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

by Alexander Fullerton

  “Bloody Gneisenau, for Gawd’s sake!”

  “‘Ere, Dan, you was fuckin’ right!”

  “I’m always fuckin’ right …”

  Hipper-class cruiser, Rowan had said. Here it was again. Here it was!

  Why couldn’t Renown have opened fire? Nothing ahead of her, was there? Well—she’d want to get her after turret into it too, of course, fire broadsides, not just use the for’ard guns … Lofty McElroy bawled,”Next-ahead’s goin’ roun’ tae port!” He’d be seeing it through the port in the gunshield in front of him. He and the gunlayer on the other side each had one, an aperture with a shutter on it for keeping wind and wet out. In Director Firing—the normal system, which they’d be using now— neither layer nor trainer had to see outside or even know what the target looked like; all they had to do was keep one pointer lined up on another in a brass-cased dial. The director layer did the aiming for all four guns, from up there in the top.

  Renown opened fire. Rolling crash of fifteen-inch guns and a flash like lightning flaring briefly, a splash of brilliance overtaken immediately by the dark, which seemed all the darker for it in the racket of wind and sea and the ventilators’ roaring, and the turbines’ scream. Paul stood with his feet braced well apart, rubbersoled shoes gripping the wet steel platform, one shoulder against the gunshield. Another salvo erupted: explosion and flash, black curtain clamping down again. The ship was swinging, leaning hard to starboard as port rudder dragged her round and turned her port side to the gale’s force. Plunging, shuddering, staggering round. As she turned, the gun trained out, staying on the bearing of the enemy. Twenty knots now? Third salvo: count to five and the sky-splitting crash … He wondered if the Germans had been caught on the hop: it was possible, with those cloud-cracks in the east putting a light behind the bastards, showing them up to the British battlecruiser who would herself be still hidden in the westward gloom, storm-darkness. Two more salvoes had hurtled away: Renown had three twin turrets of fifteen-inch, so they’d be three-gun salvoes, and a fifteen-inch was a huge projectile. Hoste was steady now on what must have been a northward course, wind and sea deafening and violent on her port bow, gun trained out on the beam.

  “Commence, commence, commence!”

  Clang of the fire-gong: then the ear-slamming explosion: recoil, breech open, reeking cordite fumes flying as Dan Thomas jerked the lever to send the breech-block thumped down, projectile and charge in, breech shut, interceptor made: fire-gong—crash—second salvo, all four guns firing together and a ripple of the other destroyers’ guns all down the line and the deeper thunder of the battlecruiser’s salvoes in a steady rhythm now, flaming into the dawn-streaked east. No time to look at anything except this job, the loading-tray and the breech, charges and projectiles coming up from below now through an ammo hatch in the deckhead of the Chiefs’ and POs’ mess under their feet and, before they got that far, from hand to hand up through two messdecks below that. The ship was trying to knock herself to bits, jolting and hammering across the sea, thrashing and flailing like a salmon on a line. The firing was constant now: breech open—filled—shut—crash, and flinging back—open … Baldy seeming to be in the throes of a little dance as he banged his rounds in and lunged around for the next: it was like a dance, a kind of seven-man reel …

  “Check, check, check!”

  Stone deaf. Skull ringing. Dizzy from noise and dazed by flash, muscles aching. Dan Thomas’s fist hitting Paul’s bicep had stopped him as he was about to drop a fresh charge into the loading-tray. The gun’s crew was still now, only swaying and weaving to the ship’s wild motion. And she was slowing, while from ahead Renown’s guns still boomed out, sound muted by distance as well as by one’s own temporary deafness. Renown had obviously drawn well ahead of the destroyers; so if Hoste had been making 20 knots—which in conditions like these was fairly unthinkable despite the fact that it was what she’d been doing—the battlecruiser must have been working up to—what, 30?

  Enemy running away? Renown cracking on full power to stay inside gun range?

  They’d run from something their own size, Paul thought bitterly. Different when it had been just two destroyers …

  Hoste was swinging to starboard. Slowing, and turning back to her former eastward or south-eastward course.

  “Secure from action stations.”

  Dan Thomas yelled to Lofty McElroy, “Train fore-an’-aft!” Baldy Percival’s eyes gleamed at Paul through the gap in his anti-flash hood. He panted, “D’you realise, we’ve been in action?”

  “Yeah. I suppose …”

  Action was supposed to be something terrific, though. Like getting married or circumcised or something. This had been like a gun-drill. He hadn’t caught a glimpse of any enemy and he certainly wasn’t aware of having been shot at or in any danger. Technically, Baldy was right—they’d been in action: asked whether one had fired shots in anger, one could now answer in the affirmative. But he didn’t feel it counted, really. And it certainly wasn’t the kind of action that Intent must have been in … He was looking out towards the destroyer on their starboard bow—he thought it was the flotilla leader, Hardy, Captain (D)’s ship—and there was a signal lamp sputtering dots and dashes from the back end of her bridge. The flotilla—ships from more than one flotilla here, actually, there must have been about nine or ten destroyers altogether—seemed to be in the process of rearranging itself into the two-column formation.

  “Right, then.” Blackie Proudfoot, “A” gun’s layer, had come up the ladder and lurched across into shelter. Blue-jowled, scowling, chewing gum. “Right, then! Bugger off, you shower o’ fuckin’ amacheurs!”

  Shouts of ritually insulting welcome greeted him. Paul checked the time: it was well past the watch-changing hour, and therefore “B” guncrew’s watch below now. Lovely! A mug of tea or kye, he thought, what-ever’s going: then head down, kip until breakfast-time … Proudfoot was grumbling, “Waste o’ fuckin’ ammo, wasn’t it?”

  Inside, on their way down to the messdeck, they met Sub-Lieutenant Peters, and Rush stopped him, asked him something about the action. Peters told them,”The second German wasn’t a cruiser, it was Scharnhorst. GCO thought she was a Hipper when he first saw her—but we’ve been engaging two pocket battleships.” He seemed delighted by it … “Last we heard, Renown had scored three hits—including one in Gneisenau’s foretop, and it’s put her main armament out of action. So Scharnhorst’s laying smoke now to cover their withdrawal.”

  “Mean they’re scarpering, sir?”

  Peters nodded to Harry Rush. “Our own gun-flashes will have helped to put the wind up them. They couldn’t know we’re only destroyers, you see. If they had known, they could have got stuck in and knocked the be-Jesus off Renown. They’re both twenty years newer than she is, you know.”

  “They’ll ‘ave the legs of her, then.”

  “Oh, they’ll outrun her, I’m afraid.” Peters’s round face was scarlet from the wind. “Unless she’s lucky and lands another one in some vital spot.”

  Paul asked him, “What are we doing now, sir?”

  Peters turned to him. “We’ve orders to patrol Vestfjord, Everard. But if we’re lucky—well, there’s a signal just in from C-in-C to Captain (D) that he’s to send some destroyers up to Narvik. That means right up through the fjords. Apparently some Huns have got in while our backs were turned.”

  “Bit late to be much fuckin’ use, then.” Rush was pulling a wet-looking pack of cigarettes from some inner pocket. “I mean, if the sods are up there, settled like—”

  “Unsettle ‘em, boyo!” The gun captain struck him violently on the back. “We’ll bloody unsettle ‘em!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Captain, sir!”

  Dragging himself out of sleep …

  “Unidentified ship approaching, sir!”

  He was off the bunk, snatching duffel-coat and cap; really awake now, hearing the alarm buzzer sounding surface action stations. Across the lobby outside his sea-cabin, on to the la
dder and up it to the bridge.

  Very cold, and already daylight. It was 4:20: he’d had about one-and-a-half-hours’ sleep. Before he’d turned in, the telegraphists had picked up an English-language broadcast announcing that Denmark had been overrun and was now in German hands and that the forts in Oslofjord were being bombarded by German warships.

  Tommy Trench was waiting for him on the bridge. He pointed—over the starboard bow.

  “Sure she’s Norwegian, sir. Better to be safe than sorry, I thought, but—out of the last century, by the looks of her.”

  “And practically alongside.” This reproof came as a reflex as he settled his glasses on her and found her so startlingly close. Trench was explaining that when she’d come into sight around the point she’d been only a mile away. A small ship with the lines of an old-fashioned yacht, two raked masts and one high, thin funnel. Clipper bow, cut-away stern, gaffs on both masts, and a white-painted wheelhouse just for’ard of the funnel. Abaft it there was a longer, lower, dark-coloured deckhouse with ports all along its length. What ought to be a saloon. One could imagine its dark mahogany, red velvet, brass. She was flying the Norwegian ensign and there were no guns on her that he could see. He glanced up over his shoulder and saw that the director tower was trained on her. The four-sevens would be too.

  He lowered his binoculars. “Warn Brocklehurst not, repeat not, to open fire without orders. Signalman—give me the loud-hailer.”

  Obviously she was Norwegian. But since the Germans had taken the whole of Denmark in about half a dog watch it wasn’t inconceivable that they could have pinched a few Norwegian ships by this time. On the other hand he couldn’t imagine Germans bothering with such a delicate-looking, totally unwarlike craft; or for that matter that even if she was packed with Nazis from stem to stern she’d pose much of a threat to a well-armed, albeit immobilised, destroyer.

  He took the loud-hailer from the signalman—who’d plugged it into the socket that was more often used for the kye kettle—and lifted it, aimed it at the stranger. Clearing his throat produced a sound like a seal’s bark, fairly cracking across the fjord.

  “Do not approach any more closely. Stop and identify yourself!”

  He repeated it: his voice boomed over the water and echoed back from the land behind him. Whatever that floating antique was, she must have come round the headland—Finsneset—from seaward, perhaps en route to Namsos, then spotted Intent lying at anchor in the shallow bay and turned down to investigate her. Intent was lying almost parallel to the shore, with her cable growing straight out into the incoming tidal flow. Beyond the Norwegian—he hadn’t stopped yet and he was still heading straight for the British ship—you could see white-topped waves and a drifting haze of spray that was being whipped off their crests, but here in the lee of the point there was no broken water and the ship’s motion as she rode to her anchor was comparatively gentle.

  He aimed the hailer again.

  “Stop, or I shoot!” He glanced at Trench. “Tell Brocklehurst to load one gun with practice shell.”

  A warning shot across the bows was a good way to short-cut any language problems. A practice shell was solid, non-explosive. But he’d no wish to aggravate this Norwegian. If it was true that the Nazis were invading, then Britain and Norway were now allies with a common enemy. And this strange-looking craft might prove to be Intent’s saviour, a means of getting shore assistance for the engine-room repairs.

  He put his glasses up again. The newcomer was altering course, turning to starboard, and the ripple of bow-wave at her shapely forefoot was diminishing as she slowed. Her captain was doing things his own way, in his own time; either he didn’t understand English, or he was deaf, or he was demonstrating a spirit of Viking independence. And these were, after all, Norwegian waters … His ship was beam-on to Intent now, and stopping; two hands had gone for’ard to let go an anchor. They were visible only from the waist up, on account of the ship’s high, white-painted bulwarks.

  The anchor splashed down and its cable rattled out; at the same time a man in what looked like naval uniform emerged from the wheelhouse, and waved.

  Nick waved back. He told Trench, “Fall out action stations, but keep one four-seven and the point-fives closed up. Better send the hands to breakfast while things are quiet.”

  The Norwegians were preparing to lower a boat. It was a motor skiff, slung from davits abaft the mizzen mast, and some men were hauling on tackles to turn the davits out on this side.

  She was unarmed, and the rigging on those masts and gaffs indicated that she had sails and was equipped to use them. Training ship? Around two hundred tons, he guessed, and roughly one hundred twenty feet long. No weapons anywhere, not even a machine-gun. But she’d be capable of getting into Namsos and bringing out some plumbers, all right.

  He asked Trench, “Any progress in the engine-room?”

  “None at the last enquiry, sir. Beamish is still at it but he’s not exuding much optimism … MacKinnon’s improved the W/T reception though, and he’s picked up two or three signals addressed to Captain (D) 2, they tell me. I’ve been leaving the deciphering until the doctor’s had some zizz.”

  Nick had told MacKinnon to take in everything he could pick up. He wanted to know what was going on: especially any details of the Hun attack on Norway. But they’d only be able to decipher signals intended for ships of their own size, more or less. Admiralty messages to and from the C-in-C, or signals between flag officers, would be in ciphers which a destroyer didn’t carry.

  “Have you had any sleep, Pilot?”

  “Yes, sir.” Chandler took the point of the enquiry. “I’ll make a start on the deciphering.”

  “Lyte or Cox can give you a hand.”You needed one man to read out, another to look up and write down. He asked Trench, “How’s Bywater’s patient?”

  “Stronger, he said. That’s why he decided he could get his head down … We’re about to have visitors, sir.”

  The skiff was in the water with two men in her, and the one who’d waved was climbing down to join them. Nick focused binoculars on him. Three stripes: or two and a half. A burly, biggish man. Trousers tucked inside seaboots. Now he was in the boat’s stern-sheets, and as he turned around Nick saw a crumpled-looking cap pushed well back and a reefer jacket unbuttoned over a high-necked sweater. Lowering the glasses, he thought he already had a fair idea of the sort of character he’d be dealing with.

  “Let’s give him the red carpet, Number One.”

  Trench nodded. “I’ll have it unrolled, sir.” He went down to organise a Jacob’s ladder and a side-party, and Nick sent a message to Leading Steward Seymour to get his day-cabin straightened—after the rough weather it was bound to be in a mess—and to lay on coffee and biscuits. Then Lyte, the sub-lieutenant, came up, sent by Trench to take over anchor-watch on the bridge, and Nick went down to see what was happening in the engine-room.

  Beamish and his henchmen looked just about done in. Dull, red-rimmed eyes, faces grey under coatings of oil and dirt. Listening to his laboured explanation of the problems, Nick told himself that one had to allow for that tiredness as a factor in the chief stoker’s defeatism. Beamish was winding up his depressing report by explaining what he intended to do about the blast-hole overhead. It was a large, jagged hole; as Trench had said earlier, the shell must have exploded virtually as it pierced the thin layer of steel. And yet the explosion had sounded as if it had been right inside. Echo-effect, perhaps … Beamish’s plan was to use two of the steel floor plates, weld them over the hole after the uneven edges had been cut away.

  “What’ll you stand on, without floor plates?”

  “Timber staging, sir. Chief Buffer reckons he can knock some up for us.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “It was the middy—Mr Cox—as thought of it, sir.”

  “What’s it to do with him, for God’s sake?”

  “Well, he’s been lending us a hand, sir.”

  “Has he …” Extraordinary. But he’d
ask Cox about it, not Beamish. “Just one question, Chief. Could we move now if we had to?”

  “Oh, no, sir!”

  “Second question, then. Do you anticipate that at some later stage we’ll be in a condition so we can move?”

  “I—s’pose so, sir. Somehow or other, like. But—”

  “At this stage you can’t guarantee it.”

  “No, sir.” An oily hand passed round an already well-oiled jaw “No. I’m sorry, sir, I—”

  “It’s not your fault. Anyway, we’re about to be boarded by a Norwegian, and with any luck I’ll persuade him to carry on into Namsos and bring out some shoreside help.”

  The Norwegian would damn well have to. Otherwise Intent would still be sitting here when the Germans came.

  PO Metcalf’s bosun’s call shrilled as the man came over Intent’s side. He was a lieutenant-commander, and in his late forties, Nick guessed. A rugged-looking character with greying hair showing under the battered cap. Wide-set blue eyes in a tanned, muscled face scanned the reception committee and returned to Nick. The salute was casual, friendly.

  Nick shook a wide, meaty hand. “My name’s Everard, and this is His Majesty’s Ship Intent. Glad to welcome you aboard.”

  “I am Claus Torp. Kaptein-Löjtnant, Naval Reserve. My ship there—” he jerked a thumb—”is Valkyrien.”

  “A very handsome ship, we’ve all been thinking.” Nick introduced Tommy Trench. Torp asked him as he shook his hand, “You got many of such size?” Trench laughed; Nick asked Torp, “Are you from Namsos, Commander?”