LIFEBOAT SERVICEMEN TOM TYLER AND HIS MATE JIMMIE DODDS bounded up onto the deck after Corporal Merritt and charged the bow, their Browning A-5s at the ready. They immediately un-slung their Bergens, unpacked the gun cotton explosives Mr. Ray Terhune had painstakingly prepared for this specific purpose, slapped the charge on the anchor chain exactly the way they had been taught, ignited the fuse lighter, and scurried for cover behind the bollard.
“KEEERBLAAAAAAM!” The blast of white light lit up the whole harbor for a split second. The sound of the anchor chain detonating charge was mind-boggling, even though the charge had been purposely constructed to be on the light side to prevent major damage to the ship. The anchor chain rattled free, slid down the side of the Ems’s hull, and splashed into the bay exactly as advertised by demolitions man and cutting charge designer Mr. Terhune.
Virtually in chorus, a twin explosion followed from the stern anchor, set off by the HMY Arrow ratings with the same satisfying result.
Both anchors rattled free down the side to sink to the bottom, as per plan. The anchor demolition team had accomplished their mission right on schedule.
The Lifeboat Servicemen then immediately came out from their hiding place, opened their Bergen packs again, and took out the fireworks stuffed inside. With shaking hands, the men attempted to ignite the fuse of long, thin, cardboard Roman candles. Suddenly the idea of actually lighting up and shooting off fireworks while standing on a ship they were in the very act of pirating out of a neutral harbor seemed a lot less reasonable than it had when briefed and rehearsed all those times prior to the mission.
Lifeboat Serviceman Tyler succeeded in getting his lit first. Waving the tip in a circle to build up steam, he shouted, “I feel like a blinkin’ fool on Guy Fawkes Day!” The fuse sputtered and fizzled, but finally a big green fireball looped out weakly and arched limply over the rail before landing in the water below with a sizzling hiss.
While the two Lifeboat Servicemen shot off their fireworks, they kept a sharp eye out for the towline they were going to secure from Tugboat No. 1/King Kong to the bollard of the German cruiser the moment the tug moved into position to effect the tow. The men had to get it right first time. The towline was their lifeline, their ticket home. The two Lifeboat Servicemen had practiced the hookup maneuver until they had all the moves choreographed like a Russian ballet.
As Lifeboat Serviceman Dodds pumped his red, white, and green fire-balls into the air, he shouted, “Our mates in the Lifeboat Service would never believe this story even if we could tell ‘em!”
Unlike the other two vessels, the German cruiser was an actual ship-of-war and, as such, had considerably more crew on watch when Raiding Forces came aboard. When Major John Randal and Corporal Jack Merritt raced to the bridge, they unexpectedly ran head-on into an intermittent stream of German sailors rushing down the main ladder. No one had foreseen anything like that happening.
As the two Raiders charged up the ladder, they found themselves going against a human tide of Nazi sailors hustling to their duty stations. “Putting on the Ritz” was still blaring, and a klaxon was going off: AH-OO-GAH, AH-OO-GAH, AH-OO-GAH. The element of surprise was dead and gone now.
The crew of the Ems on duty was so intent on hurrying to carry out their assigned tasks they failed to recognize the two Commandos as enemy combatants in the uncertain light. Though the German sailors had conducted immediate action drills for every conceivable contingency, no one ever actually expected any enemy action in San Pedro Harbor, and they were not looking for intruders.
It was not clear to the Ems crew what the signal to man battle stations was all about. After all, the ship was interned in a neutral port, located in a sleepy Portuguese backwater. Most of the officers were absent at a party. Probably simply another drill; perhaps the skipper had come back on board early in a foul mood and sprung the exercise on his crew simply to make their miserable life even more intolerable, as he had been known to do from time to time.
Since speed was of the essence and for lack of any better plan, Major Randal simply pumped two .22-caliber rounds from his silenced pistol into every enemy sailor who came past, and never broke stride. Behind him, Corporal Merritt deliberately fired another round into each man, center of mass, as he came abreast of the major’s targets, regardless of whether the enemy seamen were staggering from the gunshots or had already fallen to the deck. Nazis were going down like bowling pins.
In the dark and the absence of the sound of gunshots, compounded by the flash and sound of explosions of fireworks going off and the klaxon blaring, the confused sailors never seemed to fully comprehend what was happening, not even the men who had been shot.
By the time the two Raiders arrived on the bridge, Major Randal had completely emptied one magazine, performed a rapid reload, and was halfway through a second. Bounding up on the bridge he encountered two startled Kriegsmarine watch officers and shot them both three times where they stood. When the two Germans went down, Major Randal realized, with no small amount of relief and a certain surprise, he had successfully taken his objective.
Reflexively, he reloaded the High Standard with his last magazine then holstered it in exchange for his Colt .38 Super. Never in his wildest imagination had he ever pictured using that much silenced .22-caliber ammunition. No matter how many battle scenarios you plan for, the real thing never turns out like any of them.
At virtually the same moment Major John Randal was eliminating the two sentries standing watch at the top of the boarding ladder, Tugboat No. 1/King Kong’s skipper, “Warthog” Finley, had come about and slammed into the starboard side of the Ems. The worn-out row of old truck tires lashed to her sides cushioned the impact, but the tug ploughed in pretty hard. The salty old skipper fought the wheel, held fast against the Ems, and stuck like glue. The maneuver was a fantastic feat of seamanship.
Simultaneous with the assault on the bridge, grappling hooks flew up and over the starboard rail as the raiding party, led by Lieutenant “Pyro” Percy Stirling, was up and away, scaling the ropes and clearing the rail fast. The Raiders had endlessly practiced scaling steep walls at the Special Warfare Training Center in Scotland, and tonight all that hard training paid off.
Lieutenant Stirling and Sergeant Mickey Duggan ran full tilt to the Ems’s communications room, followed by their bluejacket and the German-speaking Commando. Having memorized the schematic diagram of the ship’s plan, the Raiders had no problem finding the radio shack.
Their immediate goal was to capture any codebooks still lying around or possibly a radio operator who might have knowledge of codes, radio procedures, encryption devices, or anything else of high signal intelligence value. More to the point, the Raiders were hoping to persuade any German sailor they caught in the radio shack to lead them to the all-important clandestine radio. They intended to be very persuasive. Since tonight they were nothing more than pirates, the Geneva Convention was not in full force and effect. Not that either man had ever actually read it.
When the Commandos burst in, they found a radio operator in the act of attempting to set fire to a pile of documents. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, acting on pure reflex, Sergeant Duggan administered a short, efficient, horizontal butt-stroke from his Browning A-5 to the unfortunate Kriegsmarine signalman, pancaking him cold. He was not going to be any help.
According to orders, they handcuffed the unconscious Nazi to the bulkhead. Lieutenant Stirling grabbed the first passing Raiding Forces trooper he saw and ordered him to stand guard over the radio room and not let anything (else) unhealthy happen to their high-value prisoner.
After a quick survey of the cabin, Lieutenant Stirling turned to Sergeant Duggan and asked, “Now, where do you think the real radio is located?”
Muffled booms were echoing throughout the ship as Commandos blew in watertight steel doors in the process of carrying out their individual assigned tasks. The takedown of the Ems was proceeding with robotic precision. The disoriented Nazi sailors never had a chance to consolidate and organize any form of resistance. One minute they had been peaceably asleep in their hammocks, unhappy at missing the party ashore, and the next, hell had arrived. Speed and violence of action were carrying the night. The Strategic Raiding Force was on the scene and they were not to be denied.
Royal Marine Butch Hoolihan and Mr. Ray Terhune raced down deep into the bowels of the Ems. On the way down, almost without breaking stride, Marine Hoolihan shot three German sailors rushing up to reach topside. The 12-gauge Browning A-5 boomed and spouted flame in the confines of the metal ladder well.
Mr. Terhune proved to be a real trouper and did not have any trouble at all keeping up with his bodyguard. He never faltered, never hesitated to hurtle over the dead Nazi seamen. When they reached the bottom, the ex-Royal Navy man took the lead, finding his way with the help of a large six-cell flashlight. The ship was dark on the lower deck, but he knew exactly where to look and he found what he was searching for. The deadly scuttling charges looked cold and sinister in the beam of his handheld torch.
He had only just begun to dismantle the scuttling device that would have sent the ship straight to Davy Jones’s locker with all hands on board when a determined three-man demolition team of Kriegsmarine sailors, led by a ship’s officer, arrived on the run to arm it.
Chaos reigned temporarily in the confines of the walk space until Marine Hoolihan sorted things out with his Browning 12-gauge. The A-5’s “Boooom, Boooom, Boooom, Boooom, Boooom, Boooom” was deafening. The gunshots reverberated and echoed, the loud discharges resounding off the metal bulkheads. A foot-long flame flared out of the barrel, punctuating every round. Through the blue gun smoke they could see the three Germans strewn about like crumpled rag dolls.
“Reminds me of one of those old-fashioned blunderbusses, the ones with a bell-shaped muzzle,” a wide-eyed Mr. Terhune observed, immediately turning back to his work. “Nice shooting, Butch!”
“The barrel has this little duckbill device,” the husky young Royal Marine explained as the gun smoke began to clear away. “Makes the shot come out in a flat, oval pattern.”
“Flattened those blokes,” Mr. Terhune agreed approvingly, “fair dink ’em.”
Meanwhile, Corporal Merritt went back down to the main deck, collected Commodore Richard Seaborn and his bodyguard, Royal Marine Jock McDonald, and escorted them up to the bridge over what appeared to the commodore to be a carpet of dead and dying Kriegsmarine sailors. The Navy officer knew he would never forget the sight of Major Randal coolly picking off the two sentries with his silenced pistol. Too bad he was never going to ever be able to tell that story. You could dine out on a tale like that for the rest of your life.
“Sir,” Major Randal acknowledged the commodore absently, intent on absorbing the details of all the action taking place both on board the Ems and elsewhere in the harbor visible from the ship’s bridge.
“I had no need of an escort, John,” the commodore stated. “Simply follow the trail of dead men. They led straight to you. I almost feel sorry for these poor bloody Nazis.”
“If they didn’t want to get killed they shouldn’t have joined up,” Major Randal replied shortly. “Do some Navy stuff, sir. Time for us to get the hell out of Dodge.”
Just then Lieutenant Stirling came bursting up on the bridge, almost out of breath. “We found it, sir, hidden behind a watertight door with a big red skull and crossbones painted on it and “DANGER ELECTRICITY” printed in about five different languages. We were afraid to blow the door, but not to worry, Breedlove, the able-bodied you assigned us, knew exactly how to unzip it like a tin of sardines.”
“Outstanding!” Major John Randal clapped the high-spirited lieutenant on the shoulder. “Nice job, Percy.”
“We hit the jackpot, sir,” the Death or Glory Boy continued. “Inside we found a high-speed transmitter with an encryption device attached, a bookshelf full of what appear to be codebooks, and there is a chart pinned to the wall with what Sergeant Duggan believes are individual call signs of the commerce raiders and U-boats. We captured one of the ship’s radio operators, too, though he’s a little dinged up.”
“I knew I could count on you, stud.” Major Randal paid the young officer his highest compliment. “Go conduct a quick all-around inspection of the Ems for me. Then get back here as fast as you can with a sit rep.”
“Sir!”
On shore, the San Pedro Defense Forces were at first alarmed by the blasts coming from the harbor, but when they stood to, they saw the fireworks. They concluded that the stir-crazy German and Italian sailors had to be drunk.
The fighting men of the San Pedro Defense Forces certainly were, thanks to the generosity of the ladies of the night (whom Captain “Geronimo Joe” McKoy had hired), who had arrived bearing gifts. The SPDF quickly decided that guarding the booze left back in their quarters with the hookers was more important than guarding the port. As Captain McKoy hoped, the defense forces’ harbor contingent stood down for the night. Mission accomplished. The citizens of San Pedro could sleep well; their defense force intended to.
At almost the same moment the San Pedro Defense Force decided to repair back to their barracks, a massive fireworks display erupted from the red-light district in San Pedro’s harbor area, where a wild street party was in full swing. Simultaneously from high in the hills above San Pedro, an equally massive barrage of fireworks exploded, coming from the vicinity of the Gun & Rod Club.
Captain Wolf Steiner felt a faint stab of alarm when the initial explosion occurred. The noise that penetrated his alcohol-sodden brain sounded more like a genuine “something just got blown up” type of explosion than fireworks. A trained professional can distinguish between the two.
His thoughts were distracted, however, when Captain the Lady Jane Seaborn and Royal Marine Pamala Plum-Martin suddenly materialized from the crowd in their sexy cowgirl outfits, both girls laughing invitingly and drinking straight out of a magnum-sized bottle of champagne.
Without a word, the girls took him by the hands and led him around the side of the club, through the palm trees, to the back of the gravel parking lot. There, a long black 1928 Packard touring car, which Captain “Geronimo Joe” McKoy had hired for the evening, was waiting for them. Overhead the red, white, and green sprays of fireworks were erupting, one after the other, in a breathtakingly spectacular display.
When the two cowgirls reached the car, they each took a belt from the big green bottle, needing both hands to muscle the magnum up to their lips. Then they thoughtfully passed the big bottle to the German skipper and climbed up on the front fenders of the Packard. The band out on the terrace had launched into an enthusiast rendition of “Pistol Packing Mama.” The band was working hard. The fireworks were booming. The two cowgirls started stripping!
Captain Steiner realized he was having the most fun he had had since the day the Ems received the signal to sail to San Pedro. “KA-WHAAAAAM.” Captain McKoy stepped out of the shadows, minus his jingling silver Mexican spurs, and slapped the German on the back of the head with a leather-covered lead sap. The Ems skipper’s head hit the ground before his well-traveled sea boots even left it. The foaming magnum of champagne clinked on the gravel and rolled off into the dark.
The women jumped down off the car’s fenders. Captain Lady Seaborn stuffed her silk scarf in the Nazi’s mouth, then took a roll of heavy-duty tape from inside the Packard’s glove compartment and wrapped it around and around his head, taping the scarf inside his mouth and also taping his eyes shut.
While she was working, Royal Marine Plum-Martin was busy taping his ankles together all the way up to his knees. Then she taped his hands. Then she taped his elbows to his chest.
Captain McKoy stepped around to the back of the Packard and opened the trunk. “You tape the man any more and you’re going to make a mummy out of him.”
He came back and together all three of them dragged the unconscious German to the rear of the car, heaved him in, and slammed the trunk shut. Captain McKoy climbed in behind the wheel and the women both slid into the front seat. Down the mountain they drove.
“You ladies are pretty good dancers.”
“If you had taken much longer we would have been naked!” Royal Marine Plum-Martin squealed in mock protest.
“I was takin’ my time—in a hurry.”
The women laughed, giddy from the adrenaline rush they were both experiencing.
“The things we do for England,” Captain Lady Seaborn chuckled. “Hope y’all enjoyed y’all’s show, y’all.”
“I sure did. And that’s a fact, ladies.”
The Packard sped through the tropical night along the coast road until they reached the small beach for their prearranged rendezvous with Jim “Baldie” Taylor. They pulled off the road, walked down to the beach, unfolded three cloth deck chairs, and built a signal fire. Then they waited.
In the trunk of the car, Captain Wolf Steiner slowly regained consciousness and began to realize that his miserable, rotten war had taken a turn for the worse.