The guns of Navaronne
Page 30
«Dan'l Boone Miller will now show how it's done,» Miller muttered. He edged closer to the machine-gun on the starboard bow. «With my little gun. I shall …»
He broke off sharply, his voice lost in the sudden clacking from the wheelhouse behind him, the staccato off-beat chattering of a signal shutter triggered by professional fingers. Brown had handed the wheel over to Louki, was morsing back to the harbour entrance, the cold rain lancing palely through the ifickering beams of the lamp. The enemy lamp had stopped but now began flashing again..
«My, they got a lot to say to each other,» Miller said admiringly. «How long do the exchange of courtesies last, boss?»
«I should say they are just about finished.» Mallory moved back quickly to the wheelhouse. They were less than a hundred feet from the harbour entrance. Brown had confused the enemy, gained precious seconds, more time than Mallory had ever thought they could gain. But it couldn't last. He touched Brown on the arm.
«Give her everything you've got when the balloon goes up.» Two seconds later he was back in position in the bows, Schmeisser ready in his hands. «Your big chance, Dan'l Boone. Don't give the searchlights a chance to line up — they'll blind you.»
Even as he spoke, the light from the signal lamp at the harbour mouth cut off abruptly and two dazzling white beams, one from either side of the harbour entrance, stabbed blindingly through the darkness, bathing the whole harbour in their savage glare — a glare that lasted for only a fleeting second of time, yielded to a contrastingly stygian darkness as two brief bursts of machine-gun fire smashed them into uselessness. From such short range it had been almost impossible to miss.
«Get down, everyone!» Mallory shouted. «Flat on the deck!»
The echoes of the gunfire were dying away, the reverberations fading along the great sea wall of the fortress when Casey Brown cut in all six cylinders of the engine and opened the throttle wide, the surging roar of the big Diesel blotting out all other sounds in the night. Five seconds, ten seconds, they were passing through the entrance, fifteen, twenty, still not a shot fired, half a minute and they were well clear, bows lifting high out of the water, the deep-dipped stern trailing its long, seething ribbon of phosphorescent white as the engine crescendoed to its clamorous maximum power and Brown pulled the heeling craft sharply round to starboard, seeking the protection of the steep-walled cliffs.
«A desperate battle, boss, but the better men won.» Miller was on his feet now, clinging to a mounted gun for support as the deck canted away beneath his feet. «My grandchildren shall hear of this.»
«Guards probably all up searching the town. Or maybe there were some poor blokes behind these searchlights. Or maybe we just took 'em all by surprise.» Mallory shook his head. «Anyway you take it, we're just plain damn' lucky.»
He moved aft, into the wheelhouse. Brown was at the wheel, Louki almost crowing with delight
«That was magnificent, Casey,» Mallory said sincerely. «A first-class job of work. Cut the engine when we come to the end of the cliffs. Our job's done. I'm going ashore.»
«You don't have to, Major.»
Mallory turned. «What's that?»
«You don't have to. I tried to tell you on the way down, but you kept telling me to be quiet.» Louki sounded injured, turned to Casey. «Slow down, please. The last thing Andrea told me, Major, was that we were to come this way. Why do you think he let himself be trapped against the cliffs to the north instead of going out into the country, where he could have hidden easily.»
«Is this true, Casey?» Mallory asked.
«Don't ask me, sir. Those two — they always talk. in Greek.»
«Of course, of course.» Mallory looked at the low cliffs close off the starboard beam, barely moving now with the engine shut right down, looked back at Louki. «Are you quite sure …»
He stopped in mid-sentence, jumped out through the wheelhouse door. The splash — there had been no mistaking the noise-had come from almost directly ahead. Mallory, Miller by his side, peered into the darkness, saw a dark head surfacing above the water less than twenty feet away, leaned far over with outstretched arm as the launch slid slowly by. Five seconds later Andrea stood on the deck, dripping mightily and beaming all over his great moon face. Mallory led him straight into the wheelhouse, switched on the soft light of the shaded chartlamp.
«By all that's wonderful, Andrea, I never thought to see you again. How did it go?»
«I will soon tell you,» Andrea laughed. «Just after—»
«You've been wounded!» Miller interrupted. «Your shoulder's kinda perforated.» He pointed to the red stain spreading down the sea-soaked jacket
«Well, now, I believe I have.» Andrea affected vast surprise. «Just a scratch, my friend.»
«Oh, sure, sure, just a scratch! It would be the same if your arm had been blown off. Come on down to the cabin — this is just a kindergarten exercise for a man of my medical skill.»
«But the captain—»
«Will have to wait. And your story. Ol' Medicine Man Miller permits no interference with his patients. Come on!»
«Very well, very well,» Andrea said docilely. He shook his head in mock resignation, foliowed Miller out of the cabin.
Brown opened up to full throttle again, took the launch north almost to Cape Demirci to avoid any hundred to one chance the harbour batteries might make, turned due east for a few miles then headed south into the Maidos Straits. Mallory stood by his side in the wheelhouse, gazing out over the dark, still waters. Suddenly he caught a gleam of white in the distance, touched Brown's arm and pointed for'ard.
«Breakers ahead, Casey, I think. Reefs, perhaps?»
Casey looked in long silence, finally shook his head.
«Bow-wave,» he said unemotionally. «It's the destroyers coming through.»
CHAPTER 17
Wednesday Night
Midnight
Commander Vincent Ryan, R.N., Captain (Destroyers) and Commanding officer of His Majesty's latest Sclass destroyer Sirdar, looked round the cramped chart- room and tugged thoughtfully at his magnificent Captain Kettle beard. A scruffier, a more villainous, a more cut and battered-looking bunch of hard cases he had never seen, he reflected, with the possible exception of a Bias Bay pirate crew he had helped round up when a very junior officer on the China Station. He looked at them more closely, tugged his beard again, thought there was more to it than mere scruffiness. He wouldn't care to be given the task of rounding this lot up. Dangerous, highly dangerous, he mused, but impossible to say why, there was only this quietness, this relaxed watchfulness that made him feel vaguely uncomfortable. His «hatchetmen,» Jensen had called them: Captain Jensen picked his killers well.
«Any of you gentlemen care to go below,» he suggested. «Plenty of hot water, dry clothes — and warm bunks. We won't be using them to-night.»
«Thank you very much, sir.» Mallory hesitated. «But we'd like to see this through.»
«Right, then, the bridge it is,» Ryan said cheerfully. The Sirdar was beginning to pick up speed again, the deck throbbing beneath their feet. «it is at your own risk, of course.»
«We lead charmed lives,» Miller drawled. «Nothin' ever happens to us.»
The rain had stopped and they could see the cold twinkling of stars through broadening rifts in the clouds. Mallory looked around him, could see Maidos broad off the port bow and the great bulk of Navarone slipping by to starboard. Aft, about a cable length away, he could just distinguish two other ships, high-curving bow-waves piled whitely against tenebrious silhouettes. Mallory turned to the captain.
«No transports, sir?»
«No transports.» Ryan felt a vague mixture of pleasure and embarrassment that this man should call him «sir.» «Destroyers only. This is going to be a smashand-grab job. No time for dawdlers to-night — and we're behind schedule already.»
«How long to clear the beaches?»
«Half an hour.»
«What! Twelve hundred men?» Mallory was incredulous.
Mallory nodded, let his eye travel along the slender outlines of the Sirdar. «Where are you going to put 'em all, sir?»
«A fair question,» Ryan admitted. «5 p.m. on the London Underground will be nothing compared to this little lot But we'll pack them in somehow.»
Mallory nodded again and looked across the dark waters at Navarone. Two minutes, now, three at the most, and the fortress would open behind that headland. He felt a hand touch his arm, half-turned and smiled down at the sad-eyed little Greek by his side.
«Not long now, Louki,» he said quietly.
«The people, Major,» he murmured. «The people in the town. Will they be all right?»
«They'll be all right. Dusty says the roof of the cave will go straight up. Most of the stuff will fall into the harbour.»
«Yes, but the boats--?»
«Will you stop worrying! There's nobody aboard them — you know they have to leave at curfew time.» He looked round as someone touched his arm.
«Captain Mallory, this Is Lieutenant Beeston, my gunnery officer.» There was a slight coolness in Ryan's voice that made Mallory think that he wasn't overfond of his gunnery officer. «Lieutenant Beeston is worried.»
«I am worried!» The tone was cold, aloof, with an indefinable hint of condescension. «I understand that you have advised the captain not to offer any resistance?»
«You sound like a B.B.C. communiqu6,» Mallory said shortly. «But you're right. I did say that. You couldn't locate the guns except by searchlight and that would be fatal. Similarly with gunfire.»
«I'm afraid I don't understand.» One could almost see the lift of the eyebrows in the darkness.
«You'd give away your position,» Mallory said patiently. «They'd nail you first time. Give 'em two minutes and they'd nail you anyway. I have good reason to believe that the accuracy of their gunners is quite fantastic.»
«So has the Navy,» Ryan interjected quietly. «Their third shell got the Sybaris's B magazine.»
«Have you got any idea why this should be, Captain Mallory?» Beeston was quite unconvinced.
«Radar-controlled guns,» Mallory said briefly. «They have two huge scanners atop the fortress.»
«The Sirdar had radar installed last month,» Beeston said stiffly. «I imagine we could register some hits ourselves if—»
«You could hardly miss.» Miller drawled out the words, the tone dry and provocative. «It's a helluva big island, Mac.»
«Who — who are you?» Beeston was rattled. «What the devil do you mean?»
«Corporal Miller.» The American was unperturbed. «Must be a very selective instrument, Lootenant, that can pick out a cave in a hundred square miles of rock.»
There was a moment's silence, then Beeston muttered something and turned away.
«You've hurt the Guns's feelings, Corporal,» Ryan murmured. «He's very keen to have a go — but we'll hold our fire… . How long till we clear that point, Captain?»
«I'm not sure.» He turned. «What do you say, Casey?»
«A minute, sir. No more.»
Ryan nodded, said nothing. There was a silence on the bridge, a silence only intensified by the sibilant rushing of the waters, the weird, lonesome pinging of the Asdic. Above, the sky was steadily clearing, and the moon, palely luminous, was struggling to appear through a patch of thinning cloud. Nobody spoke, nobody moved. Mallory was conscious of the great bulk of Andrea beside him, of Miller, Brown and Louki behind. Born in the heart of the country, brought up on the foothills of the Southern Alps, Mallory knew himself as a landsman first and last, an alien to the sea and ships: but he had never felt so much at home in his life, never really known till now what it was to belong. He was more than happy, Mallory thought vaguely to himself, he was content. Andrea and his new friends and the impossible well done — how could a man but be content? They weren't all going home, Andy Stevens wasn't coming with them, but strangely he could feel no sorrow, only a gentle melancholy… . Almost as if he had divined what Mallory was thinking, Andrea leaned towards him, towering over him in the darkness.
«He should be here,» he murmured. «Andy Stevens should be here. That is what you are thinking, is it not?»
Mallory nodded and smiled, and said nothing.
«It doesn't really matter, does it, my Keith?» No anxiety, no questioning, just a statement of fact. «It doesn't really matter.»
«It doesn't matter at all.»
Even as he spoke, he looked up quickly. A light, a bright orange flame had lanced out from the sheering wall of the fortress; they had rounded the headland and be hadn't even noticed it. There was a whistling roar-- Mallory thought incongruously of an express train emerging from a tunnel — directly overhead, and the great shell had crashed into the sea just beyond them. Mallory compressed his lips, unconsciously tightened his clenched fists. It was easy now to see how the Sybaris had died.
He could hear the gunnery officer saying something to the captain, but the words failed to register. They were looking at him and he at them and he did not see them. His mind was strangely detached. Another shell, would that be next? Or would the roar of the gun-fire of that first shell come echoing across the sea? Or perhaps Once again, he was back in that dark magazine entombed in the rocks, only now he could see men down there, doomed, unknowing men, could see the overhead pulleys swinging the great shells and cartridges towards the well of the lift, could see the shell hoist descending slowly, the bared, waiting wires less than half an inch apart, the shining, spring-loaded wheel running smoothly down the gleaming rail, the gentle bump as the hoist…
A white pillar of flame streaked up hundreds of feet into the night sky as the tremendous detonation tore the heart out of the great fortress of Navarone. No after-fire of any kind, no dark, billowing clouds of smoke, only that one blinding white column that lit up the entire town for a single instant of time, reached up incredibly till it touched the clouds, vanished as if it had never been. And then, by and by, came the shock waves, the solitary thunderclap of the explosion, staggering even at that distance, and finally the deep-throated rumbling as thousands of tons of rock toppled majestically into the harbour — thousands of tons of rock and then the two great guns of Navarone.
The rumbling was still in their ears, the echoes fading away far out across the Aegean, when the clouds parted and the moon broke through, a full moon silvering the darkly-rippling waters to starboard, shining iridescently through the spun phosphorescence of the Sirdar's boiling wake. And dead ahead, bathed in the white moonlight, mysterious, remote, the island of Kheros lay sleeping on the surface of the sea.
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