They waited.
Two minutes dragged by. They began to grin and relax.
It came at them from the north. The first they heard were the rattling of the rotary guns pumping out 20mm rounds at their boat. Then it roared over them at less than hundred feet and rocked the boat twenty degrees. None of the 20mm rounds hit the boat.
“Missed us, by God,” Chief Dobler screeched. “At that speed one of those rounds hits the deck about every fifty feet. He has to be damn good to do us any harm.”
“He might get lucky, do we abandon ship, Cap?” DeWitt asked.
Murdock figured he had two minutes to decide. The next pass the pilot would get more altitude and concentrate his fire when he dove at them. Snap decision, combat pure.
“Over the side, everyone. Leave everything except your weapon. Kill the engine. If he misses we’ll swim for the boat. Swim away from the tub on each side. Abandon ship, now.”
Murdock grabbed his Bull Pup and jumped the six feet into the Ganges. He did a scissors kick as soon as he hit and kept his head above water, then lowered his face into the water and kicked hard and used one arm to power himself away from the boat. He felt the pull of the current. Good, if the boat lasted they wouldn’t have so far to swim to catch it.
Murdock was thirty yards to one side of the boat when the jet came down again. He could hear the plane and he was higher, diving this time to concentrate his rounds. This pass with the 20mm cannon riddled the boat, knocking huge chunks out of the deck on one side. The next pass by the MiG blasted a hundred exploding rounds into the small craft. The wheelhouse vanished and toppled into the water. The deck exploded in a million splinters and the whole left side of the craft caved in as the holes in the bottom let the dank Ganges pour in. A minute later the boat sank.
Murdock looked around. He saw two swimmers.
“Over here,” Murdock bellowed. “Assemble over here.” He looked for the nearest land. One of the many islands poked out of the water ahead and to the left downstream. The two men near him were Mahanani and Jaybird.
“That next island, Jaybird,” Murdock called. The two men headed that way. Murdock yelled again, but could see no other swimmers near him. He surged upward out of the water and yelled at the top of his move. “The island to the left,” he called. “Get to the island to the left.”
Then he swam for the land, holding the Bull Pup in one hand and swimming hard with the other. The current helped and he washed on shore three minutes later. The other two were there yelling into the morning sunlight. They spotted two more men and helped them up the beach. The land here was barely two feet out of the water.
Murdock thought of his Motorola. It was wet and dead. They weren’t made for underwater work. He doubted if any of the men took time to waterproof the little radio set before they dove in. He felt his shoulder and saw that he still had two flares. Some help.
He had four men out of fourteen. Where the hell were the other ten?
13
Where were those guys? Murdock stared into the glare of the early morning sunshine. Another island to the right fifty yards. He squinted. Yes, somebody was over there.
Jaybird came up. “I’ve got five more men on that next little island to the right,” Jaybird said. “Looks like it’s about flooded over. We going over there or have them come over here?”
“Here,” Murdock said.
Jaybird adjusted his Motorola. “Hey guys on that other island. If you’ve got your ears on, Skipper says come over here. See me, I’m waving.”
Jaybird had no response to his call.
“My radio is dead,” Murdock said. “How did you have time to get yours waterproofed?”
“Did that the minute I saw that MiG making his first run. I’ll go up as far as I can on this land and yell at the guys. It ain’t that far away.”
Mahanani came up. “Hey, found two more slippery SEALs. One is talking about a hurt leg, Franklin. Don’t know how bad yet. How many men we missing?”
“Still short three. They must be here somewhere. The current isn’t that strong, no downpulls.”
“Where’n hell are you guys?” Mahanani’s ear piece asked.
“Hey, I’ve got a live one here. Who is this and where are you?”
“Ostercamp you jerk. Three of us found this little reef, sandbar, whatever. We’re sitting in six inches of water but it’s easier than swimming. Where are you?”
Jaybird came running up from where he’d been up the island.
“Good count on that other island, Cap. I’ve got five over there. That makes fourteen chicks in the basket. Everyone accounted for.”
“Good, where’s DeWitt?”
“Must be on the island. They’re going to swim over here. Haven’t spotted the sand bar guys yet, but they can’t be far away. I’ll make another run down the island.”
Mahanani, Lampedusa and Howie Anderson looked at their platoon leader. “So, what the hell we do now, Skipper?”
“First we get the men together. Where are the three sandbar sitters?”
“Where are you guys on the sandbar? Can you see a big island maybe three four feet high anywhere? Probably behind you. How far downstream did you go before you got to the reef?”
“Not sure,” Ostercamp said. “Big island. Small one in front, oh yeah, now I see it. Behind us, maybe, what three hundred yards.”
“Jaybird should be showing up at your end of the island. If you can see him, give him a holler. We’ve found everybody now.”
Murdock moved down the island until he could see where his five men were swimming across the fifty yards from the other one. They came in pairs fighting the five-knot current. The last pair came slower, drifted farther downstream and Murdock saw that one man was helping the other one.
They were going to be swept by the end of the island, but Howie Anderson swam out and pulled them in. The last two were DeWitt and Will Dobler. Dobler was the one getting help. Murdock ran up to them where they both lay on the beach.
DeWitt motioned Murdock to one side. “Will must have taken some shrapnel from one of the twenties. Got him in the upper leg and doesn’t look good. We better get a couple of first aid kits off the men. Mahanani is looking at it. Not fatal, but he won’t be walking much for a while.”
“Glad to see you guys. We’ve got three fish sitting on a sand bar downstream about three hundred yards. Ostercamp and two others. They have a working radio. I took mine for a swim.”
“So what now?” DeWitt asked.
“We’re not moving downstream a hell of a lot farther,” Murdock said.” He looked around, saw Lam, and called the tracker over. “Do a quick survey of the island. Let me know what we have. Any vegetation, where it’s the driest, any concealment. Go.”
Lam took off on a trot heading for the far side of the island.
“I figure we’re still about thirty-five miles from the mouth of the Ganges,” DeWitt said. “Hope that chopper pilot doesn’t get nervous about charging into enemy territory up the river.”
“That’s what we pay him for,” Murdock said.
He rounded up the men he had and moved then down the island. Two SEALs helped as Dobler hobbled along on one foot. The land was a quarter of a mile long, maybe half that wide. There was no vegetation of any kind on this side, just mud and sand. The dry part was three to four feet above the river level. Toward the center of the island it rose to twenty-five or thirty feet. Murdock moved the men up there.
“Mahanani, contact Jaybird and see if he can spot those three sandbar guys.”
Mahanani made the radio call. He waited a minute and looked up. “Jaybird says Ostercamp has Jefferson and Khai with him. All are okay. He says they don’t want to do the swim back upstream just yet. Give them another half hour and they will join us.”