Aug 17, 2000 hours. Prince Rupert.
Captain Evelyn Fry was talking on the telephone to one of his subordinate officers deployed at the shipyard. Fry and the mayor had not established any common command, so both were issuing orders in spite of the other. The police chief was obeying whichever of them happened to be in the room. The fire chief was listening to neither, and was acting autonomously. That was probably just as well. A number of shells had fallen in the city. A private residence, a millinery, a real estate office, and Crippen’s Boneless Herring Factory had been hit and were all on fire. Prince Rupert’s brand new motorized fire brigade was being stretched to its limit.
Fry had sent a militiaman along with a telegraph lineman in a railway handcar to try and find the break in the line. They had encountered another pair of militiamen, who swore they had just survived a pitched gun battle with German marines, and that the Rapids rail bridge was blown up. The crew of the handcar reported they had to stop when they encountered the trestle approach to the bridge, collapsed and burning. Smoke and fog blocked them from confirming the state of the bridge itself. It was going to take more to get the telegraph working again that simply twisting the ends of a fallen wire back together.
Fry had with him, at his improvised headquarters at the Provincial Government Buildings, a sub-lieutenant from his own unit, and a corporal and six privates from the recently disbanded local unit, The Earl Grey’s Own Rifles. Apparently recruitment in town had been low because of resentment about politics in the local militia, that Fry did not have the attention to try to understand. The upshot was some reserve militiamen who had not reported to their mobilization points had set their grievances aside and come forward in the last hour, when they had heard explosions and naval gunfire in their own harbour. These trained men been quickly issued uniforms and rifles, and were filling out the sentry posts around town. Other civilian volunteers had come forward, but Fry was at this point unwilling to arm men unaccustomed to following orders, lest they start shooting each other in the foggy streets.
The sound of a motorcycle approached and stopped. A policeman burst in, short of breath. “Something’s going on down at the GTP Wharf! There has been a collision, and armed men are climbing all over the
Prince Rupert and the
Princess Charlotte. Some of the crew escaped and have raised the alarm. The Sergeant is talking to them now at the Grand Trunk Inn.”
“Alright,” said Fry to the soldiers. “Form up on me, we are headed for the wharf.” To the policeman he said, “get as many of your men as you can and join us there.” The policeman rode off on his motorcycle. After the noise of the motorcycle had faded somewhat, Fry unlashed his horse from the porch railing and led his detachment from the saddle double time the few blocks to the waterfront.
As they covered the last block down 2nd Street, in sight of the wooden railway overpass and ramp down to the wharf, another series of explosions sounded over the water.
“We need some sharpshooters,” said Fry. “Who is the best shot? All the Prince Rupert militiamen put up their hands. “Well then, you two, take up a position on the bluff there behind the Grand Trunk Inn. You two,” he said to the corporal and another private, tell the Pillsbury family that you are commandeering their top floor bay window. He advanced with his remaining officer and three men. He had minimal resources, but he felt better having set up enfilading rifle teams with interlocking fields of fire.
From where he stood on the street, the wharf was hidden behind a huge stump-covered rock outcropping. Still in the saddle, Fry urged his horse forward gingerly onto the planks of the railway overpass, to surveil the situation below. He immediately realized his deployment of sharpshooters was for naught. The wharf and ships were just indistinct outlines in the fog. His men commanded the approach up the ramp to the town, but in this visibility he could make out no targets on the ships, and he was now closer to the wharf than either of his rifle teams.
The police sergeant strolled up to Fry on the overpass. He was followed by two sailors, one in a Canadian Pacific Railway purser’s uniform, the other a deck hand.
“So I think, Captain,” said the sergeant, “we finally have evidence that our coincidences were more than coincidences.”
“It’s the Germans for sure,” said the deckhand, “we barely got away.”
“Did you see them?” asked Fry.
“No,” said the purser, “We had to run. If they had seen us we would have been captured.”
The sound of a motorcycle was approaching.
“But we heard them,” said the deckhand. “They were yelling in German. And English with a German accent, you know?”
“Do you speak German?” Fry asked the sailors.
“No,” they both answered.
The policeman on the motorcycle rolled up. “I found two constables,” he reported to Fry, then awkwardly repeated to his sergeant. “They are legging it over here now.”
“Someone is coming up the ramp,” said the sergeant. Fry turned his head and saw that it was true. He immediately executed his standing orders, in the event of a German landing attempt.
“Go to the coal dock!” Fry ordered the motorcycle cop. He paused, and turned to the sergeant. “Have your man ride over to the coal dock. Tell the militiamen there to fire the coal stores!”
“Go,” said the sergeant. The motorcycle policeman turned and sped off.
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