Working together, they lifted him from the deck and lowered him into the wire embrace of a Stokes stretcher. Thurman began strapping him in.
“I think my back’s broken,” Vaughn said. Strange, he felt no emotion.
“Well, now,” Thurman said. “We won’t know until we get you back to the Jeff for some pictures, will we?”
“You can drop the bedside manner, Doc.” He paused, listening to the shouts from outside the shattered CIC. “How bad is the ship?”
“I don’t know, Admiral.” Thurman reached down with a grease pencil and scrawled something across Vaughn’s forehead. It would be the letter “M” for morphine and the time, he knew. “You’ll have to talk to whoever’s in command now.”
Whoever’s in command. Cunningham had been standing a few feet away before the explosion. Was he dead?
“We’re evacuating casualties,” Thurman continued as he pocketed the grease pencil. “We have helos working in relays, taking them across to the Jefferson. She’s got the best sick bay facilities in the battle group.”
Thurman started to turn away. Vaughn caught his arm. “Call Captain Fitzgerald,” he said. “Have him see me when I get there.”
Thurman smiled. “That shot I gave you might have you under by then, Admiral.”
“Do … it! Must see … Fitzgerald.” He could feel the muzzy-headed dopiness as the morphine took effect.
He had to fight it, to stay awake. He had to see Fitzgerald …
Tombstone eased his Tomcat into the slot astern of the Jefferson and cut back on his power. He checked his stores listing on his VDI and was startled to see that he’d expended all of his missiles and was down to his last eighty rounds for his M-61A1 Vulcan, and he wasn’t even sure how many Indian aircraft he’d downed. The fight had been so confused, the sky so filled with planes and missiles. There was no way to sort it all out.
The fight had left him feeling so drained he didn’t even feel the usual charge of adrenaline as he approached for his trap. He almost felt relaxed. “Tomcat Two-double-oh,” he called. Ball. Three point three.”
“Roger ball,” the LSO reported. “You’re right in the groove. Check your hook.”
Tombstone slapped the switch that lowered his tail hook. He’d been so relaxed he’d forgotten.
Somehow, the Jefferson’s flight deck had never looked so good from this vantage point, half a mile astern and coming in for a trap. He held the stick steady, making slight, second-by-second corrections.
The Tomcat swept in over the ramp, settling to the deck in a perfect approach. Tombstone rammed the throttles forward as the tail hook snagged on the number-three wire, and he felt the familiar wrench of deceleration as he hung by his harness straps for a second. He cut back on the power as the LSO called “Okay” over the radio.
“Let’s clear the deck,” the Air Boss said in Tombstone’s headset as a yellow shirt started to direct him across the deck. “On the double. We have helos inbound.”
Okay. It was good to be home.
Captain Fitzgerald was waiting as several Corpsmen lowered the Stokes from the helo and eased Admiral Vaughn to the carrier’s deck. The admiral found himself puzzling over an odd movement above his face, until he realized that he was lying on his back, looking up through the still-turning rotors of a Navy Sea King helicopter. Had he been asleep?
No matter. Fitzgerald’s creased, anxious face bent low over his own.
“Admiral? How are you?”
“Can’t complain,” Vaughn said, weakly. “Doesn’t do any good.”
“My people’ll get you to sick bay, Admiral. They’re good. They’ll patch you up-“
“Listen, Captain,” Vaughn interrupted. “You’ve got command of the battle group.”
“They told me half an hour ago you were wounded, sir,” he said, nodding.
“As senior officer, I took command then.”
“The … group?”
“We took a pasting. Can’t deny that. Kremlin and Vicksburg are both hit pretty bad. But the Indian air force damn near busted a gut doing that much. We estimate they’ve lost fifty aircraft of all types. They turned tail and started running shortly after Vicksburg took that missile.”
“Good. One … one more order, then.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Complete the mission.”
“Sir?”
“Carry out mission.” The pain in his arm was back, growing steadily worse despite the morphine. “We’ve got to follow through. If we don’t … it’s all been for nothing. Nothing …”
“Admiral, it may not be possible. We’ve got fifteen F-14s flying, period. And they’re going to have to rearm and refuel. We have to guard the battle group.”
“Use … Russians,” Vaughn said.
“They haven’t exactly been cooperative,” Fitzgerald pointed out. “I don’t-“
“Russians … have squadron up. Can’t land. Use them. Somehow …”
Suddenly, it seemed terribly important to Vaughn that their losses not be in vain. A waste.
Fitzgerald grinned suddenly. “Don’t you worry, Admiral. They tell me the Jeff’ll have all four cats back on line in another hour, max. After that … well, like they say. Charlie Mike.” Continue mission.
“Good.”
The blue sky behind Fitzgerald’s head was darkening … darkening.
Admiral Vaughn slipped into oblivion.
Fitzgerald watched as they carried Vaughn off toward the island, then moved back out of the way as a deck officer waved for personnel to stand clear. The Sea King’s pilot began gunning the helo’s rotors. The deck officer lifted his hands in a final all-clear. With a roar, the helo lifted from the deck, then angled across the carrier’s port side and out over the ocean.
On the horizon, he could see the smoky stain where Vicksburg was burning.
He checked his watch, then glanced toward the carrier’s bow. He couldn’t see the damage control parties, of course. They were all below, working on the steam lines that had been damaged by the Exocet hit.
They’d better have them ready in an hour.
Fitzgerald breathed a long, slightly unsteady sigh of relief. Before they’d flown the admiral back aboard, he’d already given the orders to continue readying the strike aircraft for the raid on India. Not that it would have made a lot of difference one way or the other at some later, formal board of inquiry or court-martial. It was just nice to know that he wasn’t entirely alone in his decision.
The joint task force had been hit hard, but they could still carry out the mission. Hit the Indian supply columns. Force them to end their invasion of Pakistan.
Charlie Mike.
CHAPTER 26
CAG Marusko stood behind the lectern at the front of the Vipers’ Ready Room, rocking back on his heels as he brought the squadron up to date.
Tombstone sat with the others at the small metal desks with the folding wooden writing surfaces, like schoolboys being lectured by their teacher.
“We’ve hit them hard,” Marusko said. “Damned hard.”
Certainly, Tombstone thought, someone had decided to put the best possible face on things. CAG was running the briefing in the Ready Room in person rather than broadcasting it over closed-circuit TV. It was a way of maintaining contact with the men, for their morale … and probably for his own as well.