Twelve Desperate Miles (38 page)

M Company moved within four hundred yards of the bridge, but the process of trying to move up some artillery to help take the bridge alerted French batteries to its position. Enemy artillery zeroed in on Toffey’s troops, inflicting more casualties. He left portions of M Company at their post near the bridge but pulled the rest of his forces back to the hill where the Third Battalion had started the day.

Down at the Hotel Miramar in Fedala, George Patton was reviewing a day that had not gone quite to his liking. While a portion of his force, the Third Infantry Division, had headed south toward Casablanca and was poised to attack the city the next day, the rough surf and mess on the beach had slowed reinforcements. He was considering pursuing the assault with just the Third, in conjunction with a naval bombardment.

To the south at Safi, Harmon had taken a small airport and was beginning to organize his tanks for their advance on Casablanca; but to Patton news of his movements had dried up by the end of the day.

The task force commander knew that Truscott was in a tough fight at Port Lyautey—word had arrived of Semmes’s tank battle on the Rabat road—but here, too, further information had ceased. Patton did, however, know that the airport had not yet been taken. He also knew from Truscott’s last message of the ninth that he could use some help. But Patton, who was planning to assault Casablanca with limited force, had none to spare.

Adding to his pressures in the early morning on the tenth was a telegram from Eisenhower reporting on the progress of the Mediterranean task force. “
Algiers has been ours for two days,” it read. “Oran defense crumbling rapidly.… The only tough nut is in your hands. Crack it open quickly ask for what you want.”

By evening on the ninth, Truscott was feeling an intense pressure to take the Kasbah and the airfield as quickly as possible. The surf that day had effectively eliminated any landings on the Mehdia beaches by midafternoon. He also knew that he would have no reinforcements from Patton. His orders to Colonel de Rohan, commander of the Sixtieth Infantry, were straightforward: de Rohan was to personally lead the assault of the Second Battalion on the Kasbah at daybreak the next day. As he did so, the First Battalion from the southwest and the Third Battalion from the north were to attack the airfield in conjunction with the commandos on board the
Dallas
, which was likewise supposed to enter the Sebou at dawn and make its way upriver as quickly as possible. This battle needed to be over by the close of day on the tenth. Period.

In the night, detachments were sent out to eliminate the heavy French sniper activity between Mehdia and the Kasbah. The naval demolition team was sent off to blow up the cable that barred river traffic just past the jetties. And out at sea, both the
Dallas
and the
Contessa
were given word that they were about to enter the fray.

O
n the night of November 9, René Malevergne and Captain Robert Brodie shared the bridge of the
Dallas
as well as the exhaustion of two long days waiting for the moment when they would finally steam up the River Sebou. Malevergne sat at the map table, trying to stay awake; but when he put his head down, he gave in to sleep. The captain woke him and told him to go get a decent rest in Brodie’s own cabin. He would wake the Frenchman when the time came. That wasn’t long. It seemed just moments later that Brodie shook his shoulder: “The admiral wants you to tell him if we can enter the river at dawn,” he said.

Malevergne did the calculations: It was 0130. High tide was at 0300. At low tide, 2.4 meters (approximately 8 feet) of water covered the bar at the mouth of the river. High tide increased that level by about 2.7 meters (approximately 9 feet)—combined that raised the total a little above 17 feet of water. The
Dallas
’s draft was about 3.3 meters (nearly 11 feet). But dawn would come at 0600 on the tenth, which meant that he and the ship would be entering the Sebou on an ebb tide, with water fast dropping and pouring out in the direction of the sea. The question was, would there still be enough depth to allow the
Dallas
over the bar and into the river? In plain fact, Malevergne couldn’t answer that question with certainty. What if there were delays in getting to the jetties? What if they didn’t arrive until 0630 or 0700? What if they smashed into the bar? At this point in the invasion, however, everyone involved understood that risks had to be taken. “
It’s okay,” Malevergne said to Brodie. “Tell the admiral we can enter at dawn.”

The
Contessa
was pondering similar equations as she cruised around the transport area, awaiting her own run up the river. Late on the ninth, the ship’s officers had been ordered to report to Captain Gray on Truscott’s transport, the
Allen
. There they had been told to stand by and be
prepared to follow the
Dallas
upriver as soon as the destroyer silenced the batteries and took the airport. Lieutenant Leslie and Captain John made arrangements with Gray to send a pair of LCM-3s upriver after the
Contessa
to help with the unloading. Afterward, they began a quest among the transports for cargo nets. In their haste to get out of Norfolk, the ship had neglected gear and, naturally, they would want to unload their cargo as quickly as possible. The more cargo nets, the more hatches they could use simultaneously. The more hatches they could use, the quicker they would be out of the airfield. They managed to cadge twelve nets by begging from the various transports.

The
Contessa
had other concerns. Like the
Dallas
, its most immediate problem was getting through the jetties and over the bar at the mouth of the river. For the banana boat, however, this obstacle was even more acute. Her draft, at seventeen feet, was not as shallow as that of the
Dallas
and—according to Malevergne’s calculations—could only make it over the bar at precisely high tide. Because at 0300 on the morning of the tenth, the
Dallas
had not even begun to sail for the river, Leslie and John understood that they would not be heading up the Sebou until the next high tide, in the afternoon. Otherwise, it would be simply impossible to navigate the entrance to the river. In other words, they could not sail in the immediate wake of the destroyer but would be running alone at around 1400—that is, if all went well.

The
Contessa
also lacked a river pilot. Whether or not John and Leslie knew of René Malevergne’s role with the
Dallas
early that morning is unknown, but they were surely worried about their entry into the river without a guide, especially after witnessing the pounding surf on the Moroccan shore. While the weather report was favorable on the morning of the tenth, that didn’t mean that it couldn’t turn ugly quickly; or that, given the circumstances of navigating the bar with the volatile load they carried, even in moderate swells, matters couldn’t turn dicey in an instant.

It was also to say nothing of their ignorance of the river beyond the bar. Beyond the fact that it was shallow and winding, Leslie and John
knew next to nothing of the Sebou’s treacheries. But they and the crew of the
Contessa
were resolved to get their load up the river, just as the
Dallas
was resolved to lead the way.

At 0500, the destroyer set out from thirteen miles’ distance from the jetties. The sky was overcast and the wind came from the northwest. It was still dark outside, but Brodie, at the wheel, and Malevergne beside him, ordered the ship forward at a speed of thirteen knots, timed to reach the bar at daybreak. At 0545, as they neared the jetties, the waves were breaking on the ship’s stern, pushing her too rapidly toward the narrow channel. Brodie ordered her speed cut to ten knots.

Some light was evident on the horizon in front of them, and the water beneath began to appear yellowish, indicating deposits of sand marking the mouth of the river. It was still too hazy to see the jetties, which jutted several hundred yards out from the shoreline. All hands on deck were ordered to ignore threats from French artillery, and keep a lookout for signs of land.

The channel inland hugged the south jetty, and that is where Malevergne wanted to take the ship, but he still couldn’t be certain about where exactly he was. He asked Brodie if he could take the wheel, and the captain gave it to him. Malevergne ordered the engines cut until he got his bearings. The sudden end of the pounding pistons from the engine room below caused a deep and eerie stillness to sweep over the
Dallas
. Deckhands at the rail stared intently into the murk, just as Brodie and Malevergne did from the bridge. Malevergne listened to the sound of the surf, waiting to hear “
a familiar growl,” the sound of the bar.

Malevergne steered slightly toward port, and the
Dallas
approached the bar slowly. Backlit by the rising sun he could make out the pile of rocks marking the south side of the jetty in the morning haze. Malevergne brought the
Dallas
around toward starboard at forty-five degrees and could see ahead of him waves breaking on the rocks. To the south, the village of Mehdia appeared in the half light with American troops and
equipment cluttering the edge of its beach. (General Lucian Truscott was there,
eyeing the progress of the destroyer with interest and fingers crossed.) Despite Malevergne’s preoccupation, it was impossible for him not to look briefly for his own cottage among the many white houses that were scattered through the town.

The ship yawed as Malevergne pointed it toward the channel, which ran tight to the south side of the jetty. It first veered toward the rocks on the right and then wobbled to the north side of the river’s entrance, near the shoal side of the jetties. As the
Dallas
approached the bar, the swells got heavier. As she pointed between the jetties, a shell landed thirty yards ahead, splashing in the river. Moments later, a second shell whistled over their heads. In the background, from the direction of the Kasbah, they could hear rifle and machine-gun fire, but none of it was reaching the
Dallas
.

At three minutes past six, she approached and then hit the bar. All the wobbles and rocking of the ship now became intensified and concentrated. The
Dallas
vibrated like a tuning fork as the pounding force of swells in the stern, river current in the bow, and land scraping her keel below made the destroyer a tiny vessel caught between forces far more powerful than she. The ship hung quivering on the bar for several seconds but then churned forward. She was over and in the river. Malevergne ordered full speed ahead.

From down in the engine room the call came up to the bridge that the
Dallas
had reached her maximum speed, a full twenty-five knots. The action report of the ship would later tell the true story: “
A glance over the side showed … that we were making less than five.”

Behind the ship, a cloud of river muck dug up by the bottom of the hull indicated where the difference lay. She was scraping her way upriver.