The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: The Dragon, the Wolf, and the Maiden, Part 4 of 12
Lucky Ford has been rescued from the clutches of the villainous Vargulf Korps, but is he safe in the hands of the Office? And what strange mission brought this secret organization to Sicily in the first place? Find out in this week’s Lucky Ford Friday.
The Dragon, the Wolf, and the Maiden is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, or as a DRM-free ePub!
You are reading Part 4 of The Dragon, the Wold, and the Maiden. If you’ve missed any previous installments, check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 before reading any further.
Content Warnings: Violence, Gun Violence, Animal Violence, Gore, Death, Mild Swearing, Tobacco Use, Alcohol Use
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 10, 1943
ABOARD THE EXPRESS
ABOVE THE ISLAND OF SICILY
The Express was smooth and quiet in flight, unlike any other C-47 Lucky had hitched a ride on since he'd signed up. It made him uneasy. It wasn’t natural for man to fly, and constant quakes and rattles are useful reminders that being airborne can be undone at any moment. The Express was making it seem too easy; it was like sailing on butter.
Lucky stared out the circular window behind him. He had to visually verify they were still aloft. The props on the two massive engines were still turning, all right. He felt a chill run up his spine.
“Hear that, Lucky?” Sergeant Hall asked him from across the cabin. Hearing his own name made Lucky jump in his seat.
“What's that, sergeant?” Lucky asked, looking around for a problem.
“Sergeant my ass, new guy. Everybody around here calls me Bucket, get used to it.”
“Bucket? Why would they call you that?” Lucky wondered.
“Because that’s the name my mama gave me. Shoot, boy. I’m probably going to get real tired of that question someday.” Bucket sat back and gnawed on his unlit cigarette. “Soon as I was old enough to figure that Bucket ain’t no name for nobody, I asked her why. You know what she tells me?”
Lucky shook his head, afraid to listen because he thought he might laugh, afraid to disengage because Bucket was getting worked up.
“She says, ‘I called your scrawny butt Bucket ‘cause that’s all had. Couldn’t afford no cradle.’ Now I hear they call you ‘Lucky,’ well, ‘Lucky’ ain’t got nothin’ on ‘Bucket.’”
Lucky sat in silence, waiting to see if he was serious. Bucket stared at him, then grabbed the chewed-up cigarette from his mouth and threw it on the floor. As soon as it hit the deck, the flight lieutenant shouted from the cabin:
“I know you're not making a bloody mess on my bird, Bucket Hall!”
“No ma'am!” Bucket called back. He scooped the discarded cigarette, balled it up, and stuff it in his shirt pocket.
“That wasn’t the point anyhow,” Bucket continued. “All I’m saying is that I’m not one of those sergeants who worries about titles so much. Just use my name.”
“Bucket…” Lucky said, he almost whispered it.
“Yes, Bucket. So damn it, what was I saying?” He scratched his head and pulled a fresh cigarette out of a pack and stuck it in his mouth, unlit as well.
“You asked if I had heard something,” Lucky offered.
“Oh, hell yeah. So do you hear it?” he asked expectantly. Lucky looked around the cabin, but didn’t hear anything at all.
“I don’t hear a thing.”
“You’re damn right you don’t. Silenced props, my own invention,” he said. “You see the second, smaller set right behind the main pullers? They’re spinning in a staggered pattern from the big ones, producing just as much noise with damn-close to the same amplitude but in the opposite phase of the engines. The sounds cancel each other out almost ninety percent.”
“You made that?” Lucky asked, looking out the window in awe. That explained why he couldn’t hear The Express until it was right overhead the night before, and why it was so quiet now.
“Hell yeah. I’ve been messing with engines and whatnot since I was in diapers. Rebuilt my first car when I was five, my uncle practically raised me in his garage. This kind of stuff just comes to me natural.”
“Sergeant Hall is an integral member of the OCUO team.” Miller added. Every other official but him had removed their gas mask, so he was just sitting there, all decked out, giving Bucket a big thumb's up that the sergeant eventually returned.
“This plane is amazing, Bucket. When is the rest of the Air Corps getting this stuff installed?” Lucky asked. Bucket looked at the floor and plucked a fresh cigarette out of his pack instead of answering. He let Miller answer for him while he chewed on it.
“Private Ford, you have to understand that this is exceedingly rare, secret, and expensive technology, with a level of fuel inefficiency that makes it implausible for widespread adoption. The Allies simply don’t have the resources to equip every plane like this. This is the only plane in the world with these capabilities.”
Lucky felt his face go red.
“What are you saying? The government can just pick and choose who’s important enough to get this kind of stuff? Pilots, airborne, thousands of men could be safer with stuff like this, and you won’t share it?”
Lucky found himself standing above them, glaring down at them over the rows of coffins. Miller stared up at him through his gas mask lenses, cold blue eyes reaching out. The other officials had gone silent and were poised to grab Lucky if he made a move. He wasn't going to, but sometimes it felt right to stand up for something. Bucket continued staring at the deck.
“Private Ford, please, take your seat.”
Looking into Miller's those icy blue eyes, his only visible feature, Lucky felt compelled to listen. He did a quick ten-count in his head then took his spot on the bench, perched on the edge.
“Thank you. Now Private Ford, you must understand that this is the largest conflict in the written history of mankind. Our conventional forces are well on their way to winning this war if projections are correct, though bumps such as those you witnessed last night do exist. The OCUO is primarily a reactive force dedicated to making sure the Axis powers continue to fight this war within acceptable limits. It is our job to eliminate outliers of last night’s nature quickly, quietly, and permanently. We have created specialized tools to accomplish this directive in the most discrete manner possible. To that end, if the people we protect knew of the things we do, of the monsters we fight, and of the ways we fight them, our world would be a much different place after this conflict.”
“You’re telling me that it’s good you’re keeping secret the fact that you have better equipment and training than the rest of the Allies? Even if it could save the lives of other men who need it?” Lucky asked.
“The cost of sharing what we know is the cost of exposing the world to the horrors we are commissioned to face on a daily basis. It is the eternal struggle between blissful ignorance and abject desolation. If there is any human innocence left after this war grinds to a final conclusion, it will because of the tireless and thankless diligence and silence of people like the Colonel, Sergeant Hall, myself, and now, you,” Miller explained.
Lucky was ready to argue some more, but he let that stew. Now was not the time where anything could be changed and these were not the people who could change anything, anyway. They weren't the ones who made these policies. Maybe the Colonel could do something, but Lucky had no idea when he’d see him again.
The other five officials were watching him, waiting to see if he'd do something stupid. They looked like they’d come from all over the world. One was African, three white, and the last was Asian. Only Miller kept his gas mask on. Lucky hadn't worn one since basic and the things were stifling; Miller must have been boiling alive.
Lucky looked at the man next to him, a Scotsman who had carefully placed his mask on the deck. He was quite a bit taller than Lucky, with twenty-five pounds, a couple years, and a shoulder stripe on him. Red hair flowed down to his shoulders, red as the Union Jack on his shoulder and the pattern on his kilt. Alongside his BAR, he had a sword, not an elegant saber like the Colonel's, but a skull-crushing, ten-pound broadsword. A seven-inch gash twisted up his forearm, with thick black stitches the only thing holding his arm together. It looked pink and tender, maybe two weeks old but well on its way to healed.
“Why do you all wear those masks?” Lucky asked. He hadn't seen anyone wear one since training, but these guys wore them everywhere.
“Official regs, Yank. Might be any damn thing on the ground in a barnie, and ye must be ready for anythin'. Ye can't be too canny with Nazis around.” the Scot replied. He scooped up the mask and handed it to Lucky.
It was heavier than it looked, thicker and better-reinforced than the once Lucky’d been issued.
“One of these gob-kissers'll be yer best mate someday.” The Scotsman spoke with a thick, almost incomprehensible, brogue. “Good for mustard gas, chlorine gas, nerve gas, crazy gas, blood gas, black smoke. Ye run across anything ye don’t want in yer peeps or lungs, this is the thing ye'll be needin'. It's about fire-proof and bullet-proof, 'swell.”
He took the mask back and lifted his arm to show off his ugly stitches, saying:
“Ah meself just wish they made the whole suit that braw. Don't fash it, ye’ll get one of yer own.”
“I haven’t heard of half of those gases,” Lucky muttered, realizing that after what he had witnessed last night, there had to be a lot he wasn't privy to.
“Jest some nasty brews the krauts cooked up during the last war. Tain’t seem to see 'em much these days, but cannae be too careful, can ye? They’ll bile the flappin' tongue right out of ye head if ye walk through ‘em with ye face nekkid.”
“Why hasn't Miller taken his off yet?” Lucky asked, whispering.
“'E’s a right one, 'e is, don’t shed leather 'til 'e’s back in 'is bunk. Ah wouldn’t be able to pick 'is mug out of a crowd without that mask. Now ah got a query for ye, lad. Who in the blazes are ye, and 'ow did ye get on this plane?” The man's wide grin disappeared as he asked.
“I'm, um,” Lucky stumbled across his own name, lost on the way to his second question. He couldn't rightly say how he did get there.
“Ah'm jest daffin' ye, Yank. I know who ye be.” The Scot flashed his massive grin again. “Minny Mary, ye are one fortunate mud-stomper for makin' yerself a rammy against those monstrous bastards. It's no wonder the Colonel's taken a likin' to ye.”
He kept smiling and held out his hand: “Corporal Fergus MacLeod. They call me 'Loud MacLeod.' Far as ah figure, it's a might bit better'n 'Scottie'.”
Lucky took the grinning Scotsman's hand. His palm was thickly calloused and run through with corded muscle.
“What's with the military and nicknames? My name's Lloyd, but my squad, they call... they called me 'Lucky'. Private Lucky Ford.”
“Ah like 'Lucky' better, meself. Well Lucky, if ah'd 'ad me a name like that ah might'nt 'ave this buggerin' piece of bomb slag dug into me arm for the rest of me days. Ye know the worst part, bubba? It's god-damned itchy, an' not on the outside, but the in,” he said. He scratched at his stitches for a second, then thought better of it.
“Things move with purpose around here, ye'll see. Take yer winks where ye can get 'em, ah always say,” MacLeod said before tipping his helmet over his eyes in an attempt to nap.
Miller had been still and silent since he and Lucky has last spoken, as if he were asleep. Suddenly he bolted to his feet and pointed to the window.
“On the wing, gentlemen!” he yelled. All five other officials jumped to their feet and stared out the windows. MacLeod, sword instinctively unsheathed and in hand, dashed to a footlocker and began pulling shotguns out and tossing them to the scrambling officials. They stuffed them with shells while staring out the windows. Lucky had flashbacks of Jonesy and froze. He didn’t like where this was going.
“I hate these buggers,” the official next to MacLeod said as he loaded a shotgun. He was South African, a Commonwealth soldier deep grimace and a blonde Van Dyke.
“I’ve seen one of those little bastards pull a rivet with its teeth. Here Lucky, take this,” Bucket said as he shoved a loaded pump-action shotgun into Lucky's arms.
There was a loud crash as Seacombe kicked in the flight cabin door, gun drawn and rage in her blue eyes. Back in the cockpit, she'd jammed the control yoke in place with her monkey wrench. She yelled at Bucket.
“Why the hell isn’t my static armor working? Those blasted things should be fried off by now!”
“Maybe they got to it first. That’s for later. Now we do this the old-fashioned way,” Bucket answered, punctuating his sentence with a pump of his shotgun, slamming a live round into the chamber.
“Do what?” Lucky asked, shouting.
“We’ve got a dozen gremlins on the right wing, half that on the left, I need them off, now!” Seacombe shouted. Her hair was wild, whipping golden around her head like Medusa. Her eyes were wide and a vein pulsed in her forehead. Right then, she looked just crazy enough to yell something like that. Hesitating for a just a second, Lucky finally let himself look out the window behind him.
Six creatures clung to the silver wing, claws dug into the metal itself. They looked like enormous hairless rats, each almost the size of a hog. Their puckered skin was tinted a sickly green, with their blood-red eyes adding to the deep-gut feeling of disgust and fear that had just bubbled up in Lucky's stomach. While he watched, one dug its yellow incisors into the wing and tore off a section of sheet-metal paneling before burying its snout inside to gorge on wires. The whole plane jerked, dropping about fifty feet in an instant.
“What are you waiting for, get them off my bird!” Seacombe yelled as she rushed back into the cockpit.
“Hold on gentlemen,” Miller cocked his shotgun and threw its strap over his shoulder. He slammed the handle on the jump door down, sliding it open and bracing himself against the roaring wind that whipped through the cabin. On the other side of the plane, Bucket did the same. Miller stepped aside so the South African official could aim out the door, into the rushing wind. The Afrikaner raised his shotgun to his shoulder and Miller held his belt so he didn’t get sucked out of the plane.
Watching through the window, Lucky saw one of the gremlins look up just as the official fired, the roaring buckshot blasting it clean off the wing in a mist of green blood. He pumped the shotgun and took aim at a second gremlin, but before he could fire it let go, falling away into open air. Lucky watched the falling creature extend fleshy flaps between its front and back legs and start gliding to the ground in a wide, lazy circle.
The South African, wasting no time, took aim at a third gremlin. As his finger tightened on the trigger, a green blur slammed into his chest. The shot went wild, blasting into open sky, his shotgun tumbling out the door. The man only had an instant to fight before the stinking green ball of muscle clamped its powerful jaws down on his head. The gremlin must have been hiding on top of the fuselage before it came diving through the open jump door.
The official struggled for a second longer, but before anyone could react there was a terrible crunch as the gremlin’s teeth punched through his skull. He went limp.
Miller had been knocked away when the creature slammed its way in the door, losing his shotgun. He recovered and tackled the gremlin, which was still mauling the dead man’s head, plunging his combat knife between the thing's ribs, over and over.
As they fought, a second green snout appeared in the doorway, and, without hesitating, Lucky fired, blasting it away. He had almost forgotten he was holding a shotgun. Miller was still struggling with the gremlin inside, and four more were still tearing up the wing, so Lucky dashed across the cabin to cover the door.
Lucky's next shot tore into the closest gremlin, peeling it apart with a hail of hot buckshot. Before he could pump the shotgun, two of the gremlins leapt off, the rushing air catching their skin-flaps and whisking them out of range. Lucky looked down; they had just passed over the southern coast, with only blue Mediterranean beneath them. Lucky could only hope those vicious little bastards didn’t know how to swim.
Over on the right wing, Bucket, MacLeod and the Asian official were still busy firing out the door. Past them, Lucky could see a mob of green swarming the wing. MacLeod had unsheathed his massive claymore and, with Bucket and the other official holding onto his web-gear for dear life, was hanging out the open door, slashing any of the green monsters that got close enough. Greasy chunks and green blood scattered into the open sky with each swing of his sword.
Only one gremlin remained on the wing Lucky was covering, this one near the engine. It had seen what had happened to its friends and was determined to do as much damage as it could before it bailed. It chomped into the metal engine cover, ravenous. Lucky took aim once again, but, as he pulled the trigger, the plane jerked again, throwing the buckshot off into clouds. He pumped and fired again, a couple pellets just grazing the gremlin’s right leg. It scrambled to its left and turned around to snarl.
Lucky aimed one more time, but as he raised the shotgun the little monster scrambled to its left again, slipping its ugly head right into the secondary propeller blade. It beheaded itself in a spray of green. Lucky leaned against the door frame, scanning for more. The scrape of claws on metal above his head brought his attention upward. A breathless official appeared at Lucky's side from the other door, the right wing apparently cleared already.
“You get all those little bastards?” he yelled above the roar of the wind that whipped his red beard around his face.
“I think there's another up top!” Lucky shouted back.
“Let me get that!” the official shouted, his hand out for Lucky's shotgun. Lucky handed it over.
The official stuck his head out the door to get a look at the top of the fuselage, The last gremlin was ready for him. Before he could bring his shotgun around it pounced onto his head with claws and fangs extended to tear into him. The official's legs buckled when the gremlin found his throat with its incisors and the two of them, locked in a bloody embrace, were sucked out the door before Lucky could grab him.
Lucky watched them fall for what seemed like forever, tumbling together down toward the blue. A hand clamped on his shoulder and pulled him away from the open door.
“Nothing you can do, Lucky,” Bucket said solemnly as he pressed the jump door button. The door slid shut again and locked closed. The bolt slammed with a sense of finality.
Miller and the rest of the officials sat back down on their benches while Bucket patted Lucky's shoulder again before wandering up to the cockpit.
“I gotta see what went wrong with my rat fryer,” he muttered as he walked away. “It was working before we left...”
“Another two bloody bios,” MacLeod said. He was staring at his friend, the South African with a dead gremlin still clamped on his head. “Bugger me, bios is the last way ah want to go.”
“Bios are always the worst to see,” the Asian official agreed. His accent was American, West Coast maybe. He looked to the dead official on the floor. “I've got to get that sky-rat off his face.”
He pulled a long bent knife out of a sheath and made like he would carve the creature's head right off of the dead man's face. Miller stopped him.
“You'll simply dull your kukri's blade and make quite a mess,” he explained. “You would need a hacksaw to get through the bone. Gremlin mandibles lock in place upon death.”
Miller used an handkerchief from his pocket to wipe green blood off his bayonet.
“What are those things?” Lucky asked, staring at the dead creature. It and the dead official were locked together in death in a growing pool of blood, mingling green and red on the deck. McLeod and the other officials found a tarp in a supply case and laid it over the conjoined bodies.
“They are the active elements of Projekt Kobold, a German anti-aircraft area-denial system.” Miller answered as if it was obvious.
“Well, how the hell did they get out there?”
“They would have glided in from a high-altitude balloon when they saw us coming. Airmen call them ‘gremlins,’ you see. The Nazis, the Waffen-SS’s Department Three specifically, train them to disassemble aircraft in flight. Casualties typically result from airframe failure, but personal encounters with them are particularly dangerous, as you can see.” Lucky tried not to look at the dead man again. “Many deaths by biological element have been recorded.”
“By biological element,” Lucky said. “Bios. Like my squad.”
“I’m afraid so, yes,” Miller said. “Our enemy resorts to any means, no matter how abominable, to gain an upper hand in battle. Even perverting nature itself.”
“Jesus,” Lucky muttered. His experience wasn’t new, or unique. The krauts were doing this people all over the world. Tearing them to pieces.
Bucket stumbled his way out of the cockpit.
“We are almost home, boys,” he said. “Bunks and showers are waiting.”
Lucky looked out the window but couldn't see anything except choppy open ocean. “All we have to worry about now is the angel setting us down softly.”
Lucky looked past him, through the open cockpit door, over Seacombe's shoulder, and out the windscreen. There was still only open water ahead. She couldn't possibly set down in the middle of the Mediterranean, not unless Bucket had given this rig pop-out pontoons as well.
The Express started in a steep descent, aimed straight into the saw-edged waves. Seacombe leveled off about fifty feet above the whitecaps.
Ahead, at least a mile away, a massive plume of water erupted into the air. The gray hull of a huge ship pierced the blue sea from beneath. Whitecaps rolled away as it settled on the surface. The ship was perfectly flat on top, except for its monumental control tower and bridge. Two wings sprouted from either side of the superstructure, making it look like a large 'T.' The whole thing was massive, at least two hundred yards long to Lucky's eye.
The Express shuddered as Seacombe lowered its landing gear.
It was an aircraft carrier, a submersible aircraft carrier unlike anything Lucky had ever heard of. They were so close he could see the water pouring off the control tower, cascading over the massive eagle, eye, and sword painted on its the hull.
“Buckle up, boys,” Seacombe called back to her passengers. Lucky found a lap belt and strapped himself in. He'd never landed in a C-47 before, much less on the ocean. The ship before them was enormous, the largest thing he'd ever seen that wasn't part of some city's skyline.
“What is it?” Lucky asked, trying play it cool but failing.
“The HMS Saint George,” Miller answered, “Home.”
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 10, 1943
ABOARD THE H.M.S. SAINT GEORGE
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
The HMS Saint George was unlike any other ship in any navy of the world. The control tower which monitored take-offs and landings while surfaced doubled for the conning tower while the ship was submerged. The two wings Lucky had seen extending from it before they landed were actually its foreplanes, used to help her dive and surface. The Saint George was three times longer than any other submarine in any Allied fleet. It was a technological marvel.
Seacombe set The Express down on the wet runway, hooking the catch line on her first attempt and slowing to an abrupt stop that threw Lucky against his lap belt.
Within seconds, a delegation of officers and officials streamed onto the Saint George's deck to meet them. They were led by a tall but paunchy man, his bright red face glowing in contrast with his US Navy uniform's muted khaki. Four soldiers in red jackets with tall black hats surrounded him. Lucky'd seen their uniforms in films, worn by the guards outside Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London. They were an odd sight in the middle of the ocean, but in a strange way this made sense to him. If you want to man the most secret vessel on the sea, you get the most tight-lipped crew you can find.
The American Navy man in the midst of all those bear-skin hats and red coats did not look happy as he stalked toward The Express, and Lucky thought he caught Miller hesitating for just an instant before he opened the jump door to greet the man.
Once he did slide it open, Miller hopped out and landed with a splash that sprayed the oncoming officer with seawater. Lucky winced for him.
“Commodore Dixon, how pleasant of you to meet us on the runway. To what do we owe this welcome?” Miller asked.
Dixon ignored his soaked slacks and plowed past Miller to take a look inside the door, inspecting the cargo, pausing for a second when he saw Lucky. A rodent-like little officer in a white US Navy uniform followed one footstep behind Dixon, hastily scribbling notes on his yellow notepad. The commodore spun on a heel, and stomped toward Miller. The little lieutenant dodged out of the commodore’s way with practiced deftness.
“Can it, Snowman,” the commodore snarled, his Southern accent bubbling through his clenched teeth. “Your side trip last night cost us the location of the Crying Maiden. Agent Boots scrambled a transmission before your parachutes even touched down. Department Three moved that thing the second you let the Vargulf Korps see y’all.”
Dixon spit a brownish wad of saliva onto the flight deck, then glared at Miller and continued his tirade:
“What I need right now is for you to get this plane unloaded and back in the air so can collect that fop Halistone. I intend to be ready as soon as Boots reports back in with the new location.”
Dixon’s drawl made every word sound deliberate and angrier. When he saw Miller not snapping to it, he leaned in and asked, louder and slower:
“Do you understand me, official?”
“Yes, sir. We shall begin unloading at once.”
Miller motioned to the three remaining officials in the plane as well as several who had walked up a safe distance behind Commodore Dixon. Lucky helped hand the coffins and crates down out of the jump doors. While they worked, Angel and Bucket disembarked and began a heated conversation with a crew of mechanics waiting off to the side.
The officials finished stacking the coffins on an elevator, then came back for the deceased official. Lucky and McLeod lowered him out gently, attached gremlin and all.
At the sight of this corpse, an older man with wild gray eyebrows and starched white lab coat began shouting orders at the working officials in a thick Polish accent. A coven of harsh-looking matronly nurses joined the ill-tempered doctor in directing where the body would be taken, much to the chagrin of the men and women who actually had to carry him.
Lucky was left standing alone in The Express, the green and red on the deck drying into his boot tread. He did not know what to do or where to go.
The commodore stuck his head in the open door and noticed Lucky there, alone.
“Y’all run up on a swarm?” he asked. Lucky looked around then realized with a start that the commodore was addressing him.
“A swarm, sir?” was all Lucky managed to stammer. He figured the commodore was talking about the gremlins, but hadn’t heard the term before. Dixon's scowl became a smile when he heard Lucky's Midwestern accent.
“Another American? That’s what I like to hear. Swarms, son: that’s where gremlins come from ain’t it? You’re lucky you got the plane down safe, not everybody does.” He sighed, then slipped a flask halfway out of his pocket. “You drink, private?”
Lucky shook his head, not knowing what else to do. Dixon gave Lucky an odd look then surreptitiously poured a splash into a coffee cup that his assistant placed in his hand. He pocketed the flask and took a quick sip of java.
“'Don’t trust a man who won’t drink with you,' that’s what my pop always told me. So, who are you then? I know every red-blooded American on this ship, and I do not know you. What are you from, private?”
“Indiana,” Lucky stammered.
“Well hell son, ain’t that the heartland. I’m a Carolina man myself.” He paused to take another swig from his mug. “But that’s not what I meant. I’m saying where are you from? You one of Halistone’s charity cases?”
“Eighty-Second Airborne, Five-Hundred-Tenth Parachute Infantry Regiment, Second Battalion, Dog Company. United States Army, sir.”
“So you’re the straggler. Explains the weird feeling in my gut,” Dixon muttered. Lucky thought that unease could have been that rotgut the commodore was sipping on, but Dixon didn't ask for a second opinion. The commodore paused for another sip and began to rant. “Funny thing is that I never met any regular mud-stomper that lived through a Vargulf attack before. Anything else to that story before I let you on my boat? Anything to explain away how enormous a coincidence it was that the Office showed up just in time to rescue you, just in time to blow our whole operation out the water?”
“How's that, sir?” Lucky asked. He hadn't stopped to consider that his survival might look like anything other than a miracle.
“Name, private. Now,” Dixon demanded. His red face was growing steadily redder, his voice getting steadily louder.
“Ford, Lloyd Edward,” Lucky told him.
“Ford, you hear that?” Dixon said loudly. His weaselly shadow nodded and jotted Lucky's name on his notepad. “Eighty-Second Airborne, Indiana. Full record and background. Send it through Baltimore.”
Miller double-timed it over from the stack of coffins and stepped in.
“Commodore Dixon, Private Ford is very tired, I think it would be best were I to show him to quarters.”
“That might be best, Miller,” Dixon huffed. “Don't get curious aboard this vessel, son. Anywhere you go you will be escorted, understood? Even though the Colonel has a soft spot for you, don’t think I won’t be watching. Something stinks about all of this. Damsel gets blown, then some rats get the drop on us. Something stinks to high heaven.”
As Miller walked Lucky to the hatch, Dixon approached The Express.
“Hall, how’d you let my plane get all barked up like this? What happened to that static armor I heard so much about?” he demanded.
“I got nothing for you, cap. System’s got nothing wrong with it,” Bucket called.
Bucket’s head popped out of a service hatch beneath The Express' nose. He was hanging upside down inside the plane’s guts. “Angel, you got anything up there?”
Seacombe slid her cockpit window open and shouted:
“Oi, none of that ‘Angel’ malarkey. And I found the problem: the switch shorted out.”
“I knew this would happen,” Bucket said. He shook his head and pulled it back up inside the plane.
“You knew this would happen and let it slide? This could’ve brought my bird down!” Seacombe roared. The commodore tried to get a word in but the pair were yelling too loud to give him the time of day.
“It is this sorry excuse for wiring we got,” Bucket shouted, his voice muffled inside the hatch. “It can't handle the voltage!”
“Oh, could we not find the perfect gauge of cable for you in a war zone in the middle of the ocean?” she snapped.
Seacombe and Bucket were still hollering as Lucky followed Miller through the ship's hatch. He took one last look back and noticed Dixon staring after him.
Miller led him down four steep ladders, deep into the ship’s belly. After too many twists and turns for Lucky to ever hope to find his way out again, they arrived in wide, open room. Several tables were bolted to the stainless steel floor, each flanked by steel benches. A mess hall was a familiar sight among all the weirdness, and Lucky gladly followed Miller in.
“Private Ford, you’ll have to wait here until we can find some bunk space for you,” Miller said. “I must go to the bridge to speak with Commodore Dixon. The Colonel will be back soon and you will be debriefed once he is aboard. Meanwhile, feel free to eat; the galley is always cooking a wide variety of meals for our multi-national crew, everything from fish and chips to goulash to, ahem, hamburgers. If you wish, you may rest. Feel free to sleep here if need be, at least until we have proper quarters available for you.”
“Thanks, Miller.”
“You are quite welcome, Private Ford.” Miller made to leave but Lucky stopped him.
“Hey!” he said, “When do I get a gas mask?”
Miller's eyes smiled behind his thick lenses.
“You should be issued for the next deployment, which I anticipate will be soon if Agent Boots reports in as soon as Commodore Dixon hopes. But no, you needn’t wear one aboard the ship.”
“Then why are you still wearing yours?”
“I am sure you will have high enough clearance for me to answer that question one day,” Miller replied. He rapped his gloved knuckles on one of the tables as he walked by. “Knock on wood, as they say. Get something to eat, private, we shall converse again shortly.”
Lucky sat down at the closest table. He didn’t feel like eating; all he could think about was his friends, and the things that had happened to them.
The mess hall was decorated floor to ceiling, every wall covered with photos, newspaper clippings, plaques, and commendations. Lucky stood up to examine the closest collection of documents. It was a good distraction.
As soon as he was on his feet, the deck shifted beneath him, accompanied by a blaring siren and spinning yellow lights. Lucky grabbed a table to maintain his balance. It was bolted down, just like all of the benches. The bulkheads groaned around him.
The Saint George was descending. The Express must have already taken back off on its return trip to scoop the Colonel and the rest. Lucky took a deep breath and tried not to think about the tons of seawater separating him from a breath of natural air. The big mess hall seemed smaller for some reason. Lucky didn't know how squidies did it. He forced himself to focus on other things, on the walls around him.
The first thing he examined was a large photo, one of those old, yellow-tinted ones, showing a group three men standing in front of the Great Pyramids. A man, somewhat resembling the Colonel had he been twenty years older, stood next to a man who could’ve been the Colonel with a clean shave, as well as a gangly youth. The caption read: 'Pr. A. Halistone, Sr. with son and grandson, Giza, Egypt, 1908.'
Lucky suddenly realized why the Colonel’s name sounded so familiar: he was one of the Halistones. They’d made their nut as glode-trotting archeologists, explorers, and adventurers. He’d seen half-a-dozen newsreels documenting their exploits.
Further along the wall, four bronzed model ships had been mounted in a row, each with a black and white photo next to it and an engraving beneath. The first looked almost like a wooden cigar with a long spear on the front. The plaque below read, 'HL Hunley, LT GE Dixon, 1864.' The next ship, more recognizably a submarine, was marked 'Nordenfelt II, CPT JH Dixon, 1886,' followed by the 'USS Moccasin, CPT RE Dixon, 1911.'
The last model looked like a giant has sliced the top half off an aircraft carrier and stuck it to the bottom half of a submarine. Its superstructure was rounded, with wide foreplanes growing out of either side. Lucky recognized it instantly. Its plaque read: 'HMS Saint George, CMD CR Dixon, 1939.'
Four generations of submarine captains in one family. The Dixons were used to danger and small spaces and they passed that onto their sons. No wonder the old squid was a nut.
Lucky kept meandering until a framed newspaper article caught his eye. There was no photo, but it was from the front page of the New York Amsterdam News, dated October 3, 1932. The headline read ‘Local Youth First Colored Inventor to Win Prestigious Prize.' From scanning the first paragraph, it said that Bucket Hall, just ten years old at the time, had cobbled together a type of disc brake for trucks using scraps he found around his uncle’s garage in Brooklyn. He'd won a prize of fifteen dollars that his mother had collected on his behalf.
There was a black-and-white photo hanging close by, showing a pair of young, smiling men holding harpoons while kneeling in front of a huge shark suspended upside-down by its tail. Lucky looked closer, startled to recognized a skinny Commodore Dixon and bearded Colonel, each no more than twenty-five years old, posing together with the beast. It looked at least five times as long as the men were tall, and, though it was blurry and hard to tell, the shark appeared to have geometric patterns etched into its flesh.
In the middle of the wall, further down from the photo of Dixon and Halistone, there hung a framed memo marked 'Most Secret, By Order of the O.C.U.O.' with a bright red stamp.
It was a letter, dated 1939, from President Roosevelt to Winston Churchill commemorating the launch of the USS Nautilus under the command of Commodore Clay Dixon. The president spoke of the selling of the ship to England for five dollars, in accordance with the Neutrality Act of 1939, though the ship was to be under the command of an American captain for the duration of the war, and to be used only by the OCUO. Of course the president was in on this, the Office dealt with things way beyond his pay grade.
He realized with a start how much trouble this letter could have spelled had it gotten out before the actual 1941 declaration of war. Roosevelt being willing to take that risk said more than anything else i the short missive. The letter was hand-written and signed by the president at the bottom. FDR had added: 'PS. I understand you intend to rename my ship. If you must, name her something grand.'
A champagne cork encased in glass was mounted close by with the date February 11, 1939 engraved into the case.
Lucky studied the artifacts and articles for what seemed like an hour before the siren and lights came back on. He grabbed hold of a table again and rode the deck as the Saint George clawed her way back to the surface.
Fifteen minutes later, a stream of officials poured into the mess with the Colonel and Neff at their head. Miller was close behind with his arms full of rolled up maps and diagrams. Neff set a heavy projector on one of the tables and walked over to pull a screen down from the ceiling.
Bucket and MacLeod nodded to Lucky as they entered. Seacombe's eyes shot lightning when she made eye contact with him, making Lucky flinch. She smirked before taking her place leaning against the back wall.
About three dozen officials, each wearing the Eagle, Eye, and Sword on one arm and their flags home countries on the other, took seats on the benches. There were folks from every country in the Allied Nations, plus a few flags Lucky didn't recognize. About six other soldiers, including Bucket, wore the Stars and Stripes, but the room was mainly dominated by a slew of British and Commonwealth soldiers.
A set of twins in the second row wore the Greek flag on their sleeves, and they howled with laughter when a New Zealander sat on a whoopee cushion. A quiet, heavily-scarred man in the corner had the red and green war flag of Portugal sewn below his OCUO patch. Neff wore no sleeves, but had the French tri-color tattooed onto one of his hairy biceps.
As everyone got settled, Miller began hanging maps from the wall and setting up photos against some fold-out easels. The last pictures Miller set up were portraits of the two officials killed by the gremlins, their names and nationalities labeled beneath their faces.
The South African, Delroy Nicholas, and the American, a beardless Japhet Moore, looked young and happy in their photos.
Lucky would remember their names. Nicholas and Moore, two more men who'd made the mistake of having fought by his side.
“Two officials gave their lives today,” the Colonel said quietly. The room hushed when he spoke. “Let us take time to remember the contributions and camaraderie of Official Second Class Private Delroy Edward Nicholas of Johannesburg, South Africa, British Army, and of Official First Class Sergeant Japhet Moore of Briar, Utah, US Navy Marine Raiders.”
The whole room closed their eyes. Lucky's gaze drifted to the long wall to the Colonel's left, the one he'd avoided as he'd studied the room. Scores of pictures similar to the two in front of him covered that wall. Faces, names, dates. Dozens, maybe a hundred men dead from this unit. After a moment of silent reverence, the Colonel spoke up again:
“Remember what these brave men died fighting for as much as we remember what they died fighting against. Though we may mourn, we must not let it dissuade or distract us from the task ahead.” The gathered officials nodded in agreement. The Colonel spotted Lucky watching from the back of the crowd and waved to him.
“Private Ford, join us, perhaps we can answer some of your questions,” the Colonel implored. The room rumbled, each with their own observations about the newcomer in their midst. Lucky wandered over to the closest table and sat down between two officials, the Asian man he'd fought alongside aboard The Express and the elderly doctor who’d taken Nikolas’ body off the plane.
“Jeff Lee,” the Asian official said, his hand out.
“Ford, Lloyd,” Lucky said. He took the offered hand.
“You got to have something better than 'Lloyd,' a name like that wouldn't have survived basic training,” Lee joked. He was from California, if Lucky had to guess based on his accent.
“Some of the guys called me 'Lucky.'”
“That's an Army name if I ever heard one,” Lee replied.
“Did you know them?” Lucky asked, nodding at Moore and Nicholas' portraits.
“Not well,” Lee said. “This was our first time working together directly, but they'd run support ops for a few of my runs. I've heard stories though, good guys. Saved Halistone's can at Giza. They stole a Drache and scooped him off the top of the Great Pyramid, then delivered the thing intact to R and D. Wild men. They'll be missed.”
Lucky had a lot more questions than he started with, but Lee shushed him and pointed up front as the rest of the room’s whispers died down.
Miller clicked the projector on, and its first slide showed a photo of something that looked like a metal torture rack, a wicked black structure of twisted metal arms and spikes. It looked foul, medieval.
A speck near the contraption's base caught Lucky's eye and he leaned forward to get a better look at it. The speck was none other than a standing man, minuscule next to the infernal device, showing the structure to be immense, larger than a schoolhouse.
Knuckles rapped the table Lucky was leaning across, startling him. He looked up to see the Colonel watching him.
“I see your gears turning, private. It’s time for you to learn what brought us to that island, and how we came upon making your acquaintance,” the old soldier said. He smiled, his bushy mustache floating above his white teeth, then pointed at the projected image with his pipe, saying: “This, my young friend, is the Crying Maiden.”
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Copyright © 2022 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.
Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Dudu Torres.