DOWN UNDER

"I don't know, sir. I ain't never seen anything like it!"

"Well is he British or German?" asked Cullison, as he tried to spot the plane with his binoculars.

Damn this haze, he thought to himself as he finally got a good look at it.  A twin-engine plane, possibly a Mosquito light bomber he thought.  His sphincter muscles tightened and his eyes opened wide at the sight of its bomb bay doors opening.  "Hard A-port! Clear the bridge! Dive! Dive! Dive!" he yelled.

He hoped the British pilot would recognize his mistake before it was too late but hope wasn't what he had been trained to rely on.  From the air the small S-19 would have a look similar to that of a German U-boat.  Up till now he’d always believed that an alert and well-trained crew was all he needed to get his boat out of harm's way.  Possibly the British pilot would overshoot.  Coming back from a dawn patrol, stiff after sitting in his cramped cockpit for three or four hours he had to be just as surprised to see a sub right in front of him as they were to see him.

While the second lookout was dropping through the bridge hatch, the roar of the plane's engines made Cullison look up.  His eyes opened even wider as a single bomb dropped from the belly of the patrol plane.  His luck had run out, he thought as he watched the bomb angle down to hit the water only a few feet from the bow.  He ducked behind the bridge bulkhead as the bomb exploded.  The concussion knocked him off his feet as deadly pieces of shrapnel sprayed the bridge and pitched the boat over twenty degrees to starboard.

Before he could pick himself up, the boat started to tilt its bow down.  It was "diving" more quickly than he believed possible.  The angle of the deck made it impossible for him to get to the conning tower hatch and slam it shut. Water poured down the hatch.  He struggled to maintain his grip on the bridge railing but was swept off into the cool water, air bubbles from the stricken sub bursting all around him.  He fought against the undertow as his boat sank beneath him while trying not to choke on the several gallons of seawater he swallowed.  Only a single lookout and himself were left on the surface, fighting to keep from drowning, while throwing up from the seawater he had swallowed.

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The Angler came up out of the water as fast as it could while Cullison aimed the submarine, like a giant battering ram, at the E-boat.  The distance between the two was only twenty-five yards when the E-boat started to turn across the Angler's bow.  It only took a few seconds for the Angler, its collision alarm blaring, to reach the E-boat and drive its bull-nosed bow through the thin side of the patrol boat.

The E-boat heeled over, its starboard deck awash.  The crew members were, either crushed, trapped or thrown into the water as the Angler rose up over it.  The E-boat, which seconds before had been a deadly threat, was now being crushed as it rolled under the Angler and was turned into drift wood and scrap metal.

Steinlich, along with his deck crew was thrown free of the E-boat by the collision but had to fight for his life against the undertow as the Angler swept by.  Rolled upside down, scraped by the rough underside of the Angler’s bilge tank, dazed and coughing up sea water and diesel fuel; he grabbed onto a piece of his command's hull and yelled to locate his men in the disturbed water.  He continued to shout between spasms of coughing, acting as a beacon to his men as they splashed their way to him.

Gathering his surviving crewmembers around him, they started swimming towards the far shore.  Amazingly only his radio operator and two engineers, who had been with him for over a year, all of whom had been below deck when they were rammed, were missing.  It only took them a few minutes to swim to shore, where they lay in the sand and recovered from the shock of being forcibly separated from their boat.

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Sitting down, she removed her riding boots and socks.  Then she stood up and looking straight at him, eyes half closed, a teasing smile on her face, unzipped her jeans, slid her hands down her hips and pushed her pants to the ground.  Leaning against a tree, she pulled one leg free of the pants and then the other.  She dropped her shirt on the grass and slowly unhooking her bra as she leaned over so her breasts, freed from the restraining material stood out exhibiting their fullness. With only her panties on, she looked at Cullison, and asked, "Are you sure you won't join me, darling.  I'm sure you would find it quite refreshing."

She slid the thin panties off her hips and kicked them over to the pile of clothes.  She was standing naked next to the pond, the waterfall behind making a backdrop for her perfect figure.

He could see her entire body was now tanned.  She no longer had the tell tale strips of white skin required in more populated areas.  Her hair also had more golden highlights in