Joint Task Force #4: Africa

by David E. Meadows

  They kept moving, walking under the eaves, then running between the buildings, until they reached the last building, where a couple of petty officers stood under the far end of the long eave, smoking cigarettes, and leaning against the outside wall in protection against the rain. They snapped to attention and saluted when they recognized the Commander, Amphibious Squadron Two, emerge through the curtain of rain. Dick nodded as he ducked through the doorway. Inside would be Captain Mary Davidson, his intelligence officer, arranging for the debriefs. She had wanted them trucked back to the USS Boxer for the debriefing, but Dick knew what would be going through the minds of the flight crew once they landed.

  The first thing they’d want to know would be what rescue efforts were being mounted and how soon could they join the search. So it has ever been and so it shall ever be. Leaving a shipmate in harm’s way was not the Navy way.

  ROCKDALE OPENED HIS EYES. AN EXPANSE OF WHITENESS blinded him. Shocked, he involuntarily sucked in a deep breath, coming up short, as something covered his mouth; blocking off the air. Just as quickly it was gone and he could breath again.

  “Christ, Rocky, what the hell you trying to do? Drown and suffocate yourself?

  Rolling his eyes upward, he saw a hand holding the parachute away from his face.

  “About time you woke up.”

  Rockdale turned toward the voice. MacGammon was squatting beside him, one hand holding the parachute away from Rockdale’s face so he could breath and the other hand stretched overhead like a tent pole.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “That’s getting to be a common question,” MacGammon griped, shaking his head. “About forty minutes, if you must know, and my arms are getting tired, so it would help if you would sit up and push the parachute away from your own face instead of me having to do it.”

  Rockdale reached up and pushed the parachute away from his face, keeping one hand up to hold the parachute. MacGammon’s hand disappeared.

  “Whew! That feels great,” MacGammon said. “You don’t know how hard it is to hold your hands up over your head for a long time.”

  “Thanks,” Rockdale said. He looked down. Water ran around his legs. It reached the top of MacGammon’s steel-toed flight boots.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” MacGammon protested. “If you hadn’t woke up when you did, I was going to have to throw the parachute off, and we’d gotten soaked.”

  Rockdale touched his chest, his legs, and arms. “Seems like we’re soaked already, Mac.”

  “What are you talking about? Oh, you! Well, you were laying down in it, and there wasn’t much I could do to get you out of it.”

  Rockdale looked up at the parachute. Nylon parachutes weren’t waterproof, but they could shelter you from the bulk of the water. The saturated parachute was folding around their hands.

  “I don’t think this is going to work much longer,” Rockdale said. “Maybe we should move nearer the tree.”

  MacGammon shook his head. “Listen, shipmate,” he said, his voice sharp. “I’ve been doing this for over forty minutes while you slept. Don’t come awake and start telling me what I should or shouldn’t do. This is keeping us dry—keeping me dry somewhat and, besides, these monsoons don’t last long.”

  Rockdale opened his mouth to reply at the same time the rain stopped. “I guess that settles it, doesn’t it.”

  MacGammon’s eyes narrowed and without replying, the stocky sailor from New Jersey pulled the parachute off, hand over hand.

  Freed of the soaked parachute, the two stood. Rockdale was relieved to find the white spots of earlier didn’t return, though a slight nausea still persisted. He probably had a slight concussion, but this wasn’t the time to throw up his hands and give up. It wasn’t as if he could call 911 from here in the middle of nowhere.

  “We’ve got to find Stetson,” Rockdale said above the sound of the rain, which had started falling again.

  MacGammon began to gather up the parachute. “Let’s roll the parachute first. We’ll want to take it with us.”

  Rockdale shook his head. “It needs to dry out, Mac. Why don’t we stretch it across the clearing so that when the rain stops, the heat can dry it? It’ll serve as a marker as we try to find—”

  MacGammon continued rolling the wet nylon. “Right! We leave it here to mark a spot that we won’t even be able to see once we’ve gone twenty yards in any direction.” He stopped and with raised arm, rotated it across the area. “Look for yourself. There is nothing here but plants, trees, vines, and all that shit a jungle brings with it. You can’t see a damn thing. If you hadn’t been moaning, I might never have found you.”

  “You mean you might never have come hunting.”

  MacGammon dropped his arm. “That’s not what I mean and it’s not what I said.” He returned to his chore of rolling the saturated parachute. “Sure, it’s wet—pretty wet, if you ask me, but if we leave it here, we may need it, and then where will we be if we can’t find it.”

  Rockdale started to object but then thought better of it. They were both shook up over the bailout and regardless of what happened, the two of them had to stay together until rescue arrived tomorrow.

  Rockdale unzipped his survival vest and pulled out his small pint of water.

  MacGammon looked up as he was double-folding the parachute. “I wouldn’t do that, Rocky,” he said, looking back at what he was doing and away from Rockdale.

  Rockdale looked up.

  “If you have a concussion, which you do by the way, all that water is going to do is make you puke.” MacGammon tucked the folded parachute under his left arm, reached inside his right flight-suit pocket, and pulled out a handful of cords. “Didn’t they teach you anything at survival school? First twenty-four hours, you don’t drink your water.” MacGammon put the ends of the cords in his mouth, taking one out and quickly tying it around the folding parachute.

  Rockdale screwed the top back down on the water. MacGammon was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He thought he preferred the griping, whining-malcontent, nincompoop MacGammon than someone who might actually know something.

  “There,” MacGammon said, holding up the parachute.

  How did he manage to compact a wet parachute into a tightly wound roll?

  “We can go look for Carson. But why don’t we try the radio before we do.” MacGammon held up his left arm, pushed the watchstrap around, so the watch face was right-side up. “It’s twenty after the hour, but what the hell. If Carson is awake and thinking, he’ll have his radio on listening.”

  Rockdale pulled his radio out and made several calls. The two of them waited anxiously for several minutes before accepting the fact that either: one, Carson was unable to answer; or two, Carson’s radio was turned off.

  “Was Carson to our left or right when we were coming down?” MacGammon asked.

  “He was to our right. I was directly in front of you and he was off to our right.”

  “Then we need to search at a ninety-degree angle to our trees.”

  Rockdale’s eyes brightened. “I see what you mean. If I landed in front of you in that tree,” he turned facing the tree from where he had fallen and pointed. “And you landed in this one.” Rockdale jerked his thumb toward the one where MacGammon landed. “Then he must have come down in that direction,” Rockdale pointed right.

  “Wow, Rocky. You’re not as dumb you pretend to be.”

  “And, you’re not so dumb yourself, for a nobody from New Jersey.”

  MacGammon grinned. “Don’t push your luck, you Southerners are all alike. Still fighting the Civil War and making fun of those who won it.”

  “I’m from Maryland.”

  “Maryland—Georgia—Kentucky. It don’t matter. They’re all south of Jersey City. Well, should we go do this and see if we can find Carson before he goes crazy with worrying about us?”

  Rockdale nodded.

  MacGammon pulled out his compass and took a reading. “Let’s go.”

  A
moment later, Rockdale fell into step behind MacGammon as the man from New Jersey tromped off, glancing down once more at the compass as he pushed aside the bush blocking their path. Hopefully, they were correct, and somewhere in this direction Stetson had landed. Rockdale followed three or four feet behind MacGammon, who treated each bush, vine, limb, and decaying obstacle as minor inconveniences. He marched forward as if he was on a stroll through a city park. Even Rockdale knew that jungles, much like the woods of western Maryland, were filled with wild beasts. With the exception of bears, wolves, and the occasional panther, Maryland was safe, and you always had “pound 77” to raise the police. Here there was neither a “pound 77” nor 911. All they had was what they had. And MacGammon walked as if there were no one or nothing around except the two of them, protected by the magical cloak of the rain and a compass showing them where to head.

  MacGammon was right. Taking everything with them rather than creating a base camp was the right way to do it.

  Seconds turned into minutes which turned into more minutes. Rockdale glanced back once during their movement to discover their path had disappeared behind the jungle bushes and vines. If MacGammon had listened to him and left the parachute behind, it would have been lost forever, and he’d have had to put up with MacGammon’s bitching. For that alone, he was glad MacGammon had taken it.

  MacGammon stopped, causing Rockdale to nearly bump into him.

  “What?”

  “Shhh,” MacGammon said, raising his finger to his lips. “Listen.”

  Rockdale turned his head from side to side. “Listen for what?”

  “It sounded like moaning—”

  “Moaning?”

  MacGammon motioned downward with his hand. “Just listen for a moment. It sounds like you did when I found you.”

  Rockdale listened, but try as he might he couldn’t seem to separate the sound from the returning noises of the jungle. They rode and rolled over each other, intermixed with the hot, humid breeze that wafted through the leaves. Small patches of fog, from evaporating moisture, had begun to fill the spaces between the bushes. Africa was a beautiful, dangerous place. If you didn’t like the weather, wait a minute, it would change.

  A cry came from their right, and in the next instant, Rockdale followed after MacGammon, who was bolting through the bushes, slapping them aside, as he hurried in the direction from where the cry came.

  CHAPTER 9

  ”HE’S STILL ALIVE,” MACGAMMON SAID, LOOKING UP AT Carson.

  Rockdale pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped the sweat away from his eyes. Carson hung by his harness straps from the parachute. Thick bushes and bramble stopped the two sailors from approaching Carson any closer from below.

  “If he hadn’t moaned, we would never have found him,” Rockdale said, stuffing the handkerchief back into the pocket. “Now how in the hell are we going to get him down?”

  “But he isn’t moaning now. All he’s doing is swaying a little in the wind. Maybe he’s dead?”

  “And maybe he’s not. Even if he’s dead— Stop it, Mac! We’ve got to get him down, whether he’s dead or alive.”

  “I don’t see how we’re going to get him down,” MacGammon protested. “He’s at least forty feet off the ground, and nowhere near anything we can climb out—”

  “Stop it, Mac. Just stop it.”

  “And to get under him, we’re going to have to chop our way through this mess.”

  “You know. Everything with you is no. Everything is too hard. Everything is so fucked up. Just stop it.”

  “Rocky, you’re one fucked up mother, you know,” MacGammon replied, shaking his head. “You know what you need?—”

  Without thinking, Rockdale pushed the smaller man, causing MacGammon to stumble.

  “Hey, man! This ain’t the time and place for you to start a fight with me.” MacGammon took two steps forward, slammed both hands against Rockdale’s chest, and shoved the larger man. “Just don’t fuck with me!”

  Rockdale stumbled backward a couple of steps, the anger leaving him as easily as it had taken hold. “Sorry, Mac. You’re right. I don’t know what came over me.” Rockdale tossed his helmet onto the jungle floor and ran a hand through his thick black hair. “Must be—”

  “Must be the heat? The rain? How about us realizing we’re alone in the middle of a motherfucking jungle with no McDonald’s or even a Wal-Mart nearby. Man, you couldn’t ask for a clearer sign of being lost.” MacGammon laughed, stepped forward, and slapped Rockdale on the arms. “You da man here, Rocky. Just keep your cool. Last thing I want to do is to have to carry both you and Stetson on my shoulders out of this mess.”

  “Whadaya mean carry both of us?” Rockdale asked, slapping MacGammon on the shoulder. “Any carrying to do, I’ll probably have to do it.”

  MacGammon pointed up at Carson. “Him, I’d have to carry because he’s medical, and you, because if I have to beat your ass, you’re going to be medical, too,” he said in a dry voice.

  “So how do we get him down?” Rockdale asked, his hands braced on his hips, watching their shipmate swinging above them as if some giant had hung him up out of reach.

  MacGammon took a deep breath. “You’re right, we’re going to have to figure out how to get him down. It looks as if he’s unconscious, so it ain’t gonna be easy. Maybe we should circle him and see what the terrain is like.” MacGammon tossed his flight helmet near Rockdale’s.

  Rockdale’s eyebrows bunched. “Why? You think maybe we’ll find a better way into him?”

  MacGammon shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll think of something if we’re doing something, even if whatever we’re doing doesn’t make sense. My dad always said it was better to be doing something than doing nothing.”

  Rockdale nodded. “Okay, I’ll go this way, and you go that way,” he said, pointing to the left. “You are right about one thing. Anything is better than standing here watching him.”

  A few moments later MacGammon shouted, “Hey, Rocky, can you see me?”

  Rockdale stopped. He figured he was at a ninety-degree angle to Carson from where he and MacGammon started. “Raise your hand!”

  A hand broke above the brush on the other side of Carson and nearly exactly opposite to where Rockdale stood. “Yeah, I see you, Mac. Keeping walking and keep Carson positioned off your right shoulder. That should keep you in a circle.”

  “What’re you talking about, Rocky? I can barely see him because of this jungle crap. I ain’t tall like you and him.”

  Rockdale ignored the comment and continued to circle. How are we going to get Carson down? The moaning was what drew them to their lost shipmate, and, so far, he hadn’t seen anything that would convince him MacGammon was wrong about Carson being dead. Maybe the moans were his death rattle. Maybe Carson was in such pain, he cycled between consciousness and unconsciousness. He looked up at Carson. The crewman’s hands hung limply down the sides of his flight suit; fingers limp too. The flight boots drooped, the steel toes pointing down. Rockdale stopped, wiped the sweat away from his eyes again, and pulled the matted, wet flight suit away from his body for a moment. Small patches of isolated fog hung beneath the bushes where the earlier rain continued to evaporate from the wave of hot, humid air rolling across the jungle. He pulled the left sleeve away, feeling a slight coolness as the fabric lifted off his arm. Maybe he and MacGammon—and Carson—would never be dry again. Maybe God, or whoever the supreme being is, had decided this was their hell. Never dry again. Maybe when the rain evaporated, perspiration replaced it, and when the morning and afternoon rains came, they washed the sweat away for a while. He released the sleeve, watching as it quickly settled back onto his arm. The survival vest trapped the water and sweat beneath it.

  He turned his attention away from his flight suit and back to Carson. Squinting, he eyed the harness straps between Carson’s legs. If they didn’t rescue the man soon, those straps would act like a tourniquet, if they weren’t already, and stop the blood flowing to the legs. T
he legs and feet would start to die without blood. Carson’s fingers looked as if they moved. He leaned forward, concentrating on the fingers. They moved again.

  The bushes looked more accessible here. Rockdale pushed them aside and started working himself closer to where Carson was hanging. Ten feet closer, he stopped and stared, his hand over his eyes. Yes, he was right. The man’s fingers were moving. Not fast or often, but they were moving.

  “Mac! He’s alive!” Rockdale shouted. He jumped around, elated over seeing Carson move. In the back of his mind there had been this moronic thought of what they would do if Carson was dead. You couldn’t keep a dead body with you in this heat. They would have had to bury him. Out here. With no headstone, and little chance of ever returning to find the body.

  “Well, what’d you expect him to be? It ain’t as if he’s hit anything other than the trees when he came down. It ain’t as if we found him because he was quiet!”

  “No! But, you said—”

  “I said he might be dead. I didn’t say he was dead, and don’t you go putting words into my mouth.”

  “His fingers are moving.” Rockdale’s head moved side to side as he tried to spot MacGammon.

  “That’s good news, Rocky. Tell him to reach up and unsnap his harness and quit fiddling around!”

  “I don’t think he’s conscious.”

  Rockdale continued to stare at his dangling shipmate. After a few minutes, Rockdale cupped his mouth and shouted, “We’ll get you down, Stetson! It’ll take a few minutes, but be patient. We’re here, and we’ll get you down.”

  Nearby, bushes rustled, startling Rockdale, and causing him to jump back. The bushes parted and MacGammon emerged. “To hell with walking around him. Who’s idea was that? And how in the hell are we going to get him down?” MacGammon cupped his mouth and turned toward Carson. “Carson, you asshole, you’d better not be goofing off and making us worry for nothing. If you ain’t, then be patient for more than a bit while we figure out how to get you down!”