Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6) (63 page)

Crisp had been asleep since just after nine pm, the blissful experience of not having to make decisions and not having to worry about the day-to-day business of commanding a parachute infantry regiment, had brought the deepest sleep he had experienced since two nights before the jump into the blackness over Pomerania.

Unusually for the two and a half thousand men shoehorned aboard, sleep took precedence over craps, poker, or simply horsing about, as almost every man, glider infantryman or paratrooper, used the opportunity to store valuable sleep away.

The gentle tenors of the waves lapping at the hull, and the rhythmic sound of the throbbing Westinghouse turbine, brought kind dreams to each and every man, as the USS Kingsbury’s single screw carried them further away from the war.

Four miles ahead, a number of technical problems plagued the commander of HMS Jason, a Halcyon-class minesweeper, as his equipment again failed him.

Acting Lieutenant Commander Harry Layland Dudley Hoare chased his crew in all directions, but they simply could not restore full operation. One of the kites had decided to dive to the bottom, and the winch that could recover it had simply given up the ghost.

Hoare radioed the Commodore, but the man railed against anything that could mean delay, and simply told the minesweeper officer to ‘sort it out’.

The Commodore, anxious to preserve his sailing schedule, ignored Hoare’s recommendation to transfer some north side work to one of the other minesweepers, and decided to press on regardless, citing the complete absence of any mines on the journey to Swinemünde and, thus far, on the return.

Which meant that
L3 ‘Frunzenets’, sunk on 10th December 1945, would reach out from her watery grave and claim yet another Allied vessel.

Colonel Marion Crisp was lifted from his bunk and deposited with perfect precision on the bunk on the other side of the cabin, much to the displeasure of the occupant.

Griffin Field moaned in pain and clutched at his stomach, where Crisp’s hard buttocks had announced his soft landing.

Marion Crisp rolled off the injured man and immediately realised that he simply continued to roll across the floor of the cabin, heading back the six feet to the bunk from which he had been thrown.

His hands pushed out, stopping him from clattering into the metal supports.

“C’mon, Griff, move your ass… the ship’s listing.”

He grabbed at the winded Field and virtually dragged him to the door.

It refused to open.

Field, recovering slowly, lent his shoulder to the effort.

The door shifted a little, not enough to permit them to leave, but sufficient for the smoke to enter the cabin.

“Again!”

Crisp threw himself against the unyielding metal and bounced off.

“Again!”

The two men hit it together and the movement encouraged them.

Another three blows brought enough of a gap for Crisp to call a halt.

“Let’s go… you first, Griff.”

The Acting Lieutenant Colonel squirmed through, closely followed by Crisp.

The smoke was denser now, and moved thickly through their throats and lungs, bringing about racking coughs.

“Fresh air… this way… follow me…”

Crisp grabbed Field’s hand and followed the memory image in his head, and found the stairs up immediately.

As the pair climbed towards the next level, a tannoy announcement cut across the growing sounds of men under duress.

Whilst many of the words were somewhat distorted by some sort of damage issue, the message was absolutely clear.

“Attention all hands! Attention all hands! Abandon ship. Abandon ship!”

The two officers emerged into the darkest of nights, now transformed by the severe fire that was claiming the ship around them.

“We’ve got to organise our boys… calm them down and do this orderly… get some control…”

Field nodded and plunged towards a group of his own soldiers massing at the ship’s side.

The Kingsbury shuddered and lurched a few feet further over, enough to send men flying off their feet and hurtling into others, creating more struggling forms.

Searchlights from other vessels also lit up the scene, and help create the surreal sight of soldiers and sailors illuminated in dancing shades of diamond white and orange.

An explosion opened up the deck in front of Crisp, and he was picked up and thrown into dark sky.

His unconscious form dropped into the cool waters, surrounded by men desperate to stay afloat… desperate to survive.

At 0006, before a single rescue ship could get close enough, USS Kingsbury APA-177, rolled over into the Baltic, nine minutes to the second after she had hit ‘Frunzenets’’ mine.

Fig # 212 - The voyage of USS Kingsbury, APA-177.

Sir Fabian John Callard-Smith, VC holder, MP for Wroughton, and retired Coldstream Guards Colonel, read the report in silence, seeing familiar names in every paragraph, some alive and soon to be honoured, others lost to the insatiable machine of war.

Across the small table sat his friend and confidante, the Right Honourable Percy Aston Hollander MC and bar, formerly a major in the Irish Guards, who was reading the same document, an insider’s report that recorded the efforts and exertions of the Guards units of His Majesty’s army.

“Good Lord… Bunty’s gone west. Poor Janette… we must go and visit as soon as possible… poor old Bunty.”

Percy Hollander shook his head at the news that another of the old school had lost his life in the new war.

Whilst he hadn’t served with Jacob ‘Bunty’ Hargreaves, he knew of the man by reputation, one often enhanced by anecdotes from Callard-Smith, who had shared a bunker with him for many months on the Western Front in 1917-18.

“All through the last lot, only to die in some crabby corner of Bocheland… damn and blast… damn and blast…”

“Wasn’t he divisional staff, John?”

Callard-Smith nodded and offered up an explanation immediately.

“Never one to sit at the back though. Never. Bound to have been up at the front. Looks like he was with the Coldstreams up the sharp end when he copped it… lots of Coldstreams got the chop on the same day… 28th July… around Parchim… not just Coldstreams either… seems like the Grenadiers got a bloody good dusting too.”

Aston nodded, concern at the loss of so many members of the Guards Brigade written large on his face.

Squires, clubman and an ex-Coldstream Guardsman himself, moved towards the pair as quickly as his disability would allow.

“Colonel Fabian… Major Percy… The Sunday Evening News, sirs.”

He passed each a copy of the London newspaper.

“Dreadful business, Sirs… dreadful.”

The headline screamed at both men.

‘BALTIC DISASTER - THOUSANDS DEAD’

They quickly consumed the bare facts, grimacing at the numbers involved.

“I say, poor sods.”

“Quite, Percy. Squires, two more scotches please, there’s a good chap.”

The clubman nodded and hobbled away to distribute more of the freshly printed newspapers on his way back to the bar.

The murmurs grew in the smoking room, as more eyes acquainted themselves with the disaster.

Percy’s eyes clouded over with painful memories as he read one word.

“Mine, so they say… nasty bloody things. Brother Clarence was lost to the nasty bloody things… on the Irresistible, off Gallipoli in ’15. Nasty blighters.”

“I remember, Percy. Johnny Turk used a lot of the horrible things off the peninsular. Did for a few of our matelots. So damned impersonal.”

Callard-Smith dropped his gaze again and immediately took a sharp intake of breath.

“I say…101st… those boys saw an awful lot of fighting… an awful lot of fighting.”

Both men dropped their newspapers down so they could look at each other.

“The God of Battle, eh, Percy?

Hollander snorted. A confirmed atheist, he believed in no such thing, but he understood what Callard-Smith meant.

‘All that fighting … from D-Day to Poland… and killed by one of those nasty bloody impersonal things when out of the front line.’

“Tragic way for a soldier to go, Fabian. Bloody tragic.”

“Quite. Still… over two thousand American dead in one foul swoop… that’s certainly not going to go down well on the other side of the pond, is it?”

“Most certainly not. The common American will either want the boys home yesterday, or will be baying for Uncle Joe’s blood like a hound on the scent.”

When the news reached the states, and families from Oregon to Maine became aware that one of their most prestigious units, the 101st US Airborne, had suffered grievous casualties in such a random manner, the result was very much the latter.

President Truman’s constant failure to employ the full range of weapons from the armoury of liberty cannot be underestimated. He has cited, on numerous occasions, the need to ensure that the coalition of Allied forces remains cohesive, and names the opposition to further use of certain weapons, prevalent amongst those Allies, as the chief reason for staying his hand.

This publication accepts that the use of those weapons, and we must be clear that we are speaking of the new atomic bombs so recently deployed against the Empire of Japan, will bring about horrendous loss of life and suffering, both at the time of deployment and, it has been suggested, long into the futures of those subjected to its use.

Whether or not the President is correct about the Allies’ discontent, and the threat it poses to our coalition of freedom, we must consider the situation in its fullest context.

We, America and our Allies, have been subjected to the vilest form of attack; an unprovoked aggression and betrayal of our nations by one country, supposedly friendly, and one so recently allied with us in that great crusade against the armies of oppression and aggression.

The peoples of the Soviet Union and its allies have, by their act of unparalleled perfidy, laid themselves open to our wrath, and we should not feel shackled by the undoubted superiority of our technology, not feel shackled by its totally destructive nature, and certainly not feel shackled that it would visit hell on earth upon the enemy. Whilst we can only accept that there will be casualties amongst the innocent, with whom the guilty will inevitably surround themselves, we have to understand that this nation, this alliance, has at its disposal the means to end this war, and possibly all wars to come

What appears to be lacking is the will to use it, a stance excused by the interpretation of how others might react; how others may ‘view’ such a use.

This publication offers the following clarifications to assist the President in deciding on the right way forward.

This great nation of ours has made prodigious sacrifices on the altar of freedom, and none more so than in this latest and most costly of wars. Our casualties, counted since Pearl Harbor to the fall of Berlin, numbered roughly two million, dead, wounded and missing. That number has recently risen to over two and a half million.

That means that many hundreds of thousands of Americans have succumbed to injury or death, or are missing, since the enemy rolled across the divide last August.

Recent events in the Baltic have claimed the lives of two and a half thousands of our youngest and finest, men from the Screaming Eagles Airborne, men who had experienced countless battles from the Normandy shores to the green fields of Poland.

This single incident represents one of the greatest losses of life in the history of the United States military, and to what end?

In just under a year of the new war, combined with the bloody echoes of the now concluded war against the Empire of Japan, this nation has sustained these unprecedented levels of loss, knowing that freedom is never free, and that we must fight to preserve it from tyranny, wherever it is to be encountered. We, as a people, have come together in support of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. We have provided the weapons and fuels of war, and answered every weighty call that government and honour have placed upon our shoulders. Our armed forces have an expectation; we, here at home, have an expectation, that our administration will do everything within its power to end the war as soon as is possible, and for the minimum loss of life and limb amongst our sons, husbands, fathers and brothers. Actually more than that. Our armed forces and public alike have the absolute right to demand that our administration will do everything in its power to end the bloodshed, and ensure that as many brave American boys as possible return from the combat zone.

Our valiant Allies will unquestionably understand and embrace that demand, for it is also their sons, their husbands, their fathers and their brothers that will profit from a speedy conclusion to this conflict.

We have the means to end this war, and set in place a peace that could last for a thousand years.

There is no satisfactory argument against it; against the inevitable saving of American and Allied lives, so this publication demands that President Truman employ the new atomic devices, and that he bring our loved ones safely back home.