Torpedo Run (1981)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Lincke had little time for the savagery of the SS, but accepted it. All information was useful. How you got it was not the fighting-man’s concern.

  The thought still troubled him, and he walked over to the bed and looked down at the girl.

  In the grey light she looked almost beautiful. The White Russians must have been mad not to see the inevitability of revolution.

  Lincke never considered the possibility of Germany losing the war. It was out of the question. But should any of these patriots or traitors, whichever way you saw them, fall into enemy hands, God help them.

  He stood stock still, suddenly ice-cold. All that work and study of useless intelligence material and it had been right there in front of his face. It was lucky none of his subordinates had thought of it first. He almost laughed aloud. It was so devious. So British.

  The girl stirred and opened her eyes. For a moment she was startled, even frightened. Then she reached out and stroked his skin. It was like ice.

  She murmured something but Lincke ignored her. His heart was beating faster as he considered the possibility of his discovery. A Russian pilot had been shot down and captured. They had found some maps on him. No doubt the airman had been taken to see the SS slaughterhouse. That should loosen anyone’s tongue.

  Lincke considered the idea of telling his new superior but discarded it instantly. He commanded Seeadler, not some admiral who knew nothing of these people.

  His second-in-command could inspect the boats today. Max would drive him to where the Russians were quartered, the ones who wore the uniforms of the Reich.

  Time was running out fast. If Lincke knew it, so would the man Devane. He had stayed alive too long to be a fool.

  Lincke stooped down and touched the girl’s bare shoulder, amused at the pathetic way she moved her body to please him.

  But his need of her was gone. There was work to be done. He pushed her away and shouted for Max, his orderly.

  When the door burst open and Max, dishevelled in a watch-coat, a Luger in one huge fist, peered in at him, Lincke said calmly, ‘I need a bath and a shave.’

  He noticed the way Max kept his eyes averted from the girl’s nakedness. That too sharpened his humour. It was going to be a better day after all.

  ‘Max, we are going to lay a trap for the Englishman.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He thrust the pistol out of view. What a man. You never knew with Korvettenkapitän Lincke.

  Lincke watched him cheerfully, then patted his thick forearm.

  ‘Yes, sir. That is all you say. Even to the jaws of hell if necessary, eh, my fine seaman?’

  He left the room, laughing.

  16

  Cat and Mouse

  Lieutenant Dundas climbed on to the gratings in the forepart of the bridge, staggering and waiting for a suitable handhold to steady himself.

  ‘Signal received from Russian escort commander, sir. He is withdrawing as ordered.’

  ‘Very well.’ Devane rubbed his eyes and peered abeam. But the escorting warships had already melted into the darkness.

  He noticed how Dundas’s breath drifted above the screen, and felt the rawness of neck as his collar rubbed against it. The first week of November. He could feel it in his bones and blood like a threat. Or was it a touch of the usual nerves?

  ‘Signal Kestrel and tell Red to check the launches and make sure they’re on station. Time enough later on to play silly buggers. But, until we hit the land, I want a tight formation all way.’

  He leant against the corner of the pitching bridge, his ears and senses taking in the labouring motors, throttled down to slow speed, the sluice of the sea against the hull and the boat’s sluggish response. Packed with fuel and extra ammunition, depth charges and spare machine-guns which Barker had borrowed or bribed from the Russians, the MTB felt heavy in the water.

  November. Four months since he had taken over command of Parthian. It seemed an eternity. It was as if all the rest, even Home’s death, were a working-up for this last operation. Not weeks away now, but a matter of hours.

  As they had prepared the boats and trained for a hit-and-run assault on the Crimean shoreline, Devane had waited for news of his enemy, Lincke. There had been practically nothing. A few sighting reports from Russian air patrols, but they could have been wrong anyway. The Germans had a lot of small craft working the coastal waters. The famous 3rd Minesweeping Flotilla had made a name for itself over and over again in its unfamiliar role as an attacking force rather than a defensive one. They had supported the German army, run stores and evacuated wounded, and had bombarded Russian positions on the notorious ‘death mountain of Noworossisk’. Lincke might have been with them. Then again, he might already know or guess what Parthian was doing. Biding his time, as they had done while they had waited for the order to attack.

  The fact that Sorokin had sent his four fastest and most modern launches to carry the one hundred Russian shock-troops proved how much he valued Barker’s plan.

  Devane thought of the men around him and the others in the flotilla. He heard Carroll humming softly to himself, a lookout whispering to the boatswain’s mate, who chuckled as he got to the point of his joke. Lieutenant Chalmers was aft, checking the depth charges. Soon he would be on the forecastle, doing the same with Leading Seaman Priest’s six-pounder. He never seemed to rest or sleep, as if he was driven by some terrible urge or memory.

  A seaman had the helm, and he guessed that Pellegrine was below in his mess, preparing himself as he always did before an action. A real old sweat. Money and paybook in an oilskin pouch. A small flask of rum in one pocket, a spare bulb for his life-jacket lamp. Ready for anything, was the coxswain.

  He heard Leading Seaman Hanlon say sarcastically, ‘Come on, la, what’s up with yer? You’re like a spare part at a bleedin’ weddin’, you know that?’ His hard Liverpool accent seemed at odds with the Black Sea, Devane thought. He was probably having a go at Ordinary Seaman Metcalf again. Those two seemed to hate each other more than the enemy.

  Dundas came back rubbing his hands. ‘All checked, sir. Boats on station. Feels a bit lively. We may be in for a blow.’

  He knew that Devane did not need telling. It was something to say. To contain the innermost thoughts.

  Four MTBs making a tight box formation, with the launches close astern. Eight low shapes heading towards the land. The escorting vessels had turned away in good time to avoid being detected. Orel’s supporting gunboats were closing in from the south-east, like the jaws of a trap. If Lincke took the bait, Orel would catch him. If he did not, the raid would cause enough panic anyway to help the main Russian thrust across the Kirch Strait.

  ‘Time?’ Devane moved to the opposite side to look for Mackay’s boat.

  ‘Two minutes to midnight, sir.’ That was Carroll, ready and on the ball.

  Devane considered it, as if he could still see the plan, the neat lines and cheerful flags on Barker’s plot-table.

  The point of attack was a small niche in the coast named Suzrov, some twenty miles north-east of Krasnoarmeisk. It was a safe part of the peninsula as far as the enemy were concerned. There was an extension to the minefield, some difficult shoals inshore, and lastly, the area was known to be zeroed in for two artillery batteries. The latter were controlled by a RDF station which the Germans had positioned in a bombed building which had once been a church.

  A straightforward attack. They had done it several times in the Med and in the Adriatic.

  Pellegrine’s untidy shape appeared on the bridge, and he grunted as he took over the wheel.

  ‘Course, north twenty west, Swain.’

  Dundas peered at his watch. ‘Action stations, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Most of them will be there already anyway.’ It was always the same. Not easy to rest when you most needed it, with only three planks of mahogany between you and the sea.

  Someone gave a little cry as the sky was bathed in deep red. Later, much later it seemed to the watching sailors, they heard the sullen rumble
of guns. Miles and miles away, a night attack had been disturbed or scattered. Or a sentry had allowed his nerves to change shadows into advancing enemies.

  ‘Two minutes past midnight, sir. Parthian at action stations.’ Then the age-old chestnut, ‘Enemy coast somewhere in the vicinity.’

  Devane smiled and shrugged his shoulders deeper into his waterproof suit.

  It was so easy, in spite of the danger, to let your mind drift. Like a man will fall asleep quite happily and freeze to death, or a motorist will doze off at the wheel of a fast car.

  It was always there, waiting to tempt him. Claudia’s arms around him, pulling him closer, their words lost in each other’s hair as they had fought off the daylight. The last moments also were only too stark. Breaking the contact, turning away to the street where a car had waited to carry him to the airstrip. He had looked back just once. Now, in retrospect, it was like a still-life painting. The pale house and the clear sky. The girl in the doorway shading her eyes to see him, to hide the tears.

  By now she would be in England. In Devon again. But his mind refused to accept it. She was still there, in that quiet room, waiting for him.

  A dull thud jerked him back to the present. A hatch slammed shut. Or a man falling headlong as the boat caught him unawares.

  Dundas hovered by his elbow. ‘I’ll get down aft, sir.’

  Devane saw that Chalmers had come to the bridge. In a stunt like this one, it would be safer to have Dundas working with men he knew and who trusted him. Chalmers could take over the bridge if his CO bought it.

  ‘Warn the engine room. Minimum revs in about ten minutes.’ He could feel the towel which he had tucked around his neck getting damper with spray, or was it the sweat of fear? He realized Dundas was still there. ‘Something wrong, Number One?’

  Dundas fumbled with his coat and the heavy pistol-belt he had donned.

  ‘Good luck, Skipper. In case. . . .’ He sounded awkward. ‘You know.’

  Devane was moved. ‘Keep your head down.’ He felt shocked by his own words. What Beresford had often said. It sounded like a betrayal. They had barely spoken since that evening, and then on matters of routine.

  ‘One more time.’ Devane looked at Chalmers, but he was standing a hundred miles away, or could have been. Searching the darkness ahead. Poised, taut like a spring. Maybe he had heard those same words when his boat had been blown up at Sicily. He knew their true value.

  Pellegrine shifted his seaboots and muttered, ‘What wouldn’t I give right now for a few jars at the Nelson, then back ’ome for a bit of the other.’

  Metcalf, who was acting as spare hand on the bridge, asked, ‘The other what, Cox’n?’

  Pellegrine glared at the darkness. ‘Gawd Almighty!’

  Carroll and some of the others laughed, and Dundas said, ‘No bother there, sir.’ Then he climbed down and disappeared aft.

  The minutes ticked past and still nothing happened. The sea’s motion became less violent, and Devane knew it was because the land was creeping out on the port bow to shield them from open water. But no flares burst overhead, no tracer ripped past their slow approach to destroy their puny challenge.

  ‘Dead slow. Tell the first lieutenant to keep a close watch astern for the launches.’

  Orel had handpicked his men. Men who knew the coast. Some perhaps who had lived there, who would be waiting for victory, yet dreading what they would discover.

  Another dull glow lit up the sky, but with a difference. The bottom of it was black and uneven, something solid.

  ‘Enemy coast ahead, sir!’ No jokes this time.

  ‘All guns stand by.’ Devane licked his lips. They felt as if they were glued together. Come on, Jerry. What the hell’s got into you?

  The motors sounded louder now, and he wondered if anyone on the shore had heard them yet. Guns manned and pointing at Parthian, at him. The local airfield alerted so that even the survivors would be strafed into oblivion.

  Devane thought of Lincke and was suddenly calm. It did not matter how either of them felt. They had to prove something. To settle a score which had already cost too many lives.

  ‘Here come the launches, sir.’

  Four low shapes. Like long predators, darker than the water which held them, as they overtook their escorts and swept towards the shore. Not even a sound or a glint of metal to betray them. It made them all the more sinister.

  Devane had seen the soldiers, tough and hard-faced, being mustered to collect their various weapons and equipment. The other Russians who had changed sides because of the old hatred left by the revolution would find no mercy or quarter there.

  A seaman said fiercely, ‘God, how much bloody longer?’

  Pellegrine snapped, ‘Silence! As long as it takes, see?’

  Devane readjusted his night glasses. In a matter of hours the big push across the Kirch Strait would begin. Russian troops on the Crimea for the first time since the big retreat when hundreds of thousands of men, Russian and German, had frozen to death.

  Once across the minefields which the enemy had laid in the strait, and on to the peninsula, it all depended on planned support and no shortages of ammunition, and men to replace the casualties.

  Far to starboard a flare burst against the clouds. But it was over the land and no immediate threat. Devane saw the familiar faces suddenly clear and pale in the light. Men he had come to know and respect.

  Another flare, even further to starboard. Someone was getting nervous, or suspicious.

  Devane heard the sudden splutter of water as the boat’s outlets were forced deep into the sea by the off-shore swell. Like a nervous animal scenting danger, when there was none to see.

  The port machine-gunner nestled more firmly against his twin guns and repeated over and over, ‘Come on, yew bastards! Let’s be ’avin’ yew!’

  The six-pounder moved very slowly from bow to bow on its power-operated mounting, and Devane could imagine the tough leading hand behind it, the ‘skate’ from Manchester who had been with Seymour when he had been cut down. He wondered if Priest was thinking of his women and his brawls ashore now.

  Another shadow loomed above the water, and Devane knew they were as near as they could expect to get. They would have to stop and take stock of their bearings soon. Once again he was amazed that it had been so easy. Perhaps on this part of the Crimea the troops felt safe. A secure distance from the real front and the savagely contested strait.

  Carroll said in a whisper, ‘The Ruskies must be ashore by now!’

  Devane could picture them creeping up into the rugged darkness with their weapons out and ready. A knife for the throat of an unwary sentry, grenades for the weapon slits and blockhouses, burp-guns and mortars for the real work.

  A launch glided past and Devane let out a slow breath. It was empty. At least twenty-five heavily armed men were ashore and undiscovered.

  The tension was unbearable, and when something metal clattered across the engine room Devane thought for an instant it would make the machine-gunners overreact with a burst of tracer.

  A second launch moved abeam, and Devane saw a figure waving a white flag or a handkerchief as he passed.

  Chalmers said bitterly, ‘He’s well out of it.’

  Devane turned his head to look at him when the whole bridge and fore deck lit up with a single explosion. It came from high up, and for a moment longer he thought they had been tracked by a shore battery. Then he saw the flashes along the shoreline, sharp and deadily, as grenades were flung into dugouts and bunkers. The first explosion had barely died when it flared up again with livid brightness. Great flames leapt towards the clouds, and Devane saw what he guessed to be blazing fuel running down a slope like molten lava.

  ‘Starboard ten. Slow ahead all engines.’

  The deck vibrated confidently, and Devane smelt the high-octane as Ackland opened his throttles with great care.

  There was a lot of firing now, small-arms and light automatic weapons which seemed to fan out from the landing poi
nt, the progress marked by little stabs of fire and the occasional bright star of a grenade. A mortar was brought into use, and Devane heard the dull crump of bombs exploding further inland, the slow response from a German artillery position until it too was bombed into silence.

  All hell will be let loose now. Devane watched the flashes and listened to the brittle clatter of machine-guns. A tall, tree-shaped burst of flame lit up the land and the water’s edge where one of the launches was trying to stay in position, and Devane guessed that the raiders had blown up the RDF station.

  ‘Twenty minutes past midnight, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Remind me at the half-hour, Bunts.’

  Across the water, Devane heard a grinding roar of tracks, magnified by the sloping wedge of land. Tanks or troop-carriers rushing to the scene, but still a long way to travel.

  ‘There’s supposed to be a road of sorts at about red four-five. Any armour will come from the town. We’ll have the advantage over them.’

  Chalmers said quietly, ‘For a while anyway.’

  The raid was spreading in both directions, and Devane could imagine the alarm changing to terror as the defenders heard Russian voices like their own right amongst them.

  The killing would be terrible. Devane found himself thinking of Richie. He would have enjoyed this, had he lived. The blind, white-hot anger which accompanied the slaughter and made men do things they might have believed impossible. Courage or madness? It was hard to tell.

  An explosion, very near the water, rocked the hull, and Devane heard fragments falling on the deck and splashing alongside.

  ‘On helmets, everyone!’

  Pellegrine steadfastly ignored the call. He had never been known to wear a ‘battle bowler’ as he called it. Nor would he.

  The raiders must have discovered another fuel dump, for that too was blazing fiercely, and some of it was running down to the sea’s edge to make a small fiery barrier.

  Metcalf said, ‘They’re throwing supplies into the fire, sir.’

  Devane lowered his glasses, sickened. Metcalf was mistaken. In the powerful lenses he had seen the kicking bodies, some of them burning like torches as they were hurled into the river of fuel. He heard someone retching helplessly and was glad that he at least had not become so hardened that he could watch human beings burned alive and stay unmoved.