Away Boarders

by Daniel V Gallery

  "Yes. They do have a training problem," conceded the COS. "They lost all their best flyers in the six-day war. Even they weren't very good."

  "One thing you may want to consider," said the CNO, "is that Newport News is our mainstay in the shipbuilding industry right now. They are building a nuclear carrier, four destroyers, and two Polaris submarines for us. This little bucket isn't good for anything else. If we stop this sale we will be saddling them with about a five-million-dollar loss."

  "They will probably charge it off as an overrun on the carrier," observed the Vice President to the Secretary of Defense, seated alongside him.

  "Harrumph," said the Secretary of Defense.

  "I agree," said the President, "that this thing is probably just a ploy leading up to something else. But they're making a big thing of it and they'll have most of the liberal press and all of the TV networks on their side. And we've got to remember that the Jews have a lot more votes in this country than the Arabs do." ("Strike that from the record," he said in an aside to the soldier who was running the tape recorder.) '"See me after this meeting," he continued to the Secretary of State. "We'll work out some sort of an answer for the Israelis."

  In the executive office after the meeting, the President said to the Secretary of State, "Well, what do you think? How should we answer the Israelis?"

  "If we stop the sale now, the Egyptians will raise hell about it," said the Secretary.

  'They will - and with good reason," said the President. "But they'll get their money back. And the Arabs don't pack the political clout in this country that the other side does. I want to stop the sale of that ship."

  "We really have no legal grounds on which to do it, Mr. President," said the Secretary.

  "Have your legal experts get busy and find legal grounds," said the President. "Your lawyers can justify anything if they put their minds to it."

  "Okay, Mr. President," said the Secretary. "I'll frame an answer to the Israelis telling them what we're doing. We'll get a blast from the Egyptians about it - but we can cross that bridge when we come to it."

  Most of the newspapers in the country had editorials that day, supporting the Israeli protest. All the TV networks joined in the clamor for stopping the sale. When our answer to the Israelis was announced next day, approval by the media was practically unanimous.

  There was not a word of protest out of Cairo about this. In the office of the shipbuilding company a few days after the decision was announced, the president of the company was conferring with his board of directors.

  "This is an unfortunate and unpredictable setback," he said. "We have to refund five million dollars to the Egyptians, and we're stuck with a hull that is of no use to us. We can salvage something out of the diesel engines. The hull is a total loss. But we can weather this. After all, the U.S. Navy can't afford to let us get hurt too bad. We've got seven ships on the ways for them now, and more in the design stage. We can charge this off as overhead on some of our future contracts. Make out a check for five million dollars to the Egyptian government," he added to the treasurer.

  A couple of days later there was a development which put things in a different light. Newport News got a feeler from the Ecuadorian government for the purchase of the Egyptian craft. This was a great break for the shipbuilding company. They immediately checked with the State Department to see if there was any objection to the deal.

  The State Department said, "Okay, if the offer is legitimate. Let us check it with the Ecuadorian embassy."

  The embassy replied that the firm involved in the deal was an Ecuadorian fishing firm which wanted the craft as the flagship of its tuna fleet, and the deal was perfectly legitimate. So Newport News opened negotiations for the sale of the craft.

  The bid for it was three million, which was two million less than the company had invested in it. But it was three million more than they had expected to get out of it, so the deal was closed.

  A crew of swarthy Spanish-speaking characters checked into the shipyard and took over the craft. Next week they ran her through the trials and accepted her without a hitch. The company got a check on a Swiss bank for three million dollars, and next day she sailed. She proceeded down Chesapeake Bay to the Virginia Capes, sailed out, and then, instead of heading south for Ecuador, headed east across the Atlantic.

  The day she sailed there was a revolution in Ecuador and a group of young colonels took over the government. Among the many crimes which they charged to the previous government was conniving with the Egyptian government to buy the ship from Newport News. It seems there was no Ecuadorian fishing company involved. The previous government had made a deal with the Russians for five million dollars to buy the ship, furnish a crew, and sail it to Egypt. The ousted government had pocketed two million on the deal, and the ship was now on her way to Egypt, with orders to report in to the Russians and then be transferred to Egypt.

  This caused a big splurge in the press and on TV. All the many friends of Israel had a field day accusing the State Department and the military-industrial complex of collusion with the Egyptians. Pundits pontificated about the credibility gap, and proposed that the Sixth Fleet be ordered to intercept and seize the craft when she got to the Med. Newport News Shipbuilding Company was termed a gang of merchants of death and protesters carrying Viet Cong and Israeli flags picketed the shipyard hurling insults at the workers. Eventually a group of hardhats from the shipyard charged into the pickets, beat them up, and put them to flight.

  There were riots on several college campuses protesting this deception of the American people. Students invaded the dean's office at Harvard, beat up members of the faculty, and used the office as a privy. The President of Harvard refused to call the police and issued a statement calling on the students to be calm. The Israelis sent an indignant note to the State Department demanding that we intercept this craft. This generated another meeting of the National Security Council.

  At this meeting when the Secretary of State finished reading the Israelis' note, the President said, "Well, I can't say that I blame them for complaining."

  "Well, I do," said the Secretary. "I think they've got a lot of crust to complain about this. After all, this is just exactly what they did to the French about a year ago - except they did it with six motor torpedo boats that they claimed were going to a Swedish fishing firm."

  "Well, yes. You're right about that," conceded the President. "Apparently it makes a difference when the shoe is on the other foot. So what are we going to do about this?"

  "What can we do, sir?" asked the Secretary. "A legal deal was made, in good faith on our part. The craft is on the high seas now. I don't think we can do a thing."

  "How about it, Admiral?" the President asked the CNO. "Couldn't you have the Sixth Fleet intercept her when she gets to the Med and bring her into port?"

  "Well, of course, if you say so, we can do it, sir," said the CNO. "But I don't know what the international lawyers would say about it."

  "It would be flagrantly illegal - piracy on the high seas," said the Secretary of State. "We wouldn't have a leg to stand on."

  "Now just a minute," said the Secretary of Defense. "International law is a very fuzzy code. Actually, it's whatever the strong nations choose to say it is. It's only the small nations that are bound by it. If we intercept and seize the ship, I'm sure our international lawyers can dig up precedents to justify it. I recommend that we tell the Sixth Fleet to find it, commandeer it, and bring it in to port."

  "It isn't a small nation we're dealing with here," said the Secretary. "It's Russia. They're the ones who bought it."

  The President tapped the table thoughtfully for a moment and then said, "I think you're right about international law, Mel - it's whatever the big nations say it is. But I'm not going to get into any argument with Russia about it in this case." Turning to the Secretary of State he said, "Send the Israelis an official note saying, 'Nuts.' Have your boys expand that to about a page and a half of diplomatic language and send it
off."

  "All right sir," said the Secretary of State. "Matter of fact, I was reading their reply to the French when they pulled their stunt about a year ago and the French complained. I can quote a lot of their stuff verbatim, right back at them."

  On board the Egyptian ship, the news of the revolution when they were a day out in the Atlantic caused grave concern among the crew. In the messroom there was a discussion in progress as to what they ought to do. "I think we should go to Ecuador," said one sailor. 'There is a new government there now. They don't want this ship to go to Egypt."

  "We can't do that," said another. ''Our contract is with the Russians. They are going to pay us well. If we go to Ecuador, we won't get paid at all, and we were working for the old government. The new one may put us all in jail."

  "Well, then, we should go back to the United States," said the first.

  "We can't do that either. We wouldn't get paid and the U.S. has recognized the new government. They would probably turn us over to them. We have orders to report to the Russians when we get to the Mediterranean. They are the ones who will pay us, and the only way we can get our money is to turn the ship over to them."

  Later the skipper came down from his air-conditioned cabin and had a talk with the crew. He confirmed that the Russians were paying them and that there was no chance of getting their money out of the new government. He said, "The Russians are expecting us and will send us instructions shortly after we get to the Mediterranean. We will be flying the Russian flag and they will escort us when we get close to Alexandria. No one will dare to molest us, and the Russians will pay us as soon as we get to Alexandria."

  So they proceeded eastward, flying the Russian flag.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Iraklion

  Back on LCU 1124 the night after the balloon incident when Adams went to bed, Webfoot said to the others, "Let's pull the belt trick on this guy." They agreed. So after Adams was asleep they removed the belt from his pants and shortened the end that was attached to the buckle about a quarter of an inch. Webfoot was quite handy at this and could do it in such a way that it would not be noticed. Of course the other end of the belt with the buckle holes in it was not affected.

  The idea is to do this each night for about two weeks. Each day the victim's belt is a little tighter and after three or four days, he has to let it out a notch. After he has done this about three times, he begins to get worried about his weight. Meantime, the boys are also fiddling with the only scale on board, and adjusting it each day so that it weighs things about two pounds heavier than it did the day before. Before long, the victim of the belt trick is convinced that he is blowing up like a balloon.

  The first notch didn't bother Adams. The second one did, especially when the scales told him he had put on five pounds. He began taking setting-up exercises and cutting down on his chow.

  A couple of days later they sighted Crete, and passed the entrance to Suda Bay close aboard. As they passed the eastern shore of the bay, the rusting hulk of a large cruiser was visible on the beach. "That's HMS York," said Fatso to the boys who were gathered on deck to look at the scenery.

  "What happened to her?" asked Jughaid.

  "Eyetalian frogmen got her," said Fatso. "There was a big British fleet in here before the Germans captured the place. One night four Eyetalian PT boats slipped in through the nets. These were boats you had to ram right into the ship to fire the torpedo. The idea was to sneak in slow, get in as close as you could, and then aim your boat right at the ship, give her the gun, and jump overboard. They got four British ships that night, and one of them was that one there - the York. The British were able to get her underway and run her up on the beach before she sank. So she sat there on an even keel with all her upper works out of the water for the whole war, right where you see her now. The Luftwaffe would come over and see her sitting there and their fly-boys didn't see anything strange about a cruiser sitting right up on the beach. They thought she was a perfectly good ship, and they bombed the hell out of her about a dozen times. Wasted tons and tons of bombs on her. The British didn't want the Eyetalians to know how good their frogmen were, so they finally announced she had been sunk by the Luftwaffe. And that's the way it is in the history books today. Just goes to show that you can't always believe everything you read, even in the official history of the war."

  "You know," said the Professor, "right along this coast is where man first flew."

  "How come?" asked Scuttlebutt. "I thought it was at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina - the Wright brothers."

  "The time I'm talking about was a couple of thousand years ahead of the Wright brothers," said the Professor. "A guy by the name of Icarus."

  "Never heard of him," said Scuttlebutt.

  "It tells all about him in the early Greek mythology books," said the Professor. "Icarus and his old man were banished to this island by the Greeks. Icarus figured the only way he could get away was to make himself a pair of wings and fly away. So he got a lot of feathers and stuck them all over himself and fixed up a pair of wings covered with feathers for his arms. His old man didn't think it would work but warned him, if it did, he had to be careful about flying too high and getting near the sun. The heat of the sun might melt the wax he used to hold the feathers on. Well, when he was all set, old Icarus went up on one of those mountains right over there, flapped his wings, and off he went. He felt so good about it that he forgot about what his old man had told him. He flew up too close to the sun, melted the wax on his wings, and that was the end of him."

  "Even if that was so - I wouldn't believe it," declared Jughaid.

  They coasted along the north shore of Crete and ran in and beached themselves in the little harbor of Iraklion. We have an air strip there and keep a small detachment of men there. About the only time they have anything to do is when the marines have landing exercises on Crete; their air strip is busy then, handling marine planes and helicopters. The rest of the time it's just an emergency landing strip for planes of the Sixth Fleet.

  Fatso had a couple of hundred pounds of freight for the detachment here. A station wagon came down to the beach, they loaded it up, and then Fatso and Scuttlebutt climbed in to go out to the station for a visit with their old shipmate Chief Storekeeper Corky Barnes.

  They found Corky installed in a primitive little office in a Nissen hut. There were a desk, file cabinet, a cot, and a coffee urn in it and that was about all. After a big hello all around, Fatso cocked an eye around and remarked, "Sort of rugged layout you got here, Corky."

  "Oh-h-h - it's okay to work in," said Corky. "I got air conditioning, it's nice and quiet, and when things get slack, I can take a siesta."

  "You always used to live pretty high on the hog," said Scuttlebutt. "I'm surprised you haven't got yourself fixed up better than this."

  "Well, like I say," said Corky, "all I do is work here. I got things fixed up a little better where I live."

  "Where is that? Here on the station," asked Scuttlebutt.

  "No, I got a little place up in the hills here," said Corky. "I'd like to have you two guys come up and have chow with me there tonight."

  They both agreed.

  That afternoon Corky came by the ship in a station wagon driven by a young Greek and they set off up into the hills. They followed a paved road through very pretty countryside, dotted with small farms and olive groves. Then they took off up a dirt road that wound up the mountainside. The whole mountainside was under cultivation. In most places the slopes were too steep for ordinary fields, but the mountainside was terraced into small level plots with stone walls holding up the terraces.

  About halfway up they came to a small shoulder looking out over the sea, with a little olive grove on it. There was a driveway leading in through the grove with a big five-ton anchor at the entrance to it.

  "Well - here we are," said Corky.

  They drove through the grove and up to the edge of the cliff, where there was a little villa in the middle of a beautiful garden. On close inspec
tion you could see that the villa was built from three Nissen huts joined together in a T with the crosspiece of the T facing the sea, and a screened porch on the front. The Nissen huts formed the framework for rock walls and a slate roof.

  Inside there were a kitchen and dining room in the shank of the T, and a bedroom and living room in the crossbar. It was furnished like a modern suburban home, with leather furniture and color photographs of naval scenes on the walls, and had a large bar, a hi-fi, a ham radio station, color TV, and a big open fireplace. One wall of the living room was lined with books. Two large bay windows looked out over the sea to the north.

  "Hey hey! This is a pretty plush pad you got here, Corky," said Scuttlebutt.

  "It ain't bad," conceded Corky. "Let's sit out in front in the garden."

  They settled down at a round table on the edge of the cliff, surrounded by an array of beautiful flowers and shrubs. In the middle of the garden and right in front of the house was a tall flagpole from which flew an American flag. An elderly Greek wearing a bartender's uniform approached and Corky said, "What will you have, boys? How about some mint juleps? I grow my own mint and Amaxagorous makes them very well."

  For the next hour they sat around sipping tall mint juleps as the sun sank lower in the west, swapping info about various old shipmates.

  "You remember old Sparky Wright?" asked Fatso.

  "Sure. Used to run the electronics shop on the Enterprise" said Corky. "Used to always have a spot of gin for his real good friends in his cubbyhole whenever things got quiet - which wasn't often on that ship. What's he doing now?"

  "He got out right after the war," said Fatso. "Got himself a nice job with RCA. He's a big-shot electronics expert with them now, making more dough than any of us ever thought of. I saw him last time I was in New York. He's got a big place out on Long Island with a wife, four kids, and a couple of Cadillacs. He says that with inflation and sending his kids to college, he's just one jump ahead of the sheriff all the time. Used to have more dough in his pocket at the end of the month when he was in the Navy."