The Military Megapack: 25 Great Tales of War by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: action, military, pulp fiction, war, adventure
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2011-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

His jackknife appeared twinklingly. He slashed wildly at securing lines. Now, from the German, came a sudden angry and impatient hail. He wanted to know what the devil was keeping the Willamette’s skipper.

“Two minutes I give him!” he finished. “Two minutes! Then I will sink you with shell fire, and you can swim!”

“Up she goes!” Wolver grunted. “Heave and bust her! Good and heavy! There she is. Now, if we can kind of keep down and roll her—”

“Lord!” the skipper breathed suddenly. “Boy, you ever see one of these things go off? She’ll strain our seams! We ought to be goin’ like hell away when we drop her. Hold ever’thing a minute. I got an engine room voice-tube back here. Le’ me warn Mac.”

He vanished. From the sub came the German officer’s voice again—angrier, grimmer. One minute left—forty-five seconds—The skipper reappeared, and with his hands on the big can, there came a trembling from the engine room to the deck. The Willamette was going ahead.

“Now, if we can make it before he decides to turn loose!”

They rolled the depth bomb across the tarpaulined tops of its mates; paused a moment at the bulwark.

“I will fire—” the German began.

“Up she goes! Over—she—goes!”

They strained their muscles in that last great heave. Up to the bulwark. And Wolver dropped flat upon his back, catching hold of projections, drawing back his feet. They pushed out upon the poised bomb with all the force of his wiry body— pushed it out in an arc that cleared the low side. It struck with a splash. They peered fearfully overside. The Germans had whirled to gape.

The German bellowed something in his native tongue. No need of translation. The bellow of the sub’s gun and the crash as the shell, fired at fifty yards, plowed through the old vessel under the bridge, told what his command had been.

There came an echo to that roar, an indescribable explosion under water. The Willamette, forging ahead under cranky old engines, was barely out from above the bomb. A geyser of water rose high and the stern of the freighter lifted, lifted, lifted, with agonized groan of ancient plates. Wolver found himself hanging half over the bulwark, with the skipper tumbled across his legs. His head had struck something with a resounding crack, and he saw whole constellations of stars. He was out for a fleeting period.

“Gone!” the skipper croaked in his ear, dragging him inboard. “My Lord! Never see anything like that! Just lifted her up and swamped her. Likely opened every seam in that sardine can, an’—an’—I bet it did almost as much on this’n’!”

He scrambled up and fled. Wolver followed him toward the collapsed bridge. The freighter’s deck force and all of the engineer’s force who were off-watch, were clustered here. They had been standing by boat falls, ready to abandon the ship. They stared incredulously, even yet, out to where the sub had vanished.

Wolver stood with them. The skipper appeared presently. To the mate he said that she was leaking, but the well showed nothing alarming.

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