“No sleep?” Yosef asked. He rubbed his nose where the day’s heat had burned it while he slept. “No, sir. But I am fine. I can continue,” the fisherman responded, unconvincingly.
“See, I told you I was the helmsman.”
Yosef pushed the fisherman aside gently to look at the compass. They were still heading east. Good, after last night’s disappointment of discovering that the combined knowledge of maritime navigation between him, his men, and the fisherman hovered between being able to read a compass and being able to spell it. Two kilometers to the south, a morning haze clouded the coastline of Algeria.
They were following it to keep from getting lost.
The fisherman had not lied about manning the helm.
Unfortunately, he failed to mention that it was always under the close eye of the boat’s captain.
“I see it. Sergeant.” Yosef grabbed a pair of binoculars from a nearby shelf and scanned the air until he focused on the aircraft.
“Mig-29,” he said as he lowered the binoculars.
“Tell everyone to go below and keep out of sight until we know what he is doing.”
“Corporal Omar, get the men below,” Sergeant Boutrous relayed.
Corporal Omar slid down the railings on the narrow ladder to the main deck. He roused the morning sleepers and with shouts and foot shoves hurried them down the ladder.
About half were through the hatch when the Mig-29 roared past directly overhead. The gigantic engines of the warplane shook the small vessel as it passed low overhead, the heat from the afterburners taking the breath away from those topside. The deadly fighter turned upward, gaining altitude.
“Damn!” Yosef shouted.
“Seems they have found us, or it could be one of our loyal pilots from the west,” President Aineuf said from behind. “Mr. President, what are you doing up here? You must stay below, sir. The pilot may be Air Force, but even Air Force officers can recognize that men in suits are not normally crew members of a fishing trawler.”
Aineuf smiled.
“I am sorry, mon colonel. It is just that neither do fishing crews wear desert utility uniforms like you and your men.”
Yosef nodded in agreement.
“You are correct. President Aineuf, but it is you who will stand out. Please go below until the aircraft leaves.”
The Mig-29 turned left as the pilot circled for another pass. Yosef, the president, the fisherman at the helm, and five Guardsmen remained topside on the wooden trawler.
“He’s coming back, Mr. President. Would you please go below, sir,” Yosef pleaded urgently.
“I’ll go, Colonel Yosef. I think we are too late. Don’t you think the pilot has already reported our presence? I do.
So the question is not so much what the fighter will do, but how long before the first helicopters with rebel commandos come rumbling over the horizon, heading for our floating sanctuary?”
The president disappeared slowly down the ladder, his head disappearing as the fighter straightened for its approach.
The Mig-29 descended to about fifty meters.
“Wave at him!” shouted Yosef.
“And keep your weapons out of sight!”
They waved at the pilot, whose black helmet was clearly visible as the aircraft approached the boat. The noise of the fighter blasted the boat again. The trailing exhaust fumes burned the eyes and raised the ambient temperature across the trawler until the faint sea breeze cleared the air. Yosef noted the pilot failed to wiggle his wings; not a good sign.
The Mig-29 climbed and turned left for another circuit. Yosef leaned over the bridge railing.
“Okay, this is it.
Be alert. This is his third pass. He’s not sure who we are or what he’s seeing. So wave, grin, and think the friendliest thoughts you know!”
The aircraft completed its circuit, dove back to sea level, and, with afterburners blazing, bore straight for the trawler.
Five hundred meters out, the fighter triggered its nose cannon and a series of five sprays erupted about fifty meters in front of the fishing vessel as thirty-millimeter cannon shells hit the water.
A Guardsman standing on the bow whipped his AK-47 from under a towel and fired a long burst at the aircraft as it zoomed, untouched, past the boat. The fighter flipped its starboard aileron and flaps as it zigzagged into a left roll and climbed. Increased power applied to the Mig’s afterburner sent the decibel level climbing, causing the men to cover their ears.
“What are you doing!” screamed Yosef as he ran at the Guardsman, his shout lost in the noise of the jet fighter.
“He fired at us. Colonel!”
“No, he didn’t!” Yosef shouted, slapping the young private.
“He fired in front of us. If he wasn’t sure before who we were, he definitely knows now. Fishermen don’t carry automatic weapons! You fool! You bloody fool!”
“I’m sorry. Colonel,” the man said, his head lowered.
The fighter started a fourth circuit.
Yosef turned to the helmsman.
“When I give the word, you turn this boat toward the aircraft. Give him as small a target as possible.”
Sweat poured down the fisherman’s pudgy face, joining the yellow stains on the front of what used to be a white shirt and increasing the stale ammonia smell of days-old sweat. Yosef knew he smelled little better than the fisherman did. The fighter completed its circuit and descended for another run against the slow fishing vessel.
“Now! Turn this boat toward the aircraft! Turn it now!”
But the boat remained steady on course.
Yosef took two steps, jumped for the ladder, and with one leap was on the bridge.
“Turn the boat!” he yelled, shaking the fisherman.
The fisherman stared ahead, eyes wide and knuckles pale white. He held the helm in a fear-frozen grip.
Yosef knocked the fisherman out of the way and spun the helm as fast as he could, but all his verbal urgings failed to swing the trawler faster than six knots allowed.
As the boat crept toward the direction of the fighter, Yosef pulled the fisherman off the deck and onto his feet.
“Keep this boat pointed at the aircraft, fisherman!”
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir,” the man said as he hurriedly replaced Yosef at the helm.
White flames flashed from the plane’s thirty-millimeter cannon, creating a geyser path of death, tearing up the sea as the shells headed toward the boat.
“Take cover!” Yosef shouted, diving down the ladder.
He rolled across the deck.
Seconds later bullets tore a path across the boat, ripping up deck and tearing through the sides before the fighter roared by again.
The boat continued its turn. Yosef leaped up the ladder to the helm. The fisherman lay across the wheel. A thirty millimeter shell had made a large entry hole, but it made a larger exit, taking the fisherman’s entire back with it before blasting through the other side of the boat. Involuntary muscle spasms caused the dead man’s mouth to move as if trying to speak. Yosef rolled the twitching body to one side and spun the helm in the opposite direction.
Sergeant Boutrous bounded up the small ladder. “Here, take the wheel and head for shore.”
“We’ll run aground. Colonel.”
“That’s the point. If we don’t run aground, we’ll be sunk out here.”
From the deck below came a shout.
“Here he comes again!”
Yosef raised his gun.
“Well, shoot the son of a bitch!”
The ocean erupted as the path of death raced again toward the boat. Gunfire from the Guardsmen reached for the aircraft. Bullets hit the aircraft nose area. Yosef doubted they affected the heavily armed fighter. Shooting down a fighter aircraft with small arms was nearly impossible. The aircraft’s cannon shells ripped through the trawler again.