Courage In The Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Get some smaller craft over there to off-load the whiskey,” Ben ordered. “And bring the women’s undergarments. I’m getting dirty looks from the ladies.” He looked at Therm. “Can you set an anchor?”

  “It’s about thirty-five hundred feet here, Ben.”

  “I guess that’s out. Do the best you can.”

  Jersey told Cooper they were floating over thirty-five hundred feet of water. Cooper almost went into shock.

  Additional personnel were sent over to help with the off-loading and soon the whiskey had been stored and the ladies’ undergarments distributed among the women.

  “You want us to scuttle the ship?” the SEAL team leader asked.

  “You have limpets with you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Set the timers for an hour.”

  The convoy steamed on and Ben opened the log book. “We have no place to go,” he read aloud the Captain’s writings from years back. “The world has gone mad. Radio transmissions state the entire world is at war. Russia is bombing the United States; the United States is hurling missiles at Russia. Germ warfare is rampant. Already, two of my crew have committed suicide. I feel that soon that will be the only option.”

  The next notation read: “We are being attacked by pirates. We are being boarded. My men are fighting gallantly. One of the pirates’ vessels is burning and the other has been crippled.”

  The next notation was dated two days later. “My ship is dead in the water. Only four crewmen are left alive. The others died from wounds suffered during the attack. Has the entire world gone insane?”

  The last entry in the log read: “I am alone. The other crewmen asked if they could take one of the lifeboats and try for land. I gave them permission to do so. I shall have a glass of wine and a meal, and then I shall put an end to my life. I am told that Paris is burning. This time, I fear it is true. To my darling wife, Daphne, I loved you to the end, and we shall soon be together in a better world. God forgive me for taking my own life.”

  Ben closed the log book.

  “I wonder what happened to Daphne?” Beth asked.

  The convoy passed a dozen dead ships. After inspecting three of them, Ben called for a halt; they were losing too much time. The Rebels sailed past the floating derelicts. The soldiers lining the rails watched in respectful silence until the rusting mausoleums were out of sight.

  On the fifth day out, they found a United States warship of the destroyer class. Ben knew this ship had to be inspected and sent home. Ike would personally lead the team over to the destroyer to retrieve the log book and settle the old girl to the bottom.

  “I served on that ship once,” he said, lowering his binoculars. “I had buddies on her when the ballon went up. This is not going to be fun.”

  But the ship was barren. They found no bodies and no signs of any struggle. The log book was missing. Classified equipment had not been destroyed. The fuel tanks were nearly full. Obviously, the ship had just been refueled at sea.

  “You people go on,” Ike radioed from the destroyer. “This girl is soon going to be back in action.”

  “Ike, what the hell are you going to do?” Ben asked.

  “Have some fun and provide a destroyer escort. Everything is intact. The guns have not been rendered useless. The ammo appears to be stable.”

  “That fuel is a decade old, Ike.”

  “So we can always pump it out and refuel from a tanker. The electrical system works. Hell, it looks like a new ship. Damnest thing I’ve ever seen. Don’t worry, Ben. I can catch you very easily with this baby.”

  “If nothing else it will provide some thought on Jack Hunt’s part,” West radioed. “The sight of a destroyer sailing in might make for some fine psychological warfare.”

  “True,” Ben agreed. “All right, Ike. We’ll see you soon.”

  “We’d better not come up on anymore sailable warships,” Emil radioed. “Ike is gonna be operating that one with a skeleton crew as it is. I got crewpersons over here that don’t know port from starboard.”

  “Got one over here, too,” Ben muttered. “Me.”

  “We can forget about this one,’’ Ike radioed back before the convoy got underway. There was disgust in his voice. “The engines are locked up. I’m gonna scuttle her.”

  “That’s ten-four, Ike,” Ben told him. “It was a good try.”

  The Rebels pushed on. The weather was holding good and the convoy stayed on a southern route until it became necessary for them to cut north, and they didn’t make that turn until they reached the Azores. They maintained radio silence as they drew close to the Azores. No one knew what the Azores held: hostiles or friendly, and the Rebels could not take the time to check it out.

  Reports from Ireland were growing increasingly grim. Jack Hunt’s army was knocking on the back door of Galway, and the defenders were running out of food, ammo, and medical supplies. They could hold for maybe a week. No more.

  “Pour it on,” Ben ordered. “Give it everything the engines will stand. If that port falls, we’re going to be ankle-deep in shit.”

  “If those engines fail, we’re gonna be eyeball-deep in water!” Cooper said.

  “Idiot,” Jersey told him. “If the engines quit we’ll just transfer to another ship. We won’t sink! Go down below and get seasick.”

  “I’m too scared to be seasick.”

  “I wish I could believe that. Cooper, I’ve seen you wade into a crowd of creepies that had you outnumbered ten or twelve to one. How come you . . .” She never got to finish it. The ship shuddered as Therm called for more speed and Cooper grabbed at his stomach and bent over the railing and starting making all sorts of disgusting noises.

  Jersey shook her head and went below.

  The nights and days blended into the seemingly never-ending ocean. But there were no mishaps, no fatal accidents, and no one came down with appendicitis or anything else that required the use of the operating room.

  The convoy was a few hundred miles off the Irish coast when the bridge speaker rattled out the words. “We’ve got company,” the radar room reported to the bridge. “Two blips in the sky. Coming hard from the east. Too slow for jets.”

  Ben was on the bridge at the time. He grabbed the mike, flipped the switch for speaker, and said, “Man all guns. Man all guns. We have company.”

  “I believe the term usually spoken is battle stations,” Therm said with a smile.

  “They got the message,” Ben said, watching as Rebels scrambled for heavy machine gun and quickly stripped the waterproof covers from them.

  “Shark on the horn, General,” Ben was told.

  “Go, Shark.”

  “I’ve got people with surface-to-air missiles ready to lock in, Eagle. Let’s see if the birds make any hostile moves.”

  “That’s ten-four, Shark. Do our friends in Ireland have any planes?”

  “That’s ten-fifty, Eagle. I just want to make sure.”

  It didn’t take long. The twin-engine prop jobs came in low and fast and made a sweep of the convoy. Men on both sides of the planes fired what looked like M-60 machine guns, and the lead raked the ships. One of the pilots made the mistake of giving Ike the finger on the fast pass.

  “Take those bastards out,” Ike ordered.

  The surface-to-air missiles fired and ran smooth and deadly. One hit dead center of a plane and blew it apart. The second missile blew the tail off of the other plane. Two figures left the plane and two parachutes popped over.

  “Pick them up and bring them to me,” Ben ordered. “And take them alive.”

  Boats were launched and the men were picked up. They were allowed to dry off and get into clean dry clothing before they were escorted under guard to a small conference room. Ben was seated behind a table. He had ordered the other chairs to be removed. Both men were acutely aware of the .45 laying on the polished tabletop near Ben’s right hand.

  “My name is Ben Raines. And I do not like to have my ships attacked for no reason.”

>   “I’d like to say, sir,” one of the men spoke, “that under the Geneva Convention we are accorded some rights. As prisoners of war, we . . .”

  “Shut up,” Ben said softly.

  “Baggin’ the General’s pardon. But we had a reason for attackin’ you. We were ordered to do so, sir.”

  “Ordered by whom?”

  “I don’t have to answer that, sir.”

  Ben picked up the .45 and jacked the hammer back. “Which of you wishes to be the first to die?”

  “General Jack Hunt ordered us to attack the, convoy,” the second man spoke up very quickly. Unlike the first man, he did not speak with an Irish brogue. “We are flyers in his army. Were flyers in his army.”

  “You’re not Irish,” Ben said.

  “No, sir. I’m not. He is.” He jerked his head to the other man. “I’m from Oregon originally.”

  “You’ll not get nothin’ from me, General Raines,” the other man said. “So tough boy that your reputation states you are, you can just go ahead and finish me with that pistol you’re a-holdin’.”

  “All right,” Ben said, then shot him. The report was enormous in the small, dosed room. The .45 caliber hollow-nose slammed the man back and sent him bouncing off a closed door. He fell dead at the other man’s feet.

  Ben looked at the other man. His face was ashen and his hands were trembling. He clenched his hands into fists to still the violent jerking. “But you’ll tell me what I want to know, won’t you, man-from-Oregon?”

  “Yes, sir, I sure will!”

  And he did.

  THIRTEEN

  The mouthy one was sewn in canvas and buried at sea within the hour. The man from Oregon was given hot food and a comfortable chair in the conference room. A tape recorder was set up. He was very eager to talk to Ben.

  “Galway is about to fall, General,” he said. “They can’t last another week. But you’ll be there long before then. Watch out entering the harbor; Jack’s got artillery on both sides. He’s waiting for you.”

  “Range?” Ben asked.

  “He can hit you anywhere in the harbor, sir.”

  Ben called for pen and paper and laid them in front of the man. “You show me where the gun emplacements are. As close as you can come to it.”

  The prisoner drew a very detailed map of the harbor, with a check mark at each gun emplacement. When he finished, he said, “Since I am your prisoner and have seen how ruthless you can be, General, I’d be a damn fool to mark in false locations, now, wouldn’t I?”

  Ben smiled at the man. “I’m not ruthless, partner. I’m just a man who has a job to do and will do it in the most expidient manner possible.”

  The man from Oregon returned the smile. “However way you want to put it is fine with me, General.”

  He was led away and locked down.

  Using a scrambled hook-up, Ben talked to Ike. “They’re waiting for us, Ike.”

  “They can’t see underwater, Ben. We’ve got thirty SDVs. We’ll make it.”

  The MK-V11 MOD-6 SDV is a four-man, wet, submersible vehicle capable of withstanding sea-water pressure down to 500 feet. It has a fiberglass hull and uses nonfibrous materials for component construction; that useage mutes acoustic and magnetic signatures.

  “That many SDVs will put over a hundred of us ashore. The battle will be over before dawn,” Ike said with a chuckle. “We’ve be totin’ enough C-4 to light up their asses, brother. Don’t sweat it.”

  “Your humility is profound, Ike,” Ben replied.

  “Ain’t it, though? I passed grovelin’ with flyin’ colors. But I’m a little rusty on fear and panic.”

  Ben called him a very ugly name and broke the connection. “Get us there, “he said to Therm. “We launch SEALs tomorrow night.”

  The commanders gathered on Ben’s ship—the flag ship, as Therm called it—for one final meeting before the Rebels, spearheaded by Ike and his SEAL teams, went ashore on foreign soil.

  “Dan, you will take your teams and be in position to go in here,” Ben thumped the map, “on the north side of the bay, at the village of Inveran, as soon as you receive the signal from Ike. West, you and your very best people will go in here, on the south side at Fanroe. Secure that village then force-march to this main highway and secure the towns of Ballyvaughan and Bealaclugga. Georgi, I want you and your people to secure the Aran Islands. We’ve got to have that airport at Kilronan to use as a base for our gunships. There isn’t going to be any rest for the motor launch operators. Drop one team and get the hell back to the ships for another.

  “Our friends on shore have spread the word for any civilians on the outskirts of Galway to head for the countryside. I’ve advised them that there will be civilian casualties and they have accepted that. Ben shrugged his shoulders. “I hate it, but it’s almost impossible to avoid.

  “We’re going to take some losses, people. It’s been a long time since we’ve been forced to fight from a defensive position, but that’s what we’ll be doing this time.”

  A runner entered the room and handed Ben a note. Ben read it and smiled. “Fishing boats are massing all along the free coast, people,” he announced. “They’ll set out at dark to help in ferrying troops to shore.” He grinned. “I knew the Irish wouldn’t sit back and miss out on a good fight.” He waved the note. “This means we can get many more troops ashore than we originally planned and start shoving Jack Hunt and his bastards out of Galway,” He looked at his watch. “Take off, Ike.”

  Chase’s voice stopped Ike at the door. “Hey, fatso,” the doctor called. “You be careful out there, you hear me?”

  Ike grinned at him. “I got your best pecker-checkers goin’ in with me, Lamar. Don’t sweat it.” Ike stepped out of the room and was gone. He didn’t have very much time to get a hell of a lot of things done.

  Ben looked at the gathering. “Get your people ready, gang. And be damn sure you stress that once ashore, it’s going to be a while before they can be resupplied; for some of them, hours, for others, perhaps all day. The fighting is going to be heavy, so take enough ammo to do the job. Any questions?”

  Silence greeted him.

  “Take off.”

  The battalion commanders began returning to their ships just as dusk was settling over the ocean. Using binoculars, Ben watched the SEALs in their black wet suits lower the Zodiacs and the SDVs and then scramble down the rope ladders to the surface of the Atlantic. “You wish you were going with them, Father?” Buddy asked.

  “I won’t lie to you, son: Yes, I do. But they’ll be plenty of fighting for us all very soon.”

  “It is the general consensus among the battalion commanders that you should stay on board ship, directing operations, until Galway is secure.”

  Father looked at son. “Do you know where the battalion commanders can put that consensus?”

  “I have a pretty good idea, yes, sir.”

  “Fine. I will be leading One Battalion in just as soon as there is room for us on shore.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get back to your command. You’ll be going in directly behind me, as ordered. Once ashore, you will work your way up and stay on my right flank. We’ll be going straight up the harbor and straight into the city.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Ben held his smile until Buddy was gone. Then he chuckled. “They think this ol’ curly wolf is staying behind, they’ve got another think coming,” he muttered. He stood for half an hour by the rail, looking at the still invisible shoreline. Using night glasses, Ben had watched the SEALs disappear under the water. The Zodiacs were a few minutes behind them. They would lay back silent until a toe-hold was established.

  Chase appeared at his side. “Clear me space for a MASH unit, Ben,” the doctor said “And I mean do it first thing.”

  “It’ll have to be on the harbor side, Lamar.”

  “I don’t care if it’s in the middle of a haunted castle. Just get me some room to care for the wounded.”

  “I’ll do my bes
t, Lamar.”

  “Do better than that, Ben. Just do it.”

  “A lot of blips appearing on the screen,” the radar operator told Therm. “Still some distance away.”

  “Sails in the night,” Therm told her. “Irish fishermen coming to help ferry troops.”

  “Sails, sir?” the helmsman asked.

  “Sails, son,” Therm told him. “The wind has shifted to their advantage and they’re coming out silent.”

  “If Jack Hunt’s gunboats find them, those fishermen won’t stand a chance. They’ll be chopped to pieces.”

  “They’re Irishmen, son. And they don’t bow their necks to anybody.” Therm looked up as Ben walked onto the bridge. “Fishing boats coming, Ben.”

  Ben nodded and hit the intercom button, “One Battalion on top deck. Full battle gear and all the ammo you can stagger with. Let’s go, people.”

  “I wish you would wait until at least part of the city is in Rebel hands, Ben,” Therm said quietly.

  “It’ll be two-three hours before Ike is ready for us, Therm. I just want to be hard offshore when the call comes.”

  “You’ll never give up the combat, will you, Ben?”

  “When I can no longer pull my weight, yes. But only then. We’ll secure the harbor, Therm.” He smiled in the dim battle light of the bridge. “Think you can dock this tub, Therm?”

  “I’ll put her in there like fingers in a glove, Ben.”

  “I’ve got to get ready. So I’ll see you in Ireland, friend”

  “See you, friend.”

  Rosebud came to stand beside him on the bridge. “See the faint glow of lights over there?” Therm said, pointing. “That’s Ireland, honey.”

  She picked up binoculars and adjusted them. “Those are fires, I think.”

  “Yes. Part of the city is burning and the water is reflecting the light like a series of mirrors. This is going to be a tough one, baby. I won’t kid you.”

  “There is a chance the Rebels won’t secure a toehold?”

  “Yes. And Ben and Ike know it, too. If Ike and his SEALs can’t knock out those guns on either side of the harbor, allowing smaller craft to get in and resupply, Ben and the others will be trapped.’’