They were on a starboard midships three inch twin mount sponson, it was a measure of how badly hurt Shiloh was that they could see clear forward. Her bows were well under now and grew water was lapping up the ruin of what had been the flight deck. She'd rolled so far over to port now that their view over the splinter tub was of sky, not sea or other ships. They could see the boiling black smoke, hear the explosions.
The Senior Chief looked over the edge of the tub, Samoa was aft of their position, no longer fighting the fires but using her hoses to hold the fires back while survivors poured over from Shiloh. The rumors had obviously been correct, “Abandon Ship'' had been sounded and the destroyers with their torpedoes were waiting. Only there was no way for his men to go. Aft was blocked by wreckage, forward led only to fire and water. Go to port and the same two enemies waited. Go to Starboard...the Senior Chief looked - it was steep but it might be possible using ropes to climb down.
“OK you guys. Here's what we'll..” A roaring machine had the temerity to drown him out. The Senior Chief looked up, one of the new helicopters was hovering. A rope was thrown down and a figure leaned out, holding up three fingers. OK three men. The Senior tapped the three youngest and they swarmed up the rope. He watched as the helicopter peeled away and took the men to the fantail of Samoa. Then it came back for more. Backwards and forward it went until only the Senior Chief and Ensign Pickering were left in the gun tub. Once more the rope snaked down. The Senior looped it around the officer, secured it then took a good hold himself. The winch whined and strained but it pulled them both into the helicopter.
“Sorry about the rough ride. I normally fly a Bearcat but all the ferry work means we're short of helo pilots and I quailed on these some time ago. Bit rusty though.” It was the young Lieutenant flying the machine. Urchin by his name tag. The Senior Chief saw the sinking Shiloh now receding beneath him, then looked around at the helicopter with great satisfaction. This machine, he opined, was NOT made by Democrats.
CHAPTER NINE REDEMPTION
Nottingham, Occupied England
The sunset had been spectacular, a huge display of crimson and red, covering the whole sky. Even now, it was still apparent, dimming as the sun sank further away but enough to give an eerie reddish glow to everything. Scientifically, David Newton knew that something must have put a lot of dust into the atmosphere but what? Doubtless he would find out sooner or later. One way or another.
Looking around, he had sixteen resistance fighters gathered with him. They'd picked up their weapons from various hidden dumps, Newton didn't know how the supplies had got there, or who had put them there, but they were what he needed. One group had a pair of RPG-2s, the rest had a mixture of American greasegun and Russian PPS-43 submachine guns. But Newton himself had something very special, something he'd only heard of in whispers. A Delisle carbine. He patted and stroked it gently. It was an odd looking weapon, the furniture and action of a Lee-Enfield rifle but chambered for .45 ACP. The whole weapon, from receiver to muzzle was shrouded with a suppresser. The Delisle was reputed to be so thoroughly silenced that the only noise it made when it fired was the click as the firing pin hit the primer.
The plan was simple enough. His Delisle would drop the two guards at the gate. They'd go down without causing an alert so his men could get in. They'd fan through the radio station, capturing the installation and its staff. The orders were to take as many prisoners as possible, to kill as few as possible. But that was secondary; the key part of the mission was that the radio had to go off the air at 20:58 precisely. That was when it would be playing Lilli Marlene, a tradition with German radio stations. Then, at 21:00, the station would normally broadcast the news, starting with new directives and orders from the German administration.
But it was 1900 now, two hours to go. The attack had to be as late as possible; the radio station had to be held for at least 30 minutes after 2058. The less time the station was occupied before then meant the less time he and his people would be sitting at a fixed point, waiting for the SS to arrive. So now it was necessary to wait. After three years as a resistance fighter, David Newton was learning the old regular army slogan. Hurry up and wait.
Cockpit Goodyear F2G-4 “The Terminator” Flying Through Paris
“Yeeeee-hah”. The rebel yell burst out of Lieutenant Evans quite unannounced. Once in a while, he got positive confirmation that God was a fighter pilot. This was one of those times. He'd never beaten up a city this large before or had quite so much fun doing it. And, even better, they were doing it under orders and it was all quite legal. They'd had very specific orders. Buzz the city as thoroughly as you can. Now, twenty four F2Gs were doing their level best to fulfill their orders to the letter. It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it. Even The Terminator seemed to be enjoying herself, she wasn't being anywhere near her usual handful.
Not for the first time, Evans was amazed how clearly he could see things this low down. There was a plump matron in front of him ferociously waving what appeared to be a walking stick at the approaching tighter. Evans could even see the sad little ball of knotted string that the French fondly imagined was a dog tucked under her arm. Then she was gone. Evans angled The Terminator's nose up slightly. Yup, she was lying on her back waving her arms and legs in the air like a little beetle with the apology for a dog running around her. Nothing to be sorry about, only one sort of late middle-age woman was still plump and had a fur coat seven years into a German occupation. Serious-grade collaborator.
Over the radio. Lieutenant Brim in Dominatrix was singing, rather tunelessly as it happened, “As I flew down the Bois de Boulogne with some independent hair.” It was quite possible too, they were near the Bois de Boulogne and they were flying low enough to sweep somebody's wig from their head - assuming that somebody was dumb enough to stand up. That was one of the serious purposes behind this aeronautical equivalent of a student frat party. To drive the citizens off the street and into their cellars and bunkers. The Super-Corsair was ideal for that - everybody in France knew that the crank-winged Corsairs would shoot up and napalm anything that moved.
Evans angled his aircraft around and glanced at the fuel gauges. He had a few minutes left and then another group of Marine F2Gs would be coming in to continue the fun. They'd carry on until the B-36 arrived. That was another purpose behind the air display, to goad any anti-aircraft gun crews still at their weapons into opening fire. That hadn't happened yet, in fact the Germans were being remarkably quiet. Bearing in mind what had happened earlier, this wasn't surprising.
The pilots had been briefed before takeoff on what the B-36s had done. That had silenced the room. Pilots used to dealing out death with five inch rockets and thousand pound bombs had a hard time envisaging bombs that were equivalent to tens of thousands of tons of explosives. And when one's yardstick of destruction was an airfield shot up, how did one swallow a whole city blasted into oblivion? Let alone hundreds of cities. There was talk of the death toll, of hundreds of thousands of casualties, some people even whispered that it might hit a million dead.