Death Blow

12

Murdock watched the flares far ahead on the bank glow for a moment more, then snuff out. “Let’s move to the other shoreline, we have plenty of river here. Looks like a combat situation. Flares and lots of firepower. But they didn’t sound like small arms.”

“Shoulder rockets of some kind?” Bradford wondered. “Sure as hell nobody getting any sleep over on that bank.”

“If that is some holdout Bangladesh military up there, we can’t help them because we don’t know which side is which.”

Before he finished talking, an engine whine and growl came across the water.

“A boat,” Bradford said. “Doesn’t sound as big as that last one, maybe a thirty, forty footer.”

“Even a small patrol boat will have a pair of machine guns,” Murdock said. “Hope he doesn’t have a searchlight.”

They watched ahead but couldn’t tell if the boat was coming toward them or just moving around the fighting area. Now small arms fire did filter though the darkness.

“Machine guns,” Murdock said. “Lots of rifle fire and auto rifle. Somebody is throwing out a lot of lead up there.”

“Just so it’s not aimed at us,” Bradford said.

“Sounds like they will be too busy working over each other to worry about us, even if they did spot us, which I’d bet they won’t. If that patrol boat has radar, it won’t be aimed at us either.”

Murdock called on the radio and had Dobler rouse the troops.

“Better be ready in case they do spot us and one side decides we shouldn’t be here,” Murdock said.

“Yeah, heard the ruckus. Doesn’t sound too large, maybe a platoon against a platoon. No real heavy stuff.”

“Neither kind would be good for us. Have the men ready, just in case.”

The small boat powered down the river a little faster now. They had boosted their power until Murdock figured they were making their fifteen knots. He wasn’t sure what they should do come daylight. Hide everybody except one man at the wheel. Keep at their fifteen knots and hoping that the Chinese didn’t have any patrols down this far. From what he remembered on the map the broad spread of the mouth of the Ganges looked like one big floodplain with hundreds of low-lying islands that must be under water half the time. Nothing would be built up in an area like that. So why would the Chinese want to patrol it? He did remember one town on the east side of the area, but he didn’t know how large it was. Wait and see.

They eased past the firing on the far shore. A flare popped up now and then to cast a bright light on the bank, and firing increased, then the flares snuffed out and the shooters were blind again. The boat they had heard was quiet as well. Murdock worried that. If they had a radar it would surely pick them up. It just depended if the operator was interested in the far side of the river.

They were slightly past the firing on the far shore, when a searchlight snapped on less than two hundred yards ahead of them and the boat’s engine roared as the craft came straight for them.

“Kill that light,” Murdock thundered into his mike. The long range guns barked, a Bull Pup gave off the familiar sound of a 20mm round being fired. The searchlight died but a machine gun chattered at them. A half dozen more of the heavy coughing sound of the twenties blistered into the night, and a moment later the MG on the boat went silent. At the same time the engine died.

In the pale moonlight Murdock could see a shadowy shape ahead. His boat was overtaking the other craft. Now they came closer at their fifteen knots and they could see the ship turn slowly.

“Adrift,” Bradford said. “Our twenties must have knocked out the crew as well as that damn machine gun.”

“Small favors we will take,” Murdock said.

They were past the firing on shore now, and Bradford moved the small craft back to the center of the river. He figured it was at least three-quarters of a mile wide here.

Murdock slumped on the small deck outside the wheelhouse.

“Give me a yell if anything shows,” he said and told Ostercamp on the radio that he had the watch. That done, Murdock cushioned his head on his arms and slept.

Ostercamp worked around and over bodies to the wheelhouse and grinned at Bradford.

“Sure as hell leveled that patrol boat with the twenties,” he said. “Wonder what else we’ll find downstream?”

“That’s what you’re here to watch for,” Bradford said and they both kept quiet then and looked downstream.

Murdock awoke at 0530 and checked around. He was tired and sore from sleeping on the wooden planks. He stretched and looked at the wheelhouse. Dobler held the wheel and waved at Murdock.

“Welcome to the world, skipper. No action since that patrol boat got greedy.”

“Good.” Murdock rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Be light in a half hour, Chief. Any suggestions?”

“Keep to the middle of the water and pray that we’ve been making more than fifteen and that we’re closer than forty miles to the damn Bay of Bengal.”

“What are the odds?”

“Damn slight. Depends what the Chicoms have had time to set up as a defensive unit down here in the mud flats. You ever seen such a wide river? Islands all over the place. Just passed a big island on the right that looked like Minnesota.”

“No buildings?”

“Oh, hell no. Looked like it was half marsh and the rest ready to be flooded with the first rain upstream.”

As the light came up, they could see more details along the shoreline. It had pinched in now along another big island and the more firm looking land to the left.

“Trouble,” Dobler said. “Small boat coming upstream. Range two thousand yards.”

Stray bars of light splintered into the darkness from the east. The whole river took on a different tone as the light drove in devouring the darkness.

Ten minutes later they could see the boat plainly. It worked upstream at seven or eight knots.

“Patrol boat for sure,” Murdock said. “I’ll take the wheel. You get everyone awake and out of sight and locked and loaded for bear. We’re going to have a fight with this guy.”

Murdock watched the other boat closely as it approached. They were closing at about twenty-five knots. Soon he could see a machine gun mounted on the front. Was it Chinese or still a Bangladesh craft? He saw no flag. Then he spotted a flag on the stern. What was the Chinese flag? Then he had it. A gold star in the upper left hand corner on a pure red field. Yes. He had no idea what the Bangladesh flag looked like. He stared at the fluttering flag. Then he could see it, a red field and star.

They were still five hundred yards off each other.

“Twenties, fire at will,” Murdock said. He sighted in on the ship without using the laser and fired. Two more rounds came almost at the same time. Two of the rounds hit the Chicom ship and exploded. The first took out the man just crawling behind the machine gun on the fore deck. The second hit the wheelhouse but most of the damage was on the outside.

In close order six more rounds hit the Chinese craft before the crew had a chance to return fire. The man at the helm vanished, the thirty-foot craft plowed straight ahead for ten seconds, then the engine died. With no one at the wheel, the little craft nudged against the current for the last time, then swung to port and began to drift slowly downstream with the current.

Two rifles fired from the small ship, but neither hit the SEALs’ boat. The Chinese patrol boat drifted toward the far shore, and Dobler steered his craft to the opposite side of the half-mile wide river.

By then it was brightly light. The sun was up soon and a warm, humid day approached. Dobler coaxed another knot of speed from the ka-thumping diesel engine and they moved back to the center of the roiling, muddy water.

Ten minutes later Lam called from the center of the boat.

“Chopper coming from due north.”

“Too early for the forty-six,” Dobler said.

“Doesn’t sound like a forty-six,” DeWitt said. “Keep those twenties with full magazines.” Three of the men switched to full mags and waited.

“Still coming downstream,” Lam said. “Engine sound is wrong, so it’s not one of ours.”

“We let him make a flyover. Everyone flake out like you’re sleeping. We might fool him into thinking we’re some of his own.”

“Not likely,” Jaybird said.

Canzoneri spotted it first. “A speck over the far bank at about eleven o’clock looking that way.”

“Yeah, working the bank,” Murdock said. “Might be part of that attack we came past last night. He’s not one of our choppers, for damn sure.”

“He might not even see us,” Lam said.

“No chance, he’s looking for something, somebody,” Jaybird said. “I think he just found us.”

The chopper had picked up speed and turned directly toward them. “Let him have one flyover free,” Murdock said.

By then the bird was only a hundred yards away. Murdock stood with Dobler at the wheel. The chopper came closer. It was a large one for troop transport. two rotors. They could see a machine gun mounted on the door with a man behind it. The helicopter came closer, then did a slow circle around the SEALs in the center of a thirty-yard circle. It moved away, then came back with the door gunner on the right side positioned to fire at them.

“Weapons free, let’s knock him down,” Murdock said. He lifted the twenty and fired twice from the hip, then came up and sighted in on the bird. The door gunner got off one burst, then an exploding 20mm round churned his face into pulp and knocked him out the far door. He was only a minor splash before the chopper took a dozen hits, turned slightly, then the rotors stopped and began free wheeling just before the fuel tanks exploded in one giant fireball and the chopper dropped like a bucket full of concrete and slammed into the water. The craft resisted the water for a moment, then the remains eased under the muddy flood and were gone.

“Home, James,” Jaybird chirped and everyone laughed reliving the tension.

“Sonsobitches, brothers, did you see that asshole explode?” Howie Anderson yelled. “Went up like a possum gutted out by a load of buckshot.”

DeWitt chuckled. “Couldn’t have said it more colorfully myself.”

Where is this damn forty-six we’re supposed to meet?” Train Khai asked. “Shouldn’t he be showing up sometime soon? How long does it take a forty-six to go forty miles?”

“How long?” Lam asked. “At a hundred and fifty-five miles an hour they move about two point five miles a minute, or about sixteen minutes for forty miles.”

“Where the fuck is he?” Fernandez asked. “Hell, it’s been light for over twenty minutes.”

Lam stood and looked around. “Somebody coming. He stared at the sky again, turned all the way around then looked back north. “Yeah, coming fast and it ain’t no chopper. Got to be a jet fighter heading south.”

“We won’t nail a MiG with our twenties,” Murdock said. “And he has twenties of his own.”

“Unless he’s hunting us on purpose, he won’t know we’re hostiles,” DeWitt said. “Not at his speed. We just play it cool and don’t show any guns or objections. Fact is, we could wave at him if he’s anywhere under a thousand feet.”

They waited and watched. Two minutes later the jet streaked over at eight to ten thousand feet.

“Damn, he couldn’t even see us down here,” Jefferson said.

“Good, now where’s my chopper,” Jaybird said.

They worked past another huge island on the left and smaller one on the right. At last the surface of the water seemed to be changing.

“A little salt water creeping in,” DeWitt said. “We should be able to smell salt air before long.”

“That MiG is coming back,” Lam said. “Lower this time, lots lower.”

It came from the south right up the channel and when they saw it they were almost too late. It slashed past them at a hundred feet off the water, slapping them with the jet blast of sound as soon as it jolted pas them at seven hundred miles an hour.

“That time he saw us,” Murdock said. “Now, the question is, will he make a gentle turn and come back and blast us into toothpicks with his twenties?”

They waited.

Two minutes dragged by. They began to grin and relax.

It came at them from the north. The first they heard were the rattling of the rotary guns pumping out 20mm rounds at their boat. Then it roared over them at less than hundred feet and rocked the boat twenty degrees. None of the 20mm rounds hit the boat.

“Missed us, by God,” Chief Dobler screeched. “At that speed one of those rounds hits the deck about every fifty feet. He has to be damn good to do us any harm.”

“He might get lucky, do we abandon ship, Cap?” DeWitt asked.

Murdock figured he had two minutes to decide. The next pass the pilot would get more altitude and concentrate his fire when he dove at them. Snap decision, combat pure.

“Over the side, everyone. Leave everything except your weapon. Kill the engine. If he misses we’ll swim for the boat. Swim away from the tub on each side. Abandon ship, now.”

Murdock grabbed his Bull Pup and jumped the six feet into the Ganges. He did a scissors kick as soon as he hit and kept his head above water, then lowered his face into the water and kicked hard and used one arm to power himself away from the boat. He felt the pull of the current. Good, if the boat lasted they wouldn’t have so far to swim to catch it.

Murdock was thirty yards to one side of the boat when the jet came down again. He could hear the plane and he was higher, diving this time to concentrate his rounds. This pass with the 20mm cannon riddled the boat, knocking huge chunks out of the deck on one side. The next pass by the MiG blasted a hundred exploding rounds into the small craft. The wheelhouse vanished and toppled into the water. The deck exploded in a million splinters and the whole left side of the craft caved in as the holes in the bottom let the dank Ganges pour in. A minute later the boat sank.

Murdock looked around. He saw two swimmers.

“Over here,” Murdock bellowed. “Assemble over here.” He looked for the nearest land. One of the many islands poked out of the water ahead and to the left downstream. The two men near him were Mahanani and Jaybird.

“That next island, Jaybird,” Murdock called. The two men headed that way. Murdock yelled again, but could see no other swimmers near him. He surged upward out of the water and yelled at the top of his move. “The island to the left,” he called. “Get to the island to the left.”

Then he swam for the land, holding the Bull Pup in one hand and swimming hard with the other. The current helped and he washed on shore three minutes later. The other two were there yelling into the morning sunlight. They spotted two more men and helped them up the beach. The land here was barely two feet out of the water.

Murdock thought of his Motorola. It was wet and dead. They weren’t made for underwater work. He doubted if any of the men took time to waterproof the little radio set before they dove in. He felt his shoulder and saw that he still had two flares. Some help.

He had four men out of fourteen. Where the hell were the other ten?