Stark couldn’t help it any longer, his argument about the success of the experiment no longer viable as he bent at the waist and vomited.
Lee swallowed hard as he watched men below trying to remove several bodies from the Eldridge’s superstructure. Sailors were buried half in, half out of her decks and her bulkheads, and all were burned to a crisp. This last observation was causing several of the men attempting at cutting the bodies free to lean over and vomit. This was happening the entire 306 feet of the brand-new destroyer.
Colonel Lee pushed several security personnel away from the collapsed opening. Many were assisting Admiral Stark as he also tried to get out. Lee felt Wild Bill Donovan grabbing his suit jacket as the two men made it out into the hazy light of day. The weather had magically cleared, and with just the exception of the heavy ozone smell of electricity, all was seemingly normal.
Lee grabbed one of the shore patrolmen by the arm as he ran by and directed him to assist several sailors who had been washed over the pier railing by the tremendous backwash of seawater as the Eldridge returned from its maiden voyage to somewhere. His eyes fell on the destroyer sitting three hundred yards away. Steam was still rising from her superstructure, and even as he watched, the strong anchor chain on her bow crashed down into the sea. The large ship swayed both to the starboard and then port as she settled into her watery placement. Boats of all sizes were rushing to her now settling hulk. Lee saw one of these whaleboats as they cast off with a slew of medical personnel aboard.
“Don’t go out there!” Donovan ordered as he adjusted his eyesight to the scene before him. Wild Bill had taken Lee’s arm in his to try to stay him from boarding the whaleboat.
Garrison removed Donovan’s hand and then ran toward the accelerating boat. He jumped the six feet from the pier to the now moving boat. He crashed down inside and was helped to a sitting position by two navy medics. Lee’s eyes settled on the fast approaching Eldridge. The ship was hissing steam jets. The capacitors lining the sides of her hull were so hot that the gray paint covering her hull plates sizzled and then burst into small flames, and then as the capacitors burned out, they went dead of power. This was happening the entire length of the destroyer.
“What in the hell happened?” one of the naval medics said. The closer they got to the Eldridge, the more of the horrors became visible.
“The price of being gods,” Lee mumbled, confusing those aboard who heard the obscure comment.
Garrison saw many of the rescuers who had already boarded were in the process of throwing up. Many were on their knees. Some even wept as they came across their fellow seamen scorched and charred. The whaleboat slowed, and then Lee, not waiting, jumped to the boarding ramp that fronted her starboard side.
Gaining the deck, Lee couldn’t help it. He also bent over as his stomach threatened to disgorge the breakfast he had eaten three hours earlier. He allowed his stomach to settle. The smell of scorched flesh kept that little maneuver in check until he gradually became used to the smell. The man’s eyes were wide as he was being spoken to by a kid no older than nineteen. The sailor was holding the man’s hand and talking calmly to him.
“We need men over here!” came a shout not far away. Garrison looked up and saw medics running toward the stairs that led to the bridge wing of the destroyer. “Cutting torches! We need cutting torches over here!”
Lee scrambled and turned the corner on the charred decking. He came to a screeching halt when he saw one of the Eldridge’s crewmen. The man was buried up to his chest in burned teakwood. The deck sectioned the man completely in two — one part below and one above the deck. Lee had to get closer to learn all he could about what had gone wrong. He knelt as close as he could without interfering with the rescue attempt. Lee swallowed when he saw the blood soaking into the burned wood of the decking. It spread in a wide arc around the sailor who was obviously in shock. The boy’s lips moved, and Lee thought he heard him say, “What took them so long?”
“The duration of the event was only one minute,” came a shocked voice from behind them. Lee straightened and saw Stark and the professor as they watched with wide eyes the attempt at freeing the man buried in the deck. Lee knew that the situation was helpless, and he knew the men who had caused this guessed the same. He angrily tried to hear what the boy was saying.
“I didn’t get that, son. What did he just say?” he asked.
The medic, who was talking softly to the sailor, answered without turning away from those frightened eyes. “He’s in shock; I wouldn’t take anything he has to say seriously.”
Lee got closer. “What did you see, son?” he asked, drawing a severe look backward by the medic.
“We… were… boarded. They took the ship… in less than five… minutes,” came the slow, pain-filled words.
As the men around him prepared to start cutting the deck away from around the boy, the hairless and scarred head slowly sank forward as the boy died from being severed in two. Lee stood and faced the professor and Admiral Stark. He then silently turned to Wild Bill Donovan, who had just joined them.
“We need to get a marine detail up here,” he said as he turned and ran to the gangway, where a security force of four boatloads of marines started to board. Garrison confronted the lieutenant leading the four separate teams.
“We may have an intruder force aboard this ship,” he said as the young marine officer was staring wide-eyed at the carnage around him. Lee reached out and took the marine by the shoulders and shook him. “Get a fire team together, son.”
Donovan joined them and then, with his terrifying and booming voice, got the marines to react. They shook off their initial terror.
“Belay that order! We have men to help here!” Admiral Stark shouted as he saw what Lee was attempting to do. Both Lee and Donovan knew that Stark felt the control he wielded over the project starting to slip away.
“Marine, we may have men trapped inside that ship, do you understand? Do your duty,” Lee said as he tried to get the officer to ignore Stark and his concerns for controlling the situation.
“Right. I want one squad forward of section three, another to the aft hatches. The other, come with me.”
Lee, without thinking, reached out and quickly unsnapped the marine’s shoulder holster and pulled out the lieutenant’s Colt .45. The boy looked but said nothing. He noted the size of the man directing him and decided not to reference any provenance toward command. He nodded and then bounded up the steel stairs toward the bridge section high above them.
The thirteen men plus Lee passed several bodies that had succumbed to their injuries. Garrison knew then that any personnel caught abovedecks were already dead. He knew this from the German reports on their failure five years before. Lee swallowed and followed the marines to the open bridge wing. The first of the squad to reach the hatch was a gruff sergeant. He gestured for two men to open the large hatchway. One turned and shook his head.
“Hatch has been dogged,” the sergeant said as he stood and went in another direction. They traveled around the bridge wing to the opposite side. They met the second fire team as they started to breach the hatchway on the opposite side. The marine sergeant saw the explosive being placed just to the left of the dogged hinges of the steel barrier. Lee bent low as the word was given and the explosive charge was detonated. The boat rocked the men as the hatchway blew inward. Several of the marines took up station to the front, and with their combined strength, they pulled the thick steel outward where one of the strong hinges had held. They finally freed the hatch, and the first two men vanished inside the darkened bridge.