Confessions of a Drunken Coastie, Part 10
Editor’s Note: From 1988 until 1991, Crash Barry — then known as “Egg” — served as a sailor in the U.S. Coast Guard aboard a 210-foot-long ship that patrolled from the Gulf of Maine to the Caribbean. This is the tenth of his true stories about fighting the War on Drugs and the War on Haitian Refugees.
“We’ve got a Haitian sailboat,” D-Man proclaimed when I returned to the bridge after making a round of the ship. “A mile off the port bow.”
We were 40 miles north of the Windward Passage, the strait between Cuba and Hispaniola. So far, our month-and-a-half-long patrol had failed to yield a single drug bust or refugee interdiction, despite countless boardings and the ongoing exodus of Haitians sailing for America in search of employment as migrant farm workers. Until now.
Following Coast Guard policy, the Tumultuous’ crew prepared to bring the refugees aboard in order to repatriate them to Port-au-Prince. As the cooks prepared huge pots of beans and rice, the deckies broke out the scratchy wool blankets stored below deck, to be used as bedding for our guests. Then we lowered the ship’s two small boats and spent the next couple hours ferrying the refugees off their 50-foot-long vessel, which was packed from stem to stern. Once they were all aboard the Tumultuous, we herded them to the foc’sle for registration and a head count. The total: 178 adults and a half dozen children.
Now the empty sailboat was adrift, an unmanned hazard to navigation, in the sparkling blue sea off our starboard quarter. We couldn’t spare the time to tow the boat ashore, so the skipper assembled his inner circle to get suggestions on how to destroy the vessel.
“If we tow it backwards, it’ll flip and sink,” the First Lieutenant offered. “That’s why you never tow a boat from the stern.”
The Captain took the advice and issued the order. One end of a hawser was tied to a cleat on the Haitian vessel’s fantail. The other end was attached to the tow bit on the stern of the speedier of our ship’s two small boats.
“This is guar-an-teed to be hilarious,” Staples drawled as we watched from the flight deck. “Just another one of the First Louie’s stupid ideas.”
Our small boat circled the Tumultuous several times, faster and faster, but to no avail. The Haitian craft was well built and seaworthy, with too much beam to capsize. Eventually, the Captain gave up. Shaking his head, he ordered the boat’s crew to untie the hawser and return to ship.
“Gunners Mate to the bridge,” the loudspeaker squawked, a minute later. “Gunners Mate to the bridge.”
“Uh-oh,” said Staples. “What kinda cotton-pickin’ scheme is the skipper gonna try now?”
We soon found out. The M-50 and the M-60 machine guns mounted on the bridge wing were uncovered and loaded. Without warning the crew or the Haitians on the bow, the Captain gave the command to fire and the gunners did as told. First, a hundred rounds with the M-50, then another hundred with the M-60. The bullets pierced the sailboat’s hull dozens and dozens of times, above and below the waterline, but it continued to float like nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, on the foc’sle, the situation was tense. The gunfire had scared the crowd. The translators were busy assuring our passengers they wouldn’t be harmed. The refugees eventually relaxed. Many of them watched as four sailors and I tried to rig a huge blue tarp between the three-inch 50 canon and the gunwales to serve as an awning.
“Lucky it ain’t windy,” Staples said. “Otherwise, this tarp would be long gone.”
“Yeah.” D-Man nodded and spit tobacco juice overboard. “At least now we got something for shade.” He wiped his forehead. “’Cause I’m sweating my ass off.”
“What the…” Staples yelped and pointed. The Tumultuous was gaining speed and heading straight for the Haitian vessel bobbing innocently in its path, looking like a toy. “We’re gonna ram her.”
I looked over the side just in time to witness the collision. The Haitian wood was no match for our steel hull. The sailboat split in two. As the Tumultuous came about, the halves went down, disappearing below the surface, gone forever. From the bridge, a cheer went up.
“Wow,” D-Man said. “That was friggin’ crazy.”
“What a durn shame.” Staples shook his head. “That was a helluva tough boat.”
•••
The next morning, after breakfast, I returned to the foc’sle to check in with one of my new Haitian pals, a fella about my age who spoke English with a lilting patois. We stood by the round cover of a ventilation hood and talked. Each refugee, he told me, paid the boat’s owner $2,500 to secure a spot aboard the vessel for the 600-mile sail. The goal was to earn enough cash picking produce in America to send home, so another family member could make the same trip.
“But you didn’t make it to America.” I frowned. “What happens now?”
He shrugged.
“Is there any way to get your money back?”
“No.” He rolled his eyes. “Not a chance.”
“Man, that sucks,” I said, and pounded the hood. It resounded like a drum. “Friggin’ sucks.”
“Yeah,” he replied, and banged the hood himself. Then he did it again, and again, making a rhythm.
“Get up, stand up,” I said softly. He repeated the beat and I repeated, a little louder, “Get up, stand up.”
My pal grinned and called out to a couple of his buddies, then drummed again.
“Get up! Stand up!” I sang, as his friends came over. “Stand up for your rights!”
One of my pal’s buddies joined him to tap out the beat while the other joined me, singing, “Get up, stand up! Don’t give up the fight!”
We were all smiling, almost groovin’, singing the song Bob Marley wrote for Haitians 15 years earlier, until we were rudely interrupted.
“SEAMAN BARRY, BRIDGE!” the loudspeaker squawked. “SEAMAN BARRY, BRIDGE!”
•••
By late afternoon, we reached Port-au-Prince, the capital city, home to almost a million people. A huge crowd was jam-packed on the pier. Once our mooring lines were secured to the wharf’s bollards, a whistle blew and Staples hoisted the Stars and Stripes up the flagpole on the stern. The skipper had stressed the need for speed, so we quickly slid the gangway onto the dock and rigged the safety nets beneath it.
The Haitians lined up on the flight deck and began to disembark, but a bottleneck soon formed. Workers with the International Red Cross were slowing things down by handing out money — the equivalent of 10 bucks — to each returning refugee.
The riot began just as our last guests crossed the plank. The instigators were easy to spot — big men wearing short-sleeved, white business shirts, wielding truncheons. They beat our former passengers, seemingly at random. Less than 50 feet away from me and my shipmates, violence of a viciousness I’d never witnessed before unfolded in front of my unbelieving eyes.
The sounds of our diesel engines drowned out the cries and screams of the victims, but their pain was still visible, as was their blood. The relentless, almost robotic clubbing continued in the massive shadow of the Tumultuous. Then word came down from the bridge: we were getting underway ASAP, so prepare for departure on the double. Five short blasts of the ship’s whistle sounded as we backed away from the pier and headed out to sea.
Crash Barry’s novel, Sex, Drugs and Blueberries, and his memoir, Tough Island, can be found at most Maine bookstores. Inscribed copies are available at crashbarry.com.
