With Lloyd Williams beside me, I inspected her blasted port side for what work would be necessary on the dry dock to repair her before we could take her off again. She was sickening to contemplate. McCance’s men must have spent most of their six months on her in pouring concrete into her port side double bottoms abreast the holes-there were hundreds of tons of concrete set hard as granite there. It would take us a couple of weeks at least just to remove all that concrete with what pneumatic paving busters I could get, so that we might then go ahead with the repairs to the steel hull.
Actually, if we hadn’t finally used some small charges of dynamite on it to break up that mass of concrete, we might still be hammering away on that concrete mountain with our puny cement busters. As it was, it took Lloyd Williams a whole week to get rid of all that concrete, most of it unnecessary for salvage purposes. Then, with every mechanic I had left myself, whom I could throw on the job, and some I must admit I stole from the contractor’s work to help, Lloyd Williams turned to to replate with steel the huge holes gaping in the side of the Gera where the bombs inside had exploded.
In all that steel work, I was as handicapped as I had been on the Liebenfels and on the Dido months before by the lack of my new plate shop. There was now a lovely set of masonry residence buildings, a grand mess hall, and a really cozy and spacious recreation room for the contractor’s construction forces ashore. But my new plate shop, the only new building I really needed in the Naval Base to get along without back-breaking hand work every time I had a steel plate to fabricate, still gaped unfinished at the sky—roofless, sideless, frontless, and useless.
Lloyd Williams, aided by a fine new American foreman, Charley Journey, whom I had picked up wandering about jobless in the Middle East, and by my old reliable, Bill Cunningham, a tower of strength in himself when it came to steel, managed to get the job of rebuilding the Gera’s steel sides done in about eight days after the concrete was cleared away, and that wholly without any new plate shop to back him up. I felt sure that if only Horace Armstrong were still alive to work alongside Bill Cunningham, the job might have been done in even half that time.
As it was, the Gera went on the dry dock on October 29. On November 14, sixteen days on the dry dock, a remarkably short period considering what had to be done, she came off, her hull completely repaired and sound.
But even so, the day she came off, we had six British supply ships anchored idly off the outer roadstead waiting for the dry dock. I had managed to stop any more from coming from the Mediterranean. I suggested to Commander Davy, pointing out that flotilla of useless ships waiting outside, that if only he could impress on Admiral Harwood’s staff in Alex the importance of delivering to me some part of the mechanics, the officers, and some of the steel long since promised me, I could hurriedly put the two salvaged Italian dry docks back into commission and avoid any such holdups in docking in the future.
Perhaps that was what finally got action. At any rate, three days later, seventy British shipyard mechanics, accompanied by Commander Mole and a Royal Navy lieutenant, arrived in Massawa on November 17, all ordered to report to me for work at the U.S. Naval Repair Base in Massawa. Some steel was promised me swiftly to follow them.
For the first time, six months after it had started operations, I had a moderate force of mechanics under my control for my Naval Base, and a couple of faaval assistants who knew ships. I could hardly stand it; I had become too used to getting along on a shoe string, and sometimes even without one. If I had known the day they arrived what exactly one week from that day I was to learn, I couldn’t have stood it at all.
CHAPTER
53
LLOYD WILLIAMS WITH HIS MISCELLANEOUS little crew of mechanics was in the very middle of the job on the dry dock on the Gera, that is, he had just cleared away the last of the cement. With his worn-out men, he was contemplating the formidable steel job that still lay before him. As I marked out for him where the bomb-damaged plating was to be burned away, someone on deck the dock above shouted for me to look out to sea.
I sidled out from under the Gera’s bottom, clambered up the high port side wall of the dry dock to her deck, and looked seaward as bid. There, some miles out toward the horizon, was the Intent, headed for the naval harbor, with the Tripolitania, listed perhaps 5° to port, in tow astern of her, and the barge full of salvage pumps, towing astern the Tripolitania.
It was November 6. Hastily, I counted on my fingers. This was the eighth day since the Intent had departed for the Daklak Islands. Brown had done well; I had figured on seven working days lifting the Tripolitania and he must have done it in six.
I left the Gera to Williams and ran ashore, to order out the pilot and his three tugs—one tug to relieve Brown of that barge tailing his tow, and the other two to help the pilot bring the newly salvaged wreck into the naval harbor and moor her alongside the port side of the smaller Italian dry dock. That was the last berth I had left available for mooring a wreck. The Liebenfels and the Frauenfels were occupying the only two safe berths afloat in the naval harbor itself. The Gera, when she came off the dry dock repaired, would have to go back to be moored off the starboard side of the large Italian dry dock. Nothing was left for mooring another ship except that spot alongside the smaller dock where I intended to put the Tripolitania.
After she was in that berth, there wouldn’t be another spot in all Massawa for mooring another salvaged ship—I would have the naval harbor all full of salvaged wrecks and no room for any more.
The only ray of light in that situation was the Liebenfels—completed now, with steam up and engines tried, she was ready to go to sea again to do her bit against her late owners, the Nazis, as soon as the promised crew for her arrived in Massawa. Of course, I could never dream of sending her out under her new flag still under her old name, so I had renamed her the General Russell Maxwell (though our commanding general in Cairo, in whose honor she was thus named, was completely unaware of it). With that name already painted on both her bows and on her stern, looking bright and new in fresh paint all over her hull, our first salvage prize of war was ready for sea—a complete product of Massawa, salvaged by my salvage forces, repaired and refitted by my Naval Base. All hands in Massawa were quite proud of the General Russell Maxwell, part of their contribution toward helping to defeat the Axis.
But sad to relate, I now had to admit that her room was more welcome than her company. I must start pressing for that crew for her in spite of a scarcity of merchant officers and seamen, or I should be in a devil of a predicament over where to stow away the next ship after the Tripolitania to be salvaged.
But that at least was for the future. As the Intent, dragging the salvaged Tripolitania, came in, we welcomed her home to Massawa with all the whistles we had, the loudest of which, interestingly enough, was that of the General Russell Maxwell, once herself scuttled by the Axis. The ex-Liebenfels sent all the steam of her powerful boilers roaring out her deep-throated whistle, to echo far and wide over all the wrecks still on the bottom in all the three harbors of Massawa, in fervent greeting to our latest anti-Axis recruit, now risen from the depths.
The Tripolitania was shortly secured alongside the small dry dock, and the Intent moved in to moor herself at her usual berth alongside the naval pier. I went back to the Gera’s bottom to finish laying out the job there for Williams and his men.
About the middle of the afternoon, I came ashore again from the dry dock to board the Intent. There I congratulated Brown on his success, and told him to convey my congratulations to all his crew for a fine job, swiftly done.
Then I got down to business. I didn’t mention it to Brown and there was no need of my mentioning it—such things I knew got around Massawa amazingly fast. Having been ashore already a few hours with plenty of time to talk to the contractor’s local men, I knew perfectly well Brown knew what had happened during his absence in the Daklak Islands—that Major MacAlarney, contracting officer from Cairo, had been in Massawa and that the piece of paper on whic
h it appeared some people at least had built up fond illusions, had gone into the waste basket where it belonged with other waste paper. The only Officer in Charge of Salvage in Massawa was the one so appointed by General Maxwell.
“Now, Brown,” I informed him, “I’m not sending either you or your crew to Asmara for a rest after this salvage job. You don’t need one. You’re staying here in Massawa. Tomorrow, you get your ship straightened out for another job. Day after tomorrow, early, you are all going back on the Brenta, to tackle that mine again. You’re not afraid any more that your crew is afraid of it, are you?”
“No, sir,” answered Brown promptly. “They’ll all go.”
“That’s fine, Brown. I’m certainly glad to hear it. It saves me a little trouble. I was sure a short trip to the Daklak Islands would do you all some good in getting the right point of view. Now, here’s the program,” and I outlined to him what we should do. I told him to inform his crew of it, send Buck Scougale up to my room that night so I could go over with him the confidential British ordnance pamphlets on that mine, and next morning, we should all start out again for the Brenta.
I got hold of Commander Davy when I got ashore, and he retrieved from the guarded safe in the Royal Naval Base, those highly secret documents, meanwhile advising the explosives lieutenant in Alex to start for Massawa again. That night, Buck Scougale and I went over the intricacies of that Italian mine and its potential dangers, while Davy listened.
I started by informing Buck he needn’t risk his life on that mine if he didn’t want to; I’d be glad to do the diving on it myself. Buck would hear of no such thing; he wanted to do it himself. He had never himself been afraid of that mine. He had been startled enough when first he had seen it, but all he wanted, like any sensible person, was to know as much as possible about the dangers involved in facing it, before he had to face them again.
And while he didn’t say so, he knew that he was a far better diver than I was and that there would be considerably less chance of anybody’s getting hurt under water if he tackled the mine rather than if I did. At any rate, Buck being perfectly willing to face that mine again, I let it go at that and started to instruct Buck in what every gadget he would encounter on that mine meant and what its possibilities of causing detonation were in normal operation.
After that, I showed Buck every conceivable way in which that mine might be rigged for abnormal operation as a booby trap. Buck took it all in.
The second morning, the Intent started back for the south harbor and the Brenta. If any member of her crew had ever had the slightest fear of going back there, I could find no trace of it on any of them, as we steamed around Sheikh Said Island into the south harbor and up to the line of wrecks again.
That line of wrecks had changed considerably in appearance since first I had seen it late the March before. Now, in November there were two long gaps in the line, where once had rested the ex-Liebenfels and the Frauenfels. Soon, I felt, there would be another gap, where rested the hulk of the Brenta, alongside which we tied up the Intent and prepared for diving.
Buck was dressed in his diving rig. This time he was to enter the Brenta’s hold by going down from above through the cargo hatches, not from the ocean floor through the bomb hole.
Carefully again, I, who was manning the ship end of his diving telephone, went over his instructions with Buck before his helmet was clapped on. He was to drop down into the hold, clear of the mine, and approach it gradually. He was to examine all around it before he moved toward it to make sure there were no trip wires along the floor boards of that hold which might set off the mine if he stumbled over one. He was to get within one foot of the mine, but no closer, and he was not to touch it or any part of it. He was to measure as exactly as he could, without touching it, with a folding steel rule I gave him, its diameter and its height. He was to count the number of lead horns on the mine, note where they were located. He was to pay particular attention to the hydrostatic piston mechanism, which should be on top of that mine, and so far as he could determine, discover whether the hydrostatic piston was down inside its cylinder, or up. The location of that piston in its cylinder was an important factor in whether the mine was armed and ready to fire or not.
Finally, Buck was to check whether two lifting eyes were where they should be on the spherical mine case, and also whether the spherical mine was still secured by tie rods to the square mine case beneath it, which should be serving as its anchor.
All this, Buck was to do, and report to me over the diving telephone each item as he checked it, before proceeding to the next, while I checked off on the diagram of that mine as he reported it, each feature to make sure it corresponded with the particular mine we thought it was.
When he had done all this, and noted anything else of interest relating to that mine, still without touching the mine, he was to come up. After that, it would be decided what next to do.
Buck went over the side of the Intent and vanished beneath the sea, with Muzzy tending his lines from on deck. Marked by a trail of bubbles in the water, rising from his helmet, I could trace Buck’s course across the well-submerged deck of the Brenta and then his descent into her number two hold, while Muzzy carefully fed out slack on his lifeline and airhose.
Buck hit bottom far down inside the flooded hold. Muzzy stopped paying out line. Buck reported over the telephone he could see the mine standing about a fathom off; there seemed to be no trip wires in the water; he was approaching it.
I could see by his moving bubbles that he was; then he stopped. A moment went by. Then, in the flat toneless voice of every diver under pressure, I caught his next words, quivering with excitement in spite of the heavy air pressure flattening out all tone quality.
“Cap’n, I’m close to that mine now and it’s standing on three torpedo warheads!”
Three torpedo warheads in the Brenta as well as a submarine mine! What, in Heaven’s name, were we up against? What should all those explosives be doing inside a scuttled merchantman?
But this time, in spite of the unexpected new explosives, Buck stood his ground and so long as he stood his ground alongside that mine, I could certainly stand mine on the other end of his diving telephone.
“All right, Buck,” I answered. “I got it. Three torpedo warheads as well as a mine. O.K. Now, go ahead and measure the mine with that steel rule.”
Down on the bottom, about a foot away from several thousand pounds of high explosives put there by the Eyties for no good purpose so far as Buck was concerned, Buck unfolded his steel rule, held it as closely as he dared alongside that huge steel ball containing sudden death, and sighted through the face plate of his helmet both sides of the ball to check its diameter.
“Thirty-nine inches, Cap’n,” came up to me in Buck’s far-away flat tones.
“Thirty-nine inches,” I repeated. Practically one meter in the metric system used by the Italians. That checked exactly with my diagram.
“O.K., Buck. Now the height.”
It took Buck a little longer to measure the height. He had to stoop to sight top and bottom along his vertical rule; in a diving rig, not an easy thing to do when he must not fall over against one of those protruding horns, ready to kill him more quickly than any rattlesnake’s fangs, should he strike one.
Buck reported the height only approximately; he couldn’t get in exactly, but his figures checked fairly well with what they should be.
“Good enough, Buck. Now count the horns.”
Far below me, Buck proceeded to count the horns. Those were the lead protrusions all around the steel mine case. If anything hit and bent one of them over, it broke a thin glass vial of acid inside the lead horn, the acid spilled out over a carbon and zinc cell generating instantly an electric current, the current flowed through a relay inside to fire a detonator, and the detonator exploded about half a ton of TNT, all before you could wink an eye. Of course, when that happened, no one in the vicinity would any longer be interested in winking an eye.
; “Seven horns, Cap’n,” reported Buck. “All in one row, spaced even around the top half o’ that mine, pointing up on about a 45° angle.”
“You’re doing fine, Buck!” I sang out into the telephone. “It’s the mine we’ve been studying all right! Everything checks! Now, how about that hydrostatic piston on top? Is it in or out?”
But there Buck was stumped. Peering through his helmet as well as he could without touching anything, trying to look into what should be an open cylinder on top of the mine, Buck could see the cylinder well enough but that was as far as he got.
“Can’t tell you, Cap’n,” he reported finally. “I can’t see into that cylinder. It’s not open on the top the way you said it oughta be. Looks to me as if a wood plug’s been driven into it, and maybe sawed off just a little above the cylinder.”
A wood plug driven into the hydrostatic piston! No wood plug belonged there. That appeared to be some evidence of booby trapping that mine. I’d have to think that over carefully.
“Good enough, Buck,” I cautioned. “Don’t touch it! Now, how about those lifting eyes and the bottom tie rods to the anchor case?”
Buck checked. The lifting eyes were as they should be; the mine sphere was securely held down to its anchor. There was nothing more to be learned.
“That’s everything, Buck,” I told him. “Get well clear of that mine and come up!”
Buck rose to the surface with Muzzy heaving in cautiously, and we took him aboard. I learned nothing new from questioning him on deck.
What were those three torpedo warheads doing under that mine in the Brenta? I had no idea. Neither had anybody else, but Buck assured me neither the mine nor its anchor case was secured to them; the mine assembly was just standing on them.
But that plug driven into the hydrostatic piston cylinder bothered me a lot. It didn’t belong there. That hydrostatic piston was supposed to be pushed down by the pressure of the sea to arm the mine as it sank, once it had been planted overboard in the normal manner. Had the Eyties perhaps driven in that plug to force the piston down to insure its arming? Or had they perhaps done it for another purpose? Possibly with other changes inside that hydrostatic piston which we couldn’t see, had they rigged that mine so that if ever any attempt was made to lift it out, the decreasing sea pressure would make the piston work in reverse, arm, and fire the mine as it rose? No one could tell.
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