by Joe Buff
Felix peeked around a rock for a split second to use his binoculars. He ducked, barely in time, as an incoming three-round burst sent dust and pebbles flying.
“I see no mortars or hand grenades! I think they just have direct-fire weapons like us!” Rifles and pistols.
“They’re trying to outflank us!” the chief yelled back.
Felix looked at the lay of the land, the folds in the slopes, the jagged escarpments.
So this is how it feels to be in full command, as an officer. This is what it’s like to have chiefs taking orders from me.
It was scary, but Felix found he wanted it.
“We have to hold the high ground!”
“Firing line across this side of the island, or circle in an all-around defense?”
Felix looked about again and thought as fast as he could. Razor-sharp spines led down from Southeast Rock’s central saddle in both directions, right into the sea. If his men spread out along the spines and fired down from the top, they might keep the Germans pinned down on the opposite side of the Rock.
But Felix and his men hadn’t come prepared for a major firefight. They only had so much ammo.
If each kampfschwimmer brought just one more magazine than each of my SEALs, we’ve had it. Or if the Germans are only slightly better shots, or have slightly better fire discipline, or use slightly better tactics…
The uncertainty stabbed him in the chest like a bayonet.
So this is the burden of command. I’ve already lost the element of surprise to the enemy. My logistics are inadequate. My commo’s barely functioning. I have to make too many choices at once…. And my men are bleeding and dying.
“Chief, this isn’t Iwo Jima! We have to stop thinking like Marines or infantry!”
Felix grabbed the mike to the minisub. To his relief the line still worked. “We need reinforcements. Every man not needed to run the Orpheus, suit up on the double. Head north underwater, outflank the Germans clockwise, come up on Northwest Rock and support us from there. Take the kampfschwimmer in enfilade.”
The chief in the mini acknowledged. Northwest Rock faced the opposite slope of the central spines of Southeast Rock. From there, fresh SEALs could attack the Germans from behind.
An enlisted SEAL shouted. Kampfschwimmer were charging up the slope in a coordinated rush.
Felix told his chief to get his men spread out along the spines and conserve their ammo but drive the Germans back. The chief made hand signals, and the SEALs began to act. With every weapon silenced, the battle was strangely quiet — but it would be a person’s final mistake to think the bullets were any less deadly.
Felix gestured for the chief to follow him. They belly-crawled across the open ground on part of the saddle and huddled in the ruins of the stone lighthouse. The location would serve as his command post, the pivot point in their battle to hold the Rocks. Felix dragged the microphones along with him. He tried to keep their wires concealed, and tried not to break either mike. But the conspicuous satellite dish was already riddled by the kampfschwimmer, and its preamplifier box was totally smashed. Then the whole dish toppled flat: Felix lost contact with Norfolk. The Germans continued their uphill rush.
Some kampfschwimmer were knocked down by American bullets, but they crawled or hobbled away behind boulders and draws — and Felix saw no blood trails. He realized their suits were lined with Kevlar, like the SEALs’. To stop them, he knew his men had to stick to head shots. He told his chief to give the order.
Over the sonar speakers in the Zentrale, Ernst Beck listened to his acoustic link. The kampfschwimmer chief in the mini-sub, watching the Rocks through the periscope, was relaying Beck a blow-by-blow description of the battle.
“Their charge has been repulsed, Captain! The Americans still hold the high ground!”
“This will never do,” von Loringhoven said.
Lieutenant Shedler was leading from in front, on the St. Peter and St. Paul Rocks. Because he was under fire, his men couldn’t set up a communications link to the minisub, or to Beck. The captain knew he had to do something himself.
Beck and Stissinger peered at a detailed topographical map of the Rocks and surrounding waters.
Beck used the acoustic link. “Chief, shift the minisub’s position south. Send the rest of your men into the water. Have them come up on Southeast Rock and take the SEALs from behind.”
“Jawohl. Moving now.”
“How did the SEALs ever get there?” von Loringhoven asked.
“That’s a very good question,” Beck replied. “More to the point, what do they want? What was that satellite dish for?”
There was an awkward silence.
“Targeting data from SOSUS hydrophones?” Stissinger suggested.
“Perhaps.” Beck considered everything he knew — why he was there by the Rocks, the enemy convoy that was coming, the defense plans U.S. commanders are likely to have made. “If you’re right, Einzvo, that would seem to prove the SEALs came via submarine.”
Von Loringhoven looked like he’d been slapped. “Find it! Destroy it!”
“Baron, you don’t have to tell me how to do my job.”
CHAPTER 21
After another fitful, nightmare-ridden attempt at a few hours’ sleep, Ilse Reebeck had just come back on duty to the console she’d been assigned at the Atlantic Fleet Command Center in Norfolk. The past several days of waiting for news from Challenger had been even more nerve-racking for her than for the others in the big war room because Ilse had served in battles on Challenger three times before. She knew most of the chiefs and enlisted men well. She was good friends with Kathy Milgrom, and the two had had fun “pajama parties” in their shared stateroom on the ship. COB had been Ilse’s mentor and father confessor as she tried to fit into a military hierarchy. And Jeffrey Fuller, of course, was someone she went back and forth between liking and hating — a roller coaster she hoped would continue, for the way it seemed to meet her deeply conflicted emotional needs. She desperately wanted Challenger to win, and Jeffrey Fuller and the others to survive.
But the past few days of draining quiet had meant high stress for everyone. It felt worse than sitting on thumbtacks, to wait for news that the U-boats were finally moving in. Ilse could observe the gradual progress of the convoy ships on the war room’s main displays, and she could follow the maneuvers by the escorts. She saw plots of each suspected contact with an enemy submarine, but then not one contact proved real. Instead, she read on tally boards — or overheard conversations — as the terrible wear and tear at sea took a mounting toll on ships and aircraft and people.
Then, out of nowhere, as Ilse finished her second coffee of the morning, pandemonium struck. Communications contact had just been established with the SEALs on those tiny islets amid the Atlantic Narrows, a third of the distance to the other side of the world. Almost at once, news came of a definite Orpheus contact on the von Scheer, and then kampfschwimmer attacked, and the satellite link to the Rocks went totally dead.
Admiral Hodgkiss walked over to Ilse. She found the man to be unfriendly and intimidating at best. The last few days, he’d become increasingly short with people — even his own staff approached him with trepidation.
“Good morning, Lieutenant Reebeck.”
Ilse began to rise to attention. She’d come far enough along the path from civilian consultant to uniformed personnel to follow military courtesy by instinct — most of the time. She was also smart enough to know that it was rare for any four-star to address someone of her junior status directly.
“Don’t get up,” Hodgkiss said. He stood next to her and looked at the big status plot on the wall. The last known position of the von Scheer had just popped onto the screen. “I guessed half right,” he said, as much to himself as to Ilse. “And in this game there’s no partial credit.”
“Sir?”
“I did get Challenger in range of the von Scheer after all. I miscalculated badly where the Axis would mass all their U-boats.”
Hodgkiss turned to his senior aide, a full captain, on the other side of the room. He barked for the man to come over. Ilse felt like a fly on the wall as they talked. The captain’s face was grim.
“To recover we need to take a monumental gamble,” Hodgkiss said.
“Admiral?”
“The U-boats are all waiting south,” Hodgkiss told the captain. “The sons of bitches let us chase our tails this whole past week. It wasn’t a running battle of attrition after all. It’s going to be a mass attack where we’ll least be able to cope.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want the convoy ships to stop and circle right where they are, with just enough speed for steerageway. I want the escort formations to redeploy.”
“Sir?”
“The warships go through the Narrows in a solid wall, not piecemeal. When we’re ready, the convoy groups start moving again. The escorts sweep ahead while giving full mutual support. I want three carrier battle groups to then peel off and form a new line to cover the North African coast, priority given to Axis mobile antiship cruise-missile launchers. The carrier fighter-bomber squadrons and cruiser Tomahawk batteries find those land-based launchers and pound the living shit out of ’em. Understand me?”
“Yes, sir. But all this will delay the relief convoy.”
“I know, maybe by several days.”
“The Axis ground assault in Africa might hit before the convoy reaches the coast to unload.”
“I know. If we lose the coast we probably lose everything. But unless we wait and do this right, the convoy doesn’t reach the coast at all.”
“Understood, Admiral. But I need to report that enemy jamming is increasing.”
“Then start drafting orders now! Get them out while we can! Get on it!”
Hodgkiss’s aide hurried off.
“And set up a conference call for me with someone on top in the air force!” the admiral yelled after him.
“Yes, sir!”
“Now, Lieutenant Reebeck.”
Ilse almost gulped. She knew the upcoming battle would be one for the history books. The Battle of the South Atlantic. And now the man whose name would be forever attached to that battle was talking to her.
“Admiral?”
“We need to give Challenger as much support as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And we’ve just lost the only stealthy way Challenger had to talk to us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And we dare not ask her to violate radio silence herself with the von Scheer so close.”
“Understood, Admiral.” Ilse knew they could use extremely low frequency radio to send an order to Challenger to come up to two-way antenna depth — or they might drop a signal sonobuoy from an aircraft.
“So tell me what to do.”
“Admiral?” Ilse was shocked he’d ask such a question. Then she realized he was testing her. “You mean, sir, tell you what Jeffrey Fuller would do.”
“Good, you got it in one.”
“I think Commodore Wilson would be a better person to ask, sir.”
“I already did. I want to hear what you have to say.”
Hodgkiss stepped closer, invading Ilse’s personal space. She knew that if she stood she’d be several inches taller than he, but that didn’t make the man any less of a potent authority figure.
Ilse thought hard. She glanced up and down, between the big status plot on the wall and the small-scale nautical chart on her workstation screen, which showed the Rocks and that local part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with an overlay of the surface water temperature and salinity.
“He’ll go right for the von Scheer. He’ll do everything he can to keep her from launching her missiles.”
“How?”
“I think he enjoys risking death, sir. He’ll push himself right to the edge.”
“I told him he was expendable in a one-for-one trade with von Scheer.”
“He’ll definitely use that. He’ll act suicidal on purpose, to bend the enemy captain’s mind.” Ilse felt acid stomach hit as the full implications sank in. Expendable.
“How does that apply right now?” Hodgkiss prodded.
“The von Scheer needs to go shallow to launch her antiship missiles?”
“Yes. The missiles aren’t very pressure-proof. We don’t think she can do it from below one hundred fifty feet.”
Ilse glanced at her console; satellite radar and microwave sensors told her a surprising amount about the upper part of the ocean. Self-propelled oceanographic probes, programmed to skim the surface periodically and transmit data dumps, told her even more — though reception from them was deteriorating. “One hundred fifty feet’s above the sonar layer near the Rocks.”
“Are you telling me Captain Fuller would take Challenger above the layer now that he’s made Orpheus contact?”
“I think he might.”
“He wouldn’t hide in the bottom terrain?”
“Not if hiding won’t help him to sink the von Scheer. Captain Fuller is extremely aggressive, sir. He’s also very inventive on tactics. Going shallow, he might make the von Scheer think he’s a steel-hulled sub, and lull the von Scheer by disguising his true capabilities. And going shallow gives his sonar arrays a much better field of view…. He might evenuse active sonar and reveal himself if that lets him draw a good bead on his target.”
“Invite incoming fire on purpose?”
“That could be part of it, yes.”
“Kampfschwimmer on the Rocks. The one thing I didn’t plan for. Now we’re deaf and blind at the absolutely worst imaginable time.” Hodgkiss sounded disgusted. “If von Scheer gets away from Challenger, or sinks her, we’re back to square one and the entire convoy’s at very grave risk. Especially with my altered escort dispositions. They’d make an even better group target for von Scheer than before.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Would he abandon the SEALs on the Rocks, or try to help them?”
“If his priority is the von Scheer, he’ll know that the SEALs are expendable…. I’ve seen him order people to their deaths before. He won’t like it one bit, but he’ll do it.”
Admiral Hodgkiss looked Ilse right in the eyes. “How sure are you of any of this?” He kept looking right at her without blinking.
Ilse returned the stare as bravely as she could. Admiral Hodgkiss had such a strong persona he could be frightening. “I’m as sure as I can be, sir.”
“I read all of Captain Fuller’s patrol reports. It may please you to know that I concur with your assessment of him, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
The admiral looked up at the main screen. He seemed to make a decision, then spoke half to himself. “I’m taking one huge gamble. I may as well take two.”
Hodgkiss turned and shouted for his aide again.
CHAPTER 22
Felix fired another short burst from his MP-5, then ducked behind the scattered man-made stones of the ruined lighthouse. He was sweating profusely inside his hot protective suit. He’d already used up the built-in drinking bottle, and he knew he was in danger of becoming dehydrated. If that or a German bullet didn’t get him, heatstroke soon would.
Then his team of reinforcements from the minisub came out of the water on Northwest Rock. Felix and the headquarters chief hand-signaled to their men along the spines of Southeast Rock; the men increased their rate of fire. The SEALs on Northwest Rock took up positions and started to shoot. The kampfschwimmer were forced to withdraw back toward the water.
Felix ordered his men to charge. While the other team made the kampfschwimmer scatter and keep their heads down, he and the surviving SEALs began to dash down the slope, using fire and movement to protect one another.
Then he and his men took enemy fire from behind. Felix realized the kampfschwimmer had sent reinforcements too. They were trying to do to him exactly what he was doing to them: catch him in enfilade — kill him using fire from two directions at once.
Felix and his
men had no choice but to take cover and shoot back the way they’d just come. The kampfschwimmer who’d been withdrawing saw this and got emboldened. They waded across to Northeast Rock, shooting at the SEALs on Northwest Rock, Felix’s reinforcement team. The seesaw struggle of evenly matched Allied and Axis elites grew brutal and vicious.
Hot lead continued to fly, and ricochets continued screeching. Silenced muzzles smoked and spent brass flew. The supply of full magazines steadily dwindled. Felix sweated and panted; his mouth was terribly dry. The stale taste from his Draeger told him he was hyperventilating — breathing faster than the chemicals in the rebreather could absorb his carbon dioxide and give him fresh new air.
Felix fired in one direction and then the other. Clumps of men advanced a handful of yards, then were driven back.
Then Felix had a horrible realization. He hyperventilated harder. We had the proper tactics but we picked the wrong location.
“Chief!” he shouted to get the man’s attention.
“Sir!”
“The high ground! This spot isn’t the high ground!”
The chief shook his head, then ducked as a well-aimed bullet almost took him in the face. “I don’t follow you, LT.”
“Challenger and von Scheer. They’ll use nuclear torpedoes.” Felix pointed out at the ocean.
The chief’s eyes widened; his face grew pale.
“The waves they kick up will wash right over the Rocks!” Felix had to pause to draw a breath. “When the fireballs break the surface, the heat and shock front and gamma rays, they’ll cook us alive!”
“Retreat to the minisub?”
“We can’t! Orders! We can’t abandon the Rocks!” Felix drew another breath. “If we go in the water at all, the undersea warhead concussion power will force our livers out our assholes and make shit spray from our mouths!”