by Bob Neir
Silent Guns
By Bob Neir
Copyright 2010 Bob Neir
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SILENT GUNS is a must read for those who love the sea, intrigue and fast-moving action. To Navy old-timers, a way of life, almost forgotten, is re-lived by characters who shared similar experiences. The United States Navy and the City of Seattle find themselves challenged. The tale itself is of pure fiction, the invention of this author. The story is anchored in the Puget Sound region in many recognizable places and locations.
Fortunately, none of the events ever transpired and the author trusts they never will.
I offer many thanks to Captain Karl R. Baldessari, D13 Chief, U.S. Coast Guard, Seattle, who set me straight on helicopter operations; Rear-Admiral Jack Baldwin (retired), for coaching me regarding ship-handling and Navy matters; and, Captain Wendell Schneider, (retired), of the Alaska trade, who served as my role model for Captain Larsen and his treasury of sea stories.
To my granddaughter, Alyssa Neir, for editing; Marilyn J. Farrell of Fontarrell’s, Inc., Dan Phillips, Christopher Neir and son, Thomas Neir, for cover graphics.
~ * * * ~
CHAPTER 1
A nick. Just a small nick in the West Coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, defined the cove. Small boaters scampered to safety behind its hook-like jetty of black rocks. Eighty-mile an hour winds, driven unimpeded over six thousand miles of open Pacific Ocean, curled up 60-foot waves of mayhem. Surprisingly, inside the cove the water surface held a perpetual state of flat calm. On the jetty’s outermost high point, a prominent stone cairn was posted. Today, a gale signal flag flew atop as an advisory. Small craft scurried in, chased by angry driven winds beneath laden black clouds, through a narrow rockbound entry passageway. The cove, itself, had no name, but Harry’s store stood on an embankment at the top of a worn pathway that traveled down to a small service dock.
So the cove came to be known as Harry’s Cove.
Few managed to eke out a living in Harry’s Cove. It lacked flat ground and had no landside access save a small, dry creek bed that casually meandered down a severely eroded ravine. At the foot of the ravine, where local natives laid claim, the terrain was littered with mended fishing nets hung out to dry. Harry made a living off his fuel barge and meager stores. His livelihood depended on the small cluster of boats now dashing in before the storm. Fishermen and seasonal boaters heading north to Alaskan waters had no choice but to pass Harry’s Cove.
Four men sat on benches at a lone wooden table playing cards and drinking Harry’s gut-wrenching coffee. One of them was a man of middle height, stocky with graying hair touching his temples. He stared out from under dark eyebrows at a taller slender man, with a deceivingly muscular build, sitting alone at Harry’s four-seat counter. He watched him fiddle with his coffee cup, slip his index finger around the edge and gaze nowhere. A sharp gust rattled the front door against its hinges. Ducking a violent blast of artic chill, the man cocked his head slightly. The shorter man straightened up, dropped his cards and got up. He was certain.
Taking the stool next to the taller man he said, “I thought you were dead.” He was ignored. “It’s been ten years; but I never forget a face. You’re Anthony Trent.” The man flinched ever so slightly but covered by reaching for the sugar bowl.
“You are mistaken.”
“That was quite a stunt you pulled. You almost got away with it,” the shorter man persisted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In my thirty-year police career, two cases were never closed. Yours is one of them.”
“You seem pretty damn sure of yourself.”
“I have a photographic memory, you see. Your picture was in your Navy file. Yes! You are definitely Anthony Trent.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Sam Simons, Chief of Police of Seattle, retired these many nine years,” he replied, surveying the taller man.
“Suppose I were this Trent guy. What’s it to you?”
Simons leaned his elbows on the counter and paused. He sensed a snap of a finger and this man could be gone, get up and walk out. Find him again? Unlikely. Not on rugged, sparsely settled Vancouver Island. And, why should he bother? Hell. He was retired. Why even care? Yet, Trent had made a fool of him. Between them, the chase was most likely a draw; but Trent couldn’t know that. The taller man sat unmoved.
“Suppose I make you a proposition? If you are Trent, how about satisfying my curiosity? There are things I need to know.”
“So, you’re after some kind of justice?”
“No, just a talk between us. A talk and I walk off.”
“If I were this Trent guy, why should I trust you?”
“What Trent doesn’t know, is that if it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t be alive today,” Simons swung to the taller man, “I let him escape.” The man made no reply. A torrent of incessant rain pounded the cedar-shingled roof. It startled Harry as a gust pummeled his store. Window frames creaked, shelved glassware clinked and a beer sign hanging on the wall-tilted grotesquely.
A fisherman yelled, “Hey! Sam. Get over here. We need a fourth.”
“Play hearts,” Simons shouted back.
“Your buddy cops?”
“Just neighbors, retired. We make this trip every year.”
“I guessed as much,” replied the taller man. “Or, maybe they’re cops and you’re not sure of yourself.”
“Trusting soul, aren’t you?”
“I’m still alive,” the taller man glanced over.
“Deal or no? If not, I walk. No one will know you are alive.”
The taller man turned full-face on and scrutinized the smaller man for a full minute. He then said, “Deal.”
“How did you end up in this place? Simons eased up.
“We tried to land the helicopter. The pilots tried, but the blade caught a wave top and we rode it in. All sorts of debris shot to the surface. I grabbed a raft, climbed in and collapsed. I didn’t come out of it until the next morning. By then, the storm had passed and the sun was high in the sky. I judged the wind and current would carry me ashore somewhere. I convinced myself to be patient. A low plane flew over so I dropped over the side to avoid being seen.”
“So you ended up here at Harry’s Cove?” asked Simons.
“More like thirty miles down the coast. Came ashore near unoccupied summer cabins and made myself at home. I got my strength back; but being settled, I couldn’t stay there. Finding Harry’s Cove was an accident. Here, no one was looking for me. I was safe.”
“I know how your caper ended, but not how it started.”
“The storm is lifting.”
“I can have my buddies move on, pick me up on the way back?” offered Simons as he slipped off the stool.
“No.” Trent grabbed his arm. “Slip Harry a fiver and have him tell them. We go out the back or the deal is off.”
Sam Simons reached for his wallet.
~ * * * ~
CHAPTER 2
A narrow trail cut into the face of a jagged cliff snaked its way up in a steep rise. Dense scrub brush obscured the trail from unwanted observers. Simons paused often. “Let me rest a minute,” he puffed, hugging the high side. At the trail’s end, tucked in back off a narrow
ledge, barely noticeable, stood a small cabin, just two rooms: a side room and everything else. A wood shingled roof covered with slimy, green moss was in a bad state of decay. Below the ledge the surf clawed at black rocks covered in tangles of seaweed, a scene not for the faint-hearted. Trent shoved the door in, doffed his cap scattering its wetness across the rough, fir-planked floor. He flicked his cap in a practiced move across the room. It caught on a wooden peg. The rooms reeked of the dampness of the ages and green wood smoke. A chair, table, sofa and bed, had been randomly shoved about. Splattered windows bore stains of water leakage.
Below, small craft boats clustered in Harry’s Cove.
“It’s not mine,” Trent volunteered to an inquisitive face. “It’s a friend’s. He lets me use it. He’s off fishing in Alaska.” Grabbing a poker, he stoked up dead ashes in a small, flat-topped cast iron stove. He carefully put a match to kindling. A small puff of smoke arose as the fire leapt into life. The iron stove quickly heated the larger room; however, the side room was another story.
“So, how did you get involved?” asked Trent.
“Mayor Grille got your note. We didn’t know it then, but you were already aboard the Missouri. You should have seen his face. The receptionist said the man who dropped it off claimed it was for real and took off. The Mayor chucked it aside claiming it was just another crackpot and laughed it off. I didn’t see the humor. I asked the receptionist what he looked like,”
‘Grungy,’ she said ‘He had a small face; he was wiry, and weasel-like. Looked like he had been in a fight and lost. He was nervous as a cat, kept licking his lips,’ Simons continued.
Trent laughed, “That was Armand Schiller.”
“We tracked him down.” Simons added, flatly. “He had a record as a small time hood, a go-between, pulling marijuana off the coast and shipping it inland. A small fry. We had an eye on him hoping to net the big fish. We were tipped off he was setting up a boat called the Helga for his next shipment. He was a real low-life. The joke around the precinct was he once offered his mother to a sweat shop for a buck.”
“Schiller was my messenger,” Trent confessed, “After we took over the Missouri, I released him, Captain Larsen, and the Helga. I had no further use for any of them, except for Schiller to deliver the message. I wanted him caught. He finally did something right.”
“We put out an APB. The Lynnwood police nailed him high-tailing it for Canada. We found $50,000 on him. Said he got it from a Captain Larsen,” said Simons
“You mean, he stole it from Larsen. That’s what I paid the Captain for use of the Helga.”
“Schiller claimed Larsen owed it to him. It was supposedly a final payment on the Helga. Schiller had laid grappling hooks into the Captain,” added Simons. “We still weren’t certain if you were for real until the Helga docked around 2130 that evening. Captain Larsen verified you chartered him to take a work crew and their gear out to the Missouri. He said you claimed the Navy was getting her ready to tow to Long Beach.”
“That was the truth.” Trent touched his hot coffee mug.
“Orville Newby Hatcher was your ticket onto the Missouri, wasn’t he?” Simons continued.
“Orville Newby Hatcher,” Trent reminisced, easing off. “Newby hated that moniker ‘Orville.’ He almost didn’t make it into the Navy, it took a connection. Poor Newby, he never fit in, certainly not as a seaman. His small, overweight body, big head and outsized round, cherubic face, made him an object of ribbing. Long sloping shoulders and a sunken chest kept him a butt of jokes. His slender arms and delicate, languid fingers, made a complete caricature. To top it off, Newby had these coke-bottle glasses, which were as much a part of him as arms and legs.”
“Newby knew his trade. A yeoman, wasn’t he?” Simons shifted an unlit cigar to the other side of his mouth.
“Yes,” added Trent. “But, Newby craved action, he had to be in the middle of things. I can’t recall how many times he put in for sea duty. He begged. He did have one brief tour at sea, thanks to a young Lt. Anthony Trent but then the Navy beached him. The next twenty-five years he sat behind a Navy desk. Newby kept his disappointments to himself.”
“So he ended up at the Bremerton Yard?” Simons stated.
“For ten years, The Navy made the Puget Sound Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility his billet. It wasn’t much: custodianship of over eighty ships in the inactive reserve fleet, everything from tugboats to aircraft carriers. In time, Newby developed a bad kidney. He was very bitter about retiring; he was just months short. His life was the Navy.”
“So, you recruited Newby as the inside man.”
“All Newby had to do was sign a piece of paper and it would happen. ‘Leave the details to Chief Yeoman Newby’ higher ups would say. ‘Newby will take care of it,’” Trent said. “Newby got us hired, me and my civilian crew, to re-seal a turret. I knew the Missouri down to her keel. We were in, conditioned on a little blackmail: a promise to let Newby in on the action.”
“How did this caper get triggered in the first place?”
There was a long pause, his eyes clouded over, then Trent said, as if the words were difficult to form, “It goes back a long way. I’d like to forget the whole thing. I tried, but the nightmare wouldn’t let go.” He rose, picked up an armful of logs, stuffed them into the stove and kicked the door shut, “It’s getting late. It’s been a long day. There are blankets underneath the sofa.” Trent pointed. “You sleep there.” As he strode to the side room and shut the door.
~ * * * ~
CHAPTER 3
The aroma of frying bacon teased Trent awake. “Bacon! Where the hell did you get bacon?” he asked.
“I hiked down to Harry’s.”
“Harry doesn’t carry bacon.”
“My buddies dropped off my gear and share of the grub. Harry’s store doesn’t leave much of an impression, does it?” Simons continued. “Have a slice; maybe, a couple of eggs?”
“Eggs! We don’t have any chickens here, either.”
“Good. Then, the coffee must be made out of ground nuts.”
“We don’t have nuts, either,” Trent added.
“Don’t fuss, the supplies are thin,” Simons added. “You started to tell me about how you got into this caper.”
“It’s a long and tortuous story,” Trent demurred.
“So, torture me,” Simons added, flipping the eggs.
“I had the bridge when the Missouri collided with the Cruiser Duluth. We came out of a heavy fog and knifed into the Cruiser’s port side, the forward part of the engine room. We sliced her in two; the forward section sank like a stone.”
“I remember. The incident made graphic headlines.”
“Captain Proust was in command: I was his Executive Officer (XO). Proust was a cruiser Captain. I learned later Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Admiral Harley T. Kindler was his mentor. Against the advice of my immediate boss, Vice-Admiral Farr, Commander Cruisers, Atlantic, Kindler promoted Proust up to the Missouri. Admiral Farr later confided he’d told Kindler that Proust had no place in a battleship as he had no battleship experience. Farr said he reminded Kindler the Missouri was the only active battleship left in the whole damn Navy.”
“Tell me about the collision.” Simons sat down.
“As we prepared to get underway, a heavy, pervasive fog moved in to blanket Norfolk Harbor and Pier #5. The warning moan of channel foghorns sent shivers up my spine. I recommended we delay departure until the fog lifted. Captain Proust informed me a hurricane was moving to intercept our course. Admiral Kindler had insisted the Missouri cross ahead of the storm and meet a fleet scheduled rendezvous off Guantanamo (GITMO). I ordered water tanks topped off, fuel tanks filled, and ammunition stores fully loaded by 0200. At 57,000 tons we had the ship riding deep drawing over thirty-five feet of water. The Missouri was ready, but a foreboding kept nagging my gut, a premonition.
Before departure, Proust ordered me to take the con at level four. ‘You know the ship better than I.’ h
e said, ‘advise me of any speed or course changes.’ He then took his station at the eighth level auxiliary flying bridge and wheelhouse. Lt. Cmdr. Brian Burns, the ship’s navigator, accompanied him. At 0400, Proust gave clearance to cast off.
Almost immediately, we were enveloped in great thick tufts of vapor, cold and wet. I was appalled; we sailed inside a colorless, white sack. The fog whistle sounded only to echo back from all points of the compass. I ordered the ship slowed to drop off the civilian pilot at Elizabeth River Channel Buoy #3. We crossed Hampton Roads, past Old Point Comfort and into Thimble Shoal Channel. That’s when everything went to hell.”
* * *
“Captain. Ahead 2/3,” I requested.
“Approved,” Captain Proust replied. The Missouri gradually picked up speed towards the entrance buoys into the channel and on into Chesapeake Bay.
“Coffee, Commander?”
I folded my hands around the hot brew as I stared at the radar and gyro. “Commander, I have a new heading relayed from Cmdr. Burns,” reported Lt. Ed Peavey. Peavey had just “fleeted up” from his old job as personnel officer. He hunched over his charts as he plotted and checked base course.
I ordered the change.
“Aye! Aye! Sir,” was heard repeatedly.
Quartermaster Ward Hopper swung the Missouri’s wheel over. The ship steadied up.
“Steaming Ahead 2/3, course 053.” Ensign Boris Kowalski reported, making entry into the ship’s log.
“Fog closing in again, sir,” reported the starboard lookout. “I’ve lost sight of the shoreline.”
There was little to be seen, barely the tips of the gun barrels of the forward turret. We probed for the channel, but the fog blanket blotted out everything. Above the ship, a solid, white blanket shattered against the steel mast that rose high into nothingness.
