D. M. Ulmer 01 - Silent Battleground (19 page)

Brent outlined the situation and a plan.  “Our major goal, prevent the Soviets from reporting
Denver
’s presence.  Eight men, under command of Ensign Parnell, will take a rubber life raft and approach the minesweeper.  Silence is paramount,” Brent cautioned.  “If they hear us before we get to the radio transmitter, it’s over.  Blowing it up is the first order of business.  Next, the crew must be terminated.  We can’t take the chance of someone reporting our presence.”

The crew winced upon hearing these sobering words. Submariners are trained to sink ships and other submarines.  People died but from less personal actions. 
Denver
troops found the concept of one on one, kill or be killed to be a new and unnerving one.

“Our best point of entry is from astern.”  Brent pointed to a large, hastily
drawn representation of the minesweeper.

“Ensign Parnell and one troop will board.  Parnell will move up the starboard side and the other up the port, each with a satchel charge.  I don’t know which side the radio shack is on, but the one who finds it, open the door and neutralize the occupants, silently
if you can.  Then set the charge alongside the transmitter and activate the timer.  You’ll have ten seconds to put some distance between your buns and the charge.”

Low remarks and repositioning of feet by the candidates reflected mounting concern and excitement.

Brent continued, “The sound of either gunfire or the explosion will bring the enemy out on deck.  Hopefully, it will be the latter.  The radio shack could be unoccupied.  The explosion alone could bring the enemy out unarmed, but the sound of gunfire … well, you know what to expect then. 

“Either sound will cue the rest of the attack party to move out, three port and three starboard.  Cover the exits.  Let as many get out as you can before opening fire.  There’s supposed to be ten aboard but maybe a few more or less.  Questions?  Make them brief.  We don’t have a lot of time.”

Hesitating for answers and when none came, Brent asked, “Okay then, volunteers?” 

Twenty-one hands shot into the air.

“Thanks, men,” Brent said then chose a first class petty officer and six others.

The stern voice of Jacques Henri demanded, “Mr. Maddock, I don’t see how you can pull this off without the benefit of my experience.  What you just described is like a normal Saturday night in East St. Louis.”

“We need you for the rest of our mission, Henri.  We can’t afford to lose our leading quartermaster.”

An irritated Henri went on, “Are you saying I’m indispensable, sir?  Look, you’re sending Barnes because he’s heavy on explosives.  He’s the logical choice to accompany Mr. Parnell to the radio shack.  You need a petty officer to control the rest of the troops while they wait for the noise to start.  And, in the event of casualties to the bomb squad, someone has to pull off the rest of the job.  Like I said, you need me on this one, sir.  Besides, I won’t need to darken my face.”

A nervous laugh came from the assembled submariners.

Someone asked, “What about your teeth and eyeballs?”

The crew laughed louder this time.

After considering Henri’s request for a moment, Brent said,  “Okay, Pruitt, Henri gets your seat.  The rest of you guys get out of here so we can get ready.”

After a flurry of handshakes and wishes for good luck Brent, the captain and Chief Cunningham stood topside to see the raiders off.

Taking Henri’s hand, Brent stumbled to find a suitable expression.

Henri said, “Trouble with you white guys is you don’t know how to handle emotion.”

The two men embraced without embarrassment.

“Just get your sorry ass back here, Henri.  I need you to beat up on during my watch.”

“Treat me right and I’ll bring you a Red scalp.”

The small raiding party boarded the raft and disappeared into the darkness.

Brent admired the manner by which leadership fell so naturally
to the young black petty officer and wondered from which band of fierce warriors had Henri descended.

On board the raft, Woody ordered the four paddlers, “Quietly, quietly,” as much to quell his own butterflies than to reduce noise made by the crew.

Either a weaker than estimated current or lesser distance between
Denver
and the minesweeper shortened the raiders’ transit from what they anticipated.  Before they realized it, the raft had reached the minesweeper and moved along its starboard side.  Blisters of rust flaked the paint and red streaks ran down to the water line.  The sound of a running auxiliary engine, probably
a diesel powered generator, masked what little noise the sailors made as they fended their craft off the sweeper’s side by hand.

Woody saw no one moving about above deck so he ordered the raft repositioned at the stern according to plan.  He and his men, dressed completely
in black, including gloves and stocking caps, moored their tiny craft with quarter inch nylon line to the enemy ship.  They sat quietly for a moment and listened.  No sounds other than the generator pierced the quiet night, and the raiders’ heartbeats made a deafening sound in each man’s ears.

Heretofore unseen steel shown in Woody’s baby blue eyes when he ordered Petty Officer Barnes, “Okay, let’s go.”

Being the first American warrior to occupy Soviet territory thrilled Woody as he leapt onto the deck.  He hoped time would soon find many followers.  Being careful, Woody looked into the glass of each deckhouse porthole while moving up the starboard side of the sweeper and detected no movement.

No surprise
, he thought. 
It’s 0300. 
At anchor with a crew of ten, all except perhaps an anchor or engineering watch slept
soundly
in their bunks.

He scaled a ladder to the bridge.  Still no Soviet crew encountered.  He quickly located the radio shack just aft of the bridge.  An artistic radioman had painted a tier of lightning flashes on the door, the traditional symbol for radio transmitting equipment. 

The radio shack had a porthole.  Woody looked in and detected no apparent movement.  He attempted to open the door. 
Oh shit
!
 
It’s locked and we didn’t bring anything to bust it open.

Someone made a sudden movement on the bridge.  A click sounded as Woody cocked his pistol.

A hoarse whisper sounded from Petty Officer Barnes, “
Denver
.” 

No password had been established, but when Barnes heard Ensign Parnell’s weapon being cocked, necessity gave birth to invention.

Woody explained the situation about the locked door.

Barnes exclaimed, “Dammit!  What’ll we do, sir?”

“These bulkheads can’t be more than quarter inch plate.  The transmitters are against the bulkhead on the portside beneath the antennas.  If we put both satchels against the outboard bulkhead and set them off together, it ought to do the job.  What do you think?”

“Yes, sir.  These charges are big enough to knock out anything.”

Woody snapped back, “Okay, let’s do it.”

At the raft, Henri heard the approach of stepping feet as the Soviet sailor on anchor watch made a routine walk about the weather decks of the sweeper.  Henri thought,
That asshole’s gotta be blind not to see our mooring line.
 

Clunk … clunk … clunk.  The man walked past the raiders then stopped.

Henri drew the only
knife that someone had the foresight to bring on the mission.

The enemy sailor turned around and walked back then put his hand on the mooring line.

Henri grasped the man’s wrist and dragged the surprised sailor into the raft.  Henri’s right arm, coiled like a cornered rattlesnake, delivered the blade to the man’s rib cage.

“Aaagh.”  The young man expired and was the first Soviet to fall in hand-to-hand combat in World War III.

Relief at Henri’s victory and apparent solution quickly ended.

A nearby voice cried out, “Tovarich!  Tovarich!”

None in the raft spoke the language, but all recognized the tone.  More than just one enemy prowled about and the survivor had to be suspicious.  A light flashed, blinding the Americans, quickly followed by a burst from the Soviet’s AK-47 blasting its rounds into the raft.

Henri’s M-16 silenced the attacker, but not before two men of the
Denver
raiding party fell dead into the sea.  Air hissed through bullet holes in the raft.

Henri ordered, “Okay, Honkies, up and out.  Shit’s hit the fan!”

The four surviving
Denver
crewmen leapt onto the sweeper deck and moved forward according to plan with two on the port side and two starboard, instead of three as originally planned.  A sudden earsplitting explosion ripped through the darkness as the charges set by Woody and Barnes destroyed the radio shack and its transmitter.  No one emerged from the deck access door and hatches.

Woody and Barnes shouted in unison, “
Denver, Denver,
” as they raced aft, not wanting to be mistaken for Soviets.

When Woody met Henri, he yelled out, “We got the transmitter.  Hang the rest of the charges over the side and we’ll blow up the rest of this tub.  Then get our asses outta here.”

Henri responded, “Feel like swimming back?  Ivan made some serious holes in our raft before he bought the farm.  No, sir, Mr. Parnell.  It’s two down and eight to go, that is unless you got some of them in the radio shack.”

“Only eight left … let’s go get ’em.”

A deckhouse door burst open.  Two Soviets emerged firing wildly but
American M-16s dispatched them before they could inflict damage.

Woody yelled, “Henri!  Have the troops each stand by a door.  On my whistle, open it and toss in a grenade.”

“That’s a bummer, sir.  The only
doors unlocked will be the ones they want us to open.  I got a better idea.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Henri quickly explained, “There’s a gas-engine pump on the fantail.  There’s gotta be gasoline too.  Let’s dump it down a ventilation intake, and then toss in a match.  Keep those doors and hatches covered till I get back.”

Leaving the others, Henri disappeared, but quickly returned with a gas can.

Woody ordered, “Take a couple of men and get the pump.  We don’t know what they have stowed below decks, but you can bet there’s plenty of mines.  Starting a fire might blow us all sky high.  We’ll run the engine exhaust into the fresh air intake and gas them with carbon monoxide.  They won’t know what happened.”

They found a ventilation intake aft of the bridge not far from the destroyed radio shack then fitted the pump hose over the engine exhaust pipe, while two of the raiding party removed hand lugs that held the grating in place.  Henri inserted the hose and gave several pulls on the start rope.  The engine sputtered to life and he set it to full throttle.

Woody shouted, “Okay, Henri, find me something to break the padlock on the radio shack door.  Let’s see if there’re any goodies in there.”

“Yes, sir.  But first, I’ll report our situation back to the ship.  They must have heard the noise and will want to know what’s happening.”

“Good idea.  Do it.”

Henri directed his Aldis lamp toward
Denver
.

On board
Denver
the port lookout exclaimed, “Signal!  Captain.”

Bostwick ordered, “Quartermaster,” and the petty officer began to record the message.

Transmitter, destroyed.  Two casualties.  Life raft gone.  Four Soviet dead.  Remaining crew trapped below decks.  Pumping gas engine exhaust into ventilation intake.

Brent thought,
Somebody over there’s really
thinking
.  He correctly
assumed
it to be
Henri. 
Good thing he went along on the raid.

The captain asked, “How do we get them back without a life raft?”

“We’ll have to go to them.  Pick up the anchor, then drive over with the outboard,” said Brent, referring to the electric
powered secondary propulsion motor that rigged out from beneath the engine compartment and able to be trained through three hundred sixty degrees for direction control.

The captain agreed.  “Get the repair party back up and finish the ballast tank patch.”

“Aye, sir.”

Back on board the enemy vessel, Henri said to Ensign Parnell, “We don’t have to break the door down.  The hole from the explosion is plenty big enough to get in.”

Before the young black could stop him, Woody leapt through the hole and entered the radio shack.  Instantly, two pistol shots shattered the stillness. 

Woody spun, fell to the deck and lay motionless.

Henri held his M-16 around the edge of the hole and sprayed a full magazine into the radio shack.  He removed the empty magazine and snapped another one into place.  His flashlight probed the smoke-filled compartment and fell upon a youngish sailor, slumped against a bulkhead, barely alive.  Blood flowed from both nostrils and multiple wounds in his upper body.  He appeared to be no older than Ensign Parnell. 

The young Soviet had no idea of their meaning, but the last words he heard came from Henri.  “Sovie bastard!”

Henri
emptied the entire magazine into the twitching corpse.

Tears streamed down Henri’s face.  In his mind, he had failed the important charge he’d given himself; bring Ensign Parnell back alive.  He knelt and lifted the officer’s head into his lap.  “Damn it, why in hell did you have to run in there?”

Henri’s grief came to an abrupt end as Woody sighed, “Beats the hell out of me, Henri.  You’re not gonna tell Mr. Maddock about this are you?”

Woody became conscious and raised a bloody hand. Two bullets had struck him, one in his arm and the other in his thigh.

Anchor lights on the minesweeper continued to burn although the balance of her crew had succumbed peacefully
to the carbon monoxide gas pumped into the ventilation system.

Denver
made up
alongside the first enemy warship to be seized since Rear Admiral Dan Gallery captured the Nazi U-505 in June 1944.  The raiding party, welcomed home, embarked upon a new fame that would follow each for the remainder of his time in
Denver
.  But the pain of losing two crewmen put a damper on this.