Path of the Storm

by Douglas Reeman

  Maddox forced himself to remain still, to refrain from running to the bridge wing as the ship crawled towards the frothing, eager surf. I was trained for this. The ship was created, planned and built for just such an emergency. He ground his jaws together. Or were either of them really meant for such a foolhardy enterprise?

  Steady now. ‘Come right, Paice. Steer for that pinnacle above the bluff. That is a good aiming mark for the first approach.’

  They were committed. Even if his nerve failed completely, it was unlikely that he could swing the ship clear in time. Maddox dragged his eyes from the creaming water alongside and felt the ship lurch as it crossed into the first savage eddy of the racing current.

  ‘Six fathoms, sir.’

  Maddox gnawed at his lip. ‘Tell the engine room I want revs for twenty knots!’ It was the only way. Like the typhoon’s cruel lesson all over again. The fierce current under their tail would soon outpace them without more power.

  ‘It’s like shootin’ the friggin’ rapids, sir!’ Paice steadied his perch on the grating and leaned forward against the wheel. ‘D’you think you can keep clear?’

  ‘Watch your head! And keep your goddamn comments to yourself!’

  Maddox swung his glasses on to the closing cliffs and cursed violently. Paice had almost implied that no one but Gunnar could do it. He looked briefly at Paice’s stern face and felt ashamed. ‘Sorry, Paice. I guess I’m getting edgy.’

  The helmsman grinned. ‘You an’ me both, sir!’

  The engine revolutions mounted, and the slicing stem bit deeply and finally into the narrow strip of confused and surging water. The walls of the canyon-like channel swept past and over them, so that Maddox saw brief and unreal snapshots of perched gulls, clumps of gorse, and once a long-legged sheep which gazed down at the churning ship with something like reproach.

  ‘Two fathoms, sir!’ The talker’s voice sounded brittle.

  Maddox caught his breath. Jesus! A false move now and the bottom would be left on a rock tooth like the inside of a bucket! ‘Steady now!’ Over his shoulder, ‘Depth in feet from now on!’

  Kroner called, ‘Christ, look at those rocks!’

  ‘You look.’ It was surprising how calm he had become now that destruction of one sort or another seemed inevitable.

  There was a sideways lurch and the stem began to swing to port. Maddox staggered and almost screamed, ‘Rudder hard right!’ The ship groaned like a live thing. ‘Meet her! Watch that cross-current!’ He had seen the tell-tale swirl of black water at the foot of a nearby cliff. He swung towards the voice-pipes. ‘Tell damage control to report anything immediately it happens!’

  Regan had climbed to the wheelhouse, his helmet hanging in his hand like a cooking pot. ‘Like a miracle, for instance?’ He bared his teeth. ‘Going like a steam hammer, isn’t she?’ He shook his head admiringly. ‘That shipyard deserves a goddamn medal!’

  ‘So’ll you, once we hit the mortars again!’ Maddox glared at him and then forgot his old dislikes as a man yelled, ‘Breakers ahead!’

  Breakers? Impossible! But even as his glasses steadied he saw the long bar of writhing white foam barely fifty yards ahead. Too late now. ‘Hold your course, helmsman!’

  With the dropping tide and natural increased power of the sluicing water, some hidden sandbar, or, worse, a formation of fallen rock, lay directly in their path.

  Regan wrapped his arms around a stanchion and called: ‘Better slow her, Bob! We’ll strike for sure!’

  Maddox peered at him, shocked by the man’s obvious fear. ‘Not so frigging easy, is it?’ Almost blindly he turned to the talker. ‘Well, give me a reading, for Christ’s sake!’

  The man sounded completely cowed. ‘There’s nothin’ under our keel, sir! Accordin’ to the dial we’re aground!’

  The probing, thrusting stem struck the barrier of packed sand and sent the ship staggering wildly across the channel. For one terrible moment Maddox imagined they would catch against the cliff and turn turtle, but the ship kept going. Somehow, in a determined, fanatical way she thundered over the bar and reeled drunkenly upright, so that every rivet in her frames must have shaken loose.

  Then there was a dull, metallic clang which echoed and hummed down the hull, and immediately Paice shouted: ‘Swinging to port! Jesus, I can’t hold her!’

  Ahead lay the flat, unruffled water of the anchorage, another minute and they would have been through.

  Maddox almost fell as the ship brushed another obstruction. ‘Back the starboard engine!’ The deck was tilting and he saw Kroner hanging on to a signalman as if in a drunken dance. Everywhere men cursed and yelled in fear as the ship staggered forward in a crazy, crablike advance.

  A telephone buzzed, and as if in a dream Maddox heard Malinski shout: ‘We seem to have lost the port screw! Go slow ahead on the other one and use full rudder!’ A pause. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but half of us are concussed in here, you mad bastard!’

  Paice croaked, ‘Here she comes, sir.’

  The stem flooded with sunlight, and limping like a wounded duck the Hibiscus followed the white-flecked flood into the calm of the anchorage.

  Maddox wiped his forehead with his wrist and turned to speak to Regan, but he had already left to join his guns. Somehow Maddox had pushed the ship through the impossible. What happened because of their lost propeller and any underwater damage caused by the headlong dash through the channel was no longer Regan’s worry. From here on in it was a matter of gunnery.

  Maddox groped for his sunglasses as the glare swept to meet them. ‘Right full rudder!’ He watched the bows pull reluctantly towards the shore. ‘Stand by to engage!’

  * * *

  Pip Maddox lay full length on the concrete roof of the guard-house and cuddled the unfamiliar stock of the carbine against his cheek. Very soon the roof would become a hotplate when the sun had reached its full height above the hills, but right now, as the marine sergeant had already explained, it was a good position. Once Rickover had placed each man of the scanty force in his selected site he had hurried on to supervise another part of the defences, and now as the gulls wheeled angrily above, the young ensign felt desperately alone. Even by raising himself on his elbow he could see nothing of the others. He settled down once more to watch the small, indistinct figures which ran, almost aimlessly, in a loping, diagonal approach across the bottom of the coast road where it vanished around the headland. Still no shots had been fired, and he felt the edge of panic as he watched each busy shape as it moved to some ordered position for attack. It was as if he was facing the whole, anonymous enemy alone. It was all so different, so cold-blooded and final.

  He remembered the academy, the music, and the gay, detached approach to the bottom rung of the navy ladder. Nothing, but nothing in his wildest dreams had ever suggested this sort of stark end to his accepted career. He pondered on the change he had seen in his brother, and tried not to think bitterly of the way Bob had taken away his trust. Bob had always been there. Had always been an untapped source of strength and security. But now, he was probably steaming away into the impossible peace of distance. In his heart Pip did not want to blame him, but as each minute dragged by he found it harder to understand.

  He jumped, startled as a bugle blared discordantly in the town below. The rifle fire followed immediately, slow at first in its intensity, and then like a storm it gathered power, terrible because of its impartiality. He pulled the butt into his shoulder and squinted through the sights until his eyes watered. It was not like the movies. There, you always knew which bullet was meant for whom. The others acted merely as a warlike background to the main scene. Here it was quite different. The sullen crackle of shots blended together, and only the vague patter of lead against the stout walls told him that he was part of the target. He heard Gunnar shout, ‘Here they come!’

  Then, as if in a dream, he saw the running figures converging on the road. They flowed out of the pre-arranged muster points, from buildings, from all
eyways, and out of the bushes at the roadsides. Then they merged together, a shambling, crouching mob. Some fired automatic weapons from the hip, others pointed aimlessly in the air like Indians in a Western, and all the time the bugle kept up its unnerving, jarring screech, urging them forward, whipping them into a charge.

  A whistle blew from the gateway and Pip squeezed the trigger. Around and below him the others matched their sparse firepower against the yelling, screaming mob of running figures, and here and there a man fell. But it seemed to make no difference at all. Pip found that he was cursing and sobbing as he fumbled with another magazine, his mouth spilling out obscenities he hardly understood as he fired again and again until the gun grew hot in his grasp.

  Now he could pick out individual faces, see the crazed, screaming mouths of the men who had reached the lower slant of the ramparts. He wriggled nearer the edge and pointed the carbine down on to the heads of those who were worming their way along the wall towards the gate. He saw a man fall, and knew he had killed him. He saw a short, stocky figure, hung about with gleaming ammunition belts, point upwards and yell at the men nearest to the wall. The concrete flew in chips by his face, and he felt the sting of grit on his cheek as he held his breath and fired again. The screaming leader pirouetted and dropped thrashing in the dust, his bright belts following him like snakes. Pip drew in his head as another long burst of machine-gun fire sawed across the edge of the roof and spattered him with powdered concrete.

  There was a hollow boom, and he thought he felt the foundations shake as a shock wave stirred the smoke and dust into a miniature tornado above his head. It was followed by a splintering sound and a spine-chilling roar of triumph mingled with screams and the renewed sound of firing.

  Pip swallowed the bile in his throat and staggered to his feet. As he peered down into the courtyard he saw with sick horror that the gate had been blasted apart by a grenade and already the gap was filled with brown-clad, struggling figures and the gleam of steel.

  Two sailors lay like bundles of rags by the entrance, and the remaining loyal soldier seemed to have been cut in half by the blast. He could see the captain, hatless, a pistol in one hand, beckoning the others to fall back, the gun sparking in his fist even as he shouted above the din.

  The seaman who had already been wounded started to run, but was knocked sideways by an invisible hand before he had covered a yard. Two Chinese ran towards him, and Pip retched as he saw the sailor roll over on his back, drawing up his knees in a hopeless attempt to protect his bowels from the quick, flashing bayonets.

  Then the Chinese had fallen beside their victim, and the courtyard was momentarily silent.

  In the brief stillness Gunnar shouted, ‘Fall back!’

  A sporadic burst of fire cut down some more men by the gate, and Pip saw Rickover and another sailor on the inner wall covering the pathetic retreat. With sudden panic he realised that within seconds he might be cut off from the others, and gathering up his remaining ammunition he ran to the other side of the roof and leapt for the wall. Gasping for breath he ran along the top, his body stark against the bright sky. Bullets whimpered past him, and one seemed to brush against his shirt as he flung himself the last few feet where Rickover unceremoniously grabbed his arm and heaved him over the parapet.

  They were all together again. Dashing the sweat from his eyes he peered sideways at the others. The big Texan, O’Brien, covered in dust and smeared with blood, crouched beside the other two seamen, his rifle already barking sharply over the parapet. Chief Anders, compact and fierce-eyed, completely engrossed with a case of grenades, while the doctor, Connell, knelt against the wall, like a man bereft of sight and hearing, his eyes closed to the savage preparations around him.

  Sergeant Rickover was smoking a cigar, its smoke mixing with that of his carbine as he peered beneath the rim of his helmet and selected each target with care and precision. Stretched in the dust beside him, Colonel Jago lay like a corpse, only his slow, painful breathing making a sign of movement.

  Pip realised that although the Chinese were still shooting, few shots were reaching the parapet. He heard Gunnar say sharply: ‘Cease firing! No point in wasting it!’

  Pip stared up at the flag and saw it whipping unnaturally in the still air. The Chinese were shooting at it to pass the time while their reinforcements filled in the gaps left by the retreating defenders. Then he looked for the first time at the captain. Unconsciously he realised that it was Gunnar’s presence which had stayed with him throughout the whole attack, which had somehow held and sustained him, although he had hardly heard him speak more than a few words. His shirt was half torn from his back, and there was blood on his hands as he played nervously with the big automatic in his belt. There was something compelling and frightening about him, something which Pip had never seen before in any man. He stood in the centre of this chaos and despair, his face pale in the sunlight, his eyes screwed up against the glare as he looked towards the courtyard, a slim, defiant figure, showing neither fear nor pity.

  He jumped as Jago’s voice croaked petulantly from the rear, ‘Are they still coming at us?’

  A sailor said wearily: ‘Soon now. The bastards are just gettin’ a second wind!’

  Jago slipped back into his state of semi-coma. ‘If only I had a hundred marines!’

  Rickover glared down at him, his red-rimmed eyes dark with worry and anger. ‘Why don’t you cut a goddamn disc of that, Colonel? I reckon it’d sell right well back in boot camp!’ His teeth gleamed through the grime on his face as Jago cursed him weakly before falling back into silence.

  Gunnar moved across and stood between the marine and the young ensign. ‘We can’t hold them off much longer.’ There was no despair in his quiet voice. Nothing. ‘They can keep this up as long as they like until they bring up the mortars.’ He shaded his eyes as he looked around at the bullet-scarred walls. ‘This place was more for show than actual usefulness.’

  Rickover nodded. ‘When they built it they never imagined that the army would be outside!’

  Pip Maddox took off his cap and handed it to Gunnar, ‘Would you like this, sir?’

  Gunnar ran his hand across his hair as if noticing he was bareheaded for the first time. ‘Sure, thanks.’ He pulled it on, and Maddox saw his eyes relax slightly from squinting against the harsh sunlight. ‘I guess I should still look like the captain, eh?’

  ‘How many d’you reckon there are down there, Sergeant?’ Gunnar’s voice was sharp and detached again.

  Rickover shrugged. ‘Maybe two hundred. They’ve left the rest of their group up at the camp. They’ll not leave their precious airstrip!’

  Gunnar closed his eyes. ‘They’ll not be getting help by air. Not just yet. It’s too obvious and doesn’t fit in with their pretence of a natural rebellion.’ He shook his head. ‘My guess is that they’ll get some more “freedom fighters” by sea.’ He spoke with offhand bitterness which made the others stare at him. ‘It’s all to their pattern. You can just imagine how it will seem to the rest of the world. The poor peasants revolting against the imperialist yoke, the U.S. using the big stick to uphold a tottering regime.’ His voice hardened. ‘Oh yes, I’ve seen it all before right enough!’

  Rickover propped himself on one elbow. ‘Surely you don’t think our people’d leave it like that?’

  Gunnar shrugged. ‘What does it matter to the Reds? Either way they’ve got us bogged down. If we leave Payenhau to the new government it’ll be handing it to the Reds on a plate for any purpose they require. If we smash it to bits with an air strike no one will ever know or believe that the Reds weren’t telling the truth.’ He pounded his fists slowly against the hot concrete. ‘There was only one way. To hold it, to stop it right here!’

  Rickover said quietly, ‘I guess you were the only one who realised that, sir.’

  Gunnar gave a small smile. ‘When you’ve put your hand in a fire once, you don’t do it again in a hurry!’

  Pip Maddox ducked as a stray bullet whined off
the wall. ‘But they must believe we’re going to let them take over the island? They’d not leave their men to be mopped up from the air?’

  Gunnar eyed him coldly. ‘They will if they think it necessary. A few hundred guerrillas are a drop in the bucket compared with the success they’ve already achieved. They’ll tie down another big force, drag our name through the mud like Viet Nam, make us dig deeper into our resources while they’re sitting pretty and planning another offensive somewhere else!’

  ‘But the Hibiscus, sir?’ Pip was desperate. ‘She’ll bring help?’

  ‘It’ll be too late for us, I’m afraid. Too late for a clean finish.’ Gunnar stood up and moved towards the doctor. He could no longer face the marine’s faith and the ensign’s pathetic beliefs in right and justice.

  ‘Are you okay, Doc?’ He shook the man’s arm and saw a brief spasm of recognition cross Connell’s tortured face. ‘We’ll be needing you again soon.’

  Connell pulled his arm away. ‘See what you’ve done? Are you proud now?’ He rocked back and forth on his knees like a priest. ‘You’ll kill us all before you’re done.’

  Gunnar dropped his hand and dragged himself wearily towards the wounded colonel. Connell was right. In a few more hours or even minutes it would be over. They were no longer a force, representatives of power and stability. They were not even Americans. They were just men. Mere men, as the rear-admiral had so rightly observed. Cornered, beaten, yet hanging on because there was no other way.

  Jago blinked his eyes and stared at him. ‘Have any of my boys shown up yet, Gunnar?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Gunnar watched the will to live seeping away from this hard, dedicated man. He almost envied Jago’s empty belief and trust in the men who had betrayed him. ‘I’m going to move you soon. Back inside the tower.’ The little tower where he had watched Jago’s quick-fired eagerness and confidence so long ago. ‘If we had an M.G. it might be better, but we can’t hold them with rifles.’

  Jago sighed. ‘Did the commandant run for it too?’