Ray’s wife, Wendy, with their two little boys, Ray, Jr., age nine, and Bobby, six, was returning to live in the old family house down by the water, where Ray’s widowed father now lived alone.
The church was packed, with crowds lining the narrow street outside, and General Scannell read a moving eulogy, regretting that the Lieutenant Commander’s area of operations was classified to such a degree that no one would ever know precisely where he had served, and with what “unfathomable courage” he had carried out his duties. “I hope,” he concluded, “that his Medal of Honor, and the presence here of the senior military figures in America, will offer some testament to the regard in which he was held in the United States Navy.”
Eight Naval officers carried the casket bearing the fallen SEAL to his last resting place, and the church bell tolled out over the little seaport as they lowered the body of Ray Schaeffer into the ground.
Admiral Arnold Morgan read the final prayer, offering the sentiment that “ordinary people, like ourselves, may sometimes find it difficult to understand what drives a man like Lieutenant Commander Schaeffer forward, to comprehend that selfless gallantry which is bestowed upon so few. I don’t suppose Ray would have been able to explain much, either. And so we will just have to accept that God granted him an inner light, and we now wish him farewell, sure in the knowledge that light will guide him home. Amen.”
At the graveside Wendy Schaeffer was erect and brave with her arm around Ray, Jr. But little Bobby wept uncontrollably for his lost father and Admiral Dixon knelt down to comfort him.
The only good news throughout the day was the formation of a Schaeffer family trust, which was begun with a $100,000 personal donation from the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Boston banking heir, Admiral Scott Dunsmore.
The rest was a catalog of sorrow and remembrance, and the four military chiefs from Washington took their leave as soon as the burial was over. They were back at the White House by 1630, and it quickly became clear that the flight had done nothing to lessen their fury toward the Republic of China.
Back in his office, Admiral Morgan yelled, formally, for Kathy to order them some fresh coffee, with cookies, and answered his telephone as it tinkled.
“Faggot phones,” he muttered, snatching it up and growling, “Morgan. Speak. And I am busy. So make it quick.”
Kathy’s dulcet voice murmured, “Outside desk to home base. Message received about the coffee and cookies. And I have one incoming signal, O rudest of pigs…Admiral George Morris is ready for duty tomorrow.”
“Beautiful,” replied the Admiral, and turning to Tim Scannell, without breaking stride, he snapped, “Fire Borden. Get him the hell out of there. George is coming back.” And then, as if doubting the possibility that his thin, pastel green phone would be man enough to transmit a message, he replaced it and yelled through the door, “KATHY! Make sure that coffee’s HOT!”
General Scannell told the Admiral he would indeed arrange to have Admiral Borden transferred to somewhere more amenable with his talents.
“Christ, Tim,” he rasped. “Don’t do that. We can’t have someone of his seniority driving the harbor launch.”
The General grinned. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “But to return to our subject, you really do intend us to move forward and either destroy or disable that Chinese Navy base in Burma, and then warn them out of the area?”
“In one, Tim, old buddy. That’s our plan.”
“Timing?”
“I think right now. Give the little bastards something to think about while they’re strangling Taiwan.”
“Is John Bergstrom up to speed on this, Arnie?”
“As far as he can be. He has the charts, but no decent satellite pictures. And he knows we’re moving on it. He has a SEAL team in place in Diego Garcia. And we got the right SSN available with the biggest ASDV we have. Same one we used to get the guys into the refinery.”
“So this meeting now constitutes the finalization of the attack?”
“Guess so, Alan. We have to start somewhere. So let’s get into it — let’s hit these commie bastards hard… one for the Schaeffer, right?”
“One for the Schaeffer it is, Arnie.” General Scannell was not smiling.
Admiral Morgan pulled up a big computerized chart on a wide screen at the end of his office…. “Come on over here, guys,” he said, striding forward. “Let’s take a good look at the position.”
The chart showed the vast delta area between the port of Rangoon and the coastal mouth of the Bassein River, 125 miles to the west. This is the fabulous rice bowl of Burma, interlaced by rivers, streams, canals and tributaries, which irrigate millions of acres of farmland. Through here the mighty 1,350-mile-long Irrawaddy River (today it’s Ayeyarwady) splits and meanders to the ocean, packed with freshwater fish and monsoon waters that originated hundreds of miles to the north toward the Indian and Chinese borders.
It is a sprawling, wet tidal basin, with great promontories of land jutting out between the estuaries of nine rivers, all of which flow into the hot, steamy corner of the Bay of Bengal known as the Gulf of Martaban. The agricultural produce from here feeds much of the nation and much of China, too. The endless paddy fields are interrupted by mango swamps and the occasional monsoon forest, but this land is F-L-A-T.
Admiral Morgan frowned and pointed his ruler at the far left section of the chart. “This last wide stretch of water right here,” he said, “is the Bassein River Delta. It’s the widest of the south-flowing waters in this area, and you’ll see that this island, the long triangle, here, on the left-hand side of the estuary, is called Haing Gyi. You will also notice that the goddamned place sits in about six inches of water, which is a pretty fucking crazy area to build a Navy base on, even if you happen to be a Chinese prick.”
General Scannell came very close to blowing his coffee clean down his nose, so unexpected was Arnold’s swift turn of phrase. But he moved in closer, and observed the wide area of green swamp that stretched all the way along the northern shoreline of Haing Gyi, almost joining it to the Arakan Peninsula.
“Well, we ain’t going in that way,” he said, unnecessarily. “And what about this light blue area that stretches right across the southern approach?”
“Oh, it’s much better in there,” said the Admiral, sardonically. “There is a maximum of nine feet shelving to about nine inches…and on the face of it, gentlemen, we have to assume the Chinese are nuts.”
But his face relaxed, and he continued, “But nuts they ain’t. This is a very strategic corner of the ocean. As we have discussed before, warships from here have the capability of controlling the Malacca Strait. And if I pull up this chart a bit, get us in closer, you’ll see what the little bastards are up to….
“Right here, in this central stretch of the island’s east coast, we got water…. See? More than forty feet right up to the shore…and it stretches out here into what looks like a natural, but narrow, channel, all the way up from the mouth of the estuary, minimum depth forty feet, maximum fifty-five feet.
“However, if you follow it down here…about four miles, the whole damn place goes shallow again…so if you’re trying to get in from the ocean, you got a ten-mile stretch with only twenty feet of water. Which you’d think would be impossible. Right here we got a deepish water throughway into deepish water jetties. But you cannot get a big ship in there.
“But, I know they can…because I happen to have located, on a very poor photograph, a Chinese Kilo-Class submarine, right in there, moored alongside. And that little bastard draws thirty-five feet on the surface, and they didn’t carry the sucker in, did they?”
“Probably not,” replied Admiral Dixon with mock seriousness.
“What they’ve done is dredged a channel, which does not appear on any Navy charts,” said Admiral Morgan. “And what’s more, it isn’t going to appear on any Naval charts, because they’re not about to allow anyone in there. There’s been a major building program by the Chinese on that eastern shore, and they have a very neat little situation — a fully equipped Naval dockyard, right in an area where there are very few other facilities for over- hauling a ship or even refueling. And they got it all to themselves, and they’re going to be an even bigger pain in the ass than usual if we do not, gentlemen, get ’em the fuck out of there ASAP.”
“What do they use for power?” asked the CNO.
“I’m not absolutely certain, but Lieutenant Ramshawe’s on the case. And I appreciate the question. That island is in a remote place, and it’s difficult to see what they are using. But the area is well lit and plainly operational. It’s possible they are using the reactor of a nuclear submarine, but we can’t find it. And the water is not deep enough for it to hide. Ramshawe thinks they have a major power plant, but we can’t yet tell the source. Anyway, when we do, I think we should destroy it…. Gentlemen, we have to get them outta there.”
