Li felt a little self-conscious as he had strode from his cabin with a webbing cartridge belt, holster on his hip and camouflage cream on his face. His men nodded respectfully but one unseen wag mimicked the sound of clinking spurs.
“Laugh it up boys.” He’d responded. “If it gets so that me and this gun are the only thing between success and swimming home, you’d better be wearing your water wings.” His expertise with small arms was limited to one day a year when he was required to demonstrate safe handling drills on a range. The ten rounds he fired during that process did not in any way count towards his annual requalification, which was fortunate for him.
Bao remained submerged beyond the river mouth with her Lo-Lite TV equipped search periscope raised along with the ECM and communications masts.
Dai entered the estuary at periscope depth; a bare twenty feet of water beneath her keel.
The control room was now illuminated with red lighting in order that the bridge crew and landing parties eyes would already be acclimatised to the dark.
Li was glued to the periscope until he saw a broad slipway off to their left. The road that served it was the remains of the original main highway to Cayenne.
“All stop.”
The slipway belonged to the old ferry service that had existed for centuries in progressively modern form, and profited at that spot since the Portuguese had first claimed the land. Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards and Englishmen had also fought over ownership of this country but the Kourou river ferry had survived and prospered despite them all. Only when a Swiss built a bridge downriver did the fat lady finally sing for the ferry. It sat abandoned now, a mere marker for a Chinaman at the point where the river started and the deeper estuary ended.
Dai slowly arose, her masts emerging from the waters like a clutch of Excaliburs.
Brown, silt laden, water flowed off the Juliett’s bridge and down the grey steel sides of the conning tower, but her bulk stayed hidden beneath the surface, giving them the radar profile of a small boat.
Li undogged the top lid and locked it in place as he emerged into the rain. Lookouts took post and four ratings strained to haul a 23mm cannon up the ladder from the control room and mounted it as quietly as possible, loading a belt of ammunition but not cocking the weapon as the harsh metallic sound would travel far across the water despite the rain.
It was a snug fit now in the conning tower with look-outs, the Strela air sentry, 23mm and Captain Li.
The Strela had a back blast area which limited its arcs of fire. The ideal was for two sentries on the casing, one forward and one aft of the conning tower. In heavy weather though, the best-of-a-bad-job position was aft of everyone on the conning tower, perched above them all and attached to the ECM mast by a safety harness. This position was of course not conducive to engaging targets approaching from the rear. Nevertheless, Li had his air sentry assisted up there to allow more freedom of movement on the bridge.
Captain Li squinted against the downpour and pulled up his collar to minimise the discomfort of having water running down the back of his neck. He had a hood but he preferred keep his hearing unhindered.
Raising night glasses to his eyes he picked out the channel marker. They remained on electrical power, draining the batteries precious charge but preserving the element of surprise as Li conned the vessel slowly forwards keeping diligently above the deepest part of the rivers dredged channel.
His nose wrinkled as the salt tang of the ocean became polluted by the scent of the jungle, the rotting vegetation and wet mud from the mangrove swamps that lay just outside the small towns influence.
The trees, the creepers and dense jungle undergrowth closed in on them, overhanging the river banks as soon as the town had slipped behind them in the darkness.
A nightscope picked out a wooden dugout canoe drawn up on the bank, the Stone Age existing just a stone’s throw from the twenty first century and all its internet broadband glory.
Their world became that of the tropical downpour and the ominous dark mass of the jungle, picked out by a fractionally lighter sky.
It was claustrophobic. They were out of their comfort zone, away from the deep waters they were designed to hunt in and this added to the diligence with which the bridge crew kept watch.
Li allowed himself to swing his glasses up and down river every so often, taking in the black and impenetrable gloom of the banks.
Amid the leaping strikes of raindrops upon the river two bright dots appeared beside the bank, he kept his glasses upon them as he tried to work out what they were, a surveillance device? He lowered the glasses and they disappeared, invisible to the naked eye in the darkness but with the glasses raised once more he immediately picked them out again as they were now moving towards his command, creating a faint V of a wake in the rivers surface. A seabird swam into his vision and into the path of the glowing dots, its own head pulled back into the protection its furled wings afforded against the rain.
There was a splash, a flurry of movement and both bird and dots disappeared with the swish of a caiman’s leathery tail, leaving only a few floating feathers. Li shivered despite himself at the suddenness with which death had visited this primeval place.
The river bent around to the right and Li leant over the side of the conning tower so as to more quickly sight the ESA jetty, glasses held to his eyes with one hand and the other clutching a microphone to his mouth, thumb just touching the transmit switch and the order to open fire ready on his lips. The rating on the 23mm cannon clutched the weapons cocking handle tightly, his knuckles white and bracing himself to ratchet the lever to the rear.
Below decks the tension was palpable. In engineering they were awaiting the call to throw the engines into full reverse for a fighting withdrawal back to the ocean under fire from surface warships. The torpedomen stood ready, and between them and the control room waited the armed ratings who would be their sentries along with the Fassing party in the central passageway. All were bathed in red light, clutching small arms with the awkwardness of the unfamiliar, but ready to carry out the fuelling procedures from the novelty of a rock steady surface for once.
The darkness of the jungle on the northern bank altered with the appearance of a silhouette that possessed straight lines. It separated from the unruly mass of the night time rain forest to sit stationary a hundred metres off the north bank. As it came into the view of the 23mm gunner he immediately took aim.
“Belay that!” Li commanded sharply. “It’s the Fliterland.”
Bulky, specialised derricks sat above the elongated ships hold where the Soyuz rocket sections and delicate payloads were stored but the freighter was riding high in the water, empty, her last cargo unloaded weeks before.
Rust streaked here and there, the freighters blue hull and white superstructure loomed over them as they slowly motored along her cliff-like port side.
The dock beyond the freighter was empty of warships too. Li was not as relieved as he might have been. He still did not know where the French corvettes and fast patrol boats were.
“All stop.”
The rain showed no sign of relenting as the Dai sat motionless in midstream. Li took up his glasses again, to peer downriver at the road bridge, and to look for any sign of sentries.