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

by Alexander Fullerton

  “Hey, what the—”

  He’d been kicked, or trodden on—and it had nothing to do with Mullbergh or—

  “Breakfast in bed, you lucky bastards!”

  Harry Rush seemed to be talking gibberish. Paul wasn’t out of the dream yet. A long, disturbing dream in which—

  He’d forgotten, lost it; a second ago it had all been in his mind. Extraordinary. He was sitting up, feeling the ship’s movement and the tremble in her steel, feeling the cold too and seeing the swirl of snow outside the gunshield, flakes drifting in and then out again in a kind of spiral. The gun’s crew were packed in here like overdressed sardines. Harry Rush announced, “Kye an’ butties. Any bugger don’t want ‘is, I’ll ‘ave it.”

  “Soddin’ ‘ell you will.” Vic Blenkinsop’s tone was cheerful, though. He added, “Dump the fanny ‘ere an’ shove them mugs along.”

  “Who asked for your ‘elp, Victoria?”

  “Ah, bugger off, then!”

  “Boys, boys …” Lofty McElroy wriggled out, feet-first, past Paul. The kye and sandwiches had been fetched from the galley by Rush and Percival, Paul gathered. McElroy was questioning how many sandwiches there were per man, and whether Rush had scoffed a few en route. Paul, remembering what they were here for, where Hoste was going, was checking the time, peering at the faintly luminous dial of his watch and seeing that it was 0225. If they were still expecting to get to Narvik at first light, that would mean some time after 0400; so there was plenty of time yet. He felt himself relax enough to become aware of the cold again: of the wet steel deck inside here and the snow-plastered superstructure abaft the gun.

  “Yours, Yank!”

  He stretched forward, and his hands closed on thick hunks of bread. Then a tin mug so hot he could barely hold it even in the anti-flash glove. Rush mused, “Wonder if the bleedin’ square-’eads know we’re after ‘em.”

  McElroy mumbled with his mouth full, “They best not.”

  “Why?”

  “Well—be ready for us, wouldn’t they.”

  “So what? Ready for them, ain’t we?”

  “Yeah, but—” there was a long sucking noise as the gun trainer started on his cocoa—”there’s more o’ them than what there is of us, an’ they’re bigger bastards too.”

  “What sod told you that?”

  “Well, it’s the buzz, ain’t it.”

  “Your buzz, Lofty?”

  That had been Dan Thomas’s voice, from the other side. McElroy told him, “What they’re sayin’ on the messdecks.”

  “Talkin’ through their great fat arse-’oles then, aren’t they.”

  Silence—as if that had settled it, revoked the buzz. Hoste had a gentle motion on her, a little rise and fall resulting from the fact that she was moving through sea disturbed by the five ships ahead of her.

  Dan Thomas had evidently been brooding on that estimate of enemy strength. He reopened the subject now.

  “Wouldn’t matter if there was more o’ them than there is of us. Not if they was bigger boats an’ all. We’ll be surprisin’ the bastards, won’t we. Likely as not they’ll ‘ave their ‘eads down when we get to ‘em. That’ll be why we’re comin’ up in the bleedin’ dark, see … All right, Lofty?”

  “Yeah, well—”

  The ship swung, heeling, suddenly. She’d been put hard a-starboard, slanting over. Turbine noise rising sharply: she was shuddering, probably screws full astern, or one astern and—

  Rush squawked, “What the ‘ell—”

  Both screws, Paul guessed, were going astern. Rush and Percival had moved: he did too, rocking forward on to his knees then pushing himself up: outside the shield he held on to Baldy, peered out round him into the night. He saw one ship about thirty yards to port and another on that same bow with her starboard quarter towards Hoste; and a larger but less distinct shape ahead was probably two destroyers overlapping. Hoste was going astern, all right; he could see the shine of black, white-flecked water sliding away for’ard.

  “Well, strike a soddin’ light!”

  Harry Rush was pointing. Up ahead, beyond that mixed-up group of destroyers, an enormous white headland towered across black sky. A whole mountain-side—and the flotilla had nearly steamed right into it.

  Perhaps if the snow hadn’t stopped falling they would have?

  Hoste’s screws had stopped. You could hear the water whispering and thumping along her sides. Those other shapes were drawing away, reforming into line; and Hoste began to swing herself round behind them— starboard screw astern, port ahead, the hum of the turbines and the rattling vibration dispelled those few minutes’ unnatural quiet. Then the starboard screw had stopped: you felt it, when a certain element in the vibration cut out. She was moving ahead now—still swinging, gathering way eastward behind the others.

  “All guns with SAP and full charge load, load, load!”

  Baldy slammed a projectile into the tray and Paul thumped a charge in behind it. Harry Rush lugged the tray over with his left hand and rammed charge and shell home into the breech with his gloved right fist. The breech slid up with a metallic whisper and Dan Thomas had banged the interceptor shut.

  “‘B’ gun ready!”

  Its crew, tin-hatted and like Frankenstein monsters in their anti-flash gear, waited. Keyed up, tense.

  Quiet …

  Mutter of machinery, swish of sea. The stern lights had been extinguished. Dark, and snow still falling. But it seemed to be thinning out, Paul thought, might even be about to stop. And ahead—he was standing with his feet well apart and the next charge ready cradled in his arms, with nothing to do for the moment except wait—ahead there were seams of brightness showing through dark grey haze.

  “All guns follow director!”

  “B” gun was trained round on the starboard bow, at about green four-oh. No elevation that Paul could see: flat trajectory for point-blank range.

  Rush sang out, “For what you are about to receive, thank—”

  No time for thanks. Dawn split into flame and deafening sound as ships ahead opened fire. Gun-flashes, shell-bursts: the sky flickered with red and yellow, orange, white, and suddenly with a much deeper, thunderous explosion, an enormous orange brilliance upwards and outwards. He thought, Torpedo hit … And immediately, another. A huge roar of sound—torpedo in some German’s magazine or fuel tank, he guessed— and the sky ahead seemed to have caught fire. Hoste’s guns still silent; but looking across to port, behind the breech and Rush’s and Thomas’s dark silhouettes, he saw the beginnings of inferno, a whole jumble of ships racked with flame and exploding shells and clouds of smoke billowing out, and in that moment another torpedo struck, an eruption like a vast bonfire suddenly projected skyward. In the light of it he saw the victims—a tanker with a destroyer alongside her, both of them shattered and ablaze.

  Fire-gong: “B” gun fired, recoiled. Reloaded, breech shut: clang of the gong again, and crash … No idea what they were shooting at. The noise had become continuous, a solid roar instead of individual bangs; in every direction there were ships on fire, exploding, sinking. Two more torpedo hits: a gush of flame as one broke in two. The snow had stopped and daylight was growing rapidly; charges flowed into his arms and out again: he swung to and fro feeding the gun as it belched, recoiled, drew breath, belched again. Ears ringing, eyes half blinded sometimes by the flashes and the sting of cordite; he glimpsed, as he pivoted to snatch another charge from Billy Mitchelmore, one of two stokers who were at the sharp end of the ammo-supply chain, a large merchant ship alongside a jetty blowing up, her centre turning bright red and brightening more, then erupting upwards out of her. Ammunition ship? Hoste was swinging and the gun was firing on an after-bearing now, so that he and Baldy were going to have to pass in front of it to get each charge and shell from the supply numbers at the ammo hatch. You had to duck right down below the level of the blast but there was still nothing between your brain and the explosion except rubber plugs in your earholes.

  “Check, check, che
ck!”

  Run out of targets?

  Just as noisy though. He wondered how long they’d been in action. Narvik’s harbour was in flames, with a couple of dozen ships on fire, sinking, exploding. By the looks of it, the flotilla had achieved complete surprise and no small victory. You could only get an impression, though, see this bit of it or that, there was no chance to make sense or a pattern of it. Noise deadened, slowed the thinking-process, and Dan Thomas had them ready and standing-to, gun loaded, layer and trainer following the pointers in their dials, Vic Blenkinsop keeping his range-dial set to TS-transmitted range, deflection-dial the same, everything lined up and ready as Hoste swung—heading, presumably, for some new target or target area.

  Mist, and drifting smoke. Over the harbour it was dense.

  Fire-gong: crash! And the same again. How long had the pause been— half a minute, ten minutes? He’d glimpsed two of the flotilla, their two-funnelled silhouettes as familiar as old friends in a crowd of strangers, guns flaming shorewards. It was full daylight—and again the time-element was puzzling … He banged a charge down, swung round for another, swinging back a second or so behind Baldy’s swing with the heavier burden: the gun had fired, flung back; as he slammed the next charge in he felt the ship lurch violently. As if she’d hit a rock. But the impact had felt as if it was somewhere aft. Another round in, gun fired—firing ahead now, target invisible, hidden by the gunshield. That ship passing was Hardy, coming out from the harbour area: she’d been out and gone in again for her second smack at them already. Giving the others a turn or herself a rest, he thought, as he dropped a charge into the tray and swung away and the gun crashed—it was four guns you heard, of course, not just this one, four fire-gongs that rang each time just before the director-layer’s trigger completed the electrical circuit that fired the guns. Paul saw a German destroyer with its bows blown off: it was slowly tipping forward into the sea, sliding in. He thought exultantly, Us? Did we do that? Hell, this was a victory! Swinging back with another charge he found he was having to take a new position on account of the slanting gundeck, a list the ship had developed. And she was slowing. Stopping? You just kept at it, seeing things in glimpses, shut into the confines of your job. “B” gun fired, recoiled, he slung in another helping and turned back for more, saw Hardy passing, going in there again, her leader’s pendant snapping in the wind, ensign tattered, her for’ard guns already back in action and a stream of tracer racketing from her point-fives, probably dealing with some gun on shore. They must be field-guns landed from these merchant ships. Former merchant ships: wrecks now. Hoste was stopped, and the slant on the gundeck had increased. Her engines had stopped, but in fact she had just enough way on to maintain this slow turn to port. Dense smoke drifting; while the noise of battle hadn’t lessened except intermittently in surprising pauses, the amount of flame and flash had. More smoke now than anything else. Daylight, of course, and fires having burnt themselves out, burning ships gone down … Recoil— breech open—stinking gush of fumes. His eyes were streaming from that reek and he and the men around him were moving completely as machines now, robot-like. Again it was on an after-bearing that they were shooting, he and Percival having that quick rush to make for each round, into the muzzle-flash and the mind-crippling concussion. On the bow— starboard, and behind his shoulder as Hoste continued her turn to port— two of the flotilla were turning away from some shore target they’d been blasting.

  “Check, check, check!”

  Hardy was coming out again: that was three separate attacks she’d made. Two others of the flotilla were angling in to form line-astern of her. Hoste still listing—she’d been holed, he realised—that jolt he’d felt. An hour ago? But she was under way again, moving ahead through the water: to tag on astern of those three, perhaps: or leaving a gap for that other pair to come in ahead of her. Withdrawing? He checked the time, fumbling to push back his greatcoat sleeve and pull down the anti-flash gauntlet … Five-thirty. One hour, then, since the action had started. It could have been ten minutes: he’d had no idea. He was looking at those other two—Hostile and one other—when beyond them he saw a new group of German destroyers emerging from Herjangsfjord.

  Three of them. Big, almost like light cruisers.

  Jesus Christ Almighty …

  Fire-gong: crash: recoil …

  Engaging those three now. The flotilla must have sunk or smashed up five or six Hun destroyers already, and now here were three more—fresh, undamaged, with full outfits of torpedoes. All the Second Flotilla ships were engaging them, forming into something like a rough quarterline, fighting as they withdrew westward. Shot from the Germans’ guns was whooshing over now—a hoarse, rushing sound—and splashes had just risen about a cable’s length to starboard.

  “Check, check, check!”

  For God’s sake, why?

  Then he saw. The gun would still bear—just, on that after-bearing— but Hostile and the destroyer with her—Hotspur?—were coming in between Hoste and the oncoming Germans, masking her fire. Not for long: they were crossing, turning to port, heading as if to form up astern, or just to get out of the way, clear the range.

  And laying smoke, now …

  Hoste was gathering way. Paul guessed they’d be following on astern of Hardy and those other two. Water sliding away faster as she picked up speed, still with the drunken list on. Shell-spouts rose again to starboard, leaping tall and white, collapsing with slow grace. The after guns were in action again. Baldy’s eyes were bloodspots and what showed of his face around them, in the gap in the anti-flash mask, was smoke-blackened like a chimney sweep. Hoste quivered to explosions aft: not gunfire, shellbursts. And she was slowing again: you could feel the vibration ease— and then stop, as her propellers ceased driving her.

  “‘A’ and ‘B’ guns follow director!”

  She had enough way on to be answering her helm, swinging to allow the for’ard guns to bear on the enemy astern. “B” was now trained as far aft as it would go, right up against the stop; and loaded, ready.

  Fire-gong: crash …

  Back at it again. Like pressing a switch and starting up a machine. Eight working parts: seven men, one gun. It fired again, plunged back, breech opening and stink flooding back: projectile, charge, tray slamming over …

  Crescendo of gunfire up ahead, where Hardy, Havock, and Hunter were leading westward.

  “Check, check, check!”

  A very short spasm, that one had been. Paul took a look round the edge of the gunshield; there was nothing to see except smoke. Which presumably was why they’d ceased firing. You could hear Hostile and Hotspur still in action, though; fighting a rearguard action to hold the attackers off, it must be. The list on Hoste was more pronounced and an easterly breeze—the wind had shifted right round during the night— brought a smell of burning. From aft on this ship? But the whole fjord by this time would stink of burning. Harry Rush, who’d been standing with his back to the gun and looking out the other way, westward, had begun to shout: Paul and Dan Thomas joined him to see what was so exciting.

  Hard to see anything …

  Dan Thomas snarled, “Look at them bloody bastards!”

  Two more big German destroyers were racing out of a side-fjord to the south, tearing across to cut them off.

  How many did they have in here, for God’s sake?

  Hardy, Havock, and Hunter were already engaging the new arrivals. It was all gun-flashes and drifting smoke, groves of shell-splashes around both groups of ships. Paul, Baldy, Rush, Dan Thomas, and Vic Blenkinsop were staring out that way when Hardy was hit, her bridge smothered suddenly in a gush of flame and smoke. A flag-hoist had broken at the flotilla-leader’s yardarm a couple of seconds earlier: the flames reached up to it and the bunting began to flare. Hardy swinging hard a-port: and Hoste, steadied from her own swing, was moving ahead through the water again and starting to turn back the other way. It seemed possible that Rowan was taking her to the assistance of his damaged leader.

  Paul t
ried to get a sight of his watch. One gun aft was firing now. One?

  “‘A’ and ‘B’ guns follow director!”

  Leaving that after gun in local control to engage the Germans coming up astern? He’d only had the barest glimpse of the watch’s face but he thought the hands were at just after six: and the fire-gong had clanged, they’d resumed the seven-some reel. Firing directly ahead—at the two new ones. Nothing to see, though; the gunshield limited one’s world. Picking up speed: and shaking, rattling more than usual. Heat and stink of burning paintwork—from aft. One of the stern guns must have been knocked out. Fire-gong: crash … Sounds muffled in numbed or flattened ear-drums. Eyes blurred, and mind blurred too. The clang of shells into the loading-tray and of the tray as it was swung over to the breech was totally inaudible, like a film when the soundtrack’s out. Arms were pistons, hands were claws, the gun was the master of seven men who served it. Hoste was listing still more steeply, he thought, than the last time he’d noticed. You got into a way of expelling a breath through your mask as the breech opened and the stench flew back. Crash … Jet of red flame, then black smoke pluming up and back. On “A” gun, he half realised— below them, just down there … “B” fired, threw back; shell-spouts rose to port quite close, and another explosion down for’ard with a similar jetting flash upwards and sideways out beyond this gunshield. Foul black smoke reeking and flooding back aft. He’d dropped another charge in and turned in that lunging motion to grab the next from Mitch: something slammed into his back with tremendous force and he was aware of sound—different, unidentifiable—and tumbling helplessly, the kind of fall that woke one up in nightmares: then darkness and a sense of personal removal, a feeling that one had become a spectator of some battle being continued now at a distance … He’d been unconscious, and he came-to in the act of getting to his feet. The ladder to the ammunition hatch and the sight of Mitch told him where he was: he’d been knocked down here, into the Chiefs’ and POs’ mess. Mitchelmore had been up the ladder and come back down it; he was shouting, “Whole bloody lot’s ‘ad it. All of ‘em!” Shells and charges were arriving from below and piling up. Mitch said, “‘A’ gun’s the bloody same. Christ, what are we—”