vampire2

December 17th, 1944

Captain Otto V Prien slapped the black panther painted on the side of the wheelhouse on his way aft of his boat, the Mary’s Pride, fast boat number two hundred and three…all of the fourth flotillas boats had them painted on during an extended stay at Havre (due to the damned British bombing the hell out of their normal base, and a lot of free wine).
“Hello Kitty”, he sang as the boat lurched through a swell, just a half a kilometer out to sea from the S-boat pens in St. Peter’s Port. Sipping a dented metal cup filled with coffee and bourbon whiskey, he stared at the setting sun, leathery eyes taking in the glint off of the rows of anti aircraft guns emplaced along the ridge of Guernsey Island, the only thing that really stood against the vulnerability of his boats and the enemy Lancasters.
Tonight should be a good night for hunting…the last few days their squad had been running into a lot of small barges around St. Anne and the point of France, and the pickings had been quite fine. A single mosquito boat had managed to make a lucky strike and damaged the middle and port rudders on his boat, and he wanted to make a test run after repairs to make sure that the faithful craft was fully operational. Even from this distance, Otto could hear the engines start to fart and belch during warmup from the other 3 in his group, still tied up at the shaky dock. The new crewmen strained their eyes for a glimpse of one of the young girls from town, the more experienced held their heads cocked, waiting to hear the air raid siren and the hum of incoming high altitude bombers.
Six hours of sleep, and a hearty dinner had done little do make up for the general unease Otto felt, that tangle in his gut that meant he knew that this fight was hopeless. For a long time, he had been sure that they would easily overcome the British, as they had the French, and head out towards the massive land of the Americas. He had intended to station a part of the southern coast, where it was warm all the time, and perhaps learn how to make this glorious drink, bourbon. Only one bottle left now, since the shipments had been halted so many years ago, even his massive stockpile at home was gone. The war that had started so well was folding quickly, and it seemed obvious to him and his staff that who was going to win. The youngsters were still full of piss and vinegar, saluting like mad and stating party rhetoric at the mess, while he just savoured his pilsner and methodically ate the sausage and bread, staples now for the last few months…from all accounts, he was luckier than his own family (how he missed Greta and the kids), who might be eating something much rougher. Hard to say, the mail had been infrequent lately.

Ernst, his first lieutenant, clicked back the bunk door and came out into the twilight. “Pretty sunset”, he said, pointing to the clouds on the horizon, lit up in red, gold, and purple, he yawned. “ I am getting tired of that watered down beer, it makes me sleepy…”he yawned again, exposing some gold crowns, “like it is not a drink, but a water with some beer taste to it…echh.”
“Or a donkey’s asshole”, Otto joked. “With a cigarette dunked in for flavour.”

The lieutenant smiled, “Yeah, butt-light” he chuckled, “we’ll have to market that someday, we’ll be famous!” Captain Prien snorted, and the two turned to the prow, watching the waves break on the cutwater.

Above the distant cough and sputter of his boats, he could hear a more insistent drone, and glanced skyward, but saw nothing. The air raid sirens had not gone off either, so there were no black bellied bastards dropping tallboys down…yet. What the hell was that sound?
From the church tower, the bell began to ring the eves, long and mournful tones that you could almost feel in your bones. He wished this horrible mess was over, so he could be home to lop down a tree and see if Max was old enough to carry it home, have a drink with his wife while his son and daughter decorated the pine, smelling strongly different than this briny sea.
WHAM!
One of the northern anti-aircraft stations went up like a roman candle, sending a tremendous boom of sound over the bay, lighting the waves even redder than the now dim sun.
The sirens began to wail now, and the crews were rushing antlike up to the stations, 88’s and 128’s swiveling around, searching for something to shoot at. A few of the emplacements began a high level barrage, and black puffs appeared here and there in the darkening sky. Near to the dock, the anti-torpedo nets were being lowered, and the already running fast boats began to move away from the pier, while the off staff crews raced to get the others started, the noise was unimaginable.
Otto could still hear a drone over all of the cacophony though…what was it? Ernst scanned the horizon while the forward and aft crews manned the guns in case they saw something close enough to fire at.

“F my mother” he whispered, pulling at his captain’s sleeve, “there, on the horizon!”

Prien whipped out his glasses and tried to focus on the row of dim shapes he could just make out in the red haze, but they moved too rapidly, and blended in too well. Frustrated, all he could do was watch as the line of craft approached.
Another explosion sounded behind him, and they all spun to watch another emplacement go up in a ball of flames and flying metal. Saboteurs !
“Bastards”, he muttered, “Battle Stations! All Hands!” The Mary’s engines spooled up, and the foam turned white as they headed out to sea, towards the growing dots of the enemy.

Otto stalked into the wheelhouse, shaped like a skull with armor on it, and yelled to the radioman to tell the other boats to follow him, and fast. If those were enemy destroyers or frigates, they would have to attack them fast and get out before the massive shore batteries began to fire at anything that moved! He ran to the starboard and once again lifted his Zeiss goggles up, this time he could see more (though anyone else would have had a hard time, with the boat slamming into wave after wave)…they were not boats. What the hell were they?

“Godamn it !” yelled Ernst “Mistels ! They are launching Mistels” They had all read about the cluster bombs packed into planes by their own Luftwaffe, and now it seemed the enemy had done the same…fill an old airframe with explosives, and guide it to the target. The damage would be immense.
December 17th, part two

Aircaptain “Lucky Dick” Andrews held his plane a scant yard or so from the white capped waves rolling around below. The flight had taken them south of Sark Isle, and they fast approached the coast of Guernsey, now occupied by the bloody germans. Well, he thought, that was just about to end. Connected by a radio line to the fighter looming above him, he toggled a switch, “Vampire to Vampire Two, prepare to disengage.” The hiss of static filled his headset as the golden sands of Havelet Bay grew faster and faster in his narrow windscreen. Crikey, but it was cold here…he was used to the Decembers back home in Queensland, where he would have been sweating like a pig , and fighting off the flies. Of course, England did have some advantages to a young single Australian flyboy…he grinned.
“Right, Vampire One, I’m off ya then, see you back on the beach, LD,” came the reply, and the entire modified bomber shuddered as the Cobra ground attack plane separated from the gym that had bound the two together during the long flight from the airbase in southern England. “Make sure that feeding line is shut off,” He instructed his crewmen, bustling about the rear of the fuselage, readying the main guns. Now 7,000 lbs lighter, the elderly Hudson gained altitude, narrowly missing a church steeple, and slowly rotated to port. Below, the white fast boats of the Kriegsmarine lay tied up at the dock. Andrews smiled, and brought the plane down low again.
“Scrap two…that’s the last of the flak!” the voice of the Cobra pilots came over the radio, excited and wound up, “We’re outta here!” The pink planes streaked northeast at full speed, hoping to outrun any pursuing 109’s. Their damage had been done, now it was his turn. Lucky Dick Andrews cut his airspeed and drifted towards the docks.

Through the binoculars, Prien watched the systematic destruction of the entire bank of flak guns by the small, cannon armed fighters. There wasn’t much he could do…in a rolling sea, his gunmen were as likely to hit their own troops and equipment as the enemy’s! One of the low flying bombers had actually separated from it’s parasite fighter right above them, showering the boat in a spray of fuel.
“Christ” Ernst muttered, “those things are going to crash right into the pier.” They both knew how much fuel was stored nearby, and waited for the fireball.
To the amazement of the crews onboard, the dusty planes all rose into the air, and started slowly circling the entire port. “Spooky, isn’t it?” he remarked quietly.
Then all hell broke loose as the side’s of the medium bombers erupted into light. Some of the S-boat crew cheered, thinking they had been hit by a surviving flak gun, but as the decks began to fall apart near the shore, they realized the grim truth.
Three Schnellboots were destroyed immediately, one minute floating on the water, the next, just gone. Only a few scraps of wood and metal bobbed on the surface where they had been, most of that sinking quickly too.
Two of the fuel depots went up in competing balls of flame, as well as virtually every truck near the docks. The piers had been disintegrated, spars of barnacle encrusted wood poked out of the fires like deadman’s fingers. Still, the planes circled slowly, the smell of cordite drifting away from their sides as they poured down a hailstorm of shells.
He couldn’t look through the binoculars anymore, there were bodies burning even as they floated on the water, and the entire bay was nothing more than a grim whirlwind of fire. The gun crews stood in shock, staring at the scene, unsure of what to do as the small bombers left to the north, one by one, in a neat little duck row.
“Wind them up, Gunter!” Otto yelled down the speaking tube, “We need to get to the other pens as fast as possible!” The u-boat pens on the north side of the island were their only hope for refuge in case of a second wave of the bombers. The sleek boat began to cut through the water like a dream, white waves appearing at the prow growing higher and higher, almost reaching the strakes.
“Hope to god that they didn’t hit all of the anti-air guns, my friend,” Prien called out to Ernst, who was gripping tightly to the rail, “or we are finished!”

Far, far above, a swarm of camouflaged Lancasters opened up their bay doors, revealing Tallboys that would soon answer his thoughts.

“Ho, ho, ho”, said the bombadier, pushing his thumb down hard on the button,”Merry fucking Christmas.”