But now the attackers started to intensify their attack. Changing their tactics, two sea-jets swooped in on the carrier head on, each firing a small antiship missile. One exploded just feet from the carrier’s catapult channel, spraying the deck with shrapnel and fire. Another hit the base of the conning tower, the explosion breaking a number of windows and ripping a hatchway door off its hinges and flinging it off into the raging wind.
Hunter pumped half of his M-16’s magazine into the two jets as they streaked overhead. As soon as they passed, another two sea-jets repeated the maneuver. Luckily, their two missiles passed right over the carrier’s superstructure.
Two more sea-jets came in, but by this time the French Phalanx team had found the range. Firing the modern Gatling gun manually, the French sent up a wall of lead usually intended to destroy incoming missiles. This time, the bullets — firing at a rate of 100 rounds a second—perforated both sea-jets. The force of the barrage was so intense, it seemed to stop the two sea-jets in place. Both airplanes simply disintegrated, their fiery debris instantly swept away by the howling wind.
“Jesus Christ!” Hunter yelled out. He had never seen anything quite like that!
The battle became even more intense. The sky was filled with sea-jets — screaming by like banshees, their cannons roaring. The Rocketeers were firing Stingers in every direction — so many that Hunter felt they would eventually start to hit targets. But it was hard to tell because the visibility was so poor around the ship.
Then suddenly, off to his left, he heard a tremendous roar. It was one of the frigates. A large spit of flame was exploding from its center. Hunter knew right away what had happened. It had been hit right in its ammunition bunker by an Exocet. He watched as the ship belched a cloud of smoke, followed by another, larger explosion.
When the fiery mist cleared, the ship was gone.
Now another Beriev appeared on the port side. At least twenty guns were firing from its side. Hunter began firing back, as did the deck gunners on the side of the Saratoga. That airplane disappeared and another methodically roared in. Again he fired, but then he noticed that others were also on the deck firing hand-held weapons at the enemy airplane. A line of Australian and Gurkha soldiers had formed on his right and they were sending a barrage of return fire into the side of the attacking airplane. Hunter saw one of its engines cough out a burst of smoke, and erupt in flame. “That’s one that won’t make it home,” Hunter thought as the airplane disappeared from view.
Off in the distance he saw another ship go up — probably one of the Freedom Navy’s, most likely to an Exocet. Then, off to his right, he saw a big Beriev take a hit right on its fuel tank and simply obliterate in the sky. Then two more sea-jets streaked over, the Phalanx catching one on its tail, blowing it away. The flaming airplane dove right onto the deck of the carrier, hit it square, bounced up, and streaked by Hunter’s head, before bouncing again and pitching over the side of the carrier. It was instantly enveloped by the raging sea.
Hunter knew the attackers — at least the ones in the sea-jets — were getting desperate. More and more they were abandoning their low-level attacks for straight-over runs.
A Stinger took down another sea-jet off the starboard side, and the Saratoga ack-ack crews combined with those of a frigate to blow the wing off a big Beriev. Even the gun crews on O’Brien’s tugs were getting into the act, peppering anything that dared fly over them.
Still, the air attackers pressed the assault. But the coordination of the attack seemed to break down. Now the flying boats and the sea-jets were coming in from every direction. Missiles filled the air — both coming from the attackers and being fired at them. Ack-ack shells crisscrossed the stormy sky. Tracer bullets rivaled the lightning in intensity. The firing line of Gurkhas and Australians — with Hunter’s gun included — would set up a combined barrage at anything that approached the carrier on either port or starboard side. Every once in a while Hunter could hear the highly distinctive whirring sound of the ship’s Phalanxes going off.
But suddenly, above it all, Hunter heard a piercing scream …
He looked up and down the deck, but couldn’t locate the source of the cry. Then he looked up. Up the superstructure. Up the ladders that led to the conning tower’s antennas. Up there, illuminated by the nearby blinking red beacon light, there was a man lashed to the highest point of the conning tower.
It was Peter …
“What the …?” Hunter yelled. “How the hell did he get up there?”
The man looked completely disheveled. His beard and long hair was being whipped by the high winds. His face and body completely soaked by the sea spray. He was screaming, foaming at the mouth, “You devils! Cursed be you!” This was not the strange, gurgling voice that had emanated from him the night before. This was Peter’s own voice, now in full roar, screaming at the attacking aircraft.
A pair of sea-jets streaked overhead, and Hunter joined in the barrage driving them off. They swept right over Peter’s head and he freed one of his arms long enough to reach and shake his fist at them.
“Go back to hell, you heathens!” Peter screamed. “Go back to hell where you belong!”
Another Beriev roared by, its guns blazing away. A Stinger shot out from the center of the carrier and caught the big plane on its tail section. At the same time, the rear-end Phalanx opened up and caught the flying boat right in its cockpit. The big plane pitched directly into ocean, blew up, and sank instantly.
“Ha Ha!” Hunter could hear Peter scream deliriously. “You bastards! Burn in Hell!” The man was going completely wild, shaking his fist and foaming profusely at the mouth.
Suddenly a missile flashed out of nowhere. “Christ!” Hunter yelled. “Another Exocet.” As he watched in horror, the missile streaked right over his head, hit the base of the carrier’s mast, and exploded. Hunter heard Peter let out one last bloodcurdling cry — a cross between a laugh and a scream.
Then everything from the base of the mast on up — including Peter — was gone …
Whether by coincidence or design, the air battle tapered off several minutes later. The Spanish rocketeers were able to destroy a retreating Beriev flying boat, and the Phalanx team got one last sea-jet before the enemy planes cleared the area.
Still, Hunter and the rest of the hands on deck searched the wild skies for any more aircraft. It took about ten minutes for it to really sink in. The enemy was gone.
Exhausted, Hunter walked slowly to the superstructure and collapsed to the deck of the carrier. It may have been his imagination, but the storm seemed to start to die down too. He looked around. The deck was filled with smoking debris and cratered in several places. A good portion of the carrier’s communications antenna stand was gone. Several of the Aussies had bought it in the ferocious battle.
A few of the Freedom Navy ships near the carrier were burning and Hunter was sure some were lost completely. He would later learn that two of Olson’s frigates were lost, with all hands. Three of O’Brien’s tugs were also gone.
Just how many enemy airplanes were lost was anyone’s guess. Hunter himself saw at least a dozen destroyed or damaged so much that he knew they couldn’t go on.
“Screw ’em,” he said, lowering his head to his knees. “Screw ’em all … ”
He woke up a few hours later in his bunk, Emma’s lovely face looking down on him, her hand directing a warm washcloth all over his naked body. He could tell at once that the storm had completely dissipated. The carrier was moving again for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. He thought back on the nightmarish action. Did it really happen? He closed his eyes and all he could see was the Exocet hitting the carrier’s mast and carrying Peter away with it.