James Benn - Billy Boyle

Standing on the dock the morning of our departure, my gear slung over my shoulder, I looked out to sea at the rough water and low clouds, and then back at MTB 718. There was a catch all right. She looked big enough for a fishing trip off Cape Cod, not a rough North Sea crossing. She was about a hundred feet long and very low in the water. A voice hailed me from the boat.

“You there, Yank! Are you our Joey?”

“My name’s Billy,” I said. Laughter rolled through the crew until an officer showed up at the gangplank.

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Boyle. I’m Lieutenant Harold Dickinson, Royal Navy Reserve.” He was tall, thin, graceful, and hatless. His head of thick blond hair blew in every direction in the freshening wind. He wore a soiled fisherman’s thick white turtleneck sweater, and could’ve been a Harvard kid getting ready for a sail, except for the twin-mounted. 50 caliber machine guns he was leaning against.

“Don’t mind the lads. We call all our passengers ‘Joeys.’ That’s what Aussies call a baby kangaroo, carried safely in its mum’s pouch. Don’t know if that’s where it got started, but there it is.”

I climbed aboard and saluted. I had seen guys salute when they boarded ships in the movies and thought I’d try to look like I knew what I was doing.

“I thought you Yanks were supposed to be rather informal,” said Dickinson, returning the salute nonchalantly and glancing around at his men. “We don’t bother with a lot of that here, do we boys?”

“Too busy keeping old 718 afloat for that,” one of crew said with a grin as he descended belowdecks with a toolbox. I suddenly became nervous.

“Everything belowdecks working OK, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“First, call me Harry. And second, don’t worry about a thing. The lads keep her in tip-top shape. They’re just having their fun with you. We’re on our own a lot and don’t have time for rubbish about spit and polish. Engines and weapons, that’s what we spend our time on. Plenty of opportunity between wars to polish the brass.”

“I like the way you think, Harry. How many of these trips have you made?”

“To France and Norway, or just Norway?” A crew member walked by, a bearded fellow clenching a pipe in his mouth, trailing smoke, who laughed as he looked at me.

“OK, forget it. I’m sure you know your job. I’m a little nervous.”

“Nervous? Why, Lieutenant Boyle, whatever for? We’re just about to leave on a six-hundred-mile trip through enemy-infested waters, with a big, fat low-pressure system just sitting over us, dumping buckets of rain and churning up waves taller than houses, in order to land you alone in Nazi-occupied Norway, just south of the Arctic Circle, and leave you there. Why should you be nervous?”

“Houses? Waves taller than houses? ”

“Rather large houses.”

I huddled in the galley as we got under way, sitting on a bench and sipping a cup of hot, sweet tea. Or trying to. The boat was rocking and I was trying to match the rolling motion while bringing the cup to my lips.

“Ever do any sailing back in the States?” Harry asked as he came in. I could see by the half smile on his lips that he doubted it.

“I once rode the ferry across Boston Harbor.”

“Boston! Where you colonials wasted all that perfectly good tea?”

“The same.”

“Serves you right, then.”

“What does?”

“This crossing. This mission.”

“Well, I asked for it. Is this tub going to make it?”

“We’ve been through worse weather,” Harry said, a serious look passing briefly over his face, “but I’d hate to make a practice of it. Old 718 will do just fine. She’s got four Packard engines driving four shafts and can do a top speed of thirty-five knots.”

“Does that count going up the side of a wave?”

“No,” he laughed, “it does not. Calm sea, thirty-five knots. This mess, we’ll make fifteen or twenty, tops. It’s going to be rough.”

“The weather or the Germans?”

“Both, although for now we’ve only the weather to worry about.”

He took a rolled-up map from a shelf above me, opened it, and laid it out on the table, using an empty teacup to hold one side down.

“Here’s our position now, northeast of the Orkney Islands. We’ll pass the Shetlands and then head due north. Then we leave the North Sea and enter the Norwegian Sea. Here,” he marked a spot of open water, “we turn east-northeast and head into Tomma. Then we start worrying about Germans.”

“What about the Luftwaffe?”

“They don’t fly in this weather. Neither do our chaps, for that matter. This low-pressure system is stalled right now. I doubt it’ll move for a day or so. That will give us time to land you and get away offshore before the clouds and fog lift.”

“What about German patrol boats?”

“Plenty of those, and they will be out. Luckily, visibility is so limited that they shouldn’t be a problem. We can outrun most of them and out-gun the smaller craft. It’s the Vorpostenboot ships I don’t want to bump into in the fog.”

“Vorpostenboot?”

“Flak ships, like picketboats. They patrol at a distance from shore, trying to catch incoming aircraft and alerting the coastal defenses. They’re slow, but armed to the teeth with AA guns. Machine guns; 20mm, 37mm, and 40mm cannon. Nasty, if they spot you.”

“If they’re so slow, can’t you sink them with your torpedoes?”

“We used to have four eighteen-inch torpedo tubes, but had them removed to make room for more fuel and supplies, and assorted Joeys like you. We’ve got machine guns and 20mm Oerlikons that can give smaller boats or aircraft a good fight, but the Vorpostenboots would turn this mahogany into kindling.” He knocked on the polished wooden hull.

“Let’s stay away from them then.”

“Capital idea, Lieutenant! Trust a Yank to see straight to the heart of the matter.”

“Call me Billy, and stop putting me on, Harry.”

“Now what fun would that be, Billy?” Harry laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. He stood and bounded upstairs, into the wind and salt spray. I tried to drink my tea without spilling it all over myself. We all prefer to do what we do best.

I was getting beat up pretty badly below deck as the boat rolled, smashed headlong into waves, and dropped ten feet all at the same time. I grabbed some rain gear and headed up, trying to stay upright but not doing too well. I slammed against the ceiling, the wall, and then the deck, all within five seconds. I figured at least up top there’d be no ceiling to hit my head on, so I grabbed the handrail and pulled myself up the stairs as fast as I could. The topdeck was open unprotected from the wind, rain, and waves. Harry was at the wheel, soaked and grinning insanely.

“Welcome to the North Sea, Billy. How do you like it so far?”

He had to yell above the noise of the sea and our motors. He never moved his eyes, which were watching each wave as it broke across the bow. The boat crested a wave and slammed down as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer. The piece of deck I was standing on came up and struck me in the face. I fell back, sliding on the wet planks and spitting blood from a cut lip. It took my mind off being seasick, for a minute.

“Are we almost there yet?” I asked as a crewman helped me up.

“Still a bit of a way to go. Keep your knees flexed and try to roll with the boat.”

I made my way to the railing and flexed my knees, which was an excellent position in which to throw up breakfast. I let the water whip my face for a while and then staggered back to Harry.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Actually, yes. This is almost fun.”

Harry risked a quick glance at me, and then laughed.