The Baltic Run

by The Baltic Run (retail) (epub)

  Smith sighed. ‘War is hell,’ he muttered to himself, as he pushed open the throttle, ‘but peacetime can kill you.’

  * * *

  Polack Joe poked his head over the tumbledown wall which surrounded the abandoned Lutheran church. To left and right there were the crooked, weather-worn gravestones of generations of Germans who had lived and died here in what had been Polish territory right up to the Middle Ages. Here and there, there were the red thick candles which the Germans burnt for the dead on ‘All Saints’ Day’. Otherwise the graveyard was empty. But there was a coil of furled wire hanging down from the church steeple. ‘Their aerial,’ he whispered to Jerczy.

  The latter nodded and gripped the butt of the shotgun he was carrying more firmly. Polack Joe noted that his knuckles were white with tension and he said soothingly, ‘Don’t worry, young ’un. There’ll only be a couple of them and there’s a dozen of us. Why, old Polack Joe could tackle ’em hissen blindfolded and one arm tied behind his back.’ He took a quick glance to left and right. ‘All clear,’ he whispered tensely. ‘Over the wall, lads, and make it snappy.’

  Hurriedly his volunteers scaled the tumbledown wall and began to advance, bent low through the tombstones, their boots crunching on the white, frozen ground. Polack Joe flung a swift glance upwards. Nothing stirred up there in the bell chamber. He nodded his approval. He held his finger, which looked like a hairy sausage, to his lips for silence and caution and whispered, ‘I’m going to try the door and I’ll have the eggs off’n any of you who makes the slightest sausage – and with a blunt razor blade at that.’

  That terrible threat worked, and they advanced towards the door as if they were walking over eggshells.

  Polack Joe hesitated. Then he pushed out his big hand and shook it a couple of times like a safecracker might, limbering up his muscles before attempting to crack open a safe. Carefully, very carefully, he seized the rusty iron ring and turned it. Hardly daring to breathe he commenced to open the big oaken door. It creaked loudly. He felt the sweat break out all over his body. He cursed in Polish and opened it a little farther.

  A musty smell, a mixture of candle wax and the piety of centuries, assailed his nostrils. He peered inside. Nothing. Just a mess of broken stools and ripped, soggy prayerbooks on the floor mixed with the droppings of the birds which in summer flew in and out through the gaps in the upper walls of the nave.

  Polack Joe grinned with relief. They hadn’t been spotted! There was no one there. He waved his hand and the others crowded in behind him, tiptoeing across the bare stone flags like a lot of naughty schoolboys up to some prank. He pointed to the winding stone stairs that led to the steeple. They nodded their understanding. He went forwards, bringing up the grenade from his belt and priming it.

  Slowly, very slowly, they started to climb the stairs. Up above they could now hear the whispered conversation in German. Someone was obviously speaking softly into a radio microphone. The observer was up there all right. Polack Joe’s grin broadened. The Heinie was soon going to be in for an unpleasant surprise.

  But Polack Joe was the one who was going to be in for an unpleasant surprise. Suddenly things started to happen – quick. There was strange clattering. For one startled second, Polack Joe could not make out what it was. Then the thing came clattering from step to step round the corner. ‘Grenade!’ he yelled and threw up his arms to cover his face. The next instant the little round object struck Jerczy’s foot. Instinctively, his young face contorted with horror, he kicked it away. It struck the wall and exploded. The effect was devastating. Shrapnel flew everywhere. It pinged off the walls. It flew in razor-sharp, red-hot pieces back and forth, felling men on all sides. They stumbled to a stop, tumbling to the steps which were already flushing a deep scarlet with their blood, moaning and screaming, treading upon one another in their unreasoning panic. Something slapped Polack Joe a terrific blow across the face. He gasped with horror. It was Jerczy’s bloody severed right hand. A moment later he was struck another fierce blow across the eye. He yelled out in sheer agony. His hand shot to his face. Where his left eye had been there was now a bloody, gory socket. He staggered and almost collapsed. But his burning hate of whomever had thrown that deadly little steel egg kept him on his feet.

  Cursing and moaning, both at the same time, he staggered on, feeling his way upwards with the aid of the steel rail running the length of the outside wall, his automatic in his right hand.

  ‘Polack swienska,’ somebody said in badly accented Polish.

  He staggered to a stop. Dimly, he perceived through a waving red mist, a man standing there, earphones clamped about his blond head, a short stumpy carbine in his hands.

  ‘You… you!’ Polack Joe gasped. He couldn’t finish the sentence. It didn’t matter. This was the German forwards artillery observer. He must kill! Save the convoy. He raised his automatic. It seemed to weigh a ton, a load greater than he had ever borne back at Bethlehem Steel. The German watched him, utterly unmoved.

  ‘I kill… you.’ The words were hard to form now. Something seemed to be affecting his lips, making them incapable of shaping the sounds. He fumbled for the trigger. The red mist was threatening to overcome him. He could feel the hot blood trickling down his face on to his chin and from there to his jacket. It didn’t matter. He was dying, he knew. But he’d take the Heinie bastard with him. He’d do it now.

  ‘Die, Polack!’ the German artilleryman said. His voice was without emotion, totally matter-of-fact. He raised the carbine to his hip and pulled the trigger. The sound exploded like that of a shell going off in those tight confines. A giant invisible fist slammed into Polack Joe’s chest. He was lifted clean off his feet by the impact. Next instant he slapped against the wall. Slowly, his massive chest ripped apart, he began to sink to the steps, leaving a bloody trail on the wall behind as he slithered to his death. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  The German sniffed. He took out a small black cigar, lit it and then went back to his set…

  * * *

  The battery of howitzers spotted them immediately. Through his glasses Smith spotted how their barrels were swinging round hurriedly to face the challenge from the sea. ‘Full ahead, Dickie!’ he yelled above the roar of the Thorneycrofts. The Swordfish surged forwards. Her prow tilted upwards sharply. The bow waves rose higher than the mast. Now they were going all out at forty knots heading straight for the beach. Tied to the rail, Billy Bennett crouched over the Swordfish’s two torpedoes, ready to fire in an instant. The tactic they were using was almost suicidal. If the German shells didn’t get them first, they ran the risk of running straight into the beach. They had to get as close as possible to make the torpedoes do their job of running up the sandy beach and hitting the ‘pies’. Dickie at the controls would have to swing the Swordfish round at the very last moment. Urgently Billy Bennett began to mutter a fervent prayer, the first one since he had left his boarding school years before.

  Smith focused his glasses. There it was. The first cherry-red stab of flame. Smoke erupted from behind the middle ‘pie’. The morning sky was ripped apart suddenly. The first shell screamed out of the sky and plummeted into the sea, only yards off. The Swordfish heeled and reeled crazily. Dickie started to zig-zag, though Smith, holding on grimly, knew in the final stretch he would have to head straight for the beach if they were going to fire the torpedoes successfully.

  Another shell shrieked from the sky. A huge mushroom of water swamped the deck of the Swordfish. Billy Bennett crouching over his torpedoes grabbed desperately for a hold, as the water threatened to sweep him overboard. On the bridge Smith saw the shore was racing up to meet them, as Dickie, his face glazed with sweat, his shoulder muscles burning with the agonising effort of zig-zagging, threw the Swordfish from side to side, as if she were a toy.

  Kronstadt in 1918 flashed into Smith’s mind. It had been about this stage that the Swordfish had almost taken its fatal blow. They – the ship and the men – had escaped to fight another day. Were they going to
be so lucky a second time? He dismissed the thought and raised his right hand in signal to Billy.

  Bennett, soaked to the skin, his face dripping with the flying spray from the twin bow wave, raised his in answer. He was ready.

  Now, with shells plummeting into the water to right and left of the flying craft, they were some five hundred yards away from the shore. The ‘tin fish’ had a running range of two thousand yards. They were well within range. But Smith wanted the torpedoes to have the full impetus of first power, so when Dickie flashed a look inquiringly, he shook his head and roared above the howl of the engines, ‘Not yet!’

  Four hundred yards. Quite plainly now, through the flying spray, Smith could see an officer standing on the central ‘pie’ waving and gesticulating, obviously directing the fire of the hidden guns. ‘I wouldn’t be in your position in a minute, my friend,’ Smith said half aloud. Inside his head a little voice rasped harshly, ‘What about your position, my friend? Smith ignored that cynical inner voice.

  Three hundred and fifty. The shore was leaping up to meet them at a tremendous rate. Through the founts of water erupted by the shells, Smith could see that it sloped up gently to the road. It was the bright white sand of the Baltic, too; no pebbles or rocks. But would the torpedoes take that gentle slope? Wouldn’t they simply strike the sand straight off and detonate? He prayed they wouldn’t.

  Shrapnel lashed the bridge. A piece tore off Dickie’s dashing white cap, always worn at a rakish angle. ‘I say, that’s not cricket,’ he exclaimed as blood from a slight scalp wound started to trickle down the side of his face. ‘Chap can get hurt like that!’ He swung into a violent zig in the same instant that another shell landed where they had just been.

  Smith ducked as shrapnel flew through the air yet again. Their luck wasn’t going to hold out much longer. Soon the howitzers would be firing over open sights; they were that close. He started to pray just like Billy Bennett, who was running through ‘Our Father’ for the second time, but with his plump hand poised over the firing lever.

  Two hundred and fifty yards. As the Swordfish reeled and heeled madly, rocked time and time again by the bursts of shells, Smith knew it was now or never. He dropped his hand. Billy Bennett didn’t hesitate. He pulled the lever once. The Swordfish lurched, as the first torpedo dropped from its port and in a flurry of bubbles went racing for the beach. A moment later the second followed.

  Dickie swung the boat round in a great crazy curve, the stern wave flushing upwards higher than the mast. Smith grabbed a stanchion just in time and peered through the flying spray at the beach. The howitzers were still firing, the officer on the top of the ‘pie’, was still directing their fire and as they sped away, shells were still landing to their rear.

  The first torpedo roared up out of the water. Smith clenched his fists. He willed it to explode, burrowing its way through the ‘pies’ and exploding in the guns beyond. That wasn’t to be. The first torpedo shot up the beach, scattering white sand like a sudden snow blizzard to left and right. It struck some obstacle. Next moment it exploded in a sheet of blinding red flame, as if someone had opened the door of a great furnace. Smith struck the bridge rail in frustration and yelled with pain at the hurt.

  ‘How’s it going—?’ Dickie began as the second torpedo skidded out of the sea and started its slithering, sliding run up the sand. White sand again flew up like blinding snow. Smith held his breath.

  ‘I said, old bean,’ Dickie attempted for the second time, ‘how’s it going—?’

  He never finished his sentence. On the shore there was a tremendous explosion as the torpedo sliced through the central ‘pie’ and struck the pile of shells for the howitzers beyond. A blinding blue light seared Smith’s face and he blinked violently. Exploding shells began to zig-zag crazily into the morning sky. Lazily, whirling round and round, a howitzer sailed into the air to come slamming down to the beach, wheels falling off, barrel crumpled like a soft banana thrust at a hard surface.

  Three miles away, Chris, the relief obvious on her tense face, standing on the running board touched her gloved hand to her lips and blew a kiss to the north. ‘Thank you, de Vere,’ she breathed. ‘God bless you. Common Smith. Victoria Cross…’

  Then they were gone, rumbling away southwards to the battle to come.

  ENVOI

  ‘There are things going out there that are beyond belief. Mass murder, mass rape, mass looting. Whole peoples are being exterminated. We’ve got to do something, Smith. NOW!’

  ‘C’, the Head of Secret Intelligence Service, to Lt Smith, April 1920.

  ‘There were wonderful giants of old, you know. There were wonderful giants of old. They grew more mightily, all of a row. They grew more mightily… That was ever heard of told. All of them stood six foot four, and threw to a hundred yards or more…’

  The two young naval officers sang the old Harrow song lustily, as they pushed their way through the throng at King’s Cross Station, arms linked as if they might have been drinking from hip flasks on their way down from the north and needed to support each other.

  Watching them, the big police constable told himself sourly that they were two young naval snotties who had had one sniff at the barmaid’s apron and it had been too much for them. Then he noted the dull red of the medal on the one’s chest and the purple and white of the ribbon on the other’s. ‘Crikey,’ he swore to himself. ‘A VC and a DSO and they look as if they just finished one of them public schools of theirn.’ He came to attention and swung them up a tremendous salute.

  Languidly Dickie Bird raised his hand to his crushed white cap, its insignia tarnished green with saltwater and badly in need of a polish, ‘Carry on, chief constable,’ he drawled. ‘Doing a damned fine job of work.’

  Outside in the first of the spring sunshine, a procession was coming down the street from the direction of St Pancras, escorted by policemen on horseback. Men and women with angry faces, carrying banners declaring ‘Homes Fit For Heroes to Live in – Where?’ and ‘Up the Revolution!’ Every now and again their leaders would turn on the marchers and shout through their megaphones. ‘You’ve nothing to lose but your chains!’ ‘Remember that, comrades, you’ve nothing to lose but your chains!’

  Dickie clapped a hand to his nose and tweaked it at the same time making a gesture as if he were pulling a lavatory chain. ‘You’ve nothing to lose but your chains, comrades,’ he mimicked the speakers.

  ‘Damned bourgeois reactionary!’ One of the leaders cursed and Smith pressed Dickie’s arm firmly, saying, ‘Come on, Dickie. We’ve had enough of revolutions for the time being, haven’t we?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Dickie agreed. ‘The whole of Europe seems to have gone quite mad, absolutely mad.’

  They waited till the mob had passed, followed by the dustmen, wearing slouched hats with one side pinned up so that they looked like rather dirty Australian infantrymen, who were sweeping up the droppings left by the police horses. Behind them came a newspaperboy with a placard tied around his skinny waist, crying, ‘London to send troops to Poland… Lloyd George to intervene in Upper Silesia!’

  Smith pulled a copper penny out of his pocket. ‘Here you are, boy.’

  The newspaperboy grinned up at him and said, ‘Thanks, guv. Didn’t make it yersen, did yer? You know what sailors are.’

  Smith made a threatening gesture and the boy ran off laughing. For a minute or two, the two friends studied the headlines in the weak April sunshine, while all around them the London streets seemed strangely silent. There were few cars and one or two horses and carts. But the usual bustle of taxis and trolley buses was absent.

  ‘After the successful defence of the Annaberg by the Polish nationalists,’ they read, ‘and the subsequent withdrawal of the German Freicorps, von der Goltz’s Iron Division, the British and French governments have agreed to send troops to Upper Silesia to maintain the peace there. In due course, these troops will supervise a plebiscite to decide whether the area should become either German or Polish…’ />
  Smith looked up and sniffed. ‘Well, whatever the local populace decides,’ he said with unusual foresight for him, for he was not a man to concern himself with making predictions, ‘we have the makings of a future war between Germany and Poland out there.’ He thought of Chris and wondered how she was getting on. Was she doomed to fight for her beloved Poland for ever?

  ‘Put a sock in it, Smithie.’ Dickie, who was still slightly tipsy from the long train journey in an unheated LNER carriage, made only bearable by two flasks of whisky they carried with them, said ‘Nice day like this. We’ll see his nibs of the jolly old Secret Service. See what he has for us. And then,’ he chortled very loudly, so that passers-by turned and looked at him, ‘we’ll hie us to Mayfair and get a basinful of those new-fangled flappers. They’ve lifted their hemlines, thrown away their corsets – and I think their morals, too. Lovely grub,’ and he laughed again.

  Smith asked himself if he was quite ready for flappers without corsets and the loose morals after Chris. But he let himself be led, arm in arm, by an exceedingly cheerful Dickie to the taxi rank. But there were no taxis. ‘Gorn on strike,’ the mournful toothless porter they found there explained.

  ‘We’ll hop on a bus,’ Dickie said, still cheerful.

  ‘Ain’t no buses either,’ the porter said.

  ‘Gorn on strike as well, I suppose,’ Dickie said, aping the cockney whine.

  ‘Yer, that’s right, guv. We’re going on strike next week as well.’

  Dickie gave up. ‘Oh my sainted aunt, this whole place is falling apart! Come on, Smithie. We’ll hoof it to Queen Anne’s Gate. But not too fast, old chap. Want to save my strength for those delightful Mayfair flappers.’ But there’d be no ‘delightful Mayfair flappers’ for Dickie Bird this day or for more days to come. C had other plans for them.