Grey looked up for the first time.
The Petty Officer stared back for a few moments and then said gently “ All you’ll need to do is follow my lead, it’s the way we all learn… bit by bit, poco y poco, as a Spanish bird I knew used to say. You were thrown in at the deep end when they made you up First Lieutenant, everyone knows that. You’ll have to learn while you’re doing the job, is all.” Stone sat down on the wet boards. “I had longer than you to do it all in. I grew up with good blokes around me on the mess deck. I knew how to act the part even before I’d got my first stripe. You’ve had it thrust on you all in one lump, that’s what’s wrong, mark my words. You’ll be all right, you see.”
“Yes…yes… Thank you, PO.”
“That’s the stuff, sir…Let’s start right away, shall we? Stone smiled the sort of smile you’d give a child on their first day at a new school. “Watch and learn, eh, sir? Watch and learn.”
Stone stood up, gesturing to Grey to join him at his side. Loudly he answered an unspoken question. “I see them, sir,” he said pointing, “So you want the lads to use them to build shelters at intervals along the jetty.”
“ Erh…Yes… PO… Carry on.”
“Aye, Aye, sir!” Stone said out loud adding, “That’s the stuff… sir.” under his breath.
* * *
The extra sandbags had been a wise precaution on the part of the Petty Officer, An hour of steady work had barely elapsed, the seamen were putting the last of them into place when the German snipers returned. Bullets kicked up splinters from the wooden boards, thwacked into the bags, zipping over their heads like angry bees. It would have been impossible to move on the exposed jetty without the hastily erected cover.
The puffs of smoke from the windows of a hotel clearly marked the enemy’s new positions. The Bren, returning the fire, managed to keep the snipers occupied while the seamen ran from shelter to shelter with the last of the sandbags. Grey’s visual signalman noticed his sandbag getting lighter and lighter. When he reached the end shelter he found a sniper’s bullet had slit open one end of the bag and a trail of sand ran back the length of the jetty. He threw it to the boards in disgust and flopped down, his back against the sandbags. He looked out to sea. “Sir!”… he called, “Two warships… just off the headland, to the north!”
Grey’s head appeared from the adjacent shelter as the signalman fumbled in his pack to find binoculars. “Destroyers…I think, sir…” He raised the glasses to dirt ringed eyes. That’s a ‘B’ Class leading them in.”
By now Grey had his binoculars trained on the distant ships, “By God! Petty Officer, he’s right, It’s the Dover Patrol! That must be the ‘Keith’.”
“It’s like the cavalry arriving in one of them Yankee pictures, called the signalman.
“Shouldn’t we signal them, sir?” asked Stone, wincing as a sniper’s bullet kicked up dust at their feet. Grey shuffled back into cover. The signalman, crawling on all fours, appeared dragging the portable signalling lamp. Mind reading was one of the attributes of a good signalman.
“ ‘Bunty’, said Grey, “make the recognition signal to the ‘Keith’ ask her…ask her...” he fell silent looking at Stone.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but she could give us some support against the snipers up in those buildings.”
“That’s …what I was about to say, PO.”
The signalman nodded lifting his Aldis, he sighted it as if it was a rifle and its light began to dance on the sandbags. Almost immediately, an answering glint of light came from the lead destroyer. The signalman sent the message, fast, pausing only occasionally for the long flash from the warship which showed she was receiving correctly. “They’re asking ‘where away’ sir.”
“What was it you said earlier, sir? Something about using the Aldis to pick it out… Wasn’t that what you said?”
“Erh?…yes.”
“ Right, you heard the Officer. Let the ‘Keith’ know what you’re doing and then illuminate the snipers’ position. But keep your bloody head down…don’t want you getting a packet… my Morse ain’t none too good.”
The Morse lamp chattered out once more and then the powerful beam of light swung around and steadied on the hotel.
There followed a short silence, Grey watched the ‘Keith’ through his binoculars. Abruptly there was a puff of harmless looking smoke that drifted lazily away on the breeze. Then an anticlimactic crump, a whistling noise that built to a screaming crescendo as the sighting shot flashed by, high over their head. The explosion shook the old jetty as if they were at the epicentre of an earthquake. A ragged cheer went up from the ‘Nishgas’, cut short as they ducked to avoid the debris that fell like rain around their position.
* * *
Stone, arms crossed, stood alongside Grey, as the two destroyers crept cautiously through the harbour entrance. “Not that hard really is it, sir?”
“What isn’t, PO?” asked Grey, a smile on his face for the first time since they had stepped ashore.
The big PO nodded slowly, smiling in return.
The moment did not last long, Grey suddenly grabbed Stone’s arm, “Quickly PO! They’re not coming alongside here, they’re heading for the other jetty. Leave two men here, tell them to pull in the gangway once we’re across, the rest to follow me at the double.”
Stone’s voice boomed out and the men scrambled to their feet, snatching up their rifles, shrugging hastily into their heavy webbing and rucksacks they fell in. Within seconds and at the double, they were moving off in the direction of the other jetty.
It was overflowing with men, dead, alive, wounded, French and British, civilian and military. The Nishgas pushed and shoved their way through, carefully stepping over the wounded and dying as they lay on their makeshift stretchers.
They reached the jetty’s edge, just as the ‘Keith’ came in on her final approach. Here, what had been a cramped and chaotic situation had developed into a hysterical and potentially lethal push and shove to be the first aboard the destroyers. For it was here that many of the drunken, rebellious soldiers that they had encountered at the first jetty had ended up. They were determined to get on the first boat out of Boulogne and to make good their escape before the Germans overran the town. They resisted all the Nishgas attempts to clear them away.
The destroyer came running in alongside the jetty like a steam train entering a station. She slowed, shuddered and came to a stop a few yards out from the concrete side of the jetty. Before even the first lines were passed, men began to jump across the yawning gap, reaching desperately for the destroyer’s guard rails. Before anything could be done several fell screaming into the churning waters below. Their heavy kit pulled them quickly under; dying almost unnoticed in the yelling and pushing.
Within minutes the iron deck of the destroyer was overrun with the drunken, hysterical soldiers. Orders were shouted from the bridge and, as if by magic, the mob began to scramble back onto the jetty. Quickly, an area, amidships, began to clear and the Nishgas saw a line of grim-faced seamen advancing bayonets fixed. Quickly, professionally and none too gently, they cleared the deck of their unwanted guests. In their wake other seamen appeared dragging a gangway between them, with Grey’s men giving what assistance they could from the overcrowded jetty, it was dragged into place.
With the restoration of order, the destroyer’s medical team began the task of ferrying the wounded from the jetty and taking them to relative safety below decks.
HMS Vimiera, rust streaked and soot-stained, glided silently in outboard of her consort. Lines snaked across between the two warships and within minutes she, too, began loading the wounded.
Suddenly shots rang out from buildings across the harbour near to the river mouth. Men ran for cover as bullets chipped sparks from the metal superstructure of the two warships. The fire was accurate and unrelenting. The stretcher-wounded, were still on deck, twitching and groaning as their inert bodies took the brunt of the merciless sniper fire.
The ‘Vimiera’
s’ two-pounder opened up in reply and great chunks of masonry flew like shrapnel from around the enemy position. The enemy and the fire faltered and then stopped. Immediately, men ran forward and the loading of the wounded resumed.
The enemy were now in the town in some numbers and remnants of the Guard’s Brigade, who only hours before had been landed at Boulogne to protect it for use as an evacuation port, were engaged in fierce hand to hand fighting in and around the old warehouses.
French troops could be seen, on the far side of the harbour, pushing cars and lorries into the water to ensure they did not fall into enemy hands.
The news of the arrival of the ships of the Dover Squadron quickly spread and numbers of civilians joined the hundreds of people already on the jetty. Men and women pleaded to be taken aboard. Grey’s men were appalled to hear British voices amongst them.
During the afternoon, in the thick of renewed sniper fire, the Commanding Officer of the Guard’s Brigade came aboard and the rumour quickly spread that the destroyers would be sailing before long.
A little while after the Guard’s officer’s arrival on board, men from the ‘Keith’s’ crew carried the body of a Royal Navy captain across the gangway. Only hours before he had gone ashore as officer in charge of a demolition team blowing bridges and railway lines.
About mid afternoon, two more destroyers appeared in the approaches to the harbour. Shortly afterwards the short range weapons on the ‘Keith’ and the ‘Vimiera’ opened fire again; their target, a high-flying plane which was slowly circling the harbour. It must have been spotting for other aircraft for it made no attempt to approach the two ships and within minutes of its appearance, the drone of approaching bombers was heard. The two-pounder’s rapid pom pom beat suddenly ceased. The Nishgas, looking up, saw a flight of Hurricanes had swooped down on the German aircraft, scattering them to the four winds. The fierce dog-fight continued while the men returned to their work. Minutes later the scream of Stuka sirens filled the air and again the seamen ran for cover.
The dive-bombers dropped from the sky, like stones, sirens screaming. The men looking up, could see the bombs, five-hundred pounders, slung beneath the aircraft’s bellies like giant yellow eggs. The note of the wing-mounted sirens began to change as they pulled out of their dives. Alongside the ‘Vimey’, a gusher of water twenty foot high shot into the air. Miraculously the bomb itself failed to detonate, but elsewhere, in the smoke filled dockyard, whole buildings crumpled and collapsed in clouds of dust from direct hits.
Exposed as they were, to sniper fire and shrapnel, the gun’s crews on the two destroyers were, inevitably, taking causalities and shortly after the Stuka attack the captain of the ‘Keith’ asked Grey for men to fill in as loading numbers.
It was a terrible sight that greeted these men as they arrived at the Bofors’ guns. Taking advantage of a lull in the fighting, sand was being scattered over the decks where they had become slippery with the blood of the killed and wounded.
There was a sudden loud explosion and a mortar shell landed on the end of the jetty. The throng of people ducked as one. A second explosion tore through the air, even closer to the ships. Evidently the Germans had a spotter somewhere nearby. A third round landed in the water between ship and jetty. Water and stinking mud from the harbour bottom covered the men exposed on the upper deck. Thankfully, the mortar suddenly fell silent, no one knew why, perhaps the crew of the mortar had been hit or they had simply run out of ammunition.
The main force of Germans were very close now, they could be seen, running from cover to cover among the ruined buildings and on the hillside above the town.
Petty Officer Stone ordered the unemployed Nishgas to grab rifles from the ‘Keith’s’ ready-use lockers and return the fire.
Grey appeared, ducking and diving along the length of the upper deck jumping over Kaki figures as he ran. He dropped down, panting furiously, beside his PO.
“Getting a bit close for comfort, Petty Officer.”
Stone squeezed the trigger of his rifle and Grey saw a distant German soldier throw his arms into the air and roll slowly down the slope until his body came to rest in a bush. “Excuse me French, sir, but I think it’s about time we got the fuck out of here.” He licked one thumb and rubbed it across the rifle’s foresight. “All our men are back from the ‘Keith’s’ gun crews.” He snatched the rifle to his shoulder and fired another round in the direction of the enemy held hillside.
“I’ll go up to the bridge and see what’s what. Stay here until I get back.”
As Grey sprinted forward, intent on keeping as much of the destroyer’s superstructure between him and the sniper fire, he heard Stones gravel-deep voice calling. “White, you horrible little sailor, don’t bloody well waste ammunition, Mark your target before you fire… the Navy’s not made of money, you know.”
* * *
Lieutenant Grey climbed the bridge ladder two at a time and arrived to…”Get your bloody head down if you don’t want it shot off.”
Everyone on the open bridge was crouching behind the armoured screens. Grey could hear a noise like a clipping hammer at work on the exterior plating. Two of the bridge crew were dragging an officer across the deck towards the ladder he had just ascended. Grey recognised the destroyer’s second in command. Both his hands were clasping his leg, blood pouring from between white fingers.
The bridge had become like a magnet to sniper fire. “Keep low,” yelled the same voice, “They’re after the officers, they already got the ‘Vimiera’s’ skipper.”
Grey crawled across to the only other officer left on the open bridge; a red-haired, fellow two-ringer. “I’m in charge of the berthing party what do you want us to do?”
“Unfortunately for you, the ‘Whitshed’ and the ‘Venamous’ are coming in now. They’ll need a berthing party, they’ll be taking off more of the Pongoes once we’re out of the way. Take my advice and cadge a lift off them when they leave. This place isn’t going to hold out for much longer.” He shrugged, “But then, I’m not in charge of your chaps, you are old boy, the choice is yours, stay on board if you like, no one will notice in this bloody mess.”
Just as a sound powered telephone shrieked suddenly, as a signalman called, “The ‘Vimy’s’ leaving!” The Lieutenant reached cautiously up and pulled the receiver down, from its hook, by its cable.
Grey crawled across the few yards to the signalman’s side. The ‘Vimiera’ was going out stern first, sparks flying from her bridge superstructure as sniper rounds ricocheted off her armour plate. She hadn’t even bothered to slip her moorings; she’d gone full astern and snapped them in two, their ragged ends hung down from her fairleads like dead man’s hair. As she came level Grey could see an officer hanging over the bridge screen blood pouring from a head wound.
The Lieutenant, now in charge of the ‘Keith’s’ bridge, shouted across, “ Our Skipper’s bought it, sniper’s got him, That was the Navigating Officer on the line. He’s taking her out, conning her from the wheelhouse, if you and your chaps are going, you’d better make yourselves scarce.”
“Oh!… I’m sorry… about your skipper, I mean… You’re’ right, we’ll have to make tracks…Thanks.” Grey crawled backwards towards the ladder as he added “See you in Blighty”.
“By God, I do hope so, old chap…I do hope so…Good luck.”
As Grey hit the iron deck running, he was already yelling to Petty Officer Stone. “We’re leaving, PO, get the men together.”
The ‘Keith’s’ engines were already going astern as the ‘Nishgas’ leapt for the guardrails. As they ran for cover they could hear the berthing wires singing under the strain. There was a huge bang from forward and the remains of the fore spring shot aft, with the power of a bull whip. As the screws madly churned the harbour water to murky froth, another wire parted with a bang and the ‘Keith’ surged astern.
Grey watched from cover as the destroyer’s fo’c’s’le flashed by, her decks were still crowded with dead and wounded. The he
ad of the ‘Keith’s’ Navigation Officer bobbed in and out of the wheelhouse porthole as he gave orders to the helmsman. Whenever the helmeted head appeared the snipers ashore opened up and sparks and chipped paint-work showered down like falling snow.
* * *
Minutes after the two destroyers had roared out of the harbour mouth, the ‘Whitshed’ and the ‘Venamous’ appeared through the smoke, their guns blazing away.
“P.O!” yelled Grey, “Quick as you can get someone back to the other jetty. I want the men there to stove in the planks of the sea boat, sink her under the jetty.
“Aye, Aye, sir, understood. We’d better wait until the destroyers get alongside, they’ll give us some cover.”
Grey nodded; he should have thought of that, he turned his attention back to the rapidly approaching warships, now only yards from the crowded jetty. The leading destroyer’s for’ard turrets suddenly belched fire and smoke and four rounds of H.E. crashed into a hotel on the water’s edge. It was then that Grey noticed the tanks that were her target. The two steel monsters disappeared under a mighty avalanche of dust and brick rubble, the whole front of the hotel had collapsed on top of them burying them completely.
Now that Jerry had tanks in the town, he felt the old panic grip at his stomach, tight as a vice.
Petty officer Stone appeared at his side, “I’ve detailed the men to take the wires, sir, and I’ve sent Gordon back to get the lads from the sea boat.
“Good man…Volunteered did he?”
“Not exactly, no sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is the Navy, sir. You won’t get Jack to volunteer. Not unless you bribe them with a tot of rum and we ain’t got any of that here, mores the pity.”
“That’s a very cynical attitude you got there, P.O.”
“Cynical…me, sir, no sir…Realistic, maybe.”
On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) Page 22