The PT boat’s torpedoes ran on 180-proof ethyl alcohol. Enterprising crewmen often mixed a potent cocktail of half a cup of grapefruit juice with half a cup of alcohol to create kick-a-poo joy juice. The navy countered by adding pink coloring to the alcohol and passing the word that it was poison. The sailors countered by passing the alcohol through a chammy cloth or a loaf of bread with both ends cut off to filter the supposedly poisonous torpedo fuel. It was a standoff between the navy and the thirsty sailors. Now Cole ordered the alcohol levels in the torpedoes checked before each mission so he wasn’t embarrassed by the torpedoes running out of fuel short of their intended target and dropping impotently to the seabed.
“Wasn’t he the guy…?” DeLong said.
“Yeah,” Cole said quickly. “Get Dean and Ewing, and their execs, and have them meet us aboard the one fifty-five boat at fourteen thirty hours. Have duplicate charts ready. I’ll will lay out the mission then and we’ll get under way by nineteen hundred hours. Tell both of them that this trip is going to be tricky and I don’t want any screwups.”
“It couldn’t be any worse than picking up that Polish pilot,” DeLong said.
“Oh, yes it could.”
Dean and Cy Moontz were the last to squeeze around the table into the crowded Day Room of the 155 boat.
“Jeez, Moose,” Ensign Johnson of the 168 boat said, “haven’t you stopped growing yet?”
Moose Moontz, former linebacker at the University of Illinois, snorted in response.
“Okay,” Cole said. “Listen up, gentlemen. This is a tricky mission; here’s the low-down.”
The other officers in Day Room grew silent as Cole began the briefing. “The Germans have a new type of E-boat,” he said. “Faster and more heavily armed than conventional boats. This mission is to capture some prisoners who will tell us something about the new boat. We need to know what we’re up against — what the invasion fleet is up against — before the big event. That’s the plan at least. I have a single copy of the report of our first encounter with the E-boat. You can pass it around, but it’s not to leave this boat. Basically the plan is for us to lay just off the French coast at a point marked on the charts provided to you. Our location should put us near the most obvious path of any E-boats returning from patrols at either the Bill of Portsmouth or Lyme Bay.”
“Skipper,” Moose said, looking up from the chart. “You mean lay off the coast and get a look-see at them boats?”
“No,” Cole said. “I mean capture some prisoners. That means an engagement. Maybe,” he added, watching the reactions on the men’s faces, “even one of the boats.”
The men in the room exchanged shocked glances. They’d been fighting E-boats for a while. They had a healthy respect for them and, with that, respect for their capabilities. Capturing prisoners in the past had simply been luck. This was different.
“Excuse me, Skipper,” Ewing said. “But those things are more than a handful in a running gunfight.”
“Yeah,” Moose said. “Usually, they’re gunning and we’re running.”
The men laughed nervously.
“Knock it off,” Cole said. This wasn’t going to be easy, and every man at the table knew that there was a good chance of one or some of them being killed. He hated Edland and this ridiculous mission. He was putting his men in danger — for nothing. “We’ll need to disable it,” Cole continued, “board and secure it, and return it to port for examination. It doesn’t do us any good to sink it. That’s if we’re lucky. If not, we’ll just scoop some Krauts out of the water and haul ass for home.”
“It’s a lot safer that way,” DeLong commented.
“Apparently our safety is not an issue,” Cole said. “The successful capture of that boat is. Go over your charts, check your boats, and pass the word to your crews. We cast off at nineteen hundred hours. I don’t want any screwups. You’ll get your frequencies and call signs before we shove off. Lay off your IFF broadcasts. The Krauts know them anyway.… Randy,” Cole jerked his head at his executive officer, who followed him topside.
Cole was silent for a moment as he checked the tie-down on the radar mast. Finally, he turned to DeLong. “I want you to sit out this one.”
DeLong looked at him, surprised. “Sit out? Why?”
“It’s going to be tough,” Cole said. “I want you to sit it out.”
“When aren’t they, Skipper? What’s going on here? Don’t you think I’m pulling my weight around here?”
“Let’s not make it a federal case.” Cole heard the men talking below. He just wished that DeLong would just do as he was told. It was that feeling again — helplessness. He couldn’t help his men, he couldn’t save Lowe. He couldn’t get anyone to listen to him because they were out in the daylight and not at night, and they never went out in the daylight, and all Lowe did was smile at him.
“What the hell is going on here, Skipper?” Delong asked.
“You want your own boat, don’t you?” Cole said.
“What’s that got to do with the price of apples?”
Nothing, Cole thought. He was trying to find a way to convince DeLong not to go. He saw Randy DeLong standing next to the wheel and fear gripped him as Delong turned to smile at him. “You won’t get your boat if you’re dead,” Cole finally said in frustration, trying to mask his anxiety with humor. He forced a smile, but it froze and he knew that whatever he said would not make sense to DeLong. He was helpless again.
“I don’t plan on being killed,” DeLong said.
“You want me to order you to stay?” Cole said. “I could do that, you know.” He could, but Cole realized that he could never bring himself to shame his friend. He was responsible for Randy DeLong, and Moose and Ewing and the others. Responsible. They all depended on him to make the right decisions, to protect them, to bring them back home, but his power to do so had been taken away, and all he could do was watch as they died.
“What’s eating you, Skipper?” DeLong said softly.
Cole shook his head and pulled on the mast’s lashings, testing the tension in the wire.
“I’ve got to go, Skipper. You know that. I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t out there with the guys.” DeLong smiled. “Hell, half the time we ignore your orders anyway. You know that.”
Cole knew that. They followed him because they liked and respected him and they had a job to do, but they didn’t know that Cole could no longer protect them. “A favor,” he tried again. “Do me this one favor.”
“Don’t ask me to do that, Skipper,” DeLong said. “Look, I know what we’re in for. I know it’s going to be tough. Hell, we might not even find an E-boat. We could end up empty-handed. Besides, we’re a team, you and me. You know, like Abbott and Costello.
Cole nodded and watched a string of LCMs slide past. He was afraid, sick with fear, certain that he would never be able again to help his friends, his men. He felt abandoned and helpless, and dismay swept over him so completely that he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He was afraid because, in this light, Randy DeLong looked exactly like Harry Lowe.
“Mutton,” Topper Schiffer said, “is just the sort of thing to make a man glad there’s a woman around.”
“Yes,” Hardy said, uncomfortable at the comment. Beatrice had passed the plates round to Topper, who had carved and dropped thick slices of meat on the plates, handing one to Hardy, one to Beatrice, and keeping one for himself. Hardy had enjoyed his tea with them two days before, and had agreed, reluctantly, to return for supper. He had accepted despite a little voice that warned him he was behaving foolishly and would only embarrass himself. It was that he found himself wanting in the art of making small talk — filling his part of the conversation during tea with awkward compliments on the quality of the scones baked by Beatrice. When Topper pressed him about service aboard one of His Majesty’s ships, Hardy found himself a bit more at ease, but he still answered the questions stiffly, trying to decide what sort of accounts were fit for discussion with a lady present, how much Beatrice and Topper really understood of what he said, and at the same time berating himself for the clod and bore that he was. Beatrice, God bless her kind heart, listened closely to all that he said, interrupting only twice to offer more tea.