The forgers, tailors, and tinkers worked down in the main tunnel, which White dubbed “Philip Morris,” on the grounds that the use of those words would arouse absolutely no suspicion among the goons. He gave Tim Walenn Hell for calling the forging operation “Dean and Dawson,” after the travel agency; he said it gave the show away the instant any German who’d done any traveling abroad heard it, and before the War a lot of them had done. White renamed it “Betty Grable,” and Massey was able to talk von Lindeiner into having a lot of copies of a rather famous picture of her printed up. These were posted in every room in every hut. Any reference to “Betty Grable” was instantly covered. (They did something for morale, too.)
The diamonds traded to the guards— no more than one each, and they certainly didn’t compare notes about the subject— paid for all manner of useful little trinkets, including equipment to develop film, more film, and an extraordinary selection of pens, indelible inks, and document-quality paper. It also got them quite a lot of razor blades, which would see a lot of use on the night of the breakout.
Light for the work was provided by batteries White had worked out. They were just iron tins with brine in them, with copper wire wrapped in blotting paper stuck into one and leading to the outside of the next. A man could get a bad jolt from several put together in a row, and they produced enough power to keep the work well-lit. He arranged to recharge them at night, when the electricity was on.
Walenn kept training more forgers, giving the new ones basic stuff to do while his experts did the precision work, until it was getting to be quite a factory below ground. Other men were kept going back and forth between huts from time to time on a scheduled, irregular basis, so the goons wouldn’t notice any reduction in the population or get suspicious of a pattern. There wasn’t one to notice.
They ended up putting together thousands of the little bits of paper that Germans and their subjects had to have about their persons at all times. They also mimeographed maps, with compass roses and directions on them.
Massey was able to talk von Lindeiner into giving the camp material for patching and for making clothes to replace ruined uniforms. It was bright red, indelibly dyed, making it useless for putting together a disguise for an escaped prisoner. It never occurred to von Lindeiner to wonder about what happened to the clothing it replaced, but every man in camp learned to sew a good seam, very quickly.
The main drag of the tunnel was finished September 20th, with a roofed ramp leading up to about five feet from the surface. There were sturdy ladders in place, and the end was calculated to be about fifty yards into the woods— White wasn’t satisfied with its length until they’d had to cut through the taproot of at least one tree. Breakout was scheduled for the 28th, 29th, or 30th of September. They were days in the middle of the week, so the train timetables were regular, and there would be plenty of passengers for the escapees to mix with.
Some men weren’t informed until the evening of the 28th. There was a mad scramble all round to get dressed after lights-out, then get down into each hut’s tunnel to the main shaft. A lot of men had had no idea of the scope of the digging, but herders had been appointed for each hut to keep the gaping and astounded moving along.
The tunnel was well-lighted, light bulbs being top priority on the list of things to steal. Men were assembled in it in a column, two by two, and had a certain amount of room at that. Muller and Macintosh had hand-wound little motors, each one different according to what scraps they’d had on hand at the moment, and they were attached to fan blades that were now mounted in each hut. These were used to draw air out of the branches of a cement pipe that ran parallel to the electric wire along the tunnel roof. When they were all running, there was a faint but noticeable breeze running down the shaft toward the exit.
Massey took Bushell aside and said White ought to be the first man out. Bushell said he would be staying behind.
“For Christ’s sake, why?” Massey demanded in a voice of almost normal volume.
Bushell told him.
“Mother of God,” Massey said softly. “I never noticed.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” Bushell said. “I didn’t until he told me. Why do you imagine he worked so hard not to let von Lindeiner get a good look at him? The Kommandant has done some traveling, and White’s done a sight more.”
“Jesus,” Massey said, and it was reverent. “Jesus,” he repeated.
When the signal was given to open the end, the men on the ladders pulled boards out of the roof, then backed off and threaded together the handles Travis had made for their scoops and started digging the roof out. There was a lot of sand from that, then a sudden cave-in, then a breeze from above. They were through. Men passed buckets down the line to scoop out the sand, and as they were passed back each man took out a little handful and dropped it by the wall. There was plenty of room for it, and when a man got an empty bucket he handed it to the man next to him to pass forward again. The men with the scoops widened the hole and smoothed the sides to prevent another big fall, and when they were done clearing the sand they passed their scoops back. Longer ladders were passed forward, they set them up, and Wally Floody, master tunneler, was the first to poke his head out. “It’s clear,” he said quietly. “I can barely see the lights from the far towers, and I don’t see the road at all.”
“Well get out of the way, then,” said Johnny Dodge, and Floody got.
They were all out in an hour, scattering like rats dumped out of a sack, with Bushell being the last to go. He shook White’s hand and said, “I hope it bloody works the way you expect. If not you’re probably going to be skinned alive.”
“No worries,” said White, who had been housed with Aussies for the past six months. “I’ve seen pictures. Amazing it hasn’t happened already. Now get going.”
Bushell nodded, then gave one of his rare grins. “I almost want to stay to see their faces.”
“‘Almost’,” said White, and grinned back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go shave.”
With that, he strolled back up the tunnel, took the branch to his hut, went to his room, shaved off his mustache, and went to bed.
At Appell the next morning, he showed up without a shirt.
Alone.
The goons charged into all the huts and found all the tunnel openings, unclosed, right away. Oberfeldwebel Glemnitz, chief of camp security, screamed abuse at White in German until von Lindeiner arrived, having been informed by a hysterical guard that the prisoners had left through fifteen separate tunnels. Glemnitz shut up then, and von Lindeiner came up to White and asked him where the prisoners had gone.
“Everywhere,” said White, and smiled as von Lindeiner studied his face, frowning.
“I know you,” von Lindeiner said presently.
“I get around,” said White, nodding.
Guards kept coming over and delivering deeply impassioned reports about the tunnels, and finally one shouted something lengthy and almost inarticulate from outside the fence. Von Lindeiner went gray and said, “You realize that this will create a hysterical response. Possibly the only thing I can do to salvage my own career is to shoot you at once.”
“You might wait until you get word from Berlin,” White suggested. “By all means, do mention my name.”
Von Lindeiner studied him again, then put a hand to his chest. “Mein Gott.”
White was taken to von Lindeiner’s office. When Glemnitz asked if he should be put in irons, von Lindeiner laughed so long his men began looking concerned. “No,” said the Kommandant at last, “I see no point in that.”
“Are you all right?” White said.
“As well as a man can be who expects to be shot,” said von Lindeiner.
“Don’t make any hasty assumptions about that right now,” White said.
“What do you mean?”
“I doubt I can explain and be believed right away. —I’m afraid I didn’t get breakfast,” White said.
“Feed him,” said von Lindeiner.
“Plenty. He has been working very hard for this.”
Word was sent to Berlin at once, of course. A series of conflicting instructions was sent back for about an hour. They ended with a notice that the Fuehrer was indisposed at present, and further instructions would be forthcoming shortly.
When the sole remaining prisoner heard this, he said, “I don’t expect to hear from him again. Apoplexy. Between his rages and the signs of illness I’ve seen in pictures, he’s probably already dead, and the dispute over the succession will take up everyone’s attention. Whoever wins is going to be ready to talk terms about ending this war. You know,” he added thoughtfully, “if someone had thought of breaking off relations with Japan after Pearl Harbor, stopping all advance, and using the Kriegsmarine to escort neutral ships, you might not have brought America into the European conflict for a couple more years. Maybe ever.”
“You got yourself captured deliberately, didn’t you?” von Lindeiner realized aloud. “It was to do this. Nothing else.”
“You suspect me of deception? I’m shocked! As you can see, I ain’t got nothing up my sleeves,” said Houdini.
This story is respectfully dedicated to Paul Brickhill; to the Fifty; and to the incomparable Erich Weiss.
Editor’s Introduction to:
FLASHPOINT: TITAN
by Cheah Kai Wai
Arthur C. Clarke said that if the human race is to survive, for most of its history the word ship will mean space ship. I will add to that the obvious implication that Navy will soon mean Space Navy. The Space Navy will certainly keep many of the traditions and practices of the wet navies, for the same reasons that they developed in the first place.
Navy stories are as old as going to sea in ships. The heroines of those stories are often ships as well as their crews. Here a story of a heroic ship and her crew.
FLASHPOINT: TITAN
by Cheah Kai Wai
Something was wrong. Somewhere in the sea of data before him, there was a shark swimming amidst a school of fish. Commander Hoshi Tenzen of the Japanese Space Self Defense Force narrowed his eyes, studying his ship’s combined sensor take on his console.
The console displayed the data as a three-dimensional hologram. In the center of the display, Takao was a blue triangle pointing towards a bright yellow mass. That was Titan, the largest moon in the Saturnian system, ten thousand kilometers away. Other yellow dots indicated satellites, orbital structures and shuttles with Titanian registration. White tracks indicated civilian space traffic. A number of small green dots orbited Titan, each representing American orbital patrol ships. Each contact carried a unique tag, displaying vector, velocity, name and other critical information.
There was too much data. He was drowning in it. Leaning back, he studied the big picture, looking for patterns of activity. Ships came to Titan, dropped off cargo, picked up other cargo, and left. It was their purpose in coming here.
But there were ships that did not fit this pattern.
Four of them. Their beacons claimed they were merchant ships registered to Clementine Space Transport Services, headquartered in Ceres. They were burning at five milligees, their vectors pointed at deep space.
But there was nothing of interest beyond Titan. The only other significant human activity past the moon was the gas mines at Uranus, which were almost completely automated.
So why were these ships accelerating?
Hoshi opened a new window, studying the radar track history. For the past week, the quartet had plodded steadily towards Titan on deceleration burns. They arrived three hours ago, entering the ten thousand kilometer orbit at a velocity of two klicks per second. An hour later, they flipped around and burned their engines. And they hadn’t stopped since.
His console chirped. Prometheus, the largest colony on Titan, was hailing Takao on the laser communications array. They had a message for Takao’s ears only.
He accepted the hail on his implants. A broad Midwestern accent flooded his skull. “Takao, this is Prometheus Control. Welcome to Titan. I wish I could greet you under more auspicious circumstances, but we need your help.”
“Copy, Prometheus Control,” Hoshi replied in English. “What kind of help do you need?”
“Takao, I want to draw your attention to Cloud Nine, Summer Squall, Autumn Lightning and Blue Jasper. They just pinged the laser launch array, the space elevator and the colony with lidar. They claim they are testing their instruments, but I’ve never heard of merchies that need military-grade lidar. We think they’re up to something.”
Hoshi looked for the ships. They were the same four ships he had flagged. Takao had designated them S-547 through S-550. They had formed a box, each ship separated by two hundred and fifty kilometers. He’d never known civilian freighters to take up such a formation in orbit.
But he knew warships did prior to a bombing run.
“Prometheus Control, understood. If these are Q-ships, we are ready to provide assistance. Be advised, we are carrying a full war load.”
Q-ships were warships disguised as merchant vessels. They couldn’t match the performance of real warships, but they could remain concealed until they released their weapons, making them the favorite of pirates and terrorists.
“Thank you kindly, Takao. We’re going to run an emergency drill, clear the airspace, and launch the alert squadron. Our plan is to lock down the ships and board ’em for surprise inspections. Give us a half hour and we’ll be in place.”
“Roger, Prometheus Control. If the suspect ships attempt to resist or escape, we will provide fire support.”
“Much obliged, Takao. Let’s do this.”
Hoshi typed a command on his console. Throughout the ship, a klaxon sounded. He keyed the ship-wide intercom and said, “All hands, sentou youii. All hands, sentou youii.”
The crew rushed to assume their battle stations. Around him, the duty personnel in the Combat Information Center tensed. Other spacers streamed in, taking their places.
Hoshi buckled himself into his seat and summoned a window that tracked the ship’s status. One by one, the boxes representing each deck and department turned green. He patted down his blue skinsuit, checking for holes. Two minutes later, the ship was at maximum readiness.
Lieutenant Kamishiro Takeshi, whose place as Executive Officer was in the astrogation deck above Hoshi, called him. “Sir, the ship is battle ready.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Hoshi turned off the klaxon, brought his officers into a conference call, and briefed them.
“Gentlemen, this is no longer a shakedown cruise,” he concluded. “Remember: everyone back home is watching. Do not screw up.”
Only Kamishiro had the courage to snicker over the line. “Ryoukai!” Roger! “We won’t let you down.”
No one was watching him, so Hoshi allowed himself a momentary smile. “Sensors, extend telescopes and track the bogies. If they pull in their radiators, inform us immediately. Intelligence, assume the bogies are Q-ships and develop a threat profile. Weapons, create a solution for long-range engagement. Astrogation, plot an interdiction vector at full thrust.”
Hoshi and his Astrogation head, Lieutenant Sato Koichi, went back and forth until they were satisfied. Then Ensign Tanaka Michi, the Engineering officer, got on the intercom.
“All hands, accelerating, accelerating.”
The Japanese Space Self Defense Force called Takao a multimission patrol ship, the first of her class. But that was a misleading misnomer. Takao was truly a torch ship.
Mobilizing her gyroscopes,Takao rotated in place. Once vector-aligned, the fusion drive roared, accelerating the ship at one-third gravity, faster than any warship ever built. As Takao ate up the distance to Titan, Ensign Subaru Ryuto, the Weapons chief, hailed Hoshi.
“Sir, I have a solution.”
Subaru’s solution called for engaging the threats with Takao’s main laser from standoff range, then finishing them with missiles. Her point defense lasers and railguns would handle counterfire.
“V
ery good, Subaru. But while use of the laser is as per doctrine, there are Chinese forces a week out from Titan, and the Americans don’t need to know our capabilities. Set the lasers to ultraviolet-A. Then launch two sunrays and program them for the same frequency. Boost the sunrays to a deep space vector that enables us to make broadside shots against the bogies.”
Lieutenant Junior Grade Nakamura Makoto was next in line, ready with the threat profile. “Captain, the ships are registered as independent merchant vessels, displacement of twelve hundred tons each. They have deuterium-tritium drives, maximum acceleration of five milligees. They have a payload of five hundred tons each, mounted on external cargo pods. They claim to be carrying a shipment of ice from Ceres. Assuming these are Q-ships, I expect the pods to be filled with missiles and possibly drones.”
“Nakamura, did you say five milligees?”
“Yes sir. The reactor is either pretty small or pretty underpowered.” Nakamura hesitated. “Or they are concealing their actual acceleration profile.”
“Let’s assume the latter,” Hoshi said. “If they are Q-ships, they must suspect something by now. Titanian airspace is being cleared, the orbital patrol is converging on them, and our drive capabilities are as plain as day. Why haven’t they attacked yet?”
Nakamura took a moment to think it through. “Sir, they must be waiting for all their targets to enter their engagement envelope. That means the orbital patrol squadron, the laser launch array…and us.”
Hoshi’s blood chilled. Maybe they pinged the colony and pulled a burn so that everybody would come running into their sights. If Takao closed with an enemy too fast, she would be setting herself up for a point-blank missile swarm—one even she could not dodge in time.
“Thank you, Nakamura. Tanaka, halt acceleration.”
The drive cut off. Hoshi contacted Prometheus Control and passed on his men’s thoughts.
“Thank you very much, Takao,” Control said. “We’re moving slow too. We don’t want to spook them into doing something stupid. Way I figure, they will want to wait until we launch the alert squadron before striking.”
There Will Be War Volume X Page 16
