No Banners, No Bugles

by Edward Ellsberg

  He had not long to wait.

  That night there was a heavy air raid on Algiers. As usual, the harbor and all its shipping disappeared beneath a blanket of smoke. As usual the sky guns around the harbor put up a terrific umbrella of bursting shells and tracers over the harbor. As usual, the bombers, gun shy, circled the harbor outside that umbrella before undertaking even to dare its fringes (there were as yet no night-fighters in the defense picture).

  But not as usual, there in the light of chandelier flares dropped from the circling planes, was the anchored Thomas Stone out in the open bay, unprotected by the harbor guns. From above, where her underwater stern damage was invisible, she was a perfectly good ship and a large and inviting target, well worth anybody’s bombs.

  Understandably enough, the bombers promptly forgot all about Algiers harbor, to concentrate on the Thomas Stone, which now went through an ordeal by bombs such as few ships have ever suffered singly and survived. Heavy bombs burst all about her, showering her topsides with water and with shrapnel. The Thomas Stone, of course, was at a terrible disadvantage. She couldn’t maneuver either to dodge bombs or to throw off the aim of the bombardiers. She was a perfect sitting duck.

  But those bombers learned swiftly they had caught a Tartar. Benny wasn’t taking it sitting down. With every searchlight swung up and every sky gun he had (and for a ship he had plenty) swung heavenward, all divided into sectors and with his group controls working beautifully, the Thomas Stone went into action, spouting fire like a fountain. She was no sitting duck but a coiled cobra, with fiery fangs lashing out in all directions at the bombers swooping down on her to unload.

  The uproar was terrific. Amidst the pandemonium of detonating bombs and exploding guns, the deafening exhausts of airplane engines and the unearthly shriek of falling missiles, all lighted up by lurid tracers, rapidly moving searchlights, bursting shells, and erupting tons of TNT, Benny and his men, eyes glued to gun sights or control gear, fought doggedly back, tracking one plane after another, sometimes half a dozen at once, as the bombers streaked in for the kill.

  They never got it. Bombardier after bombardier faltered in his aim or his pilot swerved sharply off as he closed to escape the flaming death coming at him from that verdämt ship below.

  One bomb only out of dozens finally found the target, to come screaming down on deck somewhere aft and explode there with a thunderous crash. On the bridge, Benny’s heart sank; any damage from a heavy bomb, on top of what already he had, would finish him.

  With that solitary hit, the bombers were wholly content; surely they had polished off the target at last. They departed eastward through the night doubtless so to report, meanwhile licking their own wounds.

  Suddenly the smoking guns were silent, though warily the gun crews stuck by them, ready, should the planes come back, to open up again till the stricken Thomas Stone vanished from beneath their feet and they no longer had any guns to fight.

  Leaving his exec on the bridge, Captain Bennehoff rushed aft to see what was necessary now to save his ship. But this time, the joke was on his assailants; nothing at all was necessary, though undoubtedly one of the largest caliber bombs the Nazis had, had crashed through his decks to detonate below. Almost unbelievingly he gazed at what had happened.

  The bomb, a thousand pounder from the size of the holes it left, had come down at a sharp angle on his port quarter, torn out the bottom of a lifeboat swinging there in its davits, hit the main deck leaving a hole some twenty inches in diameter, crashed through the next two decks below, leaving similar holes, and then below that had exploded—where his underwater stern should have been. Only there wasn’t any stern there any more; a Nazi U-boat captain off Cape Palos, Spain, had beaten his Luftwaffe brethren over Algiers to that stern with his torpedo. The bomb had exploded only in open water where the stern used to be. The only additional damage from that 1000 pounds of TNT was a lost lifeboat and three holes which meant nothing at all in the already sagging fantail!

  Next morning, Benny was on his way ashore in a small boat to see the Captain of the Port again, grimly determined to have the Thomas Stone moved back inside the harbor where she might get the protection of the harbor defenses to which she was as much entitled as anybody. Single-handed, he couldn’t fight off the Luftwaffe every night; sooner or later, they’d surely get him, and next time not in his missing stern either. One battle like that was enough in anybody’s lifetime.

  Once again he got a flat refusal; flatter this time even than before. Now it was bolstered up with the added information that there was no berth for him inside the harbor; every quay was occupied by ships unloading. His spirit of fair play was appealed to—surely he wouldn’t want to push another ship out into the open bay to make room inside for his?

  That, countered Benny, was exactly what he was sure of. And furthermore, he didn’t give a damn which one it might be, just so long as it was big enough to let him squeeze the Thomas Stone into its vacated berth. For any other ship would at least have engine power to get underway and not have to sit immobilized to take the strafing—surely it wasn’t cricket to spoil the Nazi bombers by giving them only sitting ducks to practice on. If the Captain of the Port thought war was a sport in which the spirit of fair play counted for anything, then let him make it sporting for both sides by sending out some other ship able to make a proper game of it.

  As for himself and his men, they’d had enough. To hell with the spirit of fair play! All they wanted was a cushy berth inside the harbor breakwater under the protection of the harbor smoke pots and its comforting ack-ack batteries.

  Benny didn’t get it. All he got was compliments on the magnificent battle his ship had put up, witnessed by everybody from the sharply rising slope of Algiers as from a grandstand, and the reiterated statements from the naval and army higher commands that the Port Captain must be the final judge as to what the situation required. Aside from that, he received only a large supply of A.A. ammunition to replace what he had expended the night before. Reflecting bitterly on that, he returned to his ship feeling like a Roman gladiator; all anyone would do for him was to furnish him with the wherewithal to put on another spectacle in that vast arena formed by the open bay and the rising crescent of Algiers against its steep hill.

  Benny replenished his magazines, refilled all his ready service ammunition boxes, sent as many of his crew as he dared below to rest up for the inevitable renewal of the battle, and threw his weary frame down on his berth to catch a little sleep himself. He was worn out.

  But before the day faded into night, Captain Bennehoff knew he would have no worries about bombs that night at least; no planes would take the air, enemy or otherwise. For the barometer was falling rapidly, the sea was kicking up, the wind off the open Mediterranean was starting to blow hard from the northwest to strike him squarely in his exposed position. A real storm was brewing, something unusual for that season off the Algerian coast.

  Benny signaled in one last frantic appeal to the Port Captain—his ship was helpless without engine power to fight the coming storm; for God’s sake, send tugs to take him inside the harbor before it struck! His appeal was denied; there was no room inside the harbor; he must rely on his anchors.

  The afternoon slipped away into night, the wind increased in strength to a gale, finally to a whole gale. Before that happened, Benny prudently heaved in on his cable as much as he dared without starting the anchor he already had down, then let go also his other anchor, and veered out chain on both cables to full scope so that he might get and keep the best possible grip on the bottom.

  Then as the storm increased in fury and the seas rolling in on him off the open ocean started to crash down on his heaving bow in thunderous blows while the howling wind beating against his topsides strove to drive him down to leeward, he could do nothing further but pray. The ordinary resource of the seaman, to steam slowly ahead against the oncoming seas to relieve the strain on his cables, was denied him. His propeller shaft was broken; he had no engine power to
help him. All that a man might do, he had done to meet this new peril to his ship. It was now up to his ground tackle, which was good, and the value of the bottom of Algiers Bay as holding ground, which was dubious.

  Once again in the darkness Captain Bennehoff took station on the bridge with all his crew at quarters. This night again there would be no sleep for anyone—all hands were in for another battle against the worst enemy of all, the sea. Carefully Bennehoff himself took cross bearings and ranges on various lights ashore in unblacked out Algiers to mark the position of his gyrating ship, then stationed other officers at the alidades to keep constant watch on those ranges and inform him if any showed signs of change.

  Amidst the roaring of the wind and the deep bass singing of his wire rigging, no very long time elapsed before alarmed cries came from the watchers at the alidades at both starboard and port wings of his bridge. The ranges were opening out, the bearings were changing, undoubtedly the Thomas Stone was dragging her anchors, both of them!

  Bennehoff sprang to the port alidade himself to check, found it was so. As he sighted through that alidade, he could see the range of lights he had it focused on, steadily opening out. Before that storm, his ship was drifting inexorably down to leeward toward the open beach some miles astern yet! There was no question about it, the value of the bottom of Algiers Bay as holding ground was no longer dubious; it was worthless! Sooner or later before that storm still rising in intensity, they would be driven high and dry on the beach! And there was nothing further he could do on the Thomas Stone to prevent it.

  But Benny was no person to give up while he still lived. Although there was nothing further he could do on the Thomas Stone to avert disaster, there was still a thin chance to escape and he clutched at it. There was, damn him, that broken reed, the Captain of the Port, who had got him into all this—he had tugs! It was too late now ever to hope tugs could get him into the harbor, but at least they might serve in place of his dead engines to help hold him up against the seas and keep him off the beach.

  The Thomas Stone’s signal lantern started to flash out through the night a message of distress across the tumbling seas toward Algiers harbor. She was steadily dragging both anchors, all she had, toward the beach. She must instantly have tugs, the best they had, if possible all they had, to help hold her against the storm and save her from destruction!

  They got an immediate acknowledgment, then shortly an affirmative. Tugs would be sent out to help.

  There was an agonized period of waiting for the tugs while the anchors dragged, the lights ashore fringing the beach grew brighter and brighter and they began to hear, mingling with all the assorted shrieks and concussions of wind and sea, the thunder of the surf breaking on the beach astern.

  The tugs, tossing like corks in the mountainous waves, arrived at last. They were in plenty of time; the beach was still half a mile astern. Benny switched on his cargo lights to illuminate his side and help them get secured. On a night like that no blackout was required; he had nothing to fear except the sea.

  But as the tugs came into the circles of light from his cargo reflectors, his heart sank—there were only two tugs, both French, and neither very large nor very powerful. Algiers had far more tugs than that, he knew, but probably all the others were even smaller and dared not face the stormy seas lest they founder out of hand. He must get along with those two.

  He waved to the tugs to come alongside him, one each side, and he would pass them lines to secure themselves there and start heaving him ahead. He could not risk giving them towlines to try to tow ahead of him. Both his anchor cables were streamed out from his bows; there the tugs and their towlines could do nothing save swiftly foul themselves in the anchor cables.

  The French tugboat captains waved back they understood everything. They were good seamen; they got alongside as directed, took the hawsers and passed them round their bitts. Immediately then they opened wide their throttles, went full out straining on the lines to hold the Thomas Stone up against wind and sea while they themselves tossed wildly up and down alongside her to the seas rolling by.

  No sooner had the tugs a maximum strain on the lines than Captain Bennehoff was squinting again through an alidade at the lights ashore, picking out a new set for ranges to show him whether with the tugs helping, the anchors finally had taken a solid bite and were holding.

  He watched in anguish a few minutes and then straightened slowly up. All hope was dead. The Thomas Stone was still inexorably dragging toward the beach, a little more slowly now perhaps, but just as steadily as before. In spite of heavy anchors trying to dig into the bottom and hold there, in spite of tugs almost tearing their engines off their bedplates driving furiously ahead, the implacable wind and sea were continuously pushing him and the Thomas Stone shoreward.

  Louder and louder grew the roar of the breakers, brighter and brighter gleamed the lights of the houses ashore. The water grew much shallower, the steep seas became even steeper, the tugs began to slide up and down them as on a gigantic seesaw.

  His stern entered the breakers. Benny signaled to his deck force to cast loose both tugs and get them clear. Keeping them longer, once the Thomas Stone was in that terrific surf, would only swamp the tugs. They could do nothing further for him. As the tugs, freed, plunged ahead into the screeching night to save themselves, Benny, high above them on his bridge, waved cheerily to their captains for the valiant effort they had made to save him. Then he turned to peer aft through the darkness and watch helplessly while those tremendous storm waves drove his ship aground.

  The stern, falling away in a trough, struck with a staggering thud that shook the whole vessel. The drifting stopped. Instantly the captain spun about, straining his eyes forward through the blackness. Now if only the anchors, still streaming forward, held, it would not be so bad. The stern was already heavily damaged; no pounding on the bottom could make it any worse.

  But to his dismay, the stern had hardly gone aground than the seas crashing against his bow began to swing the stem around, anchors or no anchors. In another instant, the ship was broadside to the breaking waves, hard on the beach her whole length, shuddering convulsively under the impact of titanic sledge hammer blows. One after another those thundering waves roared in to smash squarely against her steel side and then leap skyward in solid masses of hundreds of tons of green water that came tumbling down on the decks as if to crush them in. Now at last had come the end; it seemed inconceivable that any ship could hold together long under that irresistible battering. All hands watched each instant to see her disintegrate into a mass of broken steel to leave them strangling in that maelstrom where lifebelts were worthless and no small boat could possibly survive long enough to get it launched.

  But she was a stout ship, the Thomas Stone. Somehow she held together through it all while the pounding seas kept swinging her still further round till it was her bow, no longer her stern, that was pointed directly shoreward, with the whole ship grounded from end to end.

  Each monstrous sea now as it rolled in picked up the Thomas Stone as if she were but a chip of wood and flung her quivering hull bodily farther up the beach till at last it seemed to her numbed captain that one more such thrust would push his stem right in amongst the brilliantly illuminated oil tanks he could see rising close before him on the shore.

  But there, high and hard aground, she stuck at last, with next to no water left under her as each wave receded. Dazedly he turned to look down at the surf breaking all about him, surprised still to be alive. First the U-boat with its torpedo, then the planes with their bombs, now the sea itself with this last crushing blow—all had done their worst to destroy him. He had fought them all. While he lived, he would keep on fighting for his ship.

  The messboy cleared away the coffee cups, lunch was over. Captain Bennehoff rose from the table.

  “Come aft with me now, Captain, and you can see for yourself what’s required in the way of a salvage job to put my ship back in action. My crew and I’ll give you all the help
possible.”

  I rose to follow him out on deck.

  CHAPTER

  28

  I LEFT THE “THOMAS STONE” AFTER my inspection to go back up the hill in a navy jeep assigned to the stranded transport. We ran a few miles along the waterfront into the center of Algiers past the Monument aux Morts where I had first seen Admiral Darlan and General Giraud, then swung sharp left and soon were climbing the steep hill headed for the St. George and my day before Christmas tea date with the Royal Navy staff.

  I had little thought left for anything except the Thomas Stone and what might be done to help her and her valiant captain. She would be a tough problem; she was practically high and dry, aside from all her other injuries. I sighed over the manifest injustice of life. Bennehoff was an exceptionally able captain, yet nothing but disaster had come his way; it was damned unfair. Well, when we got the Spahi clear, what salvage forces I had should go all out for Benny and his ship.

  We were once again passing the Palais d’Etat; my eyes always got a rest gazing on those gaudily clad Spahi sentries. I glanced to the left at them as the jeep, pulling hard up the long hill, slowly went by the entrance gate.

  Evidently something was wrong, decidedly wrong there. Instead of being stiffly at “Attention” as usual, the two Spahis, clutching their rifles at the “Ready,” were swung nearly about, peering, both of them, into the courtyard just inside the gate. Standing inside there by the marble steps leading into the building, was a large limousine, Darlan’s unquestionably, with the driver just dashing up the steps to a milling group of men a bit inside the open double doors.