The Coast Guard crew waits in darkness at the ship's railing for the last rescue of the day. They have boarded 196 Haitians since morning -- some plucked from small boats and others transferred from cutters. Now there are 40 more before the day ends.

Many of the 170 Coast Guard crew aboard the cutter Hamilton since June 2 have never traveled off Haiti's coast or witnessed a mission of this magnitude. They are on the flagship of a 14-cutter fleet, thrust in the middle of the largest Coast Guard search and rescue operation since World War II.

The crew knows the drill by rote. Board the women and children, then the men. Swiftly check the Haitians for illnesses. Scurry them to a deck guarded by eight Marines. Dispense blankets, water and food under a makeshift tent.

The scene plays out day after day.

"You got to live it," said Petty Officer John King, 24, of Virginia, an electronics technician. "You've got to see their eyes, the pain in their faces."

The Coast Guard has picked up more than 16,000 Haitians at sea since mid-June. They are fleeing the country's military repression and economic hardship.

This group will stay aboard the cutter for the night, before being taken to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba for processing.

It's difficult for King and other crew to watch them go, knowing many will be returned to their homeland, which is being squeezed by a worldwide embargo to try to drive out the military rulers who overthrew elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.

Since the United States liberalized its refugee policy on June 16 to allow Haitians to make their case for asylum, about 30 percent of the boat people are being granted refugee status.

President Clinton attempted to stop the exodus by refusing to allow any of the boat people into the United States. They will be taken instead to "safe havens" in other countries such as Grenada, Antigua and Dominica.

Panama has refused to take refugees.

Guantanamo Bay will temporarily house 20,000 boat people, up from 12,500, the Pentagon announced last week.

A number of the Hamilton crew can't wait for this mission to end. Some aren't sure why they're there. All do their job: saving lives.

"As far as we know, we're preventing a huge loss of lives and doing what the president wants us to do," said Cmdr. Fred Wilder, leading "Operation Able Manner" from the 378-foot Hamilton. "If this continues, we might have to go for supplemental funding from Congress."

Helicopters and airplanes search the waters during daylight, and someone aboard the cutters keeps watch. Naval ships enforcing an international embargo also have picked up hundreds of boat people.

After the boats are emptied, they are burned so passing ships or helicopters don't think anyone has drowned.

One Coast Guard member said weary Haitians know the cutter gives them refuge. But many realize they will be sent back.

"We're not saving their lives," he said. "We're sending them back to be killed."

Riless Jean Baptist, 32, was among 468 Haitians recently rescued by the Hamilton. It was his seventh attempt, and he was with his 5-year-old daughter.

"There is nothing to do in Haiti," he said, sitting on deck with hundreds of his countrymen. "My whole youth is going by. I will keep trying to leave until they get tired of me and just send me to Miami."

On July 4th, the Hamilton dealt with its first tragedy of this operation: Two Haitians drowned when a boatload of people sank as the crew tried boarding them. Two others were taken by helicopter to a Guantanamo hospital.

A call came early one afternoon to take 40 quarantined adults and children from the Baranoff, a smaller cutter. There were already nearly 200 Haitians on the Hamilton.

On the way, the Hamilton picked up a family of 11 huddled in another boat, with no refuge from the pelting rain. In the distance, another small, wooden boat waited.

"Everything changes so fast, we don't know what's going on sometimes," said Petty Officer Ed Stillions, 36, of Seminole. Nothing is certain except meals at 7 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Once aboard the Hamilton, the Haitians are led to the bow, where they huddle shoulder-to- shoulder.

Coast Guard members help pull off their life vests while an interpreter points them to the stern. Their bony legs shake as they walk on the sturdier surface. A few wear plastic flip-flops; most are barefoot and wear torn, dirty clothing. Some women are naked from the waist up or wear only a bra. They walk down a long hallway lined with bright lights.

"Everybody's bewildered," said Miami interpreter Henry Hogarth, walking by a Coast Guard crewman holding a baby boy.

"This is like seeing extraterrestrials in your back yard," he said.

Jim Amster, the cutter's chief medical officer, quickly assesses the boarders. He asks through an interpreter when they last ate and drank.

"The inherent danger is that people are weak and malnourished," Amster said. "We're getting them in with headaches, sea sickness, fevers, diarrhea and gastro problems." Crew members frisk the Haitians and go through their bags, confiscating potential weapons and food that could be contaminated.

They find screwdrivers, mirrors, cookies, condoms, an English-French dictionary, a wedding band, pro-Aristide literature, an inflatable life vest, shoe polish and a jar of peanut butter. They occasionally discover passports, some fake.

The Coast Guard crew takes quarantined people -- one baby with mumps and others who traveled with him -- to the flight deck in a helicopter hangar near the boat's stern.

Others wait crouched for their turn to use a portable bathroom. Still others eat beans, rice and leftover hot dogs from the crew's dinner. The slightly rocking ship and gentle breeze lull many of them to sleep, huddled under shared Coast Guard blankets.

"How long can it last?" Amster said. "Until someone makes a decision, we can do this for the next 20 to 30 years, but that's not going to accomplish anything."

Late the next morning, the Haitians stand on deck and stare at hundreds of tents in the distance. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

Their new temporary home.

"It's really hard to say good-bye after you help them so much," said Petty Officer Nicole Bonsteel, 22, of Fairfield, Calif. "I don't feel like we're doing enough. I don't know if this ring around Haiti is a good idea."

At 12:40 p.m., the Haitians file down a plank, pass rifle-toting Marines, quickly filling waiting yellow and blue school buses. Then they began climbing into the beds of Marine trucks.

"This is getting out of hand," Petty Officer Katherine Hoyt said. "Haiti is floating in the wind. There's no one left there. Close the door."

This is the first chance in 16 days for the crew to take a break on land. The cutter, which usually patrols Alaska's waters, left from its home port in San Pedro, Calif. After a brief stop for supplies in Guantanamo Bay, it began its work off Haiti on June 13.

"All I crave for now is sleep and a break," said Caprice Glasgow, of Anneheim Hills, Calif. "The worst thing is you have no personal time. You can't be alone."

With at least the afternoon in Guantanamo Bay, the Hamilton crew went shopping. Others ate at Baskin Robbins, McDonald's and a pizzeria. Most made telephone calls to loved ones.

Before the break, Bonsteel didn't want to see another Haitian. The break lifted her spirits.

"I had terrible dreams where I was loading Haitians aboard and there were millions of them," she said. "I was on my feet, constantly handing out blankets.

"I was tired when I woke up."

At the rate they're coming, the camp will be full in less than a week, said Lt. Col. Baxter Ennis, spokesman for the U.S. Atlantic Command in Norfolk, Va. The military is expanding the refugee camp at Guantanamo Bay from 12,500 to 20,000.

There are about 10,500 boat people now at the camp, called "Gitmo" by the military.

"There will be protection for Haitians pending that Haiti be restored so that the causes of persecution are no longer there," said Barbara Cigarroa, of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington.

Since Tuesday, the Haitians are being screened for "safe haven" status. That allows them to be housed at the base or on a Navy ship off Jamaica, until safe havens are found in countries such as Grenada, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda, all in the Caribbean.

A holding facility for 2,000 more Haitians is expected to open this week on Grand Turk Island, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

The boat people are not permitted to apply for asylum in the United States, which is granted only to refugees.

Many factors are involved in approval of refugee status. There must be a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, religion, political opinion or of being part of a group targeted by the government, Cigarroa said.

The same criteria is being followed more leniently for safe haven status, she said. "It's on a case-by-case basis," she said. "What they're trying to find out is if there's a well- founded fear."

At least 520 Haitians at the base have agreed or offered to return to Haiti because they won't be granted asylum in the United States, Ennis said.

Guantanamo Bay's military-style camp opened at the end of June, with 3,000 people running it. The Haitians play board games and sports. Religious services are held, and the Navy is trying to set up soccer fields as well.

He is deeply troubled by the Haitians who have risked their lives to leave their country.

"I don't think that people should be put through this," he said. "I am determined that there won't be any more."

Lesley French feels helpless. The situation in the tiny Caribbean nation is pathetic, he says.

"If I were them, I would stay. I could kill one attache every day. If every Haitian did the same, there would be no attaches." Attaches are armed pro-military civilians who hunt down and kill supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Hogarth and French are interpreters on the Coast Guard cutter Hamilton. Both were born in Haiti and came to the United States in the 1960s, shuttling since between the two countries.

Their souls remain in their homeland, but for now they live in Miami with their wives and children.

The Coast Guard relies heavily on interpreters, who are moved from cutter to cutter. They're used in every facet of missions, accompanying rescue boats that pluck Haitians from small crafts. They stand by medical officers who talk to the Haitians about potential illnesses.

On call day and night, the interpreters walk among the masses of boat people on the cutters, relaying messages in Creole to and from the Coast Guard crew.

The rescues have been a jarring experience for Hogarth and French.

"Every time I look at these babies," said French, who last was in Haiti three months ago, "I think why are they running? They are stupid. It angers me that they go to this extent."

French and Hogarth have worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the U.S. Coast Guard, which contracts for interpreters.

Both men refused to be photographed because their Haitian community in Miami sends literature and newspapers back home. The men fear for their safety in Haiti because their Coast Guard jobs could be seen as supporting repatriation.

President Clinton's policy hasn't created Haiti's exodus; rather, it's pressure within the country that has driven thousands of people to leave, French said.

"Every day they wake up, they find someone in the streets," he said. "Without the Coast Guard, half of them would be dead."

He constantly tells Haitians to stay in their country and fight back. Their response: What do we fight them with?

They should stay at Guantanamo Bay "until they clean up the mess and then send them back," French said. "If the United States sends 1,000 Marines to Haiti, there will be peace in 24 hours."

The Pentagon is developing plans for an invasion of Haiti if international sanctions fail to evict the military leaders. Two thousand Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., shipped out Thursday to stand by for the possible evacuation of some 3,000 to 4,000 Americans in Haiti.

"One bullet from the opposite side will do it all because none of them will take a chance to fight back," said French, 46. "They want to survive. The military is there only to threaten the people and protect the rich. They just want to get the money from the upper class."

Hogarth, 45, calls the exodus a "serious wakeup call to the fundamental problems in Haitian society.

"I understand why they're doing it," he said. "I admire their faith in God and their audacity."

Hogarth arrived on the Hamilton by helicopter, and since has had some time to ponder his life.

"Miami is like a promised land. It's undefinable," he said. "There's a certain acceptance of the fate. They understand that the Coast Guard will be out there. Anything is better than Haiti." He is hopeful about his country's future. Haiti's evolution began with its independence in 1804 and continues today.

"Democracy is the ability to be free to change their lives," he said. "Voting is just a start. Aristide represented a hope, and they know what they want. The hope was dashed in the coup."