Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery, Vol. 1

by James R Benn

  He smiled triumphantly, but the smile faded quickly. “No, Billy. You should rather say we can add whatever you are willing to add. It may cost you your life.”

  It was nice that Jens was thinking about my life expectancy, but something else was stirring in my mind. The last piece of the puzzle. I took away the first and second sheets and just stared at the third sheet, all by itself.

  It was so simple. So damn simple that a real clever guy like me had never even had a chance.

  CHAPTER ▪ TWENTY-TWO

  EVERYTHING HAD BEEN SO easy, I knew there had to be a catch. Jens had doctored the orders, and late that night I was back at Southwold, returning the BMW no worse for wear and grabbing some of the winter gear the GIs had been issued. I jumped an air transport to Scotland the next morning. I had a Thompson submachine gun, my own .45, a couple of grenades, and I felt ready to take on the whole German army. Then I realized that was exactly what I was about to do.

  The orders got me into Scapa Flow, the huge Royal Navy base in the north of Scotland, no problem. I found the Fifteenth Motor Gunboat Flotilla and presented my paperwork. Jens had selected this unit because he had worked with them before and knew they were used to operatives showing up at all hours with top priority orders. The Fifteenth specialized in clandestine operations and was involved in ferrying agents in and out of Norway. This was right up their alley; a strange officer showing up unannounced with secret orders was routine. Even though my orders instructed the Fifteenth Motor Gunboat Flotilla to provide me with “immediate” transport to the island of Tomma off the coast of Norway, the commanding officer told me I’d have to wait two days for a moonless period. Motor Torpedo Boat 718 was due to leave then to pick up some downed British airmen and could be rerouted to drop me off at Tomma first. Not wanting to kick up a fuss and have my phony orders looked at any more closely, I graciously agreed. It didn’t bother me since I still had plenty of time to make the rendezvous. I was more worried about Harding. Jens was going to tell him I’d gone to Southwold to try and get firm evidence that Rolf Kayser had stolen a tire bomb. It wasn’t much of a story, but it would do to buy me a day or two.

  Standing on the dock the morning of our departure, my gear slung over my shoulder, I looked out to sea at the rough water and low clouds, and then back at MTB 718. There was a catch all right. She looked big enough for a fishing trip off Cape Cod, not a rough North Sea crossing. She was about a hundred feet long and very low in the water. A voice hailed me from the boat.

  “You there, Yank! Are you our Joey?”

  “My name’s Billy,” I said. Laughter rolled through the crew until an officer showed up at the gangplank.

  “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Boyle. I’m Lieutenant Harold Dickinson, Royal Navy Reserve.” He was tall, thin, graceful, and hatless. His head of thick blond hair blew in every direction in the freshening wind. He wore a soiled fisherman’s thick white turtleneck sweater, and could’ve been a Harvard kid getting ready for a sail, except for the twin-mounted .50 caliber machine guns he was leaning against.

  “Don’t mind the lads. We call all our passengers ‘Joeys.’ That’s what Aussies call a baby kangaroo, carried safely in its mum’s pouch. Don’t know if that’s where it got started, but there it is.”

  I climbed aboard and saluted. I had seen guys salute when they boarded ships in the movies and thought I’d try to look like I knew what I was doing.

  “I thought you Yanks were supposed to be rather informal,” said Dickinson, returning the salute nonchalantly and glancing around at his men. “We don’t bother with a lot of that here, do we boys?”

  “Too busy keeping old 718 afloat for that,” one of crew said with a grin as he descended belowdecks with a toolbox. I suddenly became nervous.

  “Everything belowdecks working OK, Lieutenant?” I asked.

  “First, call me Harry. And second, don’t worry about a thing. The lads keep her in tip-top shape. They’re just having their fun with you. We’re on our own a lot and don’t have time for rubbish about spit and polish. Engines and weapons, that’s what we spend our time on. Plenty of opportunity between wars to polish the brass.”

  “I like the way you think, Harry. How many of these trips have you made?”

  “To France and Norway, or just Norway?” A crew member walked by, a bearded fellow clenching a pipe in his mouth, trailing smoke, who laughed as he looked at me.

  “OK, forget it. I’m sure you know your job. I’m a little nervous.”

  “Nervous? Why, Lieutenant Boyle, whatever for? We’re just about to leave on a six-hundred-mile trip through enemy-infested waters, with a big, fat low-pressure system just sitting over us, dumping buckets of rain and churning up waves taller than houses, in order to land you alone in Nazi-occupied Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle, and leave you there. Why should you be nervous?”

  “Houses? Waves taller than houses?”

  “Rather large houses.”

  I huddled in the galley as we got under way, sitting on a bench and sipping a cup of hot, sweet tea. Or trying to. The boat was rocking and I was trying to match the rolling motion while bringing the cup to my lips.

  “Ever do any sailing back in the States?” Harry asked as he came in. I could see by the half smile on his lips that he doubted it.

  “I once rode the ferry across Boston Harbor.”

  “Boston! Where you colonials wasted all that perfectly good tea?”

  “The same.”

  “Serves you right, then.”

  “What does?”

  “This crossing. This mission.”

  “Well, I asked for it. Is this tub going to make it?”

  “We’ve been through worse weather,” Harry said, a serious look passing briefly over his face, “but I’d hate to make a practice of it. Old 718 will do just fine. She’s got four Packard engines driving four shafts and can do a top speed of thirty-five knots.”

  “Does that count going up the side of a wave?”

  “No,” he laughed, “it does not. Calm sea, thirty-five knots. This mess, we’ll make fifteen or twenty, tops. It’s going to be rough.”

  “The weather or the Germans?”

  “Both, although for now we’ve only the weather to worry about.”

  He took a rolled-up map from a shelf above me, opened it, and laid it out on the table, using an empty teacup to hold one side down.

  “Here’s our position now, northeast of the Orkney Islands. We’ll pass the Shetlands and then head due north. Then we leave the North Sea and enter the Norwegian Sea. Here,” he marked a spot of open water, “we turn east-northeast and head into Tomma. Then we start worrying about Germans.”

  “What about the Luftwaffe?”

  “They don’t fly in this weather. Neither do our chaps, for that matter. This low-pressure system is stalled right now. I doubt it’ll move for a day or so. That will give us time to land you and get away offshore before the clouds and fog lift.”

  “What about German patrol boats?”

  “Plenty of those, and they will be out. Luckily, visibility is so limited that they shouldn’t be a problem. We can outrun most of them and out-gun the smaller craft. It’s the Vorpostenboot ships I don’t want to bump into in the fog.”

  “Vorpostenboot?”

  “Flak ships, like picketboats. They patrol at a distance from shore, trying to catch incoming aircraft and alerting the coastal defenses. They’re slow, but armed to the teeth with AA guns. Machine guns; 20mm, 37mm, and 40mm cannon. Nasty, if they spot you.”

  “If they’re so slow, can’t you sink them with your torpedoes?”

  “We used to have four eighteen-inch torpedo tubes, but had them removed to make room for more fuel and supplies, and assorted Joeys like you. We’ve got machine guns and 20mm Oerlikons that can give smaller boats or aircraft a good fight, but the Vorpostenboots would turn this mahogany into kindling.” He knocked on the polished wooden hull.

  “Let’s stay away from them then.”

  “C
apital idea, Lieutenant! Trust a Yank to see straight to the heart of the matter.”

  “Call me Billy, and stop putting me on, Harry.”

  “Now what fun would that be, Billy?” Harry laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. He stood and bounded upstairs, into the wind and salt spray. I tried to drink my tea without spilling it all over myself. We all prefer to do what we do best.

  I was getting beat up pretty badly below deck as the boat rolled, smashed headlong into waves, and dropped ten feet all at the same time. I grabbed some rain gear and headed up, trying to stay upright but not doing too well. I slammed against the ceiling, the wall, and then the deck, all within five seconds. I figured at least up top there’d be no ceiling to hit my head on, so I grabbed the handrail and pulled myself up the stairs as fast as I could. The topdeck was open unprotected from the wind, rain, and waves. Harry was at the wheel, soaked and grinning insanely.

  “Welcome to the North Sea, Billy. How do you like it so far?”

  He had to yell above the noise of the sea and our motors. He never moved his eyes, which were watching each wave as it broke across the bow. The boat crested a wave and slammed down as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer. The piece of deck I was standing on came up and struck me in the face. I fell back, sliding on the wet planks and spitting blood from a cut lip. It took my mind off being seasick, for a minute.

  “Are we almost there yet?” I asked as a crewman helped me up.

  “Still a bit of a way to go. Keep your knees flexed and try to roll with the boat.”

  I made my way to the railing and flexed my knees, which was an excellent position in which to throw up breakfast. I let the water whip my face for a while and then staggered back to Harry.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  “Actually, yes. This is almost fun.”

  Harry risked a quick glance at me, and then laughed.

  An hour or so later things started to settle down. The waves were still high, but they weren’t as rough as they had been and the wind was definitely lessening. Harry began to glance up at the sky. There were some patches of faint light showing where before there had been only continuous dark clouds.

  “Lookouts to your posts!” he shouted. Men with binoculars scrambled to the gun mounts.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Can you feel that?”

  “What?”

  “The wind direction changed. It’s coming from the west. Pushing the low-pressure system east. It could clear up faster than we planned.”

  “That’s not good, right?”

  “Well,” Harry said with a grimace as he turned the wheel sharply and advanced the throttle, “the good news is that we can increase our speed now that things have calmed down a bit. We’ll try to stay with the system as it moves east.”

  “You left out the bad news.”

  “In order to stay with the front, we have to turn east now, instead of tomorrow. It means we’ll cut north tomorrow right through the most heavily patrolled coastal areas.”

  “Those V-boats you mentioned?”

  “Yes. Vorpostenboots. Lucky chap, you might get a chance to see one up close!”

  I was about to tell Harry it wasn’t funny when a shaft of sunlight broke out from between two gray clouds like a bright wound opening in the heavens and lit his face. He didn’t look like he was joking.

  CHAPTER ▪ TWENTY-THREE

  I DIDN’T THINK I had slept at all until I awoke from a dream. It was about Daphne. She was sitting at a table quietly, while Kaz and I talked. She watched us serenely, as if she knew some sweet secret that was beyond us. Kaz and I fell silent. Then I asked her, “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Her face lost all expression. I felt a deep pit of sadness open up in my stomach and the dream ended abruptly.

  I woke up with a start in my small, damp bunk and looked around for some clue as to where the hell I was. My heart was beating like a bass drum in a Saint Paddy’s Day parade. I took some deep breaths to calm down. Oh yeah, I’m on this boat in the middle of the ocean. Great. I dropped my head back on the pillow and tried to sleep. Something kept me from nodding off. I tried to think, but I was still half asleep, or half awake, I couldn’t tell. The boat had kept me up, with its rocking, all night long. . . .

  I realized everything was still. I could feel the boat moving and the deep thrumming of the engines, but the up and down wave-smashing motion was gone. The smell of diesel fuel and sweat was heavy in the cramped quarters. I stumbled out of the bunk and moved through the narrow passageway, instinctively but unnecessarily clutching the walls for support. I stopped myself and stood unaided for a second. I was still dizzy, but the boat was on the level, except for a slight slant to the deck, as the four Packard engines at the stern lifted the bow out of the water. I trudged forward, tired, wet, and worried.

  A cold blast of air hit me as I emerged from below deck. Harry was still at the wheel, where I had left him when I hit the sack last night. His blond hair was blown back and his face was red from the wind. He looked straight ahead, only glancing down at the compass in front of him. The ocean was calm, completely flat as far as I could see. Which wasn’t far at all, since we were enveloped in fog. There was no horizon, just a white wall of mist that rose up all around us and seemed to curve just above the boat, like the white satin lining inside the lid of an expensive coffin. It seemed as if that I could reach up and touch it. The top of the radio mast vanished just a few feet above my head. We seemed to be moving fast, but nothing was changing—not the water, our direction, or the fog. Men were at their stations, their binoculars useless. They strained forward, trying to peer through the fog or perhaps to hear the muffled sound of a distant engine. Besides our engine noise and that of the hull cutting through the water, the only sound was the occasional hydraulic whine of a twin .50 caliber machine gun mount being traversed, searching sky and sea for a threat that might be lurking just beyond the thin veil of fog. No one spoke a word.

  I stood next to Harry. He acknowledged my presence with a quiet nod. I didn’t say anything. I had the odd feeling that I was in a church. This silence in the midst of roaring engines, our small, isolated cocoon moving across the wide, flat sea, seemed otherworldly.

  “Tea, Captain. And you, too, sir.” A young crewman wearing a stained white apron offered up a tray with two thick white porcelain mugs of steaming tea.

  “Thank you, Higgins,” Harry said, taking the tea without looking away from the few yards of water visible beyond the bow. I took mine and nodded thanks.

  “Never seen you run her wide open in thick soup before, sir.” Higgins’s unspoken question to Harry hung in the air as he looked at me.

  “Not to worry, Higgins. Jerry is probably sticking close to the shore. I’m more worried about hitting a bloody big log. Now finish up in the mess and get up here. We could use an extra set of eyes.”

  “Aye, sir!” Higgins said, untying his apron as he turned to go below. He sounded excited.

  “So this isn’t SOP?” I asked Harry in a low voice.

  “There’s no such thing as standard operating procedure out here, Billy. This would be a damn silly thing to do anywhere else, but we’ve got to get to Tomma before the weather clears. And it will soon.”

  “And when it does . . . ?”

  “Then we better be well out to sea, and you safely on dry ground, or else we’ll be trapped close to shore, sighted by patrol craft or Germans on land, and they’ll send out the Luftwaffe. Not a good thing, I assure you.”

  “Should we wait for nightfall?”

  Harry shook his head.

  “Nowhere to wait. When the fog clears, the Germans will send out everything they have. They’ll want to make up for lost time. We could go a hundred miles and chances are they’d spot us. We’ve got to get you ashore now.”

  “But what happens to you after you drop me off? When the weather clears?”

  “We take our chances, old boy. Just like you.”

  For the first time it o
ccurred to me that my little unauthorized jaunt could cost others their lives. I didn’t want that and hadn’t planned on it. Everything was supposed to work out as Jens and I thought it would. The weather was supposed to cooperate, damn it! This was supposed to be a milk run, just another day on the job for these guys.

  I thought about Uncle Ike. How many guys would he send to die, thinking he had everything figured out, only to have something uncontrollable go wrong at the last minute? I guess I wasn’t so different from the big brass. I hadn’t even considered the risk to Harry and his crew, just what I needed to get done. It didn’t feel good. The only difference was I was here, and about to go ashore in enemy territory just under the Arctic Circle. When the brass felt bad they sat back in their big leather chairs, lit up a cigar, and cursed at junior officers. It was like my dad always said: a rich guy can have the same problem we do, but he can smoke a dollar cigar in a nice big house while he worries about it.

  “Just like me,” I replied. I started looking for floating logs, but gave up when I realized there wouldn’t be time to say anything before we hit. Higgins scrambled up to the bow and strained his neck forward, keeping watch as Harry had instructed.

  “Good lad, Higgins,” he said, nodding toward the young crewman. “Worked on river barges on the Thames before he came to us. He’s been through the worst of the Blitz, but this is just his third mission with us. He’s a little nervous. I thought giving him something to do would help.”

  “We don’t really need to worry about big logs?”

  “Only if worrying would help. Otherwise it’s best not to think about it.”

  Harry gave me a grin and a quick wink. The more I tried not to think about logs in the water, the more I imagined them bobbing along in front of us. I looked up instead. I could see the top of the mast.

  “Harry ...”

  “I know, Billy.” It was getting even lighter and warmer as the sun gained on the fog and started to burn it away. I could feel the humidity in the air now; the breeze wasn’t as cold.

  “Action stations!” yelled Harry. Men donned helmets and those without life jackets put them on. Someone handed me a life jacket and one of those flat British helmets. I thought of a picture of my dad and uncles from the First World War. I tried not to think about their brother wearing one of these helmets, who hadn’t made it back, or about those boys who’d been on the destroyer with Diana.