea at night were
            mostly futile

On other missions, he picked up Apollo and Gemini oceanic landings, 
           the conical-silver capsules having splashed down in the azure, and his squadron
                      tasked with rescuing the astronauts at those times, he carried frogmen
                                 and looked for the buoying silver-glimmerings on the horizon,

Like barely perceptible mirror flashes and the orange balloon-floaters, allowing the
           capsules to stay afloat 
                       and he had to keep helicopter steady over the conical-silver
                                   capsule, the rotors blasting air into the water,

Sweeping the water in such a way as to create rotor waves and the frogmen would
           jump in and made certain the astronauts made their way safely to
                      the helo-hoist

***
And yet for me as a child, I wanted to know this helicopter pilot
And yet when I was a boy, my father had long retired from helicoptering
Even so, I watched my father, intensely
Even then, I was an observer

At five, he looked like a giant             
            It was then, I started to learn to read, and write my letters
                        Working in a red composition booklet

On one occasion, most likely a Saturday, I remember looking up at my dad
           I saw him above me as a kind of giant, laughing, jovial, joking with friends
                       He had kind of Elvis-side burns and he wore bell-bottom pants,
                                    There was something Hollywood about him then

I watched him crack a beer, the silver-pull-tab type, the red-silver can
           white-foaming around the top of the can as the silver-tab pulled off

I remember looking up at him and I wanted to reach my arms heavenward
             and I wanted his attention, looking upward at his grinning and laughing white-
                           teeth and I wanted him to pull me up and carry me around 
                                        and show me off to his friends 
                                                    but he didn’t

So, I just looked upward at him, a face in the sun, laughing, and
             grinning and happy with his beer, 
                         telling jokes

****

J. P. Linstroth has a PhD (D.Phil.) in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford, UK with several awards for his research. He is the author of several books, two of which won prizes. His father was a naval intelligence officer who flew helicopters off aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean hunting down Russian submarines and picking up astronauts from the Apollo and Gemini missions for the United States Navy during the Vietnam era. Linstroth’s Swimming in Blue Shadows can be purchased on Amazon.