Ernest Dempsey
Game of Shadows
Prologue
Capt. Jack Harris nearly jumped out of his bed, jolted from his slumber by a racket he’d not heard in over almost a week. The alarms ringing throughout the ship weren't exactly a pleasant sound when one was in the midst of a deep slumber. Not that he slept deeply anymore. He hadn't in years, not since the war had started. Ever since his ship entered the war, Harris had adapted. He’d almost gotten used to the wildly erratic schedule that changed in an instant when aboard a United States naval vessel. The last week, however, had spoiled him. No enemy sightings and no threats had resulted in several good nights of rest in a row, a phenomenon that now seemed to be at its end.
Exhausted, he swung his feet over the edge of the bunk and quickly strapped on his boots. In mere seconds, he was jogging to the bridge to see why the alarms had been set off. He could have rung the bridge from his quarters, but it was only a thirty-second walk — and a shorter run.
The two hundred men aboard had roused into action. Men manned the big 76 mm guns, turning the barrels in the direction of the nearest danger. The 20 mm cannons were activated as well, ready for the order to open fire.
Twenty-eight seconds later, Captain Harris stepped through the entryway and onto the bridge. "Status," he ordered.
"German U-boat, sir. Off starboard." A young man at a console gave a quick report, but there was an air of uncertainty in his voice.
The bridge was a beehive of activity. Though usually a busy place, now it was humming with men checking instruments, giving reports to officers, making adjustments, flipping switches and turning knobs, and then doing it all again. Off to the side, the sailor manning sonar listened like his life depended on it. His fingers pressed the oversized headphones to his ears to make sure none of the ambient noise convoluted what he was hearing. He picked up a pencil and made a few notations: speed, distance, bearing, even whether or not the U-boat’s torpedo tubes had been flooded. The engineers and chief petty officer were on the horn with the engine room in case the captain wanted to change course or adjust their speed. The entire place was in a frenzy.
The room was sterile and lit dimly with red lights to make them less visible to enemy ships during the night. Everything seemed to be made out of gray metal, right down to the seats the sailors were using at the terminals. Naval ships weren't designed for comfort or decor; they were 100 percent utilitarian.
"A U-boat?" Harris asked, grabbing his binoculars and staring out across the rippling waves of the South Atlantic Ocean that shimmered in the bright moonlight. There were only a few wayward clouds drifting through the sky, making visibility extremely good for hunting. "What's it doing this far out?"
"We aren't sure, sir, but at the moment, they aren't taking hostile measures."
There were too many things not adding up in Captain Harris's head at the moment. The first was that they were halfway between South Africa and the northern Brazilian coast. With the war reaching a climactic close in the European theater, a Nazi U-boat being this far out at sea made no sense. The Allies were tightening the noose around the German capital of Berlin. Word was that Adolf Hitler had holed up in his bunker and was doing all he could to muster the troops for one last stand. Some said he had his mistress, Eva Braun, with him in the bunker, along with several of his top advisers.
Germany had no chance of winning the war. It was a story as old as time itself. Hitler should have probably read a little more history. Harris knew plenty. He'd studied a good deal of it at the Naval Academy. One thing he learned early on was that trying to conquer the world was nearly impossible for the main reason that eventually, you'd spread yourself too thin.
Alexander the Great, Xerxes, the Roman caesars, Charlemagne, Napoleon, were all great strategists and leaders, but they all desired too much. Spreading yourself too thin would always create chinks in the armor.
He brought his thoughts back to the U-boat, cruising along off starboard. "How long have you had visual?" Harris asked the young man who'd been feeding him information.
"Just now, sir. When the alarm sounded." The redheaded sailor looked over his shoulder at the captain, worried about what his reaction would be. The kid must have only been twenty years of age, but even he knew that they should have had some knowledge of the sub's whereabouts far sooner than sixty seconds ago.
Harris frowned, his eyebrows lowering. "What do you mean, just now? Nothing on radar or sonar? It just appeared out of nowhere?" The captain tried to curtail his irritation, but in his eyes, either someone was sleeping on the job, they were lying, or they were just plain incompetent.
A dark-haired lieutenant near one of the windows confirmed what the young sailor had said. "He's not lying, sir. All hands were on alert when the ship appeared. Our instruments shorted out momentarily, and then the U-boat was just there."
The story stank, and the man knew it. He could tell from the look on the captain's face that he wasn't buying it. Had the two men corroborated the story? Harris shifted his gaze to the other men on the bridge, but their eyes all confirmed what the other two were saying.
"Ready the charges, man the guns, load the torpedoes," he barked out the orders quickly.
Harris imagined that below deck the men were hurriedly sliding the deadly torpedoes into the tubes and prepping the charge canisters.
He watched with his binoculars, peering through the window at the misplaced U-boat as it continued to glide through the water. He lowered them and stared curiously at the ghostlike ship.
"Why aren't they attacking us?" Harris asked, almost to himself, but within earshot of several of his men.
"We don't know, sir. Like I said, they don't appear to be taking aggressive maneuvers." The kid at the console turned a few knobs and stared at a beeping screen.
The USS Slater was a Cannon Class destroyer, mostly built for escort missions of convoys and larger ships. But it still had enough firepower on board, and was maneuverable enough to take down a submarine of almost any size. The Cannon Class was an upgrade from its predecessor, and was specifically designed for antisubmarine warfare. Three hundred feet long and only thirty-six feet at the beam made it fast in the water, capable of reaching speeds of up to twenty-one knots. With three, twenty-one inch torpedo tubes and nine depth charge projectors, the Cannon Class made a meal of enemy subs. And the Slater had eaten its fair share.
Harris would have liked to think that the reason the submarine wasn't attacking them was due to its reputation, or simply its menacing appearance. But he knew that wasn't true. While Cannon Class destroyers certainly had claimed many German casualties, the Nazis never seemed to fear anything. It was part of their German heritage. They would press on, charging into overwhelming odds if they had to. At sea was no different. In his time aboard the Slater, Captain Harris had seen a single German U-boat try to take on three escort ships. One of the other destroyer escorts had been badly damaged in the battle, a fight that took over two hours. They'd finally sunk the submarine, though at great cost of time, resources, and a few casualties.
That seemed to be the nature of Nazi sub captains, which made the behavior of this one particularly odd.
"They had to have seen us, right?" he asked the lieutenant standing nearby.
"I would think so, sir," the man in the officer's uniform said semi-confidently. "How would they not? Even if they didn't see us with their periscope, their sonar would be going crazy right now."
Harris knew all of that, and it bothered him. "Shut off those blasted alarms," he ordered. "If they haven't seen us, they certainly would have heard all that racket."