Over and Out

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘We should be told,’ agreed Tom, ‘to fight our own battles and stop whining.’

  ‘Then suppose we start thinking about it. We shall be outnumbered. Very well, but we shall have the advantage of being on our home ground, and the further advantage of being able to choose the battlefield.’

  Tom said, ‘And we’ve got one other advantage which we shouldn’t ignore: first class and up-to-the-moment intelligence.’

  ‘You mean Marc Cellier. I suppose we can count on him as being on our side.’

  ‘The more threatening Naroch becomes, the more friendly Marc gets. And it isn’t only him. There are a trio of Celliers, Marc at Bray-Dunes, and his brother, Louis, at De Panne—they cover the coast this side of the line. But the most valuable of the lot, at this moment, is their cousin, Valentin Cellier. He lives at De Haan.’

  ‘That’s on the other side of the line,’ said Luke.

  They had the map open in front of them.

  ‘Correct. On the coast, three miles east of Ostend. That’s where his house is. But his business is in Ostend. He’s a ship’s chandler which means that he knows everyone who owns or hires a boat in that area. More, it means that he can keep in touch with the other Celliers through the fishing fleet that goes backwards and forwards, war or no war, along that stretch of coast. With such helpers we can be sure of knowing the moment the Liebling leaves her moorings at Middelkerke, and will be able to calculate when and where she’s planning to touch down.’

  ‘When, that’s easy,’ agreed Luke. ‘Simple arithmetic. But I can’t see how you can tell just what point she’s heading for. There’s a dozen little places between Nieuwpoort and Bray-Dunes where she could unship her load of trouble and strife.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Tom, with quiet certainty, ‘we shall know where they’re planning to disembark. We shall have been given that information by a member of Rudi’s crew. Not one of his fighters, one of the sailors.’

  ‘And who’s this helpful type?’

  ‘All that I can tell you about him is that his given name is Hans.’ And when the others looked for further explanations, he said, ‘It’s marvellous what money will buy, if you’re prepared to spend enough of it, in the right quarters.’

  ‘We’ll take your word for it,’ said Fleming. ‘The next step is to concentrate our forces. I can produce twelve men. At the moment they’re all over the place, but I imagine that Marc can provide us with a barn or a warehouse, somewhere we can get the men together. And if the opposition doesn’t turn up at once, I’ll have time to make sure that all the men have pistol practice. Some of them are already qualified shots. Others less so, but I guess that, as Gough might have said to Haig, anyone can point a gun and pull a trigger if he’s shown how. The best moment to open fire will be when they are actually disembarking. One or two on shore, but most of them still on board. That way we catch them at a disadvantage.’

  As Luke had noticed before, the approach of action had enlivened Fleming to a surprising degree. He seemed to be positively looking forward to the prospect of violent action.

  ‘Just one point about that,’ said Luke. ‘This probably sounds silly, but are we justified in opening fire before they do?’

  ‘You mean do we wait politely for them to fire first? Not on your life we don’t. We’d be giving away all the advantage of surprise.’

  ‘I wondered if we might be in for trouble.’

  Tom said, ‘What’s on your mind? A coroner’s inquest on the dead?’

  Fleming said, ‘You can forget all that nonsense. We’re on active service and all this part of France is under military occupation. The ultimate authority for maintaining law and order is vested in the army commander and delegated by him to the Military Police. They are not answerable to the civil authority.’

  ‘Then,’ said Tom, ‘I imagine that the two goons who were knocked off at the Maison Laspinasse were reported to you as killed resisting lawful authority.’

  ‘That’s right. All I had to do was to arrange to have them buried.’

  ‘Seems that there’s a lot to be said for active service conditions,’ said Luke. Adding, under his breath, As long as you’re on the winning side.’

  Marc Cellier, when appealed to, had agreed at once that there would be no difficulty in housing and feeding Colonel Fleming’s little force. He had put at their disposal the small privately owned Hôtel Meurice that had been put out of business by the war. It still possessed its stoves and other cooking apparatus which, said Marc, his Aunt Lucienne, an experienced performer, could quickly bring back into action. An ample stock of food and drink was quickly laid in.

  ‘If we’re going to have to hang about,’ said Fleming, ‘let us hang about in comfort.’

  The Hôtel Meurice possessed one additional asset. From its balcony one looked directly down onto the quayside. On this balcony, less than twenty-four hours after their conference, Luke and Tom were standing, with Marc, looking out at the sun setting over the Channel; its rays, coming horizontally from the west were gilding the tops of the waves along the surf-line that broke on the shingle below them.

  ‘Wind dropping,’ said Marc. ‘Could still be enough to hold back the Belgians.’

  ‘No firm news from your cousin?’

  ‘Nothing as yet. But fear not; we shall be warned in good time if they make a move.’

  Fear not, thought Luke. Easy to say, not so easy to be convinced about it.

  The force at their disposal had been slightly increased by the addition of two men extracted from the coastguards service, so that it now totalled fourteen. Nineteen if you added Fleming, Routley, Tom, Joe and himself.

  But what would be the strength of the opposition?

  Twenty, at least. Twenty-five? Thirty? All skilled performers, no doubt.

  Rudi would take no chances, particularly if he proposed to accompany the expedition himself. ‘Which I hope he does,’ said Fleming. ‘Knock off the head and we can soon lop off the branches.’

  When he allowed himself to think how matters might develop, Luke had a vision of the Liebling drawing up alongside one of the many available piers – maybe the very one they were looking down on.

  Forewarned, their own men, in position and ready, would open fire.

  The Belgians would return the fire and so far as they were unwounded, would scramble back on board. After this the picture became less pleasant.

  The Liebling would not go back the way it had come. It would set off, down the coast, moving much faster by sea than they could by land. Coming inshore again on one of the many available beaches, the men would disembark, spread out, and advance towards them in skirmishing order. What chance would their small party have against a concerted professional attack?

  And a further really uncomfortable thought: once they were committed there could be no drawing back. It was their private battle. They must fight it out. But perhaps, after all, the Belgians would not come.

  Their intelligence, too, must be top class. They would know that preparations were being made to oppose their landing.

  Meanwhile, they must wait and hope for the best.

  It turned out to be a surprisingly lengthy wait.

  On the fifth day they were finishing the excellent breakfast cooked for them by Aunt Lucienne. They were sharing it with Louis Cellier who had looked in to see how they were getting on, and it was Louis who called their attention to the Celia. She was Marc Cellier’s own boat, a light but handy fifteen foot diesel-powered yawl that he used both for fishing and transport.

  She had been approaching from the west and was now tying up at the quay below them. They expected to see Marc come ashore, but it was his son, Emil, who pranced importantly up the steps that led up to the balcony, handed the envelope he was carrying to Colonel Fleming, awarded him a full-hearted scowl, and departed without speaking.

  ‘Who is this unfriendly messenger?’ said Fleming. ‘I fancied I recognised him.’

  ‘One of Marc Cellier’s sons. He showed us the body of Ma
rianne. Do you remember?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Fleming. ‘And got beaten by his father for doing so. I can see that he hasn’t forgiven me.’

  After opening the envelope, he spread on the table the grubby piece of paper he extracted from it and read its contents to an attentive audience.

  ‘“The Liebling will sail at ten o’clock today. In addition to its normal crew it will carry a force of thirty men. It plans to put them ashore at Duinhoek”. Short, but to the point.’

  They looked to Louis for clarification.

  He said, ‘Duinhoek’s about two miles north of where we are now. It’s got a single tiny harbour shaped like a deformed capital E.’ He sketched it on the foot of the message. ‘One short side wall. Two longer ones. The entry is at the top right-hand corner. It leads to a small upper and a larger lower anchorage.’

  ‘Not all that easy to get into, I’d imagine,’ said Tom. ‘Particularly when the tide’s making, or there’s any sort of sea running.’

  ‘My brother would manage it at any tide. But then, he knows every inch of this coastline. He’s been sailing up and down it since he was a boy. The Liebling will manage it. Particularly if the tide is on the ebb, as it will be this afternoon.’

  ‘I’d be very sad if they couldn’t get in,’ said Fleming. ‘Because that’s precisely where we want them. We’ll post our men along the top of the dune, so that they can fire into both sides of the harbour. We’ll show them where we want them to be, and leave each man to dig himself in. Our command post will be in the centre, there. Something’s marked, but I can’t quite make out what it is.’

  ‘It’s an old mill. No sails, but the wall’s still sound.’

  ‘Excellent. Tell Marc he can join us there if he wishes. Are there any questions?’

  ‘No. That all seems fine,’ said Tom. He, too, had the light of battle in his eyes.

  Yes. Fine, thought Luke, as long as they don’t change their minds at the last minute and land somewhere else. But this was a possibility that he kept to himself.

  By two o’clock they were at action stations.

  When he had suggested that Tom and Joe should join them at their command post, Tom had said, speaking for both of them, ‘Not on your life. We’re fighting men, not staff officers. And we’ve both got hold of rifles—a great improvement on revolvers—and propose to station ourselves one at each end of the line.’

  Luke, who knew both of his friends to be marksmen, was delighted. For the first time he saw a real possibility of success. If the flanks were firmly held the whole line should give a good account of itself.

  All eyes were on the shore to the east where the esplanade of De Panne blocked their further view.

  It was Louis who broke the silence that had fallen on the little group. He said to Luke, ‘You appear to me, although I may be mistaken, to be somewhat—shall I say—apprehensive.’

  Luke said, ‘I’m sorry that my feelings were so apparent. It’s true that I was wondering what the outcome of the matter might be.’

  ‘Surely there is no cause for fear. When Sir Drake was confronted by the power and majesty of the Spanish Armada, was he afraid? Not so. He laughed at their Spanish pride.’

  ‘And finished an important game of bowls,’ said Fleming. ‘Or so I was taught when I was a boy’

  Luke thought of pointing out that Drake had under his immediate command, forty or more tough and experienced ships of war, not sixteen amateur soldiers, some of them armed with pistols they had only just learned to use.

  He was spared the necessity of saying anything by a loud shout from Fleming of, ‘Here she comes.’

  He had brought a police whistle with him, and it had been arranged that no shot was to be fired until he had sounded a single shrill blast.

  The Leibling, well handled, was sidling up to the harbour entrance. Luke could see that only four of the large contingent she carried, were showing themselves on deck. One of them, standing on the poop, was a plump figure with a framework of beard round his scarlet face. Luke thought it might be Rudi Naroch. The other three were sailors, one steering, the other two standing by with coils of rope.

  Luke had his eyes on Fleming.

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t leave it too late,’ he whispered. ‘Let a dozen of their men get ashore and we shall be in real trouble.’

  But Fleming, at that moment, was not watching the Liebling. He had seen something, which Luke spotted a second later.

  It was the Celia.

  She must have been lurking in one of the many bush-covered inlets along that strip of coast. She now emerged and headed for the field of battle. There was an air of impudence and challenge about her. He could see Marc Cellier and two of his fishermen friends on deck. Then they all fired the pistols they held.

  Shots fired from a moving platform at a moving target were unlikely to be accurate. Luke saw splinters of wood fly from the Liebling’s deck planks, but none of the men on deck seemed to have been hit.

  Having loosed off this ineffective volley, the Celia swung round and headed for the open sea.

  As she went, one of her sailors indulged in the streetboy-gesture that can be translated, roughly, as ‘Up your bum’.

  The Liebling, which had been on the point of entering the port, now swung round like a mastiff pestered by a terrier, and went in pursuit.

  The chase could not be a long one. The pursuer was three times as heavy and certainly faster, if not much faster, than its quarry.

  Some 200 yards offshore Luke had noticed a patch of dappled water. He wondered if Celia would get through it before she was rammed and sunk.

  Twenty yards to go.

  He found he was holding his breath.

  Celia had gone straight through the troubled water and had reached the other side as Liebling arrived at the edge of it. She was following Celia’s wake with careful precision.

  Then it happened.

  It was, thought Luke, exactly as though the Liebling had been hit amidships by a torpedo. There was a muted crash, as the fore part of the boat rose into the air, and hung for a long moment. Then it sank back and the boat turned onto its side and sank in a swirl of foam.

  Louis was jumping up and down, too excited to speak properly. He shouted, and repeated, something that sounded like ‘Thread and needle’.

  Luke grabbed his arm and forced him back into his seat.

  ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Tell me. Quickly.’

  As Louis got his breath back the words came tumbling out. ‘They have been drawn to their destruction. Drawn as though he had them on the end of a string.’

  ‘What hit them?’

  ‘Nothing hit them. They destroyed themselves on the rock the fishermen call the Needle.’

  ‘You mean?’

  ‘I mean that at exactly this moment, with the tide ebbing, a light boat can still pass over it. A heavier one will impale itself on the point of the Needle. So did Sir Drake to the Spaniards on this very coast. He drew their great galleys after him, where he could go, but they could not.’

  Luke, who was beginning to understand what had happened now had his eyes on the spot where the Liebling had sunk.

  Clearly the men packed into her hold had had no chance of saving themselves. The boat was their coffin.

  The four men on deck had been thrown into the water and he could see the heads of three of them as they fought for their lives against the tide.

  He wondered whether any move would be made to save them.

  The Celia was now well out into the Channel and was showing no sign of returning. None of the fishing boats anchored below was making any move.

  Colonel Fleming, who had seemed dumbfounded by the suddenness of the tragedy, now sprang into action.

  He sounded a blast on his whistle and, as his men jumped up and came running, he shouted, ‘Spread out along the shore, all of you. If there are any survivors we want them.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘It was a truly astonishing feat,’ said Louis, as
they made their way down to the beach. ‘There is not more than half an hour—a bare thirty minutes—at the ebb, when there is sufficient depth of water for a light boat to pass, but a heavier one to strike. He judged it to perfection. Superb seamanship.’

  If it occurred to Luke that superb seamanship was an unusual way of describing the drowning of thirty men, he was too pleased with the result to be critical.

  There seemed to have been only two survivors, two of the three crewmen who had been on deck when the Liebling went down. Both strong swimmers they had fought the tidal ebb and had crawled out, more dead than alive, onto the shingle. Fleming had gone down with Luke and Louis to superintend the rough, but effective, first aid that was being given to them.

  ‘Hans Biedermayer,’ said Louis. ‘Why, this is indeed a happy chance! I am delighted that he was saved. Christen is his brother. He also assisted us from time to time.’

  ‘Small wonder that we were able to keep tabs on the movements of the Liebling,’ said Fleming drily. ‘Seeing that we had two-thirds of her crew in our pay.’

  ‘One thing that does surprise me,’ said Luke, ‘is that they should ever have allowed the Celia to lead them into peril.’ And to Hans, ‘Did you not know of the existence of this tooth of rock and the danger it offered at this precise state of the tide?’

  ‘We knew, of course. Naroch did not. He is ignorant of seamanship. But we had to obey his orders.’

  ‘Even at the risk of drowning?’

  ‘If we had not done exactly what he told us to do it would not have been a risk of death. It would have been a certainty. He had a pistol and we knew that he was most capable of using it.’

  ‘Difficult for you,’ agreed Luke.

  ‘What of the third man?’ said Fleming.

  ‘Wilhelm. He was no swimmer. He went down almost at once. Poor boy. We’d have saved him if we could, but were hard put to it to save ourselves.’

  ‘Ask him about Naroch,’ said Fleming.

  ‘He was on deck. He was thrown into the water. We saw no more of him.’

  Hans did not seem upset about this. Rudi had not been a popular commander.