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[FOUR]

38 degrees 13 minutes 14 seconds North Latitude 13 degrees 21 minutes 10 seconds East Longitude Gulf of Palermo, Sicily Aboard the Casabianca 2355 4 April 1943

Dick Canidy, Frank Nola, and Jim “Tubes” Fuller were with Jean L’Herminier, all squeezed in the submarine captain’s dimly lit drab-gray office. Each was seated in a metal-framed chair except Tubes, who stood.

“Dick, I’m sorry we could not get a better look at the harbor,” L’Herminier said.

“Me, too,” Canidy replied. “But we cannot risk going in any closer. One close call is enough.”

“Agreed.”

There were knowing glances among the men.

Only two days had passed since the Casabianca encountered the Kriegsmarine patrol boat, and the memory felt like a fresh wound.

It had been just after midnight on their second night en route to Palermo.

The Casabianca was preparing to run on the surface, recharging her batteries for the electric motors while covering distance more quickly under the power of her diesel engines.

An hour earlier, L’Herminier had made the order for a slower speed and an adjustment in the planes so that the submarine would make an easy angle of ascent.

Now the boat had come to a stop, neutrally buoyant at periscope depth. For the last half hour, he had time and again raised the scope and carefully scanned the immediate area and seen nothing.

“Huh,” L’Herminier now said.

“What is it?” his executive officer, a frail-looking, sad-eyed Frenchman a head shorter than the commander, said.

“There’s a fishing boat that’s dead in the water,” L’Herminier said, still looking through the scope.

Nola said, “What could be the chance it’s one of mine?”

He looked at Canidy and added hopefully, “We could ask them what they know about Palermo.”

Canidy raised an eyebrow.

“Right,” he said skeptically. “That’d be nice. But it’s some long shot.”

Two minutes later, L’Herminier added, “This is not good.”

“What?” Nola said.

“A German patrol boat is coming alongside it,” L’Herminier said.

The distinct profile of the Kriegsmarine fast-attack S-boat was unmistakable.

The advanced vessel was built in slightly different design variants, but all were essentially similar watercraft, all about a hundred feet long. It was their massive engines that earned them their name Schnellboot—the literal translation being “fast boat.” One variant packed three Daimler-Benz twenty-cylinder, two-thousand-horsepower diesel engines that pushed the heavy wooden-hulled vessel almost forty-five knots.

The primary purpose of the S-boat was the rapid delivery of torpedoes on target. It would lie in wait in the dark, locate an enemy sub or ship—then hit and run. It carried 53.3cm torpedoes. Because of its methods, it rarely carried more “fish” than the ones in its tubes. The very nature of a fast attack—and a faster departure—did not allow time for the reloading of the tubes. And the extra weight of the extra fish affected the agility of the craft.

S-boats carried other weapons on board—among them light machine guns, 4cm Bofors, highly efficient and effective four-barrel, 2cm Flaks—and these were for defending the boat.

L’Herminier recognized that this S-boat certainly was not operating in a fast-attack mode. He also saw that it did not appear to being using its deck guns defensively on this fishing boat.

The crew of the hulking patrol boat clearly had an aggressive stance.

“Looks to be a harassment stop,” L’Herminier said.

He stepped back from the scope and looked at Nola.