His left side was pretty bloody and the pain was fierce.
Well, if he was going to fuck these guys, he should do the job right. He went back to the second man he shot and ripped his shirt off. It was cotton. He went back to the drain valve and let some diesel fuel run onto the shirt. He squeezed the shirt to get rid of the excess and dug his lighter out of his pocket.
The plastic butane piece of shit refused to light. He blew several times on the flint wheel. Come on, goddamnit!
There. He held the flame under a corner of the shirt. It took. He waited until the shirt was going pretty well, then dropped it into the gap between the catwalk and one engine. The diesel fuel was running into the bilges there.
The fire lit with a whoof.
Jake eased his head around the corner of the ladder, and jerked it back just in time. Bullets spanged into the condenser.
The fire was spreading in the bilges. Already the smoke was dense, the lights barely visible.
This couldn’t be the only ladder topside. The other ladder must be on the starboard side. Trying not to breathe the smoke, he hurried that way.
Coughing and gagging, he found the ladder.
Was there someone up here waiting for him?
“Come on, Jake.” Flap’s voice.
He was having trouble breathing and his feet were getting damned hot. Somehow he lost the rifle. He scrambled up the ladder on all fours, slipped and slammed his head against a step and slid a couple steps before he caught himself.
Hands grabbed him and pulled. He kept scrambling and somehow they made the deck.
“I’ve been shot.”
“Let’s get over the side or you’ll get shot again. There’s at least four of them forward.”
“Where?”
“We go off the fantail. Ship’s sideways in the river.”
They went that way, Jake barely able to walk. He took deep breaths, trying to get enough oxygen. Spots swam before his eyes. “They’ll shoot us in the water.”
“It’s our only chance. Come on.”
Flap tossed his AK-47 into the water, then jumped after it. Jake followed.
The darkness was almost total now. Jake was only able to swim with his right arm. His left side felt like it was on fire. Several times he got mouthfuls of water, so he swallowed them. It tasted good.
He was struggling. More water in his mouth and nose. He gagged.
“Just float. I’ve got you.” And Flap did have him, by the collar of his flight suit.
Jake concentrated on staying afloat and breathing against the pain in his side.
Flap was pulling him backward, so he could see the foreshortened outline of the ship, and smoke black as coal oozing out amidships. He could also see the glow of fire coming from a ladder well, apparently the one on the port side, since he could now see the tip of the bow. All this registered without his thinking about it, which was good, since he needed desperately to concentrate on breathing and keeping his head above water.
They were maybe fifty yards from the ship when he saw muzzle flashes from the bow.
“They’re shooting,” he tried to say, but he swallowed more water.
“Relax,” Flap whispered. “Quit trying to help. Let me do this.”
Somehow they must have swum out of the main channel, Jake realized, because the ship was pulling away from them. The current must be taking her downstream.
The current and the darkness saved them. When the twenty-millimeter cannon on the bow opened up, the bullets hit downstream, abeam the ship. Bursts split the night for almost a minute, but none of the shells even came close.
22
“I never saw a knife like that before.”
“Designed it myself,” Flap said. “Call it a slasher.” Of course Jake couldn’t see the knife now, since they were sitting in absolute total darkness under a tree in the jungle, but Flap had borrowed his lighter and gone looking for tree moss. Now he was back and was cutting up his and Jake’s T-shirts to use as a bandage. He had inspected the wound in the glow of the lighter when they first got ashore. “It’s nasty but not deep. You are one lucky white boy. I think maybe one rib broke, and it ain’t too bad.” “Feels like one of your knives is stuck in there.” Jake sat now holding the moss in place while Flap cut up the shirts. The moss was slowing the bleeding, apparently. He heard a motorboat coming down the river. They sat silently while it passed. When the sound had faded, Jake asked, “So what are we going to do?”
“Not much we can do tonight. There’s an overcast so there wouldn’t be much light when the moon comes up. The jungle canopy will keep it dark down here. We’re going to have to just sit tight until morning.”
“Think they’ll come looking for us tonight?”
“In the morning maybe. Maybe not. I hope they come. We need some weapons. All we have are my knives. Be easier to ambush them here than around their village, wherever that is.”
“The stabber and the slasher.”
“Yep.”
“Where did you learn to throw a knife like that?”
“Taught myself,” Flap told him. “It’s a skill that comes in handy occasionally.”
Jake moved experimentally. He tried to stretch out and relax to ease the pain. After a bit he said, “I don’t think their village is far upriver. It was narrowing when we left that ship.”
“We’ll work our way upriver in the morning. We need a boat to get out to sea.”
“Tell you what, Tarzan, is there any way you could rustle us up some grub? My stomach thinks my throat is cut.”
“Tomorrow. You like snake?”
“No.”
“Tastes like—”
“Chicken. I’ve heard that crap before. I ate my share at survival school.”
“Naw. Tastes like lizard.”
“I don’t like them either.”
“Sit up and hold up your arms and let me wrap this thing around you.”
Jake obeyed. When Flap finished he eased his arms back into his flight suit and zipped it up. “What about bugs?”
“They’re okay as an appetizer, but you expend about as many calories gathering them as—”
“How are we gonna keep ’em from bleeding us dry tonight?”
“Smear your skin with mud.”
Jake was already encased in mud almost to his waist from wading through the goo to get ashore. He scraped some from his legs and ankles and applied it to his face and neck.
After a bit, Flap asked, “How many guys were in the engine room?”
“Two. What happened topside?”
“They pinned me down. I needed a couple grenades and didn’t have them. Got one of them, though.”
“We’re lucky to be alive.”
“Grafton, you are the luckiest S.O.B. I know. If that bullet had been an inch farther right you’d be lying dead in that engine room. It’s scary — we’re using up oodles of luck and we’re still young men. We’re gonna be high and dry and clean out of the good stuff before we’re very much older.”
They lay down on the jungle floor and tried to relax. Lying in the darkness in the muck, swatting at mosquitoes as the creepy-crawlies examined them — Kee-rist! Well, at least they weren’t sitting in seawater to their waist or huddled in a steel compartment waiting for an executioner to come for them.
After a while Jake said, “Are you ever going to get married?”
“You read my mind. I was lying here hungry and thirsty and miserable as hell contemplating that very subject. And you?”
“Smart ass!”
“No, seriously — why don’t you tell the Great Le Beau all about it. After all, before a man commits holy matrimony he should have the benefit of unbiased, expert counsel. Even if he plans on ignoring the pithy wisdom he will undoubtedly receive, as you most certainly will.”