The War Heist

by Ralph Dennis

  What concerned Johnny Whitman was problem number one. Everything depended on a solution. With an answer, they could move on to the other questions: what kinds of weapons they’d need, the transportation, the type and amount of explosives.

  It was a puzzle he’d put to Randy Gipson.

  There is a train. It is made up of several freight cars. We don’t know how many, yet. Some of the cars will carry paper we don’t want. Others will carry the gold bars we do want. While this train travels between Halifax and Montreal, how do we cut out the boxcars that hold the gold bars?

  Randy licked his lips. He was sweating. “You don’t,” he mumbled.

  Tom put a hand over his mouth and yawned. He’d spent a few hours trying to come up with a way that would spoil the plot. He knew now that he had wasted his time. The confusion and the stupidity, the building chaos, would do it for him. The meeting was already at the point where it might break up at any moment.

  He counted heads as he looked around the table. Harry Churchman was on the fence. He was a nudge, a push, away from going to Canada by himself. Richard Betts, almost burned black by the sun, looked coiled, trapped, about to lunge for the door to the street. Vic Franks didn’t appear to be listening. His mind was somewhere else. Gunny Townsend was in, but he was so ill that he might fall over any minute.

  The Gipsons, bless them, they were the real roadblocks.

  Johnny leaned across the table. “What did you say?”

  Clark stared at him with an open mouth and then looked at his brother. “He said …”

  “I said … you don’t.”

  “Goddam.” Johnny hit the table with a balled fist. “You’re supposed to know trains. That’s why you’re here. And all you can do is sit there on your ass and say we don’t?”

  “If I’m your expert,” Randy said, “then why the shit don’t you listen to me?” He reached a claw hand into his brother’s shirt and came out with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He dug about for a cigarette and then tore the top from the package and pulled out the last one. He turned to Clark. Clark struck a match and touched it to the cigarette. “What I say is that you don’t and you can’t.”

  Harry Churchman grunted. It was like a yes to a question that he’d asked himself. “I don’t know about the rest of you. Maybe you got more patience than I’ve got. Me, I’m tired of listening to this moron.”

  “Wait a minute.” Johnny waved a hand at Harry. He moved down the table toward the Gipsons. “Go on, Randy. Tell me what you mean.”

  “I mean you don’t know shit about trains or about the air-brake systems. Once that train is moving there just ain’t no way you’re going to make a break in that system. You ain’t going to be able to cut out this car or that one.”

  Johnny looked at Clark. Clark nodded.

  “That’s the truth of it, Captain.”

  “Explosives,” Richard Betts said. “We blow up the whole fucking train. Then we walk around and pick up those gold bars right off the ground.”

  Johnny put his back to the Gipsons. He seemed to be considering the Betts proposal seriously.

  Randy blew smoke at his brother. “You remember that time in Montgomery?”

  “The hotbox?” Clark said.

  “That was it.” He winked at Clark and faced down the table. His grin, his look, was almost sober now.

  “One time in Montgomery, this foreman had it in for Clark and me. He said we was soldiering on this job. The way he told it, we’d made this whole shipment of gravel late for consignment. He fired us right on the spot and he went over to the office to get our pay. That right, Clark?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It was four gondolas, open bed. While the foreman was over at the office I crawled down under those cars and I emptied the hotboxes.”

  “What’s a hotbox?” Johnny was puzzled by the story, but it interested him. He wasn’t sure there was a real point to the tale. On the other hand, there might be, or there might be some way that he could use what he learned.

  “It’s this box next to the axles. It’s full of cotton waste that’s soaked with oil. It keeps the axles oiled so they don’t overheat and seize up.”

  “What good would emptying the hotboxes do?”

  Randy laughed. It was almost a giggle. “Well, we can’t say we followed that train to find out. We took our pay and left the train yard. That was after we cussed back and forth some with the foreman.”

  “Our guess,” Clark said, “is that, about fifty or sixty miles out of Montgomery, somebody noticed smoke and sparks and maybe even fire coming from under those four cars. That was from the axles heating up and turning red and getting so hot.”

  “What happens then?” The puzzled look on Johnny Whitman’s face was changing. It wasn’t a smile yet, but there was the frame, the outline, for it.

  “They ain’t got a lot of choice. Either they stop right there on the track for a few hours, and might be they get another train rammed up the ass of this one, or they take it slow and easy until they get to the closest siding. More than likely they’d go for the siding. They’d cut out those four cars and shunt them off on the siding. Next they got to send out a crew to work on those axles and those hotboxes.”

  “You see?” Clark said. “Instead of that rock gravel being two or three hours late, turns out it was maybe a day and a half late. All because that foreman got on Randy and me.”

  “All right,” Harry Churchman said, “I’ve listened to this dummy’s story and …”

  Johnny shook his head. “No, you haven’t been listening at all, Harry. What Randy’s saying is that the air-brake system makes it impossible for us to cut the boxcars we want out of the train.” The grin swept across his face. “But nothing says we can’t give them a nudge so they’ll cut those cars out for us.”

  “That’s it,” Randy said. “They do it for us.”

  The meeting was on schedule once more. The agenda Johnny had prepared in his mind was tailored to ease them past the hard questions. Those would be command decisions. His decisions, made after a consultation from time to time. The U.S. Army wasn’t a democracy, and this outfit wasn’t going to be one either.

  Gunny Townsend was talking about weapons. Thompsons if they could get them. Shotguns, rifles, grenades. Gunny wheezed when he talked. There was a flutter to his breathing. The way he saw it, if there was going to be any fighting, it would be brush-fire, short and in close quarters. The Thompsons and the shotguns were best for that. Nothing better. The Thompsons for rounds per minute and rapid fire. One Thompson was the equal of five men using the old Springfields. And the shotguns were to blow down anything the Thompsons couldn’t find. And they might consider getting some tear gas and masks if they could find them. You never could tell what might come up.

  Johnny nodded. Yes, yes.

  “Of course,” Gunny said, “those Thompsons are hard to find right now.” He looked at Harry Churchman for confirmation. Harry looked away. “Feds make it hard for you to own them. And, from what I hear, most of what the U.S. could spare and about all they had in Canada was shipped to England. So, if we found them, we might have to pay a price for them.”

  “How much?” Johnny tore a piece of brown paper from the map wrapping. He uncapped a fountain pen.

  “It’s according to the shape they’re in. Used or still in the packing grease. Used would be cheaper. But that’s like buying a used car. New would be best. Now we could figure a fair price and add about twenty percent above that.” Gunny paused and took a deep breath. “But there’s no reason to worry about the cost unless we can find them.”

  “You know anybody?”

  “I’ve got a name in Montreal,” Gunny said.

  Harry hadn’t joined in on the talk about weapons. His knowledge was as extensive as Gunny’s. Now he scraped back his chair. “I the only one that this talk about how much a Thompson costs bothers? Anybody else?”

  “What do you mean?” Richard Betts asked.

  “All this crap about money. A
nybody see a dollar of it yet?”

  “I’ve been paying my meal ticket and my room,” Betts said.

  “That’s what I mean.” Harry nodded at Randy Gipson.

  “Clark and me, we’re down to a twenty and some dimes.”

  “You,” Harry said to Vic Franks.

  “I was hoping somebody here had a twenty that needed a home.”

  “I’ve got a couple of hundred I can spread around,” Johnny said. “Anybody short can see me after the meeting’s over.”

  “That won’t do it,” Harry said. “Where’s the big money coming from? I’m not talking about meal money. If you can’t give me an answer I’m going to waltz my ass out of here.”

  “You’ve been listening, Harry. You tell me what we need.”

  “You really want to know, Captain?”

  “I want to know.”

  “Forty or fifty thousand. That’s at the top. Might be we could shave some edges and bring it in for thirty thousand.”

  “You heard it from the master criminal,” Johnny said. “That’s what we need.”

  “Put it on the table, Captain.”

  “We’ll have it, Harry.”

  “When? Now is what bothers me.”

  “It’s waiting for us on the way to Canada,” Johnny said.

  “Where?”

  “It’s in a nice little family bank in Upstate New York.” Johnny Whitman waved a hand in the direction of Tom Renssler. “The major there used to work summers in it. Told me about it one time. Funny thing about that little bank. It’s in a town named Renssler. And that town’s just one big spit from the Canadian border.”

  “They lend it to us?” Harry asked.

  “Oh, no, they wouldn’t do that.” Johnny hesitated a few seconds. “We take it from them.”

  “That easy?”

  “That easy,” Johnny said.

  Harry shook his head. “That’s one mistake on top of what might be the really big one.”

  “If we can’t rob a crackerjack box of a bank and get across the border we might as well forget about that train and that hundred million-plus that it’s carrying. Call it a shakedown for the outfit, an exercise.”

  Harry thought about it for a minute. Why the hell not? It was some cash. Even if nothing came from the train job the cash would be living money while he got himself settled in Canada.

  “I guess I’m in,” Harry said.

  Randy Gipson laughed. It looked like more and more fun all the time.

  “The offer of a few dollars tonight still holds,” Johnny said. “And after we do the bank everybody turns in expenses to this point. Travel, hotel, and meals.” He grinned at them. “But no padding, you hear?”

  Tom Renssler closed his eyes and let his breath hiss out. The rank S.O.B. thought of everything.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The three bank officials were gone when MacTaggart sat up and looked around the compartment. The two bunks across from him were made, the blankets folded and the suitcases stored away carefully. He didn’t have to check the bunk above him. That one would be the same. These boys had been well brought up.

  His own bag, an affront to neatness, was open on the deck next to his bunk. Underwear and socks spilled over the sides, half in and half out. The neck of one bottle of Irish stuck up like a swollen thumb.

  He pulled the bag toward him and selected a clean set of underwear. His shaving kit stared at him. He pushed it toward the bottom of the bag and covered it with socks. Being at sea was roughing it, wasn’t it?

  He undressed and changed his underwear. He put on the same trousers and the same shirt and covered it all with the clammy weight of his raincoat. The way his life was going, the raincoat might stay wet the whole eight days.

  He went on deck. It was gray and gusty. The ocean swells had calmed some. The wind beat at him, still strong, from the west.

  His walk carried him the starboard length of the cruiser. Near the stem of the Emerald he leaned on a railing and watched the drama in front of him. Straight ahead, not more than a hundred yards away, a destroyer plowed the rough sea. In its wake, H.M.S. Emerald executed a zigzag pattern.

  While he stood there, appreciating the expert ship handling, a young officer came out of a doorway behind him. MacTaggart looked over his shoulder. The officer stopped and gave him a puzzled stare. Then the officer nodded to himself and walked toward MacTaggart. It was an easy gait he had, one that appeared to predict even the slightest roll of the deck beneath him.

  “Mr. MacTaggart, I presume?”

  “Which ship is that?” He nodded his head toward the destroyer that kept its course straight into the wind.

  “Cossack.” the young officer said.

  “That’s the whole escort?”

  “Another one back there somewhere,” the officer said. “It can’t keep up.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “Then you haven’t heard the other news?” There was amusement on the young man’s face, as if he were half of a comedy team and he’d been awarded the punch line.

  “What news is that?”

  “I assumed you’d been told.”

  MacTaggart shook his head. Cheeky bastard.

  “Captain Flynn had a wireless from Admiralty in London. Admiralty believes there are at least three U-boats out there waiting for us.” The young officer waved a hand in a rough 180° sweep. “Have a good day, Mr. MacTaggart.”

  The young man gave him a satiric salute and walked away with the same effortless stride.

  MacTaggart watched him go. He stared down at the wind-stirred and whipped sea for a long time. Great Limping Jesus. How in the name of Him was he supposed to protect the shipment from three or more U-boats? It wasn’t in any of the instructions he’d received from the Bank of England.

  He felt foolish. If anyone saw him now they’d think he was standing watch.

  He left the rail and wobbled his way along the port side of the cruiser. He did his check at each of the magazines. The hatches were closed. The guards, now that they were at sea, were gone.

  Well, that was all he could do.

  His stomach growled and rumbled at him. Breakfast was past and it was time for dinner. He followed his nose. It didn’t matter which mess he found, officer or enlisted. In his circumstances, neither fish nor fowl, either would do.

  If there were submarines out there, if he were going to drown in a freezing ocean, it might as well be with a queasy and full stomach.

  The dinner MacTaggart forced on himself, some thin soup and a chunk of greasy beef, didn’t stay down long. It hardly settled in before it was gone. By then he was in good company. Even the salts, the ratings with years at sea, were turning a shade of green and passing up food in favor of steaming mugs of tea.

  The wind was gale force once more.

  H.M.S. Emerald bobbed like a cork in the wind and the ocean swell.

  He had little to do. Every hour or two he checked the hatches on the magazines. Other than that, he stretched out on his bunk. His eyes closed, he thought of jugs of beer and hot meat pies, hissing steam, that were served on tables that weren’t moving from side to side or up and down.

  He began writing a letter to Peggy in his mind. It helped pass the time.

  Dear Peggy-girl:

  I have discovered a new cure for sickness at sea. When I return to you in London we will become rich selling it from door to door. Every hour, on the hour, or at those times when you feel the flutters, you wet your tongue with a taste of good Irish.

  Vic Franks found the unlocked door on the passenger side of the 1940 Ford sedan. It was on a dark street that was bordered on both sides by huge apartment houses. He hot-wired the ignition while Harry Churchman stood in the shadows of a doorway and watched for police cars.

  Harry had him drive around for an hour. “Take that street,” he’d say, or “Take a right.” They were on the edge of Brooklyn when Harry said, “Here.”

  Vic pulled to the curb. They were in front of a sporting-goods store.


  Harry checked his watch. “I’ve got one-thirty-five.”

  “The same,” Vic said.

  “That alley there. I want you to pass it every five minutes until you see me. Pace yourself.”

  “All right, Harry.”

  “And if you hear an alarm go off, you get here flat out.”

  Vic nodded. Harry got out. Vic watched him stroll past the store front. s. h. arnold and sons was painted on the glass of the windows. Harry stopped at the mouth of the alley. He looked both directions and ducked in there. Vic put the Ford in gear and pulled away from the curb. There was a light in the alley. By the time Vic passed it, there was a ping and it went dark.

  Vic made seven circuits. Each time, passing the store, he slowed down and looked into the alley. Once, on another street, quartering away, he passed a police car parked in front of an all-night diner. He took another route the next circuit. It wouldn’t do for the police to notice the Ford or the regular routine he was on.

  On his eighth loop, a cigarette butt flipped out of the alley and hit the Ford’s windshield. It threw a shower of sparks. Vic braked. Harry Churchman sprinted out of the alley, bent over, his arms loaded. Vic reached over the seat back and pushed the door on the curb side open. Harry dumped a clanking, wrapped bundle on the floorboards of the back seat.

  “Watch both ways,” Harry said. He whirled and ran for the alley again. He made three more trips. He carried boxes and bags and long boxed shapes that had to be rifles or shotguns. By the final load Vic could feel the weight pushing down on the rear springs.

  Harry slammed the back door and got in next to Vic. “Take it slow and easy,” he said. He was breathing hard.