The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Max, we’re in the middle of Allied shipping lanes with air cover, and not an enemy for a thousand miles in any direction,” she assured. “I’ll be safe… What are you two doing here…?” She added finally as Lloyd and Langdale arrived behind Thorne, toting their own duffels and fully kitted out in combat dress and webbing, this time including rifles and side arms.

  “On my orders,” Thorne replied without guilt or hesitation. “They’re coming along to make sure you stay safe.”

  “But they’re supposed to be your escorts…” she pointed out, more annoyed she was being nursemaided than any real concern for regulations. “That’s a direct order from Melbourne!”

  “And I started taking notice of orders when, exactly…?” He replied, making a point everyone present knew was entirely valid.

  “Eileen, he’s gonna be safe as houses with an aircraft carrier and a whole task force to look after him,” Lloyd chipped in, not having hesitated for a second when Thorne had originally broached the idea with him. “Call it a precaution if you will: there’s no implication you can’t look after yourself – I saw you in operation in North Africa, and I bloody well know you can!”

  “Not worth me arguing?” She tried one last time for show.

  “Not in the slightest,” Thorne shot back with a smug grin, and she knew that tone well enough.

  “Fine, then,” she conceded with a sigh. You two buggers get yourselves loaded and I’ll be along in a moment.”

  “So… be careful…” He repeated as the two SAS troopers ducked their heads and made off toward the waiting chopper.

  “I will,” she nodded, giving a genuinely caring smile. “It’s a misplaced concern,” she explained softly, leaning in close enough to whisper in his ear as she laid a hand softly on his arm, “but it’s nice all the same. You take care too, love… let’s have a laugh about all this over drinks in a week or two, alright?”

  “Guaranteed,” he nodded, ignoring the silent cries of fear and warning currently blaring within his own mind.

  She was gone in that moment, following the others into the Chickasaw, which immediately lurched skyward and turned away to the east, heading back to the nearby RAAF base to make a connecting flight. Thorne stared at the aircraft’s retreating form for some time, desperately fighting an almost overpowering urge to burst into tears.

  “Can you see…?” He whispered softly, not daring to hope and terrified of the answer he might receive. “Can you see…?”

  No… the voice replied after a long silence. Not exactly… nothing definite… There was another pause, before it added: But also nothing good…

  It was a long time before he was able to move from that spot, struggling to maintain control of himself as the rest of the world went on around him, completely oblivious.

  Lough Melvin, NW of Garrison

  Reich-Protektorat Nordirland

  November 30, 1942

  Monday

  Kransky and Turner pulled the first of two inflatable rafts up onto the bank, their lower halves already feeling frozen in what both believed had to be the sub-zero temperatures of the lough. Thick trees lined the shore and it was no great difficulty to hide the boat amongst the underbrush after they’d shouldered their packs. By the time they made it back to the shore, the second raft was already pulling in with Michaels, McCaughey and Glynn aboard. Using small, hand-held torches with coloured lenses that produced only a muted red beam, all five collected the rest of their gear and pushed carefully through the trees along the bank toward the road they knew waited a few dozen yards beyond.

  They reached Loughside Road a few minutes later, immediately turning toward the south east and trudging slowly along one side, hoping fervently that no German patrol was out and about in the lifeless hours before dawn. All five were already shivering uncontrollably as the dampness of their lower limbs continued to lower their body temperatures and the cold, distant stars of a winter’s night stared down impassively.

  “Stand fast, and fook the Pope…!” They all came to a sudden halt with weapons raised in shaking hands as that sharp, hissed call came out of the treeline nearby on the other side of the road.

  “And fook you too, y’ Loyalist bastards…!” Glynn fired back, recognising Jamie Riordan’s voice but far too cold and tired to be in the mood for jokes. “It’s the middle of winter and we’re freezin’ our bollocks off here… you’d better have more than smart-arsed remarks on hand, or you’ll be in a world o’ bloody trouble…!”

  “Calm down, y’ great git,” Riordan drawled, stepping out into the road with a G1 assault rifle held loosely across his chest. “We’ve a van waitin’ and a warm fire not too far away. Keep a civil tongue in yer heads and we might even be able to manage a dram or two of whisky to go with it.”

  “Well, don’t let us hold you up,” Kransky snarled, as angry and uncomfortable as the rest and not at all ready to lower his MP2K for someone he’d never before met. “We’re no fuckin’ use to you with hypothermia.”

  “It’s just through here,” Riordan advised with a nod, not at all surprised at their poor moods considering the journey they’d just undertaken on such a cold night. “There’s two others back here with me, so don’t be startled when y’ meet ‘em.”

  “Never thought I’d say it, but it’s good t’ see you again, Jamie,” Glynn admitted as they all sat in the rear of a borrowed mail van, bumping their way along Loughside Road toward the small village of Garrison ten minutes later. “Can’t thank y’ enough for helpin’ us out here.”

  “Least I could do considerin’ what happened back at Lisburn and all the rest,” Riordan replied, shaking his head as he recalled the shame he’d felt over abandoning the others to the Germans that day. That you need our help is a sad indictment though: it’s a tough time indeed when y’ can trust us more than you can trust your own mob.”

  “I said exactly that to fookin’ Hayes a few days ago,” Glynn growled darkly, “about an hour before he tried to machine gun us to death.”

  “Aye, we heard about that commotion at the inn…” Riordan nodded. “We couldn’t believe it at first, but we heard it from so many different sources we figured it had to be true.”

  “Couldn’t even do his own dirty work,” McCaughey hissed in disgust. “Sent a bunch of Yanks along instead to do it for him… fucker…!”

  “There’s a lot o’ your fellas not at all happy about what they done… here or back over there,” Riordan pointed out, shaking his head sadly.

  “Aye, that there is,” Glynn agreed, “but we can’t trust any of ‘em right now. Sorry to drag you boys into this, but we had no one else we could rely on for this.”

  “Me and the boys wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Riordan grinned. “Enemy or not, Kelly was always straight with us and we all got a lot o’ respect for him. Whatever you fellas have in mind, we’re right behind ye.”

  “What’s the latest news?” Kransky asked, chiming in for the first time since they’d boarded the van.

  “He’s still at St Marys at the moment,” Riordan advised without hesitation, “but we’ve word they’re likely to be movin’ all prisoners across to The Crum in a few days: it seems Berlin’s not too happy with Barkmann or his pals after what happened at Lifford.” Belfast’s Crumlin Road Gaol was the last remaining Victorian-era prison in Northern Ireland; a place so notorious it had for time been known as ‘Europe’s Alcatraz’. Many an IRA volunteer had spent time in those cells, and more than a few had finished their days there either through execution or other violent means. “Once Kelly’s over at Crumlin, we’ll have a better chance: we’ve got a network in there already that we can rely on, including some of the warders, bein’ ex-RUC men an’ all.”

  “Two or three days,” Glynn repeated, thinking things over. “Sounds pretty good. That should give us some time to iron out the details and make sure nothin’ goes wrong.”

  “What about Hayes?” Riordan asked, his curiosity piqued over how the head of the IRA’s Southern Command migh
t react.

  “Oh, we’ll deal with him later,” Michaels advised softly, completely misunderstanding the question as he absent-mindedly fingered the folded straight razor lying inside his trouser pocket.

  P-9G Catalina ‘Flying Fish’

  700nm south of the Aleutian Islands

  Flying Fish cruised at a steady 100 knots, her altitude of twelve thousand feet leaving her immune to the worst effects of the storm clouds and turbulence occurring below as the patrol flying boat approached the midway point of its 20-hour patrol above the vast, desolate upper reaches of the Northern Pacific.

  Lieutenant Joey Tregear took his four-hour turn at the controls while his co-pilot got some rest aft, scanning the clouds for any break that might actually reveal the grey, slate-like emptiness of the ocean below and hoping even for something as simple as even an iceberg to break the monotony. Even in the middle of winter, icebergs were far less common than they were in the Atlantic at any time of year, but there was a small danger all the same and a minor part of their patrol duty was to record and report.

  The US Navy Catalina was part of the newly-formed VP-6 ‘Blue Sharks’ squadron operating out of the Naval Air Station on Kodiak Island Alaska, currently on a routine patrol of the upper reaches of the Northern Pacific and taking on the unenviable task of reconnaissance of its vast, empty upper reaches below the Bering Strait. In theory the objective was to seek out Japanese warships and chart their movements, but the reality was that little if any vessels of any kind frequented those cold, dangerous waters, particularly as it drew closer to winter and the weather began to turn even worse than it already was.

  “Heads up, LT…” CPO Hank Jones (Chief Petty Officer) called down through the intercom from the engineering position up inside the main overhead pylon that joined the fuselage to the aircraft’s high-mounted parasol wing, pronouncing the abbreviation as ‘el-tee’. “Possible contact to port… long range… bearing two-three-five…” There was no urgency to the call – it was all quite routine and, if previous experience was any indication, would probably turn out to be some errant freighter out of Vladivostok or something of similarly uninteresting ilk.

  “Understood, Hank,” Tregear acknowledged with a grin. “Adjusting course to two-three-five now… Brandon…” he called out, this time addressing the forward gunner and bombardier. “Let us know if you can see anything.”

  “You got it, LT…” came the immediate reply as he disengaged the auto-pilot and brought the Cat into a wide, lazy bank to port that took it away from its northerly heading.

  Down in the very forward part of the nose, a set of shutters flipped open to reveal a Perspex observation window. Lying prone in the bombardier’s position, PO Brandon McCall lifted a set of 10x50 binoculars to his eyes and scanned the sea below to the south west, where the cloud had opened up into a bright, sparkling vista of blue ocean. It was what he could see upon that ocean that was more of a concern: a huge fleet of over thirty ships of various shapes and sizes, all steaming in a broad formation across several square miles of choppy sea.

  “Holy shit, LT…!” McCall exclaimed excitedly, lowering his field glasses and squinting with his naked eyes before lifting them again in a quick double-take. “Ships… dozens of Ships…! A whole Goddamned fleet…!”

  “Keep it together, Brandon,” Tregear warned with a grin of his own, also excited at the news. “Jimmy, we got any reports of operations this far north?”

  “None, sir…” his navigator replied immediately, having foreseen the question. “Nothing expected north of Pearl for the next month at least… not even anything ‘classified’…”

  “Understood, Jimmy,” he nodded slowly, sounding more serious upon hearing that news. “Somebody wake Randall up: I could do with some help up here… Brandon: what range are we looking at?”

  “Hard to say, sir,” McCall answered after a moment’s pause. “Close to the horizon though – maybe a hundred miles or more?”

  “Very good… I’m not gonna get much closer – I don’t want ‘em to see us just yet – but it’d be great if you could get us some ship types…”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” Brandon promised confidently. “I can see at least five… six… no, eight flattops already, and maybe two battleships too…” he added, adjusting his estimates on the fly. “I’d be guessing, but they look like Japs to me, sir: they’re real far away, but I’m not seein’ any superstructure on the carriers…” Unlike their US counterparts, Japanese carrier designs often had little or no island superstructure to speak of, and were often referred to as ‘flattops’ as a result.

  “Well, I’ll be God-damned…!” Tregear breathed softly, real concern in his tone for the first time. “What the hell are they doin’ out here, this far north all by ‘emselves?” He asked to himself as his co-pilot, Ensign Randall Kapersky stepped into the cockpit and slid into his seat.

  “Found somethin’ sir?” Kapersky asked eagerly, his relative youth showing through as he quickly got up to speed on what was going on.

  “Maybe, Randy… maybe...” Tregear acknowledged slowly, his mind working at a thousand miles an hour. “Jimmy – once Brandon’s got a good count, send through a contact report – something coded! I think we need to phone this one in…”

  Lieutenant Commander Suzuka Mitsuo turned his Reisen fighter to the south and climbed slowly to thirty-thousand feet, doing everything he could to ensure he kept himself directly between the sun above and the American flying boat he’d been shadowing. The two-seat trainer version of the A6M Zero he was currently flying felt a little sluggish; not quite as sharp and manoeuvrable as his usual single-seater. That being said, it was nevertheless still faster and far more manoeuvrable that any other two-seat aircraft to be found on a Japanese aircraft carrier.

  It was an imposition, but a necessary one: the mission required the presence of an experienced observer and radio operator, and the man with him at that moment was one of the best. Even as they watched the distant Catalina turn back to the east, presumably heading for home, Chief Petty Officer Shimada noted the alteration in course on his detailed flight map while at the same time scanning standard US Navy frequencies over the specially-supplied radio set fitted to his rear cockpit.

  “They’re definitely transmitting, Kaigun-shōsa,” Shimada observed with coolly, listening carefully through his headset. “It’s coded – I can’t tell what they’re saying – but it must be the flying boat: the signal is too strong to be from anywhere else.”

  “Very good, Shimada-san,” Suzuka nodded, pleased beneath his own professional exterior. “Do you believe they have detected the fleet?”

  “I cannot confirm it, sir, but this is what I believe…” Shimada stated confidently. “We have been following them for an hour or more now and they have not once made contact with their base during that whole time. That the aircraft has made two radical changes in course and suddenly commenced transmitting in code to me is evidence that they have spotted something, and what else is there for them to see?”

  “I concur,” Suzuka agreed, thinking the logic sound. “This means that our mission is complete. We’ll head back and report, and afterward you will honour me by joining me for a cup of sake.”

  “The honour would be mine, Suzuka-dono,” CPO Shimada replied immediately, his chest swelling with pride.

  SS Liberty Glo

  South-west of Costa Rica

  December 1, 1942

  Tuesday

  It had started out as a gusting breeze that brought with it a few greyish clouds to spoil the bright blue skies. Seventy nautical miles off the Costa Rican coast, the Liberty Glo had found smooth sailing in the days following their departure from Ensenada, however that all came abruptly to an end on that first day of the last month of the year. The blustery winds developed into a heavy squall in the space of perhaps an hour or two, and as seas began to get rougher and the rain clouds thicker, it soon became clear that things were likely to get a lot worse before anything got better.

&nb
sp; Much to his own surprise, Ortega found himself to be largely immune to seasickness, which was a definite advantage as the ocean turned to a level five classification with waves reaching as high as fifteen feet, the ship lurching up and over every one as the captain was forced to heave to and turn her into the wind to maintain control. With her engines running just enough to maintain steerage, the 13,000-ton freighter smashed through swell after swell, her hull and superstructure creaking and groaning under the strain as a torrent of seawater gushed across her bows with every wave.

  Some of her own crew were far less hardy that Ortega, and more than one had struggled past the open bulkhead door to his cabin as they sought the nearest bathroom, the vile, gag-inducing smell that wafted back suggesting some at least had not made it to their destination. He’d also seen Kūkae drag himself back and forth a few times, looking as green about the gills as the rest of them, which was an interesting feat in Ortega’s opinion considering the man’s usual complexion.

  Ortega himself was happy to remain within the confines of his cabin, staring out at the roiling seas from the relative safety of his bunk, one arm wrapped tightly in a securing strap fixed to the wall as protection against some sudden change in the ship’s list or direction as he attempted to read some forgettable dime-store novel he’d purchased prior to departure.

  It was in a rare moment of relatively calm sea, right in the middle of a trough between two huge swells, that he looked up momentarily and caught sight of a hooded figure passing by his porthole. Thinking little of it at the time other than wishing the poor soul the best of luck in such weather, he went straight back to his reading. The faint scream and cry of warning that followed a moment later however completely engaged his attention as the next gigantic wave smashed against the ship, flooding down the deck outside his window and washing back off into the ocean beyond. The dark flash of something else flashing past galvanised him into action, and as more warnings were called, he rose from his bunk and peered fearfully out through the glass.