The Return of the Marines Trilogy

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  “The CO gave us a ‘well done.’ It looks like we’re the only ones who had any action. That piracy they were called to? Looks like a false alarm. Seems as if the Pakistani crew were on some sort of strike due to the conditions on their ship, so the company had to stand down. So that’s twice now that First Platoon has accomplished a mission while everyone else has been sitting on their asses!”

  Tony’s smile was infectious, and Sgts Dailey and Stanhope went so far as to high five each other. Even SSgt Davidson was smiling.

  “Everyone’s worried about the two missing crewmen, though. We’re supposed to do another search, checking every compartment, every locker, everything. The Dunham’s steaming here at flank speed, but before that, we’ll have the Sea Hawks back from refueling, and the helos will be bringing Third Squad and some ship’s personnel as well. Our orders are to stay on board, look for the missing guys, guard the prisoner, and basically wait until the Dunham gets here. I’m going to leave the search to SSgt Davidson here. I want you to organize it,” he said directly to the platoon sergeant before turning back to encompass the others as well. “And remember, just because we didn’t run into the other pirates during our first sweep doesn’t mean they’re not here hiding out someplace, so be on your toes. Cpl Steptoe and I are going to go back to the bridge and brief the captain on what we’re doing now. Any questions?”

  There were a few shakes of heads.

  “OK, then, let’s get going. Oh yeah, the captain said he’s going to get the galley going, too. He swears by the food on this ship, and he’s going to break out the steaks for his crew and for us. So SSgt Davidson, please figure out some sort of schedule to get everyone some chow if we’re not done with the sweep before it’s ready.”

  There was a chorus of “aye-ayes” as SSgt Davidson took the two squad leaders under his wing to get the search underway.

  Tony started to move up to the bridge, his big radio operator in tow. He still felt excited and hyped. In Delhi the detachment had been on the defensive, trying to hold out. This time, though, they had been in the offense, taking it to the enemy. This felt far more satisfying. Even when that lone pirate had opened up on them, instead of feeling frightened, he had felt a rush of excitement.

  Of course, the fact that the pirate had only been hit once in the thigh and once in the side was a little embarrassing. How the heck five Marines could open up on a guy only 10 yards away, and in a confined passage at that, and only hit him twice was beyond Tony’s imagination.

  The pirate couldn’t have weighed more than 130 pounds. He had passed out after being shot, and Doc Supchak had given him first aid, assuring Tony that the man would make it. Tony had assigned one of the fire teams to watch over him, which might have been overkill, but what the heck? Maybe when the translator came on the inbound Sea Hawks, the guy would come to and they could find out what happened to the missing crewmen.

  Chapter 13

  At Sea in the Indian Ocean

  Craig tried to shift his body, to get some sort of comfort so he could fall asleep, but that seemed an impossible task. He had finally become numb to the smell of rotting fish, but the rough planks of the deck in the hold just didn’t allow for comfort.

  He looked over at Bong. Although it was fairly dark in the hold, the damage to Bong’s face showed up like a beacon. Craig felt pretty guilty about that. Whatever Bong’s intention, Craig should have ordered him to the panic room. But he’d been caught along with Craig, and when the pirates tried to get the two of them to open the panic room, Bong had been beaten unmercifully.

  Craig had taken quite a few shots himself, but the pirates had shown a degree of ruthlessness as they beat the crap out of Bong. Craig wondered if the beating was more for show, to let Craig know they were powerless. But even if he had wanted to, Craig could not have gotten inside the panic room. He tried not to wonder what he would have done if he had the ability to open it up.

  Bong had yet to regain full consciousness, now a full day after their capture. When the pirates had given up trying to get the panic room open the day before, both Craig and Bong had been tied up and left in the passageway. The young guy who had first watched over Craig on deck still watched them, and Craig hadn’t been able to tell if he had even the slightest sympathy for what had been done to the Able Seaman. He had wanted to think he recognized the briefest flash of empathy in the young man’s eyes, but Craig had known that could have been just wishful thinking.

  Craig had lain beside Bong for quite awhile. Several times pirates had come back to look at the two of them, but no one had offered any water or food. Once, two men had come back and seemed to be arguing over them. That rather concerned Craig. He didn’t think he was going to be executed outright, but another beating seemed a probability rather than a possibility.

  Untold hours later, several of the pirates had come down and rousted Craig. He had struggled to his feet, old bones and muscles complaining about the abuse. Bong had been beyond the ability to stand, so finally two pirates had given their rifles to a third, then reached down to pull Bong upright. The third pirate was one of the other youngsters, and he had problems holding all three rifles. For a brief moment, Craig had visions of pulling a James Bond, head-knocking the young man and grabbing the weapons. But even had his hands had not been tied, that would be pretty much impossible for him to pull off anything like that. A Hollywood star he wasn’t.

  They had been led up the ladder and out on the deck. It had been night, about 12 hours or so since they had been taken, and the ship calmly steamed under the stars. It had been a little surreal. It had seemed so normal on one hand, steaming under the night sky, but the armed pirates left little doubt that things had been decidedly not normal.

  They had been led/pushed over to the starboard side. Craig had a momentary fear that they were going to be pushed overboard, to disappear into the deep, dark sea. But as he had gotten to the edge, he could see a fishing boat steaming alongside the Wilmington. There had been a rope ladder leading down to it. One of the pirates had pulled a knife out, which shone wickedly in the moonlight, but with a few quick jabs, he had cut through Craig’s bindings, taking off a bit of skin from his wrists in the process.

  Craig had been pushed forward to the rope ladder, and with shouts and gestures, they made it clear that he needed to climb down. He had peered over the edge. The fishing boat seemed a long way down there, and while he realized they had slowed the Wilmington down a bit, it still had seemed like she was moving along at a pretty good clip.

  Someone had jabbed the muzzle of a rifle into his back, and none too gently. Craig knew he had to go. Taking a deep breath, he clamored over the side, his feet flailing for a moment in the air before they found purchase on the rungs. Slowly, never taking more than one hand or foot off the ladder at a time, he had made his way down, eyes focused on the sides of the ship, never looking down.

  He had been surprised when rough hands grabbed his legs and hustled him off the ladder. It hadn’t taken nearly as long for him to climb down as he would have thought.

  They had seemed to be having a problem with Bong, though. There was no way he could have climbed down on his own, half-conscious as he was. At one point, it looked like a pirate was going to go first and kind of guide him down, but they had abandoned that, and finding a rope, they tied it around his chest and under his arms before lowering him down to the boat. He banged against the side of the ship on the way down, which had caused his body to spin. As he had reached the fishing boat, he went past the grasping hands, splashing into the water for a moment while the pirates on the boat yelled back up to the ones on the ship to pull Bong back up. It took a moment, but Bong had been finally hauled back aboard.

  It had only been then that Craig noticed that one man was obviously not Somali. Even in the darkness, he looked white. He had caught Craig looking at him.

  “Enjoy your host’s hospitality,” he had said in a heavily accented English and accompanied by a laugh.

  After Bong had been f
reed from the rope, the English-speaking man had moved to the ladder and climbed up, along with another guy who probably was Somali. Then most of the pirates who had captured the Wilmington, the ones who had beat Bong and him, had come down.

  Craig had wanted to call out to the English-speaking guy to ask him what was going to happen to the two of them, but fear trumped his curiosity. He didn’t say anything.

  Craig had edged back towards the stern, trying to remain inconspicuous. He had looked up at the bulk of the Wilmington, wishing for the hundredth time that he had joined the others in the panic room. Down below like this, though, he had gotten a different perspective on his ship. From the bridge or the decks, the Wilmington was just the Wilmington. Nothing special. Down below like this, though, he had realized that she really was a huge vessel, one he really wished he was still aboard.

  One of the pirates had walked over and roughly grabbed Craig’s shoulder, dragging him to a square hatch in the middle of the working deck. Craig had tried to peer into the dark hold, but before he could gather himself, he was pushed into it.

  Panic had hit him in the split second he was falling, but he had landed on something soft, or rather somethings soft, slimy and horribly putrid. This was a real fishing vessel, he had realized, even if the fish were way past having any commercial value. He had tried to stand up, but the sliding, rotten fish bodies kept him from getting to his feet. He gagged, saliva flowing from his mouth as he tried to keep from vomiting.

  Feet churning, and maybe more on his knees than anything else, he had made it to bare deck alongside the pile of fish. He lost the battle with his stomach, and his long-ago breakfast had joined the rotten fish in the hold.

  A shadow had then blocked the small amount of light coming in from the open hatch, and Craig could see Bong being lowered into the hold as well. When he was down, voices yelling out let Craig know he had to get the rope off of Bong. Trying to be gentle, he had slipped the rope off of him, then pulled the barely moving body back off the fish and to the side. Even half conscious, Bong’s face had twisted in disgust at the horrible miasma which pervaded the hold.

  After about twenty minutes, a rope had come down with a flask of water and a plastic shopping bag with some hard bread in it. Craig hadn’t needed to be told to come get it. He had rushed up and untied the two items, then carefully drank half of the water and ate half of the bread. He hadn’t known how long Bong would be out, but he would need his share when he did come to.

  This little fishing boat’s engine had become louder as the boat picked up speed and pulled to the starboard. Craig had figured that they were parting ways with the Wilmington. They were off on their own.

  Chapter 14

  On the USS Jason Dunham

  Four days later.

  Squat, thrust legs back, chest to the deck, push back up, legs back under, stand up, 28.

  Sweat was already pouring off of Burke as he did his 6-count squat thrusts, which were merely a normal squat trust with a push-up thrown in the middle. He had 72 more to go for this set, then three more sets of 100. These had always been one of his favorite exercises, but on the Dunham’s flight deck, they were a little more difficult than on the dirt back at Lejeune or Bragg. It wasn’t just the rough surface of the flight deck which tore up his hands and caught at the toes of his shoes as he thrust his legs and brought them back up. The rolling of the ship itself added to the process, bringing balance into play. Frankly, he loved it, although maybe he wouldn’t have minded it if the sun wasn’t baking the flight deck into an oven.

  Part of his mind had to concentrate on each count of the exercise. It would be easy to catch a toe and fall on his face. But the rote nature of the exercise also allowed for thinking and retrospect. People had different ways to clear the mind of the extraneous—for Burke, exercise did it.

  Daily shipboard life had gotten back to the routine since their return from the Wilmington, but there was a different mood in the air. The Dunham, Marines and sailors alike, had completed a successful mission. There seemed to be a sense of mutual accomplishment, a sense that the Dunham team had succeeded. While the Marines and the Sea Hawk crews may have been the first ones to reach and step aboard the Wilmington, it had taken the entire Dunham crew to send them off, and after the merchant ship had been secured, there had been quite a number of sailors coming over to do whatever it was that sailors do.

  Most of the Marines had re-embarked aboard the Dunham the next day as the Navy ship arrived and stood half a mile off the beam. But the ship’s captain had sent over engineers and others to make sure the Wilmington was sea-worthy. The captain had even gone over to take a look around and meet the merchant ship’s captain.

  When the platoon had returned to the ship, many of the sailors had offered their congratulations, and Burke had had to re-tell the accounts of the rescue several times to different groups.

  It wasn’t as if there had been bad blood between the sailors and Marines before. There had been some complaints that a DDG is not an amphib, but Burke had never felt any real animosity. It was just that there were two separate groups: the Dunham’s crew and the Marines and Special Boat Unit. Now, that atmosphere had dissipated. They were one team.

  99, 100. One set done.

  Burke took a break, wiping the sweat from his eyes.

  Damn, it’s hot out here on the deck.

  He walked over to the hangar where he had stashed a plastic bottle of water and gratefully took a long swallow. It wasn’t cold anymore, but it was wet, and that was what mattered. He took some deep breaths, trying to slow his pulse rate.

  PFC McNamara swung by on his way around the flight deck.

  “Oo-rah, staff sergeant!” he yelled as he passed.

  Burke had to smile. McNamara may not be the sharpest pencil in the pack, but he was dedicated. Ever since Burke had had to rally him the week before, McNamara had been hitting the flight deck at every opportunity. It was probably impossible that his physical condition had so dramatically improved in just a week, especially as a full day had been spent on the Wilmington, so Burke figured that McNamara’s improvement had been mental, not physical. He had just figured out that he could do it instead of wondering if he could do it. There was a huge difference. And with his platoon sergeant there, the PFC had an additional burst of confidence.

  Burke had learned that lesson back at RASP before being scrolled into the Rangers. Almost any soldier could physically make it through RASP. They weren’t going to kill you, after all. But what made soldiers drop was the mental part. They just gave up. They thought they couldn’t do it. And if they thought they couldn’t do it, that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Burke was in his first RASP, he refused to acknowledge that he might fail. He would set up barriers in his mind that wouldn’t let those thoughts surface. And by knowing with no degree of uncertainty that he would make it, he did.

  And with that thought, he put his water back and went back out in the middle, out of the way of the joggers, to begin his second set.

  He reminded himself that he should bring some gloves next time. He would probably forget again, though. It was one thing to put up with pain when it was necessary, but gloves would help his hands handle the hot, rough flight deck better. No pain, no gain, but that could be taken a bit far.

  He finished that set of 100, then came back to get another swallow of water.

  “Staff sergeant, you got a minute?”

  Burke looked up to see Sgt Dailey standing by, a slightly troubled look on his face. Burke really didn’t have a minute. He had two more sets, but Dailey had seemed a bit down since the mission, and Burke Knew he needed to get to the bottom of it. The squad leader had done a good job on the Wilmington, so Burke was not sure what the issue was.

  “Sure, Pat. Let’s move over here,” he told him, indicating the long, narrow deck that ran alongside the hangar.

  Burke didn’t think the design made much sense as the forward end led to nowhere, but they could use it to gain a bit of privacy, somethi
ng hard to get aboard the ship.

  “So what’s up?” he asked.

  “Um, I’ve been thinking. I mean, I’ve been wondering. You know when we took the bridge?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, that one guy, the one who came in, well, I know you said he was armed, but I never really saw him with anything. I just shot. Are you sure, I mean, I’m not doubting you, but are you sure he was armed?”

  Burke laughed and said, “Buck fever, my man, buck fever.”

  “Huh?”

  “Back home, we call that ‘buck fever.’ You go out hunting, you see that big buck in front of you, and you lose focus. You get lost in that big buck. The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders could march by, and you wouldn’t notice. You get nervous, maybe you jerk your shot. The thing is, you miss things. And when you focused on that pirate coming in, you did what you had to do. You shot him.”

  The thing was, the man had not been armed. Not that it mattered to Burke, but he thought it would to Pat. The guy was a pirate, and he was rushing to the bridge. If he had surrendered out there on the flying bridge, he would be alive today, but he decided to charge, and why charge in if you weren’t planning to fight?

  Back in Afghanistan, Burke had watched his platoon sergeant, SFC Winston Doyle, die in some dusty hellhole of a village. There had been a short firefight, but that had been over for at least 10 minutes. They had gathered up some of the people to question them when a young boy had rushed out of a house. The boy couldn’t have been more than 12 or 13, and Doyle warned him to stop. The kid didn’t look angry or anything. Maybe Doyle thought he was rushing to be with one of the men being questioned. But for whatever reason, Doyle let him come. And since Doyle didn’t fire, the others, including Burke, withheld their fire.

  Remembering it in a sense of slow motion, Burke could still see the boy smile as he came up, slow to a stop beside the platoon sergeant, then explode into a rose-colored mist. Doyle was killed immediately. Burke was hit in the cheek by shrapnel, earning his second purple heart. Hank Burns ended up losing his leg. All because no one wanted to shoot an “unarmed” kid.