THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  Kurt Döttmer took Elsa in his arms and kissed her, saying unconvincingly that Himmler's thugs would lose the scent. At any rate it was too late. The Fatherland was at war. The border was closed, to leave was impossible.

  Then Kurt Döttmer wailed about his son, Helmut. That those damned American hooligans had done him a favor. He always thought Helmut a fairy for playing the violin. The trumpet was a man's instrument he had exhorted his son.

  They didn't have money for doctors after the fight. Young Helmut's hand swelled horribly. Papa Kurt figured it was an infection of some sort. Eight months later, they were able to afford attention at New York's Hospital for Special Surgery but it was too late the doctor told the Döttmer’s. The boy's ring finger was forever cocked at the joint--a deformity flexion--they called it. And his little finger had no feeling whatsoever.

  The violin was out. Secretly Papa Kurt was happy and he launched into a six-hour-day regimen of trumpet lessons for the boy.

  Now, he lamented, after all the years of practice and tutoring, Helmut wouldn't be able to perform--wouldn't be able to follow in Papa Kurt's footsteps with this damned war. Kurt had been so proud. Helmut had not only proved himself on the trumpet but on many brass instruments as well. Such promise the lad showed!

  "He was wonderful on the violin," Elsa wailed. "You should have let him try again."

  "The little bastard was all through," Kurt raged, kicking over a small table and breaking one of the legs. "I gave him his chance. But," Kurt's eyes puffed and he waved a stubby forefinger under Elsa's nose, "he got back at me alright. The little turd had to sign up for the damned Kriegsmarine, when he knew damned well I could have got him deferred."

  Their shouting rose in timbre, so Helmut let himself out quietly. He had a somber dinner, unsuccessfully tried to find a room elsewhere, and returned home two hours later.

  Kurt and Elsa seemed happy to see him. Young Helmut pretended not to notice the broken table and Elsa didn't mention the little water puddles she wiped up in the foyer forty-five minutes earlier.

  Later, on active duty, young Helmut had heard rumors about Admiral Wilhelm Canaris harboring anti-Nazi tendencies. So he answered a call from the Abwehr for intelligent young talent to become reconnaissance and espionage agents. Döttmer signed up and, after intensive training, was posted to a commando unit. On the night before his first taste of battle in the invasion of Greece, Döttmer paced the destroyer's main deck under a moonlit Aegean sky. He was surprised when Admiral Canaris, also out for a walk, joined him. Döttmer didn't even know the admiral was on the ship. Their discussion was stilted at first, and centered on the upcoming invasion. But soon, Canaris learned of Döttmer's background and they talked of music, with Canaris fascinated at Döttmer's stories about his father and the Berlin Philharmonic.

  That went on for a long time, and then they discussed the future of Germany with Döttmer detecting a slight edge in Canaris’ politics. The rumors were correct, so he seized his chance and told the admiral about his mother's problem. Canaris stopped in mid-stride and stared at Döttmer in silence for a whole minute. With a sigh, he vowed to do his best to keep the matter off Himmler's desk.

  Canaris kept his word, and Döttmer grew to love his job. Demolitions, train wrecks, bridges, radios, parachutes, handguns, and knives became utensils of survival that he honed to a sharp edge. Even the killing didn't bother him. Last March, in training for the invasion of Greece, they hired an overweight Cypriot thug to demonstrate hand-to-hand combat. It was from this man that Döttmer learned the garrote, one of the Cypriot's favorites for the silent kill.

  Döttmer didn't have a chance to try it out until Canaris ordered him to a new mission assigning him the code name HECKLE. Döttmer was inserted last June into Texas, via cargo ship to Vera Cruz. He crossed the Rio Grande to El Paso where in the train station, he discovered the Cypriot's technique demanded total surprise and overwhelming strength as he executed the real Walter A. Radtke. The garrote worked again with that stupid guard in the Navy radio intercept file room on Corregidor. Then he tried it on Epperson, but the debilitated Navy lieutenant was stronger than he looked and spun away, forcing Döttmer to shoot Epperson with the guard's .45. Luckily an enormous salvo of artillery landed at the same time obliterating the .45's blast. He'd been able to take his pictures and escape cleanly only to have to chuck them over the side when that damned Ingram ambushed him.

  Döttmer raised his binoculars and swept the horizon again. To the north, Cape Melville drew rapidly aft. They were making good time and Döttmer moved closer to Chief Hall, a thin, dyspeptic forty-two-year old radioman who continually belched. Döttmer swept again with his binoculars and decided now was the time. He leaned over and said, "Er chief, you guys got something to keep me busy?"

  Hall nudged his belly with the heel of his fist and said, "What do you do?"

  "Crypto mostly."

  "Uh, uh. We're too small. Officers do the crypto stuff here." Hall raised his glasses and scanned his sector. He finished and said, "Sorry."

  The chief was being difficult. Try harder, he thought. "I have a good fist."

  "Yeah?" Hall's voice rose a little.

  "Tops in my class."

  "How fast can you receive?"

  "Twenty-five words a minute. When I'm on my stride--thirty."

  "You there!" shouted Ensign Gruber. He walked up and stuck his nose between the two, saying, "Stop talking and keep those binoculars up."

  Döttmer automatically shoved his left hand in the small of his back while Chief Hall propped his elbows on the bulwarks and belched loudly. "Sorry, Sir. Yes Sir. We'll keep lookin', Sir."

  "Don't get sarcastic with--"

  Just then a guttural voice wafted up the conning tower hatch. "Bridge!"

  Gruber gave Hall a look, then stepped over and yelled down. "Bridge, aye."

  The voice below said, "Maneuvering Room reports number two main engine on propulsion, Sir. Mr. Sutcliff says we have a full can and are now making turns for twenty knots. Sounding still one-two fathoms."

  "Very well," said Gruber. He walked aft, finding Ronnie and Mort Sampson on the cigarette deck, peering at something off their starboard quarter. Döttmer cocked an ear to hear Gruber’s nervous report. "Ron--er, Captain, maneuvering room reports battery charge is complete. All four engines on propulsion now. Speed is twenty knots. Sounding, twelve fathoms"

  Ronnie muttered something and shifted his vigil to the port quarter. Gruber walked forward. As he passed, he hissed, "Keep a sharp lookout you two."

  After he was gone, Hall tossed an exquisitely refined belch into the night. With a nod toward Gruber he said, "Little twit's worked up 'cause we can't dive."

  "Yeah?" Döttmer cast a quick glance at Gruber's back. For a moment, he visualized the ensign wiggling under his garrote.

  "Just about shit his pants two weeks ago when we were bottomed in two hundred feet off Cebu. Japs throwing ash cans everywhere. Held us down eleven hours."

  Döttmer gave the obligatory sigh, then asked. "Why's he take it out on us?"

  "Still scared shitless. I don't think he'll do another patrol."

  "Does he ever--"

  "Better keep them binocs up, sailor," said Hall, with a glance in Gruber's direction.

  Döttmer scanned the horizon. After thirty seconds he found nothing in his sector. "Chief, I gotta tell you. This is my first time on a sub, too. I'm as nervous as Lil' Adolph with nothing to do. Can I help out with something?"

  "How fast are you?" Chief Hall asked again.

  "Twenty-five words a minute. Thirty when I'm hot. And I send a hell of a lot faster."

  "Clearance?"

  "Top Secret. You'll find it in my file."

  "We're standin' one in three, now. Let me talk to Mr. Chance." Chief Hall hurled another belch, it's ripping vibrato dissipated in the direction of Balabac Island. "Keep them binocs up, before Lil' Adolph blows his stack."

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  7 May, 1942

  Looc Cove
>
  Luzon, Philippines

  The plane roared over. Ingram sat up, looking straight into Bartholomew's craggy face. "What was it, Rocky?"

  The chief machinist's mate had relieved him at four thirty. "Float plane, Sir. Zero. Right over the damned trees."

  Ingram stood and checked his watch: 9:27. The day was warm and cloudless. The waters of Looc Cove were a deep emerald in the middle, phasing to a brilliant turquoise near shore. But it was hot, with pressing humidity even at this hour.

  "Did he see us?" said Ingram.

  "Don't know."

  The float plane flew over again, lower if that seemed possible. It banked around the cove's edge then headed out to sea. They waited, looking at one another, until the engine's noise disappeared.

  "What the hell was that?" Otis DeWitt sat up rubbing his head.

  "Zero," said Ingram.

  "He see us?" said DeWitt.

  "Don't know for sure," said Ingram. "What I do know is that we have to pull this thing deeper in shadows and camouflage with branches. Now."

  DeWitt sat up straight, pointed out to sea, and said in a resonant, booming voice, "Lieutenant Ingram. Do you have any idea of how to get through that line of enemy ships?"

  In the trees above them, the Cicada flies chirped their shrill buzz as Ingram studied the bilge. At length he looked up and spread his hands.

  "Then maybe we should abandon. Move back into the hills," said DeWitt.

  "I don't think so," said Ingram.

  DeWitt said, "I would advise you give serious thought to--"

  They turned, hearing the howl of a diesel engine. Quickly, the roaring grew to a cacophony of many diesel engines. The men woke and, crouching low, took their weapons in hand as the rumble grew. Even Beardsley whipped out his nickel-plate and waved it toward the cove entrance.

  "Jeez, Leon, don't cock that thing." Holloway pulled the B-17 pilot down behind the gunnels.

  A blunt-nosed, one-hundred-foot Japanese barge churned by Looc's entrance heading north at perhaps five or six knots. Then another; followed by twenty or so of the narrow beamed craft. Japanese naval ensigns drooped from each barge's fantail, where a helmsman stood in an enclosed elevated pulpit. Except for one or two crew pacing up and down, the barges were empty.

  DeWitt said, "Troop carriers. That's what they used for landing on the Rock."

  "Where the hell'd they come from?" said Holloway.

  "I'd say Fortune Island," said Ingram.

  A destroyer hove into view, and lost headway three hundred yards off the cove's entrance. The Zero zipped overhead again then flew over the destroyer, waggling its wings.

  "Why so many?" asked Bartholomew.

  "Next week, they invade California," said Sunderland, patting his breast pocket. "God, I need a cigar," he muttered.

  "Damn things are empty," whispered DeWitt, staring through binoculars. He exchanged I-don't-know shrugs with Ingram. Finally, the last of the barges howled past and faded toward Manila Bay, leaving the destroyer standing dead in the water off the cove's entrance.

  "Mean looking son-of-a-bitch," said Bartholomew, as froth kicked up under the destroyer's fantail. With six-five inch guns bristling from three turrets, she gathered headway then headed back out to sea. She was a Hubuki class with a graceful, raked bow and superstructure, moderately low freeboard, and gentle, almost aesthetically situated twin funnels. Three-hundred-seventy-one feet long, the ships in her class were built in 1931 and were the first rivetless destroyers in the Imperial Japanese Navy. With two geared Parsons turbines and four Kanpon boilers, they could sprint at forty knots.

  The Hubuki reminded Ingram of a lanky cat poking in a dark Chicago alley, sniffing out a barrel of half-eaten fish carcasses. "Brrrr."

  Beardsley's hands flailed at space. "What's wrong?"

  Ingram hissed, "Somebody dig out the machete. Sutherland. Get up in that tree and drop a couple of branches on us. That damn thing may come back."

  A muttering Farwell fumbled under thwarts, found the machete, and tied the scabbard to Sutherland's belt loops. Yardly and Whittaker grabbed Sutherland's torso and handed him up to a branch nine feet overhead. The gunner's mate, with machete dangling from his belt, grabbed the limb and dangled. His feet and legs barely moved.

  "Come on, Sonny," growled Farwell.

  Sutherland hadn't moved. He still hung from the branch and puffed. "...can't."

  "Can't you do better than that?" asked Ingram.

  Sunderland swung pathetically. But he could only raise his legs above hip level. Finally, he let go and, even with Whittaker and Yardly trying to catch him, thumped heavily in the bilge, laying on his back drawing great lungfuls of air.

  Yardly turned and said, "He's outta gas, skipper. Maybe we should have something to eat."

  Forgotten was the Hubuki class destroyer as she headed out to sea. The men seemed to surge toward Ingram; their eyes bored into him.

  Sunderland, still out of breath, rolled to his chest and pushed himself to all fours looking up at Ingram. His tongue was dry and bloated. Smacking his lips he managed, "Hell, Skipper. All we want is an hors d'oeuvres or two."

  DeWitt said, "This is nonsense. We can be easily captured before the day's out. I recommend we grab everything and move into the hills."

  Silence.

  Ingram looked over DeWitt's shoulder and out to sea. A light offshore wind ruffled his hair as he raised a hand, saying, "Whose for abandoning ship and moving into the hills?"

  DeWitt's hand quickly went up, then just as quickly came down, seeing his was the only one in the air.

  "Okay." Ingram nodded to a fallen log; dead foliage had piled against it. "Rocky: You, Farwell, Kevin, and Junior over the side. Pull some of that tumbleweed over here. Can't have the nips spotting us. Soon as you're finished we'll break out the chow." Ingram allowed a demonic grin, "We eat, gentlemen. Corned beef, tomato juice, salmon, rice. Everything, if we feel like it. I say, if Japs come after us, they'll meet us with full stomachs for a change."

  Like children on Christmas Eve, the four sailors slipped over the side. Grins quickly became dark oaths as they staggered about, sometimes wading chest high and stepping into slimly mud holes. First, they scooped ooze from the bottom and wiped it over the boat's freeboard. It soon dried to a muddy brown, blending with the background. Then, they slogged the dead foliage back to the boat and covered it as best they could. The aging, grunting Bartholomew was the last to be pulled into the 51 Boat. Still in chief's hat and overalls, he slithered over the gunnel and lay in the bilge, gasping for breath.

  Satisfied their position was well camouflaged, Ingram handed Yardly a can opener. "Bones, from here on in you're in charge of rationing. Everything. Food. Water. Medicine. Today, we stuff ourselves. After that, back to rations." He caught Holloway's eye. "And, I want everything in this boat inventoried and stowed properly."

  "Yessir," they said. Yardly asked, "Skipper, do I ration for Mindanao or Australia."

  Four hundred and fifty miles to the first destination, over nineteen hundred miles to the latter: More than one ear in the boat heard Ingram click his teeth before saying, "Australia."

  Sunderland sat before Yardly and rubbed his hands together. "Okay, come on. Let's dig in."

  With a nod from Ingram, Yardly ripped open a case of corned beef and handed out the cans. Salmon and tomato juice followed, and for the next ten minutes the men slurped, burped, chomped and grunted. Like voracious Neanderthals looking over their shoulders to the menace outside the cave, they nervously watched the sea and the skies but kept on eating as another Zero zipped overhead.

  After finishing most of the tomato juice and half the corned beef, Yardly booted an open case under a thwart. "Enough," he said. "And we don't waste the cans. We keep everything." He held up a gunny sack.

  They tossed the cans, with Toliver pitching a juice can from five feet away that made an abnormally loud clank.

  "Watch it, jerk," said Farwell.

  Toliver, with unshaven, grimy face and h
oles in his shirt and shorts, raised his eyes to Farwell and held his gaze.

  Ingram said evenly, "Say that again, Farwell."

  Farwell's lips pressed until they were white. At length he said, "Easy with the clanking--SIR." Farwell gave Ingram a neutral look, then with the rest of the men, found a place to stretch, using a life jacket for a pillow.

  Let it go, Ingram thought. Toliver's not too far gone that he can't take care of himself. He hides by acting like a zombie, but Ingram had watched him a moment or two, discovering the man's eyes darted about at times with fiery comprehension. Yet, a rudimentary level of discipline had to be maintained. Toliver was still an officer and Ingram couldn't afford to let his men degrade him.

  Ingram made a mental note to take Toliver aside later to see if he could make him animate a little; if not in self-defense, than at least for the good of the voyage. Also, Ingram couldn't risk letting Toliver play the dolt too long. The others subconsciously looked upon him as a drag and a focal point of their troubles. "Toliver? Toliver," he called.

  "Damn!" Ingram looked about the boat. It was as if someone had thrown a master switch: everyone, after months of famished deprivation, had surfeited their hunger and fallen back into a deep sleep.

  Ingram checked his watch: 1023. Let them sleep all day. Then underway tonight. In fact, that would be standard operation procedure during the voyage. He'd wait until this afternoon before he talked to Bartholomew and DeWitt about how to break through the destroyer picket line.

  The sky began to rumble. He looked up seeing formations of Betty bombers flying south at great altitude. The twin engine, mid-wing airplanes marched overhead as if in lockstep, vee after three-plane vee.

  Beside him, Toliver stirred then looked up. Ingram had the feeling he hadn't been asleep. Toliver concentrated on the Bettys then said almost conversationally, "Twelve thousand feet, at least. I'd say they're out of Clark Field."

  As the bombers' drone crescendoed the crew woke, cursing and grumbling, then rolled over. Farwell smacked his lips then resumed his snoring.

  "In a hurry," Yardly yawned, and heaved to his side.