Corporal Cotton's Little War

by John Harris

  ‘Is he going to die?’ Cotton asked.

  Bisset shrugged. From the way his fingers moved gently over the injured boy, he seemed to know what to do.

  ‘Got any morphine?’ he asked.

  ‘We can have a look in the safe.’

  ‘We’d better get the keys.’

  Scrambling awkwardly on the tilted deck, they stretched Patullo out on the floor of the wheelhouse among the broken glass and splintered wood. His uniform was soaked with blood and sticky to the fingers, and as they probed inside his pockets his dead eyes stared fixedly at them all the time. Cotton couldn’t take his gaze off them. It seemed inconceivable that all those brains, all that knowledge, had just simply disappeared. Wondering where it went to when a man died and suspecting that death was only darkness, whatever the sin bosuns said at Sunday divisions, to Cotton it seemed tragic that a man like Patullo, who had acquired his experience all over the world, together with all those languages and a great deal of humour, could have it all blotted out in a second by death.

  Gully was watching them from the door, still grey-faced and shocked at the destruction. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said in a shaky voice, ‘put something over his bloody face!’

  Docherty turned, unable to resist a sneer. ‘Thought you were going to enjoy the war,’ he said.

  ‘I’m a civilian,’ Gully said. ‘I didn’t come to get shot at.’

  ‘What the hell do you expect the Germans to do?’ Docherty yelled, his fear breaking out suddenly in violence. ‘Kiss you, you daft bastard?’

  Cotton scrambled to the captain’s cabin and, tearing down one of the plush curtains, laid it over Patullo’s head. The silence was what worried him most. The sound of the Messerschmitts’ engines had long since died; and all he could hear now was the rush and gurgle of a little stream that fell among the rocks close by, the lap of the little waves against the side of the boat, and the drag of pebbles on the beach. When Caernarvon had been bombed it had been just the opposite. There had been many more killed and injured but there had also been a great deal more noise – roaring steam, men running and the shouting of orders – and it had seemed somehow reassuring. The silence that surrounded Claudia seemed vaguely eerie. On Caernarvon, too, there had been someone to take control, to issue directions and co-ordinate the work of rescue and repair, and above all the presence of the captain, the Hon. Giles Troughton, calm, unflappable and knowledgeable because he’d been trained to know exactly what to do. Here there was no one – just Cotton, Joe Soap himself – and the disaster seemed more than ever complete as a result.

  Unhappily, aware of the blood on their fingers, they searched Patullo’s pockets, producing cigarettes, a gold pencil, a wallet and other belongings. Then Bisset held up a bunch of keys.

  ‘These they?’

  ‘People don’t usually carry two bunches,’ Cotton said. ‘They must be.’

  They went back to the captain’s cabin. It was still luxuriously furnished with Panyioti’s special dark-blue blankets and pillows such as never normally found their way into naval vessels. The safe was under the bunk and there were two jars of rum in it. Docherty grabbed one of them at once. ‘Up spirits, stand fast the Holy Ghost,’ he muttered.

  Cotton snatched it from his mouth.

  ‘For Christ’s sake–!’ Docherty’s voice lifted in a whine.

  ‘When we’ve attended to the kid,’ Cotton said.

  He wrenched the jar from Docherty’s hand, leaving him hot-eyed, the red-brown liquid still dribbling down his chin. For a moment he looked as though he might snatch it back, but in the end he gave a little sigh and turned away.

  They found the first-aid kit in the safe under a wad of Greek money. It included a syringe and morphine ampoules. Bisset filled the syringe clumsily and they climbed back on deck to where Howard was beginning to whimper as the shock died and the pain came.

  ‘Give it to him, for God’s sake,’ Gully mumbled.

  At first, Bisset found difficulty in inserting the needle but he managed it at last and they covered Howard with one of the lush blue blankets. Then they went down into the skipper’s cabin again and Cotton slopped rum into the mugs that Docherty had found. Gully was looking sick and old.

  As they drank the spirit, it reached down into their insides, warming them, making them feel better, clawing at their stomachs with hot, biting fingers. Then Cotton noticed the list he’d made for Shaw lying on the floor among the blood-scattered glass and torn charts. He picked it up and, remembering that from now on it would be his duty to keep the log, he used the pencil they’d taken from Patullo’s pocket to put a stroke through the names of Shaw, Patullo, Duff and Coward. After Howard’s name he wrote ‘Wounded’.

  ‘We’d better get ’em ashore,’ he said. ‘Take their identity discs and let’s get on with it.’

  They got a blanket under Patullo and, standing awkwardly on the lopsided deck, hoisted him out of the wheelhouse and up to the bow. Then, lowering a rope, Gully and Docherty climbed down to the beach and, with a blanket lashed round it, the body was lowered over the side to them. It was heavier than they’d expected and its limpness – like dough as it sagged in the sling – made Cotton feel sick. Docherty and Gully took the weight and carried the body up the sand towards the trees. Shaw and Duff followed and they laid the three corpses in a row under the branches. Climbing down to the beach, Cotton stared round him, oppressed by the steepness of the hill that rose from the rocks and the shadow it threw, and by the smell of death that mingled with the scent of foliage. His spirits were lowered further by the recurring thought that both the officers and the senior NCO had been killed and that he was now senior man. It was a daunting prospect, as heavy on his mind as the heat, the narrowness of the bay, and the crowding trees and rocks.

  As they stood there, they heard the sound of aeroplane engines and they all darted for the rocks. The machine, a Messerschmitt, turned, low down as if it were looking for them. Then it disappeared beyond the cliff. A minute or two later it came back, flying the length of the narrow bay before disappearing once more over the cliffs.

  They waited for a long time until they were certain it had gone, before climbing down to the beach again. Cotton stood a little apart from the others, still awed by the responsibility that had been thrust on him. Then he sighed and felt in his pockets for the identity discs and personal belongings they’d removed from the bodies.

  ‘We’ll bury ’em,’ he said.

  ‘Later,’ Gully urged, his face grey. ‘What happened to the other kid?’

  Cotton indicated the bay. ‘He’s out there somewhere. About a mile back, I reckon. I saw him go over the side.’

  ‘Hurt?’

  ‘Dead.’

  Climbing back on board, they stared at the unconscious Howard. His breathing was coming in snoring gasps now.

  ‘What’re we going to do about him?’ Gully mumbled.

  ‘We ought to get him into a bunk.’

  Shaw’s bunk in the captain’s cabin was the only one to which they could move the injured boy without doing him more harm. They packed the angle of the cushioned seat with mattresses and manoeuvred him carefully into the wheelhouse and through the after door and laid him down.

  ‘What do we do for him now?’ Cotton asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bisset admitted, his face worried. ‘I did a bit of first-aid before the war but that’s all I know. His shoulder ought to be fixed and his leg stitched but, like the one in the gut, that’s a job for an MO, not me.’

  ‘Can we get a message back to base?’ Cotton asked.

  ‘Have you seen the sets?’ Bisset looked white and shaken.

  Cotton remembered the pigeons they’d taken aboard. ‘How about the birds?’ he said.

  But the shell that had entered the forecastle had also done for the birds, which were now only a pulpy mess of flesh, blood, feathers and wickerwork cage.

  ‘Think we could get the kid ashore?’ Bisset asked. ‘There’d be more room and we might find someone to hel
p.’

  ‘He’ll die if we don’t get him to a doctor.’

  ‘How do we do that?’

  Cotton frowned. ‘Well, the Carley float seems to be all right.’

  ‘You can’t set off home on the Carley float,’ Bisset said.

  ‘Well, we can’t just sit here hoping, can we? What about the engines?’

  Docherty gave him a disgusted look. ‘Port engine’s nothing but a lot of old iron,’ he said. ‘And I reckon the prop’s smashed.’

  ‘What about the starboard engine?’

  Docherty shrugged. ‘’S’all right,’ he said. ‘But there was a lot of vibration as it stopped. I think the prop hit something. It’s probably bent.’

  Bisset looked hard at Cotton. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What had you in mind?’

  Cotton was staring in front of him, holding in his hands the ensign which he’d taken from the masthead. He was mesmerised by an idea he’d had. It had arrived slowly, through a variety of processes, but now it had taken root.

  ‘We’ve got a diving suit on board,’ he said. ‘And you’re a diver, Docherty.’

  ‘Not me!’ Docherty answered as he answered everybody, his voice full of indignation and aggression, as if he were being accused of lying or cheating.

  ‘Duff said you were.’

  ‘Duff was talking through his earholes. I’d just started the course, that’s all. I’m not going to do any diving.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m scared. I’d probably drown myself.’

  ‘Okay.’ Cotton frowned. ‘You’ll have to show me and I’ll do it.’ He spoke calmly, making no complaint, just shifting position, but it had the effect of shaming Docherty.

  ‘Well–’ he moved uneasily in his clothes ‘–I could probably manage.’

  Cotton stared at him, coming to life abruptly. ‘The bloody boat’s only in a few feet of water,’ he said sharply. ‘And there are plenty of us to see you wouldn’t drown.’

  ‘What’s it for, anyway?’

  ‘To go under the boat to see if the prop is bent.’

  ‘Okay. I might do that. I might even do that without the bloody suit. Why?’

  Cotton gestured. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘if we couldn’t repair her, drag her off and take her home.’

  Two

  The report that landed on Major Baldamus’ desk that evening was short and sharp and to the point. The Luftwaffe was none too pleased at having lost one of its machines and they seemed eager to lay the blame on him for having asked for it.

  ‘It had to crash-land at Yanitsa,’ Captain Ehrhardt explained. ‘The pilot’s all right but they’re now short of one good Messerschmitt.’

  ‘Fortunes of war,’ Baldamus said. ‘Were they annoyed?’

  ‘A bit.’

  Baldamus sniffed. Since Poland, Norway and France, the Luftwaffe had been fast growing too big for its boots, like its leader, that piffling parvenu, Goering. He shrugged. ‘Can’t see why they’re getting so worked up,’ he said. ‘After all, I expect the advantage was all on their side. What was this damned boat armed with anyway? Quick-firing multi-barrelled pompoms?’

  Ehrhardt grinned. ‘One 20-millimetre cannon,’ he said.

  ‘And they’re blaming us?’ Baldamus smiled. ‘I think the Luftwaffe must be scraping the barrel a bit. They lost too many of their best men over London and they’re now having to make do with the leavings. Good God, three Messerschmitts against one boat armed with a 20mm. What happened to the boat?’

  ‘Ran aground, Herr Major.’ Ehrhardt leaned over the map on Baldamus’ desk and jabbed with a finger. ‘Here. In Kharasso Bay.’

  ‘Wrecked?’

  ‘Messerschmitts say so. Complete write-off.’

  ‘Survivors?’

  ‘A recce flight soon after reported that everything was deserted.’

  ‘Think they were picked up?’

  ‘They’ve not been seen since.’

  Baldamus smiled. ‘I’ll bet they were picked up,’ he said. ‘Did our friends in the Luftwaffe see any other boats?’

  ‘They say not.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean there weren’t any.’ Baldamus frowned. ‘I bet they didn’t look. They don’t seem very efficient, do they, getting themselves shot down by a little boat armed with a popgun? But you’d better send a party of men under a sergeant up to Kharasso Bay at first light to have a look for survivors and make them prisoners if they find any. I suppose we needn’t worry about the boat itself just yet. It won’t be moving, will it?’

  If Cotton had his way, it would, though he was already meeting opposition.

  ‘You’re nuts,’ Docherty said.

  He was red in the face and panting as he clung to Claudia’s bent rudder, kicking with his feet in the water.

  At first, Cotton didn’t bother to dispute the observation. He probably was, he decided.

  They were all beginning to recover a little now from the shock of the disaster and Cotton’s mind was working, churning things over in his stolid fashion.

  Patient as an ox, unopinionated as a spring lamb, he was nevertheless indomitable, virile, and astute; the nervy, brave Cockney of the London markets, who knew all the East End lingo of bulls-and-cows, whistles-and-flutes, rabbits-and-pork, and five-to-twos; supple, tough and able to bend with the wind so that he knew how to survive. He knew he’d probably get no thanks even if he succeeded, and he knew how little the people at home were interested in this forgotten corner of the war when they were occupied themselves with nightly air raids and the destruction of their homes. When it came to survival, most human beings were selfish.

  All the same, the idea that had come to him had set his blood surging. He could probably even do some damage, he thought, given a chance. After all they existed to make war; so, okay, let them make it. The Royals who’d done their stuff in Egypt, the Sudan and China, and at Belle Isle, Jutland, Gallipoli and Zeebrugge hadn’t stood around like barrack stanchions. England expected, after all. England expected a hell of a bloody lot sometimes, he thought. England expected a bloody sight too much even, but there was no getting away from it, and the idea of taking Claudia home seemed the most natural thought in the world to him. She belonged to the navy; he belonged to the navy. Obviously he must bend his efforts to seeing that naval property was returned to its rightful owners.

  ‘The Marines captured Gibraltar,’ he said slowly. ‘Napoleon respected the Marines. It was three Marines that carried Nelson down to the cockpit after he’d been wounded at Trafalgar. At Navarino, in HMS Genoa, a Marine who’d had both arms shot off asked permission to go below. “I hope you’ll allow, sir,” he said, “that I’ve done my duty.”’

  They stared at him as if he were mad, but Cotton’s mind was running on perfectly rational, straightforward lines. In the evacuation of Norway, when the Marines had been accused of keeping the navy waiting, they’d offered only a cold reply: ‘It isn’t the policy of the Royal Marines to leave its guns in enemy hands.’ And that was how it was with Cotton now.

  He knew he could surrender, but surrender simply was not consonant with good order and training, and he rejected the idea out of hand. He was acting on his own initiative with no one and nothing to tell him what to do but discipline, and he was in no doubt about where his duty lay.

  He stared at Claudia lying on the rocks like a stranded whale. ‘I’m not nuts,’ he said at last.

  ‘You must be,’ Docherty shouted. ‘Have you bloody seen her, man? She’s a wreck! Half the island’s sticking through her bottom!’

  ‘It might be done.’

  ‘How?’ Bisset asked. ‘How’re you intending to repair a boat that’s still in the water? She’d have to come up a slip for that.’

  ‘Perhaps we can do it without a slip.’

  ‘She’s got holes in the side,’ Docherty yelled. ‘A big one in the bow. And one engine’s nothing but a load of old iron!’

  ‘What about the other?’ Cotton asked. ‘What’s it like under there, Docherty?’
r />   ‘One screw’s smashed up completely, so there’s nothing we can do about that. The other’s got a kink in one of the blades.’

  ‘How about the rudders?’

  ‘One’s sheered off. Other’s bent.’

  ‘Could we get the bent prop off and hammer it out and put it on the good engine?’

  ‘No.’

  Cotton glared, convinced Docherty was just being difficult. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the props turn in opposite directions to each other, to balance each other’s torque. You can’t put the port-’and prop on the starboard-’and shaft. It’d fit but it’d turn the wrong way.’

  Cotton’s heart sank. ‘Couldn’t you put it on back to front so it’d come right?’

  ‘It’s a prop, not a pair of bloody socks!’

  Cotton was determined not to give up. Something, he felt sure, would turn up and he needed to know all about the workings of the propeller, the shaft and the rudder, things which so far he’d never considered his concern.

  ‘How’s it held on?’ he asked.

  ‘With a key, and then a castellated nut held in place by a split pin. The nut forces the prop on to the key so that it’s held tight.’

  ‘How do you get it off?’

  ‘Tap the end of the shaft. That loosens it.’

  ‘Suppose we could make it work–’

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Suppose,’ Cotton said doggedly. ‘Could it be done under water?’

  Docherty shrugged. ‘It’s been done,’ he admitted grudgingly.

  ‘Couldn’t we do it? If we could make it work, I mean.’

  Docherty stared at him as if he were mad. ‘We can’t make it work,’ he said.

  ‘Suppose we could?’ Cotton felt like throttling him.

  ‘Who’s going to do it?’ Docherty asked, going off at a tangent.

  Cotton turned and looked at him. ‘Couldn’t you?’

  Docherty’s face went red. ‘I’m not a fuckin’ fish,’ he said. ‘Talk sense, you stupid Marine git.’

  Cotton frowned. ‘I am talking sense,’ he said.

  ‘Then, okay, tell me this: Even if we get the engines going, even if we repair the holes in her, how are we going to get the bloody boat back in the water?’