“Get going!” I barked. Willow scrambled out of the wheelhouse. My full attention was bent on easing the scow up beside the line of anchored boats, but I glanced sideways to see what was delaying Martin.
What I saw made me let go of the wheel and lunge at him. He had grabbed the barge captain from behind, holding the crippled man with an arm around his chest. I was too late. The knife in Martin’s free hand was plunged deep into the left side of the old boatman’s throat and moving swiftly across his neck. A spray of warm, frothy blood made a crimson mist before my angry eyes.
Without any show of emotion, Martin dropped the body, and stepped over it as if it were offal. Martin said nothing; he went by me as if I didn’t exist. His lips were set in a thin, arrogant smirk as though he was proud of his needless, barbaric action. Any thoughts I harbored that Martin had the strength to bear up under the ordeal he’d put himself through were worthless. The man’s mind had become warped and shattered by the nightmare he had created. The trauma of Phan Wan’s death could have been the final blow that had put him over the edge.
I heard Willow’s shout. I whirled about. The barge was following a course of its own. Despite full rudder, I couldn’t bring the bow around before it reached the nearest sampan. There was a loud splintering of wood as the corner of the barge smashed into the side of a junk, tearing out a huge gouge. I was thrown off balance but kept my footing.
I jumped from the pilothouse door onto the dew-dampened teakwood deck six feet below. Willow and Martin were on the next boat before the occupants of the first vessel recovered from the shock of being rammed and boarded. I ran at full stride, leaping from boat to boat. When I caught up with Martin we skimmed over mated gunwales like neck and neck hurdlers in a track meet. Ahead of us Willow upset a crate of chickens on a deck. The flimsy bamboo cage burst open, leaving a shower of squawking fowl and airborne feathers in her wake.
A snarling dog came out of nowhere and clamped strong teeth on my right pant leg. I spun completely around in an effort to dislodge the animal. The centrifugal force added weight to the dog. My pant leg gave way. The dog slithered across the deck with a torn piece of cloth between his locked teeth, once again scattering the hysterical chickens.
Martin was half a sampan ahead of me when I got moving again. Our headlong rush was attracting the attention of floating city dwellers. The once sleeping atmosphere became a focal point for shrieks of alarm, yapping dogs, crying children, and every sound possible from disturbed domestic animals. Until everything came to life around us, I hadn’t appreciated how extensive a life-style existed on Haiphong’s floating cells.
Above all was the persistent, weird hooting of the river patrol boat that paced us. It was as if the mournful sound was counting off time that was running out for us. It was then that we ran out of decks leading to freedom. The last boat was a small, pitching sampan. We had to jump down to reach its deck.
Willow and Martin were fumbling with the mooring lines when I caught up. A bare-chested, irate man emerged from under the oilskin-covered bows that formed a deck shelter. He had his eyes on Martin and didn’t see me coming. I hit him with a stunning shoulder block that lifted him off his feet. One foot tagged the deck in his sideways travel. The other snagged on the gunwale, flipping him head over heels as he fell into the bay.
I raced to the tiller. Beside it was the control handle of a ten horsepower Johnson outboard motor. For once I was grateful that the United States had poured every conceivable kind of mechanical equipment into the Vietnamese wastebin of war. I yanked the starter cord, moved the choke lever and yanked again. The first sputterings evened out to a smooth, burbling tempo. Willow shouted: “All clear!”
I took the motor out of neutral and twisted the rubber hand grip. We moved off. I headed straight out. We had a long way yet to go in very little time.
The annoying hooting of the patrol craft sounded louder now. I got a fix on its location. It was directly off to our left. Its lights should be visible.
As I looked for them, a blinding glare struck me full in the face. I was blinded. A powerful searchlight stabbed through the darkness, its just turned-on beam hitting us as it began its sweep. The light, broad-focused and low on the water, illuminated a large area as it slowly scanned the bay ahead of us.
I concentrated on steering what I thought was the proper course. Willow and Martin manned either side of the bow, looking off their respective quarters for the special float marker that meant life or death to us.
The noisy patrol boat whipped its spotlight shoreward to scan across the bunched sampans. Looking behind, I could see people on decks, looking stark in the bright light and pointing in our direction. The light turned and started probing again. It passed back and forth over the water surface ahead of us. It was then that I saw the marker. The bobbing float was barely discernable even when well lit. I steered for it. I tried to twist the outboard’s throttle past the stop.
Just five minutes more! We could make it with five more minutes. I shouted to Willow and Martin. Willow came to the stem and strapped a green bail-out bottle to my thigh. She slung the goggles over my neck and clipped the breathing mask to my jacket. She prepared herself for immersion.
It was like being hit by a meteor. The blazing searchlight flicked over us and returned, pinning the little sampan in its powerful, now-narrowed beam. Then the shooting began. Zinging bullets from hand-held automatic weapons whipped up the dark water around us. Most fell short. The chunk-chunk-chunk of the double-barrel 20 mm. cannon was different. Streams of flat trajectory tracers smashed in our hull. Pieces of wood flew off the boat. Half of the port gunwale disintegrated. The chewed and splintered mast came down like a felled tree. The entire boat shuddered under the repeated impact of the large caliber shells.
“Jump! Into the water!” I yelled, hoping to be heard.
Willow plunged into the bay. I saw Martin rear up, roaring defiance. He faced the attacking patrol boat and fired a long burst. His bullets found the searchlight, knocking it out. At the same instant a 20 mm. round exploded next to him. He lunged overboard.
I surfaced halfway between Martin’s bobbing form and the descent marker buoy attached to the submerged submarine. I swam to see if I could help Martin.
He was dead.
I took his body in tow. Willow swam alongside. We were ten yards from the beckoning end of the lifeline. The blinded patrol boat stood off, continuing to rake and batter the burning, shattered sampan.
Willow went down first. I threw a leg lock around Martin’s body and submerged after her, working my way down the guideline until I was some fifteen or twenty feet below the surface. It would be a cold, lonely wait until the submarine escape hatch was cycled and Willow was taken inside. I concentrated on breathing as evenly as I could. It was the only way I could close out the world that threatened my sanity.
I felt motion next to my weightless feet. Two frogmen suddenly took shape beside me. One took Martin’s body. The other led me down to the waiting escape hatch.
I dripped sea water all over Commander Beckwith’s khaki uniform when we shook hands vigorously. Unsmiling black shoe navy enlisted men filled the control room. Most of the crew were present. Very few of them were young.
A radioman pushed his way through to the submarine captain. The message he handed to Beckwith was read quickly and handed back with an affirmative nod. The commander leaned toward me. “For security reasons and our own safety, we can’t tell Washington you’ve been picked up until we’re well out to sea. So the White House doesn’t know that you’ve been recovered. I have no idea what you’ve stirred up topside in the past twenty-four hours, but it’s enough for us to receive a presidential recall directive. That message cancelled all previous instructions and ordered us to abandon station immediately.”