Breakthroughs

“There ought to be a better way to find a submersible that’s hunting than bare-naked eyeballs,” George said. “What we need”-he glanced over at Carl Sturtevant-“is a new kind of gadget.”

“Here’s what you need.” Sturtevant displayed the middle finger of his right hand. “And for God’s sake don’t say that anyplace where Crowder can hear you. He’ll either order you to invent the damn thing yourself-and by day before yesterday, too, or you’ll be in Dutch-or else he’ll try and do it himself, and that won’t work, either.”

“Yeah, but-” Enos got no further than that. The lead freighter blew up. It was a spectacular explosion; the ship must have been carrying munitions. The report slapped George in the face across a couple of miles of water. “Jesus!” he exclaimed.

Klaxons started hooting men to their battle stations. The Ericsson’s deck shuddered under Enos’ feet as he ran. The stacks belched smoke. The destroyer picked up speed.

At the one-pounder by the stern, George peered about. He suspected-he feared-he was likelier to spot a torpedo wake heading straight for the Ericsson than a telltale periscope. If he didn’t try to spot a periscope, though, nothing could be more certain than his failure.

A runner came up to Lieutenant Crowder at the depth-charge projector by Enos’ gun and said, “Sir, this is where the bastard-uh, the submersible-is hiding. Captain wants you to shake him up to the surface if you can.”

“We’ll do that,” Crowder said. He turned back to Carl Sturtevant, who did the dirty work of running the projector. “We’ll shake those Rebel bastards or their limey pals right out of their shoes. Give me four charges, Sturtevant; set the fuses for two hundred feet.”

“Aye aye, sir. Four charges. Two hundred feet,” the veteran petty officer repeated tonelessly. That tonelessness was itself a dead giveaway that he did not agree with his superior’s order. Indeed, as the crew loaded the first two charges onto the projector, he went so far as to ask, “Did I hear that right, sir?” If Crowder said no, he could change the order without losing face by having a man of lower rank correct him.

But Crowder, crisply, said, “Yes. I want them deep. After he sank that freighter, the skipper down there will surely have seen us coming to the attack. He will try to place as much ocean between himself and us as he can. Two hundred feet I said; two hundred feet it shall be.”

“Yes, sir,” Sturtevant answered, even more woodenly than before. Two by two, the depth charges flew off the Ericsson’s stern and splashed into the sea.

That yes, sir in place of aye aye, sir was a telling proof of how strongly Sturtevant disagreed with Lieutenant Crowder. Standing there behind the one-pounder, George Enos found himself on the petty officer’s side. Whatever flag the boat somewhere under them flew, its skipper had proved himself a tough, aggressive bastard in earlier attacks. George didn’t think a skipper like that would lurk in the depths, either. His guess was that the enemy captain would come up to periscope depth as soon as he could, and try to put a fish right in the Ericsson’s engine room. In which case, sending depth charges down two hundred feet would be a waste of good explosives.

George’s eyes went back and forth, back and forth, looking for the feathery plume of wake that trailed and could give away a periscope. He imagined he saw something a couple of times, but longer looks proved him wrong.

Astern of the Ericsson, water boiled and bubbled, the surface mark of the depth charges’ explosions. Moments later, oil floated up from far underwater, flattening the waves over which it rode. “Well, dip me in shit and fry me for bacon,” Carl Sturtevant said in conversational tones. “Either we’ve hurt the son of a bitch or else he’s trying to make us think we did. Whether it’s the one or the other, we didn’t miss him by much.” He solemnly took off his hat to Lieutenant Crowder. “Beg your pardon, sir. You were right and I was wrong, and I’m man enough to admit it.”

“Never mind that.” Crowder pointed back to the oil slick. “Let’s get over it and pound that boat to death. I’ll want half the ash cans we throw down there fused for a hundred and fifty feet, the other half for two-fifty.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Sturtevant said, and repeated back the order. No back talk now; his thoughts and Crowder’s were running down the same track.

Like any destroyer, the Ericsson was an agile vessel. She quickly returned to the floating oil. Into the water splashed the new salvo of depth charges.

Explosions underwater once more roiled the surface of the sea. Enos stood at his gun, ready to pound away at the submarine if she had to surface in a hurry. He was also ready for disappointment; the submersible had tricked the destroyer before. More oil came to the surface, and air bubbles, and bits of wreckage swept up by the bubbles.

The men at the depth-charge projector cheered and beat their fists against its metal sides. “If he’s shamming this time, he’s a better actor than any Booth ever born,” Lieutenant Crowder shouted. “Set some for two-fifty again, Sturtevant, and some for an even hundred. If we’ve hurt that boat bad enough, it’ll have to surface. Hop to it, you men.”

Hop to it they did. Depth charges rained into the Atlantic. With a kill so close, Crowder fired them off with reckless abandon. If the Ericsson didn’t sink the submarine, she’d be all but defenseless against it. George caressed the curved metal of the one-pounder’s trigger as if it were his wife’s curved flesh. “Come on,” he muttered. “Come on, you son of a whore.”

And, like a broaching whale, up the submarine came. She rose bow-first, and was plainly in desperate straits. No sooner had the boat reached the surface than she heeled over onto her side and began to sink once more. Though it was more nearly horizontal than vertical, an officer came out of the conning-tower hatch and threw something into the water: the boat’s papers in a weighted sack, George supposed.

He fired a ten-round clip of one-pounder shells at the enemy officer. One struck home; the officer’s head exploded into red fog. The fellow-he was a Rebel, for he wore dark gray trousers, not Royal Navy blue-tumbled into the sea. A moment later, the submersible sank, this time for good.

Carl Sturtevant pounded George on the back. “Good shooting, snapping turtle,” he bawled in Enos’ ear. “You see the name on the boat there?”

“Bon-something,” George said. “She rolled over too damn fast to get more than just a glimpse.”

“Bonefish, had to be,” Sturtevant said. “There’s swarms of ’em in C.S. waters; no wonder they’d name a boat after ’em.”

“We sent it to the boneyard, by God,” Enos answered. Solemnly, the two men shook hands.

Cincinnatus wished he were driving his truck. Inside the cab of the rumbling, snorting White machine, nobody was watching him. Here in Covington, he wished he had eyes in the back of his head, and one on each side, too. Did that fellow with the gray mustache waiting for the trolley belong to Luther Bliss’ Kentucky State Police? Was that redhead in overalls a member of the Confederate underground that kept on doing its best to disrupt Kentucky’s return to the USA? When he got back into the colored part of town, he wondered whether the woman hawking apples reported to Apicius or some other Red cell leader. All those groups were intently interested in keeping an eye on him.

And things weren’t simple, either. The colored woman selling apples might have reported to Luther Bliss, or even to the Confederate diehards. Cincinnatus had worked with them; other Negroes could, too. For that matter, white Reds could work with black Reds. Maybe none of those people, nor any others he passed on the street, was interested in him at all. He hoped none of those people was interested in him at all. He had trouble believing it, though.

Time was when he’d let out a sigh of relief coming up the walk to his house. When he was home with Elizabeth and little Achilles, nothing could bother him. That was what he’d thought then.

Now…As he went up the wooden steps onto his front porch, his eyes automatically dropped to look at the boards right in front of the door. There was nothing to see. He and Elizabeth had both worked hard to get rid of every trace of Tom Kennedy’s blood. No, there was nothing to see. But he knew the blood was there.

What he didn’t know was who had blown off a big chunk of Kennedy’s head. He had next to no chance of finding out, either, because everyone thought he was in someone else’s pocket and so didn’t want to give him the time of day. But if he didn’t find out who’d murdered the Confederate diehard and why, whoever it was might decide he needed killing, too. Since he didn’t know whom in particular to worry about, he had to worry about everybody, which got wearing.

Elizabeth had got home ahead of him. She must have seen him coming, for she opened the door as he was reaching for the knob. Out toddled Achilles, a big smile on his face. “Dada!” he said, grabbing Cincinnatus around