Storm Force to Narvik: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 1

by Alexander Fullerton

  The cook planted a hand on Cringle’s chest and pushed him back. The cook, like Paul, was a smaller man than Cringle; those stringy muscles must have had steel wire in them. One-handed, he’d not only stopped the larger man but actually moved him backwards—as if he’d had castors under him.

  Paul said, “I’d be obliged if you’d let him pass.”

  “Don’t give a tinker’s fart about obligin’ you, old son.” Perry hadn’t looked round. He told Cringle in just as pleasant a tone of voice,”Bugger off. Out me galley, pronto. An’ when it’s me on watch, stay out.”

  “Never mind your galley, chum, I’ll shove you in your fuckin’ oven!”

  Cringle, half-turning his head, for some reason assumed that the telegraphist, Green, was joining the opposition. He swept an arm back, flinging Green against the starboard-side door as the ship rolled that way, helping him … But she was holding that steep list. Altering course? Cringle had an upward slope to climb if he was going to reach the cook; he grasped the rail that ran along the front edge of the stove and began to haul himself along it. Paul was clinging to the other door, behind him, to save himself from being thrown downhill, and only Cook Perry, in the middle, was keeping an easy balance.

  He’d also picked up a knife. It had a blade about nine inches long. Without looking down at it he was stropping it expertly on the horny palm of his left hand. He asked Cringle, “Comin,’ then?”

  Silence, except for the racket all around them. The ship was still heeling hard to starboard. Probably had port wheel on, making a biggish change of course. Cringle was staring at the knife, immobile. Perry put it down.

  “Your mates’ll be wanting their char, won’t they.” He looked round at Paul. “You better scram, too.” He waved his arms, like shooing chickens. “G’arn—sod off, the lot of you!”

  “Hey—just a minute …”

  “Now look, I said—”

  “This stuff about Intent,” Paul asked Green, “is it true?”

  “Didn’t you know?”

  “For Christ’s sake, how could I?”

  One grey destroyer shape was very much like another. Particularly the G, H, and I classes, which were all practically identical. In any case, he hadn’t been doing much looking.

  “Gauntlet lost some sod overboard and turned back for ‘im. Two or three days back. Then they reckon she shouldn’t be on her tod like, so Intent goes to round ‘er up. The pair of ‘em fetch up against bloody Scharnhorst or something, they gets one message out, and wallop.”

  Paul stared at him. Why would anyone make up such a story?

  “This true?”

  It couldn’t be. He knew it couldn’t.

  “It’s the buzz.” Green shrugged. “Well, more ‘n a buzz, really. I don’t see ciphers—we take ‘em down coded like. But—you ‘ear this an’ that, and—”

  He stopped talking: the cook, with his boiler-suited back to Paul, must have been making faces at him. Green looked at Paul now as if he was realising for the first time what it added up to.

  “Sorry, Yank. If—” he jerked his head backwards—”if bloody Cringle ‘adn’t—”

  “It’s all right.”

  Perry turned round; both of them were looking at Paul with a mildly sympathetic interest. Paul couldn’t remember exactly how the row with Cringle had started. He’d wanted to kill him, he knew that … He wasn’t sure some of it hadn’t been his own fault.

  “I don’t know why I lost my temper.”

  Perry nodded. “You want to watch that, lad.”

  The Dherjhorakov factor? He’d found it surfacing before, once or twice. And Perry was right, it did need watching.

  Green said, “Buzzes don’t always get it right. Shouldn’t let it bother you too much.”

  “No, I won’t.” He picked up the fanny. “Thanks, Cookie.”

  “Oy!”

  “What?”

  The cook told him, “We’ve altered course. Best use the other door.”

  “Taken your time, Yank, ain’t you?”

  “Slight problem in the galley.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Nothing much.” He stooped, pushing the fanny in towards McElroy.

  “It’s still hot, anyway.”

  “I should fuckin’ ‘ope so!”

  He sat down on the deck with his own mug of the so-called tea. At least it warmed you. He had never, he realised, given much thought to being sunk or blown up. One should, he supposed; there was obviously a reasonable chance of it happening, and if you thought about it in advance it wouldn’t take you so much by surprise. You might even subconsciously have some ideas mapped out so that when or if it did happen you’d react without panic or too much dithering … He—Paul—happened to be an unusually strong swimmer; at prep—Taft, in Connecticut, where the Scott home was—he’d captained the school team; and swimming hadn’t done him any harm, he thought, in Amherst’s acceptance of him after he’d graduated from Taft. As it turned out, he spent less than half a year at Amherst, which had been his stepfather Gerry Scott’s old Ivy League Alma Mater. Scott had been very decent, despite that, about Paul’s insistence on dropping out and coming to England, to England’s war. His attitude had been one of regret but resignation: a marked and welcome contrast to Ilyana’s hysterical opposition. But it hadn’t been a choice, for Paul. And less impulse, he thought now, than instinct, a kind of personal compulsion.

  Would a German ship stop to pick up survivors?

  You heard and read conflicting stories. He thought it would most probably depend on the character of the individual commander, and perhaps also on the circumstances, whether he’d feel safe in stopping to pick them up.

  He remembered an incident he’d read about, where three British cruisers were torpedoed in the English Channel, in the last war, by one U-boat. It had got the second and the third when they were lying stopped, saving men from the first. It had always seemed to Paul quite extraordinary—to treat human beings like bugs, things of no importance, flies to be swatted … And if that was the way they were fighting this war …

  Face it. You no longer have a father.

  Running on from that, another thought: Ordinary Seaman Sir Paul Everard, Bart.?

  The idea was laughable, but he couldn’t raise even an inward smile at it. Why, though, should the prospect be so—disturbing, to one who’d had no contact with his father in nearly ten years and perhaps wouldn’t have been about to have any now if this war hadn’t started?

  Jammed just inside the edge of the gunshield, half in cover as Hoste flung herself about and sea lashed continuously against the shield, ringing hard like hail, he thought about the two days he’d spent at Mullbergh at Christmas. His father, standing more or less eye-to-eye with him— Paul had been surprised to find he wasn’t taller, having always thought of him as a big man—saying, “For what it’s worth, this place’ll be yours one day. If it still belongs to us at all.”

  “Must be quite a—quite expensive to maintain?”

  “It is. Even half maintaining it as we are now. Costs always tend to rise faster than revenue, you know. But at least the estate’s in sound order now, the farms show profits and their tenants have roofs over their heads that don’t leak. To that extent we’ve stopped the rot—given ourselves a bit more time. That’s what’s kept me busy since I left the Service—making the old place earn its keep.”

  “Didn’t your—my grandfather, I mean—didn’t he, in his time?”

  “No.” Nick kicked a log in towards the flames. “No, he did not. He put nothing back, ever, just took out all he could. To no good purpose whatsoever. Well, he ran our local pack of hounds, and paid for it all out of his own pocket.” Nick shrugged. “Some people would call that a good purpose. I don’t know.”

  Ilyana had told Paul that Sir John had been a sweet old guy. He himself barely remembered his grandfather at all.

  “I can’t give you much of the family history in just two days. What’s more, they’d be better spent enjoying ourselves. And for
you, getting the feel of the place. Don’t suppose you remember it very clearly, do you? But—” his hand closed on Paul’s arm—”there really is the dickens of a lot to talk about, things you ought to know and understand. When time and Their Lordships permit I’d like you to come here for a good long stay. I suppose that means when you and I have long leave simultaneously.” He raised his eyebrows: “If.”

  “Or we might win the war, then really have time?”

  “Better still.” His father had smiled. “It won’t be done in just a year or two, I’m afraid. But tomorrow, I’ll show you round the whole estate. Also tomorrow, I have to attend Morning Service. Perhaps you would too?”

  “Please.”

  “Good. Now then, Paul. I’m not—how shall I put it—I’m not very well house-trained, at this juncture. Domestic and family routines, I mean—I’ve lived here alone, pretty well, since 1930, and I’ve acquired— degenerated into—bachelor habits. You may find me a little—well, rough, in some ways—”

  “Isn’t—my step-grandmother, do I call her?”

  “Sarah?”

  “Sure. Isn’t she around—kind of a feminine influence on things?”

  “She’s ‘around,’ as you call it, in the sense that she lives in the Dower House, about half a mile away. I had it done up for her when my father died, and she and her son Jack have lived there ever since. Remember Jack?”

  “Ah—not well, but—”

  “You’ll be seeing him this evening. They’re dining here—he was due to arrive some time this afternoon, I think Sarah said. But you were asking whether Sarah’s presence hasn’t kept me civilised—”

  “Not, if I may say so, that I’ve noticed anything uncivilised, so far.”

  His father had smiled. “Early days yet, old chap. But you may be right, Sarah may have stopped me running completely to seed. But what I was going to say, Paul—this Christmas business, I’m no use at wrapping things up, sticking candles on trees, all that business. But I do have a present for you. As a matter of fact I’ve been keeping it for you for quite a long time and rather looking forward to handing it over. So—just come along, would you?”

  He’d led the way out into an ice-cold corridor and along it for about forty yards and then down a short flight of steps to an oak door. The room they went into was even colder than the corridor.

  “Gunroom.” Nick pointed. “As you see.”

  Most of one wall was occupied by a glass-fronted cupboard which had a whole rack of firearms in it. Nick Everard said, turning a key that had been in the lock to start with, “We still have some good shooting here—even with only one keeper who should have retired five or six years ago. My father had him and three others under him—and they were kept busy. D’you do any shooting over there, Paul?”

  “Oh, I’ve hunted a little. With a college friend whose father—”

  “Delighted to hear it. But I was asking about shooting.”

  “Oh. Well, we call—I guess what you call shooting, over there is called hunting?”

  “How extraordinary.” Nick turned round. He had a shotgun in each hand, double-barrelled twelve-bores that looked as if someone had just been cleaning them. Gleaming, beautiful-looking guns. His father said, “These are yours. Made by Purdy. It’s a pair that was your grandfather’s. You won’t find better guns anywhere in the world.”

  “Why, they’re—lovely!”

  He took one, turning it in his hands, feeling its balance. “I—really, I don’t know what to say. Except ‘thank you …’” He put it to his shoulder. “Seems about right, too. I—”

  “Should be. You’re about the same build. But nothing’ll beat a Purdy, and this is a particularly fine pair. Look after them, Paul.”

  “I sure will!”

  “They’re quite safe here, for the time being. Forever, if you choose to keep them here … D’you realise that if I should get drowned or something silly of that sort, you’d just walk in here and it’s yours?”

  He’d said something of that kind a short while ago. Must have it on his mind? Paul said, “I’d prefer it if you did not.”

  “Eh?” Over his shoulder, as he put the guns back in the rack.

  “I’d sooner you did not get drowned.”

  “Very decent of you.” Turning back, he smiled. Paul thought it was the first real, deep smile he’d seen on his father’s face; he realised too that he was returning it—because it was natural and he couldn’t help it. Nick Everard said, “But it could happen. So there are one or two things you must know about. There’s a lawyer-chap in Sheffield, for instance, who’s supposed to know all there is to know. And a lot of detail, of course, Sarah could put you on to …” He shook his head. “Later, all that. We’ll get back to the fire now and have a snifter before it’s time to change … You do drink, I hope?”

  They were relieved at 1600 by the crew of “A” gun, who however took over on “B” gundeck. At this “degree of readiness” one gun was kept manned for’ard and one aft; torpedo tubes were manned and ready and so were the depthcharge traps and throwers, but two of the four-sevens were considered enough, and “B” and “X,” being on raised gundecks, were the obvious ones to use.

  Paul went down to the seamen’s messdecks, two decks below the foc’sl, to shed his wet gear and clean up, warm up. To get to the messdeck you went down the ladder and aft to the screen door that led in below the bridge, and across to the starboard side and then for’ard along a narrow passage which had doors off it to such things as the wireless office and the TS, transmitting station. Then you passed a sliding steel door that led into the washplace, and at this point you were entering the messdeck.

  Low-roofed, cluttered, foul-smelling. Lockers ran along the ship’s sides port and starboard, and there were racks above them for bulky gear like kitbags and suitcases. Scrubbed-wood tables on both sides, and each pair of them constituted a separate mess. The nearest was 5 Mess, and the next was 4; then came the central, circular support of “A” gun, and for’ard of that interruption were numbers 3, 2, and 1 Messes, number 1 being right for’ard where the compartment began to narrow. Paul belonged to 3 Mess, the one just past “A” gun’s support.

  You had to stoop to avoid slung hammocks. It was like groping your way into a long, narrow, highly mobile cave. The movement was greater here, of course; the further you went from the centre of the ship, the bigger was the rise and fall. The smell was of dirty clothes, wet clothes, unwashed bodies, cigarette-smoke, vomit.

  Home.

  Dripping oilskins—Paul’s, for instance, and other men’s when they came down off watch—didn’t make it any drier. Rubbish—cigarette packets, sweet-papers, crusts, tea-leaves—drifted in a scummy mess, to and fro as the ship rolled. There was an attempt at a clean-up every now and then, but the place was too crowded with men and gear to be got at effectively, when the ship was at sea. Especially in this kind of weather.

  “You’re in luck, lads.” Brierson, leading seaman of 3 Mess, pointed at the tea-urn. “Only just wet it.” Brierson was a thickset man with curly yellow hair and rather battered features; he was sitting on the lockers at the end of the table, on the ship’s starboard side, reading a torn, week-old copy of the Daily Mirror.

  “Nice work, Tom.” But he waited, to let Baldy Percival—Baldy being a messmate as well as one of the crew of “B” gun—help himself first. This was Baldy’s first ship too; he was as green to the Navy as Paul was. He smiled courteously; he’d been a Boots librarian, in civvy street.

  “After you.”

  “Okay.”

  Brierson glanced up, stared at Baldy, winked at Paul, looked down at the strip-cartoon of Jane again. On the near-side of the table Randy Philips said to Whacker Harris—they were both regulars, as opposed to “HO,” Hostilities Only ratings, like Paul and Baldy—”After you, Claud.”

  “Oh no, Wilberforce, after you.”

  Brierson glanced up again. “You’re after every bugger.”

  The ship climbed a mountain, tottered on i
ts crest, rolled on to her port side, and dropped like a stone. Harris said, “Gettin’ bumpy.” Paul took his mug along behind him and Philips and sat down near the leading seaman.

  “Have a word with you, Tom?”

  “‘S a free country.”

  There was noise enough to allow one to talk quietly, at close range, without being overheard. Paul asked him, “D’you think I could get to see the skipper?”

  Brierson put his paper down, lifted his mug, and took a long, noisy sip of tea. Then he smacked his lips, and rested the mug on his knee, tilted his head sideways and stared at Paul.

  “What for?”

  “It’s private. But—okay, but in confidence?” The killick nodded. He told him, “There was a destroyer with us, not one of our lot, one called Intent. My father’s in her. But she’s not with us now, and there’s this buzz that she’s been in action and—well, could have been sunk or—” he shrugged—”something.”

  “Don’t want to believe all the buzzes you hear, lad.”

  “I know. But—I could ask the skipper, couldn’t I?”

  “S’pose you could.” Brierson swallowed some more tea. Then he pointed aft and upwards. “Nip up to the Chiefs’ mess, see the cox’n, tell ‘im what it’s about. ‘E might take you to Jimmy, more likely than the skipper.”

  “Jimmy” meant the first lieutenant.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “What is he, your guv’nor?”

  “He was out of the Navy, now he’s back in for the war.”

  “Yeah, but I mean, what is he?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Eh?” Brierson looked surprised. Then he shrugged. “No. Not to me.”

  “Thanks. It’s just—”

  “No skin off my nose.”

  “Wait here, Everard.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  CPO Tukes had brought him up to this lobby which was one level down from the compass platform. A door in the for’ard bulkhead led into the signal and plotting office, and the two on the other side were chartroom to port and captain’s sea-cabin to starboard.

  By the feel of it, Hoste was steaming more or less into wind and sea. Or possibly—judging by the amount of roll—the main force of it was just on her bow. The roll, combined with violent pitching, was giving her a sort of corkscrew motion. He propped himself against the after bulkhead, between the two doors. There might be a long wait now, he thought; he’d heard that the skipper hardly ever left the bridge at sea, particularly in rough weather and with other ships in company, and you’d hardly expect him to come rushing down immediately just at the request of some OD.