Soft Target 05 - Blister

by Conrad Jones

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this Jimmy,” Mark said. His eyes were watery, as if he were about to start crying.

  Jimmy grabbed his friend’s wrist tightly and held him. “We’ll be fine Mark,” he said, but he didn’t believe it himself. He felt sweat trickling down his spine, despite the chill in the air. They stared at the dark sky in silence. The noise of the sirens began to quieten and one by one they stopped wailing. The noise of the approaching bomber squadron grew louder. Jimmy could feel his blood pumping through his heart and he wiped sweat from his brow as the first bombs began to fall.

  The horizon illuminated, and a huge red fire ball climbed toward the sky. An enormous tower of curling black smoke engulfed the port’s cranes. Mark Brown triggered the Bofors gun into life, firing thousands of 40mm shells into the night sky. The deafening sound of the anti-aircraft weapon was joined by a hundred others as every naval vessel in the harbour returned fire onto the German Luftwaffe. The two frightened shipmates loaded and fired their weapons for what seemed like a life time. The harbour became a scene of carnage.

  There was a sudden huge explosion close to them. The blast wave knocked Jimmy off his feet and he cracked the back of his head against the metal hull of the ship. Mark sprang to his aid and placed a piece of shell wadding over a small cut on Jimmy’s head.

  “Get back on that forty, nail the bastards!” Jimmy shouted over the deafening roar. He looked toward the source of the explosion. There was a troop carrier in the water close by that had taken a direct hit. It was listing dangerously to starboard. The decks were covered in bodies and the water around it was full of human flotsam. Some men were alive and screaming for help and others were floating face down, beyond help.

  Another deafening explosion came from behind them. Jimmy stood up and looked toward it. A US cruiser had been hit mid ship. The bomb had penetrated two decks before exploding in the munitions store. The sky lit up like a Disney fireworks display as the ship was torn apart by its own exploding ordinance. A thousand tons of shredded steel was launched into the air, showering the surrounding ships with a deadly metal rain.

  “Get down!” Jimmy shouted. He crouched down and covered his head with his hands. There was a shower of red hot metal shards clanging against the bulkhead of the ship. A three inch spike pierced Jimmy’s forearm and the red hot metal seared into his flesh. He screamed as he grabbed at it with his fingers. He pulled at it but it had welded itself to his skin. He choked as he pulled harder still. The spike ripped free, taking a lump of skin and muscle with it. He closed his eyes to shut out the pain and rested his head against the cold metal bulkhead. He felt a hard wet slap across his face and it shocked him back to reality. He touched his cheek with his fingers and then stared at them. There was a greyish sticky fluid on his fingertips and the piece of slimy intestine which had slapped him in the face was lying across his shoulder. He recoiled from the stinking viscera and knocked it onto the deck as if it might bite him.

  “Jimmy, help me,” Mark gurgled. Jimmy looked at his friend and his mouth opened in shock. Mark had been pinned to the metal bulkhead by a wide piece of shredded metal. It measured three feet long and the edges were charred and jagged. The shrapnel had hit the ship at such a speed that it had disembowelled Mark Brown and then penetrated the hull. There were coils of visceral intestine hanging over the metal and dangling onto the deck. Jimmy wretched and the taste of acid vomit filled his nose and mouth. He staggered to his feet and grabbed at the offending metal fragment.

  “Help me Jimmy, please help me,” Mark whispered as his life slowly spilled onto the deck.

  “You hang on there, Mark, hang on,” Jimmy started to panic and grabbed at the metal again. It was still red hot and his fingers burnt on it. Mark’s body slumped down against the red hot metal plate and his face started to sizzle against the plate. Tendrils of smoke drifted from his face and Jimmy nearly vomited again as the smell of burning flesh drifted toward him.

  “Get back on that forty sailor,” a voice boomed over the noise of the battle. Jimmy turned and looked at the senior officer in disbelief.

  “What?”

  “I said get back on that forty sailor, your friend is dead and we will be too if we don’t drive these bastards away, look around sailor we’re being annihilated down here. Now I’m ordering you to get back on that forty,” the officer seemed to be cool and calm and well in control of his faculties. His calm persona rattled Jimmy to the core and he saluted the officer before taking up his position on the 40mm Bofurs gun. He glanced at his dead friend and tears filled his blue eyes as he pressed the trigger and unleashed its deadly load skyward. It was nearly an hour before he stopped firing and the sound of the last bomber’s engine whined off into the distance.

  Jimmy Lyons had to wiggle his fingers to get the blood flowing back into them. The vibration of the Bofors gun combined with the cold night air had taken its toll. He sat down on the cold metal deck and stared at the ruined body of his shipmate. Mark Brown was still pinned to the bulkhead with his guts spilled over the deck around him. Jimmy knew that he had to retrieve Mark’s farewell letter from his shirt pocket, but he didn’t dare go near him. He looked around the harbour and was totally in awe of the devastation that was before him. The water around his ship was full of bodies, and some of them were still alive. The sight of so many of his countrymen in dire straits shook him to his senses. He suddenly came to and ran to his dead friend.

  “I’ll tell Carla you were the bravest man I ever had the honour to sail with Mark Brown,” he touched his friend’s face and was surprised how cold he felt already.

  Jimmy grabbed the letter from his breast pocket and folded it safely into his own. He saluted and ran toward the deck rails to help recover the dead and injured from the water. He looked over the rails and thought that he could be looking at a scene from hell. Jimmy and his shipmates worked tirelessly through the night pulling survivors from the water first, and then recovering the dead. A total of seventeen vessels had been sunk in the harbour, which equated to thirty four thousand tons of cargo. The closest ship to the harbour wall was the munitions transporter vessel U.S. Liberty ship John Harvey. It had been bombed to the stern igniting its load of artillery shells, which had torn the ship to pieces and fractured an oil pipeline. The heavy oil poured unhindered into the harbour water.

  The problem was that nobody except the captain of the John Harvey knew that the artillery shells were each packed with 11 kilos of mustard gas. Churchill and Roosevelt had allegedly conspired to use the chemical against the Germans if things in Europe went badly. Their plan was to strike terror into the German troops by using the appalling weapon to kill and maim and to contaminate land so that the Germans couldn’t remain there. Unbeknown to the Germans or the allies, the Luftwaffe had destroyed the entire arsenal of chemical weapons, releasing the vapour into the harbour water and across a wide area of the heavily populated port. The amount of vapour released into such a concentrated space meant that the terrible effects of the blister agent were magnified tenfold.

  Jimmy could smell a powerful odour, similar to garlic. Although he thought it was odd he didn’t pay it any attention. He rushed down the gangway and began to help his shipmates hauling survivors onto the deck. The harbour water was covered in a thick layer of engine oil which clung to the survivors as they were pulled on deck. It also clung to the rescuers that touched them. Jimmy and the rescuers noticed that many of the survivors were badly blistered.

  “We need medics brought aboard to deal with these burns,” Jimmy said to a senior hand.

  “The bastards must have been dropping incendiaries,” the charge hand replied.

  “Can you smell garlic on them too?” Jimmy asked. He swallowed and his throat felt like sandpaper. He reached for his canteen of water and took a long gulp. The liquid offered him little relief and the thirst returned in minutes.

  “Can I have some of your water?” the charge hand reached for Jimmy’s canteen. Jimmy recoiled and snatched the canteen awa
y from his senior officer. His eyes were stinging and he wasn’t feeling well, but he needed his water to quench the raging thirst that he had.

  “I haven’t got much left,” he snapped, lifting the canteen to his lips and draining it.

  “Don’t drink it all you fucking bastard,” the charge hand shouted at him angrily.

  He reached for the canteen and grabbed it away from Jimmy’s lips. Jimmy curled his hand into a huge fist and punched the officer in the mouth. He staggered back and tripped over a stricken survivor who was laid out on the deck behind him. Jimmy put the canteen to his lips and emptied the liquid greedily. He swallowed the last drop as the officer tackled him hard around the waist. The wind was knocked out of him and the force of the blow carried both men backward toward the guardrail. Jimmy hit the rail hard and he desperately tried to maintain his balance, but the momentum was too great. It seemed like an age between hitting the railing and then falling into thin air toward the contaminated sea below.

  Jimmy Lyons and his senior officer were never recovered from the harbour. The concentrated blister agent was stuck to the surface of the ocean by engine oil. It was a slow and painful death. Over one thousand allied servicemen died in the harbour that day, along with two thousand civilians in the surrounding suburbs. Many of the deaths that day were recorded as victims of fire caused by the German bombs. The truth was that there were no fires, and the victims were covered in chemical burns, but because no one knew that the blister agent ordinance was present the medical staff members were oblivious.

  By the time Jimmy’s ship the U.S.S. Bistera reached portside to unload the dead and wounded, the entire crew were affected by the blister agent. Most of the crew were completely blinded, some recovered but some did not. Their injuries were recorded as a mystery illness that swept the ship. The truth about the mustard gas artillery shells was highly classified, and the authorities ashore had no knowledge of their existence. This increased the number of fatalities, since the physicians could not prescribe the proper treatment for those suffering from the effects of mustard gas. Eventually the physicians themselves became infected from contact with the skin and clothing of those directly exposed to the vapour. The records of the incident were destroyed and the only surviving records of it were not declassified until 1967.

  Chapter 3

  The Terrorist Task Force-2009

  “Do we know where the dump sites are?” Tank asked. If they could identify where the mustard gas artillery shells had been dumped then they could put the areas under surveillance and wait there for the terrorists to arrive.

  “No and no one working within the government today has any idea. The records were completely destroyed after the war,” Chen answered. It was sixty five years since the chemical artillery shells had been sent to the bottom of the ocean. The remaining survivors from that time would be well into their seventies. The Ministry of Defence had to make sure that the truth was never discovered. If superpowers like America and Britain were suspected of contemplating the use of chemical weapons then they could never take the moral high ground again. It would give rogue states carte blanche to use chemical weapons against their neighbours.

  “What do we know about how they were dumped?” Grace interrupted.

  “What do you mean Faz?” Chen used her nickname.

  “You said earlier that the ships were scuppered at sea. So how were the ships sunk? Did they use remote charges or mines? If we knew how they were sunk then we can trace exactly who sunk them, and from there we can find survivors and ask them where the ships are,” Grace explained her theory. Tank eyed her too long, although most of the taskforce had an inkling that they were an item, Tank still tried hard to keep it secret. He glanced around the table to see if anyone had noticed him staring. No one had.

  “That’s a very interesting point,” Chen said beaming from ear to ear. He flicked through his file of data looking for something that he may have overlooked.

  “Pass me some of the file Chen and I’ll help,” the Major said. Chen handed him a manila file a few inches thick. The Major began thumbing through it. Tank looked at the contents over his shoulder and a question sprang to mind.

  “Where did these files of information come from if everything was destroyed or never recorded in the first instance?” Tank mused. Everyone stopped looking and turned toward Chen for the answer. It did seem to be a contradiction in terms.

  “These files were composed by a man called Geoff Evans. His mother was told by the ministry of defence that his father was killed in action by a German U-boat in 1943 however he believed that his father was killed while on an operation to destroy a cache of chemical weapons,” Chen stood up from the table and passed Tank a hand written letter. The letter was yellowed with age and ripped at the edges, but it had been laminated to prevent it deteriorating any further. Tank read the letter and shook his head in disbelief. Able Seaman Evans had written a brief letter to his wife expressing his concerns about a secret mission they were rumoured to be embarking on. Whispers of a secret cache of chemical weapons were passing around the ship and the crew had been stripped to the bare minimum number of men required.

  “It was the last letter Mrs Evans ever received from her husband,” Chen said as Tank was reading it. “Her son never let go of the idea that his father had been killed whilst on this secret mission and that the war office had brushed his death and the mission under the carpet. Over the next three decades until he died in 2002, he compiled these files of press cuttings and snippets of research that he’d gathered, and he constantly bombarded the government with his concerns.” Chen shrugged as he explained. The files were full of newspaper cuttings and library information containing the last known whereabouts of Able Seaman Evans shipmates.

  “Don’t tell me that his concerns fell on deaf ears,” Grace said sarcastically.

  “He was considered to be another conspiracy theorist,” the Major added.

  “Look at this,” Chen said. His eyes widened as he spoke and he picked up another piece of paper as if he were crosschecking both for details. He passed the paper to the Major and the major studied a bundle of envelopes. They looked unopened and were marked for return to sender.

  “What is it?” Tank asked. Chen passed the papers to him. Tank looked at them quickly and the handed them to Grace. She shook her head as she read them.

  “Evans son had sent over a dozen letters to this man, all of which were returned unopened,” Chen said.

  “Which wouldn’t be so remarkable except that he was a Royal Naval submarine Commander,” Tank added.

  “And we all know what submarines do best, don’t we?” Grace said.

  “They torpedoed ships and sent them to the bottom of the ocean never to be seen again,” the Major nodded his head thoughtfully. The group remained silent for a while as they contemplated the information that had been gathered over a period of decades by an aggrieved son who was campaigning for justice for his dead father. It was a terrible scenario, but there was little or no evidence there to take the investigation forward.

  “So we are presuming that Evans believed that his father’s ship was loaded with chemical weapons, and that it was torpedoed by the Royal Navy at sea?” the Major summarised what he had just read through.

  “Yes, but this file indicates another sixteen vessels were disposed of in the same way, and off British coast lines,” Grace said astounded. “We can’t seriously believe that the Royal Navy sent its own men to be torpedoed by their own submarines.”

  “What if the submarines didn’t know they were British ships?” Tank said.

  The group exchanged glances again as they each mulled over the possible scenarios in their own mind. They needed to identify the possibility of mustard gas shells being recovered from the bottom of the ocean, and in the process they could be stumbling into an incident of international proportions. They may have found physical evidence that the allies were prepared to use mustard blister agents in the Second World War, and that they were prepared
to slaughter any witnesses to the disposal of them to protect themselves from international condemnation.

  “We need to find this submarine captain. If he’s still alive then he could be the only person that can tell us where the dump sites may be,” Tank said as he picked up the telephone. “We need to start with this address and follow the trail from there,” he added pointing to one of the returned letters that had been written years before by the son of able seaman Ernest Evans.

  Chapter four

  Liverpool Bay, December, 14th 1943

  Able seaman Ernest Evans heard the ships engines quieten. The pilot of the ship sent the message to the engine room to put the engines into idle and the vessel slowed to a drift stop. Ernest Evans, Ernie to his shipmates, looked at the night sky to orientate himself, but the stars were cloaked in dark clouds. They had been sailing for six hours and as far as he could tell the ship had been steered in a huge circle. There were no twinkling lights to be seen on the shore because of the blackout. The port of Liverpool had been subjected to heavy bombing raids by the Luftwaffe. Civilians hung blankets and thick curtains over every door and window to stop their gaslights and candles from betraying the city’s position. Air raid wardens were appointed to patrol the streets and they were given the responsibility to enforce blackout conditions. It made it difficult for the German pilots to navigate from the air, but it also made it impossible for seamen to navigate using the lights of habitation to guide them up the coastline. Ernie couldn’t be sure, but his sense of direction told him that they were somewhere in Liverpool Bay.