The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)
Page 73
“Men down, men down…!” Eileen screamed, instantly leaving the position she’d taken on the bridge without a second thought and leaping to the gun mount to take the fallen man’s place. Straining with all her strength, she racked the bolt of each cannon in turn and slipped her shoulders into the mount’s padded stocks, swinging it around to follow the course of the retreating fighter.
“Maintain course…!” She bellowed back to the helm over one shoulder, gritting her teeth as she fought against inertia and slowly brought the weapons around, at the same time attempting to connect the waist belt that accompanied the shoulder supports. “Head directly for shore: the longer we’re out here the bigger target we become! Come on then, y’ wee glaikit hoore…!” She swore softly under her breath, tension dramatically thickening her usually mild Glasgow accent as she turned her attention back to their attacker. “Let’s be havin’ ye…!”
Oshiro knew he’d misjudged his first pass, doing some light damage but completely missing the craft’s bridge, which had been his intended target. He would hold fire this time until he was much closer to make sure of his aim.
Lining up from the east this time, he was now able to approach from directly behind, allowing him to rake the boat from stem to stern and undoubtedly inflict a massive amount of damage. Approaching from the rear also prevented the heavy weapon he’d seen mounted forward from drawing a bead on him. He’d been lucky to have avoided fire from it on his initial approach, but he was at a loss now to understand why the vessel hadn’t since come about to provide it with a clear field of fire.
Behind the twin 20mm Oerlikon, Eileen bided her time and resisted the urge to fire too early. Her photographic memory told her that the guns’ effective range against low-flying aircraft was around a thousand yards, but with almost no experience whatsoever with anti-aircraft gunnery, there was little chance she’d hit a fast-moving target at that range. Instead she waited as patiently as she was able, allowing the tiny little silhouette to grow steadily at the centre of the mount’s ring-and-bead gunsight and adjusting her aim accordingly.
Eileen opened fire at six hundred yards, filling the air behind the launch with streaks of pink tracer as her fire reached out for the oncoming fighter. Initially falling badly short, she quickly adjusted her aim and brought her fire into line with the Zero’s approach, inwardly relieved that she weapons she was using were newer models fitted for belt feed. Had they been the original drum-fed models, she’d no doubt have already emptied their magazines and would now be desperately fumbling for reloads.
Oshiro Takeshi had been a recent replacement with his unit, straight out of fighter training and had as yet seen no combat whatsoever. Perhaps suffering from a combination of inexperience and youthful overconfidence, Oshiro was completely caught by surprise as the twin streams of tracer reached out for him, shock momentarily clouding his thoughts and delaying his actions. That moment of inaction was to prove almost fatal as 20mm cannon shells tore through his port wing, punching huge holes in his control surfaces and blasting great chunks of debris into the slipstream behind him.
One shell penetrated the ammo box of the Ho-103 machine gun mounted inside his outer wing, the relatively small initial explosion from its tiny warhead subsequently detonating hundreds of the belt-fed 12.7mm rounds within in a far larger chain reaction that sheared off the last third of his port wing in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Suddenly left struggling with extremely unresponsive controls, Oshiro was forced to abort his attack run and veer away to starboard, desperately fighting to keep his stricken fighter from rolling over and ploughing straight into the water below.
Trailing smoke from its shattered wing, the A6M2 streaked past to the north of HDML 1314, no more than a dozen yards off the vessel’s stern to starboard. For just a brief moment, Oshiro dragged his attention away from his own failing controls and glanced down at the passing ship. On the rear deck below, he could clearly see the twin Oerlikon mount that had dealt his aircraft a mortal blow, the flashing muzzles still trying to follow him with their fire as he roared past this time fortunately failing the keep up. Inconceivable as it would later seem in his mind, in that single, timeless moment of sudden clarity, Lieutenant Oshiro Takeshi locked eyes with the gunner manning those turning cannon, and the realisation that came with that recognition shook him to the core of his soul.
A woman…! That single, unbelievable thought filled and almost overpowered his mind with the shock and shame of it all. A gaijin woman…! That he had been shot down by a foreigner was dishonour enough; that he now knew that foreigner to be female was an insult that could not possibly be borne.
Finding renewed strength and determination, Oshiro fought anew with his controls and somehow managed to pull the Zero up into a shallow climb. Had this been a simple matter of having been defeated in combat, he might have considered electing for an honourable death and allowed his aircraft to come crashing back to earth, staying with it as part of some supreme sacrifice. The idea that he’d been defeated by a woman however was far too great a loss of face for him to bear. There was no way he could throw his life away in such a fashion.
He continued to climb, the Zero banking away to the south above the Hitu Peninsula; the landmass that made up the larger, western half of the island. Holding as long as he was able, he finally reached an altitude he felt was sufficient and hauled back his canopy. Unbuckling his harness, he allowed the A6M2 to roll slowly over, remaining upside down for just long enough for him to fall clear of the cockpit and plummet toward the jungle below. He opened his parachute the moment the fighter had flown clear, suspended below that huge silk canopy and mired in his own shame. This was an insult he could never bear: Oshiro knew he must have vengeance, and silently vowed he would never rest until his honour was satisfied.
Now devoid of any human influence whatsoever, his stricken Zero immediately spiralled out of control, nosing over and plunging back toward Earth with smoke continuing to trail from its shattered wing. It smashed itself to pieces moments later, slamming into dense jungle covering the eastern side of Mount Wawani, the tallest summit on the island at almost 3,000 feet. Surprisingly perhaps, there was no fire.
“How long now?” Donelson demanded breathlessly, feeling somewhat elated after having watched the fighter she’d hit plough into the jungle just moments later.
“Five more minutes,” the helmsman offered, eyes never leaving the coastline ahead as they drew ever nearer to the jetty at Laha. “I’ve got her at twelve knots now… there’s no way I can get any more out of her with this load on…”
“Five minutes and a bloody lifetime…!” She breathed softly, her momentary feelings of victorious joy dissipating instantly as she turned and caught sight of John and Victoria Watson desperately working with some of the men who’d been wounded in the fighter’s first pass.
“I don’t want to piss on anyone’s parade…” Langdale advised sourly, standing at the portside machine gun position amidships with a large pair of field glasses raised to his eyes “…but I think we’ve got a Jap warship headed our way…”
Right on cue, the terrible ripping sound of a shell passing overhead assaulted their ears, detonating in the bay about five hundred yards behind them and sending a huge geyser of water skyward.
“Okay… so we definitely have a Jap warship headed our way,” he stated bluntly, revising his earlier observation.
“Fuckin’ big help, you are,” Lloyd growled from forward of the bridge, shrugging off his backpack and rummaging around inside until he found what he was looking for.
Sliding the pack back onto his shoulders, he raised a bulky set of what appeared to be binoculars to his eyes, the entire unit encased in a contoured, dun-coloured housing of plastic and metal. Adjusting for zoom and focus, he located the vessel Langdale was referring to and took a moment to observer its approach.
“Five and a half thousand yards,” he concluded, lowering the powerful laser rangefinder and glancing across at Eileen, neither looking happy.
Two more shells howled overhead then, neither any closer.
“Reckon they can pick up something as small as this on radar against all the surrounding ground clutter?” Lloyd mused, trying to offer something positive.
“Doubt it…” she conceded, brightening a little. “…if the even have radar, it’d be bloody hard to lock down a ship this size: they’ll probably want to get in closer if they can.”
“While I can give an exact range reading anytime we want,” he pointed out, lifting his rangefinder into view again for emphasis.
“What’s it look like, Mal…?” Eileen asked suddenly, taking a few strides to stand beside him at the gun position. “Destroyer… light cruiser…?”
“Buggered if I know,” Langdale shrugged in return. “Check it out,” he suggested, slipping the neck strap over his head and handing the binoculars over.
“Pissy little thing,” Eileen muttered softly, taking a few moments to study the approaching warship carefully. “Don’t recognise it offhand but it’s small… no more than maybe seven or eight hundred tons. Gunboat or a bloody minesweeper… something like that…” She handed the glasses back, thinking deeply. “A forty-mil won’t sink her, but it’ll bloody hurt if we can land a few good hits. Forward gun…!” She bellowed loudly, making her decision and taking charge. “We have any armour piercing for the Bofors…?”
“Yes, ma’am… about a hundred rounds, ma’am…” the loader called back in an instant from the other end of the boat.
“Guess we’d better make ‘em count then,” she growled, sighing with resignation over the action she was about to take. “Helm: continue on course – make for Laha at best possible speed. Forward gun: load AP and engage enemy warship, range…” she paused, throwing a pointed stare at Lloyd.
“Er… range… five thousand, three hundred…” he called out, quickly lifting the rangefinder again and taking a reading.
“Range five thousand, three hundred yards and closing,” she repeated. “Captain Lloyd will call range for you: be ready to adjust accordingly…” she made a quick mental calculation, working on what she knew of muzzle velocities, trajectories and flight times of ammunition for the 40mm L/60 Bofors. “Flight time will be ten or twelve seconds at five thousand yards… keep that in mind when leading the target…”
“You are a freak of nature… you know that, right…?” Lloyd grinned faintly, never ceasing to be impressed by her capacity for recall and mental arithmetic.
“Let’s just hope we can buy ourselves enough time to make it to the wharf and unload,” she countered, giving a thin smile in return in recognition of his lop-sided compliment.
Holding out a hand to Langdale, she once more took possession of his binoculars and stared out nervously at the approaching enemy, flinching as the forward Bofors gun roared, sending forth its first round. It fell slightly long, the tiny plume of its impact astern almost invisible at that distance, receiving a salvo of return fire from the minesweeper’s 120mm guns that missed again but this time landed markedly closer.
“I think I’m starting to understand why Max swears so bloody much…” she muttered softly to no one in particular, the words lost to the winds as the forward gun fired again. Handing the field glasses back to Langdale once more, she stuffed her fists tightly inside the pockets of her combat pants and hoped no one had seen how badly her hands had been shaking.
Manning defensive lines near Eri, overlooking the bay at Cape Batuanjut, Lieutenant Alex Hawkins’ platoon had so far had a relatively quiet time of it, save for some random shelling and the occasional aerial attack. As they looked out now across the beach to the west, the Japanese minesweeper steaming close in shore and heading north at high speed was so far the closest they’d come to an actual enemy.
“Have a look at that cheeky bastard, sir,” his sergeant observed softly, crouching beside him in the trench. “Runnin’ right up to the bloody beach without a care in the bloody world…!”
The warship’s main armament fired at that moment, a huge cloud of smoke and flame bursting from the gun muzzles of her forward turret and hurtling away to the north.
“Who are they shootin’ at, I wonder…?” Hawkins mused out loud, lifting a pair of binoculars to his eyes and searching in vain. “Can’t see anything from here, but some poor bugger must be copping it.”
“So close you could almost touch ‘em, sir… couldn’t be more than fifteen hundred yards…”
“Now that you mention it, sergeant, I reckon that’d be well in range of the Browning,” Hawkins pointed out, thinking of the .50-inch heavy machine gun assigned to his unit. “Doubt it would do much damage…” he added as the minesweeper’s guns fired for a second time.
“Probably piss ‘em off right proper though, sir,” the sergeant suggested with an evil smirk, as mischievously Australian as the next man.
“Too bloody right…!” The lieutenant agreed suddenly, brightening over the possibility of alleviating some boredom and finally having a chance to properly take the battle back to the enemy. “Gun group: target… Jap warship; straight ahead… range fifteen hundred…” he added, going with his sergeant’s rough estimate with a shrug. “Free to engage…!” He shouted finally as a dozen or so metres away, hidden by a pile of logs and ferns, the crew of the platoon’s heavy machine gun frantically went about the business of loading and preparing to fire.
Astern of the minesweeper, a plume of water rose up from the surface of the bay, momentarily capturing everyone’s attention, the warship’s main guns answering with another salvo a second or two later.
“Well; somebody’s shooting back at least…” Hawkins observed as he heard the unmistakeable sound of the gun’s bolt being racked not too far away, covering his ears in anticipation along with every other man nearby. “Not big, but at least they’re showing some knackers…”
The hammer of an M2 Browning was deafening at close range, and even with hands blocking ears it was still almost painfully uncomfortable. With every fifth round a tracer, red streaks burst from the beachside jungle and reached out ponderously across the water toward the warship. Short at first, the gunner quickly adjusted his fire and brought his aim into line, dozens of half-inch solid slugs ripping along the vessel’s starboard side.
Completely unexpected as it was, the fire swept at least half a dozen sailors from the deck before anyone knew what was even happening, those not killed outright screaming in agony as what was left of their bodies either tumbled overboard or collapsed to the deck in lurid sprays of flesh and bone. Those same slugs were also able to punch through some of the ship’s thinner upperworks, causing far less damage within but spreading chaos all the same.
A moment later, another 40mm shell from HDML 1314 hurtled in, this one a near miss off the port bow that was nevertheless close enough to capture the attention of the ship’s captain and fill him with concern that the tiny little gunboat they were engaging might – inconceivably – inflict some actual damage. W9’s captain immediately ordered a hard turn to starboard, intending to ruin the launch’s current firing solution and at the same time provide the enemy on shore with a far narrower target, with the added hope of giving his own guns an opportunity to fire back. It was the last command would ever make.
HDML 1314’s third shot was equal parts inspiration and just dumb luck. As the minesweeper entered into the beginning of her tight turn toward the beach, that single 40mm AP round punched into the rear quarter deck, doing almost no damage whatsoever but adding significantly to the confusion now spreading on the warship’s bridge as the unpleasant realisation hit home that they were facing exceptionally ac
curate fire from two separate directions and both had definitely found their range.
Listing dramatically as she came hard about, surf spraying upward as her bow cut the water, IJN Minesweeper W9’s desperate attempts to avoid converging streams of fire caused her to blunder directly into one of the allied mines she’d been originally tasked to neutralise. One of dozens laid closer inshore to deter enemy landing forces and shallow water operations, that particular Mark XVII moored mine carried an explosive charge of around 450lbs – approximately the same as an aerial torpedo.
It was certainly sufficient to do for the 600-ton minesweeper as the vessel came about, striking her amidships and blowing her completely in half. What was left of W9 disintegrated in a churning upheaval of seawater and debris that left very few survivors out of an original crew of almost a hundred men. A rousing cheer rose up from the beach as every Australian watching the show either threw his hat into the air or raised a fist in victorious celebration.
For ordering fire against the enemy warship, at least partially the cause of the change of course that had sent it blundering into a mine, Hawkins’ superior officer would go on to promise that after the war, he would give the huge machine gun to the lieutenant as a present: a trophy and memento of what they’d accomplished that day. It was a great shame that neither man would live long enough for the promise to be made good.
“Well, that was a fuckin’ good shot…” Lloyd observed, executing an incredulous double-take as he lowered the rangefinder from his eyes. He’d been about to call out another range reading, had caught the tiny puff of smoke that had indicated the Bofors had scored an direct hit on the minesweeper’s stern, and had then been completely dumbfounded seconds later as the ship had suddenly and unexpectedly blown up in rather spectacular fashion.