George Washington's Ghost

“Are we going to go down south and sort out them Dagoes, Colonel?” Henry Sullivan asked.

“Not any time soon, son,” the old soldier chuckled. “For the time being we’ll collect any strays that come our way, and wait on reinforcements. Hopefully, we’ll get some of our aircraft back in the air soon. In the meantime, we’ll carry on fortifying the town. It’ll give everybody something to do. At times like this people always feel better when they’re doing something.”

Chapter 21

Wednesday 3rd May

HMS Surprise, North East Providence Channel, The Bahamas

Abe and Ted Forest were escorted forward. After about a quarter-of-an-hour there was a quiet hissing of air and the vessel ascended. Both men had surrendered their alarm wristbands and signed over their earpieces and were thus, out of the ‘quiet command loop’.

A bearded petty officer nodded and acknowledged a communication. He turned to the two aviators.

“The Pirates are just breaking out their boats, gentlemen.” He beckoned to Ted Forest; whose leg was still splinted. “We’ll send you up first, Mister Forest.”

The two aviators had done an impromptu tour of the submarine earlier that day. Simply to say ‘thank you’ to the men of HMS Surprise, and the ‘Pirates’ – the boat’s Special Forces Unit – for well, saving their lives, basically.

Surprise’s Captain had come forward to say his farewells and to ensure that they were fully prepared for their send off.

‘There will be a couple of fellows on the aircraft which collects you, they will brief you on the officially concocted story detailing how exactly you were rescued from Little Inagua, and where you have been in the intervening period. I imagine that the truth will probably come out sooner rather than later,” the older man had grinned ruefully.

HMS Surprise had stalked and killed a second enemy submersible two days ago, this time as the target was alongside a supposedly neutral – Norwegian registered – merchantman, which the submarine had also torpedoed and sunk without warning.

Without warning, and without ever – attack periscope apart – breaking the surface of the ocean. It seemed the Spanish submarine, a larger, five or six hundred ton version of the first one they had destroyed south of Bermuda, had been refuelling and taking on board perishable foodstuffs at the time she was chopped in half by the half-ton warhead of the Tiger Shark Mark XI torpedo which hit it a few feet abaft of its conning tower.

Like the first ‘kill’, this one was conducted with quiet, deadly precision. The merchant ship had broken up as she sank, the rending of hull plates and the crash of machinery breaking loose had followed her down into the depths as the Surprise had silently slipped away from the scene of the crime.

‘Do you think there were any survivors?’ Ted Forest had inquired of the submarine’s Executive Officer.

‘Probably,’ the other man had shrugged. ‘Not our problem, I’m afraid. Our rules of engagement forbid us to assist or to take on board survivors – be they enemy combatants or neutrals – other than for purposes of interrogation.’

Ted had later confided that he thought this was unnecessarily harsh, and speculated it was probably contrary to the international treaties concerning the treatment of combatants, or for that matter, non-combatants who were injured or who wanted to surrender.

Abe had thought about it.

He was still a little awed by the effortless efficiency of the submarine as a killing machine. It was like watching an execution, not a hunt.

‘Remember brave Achilles,” he had retorted grimly.

‘It just seems, well, unfair,’ Ted had countered, a little wary of his friend’s mood and perhaps, remembering – as if he was ever going to forget it – Abe’s murderous rampage on Little Inagua.

‘Not cricket?’

‘No.’

Abe had smiled sadly.

‘It is just war, Ted. Us or them. I’m sorry if that sounds cold but that’s as complicated as it is, no more or less. Kill or be killed and I, for one, vote for going on living every time.’

Ted had let it go.

Now they waited, on tenterhooks for the hatches to be sprung and to again draw cool, unfiltered sea air into their lungs. For the first time they became aware of a sense of motion under their feet. Several crewmen had warned them that the ‘boat rolls like a garbage scow’ in any sort of sea when she was on the surface. Luckily, it transpired that it was calm up above.

Ted clambered up the ladder awkwardly, one run at a time. When he reached the level of the casing strong arms lifted him through the hatch.

Abe followed, clambering out onto the hull, wondering at the discernible yielding ‘give’ underfoot as the submarine’s rubbery acoustic skin yielded to his weight.

The men of the deck party pulled the inflation lanyards of their life jackets; had they been activated inside the boat they would never have got through the pressure hatches.