“What exactly is a hydrofoil?” McNamar prompted Edland.
“Well, sir,” Edland said. “For lack of a better explanation it is a wing, or set of wings, that extends from a boat’s hull, designed to lift the boat nearly out of the water at a certain speed.”
“Good lord, man,” someone said. “You’re not talking about flying boats, are you?”
The image of the frightened German sailor, shivering on the PT boat deck, flashed before Edland’s eyes.
“No, sir,” he said. “The stern and certainly the rudder and screws remain in the water. Most of the hull, suspended on these wings, is out of the water. Less resistance, more stability. All in all an extremely fast boat.”
“Very interesting,” Admiral Ramsey said. “What does it mean?”
Edland paused and looked at McNamar for guidance. The admiral shrugged.
“We don’t know, sir,” Edland said. He saw some of the men exchange glances and comments. He felt that they thought this was a waste of time. A few experimental boats dashing about the Channel. Too little, too late. “There is something else,” Edland said, and the buzz in the room stopped. “These E-boats, or perhaps some of those that accompany them, carry very powerful guns. Something equal in power to a six-or eight-inch naval cannon.” The room grew silent. “The captain of a destroyer escort involved in the Channel convoy fight reported as such, as well as the fact that the rounds seemed to burn their way into his ship’s hull.”
“Has anyone actually seen these fantastic boats?” a British captain asked. Edland recognized him as an officer who forever found fault with every report submitted. “This destroyer escort, chap, for instance? Do we have anything but your observations and, forgive me for saying so, your guess?”
“No, sir,” Edland said. “It was a night engagement. No one saw anything of consequence. At least nothing they could describe.”
“Commander Edland,” Churchill rumbled. “I thank you for the report. I know the others and I find this information most enlightening and it certainly bears looking into. But you must remember that Bomber Command is raiding those very E-boat facilities that you mentioned, and the latest news is quite good indeed. We have a great many things to consider in our remarkable endeavor, and I should not want you to think that your information is being discounted. It is, indeed, not. At this very moment the highest priority must be given to our own craft. What are they again, Admiral McNamar?”
“LSTs,” McNamar said. “Landing Ship Tanks.”
“Yes,” Churchill said. “Thank you, Admiral. These are the very craft that will nestle up to the beaches and disgorge men and materials. I am sure that your E-boats are worthy of attention, but I am equally sure that Bomber Command will dispose of those particular vipers and their nests in short order. We must concentrate on our own needs—these LSTs being foremost.”
“Yes, sir,” Edland said. He swept the room looking for interested faces. There were none. His words had been absorbed, stored, and would soon be forgotten. “Thank you, gentlemen.” He stepped off the platform and took a seat next to McNamar. He and his information had been dismissed. McNamar turned to him.
“Mike, don’t be discouraged. These fellows have bigger fish to fry. Churchill, Ike, and the others have a genuine concern. The key to the invasion is the LST. The entire invasion force has a reserve of exactly five LSTs. The only way to get substantial quantities of men and materials on the beach rapidly enough to support the first waves are the LSTs. For the past month that’s been the number-one problem. I told Ramsey and the others more times than I care to count that E-boats are the only viable German naval threat left. They believe more escorts and more bombing raids will take care of them. Frankly, I think they’re right. If you want to get their attention, you’re going to have to give them more than what somebody at MIT thinks about what’s happening three thousand miles away.”
“It’s all I’ve got, sir.”
McNamar sat back in his chair. “Get more, Mike. Nobody’s convinced, including me. We don’t have any time to waste on improbabilities.”
Edland watched as an RAF officer adjusted the microphone at the podium. Improbabilities. He felt himself becoming angry. Why couldn’t McNamar come right out and say it? The focus was on the invasion. No one thought that these boats constituted a threat. And besides, anything moving in the English Channel that wasn’t Allied was going to be destroyed. Anything on land determined to be a viable target, including E-boat pens, would be hammered into dust. The Allied might would crush the enemy. Finis.
Edland didn’t know why but he felt a profound sense of loss. Maybe it was the E-boats that he hadn’t seen and would almost certainly not have a chance to capture. He didn’t know. All he had seen was death and destruction, and the waste horrified him. Couldn’t he claim one positive thing out of this mess? Even if it was a boat that flew on wings. One thing, just one idea, or piece of machinery, or one concept that he could claim as saved for some purpose after the war. Even if it was a boat that flew on wings.
Chapter 17
In the Baie de la Seine
It was nearly dark and there were ghosts about. Mysterious shapes slid through the water, the roar of their engines rumbling off the flat sea. Occasionally a signal light would flash quickly, a brief message that told Reubold that the other two S-boats were in position. It was a drill only, but there was still danger. The danger came from above; Allied fighter-bombers who dropped out of the darkness because their radar was superior to anything that the Germans had. It meant that they could see from far away, and what they could see were tiny blips darting across the blackness like water bugs on a pond. Then they would swoop out of the night sky, and strafe and bomb them until the S-boats were flaming wrecks on the black water; or if they were lucky, they escaped. It was that knowledge, Reubold knew, that ate away at morale. The enemy’s planes are faster and more numerous. Their bombs are far more powerful. They have men and materiel in abundance and they will surely come. It was easy to see that the men were affected by the obvious inequities. There was an almost indiscernible pall of inevitability in the pens, and aboard the S-boats. The Trinities were more than a weapon, they were vindication. The test was more than a trial, it was salvation.
Walters was standing next to Reubold in the skullcap of S-788 wondering what would come of this night’s work.
“We have the solution,” Korvettenkapitan Waldvogel had assured him when Walters had showed up unexpectedly.
“We think we have the solution,” Reubold, his dark eyes troubled by more than the uncertainties of the drill, had corrected Waldvogel.
“Then,” Walters had said, “we shall see.” The plan that he had confided to Rommel, unsuccessfully as it turned out, was based upon what these new boats could do; how they could perform against the mass of escort vessels that the Allies were sure to shield their invasion fleet with. He had added that he had wrangled a reprieve from the fieldmarschal with the promise that these boats could very well bring confusion to the enemy at precisely the right moment—when they neared the French coast. Reubold had believed him, which was fortunate because Walters’s plans rested on balancing success with secrecy, sweetly leavened with subterfuge. Never an easy thing to do when so many ambitious men hungrily sought opportunities to advance themselves over the failures of other ambitious men.
Reubold, on board S-788, had led two other boats into the bay, straight to a grounded hulk that the fregattenkapitan knew well. Waldvogel was not with them. His wound had been giving him a great deal of pain and despite his insistence that he be allowed to go along—“It’s critical that I go, Fregattenkapitan. I know the boats and the guns”—Reubold sent him back to the hospital. Walters wondered if the fregattenkapitan was concerned with the odd little man’s health, or if he wished to reap the glory of a successful test without sharing it.
Reubold throttled back S-788 until she barely made headway and turned to Walters.
“Did Rommel or Dresser send you?” the fregattenkapitan a
sked, his features barely visible by the faint light of the compass.
“Does it matter?” Walters said. He saw Reubold nod his agreement in the darkness and waited while the fregattenkapitan issued orders to begin the test.
“We’ve mounted a doorknocker,” Reubold said, “a two-centimeter gun, on the Trinity. Now we have a quad mount. A bit unstable, but necessary. We are going to fire the Trinities along the same path as the doorknocker, sighting with its tracer round. Theoretically,” Walters saw Reubold smile at the word, “the gunners will fire the Trinity the moment we see the doorknocker tracers hit the target. The guns are on the same axis; it should be simply a matter of sight and shoot.”
“Ingenious,” Walters said.
“Only if it works,” Reubold said. “There is another matter. We will be lighting up the night with our tracers and guns. If the bees show up, we may find it necessary to flee.” He pressed his throat mike, clicked the talk button twice, and said: “Fritz in now.”
Walters heard the roar of the engines increase, but the sound echoing off the water made it impossible to tell from which direction the noise came. He saw a pinpoint of light in the darkness and realized that it was the S-boat, speeding across the water. The phosphorescence of the thin wake shimmered in the rays of a moon partially hidden by clouds. He could tell the boat was moving very fast—incredibly fast—and he felt his excitement building. He may have seen the S-boat, the darkness may be tricking him; but he thought that he saw it up on its wings, gliding over the sea as if it were flying. He knew that the crew of the S-boat could see the target; at least, he hoped that they could see the target, and he wondered what it must be like to be aboard something so fast that from a distance just the sight of it took his breath away.
Walters saw the flash of the doorknocker and then the fiery trails of the green slice through the air and then there was a brilliant flash and a boom. The noise startled him, but before he had time to react, there was a larger explosion followed by a low rumble.
He glanced at Reubold and saw incredulity in the man’s eyes. Had something gone wrong? Had there been some sort of terrible accident?
“Fregattenkapitan?” a leutnant appeared at the hatchway to the radio room. “Fritz reports, ‘Direct hit. All guns.’”
Reubold looked at the young officer in disbelief and simply uttered: “Mueller.”
“It can’t be that easy,” Walters said. “Surely, they can’t have hit the target that quickly?”
Reubold didn’t bother to answer Walters’s question. “Tietjen?” he called after the leutnant. “Have Mueller fire one barrel at a time. No salvos. You understand?”
“Fritz let go everything he had,” Reubold commented. “That may have been just one hit on the target. There’s no way to tell. I want to see how the hits register.”
“He reported …” Walters began hopefully.
“He could be mistaken,” Reubold interrupted. “We tried this before with salvos and hit nothing. We shall see if this idea of Waldvogel’s works.”
Walters remained silent. The fregattenkapitan was right to be skeptical. One boat proved nothing. It might have been an accident. Perhaps one shell hit and Fritz, in his excitement, saw them all hit. The sound of the other boat’s engines broke into his thoughts.
There was a deep throaty roar, somehow coarser than the sound of the first boat, but he found it immediately by locating the telltale wisps of white water playing off its foils. It seemed even faster than the first, and the familiar sense of excitement swept over him. The sound of the engines and the sight of the wake curling back off the hydrofoils made him realize that here was primitive power.
Green tracers raced into the darkness, and he saw several bounce erratically into the air, ricocheting off the wreck. There was a flash of light, and an instant later a corresponding flash in the darkness, far away. More green tracers—another flash from the boat as the second gun fired and another explosion in the darkness. The wreck began to glow and suddenly it was engulfed in flames. Walters saw the S-boat. It had the look of a deadly predator, up on its long wings, hurtling through the light of the burning wreck—a black phantom against flames. Green tracers again and a white flash, followed by a low crack and an explosion on the wreck that sent pieces of its flaming carcass spiraling into the night sky.
Walters turned to Reubold, ready to ask him something. He wasn’t quite sure what, because he was stunned by the demonstration, but stopped when he saw the look on the fregattenkapitan’s face.
It was a look of pure concentration, of possibilities and ideas so tumbled together that the man had to use every bit of his willpower to separate them. Reubold had a hold of the potential of the boats, a potential handed to him so completely by the demonstration tonight that nothing else existed. The first man who discovered fire, Walters thought, must have had that very look: wonder mixed with fortune, sweetened by opportunities.
Reubold looked at Walters. “Now, Kommodore Walters,” Reubold said, “we are ready for war.”
Hardy walked along the quay, wearing one glove, the other glove trapped in his right hand. Beatrice Schiffer was beside him, asking a question when she thought it pertinent, generally remaining silent because she could tell that Hardy was nervous and that he did not respond well to what he called “a lot of chatter.” She had smiled when he first informed her of this predilection but agreed that there was nothing wrong with silence, although a few words at just the right moment had been perfectly all right. She watched as Hardy thought this over and in kind of a half-growl, half-grunt, reasoning that a few words appropriately delivered were acceptable.
They walked along the quay with the weak early morning sun lost in a sky of fog and clouds, not an unusual thing around Portsmouth.
Beatrice had grown up in the coastal town, caring for both her parents when they became too ill to fend for themselves. And after they died, for Topper when he came back from the Great War, silencing the demons that tormented him with memories of what he had seen in the trenches. Beatrice awoke to her brother’s strangled sobs in the middle of the night, and was at first unsure of how to comfort him. She had settled on simply talking with him and fixing tea, and they sat, he silent and trembling, she calm and assured. She kept him busy doing things around the house until Topper began to understand that the horror was behind him. It was a bad time for her as well; she was never certain if the poor dear man would kill himself just to find solace. Her tenderness pulled him through and after several years he cast about for something that he could make his own. When he couldn’t make up his mind, it was Beatrice who said out of the blue: “I’ve always fancied owning an art emporium.” The comment was so innocent and unexpected that Topper blew a mouthful of tea across the kitchen table in laughter. Beatrice waited for Topper to calm himself before explaining, in a very rational manner, how it could be done. The more she talked, the more she convinced Topper that such a thing was possible. A few words at just the right moment.
They rented a storefront and began to fill the shelves with things that artists, or people who wanted to be artists, needed. Fortunately, there were a number of empty stores about with landlords desperately seeking tenants. Business, to begin with, was not good, and they lived frugally on Topper’s pension and any odd jobs that Beatrice could scare up.
What the pair did have, and Topper explained this not only to Captain Hardy, RN, but to others as well, was Beatrice’s unassailable confidence that things would work out. After a number of years, things did work out.
“She’s just up here a bit,” Hardy said, slapping his hand with the glove.
He was nervous, Beatrice realized, because they were going to see his ship, his Firedancer, but more because he would be seen with a lady at his side. Beatrice gave this a great deal of thought, as she did nearly everything of consequence, and realized what Hardy must be thinking. He was thinking that his officers and men would see him, the captain; or rather, The Captain, in the role of a human being. Beatrice knew of course that Har
dy’s perception of his relationship with his officers and men was certainly not more than half correct. He was far too hard on himself and could see only his faults and never his accomplishments. She realized also that he was a very sensitive man. Beatrice decided, because she was a very good judge of human nature, that the men of Firedancer viewed their captain as basically a decent, if erratic, soul. Not so complicated as Hardy made it out to be, but George Hardy did not understand human nature as well as she.
Theirs had been an acquaintance that had blossomed through understanding. It was a sturdy, uncomplicated relationship. Not the sort of thing you read about in magazines or saw at the theater, but a gradual thing that proceeded as easily as a leaf floats down a creek, bobbing over the eddies and glancing off the bank because nature made it so.
Beatrice was relaxed with Hardy and Hardy was at ease with Beatrice. There was a lot to be said for two people being comfortable in each other’s presence. Perhaps the blazing flames of romantic love didn’t blaze as brightly as those at the cinema, but that was make-believe and had only to last for an hour and a half at most. What Beatrice knew and Hardy might come to suspect, although he was not the sort of fellow to identify it, was that theirs was a carefully tended fire that burned with reason and understanding. Beatrice smiled inwardly, feeling the warmth of Hardy’s presence.
“She’s had a few changes,” Hardy said, waving the glove before striking. “We took out A-turret and put some new treats for Jerry there. Can’t tell you what of course.” The glove struck his open palm. “We’ve done convoys. Done them to death. Some escort duty.” Slap. “Got us up to Coastal Forces now.” Slap. “‘Costly Farces,’ some of the chaps call them. MTBs and the like.” He noticed some confusion on her face. “Motor Torpedo Boats. We operate with them, northbound and southbound convoys. Give the American chaps a hand as needed.” Harder slap with a bit of irritation in his voice. “Can’t wait to get out of it. Get out of this pond, back out to sea. It may be the English Channel but this is one Englishman who wants nothing to do with it.”
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