The Military Megapack

by Harry Harrison

  * * * *

  Wolver waited with weary patience. He was headed for grief, as usual. But three years of the navy had taught him to expect it. Every time he tried to stand on his two feet and use his own judgment in some matter which didn’t permit a long wrangling over the best procedure, he got it.

  “Why didn’t you report what you saw?” the captain inquired. Wolver was surprised; the Old Man seemed merely curious; his first anger had slipped out of his voice.

  “If it was a sub, it was cruisin’ awash, sir,” Wolver explained. “That’d mean the connin’ tower could be open. If I was to have yelled out, why couldn’t that German hear me? Well, sir! Wouldn’t he’ve acted like any sensible man? Slammed his hatch to, and dived and got off, anyhow? Mebbe have let go a torpedo at us, or at the Burmese Rajah? If you go out wolf hunting sir, and you catch a wolf over the front sight by havin’ luck, you don’t howl and raise the neighborhood, just to let ever’body know you found a lobo. You crack down on him, while you got a chance. Or, anyway, you do down in Texas.”

  “Probably a blackfish,” suggested Captain Banning, his black eyes steady on Wolver. The other officers—the exec, the navigator, the engineer officer and Ensign Robards—all stared curiously at the skipper. They seemed puzzled at the delay in disciplinary action.

  “Might’ve been, sir,” Wolver nodded. “But when a blackfish looks so blame’ much like a tin fish—well, if he monkeys around me when I got somethin’ to shoot and he’s goin’ to be hash! I did what seemed best, sir.”

  “Lay down to your watch again,” Captain Banning grunted abruptly. “I think you saw a blackfish.”

  “But, captain,” the exec began as Wolver saluted and went down the ladder, “the orders—”

  Wolver did not hear what they said. But what Purdy said a moment after was quite clear and pointed. “An’ y’ll stay on life-buoy watch the rest of the time y’re in my section, too!” Purdy finished his statement of opinion.

  Wolver spent the rest of his watch pacing a beat between the two copper Franklin buoys that hung in racks on each side of the cruiser’s stern. It was a dark and lonely watch, on the poop. For number ten, the poop gun, was not manned. He saw nobody but the quartermaster coming aft to read the patent log at hourly intervals.

  He had turned in at eight bells—four a.m.—and had just fallen asleep when the general alarm gong roused the ship. He came out of his blankets in a wild leap and glared around him. The insistent, spine-crinkling clamor of the big brass gong vibrated up and down the decks. Wolver was topside in leaps. On the fo’c’s’le he found the gun crew tense at the gun. And the Shenandoah was racing down between two files of merchantmen.

  It was the dark hour preceding dawn—but not dark enough to hide that grim spectacle at the tail of the file on their right. A ship had lifted her nose in air like a stricken live thing. She was poop under, already; the lighter underwater section of her bow giving the appearance of a gasping mouth. But of the sub which had torpedoed her, there was no trace.

  The Shenandoah circled like a fierce eager dog, hunting something at which to snap. But quickly she gave over this futile hunt and returned to lower boats, throw lines overside and rescue the freighter’s crew from the water. She had barely got the last survivor up and darted away, when the ship sank.

  Grim-faced, Wolver Dean stared at the spot where the ship had gone under. There was no doubt in his mind that he had seen a sub; that if the Shenandoah had not changed course as he fired, the freighter and her cargo would have been safe this minute.

  He stood his life-buoy watch though. Neither Mr. Robards nor Purdy had said anything to him, directly, about his shot of the night before, or the torpedoing of the merchantman.

  During his watch, he saw one ship frequently, as the Shenandoah circled from front to rear of the convoy. It was an old, well-decked seven-knotter, without a gun crew that Wolver could make out. There were what seemed to be oil drums, stowed on her well deck, clear to the bulwarks.

  He was standing on the forecastle near twilight when the Shenandoah, making one of her circuits, alert against that sub which had shown itself like a wolf following a cattle-herd, came up to this old ship and ran alongside it.

  “Willamette, ahoy!” Captain Banning hailed her.

  On her bridge a man moved, coming at the born sailor’s rolling gait with a sort of contemptuous deliberateness to lean upon the port wing rail. He was a short man, but tremendously wide. He wore an old blue knitted jersey, and above his square, changeless red face was—of all headgear at sea—a greenish-black old derby hat. His eyes were pale blue and very steady, squinting under yellow-white brows.

  “Yeah?” he answered the navy skipper’s hail, with a rising inflection. Somehow, it gave the impression of a disgusted, belligerent accent.

  “You’re steadily dropping behind,” Captain Banning said briskly. “And with that submarine about, it isn’t safe. Can you keep up tonight? Seven knots?”

  “Dunno,” the Willamette’s skipper said indifferently, spitting over the side, “Jedgin’ from what happened last night, I’m as well off by myself. Reckon ’twasn’t no blackfish, after all, your gunner was a-firin’ at. Too bad he never connected!”

  “Never mind all that!” Captain Banning snapped. “The point is, will you be able to maintain the standard speed of the convoy? You’ve a valuable cargo there—and a dangerous cargo. I don’t want you dropping out of convoy if its avoidable. But on the other hand, we’re well below a safe speed as it is, thanks to your boat and a couple of others.”

  “Then what the devil did they load me with depth bombs and Y-guns for? An’ all in such an all-fired hurry I never even got a navy gun crew? I dunno what my engines’ll do. If we can stick at seven knots, we’ll stay with you. If we can’t, go on ahead without us! We’ll come as nigh collectin’ that tin fish a-heavin’ spuds as anybody’s done with gunfire this fur!”

  With which Parthian shot, he turned his back upon the United States navy, as represented by the Shenandoah’s skipper.

  * * * *

  Wolver was on life-buoy watch from ten to twelve that night. There were scattered shafts of moonlight, showing briefly through scudding clouds. Captain Banning himself was on the bridge. He made a circuit of the convoy. Wolver, listening in that quiet, heard him hail the Willamette again—the Willamette that was steadily lagging behind.

  “You can’t be doing over five knots,” Banning told the freighter’s skipper. “We can’t wait for you. I’ve all the others to think of. I’m sorry to see you go it alone, but there’s nothing else for it, if that’s the best you can do.”

  “Don’t bother about me!” the Willamette’s skipper returned calmly. “I’ll come in, or I won’t come in—dependin’. An’ it’s nothin’ to you, either way.”

  Wolver grinned. He liked that bird sitting on top of a deckload of T.N.T., without a thing bigger than a rifle, with which to protect himself, and due to go sky-high if a shell from a sub landed in those ash cans that were consigned to the American destroyers at Queenstown. Yes, he was pretty thoroughly a man, that hairpin in the derby roof!

  “I’d like to be sailin’ with him,” Wolver told himself.

  Then he stiffened. His eyes narrowed, then widened. He grinned. The Shenandoah had come about and was rounding the Willamette’s stern, passing within thirty yards of its side. It was a moment without moonlight. Wolver looked for’ard. He saw nobody. He bent under the life line and his body described a clean arc, parting the sea without a splash.

  He swam furiously under water, thinking of the Shenandoah’s twin screws. When he came to the surface, she was increasing her speed and vanishing in the murk ahead of him. And straight at him came the dark bulk of the Willamette.

  “I’m mebbe a damn fool,” Wolver said calmly to himself. “But nobody can ever prove I never fell overboard as I was regulation-like inspectin’ them Franklin buoys. An’ once I land in Queenstown, it’ll be hard luck if I can’t scrabble around and hook up wi’ some gun crew. That
damn—baby battlewagon makes me tireder ’n a whole winter’s work!”

  He swam with powerful strokes toward the freighter, until her bow wave rocked him. He went drifting along her rusty side, until he came to a dangling line that tailed from a slovenly sea ladder. He clung here for a moment; then painfully he went up it, hand over hand. He tumbled over the low well-deck bulwark and found himself lying on those tarpaulined depth bombs. He crawled under the ancient and shabby canvas, out of the faint breeze, to warm himself a little and think and grin.

  He would not announce himself to the derby-hatted skipper too quickly. For if his scheme was to work, he must not sight the Shenandoah again this cruise! He thought that his absence would not be discovered for an hour, or nearly that. Not until the quartermaster came aft for log reading. And when they found that he was lost overboard, they would never turn back to search for him. Not with fifteen ships to escort.

  He considered the ash cans on which he lay—destined to smash tin fish in the Irish Sea. Depth bombs were strange things to him; the Wilmerton had received none, prior to his transfer off that cruiser. Nor had he encountered any in Brooklyn Navy Yard. There had been some aboard the Shenandoah, but they were in a track on the poop and “Hands off” had been the order concerning them. Wolver had been too much occupied with his troubles to worry about them.

  “Kind of creepy business—hunkerin’ on this many of the blame’ things,” he pondered. “Wonder how much splash one’d make, if it’d drop overboard? But I reckon the fuses are out of these. Still—what was that chief gunner a-sayin’ about ’em. The big uns had a kind of automatic detonator; drop to a set depth and the pressure of the water sets off the charge. So, mebbe these have got fuses. I ain’t monekyin’ with ’em a bit—to see!”

  He judged that a couple of hours had dragged by. He was fairly comfortable, despite his wet clothing, under the tarpaulin. He looked out at the moonlit sky, where the clouds were disappearing. By turning a little, he could see the sea. The old Willamette was creeping along; not zigzagging either. It was all very peaceful and pleasant. You wouldn’t have thought that anybody, anywhere, was fighting a war.

  Then suddenly there was a loud report, from somewhere out on the starboard beam. As Wolver started to sit up, mouth dropping wide open, a terrific splintering crash sounded, from the freighter’s fo’ca’s’le.

  Men cried out shrilly. There was a roaring as of an enraged bull from the bridge. Wolver came out from under the tarpaulin and went on all fours across the depth bombs and miscellaneous cargo in the well deck; he found the little passageway left amidships and crossed it and continued to the starboard side. He looked out tensely over the moonlit water.

  At first he could see nothing, rake the half-circle of the horizon as he might. That shot began to seem unreal, in the quiet of the night, under that pallid moonshine. He looked forward and saw a dark cluster of figures in the starboard bridge wing. Quiet, now. And no shot came from the sea.

  Then he saw it—a mastlike thing above a thicker uprearing column. Moving steadily and with some rapidity, for the freighter. Closer and closer. He could make out figures forward of the conning tower, clustered about a deck gun. Fascinated, he watched it overhaul the Willamette. Then as he stared at the German gun crew, it came to him that it was standing nearer for a better shot. And he was squatting on a deckload of T.N.T.!

  “God!” he whispered. “There won’t be enough left of us to make a pair of mitts for a chee-chee bird! Doll rags is what we’ll be! Doll rags! We’ll have to be toted up the golden stairs—the bunch of us together—in a hand-basket! My stars! An’ not a show to fight back!”

  Now only a hundred yards separated the lumpy old freighter and the lean, wolfish U-boat. A man appeared in the moonlight, coming from the conning-tower hatch. His squat silhouette showed an officer’s cap. He lifted a speaking trumpet to his mouth.

  “Willamette, ahoy!” he hailed the freighter, in very good English, that seemed queer, coming from a German craft.

  “What d’ you want?” the Willamette’s skipper demanded grimly, with an evenness that barely hid his rage.

  “I’m going to sink you. That shot was a mere indicator of my intention. I’ve been watching you for two days, now. I intended to sink you last night, but that other fool was nearer. And that damned cruiser all but sank me. I don’t know how he missed me, even now.”

  “I could tell you—plenty!” Wolver gritted.

  “What’m I s’posed to do?” the Willamette skipper growled.

  “Well, you can, of course, use your own judgment, as to whether you’ll remain on board while we blow up your ship! But if you move very quickly, I give you permission to take to the boats. But, understand, it is quite immaterial to me! You may be blown up and be damned to you!”

  “How you figurin’ to blow her up?” One might have thought the derbied skipper was discussing an impersonal point of seamanship, to hear his level voice.

  “What concern is that of yours?” the German officer roared, with an oath. “Ask me more silly questions, and I will put a shell through you, here and now! Where are your papers? Leave them on the bridge when you abandon your ship. I will have my men take them when they come aboard with bombs. And, captain, try no tricks! Else you may find yourself in the water, trying to row a sunken boat! Hurry to get those papers!”

  Wolver scowled. Not much of an ending to his scheme. Then the derby-hatted skipper appeared in the passage left between the deckload. He was swearing furiously, in a cold even tone, as he came. Wolver stood up in front of him and the skipper stopped, leaning forward a trifle to stare.

  “Goin’ to abandon ship, sir?” Wolver inquired. “Nothin’ else we can do? Oh, I’m a passenger you don’t know. I fell overboard off the Shenandoah a couple hours ago, and clumb onto you. I used to be in the armed guard, and I was figurin’ you would tote me to Queenstown and I’d git back to the guard.”

  “Abandon ship!” the skipper snarled. “What the hell else can I do? I’d give a year’s pay for a gun and a few of your boys to send me a three-inch shell into that sarcastic sucker out there. But we got no gun. An’ if I don’t shake a leg with my piapers, that Heinie’ll be puttin’ a shell into us. You better go for’ard and stand by a boat.”

  “No, by God,” Wolver grated, for a great and wonderful inspiration had come to him. It set him shaking at first, then he steadied to a tenseness like a violin’s string. If only it would work—if only it could—

  “Gi’ me a hand, cap’n! Quick! I betcha these ash cans, here, they got the detonatin’ fuses in! If me and you, cap’n, we could git one unlashed and tumble her overside—could do it before that Fritz could slam a shell into us!”

  “Huh?” the skipper grunted explosively. He whirled and stared out at the sub and shook his head. “He’d be onto us! He’d have a shell through our side before we could do it.”

  “It’s a chance!” Wolver urged him fiercely. “What kind of sailor are you, anyhow! Looky! He’s got that gun of his trained to the bow. You got nothin’ explosive there! He ain’t really skeered? He knows you got no guns. If he should see us wrestlin’ with the ash can and they try to bring that gun around to bear on this well deck—hell, we will have it up before he can turn the trick. You game?”

  “I never see a navy man that ud do what I wouldn’t!” the skipper gritted. “Let’s cast loose one close to the side.”

  “Uh-uh! One of these, here! Then we can roll her over the others, right fast, and hoist her over the bulwark.”

  * * * *

  His jackknife appeared twinklingly. He slashed wildly at securing lines. Now, from the German, came a sudden angry and impatient hail. He wanted to know what the devil was keeping the Willamette’s skipper.

  “Two minutes I give him!” he finished. “Two minutes! Then I will sink you with shell fire, and you can swim!”

  “Up she goes!” Wolver grunted. “Heave and bust her! Good and heavy! There she is. Now, if we can kind of keep down and roll her—”


  “Lord!” the skipper breathed suddenly. “Boy, you ever see one of these things go off? She’ll strain our seams! We ought to be goin’ like hell away when we drop her. Hold ever’thing a minute. I got an engine room voice-tube back here. Le’ me warn Mac.”

  He vanished. From the sub came the German officer’s voice again—angrier, grimmer. One minute left—forty-five seconds—The skipper reappeared, and with his hands on the big can, there came a trembling from the engine room to the deck. The Willamette was going ahead.

  “Now, if we can make it before he decides to turn loose!”

  They rolled the depth bomb across the tarpaulined tops of its mates; paused a moment at the bulwark.

  “I will fire—” the German began.

  “Up she goes! Over—she—goes!”

  They strained their muscles in that last great heave. Up to the bulwark. And Wolver dropped flat upon his back, catching hold of projections, drawing back his feet. They pushed out upon the poised bomb with all the force of his wiry body—pushed it out in an arc that cleared the low side. It struck with a splash. They peered fearfully overside. The Germans had whirled to gape.

  The German bellowed something in his native tongue. No need of translation. The bellow of the sub’s gun and the crash as the shell, fired at fifty yards, plowed through the old vessel under the bridge, told what his command had been.

  There came an echo to that roar, an indescribable explosion under water. The Willamette, forging ahead under cranky old engines, was barely out from above the bomb. A geyser of water rose high and the stern of the freighter lifted, lifted, lifted, with agonized groan of ancient plates. Wolver found himself hanging half over the bulwark, with the skipper tumbled across his legs. His head had struck something with a resounding crack, and he saw whole constellations of stars. He was out for a fleeting period.

  “Gone!” the skipper croaked in his ear, dragging him inboard. “My Lord! Never see anything like that! Just lifted her up and swamped her. Likely opened every seam in that sardine can, an’—an’—I bet it did almost as much on this’n’!”