Crespin dragged his shirtsleeve across his eyes, counting seconds, feeling the ship shaking around him as the revolutions mounted and the bow wave fanned out on either beam in a giant, creaming arrowhead.
‘Fire star-shell!’
The four inch lurched back on its mounting, the bang of the explosion sending a sharp shockwave over the bridge like a wind. Seconds later the shell burst with eye-searing brilliance, so that the whole of the seascape changed from sullen blackness to the stark unreality of a film negative. The headland and outflung rocks shone like ice, and the sea which parted in a hissing bank of foam across the corvette’s bows gleamed from a million reflecting mirrors in the eerie light of the drifting flare. And there, directly in the path of the glare, lay the two vessels.
Crespin jammed his elbows on the screen and tried to steady his glasses against the ship’s violent vibrations. The nearest ship seemed to be some sort of trawler, short and sturdy, with a black funnel and a tiny wheelhouse, but beyond her, and overlapping at either end, was a lower hull, the sleek bows of which shone in the drifting flare like burnished pewter.
He yelled, ‘Open fire! The furthest ship is an E-boat!’
Through the quivering lenses he could see the tiny figures which seconds earlier had been standing like stricken waxworks running across the decks, tearing at mooring lines which held both craft together.
Vaguely he heard Shannon yelling, ‘With semi-armour piercing! Load, load, load!’ His voice was high-pitched and excited. There was the clang of a breechblock and almost instantly the earsplitting crack as the gun opened fire in deadly earnest.
Crespin snapped, ‘Port ten!’ He must give the other guns a chance. ‘Midships!’ There was a dull explosion and somebody cursed on one of the voice-pipes.
Shannon shouted, ‘Over! Down two hundred!’ Another pause. ‘Shoot!’
Crespin felt his stomach muscles tighten. Here it came. The lazy, cruising balls of tracer which lifted over the trawler, so deceptively slow until they reached the apex of their climb. Then they seemed to come whipping down with the speed of light, tearing the mind apart with the screech and clang of bursting cannon shells and the wild shriek of ricochets.
Now came the answering fire from the starboard pair of Oerlikons, sharper and faster, the red tracers licking across the dancing water, intermingling with those of the enemy before tearing into the unmoving craft with the force and speed of a giant bandsaw. The steady thud, thud, thud of the pom-pom, and then another Oerlikon, until the whole night was torn in shreds by noise and violent flashes.
Faces stood out around the bridge, crude and alien in the shifting glare, and from every direction voices seemed to be calling and cursing in a mad chorus.
Crespin heard the enemy’s shots hammering against the bridge plating, and ducked as something shattered a glass screen and whipped past his neck like a heated iron.
The enemy was still motionless, but firing with increased vigour now with at least three sets of guns. Maybe the men had died before they could cast off, or perhaps … Crespin swung round as a man screamed behind him. In the flare’s dying light he saw one of the bridge lookouts staggering against the chart table, tearing at his chest, his hands like claws. In the strange glare his chest seemed to be covered with molten black glass, which spread even as he watched and ran down across the gratings between the man’s kicking feet.
Griffin caught the man as he fell and some of the blood splashed across his own face as he yelled, ‘Dead, sir! Got the poor bugger right in the throat!’
Crespin turned away. ‘Pass the word aft! Stand by starboard side depth-charge!’
Scarlett twisted on the chair as if it was restricting him like a cage. ‘Look at that crafty bastard! No wonder he didn’t cast off!’
Crespin did not answer. As the Thistle surged down on the two rocking vessels he could see quite easily what had happened. The E-boat was using the other craft as a shield, and as the bursting tracers ripped and exploded against wood and metal he saw that the shield was no more than a fishing boat. There was no time to wonder at her presence here, or what the E-boat had seen fit to investigate. In the stabbing gunflashes he could see the handful of figures crouched along the sagging bulwark and several inert shapes scattered around a crater where the wheelhouse had stood before one of Shannon’s shells had found its mark.
Wemyss yelled, ‘Those poor devils will be cut to bits!’
Crespin flinched as splinters clanged against the steel plates beneath his elbows and screamed away into the returning darkness. The E-boat’s commander was no fool. He had been taken completely by surprise by the Thistle’s sudden onslaught, but provided the corvette maintained her course and furious speed he was better off to stay where he was.
The flare was almost gone, and to fire another Shannon would have to stop using his gun for its true purpose. By the time he reopened fire Thistle would be past and she would cross directly over the E-boat’s bows and her waiting torpedoes.
Wemyss could stand the hammering of gun-fire and the merciless business of killing, but he was no torpedo-boat officer. Crespin knew far better than he what would happen if the E-boat was allowed to unleash her salvo against the Thistle’s unprotected flank.
A bell jangled and a man called hoarsely, ‘Depth-charge ready, sir!’
The flare vanished, but the intermingling tracers were more than enough to pick out the scene. Somewhere aft a gun had jammed and from below the bridge a man was sobbing, ‘Oh, God, help me! Help me!’
Crespin gripped the screen, feeling the sweat running in his eyes and across his spine. He saw a man on the fishing boat holding up a shirt like a white flag, and another, it looked like a boy, leaping overboard in a pathetic effort to save himself.
Wemyss murmured, ‘God forgive me!’
Crespin dropped his hand. ‘Fire!’
There was a brief thud, and some of the watching men saw the depth-charge hurtle from its thrower before splashing almost gently within yards of the fishing boat and the madly thrashing figure alongside.
The depth-charge sank to a distance of fifty feet only before exploding.
Crespin had carried out such attacks against small surface craft several times, but at thirty knots he had been well clear before the explosion came. This time it seemed to be almost alongside. It was more of a feeling than a sound, and Crespin found himself falling against the voice-pipes as the deck gave a convulsive leap and then swayed right over away from the blast. But even then it was possible to see the towering column of water which appeared to rise higher and higher until it hung over the ship like a towering iceberg. Then with a hissing roar it subsided, while the reeling bridge became a blind, coughing wilderness of struggling men and a cascade of water which seemed to taste of charred wood.
Crespin hauled himself back to the screen. There were several small islands of fire swirling around in a great maelstrom of seething water, and what appeared to be the bows of the fishing boat. There were faint patches of white joining in the grotesque dance, which looked like dead fish, but Crespin knew they were fragments of men.
Shocked and dazed the gunners scrambled back to their weapons and the tracers reached out astern, further tormenting the grisly remains and lighting up the bridge and funnel so that they looked red hot.
Crespin shouted, ‘Cease firing! Cease firing!’
But the guns continued to fire, and he heard his men yelling and calling to each other like maniacs.
As he threw himself on the bellpush below the screen he saw Scarlett’s face shining in the flashes. He was laughing, or shouting, Crespin could not tell in the din around him. But as he found the button he felt Scarlett’s fingers on his wrist like steel and heard him yell, ‘Let them shoot if they want to! It’ll do ’em good!’
Crespin tore his hand away and pressed the button hard. As the cease-fire gong rang tinnily around the ship first one, and then reluctantly, the rest of the guns fell silent.
Crespin hardly trusted himself to speak.
He walked to the voice-pipes and felt his shoes slipping in the dead seaman’s blood. It was thick, like paint.
‘Port twenty!’ He was sick and near to collapse and could not understand the empty calm of his own voice. ‘Midships. Steady.’
Joicey was breathing heavily. His face must be right against the mouth of the voice-pipe so that he should not miss an order in the noise and roar of battle.
‘Steer zero-one-zero.’ The compass dial was swimming in a mist. ‘Half ahead.’ He made himself look round. ‘Report damage and casualties.’
He saw Griffin looking over the broken screen as the ship plunged back along her original course, brushing aside the smouldering flotsam and leaving the rest hidden in merciful darkness.
Petty Officer Dunbar clattered up the bridge ladder and stared around as if surprised to find the bridge still standing. ‘Three men wounded, sir. One badly. ’E was aft on the quarterdeck and got a splinter in ’is thigh. Oh an’ a stoker broke ’is collarbone when ’e fell off a ladder in the boiler room.’ He saw the dead man beside the chart table and sucked his breath noisily. ‘Then there’s this one o’ course, sir.’ He sounded different. Relieved, exalted, sickened, it was impossible to say.
Crespin took a handset from a messenger. ‘Captain speaking.’
Magot’s voice seemed to come from miles away. ‘Nothin’ very bad down here, sir. Some leaks from that, er, explosion.’ He paused. ‘I thought we had been tinfished, sir.’
Crespin dropped the handset. The stench of blood seemed to be all over him. ‘Get this man off the bridge.’ He saw Dunbar and Lennox the S.B.A. covering the dead seaman with an oilskin. He wanted to find compassion or disgust. But all he could think of was the unknown stoker who had broken his collarbone.
‘Light in the water, sir! Two points off the port bow!’
His legs moved automatically. ‘Slow ahead! Stand by with scrambling nets!’
Somewhere, in another world it seemed, a single gun fired and a shell whimpered across the sea to explode with a muffled roar. Pantelleria’s coastal artillery had fired at last, but to no purpose.
‘Stop engine.’ Crespin felt the side of the bridge pressing against his chest as he leaned out to watch the soldiers being pulled aboard. There were only two rafts and about half the men who had started out. He screwed up his eyes and tried to clear his brain. Less than four hours ago? It was a lifetime.
Major Barnaby climbed heavily on to the bridge and glanced at the silent figures around him. ‘Lost fourteen chaps, including Mr. Muir. Several wounded, too.’ He sighed. ‘But still.’
Scarlett asked harshly, ‘Did it go all right?’
Barnaby seemed to come out of his daze. ‘Fair enough. We killed a few Jerries, I should think, and the rest are probably having a good drink before the last of it runs into the sea.’ Then he laughed. It was a toneless, empty sound.
‘All clear aft, sir.’
‘Very well.’ Crespin was still watching the soldier. ‘Full ahead. Starboard fifteen.’ He waited. ‘Steady. Steer three-three-zero.’
Wemyss crossed to his side. ‘Sir, I think …’
Crespin did not turn. ‘Keep your thoughts to yourself please. Work out the new course. We will change in thirty minutes.’
When he did look again Wemyss had gone into the chart room and Scarlett and the soldier had disappeared.
Somehow he managed to get into the chair and for several minutes sat staring at the water creaming away on either side of the stem. The raid had succeeded, and no doubt when daylight came Scarlett’s promised air cover would be there to see them safely back to base. Scarlett was efficient. Like Gleeson at Gibraltar who had said that results were more important than methods. Like himself, who had deliberately murdered helpless fishermen with no more thought than if he had been crushing a beetle.
There was a step beside him and Petty Officer Joicey’s stocky shadow moved on to the grating.
‘I’ve been relieved on the wheel, sir.’ He looked over the screen. ‘I thought you might like a wet?’ He held up a large mug.
Crespin took it with both hands and felt the hot metal shaking uncontrollably against his teeth. It was thick cocoa laced with neat rum. He felt it searing his stomach, holding him together.
‘Well, ’Swain, what did you think of that?’
Joicey shrugged. ‘I didn’t see much from down there, sir. But what I ’eard suited me very well!’ Then he took the empty mug and walked back to his wheelhouse. Crespin could hear him whistling.
When he looked over the screen again Pantelleria had vanished.
5. Run Ashore
LIEUTENANT DOUGLAS WEMYSS pushed open the sagging door of the building labelled ‘Officers’ Club’ and strode purposefully through the noisy mass of uniformed figures who crammed the main room from wall to wall. Three air force officers staggered to their feet, and before anyone else could make a move Wemyss wedged himself at the small table and gestured to Porteous who was staring round the place with a mixture of surprise and awe.
Sousse had taken such a battering in the desert fighting that it was, Wemyss supposed, fortunate to have any building left in one piece. But this place was pretty bad, and even the bright tablecloths and red-fezzed waiters could not mask the dinginess and mauling of battle. Union Jacks and giant pictures of Churchill hung everywhere, but served more to cover up splinter holes and cracks left by the bombing than with any sense of patriotism. It was strange to think that such a short time ago officers of the Afrika Korps were probably sitting at this very table below pictures of their own leader.
Porteous laid his cap beside him and said, ‘God, it’s hot in here!’
It was, too. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and a dozen aromas of cooking, and with every window and bomb hole sealed against possible air attack the atmosphere was overpowering.
Above the roar of voices and the clatter of glasses Wemyss realized that someone was singing, and when he stared over the heads at the next table he saw a girl standing on a small dais, the words of her song all but lost in the din. She was dark-skinned, but looked more Greek than Arab, and she was singing in French. As her mouth moved to the accompaniment of a three-piece orchestra her eyes wandered around the crowded room and were, he thought, incredibly sad.
He turned his back and signalled to a harassed waiter. To Porteous he said, ‘I’ve a flask of brandy in my hip pocket. We’ll just use the local hooch for washing it down. I don’t fancy falling dead from drinking meths, or whatever they use here.’
Porteous nodded absently. ‘If you say so.’
Wemyss studied him thoughtfully. Ever since the action with the E-boat he had hardly said a word. For a whole day after returning to Sousse the Thistle had laid alongside the old freighter replenishing ammunition, covering the new collection of scars and arranging for the burial of their first real casualty.
Now most of the ship’s company were ashore, free from the crowded life between decks for the first time since leaving England.
Wemyss felt the raw alcohol burning his stomach and said, ‘Aren’t you glad you’re ashore and not O.O.D. like Shannon?’
Porteous came out of his trance. ‘I keep thinking about those people in the water.’ He looked at his glass. ‘I’ve never seen a dead man before. Just relatives, and they were in their beds.’
‘I know.’ Wemyss wondered what he was doing here with Porteous. At the same time he knew he was glad he had brought him instead of Shannon. Maybe it was because he and Porteous were poles apart. Wemyss was a professional, with little left over except for simple enjoyments of the land. Like this miserable hole, for instance. Porteous was out of his depth, a born bumbler, who tried hard but was as vulnerable as an injured sparrow.
He said roughly, ‘We did what we had to. It was us or them. And I must say you got your lads organized well enough when the moment came.’
Porteous’s eyes were wretched. ‘Leading Seaman Haig did most of it. I heard the order, but I just stood there watching that fishing boat.’
Wemyss thought of Crespin’s cold anger on the bridge, his sudden withdrawal into himself. He replied gravely, ‘You weren’t the only one.’ It was no use. They were getting morbid. He asked suddenly, ‘Tell me, what made you volunteer for this caper?’ He held up the glass. ‘And don’t give me all that crap you gave the interview board.’
Porteous smiled for the first time. ‘I suppose I was desperate really. The only thing I’ve ever achieved in my life was getting this commission.’
Wemyss stared at him. ‘What? And you a barrister with an influential father and God knows how many others in the family before you!’
‘Exactly. I never felt that I’d got where I was on my own. My father is a hard man in some ways. Even when I joined up it was the wrong thing as far as he was concerned. A waste of time, he said. They’ll always need lawyers, but you’ll be just one more junior officer, and not a very good one at that. And he wanted me to enter the Guards when at last he realized I was determined to go. All my family have been in the Brigade.’
Wemyss watched him with new understanding. Porteous was not boasting. It was just another relative fact as far as he was concerned. But to Wemyss it was another world. University, the Guards, judges and barristers all came under the category of ‘they’. All the same, he was glad to be spared Porteous’s obvious uncertainty. Wemyss had made his way up the ladder by a much harder route. As a young apprentice he had sailed out of Liverpool for the Far East with a tough skipper who placed more faith in his fists than in the Merchant Shipping Act when it came to matters of discipline.
Porteous blurted out, ‘I suppose I wanted to prove myself to myself more than anything. But it doesn’t seem to be working here either.’
Wemyss touched his arm. ‘Look, my lad, I’m ten years older than you in age but about a hundred in experience. I’ve knocked around and done a lot of things, and to be fair, I’ve not had your chances or your background to help me. After this lot’s over I’ll be lucky to get a job in anything but some clapped-out old tub, while you’ll be up there at the Old Bailey with people hanging on your every word and a dirty big Rolls-Royce and chauffeur waiting to whisk you to your club as soon as you’ve got some poor devil hanged or acquitted. But don’t think about that, or what’s gone before. This is now, and maybe tomorrow, and what you’re doing is important, believe me it is! Leading Seaman Haig probably knows more about depth-charges and eye-splices than you’ll ever learn in a month of Sundays, and so he should. He’s been in the Andrew for damn near seven years. But if things get really tough, and I mean tough, you’ll be the one he comes to for his orders. You’ll be the chap who decides if he is going to live or die. Either way, that’s all right. But make sure it’s to some useful purpose, see?’
To Risks Unknown Page 8