The Thistle’s off-duty hands had lined the rail while a scrambling net had been lowered and three strong seamen climbed to the waterline to haul the gasping survivor aboard. He had been all in, and would doubtless have died within hours. Thistle’s stubby silhouette must have looked like something from heaven in his red-rimmed eyes.
It was later, when the survivor’s speech returned to his salt-swollen tongue that they all realized what they had found. He was a German.
Wemyss, who spoke the language quite well, had announced flatly, ‘He’s off a U-boat. He was watchkeeping on the conning tower two nights ago when a great wave swept right across the bridge. His safety harness snapped and he went over. His mates never saw him go.’
It should not have made any difference. Men killed in action were taken for granted. Captured ones hardly raised comment any more. But this particular German made all the difference in the world. Maybe the Thistle’s company wanted to make their first useful gesture, as if to prove themselves, to start the record the right way. Or perhaps the battered little corvette had fought the bitter Atlantic battle for so long that she could not bring herself to accept this pitiful symbol of that savagery.
Whatever the truth of the matter, Crespin had been shaving in his sea cabin on the following morning when Lennox, the Leading Sickberth Attendant, had rushed in hardly able to speak coherently.
‘The Jerry, sir! I can’t understand it, but …’
For a moment longer Crespin had imagined the German had died. It was not unknown for survivors to recover only briefly from their ordeals and then die without any visible reason.
Lennox had made another effort. ‘He’s gone, sir!’
The ship had been searched from stem to stern. But the German had indeed vanished. One minute sleeping in the sickbay, the next oblivion, as if he had been imaginary.
Wemyss had suggested doubtfully, ‘Perhaps he had some kind of brainstorm, sir? Or maybe being in the drink alone knocked his mind off balance and he …’
Crespin had interrupted. ‘He just walked away, eh?’
Wemyss had shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t like Germans, sir, but I don’t like what you’re suggesting either!’
‘And neither do I, Number One. But like it or not we’ve got a bloody murderer in this ship, maybe more than one.’
Wemyss had said thickly, ‘It’s a bad beginning.’
Crespin jerked from his thoughts and realized the car had stopped outside a tall building, the plain unmarked entrance of which was guarded by two marine policemen.
Three minutes later he was sitting before a large desk in the presence of a Commander Gleeson, a harassed-looking officer who dryly announced himself as ‘Rear-Admiral Oldenshaw’s man in Gib.’
Then he leaned back in his chair and placed his fingertips together below his chin. He looked rather like a schoolmaster running the rule over a new boy.
‘So you’re Crespin, eh?’ He nodded briskly. ‘A good trip?’ He did not pause. ‘That’s all right then.’
Crespin said quietly, ‘I’ve made a full report. We picked up a German survivor but lost him the following day.’
Gleeson’s eyes hardened. ‘Lost him, for God’s sake?’
‘Overboard.’
Gleeson seemed very relieved. ‘Oh, is that all. Thank heaven for that! For one second I imagined he’d escaped or something.’
Crespin watched him impassively. You callous bastard. Aloud he said, ‘Well, it’s all in the report.’
‘Quite so, Crespin.’ He shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘Now there’s a bit of a rush on, so I’ll be brief. You’re going to Sousse, and you’re sailing tonight at 2300. Suit you?’
Crespin tore his mind away from that gasping, sodden survivor and all that his disappearance implied. Half to himself he said, ‘North-east coast of Tunisia, about nine hundred miles from this room. At cruising speed I can be there comfortably in four days, sir.’
Gleeson did not look up. ‘Then you’ll have to do it uncomfortably. I want you there in three, right?’
Crespin clenched his fingers tightly. ‘I think I know my ship’s capabilities, sir.’
‘So do we! That is why she was chosen for this work.’ Gleeson’s voice was smooth. ‘Do what you have to, but get there in three days. You’ll report to Commander Scarlett at Sousse and he will brief you.’ His lips curved slightly in a smile. ‘Stop thinking of possible breakdowns or getting your own back on senior officers who are too stupid to understand, and just remember this is important, damned important.’
Crespin stood up. He wanted to get away, for he knew he might say something to Gleeson which both of them would regret.
The commander eyed him calmly. ‘I know what you’ve been through. I was here when it all happened. Bad luck.’ It was the same tone he had used for the missing German. ‘But this is a different sort of war you have come to join. Methods are not so important as results. Get to Sousse and let off steam there if you like. I should think that you and Commander Scarlett will get on like a house on fire.’
Crespin picked up his cap. ‘I don’t think I know him, sir.’
Gleeson walked with him to the door. ‘You will, Crespin. Of that I am quite sure!’
The interview was over.
At the prescribed time Thistle weighed anchor, and once clear of the harbour limits altered course to the east. Crespin walked out to the port wing of the bridge and stared back at the Rock. As it fell further and further astern it seemed to rise from the sea like a symbol of that other world before the war. The town below the great natural fortress was a mass of glittering lights, some of which ran up the side of the Rock itself as if to reach for the stars in an unending necklace. Without looking over the rim of the bridge he knew that most of the off-duty seamen were also staring back along the corvette’s sharp wake.
How different it must seem to most of them, he thought. At home, and all over Europe, the lights had gone out for the duration. At night the only ones you ever saw were bursting flak or the glow of burning buildings.
He turned his back on the dancing reflections and walked into the bridge. ‘Very well, Sub, you can inform the chief that I’m ready to increase speed now. I want revs for fourteen and a half knots.’ He saw Porteous’s pale outline by the chart table and could almost feel him digesting his order before he passed it down the handset. It was just a formality, for Crespin had already told Magot what was expected of his department if they were to reach Sousse on time.
Magot had regarded him with something like hurt before saying, ‘If you say so, sir. If it’s really necessary.’ He had craned forward so that Crespin had been able to smell the encrusted oil and dirt on his boiler suit. His tone had suggested that perhaps Crespin might still change his mind.
Crespin had said, ‘I do, and it is, Chief!’
Magot had vanished through his hatchway muttering to himself, and was no doubt down there now watching his dials and cursing the lack of consideration from the bridge.
Porteous came back breathing hard. ‘The chief says he’ll do his best, sir.’
Crespin smiled to himself. Porteous’s embarrassed air implied that Magot had also said other, less repeatable things.
At midnight Wemyss and Shannon appeared to take over their watch.
In the airless chartroom Crespin said, ‘It’ll be a change to be able to hug the North African coastline without being shot at, Number One.’
Wemyss leaned on the chart, his big hands encompassing the Western Mediterranean as he studied the pencilled lines and bearings. ‘Can I ask you what we’re going to Sousse for, sir?’ He did not look up.
Crespin listened to the watchkeepers handing over their duties, their voices muffled by the increasing beat of the engine. ‘I don’t know myself yet. A Commander Scarlett is coming aboard as soon as we get there. He seems to be the man in charge.’
‘I see.’ Wemyss sounded strangely relieved. ‘At least we’ll be doing something again.’
‘You’ve not heard anyone m
ention that German, Number One?’
Wemyss looked up, caught off guard. ‘No, sir. But I’m keeping my ear to the ground. There’s been a good bit of speculation on the lower deck, of course, but most of the lads seem as baffled as we are.’
Crespin eyed him gravely. ‘Don’t just look on the lower deck. Grudges have been known to appear elsewhere.’ He glanced at the bulkhead clock. ‘I’m going to turn in.’
But with the door of the tiny sea cabin closed behind him he knew he would not be able to sleep. With the ship blacked out and deadlights screwed over every scuttle the compartment was like an oven. Even when he stripped off his shirt and stood directly beneath the deckhead fan he could find little relief. Corvettes had been designed mainly to face the Atlantic, where a lack of ventilation was often a real advantage. The dockyard’s hasty additions to the air ducts were anything but adequate for the fierce sunlight of the day and the oppressive humidity in the overcrowded cabins and messdeck.
Perhaps that was why he had made another dig at Wemyss’ opinions and attitude over the missing German. Wemyss was everything a first lieutenant should be and he was an excellent seaman. But when it came to other matters, outside the actual running of the ship, he seemed unwilling to be drawn, as if by shutting his mind to the problem it would automatically cease to exist.
Crespin knew otherwise. Somewhere between decks, or standing his watch right now beneath the great canopy of stars, was a murderer. Perhaps in his own mind this man, whoever he was, had already justified his action. But a man who could kill secretly and with such cool judgement was a menace to everyone around him. The more reasonable his deed might appear in his mind, the more dangerous he would become.
Crespin threw himself on his back and stared up at the darkness. And it had sounded from what Commander Gleeson had said at Gibraltar that the unknown killer would soon have plenty of opportunity to act again, if he had a mind to.
He felt the engine vibrations coursing through the bunk and imagined Magot cursing him from his private world of noise and pounding machinery. Some of the vibrations seemed to aggravate the wound in his leg, and with a groan he rolled on to his side, the effort making the sweat break out across his bare chest and run freely beneath his armpits.
It was strange that he was going to Sousse. It had been less than fifty miles from there that his boat had been surprised and sunk. The agonizing weeks in hospital which had followed, the dazed and jumbled recollections of screaming men and blazing fuel had, strangely enough, become clearer now, so that he could piece the events together in his mind like a complicated jigsaw. But it was more as an impartial onlooker than as one of the three survivors. Very few actual faces stood out in the pattern. Without effort he could still see the small patrol of soldiers rising from behind a sand-dune like one more cruel mirage, their unshaven faces changing from watchfulness to surprise and then compassion as Crespin and his delirious companions had stumbled at their feet. They had been carrying the other sailor all day and did not even know he had died somewhere along the haphazard path which Crespin had taken, with only the mocking strip of sea and the blazing, relentless sun to guide him.
There had been one other face, but that was more vague and could have been part of the nightmare. In hospital, tossing and sweating in his bed, Crespin had relived the actual moment a thousand times, when with his men he had been swimming and floating under the stars surrounded by a patch of fuel and a few pieces of flotsam. All that remained of the M.T.B.
Crespin remembered swimming around the widening circle of bobbing heads, calling encouragement, threatening and pleading, doing and saying anything which might make them hold on to life and hope until daylight. A patrol would find them. If not some of his own flotilla, then one of the patrolling destroyers, or even a reconnaissance seaplane.
Then, it must have been two hours later, Crespin still could not remember, they had heard the low, throbbing note of high-speed engines. Some of his men had little red lamps on their lifejackets, and they held them above their heads, yelling and cheering as the unseen craft drew nearer and nearer. A few of the men were sobbing with relief and did not care if the approaching craft was friend or foe. It just meant rescue, and that was more than enough.
Crespin pressed his face into the damp pillow and tried to recall exactly what happened next. But all he could really remember was the eye-searing beam of a searchlight and the sudden stammer of machine-guns.
The cheers had changed to cries of anger and fear and then to terrible screams as the boat had reduced speed and had moved methodically through the struggling figures while the guns had slashed the water into a bloody carnage.
The fact that Crespin had been swimming around his men probably saved his life. The boat’s bow wave swept over his head, forcing him under and filling his lungs until he thought he was drowning, and when he eventually rose gasping to the surface he had seen the boat’s flat stern right over him, so that he had to fight with all his remaining strength to kick clear of the whirling screws.
Then, and this was where reality became confused with the nightmare, he remembered a face. It was leaning over the boat’s guardrail, arctic blue in the searchlight’s reflected glare, and seemed to be shouting. Or it could have been vomiting.
Crespin closed his eyes tightly. The man, whoever he was, had good cause to vomit. The sea had been alight, and in the dancing fires Crespin had watched his remaining men, some of them too badly wounded to swim at all, while they were devoured by the spreading pool of flames. The last to go had been an eighteen-year-old midshipman. It had been his first patrol. Crespin could still hear his shrill cries. It had been like a woman screaming in agony.
The burning fuel had flickered and died, and as if satisfied the boat had cut her searchlight and with a roar of engines had faded into the darkness.
When daylight had at last come Crespin had discovered that the land was only a mile away. At the time it had seemed endless, and when he and the remaining three men had crawled up on to the burning sand the impossibility of their position had been almost too hard to bear.
Now, looking back, it was even harder to understand why the commander of that patrol boat had done what he had. He must have known exactly what he was doing. Must have wanted to do it. For if he had been unwilling to burden himself with prisoners he could have left them to fend for themselves, knowing that the land was within their reach. After that they could have managed for themselves as far as he was concerned, but at least his conscience would have been clear.
Crespin sat up on the bunk and shivered. The sweat on his body felt like ice water. It was mad to go on like this. It was over. Finished.
But as he pulled a blanket over his shoulders he knew in his heart that he would never forget. Nor could he find it within himself to forgive.
Eventually, worn out by his tortured thoughts, Crespin fell back on the bunk and was instantly asleep.
The small Tunisian port of Sousse seemed shrouded in a permanent dust cloud through which the sun only just managed to penetrate. It was hardly surprising, for it had been one of the last vital supply routes for the retreating Afrika Korps, a final toe-hold in North Africa, and although it had been in Allied hands for almost two months it still looked desolate and ground down by the machinery of war. But amidst the ruined buildings and along the waterfront with its ravaged houses and cratered jetties there was an air of purposeful rejuvenation. Troops and vehicles slogged through the swirling dust, while sappers and bulldozers pushed away the wreckage of past battles and laid a foundation for the next one. It was a clearing-up process. North Africa was cleansed of the enemy, and Rommel had gone. The remnants of his desert army were either captured or had managed to escape across the Strait of Sicily, where, if they had avoided being bombed or torpedoed on the journey, they were no doubt licking their wounds and awaiting what must be an inevitable invasion of their own territory.
After exchanging signals with a red-faced and overworked berthing officer the Thistle groped her way a
longside a burned out Italian storeship and stopped her engine. It was a poor berth, but with the harbour littered with wrecks and filled almost to overflowing with the victors, they were, as the redfaced officer implied, lucky to get one at all.
As at Gibraltar, the build-up of power was impressive to see. Warships of every kind, landing craft and supply vessels, while overhead friendly aircraft maintained a regular umbrella to ensure that the preparations remained undisturbed.
Crespin leaned over the bridge screen and watched as Petty Officer Dunbar clambered along the other ship’s scorched and splintered deck and supervised the final arrangement of mooring wires.
They had done it. Three days, with hardly a complaint from Magot, and not a single hour wasted in repairs or faults.
It would probably turn out to be an anticlimax. Crespin knew his Service well enough to expect this sort of thing. In the Navy you did everything earlier than necessary. If you went to sea it was always at the crack of dawn, or in the dead of night when the hands were too tired even to think properly. It must be left over from the days of sail, he thought, when their lordships were always worried in case the wind died and their ships were still far from their prescribed stations.
Wemyss climbed on to the bridge and saluted. ‘Ship secured, sir.’
‘Thank you. Well, I don’t imagine that our people will want any leave here, Number One. The place looks a bit the worse for wear.’
Wemyss grinned. ‘There’s always somewhere left where you can find a bit of pleasure, sir.’
Crespin wondered what Wemyss considered as pleasure. It was hard to picture him doing anything else but his job.
Leading Signalman Griffin interrupted his thoughts. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a motor boat heading this way.’
Crespin nodded. ‘Very good. Man the side, Number One. This must be Commander Scarlett.’
He climbed stiffly down to the main deck feeling the sun beating across his neck. God, this Scarlett did not waste any time. He must have been sitting in the ruins with his glass trained on the harbour entrance.
To Risks Unknown Page 5