“Negative, Skipper.”
“You’re sure that’s one target and not a dozen, aren’t you? I don’t want any E-boats surprising me.”
“Nope. Just one, Skipper. Sixteen knots. Three-four-oh.”
“Okay.” Cole hung the microphone under the overhang on the instrument panel and picked up the signal lamp. He began clicking out a message to Ewing on the 168 boat. He knew that Ewing would pass it on to the others.
“Hey, Skipper?”
Cole picked up the microphone. “Yeah, Barney?”
“Got a reply. She’s a British destroyer. Coastal Forces. Firedancer.”
“Who?”
“Firedancer, Skipper. What a screwy name, huh?”
Cole shook his head. “Yeah, it is, Barney. Send my compliments to Firedancer. We should have her in sight within fifteen minutes.” Small world. Small world indeed, Cole thought. He remembered Hardy with his bowler hat, and Land, the imperturbable Number One, and the frightening encounter against Sea Lion. He wondered, he hoped that Hardy still commanded the ancient vessel.
“Something funny?” Edland asked.
“Ironic,” Cole said. “I served on Firedancer before the United States got into the war.”
“Lend Lease?”
“Happenstance.”
“Firedancer again, Skipper,” Barney reported. “She says that she has us in sight. Captain Hardy sends his compliments and asks that we form up one mile off his starboard beam.”
Cole smiled. Hardy.
“Reply orders received and acknowledged,” he said to Barney. To DeLong he said: “Let’s show Firedancer just how sharp we are. First Division right echelon from column, Second Division, left echelon from column at my command.”
“Getting fancy, Skipper?” DeLong said with a smile. He passed the word to Barney.
“Starboard, twenty,” he ordered DeLong, taking the boats out away from Firedancer. He wanted room to maneuver so that he could bring his squadron into position off the British destroyer’s beam. And, he wanted to show off.
He looked at the sky. Night was coming quickly, hastened by the heavy overcast of dark, ominous clouds. He thought that he heard the steady drone of aircraft engines but he couldn’t be sure. He knew that they were there. He knew that thousands of planes were flying, unseen, directly over his head. Bombers, fighter-bombers, fighters, transports; an armada, he thought, but the description wasn’t enough. That was a word that newspapermen used to excite interest in their article, or writers wove into their accounts long after events. Then what was it? his mind challenged him. He didn’t have a word, just a feeling. A sense that what was passing overhead was a civilization.
To hell with it.
“Take her up to forty knots, Randy,” Cole said, shaking the thoughts out of his mind.
“Right, Skipper.”
Cole reached past Edland, pulled the flare gun from its case, and inserted a barrel-shaped flare in the breech. “Watch your eyes,” he said, knowing that the discharge would rob them of night vision. “One, two, three.” He turned his head and squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp plunk, and the flare hissed high into the sky before exploding. That was the command to execute echelon from column.
Cole held the flare gun in his hand, feeling the warmth of the barrel, watching his boats move through the night. Delong throttled back and stayed on course; Ewing in the 168 boat swung to starboard, taking position 100 yards off 155 boat’s quarter. Dean and the 134 boat moved to port and matched Ewing’s position. It was movement in unison, choreographed—engines roaring, wakes boiling, water churned into white froth as the bows heeled over—boats peeling out of position to assume their rightful place.
Hardy watched the distance flare arch into the air and explode. He reached out for Land’s binoculars and studied the boats as they crisscrossed over the sea, leaving long fluorescent trails.
“Nicely done,” he said. He looked at Land. “That’s Cole, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hardy went back to the binoculars. “Well done at that, Mr. Cole. He’s learned his business, all right.” After a moment he said: “When they get into position we shall maintain our present course.” The men were already at Action Stations with the lookouts doubled, so there was little that Hardy and Firedancer could do except make themselves available as needed to the newly arrived boats. Hardy had become agitated at being informed that Firedancer was needed off the landing forces’ flank but he calmed himself. She had taken a beating at Lyme Bay and had not had a chance to settle in for repair. He accepted the assignment as something that was due Firedancer. Give her a chance to lick her wounds, he’d explained to Land. Of course, no repair of consequence could be expected until she was allowed time with the yard crews. Perhaps later.
Chapter 26
Reubold finished his cigarette as he listened to Mihsler’s report. The oberleutnant had been detailed as the officer of the day for the overcrowded S-boat pen, and although he was considered a prig by the other officers, there was never any question about his competence. He was thorough, professional, and when the time called for it, decisive. He had been Mueller’s executive officer. Now he was Mueller’s replacement.
“Many planes,” he told Reubold. “Cherbourg, certainly. The others as well.” It was a deadly simplistic announcement. Every port along the French coast was about to be hammered by the enemy. Bombers, fighter-bombers, fighters; the skies over Cherbourg, Le Havre, and Boulogne would be uncontested territory. On the ground, well, there was no other way to describe it—it would be hell. Reubold had decided long ago that the explosions were bad enough. They shook the earth and toppled buildings and after enough time had passed and men’s minds began to turn to jelly under the constant impact—it drove the poor souls crazy. Most hated the bombing—because it was as if a giant had swept his hand over everything. Reubold hated the fires. They came first as a stench of things burning—wood, paint, metal, a dozen indefinable odors that drifted into the shelters. Human beings burning as well. That odor was unmistakable; meat quickly charred by intense flames, limbs slowly roasted as the fires advanced over the wreckage. The only difference was alive they screamed—dead they just sizzled. How cruel, Reubold thought as he considered the distinction. What, his mind returned, that your sympathy is obviously unconvincing, or human beings die in such horrible circumstances? He left the question unanswered.
Reubold flicked his spent cigarette into the oily water. “The others can take care of themselves,” he said. “How long?”
“B-dienst reports that they are assembling now,” Mihsler said, using the slang for wireless intelligence. “One hour.”
Reubold looked along the covey of S-boats crowded in the pen. Two by two, like Noah’s ark. Six in a pen that was designed for three, perhaps four in an emergency; never six. The last two boats were most likely to be damaged by a near hit. If they were sunk, they would block the pen and the other four would be trapped. Noah’s ark just sprang a leak.
If we can’t hide here, then where? Reubold thought. The open sea would be better, hide in plain sight under cover of darkness in the remnants of the passing storm and head for Alderney or Guernsey at dawn. He thought of Dresser’s reaction to him moving the boats without orders. The admiral would be livid. He smiled to himself as he remembered Goering’s rage when he covered the riechsmar-schal’s broad lap in vomit. Goering, immaculately dressed in his splendid tailored uniform, nails manicured, a faint layer of makeup to cover the blemishes—all destroyed by a putrid mass splashed over his large soft stomach and thick thighs.
“Assemble the officers,” Reubold ordered. “We’re going out.” He patted his breast pocket to make certain that the small, flannel-lined case with its carefully measured vials was there. He needed the morphine. It was his old friend. You don’t desert old friends in time of need.
He watched as the crews made ready to move out, the oberbootsmannmaats bellowing orders to ready the boats. One after another he heard the deep rumble of the Daimler
-Benz diesel engines fill the interior of the pen so that he was certain he could feel the concrete walkway shake. The gun crews unsheathed the guns, removed tampions from muzzles, and begun testing the gun laying and training mechanisms. The squat shape of the Trinity sat forlornly in the bow, waiting for attention, and yet when he saw it, Reubold smiled in satisfaction.
“Ready, sir,” Mihsler said.
Reubold looked to see his boat commanders and executive officers, standing expectantly before him.
“We’re going to Alderney,” he said. “I want to clear the coast and stay well clear of Cap de la Hague. Thirty knots once we form in the harbor but schleichfahrt when we’re on the open sea.” Stealth speed, not up on their foils. “Get aboard your boats. Make ready. Mihsler leads off. Draheim, you follow. Column of twos.” Two by two, just like Noah’s ark. He saw a nervous Peters light a cigarette and then just as quickly discard it. “Waymann,” he said. “You command S-209.” No niceties, no explanation. He saw relief in Peters’s eyes and realized that the man thought that he was to remain behind. “Peters will go along as exec. That’s all.”
The others moved away quickly, a sense of satisfaction following them. Peters was demoted and forced to face his cowardice, all with a few, calm words.
“Fregattenkapitan, may I have a word?” Peters said quickly, pushing through the officers.
“No,” Reubold said. “There is no time.”
“But, Fregattenkapitan, surely there is a mistake.”
“No,” Reubold said again. “Get aboard, prepare to get under way.”
Peters seemed to inflate, as if to make himself appear larger, more imposing, more dangerous. “I have to protest. Strongly. You cannot do this. I request permission to remain behind to file an official report.”
Reubold looked over Peters’s shoulder. “Risse?” An oberbootsmann, one of Draheim’s, a big man with an oversized chin, appeared. “Escort this officer to Waymann’s boat. If he resists, beat him.”
Risse allowed himself a flicker of surprise followed by a barely restrained smile before he said: “Yes, sir.”
Now, Reubold told himself, let’s go find someplace safe to hide.
“The darker the night, the nearer the rain,” DeLong said.
Edland looked at him.
“An old sailor’s saw,” DeLong said. “You know, like ‘Red sky in the morning, is the sailor’s warning. A red sky at night, is the sailor’s delight.’”
“No,” Edland said.
“The commander’s not a sailor, Randy,” Cole said, lowering his binoculars. “He’s a paper-pusher. You sail a desk, don’t you, Commander?”
Edland thought of the gentle sway of his body, sitting atop a camel, or the fierce winds of Tibet howling down the mountains. “That’s right,” he said. “I live for paper.”
“Skipper,” Barney called through the speaker. “Weather report just came in. They’re saying the Beaufort’s dropping from seven to six and visibility ought to pick up.”
“How much?”
“Maybe four miles. Maybe seven. Course that’s when the sun comes up.”
“This is the Channel, Barney. We never see the sun.”
Soon the lowlying clouds had denied them any kind of light from the moon and only an occasional glimpse of stars. That had been enough to see formations of aircraft heading east.
“C-47s,” DeLong said, “I guess this is it.”
Cole cupped his hand around his watch to catch the luminescent dial. “Oh, three-twenty-two,” he said. He looked up, following Randy’s gaze. “Paratroopers.”
“Man, that’s definitely one thing that I’d never do,” DeLong said. “Jump out of an airplane.”
Cole glanced at him. “Yeah. Better to be in a small wooden boat in the English Channel in shitty weather.”
“Firedancer’s signaling,” Edland noted.
Cole read the flickering light of the Aldis lamp. “ ‘Fleet joined … thirty miles port. Instructed … reduce speed to twelve. Firedancer.” He picked up the handheld signal lamp and responded: “Received.” He turned the lamp toward the other boats and passed on the information.
“Now what?” Edland said.
“Now we wait for orders, man the radar, and hope that Firedancer picks up something on her unit before we do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her radar range is about sixty miles, give or take. Don’t forget the unit’s mounted a hell of a lot higher off the surface than ours is. Our range is twenty miles, tops. If she spots something first, we get enough warning to react.” He motioned to the two seamen in the bow with a BAR and M-1. “To tell you the truth, Commander, the only thing that gives me the willies are mines. We hit one of those things and it’s the end of the line.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I have. The invasion fleets have minesweepers leading the way. They’ll cut lanes through the minefields and plug those that pop to the surface. Unfortunately for us, a few might get away. Those two sharpshooters are there to plug them before we plow into them. How do those C-47s look to you now, Randy?”
“Better and better, Skipper.”
“Now we play watchdog, Commander,” Cole said, stretching stiffness out of his back. It was the dampness and cold that combined to creep into his joints and lock them in place. Old age, his grandfather complained, miserable old age. It’ll never happen to me, Cole had thought with all the certainty of youth. I’m young, invulnerable. That arrogance had been swept away by months on the pounding deck of a little wooden boat in the cold depths of early morning. He grew accustomed to the ache in his knees, and the heavy pain in his lower back, and the sharper pain that cut across his shoulder blade. Not wounds, but injuries—the kind that he was too embarrassed to mention. Pop three or four aspirin, light a cigarette when the smoking lamp was lit, and grit your teeth. The sea was picking up some. He pulled the binoculars from the ready box and swept the darkness to port.
“Anything?” Edland asked.
Cole smiled secretly at the man’s impatience. “Not a thing,” he said. “Just some night and some stars. How’s our heading, Randy?”
“Dead on, Skipper. Think we can do it?”
“Do what?”
“Sneak up on the bastards.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. The weather was a break. They probably figured that no seaman in his right mind would venture out in this shit.”
Randy chuckled as he scanned the Pioneer compass. “‘In his right mind,’” he repeated.
A rogue wave pushed PT-155 heavily to starboard, shaking the little craft. DeLong increased the throttles, his lips set firmly as he spun the wheel and fought to bring the boat back on course.
“What’s the scoop, Commander?” Cole said, watching DeLong’s boat-handling with appreciation. He was a natural helmsman, feeling the vibration of the 155 boat through the decking and wheel, almost capable of steering a true course with his eyes closed.
“Scoop?”
“Well, we’re going to Normandy? Right?” Cole watched as Edland mulled over his response. “Commander,” he said, nodding in the direction of the invasion fleet, “there are several thousand clues out there. I don’t think your telling me anything is going to betray the invasion.”
Edland replied: “Judging from our position, we’re shielding McNamar’s Task Force. U. They formed up out of Plymouth and Torquay. North of them is Task Force O. North of them is the British and Canadian Task Force.”
“I guess in the task force scheme of things,” DeLong said, “we’re kind of near the bottom.”
“Okay,” Cole said to Edland’s explanation. “That makes sense.”
“What makes sense?” Edland asked.
“Where we are,” Cole said. “What we were ordered to do. When we get the word we’re to lay back along this line and sit tight.”
“For how long?” Edland said.
Cole shrugged. “Until Barney passes that word to me that we’re supposed to roll.” Even in the da
rkness he could see Edland’s concern. “What’s the matter, Commander? You look a little green around the gills.”
“I thought that we might have an opportunity …”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Cole said, shaking his head. “None of that privateer stuff. I know that you were hoping to see one of those super boats. Welcome to PT boats, Commander Edland. Those also serve who freeze their ass off in the middle of nowhere. When you decided to come along, I told you not to get your hopes up. It looks likes twelve knots is all we’re going to do on this mission, so I’d sit back and relax if I were you.”
“Doesn’t the possibility of running into one of those boats at least excite your interest?”
“At this stage of the war, a warm bed and a hot cup of coffee are all I need to excite my interest,” Cole said. “Look, Commander. Maybe you look at this thing as an intellectual exercise. I don’t. I’m a long way from the classroom and the groves of academe. We come out here, do our job, and go home. You’ve got your orders—I’ve got mine. That’s it. So …”
“My orders are nebulous,” Edland said.
Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Come again?”
“Strictly speaking, I wasn’t ordered to come on this mission. In fact, strictly speaking, I was told, specifically, not to.”
“Well, this is a fine time to tell me.”
“If I’d told you before, you wouldn’t have taken me along.”
“Why, you lying S.O.B.,” Cole said, shaking his head. After a moment he smiled. “You know, Commander, there just might be hope for you yet.”
“Hey, Skipper,” Barney’s voice sounded scratching over the squawk box.
Cole pulled the microphone off the mount. “What’s up, Barney?”
“Firedancer reports targets, two-one-four. Range, about fifty miles. Speed, twelve knots.”
Armada Page 27