by Alan Evans
Smith said, “I think we’d better talk.”
Eleanor Hurst was close now. Garrick’s voice spoke up behind Smith, “Welcome home, sir. We were starting to worry.”
Hacker muttered, “Not as much as I was.”
Smith turned to meet the grinning and obviously relieved Garrick and asked, “What news of the engines?”
“She’s to be towed into the dockyard tonight or early tomorrow, sir.”
Smith thought that was his ‘ship of force’: two big guns and no engines. And that his deck was getting crowded and the hands at work were having to climb around them. He said, “I think we’d better compare notes.” He looked from Hacker to the girl. “Shall we go below? The men are making ready to coal ship and we’re in the way.”
They went down to the cabin and Smith crowded them in, Hacker and the girl sitting on the bunk, Garrick standing by the bulkhead. Brodie appeared before they were settled, carrying a tray with glasses, a bottle and a jug of water. “Thought you might fancy a drop o’ something, sir.”
“Did you?” Smith took the tray from him. “It’s a bit early but the circumstances are unusual. Thank you.”
Brodie left and Smith charged the glasses.
Hacker said, “Sparrow’s been knocked about a bit.” When Smith nodded, Hacker went on, “Curtis told me when he got back here in the middle of the night that you’d gone to do the job. Then when you didn’t show up at first light —” He shook his head, his cap now hooked on one knee, and smiled at Eleanor. “I was very worried, my dear. Oh, I know it was a job that had to be done and you had volunteered. But I’d let you go and — well, I’m damned glad to see you safe.” He paused, then asked, “Josef?”
Smith answered, “We lost him.” He explained briefly.
Hacker said nothing for a moment then he lifted his glass to Smith where he stood at the door. “Congratulations to you, anyway. And — ‘absent friends’.”
Smith lifted his. “Absent friends.” This was Dunbar’s cabin. There would be a stretcher party coming soon to take Dunbar and the wireless operators from the wardroom. He gulped at the whisky and felt it burn down into him. “There’s no cause for congratulations. Josef and Miss Hurst found nothing. Just as the reconnaissance flights you asked for found nothing. Except that whatever is in those woods, the enemy are determined to keep it secret.”
Hacker said, “You seem to know a great deal.”
“I know about Schwertträger. I know you’re trying everything you can to find out what’s behind it.” And Smith told him about the U-boat commander, and how it had been reported to Naval Intelligence and to Trist. He finished, “Now I find you’re on the same trail. Does Trist know? Did you know what I’d told Trist?”
Hacker shook his head uncomfortably. “There’s very little liaison of that kind. We’re improving, but so far — no, there’s no machinery for exchanging information.’ He added wryly, “I’m having difficulty in persuading my people that this thing could be important. They authorised reconnaissance flights, and this landing of Josef and Miss Hurst but only because of the reports from Belgium. And because I persuaded them there was something going on that we should know about.”
Smith was silent for a moment, aware that Garrick was listening to all this with amazement. Smith looked at him, open-faced and honest and thought wearily, Thank God for Garrick in a mad world. He said quietly, “I believe that, because of the way they are guarded, the woods south of De Haan hold a secret that is a threat to us. Because of the connection with a U-boat commander and the mention of a spring tide that threat must be coming directly from the sea.” He paused.
Hacker said, “That sounds sense.”
Smith emptied his glass and looked from Hacker to the girl.
“I’m going to the Commodore to ask him to let me make a reconnaissance of that stretch of coast. Will you come with me?”
The two of them sitting on the bunk exchanged glances. Hacker said, “Well, I know Trist — but I think you’re right. I’ll come.”
Eleanor Hurst stood up wearily. “Very well.”
Garrick offered, “I’ll come along if you like, sir.” He said it unhappily, scenting trouble.
Smith turned him down. “But if you’d care to wait aboard I’ll go with you in the picket-boat later.”
He had no cap so he took Dunbar’s. They walked up through the port, along the quays. As they crossed the fish-market where there was a new crater filled with rubble, the flag climbed up the staff on the Belfroi tower and the fog-horns sounded. The crews of the French destroyers lying alongside ran to their guns and the barrels lifted to point at the sky.
Eleanor Hurst asked, “What’s going on?”
Smith answered shortly, “Air-raid,” and kept up the fast pace he had set from the beginning.
At the house in the Parc de la Marine they found a line of Staff cars, the drivers in a lounging group that stiffened into cracking attention as a corporal among them bawled, “Heyes front!” And snapped up a salute. Smith returned it. The outer office was empty, the Lieutenant missing from his desk by the double-doors leading to Trist’s room and those doors were halfopen. Smith and his little party could hear a murmur of voices, deep-toned laughter and he pushed the doors wide and walked in. He saw the Lieutenant who should have been guarding the doors hurrying down the room towards them, a startled look on his face. Beyond him there was a crowd of officers, Army and Royal Navy intermingled blue and khaki, gold braid and red tabs, glittering boots and buttons and silky-shining Sam Browne belts. They stood around the big map in little groups. Two stewards in dazzling white jackets were moving among them with trays of drinks and a long table was laid for lunch by the windows. Smith saw one tall figure in the uniform of a Brigadier-General in conversation with another tall, immaculate figure who smiled widely. Smith thought of Dunbar who had bled to death while he refused to leave his bridge, refused to abandon Smith and risked his little ship under the enemy guns. But Dunbar was at peace. Smith wanted something of Trist, had to have it. Then Trist saw Smith and his smile vanished.
The Lieutenant intercepted Smith. “Sir, if you would care to wait —”
“The door was open. I need to see the Commodore.” Smith passed him and met Trist who was walking with rapid, long strides down the room.
Trist said softly, savagely, “What the devil do you want?”
“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, sir, but there was no one around outside and the door was open. I have to see you.”
Trist looked him up and down, at the salt-stained uniform, crumpled as it had dried on him, the hollow eyes in the unshaven face.
Smith guessed how he must look and was sorry, but: “It is urgent, sir —”
“This is a conference,” Trist started, but Smith’s eyes flicked past him to the group at the end of the room, the stewards and the drinks. Trist followed the direction of that gaze and saw curious glances turned towards himself and Smith. Gunfire sounded beyond the tall windows of the long room, some of it distant and some of it close. A shudder ran through the floor and the windows trembled making a soft rattling in the frames and then there came the far-off muffled crump! of the bomb. Hacker and Eleanor stood a yard inside the room, the Lieutenant hovering uncertainly. They watched the slight, bedraggled but straight figure of Smith standing under Trist’s glare, refusing to be moved.
The Commodore smiled easily at the General across the room but muttered an obscenity under his breath. He said, “Very well. Outside.”
And when they stood in the hallway, “What is it?”
“We’ve talked before about —” Smith hesitated. What to call it? “Schwertträger, whatever it may be.”
Trist raised his eyes to heaven. “Not again!”
Smith said, “This gentleman is Lieutenant-Colonel Hacker of Army Intelligence. This lady is Miss Eleanor Hurst. If you would hear them, sir.”
Hacker looked real, the soldier he was, but Eleanor Hurst still wore the blouse and skirt in which she had been captured
and in which she had swum. She had dried them aboard Sparrow but they had not seen an iron. She looked a scarecrow figure and knew it, was aware of Trist’s eyes running over her, amused and patronising.
Hacker told his tale, and Eleanor Hurst went stiff-faced and curtly through hers as Trist watched her with a cynical half-smile.
When they had finished he looked at Smith. “And I suppose you believe this lends weight to your arguments? That two wrongs make a right?” He glanced at the doors behind him and looked at his watch.
Smith said, “Before we only knew the Germans planned something called Schwertträger. We still don’t know what it is or when it will be but we know where and that it is connected with the woods by De Haan.”
“That may be,” Trist admitted grudgingly. “But if Colonel Hacker had sent a more appropriate agent than an untried girl —”
“I was there only as — as part of a disguise!” Eleanor Hurst snapped it at him. “There was an expert with me, he tried all he knew and now he’s dead. He did not die with his bottom stuck in a chair and a drink in his hand!”
Trist glared past her at Hacker. “Are you unable to discipline your assistants?”
The door opened behind Trist as the girl answered him. “He can’t and neither can you! I’m a civilian! Thank God for that and that I don’t have to take orders from a pompous windbag!”
The General and his aides stood in the door, and with them a Royal Navy Captain. Trist spun on his heel, saw them and snapped round again.
Hacker said, “Sir, I’m sorry. Miss Hurst has been under considerable strain and doesn’t know what she’s —”
“I know very well what I’m saying!” She was pale but she spoke very clearly.
Smith said savagely under his breath, “For God’s sake, shut up!”
Her head jerked as if struck and she turned away.
Smith spoke to Trist, tried to retrieve the situation. “I think the Germans have something in those woods, sir. The aircraft patrolling over De Haan, the way they are very secretive about the area, how it is isolated, guarded and now this report that actually links Schwertträger with those woods — they all fit together now. I suggest that we try to reconnoitre that stretch of coast by making a landing, and the fact that Miss Hurst and myself have both landed there shows it can be done. I think we’ve got to make a reconnaissance backed by force and prepared to —”
“No!”
Smith thought he could not have made himself clear. He must try again. “If I could explain, sir —”
“No!” Trist almost shouted it. “You’ve already exceeded your authority in engaging in operations outside the orders I gave you. You’re demanding a reconnaissance while one ship of your force is immobilised and now the other is damaged because of your actions!”
Dunbar. All the time came the sound and shudder of the bombs falling in the port and the constant racketing gunfire. Dunbar.
Smith heard himself saying, “With respect, my actions were dictated by circumstances and in the same circumstances I would act the same. The ship was knocked about and three good men killed, one of them a fine officer, because the orders from this headquarters sent her out alone into waters where she had no right to be and on a task she was unfit to undertake!” He shouted it at Trist.
The other man’s mouth was open. The Army officers stood staring. Smith looked at them all and told himself his temper had wrecked everything.
Finally Trist said, “You — are — insubordinate!”
He was going to relieve Smith of his command. Smith knew it. It would be the first mistake Trist made because it would mean a court martial and though he had engineered matters so that he was covered, nevertheless some mud would stick.
But then the Captain stepped in and the four gold rings around his sleeve were interspersed with scarlet. He was the Fleet Surgeon. He said easily, “I really think, Commodore, that both this officer and the young lady are suffering from overstrain. I see a great deal of it and the signs are there if you know what to look for. I suggest release from all duties for a few days.” He glanced meaningly at Trist. “I’ll authorise that with your permission, sir.” He was breaking it up, getting rid of the troublemakers.
Trist saw the opportunity to avoid a court martial and all it entailed. He hesitated, reluctant, then nodded. To Smith he whispered, “Get out!”
For a second or two Smith did not move. He was trying to find words to try again. And then he realised, slowly, that it was hopeless. Trist did not believe him, did not want to.
Dunbar was dead but Smith remembered his warning about Trist. “He never does anything he doesn’t have to…Mister Cautious himself.” Trist would not authorise any operation out of the ordinary. A bombardment, convoy escort, a sweep of the Belgian coast — all of them were arguably within the brief for Smith’s flotilla. But not a reconnaissance in force off the coast by De Haan where no U-boat would or could have its base.
Trist would not authorise it.
Smith walked out.
They halted outside the house, for a moment a silent group. Smith was fighting down his anger with Trist, and with himself because he had let his temper run away with him again. He thought he had made a fool of himself, fouled it all up. If he had bided his time, got Trist alone, maybe buttered him up — No. He recoiled from that. But if he had to? No matter. He had handled it badly and now somehow he had to set it right.
There was a fire in the town, sparks flying up amidst the smoke. There was another across the basin that smelt like a paint-store burning. The smoke coiled across the water, acrid. The air-raid was over but as always there was the distant rumbling of the guns at Nieuport and this day they seemed louder, nearer.
Hacker said quietly, “I have some friends in London. I propose to go to them.”
Smith nodded. Friends? He knew he had no influential friends. Except…“There’s someone in London I might talk to as well,” he said. There were rules and he was about to break one of them, or try to. He could see no other way.
Hacker asked, “When will you be ready to leave?”
Smith looked down at himself. His kit was in his cabin aboard Marshall Marmont. He had to get out to her.
Hacker said, “Curtis is in the basin and is still on detachment to me as requisite. He can take us across to Dover.”
But Eleanor Hurst put in a word. “Look, I want a bath and my hair washed and clean clothes and I want to go home today, but before anything else I want to go somewhere and have a drink and sit quietly.” She paused for breath. Her voice had a high pitch to it.
Hacker asked anxiously, “Are you all right? Do you feel ill? The doctor —” He gestured towards the house.
Eleanor said desperately, “I don’t want the doctor and I’m not ill but I’m not all right, either. If you want to know how I feel then I feel as if I’d been captured as a spy and threatened with shooting. As if I’d been thrown out of a boat into the sea, hauled out of it again and then shot at. As if I’d been involved in a blazing row with a man I’ve never seen before and never want to see again.”
Hacker put an arm around her shoulders and said gently, “Of course. I’m sorry.”
She looked up at him. “Can’t we just go somewhere where we can have a drink and sit quietly in a seat that doesn’t go up and down and sideways? Just for a few minutes?” Her legs trembled under her and she was close to tears. Hacker was solicitous but awkward while Smith stood aloof and stared at her blank-faced.
But it was Smith who said, “Just down here.” And took her arm.
He led her along the quay past the French destroyers where the hands were securing the guns and gathering up the spent brass cartridge-cases whose clanging sounded like a badly executed carillon. He led her to Le Coq, Hacker marching along stiffly on the other side of her. It was not yet noon and the bar was empty but for one customer. Mrs. Victoria Sevastopol Baines sat at her customary table at the back of the room with the customary glass before her. Smith thought that was one stroke of luck a
nd delivered Eleanor Hurst over to her.
“Mrs. Baines, this is Eleanor Hurst. We had the good fortune to pick her up this morning when her ship went down.” That was true enough and all he could say. He could sense Hacker’s Secret Service eye on him, worrying. He explained to Eleanor, “Mrs. Baines owns a tug and she’s helped me out of trouble on occasion.”
Victoria fussed over Eleanor like a mother-hen and bawled at Jacques for cognac in a voice that shook the bar and made Eleanor flinch. But she found the old woman comforting.
Smith felt the cognac warm his stomach, felt his tense muscles relaxing and his thoughts begin to move again. He did not have to talk. Victoria Baines did the talking.
She asked only a couple of questions about the sinking and got brief, vague answers from Eleanor: a U-boat had attacked them and Sparrow had picked her up. It was enough for Victoria. She could fill in the details herself; she had seen enough ships sunk. Smith thought she probably assumed the sinking was somewhere in the Channel and that the ship had been British. Victoria chattered on, making plans. “There’s a hotel in the town. I go up there to have a bath — there’s nothing so grand as that in the Lively Lady though she’s snug enough. You’ll be able to have a bath and a sleep and I’m sure I can get you some nice clothes. I’ll get Jacques to send out for a cab —”
Hacker stood up. “That won’t be necessary. I have a car nearby. I’ll go and whistle it up.”
“That’s very kind of you, Colonel, I’m sure. One of those Staff cars is it? Well, it’ll be nice for it to be doing something useful for a change, won’t it?”
Eleanor’s lips twitched and Hacker said drily, “Yes, madame, it will.”
He walked towards the door and Smith said, “I’ll be waiting aboard Marshall Marmont within the hour.”
“Right.” Hacker passed out of the bar through the open door and as Smith watched his broad back receding down the quay, memory stirred.
He turned to Eleanor Hurst. “The day I left — I was going to come back but then I saw Hacker at your door —” He stopped.
There was a silence. Eleanor Hurst’s face was blank for a moment as she stared at him but then her lips tightened and he thought, You bloody fool, you’ve done it again. He said lamely, “He’d come to see you about — this other business.”