It was Terry Rowenki — the idiot hadn’t ejected yet. Fletcher’s head hit the deck with a dull thud. That was his problem, he thought blissfully as he drifted off toward unconsciousness — the man had a perfectly good ejection seat, now was the time to use it.
But sleep wouldn’t come. He soon felt someone pulling his legs. “Pete, dammit, crawl this way… you motherfucker, wake up, dammit, wake up…”
To humor him, Fletcher pushed against the center cockpit console toward the systems compartment. The odd pitch angles of the deck seemed to help him — the Excalibur’s nose was high in the air, as if they were in a steep climb — and Rowenki’s grasp was extraordinarily strong. He heard another loud sound, more windblast sounds the farther back he moved — until he realized that it was the big entry hatch. Rowenki had jettisoned the hatch and the entry ladder and was trying to pull Fletcher out!
Somehow Rowenki managed to get Fletcher pulled to the hatch and over onto his stomach, head toward the open hatch. “What the fuck did you think you were doing up there?” Rowenki yelled as he continued to wrestle with Fletcher’s ragdoll-like body. “Being a damned hero? You get me killed up here, Fletcher, and I’ll fucking haunt you for a hundred years.”
Attaching the emergency rescue rope to the D-ring on Fletcher’s parachute harness, Rowenki used his feet and shoved Fletcher headfirst out the entry hatch. The escape rope yanked taut, spinning Fletcher’s body around but pulling the ripcord D-ring and opening the parachute. One of Fletcher’s legs got tangled in the parachute risers, but it whipped free and the chute safely opened. Rowenki was right behind him, leaping out of the hatch as if he were going to do a cannonball from a high-diving board. He broke his left foot when it hit the aft edge of the hatch, but the pain only served to remind him to pull the D-ring as he sailed toward the lush tropical forests below.
The stricken B-l continued to sail in a nose-high climbing right turn for several minutes, almost executing a full 180- degree turn, until it finally ran out of airspeed, stalled, and crashed to earth near the town of Cadeco. The last aircraft of the first raid of the Air Battle Force had completed its journey.
“Sir, report from a J-7 fighter over Samar International Airport,” the radioman announced.
Admiral Yin was on his feet. “Speak!” he shouted, loud enough to startle just about everyone in the room. “Is the airport taken?”
The radioman listened for a several moments, his face looking more ashen and disbelieving every second. He glanced at Yin, then at Sun, then back toward his equipment. “Well? Speak!”
“Sir… sir, the pilot reports numerous vessels afire in Dadaotan Straits and Bangoy Harbor,” the radioman said. “No contact from any ground units on any tactical channel. Several explosions… secondary explosions… indications of some troop movement on the ground, but none that will answer on any frequency.”
Admiral Yin was absolutely thunderstruck. “No… contact… no contact from any of my Marines?”
“Sir, it does not mean anything,” Captain Sun Ji Guom- ing said. “The Marines most assuredly went into deep cover when the American air strike came in. They must be safe.” But his words did nothing to assuage Yin’s feelings of utter despair and hopelessness. Eight thousand Marines… six thousand sailors… no contact with any of them…
“Status of the American bombers,” Captain Sun ordered. Action was the best therapy now — they had an invasion force to run. Just because contact was lost did not mean that the battle was lost. “Have they withdrawn?”
“Yes, sir,” the radioman reported. “All aircraft have disengaged. One B-l destroyed during the last raid.”
“Very good,” Sun said. “Excellent. Sir, did you hear that report?”
Finally, an incredible sense of relief seemed to wash over every man on the
“Order that J-7 pilot to investigate at Samar International Airport,” Yin ordered. “See if any of our troops have managed to take the airfield. It is impossible for only a handful of bombers to completely stop thousands of Marines.”
Several minutes passed. Then: “Sir, message from Jian Four-Four. He has made contact with a Marine company commander, who wishes to relay a status report to you.”
“Excellent! I knew our forces were still on the move! Open the channel.”
After a few anxious moments, they heard,
“It is Colonel Liyujiang,” Captain Sun said excitedly. “I recognize his voice. He is the commander of the northern assault force.”
