"Aye aye, Cap'n. I'll get it right off," said the Professor, as he and Tania ducked down off the bridge to the radio shack.
In a few minutes another signal went up on the Russian destroyer, "Stop or I will fire on you."
"Sixth Fleet acknowledges our dispatch," reported the Professor over the voice tube.
"Get out another," yelled Fatso. "Urgent priority on this one - Russians have ordered me to stop or they will fire. I will not comply."
After this signal had been flying about five minutes the light on the destroyer started blinking again: "You - have - one - of - our - sailors - on - board. - We - want - him - back."
"Pay no attention to it," said Fatso.
A minute later word came up from the radio shack: "Sixth Fleet has our second message. Tania says the Russians have radioed their Admiral asking for instructions."
"All right now," said Fatso. "These guys may be thinking of trying to board us. I want everybody to get a tommy-gun and five magazines of ammunition. Then take station around the top side with the weapons in plain view."
"You're not going to try to fight against these two guys, are you?" demanded Adams.
"I sure as hell am," said Fatso.
"You must be crazy," said Adams. "It would be murder."
"Listen, bud," said Fatso. "There comes a time when you've got to stand up and fight no matter what the odds. This may be our time . . . You take the wheel, Adams, where I can keep an eye on you. The rest of you guys go get the guns . . . and, Jughaid, bring one up for me."
For the next fifteen minutes the ships plodded west at fifteen knots. One of the Russians eased in to about twenty yards abeam for a few minutes and had a good look at the armed men on deck.
"Cap'n," said Adams, "the odds against us are much larger than they were against the Pueblo. I think you're a fool to fight these guys."
"Don't talk Pueblo to me," said Fatso. "This is a different Navy from the one they were in . . . Sure, these guys can take us if they want to. But it will cost them a couple of dozen Russkies to do it . . . Webfoot!" he shouted. "I want you to get demolition charges ready so we can scuttle this bucket if we have to."
"Aye aye, sir," said Webfoot, and disappeared below.
Word came up from the radio room, "The Russian Admiral has told them to fire a shot across our bows."
In a minute the bow gun on one of the tin cans swung out, there was a loud boom, and a four-inch shell whistled across ahead of LCU 1124 and hit the water about two hundred yards beyond. "Steady as you go," said Fatso to Adams at the wheel.
"Tell Sixth Fleet," yelled Fatso down the tube, "they have fired a shot across my bow. I am proceeding on course."
"Aye aye," replied the Professor. "The Russian is telling his Admiral he fired a shot and we didn't stop."
Meanwhile Fatso's report of being harassed was taken in by the Milwaukee, flagship of the Sixth Fleet. The young staff duty-officer did not consider this report urgent enough to interrupt a high level staff conference then being held by the Admiral. He put it on the dispatch board to be brought to the Admiral's attention as soon as the conference broke up.
However, this dispatch was also taken in by the America, at sea just east of Sicily. It was brought to the Admiral's attention in flag plot immediately.
"How far away is that position he gives?" demanded the Admiral of the operations officer.
The ops officer made a quick plot on the chart and said, "Two hundred miles, sir."
"Okay," said the Admiral. "We've got a six-plane CAP over the ship, fully armed. They can get there in 20 minutes. Tell them to proceed there and render any assistance necessary to LCU 1124 . . . Get them going right away and then launch another CAP to replace them over the ship."
"Aye aye, sir," said the ops officer, and passed the word down to CIC over the squawk box.
Half a minute later the six fighters which had been orbiting over the ship at forty thousand feet nosed down, poured on the coal, and headed east at Mach 1.5.
About five minutes later, Fatso's second dispatch, about "Heave to or I will fire," was received by the Milwaukee. This one was immediately brought to the Admiral's attention.
"What the hell have we got here? Another Pueblo?" demanded the Admiral.
The Admiral looked at his watch and at the time group on the message. "This first message was written just fifteen minutes ago," he said. "America is only a couple of hundred miles from her and can have planes overhead in half an hour . . . Pass these messages to America and tell her 'assist as necessary.' "
As the staff duty officer hurried off to send this message the Chief of Staff asked, "Do you want to cut Washington in on this? We can get through to them with a 'critical' message in a couple of minutes."
"Not yet," said the Admiral. "If the whiz kids get in on this act God knows what they'll tell us to do. When the thing is all over and we know how it comes out, I'll tell 'em."
A few minutes later the staff duty officer bustled back with a message from America. "Six VF sent to assist LCU 1124 fifteen minutes ago on receipt of first message. Have also sent two destroyers."
"Good old Joe," observed the Admiral. "He didn't even wait for us to tell him. Well, this scenario reads a little different from the Pueblo, so far anyway."
"What else do you want to do, Admiral?" asked the COS.
"Nothing. We'll be getting further word on this in fifteen minutes. We'll play it by ear then. I think the Russians will back down when our planes get there."
There was a wait of about fifteen minutes after the Russian got off his message about firing the shot. One of the destroyers eased in close aboard LCU 1124 with an armed party on deck and three Jacob's ladders over the side. She stayed there for a minute with her skipper looking over the LCU, which had her armed men conspicuously deployed on deck. Then she eased out again to about two hundred yards.
"He's got to get the go-ahead from his Admiral," observed Fatso. "If he closes us again, he'll mean business."
"They can overwhelm us easy, Cap'n," said Adams. "They must have two hundred men on that ship."
"Well, they won't have two hundred by the time they get through taking us," said Fatso. "I think he's bluffing anyway. Tania ain't that important to them."
As the Russian began moving in again, Fatso yelled to the boys on deck, "Take cover, you guys. Load and lock. Keep your guns ready, and if anybody starts down those Jacob's ladders - let 'em have it."
While all hands were watching apprehensively from behind the bulwarks, six small specks began taking shape in the sky to the west and suddenly a section of six Phantoms roared over at masthead height and began circling. The lead plane fired a burst from his machine guns into the water about four hundred yards ahead of the Russian ships. The Russians immediately stopped closing in and then hauled out again to a position about three hundred yards abeam.
Presently word came up from the radio shack, "Russian is reporting arrival of planes and requesting instructions." A few minutes later the Professor called up, "Russians are getting orders to return to base." A minute later the two Russians reversed course and steamed off to the east.
The fighter planes continued to circle LCU 1124 till the Russians were well beyond the horizon. Then they came down low, flew past Fatso close aboard, waggled their wings in a friendly manner, and disappeared to the west.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Russian Merchantman
Later, in the messroom, all hands were rehashing the day's events.
"I don't mind telling you, I thought our number was up," said Jughaid.
"Yeah. I thought so too," said Webfoot. "It sure was a beautiful sight when those planes showed up."
"We were just lucky as hell," said Adams. "If those planes had come fifteen minutes later, we'd all be dead by now. I think we should have surrendered like the Pueblo did."
"Listen, bub," said Fatso. "In the Navy I grew up in there's no such word as 'surrender.' You hold out and they can get help to you, like they did to us today - and
like they might have to the Pueblo if she had fought. You can find out how to do most anything you want in the regulations book except how to surrender. There ain't a word in the book about how to do that. You just don't surrender."
"The Pueblo did," said Adams.
"All right. So the Pueblo did," said Fatso. "And those guys have got to live with that from now on. That ain't something that you can brag to your grandchildren about."
"It's better than being dead," said Adams.
"That depends on how you're built," said Fatso. "You can't live forever. I dunno of any really nice way to die. But there are lots of ways worse than to do it fighting for your country."
"Aw, that's just a lot of the old story-book stuff," said Adams, "it's not relevant any more."
"When enough guys get to feeling like you do," observed the Judge, "the Russians will move in on us and take over. Then all the constitutional rights and freedoms that you hippies keep screaming about will go down the drain. You'll be free to do as you're damn well told or else to wind up in the salt mines.
"How do you feel about this thing, Tania?" asked Fatso.
"Well," said Tania, "I'm very glad you didn't let them come aboard. It would have been too bad for me if you had."
"Do you think they really intended to come aboard?"
"Yes. Until the planes came, I think they did."
"They saw our people on deck with guns," said Fatso.
"Yes. But they didn't believe you will really fight. They think you will surrender like Pueblo did."
"Your people know about the Pueblo, do they?" asked Fatso.
"Yes indeed. The whole story was in Pravda and on the radio. The political commissars on all ships told us all about it. We thought it was a sign that you were getting soft and were a paper tiger. The commissar said this showed you would only fight when you were sure to win."
"Did your people believe this?"
"Well - yes. You had eighty-three men on the Pueblo. There were only six Koreans in the boarding party that captured her. You could easily have killed them. Then, with only six Koreans on board, you allowed them to take the ship into harbor. No Russian crew would have done that. They would have fought. And if they saw they were losing, they would have blown up their ship and sunk it."
"They didn't have explosive charges to do that," said Fatso. "And they were taken by surprise. They were on the high seas, and taking a ship on the high seas is piracy. Until the Pueblo, the last case of piracy on the high seas had been over a hundred years ago."
"But Pueblo was not on high seas - she was inside Korean territorial waters."
"Oh, no she wasn't. She was seventeen miles offshore."
"But your country signed a note admitting they were in Korean territorial waters and apologizing for it."
"Well, yes. We did," conceded Fatso. "But we disavowed that as soon as the men were released and said this was not so."
"They didn't tell us anything about that," said Tania. "All we heard about was that you signed an official note admitting you were in their waters and apologizing for it."
"Well - there's no use talking about that," said Fatso. '"And anyway, the Pueblo was a special case. I don't think it will ever happen again. And it sure as hell won't happen to this ship."
About an hour later the upper works of a big ship began coming up over the horizon astern of them to the east. Whenever a big stranger appears, all hands gather on deck to have a look at her. This one came up fast, making about twenty-five knots. She was a twenty-thousand-ton cargo ship flying the Russian flag. She was a new spick-and-span smart-looking craft with the latest tvpe of deck winches, booms, and cranes. She passed about a mile abeam to port.
"That's a real smart-looking ship," said Fatso to Tania.
"Yes," said Tania. "We are building lots of them now. Pretty soon we have the biggest merchant marine in the world."
"I guess maybe you will." said Fatso. "At least so far as we are concerned, you will. At the rate we're going now. we won't have any merchant marine at all pretty soon, except for some old World War cargo ships."
"What happened?" asked Tania. "At the end of the war you had the biggest merchant marine in the world. You had shipyards that could rum out ships the way you build automobiles. You have to have ships for your foreign trade. But now you hardly ever see a ship with the American flag."
"It's a long story. Tania," said the Professor. "All the American ships are registered under foreign flags now, because under our laws we have to pay the crews so much the ships lose money. Our shipyards are all closed because it costs twice as much to build a ship in the U.S. as it does in Japan, for instance."
"Well, don't you do anything about this?" asked Tania.
"Not a damn thing." said the Professor. "Our unions won't let us."
"I do not understand your country." said Tania. "How can you expect to be a great country if you don't have cargo ships and tankers?"
"I dunno." said the Professor. "But we seem to be doing pretty good without them."
Then Tania said to Fatso. "Captain. I like to use your radio."
"What for?" asked Fatso.
"I want to see if I can play trick on that ship that just passed
"What do you wanta do?" asked Fatso.
"I know that ship's call sign." said Tania. "I want to call him using the call sign of Russian Admiral and tell him, 'Return to Odessa.' "
"Hunh," said Fatso. "Do you think he will?"
"Yes. He will turn right around and go back."
"Okay," said Fatso. "Go ahead and try it."
Tania got a piece of paper and wrote out a short message in Russian. She showed it to Fatso and said, "This is from Admiral Commanding Mediterranean Fleet to the Borich. Urgent. It says, 'Return to Odessa,' "
"Do you think he'll believe it when you don't give any reason?" asked Fatso.
"The Russians never give reasons. They just issue orders," said Tania.
"All right. Go ahead and send it," said Fatso.
Tania sat down in front of the radio transmitter and began looking it over. "I'll set it up for you," said the Professor. "What frequency do you want?"
Tania motioned him away. "You don't have to help me," she said, twiddling the dials. "I know how to use this set." She finally got it adjusted to the frequency she wanted and then started calling the Russian at very low power. As she tapped out the call letters on the key, the Professor observed, "She's a pro, all right. You can tell that from her fist on the key." She continued calling, gradually increasing power, and after a few minutes an answering call came back from the Russian.
"Hah!" said Tania. "He answers me."
Then she sent her message and the Russian receipted for it. "Now," she said, "We go up and watch. Pretty soon you see him come back."
All hands adjourned to the bridge, from which the masts of the Russian were just visible over the horizon to the west. Jug-haid put his big telescope on them and in a few minutes he shouted, "She's changing course, coming back this way!"
Soon her upper works and hull came over the horizon and she passed LCU 1124 a mile abeam to port, heading east.
"It's a wonder the Russian flagship didn't hear your transmission and cancel it," observed Fatso.
"That's why I used very low power," said Tania, "just enough to go a little beyond the horizon. Russian flagship was too far away to hear it."
"This gal knows all the angles, all right," observed the Pro fessor.
"You know," said Fatso, with a gleam in his eye, "this business of being able to issue orders to the Russians may come in handy sometime."
Later, in the messroom, the boys were discussing Tania.
"She knows her stuff on that radio set . . . and she handles a key as well as I do," said the Professor.
"She must be a pretty good frogman, too," observed Webfoot. "She had to swim about half a mile under water with that mine, set it to go off so she'd be some distance from it, and then get over and hang on to our bow for twenty minutes or so."
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"She don't look like much in that dungaree outfit," said Izzy. "But if you dressed her up and put some makeup on her she might be a pretty good-looking dish."
"I wonder what she'd be like in bed," said Adams.
"Aw, hell, they're all alike in bed," said Ginsberg. "After you get their pants off, language don't make no difference."
"Yeah," said the Judge. "But they ain't all the same. I had a dame in Naples last time that was just as cold as a block of concrete till we got in bed. Then she turned into a fireball."
"Well, this Tania dame looks like a pretty cool customer to me," observed the Professor. "If any of you have got any ideas about her, I think you'll just be wasting your time."
"I'll betcha I can make her," said Adams.
"What makes you think you're such a Don Juan?" demanded the Professor.
"Hell, give me a week to work on them and I can make any dame in this world," said Adams.
"Okay, Romeo. You wanta bet?" asked the Professor.
"Sure," said Adams. "I'll betcha ten bucks I can make her before we get to Naples."
"It's a bet," said the Professor.
All the others wanted a piece of this action too, and soon there was fifty bucks in the pot - covered with fifty more by Adams.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Board Egyptian
In the next day or so, things settled down to normal again and the boys were getting used to the idea of having a Russian girl living with them. For a while it had cramped their style on their language a little bit. But by now they had found out that Tania knew all the words they did, plus some real robust Russian words too. So she was accepted and treated as one of the crew, the same as anybody else.
They had heard on the radio news about the Israeli protest on the sale of the ship to Egypt and about our decision to stop it. This had almost been forgotten when the ship burst into the news again with the phony sale to Ecuador and her departure from the U.S. with an Ecuadorian crew, presumably bound for Cairo.
"Those dirty bastards," said Izzy, when this news broke. "We oughta have the Sixth Fleet intercept that bucket and take it away from the Spigs."
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