We got half-drowned again. More lumpy water. I frankly groveled, wished I had a goddamned fox hole to crawl into. When I dared look up, the U-boat was just plain gone, Hilda was staring at a steel splinter jammed through the meat of her left forearm, and I was bleeding from several new places. Fuck that shit. I ran back to Bennie; he didn’t look any worse. I found the first aid kit from where it had been washed, and ran, hobbled as fast as I could back to Hilda. “Relax. Try to relax. You are in shock. Do you hear me?”
She nodded, face white as frog bellies. “I won’t try and take that out. Hold still if you can.” She was bleeding pretty good, but not seriously. She had enough presence of mind to say, “I understand. It is starting to hurt.”
“Any other wounds?”
“I just… I don’t know…”
I found a bandage roll and there was chunk of pipe on the deck. I made a tourniquet, tightened it up, told her, “Hold this, let it lose every ten minutes. You can do more damage with this than the wound did. Hang in there.” I got up to look for help, but the ship was slowing, another signal came over the loudspeakers, a two-tone whistle sort of deal, and hatches started to slam open, sailors came out on deck. First out were a couple of corpsmen who ran right to Bennie. Once they had their hands on him, I tapped on the shoulder, pointed to my wife. “You got another customer.”
He looked, said a few words to his fellow, and strode over to Hilda. He looked her over, helped her to her feet, said, “Right this way, mam, we will get you to sickbay right now.” I tagged behind like a lost puppy dog, nobody told me not to. When we got to the sickbay, some other rating waved me to a bench, and I flopped. I eventually realized that I was soaking wet, stunk of several foulnesses, and needed some food. I looked at the places I was bleeding from, but they were nothing. Scratches.
I guessed all that meant I was okay. A corpsman came out, asked me if I needed anything, I said a washup would be nice, he showed me a sink in the next compartment, there were a couple of towels, he brought me a bottle of rubbing alcohol, that served to disinfect the cuts and scrapes. Close enough.
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After about a half hour, they had stretchered poor Bennie in while I was waiting, Hilda came out, looking wan, but game. She had her arm in a sling, and a bottle of pills in her right hand. A corpsman ushered her out, and said, “Captain’s compliments, and would you two please report to the bridge, sir?”
“Lead the way.”
“I’ll get a rating, sir, we have a few more injuries to treat. Wait here, please.” My, aren’t we polite, all of a sudden?
We were led like sheep, Hilda tended to stumble a little, the morphine was kicking in, but we made it. The Captain himself welcomed us to the bridge, had a rating offer us coffee and doughnuts, and he seated us on a long bench at the rear of the small bridge.
“We have been neglecting you severely, and we must apologize; the political situation, you understand. But, there is a new ball in play now. We rescued a couple of sailors, from the U-Boat, they are Germans. They have the correct uniforms, and one of them had his identification in his pocket. We can deduce from this, that the Reich has declared war on the US Navy, if not on the United States, or rather, what is left of that nation.”
“That nation? Not ‘our nation’?”
“An exceedingly pertinent question, Mister Kapusta. The nub of the problem, in fact.” He shook his heavy head. “Radio Home has not reported any astounding new developments. The Anglo-Germans are approaching St. Louis, but that was expected.”
“Thanks. What do you need from us?”
“Paper and pencils below the chart table.” He pointed, “Take notes, if you please, this may not be over.” As he turned to go, Walter Keenan stuck his head through a door, a hatchway, said something to Captain Ensign. He noticed us, waved and went right back to work.
We made ourselves comfortable as we could be, considering how beat up we were. We could see that the Ward was barely maintaining way, slowly circling around a debris-clotted oil slick that was all that was left of the U-boat. A few of the lifeboats were in the slick, looking for evidence, I supposed. Then suddenly, the Captain got a message down a speaking tube, he gave an order to another officer who pulled a rope hanging from the overhead. The klaxon brayed, the helmsman spun the wheel. The lifeboats made haste to the davits, were snatched out of the water, and the General Quarters was sounded again. There was a thread of smoke on the horizon, southwest of us, orders were snapped, throttles jammed all the way on their quadrants, and we headed full speed ahead into more shit. I do so love the shit.
It didn’t take long. The horizon is only about ten miles away, depending on your height above sea level, and we were doing better than thirty knots, so whatever was coming at us was only about ten minutes away, probably less. I could see the triple torpedo tubes, two sets on each side, swung out and ready for business. The radio room door opened again, Keenan stuck his head out, said something, the Captain gave an order, we slowed down by about a third. Interesting.
The tension mounted, steel helmets were handed out, and life jackets, we got dressed for battle, and then it was too late to worry. We were still too far to see the actual enemy, but the smoke was clear, those four-inch guns can shoot five miles, so there was very little time between sighting the other ship and opening fire, especially when closing at fifty miles an hour or better. They, whoever they were, fired first, two rounds, perhaps a little bigger than four inches, they landed well to our port, the Captain turned into the shell splashes, and the bow and starboard guns fired, slamming the fabric of the ship, but not slowing us any. The Captain ordered full speed ahead, and kept turning to bring three guns to bear. I didn’t know what his plan was, you want to present the smallest target to the enemy, that means bow on and balls to the wall. The three guns settled in to a steady cadence, firing every seven seconds or so, throwing a lot of hell at the enemy.
I could finally see it, it was a medium size passenger freighter, dark gray, nondescript in every way, but was headed dead on, and blazing away with at least four guns that could be brought to bear on us. It looked real bad for us, and I couldn’t figure why we weren’t just running, we had the legs of her, but then I saw a something out of the corner of my eye. A miracle. Three miracles.
Three hydrodomes, HD-9s, wide open on the calm Pacific, screaming toward the enemy at better than sixty miles an hour. I couldn’t help myself, I ran for the windows, the ports, and reveled in the sight. The Germans never even saw them, at least they didn’t have time to react. Wham! Bam! Thank you, mam! The torpedoes were launched, the hydrodomes swerved away, and all hell broke loose. Six launched, at least four hit solidly. The enemy ship just vanished behind a wall of explosions, water fountaining higher than the masthead, and chunks of steel flipping like flapjacks.
It was, had been, a converted civil ship, had no armor plates along the water line, probably minimal compartmentalization, and down she went, like an ocean-going house of cards. The Captain turned to a subordinate who had been watching the action with binoculars, asked only, “The Cormoran?”
“Yes sir. It appears so. That ship matched all the intelligence we had. We may never know with one hundred percent surety, but yes, sir.”
“Billy Mitchell is avenged. Very well. Reduce speed, have the crew search for survivors, any indicative debris, you know the drill. Well done, one and all.” He turned to me; “A radio window will be available as soon as you get the story written, Mister Kapusta, Lieutenant McPhee,” he indicated the officer with the binoculars, “will be available to fill in the details. At your leisure.”
“Yes, sir.” And that was that. The shortest sea battle in history. I wondered if this whole exercise had been a setup to mousetrap the Reich Commerce Raider, or if somebody just got lucky. On second thought, there is no luck in warfare.
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The Hydrodome Tender, what we had been told was the Matilda, roared up a few minutes later, it settled down off its hydrofoils. We watched them
pull the HD-9s up the ramp, and went to work. They had renamed her; she was now the A. G. Bell. And well deserved it was too, the nature of war on the sea had just changed forever.
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The next two days were a cakewalk, we were joined by not one, but two INN destroyers, so we had no problems. We sent off my story, the masthead observer had been taking photos of the whole encounter. I was provided with a copy of the negatives, which made me even more sure it was a setup from the word go. Good publicity for the newly autonomous US Navy. Closing the books on the old regime, with a bang, you might say.
Eppi and his Pacifica Zeppelin were there, he waved at me, little more, it was obviously nut-cutting time, so hi and bye.
We didn’t get much of a honeymoon, two nights in a nice, if empty hotel, and a day on the beach drinking rum out of coconuts. The staff were exceedingly nice to us. Arbuthnot had us a cabin on the Bell, and seemed to be in a hurry to get back to drizzly old Vanc-by-the-Sea. He had dropped off a diplomatic team, that was the real reason for this excursion. We were well out to sea by dawn, cruising at a leisurely forty knots, as smoothly as if we were in a giant limousine on a paved highway.
It took less than three days to Vancouver: I took lots of pictures all the way back. I hadn’t bothered on the way out, I wasn’t sure if it was allowed, and anyway, there was nothing to see but sailors and waves. Different sailors, and they let me snap a few shots of the hydrodomes, within careful limits. The Pacifica government had decided that they wanted the existence of the hydrodomes make public, but all the functional details were to remain secret. It was not hard to suspect they had something even more lethal under wraps.
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We made it home at night, and Hilda and I went right back to the Express, we had a special edition to get out, and we were craving our Crazy Radio fix, like a junkie craves dope. Corcoran had not turned the shop into an Irish pub, but there was a dartboard in the break room, no comment. I looked over the edition he had put out, all about the dissolution of the United States. There were not a whole lot of new developments, Boston was under the control of the Reich, it was a good bet than any remaining Irish were being slaughtered, and New York City, under Hoover and Curtis was the new front line. We decided to hit the hay, then Crazy Radio hit us with a bulletin, one that proved that our man Lupo was earning his keep.
“Flash, this just in; Radio station VEUAC, the Voice of the United States of Central America reports that their forces have launched attacks at the cities of Santa Fe, New Mexico, El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, in California. The semi-official VEUAC states that their government is merely liberating lands that were stolen from them in the last century. Stay tuned for further developments as they become available.” I called Arbuthnot’s number right then, he wasn’t there, but the guy took the message. No more than a courtesy, I was sure he had the information, but it would just force the Navy to piss or get off the proverbial. Interesting times, my spavined ass.
Sleep was impossible, all the dominos were falling, you could just lie there for hours, wondering what was next? It looked like Texas was doomed, unless the Reich could land troops and equipment there in one big fucking hurry. Texas had oil, but almost no manufacturing, maybe planes, but no motors. Arrogant assholes thought one Texan was worth a dozen damn Mexicans, but Mexicans had some serious back up. Another problem; the Reich had been supporting the EUAC through Spain, but you could just bet that they would find the nice white Texans more acceptable than those brown ass Latin Americans. How was that supposed to work out? Were they going to declare war on themselves?
We got a hint in the morning, VEUAC reported that their troops had occupied British Honduras and British Guiana, with no opposition. The few French colonies in the Caribbean had defaulted to the Germans, of course, but I never heard that they had done anything about them. A quick call to the Library informed me that French Guiana and the islands had been placed under British Administration, for all the good that had done anybody.
The morning news also brought word that EUAC tanks had entered Santa Fe “to the cheers of the populace.” Tanks? Really? They had to have come from Pacifica, which meant Japan. Curiouser and curiouser. So, that meant that overtures were being made, which meant that somebody wanted all the nations that touched the Pacific under one roof, if not one flag. Which meant Japan. Which meant Admiral what’s his name. Yamamoto. There was some oil in California. Everybody knew that. The plot thickened.
I wondered if those tanks were being made out of Eppi’s salvaged steel. That didn’t seem to possibly be enough, but the Japanese were very frugal people. And they had the largest continent to exploit. And no scruples whatsoever. Such fun.
Which lead to a very unhappy thought; once Goering controlled Detroit and the steel mills in Indiana, he could crank out war weapons like Kellogg makes cornflakes. Henry Ford would be so glad to oblige.
And once they had them, you just knew they would have to use them. A quick look at Miss Britannica showed that there was quite a bit of iron ore in Brazil, China, and especially Australia, although it was not well developed yet. Yet being the magic word. And Brazil was officially neutral.
It looked like there was more than one reason for that Great Silk Road Railway. And it was also obvious that the longer the Japanese could stave off all-out war with the Reich, the stronger they would be, when the shit finally came down. It was not hard to figure where it would come down, either. The oceans, Mid-Asia again, and right down the center of the Former States of America.
Vancouver was looking better and better all the time. Enough wool-gathering, I had enough for a fucking sweater already. Get on the job, fat boy, work to be done.
>>>>>>>
Dougherty and Violet Summers were on the job, she had interviews with sailors’ wives, and Dougherty, turned out his name was Mick, who would have guessed, he had a story about Irish refugees from Boston who made it to the Azores, and were telling the world of the massacres in Southie. I had him call Peaches, she was from Southie, South Boston was her hometown. She had him drive up for an interview on CKYZ, right the hell now. With all the Irish scattered all over the world, that was incendiary news. Pacifica had a whole Irish Division in Dalny, General Delany’s 36th, I had been expecting them over here anytime now, but we had no official word. They could be in Seattle, and we would never know until Pacifica High Command felt we needed to know. Things were moving so fast; you could get windburn.
WRVA was claiming that there was a Confederate Congress in session, and General Lejeune had “pacified” Washington City, the new name. Casualty lists were unavailable.
The New Confederate Congress had representatives from Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Indiana, and South Illinois. Fifteen states, better than the old bunch of rebels, by two. Progress. The actual Union, the Rump Union, was down to New York, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, Delaware, and Northern Illinois, and nobody expected them to be able to put up much of a fight. Everything west of the Mississippi was on their own. Some states were making noises about joining Deseret, and there were low level Hispanic revolts all over the Southwest. Who could have imagined it could have all gone to shit so fast?
The three days we had spent coming back home had given the diplomats we dropped off in Pearl Harbor time to cut a deal, so the afternoon bombshell was official notice that the Pacific Fleet had joined the Pacifica Navy, which was now about the third or fourth largest in the world, after the Anglo-German, the INN, and perhaps the Spanish. There were remnants in Australia, and in the Philippines, but nobody knew which way they would jump.
The ships in San Diego set sail for Hawaii, with as many Marines as they could carry, and the Marines and sailors at Treasure Island occupied the streets of San Francisco and the shipyards of Oakland and Richmond, “to maintain order.”
Radio stations were popping up and changing allegiance all over the Former States, and the airwa
ves that had been under such tight control a few weeks ago, were a cacophony of anarchy, as every local government tried to rally its citizens to whatever cause seemed the most useful at that particular moment.
The armies kept crunching on. Reports were coming in that the Anglo-German Thrust was keeping to the West Bank of the Mississippi, so as to not tread on too many Confederate toes. San Diego was embattled, and El Paso was the center of a vastly confused conflict, with both sides claiming victory every hour, on the hour. Volunteers were streaming there from all over Texas by private car and train, horseback probably, and all they were accomplishing was creating confusion. People inherently incapable of taking orders make shitty soldiers. All the sins of the Patton regime were coming back to bite them in the ass. All those European refugees they had used to displace the blacks, the poor whites, and the unnaturals, had no real allegiance to the very idea of the USA, and were for sale to the highest bidder. The former nation had no coins left. And it was raining.
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We all gathered around to listen to Dougherty’s interview with Ed Morrow. He had a lot of detail he hadn’t been able to put in the story, but basically, the deal was that the New England Portuguese had decided to get out while the getting was good, and a few lucky micks had managed to hitch rides to the Azores. Most of them had been women and children, they had all the usual atrocities done to them. Dougherty had been monitoring the Portuguese stations obsessively, had a file of stories that were obviously making his blood boil.
Brown Bear Blues Page 10