Away Boarders

by Daniel V Gallery

  "He's what?" demanded Fatso.

  "He asked me if he could go along," said the DO, "and I told him 'sure.' Don't worry about him. It's perfectly safe."

  "I ain't worried a damn bit about him," said Fatso. "He can get his ass shot off, if he wants to. But if something happens and he gets captured, there will be hell to pay. Nasser could make a federal case out of American sailors helping the Israelis."

  "Don't worry about it. He won't get captured," said the DO.

  "Hell, I hope not," said Fatso. "We got no business down here in the first place. If the Egyptians capture that guy, my ass will be in a jam."

  On the No. 4 PT boat, proceeding up the Gulf of Suez, Izzy Ginsberg was at the wheel. The boats were blacked out and were making twenty knots. The skipper was explaining to Izzy.

  "All you gotta do is just stay about thirty yards astern of that guy ahead of you. Just follow right in his wake. Can you see him alright?"

  "Yeah. I see him," said Izzy.

  "After we get in the harbor we will speed up and make one fast sweep around the shoreline. We'll catch them sound asleep, beat the hell out of them and then haul ass out of there."

  "Uh huh," said Izzy.

  "We're going to blast them with everything we've got so it will be pretty noisy while we are in there. But you just keep your eye on the next ahead and stay right behind him."

  "I'd like to shoot one of those guns while we're in there," said Ginsberg.

  "No. You steer and we'll handle the guns. Handling one of these guns in the dark is quite a trick."

  Soon the lights of Suez appeared ahead. "It's lit up like a waterfront whorehouse on a Saturday night," observed Izzy.

  "It won't be from now on," said the skipper.

  At twenty knots they were throwing up quite a wake, so as they nearcd the harbor entrance they slowed down. There was no challenge at the entrance. The four boats proceeded in column at slow speed until a quarter of a mile from the west end of the waterfront.

  "What the hell!" said Izzy. "Are we going to land here?"

  "Just keep your shirt on," said the skipper. "We'll open up any minute now."

  Suddenly there was a blast of gunfire from the leading boat and they all opened up. Each boat had two 40-mm guns and four 20-mm's, all firing explosive ammo with tracers. The bright lights of the tracers made a pretty sight as they flew converging in to the beach. The flashes of their explosions at the end of their flight danced along the waterfront, winking brightly among the other waterfront lights. For at least two minutes there was no sign of any reaction on the beach. Then lights began going out, and fires broke out along the west end of the waterfront as gunfire erupted from various points along the beach.

  By this time the boats had gone up to forty knots and were leaving creamy-white wakes behind them as they swept along the beach blasting away. Much of the waterfront was in flames by now and suddenly the whole harbor was lit up with a garish light as a big oil tanker anchored near the beach blew up with a great flash.

  "Holy cow," said Izzy. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel."

  By then all hell had busted loose ashore. Machine guns were spitting bullets into the bay in all directions and 40-mm's were bursting all over, including on board merchant vessels anchored in the harbor. The AA batteries were filling the sky with bursting shells. There were fires and explosions all along the waterfront.

  Most of the gunfire intended for the PT boats was hitting far astern. But as they neared the east end of their run along the waterfront a stray 40-mm caught the last boat smack in the engine room. All three engines stopped and the boat went dead.

  The engineer leaped from the gun he was manning to the engine-room hatch as the skipper took the wheel and headed away from the beach. Izzy jumped to the gun the engineer had abandoned and got off a short burst before the skipper roared at him, "Cut that out, you crazy bastard - cease fire - you'll have all the guns on the beach on us."

  Another crew member ducked into the engine room with a flashlight and fire extinguisher. Soon word came up through the hatch: "It looks bad, Cap'n - two engines arc gone - I don't know about the third yet."

  "Okay." said the skipper. "If we have to abandon ship, I'll blow her up."

  Meantime the other three boats had reached the end of their run along the waterfront, had ceased fire, and were headed out, leaving great white wakes behind them. The wild shooting from the beach got even wilder, and several Arab ships hit bv strav bullets were blazing merrily. The whole waterfront was a mass of flames.

  Soon there were a few sporadic coughs from the engine room. Then the engine began kicking over irregularly and a voice yelled up through the hatch, "I got the midship engine going, Cap'n . . . but I don't know how long it will last."

  "Okay," said the skipper. "We're going out."

  As they headed for the entrance at about eight knots they saw the three white plumes from the wakes of the other boats swing around and head in again.

  "They've missed us," announced the skipper. "They're coming back to get us. Stand by your towline," he yelled at his crew.

  The crew scrambled forward and began breaking out the tow-line. The skipper tried to call the other boats by radio phone but the set was dead.

  They watched as the other three boats swept through the harbor again, passing about a quarter of a mile from them, and then went back out and disappeared in the west.

  They limped along at eight knots, passed the harbor entrance, and squared away on a course for home. The thunder of the guns behind them continued for at least twenty minutes as the Arabs raked the harbor from all directions and filled the sky with bursting AA shells.

  Meanwhile, the ops room was crowded with senior officers watching the plot board and waiting for news from the raid. I he radar had lost the plot on the PT boats when they were about twenty miles out. Fatso was chewing his fingernails over Izzy.

  "This will be our first raid into Suez," said the station commander to the Captain. "We'll probably catch them sound asleep. The Navy has been after me to let them do this for a long time."

  Presently the DO announced, "They should be entering the harbor any minute now. It seems to be going okay because they haven't been seen yet, and they're almost there now."

  Suddenly the loudspeaker blared out, "Alpha Base from Night Hawk One. We are opening fire in the harbor. Complete surprise attained. Out."

  A cheer went up from the assembled crowd. "Night Hawk One from Alpha Base - give 'em hell." said the DO into his phone.

  For the next five minutes, broadcasts from Night Hawk One were sporadic: "All four boats in action . . . large fire has broken out near oil tanks . . . AA batteries are shooting all over the sky . . . shore batteries firing in all directions . . . have completed firing run and am standing out."

  At this point word came in from watchers outside. "The sky to the north is full of AA bursts - it looks like a Chinese New Year's."

  A moment later Night Hawk One came on again. "Alpha Base. One of my boats is missing . . . I'm going back in to get him."

  This threw a wet blanket over the celebration in the ops room. Five minutes later Night Hawk One came on again. "Can't find missing boat. It's getting too goddamn hot in here. Can't stay any longer. I'm coming out."

  A few minutes later he came on the air again. "Alpha Base, we are back out . . . Number Four boat is missing . . . other three returning. No personnel casualties. Out."

  As soon as Fatso had a chance he said to the Captain, "Ask the DO which boat Ginsberg was on."

  A moment later the Captain returned with a grave look and said, "Number Four."

  "Oh, my gawd," said Fatso.

  An hour later the three PT boats returned to the base and the crews came up to the ops room for debriefing.

  "We caught them completely by surprise," said the leader. "We were shooting for at least two minutes before they fired a shot. We shot up about six ships and the whole waterfront. We really blasted the waterfront good, and by the time we left there
were a dozen fires going ashore and one of them, down by the oil tanks, was real big. I don't know what happened to Number Four. She was the last boat in column and nobody knows when she fell out. When they finally opened up on us from the beach things got pretty hot, and everybody was so busy looking out for himself we didn't have time to watch the other boats. When we got out and found Number 4 missing we went back in as far as we dared. By that time all hell was busting loose ashore. We made one quick sweep through the harbor, but nobody saw her. We called him several times by radio, but got no answer. So - they must of got in a lucky hit on him. Too bad - they were a damned good crew."

  The debriefing continued with a lot of detailed questions to all members of the crews. At the end of it Fatso said, "Well - maybe she went down with all hands and the Egyptians will never find out there was an American aboard. We can just report him missing when we leave Tel Aviv and that will be that."

  "Yeah," agreed Scuttlebutt. "It will go into his record as desertion. But that don't make no difference. His dependents wouldn't get nothing anyway if they knew how it really happened."

  "Except that little kike will probably swim ashore and get captured by the Egyptians just as sure as hell," said Fatso.

  Fatso got little sleep that night. They started back to Tel Aviv early next morning. About fifteen miles out from Alpha Base they sighted a group of five bedraggled figures walking along the road toward them. The figures deployed across the road and began waving as they approached. Soon Scuttlebutt said, "Hey - there's Izzy!"

  And so it was - Izzy and the four members of the boat's crew. They picked them up, turned around, and the Captain called the base on his walkie-talkie and gave them the good news.

  Izzy bubbled over with the story of their adventure. "We was the last boat in column," he said. "I was on the bridge - had the wheel, as a matter of fact. It was darker than hell in the harbor, and I could just barely see the next boat ahead. But the waterfront was lit up like a whorehouse on Saturday night. When we opened up it was really something - two 40-mm's and four 20's on each boat - all shooting tracers. We blasted away at least two minutes before they fired a shot at us. But when they finally opened up, all hell busted loose. They were just blasting away without knowing what they were shooting at - even the AA batteries opened up, and it was like a Fourth of July . . . Then we got hit - right smack in the engine room - by an explosive shell. It knocked out our radio and all three of our engines. But it was just one lucky hit. Two of our engines were gone - permanently. We got the other going after about five minutes and limped out. We could only make about six knots, and we had no radio. We could see our other boats pull-ahead, still blasting away. After about five minutes they stopped shooting and that's the last we saw of them. The Arabs kept blasting away in all directions for about fifteen minutes after we ceased fire - just wild shooting all over the harbor. They probably did as much damage to themselves as we did. Well, anyway, we finally limped out of the harbor and headed for the base. But we could soon see we weren't going to make it all the way back. Our one engine was gradually pooping out on us. So we headed for the beach on the eastern shore and we finally ran her aground there about an hour ago. So here we are."

  "Izzy did a real good job for us," said the skipper of the boat. "He was just the same as a regular member of the crew. He steered real good and never batted an eye when we got hit."

  By this time they had arrived back at the first sentry post. "Let's stop here," said Fatso. "We can leave the regular crew here. Then we can get the hell on our way."

  "Don't you want to deliver them back to the base?" asked the Captain.

  "Hell, no," said Fatso. "If we do that, it will come out officially that this clown of mine was in the boat's crew. I want to get him the hell out of here so nothing will be said about it. The base can get a car out here in ten minutes for these other guys."

  "Okay," said the Captain. "I guess you're right about that."

  So they dropped off the rest of the crew at the sentry post. There were fond farewells between Izzy and the others, and protestations of eternal friendship. They headed back for Tel Aviv again.

  About every twenty miles or so they were stopped by armed outposts and had to identify themselves. While still about thirty miles from the Gaza Strip, they found out why this was necessary. On a stretch of road about ten miles from the nearest outpost, they ran into a roughly constructed roadblock. When they stopped at it, gunfire opened up on them from the dunes on both sides of the road about fifty yards back. They had been ambushed by a band of Arab guerrillas.

  The Captain plowed through the roadblock, but when he tried to give her the gun and get away, a burst of gunfire shot away both his front tires and he went off the road. Everybody grabbed a tommy-gun, scrambled out of the car, and found shelter in the ditch. As the others blasted away at the dunes with the tommy-guns, the Captain called the nearest outpost on his walkie-talkie with an SOS. The reply came back, "Okay - help is on the way."

  "All right, boys," said the Captain. "Keep down low, and keep shifting your position. We'll have help here in about fifteen minutes."

  There were about a dozen Arabs hiding behind sand dunes and bushes back from the road. Whenever an Arab ventured into the open, he was greeted by a tommy-gun blast. They evidently did not expect such a blast of gunfire from this harmless-looking station wagon, and were taken aback by it. They kept up a heavy fire themselves, but their bullets whistled harmlessly over the ditch. Soon they began crawling forward in relays, covered by the fire of those still behind the dunes.

  "Look, Captain," yelled Fatso, as the Captain directed a long burst at a moving figure. "We'll be out of ammo pretty soon at this rate. We better start shooting single aimed shots."

  "Okay," said the Captain. "We can't hold out much longer."

  They got several of the Arabs, but the others kept closing in and pretty soon there was a ring of them only about twenty-five yards away. "Help better get here soon, or it will be too late," declared Scuttlebutt, as he drilled an Arab between the eyes.

  The Arabs shot hell out of the station wagon. But they couldn't hit the boys in the ditch. One of them heaved a hand grenade into the ditch right alongside the Captain. Fatso pounced on it and heaved it back. It exploded just about over the spot where it had been heaved from.

  The Arabs kept creeping forward and the situation was getting desperate when a fighter plane came roaring down the road at tree-top height. It spotted the car in the ditch, zoomed up, and circled the spot. Then it made a couple of firing passes at the Arabs, who were in full flight by now.

  A few minutes later two whirlybirds churned up and fluttered down on the road. A dozen soldiers piled out of one and deployed into the sand dunes, shooting at the fleeing Arabs. The Captain, Fatso, and the others ran up to the second whirlybird and the Captain said, "They've beat it now. They've gone back into the desert."

  "Okay," said the whirlybird pilot. "Get in."

  They piled in and soon were deposited at an advance base in the Gaza Strip.

  Soon they were in the ops room talking to the CO. "We've had a group of guerrillas operating around here for several days now," he said. "This is the first time we've really had a shot at them. Any of you hurt?"

  "No," said the Captain. "We got three or four Arabs for you. And I think the fighter plane got a couple too. That fighter got there just in the nick of time."

  "What the hell are American sailors doing down here?" asked the CO.

  "They're friends of mine, and I'm just showing them around," said the Captain. "They're off a ship that's in Tel Aviv."

  "Okay," said the CO. "I'll put you in a whirlybird and send you back there."

  Later that afternoon they got back to Tel Aviv. As they sat around the Captain's quarters sipping tall drinks the Captain said, "Well - how about it, boys? Was the trip worthwhile?"

  "Well, it was an eye opener for me," said Fatso. "You people are certainly turning the desert into a productive land here. The only bums or begga
rs I've seen have been Arabs. And your armed forces are all big leaguers. The way they shot down that MIG, pulled off that raid on Suez, and rescued us from the Arabs, all were absolute tops. I'm beginning to think you guys have got a good chance, even against forty million Arabs."

  "Hell, we got a lot more than a chance," said the Captain. "We got it made."

  As they got ready to go back aboard ship, the Captain said, "Well, I enjoyed showing you guys around. And I give you a high mark for your defense against the Arab guerrillas this morning. Here's the address of some of our underground people in Naples," he said, handing Fatso a slip of paper. "Look them up when you get there. They're all stout fellas - commando types - and anything you want around Naples they can get for you."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Athens

  Next morning LCU 1124 sailed for Athens. This is about a three-day run, the first two being in the open sea till you pick up the island of Rhodes, where the Colossus used to be. From Rhodes on it is through the Greek archipelago and you are seldom out of sight of several islands.

  Shortly after they sailed, Scuttlebutt cornered Adams with fire in his eye and said, "Didn't I tell you to fill our tanks up with fresh water while we were in Tel Aviv?"

  "Gee, Chief ... I forgot," said Adams.

  "You forgot?" said Scuttlebutt. "Well, you goddamn left-handed swab handle. What do you think we're going to do for fresh water for the next few days?"

  "Well . . . um . . . can't we drink orange juice for a couple of days?" asked Adams.

  "Yeah," said Scuttlebutt, "and I suppose we can cook, brush our teeth, scrub our clothes, and take showers in orange juice, too. This means we gotta ration fresh water."

  When Fatso was informed of this he said, "Okay. Ration water to half a bucket a day. Put salt water in the showers. Now these atomic age sailors can find out how it used to be in the old Navy."