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Driftless
Donor
One part is the old trope of watching a thriller where a character is going to look in the basement of the old creepy house..... "No, no, no - don't do it..." Most of us say to the screen...
The other part is that most of us knows some young soul we put in place of Anne-Marie and don't want the inevitable to happen.
Driftless
Donor
That fur could be the macguffin in an O. Henry story with a macabre twist, or a Hitchcock tale....
Damn it, I may actually have to research and write an actual tale about Anna Marie someday
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Absolutely. Indeed, there's a whole raft of possibilities with regards to sleepers.
There's a reason they call it a Secret Service.
Story 1215
March 25, 1942 Near Gibraltar
HMS Westcott, the local patrol destroyer, slowed as her ASDIC continued to ping. She had a U-boat fixed. By now everyone knew the routine. The escort would roll a pattern of depth charges, and the detected submarine would attempt to wildly swerve out of the way as soon as the skipper thought his boat entered the hunter’s blind zone. Good U-boat drivers could dodge a dozen depth charge attacks in a row.
That was not the script for Westcott. She slowed some more to just above steerage and all of a sudden, the forward weapons station erupted. Twenty four spigot mortars fired. Twenty three mortars functioned correctly with only a single misfire. Even as the twenty three bombards entered the water, a chief had a work crew gingerly safed the misfired round before throwing it overboard off the stern. Twenty three rockets entered the sea in a smooth pattern. Thirty seconds later, there were no explosions. As she drifted forward, she was almost in depth charge range. The old destroyer accelerated and laid a pattern of depth charges even as her crew scrambled to reload the experimental weapon.
Four hours later, she had to return to port, magazines empty and without success. The German submarine had escaped because the Hedgehog was being fired on the swell and thus tended to go slightly long. The young skipper would spend the rest of his patrol trying to figure out what had attacked him.
HMS Westcott, the local patrol destroyer, slowed as her ASDIC continued to ping. She had a U-boat fixed. By now everyone knew the routine. The escort would roll a pattern of depth charges, and the detected submarine would attempt to wildly swerve out of the way as soon as the skipper thought his boat entered the hunter’s blind zone. Good U-boat drivers could dodge a dozen depth charge attacks in a row.
That was not the script for Westcott. She slowed some more to just above steerage and all of a sudden, the forward weapons station erupted. Twenty four spigot mortars fired. Twenty three mortars functioned correctly with only a single misfire. Even as the twenty three bombards entered the water, a chief had a work crew gingerly safed the misfired round before throwing it overboard off the stern. Twenty three rockets entered the sea in a smooth pattern. Thirty seconds later, there were no explosions. As she drifted forward, she was almost in depth charge range. The old destroyer accelerated and laid a pattern of depth charges even as her crew scrambled to reload the experimental weapon.
Four hours later, she had to return to port, magazines empty and without success. The German submarine had escaped because the Hedgehog was being fired on the swell and thus tended to go slightly long. The young skipper would spend the rest of his patrol trying to figure out what had attacked him.
Story 1216
March 26, 1942 Christmas Island
The seaplane tender USS William B. Preston, another former four stacker destroyer, pulled into Flying Fish Cove. She was there to support six Catalinas, refugees from the Philippines. The patrol planes were just the next wave of reinforcement for this small speck of an island. A pair of Australian corvettes had arrived five days earlier with a company of militia to defend the island.
488 Squadron of New Zealand Buffaloes was starting to fly patrols. The Kiwi’s had fought hard on Malaya and the squadron had been effectively destroyed already. Here they could rebuild their strength until they had to deploy back to Malaya. Rumors of new aircraft to replace the mix of worn out Buffaloes were flowing through the squadron almost as fast as dinner for the men with the runs.
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Story 1217
March 27, 1942 south of Penang
The mechanic wiped his brow. He put down the wrench and checked the tension on the Valentine’s suspension. It felt right and the repair went by the field modified book. Lazy Susan was ready. Her gunner and loader were going over the main gun and the co-axial machine gun. The loader and driver was working on the engine, checking the oil and confirming that the head gasket was set right. They had been an intervention and stabilization force when they were needed to crush a Japanese infiltration or supported a local counter-attack before getting pulled back into the rear.
Those battles were always small battles, five tanks there, eight tanks there. The largest single armored fight that the experienced crew had been involved in was only thirteen tanks when they counter-attacked a Japanese attack that was supported by their light tanks. The entire brigade was assembled under nets. Over 100 tanks were in various states of disassembly. Almost all of the tanks were considered to have been combat capable at the start of the week when the stand-down started. All of the tanks would be ready tomorrow when the brigade was due to be paired with an Territorial brigade for a training exercise on breaching a fortified line.
Three miles to the south, the Territorial brigade was sharing curry night with an Indian brigade that had just been pulled back into reserve. Good food and a good night’s rest was the plan before the brigade was due to head to the training assembly area at 0400 the next day.
I think that the skipper would know that something odd is happening. The British destroyer's approach is just not right and the depth charges were laid in an odd pattern. So even if he is not hearing the Hedgehog hitting the water, he knows that something strange happened.I'm still loving this tale...you are a master of alternate history here
Would the U-Boat skipper even know that he was attacked by something new? IIRC, the hedgehog doesn't explode unless it hits something--not sure if he'd hear them hit the water.
Huh?Hah!
Man, they are doing good. The frontline is still at Penang while by this time IOTL the whole of SEA is overrun.
Driftless
Donor
Hah!
I read that as a bit of a crossover nod to Zheng He's "April 1942" timeline. Both authors appreciateively chime in from time to time on each others storylines.
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