"Charge all weapons," Jernigan ordered.
"Charge all weapons, aye."
"Mr. Clancy, we will pass to starboard."
"Pass to starboard, aye, aye, Sir."
"I want to read her stern board," Jernigan said. "Run right up her ass until I can see it."
""Right up her ass, aye, aye, Sir."
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
FROM ALFRED THOMAS DD107 0150 GREENWICH 17 APR 43
TO CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS WASHDC
ALL RECEIVING USN VESSELS AND SHORE STATIONS TO RELAY
1. MOTOR VESSEL COMERCIANTE DEL OCEANO PACIFICO LOCATED AND POSITIVELY REPEAT POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED AT 0145 GREENWICH 17 APR 43 POSITION 27 DEGREES 25 MINUTES SOUTH LATITUDE 43 DEGREES 05 MINUTES WEST LONGITUDE.
2. SUBJECT VESSEL MAKING 22 REPEAT 22 KNOTS ON COURSE 195 REPEAT 195 TRUE. BASED ON FOREGOING, ESTIMATED ARRIVAL MOUTH RIVER PLATE 2150 19 APR 43.
3. ON APPROACH OF THIS VESSEL SUBJECT VESSEL UNCOVERED FOUR NAVAL CANNON BELIEVED TO BE 5-INCH OR EQUIVALENT, FOUR MULTIPLE BARREL AUTOMATIC CANNON BELIEVED TO BE 20 OR 30 MM B0F0RS, PLUS SIX MACHINE GUNS OF UNDETERMINED CALIBER.
4. NO REPEAT NO FIRE OF ANY KIND WAS EXCHANGED AND NO REPEAT NO CONTACT OF ANY KIND WAS ATTEMPTED OR MADE BY EITHER VESSEL.
5. USS ALFRED THOMAS PROCEEDING IN COMPLIANCE WITH ORDERS.
JERNIGAN, LTCOM USN, COMMANDING.
[FOUR]
Second Cavalry Regiment Reservation
Santo Tome
Corrientes Province, Argentina
070D 17 April 1943
The rain had continued through the night. It was still raining when Capitan Del-gano came into the transient officers' quarters to take everybody to breakfast.
Delgano tugged at Clete's sleeve as they walked down a gravel path to the officers' mess. Clete slowed and let the others get ahead of them.
"There's a small problem," Delgano announced. "The truck with the fuel got stuck on the way to the airstrip. They're transferring the fuel barrels to a wagon."
The first thing Clete thought was that if the ground was so rain-soaked that the truck had gotten stuck, the airstrip itself would also be too soft for takeoff.
But then some Guadalcanal-learned expertise popped into his mind. That wasn't necessarily so. You got mud where there was nothing but dirt, and where the dirt had been chewed up by tires. Before they got all the pierced-steel planking laid at Fighter One on Guadalcanal, he had often taken off from the dirt runway, after heavy rains that had made the roads to Fighter One just about impassable.
Where there was grass, often there was not mud. The airstrip here had not been used, except to graze cattle. The strip itself might be all right.
One criterion to judge by would be how far the Lockheed's wheels had sunk into the ground overnight. It was to be expected that they would sink in somethere was 18,000 pounds resting on maybe two square feet of tire surfacebut sometimes that didn't prohibit taxiing and takeoff.
A Wildcat could often be rocked out of tire ruts using the engine alone, or helped by people pushing. But you could feel a Wildcat and operate the throttle accordingly. The Lockheed was too heavy to feel, and probably would be difficult to push.
He had a quick mental image of a team of horses pulling the Lockheed out of tire ruts with a rope tied to the gear.
And then he had another thought. The Lockheed no longer weighed 18,000 pounds. It weighed 18,000 pounds less the weight of the fuel consumed between Porto Alegre and Santo Tome, and while he hadn't done what a good pilot should have donechecked to see how much fuel remainedhe figured he had burned at least a thousand pounds of AvGas, and possibly more. Maybe even two thousand pounds.
If they topped off the tanks here, that would mean adding that weight back, which very well might spell the difference between sinking into the ground and being able to taxi and take off.
He could also considerably lighten the aircraft by off-loading the ton of radar equipment and not taking anyone with them. That would get the aircraft into the air and to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, where it was needed, at the price of worrying how to get Ashton, his team, and the radar to the shore of Samboromb?n Bay.
"Don't start fueling it until I have a look at it," Clete said.
"We are pressed for time," Delgano said.
"Getting that airplane, fully loaded, off of here may be difficult. Hold off on topping off the tanks," Clete ordered firmly, as another problem entered his mind.
Delgano nodded, agreeing with the takeoff problem.
"And we're probably going to need more runway than I thought we'd need for the C-45," Clete went on. "Which means we have to walk some more to make sure there's nothing out there we'll run into."
"We have to get that airplane to Buenos Aires Province as soon as possible," Delgano said.
"If I can't get it off the ground here, it'll never get to Buenos Aires Province," Clete said. "The lighter it is, the better a chance I have."
Delgano nodded again.
They were now at the door to the officers' mess.
"I'll be in in a minute," Clete called to Ashton, then turned to Delgano: "I'd try to get it off with the fuel aboard, but I know I don't have enough to make Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. What I'm thinking is going from here to a regular airfield, and taking on fuel there."
"That would call attention to us," Delgano argued.
"The safest thing to do would be to unload my cargo here, leave my passengers here, and you and I take off alone, with the fuel now on board, and refuel somewhere between here and Buenos Aires."
Delgano nodded. "What's your cargo?"
"I don't think you want to know," Clete said.
"Explosives?"
"I don't think you want to know," Clete repeated.
"I think I should know," Delgano said.
"Are you familiar with radar?" Clete asked.
"I know what it is, of course. A radar? What are you going to do with a radar?"
"Guess," Clete said.
"My best informationel Coronel Martin's best information" Delgano said without missing a beat, "is that there is no German replenishment vessel in Samboromb?n Bay."
"That was yesterday," Clete said. "If I left my cargo and my passengers here, could you arrange transportation for them and guarantee their safe arrival to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo?"
"No," Delgano said after some thought. "I could get a truck, but there would be at least a dozen checkpoints on the highway between here and there. Authorization from Colonel Portermana shipping manifestmight get them past the Army checkpoints, but not those of either the Polic?a Federal or the Provincial Police. They would want to check the cargo against the manifest. The only way I could ensure getting through them would be to be there and I have to be with the airplane."
Clete grunted thoughtfully.
"They could stay here until after . . ." Delgano suggested.
"And if the coup d?tat fails, then what happens to them?" Clete didn't wait for a reply. "I'm not going to leave them here. That brings us back to two choices: taking off with them aboard, which I'm not at all sure I can do, or leaving them here, to make it by road to some airfield near here where I can get 110-130-octane aviation gasoline."