“Single fire on command.” He glanced once more at his computations on the chart beside him. “Range, twenty-three thousand nine hundred yards. Target bearing, oh-one-four degrees.”

Fawkes stared hypnotically at the three sixty-eight-foot guns stretching out of the number-two main-battery turret, each barrel and its mechanism weighing 134 tons, obediently lifting its herculean muzzle to an elevation of fifteen degrees. Then they stopped, waiting for the command to unleash their awesome power. Fawkes paused, took a deep breath, and pushed the “transmit” button.

“Are you in position, Angus Two?”

“Say the word, man,” replied the spotter.

“Mr. Shaba?”

“Standing by to fire, sir.”

This was it. The journey that had begun on a farm in Natal had relentlessly run its course to this moment. Fawkes stepped outside to the bridge wing and raised the AAR battle flag on a makeshift staff. Then he returned to the control room and spoke the fateful words.

“You may fire, Mr. Shaba.”

To the men on the Coast Guard patrol boat it was as if they had sailed into a holocaust. Though only one gun of the triple battery had fired directly over the Iowa’s bow, the blast created a path of turbulence and a great arm of incandescent gas that reached out and engulfed the small craft. Most of the men standing were knocked to the deck. The ones facing the Iowa at the moment of discharge actually had their hair singed and were blinded for the next several moments by the flash.

Almost before the effects of the muzzle blast had dissipated, Lieutenant Commander Kiebel had taken the helm and thrown the boat in a sharply cut S turn. Then the windshield across the bridge shattered and fell away. For a fraction of a second he thought he was being attacked by wasps. He could feel the hum as they flew past his cheeks and hair. Only after his right arm was jerked from the wheel and he looked down to see an evenly spaced set of reddening holes through his jacket sleeve did it dawn on him what was happening.

“Get your men over the side!” he yelled at Fergus. “The bastards are shooting at us!”

He didn’t have to repeat the message. Instantly, Fergus scrambled

The Iowa 241p>

across the deck, ordering and in some cases physically shoving his men into the dubious safety of the river. Miraculously, Kiebel was the only one who had been hit. Alone in broad view on the bridge, he stood as though on a stage in the eyes of the Iowa’s gunners.