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  Now the captain was worried about a bunch of torpedo boats in the goddamned English Channel. Where the hell was his relief? Lewis thought again. He suddenly realized that Foster was talking.

  “Yes, sir, but it was there a minute ago. Just on the edge of the scope.”

  Lewis’s eyes traveled furtively over the screen. “Whatever was there is not there now. You know we’ve got a couple of AOGs just aft of us.” He felt salty using the official acronym for tankers that carried aviation fuel, oil, and gas. He hoped it made up for his youth and inexperience.

  “Jeez, Mr. Lewis, even I can tell the difference between a gasoline tanker and something that shouldn’t have been there. Besides. That last target was to port.”

  Lewis was unconvinced. He looked over the array of intimidating gauges and dials covering the console to either side of the screen, his mind racing over the operating instructions about the SG that he had tried to commit to memory. But his mind wasn’t fast enough and the dials warned him to leave them alone. “Maybe you just imagined it,” he finally said, ending the mystery.

  “Yes, sir,” Foster said grimly. He felt Lewis leave his side and cursed the officer silently. That guy was an embarrassment to the ship and to the uniform. Nothing but a chicken-shit attitude…. Foster leaned back in his chair and motioned to Chesty Marx at the Plotting Board. Marx looked at him quizzically as Foster mouthed the word Chief.

  Foster saw Marx nudge Chief Petty Officer James and gestured toward Foster.

  James walked over to the surface radar station. “What is it, Foster?”

  “I picked up a skunk, right at the edge of the screen. It was gone in a flash. I mean sixty or seventy knots.”

  “Switch to max-range,” James said, reaching for the bridge phone.

  Foster did as he was told. The screen flickered briefly and settled into the new range setting. With the greater distance the resolution became distorted and smaller images were hard to pick out. Even larger targets at maximum range had a distinctly fuzzy appearance under the sweep of the patient strobe that swung loyally around the screen once every three seconds.

  “There it is,” Foster said excitedly, but the words were barely out before Chief James had the bridge telephone off its cradle and up to his mouth.

  Seaman 2nd Class Greer, Bridge Talker for the Mid-Watch, stood back against the bulkhead of the open bridge. He’d run afoul of Captain MacKay two or three times by getting in the captain’s way when MacKay paced from port to starboard wing on the cramped bridge. Greer had learned his lesson; give the Old Man room to roam. The seaman 2nd class wore the outsized helmet that concealed bulky earphones. A speaking horn rested on his chest, suspended about his neck by canvas straps. The stiff collar of his bulky kapok lifejacket made keeping the earphones and horn where they should have been difficult.

  “Bridge, aye,” Greer said into the horn. He listened for a moment and then reported to Captain MacKay on the open bridge. “CIC reports surface target.”

  MacKay turned, his features lost in the darkness except for the dim glow of the gyro. “Where away?” MacKay said.

  “One-three-seven degrees heading oh-two-three degrees at twenty-five thousand yards. Speed,” Greer hesitated but decided to report it anyway. Those guys were supposed to know what they were talking about. “Speed, six-oh knots.”

  MacKay glanced at Jake DeArmas, his executive officer. “General Quarters,” MacKay ordered Greer. “Who’s in CIC?” he asked DeArmas quickly.

  “Lewis.”

  “He’s too young. Get down there.” MacKay turned to Greer. “Acknowledge that report. Tell CIC to contact the convoy. Unidentified target running to port at approximately twenty-five thousand yards… .”

  Greer slid his hand under his helmet and clamped the earphone against his ear. He looked up at MacKay, doing a remarkable job of containing his excitement. “Sir, CIC reports multiple targets approaching from the southwest. Same distance. Speed increased to seven-oh knots.”

  “Yes?” Hardy said hovering over the brass speaking tubes. The night was clear and very cold, and he had just finished his third cup of tea. Now he had to piss.

  “Bridge, W/T Southern reports multiple targets approaching at high speed from the southwest. They’ve gone to Action Stations, sir.”

  “Well, then, why should we be any different?” Hardy grumbled. He turned to the yeoman stationed at the Tannoy Box. “Action Stations.”

  “Right, sir,” the yeoman said. He switched on the speaking system and said, in a very matter-of-fact tone: “Do you hear there? Do you hear there? Action Stations. Action Stations.”

  Hardy flipped back the cover on the speaking tube to the Engine Room. “Engine Room? Bridge here. How’s that engine?” Number Two engine had been giving HMS Firedancer fits for the last two weeks. Hardy had ordered the boilers lit off for Number Two but on standby only. The engine would not be engaged unless absolutely necessary.

  “Bridge, Engine Room.”

  It was Courtney, a gnomelike little officer who preferred to spend all of his time with his beloved engines. Hardy suspected that if he could, Courtney would remain in the noisy, hot confines of the engine room and never venture on deck unless ordered.

  “Well, Courtney? What about it? I’ve need of Number Two.”

  Courtney had been working for days trying to isolate the problem. He had reported to Hardy, layering technical difficulty upon technical difficulty until Hardy, as well versed as any Royal Navy captain on the machinery that drove his ship, had capitulated.

  “Goddamn it, Courtney,” Hardy had said. “Just fix the bloody thing.” Courtney just rubbed his knuckles contentedly into the palm of his hand as if his complicated report had been a successful stratagem to bewilder the captain into leaving him alone, then returned to the depths of his engine room.

  “It’s no good, Captain,” Courtney’s muffled voice came through the voice tube, accompanied by the distant roar of the machinery. The steady thump of the pistons was like a heartbeat, a rhythm that reminded Hardy that the ancient destroyer still had life in her. “It’s the engine shaft bearing. If we engage the engine she’ll seize, and then we’ll really be up against it.”

  Hardy glanced to see his Number One, Edwin Land, appear on the bridge, just slipping into his duffel. Spring or not it got cold in the Channel at night. “I have some Germans out there, Courtney,” Hardy said irritably.

  “Yes, sir, but if the shaft seizes there goes the engine. And you’ll be down a sight longer anyway except then she’s in the yards for a good bit of time.” Courtney’s warning was obvious—the damage to the engine might be so severe that she’d require repair work in the yards. They turned ships around quickly enough, Hardy knew, repair crews working day and night, but they did so on a priority basis and he was certain that no priority would be attached to an overaged destroyer. She would be laid up for weeks or months and his crew would be stripped of critical ratings and replaced with clumsy landsmen direct from Portsmouth. The thought caused Hardy to shiver—Firedancer in the hands of clods.

  “Well, then,” Hardy growled, conceding defeat for the moment. “Stand by. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Standing by,” was Courtney’s reply, delivered much too calmly to suit Hardy.

  They were escorting eight ships—two gasoline tankers and six freighters, Southern in the lead and Firedancer in the rear, down to Portsmouth at a steady if boring pace of 8 knots. Firedancer could manage that speed all right and she could be coaxed up to 15 knots without protest, but, with one engine out, she would resist anything beyond that. A part of the fight would be maneuver, and another part speed, but Hardy was denied that part so that the fight would be tipped in the enemy’s advantage.

  MacKay felt a shudder run through Southern’s deck. His mind calculated the impossible. Run aground? Out here? What the hell was going on? His second officer had joined him on the open bridge of the destroyer escort and they exchanged glances. Suddenly he realized what it was.

  “Fl
ares,” he ordered. A torpedo had brushed the ship’s bottom. A torpedo whose depth had been set too deep, probably to puncture the hull of a lumbering merchantman. Southern had been given a gift by the miscalculation of an enemy torpedo man. “Signal to the convoy, ‘Under attack by E-boats to port. Remain in position.’ ” He didn’t want the merchant ships scattering. They could just as easily run Southern down in the darkness or end up being silhouetted by their own flares. If that happened they would make a lovely target for the E-boats.

  “Sir,” Greer said. “CIC reports vessels approaching bearing one-three-six degrees. Speed seven-oh knots. Distance …”

  The first shell hit Southern’s hull below 51 Mount just as the second series of flares burst in the darkness, filling the sky with an eerie green glow. It was a signal to start the battle. Tracers ripped through the night, red from the Americans’ guns, green from the Germans’, angry fingers searching under the pale light of the flares for a target.

  Southern’s forward 5-inch gun barked, and the brilliant flash of its discharge nearly blinded the men on the open bridge. The 40-millimeters joined the fight, pumping dozens of shells at the speeding enemy boats under the feeble light of the dying flares. The long gray barrels of the twin 40-mm mounts recoiled in sequence, the shock of the discharge taken up by the heavy recoil springs that then threw the barrels back into place, ready for another round. They spoke with determination, one round every half-second screaming into the darkness, their fiery birth contained by the funnel-shaped flash depressors on the muzzles of the guns. But the targets glimpsed only as fleeting shapes were hidden by the night.

  Three more shells hit the Southern, one so close to the bridge that it knocked MacKay and the others to the deck.

  “What the hell was that?” MacKay shouted in exasperation as he pulled himself to his feet. “Damage report.” That couldn’t be an E-boat. Not with firepower like that. They mounted 40-millimeter and 20-millimeter but their main weapon was their torpedo. But this was a hell of a lot bigger than a 40-millimeter. What was the Southern fighting?

  Hardy watched the flare float slowly toward the surface of the Channel. So far the attack was directed at the head of the column, but it might be a feint to draw the escorts away from their stations. Firedancer could not respond for that reason and because she could not move fast enough. Number One stood next to him peering through his binoculars.

  “Well?” Hardy said, fuming at his inaction. “What do you see?” His blood was up and he paced the deck like a lion that sensed nearby prey.

  “E-boats,” Land said, catching nothing more than a glimpse of the enemy vessels as they flashed under the soft light of the flares. “Fast boats. Very fast.”

  “Wireless/Telegrapher?” Hardy called into a voice tube. “Make to Southern: ‘Shall I come up?’ Send it in plain language.” He moved to windshield, and then to the port side of the bridge, and finally back to the tubes.

  He’s going to explode, Land thought ridiculously, but the frustration that Hardy felt was clear to Land. It was all very simple; the battle had been joined and Hardy was not a part of it.

  Hardy turned suddenly and practically leaped at the voice tubes. “W/T? Did you send the message by pigeon? What …”

  “Bridge, W/T. Message from Southern. ‘Take station midway up the column, port. Enemy E-boats and other vessels… .’ That’s it, sir. End of message.”

  “Right,” Hardy said. “Right. Helmsman, port 15. Land, you will inform Guns that we expect to engage the enemy shortly. Everything to port is fair game so he needn’t be shy about shooting.” Hardy turned to the voice tubes as if they held the key to his victory. “Engine Room. Hardy here.”

  “Engine Room. Courtney,” came the muffled reply.

  Hardy leaned close to the tube and gripped the mount in determination. “Now see here, Courtney. I’ll have no more nonsense about engines and yard work. We’re going in now, and I must have every ounce of power out of Number Two.”

  “So long as you know that she’s likely to seize at any moment,” Courtney said. “Aye, sir. You give the order and I’ll engage the engine.”

  “Very well,” Hardy said with satisfaction, reassured that he controlled every aspect of his ship, as any good captain should. Engines, indeed. All Firedancer needed was a reason and she could overcome anything. Grand old girl. “Up fifty on both engines,” Hardy ordered, increasing the revolutions per minute of the screws.

  “Sir,” Greer said. “Damage Control reports hits on the torpedo deck above Repair II. Aft tubes severely damaged. The mast carried away the antennas.” Greer fought to keep his voice calm; he was the Talker and it was his job to repeat what he had been told to report, and to pass on the captain’s orders. But he was scared, especially when a shell had ripped away the big 36-inch signal searchlight on the bridge wing. Southern was only 306 feet long, the smallest vessel in the convoy except for that Limey destroyer aft, and the tankers, but it seemed as if the Krauts had planned to put a shell in every foot of the destroyer escort. The worst hit had been near the waterline forward, although no one had been killed or wounded, flooding the forward 5-inch magazine. Other hits had killed sailors: hits in the chief’s quarters, Repair I, the port 20-mm mount—all six men there died, the sonar shack atop the pilot house—mostly hits topside, but dead sailors nevertheless.

  It was Greer’s second battle—the first one had been against U-boats and German planes. Afterward he remembered the noise, things crashing and exploding and men shouting as if they could defeat the enemy with their voices alone. It was not that, he knew, because he was shouting as well. He was on the mid-40 mount then. He was shouting out of fear and anger and because his blood was pumping so quickly through his veins that he thought his heart would explode. Now, it was different.

  It was odd. Everything seemed to have slowed down, Greer thought. He saw the signalman at the Aldis lamp, the chief bo’sun of the watch, and the other officers and men on the crowded bridge move about as if they were completely indifferent to the fury that enveloped them.

  Greer was aware of noises, muffled sounds or fragments of whole sounds that crept into his brain. He heard the whir of the electric motors of the 51 Mount as it drove the turret into position and laid the gun on target. He heard the orders and responses of the men in the pilothouse—the voices of the helmsman, engine order man, the quartermaster—and that bo’sun’s mate who loved to play poker with washers. Maybe he wasn’t really hearing them speak—maybe he just thought he was.

  Everything was slow. Movements, sounds—everything he saw or heard dipped in molasses and spread before with a broad knife.

  The AOG exploded.

  She was the USS Connery and she was smaller than the Southern, and she was aft and to starboard the prescribed distance, but when she blew up it was like she was alongside the destroyer escort.

  The AOG erupted into a huge fireball, mocking the ridiculous light of the tiny flares, illuminating every ship as if it were daylight, for a half-mile around. But the triumph of the explosion was short-lived and night swiftly moved in to reclaim its dominance, leaving only the boiling fire consuming the ship as a remnant of the blast.

  Hardy was beating the inoffensive speaking tube with his fist as Firedancer’s speed dropped to just under 10 knots.

  “Five seconds? Five bloody seconds you give me? I haven’t gone twenty feet, you insufferable mechanical boob,” Hardy shouted into the tube.

  “I gave you no guarantees, sir,” Courtney replied, his tone bordering on vindication—just a hair’s breadth from “I told you so.” “Only that at some time or other the engine would surely seize. That time was almost immediately after you asked for increased revolutions.”

  “Christ in heaven,” Hardy shouted into the sky. He shook his clenched fists at nothing in particular and turned to Land. “Take her to starboard of that tanker,” he said, calming. “We’ll look for survivors. Keep her as much out of the light as you can, Number One. I don’t fancy giving those bastards anoth
er target.”

  “Right, sir,” Land said. He gave the necessary orders and joined Hardy as the captain scanned the darkness through binoculars.

  “Gone,” Hardy said, peering into the darkness.

  “Nothing on radar. Nothing in sight. They’ve gone back to their lair,” Land confirmed.

  Hardy settled the binoculars on his chest by their leather strap and pursed his lips in thought. “E-boats and others, Southern said. I wonder, Number One, what others?”

  “There was something out there, sir. Those were six-inch guns, anyway,” Land commented. He knew the sound of guns and the sharp crack that the shell makes speeding through the air, and he could tell by the impact what size the shell was.

  “Now, has Jerry gone and figured a way to mount a cruiser’s guns on their E-boats?” Hardy said incredulously. But a note of concern crept into his words because he had heard the report of the guns as well and from experience he knew them to be 6-inch cannon. But not on E-boats. They were formidable little vessels all right, but they were too small to handle any gun that big. Then, what had been out there? “How I hate not knowing things,” Hardy said into the darkness.

  Chapter 3

  Dora Bunker, 11th S-Boat Flotilla, Cherbourg, France

  Korvettenkapitan Peter Waldvogel staggered to the side of S-boat 317 and vomited into the oily water of the dank S-boat pen. He stopped retching long enough to pull a handkerchief from his tunic with a trembling hand and wipe his ashen face. Then he vomited again.

  The deep-throated rumble of the boat’s three 2,500-horsepower Daimler-Benz engines echoed off the concrete walls and ceiling of the pen as she slid easily toward her berth. Two other boats were already nestled against the quay, already tied off by the crew.

  Waldvogel heard Reubold shouting orders, something about lines and fenders, but he didn’t care. He was weak from emotion and vomiting, and the god-awful pounding that the boat had taken as it sped across the water before raising up on her foils. He had never been so frightened in his life as when they sighted the convoy—that moment before the attack he thought he would die of fright.