Armada

by Steven Wilson

  “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, why don’t you remember that you’re addressing a superior officer?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cole said, the insolence hardening.

  Edland laid the files on the table and unfolded a map of the Channel. “The Germans have developed a new type of E-boat,” he began. “It’s operating out of Le Havre, Boulogne, or Cherbourg, we’re not sure which …”

  “That’s a surprise, sir,” Cole said, and then added: “The ‘we’re not sure’ part.”

  Edland turned angrily. “All right, let’s get this out of the way right now. You want to blame me. Go ahead and blame me. Whether or not I’m at fault is irrelevant. This isn’t a thing that can be done now. This is something else, another place, another time. You’re in on it whether you like it or not. I need your boats.”

  “Why don’t you get Buckley, sir?” Cole said. He wanted nothing to do with E-boats or Edland.

  “He’s not available,” Edland said. “And even if he were I would have chosen you.”

  Cole’s own anger flared and he fought to control himself. “Am I supposed to feel honored by that?”

  “You’re supposed to follow orders, Cole,” Edland said.

  Cole moved around the table and advanced on Edland. “I followed your orders once, sir,” he said bitterly. It was all a show and Cole knew it. Like a dog that was frightened—bark as long and as loud as you can and the fear would go away. Cole knew that Edland wasn’t the cause of his friend’s death, he was; but attacking Edland helped relieve the guilt that Cole felt. It was stupid and futile, but Cole had nothing else to fight his guilt with. It was illogical, but Cole knew that. If you don’t learn to keep your mouth shut, a friend of his commented, and keep that goddamned temper under control, you’re going to be the oldest lieutenant in the navy.

  Edland refused to back down. “It was another place,” he said quietly, “another time.”

  Cole glanced at the materials on the table and back to Edland. It was a truce. Tentative and hardly binding and fragile at best, but it was all that Cole’s pride would allow him.

  “You look worn out,” Edland said.

  Cole smiled, despite himself. “Maybe I ought to try another line of employment, sir.” He willed himself to relax. He could feel the tension in his arms and back and he knew that his nerves were close to snapping. He fought back the panic that Edland would see the same thing. He gave Edland a look that said: “Okay, talk.”

  “There was an E-boat attack on an Allied convoy,” Edland began, and then told Cole all that he knew.

  Cole listened skeptically to Edland as he detailed what information he had about E-boats traveling at 60 knots and the 6-inch guns; but it was only a brief skepticism, lacking depth and form, and offered as if it were perfunctory. Cole was intrigued.

  Edland handed the report to Cole and waited while he read it.

  Maybe it was because before this madness they were both scholars, although Cole admitted that he wasn’t much of one. Cole was a fighter with an imagination, a fluid mind that wrapped itself easily around unexpected turns in events. He would also not dismiss an idea out of hand because it did not fit the norm, because such a thing hadn’t happened before, because people said that it was impossible, or because the concept was too farfetched for those who traveled in conventional packs to understand. Cole was certainly not conventional.

  Cole’s eyes traveled over the report, turning the pages, reading farther into the document. He was concentrating on the information that Edland had provided, dissecting it, examining it, making a decision. His eyes finally returned to Edland, wanting more.

  “The only way to find out what we’re facing is to capture some E-boat crewmen. Or one of these boats,” Edland said.

  “Capture?” Cole laughed. “My, aren’t you the optimist.”

  “I know it’ll be a challenge but I believe it can be done.”

  “Oh, do you? If we can get close enough without getting blown out of the water. They won’t wait for us to sneak up on them. Maybe we can get a prisoner, but I wouldn’t bet on getting a boat. They have teeth, you know.”

  “Their radar is not as sophisticated as ours and some boats don’t carry any. We’ll have an advantage because we can see them on radar before they have us in sight.”

  “I know all about E-boats, Commander, so don’t tell me my business,” Cole said. “They may not have radar but they can detect the impulses from ours, so that’s nearly as good.” Cole let the statement linger before he added the obvious. “But you really don’t know about these new boats, do you, sir? There may be some surprises on these super-boats of yours, you know.”

  “These boats may have better radar than most,” Edland admitted. “Although I consider it unlikely. In any case, if we move quickly and disable them, I think we’ve got a fighting chance.”

  “You’re right about that for sure,” Cole said. “There’ll be fighting all right. You know,” he added, dropping the report on the table, “you could just go in and bomb the pens. No muss, no fuss, no crazy schemes. No dead sailors.”

  “I want one intact, now,” Edland said. “Not in pieces later on. It’s important for the war effort. If I can’t get a boat, I want prisoners.”

  “Oh, hell, yes,” Cole said. “The war effort. I guess I don’t have much of a choice in this, sir?”

  Edland shook his head.

  “In that case,” he said, “I’m in. Three boats.”

  Edland nodded his acceptance.

  “We’ve got to catch them coming back in,” Cole said. “Just before dawn. That means that we’ll need to lie along the coast.”

  “Off Cap de la Hague,” Edland said. “There’s a cove just east of Auderville. High cliffs, no beach.”

  “I wasn’t figuring on putting myself in their laps. I’d like a little more room to maneuver. Besides, I don’t know the coast that well.”

  “I do,” Edland said.

  Cole smiled in remembrance, but there was no warmth to it. “Yeah. Right,” he said. “Summers in France, wasn’t it, sir? Your dad’s place?”

  “Grandfather’s. I used to play along those cliffs. You can’t see the cove unless you’re right on the edge. It’s a straight drop. Enough water for a PT boat. Or three if that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what I’ll need. They usually come out in twos or threes but we may get lucky enough to nab a tail-end Charlie. When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Day after tomorrow,” Cole said. “I’ve got to get my boats serviced. I want to make sure that they’re in tip-top shape before I get that close to the Krauts. I’ll shove off at nineteen hundred. That okay with you, sir?” He didn’t leave time for an argument.

  Edland said: “I’m coming along.”

  “Oh, now wait a minute,” Cole said.

  “I’ll be on board your boat, Cole, and that’s an order. Besides,” Edland said, “just think how much fun you’ll have ordering me around. That’s how it works, isn’t it? On board his own vessel the captain is supreme?”

  “Look, I gave you what you wanted. We go out, get your boat, if we don’t get our asses shot off, and that’s that. Nobody said anything about supercargo on this little trip, and I sure as hell don’t want somebody along who’s going to be second-guessing everything I do. This isn’t a pleasure cruise, Commander.”

  “I’m going. You can lead the mission or you can stay here and your exec can lead the mission, but I’m going. I know the coast and the E-boats. I’m going. You’re the captain. Once we get under way, I’ll follow your orders.”

  Cole considered the situation. He didn’t have much of a choice. If Edland could requisition boats for a mission, then he had the clout to tag along. You can’t fight city hall, Cole had told his crews when they complained about having to carry out ridiculous orders. Gripe all you want to, but do as you’re ordered. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll take the boats out and you’re going. But, you’ll have to do exactly what I say, when I tell
you. If you do anything that puts my boats and my men in jeopardy you and I will have a reckoning.”

  “You know that you just threatened a superior officer, don’t you, Cole?”

  “Sure do,” Cole said. “I hoped you noticed it as well.”

  Chapter 7

  St. Paul’s School, London, England, headquarters,

  Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery

  Commander Dickie Moore sat quietly behind Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey and made detailed notes on the rather drawn-out meeting. Minutes of what was said, and by whom, and what was decided would be supplied, along with mountains of supporting documentation, through the traditional administrative mechanism. But Moore, even before being tasked by Ramsay, made notes of those subjects that concerned the actions required by the Royal Navy. “A condensed account, if you will, sir,” Moore said dryly, handing Sir Bertram his version of what had transpired in an earlier meeting.

  Now, in the well of a former classroom surrounded by narrow benches rising in tiers, with a gallery supported by thick, black columns, packed with officers of all ranks, the discussion turned to the Channel. La Manche, Dickie recalled, “the sleeve” the French called it, a long narrow body of water that kept the Germans from invading England, had kept the French from invading England, and might, and everyone was most concerned with this point, might keep the Allies from invading France.

  Narrowest at the Straits of Dover, it offered endless possibilities for defense and disaster, victory and catastrophe, or the continuation of the war for many more years if Hitler’s Atlantic Wall was as stout as most believed.

  But the land wasn’t Dickie’s concern, or the Royal Navy’s purview except as it was to be observed from the water. It was the sea that held Dickie’s interest, although most sailors would snort derisively at the notion that this tiny strip of water had any sealike qualities. It fact, it had its own standards: wild currents, crosswinds, shoals and deeps, and the violent reputation enjoyed by shallow water when in the grips of a nor’easter. Add to this, on either side of it were hundreds of thousands of men poised to kill one another.

  Dickie watched Admiral McNamar enter the well, surrounded by a bevy of staff officers, toting easels and maps, preparing to address the assembled multitude. He had stopped briefly to chat with Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, First Sea Lord, sitting just to the right of Churchill. Dickie liked McNamar. Like most Americans he was outgoing and good-natured but capable of getting “down to business” as an American staff officer informed Dickie. “Down to business,” Dickie had mused in delight after they had parted. “What a wonderful expression.”

  McNamar’s booming voice, amplified by the microphone situated in the center of the well, broke into Dickie’s thoughts. The Royal Navy officer wrote quickly, his Waterford pen fairly dancing across the notebook in shorthand of his own creation, nearly indecipherable to anyone who attempted to read it.

  More talk about the invasion fleet, and routes, and the need for ships, all ships but especially the LSTs—Landing Ship Tanks—a British idea but an American creation pounded out of steel throughout the inland ports of the United States. There were barely enough of those odd, boxlike, flat-bottomed craft that looked more like floating warehouses than ships. But they held promise for the invasion; loaded to the gunnels they could snub their high squat bows onto the French beaches, open their huge clamshell doors like great beasts come to feed, and spew out tanks, jeeps, trucks, men, cannon, and the thousands of tons of supplies necessary for the armies who would need to have replaced that which lay immobile beneath the guns of the German defenders. Logistics, young staff officers insisted, really wins wars. And England has become a giant commissariat of all that was required for victory.

  But from here to there was water—the English Channel—and what Dickie knew as his pen glided across the page was that the invasion involved a vast, complex choreography of big ships, lesser ships, boats, and landing craft. It also involved schedules more intricate than those that ensured that trains arrive and depart in all of the terminals in all of the United Kingdom. Two thousand or more ships, each assigned a position that must be maintained at a certain place at a certain time, moving in several fleets in carefully plotted lanes that must be cleared of enemy mines, to arrive at designated points at the specified moment. An extraordinary ballet of destruction performed across a narrow stage. Any disruption of that complex array as it steamed slowly toward its objective would hamper the invasion—perhaps cripple it so that the invasion of France would be the greatest debacle of the war.

  Dickie had, until the moment that he heard McNamar mention the problem, concentrated on capturing what was being said, his eyes following the jerky motions of the pen nib across the paper. That was until McNamar mentioned the problem.

  “The problem is E-boats,” McNamar said. “Flotillas at Le Havre, Brest, Guernsey, and Cherbourg. A total of perhaps sixty boats distributed among those points, safely hidden from conventional bombing, in E-boat pens.” Except for the Channel Islands of course, no pens needed there. It was a delicate situation; the Channel Islands were British territory occupied by the Germans. The occupation forces were, on orders from Hitler, who still held the insane notion that Britain and Germany might come to terms, on their best behavior. Because of the real possibility that British bombs might kill British subjects, the islands, situated closer to France than to Britain, were off-limits to attack.

  “Can’t we get at them?” Montgomery asked, making it sound as if one only need send a terrier down the rat hole after the rat.

  “If I may,” Air Chief Marshall Leigh-Mallory said to McNamar. “We can indeed, Field Marshal. What is required are Tall Boy bombs, placed rather precisely next to the pens.”

  “Next to them?” Montgomery said. “I should think that it would be more appropriate to drop them directly on Jerry’s head.”

  Leigh-Mallory allowed the audience a mild chuckle before continuing. “Not in this case, Field Marshal. These so-called earthquake bombs are most effective when they undermine the structure of the pens. They are quite large and very effective.”

  “You haven’t been all that successful with U-boat pens,” Churchill growled. “Isn’t your optimism a bit misplaced?”

  “No, Prime Minister,” Leigh-Mallory replied. “We didn’t have these bombs when the U-boats were a threat. Now that the American and Royal Navies have effectively countered the U-boats, it has become almost superfluous to attack U-boat pens with these bombs. They are expensive and in limited quantity. Best to save them for special targets.”

  “Have it your way, Air Chief Marshal,” Churchill said, waving his objection aside with a cigar. “But I won’t have them used against the Occupied Channel Islands.” He nodded to the American admiral, whether to continue or to emphasize his edict, Dickie wasn’t sure.

  “There is no other viable threat at sea to the invasion except E-boats,” McNamar continued. “We’ve had some reports of miniature submarines, but those have yet to materialize. The E-boats do pose a serious danger to the invasion fleet and should not be discounted just because they have remained relatively inactive over the past few months. I think that the Air Chief Marshal is correct; crush them in their pens before they have a chance to be employed. There is one other thing; one of my staff has discovered what he believes to be an improved E-boat. Very fast and very powerful. He’s talked me into letting him have a closer look.”

  A wave of laughs filled the room and someone commented, shaking his head at the impertinence of young men: “Brave man. Brave man.”

  “That remains to be seen,” McNamar said.

  “Air Chief Marshal,” General Dwight Eisenhower said. “Will you attend to the E-boat pens, please?” Ike, Dickie thought. Ever the diplomat; nearly always cordial, until someone crossed him, then the famous smile disappeared and the equally famous temper exploded.

  “Delighted, sir,” Mallory said. “I’ll draw up the response and have it to you immediately.”

  Dickie fell ba
ck to writing, the question of E-boats seemingly addressed. The mention of PT boats brought Jordan Cole to mind. Cole had called him when he returned to England and the two had shared dinner and drinks in a tidy pub in Southampton. It had been two years since they had seen one another, and most of the time was spent catching up on what both had been doing. Dickie commented on Cole’s deep tan and lamented the fact that he seldom saw the sun, even when it shone. “Too busy,” Dickie had commented as he cut into a thick slice of lamb. “Far too busy.” The pub was crowded with diners, enjoying the warmth of each other’s company in the gentle din of a place where, for at least several hours, there was no war. Dickie could see that Cole thoroughly appreciated being among people whose only concerns were a good laugh and bright conversation. As it was since they had known each other, Cole listened and Dickie talked; Cole laughed at Dickie’s amorous adventures that always seemed to end in a tragic farce, and Dickie feigned hurt at Cole’s lack of sympathy for his romantic pain.

  What was not said during the meal was most important, Dickie recalled. What Cole did not ask and what was not mentioned by Dickie because the subject was too sensitive, although Dickie felt that it lay just below the surface, was Rebecca Blair.

  There was little that Dickie could tell Cole that would not hurt him. She was miserable in that big house of hers, married to a man who was physically crippled by the war, but what was much more pathetic, emotionally crippled as well by the selfish manner in which he chose to live life. It was obvious that Gregory Blair rarely considered his wife’s needs or her feelings. He seemed intent on bedding every woman he met, and in doing so in such a callous and inconsiderate way that Rebecca knew of his escapades. She tended to Gregory, cared for him in the manner that a good nurse does for a patient. She was, after all, a nurse, and he was a partial invalid, but the care that she provided stopped short of investing any love in a man and a marriage that had long since dissolved.

  Dickie knew with certainty that she still loved Cole and that Cole loved her but the fact that she had chosen to stay with her husband meant that, to Cole, she no longer existed. It was how he, Dickie knew as well, dealt with the pain and longing that ate away at him. To deny Rebecca’s existence, Dickie knew that Cole reasoned, was to alleviate the suffering. How strange, Dickie thought, it was always the seemingly strong, cold-hearted blokes who grieved most after love failed them.