Helliwell coughed as he sat down. “Damn, Lieutenant, just when I was beginning to think you might be an ‘all-right Joe,” you turn into a psychoanalyst like other women.”
“Sorry,” she fired back, grinning. “Just when I was thinking of you like a sister, you act like every other man I’ve known.”
“How are you feeling?”
“How do you think? My hair’s a mess and I’ve lost two nails.”
They both laughed.
H.J. raised the butt of the carbine against her good shoulder and took aim at the approaching warship. She fired. Her shoulder bounced off the bulkhead, drawing a painful grunt and sending stars dancing across her vision. Her face appeared pasty for a few seconds as pain racked her.
“Watch those carbines. They kick when you least expect it. Take several deep breaths.”
“I know. It must be hard to remember I’m a woman,” she muttered through the pain. “It’s easy to do when your nails are broken, two side teeth are missing, and you’re having a bad hair day. But the good news for us and the bad news for them,” she lied, “is that I’m in the middle of PMS.”
H.J. lifted her carbine again and sighted it carefully. Her tongue showed partially through her lips as she concentrated on her aim.
Squinting her right eye, she leaned forward slightly, aligning the left eye with the barrel and the two sights. She braced herself for the kick this time. Gently squeezing the trigger, she fired another round.
Helliwell watched the patrol craft, and saw the tiny figure to the left of the bridge wing throw his hands into the air and tumble backward out of sight.
“Damn, H. J.! No one can do that! It’s too far.”
“I’m not a no one, Helliwell. I was number two at the all military rifle championships two years ago, and the Navy Academy’s leading marksman for my last three years there.”
“Wish we had the winner here.”
“You don’t. You’re stuck with me.”
The patrol craft eased left, away from the water carrier. It seemed to Duncan the rifle fire had been effective. The Kebir had stopped closing the water carrier. It began maneuvering about a mile away.
Zigzagging close enough for the odd rifle round, but more than close enough for their cannon.
The next shell sailed over the water carrier to impact seventy feet off the starboard bow. Water from the geyser rained over the small craft.
“Man capitaine,” Palace Guard Sergeant Boutrous said. “My men have discovered two barrels of petroleum products in the engine room. Maybe at such a time as this we should consider smoking our departure.”
“Smoke screen?”
“Out, a smoke screen,” Sergeant Boutrous replied, nodding his head as if he understood the term.
“Monkey, give the Guards a hand pulling those barrels on deck.”
Monkey handed his MG to Mcdonald and with three of the Algerians, wrestled the two barrels of kerosene onto the deck and to the stern.
They shoved one to the port side and the other to starboard. Sergeant Boutrous pried the tops off both of them.
Duncan scratched his head. Good idea, if they could get it lit and build some smoke before the Algerians blew them out of the water. What he needed was time. Time for rescue and reinforcements to arrive.
“Mats oui, Man Capitaine. C’est tres bien pour le smoke screen.”
“Right! Whatever you say, Sergeant Boutrous.” Duncan wet his finger and held it up. The wind was coming from aft, blowing across the boat.
“Don’t light it yet. If you do it’ll blind us.”
Duncan hurried, as fast as his injured leg allowed, to the front of the boat. He frowned when he saw H.J. and Bud. “What’s wrong with you two? Can’t obey orders?”
“And let you have all the fun, Captain?” Bud asked.
Duncan looked up at the exposed bridge. “Beau, bring the boat around so the wind is off the starboard bow. We’re going to lay a smoke screen and hope the Algerians don’t know how to fire with radar.”
Bud reached in his satchel and pulled out a flag. “Captain. I’ve always carried this with me and we may want to fly it now.”
Another shell whistled, overhead, exploding twenty yards to port.
Mcdonald and Monkey raked the fast-attack craft that had maneuvered to within five hundred yards of the boat. The Kebir rolled to port as its powerful engines moved the patrol craft out of range.
“Beau,” Duncan said. “Take this and run it up the mast in front of you.”
Beau reached down and took the flag from Duncan. Steering to starboard with one hand, he unwrapped the mast line with the other. A quick release of the wheel, and Beau ran the American flag up the mast. The shifting wind to starboard quickly caught the fabric. The yard-long flag snapped like a whip in the wind. Duncan glanced at the flag. A cheer from the stern of the boat erupted from the SEALs at the sight of Old Glory challenging the Algerians. They might die in the coming minutes, but the Algerians were going to know whom they were fighting.
Duncan cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Light the barrels!”
The Palace Guards patted their pockets. The sergeant tugged on Mcdonald’s shirt, making a flicking motion with his fingers. Mcdonald shook his head as he patted his pockets. He didn’t smoke.
The Guardsmen looked at Duncan and shrugged their shoulders. Sergeant Boutros made a flicking motion to Dun can.
“Beau, we need a light!” Duncan yelled, and then added excitedly, “Flares! Beau, are flares up there somewhere?”
Keeping one hand on the helm, Beau reached down and ripped open the small doors to a storage cabinet on his left. He pulled the junk inside onto the deck.
“Here they are!” he cried. He held up a square metal tin with a fading picture of a flare on the top of it. He pitched it down to Duncan.
Duncan caught the box and hurried aft. A cannon boom announced another inbound shell. This one exploded about thirty yards astern, sending sea spray raining down on the water carrier.
He pulled two magnesium flares from the box and tossed the residue on the deck. Duncan ambled aft, holding the magnesium flares in his left hand. He handed them to Sergeant Boutros, who popped the trigger and tossed them, one after the other, into the kerosene. Flames shot ten feet into the air before quickly disappearing. Dark black smoke billowed out as the conflagration sent waves of smoke flowing at sea level off the port side. Within seconds an impenetrable barrier hid the water carrier from the Algerian patrol craft.
A shell whistled by, splitting the aft mast in half, before it impacted off the starboard quarter. Gibbons was hurled forward off the mast like a shot from a catapult. He landed in the water twenty yards off the port bow. Beau whirled the wheel to port, aiming the bow toward Gibbons.
Gibbons floated facedown, unmoving. Thirty seconds passed before the water carrier closed the distance. Gibbons bounced off the side of the port bow of the low-riding boat, and continued to bounce along the side of the water carrier as the boat moved past. Two Guardsmen and Monkey grabbed him and pulled him aboard.
Monkey rolled his friend onto his back, touched his neck for a pulse.
Feeling nothing, he tilted Gibbons’s head back and began CPR. Duncan moved as fast as possible past the Guardsmen who had helped rescue Gibbons.
“Don’t give up, Monkey,” Duncan said. He picked up the MG-60 from the deck.
Beau estimated the direction of the smoke barrier, and changed course slightly so the water carrier paralleled the smoke screen. The engines of the Kebir could be heard oscillating wildly from the other side of the smoke as it maneuvered in its search for the water carrier. A shell exploded nearly a hundred feet off their port side. The gunners on the Algerian warship were firing blind.
Beau steered, watching the burning diesel fuel and keeping the water carrier near the smoke screen.
Duncan expected the patrol craft to appear through the smoke at any moment. Dreaded anticipation drove his anxiety. But when several minutes passed and no Kebir
appeared, Duncan began to suspect that their small-arms fire had achieved its purpose and made the Algerians overcautious. So overcautious that he knew the Algerians weren’t going to come charging through the smoke screen until they knew where the water carrier was. They had surface radar, so they had to have some idea where the water carrier was. Then he noticed the shoreline, and recalled that surface radar became ineffective this close to land — land smear they called it.
Gibbons coughed twice, vomited up a lungful of water, some of which went in Monkey’s mouth.
Monkey spat several times. He rubbed his mouth briskly. “Hey, man, just because I saved your life don’t mean you have to spew up in my mouth.”
Monkey rolled Gibbons onto his side to make it easier for the SEAL petty officer to cough up the remainder of the seawater. “That wasn’t a spew, Monkey. I was kissing your ugly puss,” Gibbons mumbled.
Beau turned the water carrier north and began another smoke screen at an oblique angle to the first one.
Duncan rubbed his knee, trying to ease the ache, as he watched the smoke rising from the stern. This second smoke barrier Beau was building would let the water carrier zigzag from one to the other, playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek with the Algerian patrol craft.
What would they do once the kerosene burned itself out?
Another shell landed further right than the last one.
Suddenly, less than one hundred yards off their stern, the Algerian patrol craft ripped through the smoke screen. A scurry of activity broke out on its bow near the cannon with excited pointing and shouting by those on its bridge. They were as surprised as the SEALs. Algerian sailors hurried to turn the cannon toward the water carrier.
Duncan and Mcdonald raked the deck of the ship with their machine guns. Two sailors fell. Duncan raised his sights and peppered the bridge. The people on the bridge of the Kebir disappeared behind the armored sides. The gunners on the forward deck twisted the cannon toward the water carrier.
No way they can miss at this distance, thought Duncan.
Beau whirled the wheel to the right, and the tiny water carrier slowly turned to port and eased into the smoke screen.
An Algerian sailor, near the cannon, grabbed his chest and tumbled backward onto the deck. The patrol craft tilted sharply to the right as the warship increased its speed just as the cannon fired.
The unexpected hard-right rudder of the Kebir threw the Algerian shot off target. The shell sailed over the water carrier and exploded directly astern, knocking Duncan, Mcdonald, and the Palace Guards off their feet. Monkey was hurled outward. He grabbed a line, once connected to the destroyed aft mast, and as his momentum carried him toward the edge of the deck, his firm grip brought him up short of being thrown into the sea.
Below the waterline, the explosion ruptured the caulk sealing the propeller shaft. Mediterranean seawater rushed through the crack, widening it as the pressure carved away the aged sealant. White smoke began to pour from the engine compartment as seawater flooded the engine room.
“We’re losing speed!” Beau shouted. He whirled the wheel to port. The water carrier, with its waning momentum, sailed out of the smoke barrier. The slowing boat was once again separated by the smoke screen from the Algerian patrol craft.
Duncan knew they only had a few minutes before the wind dissipated the protective barriers. Without forward momentum, the smoke from the kerosene was at the whim of the light wind coming from the south. It would curl upward and mark their location rather than hide them. So much for changing his life-insurance policy.
The engine coughed, sputtered to life again for a few seconds, coughed twice more, and died. The water carrier coasted another thirty yards before it stopped.
“We’re DIW, Captain!” shouted Beau. He left the wheel and scrambled down the ladder. The boat began to wallow from side to side as low waves hit it. The squeech of the radio sounded louder without the competing noise of the diesel.
Fifty yards to starboard, the first smoke screen was fading. Duncan was surprised to see the crossing southern wind carry the smoke from the burning kerosene to feed the last barrier Beau had started. But the stern was sinking, and it was only a matter of minutes before the barrels would tumble into the sea. Already seawater lapped at the bottoms of the barrels.
Ahead of them and to starboard, clear visibility reigned.
“Monkey!” Beau shouted. “Get below and hand out the life jackets!”
On the starboard side of the boat, Duncan hurried forward to where Beau stood beside H.J. and Bud.
“Well, I have to say, Duncan. This is another fine mess that you’ve gotten us into,” Beau said, imitating the voice of the chubby member of the old Laurel and Hardy comedy team.
“I think you’re right. The radio?”
Beau pointed to the bridge. From the speaker came the same steady jamming signal. “Hasn’t let up. They knew we were on it and I don’t expect them to give us an opportunity to get back on the air.”
President Alneuf emerged from below, a bright yellow life jacket tied on him.
“Your man, Captain Duncan, does he ever take no for an answer?”
President Alneuf asked as he pulled the straps on his life jacket tighter.
“Mr. President, I’m sorry, but it’s only a matter of minutes before the patrol craft comes through the screen. Our engine’s gone. We’re taking water and we’re sinking.”
Overhead, a sonic boom broke the conversation as two jets roared by.
“Damn!” said Beau. “Mig-29s. Not enough the Algerian Navy is trying to blow us out of the water. Now the Algerian Air Force wants some of our ass.” “Captain!” shouted Mcdonald. “Look!”
From the east, at low level, another four aircraft could be seen headed inbound toward the water carrier.
“Shit! Just send their entire gawldamn Air Force at us, why don’t they,” griped Beau.
The two Mig-29s turned right in attack formation, and came out of the turn to line up on the water carrier.
“Well, look’s who’s back,” Beau said, pointing to the Algerian patrol craft as it rounded the edge of the smoke screen two miles away. “At least we made them take the long way around.”
A puff of smoke rose from the bow-mounted gun. The shell passed overhead and exploded harmlessly inside the fading, older smoke screen.
The stern of the water carrier entered the sea. The burning barrels of kerosene tumbled off. The smoke abruptly stopped as the barrels disappeared beneath the waves.
The Mig-29s roared in with cannons firing. Three-foot high sea sprays marked the path as the shells rushed toward the water carrier. Two thirty-millimeter shells hit the small boat amidships, rupturing the water tank. Fresh water poured onto the deck and ran overboard. When Duncan looked up, two Guardsmen were gone. The loss of ballast caused the water carrier to rise slightly, but seawater continued to flow into the boat belowdecks.
The noise of the Kebir, as it increased speed, came across the water.
The next shell missed the water carrier by less than twenty yards.
Water showered the deck.
“I’d give them one more miss before that piss-poor bunch of gunners have our range,” Beau said.
“Here they come again!” shouted Monkey, pointing to the two Mig-29s in another tight right turn.
A massive concussion rocked the water carrier as the Algerian patrol craft exploded. Algerian sailors jumped from its smoking hulk into burning oil that was spreading quickly across the top of the sea. Their dying screams reached the water carrier.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, but I like it. God!” Beau shouted, looking up. “Do the same with those aircraft.”
The lead Mig-29 finished his turn, his wingman lined up perfectly to the right with a thirty-meter altitude separation.
With cannons firing, they bored down on the unarmed water carrier.
Navy SEALs filled the air with small-arms fire.
Behind the two Mig-29s, four F/A-18 H
ornets appeared over the smoke screen. Four Sidewinder missiles, already in the air, led the attack.
Three of the air-to-air missiles traveled up the tailpipes of two Mig-29s. The airburst of the lead Mig sent burning debris raining into the sea and onto the water carrier. The SEALs and Palace Guards threw themselves to the deck, hands over their heads. The disintegrating wingman passed over the water carrier, spinning end over end. Duncan felt the heat as it passed overhead, barely missing the forward mast on its downward spiral. A burning cartwheel, the Algerian fighter jet slammed into the water near the Algerian Kebir, killing the few survivors who had swum clear of the burning oil.
Beau looked back up at the sky. “God, good job. Next time, could you get here a little sooner?”
The F/A-18s, gray blurs, roared past the water carrier. Dun can pulled himself up to the bridge and grabbed the microphone. The jamming signal had disappeared with the destruction of the patrol craft.
“This is Big Apple. Do you read?”
“Big Apple, this is Friendly Ranger. Nice reception committee you had for us.”
“Are you the F/A 18 pilots above us?”
“No, we’re the four-engine-jobber that took out that ship. We’re just a little old EP-3E four-engine turboprop, trying to make do in a jet-engine world. We’re heading in now. What is your situation?”
“We’re dead in the water. Sinking slowly. I estimate about ten minutes before we’re treading water.”
“That’s not too good. We’re about seven minutes out.”
The Hornets flew by wiggling their wings.
“I forgive them for Tailhook,” H.J. said, crossing herself.
“Tailhook hell! I may kiss my first man when I see them,” Beau added.
“Never can tell, Commander. Some of those pilots may be women.”
“They can have head-of-the-line privilege.”
“Big Apple, we’ll drop a life raft, water, and food. Rescue is on its way. Two Royal Navy helicopters are inbound to provide transport back to the bird farm. Should have you out of there within the hour and back on board, sipping hot soup.”
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