The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “I didn’t think the crew would give us any shit anyway, but I guess we’re bloody sure of it now” Lloyd muttered, glancing about hurriedly as Eileen bolted up a set of stairs toward the bridge, pistol now in hand. “Keep ‘em under control, mate: I’d better catch up with the missus before she gets herself in trouble.”

  “There’s a sub out there!” Eileen declared breathlessly at Detmers as she entered the bridge once more, pistol in hand.

  “Yes, there is!” He replied, raising a finger to point out past the bow through the shattered window glass. Sure enough, a submarine could be seen rising out of the water off the starboard bow, a pair of retractable flak cannon already deploying from small turrets at the fore and aft of the top of its conning tower.

  “Something you just forgot to mention?” She snarled, accusation in her tone.

  “You think that I knew this?” The captain shouted back, having heard the dud torpedo hit on his own ship the same as everyone else and also feeling his own rage building. “They fired on my ship also…!” He hissed with venom, incensed by the betrayal of it as much as the act itself. “Arschloch…!” He added under his breath, the term definitely directed out the window rather than at anyone in the same room.

  “Radio message, Mein Herr,” the man on the radio declared loudly at that moment. “Fregattenkapitän Kohl from U-1004: he’s demanding all Allied boarding parties on board surrender or he will sink us. We have one minute to comply…” As if to underline that threat, the sub’s forward flak turret opened up at that point, sending a short burst of red tracer streaking past Kormoran’s nose. Lloyd arrived on the bridge also at that moment, about to make a remark regarding the sub’s appearance but deciding it was superfluous as shells streaked through the sky off to the north.

  “Gunter, you bastard; you fire on me again…!” Detmers exclaimed in furious disbelief. He remembered the commander of U-1004 well enough, and had rank and substantial seniority on the man: that he was now firing warning shots across the bow of Detmers’ ship was a huge affront to the man’s pride, regardless of how ludicrous the sentiment might seem under the current circumstances.

  “Do they need to surface to make radio contact?” Eileen demanded suddenly, an idea flaring in her mind.

  “What…?” Detmers asked dumbly, distracted and barely turning around. “What are you talking about?”

  “The U-boat…!” She tried again with emphasis, this time with enough force to get his attention. “Does it need to surface to radio us?”

  “No… of course not…” Detmers replied with a shake of his head. “Their communications antennae are mounted to the top of a retractable mast behind their periscopes. That’s a Typ-X: it’s not supposed to surface at all without a reason…”

  “‘Without a reason’…” Eileen repeated pointedly. “How many torpedoes would it take to sink a ship this size, captain?”

  “Two or three at least,” he replied, based on his own experience surface raiding, and the same thought slowly began to dawn on him also.

  “They why did they not fire more torpedoes at us to start with…?” Eileen asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Kohl is no fool,” Detmers mused out loud. “He would know this…!”

  The pair looked at each other and came to the same conclusion.

  “He has no torpedoes left…!” They declared in unison, the light of realisation filling both their faces.

  “We need to manoeuver, captain,” Donelson decided, glancing back out at the slow-moving submarine. “I hate leaving the survivors behind like this but we need to deal with this bloody submarine first. Can she get underway?”

  “We have power but not much: perhaps six or seven knots is all I can give.”

  “Better than nothing,” she conceded with a shrug. “What do you say, sir? He’s trying to kill all of us, it would seem, and you’re a long way from home with no friends at all as it turns out, but we have a safe port nearby: Ambon is only a hundred and fifty nautical miles east of here and we can get treatment for your men and ours there. You think we can work together on this?”

  “I think that would be acceptable,” Detmers nodded after a long moment’s thought.

  “Ten seconds,” the radio officer called out, having kept a sharp eye on the time counting down.

  “Tell him we accept the surrender terms! Helm…!” Detmers barked, turning to check whoever was currently minding that position. “Full ahead, best possible speed: I’m going to ram that bastard…!”

  “Is that a good idea, captain?” Eileen asked, surprise and a little concern in her voice over his declaration.

  “She displaces ten times that drecksau,” he replied proudly, patting a hand against a nearby overhead beam. “We shall tear through him like paper…!”

  “All the same, I’d rather not leave things to chance…” Lloyd advised, whispering in Eileen’s ear.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “There are some heavy flak mounts down there on the deck, and one of them looked serviceable enough earlier. With a little help I reckon we could get it up and running: a couple of thirty-seven millimetre shells might fuck up that guy’s whole day!”

  “It’s been quite a few years since I’ve commanded a crewed mount,” Donelson observed thoughtfully, almost excited at the idea after so many years since her training days, but I think we might be able to manage it. Sergeant Thomas…!” She bellowed loudly, drawing the attention of a boarding party leader who was rather tiresomely becoming accustomed to only hear his name at full volume, and never for anything pleasant.

  “Ma’am…?” He asked, stepping onto the bridge from the position he’d taken outside to oversee the general operations on deck of the men under him.

  “Keep an eye on our ‘friends’ here if you would but let them get about their business unless they try anything funny… we’re going to see if we can deal with that bloody U-boat.”

  “Yes, ma-am…!” He acknowledged immediately with a salute, calling up two more men from the deck as Eileen and Lloyd left the bridged once more.

  “All unnecessary personnel off the bridge…!” Detmers warned loudly, in both German and English. “He will know when we start our engines, and right here will be an obvious target…!”

  “We have engine noise, Mein Herr,” Helmut warned sharply, looking up from his console. “Kormoran is making revolutions for maybe six… seven knots…”

  “That cunning old fox agreed to a surrender…!” Kohl observed, grinning wryly as he continued to watch through the periscope. “So perhaps I am not so good at poker as I had hoped.” He didn’t actually blame Detmers under the circumstance – he’d fired on the man’s ship after all – but he had orders to follow nevertheless, whether he liked them or not. “I’m sorry, old friend…” he added softly, the smile fading as he considered his next, unpleasant command. “Fire control: target the bridge… both turrets…!”

  “Jawohl, Mien Herr…!”

  The twin barrels of both turrets turned in unison, lining up on Kormoran from a range of just a thousand metres or so as she began to move once more, heaving forward in the water with the thrum of her two remaining diesels. Fire flared from their muzzles in a roar as two terrible streams of tracer reached out across the intervening distance and slammed into the superstructure just below the bridge deck.

  The spark of detonations flashed all over her, debris flying about in all directions as dozens of 30mm high-explosive shells tore through her thin steel skin and did untold damage beneath. The tracer walked its way up the superstructure, quickly finding the bridge level and ripping it to shreds in a cloud of flame, smoke and flying metal. Yet still the ship came on, beginning to accelerate now as her screws bit into the water and pushed her away from the sinking wreck of Sydney and the many survivors still left paddling about and crying for help.

  “Another burst…” Kohl barked, not pleased that the ship seemed to be ignoring the fire. “Give her one into her stern… let’s see if we can put her engines o
ffline…”

  He and pretty much everyone else on the sub now knew that their situation was somewhat problematic. They had no torpedoes left to sink Kormoran with, and their 30mm flak cannon, although quite powerful, weren’t anywhere near enough to so any real damage to a twenty thousand ton freighter. Had they been in command of an older Type-VII U-boat, their deck gun might have come into use, however such armaments had been deleted from the Type-X in the interests of underwater speed and silence.

  As U-1004 came around onto Kormoran’s port bow, her turrets adjusted aim and sent their next streams of fire arcing down into the ships stern at the waterline, right above her screws. Many of the shells ricocheted away into the ocean rather than exploding, due to the quite oblique angle at which they were striking the hull, yet enough still struck home to deal some substantial damage, ripping large holes in the steel below her stern and allowing sea water to flood into some of her compartments.

  “He’s turning in…!” Kohl exclaimed, looking up from the scope for a moment, almost sounding impressed. “The cheeky bastard’s actually trying to ram us!” He was about to order another burst as he returned his eyes to the scope, however at that moment he quite unexpectedly picked up a muzzle flash from the deck of Kormoran, and as he turned the lens in that direction the return fire that hurtled out toward him so filled the scope’s viewing port with the glare of tracer that he was forced to take a step back from the periscope with a sudden start.

  “Enemy fire,” he bellowed, recovering quickly and returning his eyes to the scope. “New target: heavy flak mount, port side, forward of the bridge…!”

  “Tick-tock…!” Eileen warned loudly form the flak mount’s gunner’s seat, her unprotected ears still ringing from the roar of the twin 37mm cannon as she watched the turrets on U-1004 swing in their direction. “We’ll not get another chance…” Her first burst of sixteen rounds had gone wide, although not by much, and her inexperience with the mount itself and her rustiness in general operating such a weapon meant that she’d expended all of her ammunition before she’d been able to bring the aim back onto target.

  “I’m on it…!” Lloyd shouted back tersely, slotting two more eight-round clips into the loading chutes above each weapon’s breech in turn. “Clear…!” He bellowed, patting her on the shoulder for confirmation before covering his own ears and ducking away as Donelson made a few adjustments to aim on the power-operated mount.

  She pressed down the firing triggers once more, and this time her aim was true as the cannon roared again and another twin burst of sixteen rounds arced across the ocean between the two vessels. High explosive shells weighing more than a pound each smashed through the skin of the U-boat’s conning tower, stitching their way along the top of the structure from the rear and moving forward with devastating vengeance. Both flak turrets were torn apart, neither able to fire another shot as pieces of machinery and cannon were sprayed all about the surrounding water in a flash of fire and smoke.

  U-1004 shuddered under the assault, the shriek of tearing metal horrific to the ear as every man on board held onto something solid, fearing what might come next. Their position in the conning tower was not so far below the gun mounts themselves, and the jarring shudder from above was horrendous in such a confined space.

  “Flak turrets inoperative, Mein Herr,” fire control advised loudly. “I think they’ve been hit.”

  “Secure all compartments… crash dive… crash dive…!” Kohl screamed, turning away from a periscope that had suddenly lost any vision whatsoever. It wasn’t difficult to surmise what had happened: whatever part of the mast had been projecting above the shroud of the conning tower was now strewn in pieces around them and sinking as fast as they would be if those guns got off too many more hits. “Ahead full… left full rudder; course three-one-five...!”

  The tide had most definitely turned. Having lost the only offensive weapons available to them, possibly taking serious damage into the bargain, and with a twenty thousand ton freighter now bearing down on their position, there was nothing more to be done. Anything other than a full withdrawal was likely to be complete suicide; something he had no stomach for.

  The U-boat slid quickly below the waves, surging down into deeper water as her powerful electric motors urged her on. Everyone could hear the clatter of torn metal rattling against her hull, however transient noises were the least of her worries at that moment. Water was trickling down out of the periscope mounts above and pooling on the deck, giving a clear indication that something was very wrong overhead in the conning tower.

  “Damage control to the bridge…!” Kohl ordered coolly, less tense now that they were submerged once more and less vulnerable to attack. “Minor leak in periscope housing…!

  “What now, sir?” Werner asked carefully, his eyes flicking from man to man within the control room, making sure all were getting about their business.

  “What now?” Kohl repeated darkly, not at all happy about the damage done to his boat. “First we get clear of the area and make a report to HQ… after that we find somewhere safe for a few hours to take stock and make repairs if we can. It’s going to be a bloody long and unpleasant trip back to base sounding like this the whole way!”

  Detmers was already bringing Kormoran around into a complete 180˚ turn and ordering all-stop once more as Eileen and Evan returned to what was left of the bridge. What had previously been shattered glass and torn steel was now little more than an open, gaping wound in the superstructure of the ship, and she gagged at the sight of several more torn bodies lying in pieces across one side of a bridge deck awash with blood.

  “My God, how did anyone survive?” She asked softly, frightened to take a breath as the cloying smell of blood, bile and torn innards filled her senses, almost making her gag.

  “Some of us were fortunate…” Detmers replied grimly, trying not to stare as a pair of ratings helped Thomas and a marine drag corpses out through the hatchway on the opposite side. “Some less so…” Streaks of crimson covered one side of his face drying now below a large, jagged cut where a piece of flying shrapnel had struck him a glancing blow near his right temple.

  “You came about to collect the survivors…” She observed slowly, appreciation clear in her tone and her eyes.

  “They are sailors like us,” Detmers shrugged, as if it were a simple fact of life. “They helped us control our fires… we save those we can…” He attempted a thin smile, almost pulling it off. “Some men will die on the way to this Ambon Island… yours and mine…” he explained slowly, and it seemed that perhaps he was struggling with exhaustion or shock as his speech slurred vaguely. “Many more of mine would die if we abandoned you to your fate: our nearest base is two thousand kilometres away.”

  “Evan, try to raise Ambon or anyone else for that matter and advise on our status. We need help here and anything they can send might make a difference. After that, see to the recovery and try to do what you can for the wounded…” she advised, leaning in to speak in his ear.

  “I ‘d hoped we’d left this kind of shit behind on that bloody Galaxy,” he growled softly, both recalling an all-to-recent and terrible memory of wounded and dying on the passenger deck of their transport aircraft out of RAF Kibrit just two months before.

  “You and me both,” she agreed, a quaver in her tone as he nodded in acknowledgement and disappeared out through the hatch once more.

  “How can I help, captain?” She asked with forced brightness as soon as he was gone. “It’s been a few years since my days as a ship’s officer, but I’m sure it’ll come back to me…”

  “I need an executive officer,” Detmers replied with a smile that was this time almost genuine. “He was wounded in one of your aerial attacks earlier.”

  “It would be my pleasure, captain,” she confirmed with a nod, snapping to attention and presenting a salute. “What are your orders?”

  “Finish collecting survivors, then set course for Ambon… ahead full.”

  “Aye, sir…
!” Eileen nodded, giving another salute and taking a position at the ship’s helm.

  As the sun began to properly set over the western horizon an hour later, Kormoran was already steaming eastward at her best possible speed of 6 knots, the cool breeze of evening blowing through the torn bridge and at least providing some relief to all present as medics down on deck did what they could for the wounded and dying.

  Darwin and Ambon were both raised and advised of their current status, however there were no other vessels in the direct vicinity and it was decided that the original decision to set course for Ambon was the best possible plan under the circumstances. Dutch and Australian forces stationed there would be able to render medical treatment and provide a safe haven until reinforcements could be diverted to their position.

  In the end, it was assistance that would come too late: world events during the twenty-four hours it would take to reach their destination would completely overshadow the needs of one damaged surface raider with a few hundred wounded men.

  10.Days of Infamy

  US Submarine Base & Naval Air Station

  Coco Solo, Panama

  December 6, 1942

  Sunday

  Looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, a short distance south of the Panamanian city of Colón and ten thousand miles from Ambon and the Banda Sea, the sun was rising over the eastern horizon at Coco Solo submarine base and naval air station. Established in 1918, the facility acted as home base for a squadron of the US Navy’s older, obsolescent S-Class submarines, a small naval air group of fighters and maritime reconnaissance bombers and, as of that morning, a detachment of three Elco-class motor torpedo boats of MTBRON 14 (Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 14).

  At almost sixty tons, the Elco was the largest of several PT-boat classes in service with the US Navy and was a vessel possessed of high speed, a potent armament and excellent sea-keeping characteristics. A forty millimetre Bofors cannon mounted aft complimented the four single torpedo tubes that were its main armament, while a 25mm rotary cannon forward and single 15mm rotary machine guns amidships, port and starboard, provided close-in defence against air attack.