Armada

by Steven Wilson

  “All right, you silly sons of bitches. Listen up.” He stationed himself in the middle of the disorganized mob of frightened men. “Drop your helmets, pack, and rifles.” The LST lurched suddenly to starboard and the cries of the terrified men increased. “God damn it!” Gibbs shouted. “Pay attention to me.” Most of the men, their white eyes nearly gleaming from the fires on the nearby ships, turned to him and grew quiet. “The next guy that squeals like a pansy is gonna get my boot up his ass. Drop your helmets, packs, and rifles.” He brushed his helmet off his head. It landed with a clatter on the deck as he cut away his pack. Jesus, fucking Christ. This sure wasn’t the Old Army. This whole fucking exercise looked like some sort of picnic at Fire Island. The men were on deck, waiting for the LCMs to be off-loaded when the attack began. Then the torpedo struck and the ship pitched to starboard.

  Gibbs had taken a second to eye the deck cranes that were to have lowered the LCMs. The ship’s list made them useless now. The cranes would either twist and collapse from the unnatural angle or the LCMs would break free from their mounts and sweep dozens of men overboard.

  “Get them life rings up under your arms,” Gibbs shouted, pulling his up snugly into his armpits. He pulled out the inflation tube. “Inflate your life rings. Now!” He began blowing into the tube, glancing around, trying to keep one eye on his men, another on the insane action in the darkness, and at the same time straining to hear the abandon ship order over the noise of battle and the shouts of desperate men.

  He felt a hand grab his shoulder.

  “Gibbs? Gibbs? What the hell are you doing?” Captain Small shouted. “God damn it. You tell those men to put their helmets back on. And pick up their rifles. Jesus, you told them to cut off their packs. Have you gone crazy?”

  Gibbs, who had been blowing air into the inflation tube during Small’s tirade, finally stopped. “If those dumb bastards,” he said, tying the rubber tube in a knot to prevent air escaping, “go over the side with their helmets on, they’ll break their fucking necks, sir. I don’t figure they’ll have much chance to use their weapons while they’re treading water, either.”

  A flurry of blasts erupted to the rear of the column, the bright explosions eating away the darkness. Finally all that remained were the steady glow of fire and the ghostly outline of burning ships.

  “Nobody said anything about abandoning this ship,” Small said, craning his neck, trying to look over Gibbs’s shoulder in the direction of the bridge. “Nobody said anything about abandoning ship, Gibbs. Where’s Hartsell? Have you seen Hartsell? Byron?”

  They were two of the company officers and Gibbs had no idea where they were. And he frankly didn’t give a shit.

  “No, sir,” Gibbs said. “I ain’t seen them. ’S’cuse me, sir.” He stepped around Small, took the inflation tube out of a soldier’s trembling hands, and straightened out a kink. “It’s just like your dick, sonny. If it ain’t straight, it don’t work. Now blow.” He jammed the tube into the surprised soldier’s mouth. Gibbs heard the deck loudspeakers crackle and he automatically turned to the bridge.

  “Now hear this. Now hear this. Prepare to abandon ship.”

  “’Bout time,” Gibbs muttered. “C Company!” he shouted. “On me.”

  “Now wait a minute, Gibbs,” Small said, placing himself directly in front of the sergeant. “You wait just one damned minute. This is my company. You don’t go telling my men what to do.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gibbs said calmly. “But you’d better get your life ring inflated, sir. ’Cause if you don’t shut the fuck up and get out of my way, it won’t do you a bit of good when I toss you over the side.” He turned back to the men. “Check your buddies. Rings inflated,” he said, pleased to see that he had at least restored some organization to the scene. “Helmets, packs, weapons on the deck.”

  The LST’s list increased sharply and the men looked at Gibbs in alarm. He knew that they were ready to panic and he couldn’t blame them. The only thing that kept him from going over the side was this pack of sad sacks clustered on the deck, ready to piss their pants.

  “Now hear this. Now hear this.”

  “Nobody goes until I say!” Gibbs shouted so loudly he felt something in his throat tear. The navy had their way but all they did was drive the boats. These were soldiers and nobody would tell his men what to do but him.

  “Abandon ship. Abandon ship.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gibbs saw men from other companies jump over the side, or clamber over the railing, but he was relieved to see his men hadn’t moved. They feared First Sergeant Gibbs more than they feared drowning. Maybe there was hope for these guys yet.

  “The first one of you sons of bitches that moves is dead,” he shouted, ignoring the pain in his throat. Every head turned to look at him. He was pleased, at least they had sense enough to follow orders. “Make sure nobody’s underneath you when you jump. Get your asses away from the ship. Form up in the water. Keep them life rings under your pits. Any questions?” He knew that there wouldn’t be any, he knew that the men were ready to explode with fright, but he also knew that he had to instill one last measure of discipline in them. He knew that a lot of them would probably die.

  “All right, you dumb bastards,” he said, “assemble at the rail. You heard the man. Get the hell off this fucking boat in an orderly fashion.”

  Chapter 20

  Lyme Bay

  Cole was glad that there was a gentle breeze coming from the southeast. It blew the smoke and the stench of the dead back to the shore, away from the deck of PT-155.

  His squadron had arrived just after dawn, called out by a frantic message to get down to Lyme Bay. Hospital tents were set up all along the beach, rescue craft were threading the water looking for survivors, and a few LCMs were trundling back and forth between the beach and the two damaged, but still afloat, LSTs. The other five were sunk, or sinking. Too many columns of brown smoke to count marked where the fleet had been. Ships were burning, debris was burning; it seemed that the water of the Channel, covered with the remnants of the battle, was burning.

  Cole pulled a pair of binoculars from the case under the instrument panel, adjusted the strap, held them slightly in front of his eyes so that they wouldn’t distort his vision, and carefully focused on the beach.

  Still shapes, bundles of silent men, were washed up on sodden rows along the shore’s edge. Their wet uniforms were almost black, a sharp contrast to the pale white skin of their hands and faces. Waves continued to roll in, swinging lifeless arms and legs, tugging at bodies, urging them to get up and walk away from death. It was no use.

  DeLong joined Cole and shaded his eyes with his hand, trying to cut down the glare of the sun off the water. “Hell of a mess, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve been listening to the radio chatter. They figure maybe a thousand, fifteen hundred dead. We don’t know for sure yet. We’ve got five boats that are gone for sure. The other two,” he shrugged. “I guess the yard birds will have to take a look at them.”

  “Anything else?” Cole asked, turning the binoculars toward the LSTs.

  “E-boats,” DeLong said. “That’s all that came over the radio until somebody put the kibosh to it. I guess the higher-ups don’t want us to know how bad it was.”

  “Little late for that,” Cole said. “E-boats, huh?” It was not a question; it was a confirmation. He had studied the scene clinically: the placement of the ships, what damage he could see through the smoke, and any telltale signs that these were the same E-boats that attacked the Southern’s convoy. Edland’s mysterious boats. He knew it was a long shot; there were still plenty of E-boats out there. And there probably weren’t many of the winged boats—the hydrofoils—that Edland was trying to find, so that the likelihood that this attack…. He rolled the idea over in his mind and began to pick at it. Suppose Edland had a point? Suppose that these fantastic boats existed and were running all over the Channel? Maybe this was some of their handiwork. How many were there? Maybe a doz
en. Maybe two hundred. Cole looked at the bodies strung along the beach again. Suppose it was ten times that? Suppose the invasion fleet never got close enough to land the invasion force. He looked at the smoldering LSTs in the bay. Suppose the greatest invasion in history ended up being a massacre?

  He had noticed ugly, black scars from hits on the superstructure of a LST. They were well placed around the bridge area and the gun tubs. Extraordinarily well placed. He had adjusted the focus of the binoculars until he could see the damage clearly. Burn marks, blackened holes, precise hits. He lowered the binoculars and stood thinking. Precise. Surgical.

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “A whole slew of E-boats.” He shook his head. “Maybe just a handful.” He turned and realized that DeLong was standing next to the hatchway that led to the radio room. Cole began thinking again. A hundred of these little bastards racing around the Channel, raising hell with the invasion fleet. It would be like Times Square with the lights out—mass confusion—ships everywhere—organization …

  DeLong rejoined him long enough to say: “Okay, skipper. We got the word to move in and start picking up bodies.” He turned to the helm, eased the throttles up, and slowly spun the wheel through his fingers to bring the boat around.

  Cole looked out over the waters of the bay and beyond that, the Channel. Beyond that, far beyond the dozens of boats and ships searching for survivors, was Cherbourg. And Le Havre. And Boulogne. And within those ports, in one, or some, or all of the E-boat sanctuaries, were more of Edland’s eagles. There was a chance that they would be crushed from above by the weight of thousands of tons of bombs. There was the chance that their huge, impregnable concrete pens would protect them, at least long enough for them to slip out and engage the invasion fleets. There was the chance that increased sorties by the English and American air forces would somehow catch them out in the open and destroy them. They ventured out at night, however, and even with air-to-surface radar, it was unlikely that the airplanes would destroy them. Night translates into early morning, the hours that the fleet would be crossing the Channel. It was the only way to position the fleet off the beaches by dawns. Night–early morning. E-boat darkness.

  Torpedoes, he thought suddenly. The chatter was that some of the LSTs were torpedoed. Could the eagles launch torpedoes? Of course they could—they did, didn’t they? Did they? Cole knew that he couldn’t answer that question. If the Germans had perfected E-boats that could cruise at eighty knots and mount 6-inch guns, why couldn’t they mount torpedoes on those vessels and overcome the problems presented by the foils and the speed? Conventional E-boats had torpedoes, why not the Sea Eagles? Cole grimaced at his use of the name—now he was beginning to sound like Edland. The thought galled him. He didn’t like to attach any romantic notion to anything that the enemy did.

  PT-155 slowed and Cole made his way to the bridge, stuffing the binoculars in their case. Now it was time to pick up bodies, and he willed the emotion out of his mind. It was the only way that he knew to prepare himself for the sight of dead Americans. He heard the gentle thump of something striking the hull.

  Tommy Rich looked back from the bow with a sickened expression. “Jeez, Skipper. This guy ain’t got a head.” Tommy had the body pinned in place with the boat hook, while several other men tried to slip a loop around the body’s leg.

  “If it doesn’t bother him, Rich,” Cole said, “then it shouldn’t bother you. Just get him aboard and be careful.” The dead soldier was obviously beyond caring, but Cole knew it was easy to wrench your back when trying to lift the full weight of a dead body—especially one that had been floating in the water for a while.

  “Man,” Randy DeLong said. “This is a mess.” He gripped the wheel tightly. His own way of dealing with the distasteful duty. “There are bodies floating all over the place.”

  “They could have used us a little sooner,” Cole said, watching as the crew hoisted the dead soldier aboard and manhandled the body into position on the deck. The first of many, he thought.

  “I sure would have liked to have been here when those bastards attacked,” DeLong said grimly.

  “Well, we weren’t,” Cole said. “But we’re here now.”

  “Little like closing the barn door after the horses got out,” DeLong agreed.

  Cole said nothing but the image was as clear to him as the hundreds of lifeless forms floating on the gentle swells; barn doors swinging on large hinges, the action of closing something in, or out. There was nothing else to the thought, just a picture in his mind planted by Edland’s words. Sea Eagles.

  “Let me do the talking,” Walters said as he and Reubold approached Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel’s office. The kommodore was swollen with success. Reubold thought it oddly pathetic that he subscribed to the notion that he was the architect of the victory. He found Walters’s arrogance unsettling.

  “I shouldn’t even be talking with the army,” Reubold said. “Dresser is my immediate superior, not Rommel.”

  “Rommel has the Fuehrer’s confidence. The Kriegsmarine does not. If we can show him what your boats are capable of, we will have achieved a major victory.”

  “Don’t brag too much,” Reubold said. “Our victories include a handful of merchant ships and a derelict.”

  “You must learn to be optimistic,” Walters said, and smiled broadly, enjoying his role. “Rommel is an innovator. He realizes the importance and the potential of unconventional weapons. But he will ask very direct questions. Your replies must be their equal.”

  Reubold felt his sense of alarm deepen. Walters was speaking for Rommel as well.

  The two men stopped at the tall, white double doors to Rommel’s suite of offices.

  “I thought that I was to let you do the talking?” Reubold said.

  “Anything that is not an answer to a direct question put to you by Rommel is mine,” Walters said. “Ready?”

  Reubold shrugged. For what? Walters’s ruse? What did the man want? What did he hope to accomplish by this audience with Rommel? Reubold smiled to himself: what did he hope to gain? It would be that of course. Yes, yes. It would be patriotism—service to the Fatherland, another way to defeat the enemy. He continued calculating and decided that some men were masters of intrigue—he was not.

  “Well?”

  Reubold realized that Walters was waiting on his answer. Ready for what? For Rommel to suddenly embrace both of them as saviors of the Reich? Reubold remembered his own arrogance many years before and he thought best to explain to Walters that such ambition often demands payment in return. Payment, when one least expected it.

  “Of course, Kommodore.”

  Walters nodded, knocked twice to announce his presence, opened the door, and walked in.

  Dresser was talking to Rommel.

  “Yes, Walters,” the feldmarschall said. “Come in. Close the door. The admiral and I have been talking about S-boats and mines.”

  Reubold felt a chill as Dresser glared at him. It was reinforced by Rommel’s barely civil tone. This would not go as Walters had envisioned.

  “You’ve come to speak about S-boats as well, haven’t you? Good. We shall all speak together and lay this thing to rest. I have much larger problems to deal with. What are they called? Hydrofoils? Well? We’ve spoken of them before, Walters. Your storm troops. What have you to say?” Rommel demanded.

  “Feldmarschall,” Walters said, obviously startled by Dresser’s presence. He stumbled slightly over the word and it was obvious to Reubold that the kommodore’s good humor was replaced by foreboding. He tried to reclaim the moment. “I firmly believe that these vessels hold great promise.”

  Dresser added to Rommel. “Little more than toys.”

  “They are innovative,” Walters said. He was hopeful once more.

  Reubold watched as Rommel pondered the differences. He saw the general’s impatience building quickly.

  “Well?” Rommel posed to both men. “Suppose they are both? What am I to do with them?” His manner was brusque. “This is Kriegsm
arine business. I’ve asked that all S-boats lay mines along the likely invasion routes. They can do that can’t they? And patrol the sea-lanes? Am I wrong?”

  “My apologies, Feldmarschall,” Walters said. “I thought that you had agreed with me. That we had reached an understanding about the boats. Perhaps I misunderstood… .”

  “Not at all, Feldmarschall,” Dresser jumped in. He was being very open, very pleasant, as if his unexpected presence here today was just a happy coincidence. There was no contradiction of purposes, nothing but a sense of cooperation. The meeting today was simply to address minor matter. He was a bureaucrat with an agenda firmly in hand. But what, Reubold wondered, was the agenda? He understood, suddenly, that Dresser was the victor and the battle had hardly been joined.

  “What you have so ordered,” Dresser continued to Rommel. “In fact, some time ago, is already under way. Reubold’s flotilla will soon take its place alongside the other S-boats. Obviously,” he added, glancing at Reubold, “I was surprised to hear that they had not as yet deployed a single mine.”

  “I do not have time to deal with this,” Rommel said, ending the conversation. The words were sharp and dismissive. Reubold noticed that a rash covered the back of the feldmarschall’s hand. He saw Rommel dig at the tiny red splotches, scratching until the skin turned an angry red. It was nerves, Reubold knew. He’d seen it in other men—a nervous tic, lighting a fresh cigarette while two burned in the ashtray, pacing—a dozen signals that the pressure of command was almost too much to bear.

  The famous general certainly had that burden, and the uncertainty of both the Allied invasion and the degree of interference from Berlin. From the Fuehrer. Rommel turned on Walters, his fingers working rapidly into the back of his hand. “Walters. I have some very good news. You’ve been recalled to Berlin and assigned to Doenitz’s staff.”

  “I, Feldmarschall?” Walters said, shocked.