Operation Malacca (5 page)

'If you are at all familiar with tidal waves, you know that no matter how great the wave or the force it packs, it is a long swell in the open ocean over which ships ride, hardly knowing they have been caught in a tidal wave. However, when these tidal waves approach shallows and bays or harbors, they become immense breakers. That is the situation we face here.'

Jensen turned quickly to the commander of the Bradley, 'Captain, would you say that you could ride out a fifty-foot wave — a breaker wave — let alone a three-hundred-and-seventy-foot breaker?'

'Well, I don't know,' the captain answered slowly. 'A fifty-foot breaker maybe. But any ship smaller than ours would not stand a chance.

'Exactly, sir, anything smaller would not stand a chance against a wave of this size. And most of your fleet is composed of motor torpedo boats, corvettes, and small minesweepers —and destroyers such as yourselves. Thank you, gentlemen.' And he sat down. A complete and dead silence answered the end of Jensen's lecture.

From where he sat, Keilty spoke up again. 'How about that? With one fell swoop, the Vietnamese are going to wipe out not only your naval squadrons but shore-based installations as well. With the Malaysian armed forces disorganized and in retreat up the peninsula or engaged in rescue work, the Australians, New Zealanders and the Indonesians helpless because of their parliaments and their own lack of naval craft, the insurgents backed by the Vietnamese are going to come down that peninsula and beat the hell out of whoever is left.'

His voice was heavy with sarcasm as he went on. 'They will close the world's busiest shipping lanes to whoever they want and scare the hell out of the Philippines, Japan, India, Thailand, et cetera.

'That bomb will kill thousands of your troops and sailors, wreak havoc with the Indonesian fleet in the strait and the

Australasian fleet in Singapore and throw you all the hell out of the Indo-China peninsula.'

Keilty's voice was calm but his face was angry and red. Everyone in the steaming wardroom was quiet, listening to him expound the fears they were loath to admit.

'Perhaps you will bomb,' he continued, his voice beginning to rise. 'The U.S. won't be able to give you much help. We are overextended in this area now since Congress'

cutback last year.

'What will you do?' he challenged the British Foreign Secretary. 'Use nuclear bombs on Vietnam? Invade? Not likely. It's been tried before.

'Can't you people realize that this is big, not just an isolated incident, but part of a well-planned scheme to kick you people all the hell out of this part of the world. You don't play around with nuclear weapons for kicks, and they know it as well as you.'

'Face it,' Keilty's voice was very cold, 'they have you if that bomb goes off.' He paused for a moment, then went on, 'Your problem is to see that that bomb does not go off. It's as simple as that.'

There was silence for a moment when he finished speaking. Finally, the British Foreign Secretary spoke. 'Thank you, Dr. Keilty. We are well aware of the problems we face here. However, there are certain ramifications, such as incursion on a sovereign nation's territory, world opinion ...'

'Nuts,' Keilty interrupted shortly. 'World opinion be damned. You and the French let yourselves be swayed by world opinion in fifty-six, and as a result, Nasser made laughing stocks out of you.

The American Secretary of Defense coughed and fidgeted. Keilty grinned.

'This time,' he went on, 'you are going to make asses out of yourselves if you continue to sit around down here and let that bomb go off. As for world opinion, the Vietnamese have dug themselves their own grave. This research station has received a fair amount of publicity in the past few months. So turn it against them. Pull a surprise raid and disarm the bomb before they can set it off.'

A signalman came in hurriedly, saluted, and handed a flimsy to the H.M.S. Bradley's captain. He read it through and looked up solemnly.

'Gentlemen, there seems to be a Vietnamese warship on

course for the station. Satellite reports indicate that she left Saigon earlier today. Our intelligence believes the ship to be a destroyer delivering the trigger device and that it will take the people off the research station. Their estimated time of arrival is nine hundred hours tomorrow.'

Ànd,' Keilty interrupted, 'you have a heavily armed destroyer, a hundred marines, and two MTBs. And your last chance.' He stood up abruptly and went on deck, pausing to speak briefly with Charlie in his tank near the bow where they were preparing to take him below. After a few minutes he left and climbed forward over the winch until he was leaning against the railing at the bow of the ship. He watched the curving knife edge of the prow slash methodically into the marching procession of whitecaps, the water curling away to either side of the bow, half as high as the deck, in black sheets. The lifting crash of the bow against the waves set the entire ship to shuddering under the sharp concussive shocks. He stayed there watching, wondering what they were deciding below, feeling that he had made a fool of himself with his outbursts.

He turned and clambered back to Charlie's tank, hoping that at least if they didn't have sense enough to put a stop to the Vietnamese foolishness, they would have brains enough to dear out of the strait as fast as possible.

CHAPTER SIX

When Keilty returned to the wardroom an hour later, he found himself stopped at the hatch by a marine guard with a Sten gun, fully cocked.

`Sorry, sir, but ye dinna go in there.

Keilty looked the brawny Scotsman up and down, noticing the set and intelligent face, and decided against making a fuss.

'Do me a favor,' he said. 'Get Admiral Rawingson out here. He'll get me a pass or whatever the devil I need.'

The marine hesitated a moment, then turned and spoke briefly into the intercom. The hatch opened seconds later.

`There you are,' Rawingson growled. 'Wondered where you got to.' He put a hand on Keilty's shoulder and pulled him in, saying to the guard, 'It's all right, Corporal, we need him in here.'

As Keilty entered, he noticed that now, not only was the cooling system prevailing against the pre-monsoon heat, but cooler heads prevailed also. The men were grouped around a large map tacked on the display board at the end of the room. There was no more angry discussion, nor were insults or imprecations being tossed back and forth.

Instead, they were listening closely to the American Secretary of Defense as he carefully went through the various alternatives. Keilty moved halfway into the room and perched on a table. He pulled a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket and thumbed an old, worn Zippo to light it, then settled down to listen. Rawingson sat down on the bench below him and bummed a cigarette, then turned his attention also to the map.

The map was a larger version of the one Rawingson had shown him two days before.

Over it, a sheet of acetate was taped, with grease-pencil markings indicating, first of all, the location of the bomb, then the currents in the strait and the surrounding area.

The Bradley's meteorological officer had drawn in red the wind currents in the vicinity.

A black area shaped like a many-pointed star was located in the Celebes marking the spawning grounds of the summer monsoon. Black arrows also extended northwestward across the Indonesian islands and into the Bay of Bengal to the west of Burma. A series of numbers that Keilty

could not read from where he sat probably indicated expected times of arrival along the monsoon path.

Directly north, over southern China and North Vietnam and extending west to Thailand, the limits of a high-pressure area were drawn in green. This presumably was forcing the monsoon to approach more slowly than usual.

'It is our feeling,' the American Secretary of Defense was saying, 'that they have been planning this attack which they call "Operation Malacca" for quite some time now. They have been extremely fortunate that the weather has furnished such a large high-pressure front.' He indicated the area from the China Sea to Thailand, 'It is producing fair and very dry weather in the North and very shortly will turn the South into a sea of mud and rain.

This will aid their movements down the Peninsula, while at the same time it will hamper Allied forces in Malaya if we are forced to evacuate from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

'The weather will certainly not hamper the insurgents in crossing the strait to Malaya, Singapore, and Borneo. For one thing, we will have lost almost our total straits fleet, so they will have no trouble from that quarter.

'By crossing,' he continued, 'in small craft under the cover of wind and low rain clouds, our bombing will be reduced to almost complete uselessness. Personally, I don't think they will make any trouble south into India. Since the Red Chinese lost their influence in Vietnam, the Soviets have been counting on India to contain China from that direction.'

`What happens,' Keilty asked suddenly, 'if the Indonesian Conununist Party joins with the Malaysian Communists in a drive across Sumatra as well as up the Malay Peninsula?

They just might figure it is time to act again, this time backed by the Vietnamese.'

The Secretary gave him a long, sad look. 'Your point is well taken, Dr. Keilty. It is just one more of the many possible alternatives to consider.' He was speaking now to the representative of the Indonesian army who shifted uncomfortably.

'You can depend on the fact that the Soviet Union is weighing all possibilities. Consider this. If Malaya falls to the Communists, then the line up in Indo-China will be complete.

Thailand remains squeezed but possibly neutral only as long as it takes the Burmese Communists to upset their government and . . . they are not far from that point now.

Then Thailand loses any remaining independence she would have. Cambodia and Laos fall into line without a whimper. With friendly Communist governments throughout the Peninsula, Singapore and its naval base falls right into the Soviet's lap as its main base in the South China Sea . . . controlling the approaches to the Straits from either direction and completing the encirclement of China. China is hemmed in and we are pushed back onto Australia and New Zealand. How long can Indonesia remain independent with insurgents and arms pouring across the Straits? How long can the Philippines remain independent if the South China Sea is a Russian lake?

`Strategic long-range interests make it imperative that the installation be destroyed or neutralized at the very least.' He shifted in his chair and relit his pipe. 'Recognize that the Soviets take no chances here. It all falls on the Vietnamese who recognize that their stake is very, very high . . . and they have always shown themselves willing to gamble against the odds.'

'Way too many alternatives, aren't there?' Keilty commented.

`Way too many,' the Secretary of Defense agreed dryly.

An Indonesian Admiral spoke up, his soft accent harshened by anger. 'What do we wait for? We have no choice but to act now.' He turned to the Bradley's captain. 'If your weather reports are correct, we can no longer delay. To do so will be to see Singapore blanketed by radioactive water.'

'Admiral Okhato is correct, gentlemen,' an Australian officer said quietly. 'Do you want to see another Fall of Singapore like in forty-two. I don't, I was there. If we have to evacuate the bases at the same time everyone in the city is trying to get across the river, our chaps will die of radioactive poisoning. There's three million people in that city, two bridges to the mainland, and the causeway. If the monsoon strikes the day or so following the detonation, the insurgents could occupy a clean city and chase us so far back into the hills it will be the Japanese war all over again.

There was a growl of agreement from the others. After several minutes of arguing, during which the American secretary remained aloof, he banged on the glass top of the chart table with a coffee cup. There was immediate silence.

'I propose,' he said simply, 'that the station be captured and the bombs be disarmed.'

A chorus of seconds greeted his proposal, and minutes later, they were again grouped around the maps, planning the best use of the Bradley, the two MTBs and the four companies of

marines, two Australian/New Zealand combined units and one each Malaysian and Indonesian.

Two hours later, Keilty went below to the crew's mess, where Charlie had been installed, and found him swapping " dirty jokes with the third-watch cook.

`Hey, you clown,' he roared. 'Cut that out, I got enough trouble with him as it is, without you putting more ideas into his head.'

The cook, who had not heard him come in, jumped in surprise, then swung around to see a blond giant with a bright red face bearing down on him. The door to the pantry was open and he made it in record time to the laughter of the other mess workers. Mumbling to himself, Keilty fussed around the tank, checking the water-temperature gauge and recirculating pump to Charlie's soft chuckles.

'For crying out loud,' Keilty said angrily. 'Where in hell did you pick up that kind of language?

`Damned bluenose,' Charlie shot back, then laughed again, the sound coming out in static, as the transphonemator could not transliterate it.

`Look here, those numbskulls have finally decided to raid the station after all.'

"Do tell,' Charlie muttered. 'Another triumph of common sense.'

`Huh? Well, yeah, I guess you could call it that,' Keilty said with a glance at the dolphin that could only be described as fishy. He was beginning to wonder about Charlie. It was turning out that the dolphin was even sharper intellectually than he had thought. This whole fiasco was becoming a real eyeopener.

Keilty dragged up a chair, and with his feet on the seat, settled himself on the back so that he could look down into the tank. The dolphin was lying relaxed in the water.

Charlie had pushed the mike extension around so that he could shift his position without banging into it. Keilty placed his mike in the clip on the edge of the tank and hunched forward comfortably to speak into it.

`So they decided to capture the station and get the bomb,' Charlie reiterated. 'How?'

`Well, as for the station, a straightforward attack is about the only way. Those pictures you brought back show only one narrow ladder, and the deck about sixty feet above the surface.

So the ladder will be the hardest part. You didn't see any other ladders, did you?' he asked sharply.

`Nope.'

`Well that's that, then. The ladder is the only way up.' Keilty paused. 'The stairs will be too well guarded.

'The seas are getting up a bit, and it's beginning to rain pretty hard out there. They tell me it will last about three hours, then quit. After that, the seas should keep rising. So they can depend on that for some cover.'

`That doesn't sound so difficult. I don't know much about this kind of nonsense,' Charlie said, 'but there shouldn't be too much trouble, should there?'

`Yep.' Keilty decided the back of the chair wasn't very comfortable and shifted down to the seat. 'There's a report that a Vietnamese destroyer – a ship like this one – is heading for the station. That could cause all sorts of trouble. They want to keep the carnage and bloodshed down as much as possible because of quote, world opinion, unquote, and if that destroyer shows up and starts shooting, there's going to be a mess.'

`Why not do it all and get it over with before the destroyer shows up?' Charlie asked.

`Because what's to prevent the destroyer from standing off and lobbing a few shells in to destroy the station – and the evidence!' He stressed the last.

Òh.'

`So they need some way to knock off the destroyer, without sinking it if possible, and make it turn back.'

`So where's the problem? Get some help.'

Ì figured you'd say that, 'cause that's what I asked. Ànd ..

Ànd they told me. There's nothing that could do the job that could intercept the Vietnamese destroyer before it's too late. Everyone is either down the strait or back in Singapore, so they don't cause too much of a ruckus down here. Aircraft are out too,' he said to forestall Charlie's next question, 'because of the weather. There's only about two thousand feet visibility out there, even when it's not raining under these clouds. And radar isn't accurate enough for this job.'

Charlie digested all of this for a minute, then said: `So what do they want us to do?'

Keilty stood up and rubbed the back of his neck, wondering how to put this next to the dolphin. He paced a moment,

aware that the dolphin's great, clear eyes were on him, then abruptly sank back down into the chair.

'It's like this,' he began. 'They have what they call a limpet mine. You set a timer, clamp it to a ship with its built-in magnet, and when the timer runs out, the mine explodes and blows a hole in the ship. The timer lets the guy who planted it get away, or lets the ship get out to sea so that it sinks beyond the possibility of salvage.'

Ànd with this wonderful device . . .' Charlie spoke his unfinished sentence in an exceedingly dry voice.

'Now cut that out,' Keilty snapped, irritated.

`They want us – you – to plant this bomb, plant it just so, so that it will blow a God-damned big hole in the ship and force them to turn back.'

`They do, do they?' Charlie glared at him, then dropped his head below the water line.

`Hey, come on out of there,' Keilty yelled, and slapped the water. When nothing happened, he sat grimly back to wait.

Exactly two minutes later, Charlie stuck his head out of the water again. He glared at Keilty for a long moment.

'Do I have to wear that blasted pack again?'

`No. I can make up a sling for you to carry the mine beneath your chest. It only weighs ten pounds or so, and isn't very big.'

Charlie considered again. `So what do I have to do?'

Keilty took a deep breath. It looked as if the dolphin would help after all. Suddenly it occurred to him. Why was he getting so worked up about this phase of the operation?

They had done what they had been asked: verified the presence of the bomb. The rest of it was up to that pack of short-sighted idiots still arguing in the wardroom. He shrugged mentally. Somebody had to do it, and it looked as if they were elected. A germ of an idea occurred to him. His face took on a strangely piratical appearance, his heavy blond brows drawing inward and down. He ran a blunt hand through the straw-colored mop of hair and stood thinking a moment.

`Hey. I said, what do I have to do?' Charlie's demand snapped his train of thought. He grinned at the dolphin.

'My friend, we are going to make a killing. All you gotta do is take the mine. The first MTB – on which I will also be – will take you out and drop you in the path of the destroyer. You hang around until it comes up. It should only be doing fifteen knots or so, and you won't have any trouble in catching it as

it goes by. When you do, plant the mine close to the bottom of the keel, just back of the bow where it begins to flatten out. Figure it's about twenty feet back from the front. The mine has a magnet, so it will stick. As soon as it makes contact with the hull, the mine will go off in exactly fifteen minutes. So you get out of there as fast as possible. Swim back the way you came, and you should be able to spot the second MTB with your sonar.

They will take you back to the Bradley. Then join us as reinforcements.