Clunk … clunk … clunk. The man walked past the raiders then stopped.
Henri drew the only knife that someone had the foresight to bring on the mission.
The enemy sailor turned around and walked back then put his hand on the mooring line.
Henri grasped the man’s wrist and dragged the surprised sailor into the raft. Henri’s right arm, coiled like a cornered rattlesnake, delivered the blade to the man’s rib cage.
“Aaagh.” The young man expired and was the first Soviet to fall in hand-to-hand combat in World War III.
Relief at Henri’s victory and apparent solution quickly ended.
A nearby voice cried out, “Tovarich! Tovarich!”
None in the raft spoke the language, but all recognized the tone. More than just one enemy prowled about and the survivor had to be suspicious. A light flashed, blinding the Americans, quickly followed by a burst from the Soviet’s AK-47 blasting its rounds into the raft.
Henri’s M-16 silenced the attacker, but not before two men of the Denver raiding party fell dead into the sea. Air hissed through bullet holes in the raft.
Henri ordered, “Okay, Honkies, up and out. Shit’s hit the fan!”
The four surviving Denver crewmen leapt onto the sweeper deck and moved forward according to plan with two on the port side and two starboard, instead of three as originally planned. A sudden earsplitting explosion ripped through the darkness as the charges set by Woody and Barnes destroyed the radio shack and its transmitter. No one emerged from the deck access door and hatches.
Woody and Barnes shouted in unison, “Denver, Denver,” as they raced aft, not wanting to be mistaken for Soviets.
When Woody met Henri, he yelled out, “We got the transmitter. Hang the rest of the charges over the side and we’ll blow up the rest of this tub. Then get our asses outta here.”
Henri responded, “Feel like swimming back? Ivan made some serious holes in our raft before he bought the farm. No, sir, Mr. Parnell. It’s two down and eight to go, that is unless you got some of them in the radio shack.”
“Only eight left … let’s go get ’em.”
A deckhouse door burst open. Two Soviets emerged firing wildly but American M-16s dispatched them before they could inflict damage.
Woody yelled, “Henri! Have the troops each stand by a door. On my whistle, open it and toss in a grenade.”
“That’s a bummer, sir. The only doors unlocked will be the ones they want us to open. I got a better idea.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Henri quickly explained, “There’s a gas-engine pump on the fantail. There’s gotta be gasoline too. Let’s dump it down a ventilation intake, and then toss in a match. Keep those doors and hatches covered till I get back.”
Leaving the others, Henri disappeared, but quickly returned with a gas can.
Woody ordered, “Take a couple of men and get the pump. We don’t know what they have stowed below decks, but you can bet there’s plenty of mines. Starting a fire might blow us all sky high. We’ll run the engine exhaust into the fresh air intake and gas them with carbon monoxide. They won’t know what happened.”
They found a ventilation intake aft of the bridge not far from the destroyed radio shack then fitted the pump hose over the engine exhaust pipe, while two of the raiding party removed hand lugs that held the grating in place. Henri inserted the hose and gave several pulls on the start rope. The engine sputtered to life and he set it to full throttle.
Woody shouted, “Okay, Henri, find me something to break the padlock on the radio shack door. Let’s see if there’re any goodies in there.”
“Yes, sir. But first, I’ll report our situation back to the ship. They must have heard the noise and will want to know what’s happening.”
“Good idea. Do it.”
Henri directed his Aldis lamp toward Denver.
On board Denver the port lookout exclaimed, “Signal! Captain.”
Bostwick ordered, “Quartermaster,” and the petty officer began to record the message.
Transmitter, destroyed. Two casualties. Life raft gone. Four Soviet dead. Remaining crew trapped below decks. Pumping gas engine exhaust into ventilation intake.
Brent thought, Somebody over there’s really thinking. He correctly assumed it to be Henri. Good thing he went along on the raid.
The captain asked, “How do we get them back without a life raft?”
“We’ll have to go to them. Pick up the anchor, then drive over with the outboard,” said Brent, referring to the electric powered secondary propulsion motor that rigged out from beneath the engine compartment and able to be trained through three hundred sixty degrees for direction control.
The captain agreed. “Get the repair party back up and finish the ballast tank patch.”
“Aye, sir.”
Back on board the enemy vessel, Henri said to Ensign Parnell, “We don’t have to break the door down. The hole from the explosion is plenty big enough to get in.”
Before the young black could stop him, Woody leapt through the hole and entered the radio shack. Instantly, two pistol shots shattered the stillness.
Woody spun, fell to the deck and lay motionless.
Henri held his M-16 around the edge of the hole and sprayed a full magazine into the radio shack. He removed the empty magazine and snapped another one into place. His flashlight probed the smoke-filled compartment and fell upon a youngish sailor, slumped against a bulkhead, barely alive. Blood flowed from both nostrils and multiple wounds in his upper body. He appeared to be no older than Ensign Parnell.
The young Soviet had no idea of their meaning, but the last words he heard came from Henri. “Sovie bastard!”
Henri emptied the entire magazine into the twitching corpse.
Tears streamed down Henri’s face. In his mind, he had failed the important charge he’d given himself; bring Ensign Parnell back alive. He knelt and lifted the officer’s head into his lap. “Damn it, why in hell did you have to run in there?”
Henri’s grief came to an abrupt end as Woody sighed, “Beats the hell out of me, Henri. You’re not gonna tell Mr. Maddock about this are you?”
Woody became conscious and raised a bloody hand. Two bullets had struck him, one in his arm and the other in his thigh.
Anchor lights on the minesweeper continued to burn although the balance of her crew had succumbed peacefully to the carbon monoxide gas pumped into the ventilation system.
Denver made up alongside the first enemy warship to be seized since Rear Admiral Dan Gallery captured the Nazi U-505 in June 1944. The raiding party, welcomed home, embarked upon a new fame that would follow each for the remainder of his time in Denver. But the pain of losing two crewmen put a damper on this.
A submariner’s belief goes: either all the ship’s company is lost in combat or none is. There would be no grief experienced among the crew in either case.
Woody Parnell, cherubic warrior, acknowledged his shortfall for racing into the radio shack to the extent he felt no gratification over his spectacular achievement. The Denver crew boarded the sweeper and seized anything and everything that might be useable on their own ship. These included two cases of vodka and several tins of suspicious looking and smelling caviar.
Dan Patrick made the most important find, a crypto machine and key lists. If the sweeper could be disposed of in deepwater, the Soviets would consider these items lost and not compromised. They could prove valuable in the months ahead.
Daylight would soon be upon them and they’d have to get moving.
Brent tried another of his Mad Maddock schemes on the Executive Officer Jack Olsen and Lieutenant Dan Patrick, beginning with, “Okay, XO, this is gonna sound wild, but I think it’ll work.”