Anchor In The Storm Part 6

Off Montauk Point, Long Island

Wednesday, January 14, 1942

A good stiff wind, a brace of chill sea mist, and Arch felt awake for the first time all day. It was almost noon.

He stepped closer to the forward funnel to allow sailors to pa.s.s as they swept the deck.

Later today, he'd flush those pills down the head. Phen.o.barbital. Habit-forming, the doctor had said. Dangerous, Lillian had said. Worse than being drunk, in Arch's opinion.

He'd avoided taking the pills until last night, his first night at sea since the sinking. When he was still tossing and turning at 0200, he'd succ.u.mbed to temptation, and he'd slept. Boy, had he slept, but the kind of sleep that left him more exhausted than the night before.

After Mr. Odom caught him fast asleep over his paperwork earlier this morning, Arch vowed never to take the fool medicine again. Better a fitful night than this.

Arch pa.s.sed two seamen scrubbing their laundry. Although he'd dreaded going back to sea, perhaps this was the best way to conquer his nerves. Getting back on the old horse and all that. Besides, at sea, he felt G.o.d's presence most keenly-the enormity and depth, the mystery and beauty, the peace and power.

He peered north. A cloudy sky, but with good visibility. Not good enough to see Boston and the lovely Lillian Avery, though.

His mouth puckered. He should feel guilty longing for port. The U-boats had arrived. Two days before, the British pa.s.senger ship Cyclops had fallen prey to a German torpedo only three hundred miles east of Cape Cod.

The Navy had issued a warning of ten U-boats off the East Coast, and just that morning, they'd closed the ports of Boston, Portsmouth, and Portland due to the threat. The Ettinger wasn't on official patrol, only testing her sea legs with her new crew, but Buckner felt it wouldn't hurt for the Germans to see the might of the US Navy.

The might? Arch ducked some flapping laundry. The few warships in eastern ports were officially a.s.signed to convoy escort across the North Atlantic to England, and the number and quality of ships a.s.signed to coastal patrol would make Hitler laugh. Nowhere near enough to inst.i.tute coastal convoys.

Despite the threat, despite the dire need at sea, Arch longed to sit next to an amber-haired pharmacist in a green dress.

She should always wear green. It brought out the color in her hazel eyes and made her hair glow. Granted, he'd like her in mousy gray. So lively and genuine, a woman who didn't need him or even want him. Yet sometimes he saw a flash of fear and insecurity. Perhaps someday she wouldn't mind a man to stand by her side, a man to lean on.

A group of sailors stood by the davits of the whaleboat, inspecting the tackle, the system of lines and pulleys that lowered the boat to the sea.

"I tell you, boys. It's only a matter of time." Seaman Winters ran his hand along a line. "It'll be worse than the seas off Iceland."

"I heard over eighty men went down with the Cyclops. And what are we doing? We're swimming laps."

"Yeah, and did you see the sh.o.r.e lit up like Christmas last night? Why don't they order a blackout, huh?"

"The n.a.z.is will turn this sh.o.r.e into a shooting gallery, and we ain't got nothing to shoot back with."

Arch winced. While he agreed with every word, grumbling was bad for morale. He stepped forward.

"Say, fellas." Warren Palonsky scowled and raised his hands as if brandishing a tommy gun. "You wanna see a shooting gallery? I'll show you a shooting gallery." His voice managed to mix Buckner with Bogart, and he sprayed imaginary bullets out to sea.

The men laughed and whooped, and Arch smiled. Palonsky always lightened the mood.

"What's going on here?" Lieutenant Odom strode over in his overcoat with his own scowl in place. "Pipe down and do your duties."

The men snapped to attention. "Aye aye, sir."

Odom glanced Arch's way. "Mr. Vandenberg. You were about to tell them the same thing, were you not?"

Arch gave him a noncommittal smile. "May I have a word with you, Mr. Odom?"

"Very well." He followed Arch to a quieter section of the deck. "Yes?"

"Just so you know, that was the tail end of that exchange. The men were grumbling, and Palonsky wanted to lift their spirits."

Odom shifted his jaw to one side. "They were goofing off."

"Only for a minute, sir. The men are on edge. They've served on convoy duty. They've seen ships go down, bodies in the water. Some of them rescued the survivors of the Reuben James and the Atwood. Some of them were on those ships. They're nervous, and Palonsky took their minds off the danger."

"Maybe. But he also took their minds off their work."

"I'll talk to him, sir."

"Good." Odom departed.

Arch huffed. How did the man get through the Naval Academy without a sense of humor?

"Palonsky?" He waved over the seaman.

"Yes, sir?" The sailor stood rigidly at attention.

"At ease. You have some comedic skills."

He shrugged. "Trying to boost morale, sir. The men are wound tight, and Buck-" His gray-blue eyes went wide.

"Please speak freely." Arch angled his shoulders toward Palonsky. "This is confidential."

Palonsky's mouth worked, and his gaze darted around. "It's just . . . Captain Buckner and Mr. Odom are hard men, sir. The boys can't work like this. They'll snap, now that we're at war."

"I know. However, the comedy needs restraint. The purpose is to aid the men in their duties, not to interfere, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"So why don't we confine the outright comic routines to quarters and the mess? When you're at light duties, perhaps a few jokes."

A spark of mischief lit. "Want me to run the scripts past you first, sir?"

Oh boy. Arch would certainly be the subject of the next comic routine. He smiled and clapped the man on the shoulder. "Not necessary. I trust you. Carry on."

"Aye aye, sir." Palonsky returned to the tackle.

The alarm clanged. General quarters!

Arch's heart careened into his throat, his knees bent, hands splayed wide, braced for impact.

"All hands to battle stations."

Dear Lord, a U-boat. Arch knew what to do, where to go, but he froze, braced, immobile, while men scurried to their stations.

"Lord, help me." He broke free, stumbled forward. "I'm not below decks. Not trapped."

Before him, in the doorway to the bridge superstructure, Mr. Odom talked to the executive officer, Lt. Ted Hayes. Odom beckoned to Arch.

He worked his way to them, pulling himself together. "What's going on? Sound contact?"

"Message from Newport. A Navy patrol plane reported a sunken tanker sixty miles southeast of Montauk Light."

"U-boat." Arch swallowed hard. "We're chasing it."

"No, we're searching for survivors. A lifeboat and a raft were spotted."

"Then we're chasing-"

"No." Odom's face scrunched up as if he'd eaten something sour. "Those are not our orders. Our orders are to rescue survivors."

"It's stupid." Hayes crossed thick arms. "This is a destroyer. Designed to destroy U-boats. But we'll be good little boys and do as we're told."

"Better hope that U-boat crosses our path. Then we can sink it," Odom said.

"Yes." Arch put false cheer into his voice. "Better hope."

By the time Arch reached the quarterdeck, Chief Boatswain's Mate Ralph Lynch had gathered the men in the damage control repair party-a machinist's mate, a gun captain, a talker, and repairmen for machinery, electrical, and structural integrity.

Arch briefed them on the situation. Although the Ettinger was performing a rescue, with a U-boat in the vicinity she had to be ready for combat.

The crew set Condition One, closing and d.o.g.g.i.ng hatches and doors and preparing tools, first-aid supplies, and firefighting equipment.

A few minutes of rushed activity. Then watching and waiting. Arch scoured the horizon through binoculars. A periscope, a wake, a lifeboat, a signal flare, a column of smoke, oil on the surface-anything to guide them. Deep in the hull below, the sonar crew would be monitoring for a submerged submarine.

Arch's vision through the binoculars blurred. Stupid shaking hands. He flexed and clenched his hands, over and over, as if he only wanted to warm them.

An hour pa.s.sed. The stewards brought up sandwiches and coffee from the mess. While the communication, navigation, and propulsion divisions would be humming with activity, the deck gang and the gunners watched. Waited. No opportunity to act. No opportunity to relax.

"Ahoy!" a lookout cried from the signal bridge, pointing to port.

Arch spun and pressed the binoculars to his eyes. A lifeboat. Thank you, G.o.d. Not a sub.

"Away fire and rescue party," sounded over the loudspeaker, and the destroyer slowed, the familiar pitch of engines telegraphing the precise speed to Arch.

The rescue party gathered by the whaleboat, including Mr. Odom and the ship's medic, Pharmacist's Mate Parnell Lloyd. The whaleboat had already been loaded with blankets, first-aid supplies, and rum.

Arch returned to his station. U-boats sometimes lingered near their victims to prey on rescue ships. They couldn't lower their guard.

In the lifeboat, hands waved above blond heads.

"Lower the cargo nets," Arch ordered the sailors by the rails. "Prepare to aid the survivors."

They heaved the nets over the side, then tossed lines to the lifeboat to help them heave to.

Arch grasped the lifeline. Twenty-four survivors, it looked like, if they'd sit still long enough for him to count. But they waved and cheered and called out in a Scandinavian language. "Anyone speak English?" he shouted.

"Ja! I do." A stout middle-aged man pulled on the line. "Takk. Tusen takk. Thank you."

Arch ordered three sailors to climb down the net and a.s.sist the survivors. "What happened? Where are you from?"

"The Panamanian tanker Norness. But we are norsk."

Arch addressed the talker behind him. "Call the bridge. Find out if anyone on board speaks Norwegian." He turned back to the survivors working their way up the net. "What happened?"

A long string of Norwegian hit his ears, and it wasn't happy. "U-boat. Three torpedoes."

Arch glanced out over the waves, straining to see the enemy. "How many men?"

"Forty. Here we are twenty-four."

"Mr. Vandenberg, sir?" the talker called. "Captain got word from New Bedford. A fishing boat picked up nine survivors. Still one raft unaccounted for."

"Thank you." Seven more to find. He grasped a hand and heaved a man onto the deck.

"Takk. Takk." A young man in nothing but an undershirt and shorts shivered hard.

Two crewmen wrapped the survivor in a blanket and poured rum down his throat.

Arch shuddered. Not even two months earlier he'd been the waterlogged flotsam wrapped in blankets and soaked in rum.

He dragged another man on board, the English speaker, splattered head to toe in black oil. Someone tossed Arch a blanket, and he flung it around the man's trembling shoulders. "You're cold."

"We are from Norge. We are not cold." The man's blue lips broke into a quaking grin.

Arch chuckled. "When were you sunk? How long were you in the lifeboat?"

The Norwegian downed the rum a sailor offered him and wiped his mouth. "First torpedo at 0130."

Arch yanked up his coat sleeve to see his wrist.w.a.tch. It was 1330. Twelve hours. Thank goodness the men of the Atwood had been rescued immediately. Destroyers only had two whaleboats, and the life rafts consisted of a rubber ring with netting in the center, useless in frigid waters.

"You are cold?" The Norwegian sailor hunkered in the blanket.

"Me? No."

"You . . . you . . ." He held out one hand and wiggled it.