The Sea Hunters Part 21

Craig looked as if he were afloat in a sea of doubt. "Amazing.

People will freeze to death in Kiowa Creek because you got stoned on stupid cookies."

Actually, I lied. I hate Fig Newtons. It was a sack of chocolate-chip cookies. Besides, who would believe me if I admitted I picked January 12 as the date for the search because the Farmer's Almanac predicted a sunny day?

Earlier, Craig called and casually mentioned that the director of the Colorado Historical Museum had offered to run a small blurb in their monthly journal. Craig thought it was a good way to ask for volunteers.

Thinking we'd receive maybe three or four responses from people with the proper equipment, I told him to give it a try.

Craig wrote a small one-column piece on the upcoming locomotive hunt and ended the article by saying, "If anyone who owns a metal detector would like to come on out to Kiowa Creek, he or she would be welcome."

This announcement was picked up by the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post newspapers. Then the local TV stations got in on the act, followed by a story over the wire services across the country.

It quickly became what is referred to as a media event.

George Schott, a sergeant in the Air Force, came on board and proved invaluable. Harold Perkins of Bennett offered to operate the backhoe.

Claudia Mueller took on the job of a.s.sembling maps and instructions and mailing them out to volunteers who called on the phone. The project began to take on a life of its own.

One afternoon, Craig showed up at my house. "I wanted to touch base with you," he said wearily, "but my telephone wouldn't quit ringing long enough for me to dial out."

"You could have gone home and called from there," I suggested brightly.

He shrugged sheepishly. "I gave the reporters my home number.

Can I hide out here for a while?"

Where was this all leading? I wondered.

On the morning of the search, even with the mercury barely touching 10 degrees above zero, volunteers appeared like an army of ants. Over four hundred people converged under the Kiowa Creek bridge.

If the Union Pacific Railroad had learned that a horde of people were stomping around their real estate and climbing over their track right-of-way, their corporate attorneys would have gone into cardiac arrest.

Search fever had spread like an epidemic. Whole families drove out to Bennett, kids bundled up in snowsuits. One couple still stands out in my mind. A man and woman in their late sixties, and obviously married, stepped from their Mercedes-Benz sedan ready to dig. She was wearing a mink coat and hat. He wore an expensive cashmere topcoat with silk scarf and leather gloves. They were both carrying brand-new shovels purchased only minutes before from the Bennett hardware store.

George Schott borrowed a huge tent from the Air Force, and by the time I arrived he and Craig, along with several other rugged individuals, had it erected, a generator with a heater operating, and coffee brewing.

Teams were formed by several diggers around whoever owned a magnetometer or metal detector. Don Boothby, a geophysicist, brought a ground-penetrating radar unit to the site, a valuable a.s.set in imaging any contacts by the detectors. Craig had even arranged for a ham radio club to provide communications with each search team leader, who had a radio operator a.s.signed to him. A remote camera was also set up that beamed images to the command tent so that Jim Grady and Marie Mayer, resident archaeologists, could view and identify any objects or artifacts dug up by the searchers.

An inspired demonstration of efficiency, more than impressive enough to make the United States Special Forces green with envy. All that were missing were the dancers for the Hawaiian number.

Craig a.s.sembled everyone by shouting through a bullhorn. They all stood around in good spirits despite the frigid weather that brought steam issuing from every MOuth and nose. Starting under the current bridge, I lined up the teams behind the people carrying the metal detectors, s.p.a.cing the operators ten feet apart, with me and the Schonstedt gradiometer at the center. The idea was to sweep down the now dry stream bed, covering every square inch.

I might as well have tried to herd cats.

After walking about twenty paces, I turned and looked around. My little army had dissolved and scattered in every direction of the compa.s.s, each intent on following his or her own instincts. I tried to instill a shred of order, but it proved impossible. These people were out for fun and not about to listen to some weirdo book author tell them where to look. The only teams that worked with any effectiveness were the two I sent three miles down river to work back toward the bridge. They eliminated a considerable amount of creekbed before the day was out.

I particularly asked them to check out a sharp bend in the creek.

It often happens that a large buried object will alter the natural flow of a river or stream. This has happened quite often with a flow as strong as the Mississippi. The bend ultimately proved to be a buried cottonwood tree.

By early afternoon, several promising targets were located and exposed by the backhoe. Most were bits and pieces of debris from the wrecked cars and bridge. I was amused to watch the search teams drop everything and come running whenever the backhoe began to dig. Not wanting to miss out on anything is a human reaction that goes back to our ancestors in the trees.

Craig called me aside and voiced his concern that we were not covering the grids properly. "I can't control them," he lamented.

"Next time, we bring flame throwers and incinerate anyone who doesn't search where he's told," said I sarcastically.

"There must be a better way."

"I agree. Good flame throwers are expensive."

"No," Craig said, exasperated. "The teams need more instruction."

"Look, my friend," I said seriously, "there is only so much ground we can cover. The creek is barely fifty yards wide in most areas. As screwed up as the search has become, the entire creek from bank to bank and three miles downstream has been covered, some of it five times, because the teams keep crisscrossing each other's paths."

"What if we've missed it?"

"There is always that possibility, no matter how slim. Me? I'm beginning to think the d.a.m.ned thing isn't here."

I no sooner said it than a great cry went up in a field west of the creek and just north of the bridge. The Brauer brothers, Mike and Scott, had located a promising anomaly. Craig and I swept the gradiometer past the spot. The reading was good but very concentrated.

Not what I'd hoped unless the locomotive was buried thirty feet deep.

Fortunately, we had a method for seeing under the earth.

Don Boothby ran his ground-penetrating radar over and around the anomaly. In radar-interpretation schools, they're now displaying the recording of the object we found to show students what an abandoned oil-drilling pipe looks like. The image was picture perfect.

At four o'clock, I brought everybody in and called it a day. I was met with a sea of discouraged faces when I told them there was little reason to continue. Pieces of the puzzle weren't coming together.

More research was called for before another attempt should be made. I thanked everyone for a magnificent effort. They in Turn applauded Craig and me for providing the opportunity to tackle something that gave them pleasure and that they could always talk about. They were proud, it seems, to have been involved with the search for old Engine #51. To them, it was an adventure.

Driving back through Denver to my house on Lookout Mountain in the evening gloom of that cold Sunday in January, I mentally sifted through all the data for any clue I might have missed. After dinner, I read and reread every paper in my research file, racked by my inadequacies in not solving the mystery.

Perhaps, just perhaps, as I told Craig, the d.a.m.ned thing wasn't there.

Bob Richardson, who runs the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado, maintained that the locomotive had been recovered. He cited an article published in 1953, stating the locomotive used that fateful evening was #51, and that particular engine was listed as being rebuilt in 1881 with the number then changed to #1026.

I found problems with the article for a couple of reasons. One, no other source can be uncovered that supports the 1953 article's statements. To take a report as gospel you need more than one reference.

And two, why did the railroad take nearly three years to put the locomotive back in service when it could have just as easily been repaired and on track in a matter of a few months?

I had all but given up finding an answer when by a lucky coincidence I was asked to do a radio interview while attending a conference of mystery writers in Omaha, Nebraska.

During the phone-in part of the show, a caller inquired about NUMA's search for the lost locomotive of Kiowa Creek. When asked the reason for his interest, he said he worked in the archives of the Union Pacific offices there in Omaha. I obtained his address and phone number and we began to communicate.

During his spare time, he dug through the old legal records of the Kansas Pacific from the time of the wreck until the company merged with the Union Pacific. After three months, he struck paydirt.

The story he ferreted out was one that is not uncommon in the present day and age. It seems that N. H. Nicholson, in charge of the original salvage operation, had indeed found the locomotive with probes sunk in the sand by his air pump- Without revealing his discovery to the salvage crew or local ranchers, he notified company officials in Kansas City. The now long-defunct Kansas Pacific Railroad then immediately filed an insurance claim of $20,000 for the purported loss of the locomotive, and collected.

A few weeks later, in the dead of night, a special train with Nicholson in charge arrived at Kiowa Creek. They dug up the locomotive, lifted it onto the track with a giant railroad crane, and towed it to the company maintenance shops in Kansas City. There it was rebuilt, its exterior appearance altered slightly; it was given a new number and put back into service. The operation went so smoothly that none of the ranchers in the area were ever aware of the recovery.

Records did not indicate whether the locomotive was renumbered #1026, as Bob Richardson suggested. That part of the story may never be known.

I owe a debt of grat.i.tude to the hundreds of people who gave the search their best shot. Although we didn't find the engine, we did solve what appeared to be a 120-year-old insurance scam by a railroad that no longer exists.

But did we?

Despite the records in the archives, there are many who refuse to believe the locomotive was found. The local ranchers insist that it still lies buried beneath the sands of Kiowa Creek. It's whispered that around midnight, when no trains are due to pa.s.s, the plaintive wail of a steam whistle can be heard approaching in the distance. Then comes the clank of a bell and the roar of steam exhaust. If conditions are just right and there is a rain falling, a light is seen coming down the grade from the west toward the creek. Upon reaching the bridge, the beam suddenly blinks out and the sounds of a locomotive melt into the night.

As long as she is remembered, the spirit of old Engine #51 will never die.

H.M.s. PATHFINDER SCOTLAND.

Death from the Depths September 5, 1914 "horizons clear," the lookout, perched on a small extension on the conning tower, announced to his commander.

Thirty miles off Saint Abb's Head, Scotland, the sea was flat, with only a mild chop. Cruising at twelve knots in waters that seldom knew fair weather, the U-21 pounded through water as green as a field of unpicked corn. The spray of cold water, splas.h.i.+ng across the decks of U-21, made a sound similar to the squis.h.i.+ng of soggy shoes. The time was 3:40 in the afternoon. The air was clear and pure, with a light breeze, a brilliant fall afternoon.

EUBY As the submarine slipped like a steel wraith through the tossing seas, the sculptured lines of its gracefully tapered outer hull gave the boat DENMARK.

stability in rough seas. Her outer hull, however, was a facade.

Her visible exterior was simply a streamlined skin, flooding when the boat was underwater. The unique design provided a faster speed while the submarine was cruising on the surface.

Her operating machinery was comfortably mounted within a separate tubular steel pressure hull, where the crew lived and worked.

Americanand British-built submarines of the First World War were shaped like cigars, and they wallowed in rough water like stricken whales.

Not the German Unterseeboote. Their special dual-hull arrangement gave them a fast cruising speed both above and below the surface. For it was considered a brilliant design.

"Horizons still clear," the lookout reported.

Extending through each side of the outer hull were twin shafts mounting fore and aft diving planes. These were the wings on which the sub traveled up and down in the depths. When the order was given to dive, the ballast tapks were flooded from the surrounding seawater until the prescribed depth was reached and neutral buoyancy achieved.

Picture a child placing his hand out the window of a moving car.

By merely angling his fingertips, his hands will fly up and down from the resistance of the air current. The principle is the same with submarine diving planes.

Twin tubes that fired long twenty-three-foot-six-inch torpedoes flared from the stern section of the hull alongside the dual bronze propellers and rudder. A second pair of tubes sat low on the bow below the anchors, which were held by rigid supports that prevented their movement when the boat was underway. Below the deck line, the U-boat was as graceful as a needlefish; above, she was as ugly as a wart hog.

The flat upper deck consisted of twin levels, covered with black rubberized paint that provided traction for foot traffic.

Four-foot-high metal railings lined the areas of the deck where the crew most often found themselves when underway. Elsewhere on the deck, the crew had to be careful and tied themselves to lifelines to prevent being washed into the sea. Even when riding the surface of calm water, the deck was nearly awash.

Twelve feet tall, the conning tower rose like an upside-down anvil, sharply angled on each side and rounded toward the center. A two-inch deck gun was mounted halfway toward the stern. The U-boat's four diesel engines, two each connected to a propeller shaft, could push her through the water at fifteen knots on the surface and nearly nine knots when submerged. Like her sister submarines, U-21 was painted light gray to blend with sea and sky.

"Twenty more minutes for batteries to reach full charge," the engineering officer shouted through the speaking tube to Korvettenkapitiin Otto Hersing, commander of U-21, who stood above in the conning tower. Hersing was a distinguished-looking man with sad brown eyes.

His black hair was cropped short and combed flat. Tall and slender, with hawklike features, he was considered quite attractive by women.

He glanced briefly at the dim coastline in the distance, then turned his attention to a marine chart. After only a week at sea, the paper was beginning to deteriorate from the relendess damp of the sea.

Hersing was engaged in playing a dangerous game of hide and seek with the British fleet. The s.h.i.+ps of the Royal Navy that pa.s.sed through the Firth of Forth were out on patrol, searching for German wars.h.i.+ps above and below the water. To his frustration, U-21 kept missing them.

One month and one day had pa.s.sed since the guns of August launched the war that engulfed nearly every country in Europe, and the U-21 had yet to fire a torpedo. Since the Confederate Hunley had sunk Housatonic during the American Civil War, no s.h.i.+p had been destroyed by a submarine. Hersing would have given a year's pay if U-21 could have had the honor of the first kill among the thirty U-boats Germany fielded at the beginning of the conflict.

Breathing in the sea air and salt spray kicked up by the bow behind the conning tower's weather screen, Hersing took every opportunity to leave the close confines of the pressure hull with its smell of dampness, diesel fumes, and sweat. Condensation was so bad that the crew had to sleep with oilskins covering their faces and rubber sheets pulled over their bodies. The ventilating system did a reasonable job of cleansing the atmosphere, but the fetid air lingered as if embedded in the steel bulkheads.

"We'll remain surfaced after we're fully charged," Hersing shouted into the speaking tube to the engine room.

He was in no rush to seal the hatches again. Better to allow the crew to relish the fresh air while they could. Besides, with the U-boat's low silhouette, he could see an enemy s.h.i.+p long before it spotted U-21.

He arched his back and stretched, staring at the sky free of clouds, and thought momentarily of his village in Germany, wondering if he would live to walk its narrow streets again. Reluctantly, he turned his attention back to the business at hand, raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes, and scanned the sea for signs of the enemy, a hunter waiting in ambush with no prey in sight.

Where were the British hiding? Hersing wondered. The largest fleet in the world couldn't stay lost forever.

Unlike Hersing, who savored conning his vessel in the open air, British Royal Navy Captain Martin Leake stood in the comfort of H.M.S.

Pathfinder's wheelhouse and sipped tea from a china cup. His light cruiser had spent the first few weeks of the war on routine patrol duty, finding no sign of the enemy. He felt little fear of enemy submarines.

His s.h.i.+p had twice the speed of those underwater coffins. To most British naval officers, they were underhanded, unfair, and un-English.

Already two U-boats had been lost, the U-15 rammed and sunk by the cruiser Birmingham and the U-13 presumed to have struck a mine.

Leake was proud of his sleek wars.h.i.+p. She was fast and she was deadly. He believed he could dodge any U-boat by the skillful exercise of speed and maneuver. His orders were simple. He and Pathfinder were to patrol the North Sea off the Scottish coast and sink any German in sight.

Constructed ten years before and rated at 2,940 tons, Pathfinder had recently been refitted by the British Navy at a cost of nearly half a million pounds. Built at the yards of Cammel Laird, the fast scout cruiser was 370 feet in length with a 27-foot beam. She mounted ten 12-pound guns and eight 3-pound light-duty cannon. The stem that graced the bow was a businesslike straight up and down. None of that rakish clipper-s.h.i.+p bow for her.

Amids.h.i.+ps, the sidewalls of the hull were cut down so the stern deck was much lower to the water than the bow. Rising above the high forward quarter, the wheelhouse stood awkwardly on a maze of stilts.

A tall mast rose immediately behind, sporting a radio antenna and a lone crow's nest. Still farther aft, triple smokestacks that vented the coal-burning furnaces towered above the deck. Five lifeboats, two motor launches, and the captain's gig hung in their davits above decks amids.h.i.+ps.

After the refit, Leake was pleased her updated systems seemed to be operating properly, but the newly installed furnaces were throwing out more smoke than he would have liked. Still, the crew performed their duties skillfully and the s.h.i.+p responded to the helm like a horse bred to chase hounds.

Everything aboard Pathfinder was going well, almost too well.

Daily dispatches from the Admiralty Office warned s.h.i.+ps of their fleet to stay vigilant. But five weeks of tedious patrol duty dulled any real sense of jeopardy. The dreaded underwater ghosts were out there somewhere, haunting the sea. But this early in the war there were few trained eyes that could spot telltale signs of a periscope.

Leake placed the cup back on the saucer. Pathfinder was up to the job, he thought. She could handle almost any opponent except a battle cruiser. He considered turning over the helm to his first officer and retreating to his cabin for a few moments of solitude. But he did not feel tired and decided to Turn in later.

It was a decision that would save his life.

Hersing climbed down the steel-runged ladder from the conning tower into the control room, a jungle of instruments, gauges, wiring, and pipes that ran along the curved walls like hardened snakes.

Electric light bulbs, contained in metal cages to prevent shattering if the crew was tossed about during a depth-charge attack, haphazardly, creating areas of twilight in the far corners of the boat.

Forward of the control room was a tiny galley. TWin hot plates and a fifty-quart stew pot cooked the food both the officers and crew shared.

For a boat that carried forty-two men and several officers there were only two heads, one often used as a food locker at the start of a voyage.