Firespill (31 page)

Two or three more birds thudded against the plane as Si reported, “Looks good direct. Offset coming in.”

At 2234 plus 6 seconds, the cannons opened up again, filling the air with tracer as the main mass of birds began to strike the wave. As the bodies began to smack into the fuselage again, cold sweat ran down inside Si’s flying suit. His voice was strained as he struggled desperately to keep calm. “Radar nav to pilot. I’m in-bomb now, pilot. Center the FCI.”

“Roger. FCI centered.”

Next Si spoke to Peters. “Disconnect release circuits.”

“Release circuits disconnected.”

The noise was like thousands of claws scratching and tearing at the fuselage as pieces of ripped metal flapped wildly in the slipstream. Si could hear again the tom wings and tail flapping over Hué, his voice intoning the same deadly litany. “Connected light on … ‘on’ light on…”

Peters’s voice came in from far away. “Bomb door control valve lights?” Si could hear the gunner over Hué. But just as his eyes started to go out of focus, he caught sight of the instruments dancing frantically before him.

For the first time, Peters’s voice had a ring of frightened urgency, repeating, “Bomb door control valve lights?”

“Off!” answered Si.

Almost over the target area, with the birds still hammering into the wave like a phalanx of antiaircraft missiles, the copilot’s voice came in on the intercom. “Where the hell’s that flare?”

Hogarth called off the depth. “Forty-five feet … forty feet … thirty-five feet…” Kyle stared above him. It was 2236. At thirty feet, Sparks advised him, “They’re three minutes from us, Captain.”

“Very good. Mr. O’Brien, fire another flare.”

“Fire green flare,” repeated O’Brien, his voice carrying to the aft ejector room.

“Green flare away!”

The flare erupted from the sub, streaked toward the surface, burst through the burning slick, and exploded in a green star-shower at two thousand feet.

Unable to see anything beyond the bloodied windshield, Burke strained to look through the side panels, announcing, “To Go—driving 130 seconds.”

Peters checked the ground speed. “Doppler looks good.” Burke began the initial count, which would be taken up by Si Johnson at 0 minus 15. “125 To Go … 75 TG … 60 TG … 50 TG … I see the flare. Copilot, check relative position.”

“Roger. Relative position checks out. Resume your count.”

“30 TG … 20 TG … FCI centered.”

Peters raised his voice as the cannonade suddenly increased. The plane took a dozen or so more hits in such quick succession that it seemed any more impacts would penetrate the fuselage. Already one engine was out.

As he said, “Bomb doors coming open,” Peters was watching the myriad dials before him, praying that none of the air ducts would be fouled up and cause overheating malfunctions. So intent was he that he failed to notice the glazed look on Si’s face. Nor did he notice that Si, crouched over the visual bombsight ready to take the final count, was shaking violently, his hands clamped rigid to the side controls of his seat.

As Si took up the count, “15 seconds … 14 … 13…,” he could no longer hear birds striking the aircraft, but only antiaircraft fire exploding all around him and the voice of the gunner screaming, “Drop ’em, Si—drop ’em—let’s get the hell—” and instead of the cross hairs intersecting over the blood red ocean below him, all he could see was the gunner’s headless body. His voice began to slur, “ ’leven … ten … nie…”

Burke didn’t worry. He made a mental note to have the intercom overhauled, and then with the conditioned reflex of over a hundred missions, he flipped up the safety cover from the bomb release. He could barely hear Si.

“Eigh … sev—”

The plane shuddered violently, buffeted by the strong fire winds. Burke gripped the yoke with all his strength and lost the count. He would have to depend on Si. But all Si Johnson could hear was the gunner screaming, “Drop ’em, Si, drop ’em!” and so he called, “Bombs away!” Burke pressed the release button. “Roger,” he acknowledged. “Pickle! Pickle! Pickle!”

The moment they heard the first “pickle” of his drop signal, the other six captains simultaneously released their loads.

It was only as the long black sticks of explosive began falling in unison towards the sea that Peters, glancing at his stopwatch, realized what had happened. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled, turning on Si. “You didn’t finish the count! You dropped them too early! You stupid bastard—you dropped them too early—you didn’t finish—Jesus Christ!”

Si didn’t hear him. All he could hear were the gunners still firing—over Hué. Now the missile would not hit them…

As the first of the bombs burst around her, the
Swordfish’s
pressure hull imploded. Within three seconds, tons of boiling white water cascaded through massive punctures fore and aft as the crew, working as fast as their weakened condition would allow, tried to close the three-hundred-pound watertight doors. In the engine room, amid a twisted tangle of ripping steel and the screaming of ruptured steam pipes, two men struggled to dislodge a floating mattress that had prevented the compartment’s forward door from being sealed, but with a long, hollow roar, a torrent from the after end surged through and swept them forward like driftwood. As the bombs kept falling in crisscrossing chains of explosions, the submarine plunged, rose, shivered violently, and broke in two, its skin still buckling as it disappeared in a black shroud of dieseline.

From the air, all the pilots could see through the smoke were the multiple blushes of explosions followed by towering spumes of oil and water shooting skywards, interspersed with long, red fingers of flame.

Gradually, as the bombers turned away and disappeared into the far darkness, the sound of their engines was swallowed by a more distant roar. Sections of the firespill were already creeping back like pariah dogs to the carcass, and a burning lifejacket marked H.M.C.S.
Swordfish
, along with billions of particles of oil, was snatched from the sea and sucked skywards by one of the wind storms, generated by the fierce heat of the spill that ripped across its molten surface. The life jacket soon fell back to the sea, but the tiny oil particles continued on their southward journey, driven hard by the Arctic front that had failed to extinguish the fire.

Twenty-Three

Henricks received the message just as the President rose before the glittering assembly of distinguished guests.

Sutherland took up the sparkling glass of amber catawba juice—the sheik, being a Moslem, naturally drank no alcohol—and smiled graciously at his guest and briefly at the Arab leader’s entourage. He coughed slightly. “Your Excellency,” he began, “on behalf of the people of the United States I would like to welcome you to our country. I know that you studied here in your university days and are no stranger to our customs—or, I might add, to our problems. Your earlier association with us is, I’m sure, a…”

The speech was the usual official address, full of sugary platitudes and punctuated by polite, intermittent applause, ending in a toast to the visiting head of state. Sutherland found it much easier than usual, for in spite of his worries he had been relieved to discover, during the brief, pretoast chatter, that he liked the sheik. It was a pleasant change from the usual diplomatic pretension, which he would have found particularly trying this evening. He was pleased now that he had insisted on keeping the long-planned engagement.

Nearby, Henricks had hesitated long enough. He tapped the President on the shoulder and passed him the cable. The sheik, immaculately bearded and resplendent in flowing white gown and gold-braided burnous, rose to respond to his American host. “Mr. President, distinguished guests…”

Sutherland heard nothing the sheik said. Clara turned to him as he finished reading the cable and took his hand. It was icy. Still smiling courteously at the sheik, she moved her other hand across her lap and cupped it about her husband’s. The sheik continued his speech, pausing now and then to smile at the President and the First Lady. Finally he stopped and looked down at the President, whose gaze was lost upon the rows of indistinguishable faces that crowded the ballroom. The sheik’s eyes darted towards Clara, who smiled back, wondering just what the cable had said. She reached for her glass with one hand and squeezed the President’s unresponsive fingers with the other, desperately cueing him to rise. There were a few embarrassed coughs from the audience. Henricks stepped forward into television range. “The toast, Mr. President.”

Sutherland’s eyes met his blankly in a fog of non-recognition. Henricks was close to panic; this had the makings of an international incident. He knew for sure that that bitch from United Press was here. After what seemed to Henricks an interminable silence, the President rose slowly and clinked glasses, robotlike, with the sheik. Jean Roche, meanwhile, had hurriedly convinced the TV director to focus on the guests in the far comer of the room.

Immediately after protocol had been satisfied, the President stood up again. Placing both hands on the table’s edge and holding on with all his strength, he began in an almost inaudible voice, “Ladies and gentlemen. I have a very grave announcement. I have just received a message informing me—”

Henricks pushed forward and placed a hand over the microphone. “Mr. President.”

Sutherland turned slowly. “Yes?”

Henricks lowered his voice. “The Canadians haven’t been notified as yet.”

By this time the audience was alive with the murmur of speculation. The President continued to look at Henricks. The aide added quickly, “We should call a press conference, Mr. President—in half an hour—an hour. Ottawa will have been informed by then. We should make a joint announcement. There were over eighty Canadians.”

“Killed?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Sutherland nodded slowly, then left the table. Clara quickly followed. At the same time, following Jean Roche’s instructions, waiters streamed out of the kitchen and rushed to refill glasses.

Inside the gloomy study there was silence. Henricks withdrew. Beyond the window overlooking the lawn, the red and blue lights still flashed and a policeman’s voice could be heard nasally echoing from a bullhorn.

Clara sat down beside the President. “I love you,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Walter.”

“I know,” he said and went to the window to be alone.

After making love, Fran Lambrecker flicked on the TV to watch the late show, went back to bed, started to munch the potato chips Morgan had brought along with the mix, and began drinking her second martini, having disposed of the olive in decadent Roman style, sucking it down into her mouth like a spider swallowing a trapped fly. Morgan was soaking in the bath, accompanied by a tall gin and tonic.

After the news flash that all hands aboard the sub had been lost, Fran put her glass down and sat still for a long time against the plush headboard, idly picking at her teeth. She felt she should cry, but she could not. She had never been the crying type. She knew the proper thing to do, the decent thing to do, was to cry, to pack up immediately, to go back to Victoria, to dress in black, to arrange a service, and to stop seeing Morgan for a while. But the truth was that her deepest emotion on hearing the news account was a vague sense of loss—like having been unexpectedly informed that a onetime friend who’d stopped writing for no apparent reason had died some weeks before.

Suddenly she called out, “Morgan!”

There was no sound. She yelled out again, “Morgan!” adding in a low tone, “you pig.”

There was a splashing like that of a startled seal, and soon Morgan, still dripping, a towel round his stomach, shuffled to the door.

“Yeah, Fran—what’s up?”

“Turn off the TV.”

He shrugged and moved over to the TV, trying to kick the long, tripping towel away from his toes.

“Yeah?” he said, ready for the next order. She looked over at him. “How did you ever become an officer?”

Morgan grinned. “Personality, I guess.”

Her laugh was half sneer. “Come here,” she said. As he reached her, she put her right arm about his shoulder and pushed her left fist slowly into his groin.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “not again?”

She looked at him fiercely. “Why—can’t you do it, wittle man?”

“Well we just … sure, I guess—”

“Come on,” she commanded, and flung the blanket aside. After a time, when they began moving together, she closed her eyes and pulled at him. “Come on!”

She knew it was wrong. Everyone would say it wasn’t normal. But she didn’t care and she wasn’t going to pretend. She was going to be herself. What she felt was an enormous and quite overwhelming sense of relief.

The Tlingit village was no more. Unable to find a boat or to attract Sitka’s attention through the dense smoke that had blown ahead and enveloped them on the east coast of Kruzof Island, the Indian band had burned to death on the southern perimeter of Mud Bay.

Nothing could stop the fire’s advance, not even the dynamite charges bravely thrown from the armada of small boats or tossed by pilots further up the sound as they made their final runs out.

The mass of burning oil had slid through the maze of green islands, setting them ablaze, and was now closing in on the town of Sitka.

From the north, the red black spill had moved quickly on the tide down through Neva Strait and Sukoi Inlet, meeting and slowing in the wider waters of Krestof Sound, pushing on through Mud Bay, picking up speed in Hayward Strait, and slowing again as it flowed into the northern reaches of Sitka Sound, spreading out as one arm in the spill’s pincer movement against Sitka. From the southeast, the fire’s southern flank had sealed off the passage between Kruzof and Baranof islands, blocking the only other entrance to the sound.

Most terrifying of all to the last of the evacuees waiting for the helicopters to return was the speed with which the flames leapt onto the Bieli Rocks and the other small islands dotted across the sound. The fire flowed up to them, licked tentatively at their shores for a second, then swallowed them as if they had never been there.

By now most of the four thousand people of Sitka had been evacuated during the frantic air shuttle to Petersburg, ninety-three miles eastwards on Mitkof Island, and to large evacuation centers on Wrangell Island and Hyder on the mainland.