“You have the feeling they can see us, but we can’t see them?” Landa asked.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Sometimes--- there!” Ingram pointed at three single- engine Val dive bombers plunging beneath the overcast. “Jack! Do you have them?”
“Director Fifty-One, aye. On target and tracking.”
“Director Forty-Three?” Ingram checked aft to see three more Vals attacking from the starboard quarter.
“Director Forty-Three on target and tracking.”
The forty and twenty millimeter gun-stations reported in as well. Landa, with the TBS phone to his ears, raised a hand in the air. “Commence fire!” His hand sliced to the deck.
Both destroyers simultaneously belched gunfire from their five-inch, forty, and twenty millimeter gun mounts--Ingram almost knocked over from the muzzle blasts.
The first Val pulled from her dive and zipped overhead, the bomb overshooting. It hit two hundred yards off the Howell’s port quarter, raising a huge plume of bluish-white water. Ingram caught the second Val in his binoculars, seemingly headed straight for him. But mount fifty-two roared, and the Val disintegrated before his eyes.
The third Val caromed toward them. On the bridge, Landa yelled, “Left standard rudder. Steady on zero-three-four.” Both destroyers pivoted quickly and were now abeam of one another.
The turn and the combined firepower seemed to throw off the Val’s aim -- he had to raise his nose a bit to compensate. Mounts fifty-one and fifty-two blasted away, their shells exploding around the Val as it plummeted, growing larger and larger in Ingram’s vision.
The Val released its bomb, which mercifully fell short. Landa and his watchstanders cheered and grinned, their fists in the air. Ingram looked over to see Isaacs taking care of her sector. The Vals were arching up into the clouds, out of gunsight, apparently regrouping to try again. Ingram was surprised to see half the Vals still had their 500 kg bombs. Apparently they weren’t releasing unless they were sure.
The best news was that he counted only seven out of the original twelve.
The Vals regrouped and dove though the clouds again. This time two were lined up on the Howell’s starboard bow. “Commence fire!” Ingram shouted. Mounts fifty-one and fifty-two roared at the dive bombers as they screamed down.
Suddenly, a Val zipped over Ingram’s head from the opposite direction. It was at no more than fifty feet, it’s engine howling. He pivoted as the Val ran past. Then he turned and watched, horror stricken, as a black death-messenger raced directly at him.
The bomb soared on a steady course, as Ingram lived a lifetime. It crashed through the maindeck and plunged into Howell’s after engineroom. Seconds passed --- a dud?
The explosion was blinding. A wave of heat and brilliance blew past Ingram, knocking him on his back...
...smoke and steam enveloped the ship. Ingram reached to his head, finding a sticky wetness. He opened his eyes.
He was laying on his side, crunched against a stanchion, a leg dangling over the pilothouse bulkhead. Then his hearing returned. Screams intermingled with a loud hissing noise. Someone yelled and pulled at his shirt. Vogel, his talker; his lips were moving but Ingram couldn’t hear over the terrible hissing.
The mainmast hung by one forward shroud on the port side; the other forwards had snapped, as if they were brittle rubber bands. The air search antennae had fallen off and crashed into number one stack. Ingram looked aft, trying to see through the white smoky hell. Finally, a gust of wind cleared the deck.
Ingram looked aft in abject horror. “Nooooo!”
The ship had broken in two! The bomb had sliced the Howell neatly in half. The aft section capsized onto its starboard side. Men blown into the water were swept under as the ship’s upper works slammed down upon them. Sailors posted topside spilled out of their battle stations, some screaming, others lifeless dolls.
Jack Wilson climbed halfway out of his gun director and toppled down, dazed or wounded, Ingram couldn’t tell. He caught Wilson by the shoulders and clumsily lowered him to the deck.
“My God, those guys,” Wilson gasped. Catching his breath, he said, “We gotta do something!”
Large bubbles gurgled from the Howell’s aft section and it settled fast.
Then the mast groaned directly above. Metal screeched, and what was left of the mast’s upper works swayed in an obscene, convoluted orbit.
Someone cursed beneath. Landa wobbled to his feet, apparently uninjured, as others around him groaned and tried to stand.
Suddenly, there was a great blast of air. Ingram watched Howell’s after end slip beneath the waves, her depth charge racks and flag staff the last things in view. Ingram racked his brain. Were the depth charges set on safe? He couldn’t remember. Twenty...thirty...forty seconds passed. The water swirled where the Howell’s aft section had been. Desperate swimmers groped for anything that would float amidst a quickly growing pool of fuel oil. But mercifully, if one could call it that, the depth charges didn’t detonate.
Ingram stumbled to the after ladder and climbed down to the bridge. What was that sound? He walked up to Landa. The two men shouted at one another, neither able to understand the other. Ingram twirled a finger in his right ear, and he discerned the horrible sounds of the wounded and dying. Landa’s face was beet red and he shout at dazed sailors. Then he grabbed Ingram’s lifejacket and bellowed.
“What?”
“Air cover!” Landa shrieked. “Dexter hogged the air cover.”
“You don’t know for sure.”
“I’ll kill the sonofabitch.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
7 March, 1943
U.S.S. Howell (DD 482)
The Slot, Solomon Islands
The Vals, satisfied that Howell was done for, concentrated on Isaacs, driving her across The Slot toward Santa Isabel Island as she furiously fought off the air attack. Meanwhile, a rain squall settled about the Howell, cloaking her from two Vals that wandered back to check her condition.
Landa, Offenbach, Early, and Wilson stumbled about, pushing aside wreckage, trying to stand, or lean, only to slump to the deck in pain. It took several minutes for Ingram to galvanize himself to do something productive. The rain brought him back. A gentle, cleansing, nourishing rain that, to the uninjured, helped carry away shock, pain, noise, filth and gun smoke.
Ingram stood for a full thirty seconds, his face turned to the sky. The rain washed him, as men with gaunt eyes stumbled past, going nowhere on a wrecked ship. For a moment he heard locomotives chugging through Echo, Oregon where he grew up. After school, he would go down to the rail yard, beckoned by the mournful whistles of the Union Pacific. The engineers knew him and let him ride to Pendleton and back, shoveling coal for his fare. His parents never found out...
But then he opened his eyes, seeing gray, and hearing groans. Metal screeched again as the swaying mast hove into his view. The last forward shroud would soon part, and then the mast would fall.
A bell rang. Ingram looked over the bridge bulwarks. Mount fifty-two's crew stumbled out, walking like zombies. The radio squawked in the pilot house. Power! The radiomen must have patched in the emergency batteries.
“Shit!” Landa stood next to Ingram.
“The men...” Ingram waved a hand aft.
“Take care of the living first,” Landa said. “Early! Get over here.” He pulled his talker to his feet. “Status report.” Landa grabbed a sound powered phone and punched up Hank Kelly in Main Control.
Offenbach lurched out of the pilothouse, a deep cut running across his forehead. Blood ran into his eyes. Ingram grabbed him by the collar before he stumbled into the starboard pelorus.
“Lemme go, damnit!”
“Where you going?” Asked Ingram.
“The Doc,” he said hoarsely. “All I need are a few stitches. The rest of me is fine.”
“Okay.” Ingram led Offenbach through the vestibule into the Captain's Sea Cabin. “Here.”
“Huh?”
It was clear Offen
bach had no idea where he was, so Ingram pushed him on the bunk. “Stay here.” He found a pillowcase, shoved it on Offenbach's forehead, then clamped the Lieutenant's hand over it. “Wait for a Doc to come and stitch this up. Then you're going back to work.”
“Deal.” Offenbach laid back.
“You should---“
Just then, he heard a sharp ‘twang,' then a series of high-pitched tearing noises, like finger nails ripping on a blackboard.
“Look out!” Landa screamed from the signal bridge.
Ingram rushed outside, seeing men scatter as the mast fell backward. With an ear-popping crash, it landed along the starboard side of the 01 level, ripping through the forty-millimeter guntubs which had, moments before, been evacuated. With more screeches and groans, the mast came to rest: the after end propped on the 01 level, the mid section on main deck with about fifteen feet or so, hanging over the starboard side, immersed in water.
“Sonofabitch!” Ingram said. “Anybody under that?”
A corpsman popped out on the main deck to look for injured. The mast gave a shriek, metal grated on metal. Another five feet or so slipped under water.
“Damn. It's going over the side!”
“Good riddance,” said Landa.
Ingram cupped his hands and shouted to a few men gathered on the main deck. “Stand clear! The mast is going!” The men dashed for hatchways and ladders. Seconds later, there was another ‘twaaaang’ as an aft shroud parted. The mast slipped further, ripping shackles, pins, and turnbuckles from their mountings.
Suddenly, a sailor ran aft on the 01 level toward the after torpedo mount, and began picking his way amongst the mast’s wreckage.
“Hey! You! Stand clear!” Ingram shouted. “Didn’t you hear the Captain?”
The man waved over his head, while foraging through a hopeless tangle of yardarm, shrouds, halyards, and an impossibly twisted surface search radar antennae. Another wire snapped; a signal halyard drew taught, and whipped over the sailor’s head, just as he leaped down to the main deck.
Ingram recognized the sailor’s sandy blond hair. “Seltzer. You crazy bastard. Get out of there.”
“Shit. What’s he doing?” gasped Landa.
Rigging screeched; an IFF antenna flashed over the side as if yanked by a crazed monster beneath the ship.
“My God,” said Ingram. “He’s going after the flag.”
Early whipped off his headphones and raced down the aft ladder to the 01 deck to help. Then Katsikas joined in. Then others surged toward the aft ladder.
“That’s enough!” bellowed Landa.
With Early and Katsikas’ help, Seltzer pulled aside more wreckage. For a moment, he was lost to view in a sea of junk, but finally he popped up, holding the United States flag over he head with a grin.
“Get out of there!”
As if jumping the high hurdles, the three quickly dashed over wreckage for the sanctuary of the forward deckhouse.
Seltzer, the flag wrapped around his shoulders, was the last to bolt thorough the hatch when the final shroud parted with a “crack,” its end slashing through the bulwarks as if it were a slab of cheese. The mast upended, and with a final groan of protest, sank out of sight.
Seltzer, Early and Katsikas climbed to the bridge and walked up to Landa. Wordlessly, Seltzer handed the flag to Landa, stepped back, and drew to attention. Early and Katsikas did the same.
Landa turned the flag over in his hands. His lips moved and his eyes grew misty.
Ingram’s chest heaved, and he had trouble swallowing as he looked over this unlikely threesome.
“Thank you.” Landa said softly. Offenbach shuffled out and stood beside Ingram, a bloody pillowcase wrapped around his head.
“It was Leo’s idea,” Early said.
“You gallant, crazy men. I salute you.” Landa did so, and after they returned it, he extended his hand and they shook.
“I almost had the commissioning pennant, Sir,” Seltzer said, “but then you and Mr. Ingram was yelling. So...”
“It’s a good thing you did,” Ingram laughed.
“Okay.” Landa passed the flag back to Seltzer and nodded toward the gun director. “Think you men can jury rig the flag up there?”
“You bet, Captain.” The three scrambled up the ladder to the pilot house, then crawled up the gun director and started bending the flag to the aft section of the fire control antenna.
The rain pounded harder, roaring and dimpling the water around them as the ship drifted. Ingram sighted the pelorus across the bow; it appeared to line up with their direction of movement. He caught Landa’s eye.
“Better pass the word,” Landa said. He called to Early, “Damnit, get back down here and put your phones on.”
“Sir.” Early scrambled down and hurriedly jammed on his sound-powered phone gear.
“Tell all stations to hang on. We’ll be grounding soon, most likely on New Georgia.”
Landa grabbed a phone and rang Hank Kelly. “How’s that bulkhead holding up?” It was a seriously ruptured after-fireroom bulkhead that now constituted the ship’s transom. “Yeah, yeah, well keep shoring. Say, listen. We’re pretty sure we’ll be running aground soon. So watch that bulkhead, and be ready to evacuate the fireroom if it splits when we hit. Got it?”
Turning to Ingram, Landa said, “Engineering department got off relatively easy. All men in the after engine room were lost. Two killed in the after fire room. But that’s it for them. Both firerooms wrapped up the boilers and got out of there. Apparently, the main steam lines are ruptured. The diesel-generator took shrapnel through the block, so it looks like a goner. Most of our casualties are from the gun crews and aft repair parties that went down with...”
He stuttered for a moment. Then, “Hank wants help down there pounding in strongbacks. Any ideas?”
“How ‘bout our First Lieutenant? Maybe some of the deck force?”
“Good idea. Where is he?”
“Combat?”
“Early, ask Mr. Delmonico to find Mr. Edgerton and tell him to lay to the bridge.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Our only source of power is the emergency batteries.”
Ingram opened his mouth to speak, but then noticed Early’s ashen face. “What is it?”
“Captain,” Early said. “Mr. Delmonico reports that Mr. Edgerton was a check-sight observer on mount fifty-four.”
“Ahhh, shit.”
Instinctively, Landa and Ingram looked aft in the rain, almost as if they could see the young ensign walking toward them. “Damnit! A great kid,” said Landa.
Ingram turned his face to the sky, his tears mixing with clean fresh water, running down his shirt, washing grime away.
The rain let up for a moment. Looking around, Ingram spotted a thick patch of trees to starboard. “Land, about 200 yards, Jerry.” Then the mist closed in. “We might want to drop anchor when we hit.”
“Right, call away the anchor detail.”
A bright orange-yellow coral head sweep past just beneath the surface. Then another, closer.
Suddenly, static ranged on the TBS and they heard a faint, “Ricochet, Ricochet, this is Ovaltine, Ovaltine, over.” It was Dexter Sands, calling from the Sioux Falls.
“What shall I tell him, Sir,” asked Offenbach.
“Think of something.”
Offenbach picked up the hand set and pressed it to the blood-soaked pillowcase wrapped around his head. “Ricochet, over.”
“Ricochet?” Dexter Sand’s voice was incredulous, as if he really didn’t expect an answer. “Authenticate, over.”
They heard a scraping, then something thumped. The ship lurched.
An incredulous Offenbach stepped into the pilot house, looking for the day’s authentication chart.
“Let me.” Landa snatched the hand set from Offenbach and said, “Ovaltine, this is Ricochet, Over.”
“Ricochet. Interrogative authentication. Over.”
“Look, Dexter, we’ve had our ass blown off
; everything behind the after fireroom is gone. We’re on emergency power, have suffered well in excess of a hundred casualties, and have lots of injured men. I don’t have time to screw with your fucking authentication code, because we’re about to run aground on New Georgia Island. Where, I don’t know, because we’ve lost our mast including my radar. And it’s raining like hell. Needless to say, we need lots of help. Oh, by the way, thanks for the air cover. Ricochet, out.” Landa bracketed the phone just as the Howell hit another bump.
Landa walked on the bridgewing as the Howell hit bottom. She turned sideways for a moment, then skipped over coral, scraping mud banks. Ahead, the mist parted. The area was heavily wooded and sloped gently down to a mangrove swamp, about one hundred yards distant.
The ship lurched and they pitched forward. Something, perhaps a coral reef, screeched and bit the Howell’s bottom. With a final groan, she stopped for good.
Landa stood high on the bulwark step, put two fingers to his lips and whistled to the fo’c’sle crew. He sliced his hand across his neck and yelled, “Let her go!”
With a sledgehammer, a boatswain’s mate on the fo’c’sle smacked the pelican hook’s stopper, and the anchor fell free, smacking the water, and dragging its chain with it. The brakeman on the fo’c’sle set the anchor chain and quiet descended; the only sounds faint static on the pilot house loud speakers, thumping rain, and groans of the wounded.
With no mast, the Howell seemed naked. And her new aft end was the forward bulkhead of a gutted after engine room, where the shredded main deck hung only six feet above the water. Aft of that, there was no more U.S.S. Howell. It was...gone, sunk in the New Georgia sound: rudder, screws, three five-inch gunmounts, one forty and ten twenty millimeter gunmounts, the after berthing compartments, and the depth charge racks...gone. And, by Ingram’s guess, approximately 125 men, who had moments before been living, working, fiercely loyal destroyer men dedicated to doing their jobs.
What remained was the forward end; its bow raised on a coral reef one hundred yards off the mangrove swamps of New Georgia Island. Remarkably, she was on an even keel.
WHEN DUTY WHISPERS LOW (The Todd Ingram Series Book 3) Page 12