The Gulf (34 page)

“Thank you, Captain, gentlemen,” he began. “I just wanted to add a few words, first of all welcoming our new team members,
Audacity, Illusive,
and
Resolute,
fresh from the States. I'm relieved to have you here. You effectively double my afloat assets.

“Now, a few words about ‘Pandora.' There are those—I talked to one a few days ago, a congressional analyst—who probably understand the big picture, what the U.S. and our allies are attempting to achieve in the Gulf, better than I do. But we all know we have to keep those convoys coming.

“It's been said that mines are the weapons of the weaker power. I think that's true, if only because you don't want to foul up the sea if you expect to control it. The Iranians consider themselves at war with us. We don't, and that makes things difficult. We can't board their ships and search unless we actually catch them dropping large black things in the water.

“However. We still have to fulfill our commitment to protect the shipping of the neutral states, and the interests of our allies elsewhere who depend on oil from the region. Pandora will ensure this freedom of the seas.”

Hart looked at the overhead for a moment. “There's a possibility we may not find any mines. In that case, we simply go back into port and keep an eye on the area. If we do find them, though, I don't intend to stop at just clearing them. That's a losing game. At some point, we'll miss one, or they'll sneak them in between sweeps. If you find mines, and we can trace them to Iran, I'll ask Washington for permission to take appropriate retaliatory action.”

Hart paused. The four-striper murmured something. He nodded curtly, then went on. “This is an international operation, and we're indebted to the other navies and patrol forces involved. I want to thank Captains Fittipaldi, Grubb, Obenauf, and Beuningen, as well as our Kuwaiti and Bahraini liaisons, Lieutenants Jafurah and Quisaba. We aren't officially recognized as a multinational peacekeeping force. But I think we'll rate that honor when this war's over and they start writing books about it.

“So, thank you, and let's carry on as we've begun.”

The master chief called “attention” once more. They stood in silence till Hart left, then were dismissed. Gordon saw another man he'd trained with at Fort Story and talked to him for a while. They decided to raid the ship's store, and stocked up on candy, fresh film, and underwear, all items in short supply on the sweeps. He went through his billfold on the way back. He had fifty dollars to last the rest of the month.

It didn't matter. It sounded like it was time to go to war.

*   *   *

The sweeps got under way at noon—it was a simple matter of taking in their nesting lines and putting the engines ahead—and proceeded in line ahead down the Gulf, following
Resolute,
the senior skipper. It was well over a hundred miles to their assigned area and they plugged along at low speed, zigzagging occasionally to avoid oil fields as the afternoon waned into dusk.

The next morning, Gordon lay on the fantail with the other EOD men, watching the sun come up as the sweeps maneuvered into a line of bearing across an unmarked scarlet-shimmering expanse. The rumble of diesels was reassuring under him. It was nice to be under way on their own power. The MSOs were spaced a mile apart, and he could see the other teams waiting, too.

As the morning wore on, they moved steadily ahead, like combines, he thought, each harvesting its own strip of a vast gently undulating field. Occasionally, one or the other would heave to, and a signal would flutter up its halyards and then hang limp, barely stirring; he wondered how the signalmen could read them. There was not a breath of wind. The air felt ominous and dense, like some intermediate medium between atmosphere and water. The divers lay silent in the inflated rafts; it was too hot to talk.

Finally he felt the need for a change. He got up, stretched, and wandered up to combat.

CIC was snug and dark, a grottolike retreat, and the coolest place on the ship. He stood for a while behind the petty officer on the SQQ-14. Though they still carried cutter cables and paravanes, sweepers didn't use them much anymore. With the “Squeaky Fourteen,” a sensitive short-range sonar, they could see in front of them, see the ground below. “How's bottom, there, Hicks?” he asked at last.

The sonarman half-turned, then faced the screen again. “Hey, Senior. It's smooth at ninety feet. Looks like sand.”

Beside the console was a lat-long gridded bottom chart, computer-generated, with every oil drum and discarded pipe and sunken dhow marked as a chatter of black dots. It was dated the year before. Anything new since then would be regarded with suspicion. The sonarman turned a dial and a shimmering wedge of amber searched out. There was another, fainter shimmer off to starboard, the sonar of the other sweeps.

“Don't be afraid to call me. If there's anything questionable. We'll be glad to check it out.”

The sonarman nodded. Gordon stood there for a few more minutes, till he felt chilled. His trunks and T-shirt were soaked and the air conditioning turned them into liquid ice. He considered going up to the bridge, then decided against it. He went back to the stern instead, stopping on the mess decks on the way for a jug of bug juice and some Styrofoam cups.

The other divers were glad to see it. He shared out the pink fluid, then settled back beside Everett. The banker had been quiet all morning, jotting from time to time in a daybook.

He muttered, “Lem, how's Rosemary takin' this, your being gone?”

The banker pursed his lips, glanced away, just as he had when Gordon discussed his mortgage with him. “All right.”

“You getting letters?”

“Yup.”

“Regular?”

“Yup.” He put the notebook away and looked at Gordon. “Ola hasn't been writing?”

“No.”

“Uh-huh.”

They sat silent together for a while longer, then Gordon tried again. “We haven't been married all that long.”

“How long?”

“Three years.”

“That's long enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that's long enough,” said Everett. “I been married twenty-three, and that's too long. Three sounds about right. You ain't worried about her, are you, John?”

“Not exactly.”

“Ola's a steady girl. She appreciates you. She put up with a lot from that bum she was married to before.”

There was nothing much more to say after that. So Terger brought out cards, and they played cribbage until it was time for lunch.

At two-thirty, the beat of the diesels suddenly ceased. A signal licked up the mast as
Audacity
coasted forward, her stern skating around to the east. The phone talker, comatose since he came on watch, sat up from his slump against the bulkhead. He said, “Fantail, aye,” and his eyes met Gordon's. “EOD team, man up!”

Kearn came aft along the port side. His cheroot probed the air like an insect's antennae. “On deck, look alive!” he shouted. “Time to earn that hazardous-duty pay.”

“
Espèce d'enfoire
 … Let's take that bastard down with us,” muttered Maudit. “With halothane in his tanks—”

“Pipe down, Tony. Lem, hand our gear down once we're in the water. Lieutenant, hold this.”

Kearn took the sea painter reflexively, then looked even more sour as he realized he'd just been pressed into duty as boat tender. Burgee, Terger, and Maudit seized the body of the raft. Gordon took the bow.

The thirteen-foot Z-bird scraped over the side and hit with a hollow splash.
Audacity
still had way on, and Kearn almost went in after it when its drag came on the line. He cursed them all and took a turn around the life rail. No one answered or even looked at him.

“In we go.” They scrambled over in tennis shoes and swim trunks. Gordon held the walkie-talkie high. The boat rocked dangerously till he sat down. Everett began lowering gear from the deck. Evinrude and gas tank. Wet suits, three Mark 16 UBAs, fins, and masks. Net bags with tools, time fuzes, and smaller gear.

Last came the tricky stuff: two twenty-pound haversacks of C-4, already made up with det cord. Gordon stowed these carefully under the overhang at the front of the raft. It was supposed to be stable to shock and heat, but it wasn't good practice to take chances. Not till you had to.

Lem squatted on the sheer strake, then jumped down. Gordon nodded to the lieutenant to cast off as Burgee yanked the starter. The motor caught at the first pull and they curved off to port, bobbing as the wake caught up to them.

He turned on the walkie-talkie, holding the stub antenna vertical. “Hicks, this is Chief Gordon.”

“Hello, Senior.”

“What have we got?”

“A nice solid return. Survey shows nothing at that position. It's out along two-two-zero from us, about four hundred yards.”

“Do you hold us on the fourteen?”

“Not yet. Have you got the marker over?”

Gordon looked aft. Terger was just lowering it. The metal reflector, diamond-shaped to show up clearly to sonar, went down on twenty feet of bright yellow polyethylene. “It's going in now.”

Apparently an officer, Kearn or Hunnicutt, had come in; the scope operator's tone went suddenly formal. “
Audacity
One, this is
Audacity,
I hold you now. Proceed on two-two … correction, two-one-zero till I tell you to stop.”

Gordon rogered and repeated the course to Burgee. The boat lifted her nose and began porpoising through the swell. Spray arched up and blew over them. He tasted for the first time the bitterness of the Gulf.

Back at the sonar, safely out of range of danger, Hicks would be watching the two pings—the possible mine, and the smaller return of the nonmagnetic marker on the raft—converging. The gray hull of the sweep shrank steadily.

“
Audacity
One: Slow down. I see you twenty yards right of track.”

“Slowing, coming left to two-oh-five magnetic.”

Burgee had already reduced speed; Gordon motioned to cut it even more. Slow and quiet, that was how you approached a possible mine. All their gear was designed for low magnetic signature, but it still had some, and a gradual approach reduced their impression on any sensors. The Evinrude was barely audible now, and with its above-water exhaust, they'd be putting even less noise into the sea. A few minutes later, the radio said, “
Audacity
One … stop.”

The purr eased to an idle. They lost way at once and began to bob, jostling men and gear about on the floorboards. “Where do you hold us now?” Gordon asked the radio.

“Wait a minute … okay, got you. A little ahead.” The sonar-man jockeyed them about for a few more minutes, then abruptly told them to drop. Gordon nodded and Terger popped a buoy. He lowered the little mushroom anchor cautiously. A moment later, the red buoy, still inflating, bobbed up hissing on a wave.

“Let's get moving,” Gordon said.

Not knowing what kind of mines they'd be facing, he'd decided to use the Mark 16s. This was a low-magnetic-signature rig compared to standard gear, and since it was semiclosed, recycling used air instead of releasing it to the sea, it was quieter, too. This might be important. There were mines that could listen, feel, sense metal near them, count, do everything but smell.

The others helped them into the UBAs. The oxygen tank, CO
2
scrubber, and breathing bag were housed in smooth plastic on the diver's back. Breathing was through twin hoses, like the old “Sea Hunt” scubas. Gordon finished adjusting his straps. He set the handwheel and turned the flow valve, tucking the mouthpiece between his teeth and lips. He took five slow breaths, sucking it in deep. Some said they couldn't tell any difference, but to him the helium-oxygen mixture felt cold and thick and tasted steely. He finished the last breath, pinched off the tube, tongued out the mouthpiece. “How do I sound?” he asked Burgee.

“Donald Duck himself.”

He nodded. Helium gave your voice that quack. He stared over the side, his fingers moving over his gear. He clipped the electronic oxygen readout onto the side of his mask, sprayed the faceplate with defogger, and put it on.

The red buoy waited a few feet away, tossing nervously at the entrance to the deep.

“Tony, you ready to go?”

“Helium check.”

“You sound like a real Frenchman, talking through his nose.”

“Ça pue le fauve, les français.”

He raised the walkie-talkie again, told the ship they were going in, and handed it to Everett. He looked around one last time. The sky was so bright.

He picked up the net bag and thrust his legs over the side. Without a ripple, he merged feetfirst with the sea.

*   *   *

The water was warm as urine and faintly tinged the same color. Still, visibility was good; he could see the buoy line thirty feet away. He twisted in a slow circle beneath the raft, checking for snakes. But there was nothing in the water with him but a slow mist of plankton. There was a distant eerie crackle, shrimp or some other bottom dweller. The sea was never silent. It always reminded him how transient their presence in it was.

Maudit appeared feetfirst, the usual conservative EOD water entry. He oriented and did a three-sixty search, too. Gordon grinned around his mouthpiece, then stopped. It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye over their shoulders. The list of nasties here was longer than in Lake Champlain. Sea snakes, scorpion fish, sharks, sea wasps so poisonous they could paralyze a man.

He'd seen a buddy die off Kwajalein from carelessness. They'd stopped to refuel on their way to Vietnam, and decided to go for a dip beside the runway. The man had reached for a pretty shell on the bottom. It had stung him. He'd lived for about half an hour, smoking a cigarette at first, then going slowly rigid till he could no longer breathe or blink or even beat his heart.