Letting go with his right hand, he surfaced for a final breath, bent down, face underwater, and grabbed the croc’s muzzle.
Hooking desperate fingers into the fold of skin behind the jaw, he set his legs and pulled back, straining hard, trying to get enough of the croc’s head into the root cage so he could stand up, get another breath, and then force the croc’s head up against the opening, pin it, and get to his knife.
The croc pulled back, and he thought his left hand was going with it, but then he managed to grab one of the croc’s front legs and pull hard, leveraging the pull with his leg and thigh muscles, and this time he got the croc’s head through the bars. His left hand was numb, dead, along with his forearm, maybe almost gone even, except the croc was still there. He was a dead man unless he got this croc off his hand.
Keeping his left leg pinned against the cage, he used his right knee to jam the croc’s head tighter into the upside down Y-shaped top of the gap, fighting the instinctive urge to recoil when he felt the tip of the croc’s head push into his groin. He was just able to snatch a breath before the croc started to thrash, never releasing the bite but trying now to get its head out -of the mangrove. Galantz clamped even harder with his right knee while searching desperately for the knife strapped to his right ankle, his left leg a rigid, thrumming column of muscle and bone, his right leg cramping with the strain of keeping the croc’s head jammed, but then he had the knife and was stabbing, slabbing hard into that relatively soft hide beneath and behind the croc’s jaws, pushing with all his strength, feeling the steel tip bumping on bone and gristle, and feeling the croc’s thrashing tail beginning to pound the water outside, making noise. Die, goddamn it. I can’t stand noise; the VC will hear it. But then there came an enormous underwater roar and an almost overwhelming squeeze of pressure that made him forget the croc and his arm and his mortal struggle under the mangrove.
At that instant, Sherman felt the deck under his feet squeeze up toward his seat as if a great fist had punched up from the bottom of the river, jamming his knees against the console, and then his helmeted head was banging off the overhead and he was going ass over teakettle onto the deck as a huge red and roaring wall of water shot up just in front of the boat, accompanied by a bellowing blast out of the river.
“Mine!” he yelled. The boat was wallowing around like a drunken pig, no longer as light in the bow as she had been. Through the crash of the water plume on the bow, he heard the boom of the big mortar on the fantail and then night became blinding day as Yank’s white phosphorous round went off right in front of them on the banks, close enough that he could feel the heat through the open door.
The 81 was echoed by the stuttering blast of the after 50-cal as Yank went into action against the bank, joined almost immediately by the forwaro 50’s.
Tag groped for the console, punching hard at the engine start buttons as he struggled to get upright. The welcome rumble of the engines was drowned out by the forward 50’s getting seriously into it. The flash from the 50’s revealed enough of the bank to determine the boat’s position. The ebb tide had been building fast, and he could see mangrove roots that looked like half-submerged prison windows in the flash of the heavy machine guns. For a heart-stopping instant, he imagined he saw a white face in the water. Reflexively, he grabbed both engine control handles and pulled them all the way back, causing the boat to lurch astern as the 800 tip of General Motors’ finest dug in, extracting her from the lethal riverbank even as a second mine went off, but this time about thirty yards in front of them. Sherman saw the dull red glare underwater just before another thick column of water erupted, rising impossibly high. But the boat was going full astern now, and the bank had already receded into the darkness, visible only as the point from which the boat’s 50-cal tracer rounds were ricocheting up into the night sky. After nearly a year on the rivers, his guys knew exactly what to do-lay down a withering fire on both banks long enough for him to get them all out of the kill zone.
After fifteen seconds of backing out into the river, he yelled a cease-fire over the phones. He reduced the backing bell and then shifted to ahead, spinning the steering wheel full over, turning down river. The sudden silence was startling, and his eyes were stinging as he realized that the pilothouse was filled with gunsmoke. He kicked out to clear his feet from a couple of inches of hot powder casings that were rattling around on the deck and burning his ankles.
“Station check,” he barked into the phones. His throat was so dry that his voice cracked, and he felt his heart pounding and his hands shaking.
No matter how many times, it still scared the shit out of you.
“Fifty-one, no casualties,” Kelly called from up above.
“I think I got rounds in the chamber and I know I got a hot gun.
“Fifty-two, no casualties,” the bosun’s laconic voice announced. “Clear bore. I’m outta fifty and I’m reloading the eighty-one.” Nothing, not even mines, phased Yank.
“Radio’s okay,” Ryker squeaked in his high-pitched voice. He laughed nervously. “But I think Jarret crapped his pants.
There was a moment of silence on the circuit as Sherman gathered his thoughts while he continued to turn the boat.
“Fifty-one, clear ‘em through the muzzle,” he ordered.
“Radio, check on the snipe. He was down in the hole.” No more radar, so he was flying blind out here. He flipped on the Fathometer. He could keep her’m the middle using the compass and the Fathometer.
“Snipe’s okay,” Ryker called back immediately. “Says we got water coming in, though. He’s linin’ up the pumps.
We bookin’ outta here, boss, or what?”
Sherman thought for a moment. They had been very, very goddamn lucky.
Two mines, and they still had the engines and the props. If the hull was holed, it was up forward, away from the engine compartment. His right knee and his head hurt like hell, and he suspected everybody had some minor injuries. But there had been no machine gunners waiting to shoot his aluminum-hulled boat to ribbons from spider holes in the banks. Or if there had been, the Swift boat’s immediate response with the 50’s had kept the bastards down.
Two loud bangs overhead made him jump as he climbed sideways back into the twisted chair.
“Bores clear, Fifty-one. What about the snake eater?”
This from Kelly as he jacked -open the gun’s chambers to make sure they were, physically empty
“Screw the snake eater,” Ryker offered. “I think it was me shit his pants. That was too goddamn close.” He was trying to keep it light, but Sherman could detect the fear in his young voice. He realized his own hands were still trembling.
“And Fifty-two here,” said Yank. “The eighty-one has a willie peter, locked and loaded. Ready for bear. Tell Jarret to gimme some more fifty-cal.”
try Okay, girls, let’s get it together,” She, man snapped ing to get some strength and authority back into his own voice. The boat was definitely settling by the nose. “We’re gonna go down the river,” he said. “See if we can get this bitch to that sandbar at checkpoint Kilo.”
“What about the SEAL?” Kelly asked again. At that moment, the starboard diesel engine misfired and then started to run ragged. Sherman swore and punched the right-hand shutdown button, and the engine died with a grudging rattle.
Shit, he thought. Bet we busted a fuel line. He energized both engine compartment bilge pumps to keep fuel from pooling and starting a fire.
The port-side engine kept humning.
“The SEAL’s on his own for now,” Sherman replied.
“Right now, we’ve got our own probs. Yank, you stay at your gun. Watch behind us for shooters. Kelly, get inside and help the snipe with those pumps. Send Jarret back aft to open the engine compartment doors, tell me what we’ve got going back there. We need to get Baby here onto that sandbar before she sinks on us.”