Dark vendetta, p.20
Dark Vendetta, page 20
The stabbing beam struck the crouching form of Chao Lin and instantly the Chinese guide surged upwards with violent thrusts of his fins. He attacked blindly, his eyes screwed shut against the brilliant white light and his knife sweeping up against the pressure of the water to stab at the man outside. His rush carried him clean through the hatchway to tangle clumsily with the enemy. The man had his own knife in his free hand and they threshed and twisted together in the sea, their bodies lifting up and away from Vigilant’s bridge with the momentum of Chao’s charge.
Three more shadowy shapes closed in on the struggling pair, moving like swift grey tiger sharks with the scent of blood in their gills. Chao felt the body in his grasp stiffen and arch backwards as his knife struck home, and in the same instant he felt the cutting bite of steel in his own flesh. The three remaining Chinese frogmen swirled around him, their torch beams clinging like stage spotlights to his desperately twisting form. The man he had killed sank away and in the same moment Chao saw the slow flash of a second knife coming towards him and felt again the bite of a keen blade.
In the same moment Mason and Logan emerged from the sunken Vigilant and surged together into the attack. The disturbance of the water caused the three Chinese frogmen to wheel and face them, and then the five men closed together in a silent duel deep below the sea. The torches were dropped as they grappled clumsily with knives, but as they were all attached to the belts of the wearers they did not sink and instead jerked and dangled crazily to light up parts of the scene. The crushing pressure made it impossible for the fight to be settled quickly and they squirmed and slashed with little effect in the watery weightlessness of their silent world.
Like weird sea monsters that had only just learned how to crawl out of the slime of the seabed they battled backwards and forwards across the submerged deck of the motionless submarine. Three against two, circling and weaving warily through the depths, no man wanted to close in case an enemy should sink a knife into his back while he fought, but Mason and Logan both knew that they did not have the time that was on the side of the Chinese.
Mason chose to attack and surged again towards the nearest frogman, he flattened his body as he thrust with his fins and at the last moment twisted through the depths to avoid the other’s knife. He rolled clear of the thrust and came up to curl one arm about the man’s throat. The remaining frogmen darted together towards Mason’s exposed back but the huge, dangerous shape of Hugh Logan swam between them.
The two frogmen hesitated and then separated as if by some secret signal. They circled the Sergeant and then rushed him simultaneously from both sides. Instantly Logan wheeled and thrust himself towards the nearest of the two. They met head-on in a violent tangle and Logan clamped one hand around the other’s descending knife wrist. As he did so he arched his shoulders away to escape the attack from behind. He heard the clang of steel hitting against the oxygen bottles that protected his back and then the movement of the sea had carried both himself and the man he held out of range.
Mason still clung tenaciously to his chosen victim and struggled to draw his knife arm back for a blow. He had his legs locked around the diver’s hips and he was hanging on to the man’s back despite the intervening air bottles, but the man was holding equally tightly to his knife wrist and was preventing him from striking to kill. The water swirled and bubbled around them as they tumbled through the depths and then abruptly Mason managed to wrench his arm free. He raised his knife and struck once, plunging the blade deep between his opponent’s ribs.
He allowed the body to sink away and turned to search for Logan and the other two frogmen, and in the jerking lights that hung from their belts he saw two divers grappling together and the third circling behind them. He swam swiftly towards the scene of battle, but even though his own torch was still switched off and he approached in darkness the third man sensed him coming and wheeled away. Mason hesitated for a moment and then realised that the two wrestling together were locked in a trial of strength; each man was holding off the raised knife of the other with a firm wrist grip as they fell slowly towards the seabed. In the crazy, dancing light Mason was not sure which was Logan and which was his enemy, but one thing that he was sure of was that the husky young Scot possessed all the strength he needed for a contest of that sort.
Grimly Mason left the violently-writhing pair behind him and swam in pursuit of the last of the four enemy frogmen.
He could see the bobbing light of the torch that trailed from the man’s belt moving through the sea ahead, and swam strongly after it in the pitch darkness. The fleeing diver was either too frightened or too low in intelligence to switch off the guiding light and simply vanish into the watery darkness, and Mason gradually closed with his quarry.
His head was aching furiously now and he knew that he had already stayed too long at this critical depth, and had been subjected to far too much of this frightful pressure, but he also knew that that last Chinese diver had to die. If the man lived to report back to the destroyer then the sabotage party would be captured as soon as they surfaced.
With this thought spurring him on Mason concentrated the last of his strength in a burst of driving speed that brought him within range of that trailing beam of light. The torch showed up clearly its owners threshing legs and fins, but the rest of the man’s body was lost in the darkness beyond. Mason’s eyes were fixed on those furiously-kicking legs as he squinted behind his face-mask. Then he lunged one hand through the swirling sea and gripped his quarry’s left ankle.
The diver twisted in terror, his body distorting itself wildly as he fought to get free. His efforts were futile for Mason slashed once with his knife and sliced the blade through the tendons behind the man’s knee. The crippled diver twisted in silent, helpless agony as Mason released him, and he could do nothing as the Marine Captain surged in again for the final kill.
Mason hovered in the blackness as he watched the last body sink to the bottom, and then slowly he sheathed his knife and fumbled for his torch. He switched the torch on and began to swim slowly back to the sunken Vigilant.
After a few minutes the blunt bows of the submarine again rose above him from the seabed, and a few seconds later he saw two clumsy figures in aqualungs still entwined together. For a moment he thought that Logan must still be caught up in his duel to the death, but then he realised that the two men were not fighting but that one was helping the other. Logan had won his trial of strength and now he was towing the seemingly lifeless Chao Lin.
Mason failed to recognise any signs of life in Chao’s limp form, but he reasoned that the Sergeant would hardly be wasting time with a corpse and so did not hesitate to help. Together they swam away and upwards, carrying Chao Lin between them.
They had to ascend gradually to avoid too swift a change in the sea pressure and swam at a gentle angle that would bring them to the surface well away from the destroyer overhead. They were hardly aware of the eerie darkness of their undersea realm now, for both of them were suffering badly from the gruelling strain to which they had been subjected ever since they had first dived below the waves.
Their fast-decreasing supply of air was another source of worry and Mason repeatedly glanced at the tiny gauge that was incorporated in the aqualung outfit. It was clear that they were going to break the surface with very little to spare, and he tried not to think of what would happen if they could not reach the surface at all.
The merciless pressure slowly eased around them and at last they were swimming comfortably on the last stretch of the climb. The water was still as pitch black as it had been on the seabed below and Mason realised that it must now be night up above. When he judged that he was within twenty feet of the wave tops he switched off his torch, for its light could betray them to the men aboard the destroyer if it remained on, and they had to make the last part of the ascent again in darkness.
There was never a sweeter moment than the second in which their heads finally broke through into the night air. Both men tore off their masks and spat out the mouthpieces of their breathing tubes. They sucked in eager mouthfuls of the cold, invigorating air, and the effect freshened them immediately. The dark silhouette of the destroyer was over half a mile away from them, and they still had two miles to swim to the shore, but after what they had just been through not even ten miles could have soured this moment.
They supported themselves with gentle movements of their fins as they regained their breath, and after a few moments Mason remembered Chao Lin. He pulled off the guide’s face-mask and found that the man was still alive although unconscious. There was nothing that they could do for him until they got him back to the beach so they grimly began their swim, still towing the man between them.
The broad fins on their feet gave them an advantage that an ordinary swimmer would have lacked, and despite their burden they were able to make good progress without any exceptional effort. Both in the sea and under it they were two of the strongest swimmers in the Royal Marines, and even after an ordeal such as the one they had just been through they were still in their element. The fresh, salty air cleared their heads as they maintained a steady, rhythmic pace and the shoreline grew swiftly nearer.
In just under an hour they were in sight of the beach and could hear the crashing of the waves among the black rocks. As they covered the last hundred yards they saw the dark shadow of a man rise up from a mass of boulders, and they were unable to suppress the frightening thought that they had swam straight into another trap before they heard the softly calling voice of Simon Larren.
Mason called out in answer and Larren came down to the beach to meet them as they kicked through the last few yards of breaking waves. Larren saw the way that Chao Lin slumped between the other two and quickly plunged into waist-deep water to assist them up the beach. Between the three of them they carried Chao clear of the spraying wave crests and laid him gently in a patch of soft yellow sand.
Larren said grimly, “What happened?”
Mason and Logan stared at him, and then Mason said:
“We could ask the same of you?”
Larren glanced down at himself and even in the darkness he realised that he made an awe-inspiring sight. His clothes were scorched and blackened and great stains of Dressler’s blood covered the sleeve of his jacket. He also knew from the way his face smarted and burned that his eyebrows and part of his hair had been singed away.
He said: “It’s a long story, Captain, but it’s over now. The worst part is that Johnny Ling is dead.”
Mason swore bitterly. “Not Johnny too! How the hell—”
A sudden, menacing rumble echoed in from the sea, swelling up from the depths where the sunken Vigilant lay. The sound cut through Mason’s words as they all turned to stare, and they saw the dark outline of the distant destroyer rear up like some disturbed monster on the dark horizon. The ship lurched drunkenly from the terrible expanding pressure that rushed up from below her and her bows seemed to dip momentarily beneath the waves as her stern leapt clear of the water. She settled back none-the-worse from her shaking but the rumbling sound continued; it rolled across the bay in the form of a miniature tidal wave some three feet high, gathering speed with a growling roar as it rushed towards the beach.
The wave smashed into the black rocks, surging through them and knocking the three men sprawling to the sand. The spray flew high and the snarling rush reached its limit and began to swirl back to the sea, sucking and drawing at the sand and rocks and dragging at the three struggling men and the limp Chao Lin. Larren closed one desperate hand over Chao’s wrist and held him until the last swirl had retreated and died.
Silence stilled the night and then Mason said quietly:
“That’s it, gentlemen. Mission accomplished — and Vigilant destroyed. All we have to do now is to get back to base.”
CHAPTER 21: THE LONG SWIM
Without any further waste of time Mason and Logan swiftly unharnessed their aqualungs and stripped off their black rubber suits. Mason found to his surprise that he had collected a shallow knife gash along his forearm, but although the wound began to smart savagely the moment it was discovered it caused him no serious inconvenience. The two Marines dried themselves and dressed hurriedly, and then they turned to help Larren to attend to Chao Lin.
Larren had already removed the man’s aqualung and suit and they found that Chao had received two nasty knife wounds; one had gashed open his left side below the ribs and the second had pierced his thigh. However, nothing had penetrated his vital organs and although he was still unconscious it was clear that he would soon recover with proper care. They bandaged and dressed him as well as they were able and then Mason said:
“We’d better get going, we’ve got a long way to carry him before we get back to the armoured car.”
“No need,” Larren said. “I’ve got a jeep waiting above the beach. We can use that.”
More questions faltered on the tip of Mason’s tongue, but he held them back until some more suitable time. Instead he helped Logan to carry their aqualungs and unwanted gear out on to the rocks that thrust into the sea and hurl them into the waves out of sight. The only things they retained were the swimming fins they would need to swim out to Watchful.
Larren retrieved their radio from its hiding place among the rocks and then they carried the helpless Chao Lin up the beach towards the jeep. Even when they passed the shattered corpse of Franz Reutall and the four injured or unconscious soldiers, whom Larren had tied up safely on his return, Mason and Logan still bottled up their impatience to know what had happened. Not until they were speeding south in the jeep with Larren at the wheel did they finally give way and ask him to explain.
Larren obliged, and by the time he had finished the track they followed had passed the spot where they had left the armoured car. Larren drove carefully, for the jeep had already taken a terrible hammering when he had pursued Dressler in the opposite direction, and the last thing he wanted was for the axle to break now. They reached the point where the track branched off through the chain of hills to the broad plain and ultimately Chushan, but here a narrower track continued to follow the coastline and it was on to this track that Larren turned the jeep.
They drove in silence now, each man alert and half afraid that they would find the hills alive with swarms of Chinese soldiers, for the alarm over their escape must have been raised several hours ago. However, the black, silent hills were empty, and if the hunt was on then it had not yet reached this part of the coastline.
Larren’s keen gaze searched the night beyond the range of his headlights, and eventually he saw a sandy bay down to his left where the track swung closer to the sea. It was not the bay where he had landed with Johnny Ling, but it was near enough to do. He reasoned that they must be a good fifteen to twenty miles below Disaster Point, which was far enough south for Watchful to surface without being seen by the destroyer, and that was all that mattered.
He drove the jeep down on to the sand and stopped while Mason and Logan jumped down and unloaded Chao Lin and the few remaining items of their gear. Then Larren drove the jeep straight for the sea. He pushed his foot hard on the accelerator and the tyres skidded hellishly and sprayed up clouds of the soft sand. The speedometer reached twenty-five before the jeep ploughed into the breaking waves and Larren kept his foot down as the water smashed over the bonnet. The sea flooded into the cab and only then did he push himself clear. The roaring of the jeep choked and drowned in the battering waves, and Larren waded up the beach as the vehicle came to rest with half a foot of water breaking over her roof.
Hugh Logan had already doubled back to smooth out the wheel marks where they had left the track, and after five or six minutes work on the rutted sand there was nothing to show that the jeep had ever crossed this lonely beach.
Once their trail was covered they retreated up the beach to another protective screen of boulders, and here the two Marines calmly took an hour’s rest while Larren kept an alert watch. The sixty minutes crawled by in dawdling silence, broken only by the soft swirl of the surf and the hooting cry of a nightbird somewhere in the black mass of the rising hills. Slow clouds obscured the moon but faint starlight relieved the darkness, and Larren could see clearly the relaxing shapes of his companions. At last, exactly on the hour, Mason sat up and professed himself fit to go.
Logan stretched and raised his bulk to a sitting position, but Larren eyed them both dubiously.
“Are you sure? You’ve both done a lot of swimming already tonight.”
Mason smiled. “I’ve done twelve-mile swims before, and so has Logan. Of course, we don’t usually try it after a long jaunt on the sea bottom, but I reckon we can manage it.” He glanced at Logan. “Isn’t that right, Sergeant?”
The bearded Scot nodded. “We can do it, but —” he looked at Larren — “can you?”
Larren grinned. “You don’t necessarily have to be a Marine to know how to swim. But what about Chao?”
Mason answered, “Logan and I will take him. You’ll have to take the radio and the flash gun for signalling. You’ll have Chao’s fins, and with those to help us we should make good progress.”
There was no more to be said, the matter was settled and a few minutes later they were wading out into the sea. They had paused only to use the radio to contact Watchful and check that she was still out there waiting for them, and now there was nothing left to do but face the long, weary swim.
Twelve miles is not really a great distance when compared to the efforts of those who swim the width of the English Channel merely for the sake of breaking records, but despite the confidence of the two Marines it was still a marathon that was to exhaust them all. The broad rubber fins strapped to their feet gave them an invaluable advantage, and without them it was doubtful whether they could have ever reached the safety of Watchful. But the still-unconscious body of Chao Lin proved a dragging burden, and even the light radio transmitter on Larren’s shoulders began to weigh heavily as the hours and the miles passed in slow company.
