Between The Hunters And The Hunted (27 page)

Read Between The Hunters And The Hunted Online

Authors: Steven Wilson

The pilot had no idea of the importance of either word and as far as he was concerned his radio operator had just informed high command of some disastrous news. Or it was the best possible news and those martinets who traveled by long gray, Mercedes-Benzes and stuffed their oversized bodies in ribbon-covered uniforms might be dancing with joy.
He didn't know and he didn't care. All he cared about was that he had survived Spain, Poland, and France, and perhaps he would survive England as well.
The pilot adjusted the fuel mix as the observer made his way up from the nose and sat on the narrow step next to him.
“I wonder what it means,” the observer said. The pilot said: “I don't know,” but he said it in such a way that he didn't care very much one way or the other what word was sent—that he was above such things—that his attention was on nothing except flying the aircraft. He was a professional after all.
“It must mean something to someone,” the observer said. “Why else would they send us out here?”
This time the pilot reinforced his superiority by saying nothing. He sat calmly, eyes scanning the instrument panel, then the sky ahead and above him, then the small mirrors that let him see aft. He listened to the engines with a professional air, careful to keep at least a portion of his arrogance concealed so he did not overplay his hand, and glanced at the magnetic compass.
He did all of these things because he wanted to bury the fear that so recently before had nearly consumed him. He could not permit the observer to see it, because then the squadron would know and the pilot could not accept that. So, now that his hands did not shake, and his mouth was no longer dry, and he did not have to fear that his voice would tremble uncontrollably, he wondered along with the observer.
Why did high command risk the lives of a Heinkle 111H crew for the sake of one word?
 
 
Doenitz stood on one side of the plotting table sipping a cup of tea and watching the young lieutenant approach Raeder. He held a message in his hand and he stopped a respectful distance from the grand admiral, waiting for Raeder to acknowledge his presence. The grand admiral was heavily engaged in a conversation over something or other with someone from Jodl's staff. Whoever it was and whatever was being discussed would be reported directly to General Jodl, who would then rush immediately to whisper the results of the conversation in Hitler's ear. That was why Jodl existed, why Hitler kept him close by, and why most professional soldiers and sailors found it distasteful to speak with the man.
Doenitz took a sip of tea and savored the taste, watching the conversation between the two become more animated. Raeder would have done better to take the discussion to one of the offices where it would not look so unseemly. It was not that the Kreigsmarine staff around the plotting table was unused to confrontations—it was a regular occurrence as the tension of tracking unseen naval battles became too much for some. The little wooden ships on the large glass ocean were sometimes silently removed by plotting officers to acknowledge that the real ships filled with real sailors would not be coming back to port. The strain to keep the little wooden ships sailing smoothly on the large glass ocean could be considerable.
But to have one of Jodl's lackeys accost the grand admiral of the Kreigsmarine was an affront to the service and to Raeder as well. It did not bode well for Raeder. It could mean that Hitler was losing his patience with the navy—that he was losing his patience with the grand admiral.
Doenitz looked into the empty cup and smiled to himself.
If only I could read tea leaves
, he thought.
Perhaps I would know what is to transpire from this adventure. Perhaps I could see my own future as well
.
“Doenitz?”
It was Raeder. Jodl's messenger was gone and now the Kriegsmarine lieutenant stood rigidly at Raeder's elbow. In the grand admiral's hand was the flimsy.
“Come, come,” Raeder said excitedly, waving Doenitz to his side of the table.
Admiral Doenitz patted his lips with a napkin, draped it across the teacup, and handed the cup and saucer to a steward. He walked around the plotting table to the beaming grand admiral.
“Jodl?” Doenitz said, hoping Raeder would share the subject of the discussion with him. The grand admiral's face darkened.
“Jodl,” he spat, shaking his head in disgust. “The Fuehrer's poodle. He sends one of his subordinates here seeking answers. He won't come himself and he wouldn't dare ask me to report to Hitler. No. He wants me to speak here and then my words are twisted beyond recognition by the time that the Fuehrer hears them. The Fuehrer knows me well enough to know that I am a loyal German. Those around him attempt to distort everything that he sees or hears. He must take care that they do not harm him. Who knows how things are misrepresented to him?”
The old man has no idea
, Doenitz thought.
The grand admiral of the Kreigsmarine does not realize how close he has come to being dismissed by Hitler. He is a kindly old soul from another century, another war—he is the innocent pensioner who spins tales of noble sailors to impatient grandchildren
. Doenitz suspected that Hitler cared no more for Raeder's loyalty than he did Raeder's fleet, but the grand admiral was blissfully unaware of the Fuehrer's feelings.
“Admiral Doenitz,” the grand admiral said, shaking off Jodl's scent. He held up the paper. “It is Dresden.”
Doenitz's fists tightened and a smile crossed his face. “Truly,” he said, his eyes growing hard with victory. “Dresden.”
“Two hours ago,” Raeder said. “Look.” He tapped the glass at Scapa Flow with a wooden rod. “The reconnaissance aircraft reports perhaps two, perhaps three battleships, three cruisers, and numerous destroyers moving out. They might be holding a capital ship in reserve. Then, they will turn slightly south-southwest in pursuit of
Sea Lion
.” He looked at Doenitz. His question was obvious; where are your U-boats?
Doenitz took the rod from him. “Webber and the others are here. The Home Fleet must pass through them.”
“How far are they from Scapa Flow?”
“A hundred kilometers. Any closer would be suicide. The British will have aircraft up to protect the fleet and scout ahead of them. They may suspect a U-boat of being in the area, but they could not possibly conceive of a wolf pack of twelve. If the attack is properly coordinated and Webber knows what I want of him, then the British Home Fleet will run a gauntlet of German torpedoes for nearly eighty kilometers.”
Raeder nodded soberly and studied the plotting table. “
Sea Lion
, there,” he said. “
Prince of Wales
?”
“There,” Doenitz said, pointing with the rod. “Well beyond air coverage from Canada.
Sea Lion
will quickly overtake her, from this angle.” Doenitz laid the rod on the table.
“I'm almost afraid to believe it,” Raeder said, trying to suppress his exuberance. “Look at this. Here we snatch the
Prince of Wales
and the prime minister from the British and here”—he swept his hand over the table—“we destroy the British Home Fleet.” He grew silent, his eyes darting over the table. He turned to a tall
Oberbootsmann
. “Is there any surface force reported between
Sea Lion
and
Prince of Wales
?”
“No, Grand Admiral,” the man said.
“She released her escort, did she not?” Raeder said, a note of concern in his voice. “The
Prince of Wales
?”
“Yes, Grand Admiral,” the
Oberbootsmann
said. “A cruiser and several destroyers, according to messages intercepted by B-dienst.”
“They are a small force at best and some distance from
Sea Lion
,” Raeder said as if to settle the issue and his nerves. “They pose no danger.”
Doenitz watched Raeder relax.
“Good, good,” the grand admiral said. “Very good, indeed. We wait now. Eh, Admiral?”
“Yes,” Doenitz said, scanning the plotting table. “It is out of our hands. We wait.”
Wait. For Doenitz it meant one of two outcomes. Complete success—
Sea Lion
would sink
Prince of Wales
and his U-boats slaughter the Home Fleet. Or,
Sea Lion
would fail in her mission and his U-boats succeed. Wait. Wait for Raeder to fail; wait for the opportunities that would come to Doenitz when he did.
Chapter 25
The North Atlantic
 
Cole vomited over the side of the life raft. When he was finished he wiped his mouth and chin with the back of his hand and then washed his hand in the cold water.
Johnny sat at the other end of the raft, watching him. “You can't have anything left, King.”
“I felt my toenails come up that time,” Cole said. He was ashamed to admit it but he was seasick. He thought at first that it was because of the mouthful of water that he'd swallowed, but decided that wasn't it. He was seasick. Hell of a condition for a sailor.
The little raft had been bobbing up and down in the rolling swells of the North Atlantic for over twenty hours. The weather had been fair, a slight breeze under a pale blue sky dotted with wispy clouds. Johnny and Cole had congratulated themselves on their good fortune. What Cole thought but did not say, and what he knew the gunner must be thinking as well, was that the North Atlantic was fickle; she would just as soon suffer a storm as not. If the weather changed for the worst, even if that worst were nothing more than heavier seas and a respectable wind, chances of survival for Cole and the gunner dropped significantly.
Cole laughed at himself—chances of survival dropped significantly.
You sound like you're lecturing a bunch of freshmen
. Analyze, synthesize, and interpret the facts. That's what he used to tell his students: read and consider. He looked at the endless sky. He read a pleasant day in a tiny rubber craft on a huge ocean. He read the chances of being found as slight, perhaps nonexistent.
You should be scared
, he told himself. He glanced at his companion. Johnny was asleep.
You should at least be scared, you dumb son of a bitch
. But that was the irony of the situation. He was cold, miserable, and if he had anything left in his stomach he'd throw that up as well, and that was all he felt. He remembered everything that happened just before
N-for-Nancy
crashed and he knew how frightened he was then—he knew it but the feeling was long gone. What he did remember was telescoped into some sort of fractured image that, if he were asked to describe it, would come out disjointed and incoherent. Not a telescope—a kaleidoscope.
Analyze and synthesize. He decided that the classroom was hardly the place to learn.
“If they could only see me now,” Cole said, chuckling.
“King?”
Johnny was awake and looking at him questioningly.
“I was thinking about my students. I just wondered what my students would think if they could see me now.”
“They'd have to be in another dinghy, wouldn't they? They'd have enough to keep them busy. How are you feeling?”
Cole cupped some water in his hand and splashed it on his face. “Like hell.”
“I had a refreshing nap.”
“I saw that.”
“I can sleep anywhere, anytime,” Johnny said. “I used to sleep on the Underground. You'd think a bloke would find that bloody well impossible, wouldn't you? Not me. Slept like a baby, I did. Got on at Hobb's End, rode to Victoria Station. Slept from one end to the other.”
“What'd you do before the war?” Cole said.
“Mechanic. Kept the trains running. The war comes and I thinks, ‘Well, that's it for you, Johnny. You've got a nice cushy job keeping the trains running. They'll not touch you.' So I'm called up right off. And then I told myself, ‘They've got to keep you some place safe working on engines, now, don't they?'”
Cole laughed. “So they made you a gunner.”
“Bloody bastards. Never been near a gun in my life. You?”
“Teacher. College.”
“Took you for an educated man right off. What'd you teach?”
“American history. Government.”
“Make a right good living, then?”
“You don't know anything about teachers, do you?”
“I knew to keep on their good side. Had my ears cuffed more than once. Got out of school first chance I got. Still, sounds cushy. Never got your hands dirty, I suspect.”
Cole noticed something over Johnny's shoulder.
“What is it?” the gunner said, turning around.
“I thought I saw something.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
“Here,” Johnny said, tossing Cole one of the small plastic paddles. “Let's get on top of a wave. We can see from there.”
Cole felt the paddle bite reassuringly into the water as he and Johnny worked to guide the raft to the crest of a swell. He tried to envision what he'd seen. It was very far away, sitting on the horizon; narrow, very narrow. It could have been a ship, a small ship. Maybe it was nothing. The sun was getting higher in the sky and its rays created a glare off the water. At least they were doing something to help themselves.
Johnny pulled the flare gun and a flare out of their waterproof pouch. He snapped open the breech and dropped the thick cartridge into the barrel.
They cleared a swell and sat briefly on the crest. Cole searched for the ship; it had to be a ship of some kind. There it was.
“There!” Cole shouted. “Over there.” Suddenly he heard a pop and then a loud whoosh as the flare shot high into the sky, followed by a thin trail of brown smoke. Cole and Johnny watched it make its wobbly ascent and then begin its slow fall.
The raft slid down into a wave trough, blinding them, and they came up again, the ocean taunting them first with a glimpse of the faraway ship, and then by denying it to them.
“Over there,” Johnny shouted, pointing across the waves. “It is a ship. They'd bloody well better come here and take us in.”
“Is she turning?” Cole asked. “I can't tell if she sees us.”
Johnny shot another flare into the sky. “Come on, you bloody, blind bastards. We're over here.”
A wave cut off their view.
It was a ship all right. Not a big one, Cole decided. A destroyer or maybe a corvette. It had to be a destroyer; they were too far out for a corvette.
“They're searching for us,” Cole said. “Prentice got his message off. That's a destroyer. I'm sure of it. Probably from a convoy.”
They rode to a crest again. There was no doubt of it now; the destroyer was closing on them.
Johnny slumped back against the soft rubber wall of the raft. He looked at his watch, tapped the crystal, held it to his ear, and then shrugged. “Gone,” he said. “A perfectly good two-quid watch rendered absolutely useless.”
“It's a small price to pay,” Cole said.
“I wish the other chaps had made it. I'm going to miss them terribly. It just won't be the same without them. I'm feeling a bit guilty. I mean them having bought it and me alive.”
“What did you tell me?” Cole said. “Something about not looking back. There's nothing that you can do, Johnny. I guess just be glad you're alive.”
H.M.S.
Firedancer
 
Hardy lowered the binoculars and turned to Land. “Number One, assemble a party to help those men aboard. Too choppy for a ship's boat to retrieve them. I'm sure they'll need treatment of some kind or another, so see to that as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Land?” Hardy added. “I don't fancy stopping long in U-boat country, so have the men snap to.” Hardy resumed his watch, picking out the bobbing life raft in the rolling swells.
Number One rejoined Hardy on the bridge. “All set, sir. I've detailed a party on either side of the ship. That will leave us free to approach from port or starboard.”
Hardy looked at his number one in appreciation. “Well done, Number One. That's thinking, all right. You might find yourself on
Prometheus
one of these days with initiative like that.”
“No, thank you, sir,” Land said. “I prefer
Firedancer
.”
“That answer has considerably reduced my confidence in you, Number One. Let us go and fetch those poor bastards out of the water.”
 
 
Her hull was scarred and rusted and her numbers were nearly invisible, bleached by the harsh sun and scouring salt spray of the North Atlantic, but to Cole the British destroyer looked as large and imposing as a battleship. When the ship was close enough he saw a party of sailors lining her deck, ropes in hand, waving at the raft. He had never seen sailors of the Royal Navy at sea before and he was amazed at their dress—they were wearing castoffs of every description, except for the two officers standing by the men of course. They were properly dressed. If any American sailor had reported for duty looking like this crew, he would have been tossed into the brig.
But he didn't really care. They had come to rescue him and as far as he was concerned, they could have been dressed like the Rockettes and the ship could have been the Staten Island Ferry.
“I hope they don't run us down,” Johnny said. “Wouldn't that be just the proper end to this disaster?”
“She's doing fine,” Cole said appreciatively. Her captain, whoever he was and whoever she was, worked her steering and engines masterfully.
When the ship was close enough, Cole saw ropes shoot lazily into the air, uncoiling against the pale sky. He caught a line as Johnny pulled one out of the water next to the raft.
“Pull yourselves in, can you?” a faint voice asked from the ship. “Or shall we come and get you?”
Cole waved off the second question as Johnny and he began to pull. When they were close enough to the vessel Cole realized that it was going to be tricky getting aboard. The sea was moderate and the swells unimposing when the life raft was on her own. But when she got close to the destroyer, there was a fair chance that she would be thrown against the hull and ripped to pieces by the barnacles that ran along the ship's side. There was a good chance as well that Johnny and he could be seriously injured.
“You chaps need to leave the dinghy,” an officer shouted through a voice trumpet. “Hang on to the ropes and we'll pull you in.”
“Well, that's that, then,” Johnny said, stripping off his flying suit. “In we go.”
Cole did the same. He felt confident enough pulling his own weight up the ropes, but the thought of a bulky flying suit saturated with water concerned him. Still, it would offer quite a bit of padding if he ended up slamming into the hull.
“Hang on tight,” the officer called. “We are going to pull you up now. Mind the hull, will you? We don't want you injured.”
“Who's he kidding?” Cole said as he and Johnny slipped into the icy water. He wrapped the rope firmly around his hands and immediately felt the line tighten. There were two brawny sailors on each rope, pulling away in unison. The rolling destroyer began to fill his vision as he glided through the water. He tried to keep his head up; one mouthful of the North Atlantic was plenty. They were several feet from the rust-stained hull when the sea tried one last time to kill them.
A burst of wind caught the destroyer's bow and drove it to port while a stiff wave caught them from behind and threw them against the hull. Cole felt it happen; felt the waves grab him and throw him at the ship, so he pulled his legs up, bending his knees, and landed against the hull with the balls of his feet. His legs took the force of the wave and other than the impact on his feet, he was uninjured. He heard Johnny cry out.
Cole twisted on his rope to see Johnny's deathly white face.
“I've broken my bloody hip,” the gunner gasped. “All of this just to end up a cripple.”
“He's been hurt,” Cole shouted to the men above him. All he could see were their heads peering anxiously over the side.
“Can you tie him off?” the officer called through the voice trumpet.

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