The Horizon (1993)

by Reeman, Douglas

  The yeoman lowered his glass and added heavily, ‘There’s some wounded as well.’

  Soutter said, ‘Inform the chief boatswain’s mate. Tell the surgeon to have his crew ready.’ He glanced at the bearded lieutenant. ‘Slow ahead.’ He crossed stiffly to the compass, like a man who had not moved for hours.

  ‘Port ten. Steer South-seventy-East.’

  Rice passed the order and watched the ticking compass. ‘Midships, steady.’ Unlike a smaller warship the wheelhouse was deep down behind heavy armour, and Jonathan could barely hear the man’s acknowledgement up the bell-mouthed pipe.

  He felt the ship slowing down, her superstructure and funnels like painted bronze in the sunset.

  Down on deck he could see the party already gathered to take the pinnace’s lines, and the surgeon’s white coat as he gestured to some men with stretchers.

  The yeoman said, ‘One of the wounded is Mr Portal, sir.’

  Soutter acknowledged it, his head cocked while he listened to the beat of engines. The face formed in his mind. A cherubic midshipman with freckles. He had celebrated his sixteenth birthday when they had been in Malta.

  The yeoman added, ‘Don’t recognise none of the others, sir.’

  Soutter said, ‘I think you should see the midshipman, sir.’

  Purves seemed uneasy. ‘Why? I’m the last person on earth that young man will want to see just now.’

  Without looking Soutter knew the boat had at last reached Reliant’s side. Just in time. It would soon be too dark to see anything.

  ‘When they’ve hoisted the boat resume course and speed, Pilot.’ He turned his back to the rear-admiral. ‘He is the only one of my officers who has seen anything at close quarters, and besides . . .’

  ‘He may not live, is that what you were going to say?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Hooked on, sir!’ There were far-off shouts and the squeal of calls as hands were piped to secure the pinnace once it had been hoisted to its tier.

  Commander Coleridge appeared from the shadows. ‘Will I take over, sir?’

  Soutter glanced at his admiral. ‘Yes. I shall go.’

  Jonathan watched the rear-admiral but he said nothing.

  Soutter said, ‘Come with me, Blackwood. It may be useful.’ Down on the wet decks where the leaking hoses were still doing their work he added, ‘I’ll just speak with our visitor.’ He introduced himself to a tall soldier who wore a bush hat and a colonel’s rank on his filthy uniform. ‘Rear-Admiral Purves is on the upper bridge.’ He beckoned to a midshipman. ‘This officer will take you to him.’

  The soldier looked around as if he could not believe Reliant’s air of peace and orderly routine.

  ‘My God.’ He spoke quietly. ‘So this is the ship that was pounding those bastards for us!’ He sounded all in, beaten.

  Soutter said, ‘I shall not be running any boats tonight. We’re taking up our cruising station with Impulsive.’ His arm shot out. ‘This man will take you to my quarters aft when you have done with the admiral. My steward will look after you.’

  Jonathan could sense the soldier’s torn emotions as a distant explosion echoed against the ship.

  Soutter asked abruptly, ‘How is it going, Colonel Ede?’

  The man stared at him through the gloom. ‘You know me, Captain?’ When Soutter said nothing he shook his head. ‘It isn’t.’ He glanced at the stretcher-bearers as they vanished into the superstructure. Jonathan thought he might be comparing them with his own casualties.

  Soutter persisted, ‘What does the general say?’

  The colonel touched the midshipman’s arm. ‘Lead on, sonny!’ He was obviously eager to meet the admiral, more so perhaps to find some brief sanity in the captain’s quarters. He began to move off and replied calmly, ‘He’s gone; they’ve all gone. I’m in command now.’

  He vanished after the midshipman’s white patches and Soutter remarked, ‘I wonder how the other beaches are getting along.’

  Jonathan followed him through a steel door into the ship’s warm interior and her familiar, oily smell.

  The sick-bay was ablaze with light, the white-enamelled cots swaying very easily as the ship headed on her new course.

  Soutter waited for John Robertson, the fleet surgeon, to leave his work and join him. He was a tall, imposing man with long and unfashionable sideburns and a severe manner.

  Soutter said, ‘I want to see Mr Portal.’ He glanced at a cot with several sick-berth attendants stooping around it.

  ‘I must be allowed to do my work, Captain.’ There was anything but welcome in his tone. ‘I’d not interfere with yours!’

  ‘It is interfering with mine already, by my very being here. We’re five miles from the enemy coast and I’d be little use if anything unpleasant were to happen.’

  Curiously, Jonathan felt that these two men very much admired one another despite their apparent hostility.

  Robertson became very business-like. ‘The boy’s taken some splinters.’ He touched his own stomach with a large hand. ‘They did nothing for him ashore. He’s in great pain but I shall do what I can.’ He looked steadily into Soutter’s eyes. ‘To make the end peaceful.’

  ‘I see.’ Soutter removed his cap with the oak leaves around its peak.

  Robertson shook his head. ‘No, keep it on, Captain, for the boy’s sake. Just be yourself. It’ll make it easier.’

  The fleet surgeon looked at Jonathan and shrugged. ‘Otherwise we’re pretty quiet here.’ Soutter had reached the side of the cot. ‘Although I have a feeling that all that is about to change.’

  Midshipman Timothy Portal looked even smaller than usual as he lay propped up in the cot. Jonathan stood a little apart from the captain and watched as the midshipman stared at his visitor, his mouth tightly closed against the pain.

  ‘Very sorry, sir.’

  Such a faint, quavering voice and yet Jonathan had often seen him skylarking with his friends in harbour or during a make-and-mend.

  Soutter said, ‘Well, you got back, didn’t you? That was bravely done. I shall come and see you later on when you’ve rested.’ He reached down and took one of the boy’s hands. ‘What was it like? If you’re strong enough, I’d be grateful to hear from you.’

  The boy stared at him, his astonishment holding the pain at bay.

  ‘It was a terrible mess, sir.’ He peered at the hand on his own, the cuff with the four gold stripes on it which he had probably only seen at Divisions or when running errands to the bridge. ‘There was a gully.’ He screwed up his eyes to remember. ‘Men everywhere, dead and wounded piled up, and all the while they were shooting.’ His voice was becoming weaker. ‘Shooting. My cox’n and stoker were killed outright – and when we went to find somebody I saw the beach. Stores, ammunition – dead men everywhere – all scattered about or crying for help. But nobody came—’

  The fleet surgeon wiped his hands angrily on a towel. ‘I think that’s enough, sir. I’ll send for the chaplain.’

  ‘I’d rather you did not.’ His gaze lingered on the pinched white face, the grimace of agony, one eye drooping even as he watched. ‘Give him what you must, but spare him that hypocrisy. He is a brave young officer. Let him die knowing that.’

  Robertson watched them leave. Soutter carried them all. He glanced round at his petty officer. The midshipman’s father was a friend of the captain’s too. ‘Yes?’

  Another sick-berth attendant was drawing a white curtain around the cot.

  ‘He’s gone, sir. Best way, if you ask me.’

  Robertson walked away. ‘I’ll surely remind you of that, Essex, when your turn comes!’

  He relented slightly and beckoned to him to enter his private office with its shelves of vibrating jars and bottles. Then, reaching down, he pulled a bottle of Scotch from a drawer. ‘Have a dram, Essex. The last you’ll get for a time, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  But he was thinking of Soutter’s face, his hand on the boy’s dying fingers, and of the marine office
r who had been here with the captain.

  Was that why Soutter had brought him? To see what to expect when the marines were put ashore?

  He shook himself angrily. ‘Get this place prepared, Essex. I’ll have a word with the commander about taking over the storerooms through the bulkhead.’

  But the picture persisted, and the dying midshipman’s words, crying for help, but nobody came, seemed to hang in the air like an epitaph.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Waring’s eyes seemed to spark from either cheek as he stood, hands on hips with his back to the fireplace, and waited for the last Royal Marine officer to find a seat. None of the navy was there: the commander had sent word that even when off-watch the ship’s officers were to vacate the wardroom, in order that the Royals might hold this formal meeting.

  There were about fifteen officers present, ranging in seniority from Major Livesay, commanding B Company, and Captain Seddon of Reliant’s own detachment, to the lieutenants and subalterns from the various ships. Some of the officers knew each other quite well, others were total strangers who would soon be required to trust one another with their very lives.

  It was strange to see the wardroom like this, Jonathan thought, a place usually rife with complaints and laughter, the ship’s officers’ home until fate or their lordships decided otherwise. In the silence he could feel the gentle pulse of the great engines far below his chair, and saw the easy sway of the long curtains that divided the mess as the ship ploughed steadily into a light swell.

  Waring’s sleek hair shone beneath the deckhead lights as he gazed severely at the faces of his officers.

  He said, ‘You will all know our new orders, gentlemen. We are taking our place – our rightful place – in the line, in positions already seized and held by the Australians and New Zealanders.’

  Jonathan glanced at the tall Australian colonel who sat next to Major Livesay, and yet seemed completely isolated from them all. He had seen him during the day pacing the deck amongst the busy sailors, or watching a bombardment from the bridge, where he had been able to pass valuable information to the gunnery officer about the most suitable targets. When the six great guns had hurled themselves inboard on their springs he had remained there, had not appeared to flinch while the smoke and dust had eddied around him.

  Waring raised his black stick and pointed at the big map which had been hung beneath the portrait of the King.

  ‘Once we have taken over these positions, the Australians can fall back to rest.’ He gave the colonel a thin smile. ‘They will be secure enough in our hands!’

  Jonathan looked at some of the others. Young eager faces, some nervousness which showed itself in tightly-clenched fists, or quick whispers to a friend as if for reassurance. But that was usual enough before any real action.

  He saw young Tarrier busy with his notepad as he sketched out this small section of a formidable coastline.

  It would have made more sense to bring the senior N.C.O.’s to this meeting as well. Now they would all have to be told separately by their platoon commanders, and Jonathan had seen for himself how orders could lose their meaning once they had run the full length of the chain of command.

  And there was the debonair Lieutenant Wyke of the third platoon, touching his small fair moustache with one knuckle. He seemed at ease, relaxed, and just before this meeting had been heard discussing the merits or otherwise of the girls at the London Pavilion, the popular music hall in Piccadilly, with his second-in-command Charles Cripwell, who looked as if he should still be at school.

  ‘The drill is much as before.’ Waring was obviously excited. ‘The men have already rested and they will be fed as soon as a last weapons inspection has been carried out. We will then disembark to the boats provided, and be towed as near as is prudent to the beaches. By first light I want every man in position, kit stowed, magazines loaded, and ready for action – do I make myself clear?’ His incisive voice lingered in the warm air. ‘The fleet will continue to provide support beyond us and as far as the enemy supply lines, so the rest is up to us.’

  The tall Australian officer stood up, as if he had been waiting, perhaps, to be asked.

  Waring snapped, ‘You wish to say something, Colonel Ede?’

  ‘I do.’ Then he faced the watching officers and gave a brief smile. ‘Just a couple of points that are never in any drill book. Like most other serving officers I know and admire the reputation of your Corps – as I believe Kipling described them, “soldiers and sailors too”. But this is a different sort of campaign for you to fight. It certainly is for me. I think that many of my men were contemptuous of the Turks – thought of them as a cross between brigands and aborigines, something to stamp on and still have time for a beer.’ He leaned towards them. ‘So that you don’t make the same mistake let me tell you: Johnny Turk is one of the most deadly fighters I’ve come up against. They attack when they have no chance – when they run out of ammo they’ll stand bayonet to bayonet till one falls. Their weapons aren’t a scratch on ours and in many cases their rifles are single-shot relics.’ He had their full attention now and Jonathan could feel all of them hanging onto his words. Ede continued in a contained voice. ‘We fought our way into our present position just three days ago. Not a week or a month, but three days. I don’t know what the hell is happening on the other beaches but in that time I’ve lost a battalion. My men have been fighting day and night, no chance to sleep. We can’t even bring in the wounded – Turkish snipers are everywhere.’ The power seemed to drain out of him. ‘Just be careful. The Turk is a brave and dedicated enemy, not some kind of native.’ He looked hard at some of their faces. ‘Think how you would feel if you had the Germans coming ashore in England, shooting their way up the beach at Dover. You’d fight like men possessed if that happened. Well, see it from their point of view and you’ll have a better chance of survival.’ He was about to turn away when he saw Lieutenant Wyke holding up his hand. ‘Yes?’

  Wyke’s rather affected drawl seemed in stark contrast to the colonel’s blunt and abrasive manner.

  ‘But we are getting reinforcements, sir.’

  Ede said coldly, ‘So they tell me.’ He studied the young lieutenant’s sunburned features for what seemed like a minute and then said, ‘By the time this war is over, millions may have died at the rate they’re going. The Dardanelles, you and me, we’ll be forgotten. So when you take your fellows into battle don’t waste them. Lead them. Don’t let them die for nothing.’

  He turned sharply for the door with only a brief nod to Beaky Waring.

  As the curtains fell again into position Waring remarked, ‘Well, that was all rather disappointing, wasn’t it? A bit of sour grapes, I suppose.’

  Several of them chuckled.

  Waring continued, ‘Tell your men as much as you think best. But no heroics. We are here to do a job in the great tradition of the Corps. That we shall do. Carry on, gentlemen.’

  The chairs scraped, and they all stood up while waiting stewards and messmen darted through the curtains to prepare the tables for supper.

  Jonathan turned as he heard Waring speaking with the officer commanding Impulsive’s marine detachment. He was a grim-faced acting-captain named Peter Whitefoord who had made a lot of notes during the meeting. Waring said, ‘You will lead in the first boats, Captain Whitefoord.’ He watched him searchingly. ‘Yours is the honour. After all, Impulsive’s detachment has been together longest – not all fingers and thumbs, what?’

  Jonathan walked into the passageway where some of the ship’s officers were already waiting to reoccupy their wardroom. He heard Waring’s braying laugh and thought of his dismissal of the Australian’s quiet warning. Tarrier walked beside him in silence.

  Jonathan glanced at him. The next hours would be the worst. He said, ‘Go round the platoon commanders, Roger.’ He saw him start at the casual use of his name. ‘Impress on each of them the importance of drinking-water. Stop them from using it all up before we get replenishment. You can tell them the order�
�s from the colonel, if you like.’

  ‘Is it, sir?’

  Waring had not touched on the subject, even though there was nothing definite about the water replenishment lighters in the prepared orders.

  He smiled. ‘Would I lie?’

  Jonathan went to his cabin and looked around, imagining the Australian officers who had slept here. Were they still alive, or lying out there waiting for help which never came?

  His M.O.A. Harry Payne had laid everything out. Revolver, extra ammunition, and two water flasks. The old campaigner. A true blue marine.

  ‘After midnight then, sir?’

  ‘How do you feel about it?’

  Payne paused in his polishing and stared critically at the belt buckle. ‘Me? I s’pose I feel all right, sir. Not much I can do about it, is there?’

  Jonathan folded the writing case, which Payne had put ready for a last letter home. He had nobody to write to any more.

  Payne watched him gravely. ‘I’ve got a bottle of the good stuff in me kit, sir.’ He forced a grin. ‘In case it’s going to be anything like that last little lot in France.’

  Jonathan smiled. Payne was pure gold, as old Jack Swan had been for David. Maybe they would end up just like that: like dog and master, each fearful that the other would die first.

  ‘Nothing could be as bad as that, my friend.’ He seemed to hear the Australian colonel’s words to the debonair Lieutenant Wyke. Don’t let them die for nothing.

  Payne glanced up at the deckhead as the engines’ regular throb slowed, and then stopped altogether. Jonathan could picture it as if he were up there on deck. The great ship already in darkness, her upperworks black against the sky. Discreet and without fuss, and with so many of Reliant’s company at their evening meal anxiety and emotion would be at a minimum. Through the maze of decks and watertight compartments, he thought he heard the brief lament of a bugle, but it was so muffled it could have been part of a memory.

  The engines’ vibrations began again, churning out the ruler-straight wake which would carry them all to the enemy’s shore.

  In that same wake, Midshipman Timothy Portal would still be falling through the black depths where he would remain forever undisturbed.