Only several minutes later did they fall in a heap beside a well-worn track, coughing, sweating, spent but alive.
Of course, to Pedro, it had all seemed like a great adventure.
While the adults wheezed, coughed up and spat river water and tried to come to terms with their survival, the child viewed them curiously, eager to carry on playing.
Henrietta sat up, motioned for the boy to come to her.
“Mama?” he asked, his infant face creased with mild bewilderment.
The Governor of New England’s daughter wrapped him in her arms and sobbed with unchained relief.
Chapter 39
Thursday 14th April
HMS Surprise, off Little Inagua
Stepping onto the great steel whale strong hands had guided Abe directly to an open circular hatch, down which he had been ushered with polite but very urgent haste. He had wanted to supervise Ted Forest’s safe conveyance into the belly of the monster; that was not an option.
Dazed, disorientated and probably a little high on the drugs his Special Boat Squadron rescuers had pumped into his system at the bottom of the vertical ladder he had emerged into a red-light lit compartment packed with equipment.
A torpedo room…
Surrounded by men in familiar naval fatigues, except matt black, with singular silvery dolphin badges bearing each man’s rank, he was guided clear of the ladder and led, like a lost child aft into what appeared to be a berthing compartment, thereafter through two more bulkhead doors, and into what was obviously the control room, or bridge of the vessel.
A dapper man of fit, vital, indeterminate middle years presented himself, sticking out his right hand and smiling broadly.
“I’m Drake, Francis, like the pirate of yore, for my sins I have the honour to be Captain of His Majesty’s Submarine Surprise,” the older man declared proudly. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Lincoln.”
Abe blinked at the man.
“Thank you, sir. My friend is badly injured…”
“You’re not in tip top form yourself, old chap.”
This was true.
“But…”
“My surgeon will look after both of you.” Sensing that his guest was still struggling coming to terms with his surroundings, Captain drake took pity on Abe. “You are on board a six-thousand-ton nuclear-powered submarine with a crew of over a hundred men, Mister Lincoln. We have a fully equipped sick bay. Your friend will receive the best possible care. As will you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The submariner patted his right arm.
“Now, let my people take you aft so that we can look after you properly. Once we’re clear of land, you and I will speak again.”
This thought was, and was not, overly comforting given that Abe half-suspected he was dreaming. His polished, antiseptic, near silent surrounding seemed to him more like something out of a science fiction novel or movie than a real ship.
Or submarine…
Nuclear-powered?
I thought that was banned…
It transpired that the ships surgeon, a slim, aesthetic man of Asiatic extraction, Surgeon Lieutenant Dawlish-Wang, who was only a few years Abe’s senior, had been on deck when he arrived on board and had personally supervised every aspect of Ted Forest’s lowering into the torpedo compartment, his triage on the deck prior to his transfer aft, and generally clucked around Abe’s friend like a mother hen.
The Surprise’s sick bay was actually a very compact operating theatre, approximately of the dimensions of a couple of large broom cupboards.
The compartment was overfull with Abe seated in one corner, Ted Forest on the ‘table’ and Dawlish-Wang and a man wearing a badge proclaiming he was a Leading Sick Bay Rate, in it.
Abe was finding it hard to stay awake.
He watched as Ted Forest’s rags were cut away.
“I’m going to need to tidy up your friend’s wounds,” Dawlish informed him. “You did a damned good job keeping everything clean and staunching the bleeding but once I’ve swabbed everything out, I’ll close things up. We’re going to carry on feeding you both anti-biotics, for a while at least. I have a small x-ray machine but just looking at Mister Forest’s leg I think it’ll just be a matter of re-splinting and slapping on a lightweight cast…”
Abe must have fallen asleep because there was no sign of Ted Forest when he awakened.
“We’ve made your friend comfortable in the adjacent compartment. The Communications Officer volunteered to give up his bunk.”
“That’s jolly decent of him…”
Abe shrugged out of his shirt, a torn and still bloody thing, and was helped onto the examination table.
“I’m going to put you under while I sort out your shoulder,” he was warned.
However, knowing that Ted had been attended to and was ‘comfortable’, Abe was beyond caring.
Chapter 40
Friday 15th April
14 miles east of San Salvador Island
Commander Alexander Fielding had had no trouble finding the stricken carrier. A great pillar of evil black smoke towered like a volcanic eruption above the Ulysses.
The report over the TBS -Talk Between Ships – UHF scrambled communications system said that only one of the three or four torpedoes aimed at her had struck home. Unfortunately, that single fish had punched a hole in her and most likely, fractured a fuel main. Thereafter, it had only been a matter of time before a stray spark set off the conflagration now consuming the after section of the great ship.
It was getting dark and the Ulysses’s birds – a score of Goshawks and probably as many Sea Eagles were circling – starting to watch their fuel gauges dip into the red.
“THIS IS BAD BOY CALLING ALL LOST BOYS!” He tried to sound calm, it was not easy. “IF YOU HAVE TWENTY PLUS MINUTES FUEL RESERVE VECTOR TWO-SEVEN-FIVE DEGREES! MAKE BEST ECONOMIC SPEED! MOTHER HEN IS READY FOR YOU! REPEAT! MOTHER HEN IS READY AND WAITING FOR YOU!”
Anybody with the dial already in the red needed to splash down now as near as possible to a friendly ship. Although, with a submarine on the loose in the vicinity few captains were likely to contemplate stopping to pick up stray aviators.
Alex had not been the only one wondering what else could possibly go wrong after yesterday’s fiasco over Nuevo Asentamiento Fluvial.
There had been no invasion fleet; just a flock of BMK 57F scouts wearing the blood-red liveries of the Cuban Air Force.
Airframe to airframe the 57Fs were no match for a well-handled Goshawk but when the odds were four or five to one, that was hardly a relevant consideration.
Alex had radioed back to the Perseus to abort the second attack – by the Sea Eagles – but three of the bombers had not received the recall and presumably, fallen prey to the 57Fs over Florida.
Alex had taken little comfort from splashing two of his foes; one of his old hands had knocked down another before the flight had had to use their superior straight-line speed to beat a hasty retreat.
As he circled the burning carrier Alex saw a light cruiser, possibly the Cavalier, manoeuvring close alongside the Ulysses, playing her fire hoses over the stern of the great ship. Everywhere for miles around Task Force 5.1’s ships were zig-zagging.
It was chaos.
It was defeat and it tasted vile.
In the distance a Sea Eagle ditched in the sea virtually alongside a destroyer.
EPILOGUE