Brinkley Bass (DD 887) - Naval Cruise Book

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44 'fr in-' if-: GLI LINE The bow wave curled translucent sheets from the dark water. The BRINKLEY BASS was on the move again. Last night she fired at trails and base camps, fired blind into the darkness of a silent shore- line. A few days before that she'd hit rice caches 'along a strip of the coast known as Dodge City , pockmarked by shells until it resembled Verdun. A month had passed since she finished pounding Viet Cong positions in the Rung Sat Special Zone, and so it went, watches became days, days, weeks, and weeks ran into months with only church services and an occasional mail call after refueling and rearming to break the monotony. ln such times, seemingly minor experi- ences became the focal point of subcon- cious thoughts which gradually evolved in- to an emotion, an emotion expressed for those who knew it by a single word, gun- line . Who would forget the stack gas and salt . water of refueling stations, or the weari- ness which overtook men who cradled and carried the endless stream of projectiles and powder charges to the magazines ? How many would recall the simple divers- ions of life on the gunlineg the letter you read until you memorized the second para- graph, the candy bar from the ship's store, the old black and white movies, the soup and crackers for mid-rats , and in recal- ling them, who .would smile ? What was it that made such trivial things important? Perhaps it was the grim business of cyc- ling ammunition up from the stuffy confines of the magazines. Perhaps it was the effort to maintain a condition of constant readiness waiting in CIC or on the bridge while radio circuits crackled to life, ending momentary lulls in the firing. .... target, height four zero meters, de- scription, bunkers .... Or perhaps it was waiting below where men knew nothing of what was happening until the ship shook with the recoil of the first salvo.

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