Sweepers (2 page)

“I hear that,” Ryker chipped in. “Okay, knock it off, everybody,”

Sherman ordered.

“Only targets make noise in the Rung Sat at night.”

The circuit went quiet. Sherman knew everyone was tense, and the urge to talk was strong. But -sounds carried on the river. The radar showed that they were only fifty, sixty feet away from the right bank. He flipped on the Fathometer just to make sure. The orange water-depth marker flickered at thirty feet. About right. He shut off the Fathometer and wiped off some more sweat. Another thirty, forty minutes and he’d call it off, which was the decision Yank undoubtedly had been trying to provoke with his question.

But they had to give the snake eater a decent shot at getting back.

There was no telling where he would come out of the weeds, or in what condition.

After a year of operations, and despite what the Saigon propaganda boys said,’all the Swifties knew that the Rung Sat at night was Charlie’s country. It was an area of dense mangrove swamp, encompassing the bulk of the jungle twenty miles on either side of the Long Tao and extending from Saigon to the sea. It was mostly water, littered with small hummocks of semi-dry land.. By day, the American Army helos and the Navy’s Swift boats owned the Long Tao and the surrounding bayou channels. By night, however, it was all up for grabs. Charlie came out of his spider holes and island tunnel complexes to move his endless ant columns of guerrilla logistics. Precious rice and dried fish went north to the cadres fighting up-country. Ammunition, weapons, wounded, and replacements moved south. All movement in the Mekong Delta at large meant boats-usually small sampans powered by ancient FRENCH outboards, which the VC piloted in the darkness through the twisting network of side streams and mud flats. It was the American gunboats’ mission to prowl the rivers at night like big gray water spiders lurking out on the river, spiders with magic Decca eyes. Ordinarily, the Swift boats would skulk along the main channels, waiting with muffled engines until a sampan got itself smack out in the middle of the river. Then the gunboats would thunder to life and swoop down, searchlights stabbing out to transfix the small boat with its four or five occupants. The lights would be followed by the hellish roar of the-twin 50s tearing men, supplies, and the boat to pieces, until the wreckage disappeared under the bows of the gunboat. Then, searchlights off, reverse course, and tear up the banks on either side with the 50s and the big mortar to keep any support troops’ heads down. After a minute or so of suppression fire, slow down and retrieve some evidence of the kill-bits of boat, clothes, body parts, boxes of supplies bobbing in the water. Body parts were tough: This had been going on for long enough that the crocs now knew what all the noise meant. Body parts, you did with a boat hook, and there were times you relinquished the boat hook if a big-enough croc clamped onto it at a critical moment.

The crews of the Swift boat were not briefed on what the SEALS were doing out there in the Rung Sat, but everyone in the division had a pretty good idea. Word was that these uys would lay up in the trees for’a day and a night, watching the bad guys, identifying the officers, and then slip into the VC hideouts at night to knife the officers.

Sherman shuddered again. He could not imagine what kind of guy could do that. Yes, you can, he thought. Just remember those eyes.

Galantz submerged again, listening for the whine. And there it was-very faint, but definitely there. To the right, up stream of his tree. Now he had to wait until the whine drifted closer, because he’d be swimming underwater, and he didn’t want to misjudge the distance and have to surface like some noisy fish out there within Charlie’s AK-47 range. He pushed his face above the surface again, lots more room now, and began deep breathing. Then, just to be sure, he felt for the gap again, leaning down, his chin touching the surface of the water, reaching with his left hand for the top of the gap. There. Good. And then he felt something, a sensation of pressure from just outside the root cage, something moving in the water. In the split second of recognition, there came an excruciating clamp of pain on his left hand, pain so intense, he nearly blacked out with the effort to stifle his scream. And then the croc started tugging, trying to pull his meat prize out of the mangrove cage. Galantz pulled back, saw a white-hot flare of pain before his eyes, and got his head underwater just in time to release the scream, a horrible burbling sound that he hoped would be muffled under the water even as he set his legs and grabbed out at the slippery roots with ‘ his right hand for a purchase. But he knew what would happen next. The croc would start rolling to convert the clamping bite to a detached gobbet of meat.

Letting go with his right hand, he surfaced for a final breath, bent down, face underwater, and grabbed the croc’s muzzle.

Hooking desperate fingers into the fold of skin behind the jaw, he set his legs and pulled back, straining hard, trying to get enough of the croc’s head into the root cage so he could stand up, get another breath, and then force the croc’s head up against the opening, pin it, and get to his knife.

The croc pulled back, and he thought his left hand was going with it, but then he managed to grab one of the croc’s front legs and pull hard, leveraging the pull with his leg and thigh muscles, and this time he got the croc’s head through the bars. His left hand was numb, dead, along with his forearm, maybe almost gone even, except the croc was still there. He was a dead man unless he got this croc off his hand.

Keeping his left leg pinned against the cage, he used his right knee to jam the croc’s head tighter into the upside down Y-shaped top of the gap, fighting the instinctive urge to recoil when he felt the tip of the croc’s head push into his groin. He was just able to snatch a breath before the croc started to thrash, never releasing the bite but trying now to get its head out -of the mangrove. Galantz clamped even harder with his right knee while searching desperately for the knife strapped to his right ankle, his left leg a rigid, thrumming column of muscle and bone, his right leg cramping with the strain of keeping the croc’s head jammed, but then he had the knife and was stabbing, slabbing hard into that relatively soft hide beneath and behind the croc’s jaws, pushing with all his strength, feeling the steel tip bumping on bone and gristle, and feeling the croc’s thrashing tail beginning to pound the water outside, making noise. Die, goddamn it. I can’t stand noise; the VC will hear it. But then there came an enormous underwater roar and an almost overwhelming squeeze of pressure that made him forget the croc and his arm and his mortal struggle under the mangrove.

At that instant, Sherman felt the deck under his feet squeeze up toward his seat as if a great fist had punched up from the bottom of the river, jamming his knees against the console, and then his helmeted head was banging off the overhead and he was going ass over teakettle onto the deck as a huge red and roaring wall of water shot up just in front of the boat, accompanied by a bellowing blast out of the river.

“Mine!” he yelled. The boat was wallowing around like a drunken pig, no longer as light in the bow as she had been. Through the crash of the water plume on the bow, he heard the boom of the big mortar on the fantail and then night became blinding day as Yank’s white phosphorous round went off right in front of them on the banks, close enough that he could feel the heat through the open door.

The 81 was echoed by the stuttering blast of the after 50-cal as Yank went into action against the bank, joined almost immediately by the forwaro 50’s.

Tag groped for the console, punching hard at the engine start buttons as he struggled to get upright. The welcome rumble of the engines was drowned out by the forward 50’s getting seriously into it. The flash from the 50’s revealed enough of the bank to determine the boat’s position. The ebb tide had been building fast, and he could see mangrove roots that looked like half-submerged prison windows in the flash of the heavy machine guns. For a heart-stopping instant, he imagined he saw a white face in the water. Reflexively, he grabbed both engine control handles and pulled them all the way back, causing the boat to lurch astern as the 800 tip of General Motors’ finest dug in, extracting her from the lethal riverbank even as a second mine went off, but this time about thirty yards in front of them. Sherman saw the dull red glare underwater just before another thick column of water erupted, rising impossibly high. But the boat was going full astern now, and the bank had already receded into the darkness, visible only as the point from which the boat’s 50-cal tracer rounds were ricocheting up into the night sky. After nearly a year on the rivers, his guys knew exactly what to do-lay down a withering fire on both banks long enough for him to get them all out of the kill zone.

After fifteen seconds of backing out into the river, he yelled a cease-fire over the phones. He reduced the backing bell and then shifted to ahead, spinning the steering wheel full over, turning down river. The sudden silence was startling, and his eyes were stinging as he realized that the pilothouse was filled with gunsmoke. He kicked out to clear his feet from a couple of inches of hot powder casings that were rattling around on the deck and burning his ankles.

“Station check,” he barked into the phones. His throat was so dry that his voice cracked, and he felt his heart pounding and his hands shaking.

No matter how many times, it still scared the shit out of you.

“Fifty-one, no casualties,” Kelly called from up above.

“I think I got rounds in the chamber and I know I got a hot gun.

“Fifty-two, no casualties,” the bosun’s laconic voice announced. “Clear bore. I’m outta fifty and I’m reloading the eighty-one.” Nothing, not even mines, phased Yank.

“Radio’s okay,” Ryker squeaked in his high-pitched voice. He laughed nervously. “But I think Jarret crapped his pants.

There was a moment of silence on the circuit as Sherman gathered his thoughts while he continued to turn the boat.

“Fifty-one, clear ‘em through the muzzle,” he ordered.

“Radio, check on the snipe. He was down in the hole.” No more radar, so he was flying blind out here. He flipped on the Fathometer. He could keep her’m the middle using the compass and the Fathometer.

“Snipe’s okay,” Ryker called back immediately. “Says we got water coming in, though. He’s linin’ up the pumps.

We bookin’ outta here, boss, or what?”

Sherman thought for a moment. They had been very, very goddamn lucky.

Two mines, and they still had the engines and the props. If the hull was holed, it was up forward, away from the engine compartment. His right knee and his head hurt like hell, and he suspected everybody had some minor injuries. But there had been no machine gunners waiting to shoot his aluminum-hulled boat to ribbons from spider holes in the banks. Or if there had been, the Swift boat’s immediate response with the 50’s had kept the bastards down.

Two loud bangs overhead made him jump as he climbed sideways back into the twisted chair.

“Bores clear, Fifty-one. What about the snake eater?”

This from Kelly as he jacked -open the gun’s chambers to make sure they were, physically empty

“Screw the snake eater,” Ryker offered. “I think it was me shit his pants. That was too goddamn close.” He was trying to keep it light, but Sherman could detect the fear in his young voice. He realized his own hands were still trembling.

“And Fifty-two here,” said Yank. “The eighty-one has a willie peter, locked and loaded. Ready for bear. Tell Jarret to gimme some more fifty-cal.”

try Okay, girls, let’s get it together,” She, man snapped ing to get some strength and authority back into his own voice. The boat was definitely settling by the nose. “We’re gonna go down the river,” he said. “See if we can get this bitch to that sandbar at checkpoint Kilo.”

“What about the SEAL?” Kelly asked again. At that moment, the starboard diesel engine misfired and then started to run ragged. Sherman swore and punched the right-hand shutdown button, and the engine died with a grudging rattle.

Shit, he thought. Bet we busted a fuel line. He energized both engine compartment bilge pumps to keep fuel from pooling and starting a fire.

The port-side engine kept humning.

“The SEAL’s on his own for now,” Sherman replied.

“Right now, we’ve got our own probs. Yank, you stay at your gun. Watch behind us for shooters. Kelly, get inside and help the snipe with those pumps. Send Jarret back aft to open the engine compartment doors, tell me what we’ve got going back there. We need to get Baby here onto that sandbar before she sinks on us.”

Sherman pushed the useless radar display unit out of the way and tried to think. They would drift away from the ambush area even without engines because of the ebb. The compass showed he was pointed east, which was roughly down river. But it was still pitch-black, and he wanted to be out in the’middle and not about to bump up against one of the banks.

What about the SEAL? Kelly had wanted to know. Obviously, the enemy had known they were out there. And known they were drifting. Which meant they probably knew there was a pickup going down. Which might mean the SEAL had been discovered, and perhaps made to tell them. when the boat was coming back. Or maybe they just knew the pattern. Have to mention that in the debrief He turned the wheel to take them across the river, watching the depth gauge as he did so. He snaked the boat back and forth across the river until he found the deepest part, then pointed her back east on the compass. From where they had started, they should run aground on the sandbar at the dogleg sometime in the next hour, by which time another boat should be coming in to assist. What about the SEAL?

Well, the SEAL was probably dog meat by now. Sherman concentrated on the flickering red light of the Fathometer and saving his boat.

Too bad about the SEAL, but another boat would go back again tomorrow night and try again. That was the deal. You didn’t just leave a guy out there in the weeds.

Rear Adm. Thomas V. Carpenter, Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy, was perplexed as he stared up at his aide over his half-lens reading glasses.