Don't Go Near the Water
William Brinkley
 Don't Go Near the Water is an episodic novel broken into ten chapters dealing with the various Public Relations officers stationed on the island, with six numbered interludes, entitled "Melora" with a sequential number after them, developing an additional storyline of the romance between Melora Alba and Ensign Max Siegel, an ugly but educated former investment broker "afflicted with a monstrous body but a beautiful soul." Lieutenant Commander Clinton T. Nash, executive officer of the large Public Relations Headquarters and known as "Marblehead" to his men, is a pompous former stock broker who aspires to be nautical. Nash's futility in achieving this aim is symbolized by a running gag of failing to master the use of a sextant. When Lieutenant (jg) Ross Pendleton is frustrated by the native islanders on adjacent Gug-Gug island refusing to dress and behave stereotypically during a publicity visit by Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs, the exec sends Ensign Siegel to assist the former radio soap opera producer and self-important huckster. Siegel is the ace Sightseeing Officer among the Correspondent's Aides, known for his lavish if tongue-in-cheek VIP treatment. Siegel succeeds in gaining the cooperation of the Gug-Gug islanders but the film is never used by the Navy. ;;Melora 1 The Passionate Sailors of Mendoza :While escorting two congressmen on a tour of the island, Ensign Siegel encounters a beautiful native girl speaking to Mr. Seguro, a native man. The politicians are anxious to socialize with her at a traditional Tuluran dinner, but Siegel tries to protect her by warning of the risk of social diseases among native women. All three are horrified when the girl (Melora) turns out to be sophisticated and fluent in English. Vice Admiral D.D. Boatwright, a logistics genius and "veritable naval Clauswitz," considers Public Relations a collection of "oddballs and freaks." Despite his great merit, because he is without glamor he has become the target of attacks in the press, particularly by war correspondent Gordon Ripwell of the Chicago Gazette, who boasts of a readership of two and one half million. The admiral reluctantly acquires a small dog from a native boy to protect him during his morning exercise walks, and when the dog runs away, distributes handbills around the island seeking information on the dog. When it turns out the dog returned to the boy, the admiral happily reunites them permanently, a story picked up by the media from the handbills. The admiral becomes a public relations hero almost overnight, known as "Bow Wow Boatwright," assuring the Navy the benefit of his genius for the rest of the war. ;;Melora 2 Never Mind the Frangipani :Siegel interrogates Mr. Seguro as to the identity of the girl. Mr. Seguro is evasive, but finally discloses that the girl is not only the daughter of a wealthy family, the Albas, but is the village schoolteacher. Ensign Siegel immediately heads towards the schoolhouse. Commander Nash, in a bid to glamorize the enlisted man, establishes the Home Town News Department and has "Joe Blow" officers installed aboard every ship in the fleet. When the fleet fails to show any interest in participating, he revises the system to mass produce filler copy about the civilians in uniform to mail to stateside newspapers, appointing meek and inconspicuous Lieutenant Noah Pratt to run it. Lieutenant Pratt's dedication to the task embarrasses the other Public Relations officers, especially Lieutenant Morey Griffin, the "idlest man on Tulura, which is saying something," whose ambition is to be the Navy's "boudoir liaison" in Sydney, Australia. When he and his roommate Ensign Siegel poke through ships' rosters looking for news of old friends, they encounter the name of Farragut Jones, Boatswain's Mate Second Class on the APA USS Ankletooth. Amused by a sailor named for two naval heroes, they create copy for the sailor and send unauthorized stories to his hometown newspaper in Appleton, Nebraska. Their amusement turns to horror when the editor contacts the Department of the Navy, suggesting that Jones be returned to the States as a hero. Nash is outraged that someone has bypassed the Home Town News Department. The two confess and the exec confines them to quarters "pending the court martial." Nash promptly forgets them; Siegel and Griffin enjoy days of room service exceeding that of The Greenbrier. However, Admiral Boatwright loves the editor's idea, and the two are freed. Jones is ordered to Tulura before the hero's tour of the States. ;;Melora 3 Hydroz to Jerem :Ensign Siegel has established a formal relationship with Melora, helping out in the temporary island one-room schoolhouse after school, and researching questions the teacher is unable to answer without benefit of a library. He breaks down the formality by purchasing an Encyclopædia Britannica for the school- the one gift that the formally brought-up teacher would accept. Lieutenant (jg) Pendleton is a married womanizer with a penchant for the Navy nurses stationed on Tulura. Ensign Siegel's yeoman, Adam Garrett (who wants to be transferred to sea duty), is recruited by Pendleton to be his driver, instead of another officer as required by regulations, so that he can consummate a relationship with his latest conquest, Ensign Alice Thomas. Garrett's frequent nocturnal proximity to the attractive (and willing) nurse combines with two years of forced celibacy to compel him in enlisting Siegel to help arrange an affair between Garrett and Thomas in violation of Navy Regulations forbidding "fraternization" between officers and enlisted personnel. Using his Tuluran friends, Siegel stages a phony attack by Japanese hiding out on the island to kidnap Pendleton, leaving Garrett and Ensign Thomas alone together. The pair carry on a protracted affair, during which Garrett discovers he had, as Siegel had warned him, been merely obsessed with Alice because of sexual deprivation. Unexpectedly, Garrett then falls in love with Alice and indiscreetly sees her during daylight. Commander Nash finds out about the affair and breaks it up, but is persuaded by Siegel to forgo disciplinary action against Garrett for fear of having adverse stories written by correspondents on Tulura (mainly Gordon Ripwell) sympathetic to the enlisted man. Correspondent "Rip" Ripwell enjoys throwing his weight around with the fearful Commander Nash and the other officers. Ensign Christopher Tyson III, a young tennis-playing Princeton man with a noticeable stammer, is the most junior ensign in Public Relations and given the duty no one else wants: correspondent's aide to Ripwell. Tyson is particularly burdened, tasked with personally hauling Ripwell's dirty sheets to the base laundry daily and most recently told by the correspondent to find him a woman. Rewarded by his puritanical publisher with an inscribed thousand dollar bill as a souvenir of flying on a bombing raid of Japan, which the Public Relations officers note "some of those PFC B-29 crewmen...make...ten times a month for a hundred bucks," Ripwell's boorish personality makes him the target of Ensign Siegel, Melora, and Tyson, who combine to blackmail the reporter out of the money. Tyson wants only to be relieved of his odious and undignified laundry duties, but Siegel plans to use the money to rebuild the island's schoolhouse, destroyed in the war, forcing school to meet in a one room shack. Ripwell is hailed as a hero for his philanthropy, and his publisher sends him another souvenir bill. Boatswain's Mate Second Class Farragut Jones arrives on Tulura en route to the United States, where a tour from New York to Washington to Hollywood has been arranged. Commander Nash dubs Jones the Typical Young Navy Man and orders Ensign Siegel to give the sailor Siegel's "complete red-rug, big-wheel, VIP treatment." However Jones proves to be utterly uncouth, grossly tattooed, has a predilection for using the coarsest language, despises civilian war workers, and is suspicious of the Navy's intentions. The alarmed and desperate exec assigns Siegel to room with the sailor and "freshen him up." In ten days, Siegel does a reasonable job by conditioning Jones using whiskey and the allure of sex in Hollywood. Chaperoned by Lieutenant Noah Pratt, Jones has a successful tour of the United States, and is asked to stay on in Hollywood as a technical advisor. Siegel gets a daily letter from Jones detailing his personal success with the ladies of Hollywood. ;;Melora 4 I Went to Harvard College, Sir :Melora brings Ensign Siegel home for tea with her father, a sometime European expatriate and Tulura's chief banker, stranded on his native Tulura by the war. After the tea, and without ever deviating from a pleasant and polite tone, Mr. Alba thoroughly dissects Siegel, and despite Siegel's Harvard background, finds him wanting in education and breeding. A lavish officer's club is planned to replace the Quonset hut currently in use, while the enlisted men find their beer allowance strictly rationed to two beers per day. Led secretly by Yeoman Garrett, distributing outraged missives written using Public Relations mimeograph equipment, the enlisted men protest by cancelling their war bond allotments. When Naval Intelligence investigates and the correspondents begin writing stories sympathetic to the enlisted men, Commander Nash fears adverse consequences for Public Relations Headquarters, and responds with a disastrous attempt to have the officers to build the club themselves. The effort is a complete disaster by mid-afternoon of the first day when six of the inexperienced officers become casualties to work injuries, including the exec, who falls head first into a wheelbarrow of wet cement. Ensign Siegel defuses the situation by the simple expedient of allowing the men to consume their weekly beer ration at one sitting. Nash learns of Garrett's involvement from Naval Intelligence, but recalling his earlier fraternization episode and still fearing the consequences from the correspondents, rules out a court martial and instead punishes the yeoman by transferring him to the worst duty of which he can conceive: sea duty aboard a destroyer. ;;Melora 5 Queen's Pawn Opening :The new schoolhouse is going up nicely, and Melora again invites Ensign Siegel for tea. Despite Mr. Alba's courteous pleasantries, Siegel is uncomfortable until he shows an educated appreciation of Mr. Alba's collection of excellent chess sets. Mr. Alba learns that Siegel is a also skilled player—there are no others on Tulura. He invites Siegel to play a game, and to remain for dinner. Debbi Aldrich, the "aloof, tantalizing and beautiful" correspondent for the women's magazine Madame, hits Tulura, where she creates a major upheaval, especially with Ensign Tyson, by always displaying a half inch of black brassiere in the V of her uniform shirt. Using her wiles on Admiral Boatwright's assistant, Debbi arranges assignment to a warship going into combat, the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Seattle, escorted by Tyson, who has yearned for sea duty. The crew of the Seattle, noting the half-inch of bra, asks Debbi for a pair of her lacy black panties to fly as a pennant during the bombardment of the Japanese-held island of Nanto Shima. Two days after the landing, she slips away from her quarters and goes ashore where the battle still rages, and stays at the front with the Marines for four days. She returns at the end of the week, after Naval Intelligence has begun an investigation into her disappearance, and is sent back to the States. Curiously, after the combat operation Tyson's stammer has disappeared. ;;Melora 6 New York is a Very Great Excitement :Ensign Siegel's and Melora's relationship has become close, especially as her father has found much common ground for conversation with Siegel and grown to like him. Matters are dampened, however, when Melora tells Siegel that as much as she loves other places, she has a duty to Tulura and could never live anyplace else. News of the bombing of Hiroshima reaches the island. Lieutenant Woodrow Wilson Shoemaker, a lean, pale "thinking man with a sense of history" and formerly an editorial writer, is in charge of the Historical Section of the Public Relations branch. The reactions of others in Public Relations dismays him when it appears that he is the only person on Tulura concerned about its implications. Commander Nash worries only that the Air Force has achieved a Public Relations coup that the Navy will not be able to match. Lieutenant (jg) Pendleton sees it as a quick opportunity to return to Radio City Music Hall to produce a new soap about a "hotpants" Navy nurse suspiciously similar to Ensign Alice Thomas. Gordon Ripwell's reaction is to be miffed that President Truman didn't inform him ahead of time. Shoemaker decides to resign his civilian position in order to work to prevent future wars. Ensign Siegel bets him a month's liquor rations that in a cross section of views on Tulura, Shoemaker's would be the only apocalyptic concerns. In an all-night drinking and interviewing binge, Siegel wins the bet. Instead of writing out his resignation as an editorial writer, however, a chastened Shoemaker decides to sleep all day, unaware that Siegel has been affected, helping him to make a crucial decision about his own post-war life. A wild party in the new officer's club celebrates the end of the war and the impending return of most to civilian life. Melora and Mr. Alba accept invitations, and Mr. Alba finds the behavior of the American officers anthropologically fascinating. Lieutenant Griffin is unexpectedly ordered to Sydney—after the conclusion of the war has ended its high female-to-male ratio—but lifts his depression by tossing a taunting Lieutenant (jg) Pendleton into the swimming pool. Ensign Tyson wanders the club with his tennis racket swatting higher-ranked officers on the buttocks while yelling, "Mind your rudder," in imitation of Commander Nash. Yeoman Garrett enters the club "like a Viking come to raid" to claim Ensign Thomas. Ensign Siegel, in a "spontaneous" gesture orchestrated to resemble a media awards ceremony, informs the exec that he has been awarded the Legion of Merit. Admiral Boatwright, a close friend of Mr. Alba's, announces Melora's engagement to Siegel. (After his night with Shoemaker, Siegel had driven directly to the Albas to ask for her in marriage, after which Mr. Alba invited him to work as an investment broker in the bank on Tulura.) At dawn the next morning, with the party still in full session, Siegel succeeds in demonstrating to the grateful Nash how to use the sextant. "'So that's how it's done,' Nash said. Abruptly the exec gave a superior little laugh. 'Really it's very simple, isn't it, Siegel—unlike Public Relations. Why, any meathead could be a seagoing officer.'"