the chest. His arms flew over his head and he fell backward, sliding over the side. The sailor’s companion grabbed the heavy weapon, swung it around and fired a continuous burst into the cabin.
The windows exploded. Glass and bits of framing showered around Moyes. He wrapped his arms through the ship’s wheel to keep her steady but a moment later another burst tore through the small cabin, ripping into his shoulder. He screamed but it was an angry scream, a scream of challenge not pain.
Leiger saw only the ghostly light roaring down on him through the driving rain. Lightning split the sky again, the jagged streaks ripping into trees along the shore. In the glow, he saw the outline of the heavy shrimper as it chopped through the waves ten yards away. They were almost to the dock but the captain realized he would never make it.
Before he could duck back inside the tower, the
Debris flew through the air like shrapnel. Rivets popped. Maps, flashlights and anything not tied down was thrown into the narrow shaft. Lights flickered. As they did, the stunned captain felt the burst of cold water as it poured through the open hatchway. The sub kept rolling. Sparks showered out of shattered lamps. The fuses blew. The sub was plunged into darkness—a tomb filled with the screams of the men and the sound of water roaring into it from two open hatches.
The shrimp boat groaned as it rode up the side of the tower, slashing it down sideways into the inlet waters and slamming it into the Jekyll dock. Timbers cracked and snapped as the two boats crashed into it. Keegan was thrown against the bulkhead. Lines snapped and twanged past his ear. The shrimp boat rose high out of the water, riding up over the sub then slamming down on the shattered pier. Its weight and the water rushing into the sub slammed the mortally wounded steel fish down to the bottom, into mud and silt.
Inside the submarine there was chaos. The crew floundered in darkness and panic, disoriented as the big fish rolled over and its tower ripped into the muddy bottom. Throughout the slender boat, men tried in vain to find and close watertight doors but they foundered in the dark or were washed away by the torrents of water gushing the length of the U-boat. In the command center, the captain thrashed frantically, hanging on to a table leg. But as the underwater vessel rolled, he lost his grip and he too was washed like a leaf down through the bowels of the sub, bouncing off metal objects, carrying other crew members with him as he was washed toward the stern of the doomed vessel. The cries of the crew were drowned out one after another until there was only the groan of the sea monster as it settled into the muck thirty feet below the surface.
Keegan staggered to his feet and stumbled back to the main cabin of the shrimp boat. Tully Moyes was draped over the wheel, his arms still wrapped in the wheel, his feet turned on their ankles. He groaned and fell backward on the deck of the shattered cabin.
Keegan rushed to him, saw the bullet hole in Moyes’s shoulder and a gash over his eye but the shrimper waved him off.
“Go do your business, Keegan,” he said. “I ain’t dead yet.”
He took the Webley from Moyes’s belt and stuck it in his own. Carrying shotgun and .45, he ran to the front of the shrimp boat and jumped down onto the wet wreckage of the dock. He scrambled across the battered pier to the muddy ground. He saw movement to his left, fell against a tree, strained his eyes, then the sky lit up and he saw the gunnery mate scrambling ashore through the marsh grass.
The full fury of the storm was upon them. The German crawled onto hard earth and started running.
“Hold it,” Keegan screamed but his warning was lost in the wind. He started running parallel to the German, dodging trees. Both were running toward the tall clubhouse spire.
Inside the dining room there was chaos. Willoughby, his eyes bulging with fear and panic, stared through the windows of the dining room. In the gaudy flashes of lightning, he first saw the sub, then the glaring white spotlight, then heard the wrenching collision.
“My God,” he cried. “The sub’s been rammed!”
“Shut up!” 27 ordered as the dining room guests started to surge forward. He turned on them, leveled the gun at Grant Peabody and snarled, “Everyone stand where you are or I’ll kill Peabody. Now.”
The surge stopped for an instant, then Peabody yelled, “You can’t kill us all.”
Allenbee leveled the machine pistol at Peabody.
“No, but if anyone else moves an inch, you’ll be the first to die.”
He backed to the window and looked outside. Through the storm he saw someone running toward the dining room. Behind him was the prow of the shrimp boat, tilted crazily against the dock. No sign of the sub.
Keegan chased the German sailor through the storm but the gunner got to the clubhouse first, scrambling onto the porch and rushing through one of the French doors. Keegan was twenty feet behind him as the sailor burst into the dining room.
Twenty-seven whirled as the sailor staggered through the door and shot him twice in the chest. It was only after the body jackknifed to the floor that the one-time actor realized what he’d done. The room erupted with screams of alarm. Twenty-seven twisted and looked through the open door. For a second, in an explosion of lightning, he saw Keegan huddled in the rain, saw him raise his arm, heard the pistol shot. It skimmed 27’s cheek, took off his earlobe and as he spun out of the doorway he fired several shots at the sodden figure. But Keegan had already vanished in the darkness. -
Willoughby, totally confused, stared down at the dead U- boat crew man.
“My God! You killed one of our own.”
“You damn fool, the sub’s finished.”
“No,” the Englishman cried out. “No, it can’t be.” He started toward the door which was still open and banging in the wind. With an animal growl, Allenbee fired a burst into Willoughby. The bullets ripped into the older man’s
