 After boot training, Al is assigned to a buoy tender in Boston, the "Periwinkle", as a ship's cook although he has no cooking experience.He encounters immediate hostility from the chief of the galley, Red Wildoe, from new crew mates and cooks' helpers Gutsell and Poznicki, and from his arrogant department head, Lieutenant (junior grade) Higgins.In a Boston bar, Al picks up Stella, who appears to do this kind of thing with some regularity.