That looked all right. In my best Spanish, I told the crane skipper to stand by till morning; by then we’d have a scow and would proceed. Reed landed me on the Môle Millerand and shoved off immediately in the boat to scout Oran harbor and Mers-el-Kebir for a suitable scow. I went back to the Grand Hotel.
I had a few other matters to clean up in Oran, so it was not till nearly 9 A.M. next morning that I got back to the Môle Millerand. When I got there, all hands were out on the water over the Moyen Dock, so with no boat I couldn’t join them. But I wasn’t immediately concerned over that. I stared dumbfounded out over the harbor—there before my eyes were indubitably two 100-ton floating derricks maneuvering into position over the sunken Danaë, one at either end!
Over her sunken bow, just hooking on, was the big French crane we’d had the day before. Over the submerged stern, an exact duplicate of that crane was being jockeyed about to take hold there. How could that be? I knew for a fact there was only one such crane in Oran. You couldn’t any more conceal another such towering mass of steel anywhere in the harbor than you could conceal the Washington Monument! But there was another one! However it had got there, now we were fixed to do the job right. I started to shout to Reed, busy on the slings to the submarine, to send a boat in for me.
While I was waiting for the boat, I became conscious of an army major at my elbow on the quay, scanning that mysterious crane as closely as I. Apparently he knew me, though I had no recollection of ever having seen him before. He spoke first, asking quite innocuously,
“You’re Captain Ellsberg, aren’t you?”
I admitted it.
“Fine floating derrick you’re handling out there. Where’d you get it?”
I had to confess I didn’t know. I’d never seen it before till a couple of minutes ago; in fact, I could still hardly believe it wasn’t just a mirage I was looking at.
“Well, I can enlighten you then, Captain,” he continued drily. “That crane belongs to the army. We had it towed in here this morning from about a hundred miles westward down the coast where we’d commandeered it to help unload General Sherman tanks from half a dozen newly arrived Libertys we’ve got alongside the quays here. How you got your hands on it, I don’t know. We’re supposed to start heaving out those tanks by noon with that crane. Now you’ve got it. I’m phoning General Larkin, Area Commander, about this right now!”
“I’m certainly sorry to hear that, Major,” I apologized. “I didn’t know anything about it, and I still don’t know how it got here instead of alongside your ships. But it’s just what we need for our salvage job. In an hour we’ll be through with it; you’ll have it back before noon. Mind asking General Larkin if we can keep that crane for an hour yet?”
He said he didn’t mind passing along my message. He left to find a telephone; I shoved off in our boat which had just come in for me.
In a few minutes, I was in another boat over the sunken Danaë with Reed, Buck Scougale, and most of the rest of the little salvage crew.
“Bill,” I asked, “how’d you get that crane?”
Reed was so convulsed with laughter he could hardly get out an intelligible sentence. Finally I made out part of it. He’d been unable, in spite of a careful search, to find any scow around Oran that we could safely hang the stern of the Danaë from while we lifted her stem. He’d come back to the job that morning completely sunk, wondering how we’d ever get the Danaë up so he could raise the Moyen Dock. While he was pondering that, what should he sight being towed into the harbor from seaward but the answer to a maiden’s prayer, another 100-ton French crane, exactly what we needed to save the situation! And just in the nick of time, too!
Bill started laughing again so hard he became completely useless. Finally he managed to gasp out,
“Ask Buck! He’ll tell you the rest!”
I turned to Buck. Never had I known Buck Scougale except as strictly business; no foolishness about him. There wasn’t any now. No matter what it might be about that crane that was doubling Bill Reed up in stitches, Buck was still as sober as a judge.
“All right, Buck. Out with it! How’d you get that crane?”
“Well, Cap, it was this way,” he answered very seriously. “We was all out here stewing over what we’d do with that frog pigboat down there, seeing as Bill couldn’t find a scow, when that new crane showed up coming through the harbor entrance with a couple o’ French tugs towing it, just like Bill says. At first we all thought we’d had, too much French red-eye, but she was real enough. So after Bill came to again enough to talk, he says to me,
“‘Buck, you can parley voo with these frogs better’n I can. You take the other boat, run out on the water to that crane four bells, and no matter where she’s headed nor what it takes, you see she steers right in here. I leave it to you.’
“So,” continued Buck, “I hops into the other boat and in no time at all I’m alongside that crane. There’s them frogs, tugboats and everything, all of ’em strangers to Oran, wondering what quay they’re supposed to lay alongside of with the crane. I asks the chief frog, the skipper o’ the crane, where he’s bound with it. He says it’s for le général somebody or other, he doesn’t know his name. Where should he take it?
“So I says I’ll show ’im. I’m from General Delivery, I says, an’ the general wants this crane right away for a hurry-up job alongside that other crane he can see ahead. Well, to that frog, one general’s as good as another, so he heads in here with the crane. An’ there she is, Cap; just what we need, on orders from General Delivery!”
Buck, still with a straight face, stopped explaining. Bill Reed doubled up again, guffawing over Buck’s stratagem. I had to admit myself it was ingenious. But there were other aspects.
“See here, boys, this is serious!” I exclaimed. “That’s General Larkin’s crane you’ve swiped. I’m going to get hanged for it. One of his majors is phoning him right now that we’ve shanghaied it. For Christ’s sake, Bill, quit laughing and get going with that crane on the Danaë’s tail! We’ve got to finish this job before they take it away from us, and there’s damned little time!”
That brought Reed to. He sobered up instantly, went to work with all his men helping the new crane to hook on to the heavy sling round the Danaë’s stern. But a massive floating crane is no rowboat to be juggled swiftly into lifting position; it took some minutes to get the ponderous lifting hook engaged. After that, it would take roughly thirty minutes more for that crane, just in from sea, to adjust its water ballast tanks to stand a maximum lift. From then on, the lift itself would go swiftly. In an hour everything would be all over. Nervous as a cat, I watched, hoping that that morning Brigadier General Larkin, Area Commander, whom I’d never met, might be somewhere out in the field with his troops where his major couldn’t get him quickly.
I had no such luck. While the crane hook was being engaged, I heard a loud voice calling me from the quay. It was no use pretending I couldn’t hear; we were so close inshore, hearing was easy. I looked shoreward. There was the major calling me.
“General Larkin wants to talk to you!” he shouted. “He’s waiting on the phone!”
None too hopefully, I played for time.
“Tell him I’m busy out on the water over a wreck!” I bellowed back. “I’ll be through in about an hour and I’ll come ashore and call him then!”
“He knows damned well where you are!” was the answer. “He says you’re to drop everything and get on that phone right now!”
It was no use. I couldn’t afford openly to flout the orders of the army’s Area Commander, especially as he was senior to me. I told Reed, for the love of God, to shake things up; I’d do my best with Larkin to get him the rest of the hour he needed. Then I clambered into a boat and was swiftly ashore. The major was waiting for me; he indicated a near by tool room on the quay where the phone was. I entered; the receiver was off the hook; I picked up the phone; Brigadier General Larkin, madder than hops, was on the other end, waiting.
Very ici
ly, very formally, the general told me off. I had stolen his crane. I tried to explain. There was no need to explain; he knew all about it from his major (only, unfortunately, I knew the major didn’t know all about it, though he did know too much); there was no call for explanations, for discussion. I was to discontinue instantly whatever I was doing with that crane and turn it over immediately to his major to be towed elsewhere. The crane belonged to the army; it was to be delivered to the army at once!
I tried to get in a word edgewise, pleading for the use of the crane for only one hour; it would still get to its army assignment in time. The general wasn’t discussing it; the stolen crane was to be turned over instantly. After his representatives had it in their possession ready to move it away, if I had anything further to say in extenuation of the theft, he’d listen; not before. The conversation ended.
The major was just outside. I told him to wait on the quay; when we had the crane completely cast loose and clear of our wreck, he could come aboard and take it where he pleased. I shoved off in the boat.
The crane was all hooked on, its ballast tanks already half filled aft in preparation for counter-balancing the heavy load to be taken over its bow. In about ten minutes more, it would be ready to lift.
I ordered Reed to belay everything; I’d lost; General Larkin wouldn’t let us keep the crane even for what was left of the hour we needed. All I could hope for was that by letting go now, I could persuade him to loan us the crane for an hour some days later when the army finished with it, before it went back west where it belonged. Even that was doubtful, if I was any judge of Larkin’s feelings.
My divers, listening, gazed at me incredulously, then let go an obscene chorus of objections. How could anyone, even a general, act like that? After all, wasn’t it everybody’s war? What the hell were we raising the Moyen Dock for, if not to help the Army? It wasn’t helping our Navy any; we had no warships in the Mediterranean. But I wasn’t discussing anything. I motioned Reed to accompany me aboard the new crane; we’d order it to cast loose.
We boarded the crane. I got hold of its skipper, a bearded Frenchman, very busy on shifting ballast. As best I could in Spanish, I explained the job was suspended; he was to cast loose. When he was clear, General Larkin’s representative (I indicated to him the major on the quay) would board him and show him where he was to go next.
The Frenchman stared at me completely bewildered, then opened up with both arms and a profane mixture of Spanish and French. Were the Americans in Oran crazy? Here he had hardly poked his nose into the harbor when he had been rushed across it to make an emergency lift; now he was nearly ready for the lift, he must not make it! First le Général Delivery tells him to come here, then le Général Larkin tells him to go there! Which general should he obey? Didn’t American generals know what they were about? How then was a poor French skipper to know what he was to do?
As well as I could, I told him I was very sorry, and tried to get over to him that in Oran General Larkin considerably outranked General Delivery and had just countermanded the latter’s orders; perhaps, even in France, the same thing sometimes happened?
That mollified the skipper; he’d seen plenty of such. With an expressive shrug of his shoulders and a philosophical,
“Oui, mon capitaine!” he turned to to unrig his derrick and prepare her for towing again. The lifting job was off indefinitely.
I got in the boat once more and went ashore. I would salvage what I could from the situation with General Larkin. On the quay, I told the major that when the crane was unrigged, she was all his and he could board her. The crane skipper had been told to take the major’s orders from then on. I went back to the phone and called Larkin again, bitterly regretting that I didn’t yet have the rear admiral’s rank Cunningham was going to get for me against situations exactly like this one. Under those conditions, I’d outrank a brigadier general and we might discuss matters; as it was, he outranked me, and in his frame of mind, the discussion would no doubt be very one-sided. It was.
I got Larkin again. Had I ordered the stolen crane unhooked and turned back? I had. Well then, what else did I want? For himself, he saw no reason for further discussion; he was willing to forget my dereliction; the subject was closed.
For me it wasn’t. I told him briefly why not; why we needed that crane. Couldn’t I have it for just an hour’s use when he’d finished with it?
The general couldn’t see it. When he finished with it, it had to go back immediately where it came from. It couldn’t be delayed to help us. It seemed evident to me that from what he’d heard from his major, he was convinced I had myself deliberately stolen the crane and was lying to him when I said I personally knew nothing of it till afterwards, though I was, of course, responsible for what my men did. He seemed exceedingly disinterested in discussing anything with a liar and a thief. He had his crane back and was willing to let it go at that. Wasn’t that enough?
I reflected. As a general, it was probable he didn’t know how much even a moderate sized dry dock meant to all the wrecks needing docking in North Africa. But I did. I just couldn’t let it go at that, no matter what happened to me personally. I kept at him. Finally I got a compromise. I suggested that I turn over to him immediately the crane I already had (and with which alone I could do nothing) so he could use both cranes to unload his General Sherman tanks and very much speed up that work. He agreed to let me have the use of his crane when that task was done before it went back west, for the lifting of the Danaë. The discussion ended.
I went back and told Bill Reed that not only was the crane he’d stolen being turned over to the army, but that in penance, we were turning the other cheek and surrendering ours also. His men would just have to loaf now a week or more, doing nothing, to make up for the thirty minutes or so the army’s crane had been in our hands. After that, we’d get them both back briefly and he could finish the clearance of the Danaë and the lifting of the Moyen Dock. I couldn’t wait in Oran for that; he could handle it. Next day I was going back to Algiers.
The sequel was unexpected. Reed and his men, with nothing whatever left to do save to watch those cranes, reported to me in Algiers that for four days after we had been caught red-handed with the stolen crane, neither crane lifted anything; they both just lay idle in Oran harbor. Whatever the reasons, whether other cargo had to be handled out first or for some other cause, not a tank was lifted out by either crane, though I have little doubt that the officious major who had caused us so much trouble by his rectitude, never bothered to inform General Larkin of that.
After a four-day idle spell, both cranes made short work of the General Sherman tanks. Then with both cranes back in his hands for a few brief hours, Reed yanked the obnoxious Danaë off the Moyen Dock, and a few days later had the Moyen Dock itself, the last wreck of any military importance in Oran, floated up again.
At that, Reed and his whole salvage crew, all civilians, with their contract time in Africa well served out, packed their bags and went home. They’d had enough of Africa, whether in Massawa or Oran. All of them, except Reed who was too old, were going to ship in the navy, with the idea that when next they went diving, they’d be sent to a combat area where America had interest enough to furnish them the wherewithal, not where it made thieves of them to serve their country’s needs.
As for me, nerves on edge, I went back to Algiers with an intolerable headache and the implications of General Larkin’s acid tones still rankling in my breast, wishing to God that General Delivery had stayed at home in the postoffice of whatever town in California Buck Scougale came from.
CHAPTER
39
THE NIGHT I GOT BACK TO ALGIERS, January 28, 1943, there was no sleep for anyone, least of all for me who was cracking up for want of it. The most effective air raid yet staged on Algiers harbor hit us.
Whatever the cause, for the first time in my experience in many raids there, the bombers got over the harbor. One heavy bomb came crashing down on the forecastle of S.S. Strasbourg,
already torpedoed, alongside which I had the Salvestor working under Commander Hewett, R.N.R. Fortunately for the Strasbourg, the bomb struck squarely atop her anchor windlass, a massive piece of machinery on the forecastle near the bow. There wasn’t much left of that windlass after the explosion, but at least it saved the rest of the ship below from appreciable additional damage. However, the blast effects were terrible—the Strasbourg’s chief engineer was hurled against a bulkhead in his superstructure stateroom so violently it killed him. And on the Salvestor, tied alongside the Strasbourg’s bow, the only reason my salvage officer, Commander Hewett, wasn’t similarly killed, was that on the line the blast sent him hurtling across his cabin, there was an open door. Through this he was flung to land on the deck outside so badly bruised and shaken I doubted he’d be worth much for some time, if ever.
Two other ships caught it also, both remarkably enough, also salvage jobs from previous torpedoes, on which we were already working. Neither was hit directly, but in one case, a bomb exploding close alongside, lifted that ship right up out of the water and set her down again with such a smack she ended with a bad corrugation in her heavy steel plating completely encircling her amidships. In the other case, a bomb exploded squarely in line with the ship’s stern but a little distance aft of it. The stern of that ship above water looked as if a titanic shotgun had been fired into it-it was riddled with hundreds of small shrapnel holes. But both ships stayed afloat, and as salvage jobs weren’t too much worse off afterwards than before.
However, the Nazi bombers paid dearly for it. Off the far end of the harbor, the searchlights caught one bomber flying low, and it went down into the sea riddled with tracers from Oerlikons tracking it from all sides. Then we learned later that, thoroughly enraged by what had happened over Algiers, the night-fighters from every field eastward between us and Bône (including a new squadron just arrived at Didjelli) had risen to engage the returning bombers and had had a field day in the dark skies. The result was that more than half of all the bombers over Algiers that night were shot down on their way home. It was unlikely the Nazis would ever repeat that raid.
No Banners, No Bugles Page 37
