Джон Болл - The First Team

From the galley of the Dolly the cook appeared carrying a large kettle. He was followed by three other crewmen, all heavily burdened with containers of food. As soon as the telephone connection had been made, the captain of the Dolly spoke to his opposite number. “Congratulations, sir, we’re glad to see you. We didn’t know until we saw you that you’d made it. We have hot chow, and plenty of it, ready and waiting.”

“Outstanding, send it over. We only verified your position a short while ago.”

The captain of the Dolly spoke to his exec. “Start the stuff moving, Jimmy.”

“Ay, sir.” Lieutenant James Morton had been waiting for this moment from the first time that he had set foot onto his ship and he needed no urging. He called to Hanson on the deck; moments later the derrick went into action. There was no way to rig a high line between the two ships plus which the movement of the water kept them both rocking gently, but the derrick operator was up to the challenge. As soon as the prepared food had been set down on a waiting pallet he picked it up and swung it expertly across the narrow strip of water and onto the deck of the submarine. It was a tricky business, but he had a very long boom; the longest in fact that the outfitters of the Dolly had dared to install. In addition, it had a telescoping feature which gave it an additional, normally invisible twenty-four feet. The fishing vessel, despite its size and bulk, heeled over considerably as the transfer was made, but that had been calculated in advance too.

“Do you need some extra hands?” Magsaysay asked.

“Negative, we’re in good shape. Enjoy your chow.”

“We’ll start feeding right now; keep the stuff coming.”

The pallet lifted off the deck of the Dolly once more, this time carrying supplies which had been specially packaged to fit through the thirty-inch-in-diameter hatchway, which was the largest opening in the pressure hull of the submarine. As fast as the pallet was unloaded, more prepared loads were brought up onto the deck of the Dolly from the holds below. Had it been necessary, the whole operation could have been done while the Magsaysay was well under the surface, but it would have been more difficult and the hot meal which had been prepared would have had to have been put into waterproof containers. Overhead the steadily revolving radar antenna kept watch over the surrounding sea and the air. Very low-flying aircraft could have defeated it and surprised the operation, but that was a calculated risk which had been accepted as too unlikely to be a genuine hazard.

In two hours’ time the Dolly had been emptied of all of the carefully prepared materiel which had been brought on board her in a dozen different disguises. Food, medical equipment, critical spares — all were transferred and passed below by relays of men on Magsaysay. As the process was nearing its finish, the captain of the submarine used the phone link once more. “Is there anything we can do for you?” he asked.

“Negative, sir, we’re in good shape.”

“I have a problem; we have two political refugees on board. They came with us uninvited at the last moment.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Considering what we have ahead of us, I’d rather not have them on board. On the other hand, I don’t want to wish them onto you either; you don’t have the facilities.”

“We’ll take them, sir — no problem. Send them over. What is their attitude?”

“Satisfactory, I’d say, particularly now that their bellies are full. But if you’re found with them, it could be the end. That’s the problem.”

“I think we can handle that, sir. We have some well-concealed compartments if we need to use them.”

“If you’re willing, it would be a big help to us.”

“No sweat; we’re glad to do it.”

On its last trip the pallet brought back Kepinsky and the man called Clem. After that final greetings were exchanged and the two Navy ships wished each other well. The phone line was cast off and Magsaysay began to drift slowly away from her supply ship. As soon as there was enough water between them the submarine began slowly to add speed; the slight wave at her bow increased as she pulled ahead. Then the wave began to creep backward as the bow dipped downward. The men of the Dolly watched as the powerful warship gradually disappeared under the surface. When the sea once more showed no sign of her presence, the captain of the Dolly spoke a silent prayer. That done he turned to Lieutenant Morton. “Carry on, Jimmy.”

“Ay, sir.”

As the sun reached its zenith Dolly was busy fishing, heading as she did so in a southwesterly direction. In another three days she would be in safer waters where she could more easily play her new role of a Japanese fishing ship headed back to her home islands. Lieutenant Hanson, the Japanese language officer, moved his bunk into the radio shack where he would be on hand to handle any unexpected message traffic. All that the Dolly and her crew asked for then was the mercy of God and, if possible, another day and a half free of observation.

To Erskine Wattles the injustices which had been heaped upon him and his people were compounded by his own long detention after the nation’s new masters had taken over. Every inmate of Leavenworth knew that there was a new warden from overseas and that she was a woman, but the routine of the prison continued almost unchanged. As the days made their dreary pilgrimage, one after the other, he waited — with fuming impatience and, at last, with a burning sense that something had gone radically wrong. He was a dynamic leader of the new movement; the movement had triumphed but his reward, the fame and the power that were now rightfully his, had been much too long in coming.

Then, at long last, two men arrived at his cell with the information that the warden wanted to see him. He stepped forward eagerly, his head suddenly high; he discarded the prison shuffle and tried to begin to walk with the swagger he had cultivated long before.

When he reached the warden’s office he was put into a chair well back from the woman who studied him from behind her desk. As she did so he judged her, deciding in his mind what disposition he would make of her once he was outside.

She spoke to him, in English. “You are loudly asking to see me. What is it that you want?”

Wattles had little time to waste on her. “I want to get out of this Goddamned stinkin’ hole,” he almost shouted. “Do you know who I am?”

“I know very well who you are.” She surveyed him dispassionately, as though he were a laboratory animal she was observing. “You are a murderer, a rapist, an arsonist, and you have made mayhem upon a federal judge in his court.”

“Goddamned right I did!”

“Your sentence is not up. When it is, I will decide whether to let you go or not.”

He started to rise out of his chair, but he was thrust back down again by one of the two guards who stood watch over him. He looked again at the woman behind the desk; she was not too old and she was good looking. Instantly his mind froze on his plan of vengeance: she would pay with her body. He would have her held down by the same two apes who were beside him now, then he would climb on her and stick it in so far and so hard she would feel it in the back of her throat.

His common sense told him that he would get nowhere abusing her now — he would have to play it cool. “You know why you’re here?” he asked. “Me, that’s why. You ask the bosses where you come from.”

In answer the woman picked up a folder from her desk, opened it, and studied the contents once more. It was for his benefit; she knew what it contained in fullest detail. “I am aware,” she said when she had finished, “you are criminal — nothing more. Your politics, it makes no difference. You are a bad, dangerous man.”