SILENT GUNS

by Bob Neir

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’ll die in here.”

  “I’ll keep that suggestion in mind,” Trent said quietly. He felt the man’s fury as he quickly secured and re-checked all movable gear. He swallowed hard as he felt the boat plunge forward; burying its bow sending a shock wave aft. The stern lifted, he sprung out of the hatch and furiously dogged it down. With the Helga slewing dangerously, he made a quick, mad dash forward to the wheelhouse.

  “Madden, check the whaler, this blow is going to get worse before it’s over.” Madden pulled on a dripping oilskin and hurried down the ladder. He hit the working deck just as a heavy sheet of spray rose over the railing and dashed itself against the cabin. Harper reached Madden’s side and said angrily, “I told Newby what that crazy Trent was doing. Get him to turn back.”

  “Watch your tongue, Harper. You ain’t half the man he is. You had your chance to jump ship, but you couldn’t cut it.”

  Unmasked, Harper eyed him scathingly.

  Harper grinned, “I underestimated you, Madden.”

  “You’re a troublemaker, Harper and if…” Harper cowered; he faced a hovering shadow. His face widened. A huge roller rose over the railing. The wave broke and struck Madden across his back and tumbled both men aft. His breath was pushed from his lungs; it was like being buried alive. Madden staggered up, his body reeled like some drunk; buried to his hips, he lunged and grasped the safety line. He hauled up a struggling Harper. Tearing at the lugs of the engine room door, he tossed Harper in and dogged it tight just as a cascading sea swept over.

  Maxie sat strapped in his chair in the dryness and warmth of his engine room. He laughed. The diesel engine pounded on, purring like a kitten. A careening wave slapped the bow hard and tossed the Helga hard over, the deck angling steeply. Maxie, restrained by straps, found himself staring straight down at the engine. “Christ,” said Madden, “Another few degrees and this tub would go over completely.” Oddly, he felt he could calmly accept death.

  Wind and water twisted the hull and swept the Helga to the northeast. Trent felt the fierce pressure against his chest and thighs as he tried to bring her around to the southwest face into the full force of the still rising storm. The wind shrieked past the wheelhouse, flat spray smashed against the windows like frozen slivers of ice. The wheelhouse door burst open. Captain Larsen braced his bulk in the doorway.

  “What are you doing to my Helga?” he demanded.

  “Get in here!” Trent ordered.

  “Hold her head up,” Captain Larsen hollered as he lunged for the wheel. The fury of the wind raged higher and higher driving the Helga on, burying her forepeak. Masses of green, turbulent water raced aft overflowing her scuppers. Steel plates strained as if to rend apart. Four hands steadied the wheel. Then, there was nothing there.

  “The rudder is clear of the water,” Larsen screamed. The Helga staggered, heeled over and shot off sharply to starboard. “I can’t bring her around.”

  “We’re broadside!!!!”

  “Shift the rudder hard a port.” The wheel spun easily.

  “She won’t come around. The wind’s got her head.” And then, the Helga slipped off into a death-defying dive. First, she simply hung, suspended on the crest of a huge wave, then she fell off, or was simply flung sideways down into a valley. Her direction was a frightening, sickening sleigh-ride straight down to Davey Jones’ locker.

  “Bring the rudder back.”

  “It doesn’t do any good!!! We’ve lost steerage.” Trent gritted his teeth: his legs ready to break. “She’s going over.”

  “No! Not my Helga.” The roll ended and, imperceptibly, she righted, clawing up by inches, she righted. The propeller raced with nothing to churn against. Thump! Thump! Thump, it thrashed, catching occasional bites of black water. Torrential rains blotted out everything. The Captain prayed out loud.

  Aft, Harper had loosened the dogs and shouldered the engine room door open. The wind backed and tore at his eyelids. “I warned you, Madden, Trent should have laid over!” Harper shouted; the wind rammed his voice back down his throat. Madden barely made out his words. “That damn wind gage hit 77 knots. If that ain’t a terror, I don’t know what is.” Water madly careened up and down the deck as it sought to wash everything within reach overboard. Madden grabbed the safety line as water dragged greedily at his legs, He pointed, “I’m right. It is the aft hatch…!” A slamming sound reverberated over the din. “If that hold swamps, we’ll go down like a rock,” Harper shouted. “Those 16-inch shells are a ticket to hell. Timing his move, Madden broke for the thrashing hatch and fell across it. Water swept over him tearing at his body, ripping at his fingers as he fought to hold on. With a double shattering roar, a wave cascaded over his prostrate body. Hanging on for dear life, he rode the floating hatch like a bucking bronco. Harper jumped to and lashed it down. Exhausted, they let the cascading waters slosh over them. Overhead, the loose cargo boom whipped back and forth, describing a dizzying arc across an angry sky.

  “You’re as crazy as Graves,” Harper said, shaking his head. “That stupid bastard laughed when I told him Trent was taking us out. We’d better checkout Schiller.”

  “We’d better not!” Madden grabbed Harper’s arm and held him back. He nodded aft. The stern wagged violently, and then quite unexpectedly would slant steeply to starboard, so steeply, that if standing on it, one would be pitched off like a shuttlecock off a badminton racquet. “The hell with Schiller. Let’s get out of here,” catching the rhythm of the rise, they worked their way back to the engine room.

  Maxie lay on the deck, his ear to the deck plates. He ignored his guests. He listened to the spinning shaft, the shuddering jolt when the stern lifted free. He then tied himself to the engine and deftly worked the throttles with his free hands. When the propeller broke the surface, he stopped the engine to keep it from tearing itself to pieces. Above the thunder of the engine exhaust and the pounding of the engine was the monotonous clank of the bilge pump. “This old tub won’t take much more pounding,” Hirsch warned over the noise of the straining engine. “No one can survive in this, even in survival gear,” he remarked to himself.

  Biting winds and driving, icy cold sprays keep sweeping over the bow. On the foredeck, everything about the storm was exaggerated. “Mother of heaven,” Graves stood, legs spread apart, fist held aloft and screamed. “I defy you. You cannot beat me.” He challenged the storm that sought to sweep him overboard. Vile profanities poured forth from his mouth. He drew his shoulders up inside his heavy slicker; a drawstring sealed the hood. He barely noticed his water-filled pockets. Washed overboard, he would have disappeared without a trace.

  Harper was first to feel the heavy banging. He made for the upper deck and shouted over the din, “Graves, get up here, fast, I need a hand.” The whaler had unshipped. It was rocking in sync with the whipping cargo mast. The Helga heeled, corkscrewed, staggered and plunged like a beast gone mad. The combination forced a wave over the wheelhouse, lifted the whaler, and crashed down hurling Harper back down to the working deck. Washed aft, he became ensnared in a collection of streaming, torn lines. “I’m goin’ over!” Harper screamed, his face alive with terror. Graves bounded aft, dove and pinned him to the deck.

  “Hang on, you bastard,” Graves’ mouth tightened. It was clumsy work slashing tangled lines as he cut Harper free. Coursing water kept sweeping them further aft. Cursing, Graves spotted Harper sloshing about, face down, and inches from going over the taffrail and into eternity. “Hold on, Harper. I’m coming.” Graves dove just as the Helga pitched forward and heaved violently to port, sliding into a new abyss. Raging waters that stood deep on the afterdeck seconds before, swept Harper forward. Graves snagged his prostrate body as it floated by. He dragged him aside he propped him up against the engine room door. Water under his slickers and chilled to the bone, Graves collapsed.

  Trent gripped the wheel and grimaced as another wave bore down. Fascinated, he watched the roller’s crest start to
break, “It’s a big one!” Captain Larsen shouted. “Same sound as a freight train running by Fitzgerald’s,” Trent thought. The Helga staggered under the weight. An avalanche of water crashed and drove her bow deep, as if pounded under by Thor’s clenched fist. A thousand points of metal screamed. Overstressed joints flooded the wheelhouse ankle-deep. In one final insane, maddening crescendo, the wind rose to an ear-splitting pitch. As the Helga slewed off sluggishly, a thunderous, wrenching grating sound drowned out the wind. Trent turned. It sounded as though the Helga’s bottom had been torn out.

  “The whaler carried away,” the Captain shouted. “The deadweight’s gone: she’s coming back!” The Helga slowly righted herself. The wind shifted with startling suddenness and just as quickly as the storm came, it blew over. An unearthly calm descended. The Sound was still streaked in white and marked with broad, frequent swells, but the crashing waves had gone. It took another twenty-four hours for the storm to blow itself out to a whimper.

  “It’s over,” Trent said, dully.

  “God was not ready for my Helga,” the Captain said.

  * * *

  The Navy Patrol Boat stood motionless, idling. Madden cut the speed, and the Helga slowed, coasting until the two ships drew abreast. Trent stepped to the starboard wing and hesitated. The signs were ominous: the Navy had checked the ammo barge. Maybe, they had checked the Missouri, too? Did they know? Were they just waiting for us?

  “I can’t believe you guys made it,” the Chief Mate bellowed. “Didn’t you get the Coast Guard’s warning?”

  “We got it too late,” Trent replied, nonchalantly.

  “You’re lucky you made it over,” the Chief took off his cap and scratched the back of his head. “We got the tail of the storm in here. We’re still rounding up strays. Three boats went down.”

  “Guess they didn’t get the word, either.” Trent said.

  “They got it, but didn’t listen. It was the worst blow in thirty-years. Rated Force 9. WestPoint Coast Guard station recorded peak 83 knot winds. Hood’s Canal got 94.” Trent’s stomach twisted.

  “How’s the Missouri?” he asked.

  “You gotta be kidding,” the Chief smiled as he waved his helmsman on.

  Trent made for Larsen’s cabin two steps at a time. Madden took the wheel.

  “How’s Harper?” Trent inquired.

  “Captain pumped him dry,” Maxie answered.

  “And Graves?”

  “The Captain’s working him over, too.” Maxie looked up, and nodded his head towards the Captain’s bunk. “He had to sew Graves up. Cut bad on the head. Took ten stitches.”

  “Graves say anything, yet?” Trent inquired, solemnly.

  “Not yet,” Maxie answered.

  “Otherwise?”

  “Nothing broken, Captain gave him morphine.”

  “And Harper?”

  “Hard to tell. Nothing visible,” Maxie continued. “Maybe something busted inside. At best, he’ll be sore as hell.”

  “How long?”

  “Don’t ask me, ask the Captain. He knows more about broken bones and cracked skulls than he lets on.”

  “What do you mean?” Trent asked, puzzled.

  “He’s got a doctor’s bag aboard. He took to the guys like a butcher to a side of beef. There was nothing in his bag for me.” Maxie smiled as he filled hot water bottles and placed them besides Harper, who was shaking violently. “The Captain could have made a break for the Patrol boat, but he didn’t.” Maxie looked up. “I would have nailed him before he got to the door.” Trent smiled: he tried, but he just couldn’t picture it. Trent went aft and threw back the access hatch. Schiller lay at the foot of the ladder, still bound and tied.

  “You bastard!”

  Trent cracked a smile then slammed the hatch shut.

  ~ * * * ~

  CHAPTER 16

  Madden adroitly clambered up the Jacob’s ladder that danced lightly against the side of the battleship. If he was weary from the day’s travails, he gave no sign. Once aboard, he whipped lines down to the Helga. Trent rang down ‘Finished with engine’ as he rested on the wheel.

  Maxie burst into the wheelhouse, “Graves and Harper are conscious and talking, but, where the hell is Newby?”

  Trent turned, “Isn’t he with Madden?”

  “Nobody’s seen Newby since Madden shipped him off to the galley.” Maxie frowned. Trent moved with an agility that surprised him. They checked hatches and doors until Maxie finally asked, “Think he got washed overboard?”

  Trent tried to fathom what might have happened when Madden ambled aft. “Where’s Newby?”

  Madden hunched up his shoulders in a small chuckle.

  “What’s so damn funny! Where is he?”

  “Did you try his bunk?” Madden replied, stifling the same chuckle. “He’s seasick. The rollers did him in. What was left of his breakfast came up. Phew! The bulkhead and deck are a stinking mess. He kept missing the bucket. He claimed it was a stomach bug and he’d get over it quick. I got him seasick pills, but he just got worse. He didn’t want anyone to know,” Madden continued, “and he asked me to cover for him. What could I say?”

  Trent shoved the door wide. Newby lay curled up in a fitful position; his hands clutched his stomach. His round, cherubic faced screwed up and nearly in tears. Vomit trailed from the corner of his mouth, his shirtfront was marked. His pleading eyes begged for a quick death emphasized by a long, wailing moan.

  Trent left quietly.

  * * *

  The Missouri lay a floating mass of cold, lifeless steel. Engines and boilers were dead. With her machinery inoperative, her powder and shells removed, she lay useless. In her heyday, she could have reduced Seattle’s skyline to rubble in a matter of hours. Since the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battleship had been declared obsolete, a dinosaur of another age. Unfortunately, aircraft easily dispatched a battleship unless protected by the strong arm of an aircraft carrier. General Billy Mitchell proved his point. The battleship’s wounded pride resided solely in the sting of their 16-inch guns.

  “This barbette is tighter than a steel drum, an impregnable fort at sea,” Harper said, his hand patting the breech of the center 16-inch gun. The men listened intently. “Those flap doors seal the powder magazine below against flashback,” he pointed. “You guys heard the story of the Hood. She took a shell hit from the Bismarck. It either hit a magazine square or flashback set it off. Anyway, Blooie! The Hood disappears.”

  “Found a firing lock yet, Harper?” Madden queried.

  “No luck,” Harper fidgeted. “Maxie is searching.”

  Newby joined the group.

  “Feel better,” Harper asked.

  “Never so sick in my life. They’ll have to tie me in chains to get me aboard another lousy ship.”

  “The lock has got to be on board,” Newby blurted out. “The ship’s records say it’s here.”

  “The primers went bad out on that barge,” Graves said, fingering one. “No fear. I can replace the powder.”

  “They look like rifle shells,” Newby picked one up.

  “They are, dummy,” Graves said, snatching it back.

  Newby’s jaw stiffened.

  “It’s not all bad news,” Harper said. “Maxie found two sets of gas-check pads stuffed in Cosmoline. We could get by without one, but I wouldn’t want to be in here when we fire.”

  “How come?” Newby asked.

  “The pads seal the expanding gases in the gun.”

  “How about the ignition charges, Graves?” Harper asked.

  “I did like you told me. I packed the powder bags by the book,” Graves demonstrated, “See here, the black powder is butted right up against the smokeless and each ignition-charged end is daubed regulation red. Just don’t screw up the load, Harper, the red end goes in first.” Graves said, shaking a box of primers.

  “And don’t blow yourself up, either,” Harper warned.

  “A waste of primers,” Newby added.

  G
raves’ face turned red.

  “It will soon be dark,” Madden interrupted. “Let’s get the shells aboard.” Graves nodded jerkily, stood up and said, “Time enough later for these toys, those shells are real man’s work.”

  Madden followed Graves out, “When everything’s stowed, we’ll spot-welded shut all the barbette doors and hatches, except the aft turret hatch and the hatch aft to the second deck down to the Broadway. We don’t want strangers sneaking up on us.” Madden moved away into the shadows. “All of you, get familiar with the entry ways so you know them blindfolded.”

  “The Broadway?” Newby asked.

  Madden stopped. “It’s the only clear passageway fore and aft below decks. It’s protected from shellfire and used to move supplies fore and aft during a fight. If the Navy comes after us, it will come in handy,” he explained. “Oh! Sort of like a mole hole.” Newby grimaced at a great howl of laughter.

  Maxie stuck his head up the turret hatch. “The contract crews have left, the deck is clear.” They were still laughing. “What’s the joke?”

  “Newby’s got a weird way of seein’ things,” Graves’ said.

  “I bet those contract guys head for the White Pig.”

  “How about us?” Harper asked.

  “No way, for you, Harper,” Madden waved him down.

  “My money sez it’s the Anchor Tavern,” Maxie offered. “It’s closer and the girls are easier. A gal named Jinks once worked there. She had a wooden leg. She got drunk and conked off. A buddy took her leg back with him board the Essex. He hung it up on a bulkhead.”

  They dropped down out of the turret to the deck.

  The auxiliaries went Pop! Pop! The winches were up and running. Madden moved to the handling hatch. Harper waited on the shell deck. Graves signaled and Maxie hauled up the first shell. Satisfied, when the loading was nearly complete, Trent headed back down the Jacob’s ladder. “Keep that .45 handy, Newby,” Trent warned, striding forward. Newby stayed close as he unlocked the Captain’s door. The Captain sat in his easy chair, his head sagged. Trent sat down and lit up a cigarette.