* * *
Now – this second visit, when she’d been warned not to make a nuisance of herself, she propped herself in a corner on the starboard side, as far removed from him as she could get. And Ben, stooped over the chart and checking frequently on various instruments, didn’t even glance at her. Leaning to the voicepipe, suddenly, after peering closely at the thing that whirred all the time: ‘Bridge? La Libenter, skipper. Go to silent running?’
There was a gruff answer of some kind, then a considerable reduction in the engine noise. He’d mentioned, when he’d been showing her the Brittany-coast chart, that before they entered that narrow, rock-strewn channel they’d slow right down, and that the engines had what he’d called Dumbflows on them – silencers.
Not one, or two, but three German lookout posts, she remembered. You’d need silencers, all right. Invisibility too… She checked the time – five past eleven, Central European Time. She’d put her watch back by two hours last night, after checking that their ETA at the island, 0130 G.M.T., would be 2330 C.E.T., the time she’d be using from here on.
She’d met the Frenchmen down there, a few minutes earlier. One of them had tried the door of the officers’ heads when she’d been in there, and she’d called ‘Won’t be a minute!’ – in English, then realized it might be one of those two. So when she came out she’d looked into the wardroom, which was across the flat from the cabin she’d been using, introduced herself and shook hands with them – rather liking the look of the small one, whose name Ball had mentioned earlier – despite his manner being only coldly polite, perhaps indicative of a high degree of professional aloofness.
And why not? Her own attitude should have been the same. Remembering Marilyn’s caution, no distractions… She had, in fact, made some effort to put Ben Quarry out of her mind when she’d come back down here, concentrating her thoughts instead – in French – on César and Romeo, La Minette, Louis, wondering whether it might be wiser to accept Buckmaster’s advice and tell César about the sideline S.I.S. job. She’d decided that there was plenty of time to make up her mind.
Ben called up the voicepipe, ‘Come three degrees to starboard.’ Attention was back on the chart then. Like a different man, she thought. Intent, absorbed in his own expertise. The gunboat was lifting on a swell and rolling hard, a ton or more of sea crashing against this forepart as she started down again. Rosie wondered how it would be possible to hold a course with anything like that degree of accuracy – three degrees this way or that – when the ship was being flung around as she was. She was feeling the effect now: telling herself that it was all in the mind, ignore it… She focused on Ben’s bearded face, part-lit by the lamp over the chart and the glow from the instruments, including the machine that whirred and which seemed to be churning out some kind of graph to which he referred every few seconds. That and the compass and some other gadget had most of his attention. They didn’t switch on their radar anywhere near the coast, he’d told her, because German equipment might detect it. Didn’t need it anyway, having this, that and the other – topographical features – fairly accurately in mind, being able to recognize all the more prominent rocks by their shape and height above the water. He worked out the height-above-water from tide tables, he’d told her, before each trip.
She was glad she didn’t have to. Here and now, with an increasingly queasy feeling from the gunboat’s motion – there seemed to be more of it since they’d slowed down – all she wanted was to get it over, get to the damned island. Terra firma, even when occupied by Germans, had a lot going for it.
A quick glance… ‘Rosie – sorry. Soon as we’re anchored, though—’
There was a call from the bridge, then: some buoy in sight to starboard. He shouted back, ‘La Petite Fourche. Spot on. Come round to –’ hesitating for a second – ‘make it south four west. When the buoy’s abeam, revs for six knots.’
‘Abeam be buggered, south four west we’ll hit the bloody thing!’
‘Make it south six west, then.’
Muttering to himself as he thought about it… Face at the pipe again, then: ‘Skipper – when that buoy’s abeam, come back two degrees to port.’
‘Coming up close now. Wind’s getting up too.’
She thought ironically, in a wave of nausea – That’s good news…
* * *
Creeping in…
The voice from the bridge had called down, ‘Guenioc’s in sight fine to port. Come up if you want.’
He turned to her: in that instant, visibly relaxed. ‘That’s it – my bit of it, for the time being. How’re you, Rosie?’
‘Seasick.’
‘Fresh air’ll fix that. Rosie – in the longer term – I’ll be praying for you. And I’ll find you again somehow, you can take that as fact.’
‘I’ll fetch my suitcase.’
‘I know where to start looking now, you see.’
‘I’ll just get it.’
She started down the ladder. The gunboat’s engines were only muttering to themselves now, and she thought – touch wood – that there might be less movement than there had been. Unless it was only wishful thinking…
Probably had been. That was the heaviest roll so far. Turning, she guessed. Up to now there’d been more pitch than roll. The taller of the two Frenchmen, holding on to the open wardroom door and looking green, asked her, ‘Are we arrived, madame?’
‘Just about.’ Her own language, her first language; she loved it. Ducking into the cabin for her case: the Frenchman reached for it as she came out again, murmuring ‘Permettez’, but she hung on to it and started up the ladder. ‘Thank you, but I can manage.’ She’d be lugging the damn thing across France during the next few days, might as well get used to it. Besides it contained a million and a quarter francs, as well as the Mark III. Ben took it from her anyway, as she arrived at the top, telling her ‘I’ll pass it down to you when you’re in the dinghy.’
‘It has some frightfully precious things in it.’
‘I’m sure. But look here, now. Mae West, this is called. You won’t be doing any swimming, but if you had to it would help to hold you up.’ He showed her how to put it on and blow it up if/when she had to. The engines meanwhile, which hadn’t even been mumbling, started up again: but the hum of sound and vibration lasted only a few seconds. Ben told her, ‘Anchored. That was a touch astern to dig it in.’ The gunboat was still rolling, but the sea’s impacts were on the port side now. Obviously they’d turned… The taller Frenchman slipped and staggered as he came off the ladder, and Rosie put out a hand to steady him: he still looked green around the gills. Ben passed Mae Wests to both of them, and they put them on without assistance. Neither of them had any luggage.
‘Pilot–’ the voicepipe – ‘passengers on deck, please.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ He turned back to them. ‘We’ll go through the bridge into the afterpart, and wait until the boat’s in the water and there’s a ladder over. Wooden steps, chain sides, you go down it backwards. Main thing is we need to be as quiet as possible. Would you translate that, Rosie?’
On her way through the bridge then, following Ben into cool night air that tasted of salt with a slight flavouring of high-octane petrol, the voice which had conducted most of the voicepipe exchanges murmured, ‘Good luck. Not just saying it either – believe me.’ The C.O. – solicitor from Ross-on-Wye: she thanked him for having lent her his cabin. She could see the rolling as well as feel it now, the surge of white water lifting threateningly and then sucking down as the gunboat rolled back. It was white all round the island too: she wondered how on earth anyone could land without at least half drowning. Following Ben down the ladder from the back end of the bridge she was hearing a voice that came in snatches from up there behind them: someone using a radio telephone. Making contact with the reception party, she guessed, and Ben confirmed it. He’d mentioned before that they also had something he’d called an S-phone, which was a walky-talky too but more directional, for communication between the gun
boat and the dinghy.
They were launching the dinghy on the starboard side, dark shapes of sailors getting the lashings off and then carrying it over. It would be lifted over the guardrail and lowered on ropes, he’d told her. No davits, which would have been noisier.
Ball – a shape detaching itself from the boat-launching group – came to them, checking that his three passengers were ready and that she had her suitcase. Then he was summoned to the bridge, and on his return told Ben, ‘Complications.’ Adding to Rosie, ‘None that’ll affect you, though. Listen – when you come down the ladder, chaps already in the boat’ll give you a hand in. And it really won’t be nearly as bad as you imagine. That dinghy’s specially designed for the job.’
‘And I’ll help from the ship’s side, then pass this case down.’ Ball had left them. Ben added, ‘He’ll put you nearest the stern, these two in the sharp end behind the oarsmen.’
‘How far is it to the island?’
‘Cable’s length – couple of hundred yards. But you’ll land on sand that’s exposed now because the tide’s off it. Same as where you’ll be crossing later on.’
‘What about the cargo?’
‘It’ll go on the second trip. Nick’ll have a couple of extra men on board to lug it up on to the rocks. But you’ll be well on your way over to Tariec by then. Slightly larger boat, incidentally, they use.’
She was glad of the tweed coat, collar turned up, and her back to the wind and occasional bursts of spray. She asked him, ‘So does the French boat make a second trip too?’
‘Uh-huh. Time being, the stuff stays on Guenioc. We bury it, more or less, and they’ll shift it piecemeal over the next few days.’
‘With Germans watching?’
‘Crossing the sands, our friends are seaweed gatherers. They’re terrific blokes, believe me.’
The réseau leader’s code-name was Vidor, she remembered.
Ball came back to them. ‘All set?’
They’d told her it would be less bad than she’d thought, when she’d been on board the gunboat, with its heavy rolling and the long swells smashing themselves into foam along the coast and over the rocks making her wonder how a small dinghy could possibly survive in it. Then during the crossing, waves higher than her head and their tops curling white, there were moments when she’d thought it was worse than she’d expected. With Ben’s words an echo in her memory, I’ll find you again somehow, you can take that as fact: she’d thought even at the time that he’d been begging a few questions. She was still in abject fear as the two oarsmen drove the little craft headlong into the boil of surf surrounding the island, Nick Ball yelling at them more or less incomprehensibly and using his sweep oar to keep the stern to the rollers and ride them in. Then they were suddenly in very shallow water, the boat’s keel scraping on sand, and one of two men – knee-deep in surf, one each side of the boat – invited her to get on his back, then carried her up on to dry sand. Behind her the dinghy was being dragged up too.
‘You’re Angel?’
‘Yes. Vidor?’
‘No, I’m the other one. Léon. Wait here, a small moment?’
She was damp, but not soaked as she’d been sure she would be. Climbing down the ladder into the bobbing dinghy she’d accepted it as inevitable and told herself, There’s bound to be some place where I can dry out…
All the same – next time, a Lysander. Damn well insist on it.
If there was a next time.
‘Didn’t get too wet?’
Nick Ball: she’d heard him scrunching towards her up the beach, and he was beside her now. She told him, ‘Thanks to you and Léon, no, I didn’t. What about the other two?’
‘They’re all right. Talking to Vidor. He’ll be with us shortly. Come on up to the island, eh?’
‘Isn’t this it?’
‘Nope. This is sand. Island’s all rock.’ A tall figure was already looming up beside them: others following him would be the French passengers and Léon. Ball told her, ‘This is Vidor.’
‘I’m Angel. Heard a lot about you, Vidor.’
‘Don’t believe it, it’s all lies.’ There was a pleasant timbre to his voice. ‘One minute, Angel, I’ll be with you.’
He had to show Ball where the crate was to be cached, higher up the slope of rock. Guns and ammunition, plastic explosive, grenades – whatever the Resistance had asked for. She could hear those two talking – in English, Vidor’s a variety of pidgin, and Ball’s slow, carefully enunciated. Asking now, ‘What’s happened to the airmen?’
She called, ‘Like me to interpret?’
‘Oh, yes – please…’ Behind her, Léon was in conversation with the others. Ball explained to her. ‘There were supposed to be five or six airmen to embark. We’d have done it easily in the two trips, d’you see? But there aren’t any. He told us so over the walky-talky – and I think he’s saying they’ll be here tomorrow. But we won’t – not unless—’
‘Hold on…’
She began the translation, but Vidor had caught most of it, interrupting her to explain that the airmen had been lodged in safe houses in Brest while awaiting this moonless period, but there’d been a sudden and unprecedented clampdown of German security – reasons for it as yet unknown – with checkpoints on all roads and unusually thorough searching of all trains coming out of Brest northward and eastward. So the escapers were being brought by roundabout country routes, but should be lodged under cover locally by tomorrow night – instead of last night, as they would have been. He finished, ‘We have two more nights with no moon. Will the ship return perhaps not tomorrow but the night after? Otherwise it’s three weeks more to hide them – and the Boche already stirred up, eh?’
Ball was sure they’d come back. ‘Us or one of the others. London’ll have to confirm it, tell him. Need a broadcast, I suppose.’
‘Yes. I have, here.’ Vidor had made a note of a message he’d send when he had the fliers ready to ship out, and for the BBC to broadcast twice on the chosen day. He gave it to Ball, a folded sheet of paper, and told Rosie, ‘Another thing different he should know is it’s not five men now, it’s twelve. For sure – perhaps more, but twelve as we know it now.’
She translated this. Ball agreed, again, ‘We’ll have to come back, obviously… I’d better get cracking now, though.’ He said goodbye to Rosie and the Frenchmen first, and collected their Mae Wests. Vidor didn’t want to hang around; they had a few hundred yards to row – from the island’s eastern end, where he and Léon had beached their boat – and then that expanse of sand to cross before it was covered by the rising tide.
* * *
The gunboat was tugging at her anchor, outer engines rumbling, all guns manned and an O.D. still standing by the anchor’s grass line with an axe, as he had for the two and a half hours they’d been lying here, in case of emergency and the need to cut and run. In fact she’d be leaving in good order now, Ball having completed his second trip, and the dinghy inboard, being lashed down. There was a chain cable for the anchor, and a windlass, but anchoring would then have been noisy enough to be heard at the lookout posts – two of them less than 1200 yards away – whereas using the grass line, lowering and raising the hook by hand, wasn’t audible even in the gunboat’s bridge. When you’d anchored you weighted the line at water level, so that if it was cut on deck it would sink: otherwise the grass line might have wound itself round a propeller as the boat moved ahead.
Shepherd, the first lieutenant, murmured ‘Shorten in’, and two hands – Leading Seaman Mollison, second coxswain, and Ordinary Seaman Walbrook, the axe-man – began hauling the line in hand over hand, coordinating their movements with the rise and fall of the boat’s stem.
The weather was much as it had been when they’d arrived. Ben Quarry, in the bridge with his C.O., had expected worse, going by the forecast. With luck, this return crossing mightn’t be too bad.
Shepherd had come aft along the starboard side, past the six-pounder and the twin point-fives: his voice floated out of
the darkness down there, ‘Anchor’s up and down, sir.’
‘Weigh.’
Ben was in the bridge because at this stage the C.O. didn’t need to be given courses to steer. The blackness of Guenioc was visible through binoculars, and once the anchor was out of the ground P.O. Ambrose would steer her around it and then slightly west of north: by which time she would need navigating, up the narrow channel between the rocks to the La Petite Fourche buoy and from there more or less due north – with allowance for the prevailing tidal stream – passing over the western end of the Libenter bank. The echo-sounder would tell him when she was crossing it, as it had done during the approach.
‘Anchor’s aweigh, sir!’
‘Slow ahead both outers. Eight hundred revs. Port twenty.’
Hughes was increasing his distance from the island – or rather, from its surrounding shallows – before starting round it. The shallow fringe extended as much as six hundred yards, in places. Those two engines were in silent running, of course – Dumbflow silencers and underwater exhausts, systems which could only be used at low speeds, as now. Ben had his binoculars trained astern, over the port quarter, for Tariec: but it wasn’t visible. Only about half a mile away, but it was even lower than Guenioc. Rosie, he guessed, would be on the mainland by this time. Still with a long hike ahead of her.
He swung his glasses back to Guenioc.
‘Could come round now, sir. North thirty west’d do it. I’ll go down.’
‘Bring her round, Cox’n.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ P.O. Ambrose’s stocky figure ducked slightly, bending at the knees as he swung the wheel around. Engines’ rumble a deep growl in the night, roll and pitch increasing as she turned her bow into the wind and out of it again: the weather was on her port side then, and he was easing the helm to steady her on north thirty west.
Into the Fire Page 6