The Gulf

by David Poyer

  He’d warned the petty officer at each abandon-ship station not to show lights after they went over the side. Some had already broken their wands, and in the cold luminescence their faces were pallid and frightened. He told them to throw them inside, and dog the hatches.

  For a while then, the night was filled with stealthy sound. The hollow crackle of inflating plastic, the plash and suck of waves, and along the lifelines the crowding, the hesitation, and then the plunge. There was confusion but no panic. He’d gone from station to station explaining the plan. It was simple. Stay together, lashing the rafts, and make as much distance to seaward as they could before daybreak.

  Unfortunately, some of the crew had left in advance of the word. He was in search of them now, breaststroking along downwind of the rest.

  Now, alone, he stopped swimming and rested. No sense tiring himself. The fever of battle had passed, leaving him prey to a crumbling lassitude. As he drifted, tossing gently about, he heard a rumble and looked up.

  Two jets, so low he could see the flare of the exhaust, but darkened. No lights at all. They continued on over him, going south.

  He gave himself two minutes, fighting back the craving for unconsciousness that came whenever he stopped moving. Then he began swimming again.

  Some time later, a shape jelled from the sea darkness. He made up on it with a cautious, silent reach-kick-and-glide. There were probably Iranians out here, too, survivors of the boats they’d sunk. At last, he sensed himself face-to-face with it. He hesitated, then reached out.

  His fingers sank into rubber, and within it, air. “Who’s that?” he muttered.

  “Crockett. And there’s a couple storecreatures hanging off the other side. Who’re you?”

  “XO. Lenson.”

  “Hey, Commander.”

  “Evenin’, sir. Come to join us by the pool?”

  His lips twitched. He hoped they could keep that careless lilt in their voices. “Yeah. Don’t drink up all the beer, okay? You guys get the word about lights?”

  “No, what was it, sir? We didn’t figure we ought to show any—”

  “That’s right. And stay quiet.” Quickly, he explained, made sure they had an operating flashlight and compass, and pointed them back toward the main group. They told him they’d heard voices downwind, and after a few words of encouragement, he shoved off again. Behind him he heard the splash of paddles and hands as they began to move.

  How warm the sea was … and bitter as aloes when a wave slapped his face. Salinity was high in the Gulf. That was good, the denser water would make it easier for the poor swimmers.

  He thought, We’re not doing too bad so far. He’d gotten all the wounded into rafts. And the warmth was a blessing. He remembered the North Atlantic, when Ryan went down. How after ten minutes in that liquid ice men’s hearts simply stopped beating. They could last for hours in water like this. Till the sun came up.

  Then their chances would start to drop. Slowly at first, then faster with every hour of exposure.

  Mutter of voices ahead. They grew slowly louder as he swam, rested, swam. He was up on it before the rapid murmur made sense. “… full of grace, the Lord is with thee—”

  “Don’t let me interrupt, son. But who are you? Anybody else with you?”

  “Hello, XO.” They identified themselves: two firemen from “A” gang. They were both in life jackets. They’d relieved on a hose when Repair Five took smoke casualties, then gone topside after the mine blast. They didn’t say why they hadn’t waited for a raft and Dan didn’t ask. He told them which star to head for to reach the others. One said, his voice like a sleepy child’s, “Sir, we really socked it to ’em, didn’t we? You think we’ll get medals for this?”

  “You will if I have anything to say about it.”

  “Commander, how soon ya think our guys will be out looking for us?” said the other. He sounded older, and more practical.

  “I figure soon. The captain told me he got a message off that we were in trouble. And Adams will send one after they miss us at the join-up. I expect them at dawn. But for sure sometime tomorrow.”

  This was all true, but Dan didn’t add what he feared: that the planes he’d heard overhead were Iranian. That a full-scale counterstrike was in progress, and the rest of the Middle East Force might be busier defending itself than rescuing survivors. There was no use burdening them with his apprehensions. “Anyway, they’ll be here. As long as we stick together, we’ll come out of this all right.”

  “Thanks, sir.”

  “Get going, now. Remember, the big blue star. I’m going to check over this way.”

  “So long, sir. Be careful.”

  He swam east. His arms were tiring and he switched to a clumsy crawl. The vest kept getting in his way. But he didn’t want to deflate it. Every so often, he called out into the dark. His voice sounded harsh and desperate.

  Finally he felt there must be no more men ahead. He stopped swimming and floated there, feeling the sting of some other drifting creature burning on his bare hands. The sea bobbed him like a fishing float, and the speechless wind cooled the sweat on his face.

  Yeah, a hell of a lot better than the last time. Then he’d been cut and burned as well as freezing. He’d made it all right. But then he’d been responsible only for himself.

  He hadn’t seen Shaker since he left the bridge. And although he’d asked, no one else had seen him since the word to abandon went down. So he was in charge.

  Thinking this, that he had some 150 human beings to bring through, he decided to turn back. Stop looking for stragglers and concentrate on welding together the remainder. He had to get them organized. Get the rafts lashed together. Appoint leaders. Put out rules on water. The little pop-up rafts didn’t carry much, five gallons apiece, and they could be out here for a long time.

  He pirouetted sluggishly around, and had taken his first stroke when he heard a sob. He lingered, holding his breath to hear better.

  A cough, then a sob.

  “Hey! Anybody there?”

  “Yeah. Yeah! Over here. Help. Help!”

  “Keep calling. Swim toward me.”

  Some minutes later, the man toppled off a wave into his arms. Lenson grabbed him, his fingers slipping on plasticized fabric. “Who is it?” he muttered. But the man was blubbering, about losing someone, then about a man who gave him something.

  Dan dug into his shoulders and felt the wince. “Hey! Take it easy, fella. Just calm down. Who are you?”

  The other had to try several times. Then he said, more clearly, “Phelan.”

  “Okay—What? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Lenson.”

  “Jesus. Van Zandt. I was swimming for you, then I couldn’t see the ship anymore. But I’m sorry—I lost the guy—he didn’t come up with me—and then the other guy, I was getting ready to steal his life jacket, and instead he gave it to me—”

  Phelan started sobbing again. Dan floated beside him, holding him, wondering which of them was going mad. He didn’t have any idea how the hospitalman had gotten here, or what he was raving about. But he was another man, and he needed help.

  Dan got him calmed down and aimed back toward the group. He waited for a few minutes more, calling out, then decided that was it.

  He turned again, and began swimming back to his men.

  * * *

  He was back in Philly, in the old house, and he’d discovered a secret room in the basement. Everything from his childhood was there. He stared astonished at his old books, his old toys, the model battleships he’d painted so lovingly and, he saw now, so clumsily. The house was still and he knew peace, knew somehow his father would never be drunk again, would never beat them or threaten them. Bill Lenson was never coming back.

  He was recalled to reality by a clatter. He turned on his back, floating, and looked ahead. The group wouldn’t be far away now.

  Fireworks blazed cheerfully over the water, floating upward, then driftin
g down in a pyrotechnic rainbow. He stared at the falling stars, his face dreamy and empty. Then, suddenly, he blinked.

  Simultaneously came the hum of a motor. It wasn’t loud, but over the sigh of the shamal, increasing in strength as they left the island’s lee, it was chillingly clear. It was the familiar drone of bass boats on lazy August afternoons. He couldn’t see lights. Probably they weren’t showing any. Then, just for a moment, they did. A searchlight glinted out. It moved here and there, then steadied on a patch of sea.

  The gun clattered again, three short bursts and then a longer one.

  Dan began swimming again, feeling now a sudden acceleration of the heart, a sudden dryness in his mouth that wasn’t from thirst. Not away from the light. But toward it.

  * * *

  It had moved off by the time he reached them. For one horrible moment, seeing no one in the rafts, he thought they were all dead. He began to shake as he came close enough to hear. Their groans and screams made it all too plain what had happened.

  They were in the water. They’d abandoned the life rafts. When one drifted by and he felt it, he understood. It was soggy, deflating. His stomach cramped with nausea and rage.

  When he called out several voices answered at once. “XO here,” he called. “Cluster up here with me. Did they try to get you to come aboard? Ask you to surrender? Or just start firing?”

  “Just started shooting soon’s the light hit us, sir.”

  “Don’t let the rafts go!” he shouted. “Keep them even if they’re damaged. Bring them over here.”

  Gradually, the group recoalesced, sailors on the outskirts calling in those who’d swum off. They had only two fully inflated rafts left. Dan ordered their occupants into the water and got the wounded hoisted into them. Some of them were unconscious and it was a struggle to get them up.

  He called out for corpsmen then, but only one voice answered. After a moment’s thought, he told Phelan okay, to get in the raft with the wounded, find the medical supplies, and get to work.

  He was hanging panting on the hand line after hoisting the last man up when doubt hit him. Was he doing the right thing? The Pasdaran were still out here. He couldn’t hear engines, but they might be shut down. Listening. Wouldn’t it be better to split up? Scatter the survivors and trust to luck?

  Then he thought, Either way, we’ll lose some. If we split up, the weak, the wounded won’t make it. Let’s just do the best we can together.

  “Commander, hey, it’s Stanko.”

  “Hi, Boats.”

  “Huxley here.”

  “Hi, Chief Warrant.”

  Jimson, Dorgan, Charaler, and Proginelli made their way gradually to him. He couldn’t make out features, but their voices, though roughened by smoke and salt water, were reassuring. He asked about the department heads. Al Wise was in the water on the far side of the group. Rick Guerra had made it out of Main Control but was badly burned. No one had seen Pensker and Brocket.

  He raised his voice over a growing mutter. “Listen up! How many people we got? Count off, starting nearest me.”

  There seemed to be between 100 and 110, but some didn’t answer. He wished he could show a light. There must be more beyond the range of their voices. They’d gone over the side mustering 142. Where were the rest?

  It was shortly after that the engines started up again. “Uh oh,” said a voice near him. He sculled around, fearing the worst.

  The searchlight was on again. It skated slowly over the water, probing in their direction.

  A man swam up to him, bumped him. “Commander,” he said, gasping, as if he didn’t swim very well.

  “Who is it?” Dan whispered.

  For answer, something hard was shoved into his stomach. His hands moved downward to take it. “It’s Lewis. I brought one of the M-14s, sir. We can get one or two of them, anyway.”

  His fingers examined the rifle beneath the water. His thumb caressed the stock. For a moment he was tempted. Then reality supervened. He opened his hands, bobbing up as the weight fell away. “No good, Frank. If we fire back, they’ll kill all of us. Let’s just play to survive.”

  A hundred yards away, the light flickered off the waves. The engine rumbled, creeping toward them. He lifted his voice cautiously. “Keep your heads down. Play dead. Pass it on.”

  The muttered warning moved away in a widening circle and was lost in the growing burble. Over it, he could hear voices in Farsi. And the clank of a breech block feeding rounds.

  The waves turned from blackness to a glittering cobalt. The wavering circle of light moved toward him, and he felt it on his neck like a blade as he put his face down, willing his body to stillness. For twenty or thirty seconds, he undulated limply, counting his heartbeats as the round green brilliance, like a huge all-seeing eye, hovered above him. But he couldn’t stand it, waiting for the firing to begin.

  He turned his head, putting one eye above the water, to watch death bear down on him in a thirty-foot boat. It grew at the edge of his sight, then suddenly became not a shadow but a hull, a curved nothingness blocking out the heavens. The waves knocked hollowly against fiberglass. In his submerged ear, the propeller whined a high note with a metallic edge, like a wire poked into an electric fan.

  “Kasy as anha mebeny?”

  “Faghat mordha.”

  There was a sodden thud as the bow struck flesh. Dan heard it gasp; the Iranians apparently didn’t. The motionless bundle slid along the hull and in the backwash from the light, he saw it spinning in the wake.

  The propeller increased its tempo. The boat moved past them. The light lifted and moved ahead. He raised his nose for a breath, and heard the same sigh around him.

  The boat moved over the curve of sea and out of sight. They were alone again under the stars.

  He sculled gently, trying to master the terror that had purged his bowels. Deep breaths, three, four. There were other things to think about now. So let’s think about them, Lenson. Such as what? Such as Shaker. And Pensker.

  No. He grabbed his mind like the wheel of a truck and turned it into a different road. All that was past. Benjamin Shaker had paid his forfeit. He was beyond punishment or revenge. Nor had the black lieutenant answered up to their verbal muster. For the rest of the night, he had only one thing to think about. And that was, how to save as many of the men around him as he could.

  “Chief McQueen,” he called.

  “Here, sir.”

  “Swim over here, Mac, we got to talk.”

  It took the older man a while. Dan worried: Was he failing already? But his voice sounded strong when he got to him. “Yessir.”

  They went over the situation. High-tide slack had been at 0130. That meant—he lifted his arm, 0347—they were into the ebb now.

  Like any body connected to the sea, the Gulf went through the tidal cycle. It had peaked early that morning and now it was going out, a billion tons of water walking sluggishly out into the Indian Ocean through Hormuz. The chief quartermaster remembered max ebb around Abu Musa at two knots, bearing east by northeast. Dan liked the direction but thought three knots was more accurate. They compromised at two and a half.

  A wave hit them and he sputtered, grasping the back of McQueen’s life jacket. It felt like one of the kapok models, great for the first few hours, but with a bad rep for waterlogging. He hoped there weren’t too many of those out here. “Okay, but isn’t there a counterclockwise current, too? I think I saw something like that in the Sailing Directions. That’d swing us left, toward Iran—”

  “Nosir. Wrong month.”

  “Okay.” He tried to picture it; realized too late he should have brought a chart down from the bridge with him. Well, paper wasn’t much good after a couple hours in the water. But still he felt guilty. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

  Fifty miles off Dhubai, but the tide was setting them parallel to, rather than toward, the coast. The Gulf looked crowded on an NTDS display, twenty miles to the inch. To men in the water it took on a different scale. It was at
least seventy-five miles to the Strait. At two and a half knots, that’d be what, thirty hours.

  No, damn it, his mind wasn’t working. They wouldn’t drift that way for thirty hours, or even ten. The tide would just slide them northeast for six hours, then start sliding back. Except for whatever component the wind introduced to their motion vector, ten hours from now they’d find themselves back in the Abu Musa anchorage. At one in the afternoon.

  McQueen had reasoned to the same conclusions. They agreed that the best strategy was to get the group moving south. The Mubarek oil terminal lay in that direction, as did the Dhubai merchant traffic. The wind would help, too. If they could make five or six miles by noon, then they’d be out of view of the island.

  Dan didn’t like it. The wounded couldn’t swim. They had to be towed. That would slow the group down. The only other thing to do was leave them. And he wouldn’t do that. Should he sink the last rafts, make them harder to see? That would mean putting wounded, bleeding men in the water. He decided to wait till dawn before making that decision.

  Dan looked up at the stars for a while.

  Then he passed the word to start swimming.

  * * *

  The first peach tint of day showed him heads around him. To the west they were lost in darkness. It was still night back there. But where the oily, gently heaving surface absorbed the first light, he could see black dots, like drifting coconuts.

  Like them all, he was swimming, counting dully in his head. His arms moved mechanically, grabbing water and shoving it behind him, like a tiredly digging dog. And like the rest, he made very little way.

  They’d tied themselves together around the rafts. They had five left, two inflated, the others with only a breath or bubble remaining. These the men simply towed, using their lashings, keeping them for the water and supplies; there was no one in them.

  He’d looked forward for weary hours to the sun. For one thing, it would make it easier to swim in the right direction. The unwieldy organism around him had a hundred legs, a hundred arms, and when he got tired or confused among the stars, it drifted off course and then, when he tried to reorient it, stopped dead.