“Don’t shoot, for Christ’s sake!” Flanagan yelled. He grabbed one of the rifles in the boat, jumped over the side, and started to splash around the end of the tree roots. He heard the Apache say “Ahhh!” and heard his rifle crack. One of the two figures struggling on the beach dropped, and the other one turned and sprinted for the water. He floundered through the shallow water, and Flanagan saw the flashes of rifle fire in the dark tree line. Gouts of water began to rise on either side of Booth as he labored toward the safety of the tree. Flanagan raised his rifle and got off five shots into the tree line as fast as he could work the rifle bolt. The Apache was firing steadily from the boat.
“Zigzag, you dumb bastard!” Charlie Two Blankets yelled, and Booth began veering from one side to the other. He dove forward and began to swim frantically.
“Smart,” the Apache said. “The Chief Yeoman has got the smarts. They won’t hit him now.” He ripped two shots into the tree line, reached for a canvas bandoleer in the bottom of the boat, and jammed another clip in his rifle. Flanagan, crouching low in the water, moved out from the shelter of the massive ball of tree roots, grabbed Booth, and dragged him behind the tree and into the boat. A machine gun in the tree line began to chatter, its bullets ripping into the trunk of the tree.
“That fucker’s gonna need all the machine guns on the island to make chips outa this big tree,” the Apache said. He climbed out of the boat and eased up behind the tangled mass of roots, his eyes studying the tree line. Very cautiously he edged the rifle between the roots and sighted. He fired once, then again, and climbed back into the boat.
“They need a new gunner,” he said. He looked at Booth. “What kind of a dance was you doin’ with that dude on the beach?”
“Fucker was a Jap. Hit me so fucking hard on the shoulder I thought he’d broke it. Bastard was trying to bear hug me to death. Woulda done it, too, if you hadn’t shot his ass off, old Indian.”
“We’re all gonna get our ass shot off if we try to leave this damned tree to go back to the ship. Listen to the fire those cocksuckers are layin’ down. Must be a hellish lot of them up in those trees.” He pawed over the bandoleers in the bottom of the boat. “We got maybe a hundred, hundred and twenty rounds between us. Not enough if they decide to come after us.” He dove into the bottom of the boat as an express train screamed by close overhead. The express train exploded with a burst of fire and a roar against the tree line. Another express train left a banshee wail behind it as it roared by only a few feet above the heads of the men in the boat. A huge gout of sand burst upward with an orange burst of fire at the edge of the tree line. The boom of the two 5.25-inch deck guns of the Eelfish echoed across the water, followed by the stammering roar of the 1.1 pom-pom and the steady stutter of the twin 20 mm guns.
“Old Man’s laying down covering fire. Contact fuses so they burst as soon as they hit something up there in the trees,” Flanagan yelled. “Let him get off a few more rounds and then we’ll haul ass outa here.” Booth crawled forward in the boat, untied the bow line, and held on to the tree roots, keeping the boat snugged in next to the palm tree, ducking as two more shells screamed by overhead.
“Keep your heads down,” Flanagan ordered. “Shove off, Booth, let’s get the hell out of here.” Booth and Charlie Two Blankets, crouching on their knees in the rubber boat, paddled steadily away from the safety of the downed palm tree and toward the open sea as the fire from the Eelfish roared overhead toward the tree line on the beach.
Steve Petreshock was down on the pressure hull with a safety line around his waist as the rubber boat bumped alongside. He grabbed Booth and then the Apache and helped them up on the deck, and then took the three rifles and bandoleers from Flanagan.
“Scuttle the boat, Chief,” Mike Brannon called from the bridge. Flanagan pulled out his sheath knife and punctured the rubberized fabric in a half-dozen places, then scrambled onto the pressure hull where Petreshock grabbed him.
“Belay firing, secure the deck party, secure all guns,” Brannon barked. “Right ten degrees rudder. Make turns for full speed. Deck party below. Lookouts keep a sharp watch. Control, give me a radar sweep.” He stood to one side as the deck gunners scrambled down the hatch.
“Radar reports no contacts, Bridge,” the speaker on the bridge echoed.
“Very well,” Brannon said. He turned to Lieutenant Gold. “Take the deck, Jerry. Maintain this speed for fifteen minutes and then make turns for two thirds. Keep the lookouts sharp. Radar sweep every five minutes for the next fifteen minutes.”
John Olsen had led the boat party into the Wardroom by the time Mike Brannon got below. Pete Mahaffey was serving coffee.
“Begin at the beginning, when you left the ship,” Brannon said. Flanagan nodded and recounted the operation from the time the six-man rubber boat pushed away from the side of the Eelfish until he had ordered it tied up to the roots of a downed palm tree in the water. He turned to Booth.
“I volunteered to go ashore and lead the ship watchers out to the boat,” Booth said. “The guy who came down the beach, there were four of them, the right number, the guy in the lead had a flashlight lit and I told him to shut it off. He tried to hit me in the head with it. Damned near broke my shoulder. I grabbed him and he got me in a bear hug. I heard a rifle firing but I didn’t know what was happening, that guy was squeezing me so tight and he was, kind of, grunting and slobbering on me. Then all of a sudden he made a funny sound and he just dropped. I ran like hell for the water and the boat.
“I heard Charlie yelling at me to zigzag and I tried to do that and then I dove in and sort of grabbed at the bottom and pulled myself along. Chief Flanagan came out from the tree, into the open, and got me and hauled me back into the boat.”
“Charlie figured out what was going on before I did,” Flanagan took up the story. “He opened fire as soon as the guy grabbed Chief Booth. I saw the second guy coming down the beach go down and then the third guy went down and the other guy, the fourth one, he ran back into the trees.
“Charlie was yelling at Chief Booth to turn the guy he was fighting with around so he could get a shot in and I yelled at him not to shoot and got out of the boat to go help Booth, and then all of a- sudden Charlie loosed off one round and the guy Booth was fighting with dropped.”
Mike Brannon looked at the Apache Indian. “That’s sort of miraculous shooting, Charlie. To hit the right man at night when the two of them were struggling together.”
“The Jap had on white shorts and a white shirt, sir,” the Apache said. “Chief Booth had on dungarees. Moon was awful bright. Range was only thirty, thirty-five yards. When Booth swung the guy around so they were sideways to me I got a good sight on that white shirt and popped him with one under his left armpit. Man don’t live with a thirty-ought-six slug hitting him there, sir.”
“You’re sure he was a Japanese?” Brannon looked at Booth.
“Yes, sir. Big fellow. Bigger than I am and I’m six feet and two hundred, sir. When he spoke to me, when I told him to put out the flashlight he had an Aussie accent. But he was a Jap, no doubt. A strong son of a bitch, too.”
“When Booth was back in the boat they opened up with a machine gun, sir,” Flanagan said. “If you hadn’t come in with the deck; guns I don’t think we could have made it back.”
“Lieutenant Gold heard the rifle fire,” Mike Brannon said. “We were cruising in a circle from where we dropped you off.”
“Captain was going to flood down forward and run the ship up on the beach and lead a boarding party to come and get you,” Olsen said with a grin. Brannon shook his head. “I was afraid we were going to lose all three of you. Chief Booth, would you write up this operation? Do it in the first person with Chief Flanagan as the narrator. He’ll sign it. Go to direct quotes from you and Charlie where needed.” He looked at the three men.