“Okay, Barney. Stand by.” Cole held the microphone close to his chest in thought. He glanced at DeLong and received a puzzled look in response.
“Wrong direction,” DeLong said.
Cole rubbed his jaw nervously, his mind playing over the information. Something was coming from the direction of the French coast, not heading toward it. “Wrong everything.” He pressed the TALK button. “Barney? Did Firedancer send out an IFF?” Identification, Friend or Foe. It was a signal that was supposed to help Allied aircraft and ships distinguish between friendly and enemy forces, but the Germans had caught on to it quickly and used it to confuse the Allies. Now it was seldom used—better to be wary.
“Let me check, Skipper.”
Cole pushed the binoculars into Edland’s chest and said: “Here. Hold these.” He pulled the signal lamp from its cradle, positioned himself so that the light was aimed at the other boats, and clicked it twice. It was the signal to stand by—it was a warning that something was up.
Hardy rolled his eyes in disgust when W/T passed the inquiry on to him. “Any respect that I had for Cole has now officially evaporated,” he said. “Why should I give away my presence simply because I don’t know who is roaming around in the darkness? IFF indeed. Why not ring bells and set off rockets? Does that make sense to you, Number One? Was I obtuse in making the target’s position known?” He had heard the word used on a BBC broadcast of a quiz show and was so impressed with the sound of it that he asked Beatrice what it meant. He saw Beatrice’s pencil hover over the sketchpad on the kitchen table before she answered: “I’m sure that I don’t know, Captain Hardy.” Obtuse. Somehow it rhymed with confuse and Hardy affixed the same meaning to both. He must have confused Cole.
“Shall I answer in the negative, sir?” Number One said.
“Negative? Of course, Number One. Did we issue an IFF? Did I order it done?”
“No, sir.”
“Well. There you have it. Tell Cole that I did not, and you might add that I am not in the habit of giving away my position to any Tom, Dick, or Harry wandering about the sea.”
“Indeed, sir,” Land said, uncovering the voice tube and whistling up W/T for the reply to Cole. Pure Hardy. As prickly as a barnacle.
“The idea of sailing about in those little cockleshells addled the man,” Hardy said, and then added, proud of his newly acquired vocabulary: “Probably obtused the poor soul.”
Funker Lerch appeared at the bridge hatch. “Fregattenkapitan,” he said to Reubold, “Zickelbein’s decoding a message.”
Reubold turned the wheel over to Kunkel. “Maintain speed and course.” He slipped down the hatch and moved forward to the radio room, squeezed into a small space on the port side between the bridge and the gun well. It was difficult to move in the cramped space with the bulky life vest on, but he insisted that every man on deck wear one when they were out to sea. Those men assigned below needn’t worry; they’d probably be dead before they got a chance to inflate the vest. Reubold stood to one side and behind Zickelbein. Every S-boat carried three W/T operators: one to man the wireless, one to code or encode messages, and one to run the complicated Schussel M cipher machine. He saw Zickelbein shake his head in uncertainty.
“Let’s have it, Zickelbein. It’s supposed to be a secret from the enemy, not from me.
“Oh,” Zickelbein turned in surprise. “Sorry, sir. T-22 reports some activity in the Channel. ‘Large convoy.’ Le Havre passed that up to Seekreigsleitung and now Seekreigsleitung says not to worry about it. But I just received a transmission from B-Dienst on Offizier M ordering all T-boats and S-boats to stand by for instructions.”
“And not twelve hours ago they told us ‘nighty-night. ’ Where is T-22 now?”
“I don’t know, sir, but they are stationed at Le Havre. I think they’re with the Fifteenth Vorposten.”
Reubold glanced at the tiny radar at Zickelbein’s elbow.
“Naxos?”
“Nothing, sir,” the seaman said, following Reubold’s glance. He went a step further. “We haven’t picked up anything. No W/T traffic at all.”
Reubold’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing. Come, come Zickelbein. Someone has to be saying something to someone.”
“Just Marine Gruppe West, sir. They keep asking for information.”
Reubold turned to Lerch. “Let me know the minute you hear anything. Other than a bunch of Silver Stripes asking questions. Let me know when somebody answers and what they say.” He turned to Zickelbein. “Keep your eyes on Naxos.” The 10-cm radar had been developed from a downed Allied aircraft bearing an H2S radar. It had limited range and the Allies had certainly progressed beyond its capabilities, but it’s all the Kriegsmarine had. “Report anything.”
Reubold quickly made his way topside and waved Kunkel back when the leutnant began to move away from the helm. It was a courtesy to step aside and offer the helm to the boat captain. “Something is going on,” Reubold said. “We may have changed from lautaktik to stichtaktik without knowing it.”
“I didn’t know that we were on either,” Kunkle said in surprise.
“Always one or the other,” Reubold said. “Or the Devil’s Shovel.” He turned and could barely make out the ghostly gray shapes of the other boats trailing behind. The W/T operators on the boats had certainly picked up the flurry of confused messages from Marine Gruppe West and Seekreigsleitung, and the boat commanders were probably wondering what Reubold’s orders were. Reubold was wondering the same thing. His original course had them proceeding another 40 kilometers and turning south-southeast. Things had changed, however. He could loiter about and chance bumping into an Allied convoy, or picking up additional information from Marine Gruppe West, that might, he hoped, clear up the confusion. The one thing he could not do was to lead the 11th Flotilla back to base; even at this distance they could see the bright eruptions peppering the horizon where Cherbourg was. The Allies had come in the night again, and this time it appeared that they meant to level Cherbourg.
Reubold picked up the small, handheld signal lamp, switched on the power, checked the louvers, and aimed it toward the other boats. His index finger squeezed the trigger and spelled out: KMZ. Kriegsmarschzustand 1—Battle Stations, Code One. A single brief flash came back from the following boats: message received—understood.
Reubold hung the lamp on its hook. He had no answers. He didn’t know what was out there, or if there was something out there, or even what it was. But he and Flotilla 11 were prepared, and there was a chance that Waldvogel’s flying boats with their plump guns might get an unexpected chance to fight.
“Sir?” Lerch looked up at him from the hatch. He handed Reubold a sheet torn from a message pad. “From T-22 to Marine Gruppe West. It’s all that was sent. The transmission was terminated in mid-signal.”
Reubold took the page, flipped up the cover shielding the phosphorescent dial of the compass, and read: Many ships.
Chapter 27
The sky around them was a mass of explosions that robbed the night of absolute darkness, replacing it with a thousand miniature suns. The Germans really meant to kill me this time, Gierek thought.
The Pathfinders had formed up with the Lancasters and although nobody said it, everyone knew that this was the invasion. Far above the speckled clouds that gleamed under the moon’s glare, Gierek saw aircraft, many, many aircraft. They flew at different levels, fleets of them, each carefully tended by its covey of fighters. And then suddenly the aircraft were gone and all that remained were the Pathfinders, and behind them the lumbering, complacent Lancasters.
Gierek felt dread pressing hard on his chest and no songs or words came to him. Jagello listened to High Wycombe for news of the invasion, and babied Gee to make sure that when the pulsating signals intersected, he was where he should be—where they should be; over the E-boat pens of Cherbourg. Gee and Oboe, the two mischievous nymphs who lead the wooden planes to the dangerous skies above Cherbourg with pulsating chirps and whistles. At the right moment Jagello woul
d open the bomb bay doors, push the teat on the bomb release, and a dozen Target Indicators would fall gracefully into the night until their altimeters tripped and the flares exploded.
They’d done it thirty-seven times before. Le Havre, Boulogne, Cherbourg, once down to Lorient, and then back to Cherbourg, and each time Gierek had talked or sung and Jagello kept silent.
Jagello was still silent but Gierek was frightened. It was that damned dog. It had been there every time, collapsed in front of the left tire, looking as close to dead as an animal could be without actually being dead—until the erks came to retrieve it.
Gierek saw a soft band of tracers reach high in the sky and then fall away as if to announce: we see you, we are here waiting—come. He looked overhead through the Perspex canopy and cursed the moon and the men who made them fly when the moon was fat and satisfied. He knew that the moon’s rays gleamed off the aircraft despite the dull paint that coated them, and he knew that German anti-aircraft gunners were waiting to trap him in the lenses of powerful binoculars.
He felt … what was the word … sorrowful? An English word that described sadness coupled with longing for something that remained unidentified. A sweet loss that beckoned like a lover from the platform of a departing train. Sorrowful. He was frightened more than he had ever been. To be scared was one thing, to feel your bowels loosen, and your mouth dry up, that was to be expected. But sorrow? He suddenly realized that his future was preordained. That was to say, I am a dead man.
A range of explosions filled the canopy as the German gunners found the altitude. Next would come the barrage, individual guns firing as quickly as they could; 88s, 105s, big guns with menacing barrels and around their barrel a painted stripe for each enemy aircraft downed.
The firing increased, mushrooms of flame with jutting tentacles that reached into the darkness, seeking a target, searching for Gierek. The Mosquito bounced, and sideslipped, and Gierek saw Jagello’s hand motion casually to the right. The bomb-aimer /navigator’s face was buried in the radarscope and he did not want to move, so the tiny wave with the gloved hand said: You’re off course.
Jagello the iron man, the solitary professional.
Suddenly they were in the flak field with explosions on all four sides. Gierek fought the wheel, his eyes on the compass. He relaxed his pressure on the rudder pedals, knowing that pilots usually overcompensated in their excitement.
This is bad, he thought. The worst he had ever seen. They must have brought more guns in and stuck them on every rooftop. Three blasts, one immediately after another, shook the aircraft so violently that Gierek thought the Mosquito’s back was broken but she continued to fly, untouched. “Good, old Mossie,” Gierek breathed, and he heard Jagello say: “Yes.”
They flew for several minutes more, the constant roar of the exploding shells so great that it was impossible to distinguish one blast from another. The sky was bright with explosions, and the flaming remnants of flak bursts, and slender searchlight beams that swept back and forth until they captured an aircraft and locked on, refusing to let go. Gierek hated searchlights. They were obsolete and ineffective but once a plane was pinned in their evil light, they would follow it until the aircraft disintegrated in a flash.
Jagello’s hand came up, and Gierek heard the soft murmur of the bomb bay door motors and felt the aircraft trembling as the doors deployed.
Gierek began praying, something that he had never done before, because although he professed to a belief in God as a good Catholic, he had seen too much to accept His existence. He has abandoned us, Gierek decided when men he knew, good men, died. He prayed this time because of the fear that rose from deep within his soul, and the certainty that this time; this mission, would end in his death.
The aircraft was rocked again, thrown to the left and down, and Gierek saw Jagello signal frantically with his hand: Stay on course. It meant nothing if they flew all that distance to drop indicators in the wrong place. It meant that the bombers would dumbly follow behind and drop their bombs where the indicators glowed brightly because they had been trained to do so. The bombers would be out of position and the bombs would be off target and hundreds of aircraft and thousands of men would be put in jeopardy because a Pathfinder had made a mistake. There was no going back to the target if they couldn’t drop their ITs. They would travel on through the flak and emerge on the other side, and hope that the other Pathfinders did the job that they had failed at. Or they would fly deep into the angry red clouds and disappear in a flash of fire and smoke.
Gierek regained control of the aircraft and saw Jagello raise the bomb release cord, his thumb poised over the teat, and he felt his heart pound through his flying togs.
Then he saw Jagello’s thumb depress the teat, and he heard the clatter of ITs falling away into the darkness, and before he realized it the bomb bay doors were closed and Jagello looked at him with all of the aplomb of a man who has just successfully tied his shoe.
And then the cockpit of the Mosquito exploded.
“Double the lookouts,” Hardy said to Land. And as an afterthought he added: “And send someone to fetch my hat.”
“Of course, sir,” Land said, and nodded to Yeoman Bertram. He turned to Petty Officer Stillwell, who shared Firedancer’s bridge with them, and said in a measured tone: “Double the lookouts if you please, Petty Officer.”
“Right, sir,” Stillwell said. His tone was unhurried, without a trace of excitement or concern. One would almost think that there was no danger ahead and the men were slightly bored with it all. Neither was true. Survival was part luck and part precaution and since luck was never under one’s control, one had to be content with precaution. And the men were justifiably concerned. They had been at this business for a number of years and knew that as melodramatic as it seems, death always lurked close by. One could appear blasé, perhaps indifferent, and in extreme cases they might even temper their fear with gallows humor. But they all knew dead men—those whose number was up, as most of the crew believed. Fatalism was an accepted commodity aboard Firedancer.
Land had been Hardy’s Number One long enough to appreciate his captain’s peculiarities, even if he didn’t understand them. He trusted Hardy, and he knew Hardy’s skills aboard Firedancer were beyond reproach, but he was embarrassed for the man when he slipped on that worn bowler. Charge into battle with something other than a haberdasher’s nightmare, for God’s sake.
A whistle came through the voice tubes. “Bridge? W/T here.”
Land leaned over the tubes as the hatbox was presented to Hardy. “Bridge.”
“Target’s hanging steady, sir. No change in course of speed.”
Hardy was at Land’s side. “What’s this, Number One?”
“No change in the target’s course or speed, sir. They’re still well away from us.”
Hardy growled in thought and looked into the sky. Visibility had remained unchanged; scattered to moderate clouds, a flash of the moon when the winds permitted and a sprinkling of brilliant stars in the cold heaven. Still, radar was all that they could truly count on until the mysterious vessels got close enough for the lookouts to pick up.
“E-boats,” Hardy said. He nodded to himself in confirmation. “On patrol or something; loitering about waiting for a target perhaps, but E-boats nevertheless.” He leaned over the voice tube. “W/T? Send to Castle.” Castle was the code name for Task Force U’s Escort Command. “Ready? Possible E-boat contact.…” He looked up. “Where are they now, Number One?”
“A bit farther, sir. Nearly sixty miles. Course two-one-four. Speed is still twelve knots, sir.”
“Possible E-boat contact,” Hardy said, and then repeated the information that Land had given him. He waited while W/T read it back to him for confirmation and then said: “Yes. That’s it. Send it off.” He adjusted the hat on his head. “They’ll want to send some aircraft out there, Number One. A big fat Short Sunderland, I’m sure. Well, fair enough. It’s their show, we’re just Costly Farces. I’ll tell you this mu
ch, Number One. When we’re through with this business, I’m going to ask out of this duck pond and get us back to sea. I’d even take convoys over the English Channel.”
“Bridge? W/T.”
“Still waiting, W/T,” Hardy said. “What about it?”
“No, sir,” W/T said. “Castle has not yet replied. It’s the target, sir. They’re coming about. Course two-four-two. Range fifty miles. Speed, twenty knots.”
Hardy tossed Land a glance and said crisply: “Right. Well, loitering is out. Either Mr. E-boat smelled a rat and has come to investigate, or he’s just fumbling about in the darkness.”
“Either way,” Land said, but let the comment hang; a question begging an answer.
“Yes,” Hardy agreed. “W/T? Advise Castle immediately of the change in circumstances. I request permission to move against the enemy.” He tapped his fingertips on the windscreen in thought. “Number One. Have Yeoman of Signals make to our Mr. Cole that we have gatecrashers. Give him the latest information and tell him to stand by.”
“Right, sir.”
The tapping stopped as Hardy examined the situation. Convoys to port, big, slow ships, eminently protected by anything that could mount a gun but still vulnerable to an E-boat attack. To starboard, Mr. Cole’s little wooden boats of name; game vessels all right, but in Hardy’s mind little more than pleasure yachts.
Continue to starboard: six boats; certainly E-boats, powerful, fast, devilish creations that could sidestep Firedancer with ease and get deep into the convoys.
“Bridge? W/T.”
“From Castle?” Hardy said, his voice sharp with irritation. He hated to wait on others to make a decision whose answer was perfectly obvious to Hardy.
“No, sir. Sorry, sir,” W/T/ said.
“My aunt’s pajamas, W/T, do I have to carry the mail myself?” Hardy exploded. “Did you impress upon them the urgency of the thing? Are they asleep out there?”
“It’s the E-boats, sir,” W/T replied calmly. “They’ve come completely around and their course is oh-five-three degrees.” There was a pause. “Speed,” W/T continued. “Forty knots.”
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