Hunter eyed a woman’s nightgown hanging from a hook near Sir Neil’s bed. It was obviously Clara’s.
“Well, I see you’ve at least been making the best of the time you’ve spent here,” he said.
Sir Neil caught his drift. “Aye. Clara.” He sighed. “She’s a sweetie, to come and comfort an old goat like me, especially with all these bandages and things.”
“Well,” Hunter said, getting up to go, “if you’re bedridden anyway, what the hell?”
Suddenly Sir Neil was sitting up again. “Hunter,” he said, extending his hand, “thanks, me boy.”
Hunter took the man’s hand and shook it.
“Heath is a good lad and doing well in my stead — but he’s following orders because he’s RAF to the end,” Sir Neil said. “But I know you don’t have to be doing this. I feel sometimes like I’ve gotten you in to one hell of a mess. Mixed up in some fool’s cockamamy idea of a crusade to save the world. I just wanted to let you know I appreciate it.”
Hunter became very serious. He could see in the man’s eyes the look one has when a dream is in danger of being lost. The worst fear in the world. The fear of the unfulfilled.
He gripped Sir Neil’s hand harder. “Don’t worry, sir,” The Wingman said. “You can count on me … ”
The storm continued unabated into the night. If anything, the seas got rougher. There was no need to calculate where the center of the storm was — the simultaneous crack of lightning and boom of thunder proved it was directly over the Saratoga.
Once again, Hunter tried to sleep, but found it impossible. He had checked with the CIC one last time, and everything was normal — or as normal as they could be in the middle of a hurricane. Yet something was still gnawing at him — the anticipation of trouble ahead, compounded by the spooky trip the night before. His own fairly extensive extrasensory abilities were buzzing. Would he ever reach a point where he wouldn’t have to worry about such things again?
The answer was no …
He lay on his bunk and had just closed his eyes when the feeling washing over him.
“Oh no,” he thought, immediately jumping up from the bunk. “Here we go again … ”
He was up and running toward the deck in a moment, pausing only to put on his flight helmet and grab his M-16. He was working totally on instinct now — a nether region so baffling for him that in some cases he couldn’t explain his actions even after the crisis was over.
He reached the deck and went out into the night. The wind was howling ferociously. Lightning was splitting the sky every other second. The thunder was so loud, his ears began to hurt. Waves the size of buildings were crashing against the side of the carrier. At some points, the frigate nearest the Saratoga looked higher in elevation than the carrier itself.
Yet out there, somewhere, he knew enemy aircraft were coming …
Suddenly the battle stations’ klaxon went off, even though the howling wind and the booming thunder nearly drowned it out. Yaz emerged from the conning tower and, spotting him on the deck, screamed at the top of his lungs, “They’re coming, Hawk! The flying boats! There’s at least eighty of them!”
Hunter didn’t even bother to ask Yaz how he knew this. It simply confirmed what Hunter had been feeling in his bones all along.
“Those crazy bastards,” he thought. “Who the hell would come out in a hurricane to pull a mid-sea air strike? And at night?”
Immediately, he saw the Spanish Rocketeers and the French Legion soldiers appear on the deck. Hunter grabbed the Spaniards’ group leader.
“We’re about to be attacked,” he yelled to the man, trying to be heard over the pandemonium of noise. “Get your guys to their positions and tell them to strap themselves in. Tell them to use belts, ropes, wire, whatever. But get them secured so no one goes overboard!”
The Spaniard nodded, saluted, and ran off into the night. Meanwhile, Hunter sought out the French antiship company leader. He found the man at the carrier’s forward Phalanx gun position.
“We are about to be attacked by aircraft,” he explained to the man. “Seaplanes like the ones that attacked the Freedom Navy. Do you understand?”
“Oui, monsieur,” the man yelled back.
“Can your guns work against slow-moving aircraft?”
The Frenchmen mustered up a smile. “We certainly will find out, monsieur.”
Hunter had to smile too. Talk about esprit de corps. He patted the man on the back, yelled, “Go get ’em!” and was off.
That’s when he heard the sound of approaching aircraft …
He ran towards the front of the ship again, noting that all the carrier’s guns were manned and that the Spanish rocketeers were in position. Even the Australians and the Gurkhas were huddled in doorways and bulkheads, ready if needed.
Hunter reached the front of the ship and stared out into the stormy night. His extraordinary eyes picked out first one, then two, then a half-dozen red and white lights coming directly towards him.
“Those crazy bastards … ” he whispered once again. Although his eyes confirmed it, his mind was having a hard time believing it. “Here they come … ”
Not ten seconds later one of the huge Soviet-built Beriev-12 flying boats roared between the carrier and the frigate on its port side. It was traveling so slow, Hunter could see dozens of faces peering out of the double line of gun portholes on the side of the Beriev. The huge airplane seemed to hang in the air for a moment then it was gone — disappearing into the storm.
Next a smaller sea-jet came through, its nose spitting cannon fire, which Hunter heard pinging off the hull of the ship. This airplane banked to the right and as it passed, Hunter saw a weapon strapped under its wing that sent a chill through him.
“Jezzuz!” he said to himself. “That was a goddamn Exocet!”
Another Beriev came in. This time every gun was aimed at the carrier and firing. Hunter hit the deck, though the spray from the sea was hard to distinguish from metal splinters flying around because of the vicious barrage from the flying boat.
He was quickly back on his feet. He could see through the rain and sea spray that the attackers were buzzing all over the fleet on both sides of the carrier. He could also see streaks of light piercing the foul night as the flying boats pounded the storm-tossed ships.
“If this isn’t the craziest thing,” he thought, his uniform and every inch of his body soaking wet. “Battling a bunch of crazy fuckers in seaplanes in the middle of the night in the middle of a typhoon!”
Another Beriev came roaring in, its howitzer pumping out shells that were just screaming over the deck and crashing to the sea on the other side. Still no one on the Saratoga, or on the other attending ships that he could see, was firing back.
“Well, fuck this,” Hunter said, his temper getting the better of him. Someone had to fight back! He ran up to the edge of the ship, cocked his M-16, and started firing. He could see some of his tracer bullets bouncing off the side of the flying boat, but others were penetrating. He shot out at least one gun port window before the huge plane roared off.
Then a seaplane streaked by and Hunter pumped a few shots at it too. Then, down by the stern of the ship, Hunter saw the flash of a Stinger missile going off. Its tail twisted up and over the top of the flying boat missing it by just five feet. That’s better, Hunter thought.
Now he saw more return fire was coming from the attending ships as their sailors began exchanging shots in earnest with the flying boats. Within seconds, the sounds of the battle were overwhelming the roar of the wind and the ever-present claps of thunder.