‘Jesus,’ muttered Tanner, from his position at the port twin Browning machine-guns. Behind him, at the bridge, stood Vaughan, alongside the helmsman and Lieutenant Commander Jim Allenby. The Elco boat was idling in the water, some eight hundred yards out to sea and to the east of the town. Spaced out in an arrowhead formation some hundred yards apart, the other three MTBs were in their formation of four.
The raid was already proving a fiasco. The plan had been for forces attacking from the landward side of Tobruk to infiltrate the town and spike the guns, enabling the seaward forces to land largely unimpeded. Clearly that had not happened, because as the first wave of MTBs had approached the inlet of Mersa Sciausc, they had been heavily fired upon, not only from the inner harbour but also from positions further along the coast. One MTB had managed to land its men, but had then run aground and had been abandoned, while another had been shot up and sunk.
In the second wave, Allenby had led the group of four towards the inlet but they had come under even more intense fire from MG teams on the shore. One of Allenby’s gunners, Leading Seaman Holmes, had been shot, and the MTB had received a line of bullets across its side. Tanner had volunteered to take over from Holmes, but he had barely had a chance to fire a single bullet, even when they had closed towards the inlet a second time. Another frantic retreat had followed, and another MTB had been hit and caught fire. From his position at the Brownings, Tanner had watched the men and crew leaping into the water, some already aflame. Allenby had ordered his four vessels to turn around and a nerve-racking rescue operation had hastily been launched, the MTBs circling the stricken vessel and picking up as many survivors as they could under heavy fire. Tanner had helped haul two aboard – they had picked up six in all – but with tracer hurtling towards them and flak guns firing straight out to sea, rather than into the air, Allenby had not stayed long, returning to their current position where they had become little more than spectators in the unfolding carnage.
Tanner looked again towards the headland, where the attempted landing by the destroyers Zulu and Sikh appeared to be going every bit as badly as the MTBs’ landings to the east of the town. He faced the bridge. ‘How long do we stay here?’ he asked Allenby.
‘I’m not sure – hopefully not much longer. The position’s hopeless. There’s no chance of us getting into Mersa Sciausc now.’
‘You don’t think we should try again to get ashore on the headland and have a crack at spiking those guns up there?’
‘The men from the destroyers are trying to do that,’ said Vaughan.
‘And in those whalers – they’re not getting very far.’ A pall of smoke hung over the sea, the flash of guns and tracer filtered by the haze. One of the destroyers let off another salvo, but the return fire was just as heavy. A shell whistled over from the inner harbour, exploding a hundred yards in front of them, the blast rocking the Elco.
‘Jack, if we can’t land here,’ said Vaughan, ‘how the hell are we going to get to the headland?’
More shells exploded around the two destroyers. Bloody hell. We’re going to lose those bloody ships in a minute. Tanner felt so helpless, bobbing about on the sea, offering a target for the gunners in Tobruk.
‘I know you’re right,’ he said at length, ‘but it’s bloody torture watching those lads flailing about in those whalers. At least we’ve got some speed. We could maybe go around the destroyers and get a little further along the headland.’
‘I agree it’s a possibility,’ said Allenby, ‘but we’ve got to follow Commander Blackburn’s lead, and at the moment he seems to think it’s the better part of valour to hang back here.’
‘I’m more interested in getting out of here in one piece,’ said Vaughan. ‘It’s bloody uncomfortable watching good men getting slaughtered, but we need to make sure we can fight another day. This was always a cock-eyed plan and we’ve known that all along, so let’s just hope an order comes through telling us to get the hell out of here.’
The burning MTB was still billowing smoke, but then it started to sink, the stern slipping below the surface. Moments later, its prow tilted upwards and it was gone.
‘A good man, the skipper of 269,’ said Allenby. ‘I hope he got picked up.’
‘How many down are we now?’ asked Farrer.
‘Three,’ said Allenby. He leaned down to the hatch. ‘Barclay,’ he yelled, ‘any news?’
A moment later, Barclay’s head appeared from the cabin. ‘Zulu has managed to get three whalers ashore,’ he replied. Allenby crouched and called down to the W/T operator, whose radio room was just below the bridge on the starboard side. ‘Got anything for me?’
‘No, Cap’n sir,’ Barclay replied.
Another shell hurtled towards them, landing even closer and sending a fountain of water high into the sky. Tanner ducked, gripping the rail of the pilothouse as the boat rocked and spray lashed over them. He could taste salt on his lips, and smell smoke and cordite blended with the petrol and oil fumes from the boat.
‘They’re getting a bit close again,’ said Allenby. ‘Time to move, I think.’ As if on cue MTB 260, Commander Blackburn’s vessel, now sped away, further out of range. ‘All right, Wiggans,’ said Allenby, to his coxswain, ‘let’s follow.’
‘Aye-aye, Cap’n sir,’ said Wiggans, opening the throttle of the three Packard engines and turning them back out to sea.
Cutting the throttle, they circled slowly, as further out from the headland another surface vessel began blasting the coast.
‘Reinforcements?’ said Vaughan.
Allenby looked through his binoculars. The shape of the ship was briefly revealed as its guns fired a salvo. ‘Looks like a cruiser. Must be Coventry.’
‘Not much good to us over here, though,’ said Farrer. ‘Those guns from the harbour aren’t slowing up at all.’
Tanner glanced at the spectral image of the ships a couple of miles away in the smoke haze, then gripped the twin Browning machine-guns. Next to him, his fellow mid-gunner manned another pair of Brownings, while in front of the bridge at the prow there was a further twin pair of Lewis machine-guns, and at the stern, a single 20mm Oerlikon cannon. Either side there were also two torpedo tubes. All this firepower and we’re not doing a bloody thing. Nothing – except being shelled at and watching the unravelling disaster around them. Vaughan was right – he knew that. Even if they managed to get on to the headland, there would be little chance of them knocking out more than a couple of the guns on the headland, and none in the town. He looked at his watch. Two a.m. It would be dawn before they achieved anything, and by then it would be over, their chance gone.
More shells burst over the headland, the destroyers lit up like ghost-ships in the smoky pall. A flash from the guns of one of the ships, while the first, smoking from its stern, was pulling back.
From one of the MTBs, a blue box lamp now flashed. ‘Sparker!’ shouted Allenby. ‘Get your arse up here. I need you.’
Barclay scrambled up the steps, joining Allenby on the bridge.
‘Orders to retire,’ said Allenby. ‘Can you confirm?’
The signal was repeated. ‘Yes, Cap’n sir,’ said Barclay. ‘All MTBs return to Alexandria. No stopping.’
‘Is that Blackburn?’
‘It’s certainly 260, sir. That’s definitely Smithy signalling.’
‘How can you tell?’ asked Vaughan.
Barclay grinned. ‘Oh, you get used to the way people signal, sir. Everyone has a slightly different style.’
‘At any rate,’ said Allenby, ‘the fun’s over. Time to go home.’
‘About time,’ said Vaughan.
‘But we’ll need to keep a bloody sharp look-out,’ Allenby added. ‘Three hours until dawn and then we’ll be fair game to any marauding Messerschmitts and Macchis.’
They left the battle behind, although even twenty miles along the coast, the distant boom of guns and occasional orange flash could be seen and heard. Relieved from gunnery duty, Tanner went below for a kip, taking one of the
cots in the officers’ cabin near the prow. He was amazed by how smooth the vessel was, even at forty knots – that was nearly fifty miles per hour, a good speed by any reckoning – and in no time at all he was fast asleep.
When he awoke, dawn was approaching. Vaughan and Allenby were asleep in their narrow cots, as were a number of the crew and those rescued earlier. Carefully, he stepped over the bodies sprawled out in the low trunk cabin and scaled the steps to the bridge out of the fetid smell of damp and petrol. Coxswain Wiggans was still at the helm, alongside Lieutenant Charteris, Allenby’s number one, and Captain Farrer. Above, the canopy of stars still twinkled, while the boat’s wake showed a strange phosphorescence that seemed to colour the foaming water: rather than being white, it was silvery and glowing, almost charged with little pinpricks of electric light.
‘Peculiar, isn’t it?’ said Charteris. He was a Scot, in his early twenties, with a soft voice and gentle brogue.
‘It is. Does it always happen?’ asked Tanner.
‘Along the Mediterranean coast, it seems to. I don’t know why. It’ll be dawn soon, though, and then it’ll look as white as it usually does.’
‘White against blue,’ said Tanner. ‘Twelve or so MTBs will make a pretty obvious target.’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ said Charteris. ‘We’ve got a few uncomfortable hours ahead, I’m afraid.’
‘At least we’re travelling at a good lick,’ said Farrer.
‘We’re a pretty small target,’ added Charteris, ‘and our firepower isn’t bad, actually. Even so, coming under air attack is never pleasant. I’d rather be travelling by night, I must say, and lying up by day like we did yesterday.’
‘Why are we heading straight back, then?’ asked Tanner.
Charteris shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they just decided they wanted us back to base as quickly as possible. The raid has obviously failed. Let’s get it over and done with – that sort of attitude.’
Dawn broke, the horizon ahead of them gradually lightening, and then the golden tip of the sun burst over the horizon, light spreading in a swathe across the sea and over the coast. Tanner moved back to the stern and sat on a locker in front of the Oerlikon, his legs hanging over the edge, his arms on the rail. The speed, he thought, really was incredible, the brilliant white wake streaming behind them for hundreds of yards. Either side of them, spaced well apart, were the other three MTBs in their formation, their own vessel, MTB 270, leading the arrowhead. There was a kind of feline power to these vessels: just seventy foot long, but sleek, fast and deadly.
Presently he was joined by Vaughan and Sykes, the latter handing him a mug of tea as they sat down beside him.
‘This is the life, eh?’ said Sykes. ‘I’d pay good money to go on one of these beauties, and yet His Majesty’s actually paying me to sit here.’
‘As well as to get shot at and bombed by Jerries and Eyeties,’ said Tanner.
‘Not at the moment,’ said Sykes. ‘I can be grateful to His Majesty for that.’
‘We managed to get out of that hell,’ said Vaughan, ‘but it angers me that good men had to die in such an ill-conceived and poorly planned operation.’
‘I didn’t tell you this, sir, but even my barber in Alexandria knew about it,’ said Sykes. ‘He said, “I hope you have a pleasant trip to Tobruk, sir,” and I said, “What you talking about?” and he said, “Ah, yes, very good, sir. Top-secret, ha, ha, ha.”’
‘I’m horrified, of course,’ said Vaughan, ‘but not the slightest bit surprised. About two and a half thousand people have been involved in these raids. No wonder half the damned world knew about them beforehand. And no wonder those guns weren’t spiked. I imagine that as soon as our landward forces turned up, Jerry put them straight in the bag.’
‘Or had them shot,’ said Tanner. ‘Most of the saboteurs were German Jews from Palestine, weren’t they?’
‘Yes – and you’re probably right. My God, it makes me sick to think of it.’
Tanner said nothing. There had definitely been a change in his friend. Vaughan had always been so good-humoured. A real gent, Tanner had always thought, someone who liked to see the best in any person and any situation. But now a deep anger was boiling within him. Tanner didn’t blame him – the bloke was heartbroken, which had made the futility of this operation seem even worse than it was. Vaughan had had such high hopes, such good intentions for C Detachment, yet this trip had been nothing but folly. Poor bugger. He wished he could tell him what he’d seen at El Teirieh, and what he knew about Tanja. But he’d vowed not to. When he gave someone his word, he meant it. It was a matter of honour. Perhaps the truth would eventually come out, and perhaps one day Vaughan would get over it and return to his old self.
Tuesday, 15 September. There was a final briefing with Oberleutnant Berendt and Major von Mellenthin in the intelligence office. At one end of the room, half a dozen clerks tapped away on typewriters and answered telephones, while at the other, sitting on folding chairs at a wooden trestle table, Tanja Zanowski and Hauptmann Becker raised chipped shot glasses with von Mellenthin and Berendt.
‘Down the hatch,’ said von Mellenthin, ‘as the English like to say.’ He smiled, but there was no hiding the weariness in his face. Both men looked exhausted – dark rings around their eyes, patchily shaved and gaunt, their green desert denim uniforms faded and filthy. Beads of sweat pricked their brows, and Tanja now felt a trickle of moisture run down the side of her face. She was hardly a picture of health and cleanliness herself, and she had only been in Mersa a week. These men had been in this subterranean headquarters for nearly ten weeks, living with the sandflies and scorpions, breathing in fetid air that stank of sweat and urine and stale smoke, living off insufficient and monotonous rations that were barely enough to keep a small child from hunger. An enforced troglodyte existence in the one place that was safe from the daily bombing by the RAF. No wonder they looked so rough. No wonder Rommel himself was struggling with increasingly poor health. It was enough to make anyone ill.
‘I fear the conditions in Tobruk will hardly be much better, Fräulein,’ said von Mellenthin. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, Tobruk has found itself in the firing line, pummelled by us one moment and the British the next. I don’t suppose there can be more than half a dozen buildings in the entire town that are still unscathed.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Tanja. ‘I’ve been spoiled living in Cairo so long. It does me good to see how you soldiers are faring.’
‘And at least in Tobruk you won’t be living underground,’ added Berendt. ‘In Navy House I hear there is even hot water still.’
Becker looked at his watch. ‘We should get going.’
‘Yes,’ smiled von Mellenthin, ‘you should. I shall miss your good humour, Becker, and, Fräulein Zanowski, your charm and beauty.’ He bowed his head. ‘We are somewhat starved of female company out here.’
‘Certainly one can hardly call the Arab and Italian whores women,’ laughed Becker.
‘No, indeed,’ agreed von Mellenthin. ‘It has been good for us to be reminded that we fight so that we might enjoy such company as yours again – in more peaceful times.’
‘Thank you, Major,’ said Tanja. ‘I shall miss you both too. You have been perfect gentlemen.’
‘Then let me hope you will continue to think so by allowing me to escort you out.’
They finished the schnapps, and Tanja followed the three men out through the long, rock-hewn corridor and up several steps to the bunker’s entrance. Outside, dusk was falling. On the track below the entrance, the Kübelwagen was waiting. Seeing his passengers, the driver stepped out and opened the passenger door.
‘Good luck, Fräulein,’ said Berendt, from the bunker entrance, but von Mellenthin walked down the steps with her to the car, took her hand and kissed it lightly.
‘Goodbye, Tanja,’ he said. ‘And good luck. You too, Becker.’
‘Thank you, Major,’ said Tanja. ‘Good luck to you too.’
Through the f
ading light, they drove the length of the spit, past the harbour, now empty apart from a few lighters lashed together, and out of the ruins of the village towards the camp beneath the escarpment, several miles to the south. She had been told she would be going to Tobruk the moment her debriefing had finished the day after her arrival at Mersa. It was her lack of knowledge of the planned Allied raids on Tobruk and Benghazi that Becker had returned to again and again in her interviews. ‘But I did not hear from Orca,’ she had told him. ‘The lack of communication from him and the knowledge that the British were on the trail of Artus was why I contacted you and suggested the circuit be closed.’ She had stuck to her story and, it seemed, had been believed. Now the raids had taken place – and been successfully repulsed – it was safe for her to move to Tobruk, a bigger town with a bigger port. A place from which false information might be more convincingly fed back to the British Secret Intelligence Service.
They reached the camp as the last light was slipping away, and immediately boarded a truck, one in a convoy heading back along the coast road to Tobruk, some hundred and fifty miles away. Von Mellenthin had been most apologetic, but fuel was too precious, he had explained, even for a beautiful woman like her. It had required Rommel’s special authority just to pick her up from El Teirieh. Some blankets and two sleeping-bags had been put in the back of the truck – a thoughtful gesture – and Tanja took the hand the driver offered and sprang on to the wooden body.
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