The Bridges at Toko-ri Read Free Page B

would have to jump into the icy waves and try to shove the inert body of the pilot into the sling. And if he failed—if his own hands froze before he could accomplish this—the pilot must die. That’s why they gave Nestor the job. He was dumb and he was undersized but he was strong.
    “I see him,” Nestor said.
    Mike immediately called to the wingman: “1592. Go on home. This is Mike Forney and everything’s under control.”
    “Mike!” the wingman called. “Save that guy.”
    “We always save ’em. Scram”
    “That guy down there is Harry Brubaker. The one whose wife and kids are waiting for him in Yokosuka. But he don’t know it. Save him!”
    Mike said to Nestor, “You hear that? He’s the one whose wife and kids came out to surprise him.”
    “He looks froze,” Nestor said, lowering the sling.
    Suddenly Mike’s voice lost its brashness. “Nestor,” he said quietly, “if you have to jump in … I’ll stay here till the other copter gets you.”
    In dismay, Nestor watched the sling drift past the downed pilot and saw that the man was too frozen to catch hold. So he hauled the sling back up and said, “I’ll have to go down.”
    Voluntarily, he fastened the sling about him and dropped into the icy waves.
    “Am I glad to see you!” the pilot cried.
    “He’s OK,” Nestor signaled.
    “Lash him in,” Mike signaled back.
    “Is that Mike? With the green hat?”
    “Yep.”
    “My hands won’t ...”
    They tried four times to do so simple a thing as force the sling down over the pilot’s head and arms but the enormous weight of water-soaked clothing made him an inert lump. There was a sickening moment when Nestor thought he might fail. Then, with desperate effort, he jammed his right foot into the pilot’s back and shoved. The sling caught.
    Nestor lashed it fast and signaled Mike to haul away. Slowly the pilot was pulled clear of the clutching sea and was borne aloft. Nestor, wallowing below, thought, “There goes another.”
    Then he was alone. On the bosom of the great sea he was alone and unless the second helicopter arrived immediately, he would die. Already, overpowering cold tore at the seams of his clothing and crept in to get him. He could feel it numb his powerful hands and attack his strong legs. It was the engulfing sea, the icy and deadly sea that he despised and he was deep into it and his arms were growing heavy.
    Then, out of the gathering darkness, came the Hornet ’s copter.
    So Mike called the Savo and reported, “Two copters comin’ home with two frozen mackerel.”
    “What was that?” the Savo asked gruffly.
    “What I said,” Mike replied, and the two whirly birds headed for home, each dangling below it the freezing body of a man too stiff to crawl inside.
    Meanwhile Admiral Tarrant was faced with a new problem. The downed pilot had been rescued but the incoming wingman had fuel sufficient for only one pass, and if that pass were waved off the pilot would have to crash land into the sea and hope for a destroyer pickup, unless one of the copters could find him in the gathering dusk.
    But far more important than the fate of one Banshee were the nineteen ships of the task force which were now closing the hundred fathom mark. For them to proceed farther would be to invite the most serious trouble. Therefore the admiral judged that he had at most two minutes more on course, after which he would be forced to run with the wind, and then no jet could land, for the combined speed of jet and wind would be more than 175 miles, which would tear out any landing hook and probably the barriers as Well. But the same motive that had impelled the wingman to stay at the scene of the crash, the motive that forced Nestor Gamidge to plunge into the icy sea, was at work upon the admiral and he said, “We’ll hold the wind a little longer. Move a little closer to shore.”
    Nevertheless, he directed the four destroyers on the forward edge of the screen to turn back toward the open sea, and