Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (11 page)

US-1 grabbed the Doc on the shoulder. “You okay, Doc? That was some kind of excitement back there.”

“Yes, thank you. I’m all right. Just a little dizzy, I suppose.”

Something came to mind to Doc right about then. He looked around before he finally felt his upper coat pocket to find what he was looking for. Quickly, he reached for his apparent long-awaited reward, his shiny silver flask, and gave a tiny toast in the air. “
Ah
, yes. My scotch…here is to us… through the Gibraltar—then it’s the Atlantic.”

US-2 grinned with the unlit cigarette he’d recently teetered into his mouth.

Doc took another swig and glanced over to US-2. “You learn easy, my irritating good friend.”

He then switched a glance over to US-1 and gave him a silent nod as he unbuckled himself. “I’ve got to go below and check the baby.” Just before he left, he stopped for a second to turn around. There on the floor was US-2’s cigarette lighter, so he picked it up and cordially lit his cigarette for him.

“Thanks.”

Doc put the lighter in US-2’s shirt pocket and patted him on the back. “Just do me a favor. Don’t dump your ashes. Keep your hands on navigations.”

“Don’t worry about me, Doc. I’ll be fine.”

Doc slowly made his way down to the lower deck, where he quickly opened Randolf’s protective capsule. To his surprise, he was sleeping well—like a baby. Without much delay,
Doc then stepped through to the small galley to grab a bottle of milk. When he came back, he felt Randolf’s little bottom and sure enough, another mild chore needed tending to as well. A diaper change was overdue, so he went about his business of waking him up, feeding him, and then diving into the diaper changing last.

Apparently, Doc didn’t know exactly what he was opening up. The look on his twisted-up face was priceless. A stench of boiled eggs and rotten potatoes instantly permeated the air. Its fragrance must have lingered with a vengeance too, as Doc wiped the tears from his eyes. His face would have looked better if he’d been peeling onions. Suddenly, he backed off, but not so much from the rotten smell. Randolf had given him a surprise fountain stream of urine too.

As he wiped the baby and the floor clean, he muttered, “
Whew
, God’s Christ O’Mighty. Worse than sea battle. At least we could run away from that.”

Eventually, the unpleasant aroma made its way up to the vicinity of the two copilots, diligently minding their own business. US-1 looked back at the hatch where he last saw Doc. The smell coming up from below was so sour, he thought he could see it too, but nothing was there. Still, he kept looking for it. He must have thought a grotesque pile of dung had to have sprouted out from the corners somewhere. He even looked under his shoes before he barked his confession out loud. “
Eww
, what’s that smell? Hey, Doc! You, old man, close the head down there!”

US-1 then turned his attention to US-2, but US-2 could hardly do a thing. He just shook his head and looked at his cigarette as if it didn’t look all that appetizing to smoke anymore. “It’s not me…wow. Maybe I’d better put my cigarette out before this place blows up.”

Doc’s voice rang out from below, “Christ O’Mighty—I’ve got to throw it out! This’ll kill aquatic animals, I estimate!
The child has secret weapons I didn’t know about! Next time, one of you up there has to change him!”

He then climbed back up on deck and strapped himself without much else to say to US-1 and 2 except to groan. He began feeling his controls, fingering everything in sight. Suddenly, he stopped as if he had the overwhelming sensation that he was being watched. “What? Oh, I washed my hands. Christ, it’s true, don’t you two believe me?”

US-2 leaned over to smell him. “What’s that I smell on you, Doc? Baby powder?”

“Yes, foo-foo dust, it is. Don’t you worry, either of you… after a few more days, you’re both going to be asking me for some too.”

Chapter 4

Many hours came to pass. Late afternoon caught up with the crew of the US
Wehrwolf
, almost as quickly as the speed at which US-2 was assigned to travel. Even though he began to show cramps, he stayed at one hundred knots for the better part of the day.

As the day drew toward sunset, the sky wasn’t allowing them to see across the sea as far as they could before. Slowly, shades of reds and amber all across the rims of the scantly stretched clouds appeared, reminding them of their normal day-to-day lives, despite the mission they were on now.

US-1 took a double take at his instrumentation, and then tapped on the petrol gauge as if he thought it might be stuck. “Strait of Gibraltar less than fifteen kilometers, and we’re riding as scheduled with petrol low on target, Doc.”

Doc woke himself up in his chair then pinched his chin, thinking. “Shut us down, US-2…we’ll let US-1 take over.” He continued as he turned to US-1, who was catnapping. “Wake up, US-1—we need you.”

“Yes? Did I hear something about petrol?”

“No, it’s not that…prepare for a slow-running dive while US-2 finishes up.”

Just as US-2 decelerated, miles of smooth, colorful twilight ocean received the intrusions of their long-lasting rasp of exhaust, when US-2 seemed puzzled. “We still have enough petrol to get to our fueling drop in the Atlantic, don’t we? What’s wrong, Doc?”

“It’s not the fuel I’m worried about.” Doc hesitated as he kept looking outward into a sea of clear, calm nothing that shone with a beautiful, warm, crimson color. “If there’s any place for us to get in trouble, it would be at the Strait of Gibraltar. Uncertainty chains me. The beauty out there deceives me too, I must say.”

As US-1 slowly took their vessel underwater, Doc quickly instructed, “Reduce detection US-1…go to stealth propulsion, set buoyancy a few fathoms below periscope, and no lights…I want battle lights only.”

Within seconds, the dark world beneath the sea reappeared with a dim, eerie, red glow.

“Battle lights on, Doc.” US-1 quickly grabbed a spotlight handle on his far side and tested it before he softly said, “Sonar says it is clear…we are approaching the bottleneck in seven minutes.”

Doc swallowed his concern, as he tried desperately to see ahead into the abyss. “US-1, set your Naxos and Aphrodite
²⁴
… we need to confuse enemy instruments now, if there are any out there.”

US-1 looked at his instrumentation. “But, Doc, I’m showing nothing but—”

“Just do it anyway. Set them now, I’m telling you.”

Moments later, US-1 coughed, “Doc…I was wrong…I’m reading a large object dead ahead. What should I do?”

“Plot time to intercept, US-1.”

“Looks like five minutes.”

Doc tried deciphering his instrumentation. “What in God’s name is it?”

US-1 looked closer on the screen. “I don’t know. It can’t be a ship. It’s too big…too irregular.”

Doc rattled off quickly, “Quick, shut down all controls… stealth propulsion set to
low
—now. Adjust forward trim… left…see if it reacts…well, did it react?”

“No.”

Doc stood at the edge of his chair. “Easy…easy does it now…go easy.”

While gathering whatever clues he could, Doc dared to draw a breath of fresh air. Still, nothing erroneous could be seen outside their observations, so Doc leaned closer to the dim light of US-1’s sonar screen. A green glow reflected from the instrument to his face, revealing that they weren’t in such a happy place. He didn’t really want to budge except, perhaps, to move his lips cautiously. “Trim left a little more…the battle lights are too dim to see out very far… slow it up a bit and keep scanning your spotlight, will you, US-1?”

All three of them tried desperately to look out beyond the bow of their vessel, but little could be seen through the thick wall of utter blackness coming upon them all too quickly. Inside the dim, red ray cast out by US-1’s spotlight, a few particles of seaweed floated up to the bow and over the cockpit glass.

Quickly US-1 balked, “Du-Doc! Look at this. The big object. It’s now multiple objects and they’re still dead ahead and not moving.”

Doc leaned over for a closer look. “What? Are you sure? I can’t see it, but you can?”

“Believe me they’re there…right ahead. I’m slowing down seven knots.”

US-2 stood up to the glass to be the first one to get a glimpse at whatever it was. He got his wish in a terrible way. Right out of the blindness of the black, a horrifying object of immensity emerged. “Oh no, I-I think I see something.”

Doc bellowed out, “Slow to
full
, US-1!”

Nothing but a barricading bulge of crust, rust, and iron mixed with barnacles came forth to show itself from out of the abyss.

Doc pulled US-2 back in his chair. “It’s another vessel. Get back.”

It looked like the underside of a massive rock, except it was a keel of a submarine twice their size. Not only that, it was about to rip its way right up over their port bow and into their cockpit.

Doc yelled, “We’re still going too fast. Pull down
full
, US-1! Hard right.
Hard right!
”

US-1 was already on it, tilting his controls as far as they would go, which was all he could do through their next few excruciating seconds.

Doc and US-2 gripped their chairs and looked away from the grotesque mass of metal while US-1 kept his eyes looking straight at it. “I got it…I got it! Hey, look…it is okay now.” Slowly US-1 leveled their vessel off and fortified some distance between them as they began to float by.

They gazed in awe at the reddish black and gray iron skin. She’d been in the ocean for a very long time from the looks of her. Her tubular bow, which looked to be designed to ram other massive ships, had already passed, but there was still plenty more of her to see.

Doc hardly move his lips as he muttered in shock, “Look at her…she’s been on many missions at sea…look at her ramming scars…I know what she is. Did you see her bow cap, US-1?”

“How could I miss the torpedo chambers staring straight at us a second ago?”

Doc pinched his chin as he quickly thumbed through his binder. “She’s a submarine, of course, but nothing here says they should be here. They must be scouting from their tower above the surface—looking for a ship, perhaps. I show no record…remarkable they haven’t detected us yet.”

US-2 seemed relieved. “Good call submerging, Doc. We were up there with them a few kilometers back.”

Suddenly, the unmarked submarine’s port wing slowly came into sight, offering yet another menacing obstacle to maneuver away from.

Doc put his binder down. “Steady now—that’s a sub bow plane ahead. See it? Trim down further, US-1.”

US-1 quickly adjusted. Shortly after, he twisted his spotlight to port quarter to get a better look at the sleeping sub’s bow plane. “She’s a
Rudeltacktik
.
²⁵
The most brutal in the
Kriegsmarine
fleets. There could be more.”

US-2 flatly stated, “That’s doesn’t tell me a thing.”

Doc added, “A
Rudeltacktik
? She’s from homeland Germany—a type Seven, I believe. Isn’t that right, US-1? Godly thing is loaded with enough torpedoes to blow us to hell and back if we’d kept cruising on the surface like we were. She’s three times our size too, but slow.”

US-2 smirked then leaned back in his chair smiling. “
Ha
, I knew it…We should surface and blow them to China?”

Doc glared. “I might have guessed you would say such a thing. That’s not our mission. We don’t stir any trouble if we can help it. Besides, we can’t miss our petrol drop, which is now vital. She may be slow, but she would follow us like the tortoise meeting the hare, except they could catch up to us with a full volley of guns and torpedoes—enough to set the ocean ablaze.”

Out of curiosity, US-1 flashed his spotlight the other way and immediately saw something that made him let go and jump back. “Look! Another one! She’s idle—over there.”

Doc took a look: “
Ah haaaaa
, yessss…just what I thought…look, she’s surfaced too. Sends me chills to think how she’s waiting like that…waiting like the deadly Moray eel in her cave. Waiting for someone like us to drift by so it can eat…there are others around here I can testify. Be very,
very careful, US-1. Trim down a little more. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were four—maybe more. God-forsaken German
wolfpack
is what we may very well be into.”

US-2 quickly pointed in the other direction. “I think I see another—way over there. You see it? I saw a light blinking in the dark.”

Doc fell back in his chair, brushing thoughts away from his nose. “They were waiting for us. The
Kapitan
of the Zestorer this morning…he must have radioed for them to intercept us…they must have traveled over here. That’s why I have no record of them…we have to be more careful from now on, my boys.”

US-2 lit a cigarette. “I’m not worried. Nobody can touch us. We’ve got stealth propulsion, Aphrodite, guns, all this power. Face it…we’re too smart. Don’t you think?”

Doc blurted, “Quiet! We’re just lucky. Learn from this. We submerged on a guess. It wasn’t my predicted calculations of science. These are trained military tactics, unlike us with no radio contacts. Next time might not be this lucky.”

US-2 glared at the both of them as Doc glanced over to US-1. “Look ahead, Number One. Anything you see on sonar further out?”

“No. All clear.”

US-2 suddenly grew more perturbed as he grinned. “It’s not luck…by my warlord calculations, I feel fearless. Sorry if anyone feels different. I mean, we can do anything with this vessel. We’ve got jet marines, submarines, guns, twin guns, cannons…we’ve got Strong Rays and stingrays, so
ha
! Grab the crotch of your pants if you want to feel what I’m talking about.”

Doc and US-1 both glared at US-2. Neither of them were entertained by his remarks in the slightest.

US-2 kept on, “What? It’s true…come on, give me distance. Can’t you two lighten up? Don’t make me feel like I’m traveling with weaklings, okay?”

Doc went about his commands to US-1, as if he hoped US-2 would shut up on his own. “Maintain speed until we get out of danger, US-1. After that, establish the signaled course for our petrol drop…stay on stealth propulsion, but kick it up when it’s safe…go to gyro pilot for the evening. That should be all…we should get there by morning if my calculations are correct.”