Hatteras Blue (37 page)

Galloway had meanwhile trained the carbine out of the side window of the pilothouse. He set the peep sight for wind and distance and the selector for single shots. He aimed carefully, slumping forward into the butt, and fired. The man who held binoculars on them from the U-boat's bridge threw his hands skyward and disappeared.

He shifted the front sight farther aft and squeezed three slow rounds into the mass of men who were struggling to get below. Behind him Hirsch fired another burst, this one better aimed. Bullets clanged off steel. The men around the hatch redoubled their struggles for cover.

A sound like tearing canvas came across the water, and a hailstorm struck the old PT. The heavy machine-gun slugs smashed through wood and aluminum and plexiglas. They picked Straeter up and threw him across the deck to sprawl grotesquely against Keyes.

"Down!" shouted Galloway, but Bernie had already dropped and was wriggling forward. "Shad, get up here, damn it!"

"Comin'. Comin'." Looking punch-drunk, Aydlett scrambled toward them on all fours. As he reached the deckhouse the gun clattered again from the conning tower, winking like a welding arc, and the second joined it. Galloway covered his head with his arms as all the windows burst in at once. Chunks of the fragile foredeck and bulwarks flew apart, ragged fragments wheeling into the sea, splinters showering across the open deck.

"Get down. Low. I left some of the frag armor in the sides when I rebuilt this bitch."

"Tiller, what we going to do?"

"Fight." The firing slackened; he bobbed up, squeezed, but the striker clicked hollowly. He pulled out the magazine, stared at it for a moment, then let it and the empty weapon thud to the deck. "I guess we can't even do that."

"Here. Use this." She thrust the Schmeisser into his hands.

They were waiting for him when his head showed again. The machine-gun flashes came through a wall of spray as the sea erupted a few feet short of the old boat. He narrowed his eyes, as a man does against rain, and held the chattering weapon's sights a few feet above the black hull. When it went dry he ducked down again.

"Why'd you stop?" said Aydlett.

"Out of beans ... Bernie. Look, I'm sorry I got you into this. I thought we could force 'em to submerge."

"Don't apologize!" Her eyes burned up at him, and then he felt her lips soft and hot on his. Just for a moment. "At least
he's
dead. Tiller ... will the engines start?"

He peered aft. The gunwales were ragged, but most of the fire had come in high. "They might. Why?"

"Couldn't we run into them?"

"Ram," he corrected automatically, even as his mind explored it. The old patrol boat had stout bows, but nothing made of wood was equal to the pressure hull of a sub. It would be suicidal.

"Only thing left to do," said Aydlett. "At least get us alongside, let me loose on deck—"

"Shape you're in, Shad, that might laugh them to death," said Galloway, grinning despite himself. "But you're right. It's all we got left."

He turned the key, mashed the starter button, and heard the whine above the guns. The pistons thudded lifelessly. He held the switch down, bending its mount into the instrument panel.

The old Reos choked and then fired. One caught and then the other, though with an eccentric vibration that ran up through the chair to chatter his teeth. Damage below, he thought. Bound to be leaking too. But
Victory
was gathering way through the water.

And fortunately too, he thought, they were already well inside torpedo range.

"First good luck today," he shouted down. Shad and Bernie looked up at him. Her face was a mix of exhilaration and terror. His was a battered mask of rage.

Galloway shoved the throttle all the way forward and left it there.

The firing had slackened as they began to move. Changing magazines, he figured, or letting the barrels cool for a moment. But as
Victory's
bow began to swing both gunners saw his intention simultaneously and opened up again, hammering at them now without pause.

"Tiller, get down!"

"Can't." But he bent as low as he could and still see through the shattered windshield.

The inside of the cabin exploded as the guns found the range. The heavy slugs went through plywood with little damage, blowing out jagged holes where they exited, but where metal edging or bolts or instruments lay in their path they too became deadly missiles. The depth sounder burst into cogwheeled shrapnel. The binnacle blew apart in a stinging cloud of glass and alcohol. The top rim of the wheel exploded into splinters as Galloway ducked to escape the blizzard of lead. Bernie lay digging her nails into the deck, wincing as bullets clunked into the plating by her head. With a dull thud the fire extinguisher disappeared in a cloud of choking blue powder. The lockers aft rattled as slugs caromed around inside them.

Galloway raised his head again after a moment White water seethed at the U-boat's stern. Something tore through the roof, whined past his ear. He ignored it and swung the broken wheel left, aiming the bow aft of the conning tower. They were still gathering speed, but without much farther to go. Fifty feet away— thirty—

"Hold on!" he shouted.

With a ripping sound
Victory
struck, throwing him to the floor as the bow tilted toward sky. Aydlett crawled to him and grabbed his arm. "You okay?"

"Not exactly. But still breathing."

"We hit 'em?"

"Felt like it, didn't it?"

Hirsch stood up for a quick look, dropping instantly as another burst came through the naked win-dowframes. "Tiller. We're up on its back. Right beside the conning tower."

"Good."

"Can we get off here? Can we get away?"

Galloway lay motionless for a moment, eyes closed. The pain was incredible. "Don't think so, Bern. Felt like we tore her bottom out. She's finished."

A long groan and scrape came from beneath them. The boat shuddered and lay slowly over to port.

They waited for the first white-suited man to come over the side, gun in hand.

A slow vibration came through the keel. The old boat slid farther over, then partially righted. Galloway felt her give a slight jog to the side, almost as if she were partially afloat again.

"Help me up, Bern."

She put an arm under his and hauled him up. When he could get his arms on the wheel he pulled himself the rest of the way onto the seat. He looked out to starboard. They were almost free of the black hull. And he saw why.

The U-boat was sinking.

When he'd run
Victory
up on its afterdeck the additional weight had forced the stern under. Now the sea was cascading into the big after-hatch, still propped wide for back-loading the davit. Tons of seawater were destroying the delicate trim, lifting the submarine's bow as her stern settled into the hungry sea.

Not to mention pouring onto electrical switchboards, generators, engines, the volatile fuel this experimental ship ran on...

A puff of smoke, or steam, blew green water out of the open hatch, but it swirled back in.

Victory
slid free as the
Unterseeboot
settled beneath her. Her screws bit water again and she described a slow, wallowing curve away. A last rattle of fire came from the tower. The rounds arched high, raising spurts of foam far beyond the circling PT.

Galloway and Hirsch watched, their hands locked. Beside them Aydlett braced himself on powerful arms, staring at the sea.

The U-boat's stern disappeared, leaving a swirl of bubbles and smoke. The bow tilted high, showing its graceful deadly curves, the oval outlines of torpedo tube doors.

The first detonation threw a spumy foam a few feet above the frothing surface aft of the tower. Its concussion rattled
Victory's
loose fittings even before the sound reached them through the air. The bow rose higher from the water, as if struggling to remain afloat.

The second explosion tore the ocean apart. A cloud of steam and smoke and spray rolled out from the stricken ship, lit from within by flashes of blue fire. Above the cloud part of the bow leapt from the water and crashed ponderously back into the sea.

But the Atlantic, though split asunder, swept back in. From behind the gray shroud of steam and vapor came low rumbles, smaller explosions for several minutes. They gradually grew fainter, subsiding into the depths.

Victory
staggered at a wave, heeled slowly, and dipped her bow. Galloway looked away from the rolling cloud.

"She's taking a lot of water," he said.

"Can't we do something?"

"I'll go below, get the pump workin'—"

Galloway leaned forward, caught a liquid glimmer at the foot of the companionway. "Forget it. Her guts are torn out. She'll be going soon."

"What can we do?"

"Find something that'll float. That's my advice."

The old boat had her head down, like a tired hound. Her rolls were heavier, and she came back more slowly from each one. Galloway nursed her around and pointed her into the mist-shrouded patch of sea. A chemical smell bit at their nostrils. Small items littered the jostling waves: a length of board, an oil can, unidentifiable flotsam. They came out on the other side seeing nothing more. Galloway pulled the throttle back to idle as the propellers, lifting out of the water, began to shake the stern.

"What's that?"

He looked after her finger. It was an orange object, rolling slightly a few hundred yards away. Galloway reached for the binoculars. A bullet had mangled one lens. The other side was whole. He raised it and peered.

"It's
Charlene."

"Will that do?"

"Might could."

"Hold three of us?" said Aydlett.

"It might," said Galloway. "If we don't take a lot of luggage."

He sent Aydlett and Hirsch aft, to lower the stern a bit, and edged the sluggishly moving boat toward it. Halfway there the engines died. "Water's got to them," he said. "Bernie, think you can swim it from here?"

When he turned to see why she hadn't answered she was already in the water, doing a graceful crawl.

The sea was halfway up the companionway steps when she brought the little vehicle alongside, threw a bow line up to Aydlett, and swung herself up after it. "You ready?" she said briskly to Galloway.

"J guess so."

"Shad, give me a hand with him."

He tried to help with his arms, but even so they almost dropped him over the side. The transfer was made easier by the fact that
Victory's
was now only a little above the water. He settled himself in the seat. Aydlett, above him, said "What else we goin' to need, Tiller?"

Galloway checked the gauges in front of him. "Well, we've got a compass here. Get yourself a life preserver, and some line, we'll have to make you fast somehow. Grab the chart. And a tarp from the aft locker, and the boat hook. You'll have to rig us a sail."

"Water? Food?"

"Water if you can get to it. Don't stay below too long."

"Right." He reappeared in seconds and started handing things down. Beer. Flashlight. Chart. Flares. Galloway had turned on the ballast pump and the little craft began to bob jauntily in the lee.

"Hurry up, both of you, damn it," he called. The multicolored sea was lapping at the freeing ports. His nose wrinkled; the spreading film was diesel fuel. The old PT was near her end.

"Tiller."

He looked up. Hirsch was holding up the plastic sack. It was torn; whiteness ran down her arms in a slow heavy stream.

"Jesus, Hirsch—"

"Look out below!"

She had reversed it, got both thumbs in the tear. Now she pulled, showing her teeth, and it opened suddenly end to end. She tossed the torn sack over the side between Galloway and the hull. The wind caught a streamer of it and it blew out over him, powdering
Charlene
like a frosted doughnut, whitening the waves. But only for a moment before it dissolved, whirled downward.

"Pure, all right," said Galloway, looking at the innocent sea.

"And then there's this." She bent, disappearing from his view for a moment, then straightened. She held up the oblong of tarry metal, grimacing at its weight. A bullet had hit it and the scar gleamed in the sunlight.

He stared up at it. The golden ticket home. All that was left. All that he needed.

Their eyes met. "It's not ours, Tiller," she said, half lowering it.

"That's not what I'm thinking about."

"Are you sure?"

"Hold it!" said Aydlett, coming up behind her. "What you at, girl? We put sail on this thing, we'll need ballast. Good gust, it'll spill us in a second. Don't even think about gettin' rid of that!"

Galloway grinned. "Nice try, Shad. But horseshit. We're overloaded as it is. Give it here."

She slid it toward him over the rail. He held it there, balanced on the teak, for just a moment. Then he took his hand away.