No submariner could fail to understand what was about to happen as the water in the bays churned and bubbled.
The two XXI submarines rose to the surface almost perfectly together.
Nobukiyo was impressed, not just with the sleek and beautiful lines of the submarine he focussed on, but also with the depth of water in the base that permitted such a concealment.
“Twenty-seven metres.”
Oktyabrskiyanswered the Japanese officer’s unspoken question, but still Nobukiyo questioned the interpreter’s words.
“The submarine itself is twelve metres high… we allowed fifteen… the draught of the barge was four metres at full load… there was no risk.”
Nobukiyo nodded his understanding and turned back to watch as the crew started to emerge from their confinement.
Oktyabrskiy sipped his coffee and felt a chill travel the length of his spine.
In front of him sat two of each of the AM class, a pair of the huge Sen-Tokus, and both of his advanced type XXIs.
Whilst he was not briefed in on the mission that lay ahead of his command, the admiral sensed that the six submarines secreted in the facility were to be employed on a mission that would change the nature of warfare forever.
In that, he was in every sense correct.
Chapter 175 – THE SHIELD
Common sense is not so common.
1522 hrs, Friday, 13th September 1946, Panemunė, Route 146, theŠilinė – Pauliai road, Lithuania.
Her eyes narrowed as the man she had positioned to warn of any approaching traffic whistled from his position in the treetops.
She looked up and saw six fingers, the lookout’s way of telling her that the approaching convoy was of six vehicles.
He also held up a dirty palm, which indicated that there were no armoured vehicles involved, an enemy that the Lithuanian partisan group tried to avoid at all costs.
Normally led by the 45-year-old Antanas Pyragius, today it was the young Janina Mikenas in command, a position which she had earned by right.
Pyragius lay recovering from wounds he had sustained during a raid outside Ariogala a fortnight beforehand.
The partisan group, known throughout their native land as ‘The Shield of St. Michael’, were experienced and competent and, most importantly in the majority of Lithuanian’s opinion, lucky.
Many such national resistance groups had been liquidated by the dreaded NKVD, but the Shield had survived all such close encounters.
Mikenas checked her group’s dispositions as best she could, the warning whistle having already made the men and women melt into the undergrowth with weapons held tight and ready.
Her eyes returned to the road and immediately the lead Soviet vehicle, a staff car, came into view, rounding the bend and starting on the gradual slope that led to the junction of Routes 1710 and 146.
Mikenas’ eyes instinctively flicked back to the road, seeking out any tell-tale marks that might give away the mines, but there were none.
Behind the staff car came five lorries of different lineages but all marked with the insignia of the NKVD.
‘Bastards!’
The hated NKVD, responsible for deporting most of her family and murdering her brother Romek, and probably younger brother Maxim too.
Janina Mikenas smiled an unsmiling smile similar to a cobra about to strike.
The staff car slowly moved past the waiting partisans, at which time luck deserted the Shields.
Unbelievably, it missed the five mines and drove on its unsuspecting way, unaware of the reprieve.
The first lorry found two at the same time and all hell broke loose.
The reprieve for the occupants of the staff car proved to be purely temporary as one of the partisans’ two DP light machine-guns was positioned to flay the length of the road and the gunner was experienced enough to concentrate on the staff car first.
The NKVD Major commanding the convoy lost his head, literally.
His second in command lost his metaphorically, and ran screaming from the car covered in the spray of grey-red detritus from his former commander’s brain.
The two soldiers in the front had no chance as the DP’s bullets carved them up.
The fleeing 2IC ran into a tree in his panic, knocking himself out in the process.
Up and down the small convoy, the partisans poured fire into the rear of the covered lorries and their cabs, and were rewarded with shrieks and screams as bullets struck home into defenceless flesh.
One of Mikenas’ partisans had run a string of mines out behind the convoy, but not one vehicle made an effort to escape.
Two slipped back down the gentle slope, coming to rest against one lorry that stayed put, its dead driver having applied the handbrake before failing in an attempt to grab for his rifle.
Yet another ran back and angled itself into the modest ditch where flames lazily started to consume it, burning from the engine compartment backwards.
Janina Mikenas wasn’t sure but she felt that not one shot had been returned from the convoy, which in itself started warning bells ringing in her head.
Acting on impulse, she stepped out onto the road, waving her hands above her head. One by one, her partisans responded to her command and the firing died away.
The sound of guns firing was replaced by the sounds of men and women in extremis.
The experienced guerrillas made their move. Some crept forward leaving others to watch over them in case of any resistance, while yet others formed at the head and rear of the shattered convoy, ready to repulse any new arrivals.
Voices were raised, voices seeking mercy… or help… voices speaking Lithuanian.
‘Oh Jesus and Maria!’
Janina understood immediately.
“Oh Jesus and Maria! Help them!”
The convoy had been transporting prisoners.
Reaching the rear of the nearest truck, she threw open the cover and was greeted by a veritable charnel house.
The two NKVD guards caused her no upset, but the sight of the bodies of her countrymen and women gripped her heart like a vice.
‘Oh God, what have I done?’
A hand waved weakly from the pile, and she hoisted herself inside to take hold of it and burrow deep for the still-living owner.
The young man died before she could pull him clear.
There was no one else in the vehicle who needed anything more than his or her own small plot of Lithuania and the ministrations of a priest.
All along the shattered convoy, Janina could hear the groans of wounded combined with the wails of her own men and women, who so wished they could undo the work of the last few minutes.
The burning lorry yielded up two survivors. A third died in the act of being dragged clear.
One of her best men, Jurgis Lukša, was screaming his wrath whilst also crying like a child, all at the same time as two of his group pulled him away from the awful sight in the third lorry.
Janina’s second in command ran up to her, his face as white as a sheet.
“His sons… he killed his own sons… fucking hell… we all have… Mother of God, Janina…” his voice trailed away as his tears came.
The information had been that the NKVD were shifting police records back to Soviet soil, records that were better off destroyed as far as the partisans were concerned.
Janina worked through the shock and pain of what had come to pass, and tried to reason what had happened.
Despite her youth, she managed to overcome the grief and work out what had happened… or at least what she feared had happened.