Frazer smiled, “Time to go.” He saw the ERA and his two stokers hurry along the narrow side deck. Did it mean they would all end up as prisoners, or worse? He had often considered being killed, blown up or drowned. It was common
enough in the Atlantic. But a prisoner? Shut up like a criminal was different.
Goudie said, “Be ready to hit the deck. They may have a few sentries around in spite of all the shit.”
The gunner’s mate peered up from the hold, his cap still at exactly the correct angle.
“All set to blow, sir.” He sounded very calm.
Frazer took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. Perhaps Levant’s skipper had been right after all about the cloak-and-dagger brigade.
A seaman ran towards them and peered from Petty Officer Gregson to Goudie. “I just seen Mr. Allenby, sir.” He was gasping for air. “He’s goin’ to blow the whole place hisself.
Able Seaman Weeks is stayin’ with ‘im.”
Goudie snapped, “What about Major Thomas, how far-” He checked his sudden anxiety and said, “We’ll have to set our delayed charges right away. When that lot goes up, we’ll have company for certain.”
Frazer seized the seaman’s arm. “How was he, man? Doesn’t he know the risk he’s taking?”
The seaman shrugged, glad to be away from it. “Cool as a cucumber ‘e was, sir. Bloody marvel.”
Frazer said, “I-ll wait here in case-“
Goudie jerked his head at the seaman and pulled Frazer to one side.
“No time for heroics. You go to the pier and take command of the boat. If it’s still in one piece,” he added bitterly. “It is why you are here. I will decide the rest, right?”
Frazer eyed him angrily. “If you say so, sir.”
Goudie said almost to himself, “Always trying to prove something.” To Petty Officer Gregson’s upturned face he added, “When, or should I say if, we ever manage to invade the Italian mainland we’ll not get farther than the bloody beaches unless we learn to hate the bastards!”
Gregson controlled a grin. He had known Goudie long enough to recognize all the signs. A good officer, but a bastard if you crossed him. He never forgot anything.
A seaman who had been sitting on the explosives called, “What d’you make of it, PO?”
“I don’t never think about it, son. I leave thinkin’ to ‘orses, they’ve got bigger ‘eads, y’see.”
The eighteen-year-old seaman sighed. Silly old sod. A real
barrack-stanchion. No place out here with us.
Frazer walked along the jetty. Two corpses lay on their backs near a striped guard hut. Their weapons and boots were gone, and one of them seemed to stare at Frazer as he passed, as if to make a last plea for life. Both had had their throats cut. Frazer thought of the glinting daggers aboard the Italian patrol boat. Near enough to feel their strength and their terror.
He saw Archer and two armed sailors with one of the marines. The latter had been slightly wounded and had his arm in a sling, a cigarette dangling from his mouth despite the obvious risk.
Archer watched Frazer warily. “We’re going for the boat, sir. “
“Yes. There’s nothing else big enough.”
One of the seamen cocked his head to listen. “Tanks on the road, sir. “
Archer glared at him. “One anyway.” He fiddled with his pistol. “That’s all we bloody need!”
A handful of Royal Marines ran past, one giving the thumbs-up to their wounded comrade. He shouted, “Two of the lads bought it! We’re going under the pier.”
Frazer strode on, his ears and eyes grappling with the menacing crackle of gunfire and the fact that landmarks stood out much more- clearly in the gray light. In an hour it will be full daylight no matter how dense the clouds are. If we get the patrol boat under way the most she can do is eighteen knots provided they’ve not sabotaged anything. His mind hurried on as he mentally pictured the chart. They’d not get far before the Jerries found them.
When he rounded the side of the headland where the construction engineers had carved it away for the jetty, he saw the pier, and towards the end of it the patrol boat which they had expected to greet them with open arms.
Everyone knew that once the Allies invaded Sicily and then Italy only the Italians caught on the wrong side of the line would remain loyal to Germany. Major Thomas must have convinced the patrol boat’s skipper that he would be well rewarded for his sudden change of allegiance.
Archer strode beside him and exclaimed, “It’s over. They’ve taken the boat.”
Frazer quickened his pace. It was strange about Archer. He sounded disappointed he had been unable to join in.
A black-faced marine, his sub-machine gun tucked under one arm, greeted the two naval officers with a chuckle. “All yours, gents. The Eyeties are under guard.”
Frazer climbed swiftly onto the vessel’s deck. She was sleek and graceful but armed only with two twin-barreled cannon. Some of the seamen were already checking them and fitting fresh magazines. One, whom Frazer recognized as their only signalman, was hauling down the ensign, his feet astride one of the dead Italians.
“Take charge, Sub.” He found he was listening. Waiting for that one last explosion. Wondering about his new friend Allenby.
Archer gestured with his pistol. “Single up all lines. Stand by to cast off.” The ERA and his two stokers stumbled below and with barely minutes to accustom themselves to the strange engineroom brought a confident vibration to the hull.
Frazer looked into a cabin; it was littered with papers and official documents. The boat’s skipper, he was about his own age, lay back in his chair, a pistol hanging from one hand. He still grasped a framed photograph of a young woman in the other hand despite the fact a bullet had blown away half his head. A sense of shame, or was it honor that had stopped
him at the last moment?
Feet pounded along the pier and he heard Goudie’s incisive voice call, “The Jerries are in the village! All guns train on the end of pier!”
He found Goudie in the small wheelhouse where Ives and the young signalman seemed to fill the place.
Frazer looked at him. “You’re not leaving Allenby?”
Goudie darted a glance at his watch. “Our own delayed charges will blow in fifteen minutes. Do you want to go up with them?”
Archer’s voice intruded. “Singled up to head and stern ropes, sir.”
Frazer looked round for some sort of engine control., but there was only a telephone. The ERA replied instantly, as if he had been pressed against it.
“Fine motors, sir. I can give you full power when you say the word.”
Frazer stared fixedly through the wheelhouse windows. He could sense Ives at the wheel, and could hear Goudie’s uneven breathing.
It was bad enough leaving a torpedoed ship in a convoy.
But even then you tried to do something. Goudie said calmly, “I’m waiting.” “What about Major Thomas?”
“Oh, he’s staying with the partisans, didn’t I tell you?” “No, you did not.”
He turned sharply as two of the wheelhouse windows cracked from top to bottom and scattered broken glass across the line-handling party below.
The hull lifted and surged against the pier, and for a brief instant Frazer thought they had been straddled by artillery fire. Voices shouted through the din, and Frazer saw the land up by the village suddenly blacked out by smoke and flying fragments.
Nothing and nobody could survive that.
Goudie seemed to tear his eyes from the swirling clouds of smoke. “That gives us just under ten minutes, so cast off and steer north. Otherwise a coastal battery might catch us before we can change course to the rendezvous.” He was in control again. Relaxed.
Frazer crossed the deck, his eyes stinging with despair. He recalled Allenby’s pale face in the bunker after he had spoken to the Wren, and again when he had taken him to his home to meet his folks.
He said, “Let go head rope, bear off forra
rd!”
He picked up the handset and waited for the ERA to acknowledge.
The signalman shouted, “Here they come, sir!”
Frazer stared. “Belay that order! Get those men aboard!” As the last line was flicked from its bollard and the engines
churned the choppy water into froth, Allenby, with Weeks on his heels, pushed his way into the wheelhouse.
Goudie regarded him impassively. “You’re late.”
Weeks chimed in, “He went to the ferry too, sir. Just to make sure the fuses were set right.”
Ives called, “Steady on nor’west by north, sir.”
Frazer wrapped his arm around Allenby’s shoulders. He was covered in filth and thick dust. “You crazy bastard, you might have been killed that second time!”
Allenby looked across at Goudie’s expressionless face.
“No chance. The fuse was incorrectly set.”
Later, as the patrol boat, with her dead commander lolling unheeded in his chair, worked up to her full speed and the sea parted across her stem in two creaming banks, they heard the final charges explode. Offshore it was too misty to see anything, but the explosion seemed to linger on, like sullen thunder over hills.
Allenby walked to the rear of the wheelhouse and stared up at the White Ensign which the signalman had found in the Italians’ own flag locker. Perhaps for a deception of their own?
He said, “I hope they got away safely.”
He knew that the others did not understand although Weeks would probably tell the tale later with relish. How he threatened to blow up the partisan leader if he refused to warn the villagers. Would they have done it for us? He smiled, the weariness dropping instantly from his face. Unlikely. But it was worth it.
He watched the land fading away in spray and mist, and a shaft of sunlight as it managed to break through the low clouds. It was like defusing a mine and rendering it safe. When it was done, after all the sweating anxiety and chilling fear, you just wanted to be alone.
Hemmed in by others as the boat tore across the lively water Allenby was still alone.
He saw two gulls wheeling above the masthead. I made it. Just once more, I made it.
6
QUITE A NIGHT
THE SUN BLAZED relentlessly across the tents and salvaged vehicles of Naval Party Seventy-Five. In the small bay the varied collection of small craft including the captured Italian patrol boat lay quite motionless. Only their masts and upperworks appeared to move as they weaved in the heat.
Allenby tugged down the peak of his cap and stared across the anchorage wondering how it was possible for so many people to keep out of sight in this barren place.
He looked at the Italian patrol boat and recalled how he and Weeks had been dragged aboard at the last minute even as she made to get under way. The feeling of wild exultation as they had thumped his shoulders and shouted above the din. Now it seemed more like a dream, some parts vivid and terrifying, others overlapping and vague. Their escape from the village had been without incident. That was almost harder to understand than their getting into the place undetected. Right at the prescribed time and place two powerful destroyers and relays of long-range fighter-bombers had closed around them for their return to base. At the time Allenby had seen their escort as evidence of their importance, a gesture to mark what they had achieved.
Goudie had waited until they had moored the patrol boat and had then put paid to any such ideas.
They had done well, but the true purpose had been to draw the enemy’s attention from another part of the Sicilian coastline, he did not say where, so that arms and ammunition could be landed for the main partisan group.
“They need weapons desperately. Men like Maroca-” he had spat out his name, “cannot be expected to fight with shotguns and shovels!”
Once in sight of the North African coast Frazer had stopped the engines and had buried the dead Italians at sea. Allenby wondered if any of the others knew Frazer had buttoned the dead officer’s picture of his wife or girlfriend inside his uniform before he was tipped over the side.
Allenby lifted the flap of their tent and ducked into it. The trapped air made it like a kiln.
Frazer was bending over a mirror and shaving himself with great concentration. He was naked but for his sandals and Allenby saw the way he snatched up a towel to wrap around his well-made body. It was automatic and nothing to do with modesty. Allenby had seen it once before, the great bum on his side, like rough parchment.
Frazer saw his expression and shrugged. “Just a habit. Sorry.”
Allenby sat on his camp bed and watched him. “How did it happen?”
Allenby was usually withdrawn, even shy in spite of the daily danger he took for granted. But there was something about Frazer. He made even sharing a confidence seem easy.
“Our skipper tried to get alongside a burning ship in a westbound convoy. He was a good man to serve under. Just a two-ringer, like we are now. He was usually so damned careful, and an ace at ship-handling. It must have been the freighter. She was Canadian too. Maybe he’ knew some of them.” He shook his razor on the sand, “Anyway, the next thing, we hit her, and the sea carried us into her again and then we too were ablaze.” His eyes were distant and did not focus on Allenby. He was back there in the cold Atlantic with
burning fuel demolishing life rafts and men with savage efficiency.
“I was picked up eventually. Not many of us left though.”
He lowered the towel and examined the brutalized flesh with something like hatred. “They say I was lucky. I guess I was. “
He saw the letter in Allenby’s hand. “News from home, you lucky sod!”
Allenby tried to hide it. It did not seem right that he should have one when it was unlikely Frazer would get a letter for months, even if it eventually caught up with him.
“From my mother.”
Frazer mopped his cheeks. “All right?”
“My dad’s not too well.” It was strange for his mother to mention that. She usually wrote about how they were “managing,” as she called it. “He insists on doing his firewatching. Doing his bit.” His mouth twisted in a sad smile. “Not easy with just one leg.”
Frazer sat down beside him and watched him thoughtfully. “Can’t be much fun, sitting on top of a factory or somewhere looking for. incendiary bombs every night, eh?”
Allenby nodded. He must be really ill. His mother would have kept quiet about it otherwise. To stop him worrying.
Frazer said, “I wonder how much longer they’ll keep us here? I feel like a run ashore somewhere. Even Sousse would have charm after this dump.”
Allenby looked at him. “I’d like that.”
Frazer asked quietly, “Have you got a girl back in England, Dick?”
Allenby stood up as if to adjust the tent flap. “Nobody definite, I-I mean not regular.” He looked at Frazer despairingly. “I’m doing it again, Keith. No, I’ve no girl.” A note of defiance crept into his voice. “I’ve had a few chances, but not the right one.”
Frazer nodded. “Like me. I feel I’m missing out somehow.”
Allenby looked away. Frazer, with his looks and his background, should have no difficulty at all. Whether he had much feeling for them was something else. But Allenby had never even touched a girl other than an unsatisfactory cuddle in a cinema, and a dangerously near thing with his commanding officer’s wife. Even now he sweated about that.
Nobody else seemed to have any trouble, he thought. He had listened to the seamen, and especially the watchkeepers on those long days sweeping for mines. Every time libertymen returned on board they were crowing over their conquests. The married ones seemed to be the worst. Perhaps he was inwardly afraid of getting some awful disease. The sailors even joked about that. “Getting a dose” or “catching the boat up”-they were not put off by the risks. It was even accepted in the wardrooms. If an officer was suddenly put out of circulation it was always referred to as “he’s gone to Rose Cottage for a while.” What
a name for a VD clinic.
He changed the subject. “We’ll be going into Sicily soon. They say that troops and landing ships are massing everywhere. “
Frazer said bitterly, “I don’t see Prothero’s Navy doing much, do you?”
The tent flap cracked open and Lieutenant Commander Goudie stepped inside. He looked as if he had been walking for miles and his khaki shirt was black with sweat.
They had not seen much of him except for matters of briefing and daily routine. He looked strained and his temper was constantly on a short fuse.
He regarded Frazer’s nakedness with a wry smile. “Better get dressed. Otherwise some of the lads will think you’re both having it off.”
Allenby blushed and Frazer said evenly, “It’s just a little joke, Dick. You’re full of them, aren’t you, sir?”
Goudie sat down on a box. “Give me a drink, will you?” Allenby poured him a glass full of neat gin. He was astonished the way Goudie could knock it back.
Goudie said at length, “Get your gear packed. All of it. We’re moving out.” He held out the empty glass for a refill.
Frazer said, “Is it all right to ask where to?”
“You’re leaving in two hours, so it’s safe to tell you.” He looked at each of them in turn. “We’re going to Gib. The Yanks are flying us there.”
Frazer sat up. “You as well?”
Goudie drank the gin almost savagely. As if he loathed it. “There’s something big on. Must be.”
Allenby said, “Good.” His gaze dropped as they both
stared at him. “I-I quite like Gib.”
Goudie threw back his head and laughed. “Don’t get too fond of it, my lad. I doubt if we’ll be there long. In this regiment we tend to move a bit sharpish when the word is passed.”
The mood changed again. “Anyway, have your stuff packed and ready. I’ll get some hands sent over to shift it when the truck arrives.” He wiped his neck and stared at his wet fingers with distaste. “Bloody heat. I’ll bet the Afrika Korps are bloody glad to be out of it. Poking all the Eyetie maidens in Naples by now, I shouldn’t wonder.”
The Volunteers Page 8