Doc strapped Quinley’s left arm to his side, and his wrist and forearm across his chest. He tied two buddy lines together, and looped them around Quinley under his armpits.
“On your back in the water,” Doc told the casualty. He gave the buddy lines with loops tied in each end to the two SEALS. “You’re towing him, and I’m keeping his head out of the water,” Doc said.
“Let’s move, we’re too far behind the rest of the platoon.”
Murdock swam behind Doc and his patient.
The system worked. The two strong swimmers in front had tied the buddy lines around their chests so they could do a powerful crawl stroke. They moved upstream against the current, but had no chance to overtake the other swimmers now well ahead of them.
Murdock had told Ed Dewitt to stop them about where they’d entered the water a quarter of a mile ahead.
The SEALs had strapped their weapons across their backs, and swam hard. It was work against the current. Murdock had told Bradford to leave the big fifty-caliber rifle on the bus. No way he could carry it and his MG and swim upstream.
Halfway there, Ronson and Fernandez swam to the near edge of the canal and rested.
“Can you make it?” Doc asked them. Both nodded, but didn’t waste any breath answering.
Ten minutes later, the last five men came to the point of departure, and crawled out of the canal.
“Hey, don’t know what you guys are panting about,” Quinley said.
“I’m fresh as a four-dollar whore and ready to do the swim again.”
Both Ronson and Fernandez slugged Quinley in the shoulder.
“Maybe I should really break your fucking arm,” Ronson bellowed, then collapsed on the side of the canal, still breathing hard.
“Teamwork. Teamwork. It’s all got to be teamwork,” Murdock said, pacing among his men. His cammies still dripped from the canal water.
“What happened back there that shouldn’t have? Anybody?”
There was no reply.
“Two men were called back for special duty, to tow a casualty. Two of you should have at least taken their weapons, made their work a tad bit easier. Teamwork. We work together to stay alive. If this had been a real mission, we might have lost either of the two men towing the casualty, or the wounded man himself, or all three. Think, men. Think about the good of the group. We all depend on each other. Just like carrying the logs down at BUD/S. We think teamwork here, it’ll save our butts on a mission.
“The facts are, we have a mission in the oven. It’s not quite ready yet, but in the near future we’ll be flying out of here and going to the Far East, where we’ll be berthed on an aircraft carrier while the brass monitors a situation about ready to blow. If and when it erupts, we’ll be nearby ready for action.”
He looked around at the tired men. They seemed to perk up a little.
“You get ten minutes to rest. Then we’ll double-time out to the old gunnery range and practice throwing grenades. That means we swing past the bus to take on a couple of cartons of the little hand bombs.”
A half hour later at the grenade range, they took turns throwing the smooth and round M-67 grenades at truck tires positioned at twenty, thirty, and forty yards away. Each man threw until he dropped a grenade in the twenty-yard tire, then had two shots at each of the longer throws.
It took Ron Holt eight throws to get the first grenade inside the twenty-yard tire. They threw from behind a log-and-sandbag barricade.
Murdock used his field glasses from forty yards away to spot the targets.
Doc Ellsworth had the best arm in the platoon. He laid his second fragger in the twenty-yard tire, hit the thirty-yard circle on his second throw, and nailed the forty-yard tire on his first.
“Come on, you dirtbags,” Doc crowed. “Let’s see a little competition around here. Do I have to show you how every fucking time?”
Nobody beat the medic that day at throwing hand grenades.
They closed out the morning with a five-mile forced march, and wound up back at the bus. Everyone slumped in the shade of the bus or sat inside, and broke out his MREf.
“Holt, fire up the SATCOM. Somebody is trying to reach us.”
“Your radar ears again, Commander?”
“Damn right.”
“They should have like E-mail on this thing so it could pick up a message and record it so we could get it anytime.”
“Hard to do without turning it on, Holt. Go.”
The minute Holt had the antenna positioned and snapped on the set, they had a call come in. It was encrypted, but came through the machine in clear voice.
“Murdock, this is Stroh. Give me a call when you can. Things are moving.”
“Not yet,” Murdock growled. “It’s too damn quick. We need more time to get the men ready.”
He nodded at Holt to set for voice transmission encrypted, and picked up the mike.
“Murdock here, looking for Don Stroh. My ears are on.”
There was a pause while the machine encrypted and sent the message.
Another came back a minute later.
“Murdock. Stroh. Things moving faster than we thought. We need you to be out there a week from today.”
Murdock scowled at the set. He was far enough away so the men couldn’t hear.
“Can’t do it, Stroh. I have that new man. We need more time to integrate him into the team. You know how we work closely together.
Can’t you push it another week?”
“I can, but the President can’t. He cut the orders to my boss, and I’m just the messenger. A week tomorrow from North Island, three o’clock P.m. You’ll be going to the USS Monroe. You’ve been on her before.”
“Aye, aye. Can’t argue with the Commander in Chief. We’ll be ready, but we may need a week to recuperate on that Navy pleasure-cruise ship.”
“That sounds better, fishing buddy. I’ll meet you on the carrier.
I’m out of here.”
Murdock signaled to Holt to turn off the set. “Not a word of this to the men. I’ll tell them tonight. Go eat your chow.” Murdock found Ed Dewitt in the back of the bus, and told him what he’d just found out.
“We’re pushing it to get ready,” Ed said. “Remember, we’ve got a new man in my squad.”
Murdock worried it. “Yeah, that’s what’s been bugging me. He has good individual skills. It’s the teamwork I’m thinking about. We’ll do some basic teamwork back at the Grinder. Get a little down and dirty.
We’ll make sure that Jack Mahanani will be totally integrated into the team.”
“A pair of men roping down a thousand-foot cliff is a good way to imprint cooperation.”
“Yea, Ed, and a good way to lose a man if something goes wrong.
Let’s use a little more subtle method.”
Ed finished his peanut butter and crackers. “What’s for this afternoon?”
“Not sure. We need the rest of the day here, then five days of intensive water training, then we should be ready.”
“How about the injured-buddy drill?” Ed asked.
“Each one carry one?”
“Sounds good.”
“How are Ronson and Ching getting along?”
Murdock grinned. “Hell, like twins. Ching blasting that rattlesnake about ready to plant his fangs in Ronson’s ankle turned Ronson into Ching’s buddy for life.”
“Damned good thing. Ronson was hot. We use a diamond formation?”
“Right. We go out four miles, then get hit by a whole division so we pull back with our wounded.”
“Who carries who?”
“Next man in line in the diamond. Or if it’s a mismatch, switch it around so it works. You designate your wounded and who carries who.
We’ll move back halfway, then switch, and the one carried then totes his buddy.”
“Sounds good to me. Hope you don’t have to pack out Ronson and his two hundred and fifty pounds.”
Murdock grinned. “Easy, who’s going to get Mahanani and his two-forty? Better make it Ronson. They deserve each other. Let’s get these noodle-knockers into the field.”