the engines all neatly cross-sectioned and see the gleaming pistons and crankshafts exposed to the sun, bleeding oil and coolant.
They passed through what was left of the roadblock and drove onwards into a sparsely populated inland area that made excellent strafing territory for the Luftwaffe. The first two fighters that came around were torn apart in midair by Mikulski and his Vickers. The next pair managed to destroy the truck, the big gun, and Private Mikulski in one pass. No one else was hurt; they were all in the ditch, watching as Mikulski sat placidly behind the controls of his weapon, playing chicken with two Messerschmidts and eventually losing.
By now it was getting dark. The detachment began to make its way cross-country on foot, carrying Mikulski's remains on a stretcher. They ran into a German patrol and fought it out with them; two of the SAS men were wounded, and one of these had to be carried the rest of the way. Finally they reached their rendezvous point, a wheat field where they laid down road flares to outline a landing strip for a U.S. Army DC-3, which executed a deft landing, took them all on board, and flew them to Malta without further incident.
And that was where they were introduced to Lieutenant Monkberg for the first time.
No sooner had they been debriefed than they were on another submarine, bound for parts unknown or at least unspecified. But when they turned in their warm-weather gear for ten-pound oiled-wool sweaters, they started to get an idea. A few claustrophobic days later, they had been transferred onto this freighter.
The vessel itself is such a pathetic heap that they have been amusing themselves by substituting the word 'shit' for 'ship' in various nautical expressions, e.g.: let's get this cabin shit-shape! Where in hell does the shit's master think he's taking us? And so on.
Now, in the shit's hold, an impassioned Bobby Shaftoe is doing his best to create a ransacked effect. He strews rifles and tommy guns around the deck. He opens boxes of .45 cartridges and flings them all over the place. He finds some skis, too-they'll be needing skis, right? He plants mines here and there, just to throw a scare into whatever German happens along to investigate this shitwreck. He opens crates of grenades. These do not look very ransacked, sitting there full, so he pulls out dozens of them, carries them abovedecks, and throws them overboard. He tosses out some skis also-maybe they will wash up on shore somewhere and contribute to the overall sense of chaos that is so important to Lieutenant Monkberg.
He is on his way across the upper deck, carrying an armload of skis, when something catches his eye out there in the fog. He flinches, of course. Many strafings have turned Bobby Shaftoe into a big flincher. He flinches so hard that he drops all of those skis on the deck and comes this close to throwing himself down among them. But he holds his ground long enough to focus in on this thing in the fog. It is directly in front of them, and somewhat higher than the bridge of the freighter, and (unlike plunging Zeros or Messerschmidts) it is not moving fast-just hanging there. Like a cloud in the sky. As if the fog had coagulated into a dense clump, like his mother's mashed potatoes. It gets brighter and brighter as he stands there watching it, and the edges get more and more sharply defined, and he starts to see other stuff around it.
The other stuff is green.
Hey, wait a minute! He is looking at a green mountainside with a big white snowfield in the middle of it.
'Heads up!' he screams, and throws himself down on the deck.
He is hoping to be surprised by the gradualness, the gentleness of their collision with the earth's crust. He has in mind the kind of deal where you run a little motorboat at a sandy beach, cut the motor and tilt it out of the water at the last minute, and glide up gently onto the cushioning sand.
This turns out to be a very poor analogy for what happens next. The freighter is actually going a lot faster than your typical putt-putt fishing boat. And instead of gliding up onto a sandy beach, they have a nearly head-on collision with a vertical granite wall. There is a really impressive noise, the prow of the vessel actually bends upwards, and suddenly, Bobby Shaftoe finds that he is sliding on his belly across the ice-glazed deck at a high speed.
He is terrified, for a moment, that he's going to slide right off the deck and go flying into the drink, but he manages to steer himself into an anchor chain, which proves an effective stopper. Down below, he can hear approximately ten thousand other small and large objects finding their own obstacles to slam into.
There follows a brief and almost peaceful interlude of near-total silence. Then a hue and cry rises up from the extremely sparse crew of the freighter: 'ABANDON SHIT! ABANDON SHIT!'
The men of Detachment 2702 head for the lifeboats. Shaftoe knows that they can take care of themselves, so he heads for the bridge, looking for the few oddballs who always find a way to make things interesting:
Lieutenants Root and Monkberg, and Corporal Benjamin.
The first person he sees is the skipper, slumped in a chair, pouring himself a drink and looking like a guy who just bled to death. This poor son of a bitch is a Navy lifer who got detached from his regular unit solely for the purpose of doing what he just did. It clearly does not sit well with him.
'Nice job, sir!' Shaftoe says, not knowing what else to say. Then he follows the sound of an argument into the signals cabin.
The dramatis personae are Corporal Benjamin, holding up a large Book, in a pose that recalls an exasperated preacher sarcastically acquainting his wayward parishioners with the unfamiliar sight of the Bible; Lieutenant Monkberg, semireclined in a chair, his damaged Limb up on a table; and Lieutenant Root, doing some needle-and-thread work on same.
'It is my sworn duty-' Benjamin begins.
Monkberg interrupts him. 'It is your sworn duty, Corporal, to follow my orders!'
Root's medical supplies are scattered all over the deck because of the collision. Shaftoe begins to pick them up and sort them out, keeping an especially sharp eye out for any small bottles that may have gone astray.
Benjamin is very excited. Clearly, he is not getting through to Monkberg, and so he opens up the hefty Book at random and holds it up above his head. It contains line after line, column after column, of random letters. 'This,' Benjamin says, 'is the Allied MERCHANT SHIPPING CODE! A copy of THIS BOOK is on EVERY SHIP of EVERY CONVOY in the North Atlantic! It is used by those ships to BROADCAST THEIR POSITIONS! Do you UNDERSTAND what is going to HAPPEN if THIS BOOK falls into the hands of THE GERMANS?!'
'I have given you my order,' Lieutenant Monkberg says.
They go on in this vein for a couple of minutes as Shaftoe scours the deck for medical debris. Finally he sees what he's looking for: it has rolled beneath a storage cabinet and appears to be miraculously unscathed.
'Sergeant Shaftoe!' says Root peremptorily. It is the closest he has ever come to sounding like a military officer. Shaftoe straightens up reflexively.
'Sir! Yes, sir!'
'Lieutenant Monkberg's dose of morphine may wear off pretty soon. I need you to find my morphine bottle and bring it to me right away.'
'Sir! Yes, sir!' Shaftoe is a Marine, which means he's really good at following orders even when his body is telling him not to. Even so, his fingers do not want to release their grip on the little bottle, and Root almost has to pry it loose.
Benjamin and Monkberg, locked in their dispute, are oblivious to this little exchange. 'Lieutenant Root!' Benjamin says, his voice now high and trembly.
'Yes, Corporal,' Root says absent-mindedly.
'I have reason to believe that Lieutenant Monkberg is a German spy and that he should be relieved of his command of this mission and placed under arrest!'
'You son of a bitch!' Monkberg shouts. As well he might, since Benjamin has just accused him of treason, for which he could face a firing squad. But Root has Monkberg's leg clamped in place up there on the table, and he can't move.
Root is completely unruffled. He seems to welcome this unbelievably serious accusation. It is an opportunity to talk about something with more substance than, for example, finding ways to substitute the word 'shit' for 'ship' in nautical expressions.
'I'll see you court-martialed for this, you bastard!' Monkberg hollers.
'Corporal Benjamin, what grounds do you have for this accusation?' says Enoch Root in a lullaby voice.
'The lieutenant has refused to allow me to destroy the codebooks, which it is my sworn duty to do!' Benjamin shouts. He has completely lost his temper.
