Hernandez was unrecognisable, save for the chest tattoo, declaring undying love for a girl called Iolanta, whom he had once courted in Florida long before he had met his present wife, the mother of his five sons.
Sveinsvold had taken a bullet in the thigh, but it didn’t prevent him from pouring fire from his .50cal into the hapless sailors below.
The remaining living members of the crew were the mechanics, their work on the engine forgotten in favour of fire fighting within the pod.
Sveinsvold fired the last of his belt and then quit the post, moving painfully to help knock down the growing fire.
The 20mm crew had been flayed by the last burst, all five men falling around their weapon, some screaming, some forever silent.
The Starshina shouted for medical support and men rushed forward to recover the injured.
Two of the lookouts hung lifelessly in their straps but his attention was split between the descending airship and his dying captain, the noisy coughing accompanied by spouts of blood as his ruined chest let the essential fluid of life escape from his ravaged body.
“Get the Captain below, get the wounded below. Standby to dive!”
One man rushed to the two dead lookouts but was ordered away.
“No time! Get the living below now!”
Submariners live on their wits and their ability to move at high speed, and in seconds the Starshina was alone amongst the dead.
Sparing a last look at the airship, he screamed his command.
“Dive! Dive! Dive!”
Pulling the hatch shut behind him, he made fast the clips and dropped down further, leaving another to seal the lower hatch.
The captain had not survived the hasty evacuation.
The ship’s first officer had taken command, ordering a turn to starboard.
It was of no import.
The fire was out, although it had cost the Norwegian his uniform, his shirt to beat out the flames, his trousers that had caught alight when some cleaning fluid spilled and flared. His white body, bereft of even a hint of a tan line, exposed now in a way that he studiously avoided whenever presented with choice.
A naked man wearing nothing but shoes and socks would have been comical in any other surroundings but the charnel house of the blimp’s control pod.
James was crying, his captain and friends dead around him, the smells of tortured metal mingling with the metallic odour of blood, creating a special hell for the new officer.
Sveinsvold had pulled Wetherbridge’s corpse from the chair and virtually thrown James into his place.
“Shit, they’re diving.”
Turning back to his surviving officer, the wiry Norwegian spoke firmly.
“Fly it Sir, get us over those bastards so we can have some payback.”
Although new to combat, James was composed enough to assess his aircraft, and took her under control as best he could, the obvious rents in her envelope suggesting that a landfall may be beyond them.
He thought quickly.
“Chief, let’s bomb these fuckers and lose some weight. Nearest land is to the east there. I’ll try for that.”
Sveinsvold spared the young man a momentary look, appraising him in the light of his sudden calmness.
“Aye Aye, Skipper.”
The drop would be by eye, the release by emergency hand-pull, as the auto controls had long since ceased to exist.
James, his concentration blotting out everything else, watched and waited, the convenient new holes in the floor making his assessment all the easier.
“Ready, ready…”
Sveinsvold tensed.
“Now Chief!”
Pulling hard on the cables, Sveinsvold was immediately rewarded with all the signs of a successful release, confirmed as James whopped at the immediate gain in height.
“Now, let’s get the lady down on that island, Chief.”
The K-class blimp carried four Mark 47 depth-charges, each stuffed with 350lbs of high-explosive, One on the money would have been enough to sink the Morž, four proved excessive and the Milchcow succumbed, bent rapidly as explosions either side of her hull exerted irresistible forces, the fractures immediately becoming catastrophic and opening her watertight compartments to the sea.
There were no survivors.
The three men threw what they no longer had use for overboard, gaining precious inches in height. The airship brushed the water and slid slowly up the short beach, bouncing on into the edge of a wood and transfixing herself on branches.
“Well done, Skipper, really well done.”
And Sveinsvold meant every word, for it had been a touch and go thing, James’ hitherto unknown skill saving the day and keeping the four of them out of the water.
Detailing the two mechanics to salvage all they could from the pod, Sveinsvold took in the surroundings.
The Chief had already spotted an old building that seemed fit for purpose, and suitable to ride out the Atlantic storm that was coming ever closer.
The envelope was deflating rapidly, the penetration of the heavy branches proving the final straw.
Suggesting to the young officer that he might like to police up maps and weapons, Sveinsvold checked out the radios, quickly satisfying himself that neither were repairable.
The emergency rations pack had been one thing thrown out, its identity lost in the enthusiastic work to gain height.
Sveinsvold jumped down and screwed up his eyes, seeking out the small wooden box whose contents could make their life bearable if found.
Some items were floating close inshore, and he decided to take advantage of his naked state and go swimming in an attempt to recover the hastily jettisoned foodstuffs.
The cold water closed over him, and he immediately found the leg wound restricted his ability to swim against the incoming tide.
James laid out the flare pistol and spare flares, ready in case they were needed to attract attention.
The mechanics had shifted everything into the nearest building, and were pleasantly surprised to find clean beds and tinned foodstuffs available.
James stood the two men down whilst he waited for the Chief to return.
The growing wind had a soporific effect on the three survivors and the two mechanics, cosily laid out on the beds, were soon asleep and snoring.
James awoke from his lighter slumber as the door opened, and he adjusted his eyes to take in the figure stood there.
The uniform was unknown to him, but the sub-machine gun told him all he needed to know.
He slowly raised his hands.
Sveinsvold was tiring now, even with the assistance of the incoming tide and the buoyancy offered by the recovered wooden box.
His legs felt numb, all except the wounded thigh, which screamed with every little movement.
He traded time for the absence of pain, permitting the tide to slowly bring him closer to safety.
On the beach he saw two men patiently watching him, two men who bore no resemblance whatsoever to any of his crew.
Both men looked nonchalantly back as the unmistakable sound of firing rose above the howl of the wind.
‘What the fuck?’
His mind was suddenly in overdrive.
As he drifted closer in, the two men moved to the water’s edge.
A third man arrived and received a report from the senior of the two watchers.
The words carried on the breeze, a language Sveinsvold knew well from his time fishing on Lake Michigan with the crews of the various émigré groups, in friendly competition for everything from fish to women.
‘Russian?’
The Russian Marines, for that was what they were, seemed relaxed, and in a moment of clarity Sveinsvold understood.