Christmas at Peleliu Cove

by M. L. Buchman

  Sly stopped her with a hand on her arm and handed her a different checklist, “This is the Craftmaster’s.” He traded checklists with her, offered a nod of his head and headed off with her Loadmaster’s list in hand.

  “Chief Stowell.”

  He stopped and looked back at her call.

  “You know what all that means, sailor?”

  “I’ll muddle through,” he flapped the plastic-coated sheet at her then headed off to perform her part of the inspection.

  She looked down at the list in her hand and wished she’d told the crew five minutes instead of three. But training had told her that time to action stations should be three minutes, so it would be.

  “Tom,” she called out as she hurried off. “Get the Well Deck master to open that rear gate. Mama’s ready to go play.”

  “Yes, boss of the swelled head. Marcy,” he called up the ramp to the Petty Officer in command of the Well Deck, “let us outta here.” Then Dave raced up into the control station to warm up the engines.

  At sixty seconds, she had her helmet on—which fit just fine, thank you very much—as the four big engines wound to life. Everyone not on duty had cleared the Well Deck. Those who remained wore double protection—ear plugs and muffs—against the thunder of the big fans the Peleliu was running to clear the exhaust fumes of LCAC-316’s roaring gas turbines trapped in a steel box.

  At two minutes, she’d slid into her Craftmaster seat at the rightmost end of the control console. Thankfully Dave the engineer sat in the middle, because that placed him between her and Tom at navigation. With the intercom connecting their headsets, it didn’t really matter, but she appreciated the buffer from Tom’s quick humor because he had a tendency to poke your ribs with his elbow to make sure everyone got the joke.

  If Sly let her fly both ways today, she’d be seven or eight hours closer to her minimum hour requirement. It wasn’t that she wanted to leave Sly’s boat, but having a boat of her own would be a sweet treat indeed.

  At 2:45 she glanced back at the two seats behind them, the Wave Commander and Troop Commander. On her prior training runs, Sly had perched there.

  “Where’s the Craftmaster?”

  “Wearing your helmet, Petty Officer Maier,” Sly called out cheerfully over the intercom.

  Wait, she was wearing her helmet… Oh man, right. She was the Craftmaster. Then where was Sly? She leaned forward to look across Dave and Tom over to her usual station forty feet away in the portside turret. Sly waved at her. In the past he’d always borrowed some other petty officer to take the position—Marcy the Well Deck master was cross-trained on the post.

  “I don’t know, Loadmaster Stowell,” Nika said as she did her final checks before departure. “Can I trust you over there by yourself? A lot of responsibility, you know.”

  “You don’t break my boat, Craftmaster Maier, and I’ll be fine.”

  At three minutes to the second, she called out, “Take us up, Dave.”

  Dave advanced the pitch on the lift propellers and the LCAC raised about three feet off the deck, taking the pressure off the skirt. In that instant, the hovercraft went from a stable vessel moving with the Peleliu to an independent, skittery, air hockey puck being bounced off the Well Deck walls by the ship’s gentle rocking and the vagaries of the maelstrom unleashed by the big fans operating in an enclosed space.

  Easing back on the wheel, LCAC-316 slid slowly back out of the Well Deck. Nika felt the stern of the hovercraft dip as she tipped backward down the steel ramp of the Peleliu’s rear gate that had been lowered into the sea.

  And then, between one eyeblink and the next, she was no longer easing ever so slowly out of a red-lit cavern that roared with the thunder of four jet engines. Instead, she was out on the dark waves.

  With a practiced flip of her head, she snapped the night-vision goggles down in front of her eyes and the world went green.

  “Heading eight-seven degrees,” Tom called out. “Winds at ten knots out of the west for a nice tailwind. Sea state 2; you are cleared for full operating speed.”

  Sea state 2 meant the biggest wave would barely hit her knee on a beach. The Med was quiet today. The LCAC could fly through waves up to eight feet at full speed, but it wasn’t a comfortable ride. This would be like flying on an air hockey table. Sweet!

  Nika twisted the wheel and slid it forward. As she picked up speed, the LCAC began to turn to the new heading. Pressing in the rudder control with her left foot, Nika turned the big directable blowers that perched close behind the control station. The ducts pointed off to the side and shoved the bow around faster than the rudders behind the big fan would have. As she came up on the heading, she eased off on the big blowers and slid the wheel the rest of the way forward.

  With no load aboard except fuel and the five person crew, ninety tons of LCAC leapt at her command and she shot off into the dark. By the time she thought to look back, the Peleliu was little more than a pinprick on the horizon.

  This was heaven, even if Jews didn’t believe in heaven. It was exactly this.

  She wished her side window opened so that she could stick her head out the window and feel the wind. Feel it rip through her hair. It would smell of ocean and freedom. It was all she’d ever wanted.

  Well, there was now one thing more that she’d like, but she wasn’t going to think about him right now.

  # # #

  Clint looked down from the helicopter he rode on. The hovercraft raced over the pitch black sea. A cloud of water shot outward in all directions, as if the big craft was floating on a foaming wreath of white spray. Behind it, a long ribbon of ripped waves showed the craft’s passage even in his NVGs.

  Maybe Nika was right and Clint had too much Santa on the brain. Hanukkah bush, huh? He’d show her a Hanukkah bush and raise her one Christmas spirit. Only problem was where did a man find Jewish tree decorations while flying over the Southern Med?

  Actually, another problem: there had to be some way to think of something other than the woman driving the hovercraft racing below. He knew she’d had the training, had seen her drive it before—the slip of a woman and the ninety-ton behemoth. How had he never noticed that before? It was like the girl-driving-a-pickup effect times a thousand.

  And then he’d held her and discovered that she felt as neat and compact as she looked. It made their mismatch even more incongruous. But she had also shown him the inner strength that he didn’t know she’d had.

  That’s what had kept him awake the first night. Not that single kiss. It had been good, okay, amazing, but a single kiss didn’t alter a man’s life; at least it wasn’t supposed to in any mission plan he’d ever read. However, discovering that Nika Maier of the Lower East Side of Manhattan had the same spine of steel that Mama had shown in building a great career while raising two kids as a single mom, that had been the eye-opener. He wasn’t some guy out looking to find a woman just like his mom. But to discover a woman who embodied the best parts of Lena Barstowe, well, he wasn’t going to be laying down any complaints at The Man’s door either. Santa was a very wise dude.

  The last two weeks had become a blur of discovery and appreciation. They had loved for hours. And when too debilitated to continue, they had talked about everything. How much ground they’d covered how fast was like relationship boot camp. In two weeks with Nika, he knew more about her than he’d ever thought there might be to learn from The Bitch. He—

  Damn it! Couldn’t he even breath without thinking about her.

  Sitting on the outside bench seat of a Little Bird helicopter, racing above dark waves at ninety miles-an-hour, Clint had more view to admire than just the massive craft sliding along a hundred feet below them. Or the lady guiding it. He and Sergeant Lamar sat on the “pod” bench seat mounted on the left-hand side of a Little Bird helicopter, two of his boys sat on the other side, waiting for the maneuver to begin.

  His feet d
angled over the big nothing, ocean as far as a man could see with only the LCAC moving on its dark surface.

  On the headset with him was Colonel Gibson sitting in the copilot’s seat. They sat close enough together that Gibson’s elbow kept bumping the back of Clint’s shoulder whenever the Little Bird, flown by his wife Claudia, made a hard maneuver.

  “You might want to remain aboard after the exercise,” Gibson told him over the intercom without any preamble.

  Clint tried to figure out what purpose such a change would make. Gibson hadn’t raised the possibility during the briefing. He finally gave up.

  “You’re going to have to explain that one…” he almost said Colonel. But it hadn’t sounded like an order. Instead like advice from…a friend? “…Michael,” Clint finished lamely after an overlong pause. They’d known each other for a couple of years now, but Clint still found it hard to ease down around the man.

  “Knew you were smart,” was all Michael said back to him.

  Smart? He felt dumber than poor old Rudolph—glued to a bulkhead with a crew of goofballs constantly changing his nose until he didn’t know which way was up. He didn’t get anything and Colonel Gibson was calling him smart? Wait! Not Colonel. Michael Gibson was calling him smart.

  That meant…this wasn’t about the Army or tonight’s maneuver. And Michael wasn’t telling him to stay aboard the helicopter, but rather aboard LCAC-316, because that’s where he’d be landing as part of this exercise.

  Why was it important that he stay aboard? No, he “might want to stay aboard” was what the man had said. Well, he knew one reason that he’d absolutely like to spend the rest of the training mission aboard the LCAC.

  Oh. Finally it all made sense. Michael’s friendly slap during the briefing had nothing to do with the string of Libyan desert missions nor his team’s performance during the terrorist camp takedowns. It had to do with something he’d barely discovered himself.

  Make that someone.

  Clint looked over his shoulder at Michael, but the colonel’s attention was focused forward. Perhaps a little too carefully forward. Gibson, who saw everything and understood everything, had seen right through him at the exercise briefing. Perhaps had seen the cheery salute he’d sent Nika’s way from the middle of the terrorists’ compound two weeks ago and known exactly what was going on, even though Clint had only thought he was teasing Petty Officer Maier at that time.

  He knew Gibson respected him, because if he didn’t Clint would have found himself reassigned fast enough to make his head spin. And it would be impossible to not respect Nika Maier. If Gibson was thinking to give Clint a nudge as one friend to another, Clint would take that as a good sign.

  “Yes, sir,” Clint said over the intercom. “That would offer a superior tactical situation. Thank you, sir.”

  Michael still didn’t turn to him, but in his NVGs, Clint thought he saw the Colonel smile.

  If his wife—the only other person on the intercom—had a comment, she kept it to herself.

  # # #

  “Attention 316. Prepare for immediate on-boarding of Ranger team.”

  “Say what?” Nika stared at the radio in confusion. All she’d been told during the briefing was Exercise with Rangers and Night Stalkers. It had seemed so odd that she’d double-checked, but that’s all they’d told her.

  “A Craftmaster always displays confidence in order to instill same in their crew,” Sly spoke it like a beginner’s lesson over the intercom. “Especially in rapidly changing scenarios.”

  “Roger that,” Nika keyed the radio. “This is 316. Ranger team is a go.” As soon as she was back off the general frequency, she continued over the intercom. “And they call us nuts.”

  “Incoming,” Sly called out.

  The words were barely out of his mouth when the LCAC skittered and bucked. A glance over her shoulder and she was looking directly at Captain Claudia Gibson’s Little Bird helicopter hovering in the gap between her tower station and Sly’s. The helo had two Rangers on bench seats on this side and probably two more on the other.

  The blast of air downwashing from the helicopter’s rotor blades pounded against the LCAC. They were traveling at seventy miles an hour when the Rangers kicked loose thick fast-ropes; the ends of which hit the hovercraft’s deck.

  Fast-roping was almost always done on a steady platform with the helicopter in a stable hover. Claudia’s helo was nose down, pushing along at half its full-flight speed.

  “Rangers away!”

  Nika stole a glance to see a Ranger wearing one of their huge field packs slide down from each side, get caught by the wind, and then make it down onto the deck after flapping about like a pair windsocks. As soon as they were clear, two more slid down with nothing but their gloves and their boots to keep them on the whipping rope.

  “On the deck!” Clint. She had no trouble recognizing his voice, already it was ingrained. She’d recognize his soft whisper after a kiss or his shout while standing tall in a terrorist camp raid.

  The helo released the two fast-ropes, dropping them to the deck, and then raced away over the bow.

  The rotorwash drove the LCAC’s bow skirt down into a wave and Nika had to compensate, adding extra lift as a wave-load of spray shot over the top of the front gate and doused the Rangers. Served them right for being crazy.

  She barely recovered before Trisha O’Malley came in with the next four.

  It became a blur.

  Four more off another Little Bird.

  Then the hammer-load of a dozen Rangers sliding down two ropes off a Black Hawk. The big Sikorsky MH-60M transport bird slapped at her LCAC with ten times the force of the Little Birds. But she’d learned a lot from the line of Little Birds and managed to compensate enough to keep the hovercraft steady under the helicopters.

  Five helos blasted her in turn and thirty Rangers hit her deck in under a minute.

  No word from any of her crew.

  She checked her heading. Still eight-seven degrees true.

  They were now thirty Rangers heavy. She was tempted to turn and see if she could spot Clint, but resisted the urge.

  “Incoming,” Sly called again.

  Now what? Nika managed to keep the thought to herself.

  Suddenly LCAC-316 bucked like she’d been kicked in the ass.

  Nika fought the controls. It was no longer merely a matter of holding her heading. The downwash was now a downblast. She spun the steering blowers until the one on either side pointed out to sea in opposite directions. Feeding power to them kept the hovercraft more tightly trapped on a straight course.

  Captain Roberts’ massive Chinook MH-47G slid to a hover above her bow and dangled down three long lines.

  Then he just sat there.

  The LCAC was battered by the pounding wind. Even the little two-foot waves broke hard against the bow despite the fact that she’d pumped all of the lift forward that she could.

  A hovercraft was practically frictionless on the surface of the ocean and the twin sixty-foot rotors of the Chinook were doing their best to shove her aside. A shift of even a few feet could be disastrous to the Rangers huddling in the open cargo bay.

  Sweat began streaming down her face as she fought to keep her craft steady.

  “What are they doing, Sly?”

  “Roping up. SPIES extraction.”

  “SPIES? At sixty knots?” Clint Barstowe wasn’t brave, he was completely insane. One false move by her or the Chinook and there’d be little bits of US Rangers scattered all over the LCAC’s deck worse than the aftermath of a dinner table at the end of a Passover Seder meal.

  “Never seen anything quite like it,” Sly’s voice was full of wonder.

  Sure as hell hadn’t been in my training! But she didn’t have the spare attention to actually voice that thought. It took everything she had to keep her craft flying true.

/>   Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction System was a fast-rope lowered from a hovering helicopter. On it were ten D-rings embedded through the rope. Rangers always had an extraction clip on their survival vests. They’d snap that into the D-ring on the SPIES rope and then the helo would lift them off the ground. A very fast way to get a team off unfriendly ground without having to land.

  But she’d never heard of a full platoon doing it at the same time, and never in seventy miles an hour of wind.

  “Someone talk to me,” she snarled into the intercom.

  “All locked in,” Sly reported. “The Rangers all have their arms out to the side.”

  That was their signal that they were ready to go. The helicopter’s crew chief would look down and ensure that every man had their arms out before starting the lift.

  “And…there they go. Rope taut. First aloft. Second is up. All three rope teams are off the deck. Damn but that’s impressive.”

  Nika flashed a glance to the side and wished to hell that she hadn’t. Thirty US Rangers were being battered about by the wind between her and Sly’s lookout stations. If she slipped even a little to the side, she’d have Ranger faces plastered up against her window.

  “And…they’re clear!” Sly announced.

  Nika looked out the front windshield and up as the LCAC settled from the departing Chinook’s battering. The helicopter was turning back toward the Peleliu. In NVG-green, she could see all of the Rangers flying through the night with their arms still held out to the sides.

  “Damn. And I thought we were the crazy ones.”

  “Told you,” Clint’s voice came loud and clear on the intercom, “Rangers lead the way.”

  Nika spun to see Clint sitting in the Troop Commander’s seat close behind Dave. He was grinning at her like a lunatic.

  “Heading is changing,” Tom called out from his navigator’s station. “Ninety degrees. One-ten. One-twen—”

  “Shut up, Tom!” Nika corrected the LCAC’s heading back to eight-seven with a vicious snap that sent her stomach skidding in one direction as 316 twisted in the other.

  “A Craftmaster maintains both control of her craft and treats her crew with courtesy.”