Acts of War Read online

  “Father is furious,” she said softly. “Strangely, I don’t give a damn.”

  “You know that I have to go almost as soon as we get back,” Adam said. Turning, he saw Clarine’s eyes were moist already.

  “Yes, yes I know,” she said softly. “And there’s no chance father will let me out of his sight until you do so.”

  Adam could hear the deep tone of bitterness in her voice.

  “Life becomes very lonely when you hate your parents,” he said chidingly.

  “I have half a mind to come with you,” Clarine replied fiercely. “That would bloody well serve him right.”

  “Well, wouldn’t be the first scandal an American has caused in this country,” he said musingly, rubbing his chin theatrically.

  “I am serious, Adam,” Clarine retorted.

  “I may not even be alive in a fortnight, Clarine,” Adam said somberly. “Think about that. Do you really want to throw away your future, inheritance, and family name for some vagabond American mercenary?”

  Clarine searched his face.

  “Is that really how you think I see you?”

  “No, but it’s how your father and the rest of your social circle see me. Yes, I come from the right circles and know which fork to start with at dinner, but at the end of the day I am like some exotic animal that is best petted and left alone.”

  “Adam, I love you.”

  “And I you,” Adam said, fighting the urge to sweep Clarine into his arms. “So much that I will not let you ruin the rest of your life to flee with me.”

  “What about what I want?” Clarine asked as the Accalon came around. “Don’t I get to decide the rest of my life, or is that solely the province of my male betters?”

  Adam sighed.

  Strong women will be the death of me, he thought with a deep sense of melancholy.

  “Why don’t you tell the truth, Adam?” Clarine continued. “You’re scared of what will happen to me if I try to escape with you.”

  “Yes, the thought of you drowning or freezing to death in the Atlantic does strike me with some trepidation.”

  Clarine snarled in exasperation.

  “Not every event in life ends the worst way possible, Adam!” she breathed lowly through clenched teeth.

  Adam turned and looked behind him at the burning London, then back to Clarine.

  “Perhaps now is not the time to try and convince me of this. More importantly, Clarine, I have to look after my men.”

  Clarine opened her mouth to argue, then stopped.

  “Then when this boat docks will be the last time we see each other,” she replied coolly.

  Adam felt as if someone had stomach punched him. He started to reach for Clarine, but she held up her hand to stop him.

  “You seem determined to leave Adam,” she said. “You are even more determined to make sure I do not leave with you in some misguided attempt to ‘save’ me. Perhaps it is best then, that I acknowledge you have greater experience in dealing with disastrous circumstances such as these.”

  The words were delivered with cold precision, and they found their mark with the same brutal finality of a knife thrust.

  “I do not want us to end this way, Clarine,” Adam bit out, feeling his stomach sinking to his feet.

  “If you had stopped after the seventh word of that sentence,” Clarine said, her voice quavering, “I might have been inclined to reconsider. Instead, I believe that I am feeling rather nauseous from the smoke and will go below. Have a safe journey, Adam.”

  With that, Clarine turned and began walking back towards the deckway hatch, moving quickly as she wiped at her face. Adam watched her go, his stomach in knots.

  Well, at least it’s an improvement from last time I went through this, he thought. Fighting the urge to curse loudly, he slowly rotated back towards the Accalon’s bow, and then walked forward to where only the Thames could see his tears.

  Red Two

  North Atlantic

  1000 Local (0700 Eastern)

  12 September

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Eric Cobb, like many aviators, did not lack for confidence. It took a very confident or very stupid man to step into a single-engined aircraft, then take off from a small postage stamp of a warship on a flight over hundreds of miles of featureless ocean. Some people, to include Eric’s father, believed that repeatedly doing this was the height of idiocy. Eric, on the other hand, had developed a liking for the hours of solitude, sunlight, and beautiful ocean vistas that were only visible from several thousand feet of altitude.

  Unfortunately for Eric, the 12th day of September in the year of our Lord nineteen forty-two had none of the above.

  “Okay asshole, I think we’re getting a little bit close to the Kraut fleet’s estimated position,” Eric muttered, his hands white knuckled on his SBD Dauntless’s stick and throttle. The “asshole” in question was VB-4’s squadron leader, Lieutenant Commander Abe Cobleigh, and the soup that passed for a sky all around them made following Red One’s plane a feat of concentration and skill. The conditions were making Eric’s forward canopy fog and he had to fight the urge to take his feet off the rudder pedals and brace himself up to look over the top of the forward glass. At several inches over six feet Eric wouldn’t have had to stretch far, but taking one’s feet off the rudder in the current conditions was not a recipe for longevity. Even though the radial-engine “Slow But Deadly” was as beloved for its handling characteristics as its ruggedness, Eric had no desire to see how well he could pull out from a stupidity-induced spin.

  “What was that, sir?” Radioman 2nd Class Henry Rawles asked from the tail gunner position.

  “Nothing Rawles, nothing,” Eric called back, keeping his voice level so the young gunner wouldn’t think he was perturbed at him.

  Not Rawles’s fault our squadron leader is a…

  Without warning, the Dauntless burst out of the cloud bank. Eric had just enough time to register the changing conditions, give a sigh of relief, then start looking around before all hell broke loose. The anti-aircraft barrage that burst around the two single-engine dive bombers was heavy and accurate. With a seeming endless cascade of crack! crack! crack!, heavy caliber shells exploded all around Eric’s bomber, the blasts throwing it around like backhands from a giant.

  Jesus Christ! Eric thought, stomping left on his rudder and pulling back on the stick to get back into the clouds.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Commander Cobleigh’s been hit!” Rawles shouted.

  Before Eric could respond, another shell exploded on the bomber’s right side with a deafening roar and flash. Eric felt a sharp sting and burning sensation across the back of his neck as the canopy shattered in a spray of glass, the Dauntless heeling over from the explosion. Stunned, Eric instinctively leveled the dive bomber off and found himself back in the cloud bank before he fully recovered his senses.

  With full recovery came consciousness of just how screwed he was. First Eric realized that it was only by the grace of God that he hadn’t been laid open like a slaughtered animal. His shredded life vest, damaged control stick and throttle, and a very large hole in the cockpit’s side were all evidence that several fragments had blasted all around him. Fighting down the urge to vomit, Eric quickly checked both of his wings, noting that the surfaces were thoroughly peppered as he fought to keep the SBD level. Fuel streamed behind the bomber, starting to gradually slow as the self-sealing tanks proved their worth.

  Oh we are in trouble now. The two SBDs had been near the limit of their search arc when fired upon. Even with the self-sealing tanks working as advertised, Eric was certain that the damage to the wing tanks had just guaranteed Rawles and he would not be landing back aboard Ranger. Swiveling his head, he attempted to find Red One’s SBD Dauntless dive bomber through the murk.

  “Rawles!” Eric called over the intercom.

  “Yes, sir?” his gunner responded.

  “You see what happened to One?” Eric began, then suddenly remembered Rawles’ report. “I mean aft
er he got hit.”

  “Sir, there was no after Lt. Commander Cobleigh got hit,” Rawles replied, his voice breathless. “He just exploded!”

  Eric felt the sick feeling return to his stomach. After a moment’s temptation to just go ahead and vomit over the side, he fought the puke back down.

  “What else did you get a chance to see?” Eric asked.

  “It looked like there were at least two battleships, maybe three. Jesus they were close!”

  “Okay, you need to get off a position report of those German bastards. Send it in the clear back to Ranger, keep repeating it until someone acknowledges, and I will try to figure out if we’re going to make it back.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Rawles replied. A few moments later, Eric heard the Morse code starting to get tapped out. Pulling out his map, he suddenly realized he had no clue which direction he was flying. Looking down at the compass, he felt a sudden sigh of relief when he saw they were heading southwest, away from the Germans and generally towards their own fleet.

  “Sir, I’ve got an acknowledgment from the Augusta. She’s asking our status,” Rawles said.

  “Send this in code: Red One destroyed, Two unlikely to return to fleet. Will send crash location,” Eric said tersely.

  They broke out of the low clouds into an area of open sky, the sun beaming down on the battered Dauntless. Eric suddenly felt exposed and began scanning around the horizon. He heard and felt Rawles unlimber his twin .30-caliber machine guns and was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one on edge.

  Those bastards tried to kill us! he thought, then remembered how close the Germans had come to doing just that.

  “Rawles, you all right?”

  “I got nicked on my calf, but it’s not serious. Are we actually about to crash, sir?” Rawles asked.

  “It’s about two hundred miles back to the fleet, and we don’t have two hundred miles of fuel…”

  “Smoke! Smoke to starboard!” Rawles shouted. Eric whipped his head around and saw the smudge that Rawles had sighted low on the horizon.

  “Well, you just might have kept us from a day in the raft, Rawles,” Eric said happily, grabbing the stick with his left hand. Reaching down the right side of his seat, he opened his binoculars’ case and reached in. There was a sharp prick on his gloved finger, and he jerked his hand back. Reaching down more carefully, he realized that while the lid was still present on the case, the container itself was twisted metal.

  “Rawles, you still have your binoculars?”

  “Roger sir,” Rawles came back.

  “Let’s see what you can see,” Eric replied. “Mine are shot to hell.”

  There was a slight rustling in the backseat as Eric brought the SBD around to begin closing with the smoke. After a few moments, it was clear there was more than one column. About ten minutes later, it was very obvious that the Dauntless was closing with an entire group of ships.

  “Sir, that looks like the Brits!” Rawles said. “I can’t tell very well, but that looks like one of their heavy cruisers and a few destroyers heading away from us.”

  “Great,” Eric muttered. “I get to be shot at by both sides today.”

  “What was that, sir?”

  “Nevermind, just talking to myself. Send this location in code also, then get ready to start signaling with a lamp.”

  “Approaching aircraft, approaching aircraft, these are Royal Navy vessels,” a clear, accented voice crackled into Eric’s earpieces. “Do not continue to approach or you will be fired upon.”

  Eric turned the SBD away, banking to show his silhouette and national insignia. The dive bomber initially complied with the movement, then suddenly staggered and began to roll to the left. Eric fought the maneuver, but found that he was only able to hold the aircraft level with the stick pressed almost completely to the right. Looking out at his ailerons, he saw that both were in the down position.

  Great, just great, Eric thought.

  “Royal Navy vessel, this is a United States Navy aircraft in need of assistance,” Eric said once he had control of his aircraft. “Request permission to ditch close aboard.”

  There was a pause of a sufficient length that Eric felt his arm starting to shake from the effort of maintaining level flight.

  “American aircraft, you may ditch close aboard,” came the response.

  Eric heard Rawles wrestling around in the rear cockpit.

  “Sir, I’ve got the code books in a sack with a box of ammo. Want me to throw it over the side?”

  “Great plan, Rawles,” Eric gritted. “Get rid of the guns too, don’t want you getting brained when we get out.”

  A moment later, Eric heard the twin machine guns bang down against the fuselage on their way over the side. Shortly after, there was a similar noise as the code books and ammo followed suit the .30-caliber tail guns. Taking a little pressure off the stick, Eric brought the Dauntless around in a gradual left-hand turn to see the large cruiser coasting to a stop. The five destroyers accompanying the vessel circled like protective sheep dogs, smoke drifting up from their stacks.

  I hope those tin cans don’t find anything. Don’t feel like adding “got torpedoed” to my list of bad things that have happened today. His right arm began twitching, warning of impending muscle failure, and he quickly grabbed the stick with his left hand for a couple of moments.

  “All right Rawles, I’ve never done this before so I don’t know how much time we have,” Eric said, fighting to keep his voice calm. “Stand by to ditch.”

  As Rawles acknowledged his order, Eric had a chance to give the British cruiser a good look. A twin-stacked, three-turreted ship, the RN vessel was painted in three tones of gray, the pattern seemingly random from above. As the dive bomber circled downward from five thousand feet, Eric realized that the captain had placed the vessel athwart the wind, leaving a relatively calm area on her lee. Eric recognized the maneuver as one occasionally conducted by American cruisers in order to recover their seaplanes.

  Glad to see things aren’t totally different between our navies. The Dauntless shuddered, and Eric noted the engine starting to run slightly rougher. Giving a prayer of thanks that Rawles had sighted the vessels, Eric resolved to put the dive bomber down as quickly as possible. Clenching his teeth, his right arm starting to burn with muscle fatigue again, Eric finished the last turn of his gradual spiral down barely one hundred feet over the water and half a mile from the stopped ship. Fighting at the edge of a stall, he pulled the nose up slightly to start killing the SBD’s forward momentum.

  It was an almost perfect ditching. The dive bomber stalled, the wings losing their last bit of lift barely ten feet above the ocean. There was nothing Eric could do to prevent the nose starting to come down, with the result that the landing was not as smooth as he had hoped. The impact slammed him forward, his restraints failing to prevent his head from snapping against the instrument panel. Seeing stars, Eric slumped backward briefly into his seat and took a moment to gather himself. As he ran his tongue over his teeth to make sure they were all there, Eric felt the airplane lurch and start to settle towards starboard. The swirl of water into the bottom of the cockpit told him that he did not have long to get out of the crippled aircraft.

  “Sir, you okay?!” Rawles asked, standing on the port wing by the aircraft. Eric turned and looked at him, the movement sluggish. Rawles didn’t wait for an answer, reaching in and starting to help Eric unbuckle.

  “Get the…” Eric started, fighting hard to get through the mental fog. “Get the life raft.”

  No sooner had he said that than water began pouring over the edge of his cockpit. The cold North Atlantic did wonders to clear the cobwebs, and he realized with a start that Rawles was already up to his chest in the water. Kicking his feet free of the rudder pedals and disconnecting his radio cord, Eric pulled off his shredded life vest and started to stand up. The movement didn’t come off as planned as the Dauntless slid out from under him. In moments, he and Rawles were both swimming in the cold A
tlantic, their plane a momentary dark shape underneath them before it slid into the depths.

  “Guess we could’ve left the codebooks after all,” Rawles muttered. “Damn sir, you look like someone hit your noggin’ with a sledgehammer.”

  Eric kicked his legs to get out of the water while reaching up with his left arm. He winced as he touched the massive goose egg on this forehead.

  That explains why I’m a little out of it, Eric thought, pleasantly surprised he was able to form a semi-coherent thought. Although it would appear going for a swim in cold as hell water helps clear up getting knocked on the head.

  Worryingly, Eric could feel his arm cramps returning as he treaded water.

  I’m not sure how long I’ll make it without a life vest, he thought worriedly. The noise of a boat motor carrying across the waves was the sweetest sound he had ever heard. Turning, he saw that the cruiser’s boat was almost upon them. Eric attempted to start swimming towards the whaleboat and realized with a start that his legs were going numb.

  “Just stay there, gentlemen, we will be with you shortly!” a man in the boat’s prow shouted.

  Minutes later the Royal Navy lieutenant was proven as good as his word, with blankets being dropped over the Americans’ shoulders and rum shoved into their hands. Rawles threw his shot back quickly, only starting to shiver once he got it down. Eric, hardly a drinker, took two swallows to get the rum into his stomach and had to fight against retching.

  “My name is Leftenant Aldrich, medical office for the His Majesty’s Ship Exeter,” the man began as the whaleboat began returning to the cruiser. Eric saw that the man was tall and thin, his navy blue jacket hanging off him like he was a walking clothes hanger.

  He must be older than he looks, Eric thought as he took in the man’s youthful freckled face and dark red hair. While his voice was deep and firm, Aldrich looked like he hadn’t been shaving for more than a week. After a moment’s silence, Eric realized the man was awaiting similar information from him.

  “Lieutenant junior grade Eric Cobb,” Eric said. “This is my gunner, Rawles. Since you guys actually gave us some warning, I’ll assume it’s not your fleet that gunned us down.”