Ian Slater - WW III

Dazed, lifting himself up, the artificer saw the door of the engine room move, its high, mouselike squeal audible amid the deeper rumble of the ship that was now sinking, as millions of gallons sought to fill every possible space, ironically bringing the ship back to a stable position before it began listing again, this time to starboard. The artificer saw the wheel move again and was about to reach for it when the door flew open on the downward incline and a seaman came tumbling out, slamming against the opposite bulkhead. For a moment as the artificer leaned on the door, pushing it shut and spinning the wheel, water bubbling out about his feet like an overflowing toilet, he thought the seaman was wearing red Day-Glo gloves.

Coming up, splashing behind them, was a CPO from the combat control center. “Come on, you two. Topside. Old girl’s had—” He saw Spence collapse onto the deck, and now the artificer saw what he had thought were red gloves.

On the deck they laid William Spence down on a net stretcher, the roaring light above him so bright, it seemed he was entering the sun. A sick bay attendant struggled for several minutes beneath the down-blast of the helicopter’s blades and in the spray it was whipping up about them before he managed to give Spence a shot of morphine.

The OOD, his face bleeding, the cuts superficial, looking more serious than they were, cast a glance down at Spence. He thought he’d seen him in the galley once. He saw the seaman’s eyes open briefly, then shut. All about him there were men calling for help, some quietly moaning as the fury of the sea continued unabatedly, indifferently, to batter the dying ship.

The OOD was trying to decide the priority cases for the chopper’s first run. Amid the noise of the chopper, shouts of men dying around him, some washed overboard and lost already, the other ships unable to stop, the sick bay attendant realized that the officer’s glance at Spence was a silent question, but the attendant’s grimace was one of agonized indecision as he shouted above the roar of the helo, “Wouldn’t put money on it, sir. Then again—”

The officer looked helplessly around, but there was no one to help him decide. He knelt down in the wind that was whistling wildly through sheared metal and over the bodies littered all around, and placed his hand on the boy’s forehead, making the sign of the cross, trying to remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer, trying to decide whether the boy should be a priority case or not.

“I can’t move my legs, sir. I can’t feel nothin’, sir, nothin’ at all.” It was Johnson, lying on a stretcher near a starboard davit. “I can’t.”

“It’s all right, old chap,” said the gunnery officer. “You just lie there. We’ll get you off on the next chopper.” Nearby, a bosun, overhearing the conversation, turned to his mate. “Don’t see much wrong with ‘im.”

“Shock, I expect,” said his mate. “Poor bugger’s spine probably crushed, paralyzed from the waist down. That’s why he don’t feel anything.”

“Thought I saw him walking out on deck,” said the bosun. A wave smacked the starboard side of the Peregrine, a black wave suddenly incandescent, angelic in the cone of the chopper’s belly light, water streaming frothily through the scuppers, the ship rolling very slowly now, the water sloshing back and forth, gurgling through buckled decking. “Least I thought it was him,” said the bosun, still looking at Johnson.

“Nah,” said his mate. “Must have been another bloke. Christ, I ‘ope they send more helos. I don’t fancy this lot.”

Next to him the bosun was zipping up the body bag in which they’d laid the cook.

The cavernous troop deck aboard the LPH Saipan rang with the general’s voice.

“My name is Douglas Freeman and I’m here because, like you, I was considered the best for the job. First thing I want to tell you tonight is that I have no intention of dying.”

There was a ripple of strained laughter.

“Neither, I trust, do you.”

More laughter.

“Secondly—” The general’s eyes were taking in the whole hangar with such intensity that every private, section, platoon, and company commander thought the general was staring at him. “I’m not about to lead any dope-heads into battle. I don’t give a goddamn what the doctors say, or the surgeon general says — there isn’t such a thing as a goddamned calming pill that’ll let you go into battle like you were going to church — which, looking at you sons of bitches, I seriously doubt you’ve ever done anyway.” In the first row, Al Banks, arms folded, was looking at his shoes. He had personally authorized the issue of.5 mg sublingual Lorazepam before it was known who would be commanding the hastily assembled mobile force.

“Now,” continued Freeman, walking, hands on hips, across the small podium, stopping, facing the men, his voice reaching every corner of the hangar deck, “I know you’ve all been through the drills, the maps, the platoon assignments.” He paused. “But there’s something else you should know. When you go into battle I want you to know who you are, where you are, and what the hell you’re doing. I want you shooting gooks, not one another. So — before you disembark, indeed before you dismiss this evening, you will dispense with any pills you were issued with and any other pills you may have in your possession, depositing them with the padre.”

The padre, in the front row, looked up, surprised.

“If he runs out of pockets, put them in his helmet. I don’t want any space-head shooting up his section because he popped a pill too many and thought you were all gooks — even though you’re better-dressed than any gooks I’ve ever seen, and that includes that runt, Kim Jong II, who—”

The troops were loosening up, the laughter coming more easily now.

“An evil piece of shit,” continued the general, “who, by the way, when you were trying to get your first piece of ass, was trying to figure out how to murder innocent civilians and who is as evil a bastard as Qaddafi, Hitler, that shit Pol Pot, or any other son of a bitch ever hoped to be.” The anger in Freeman’s eyes was so intense, Al thought the general was about to jump right off the stage, his forefinger sweeping across his audience, his lone star glinting in the hangar light. “It is our duty to go in and give that son of a bitch such a shake-up and hopefully kill the bastard, so that his henchmen will think twice about ever attacking the United States of America again.”

The general paused again and, glancing along the front rows, saw the padre was not at all fazed by the profanity. “To teach them a lesson,” Freeman went on, “namely that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew because the United States of America will not — I repeat, not — give up the ghost in Korea and that if they persist in their butchery, we’ll get tougher still and nuke the sons of bitches into oblivion!”

There was a roar of approval. The padre, Freeman noticed with satisfaction, was distinctly uncomfortable. The general’s voice dropped.

“Now, I’ve heard that someone says this is a hopeless mission — a suicide mission, politically motivated. Well, I don’t lead suicide attacks, and I won’t give you any BS about minimum casualties. We’re going into the enemy’s belly and I expect casualties to be heavy. But we’ll be coming out!” There was still silence.

“As for it being politically motivated — hell,” said the general, shaking his head, “I don’t know what that means. All I know is anything we don’t like — don’t care for — becomes politically motivated. We are instruments of national policy. Our profession is not peace, it’s war. That’s what we’re paid for — to go in there — not to walk softly and carry a big stick but to give ‘em the stick right up their heathen ass.”