Anchor In The Storm Part 25

Tuesday, April 21, 1942

Arch tugged his blanket under his chin, but sleep wouldn't come. They'd departed Boston at midnight, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, to meet a North Atlantic convoy bound for England.

He punched down his pillow. The North Atlantic convoys had full escorts, even though only a few U-boats had attacked that route lately. Meanwhile, the Eastern Sea Frontier boasted the highest number of sunken ships and had the lowest number of escort vessels.

And the Ettinger would be gone for over a month.

Arch flopped onto his back. Lillian had let him hold her, and now he'd be gone for a month. He'd miss his parents' anniversary party and the opportunity to spirit Lillian away from Boston so they could focus on each other, away from the war and the case.

He loved her. This was nothing like his earlier feelings for Bitsy or Kate or Gloria. This felt genuine. A restlessness built in his arms and chest-a need to hold her again.

No. He flipped onto his stomach. The needs of the nation took precedence over his personal needs. And the nation needed him to get some sleep before the forenoon watch or he'd be useless.

The alarm clanged general quarters.

Arch groaned and rolled out of bed, fully clothed. Then a strange lightness filled his chest. He hadn't panicked. He was finally licking this. With G.o.d's help, he was licking it.

"What is it this time?" Jim thumped down to the deck.

"Who knows?" Arch slipped on his mackinaw and cover and grabbed his life vest. Other destroyers equipped with radar complained about detecting every little fishing boat and Coast Guard vessel. It would take time to figure out this new technology.

Ted Hayes met them at the top of the ladder inside the bridge superstructure. "We picked up a radar contact. We've closed to one thousand yards."

"Probably a fishing boat." Arch fastened his life vest. Radar only detected aircraft or surfaced vessels.

"Or an unescorted freighter," Jim said.

"With a stupid captain." Emmett Taylor shook his head. All cargo ships had been ordered to put in to port at night, but merchant marines didn't always take orders well.

Hayes flicked his chin. "Captain thinks it's a U-boat."

The junior officers exchanged glances. The odds of contacting a U-boat were infinitesimal.

Arch headed aft on the main deck, following the flow of men and officers to their stations. No moon lit the starry sky, and the Ettinger sliced through the waves.

He pa.s.sed the torpedo tubes and b.u.mped into a sailor.

"Sorry, sir." It was Fish. His alarmed expression changed. The eyebrows drifted low, the eyes pierced, the mouth tightened. "Pardon me, Mr. Vandenberg, sir."

"Carry on." Arch continued on his way, but a sick feeling filled his gut. Mrs. Harrison had mentioned a dinner date with her grandson. What if she'd mentioned meeting Archer Vandenberg accompanying that pretty pharmacist from Dixon's Drugs? A dangerous connection.

Arch flung up a prayer for Lillian's safety, and he met his repair party on the quarterdeck. Most of them. "Where's Carey?"

"Haven't seen him." Tony Vitucci put on his talker's headphones. "Contact at eight-oh-oh yards, bearing three-two-zero, running at sixteen knots. And zigzagging."

"Sixteen knots? Zigzagging?" Arch peered to port. Too fast for a merchant ship or fishing boat, but just right for a surfaced U-boat. Whatever it was, it knew it was being pursued.

Chief Boatswain's Mate Ralph Lynch grabbed the arm of a pa.s.sing sailor. "Mahoney, you seen Carey?"

"Still sleeping, Chief. I couldn't rouse him."

Arch sighed. Why did he have a sneaking feeling Carey had taken a phen.o.barbital tablet to help him sleep? "I'll go down. We have a few minutes until we close the distance."

He strode into the aft superstructure and down the ladder to crew quarters. All the bunks were empty, save one. Arch shook the seaman's shoulders. "Carey! Hit the deck!"

"Don' wanna." He rolled over.

Arch shook harder. "We're at general quarters. Hit the deck and report for duty on the double."

Carey sat up, kneaded his eyes with the heels of his hands, and muttered something Arch didn't want to understand. "Duty. Repair party. Not much fun for a party, if you ask me."

"On the double, sailor."

"Aye aye, sir." He stood up and swayed to the side.

Arch caught his arm. "Or should you report to sick bay?"

Carey turned startled blue eyes to Arch. "No, sir. I'm waking up."

"Very well." Arch led the way up to the deck. This was why they had to break the ring. Sedatives might help in the battle of the nerves, but they interfered with the battle against the U-boats. There had to be a better way, but what could it be?

Back on the quarterdeck, Arch found Vitucci. "What's the word?"

"We're at three hundred yards, sir, staying off her starboard quarter."

Smart idea to stay out of range of the stern torpedo tube, if it was a U-boat. But why would a U-boat flee on the surface? The only way a U-boat could escape a destroyer was to dive. Either the waters were too shallow to avoid depth charges or the sub was damaged.

A cry went up to port. "Torpedo!"

Arch braced himself against the searchlight platform, his heart careening out of control. There! A phosph.o.r.escent streak whizzed along the port side, parallel to the Ettinger's course.

Above him, the searchlight flashed on, the bright beam sweeping the waves until another set of cries rang out.

He'd never seen a U-boat. When the Atwood was attacked, he'd been below decks. Terror and fascination drove him to the lifeline. Locked in the circle of light lay the humped back of a U-boat, Buckner's great whale, its pale wake racing behind it.

But where was the harpoon? Why wasn't the Ettinger firing? They were well within range of the guns and torpedoes, if the torpedoes were set for curved fire.

Arch whipped around. The torpedo crew stood at the lifeline, and on the aft superstructure, the machine-gun crew stared at their prey, immobile. "Man your guns!" Arch shouted. "Vitucci, has the captain-"

"Yes, sir!" The talker's eyes stretched wide. "He ordered every gun to fire at will, torpedoes too. He's spitting mad."

With good reason. Arch faced the aft superstructure and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Man your guns! Mahoney! Lubowitz! Captain ordered you to fire at will."

The seamen stared down at him. "Aye aye, sir."

Arch spun around. "Fish! Stein! Man the torpedoes. Captain's orders."

"Aye aye, sir."

Out on the U-boat, dark figures spilled out of the conning tower aimed for the 88-millimeter deck gun that could sink the Ettinger with a single well-placed sh.e.l.l. "On the double!"

The forward machine gun opened fire, spraying the U-boat's deck, and dark figures toppled into the sea, but still more appeared, ants from their hive. Too many of them.

The U-boat's gun flashed. Arch cried out and braced himself. In an instant, the deck below him heaved, and he landed on his hands and knees. "We're hit."

Vitucci scrambled to his feet and flipped switches. "Aft fire room took the sh.e.l.l above the waterline."

The fire room. Below decks.

Arch froze. Not again. Pipes bursting, steam hissing, men slipping, screaming. The hatches clanging shut, dogged into place. Trapped.

Machine guns stuttered all around him. The two forward 5-inch guns fired, shuddering the deck.

"Mr. Vandenberg? Mr. Vandenberg! Sir!"

Arch's upper lip tingled with cold sweat. How could he go below decks during an attack? He couldn't. But wasn't he the officer? Couldn't he order the repair party down there while he stayed topside, claiming other duties?

The repair party stared at him, awaiting his orders. What was he thinking? That would be dereliction of duty. Abject, unforgivable cowardice. If he gave such an order, he'd have no choice but to resign his commission.

Lord, be with me. He forced out a choppy breath. "Let's go, men."

Ralph Lynch led the way down the hatch. Hissing steam and shouts rose from the depths of the fire room. Just below them to port, a jagged hole showed where the sh.e.l.l had entered.

Arch paused on the ladder to trace the sh.e.l.l's path-and the damage it had done. A torrent of steam spewed from the underside of the giant pipe leading up from Boiler 3 to the funnel. The pipe from Boiler 4 was intact.

"Shut down Boiler 3!" he shouted below.

"Already done." That was Jim's voice.

A smile trembled on his lips. If he had to die, at least he wouldn't be alone. He a.s.sembled his crew on the catwalk. "Once that steam dies down, get to work on the pipe. Lynch, let's see if there's any other damage."

He and Lynch scrambled down the ladder, through the heat and humidity. A m.u.f.fled roar from the 5-inch guns, and the ladder shook beneath his feet. Down on the lower level, Arch swiped at sweat rolling down his temples, his movements stiff and jerky.

Jim's shirt was drenched. "Minor damage, minor injuries. Could have been much worse. Must have been a dud."

"Let's hope we don't take any more sh.e.l.ls." Arch scanned the pipes and valves and gauges he knew by heart. "Wish you were still in gunnery. We wouldn't have had that delay."

"Thanks." Jim squinted up toward the main deck. "I hate being blind in battle."

And trapped. Arch shoved out a breath. "Okay, let's see what we have."

He and Jim inspected Boiler 3, closing valves and taking measurements from gauges, the familiar, ordinary actions like a drug.

"Mr. Avery, sir," the fire room talker called. "The U-boat-she's going down. Either we sunk her or she's diving. She left a dozen men in the water."

Arch and Jim exchanged a heavy glance. The captain would drop depth charges. He had to. The Germans were known to play possum, even abandoning their own men, and then slip away to torpedo range and sink the attacking ship. Buckner knew better than to fall for that ploy.

But the men in the water? The depth charges would kill them instantly.

A loud low whump sounded, sending shivers through the ship and Arch's soul. The first depth charge. Then another, and a third.

Regardless, he had work to do. "Carson! Engelman! What's the word?"

"Lot of popped rivets in the pipe, sir," Carpenter's Mate Bud Engelman shouted down. "And it wrenched loose from where it exits the boiler. Still too much steam to work on it."

"As soon as it's safe. We need to run this boiler."

"Aye aye, sir."

Droplets fell in Arch's face from the condensed steam, and he wiped them away with the sleeve of his mackinaw. "Lynch, let's join the repair party. See any damage down here?"

"No, sir. We took a lucky shot." He whistled.

Thank goodness it was a dud.

Arch's vision swam, and he felt light-headed. And hot. So hot. He needed to get out. He climbed the ladder as fast as he dared. The steam made the steps and the chains slippery, and his shaking hands didn't grip properly.

A scream above him, and his foot slid off the rung. He caught himself, but his pinky finger jammed in a chain link.

Arch winced. "What happened?"

"Carey, you idiot," Engelman said. "I told you not to touch it."

"What happened?" Arch continued his climb, protecting his sore finger.

"I just wanted to see if it was still hot," Carey cried.

"He put his hand in the hole. Cut and burned himself."

Up on the catwalk, Carey clutched his hand to his chest, blood staining his life vest.

"Get to sick bay," Arch said. If only his sore finger qualified as an injury as well.

"Aye aye, sir." The seaman groaned, hunched around his injured hand.

"Mr. Vandenberg, sir," the talker called up to him. "Mr. Odom wants you on deck if you can be spared. They're launching the whaleboat."

"Thank you. Tell him I'm coming." Arch followed Carey up the ladder.

If they were launching the whaleboat, they must be certain the U-boat was sunk. They were searching for survivors.

On the main deck, Arch rested his hands on his knees and gulped down cold, fresh, free air. He was alive. He wasn't trapped. They hadn't been sunk.

But he had no better control of his nerves than before. None.