The Volunteers

by Douglas Reeman

  He groped for the telephone and said, “Lieutenant Frazer speaking.” It was what he intended to say, but his voice sounded thick and unreal, like someone else’s.

  He steadied his gaze on the wall. Telephone numbers and names, doodling as a thousand men had waited for a reply.

  “It’s me.” Her voice was right in his ear, and he realized she was half shouting, that there was a roaring sound in the background. An aircraft.

  “Where are you? Are you in trouble?” He was wide awake now. When she said nothing he thought she had rung off and he added, “Please, tell me?”

  She said slowly, “Had to call you. To tell you-” Her voice almost trailed away and the drumming engines intruded again. “Wanted to apologize. Bloody rude. You weren’t to know.”

  Frazer pressed the phone to his ear and covered the other one with his palm in case he missed something. She was either in tears or ill.

  She said, “Couldn’t let you go like that, now could I? Not the thing, is it?” She laughed, but broke off in a fit of coughing.

  “Tell me where you are.” He made himself speak slowly and calmly. He was anything but calm. “I’ll get to you somehow.”

  There was another long pause and he thought he could hear her breathing, pulling herself together.

  “Can’t be done, Mister Frazer, I have to go. Can’t say any more. You know, the war and all that-“

  He said, “Take care of yourself.” He hesitated. “Lynn. I’d like to see you again, I really would.”

  “Yes.” She sounded confused. “You take care too. Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.” The line went dead.

  Frazer rattled the telephone repeatedly before a disgruntled switchboard operator said, “I can’t get it back, sir.” It sounded like “even if I wanted to.” “The call came through the priority line. Bit of influence.”

  Frazer put it down and walked slowly back along the passageway. To his surprise he found Allenby sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

  He looked up and stared. “Is there a flap on?”

  Frazer shook his head. “Phone call. Lynn Balfour.” She must have been drinking one hell of a lot to get like that.

  Allenby said, “Lucky she was on the end of a telephone, Keith.” He grinned and Frazer realized that he still wore only his reefer across his shoulders. It hid nothing.

  Frazer looked at the window and saw the gray line of dawn around the heavy curtain. He pulled it aside and saw some lights shining weakly in the dockyard. It was the hardest thing to get used to in Gib, the lack of proper blackout.

  She had telephoned him. To wish him luck, or to say goodbye? What had he expected? She had lost the love of her life. She was hardly likely to lay herself open to that pain again.

  Allenby said, “Will you be seeing her?”

  “I hope so.” I must.

  He dragged the curtain aside and watched as a small aircraft lifted above the sleeping ships and the old walls of the dockyard.

  He was glad she was with Prothero. He would take care of her. She was one of his own. He let the curtain fall. Prothero’s Navy.

  He dropped back on the bed and groaned as he realized he had left the light on.

  The first bugle shattered the stillness. Wakey, wakey, lash up and stow! The call that had been cursed and blasphemed at by generations of sailors.

  Allenby stood up shakily. Not once had he remarked on the fact someone had undressed him.

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  Frazer thought of the girl in the deep corridor, the way she had looked at him. Seeing her dead lover, or was it that she knew something about the next raid? The margin of survival.

  Allenby watched his friend’s anxiety and dismay. He had known how Frazer had felt about the girl, almost from the start. He sighed and looked around for his towel. Then it came back to him. As if he had heard someone say her name aloud.

  “Joanna.” He repeated it aloud and then darted an embarrassed glance at Frazer. But he had fallen asleep again.

  It must have been quite a night, he decided.

  7

  JUPITER

  LIEUTENANT COMMANDER JOHN GOUDIE stood in the forepart of

  the motor gunboat’s tiny bridge and looked at his three officers. In company with the other craft they had left Gibraltar before dawn and now in the bright sunlight the Mediterranean had offered them its other face. The sea was flat and deep blue, and only an uneven purple line to starboard betrayed the nearness of land.

  Frazer watched Goudie: like the sea he seemed to have changed too. He looked cheerful, even elated. Perhaps this motor gunboat was what he needed, what he did best. The other officer was a sunburned youngster of nineteen, SubLieutenant David Ryder, one of the few members of the boat’s original company. He seemed very pleasant, and Frazer was thankful that Archer was over in the second boat, some two cables to port.

  The motor gunboats made a fine sight, he thought. They displayed no pendant numbers and their rakish, seventy-foot hulls were painted black, giving them the appearance of pirates rather than warships.

  Frazer looked across towards the land; somewhere over there was the unmarked frontier between Morocco and Algeria. It could have been anywhere.

  So far they had sighted a whole flotilla of destroyers heading east and a few patrolling aircraft. The latter had swept above them, probably to report their progress as much as to verify who they were. Frazer hoped that not too many people knew about Force Jupiter as Prothero had named them.

  Goudie said, “These MGBs handle well.” He was hatless and his sun-bleached hair rippled in the breeze like corn in a field. “If any boats can do the job, they can.”

  Frazer looked over the glass screen below which a whole line of swastikas had been painted out. The boat’s previous kills, battle honors. She was not very large, and had only a crew of twelve, but she bristled with guns, power-operated to give the full effect at close quarters, a two-pounder forward, a double Oerlikon mounting aft and four heavy machine guns. Her firepower plus an impressive maximum speed of fortytwo knots made her a deadly adversary.

  Tunis first to top up the tanks, then north to the Tyrrhenian Sea between Italy and Sardinia, one of the few areas which had not so far been fought over. It was just as well. They needed all the surprise on their side this time, and luck.

  He glanced at Ives, who stood at the wheel, easing the spokes gently this way and that as he got the feel of the powerful hull beneath his straddled legs. He looked content, as if he were riding the boat, testing her response. They were making a good sixteen knots. It would be different when the three big Packard engines were given full throttle.

  Ives was unaware of Frazer’s scrutiny. He felt at home here. What he had always wanted. A small boat, a sense of purpose as well as comradeship. In his view it had been wrong to abandon the Siebel ferry, to use the vessel merely as a bomb to demolish the enemy’s installations. A boat was a boat. Something to care for. He listened to the sweet growl of the engines. The dockyard had done a good job on them.

  He had heard Goudie speaking to his officers and put the pieces together for himself. Frazer was said to be a superb small-boat man and navigator. From what he had picked up, Ives knew that navigation was of paramount importance on this job. With luck they could use the islands around their destination to mask the enemy’s radar and other detection devices, if they had any. But they had controlled the whole of that area for so long, it could be their weakness. On the other hand, it was good to know they had a first-rate pilot. He liked Frazer, the first Canadian he had ever met. Allenby was on the opposite side of the bridge watching the other boat with his binoculars. Ives had decided that he liked him as far as he could tell. He doubted if anyone would ever really know Allenby, not in a thousand years.

  The two-pounder gun on the forecastle swung suddenly in its mounting and Ives watched as the gunlayer, Leading Seaman Sullivan, made a few small adjustments.

  He bit his lip. Sullivan was a Londoner like him
self. The one fly in the ointment. He was aggressive, loud-mouthed, a real Jolly Jack. Apart from the stokers and an artificer, Sullivan was the only other leading hand aboard. He had been brought up in Bethnal Green, not far from where Ives had once walked the beat. That last night in Gibraltar as they had crawled through the boat, checking ammunition, stores and food, Sullivan had made a few remarks about the police in general, and those in London’s East End in particular.

  He must have discovered about Ives’s background, not that you needed to be a genius to guess that. Ives was used to it anyway and took most remarks in good part.

  But Sullivan’s were different. He had said in front of the others, “They’re all bent on our manor, ain’t that right, ‘Swain?” He had grinned at Ives, but his eyes had lacked humor. “My old man’s a street bookmaker in the Green. Many’s the time I’ve seen the copper on the beat take the drop to turn a blind eye!” When Ives had remained silent Sullivan had persisted, “I bet if I’d said that when you was a copper you’d ‘ave said summat, eh?”

  Ives had had enough. “I don’t know what I’d have said then. But if you keep this up I’ll break your rotten arm, right?”

  Sullivan had stared at him, and at Ives’s obvious strength, which seemed at odds with his mild manner.

  They had barely spoken since. Ives decided he must do something about it. It was bad to go into action when you held grudges in your midst. He swore to himself and eased the spokes. He had allowed the boat to stray off course. Fortunately the officers had not noticed.

  Allenby watched the other boat with something like wonder. He had often heard the sailors aboard his mine-sweeper hurling insults when the MTBs and MGBs had cut past them in a welter of spray. The Glory Boys they had called them. The usual service rivalry, and not a little envy.

  It was exciting, breathtaking. The stealth and the danger would come, but the feeling of exuberance was as real as it was infectious.

  He thought of his father. Perhaps he needed building up. It could be no joke, managing on their meager rations, he thought. Time and time again his mind returned to the Leading Wren in Portsmouth. Frazer at least had made contact with Second Officer Balfour, whereas-He shook himself. What was the point anyway? It was likely they would never meet again. She might get a draft chit, or he could get his head. blown off. It was pointless to fret about it. But he could still see her eyes, hear her voice, the bitter words. He could explain nothing. His memory was wiped clean for those vital seconds before the mine had exploded.

  The telegraphist, their only one, who did the duties of signalman, coder and radio operator, poked his head through the hatch and called, “R/T from Able Two, sir. Aircraft at Red four-five, closing.”

  Goudie nodded and jabbed the button by his elbow. As the bells jangled through the hull and men in various stages of undress ran to their action stations Goudie said calmly, “Alter course, steer southeast. Signal Able Two.”

  The Aldis clattered briefly and the telegraphist called, “Acknowledged, sir!”

  Goudie raised his glasses. “There they are. Two of the buggers. “

  Allenby moved his binoculars, the reflected glare making his eyes fill. How did Goudie know they were hostile? Instinct, the sixth sense born of tough experience.

  He blinked and held the glasses steady on the two tiny shapes. The sun touched their perspex cockpit hoods, so that they appeared to be burning. It made sense now, the way Goudie had ordered his two gunboats to take station abreast. It gave a far wider span of vision, less chance of being jumped.

  Goudie said, “Tell the Chief. Be ready for maximum revs.” He moved his glasses carefully. “Sod it! I could have done without them!”

  “They’re turning, sir. They’re going to pass astern of us.” “Having a look-see.” Goudie allowed his glasses to drop onto his chest.

  Sub-Lieutenant Ryder reported, “Boat at action stations, sir.” He raised his glasses and watched the two aircraft pass into a shallow dive towards the water.

  “Me 210s, sir.” He sounded preoccupied and Frazer guessed he was probably worrying about the new men. All were veterans although few were more than nineteen years old. But in every ship, even a tiny one, the hands had to know each other, their strength or lack of it. But as Goudie had said often enough, there was never enough time.

  Goudie said, “Fighter-bombers but used more out here for reconnaissance.” He bit his lip. “How the hell did the Brylcream boys let them slip through?”

  Allenby asked, “What’s their firepower?”

  Goudie lowered his glasses and wiped his eyes. “Heavy. Four twenty millimeters, and some other cannon. Can be nasty.” Goudie added, “Clear the bridge, Sub, you too, Mr. Allenby.” He turned his back deliberately on the twin-engined aircraft. “Don’t want all our eggs in one basket.”

  Ryder was very young but he had done this sort of thing often.

  “Come aft with me.” He grinned at Allenby. “We might bag one of them with the Oerlikons.”

  As they walked carefully along the vibrating side deck Allenby saw that one pair of machine guns was manned by Able Seaman Weeks. Weeks was squinting through his sights, but said as they passed, “I had a notion you might need me, sir. “

  Allenby touched his arm. “I thought you were a torpedoman?” It was good to see him, no matter what the impassive Captain Heywood had said about friendship.

  The deck was bucking when they clawed their way aft amongst the racks of depthcharges. The stern was sinking as propellers and rudders dug deep into the wall of dazzling spray while both boats began to work up to full speed.

  “Here they come!” Ryder paused only to make certain the Oerlikons’ slim barrels were already tracking the leading fighter-bomber.

  Allenby turned to look at the bridge but the glare was hard in his eyes and it was just a vague outline.

  Ryder shouted, “The bastards are flying into the sun! They’ll be sorry!”

  Reconnaissance, Goudie had said. They probably carried cameras and even now were photographing the two alien craft in their black livery.

  Prothero would not be pleased, he thought. Perhaps the raid would be cancelled. Even as he thought it, he dismissed the idea. Captain Heywood would not be in the habit of visiting the scene of his operations unless it was important, maybe even vital to the invasion.

  He thought of Goudie’s sudden outburst, the way Heywood had ignored it. Perhaps they were more like weapons than people to the hawklike Chief of Staff. Expendable.

  The leading Messerschmitt had levelled off and was tearing up from astern, just a couple of hundred feet from the surface. The MGB ‘s mounting wash looked as if it might reach the plane’s belly as it tore towards them.

  A bell jangled tinnily above the throaty roar of engines.

  “Open fire!”

  The Oerlikons and one pair of machine guns clattered into life, the tracers almost blind against the clear sky.

  They did not hear the aircraft’s guns, but saw the shots ripping across the water, heading straight for the boat’s stern. Allenby almost fell as the helm went hard over and the sea surged over the low side like a millrace.

  Ryder shouted at the gunlayer, “Follow him. Taylor! Hit the bastard!”

  It was just wild excitement, the madness of danger that made him yell out. The gunfire, the plane’s engines and their own made talking pointless.

  The plane banked away and Allenby saw tracer from the other MGB lifting with the usual deceptive slowness like lazy scarlet balls before streaking towards the tilting plane and crossing it in a fiery mesh.

  Ryder yelled, “He’s hit!” He waved his cap as a long greasy trail of smoke marked the plane’s unsteady progress.

  The second one attacked from the starboard quarter, and this time Allenby felt some of the shots hammer against the hull and clang into one of the gunshields.

  Goudie altered course again and the two-pounder joined in the fight, moving easily on its powered mounting as the gunlayer tracked the aircraft until the sights c
ould no longer bear.

  Allenby had once known an overenthusiastic gunner shoot off half of his own ship’s bridge as he concentrated on their attacker.

  Allenby listened to the men calling to one another. There had been no casualties. A man ran to fit new magazines to the Oerlikons but paused to thump the gunlayer on the shoulder. They beamed at one another like schoolboy conspirators.

  “Stand by!”

  Ryder watched the fighter-bomber as it climbed up and away in readiness for another run. The sunlight glinted on the cockpit, and Allenby imagined he could see the heads of the crew turning to watch the two fast-moving hulls.

  He saw the black crosses on its wings, the strange green camouflage on its body. Probably from Sicily. He thought of the pylon toppling across the railway track, the stammer of machine guns, the sapper falling dead.

  The guns wavered and then held steady as the plane began another shallow dive. If the pilot tried to fly higher there was a good chance he would be raked by several guns at once. Allenby heard the mounting roar of the German’s engines, the harsh rattle of cannon and machine guns. The air was full of shrieking metal, and he heard several cracks and clangs as the steel found a target.

  Then tracer licked up at the plane’s belly as it tore overhead, its shadow trailing across the deck like a cloak.

  The pilot was either wounded or raving mad, for in spite of the cone of tracer which came from both boats he flew straight on towards Able Two, almost at right angles.

  “Hit him!” Ryder was almost sobbing as he grasped a stanchion to stop himself from pitching overboard as the helm went over again. Allenby pictured Ives at the wheel. He at least would be enjoying this.

  Able Two was twisting frantically as the enemy’s intentions became clear when, like hungry jaws, its bomb bay opened.

  Tracer was exploding all over the wings and belly, like droplets of bright blood in the glare.

  Allenby gripped a guardrail. “Christ Almighty.”