Eagle at Taranto (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  They walked aft along Eagle’s starboard side and Tim said, “You heard what they were saying last night?”

  “About the plan?” Some of the more senior pilots had talked in the wardroom of a plan for an airborne torpedo attack on Taranto. It had been worked out and practised in the years before the war when the Swordfish of H.M.S. Glorious had carried out simulated attacks on the Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria.

  “Right,” said Tim. “I wouldn’t fancy that. There must be guns strung like a fence around Taranto.”

  Mark thought a night attack on Taranto would be like flying into his tunnel, but with a stone wall at the end of it. Still, sufficient unto the day. He laughed, “That makes two of us. But don’t lose any sleep over it. For one thing, Eagle doesn’t carry enough Swordfish for that job.”

  2 Skirmish

  Bert and Katy had Egyptian visas, due to his foresight and long experience. When their ship docked at Port Said they took the train to Cairo. There they settled into a quiet hotel he had found three years before when on his way to report the fighting in Abyssinia. The next day he presented his credentials, including a letter from his editor, to the Press Bureau. Within a week he and Katy were accredited as war correspondents.

  Then they waited. Every morning they went to the Press Bureau for news handouts and for Bert to renew his cajoling, demanding, threatening and pleading to be allowed to visit the front in the Western Desert. Meanwhile Katy stood in the background, looking cool in a flowered cotton dress and smiling at the major behind the desk. Until Bert gave up for that day and stomped bad-temperedly out of the office, muttering savagely, “For Chrissakes! I’m a correspondent! All I want is to see the goddam war! What’s wrong with that?”

  On the third day Katy said, “I’m going to take a look around. Are you coming along?”

  “Are you kidding?” Bert was sweating already from frustration. The heat of the day was still to come. “I’m going to sit in the shade with a cold drink and try to make some sort o’ story out of the handouts they give us. You go ahead and do your sight-seeing. I’ve had it, baby.”

  Katy rode in a gharry swaying behind a lethargically plodding horse, past the tall minarets, the bars and cafés, through the narrow, crowded alleys. She went to the huge stone pile of the Citadel and to the Pyramids, winced at the raucous braying of donkeys and the cries of hawkers and beggars. She occasionally saw a British army truck or car in drab khaki and brown paint, and once some young women in white and scarlet who were nurses in tropical uniform. There were a lot of Egyptian soldiers but Katy remembered that Egypt was not in the war. The British were preparing to fight here to defend the Suez Canal.

  Inside three days she had done some sight-seeing, but more importantly found out all she needed to know about one particular soldier. She made her plans and then cannily waited for the most favourable moment to present them. That came at the end of their second week in Cairo. When they went to the Press Bureau early that morning they were given details of a naval battle fought on the ninth of July — two days before. Bert scribbled notes feverishly. Outside again, Katy said, “I guess you’ll be writing it up so I’ll see you later.”

  “Sure.” Bert hardly listened, his mind busy. “Cunningham’s given them a bloody nose but he needs to do a lot more than that. He’s got to neutralise the Italian Fleet.”

  “Neutralise?”

  Bert explained abstractedly, “Hurt it so that it’s not a threat any more and he doesn’t have to keep looking over his shoulder to see if it’s going to jump him. That means he’s got to sink maybe half of their capital ships, the battlewagons.”

  Katy left him to it, but when she returned to their hotel at noon after several protracted long-distance telephone calls she was ready to argue her case, determined to win it. She found Bert in the bar, as usual, with its floor and pillars of marble, palm trees growing in the corners. He lounged in a cane chair with his long legs outstretched in rumpled cotton trousers, shirt sleeves rolled up to show skinny arms. A glass misted with frost stood on the table by his elbow. His pad and pencil lay beside it and for the first time since they had come to Cairo Bert looked content with life and not fuming with impatience. The cane chair creaked as he saw her and stood up.

  Katy smiled at him brilliantly. “Hi, Bert! Written your copy?”

  He answered lazily, “Written and filed. Sit down and I’ll shout you a drink.” He pulled up another chair for her and they sat.

  Katy said breathlessly, “We’ve just had our first stroke of luck.”

  Bert snapped upright in his chair. “Some new story broken? What is it?”

  “No! We’ve been offered an apartment to rent in Alexandria! One of the staff in our embassy heard of it and told me, so of course I grabbed it. I’ve got an option on it for three months.”

  Bert stared at her, bewildered. “Alexandria! What in hell do we want there? Cairo is where we get the press briefings every day and where we’ll get a movement order — if and when we get one. This isn’t the Grand Tour, baby. We stay in Cairo till they let us out to see something.”

  Katy leaned forward, her explanation prepared. “The Navy is at Alexandria. If there’s another battle — you said the British would be trying to catch the Italian Fleet at sea — we’d be on the spot.”

  Bert flapped a bony hand. “Boloney! If there was a battle we’d hear about it in Cairo as soon as at Alex, like we did today, and Cairo is where we file our stories, when we get ‘em.”

  Katy was ready for that and shifted her ground: “O.K. Suppose you stay here and I go to Alexandria. When something breaks there I’ll have it covered, and if ever you need me back here you just pick up the ‘phone. That way we cover both ends.”

  Bert watched her out of narrowed eyes. “I gather you want to live in Alex. What’s the reason?”

  “I’ve told you.” Katy saw his face did not change and she smiled wanly. “But they do say it’s cooler there. The heat here is getting to me a little.”

  Bert remained unconvinced. “Like hell it is.”

  Katy asked, “What’s that for?”

  Bert said, “I’m just wondering what you’re up to?”

  So had the major at the Press Bureau when she’d asked him about Jamie Dunbar. Katy protested innocently, “I told you —”

  Bert flapped his hand. “O.K., O.K.” Katy was flushed and clearly determined. He knew it was no use arguing when a woman got an idea fixed in her head, but boy! Was he glad he wasn’t the father of a daughter. “So it’s unprofessional but you’re not a professional.”

  Katy’s lips tightened. “I’m trying.”

  “You’re trying me all right,” Bert said drily. “Well, there’s no action in Cairo for you to take pictures of and I suppose I can sit in on the briefings here, pick up any movement order. So — O.K., you board in Alex. But when I blow the whistle, you come running.”

  Katy sat back in her chair. She had got what she wanted. Now it was time to change the subject for a while. “Movement order? What’s that?”

  Bert pulled a Camel from his shirt pocket and explained patiently, “Look, baby, you just don’t wander about in a war. If you want to go to the front or some military installation, you get a movement order — that’s an order that authorises your movements. It comes with a vehicle, a driver and an escorting officer who goes along with you to make sure you don’t get shot by his own side.”

  Katy nodded, “Got it.” She stood up. “Well, guess I’ll go and make a start on my packing before lunch.”

  “Packing?” Bert paused with the cigarette halfway to his open mouth.

  “There’s a train to Alex at nine in the morning.” Katy stooped to kiss his forehead then walked lightly away.

  Bert shook his head and called after her, “Yeah, I know. I was thinking of taking a brief run up there myself. We can look at the ships, see if they show any damage from this fight they had.” He added morosely, “I don’t expect anything much, like a story for instance — the word I’m getting is
that the Royal Navy is still the silent service and keeping its mouth shut.”

  Katy had paused, head turned to him, was about to move on, but then he asked, “Hey! How many soldiers have you seen around the streets while we’ve been here?”

  Katy checked. She answered neutrally. “Lots.”

  “British?”

  “Only a few. All the rest were Egyptian. I suppose the British are all up at the front.”

  “Yeah?” Was that agreement or doubt? “Maybe you’re right. Where else would they be?” Katy waited a moment but Bert left it there, lit the cigarette and sat thoughtful as she went on to her packing.

  When Eagle was still some miles from Alexandria her Swordfish were brought up from the hangar deck on the after lift and ranged aft for flying off. While the carrier was in port they would operate from the airstrip at Dekheila, five miles west along the coast from Alexandria. The evolution was routine and carried out with slick efficiency — until the accident.

  Mark Ward had walked aft along the starboard side towards Ethel, the pulsing roar of the ranked Pegasus engines all around him. There was a brief hiccup in the roar and spray that lashed him. It was not sea water but sprinkled dark red on the khaki of his flying overalls. He saw men running and a body on the deck before one of the Swordfish, beneath the scything circle of its three-bladed metal propeller. The body lay spread-eagled, limp and loose as if there was no man inside the stained overalls. Then for a moment he thought the body was alive because it twitched, but realised that must have been some reflex muscular contraction because no man could live without his head.

  Tim Rogers came up to his shoulder and bawled through cupped hands above the bellowing of the engines: “He walked into the prop!” When Tim lowered his hands his face showed bloodless, his tan a sick yellow.

  It was a bright, clear, blazing hot day. Ward looked down at his blood-spattered flying overalls. There was no time to change. The Swordfish were ready to fly off and Eagle was heeling as she turned into wind. He walked on with Tim to Ethel and was seated in the cockpit when Doug Campbell ran up. He halted below Ward before climbing up to his place aft of Tim Rogers, and mouthed: “Dead, sir.” Mark knew that. Campbell drew a finger gruesomely across his throat but his set face showed it was no crude attempt to make light of the matter.

  Mark thought, Bloody fine start. He had doubtless known the man, probably exchanged a few words or a joke with him. Now he was just an entry in the log, kit to be packed, a letter to be written to a mother or a widow. The deck-handling party would be one short. They had lost a friend, one of the team. Mark put it from his mind. He had to fly and other men’s lives depended on him.

  But once in the air and gently banking Ethel onto course for the short flight to Dekheila, he could think with a part of his mind while still concentrating on his flying. That there were teams within teams within teams, like one of those intricate ivory balls carved by the Chinese, a ball inside a ball inside a ball...There was the little team of three inside the Swordfish now, that was part of the larger team of five when you included Laurel and Hardy, who kept the Stringbag fit to fly. Ethel was one unit of a flight that was part of a squadron which, with the other squadron aboard Eagle made up her striking force. The other team aboard Eagle comprised the men, from captain down to stoker, who worked the ship as any other warship. And Eagle functioned as a unit of the Fleet.

  The Swordfish landed one after the other at Dekheila. There were two hangars, some offices and sheds beside the strip. One hut served as the officers’ mess but everyone lived in tents. There were flies, sand, heat and cold but a chance to bathe in the sea close by. And there was Alexandria, only five miles away.

  When Eagle was shackled to her buoy in the harbour the ground crew loaded their kit and stores into lighters that ferried them ashore. There they transferred the whole lot again from the lighters to trucks parked on the quay for the trip to Dekheila. Laurel and Hardy, sweating rivers at the work, saw a platoon of marines falling in on the quay, badges and buckles flashing like jewels.

  Laurel started the lower deck gag: “Royal Marines will march past in column of fours...”

  Hardy, rumbling, took it up: “Royal Navy will shamble past in a bloody great heap...”

  And Laurel finished: “Taking their time from the dockyard clock, January, February, March.”

  The marines formed part of the burial party for the man killed that morning. They waited now for the body to be brought ashore.

  The loading of the trucks was completed and the men climbed in over the tail-boards to sit on the stores or the floor. The trucks ground off along the coast road to the airstrip.

  Bert and Katy had been standing at the window of her apartment, watching the Swordfish fly in from the sea. Bert muttered, “Where the hell are those glasses?” He rummaged in the haversack he had brought with him from Cairo, dug out binoculars and turned quickly back to the window. He focused the glasses, watched the distant aircraft for a moment, then said, “Yeah. Swordfish. Torpedo-bomber-reconnaissance planes, off the carrier out there.” He could see the Fleet, hull-up now and the flat-topped Eagle among them, closing Alexandria.

  He passed the glasses to Katy, who examined the big old-fashioned biplanes incredulously, then said, “They’ve got open cockpits! Are you sure they’re war planes? Are they still making them without canopies?”

  Bert nodded, “Yep.”

  “They’re a little ancient, aren’t they?”

  Bert sniffed. “Nothing wrong with having a few years behind you if you still do the job.”

  Katy lowered the glasses and smiled. “Nothing personal, Bert. You may be able to, but — can they?”

  “They operated in France and Norway. Did all right.” He took the glasses then glanced around the cool, high-ceilinged room. Through the doors they had left open during their first inspection he could glimpse the small kitchen, bathroom and the bedroom with its big double-bed. “Well, you got your apartment.”

  He dragged an armchair over to the window, lowered his thin frame into it and lifted the glasses again. “Guess I’ll sit here and watch the Fleet come in. Maybe later on we can hire a boat for a closer look. Come the cool of the evening we’ll go look for a drink and maybe find some sailor ready to talk about the battle, though I doubt if the goddam censors would let me file the story, even if we did.” He glanced around at Katy. “You said you could fix us something in the kitchen.” She had brought a bagful of groceries. “How about coffee and a sandwich? Then you can unpack your duds and settle in.”

  Katy replied acidly, “Thanks for your help, going to all that trouble to organise my day.”

  “Think nothing of it.” He settled more comfortably in the chair. “I never shirk my end.”

  Katy shook her head and made for the kitchen. “Are you staying in Alex?”

  Bert thumbed his lighter into flame and lit a Camel. “Yeah. I’ve booked a room at the Cecil. I’ll stick around a couple of days and case the joint.” And maybe find out what the hell’s going on with this girl.

  Bert Keller escorted Katy into the Cecil Hotel that evening. Arab waiters in their long robes like nightshirts moved among the tables and there were several groups of officers scattered the length of the long bar. Katy checked them quickly, then her gaze settled on the young man in civilian clothes who sat alone at a table. She had already learned, back in Cairo, that everyone who was anyone went to the Cecil. He faced the door, lounging in his chair with legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. His shoes gleamed and his well-tailored English lightweight suit was not new but stylishly, easily worn. He saw Katy and his brows came together as he searched his memory.

  Katy had no trouble remembering. She smiled and walked over to him, Bert trailing behind her. The young man rose to his feet and now he snapped his fingers: “Katy Sandford.”

  She laughed, “That’s right. Jamie Dunbar, isn’t it? Lieutenant Dunbar?”

  The Englishman drawled, “Captain now. Nothing to boast about, it comes with the pa
ssage of time.”

  “Oh, Bert!” Katy made the introductions and explained, “Jamie and I met when he was in the States on a vacation two years ago.”

  Dunbar held out a hand. “That’s so. I was mixing business with pleasure. I met a number of your chaps, Army and Navy, and compared notes.”

  Bert nodded, “Hi!” He saw a walking-stick hooked on the back of his chair, but the hand gripping his was broad and surprisingly hard. He thought this guy was probably quite something, tall, broad, handsome with curly red hair flattened into waves by the brush. His easy smile showed teeth white against the brown of his face and his eyes were startlingly blue. There was an inch-long scar like a comma over one of them that only added a certain raffish attraction to the face.

  Jamie Dunbar ushered them into chairs, swearing to himself at the sudden intrusion, lifted a finger for a waiter and ordered drinks. He sat again in his chair facing the door. “So what are you doing here, Miss Sandford? Not some sort of Cook’s tour?”

  Katy told him of Bert’s assignment and Jamie said, “My word! War correspondents, eh? Not many of you about.”

  Bert grumbled, “Nor doing any good. I’ve been trying to get a movement order —”

  Katy had heard enough of that these last days and cut in, smiling at Jamie. “Imagine meeting you here! What an extraordinary coincidence.”

  Jamie’s brows lifted. “You didn’t know I was in Egypt?” Katy kept her face still and Jamie went on, “I write to your father every two or three months because he’s asked me to keep in touch. Can’t put my address on the letters now, of course, but I was writing to him from Cairo before the war and the censorship started so he knows where I am. I suppose he forgot to mention it. Pity. If you’d asked in Cairo they’d have told you I’d moved up here. I know most of the johnnies in the Press Bureau.”

  Bert watched Katy, deadpan, but thinking, Boy! I shoulda known.

  Jamie said, “I only came up from Cairo a couple of weeks ago. I’m on sick leave at the moment. I thought Alex would be cooler and the sea air might bring the roses back to my cheeks.” In fact, in Cairo Pamela’s husband had returned from Palestine and that had made things a bit awkward. Jamie knew he would have to forget her for a bit, and meanwhile — he kept his eye on the door to the bar.