‘You’d have made it come right.’ He nodded. ‘Sure you would. I’m sorry, Rosie. Damn sorry.’
‘He was still a bastard…’
And she was a very mixed-up sheila, he’d realized. Or perhaps more accurately, a sheila in a very mixed-up state. Maybe the bloke in Baker Street wasn’t such an idiot after all.
* * *
And should have stuck to that decision, he thought now – with the gunboat banging along at twenty-two knots, slamming across a low swell with a slight chop on it and the white spray sheeting, brilliant in the sunlight – she might have settled for some job where she could have used her French and not had her neck on the block every minute of every day and night.
If she’d have accepted such a job, of course, which quite likely she would not have.
* * *
After she’d talked about her husband for half an hour or so, embarrassing herself by shedding a few tears now and then – well, it might have been the result of his own conscious efforts but anyway the tone of it all had changed and they’d found they were having a party again, instead of a wake. He’d asked her – in the Gay Nineties, he thought this must have been – ‘What’s the rest of the story, Rosie?’
‘Isn’t any rest. Told you all that matters.’
‘Well, where’s your home, for instance?’
Shaking her head, metronome-like. Already fairly squiffed. But so had he been: although there and then he hadn’t been giving much thought to that aspect of it. She’d told him – flatly, as if this finished it – ‘I’m here, ’s all.’
‘But when you’re home – family—’
‘Home’s where the heart is, didn’t they tell you?’
‘So where is it?’
A shrug… ‘God knows.’
‘Well.’ Nodding. ‘Glad someone does.’
‘Does what?’
‘Ask no questions, eh?’
‘And be told no lies. I swear – no lie shall pass my lips.’
‘Some lips, Rosie…’
* * *
The repeat of the broadcast about Giles’s father’s antiquity came after the overseas news broadcast. Vera Lynn’s now familiar rendition of ‘We’ll Meet Again’ had been interrupted for it, the signalman remarking to Ben as he passed through the plot on his way below, ‘I could tell her what we’ll meet again. Dinner and tea, that’s what.’ It was blowing up, and the boat was making hard work of it, down to twelve knots by this stage.
Might turn out all right – just – if it didn’t get any worse. Touch wood … You did need to be in there, at anchor and with the dinghies inshore, right on the dot. Two dinghy trips, in bad weather – cavorting in like corks, then struggling out against wind and sea with a load of passengers to slow you down…
Three hours’ work, he thought. Not less.
She was already rolling and pitching like something in a fairground. As much roll as pitch, and heavy jarring impacts as she drove through it, testing her hull-strength ten times a minute, with the green seas lifting to be smashed and sent flying back – solid, some of it bursting like truckloads of bricks against the forefront of the superstructure – this plot – and sheeting over and into the bridge, a fair proportion of it dropping green on the watchkeepers’ heads and some of the rest swamping over the sill and down the ladderway so that the plot’s deck was also running wet. The skipper and Don Shepherd would be wet through up there, despite their goon-suits. So would the lookouts – who’d also man the Vickers G.O. machine guns in any sudden emergency. In these sea conditions and fading light it would be sudden all right, any enemy you ran into would be at point-blank range.
He was glad they didn’t have Rosie on board this time. It was a factor he’d thought about before, on previous bad-weather crossings with agents to land: that they’d have enough to contend with even landing in good physical condition, let alone weak and empty, exhausted by hours of sickness.
Wouldn’t have wanted that for Rosie.
Didn’t want her anywhere near this business. Certainly not right in the heart of it, as she was. Compared to what she was doing, he thought, he might have been a bus driver… Glancing round as someone lurched up beside him, grabbing for support against a particularly savage roll. Nick Ball… ‘Some summer, this!’ He was dressed for the bridge, goon-suited, had paused for a look at the chart – clinging to the edge of the table, Ben making room for him, the gunboat at that moment hard over to port, bow-down and shuddering, foam sluicing over… ‘Would you believe it – July, God’s sake?’
‘Not dinghy weather, is it?’
‘Oh, we’ll be all right, don’t worry about that…’ This was the expert reassuring the novice… ‘Where’re we at now?’
‘Here. Give or take fifty miles. By the way,’ – he reached for his notebook – ‘we’ll be on a rising tide – see, couple of hours after low water – our friends’ll have made tracks – huh?’
To get back to shore over the sand before the tide covered it. The Frenchmen would put their party of airmen on Guenioc, and nip back while the going was good.
Ball was at the ladder, clinging to it: her bow was up and she was surging forward… He yelled agreement: ‘Beating the tide, and before it’s a full gale.’
Hughes called down, ‘Plot!’
At the voicepipe: ‘Plot, sir.’
‘I’m reducing to revs for ten knots, pilot.’
Christ…
He’d adjusted the course to south twelve west, to counter the tidal flow and wind from the same direction. He was navigating by dead reckoning based on a QH position half an hour earlier; the QH had chucked its hand in since that last gasp of usefulness, disliking the rough treatment it had been getting, and he was watching the echo-sounder now, hoping that it would soon tell him they were crossing the Libenter bank: if this didn’t happen within a matter of minutes he’d know he’d brought her too far west and could be running into trouble. He’d thought that from the bridge they’d have picked up the loom of the searchlight from Ile Vierge some time ago, but they hadn’t – which could lead to the same conclusion. On the other hand visibility was next to nothing, Ile Vierge was – should have been – nearly four miles away, and it was conceivable that the searchlight might not have been in operation.
Running on only the outers now, silenced and making about eight knots. Engines not only silenced by the Dumbflows but partially drowned out by the noise of the weather and the gunboat’s violent motion. Vomit-stink: which didn’t help much, tended to create a vicious circle. He hadn’t succumbed, so far. Don’t bloody think about it.
Fourteen fathoms under her.
They were going to be an hour late at the R/V. At least an hour. Hour and a half, maybe.
Five fathoms, suddenly. It could mean he’d boobed, was driving her into God only knew what…
Breathe again. Back in eleven fathoms – and there was a small shallow patch just to the north of the Libenter. So now – watching the sounder, praying that it wouldn’t pack up too… It had been known to, in conditions of this kind. Twice, in fact, both times at crucial stages in an approach.
Six fathoms: another abrupt shallowing. And – astonishingly enough – just about perfect!
Sheer luck. Not that anyone need know it. Correction, though: it wasn’t all luck: more like a combination of dead reckoning plus instinct and experience – and an absence of outright bad luck. Still, a hell of a relief… And another memory of Rosie, how he’d muttered despairingly to her that night in fog-bound London, Oh, fine navigator I’ll make!
Not that one would have done any better now, in those circumstances. Fog so thick you couldn’t see a yard – which of course was what had kept the Luftwaffe away that night.
Ten fathoms. The course couldn’t have been much better. Should have sailed at least an hour earlier, though. His own suggestion of an extra half-hour wouldn’t have helped all that much. He leant to the voicepipe: ‘Bridge!’
Skipper’s voice: ‘Yes, pilot?’
‘Sixteen
hundred yards to Petite Fourche, sir. Should see it fine to port.’
‘The buoy, perhaps. Probably not the rock – all broken water.’ Ben heard him yelling to Shepherd to look out for either. And of course it didn’t matter about the rock as long as the buoy was still on station.
Sounding now – sixteen fathoms. It matched the figures on the chart, near enough. The bow soaring – and falling away to port before Ambrose up there jammed on the rudder to bring her back.
‘Plot!’
Back at the voicepipe: ‘Plot…’
‘Petite Fourche buoy fine to port, half a mile.’
‘Right on, sir.’ No surprise in it, though. Since that sudden shallowing he’d known pretty well for certain where they were. ‘When it’s abeam, alter to due south.’
That would still allow for the tidal flow. But you’d need to stay clear of shallow patches from here on, patches she’d float over with room to spare in a reasonably calm sea but which tonight mightn’t be far under her keel when she was in the troughs.
Corkscrewing, meanwhile. Weather on the bow, Atlantic swell running in on the quarter.
‘Plot – Petite Fourche abeam. Coming to due south.’
‘Grande Fourche next, sir. Fine to port again – if visible.’
Rock, not buoy: in fact rocks, plural. He thought they’d be visible – like shellspouts, seas shattering themselves against them and pluming up stark-white against the blackness. Grande Fourche, and then the Brisante. When the Brisante was abeam they should have Guenioc in sight, and to the south of it – in the usual anchorage or perhaps a bit closer in – there might be some small degree of shelter.
* * *
At the first attempt the anchor didn’t hold. They had to haul in a few fathoms of the grass line while Hughes brought her in a bit closer to the island to try again, and by the time it was holding they’d drifted back southeastward by about half a cable.
The problem was the weed. There was a lot of it about and you had to drop the hook where the sand was bare or nearly so; in pitch darkness it was a matter of trial and error. Ben was on the bridge while this was going on, in a goon suit and Mae West – as the dinghy’s crews were; Ball, who’d gone aft to see to the preparations for launching, came back for’ard.
‘Bad news, sir. Second dinghy’s compass is U/S.’
‘Oh, Jesus…’
It was Ben’s responsibility, technically; a compass came under the heading of navigational stores, and he was navigating officer. He’d left it to Ball simply because he hadn’t thought beyond the fact that Ball was boat officer, and the compass would have been supplied to them with the second dinghy. They were ex-R.A.F. compasses, portable and luminous: and this wasn’t, Ball told them – wasn’t luminous. Or had lost its luminosity. Was therefore useless. (You couldn’t possibly use a torch – even if you’d had a spare hand for one – on account of the German lookout posts on shore. You didn’t even show a burning cigarette-end.)
He told Ball, ‘I’ll follow you – stem to stern, if possible.’ To Hughes, then: ‘All we can do, sir. We’ll get cracking, soon as—’
‘Anchor seems to be holding, sir.’
Shepherd, returning to the bridge. Seeming to be holding was about as good as you’d get, with no visible shore features on which to take bearings and check for any drag.
‘I’ll give you a lee, starboard side.’ Hughes added, ‘You’re aware of the time factor, uh?’
His way of saying, Don’t waste any.
The dinghies had to get away pretty well together, so they could stay in sight of each other. Shepherd came aft to supervise the launching – eight sailors, four to each boat, manhandling them over the rail in the pitch darkness and down to the sea with as little crashing against the gunboat’s side as could be managed.
Two Jacob’s ladders had been rigged – Mollison’s work – so the crews could embark simultaneously. Ben’s oarsmen were Abercrombie, a New Zealand farmer’s son and Davidson, a Londoner.
‘Over you go.’
Down into a cockleshell that was trying to smash itself against the side ten times a minute: the sea’s rise and fall was six or eight feet. Oars, and Ben’s scull for steering, were to be passed down once they were embarked. Hughes meanwhile had the starboard outer running slow astern to hold his ship beam-on to wind and sea and give the boats a lee. The effect wasn’t all that noticeable, but no doubt they’d have been worse off without it.
Course to the beach would be about north five east. The island had been visible from the bridge, through glasses, as a black hump extending over about fifteen or twenty degrees, but you couldn’t see it from the deck and certainly wouldn’t from the dinghy. You’d be relying totally on Ball’s compass and on keeping him in sight.
Davidson called, ‘Ready, sir!’
He climbed over. ‘See you, Don.’
He thought he’d heard ‘Sincerely hope so’, but the wind had whipped it away. Down the ladder then, transferring into the dinghy as it came to the top of its vertical movement, hopping directly into the sternsheets at the centreline as it started down again, the sea sucking away from the M.G.B.’s side, seething white: from his seat in the stern he was craning his head back to look up for a sight of the oars being passed down: as they were now… ‘OK, sir?’
His scull and the crewmen had their oars. A yell from the other boat as it swung broadside-on, Ball already on his way.
‘Shove off, for’ard!’
Bloody lunacy. But necessary, of course. And no time for saying prayers – even if anyone would have listened to them. Which wasn’t very likely… ‘Give way together!’
His own scull wasn’t for steering yet, he was using its loom to fend off. Then, clear of the M.G.B.’s side, he slid it out over the stern and into the slot in the transom: the two sailors in unison putting their weight on their own oars, driving the little boat curving up a wall of sea to crash bow-down into an abyss beyond it. Ball’s dinghy was visible only when they were both well up: it was imperative therefore to stay close, or you’d lose him.
‘All right, you blokes?’
Too bad if they weren’t… Heavy spray was bursting over but the boat wasn’t shipping much. Incredibly… The built-in buoyancy, of course, and the skill of designers Messrs Smyth and Nicholson. Rolling wasn’t the word for it, though; flinging herself from one beam to another every couple of seconds wasn’t bloody rolling. Scull in steeply and most of his weight on it, forcing the stern around as she’d sheered off course – he was on to the need for it very quickly, the need to keep Ball in sight. In a surround of black water streaked with white his view of Ball’s dinghy as this one shot upwards again was of some blacker object, shapeless but recognizable – just – with the white of the oars’ emergence showing up only through their regularity. There was comfort in the recognition, after each short period of anxiety when you didn’t have a hope of seeing anything at all: and acute awareness that if he lost Ball he’d be lost. Having no mark to steer by, nothing except darkness, no way at all of knowing which way into it you were pointing.
‘Doing fine, you blokes!’
Lashing spray flung it back at him. Knees jammed against the boat’s sides, the scull’s loom under his left arm with the right hand grasping it, left hand available some of the time for holding on and the dinghy doing its best to make that impossible, throw him out. He was glad in one way that he didn’t have a compass, which he’d have had to be gripping between his knees. Tall order – next to impossible, lacking Ball’s experience – jolting, explosive crash as she hit the bottom of a trough, sea frothing up to about gunwale height, oars’ blades dipping and driving her slanting up the next one – lacking Ball’s expertise, which up to now perhaps one hadn’t fully appreciated…
Searching the darkness ahead – in panic for a moment – his eye caught the glimmer of a light just briefly, out to starboard… Probably a false impression: ignoring it anyway, needing to find the other dinghy… All right, so you had the weather on the port side, this b
low straight out of the Atlantic, but regrettably it wouldn’t be enough to steer by, not within say thirty degrees… Christ, where—
There. Slightly to starboard. He put his weight on the scull to edge her round: roller-coastering, and juddering from the impact, but the two oarsmen working with the steadiness of machines.
There was a light there. Ship, or on shore. Shore, he guessed. Farmhouse window – or one of the German lookout posts?
If it was fixed, and stayed there, it would be a mark to steer by. Not with any accuracy, but as a rough guide: by keeping it at that angle to the boat’s fore-and-aft line you’d know you were going in more or less the right direction. If it was fixed, though, and stayed switched on, and visible. Couldn’t watch it – Ball’s dinghy was what you had to watch – or rather look for… Now – lifting again, bow up almost vertically then tilting over while the boat was carried rushing on the crest, on an even keel for a change and travelling at what felt like enormous speed, and the other boat suddenly in easy sight against a background that showed it up: surf-line, beachline…
‘Nearly there, lads!’
Ball had explained: with the seas racing up on the beach not at right angles to the coastline but slantwise, the tactic should be to approach the nearer end of it and then swing the boat’s stern to the weather at just the right moment to ride in on a roller which you’d have selected. Because if you went straight in with the sea on your beam or quarter when you got into the surf you’d be rolled over: a lesson learnt by trial and error in those frolics on Praa Sands… The light was still shining: one quick search in that direction, justified by – well, anxiety… Eyes back to the other dinghy then: clear to see, travelling from left to right: Ball had made his turn, was being swept into the thunderous chaos of the surf.
Into the Fire Page 10