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

by Alexander Fullerton

  Guesswork. But carefully not guessing about Hoste. One had to keep one’s mind on present circumstances, on what had to be done here. And whatever had to be done, he’d be running it—men’s lives would rest on his decisions. It was necessary to be fit for that, not lose sleep worrying over private matters.

  He heard a voice behind him: low-pitched, no doubt because he was up here. Turning, he saw the snotty, Cox, leaving the bridge, presumably having given some message to Brocklehurst, who had the afternoon watch. Nick called him back.

  “Mid—did you fix something up for Dobbs?”

  “Yes, I did, sir.” Cox came over to him. “Wasn’t difficult. I made it out of thick wire, just bent to shape and with a couple of screws in the bottom of the upper bunk to hold it.”

  “Well done. What are you doing now?”

  “Helping with the new topmast, sir. At least, seeing how it’s done.”

  “Progressing well, is it?”

  “Seems to be, sir.”

  He put his glasses up quickly: he’d thought he’d seen a movement on the hill. But if there had been, there was nothing to see now … “Mid, we aren’t going to allow you to give up your navigational studies, you know.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You must understand that whether it’s an activity that appeals to you or not it’s as essential to be able to use a sextant and arrive at a decent fix as it is to be able to tie a knot or steer a boat. It’s part of your stock-in-trade as a seaman. If you put your mind to it, not as a school lesson but as a practical tool that you’ve got to master, you may find it a lot easier than you think.”

  At Cox’s age he’d been pretty hopeless at it himself. Probably for much the same reason: sick of instructors, the Dartmouth atmosphere which, so far as junior officers’ training and gunroom life were concerned, lingered on when at sea. He’d been about as bloody-minded, when he’d been fresh out of Dartmouth, as anyone could have been. Then at Jutland—after Jutland, when he’d found himself sole surviving officer in his destroyer and that he had to get her back to England, he’d begun to realise that if he’d been less pigheaded in recent years, if he’d ignored likes and dislikes and states-of-mind and just damn well learnt it …

  He was trying to explain this to Cox. Not mentioning the fact that, bringing the shattered destroyer home after Jutland, he’d not known for sure whether he’d hit England or Scotland or missed the lot.

  “Yes, sir. I understand that.”

  Nick could see that he was trying to understand it. He asked him, “In your cadet days, did they talk at you about leadership?”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  “What did they tell you it amounted to?”

  The boy frowned, trying to remember. Staring at that hillside on the north shore of Sundsråsa. “Well, just that—well, more or less a quality we’re supposed to have, sir.”

  “Like Divine Right, holiness, or irresistibility to girls?”

  The snotty looked surprised. Nick told him, “It’s nothing like that, Cox. No gift of God, and nothing magical about it either. Just common sense. It’s not jumping up and shouting ‘Follow me!’ and having all the chaps rush after you because you have this magnetic quality or heroism or something. The reason your instructors never spelt it out is because they’re baffled by it themselves because no one ever told them either; but not to have this thing is unthinkable, so they daren’t look too deeply into it in case they find they haven’t got it …” He drew breath. During the shore years, he’d had a lot of time to think about such things. “I’ll tell you how you can start working out what it is. First—what made me think of it—this navigation business, as an example. Knowledge and ability, competence—you have to know your stuff. Otherwise you shouldn’t be here in the first place, there’s no reason for you. And your men have got to know that you know it. They’ll give you the benefit of the doubt until a time comes when it’ll show up one way or the other, and then by God you’d better show it, or else … But there’s more to it than just competence. They’ve got to like you. They’ve got to feel you’re honest and fair in your dealings with them. And for that to come about you’ve got to like and respect them. Anyone who can’t, or doesn’t, might as well go home. When it works, it works because it’s natural.”

  Silence. Staring at the hill. Then: “Any of that make sense to you?”

  Cox nodded. He was looking at Nick now, not at the hill. He had a pleased look, as if he’d been given something.

  “Yes, it does, sir.”

  “Think about it, from time to time. If you can really digest it, make use of it, you’ll find things tend to go well more often than they go badly. But don’t think of it as some kind of trick. It’s absolutely basic— to what sort of chap you are, or will be … Better get back to that topmast, now.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Thank you very much, sir.”

  Nick focused his glasses on the lookout post again. When he’d been Cox’s age he’d had his uncle Hugh to put him straight occasionally. But it had been difficult for Hugh, because Nick and his father were always at loggerheads, and only in much later years had he and his uncle been able to discuss things without a feeling that they were whispering in corners.

  Uncle Hugh would be convinced his nephew was dead, by this time.

  Still nothing stirring up there. He hoped to God those people were doing what they’d said they’d do. He went back to the binnacle and slung his glasses on one of the spheres.

  “I’ll be down aft somewhere.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Brocklehurst added, “Hope that fisherman doesn’t run up against any Krauts.”

  Nick thought Lange was probably quite canny. He looked it. And he’d surely know how to keep his boat hidden, in these fjords. He told Brocklehurst, “Might be nicer for the Krauts if they don’t run up against him.” He went down, avoiding the port side where Metcalf and his team were chopping away with adzes, and walked aft. A Norwegian assistant of Boyensen’s and two of Intent’s stokers were fixing the steel patch over the engine-room, tightening the bolts all round; and on Valkyrien’s stern Kari was watching two of her crew lowering the second skiff out over the old ship’s starboard side.

  “That’s a very economical arrangement.”

  She looked round quickly, startled. He meant the single pair of davits amidships, between the two boats’ cradles. It could be swung to either side, to lift either of the boats. Only Valkyrien’s narrow beam that far aft made it either necessary or mechanically feasible.

  “They are going to try out its engine.” She came over to his side. “For tomorrow night when you need them both.”

  “Got plenty of petrol for them?”

  “Oh, I think so.” She looked at her watch. “My father is ashore a long time. Did you know we were invited to dinner in your ship’s wardroom tonight?”

  “I did hear some such rumour.”

  “Will you be there too?”

  “They’ve invited me.”

  “Then you will be?”

  “I think I’d better let them have you to themselves. I don’t want to be greedy and monopolise you.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Well—yes, of course, but—”

  “Come too, please?”

  “If you put it like that—”

  “My father says those ribbons you wear on your shoulder—” she’d perched herself on the white-painted bulwark—”some are important ones?”

  She had a very direct manner. As if they weren’t likely to know each other for long and there wasn’t time to beat about the bush. Also, she had a way of switching from one subject to another so rapidly that you knew her thoughts must have gone to the new subject while you were still busy with the previous one. Or—in this case—she’d been certain that as soon as she said “Come, please?” he’d give in and agree?

  He’d told her, “They’re from the last war. Too long ago to remember.”

  “You must have been very young, to have won medals in that war. Do you think your plan c
an still work, with German ships out there?”

  “I am hoping that by tomorrow they’ll have achieved whatever their purpose is and be gone on their way.”

  He would not, he thought, dine in the wardroom this evening.

  “You say you are hoping, but do you think they will?”

  The question was annoying. How the hell could he foresee the enemy’s moves when he didn’t even know why they’d come here?

  “I’d say there’s a good hope they’ll move on. If they don’t, we’ll either grab our oil without raising an alarm and then sneak away, or we’ll have to fight them on the way out.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “The oil is necessary. Of course.”

  The readiness to accept, again. She’d throw out a lot of questions but she wouldn’t question a logical conclusion. Wasn’t acceptance of logic unusual in a female? To Ilyana, certainly, logic had always been a strictly male weapon to be either ignored or derided or fought to the last shriek. Sarah—well, that was hard to know. With Sarah he’d never really had an argument: except for one very short, almost wordless flare-up, twenty years ago, and they’d ended that in each other’s arms. Which was why nowadays she never spoke to him except in front of other people, when she sometimes had to. He felt he knew nothing, now, about Sarah. Fiona? Well, Fiona would accept logic if it worked out in favour of whatever she was after at the time. Otherwise she’d brush it off: ”My pet, don’t be so boring… ” Fiona had just completed her officers’ training course: she was an ensign now, with one pip on her shoulder. Uncharacteristically proud of the oddity that the MTC drills were patterned exactly on those of the Brigade of Guards: and of the quirk that MTC rankers called their lady officers “Madam” and not “Ma’am” as was done, apparently, in the FANYS, the nursing yeomanry. He’d made her angry by calling it “instant tradition”: and by laughing at her totally illogical frustration at not being allowed red paint on her nails.

  This girl—Kari—wouldn’t give a damn what she put, or did not put, on her nails.

  Why should he think approvingly of that, he wondered? He agreed with Fiona: he liked lacquered nails. And he was not, definitely, dining with his officers this evening … “Kari, on second thoughts—”

  “Here comes my father!”

  She ran over to the other side, waving to the motor skiff as it approached from the western end of the little bay. She had a very attractive figure: not a mannequin-type figure like Fiona’s, but—eye-catching and eye-holding … Claus Torp was standing up in the boat’s stern-sheets, waving back to her.

  Rear-Admiral Aubrey Wishart pushed the door shut as he passed through into his office; he went straight to the desk and flipped up the intercom switch.

  “Any messages?”

  “Quite a lot, sir. But one is very urgent and personal—from Admiral Everard. He’s telephoned twice, and left a number at which he’d like you to call him back.”

  She told him the number, and from calls during the last three days he recognised it as a members’ extension at Boodle’s. He hesitated, drumming the fingers of one hand on the polished desktop. He’d been at a conference for the last two hours, deputising for his chief; he had a stack of work piled up that needed seeing to, and now on top of it, this …

  Which he’d expected, of course. It was a lousy position to be in. He wished to God that Nick had never written that damn letter, putting the old boy in touch with him.

  “Ginny—would you come in here, please?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He was sitting behind the desk when she came in. Third Officer Virginia Casler of the Women’s Royal Naval Service was blonde and petite. She was also quick-witted and efficient. He told her, “Sit down for a minute. Something I’d like to explain to you.”

  She put herself neatly in the chair facing his, and crossed one elegant knee over the other. Smoothing down her skirt: then the small-boned, well-manicured hands relaxed, folded in her lap on top of a file she’d brought in with her. He told her, “I don’t like to put a man off with excuses, pretending to be tied up or not here, and I dislike having to ask you to tell such fibs for me. Particularly when it’s a man like Hugh Everard. But I do have a very good reason why I’d infinitely prefer not to have to talk to him, at least for a day or two.”

  “That’s about as long as you’ll be here, sir, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. His new appointment had come through. He’d be off almost at once, to join the staff of C-in-C Mediterranean. Third Officer Casler’s grey eyes rested on his face: she seemed patient—sympathetic, he thought—with his obvious unease.

  “Hugh Everard’s nephew Nick is an old friend of mine. His ship, the destroyer Intent, was sunk three days ago, in action with a cruiser believed to be the Hipper. Admiral Everard knows this, but won’t or can’t bring himself to accept it as fact. Nick was very close to him, more like a son than a nephew. So that’s bad enough. The old man’s wanting news all the time, and there isn’t any and I know there won’t be any …But now on top of it there’s something else. In the action at Narvik yesterday morning we lost three destroyers. The communiqué said two, but the three are Hardy, Hunter, and Hoste. And serving in Hoste was Ordinary Seaman Paul Everard—Nick’s son, aged nineteen, first ship. Hugh Everard had taken a shine to his great-nephew too. So—well, you see?”

  “Yes.” The grey eyes were clouded. “I do. It’s—”

  “I’ve been trying to jolly him along about Nick and Intent, play up to the wishful thinking … But this other thing—well, we do have reason to believe there was a high proportion of survivors, but—” his hands opened on the desk—”you can only stretch hope and optimism a certain distance. After that—”

  “May I make a suggestion, sir?”

  He looked at her quickly. Women were such marvellous creatures to have around when you were tied up in knots. Like oil in jammed machinery. And this one—well, he thought, you’ve always been a pushover for tiny blondes. Perhaps because one was such a large, ungainly sort of chap oneself. He stared down at his hands on the desk. “I’d be grateful if you would, Ginny.”

  “I think you should tell him. He’s going to find out before long anyway, so keeping it to yourself now isn’t really going to save him from it. And if there are a lot of survivors—anyway, he’s probably a lot tougher than you think. If he’s anything like my father—”

  She’d stopped, catching herself in the act of saying more than was necessary to make the point. Wishart, gazing at a scruffy-looking pigeon which was parading up and down on the stone sill outside his window, thought, She’s right. I’m being kind to myself, not to him.

  “You’ve got the number. See if they can get him for me, will you?”

  “Right, sir. And here’s the rest of the intake.”

  She passed it to him, a file of signals, memos, reports. He stopped her as she reached the door.

  “Ginny—thank you.”

  She’d smiled. And now, skimming through the papers she’d left him, he was thinking of what was new that he could tell Hugh Everard about. Nothing on the blower: but if he met with him this evening—which was what he’d better suggest, if the old boy was staying in town again … One could hardly just state this thing about Hoste, flatly over a telephone.

  Sir Hugh had won his private campaign, his battle to become a commodore of convoys, at least to the extent that they were putting him through a medical. At sixty-nine, for God’s sake: and all right, so he was a tough old bird! But what news could he give him? It wasn’t easy to remember what was new, what was this morning’s crisis and what was last night’s, when you were in the middle of it all the time. However, it was a fact that our submarine captains’ hands had been untied since the afternoon of the 9th, when an order had gone out that German merchant ships in the Kattegat and Skagerrak could be sunk without warning. You could operate now as the Germans did: but until this moment one had been obliged to surface, issue a warning, and give crews time to abandon their ships before torpedoing them. In effect it
had meant that if there was any kind of air or surface escort you had to let the target go—to land its troops and guns in Norway. The first man to benefit had been Jackie Slaughter, the ebullient CO of Sunfish: he’d had a Hun ship in his periscope when Max Horton’s signal had arrived, and all he’d had to do was press the tit. The submarines had been scoring heavily since then. But what other news, while the submarine service was doing most of the hard work? What else to tell Hugh Everard about?

  Well, Narvik was the centre of interest now. Admiralty had told the Commander-in-Chief that the recapture of Narvik was to be given top priority. An expeditionary force was being mounted and despatched for that purpose, and until it got there the C-in-C was to ensure that no enemy reinforcements reached the place by sea.

  Until … How long, one might well ask. The troops should have been there now. Why on earth they’d been disembarked in the first place, when they’d been ready and the ships all set to sail, to carry out Plan R4 …

  The black telephone tinkled, and he reached for it.

  “Wishart.”

  “I have Admiral Sir Hugh Everard on the line, sir.”

  “Thank you.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece, and cleared his throat. “Put him through, please.”

  “What’re you up to, Yank?”

  Whacker Harris, in from a spell of guard duty in the snow … Rubbing frozen hands together, relishing the schoolhouse’s warmth. It was packed to the eaves now, fairly bulging—with another couple of hundred men, here and in the hospital. Paul was squatting in the hallway, cutting up an old motor tyre with a pusser’s dirk he’d borrowed from Tom Brierson. He told Whacker, “Making a pair of shoes. At least, trying to.”