Orphans of the Storm (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  Jake grabbed at the sleeve of his now dirty, torn shirt: “Hey! We have to stop the work down there?” He shrugged the rifle off his shoulder. “I’m a fair shot. If I knock one of those guys over, that’ll stop ’em.”

  Smith shook his head, “No. The only advantage we have is surprise: we know the ship is there but they don’t know about us. I’m not throwing that away for a delay of an hour at most.”

  “An hour!” Jake protested, “I could keep ’em off that deck as long as the light lasts!”

  Smith repeated, “No. They’d blast you out of the forest.” He moved deeper into the trees but Jake hesitated, unconvinced and mutinous. Then he saw Buckley’s shake of the head, and followed.

  They rowed back across the river and slid alongside the Mary Ellen again in the dusk, filthy with sweat and mud, their clothes torn by the scrub. Garrity and Véronique leaned over the lighter’s side and Jake called up to them excitedly, “We found her! She’s up there in the pool and big as the Titanic!’ Then he swung the oars of the boat inboard and groused, “But we didn’t do a damn thing to stop their guys working on her.”

  Véronique thought he looked like a sulky schoolboy. She called down to the men in the boat, “I have a meal ready.”

  Smith looked up at the darkening sky then nodded acceptance, “Thank you. We’ll eat now and then move her.”

  By the time they had hoisted in the dinghy, washed and eaten it was full dark. Smith told Garrity, “Start her up and take her across the river.”

  Mike questioned, “What about that guardboat in the next reach?”

  “The watch aboard her won’t hear you because of the noise of the falls.”

  So they dismantled the awning from over the stern then the Mary Ellen eased back, squelching, off the mud of the bottom and out of the narrow channel. She swung around and puttered over the dark river to the opposite bank until close to the long shadow of the fringing trees. She turned then at Smith’s order and pushed upstream parallel to the shore. She moved slowly now, creeping around the outside of the bend in the river, and that, too, was at Smith’s order. She would creep to within a quarter-mile of the guardboat and while the watch aboard her would not hear the lighter above the roar of the falls, nor pick out the shape of her, tucked in tight alongside the trees, they might see the white water of a big bow wave if she moved at full speed. There was hardly a ripple at the Mary Ellen’s blunt stem.

  But Garrity chewed his lip, until Smith said, “Here. Take her in and dead slow.” He walked forward to stand in the bow as Mike eased the lighter around so that she headed into the gap between the trees. Her speed fell away further still as she crept into the inlet. Smith passed his orders via Jake and Buckley in the waist, calling them low-voiced: “Starboard a point … midships … a point to port …”

  He was conning the lighter from there, watching the bends and curves of the stream as they loomed up out of the darkness, and recalling what he had seen during his earlier reconnaissance. He took the lighter some four hundred yards up the stream until he found the side channel. Then he plunged over the side again with Jake and Buckley, the three of them shoving and hauling to help Garrity as he cajoled the Mary Ellen’s broad stern backwards into the side channel. Then they eased her up it, stern first, for two hundred winding yards and around two bends. So that she finally came to rest with a few inches of water under her flat bottom and her bow pointing down towards the stream.

  Smith had not finished. He led them down to the entrance to the side channel, already half-masked by trees. Stumbling in the darkness they lashed a rope across it, cut down saplings and bushes and hung them from the rope so the entrance was completely hidden by a seemingly unbroken line of undergrowth. Smith reckoned a good quarter-mile of swamp and forest separated the lighter from the guardboat.

  Buckley stood back from the screen they had made and said, “’Scuse me, sir, but I’ve just remembered: don’t they have man-eating fish in some o’ these rivers?”

  Smith said, “Piranha.” The thought had come to him some minutes ago. He remembered wondering about sharks after dropping into the sea from Brandenburg and said now as he had thought then, “But it’s a bit late to worry.”

  Jake said, “Don’t. There are no piranha, alligators or anything else dangerous in this river. Except a helluva big cruiser.”

  They waded back up the side channel to the Mary Ellen and Jake asked, “So what are we going to do about Brandenburg?”

  Smith climbed aboard and asked Garrity, “Can you let me have an oil-drum?”

  Chapter Fourteen – Night Attack

  Smith worked into the night. Early on he warned the others aboard the Mary Ellen: “If you show a light and the crew of that German launch see it, they’ll come in shooting.” So he used the green awning from the Mary Ellen to make a shelter in which he could use a light without it being seen. The shelter was set among low, twisted trees and a good fifty yards away from the lighter in case something went wrong. Felipe, the one-time shot firer who had set the charges in Spain, had taught Smith something of his craft but he knew he was not an expert.

  He dug down into the hold of the lighter and took some of the dynamite and a long length of fuse to the shelter, then detonators and the drum Garrity produced. It was not an oil-drum but a cylindrical paint tin standing over a foot high and nine inches in diameter. Garrity had cut one end out of it. Smith packed it with dynamite by the light of an electric torch, inserted detonator and fuse then lashed a wooden collar around it near the top so the tin would float upright like a buoy. He tied a thin line to it, a hundred feet long, and then carried it down to the side channel.

  He found Jake there, knee-deep in the water that flowed out from between the bordering trees and around him. He stood a score of yards or more from the Mary Ellen’s bow, with the canoe he had unlashed from the lighter’s foredeck and launched in the stream. Jake held on to the canoe and watched as Smith set the paint tin in the stream and let the current carry it away. It bobbed and wobbled but because of the wooden collar showed no sign of turning end over end.

  Smith said, “All right.” He hauled in on the line, lifted the tin and set it in the bow of the canoe.

  Jake said, “The other line’s amidships.”

  Smith groped around in the canoe and found the cord with its lead sinker and the markers fashioned out of strips of cloth or leather. Garrity had made that up, working from memory.

  Jake had not just volunteered but insisted: “I can handle this canoe better than anybody. I have to go.” Now he tied up the canoe to a tree and said, “It’s lucky you know what you’re doing with that stuff.” He nodded at the makeshift bomb.

  Smith said shortly, “I don’t know a lot. I’m just remembering what I was told a year or so ago.” By the Spanish gipsy, Felipe. “Suppose we keep our fingers crossed.”

  Jake muttered, “I’ll do that.” He was wondering uneasily now what lay ahead.

  They waded back up the stream to the Mary Ellen and Smith said, “We’re going now.”

  Buckley glowered down at him, worried and angry. He had seen Smith set out on this kind of mission too often in the past. Véronique looked worried and frightened. She said, “Good luck.” Her eyes were on Jake Tyler. She knew what he was about to do, was impressed by his calm courage but afraid for him. He grinned at her but was not feeling very brave.

  Smith told Garrity, “Better get that awning back. It might be a good idea to put it up and fix some other camouflage as well.”

  “I’ll do it first thing tomorrow, soon as it’s light.”

  Smith said, “Now.”

  Garrity could barely see him in the gloom, though only feet away, but he recognised the tone and answered, “Aye, aye, sir.” Then he passed the Lee-Enfield rifle down to Jake and muttered, “You two look out for yourselves.”

  Jake took the rifle and answered with false confidence, “We will.”

  Smith led the way back to the canoe and they smeared the white of their faces with mud. Then t
hey climbed cautiously into the canoe as it wobbled under their shifting weights. Jake knelt in the stern with the rifle alongside him, Smith forward with the paint tin in front of him, the lead line just behind. Jake cast off, they picked up the paddles and started down the side channel, ducked under the rope holding the dangling, covering bushes and entered the stream.

  The night was without a moon but speckled with stars. When they came out onto the river they paddled downstream with the current for a short way to get around the bend out of sight of the guardboat. Then they crossed the river and started upstream, hidden in the darkness and lost against the black background of the trees.

  When they came to the pool they edged out until they reached the marker buoys set down by Brandenburg. They spent close on an hour there, Jake paddling gently to hold the canoe on station while Smith sounded the depth with the lead line, reading it from the markers, felt with his fingers in the night. He found the water deep between the two buoys but shallowing abruptly outside of them.

  At length he was satisfied and took up his paddle again. Now they swung out in a wide circle around Brandenburg until they were astern of her and close to the foot of the falls. As the river fell a hundred feet to explode in the pool it whipped up a turbulence that set the canoe pitching and rolling, threw up spray that drifted on the breeze so that they moved in a fog. Then they were out of that, paddling gently as the current took them downstream again, and there was the cruiser ahead of them.

  She lay in darkness except for her bow where two big arc lamps hung over her side. Their light, and the glare from oxy-acetylene cutters, showed men on the staging just above the waterline using those tools to burn away crumpled plating from the gash in the cruiser’s bow. On the deck above them another gang worked around sheerlegs from which a new steel plate dangled on wire hawsers.

  Smith took this in as the canoe closed on Brandenburg. They slipped in under her towering stern and no sentry shouted an alarm. The glare of the lights forward in the ship had destroyed the night vision of everyone on her deck. Now only Jake was paddling, stroking the canoe down along the steel cliff of the ship’s side and within a yard of it. They could hear the hum of the ventilating fans aboard her.

  Smith had the paint tin on his knees and the box of matches in one hand, the end of the fuse in the other. He said, “Hold her here.” They were below the cruiser’s bridge and about a hundred feet or less from the staging hung over the ship’s side. The men working there were lit as on a stage but the canoe was hidden in the outer darkness as Jake stroked steadily to keep it on station.

  Smith was about to light the fuse and launch the paint tin when he paused. The oxy-acetylene cutters blinked out and the men using them pushed the masks up from their faces. An officer leaned over the rail above and called down to them.

  *

  Kurt Larsen demanded of the cutters, “Have you finished?’’ They had and he ordered them up. He turned to another party waiting behind him on the deck, “You’ll go down when the cutters are all up.” They would position the plate, now hanging from the sheerlegs and waiting to be lowered, over the gash in the bow. This plate was the first of two, cut from interior bulkheads by the cruiser’s engineers.

  The petty officer standing at the rail asked, “Can we start lowering it, sir?”

  That would save time, instead of waiting until the two gangs had changed over. Kurt ordered, “Lower away!” He watched as the petty officer lifted a hand, signalling to the man at the winch. It burst into throbbing life and the wire slowly eased out from its revolving drum, lowering the plate on its supporting wires inch by inch down the side of the ship.

  One by one the men of the cutting party came up the Jacob’s ladder dangling against Brandenburg’s hull just clear of the hole. The last waited until the plate hung roughly in position over the hole then shouted and waved. The plate stopped in its descent and swung gently on the supporting wires. The last man started up the ladder.

  Smith had seen all of this and now took his knife, cut short the fuse level with the top of the tin. He scraped a match into flame, lit the stub of fuse that remained and told Jake, “Take us down to the staging.”

  Jake had been frantically whispering, though he could have shouted and not been heard for the clattering of the winch, “What are you doing? That stuff burns away so damn quick — For God’s sake—” But now he ceased and dug in the paddle, sent the canoe skimming along the side of the cruiser.

  *

  Kurt Larsen saw the spurt of flame, a faint pinprick of orange in the outer darkness that glowed for a second or two and then was extinguished. His first thought was that someone had thrown a cigarette end over the side. Smoking on the upper deck was forbidden and he’d have the bastard’s guts for a necktie. But then he leaned over the rail to see better and there was the canoe below, just entering the ring of light cast by the arc lamps. It carried two men and the one in the bow held a big tin on his knees.

  Kurt shouted, “Sentry! Alarm! Boat alongside! Who has a carbine!” He peered around him as the last of the cutters paused with one leg over the rail, staring at him. No one was armed. There was a sentry in the bow but he could not hear Larsen above the noise of the winch. One of the waiting gang ran towards the sentry, mouth opening and closing, shouting.

  The canoe slid alongside the staging and the man in the bow stepped out, lifted the tin from the canoe, set it down on the staging and shoved it between the dangling plate and the ship’s side. Kurt could see the pale speck of light glowing inside the top of the tin. The man stepped back into the canoe and sat down as the other in the stern worked furiously with his paddle to drive the fragile craft away from the staging. The man in the bow looked up then and his face was daubed with paint or dirt but Kurt knew him.

  The sentry pounded up to Kurt, who now shouted at the man on the winch, “Haul it up! Up!” And to the rest: “Get back! Get down!”

  The sentry’s rifle cracked in Larsen’s ear, but the man was excited, panting from his short sprint and the canoe had slid out of the light, was a barely seen shadow merging into the night. Then it was gone. Kurt shoved the sentry back from the rail, took a step with him, then was lifted and thrown across the deck.

  *

  Smith had recognised the young officer in that last glance before leaving the staging. Then he had turned his head to look back as the canoe spurted out of the light and into the darkness. He saw the flash that lit the sky and the silver backcloth of the falls, then the blast wave thrust at him and tilted the canoe, the roar of the explosion deafened him.

  The arc lights hanging over Brandenburg’s side blinked out and the ship was hidden for all her length in the sudden darkness. Water had rolled in over the side of the canoe as it heeled and now washed inches deep in the bottom but the furiously working paddles of Smith and Jake still drove the flimsy craft down the river. When Smith made out the twin marker buoys right ahead he turned again for another look at the ship. She was lit again now by a score of lights, some of them moving, torches held in hands. There was smoke hanging over her fore part. Smith could not see what damage had been done, except that — was the plate still dangling? He could not be sure.

  Jake’s mouth was open wide and through ringing ears Smith heard the high-pitched “Yahoo!” as Jake whooped in triumph. Smith decided he would let his celebration wait until the light of the morrow showed if there was any cause for it.

  The canoe slid between the marker buoys, moving swiftly with the current. They saw the launch together, Jake’s yell of: “Boat ahead!” blending with Smith’s order, “Left!” The canoe’s prow swung away from the launch hurrying upriver to investigate the explosion, her stern tucked down on a cushion of foam, racing at full power. For a few seconds Smith thought they might have escaped detection. As the canoe now headed for the river bank he turned his head and saw the launch holding to her course upstream. But then she began to turn.

  Smith faced forward and plied his paddle inexpertly but with desperate energy. Fortunatel
y Jake was expert. He corrected the wavering in their course caused by Smith’s furious digging and held the canoe straight and steady. They could both see the darker line of the wizened trees drawn thickly above the glinting oiliness of the river’s surface. That represented safety and it could not come too soon. It might not come soon enough.

  They heard the crack! of the first rifle shot from behind them. The next they heard whip overhead before the sound of the report reached them. Then there were two rifles firing, the shots coming too quickly for one man to be working the bolt. They heard these buzzing close by their heads like angry bees and one smashed through the ply and canvas hull of the canoe high in the bow. Smith saw the splinters fly, the hole appear in front of him, and realised the bullet must have passed under his raised elbow.

  Then they ran into the trees, the drooping, weed-strung branches giving like springs so cushioning the shock, but the sudden halt threw both of them forward. Smith shouted, “Jump!” They dared not delay for seconds in the open while they worked the canoe deeper into the cover of the water courses winding between the trees. The launch would be upon them in seconds. As Smith rolled over the side to stand waist-deep in water he looked back and saw the launch’s bow standing high as it charged in. He also saw that Jake was out of the canoe on the other side and already wading into the shelter of the trailing branches, arms flailing to give him impetus, the Lee-Enfield clutched in one hand.

  Smith followed his example, headed towards the tall, young American and bawled at him, “Keep down!” He bent himself so he was thrusting through the mud-stinking water with his body level to it, his face only inches above the surface. And now the bullets sent showers of small splinters around him as they sliced through the tops of the trees.

  He heard the long-drawn-out crackling and crash as the launch drove into the trees and was dragged to a halt. Then there was shouting, distant splashing and he knew men were leaping into the river to hunt him down. The beams of torches held in the hands of the hunters bounced about over the curling, muddy waters, were slatted by the branches of the trees. He saw Jake only feet away, standing upright with the rifle at his shoulder aimed at the launch.