by Alan Evans
Now Victoria’s face was blank, turning from one to the other but the bright eyes were watchful and she smelt a row brewing. “What about another drop o’ —”
Eleanor said softly, “That’s what you know now, but what did you think then?”
Smith could not answer her. He remembered her mood, her blazing anger in that bedroom and he waited for it to burst upon him now. He waited.
She laughed and that was worse than the outburst he had expected. She laughed and said, “Well, Commander, my life’s my own and what I do with it is my business. How I spend it and who I spend it with is my business. It has never been your concern and never will be. I’m grateful to you for saving my life but I think we’re all square now.”
Smith had deserved it, he knew that. But she had not deserved it. He said, “Eleanor, please —”
“Sir?”
He looked around at the interruption. It was Buckley, who said, “The captain sent me up to the Commodore’s to find you but I spotted you in here, sir. I was to tell you we’ve shifted the picketboat; she’s lying just at the end of the quay here.”
Smith stared at him, trying to remember what he had been about to say to Eleanor. Buckley shifted under that taut, empty stare. “He thought you’d be in a hurry to get off, sir.”
Hacker was to take him to Dover aboard Jack Curtis’s CMB. Hacker had to see his friends and Smith had to talk to someone. The mystery of what was hidden in the woods by De Haan was still unsolved. Schwertträger. If he was right then the time was running out. Two days. Two days at the most…
He said, “Very good. I’ll come now.” He stood and picked up his cap as Buckley saluted and left.
Smith stooped over Eleanor. “I was wrong and it’s not fair you should be hurt. I’m sorry.”
She did not answer him or look at him, stared past him at the door. So he went to it and out, put on his cap and walked towards the end of the quay, the pinnace and London.
* * *
He and Hacker scrambled into a leave train as it pulled out of Dover and stood throughout the journey in the corridor. The train was packed with the men and their equipment, most of them still with boots and legs coated with Flanders mud. Hacker had telegraphed ahead and there was a car waiting for them at Victoria. A hospital train had preceded them and the station was crowded with ambulances, wounded on stretchers, wounded limping on crutches or with arms in slings, some with eyes bandaged and holding on to comrades. And there were the faces behind the barriers that waited and watched, anxious or hopeful. The one or two that lit up when they saw the man they waited for even though he might be a shattered wreck; he was alive and home and now that was enough. Smoke and steam hung in the station and their smells mingled with the smell of damp khaki serge, sweat, dirt, antiseptic and the exhaust fumes of the ambulances creeping through the crowd.
It happened every day. Often it happened all day and all night.
On the way from Dunkerque they had talked and learned a great deal about each other. Smith found that Hacker had been an artillery subaltern until Intelligence claimed him. “They seemed to think I’d be useful. Bit of luck, really. Most of the chaps I knew as a subaltern are dead. I had trouble getting things done at the start because I didn’t know the strings to pull then. But once I learned that I got on all right. I mean, half-colonel isn’t bad for a chap who’s really a civilian. And it’s an interesting job most of the time.” He paused, then added, “Not too bloody funny sometimes, though.” He appeared languid and easy-going. Smith found him to be hard-working and serious.
Now in the car Hacker said, “About Eleanor.” He paused, for once embarrassed. “There was nothing between us except that I recruited her for the Belgian job. She had a bad time and I’m sorry, though I had no choice. We needed her. But that was all there was to it. She’s a fine girl.”
Smith said, “I know.” But he had already wrecked his chances with Eleanor Hurst.
He got out of the car at the Admiralty and stared up at the great building with the wireless aerials strung across its roof. Hacker handed him his bag and said, “When I have any news I’ll come round to your hotel, but this will take time.”
Smith answered, “I don’t think we have much time.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Smith shook his head. “We’ve got to make them believe!”
Hacker stared at his intensity as Smith went on, “We know the evidence is just words: soldiers in De Haan talking of Schwertträger. A U-boat Commander mumbling it when he was delirious, but he wasn’t delirious when he told me: ‘the blow will fall soon.’ I saw him. And he talked about a spring tide. You get two of those a month when the tide is exceptionally high and the next one on the Belgian coast is early on the morning of the 12th. That’s the day after tomorrow. That’s soon! Whatever Schwertträger may mean it is a threat, it is connected with the woods south of De Haan and it could easily be timed to start on the morning of the 12th. We’ve got to get them to see that!”
Hacker was silent a moment, then said, “I believe you. And I know some strings to pull now. We’ll make them believe.”
The car pulled away. Smith watched it go and was glad he had Hacker on his side. He’d got to know the man and liked him; he could prove a friend. But now Smith had to test another and he turned towards the Admiralty.
* * *
Rear-Admiral Braddock growled, “What are you doing here?”
Smith came straight to the point. “I need help, sir.”
“Sit down.” Braddock looked thoughtfully across the desk at him. “The opinions you expressed on anti-submarine flotillas and convoys — I quoted them.”
“Yes, sir?”
“They made an impression. Let’s say that yours was one more vote that was counted. The convoy system is to be extended.”
Smith said from the heart, “Thank God for that.”
Braddock nodded. “I’m convinced it will be the saving of us. The reduction in shipping losses where convoys are used certainly indicates that. So you were right.” He thought Smith could be a bad-tempered, moody, stiff-necked, hard-nosed, infuriating officer. But he was right when it mattered. He went on, “I hear you’ve been busy. How are you getting along with Trist?”
Smith said baldly, “I’m not.”
The Admiral scowled, waited, and Smith told him the whole story, from his first hearing of Schwertträger to Trist’s refusal to allow him to attempt a reconnaissance of the woods south of De Haan. And he said what he wanted to do.
Braddock still scowled. “I wouldn’t say that you go looking for trouble as a rule, just that you seem to attract it. I promised you help, but coming to me for this, bypassing the chain of command! Trist will rightly say you’re going behind his back.”
“I know.”
“It won’t endear you to him, or to a lot of other people. I don’t like it myself.”
“I don’t like it, sir, but I believe time is against us and there was no other way. I had to use the back door. A LieutenantColonel in Army Intelligence is trying the same method.” He told Braddock about Hacker.
Braddock said, “Um. So the pair of you are trying to get orders for you, over Trist’s head, to attempt this reconnaissance. Well, I can’t give ’em.”
“No, sir. But you’re the only man I know who might be able to — or prepared to…” He stopped, uncertain how to put it.
The Admiral finished for him: “…persuade the right people.” He was silent, thinking that while he knew something of this young man, he knew little about what he really wanted. Thinking also that he himself was nearing the end of a long and distinguished career — but for the war he would have been retired by now — and he did not want to tarnish it with some backstairs-engineered blunder. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Was that what was making him hesitate, the risk to his reputation? If he was worried about taking that sort of risk then he had stayed too long and he should get out. And what about Smith, sitting there expressionless as a Chinaman but ready to risk n
ot only his career but his life? He thought of this young officer’s seemingly wild escapades, the enormous risks he had taken, the women, the scandalous talk he had caused. Now he sat quiet. Not tall nor handsome. A little shabby and the fair hair needed cutting. No jutting jaw nor blazing eyes. The eyes looked tired now but were steady on Braddock.
Braddock said harshly, “You know what will happen to you if you’re wrong, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Then Smith added, “But what may happen if I’m right and do nothing?”
“Nobody could blame you.”
“No. The dead blame no one.”
Braddock digested that and made his decision. “All right.” He pushed out of his chair, looked at his watch then fumbled in his pocket, produced two slips of coloured paper and handed them to Smith. “I’ll get in touch with your Colonel Hacker and I’ll do what I can. You can do nothing, so go away and try to forget about it for a bit. There are a couple of tickets for Maid of the Mountains. They tell me it’s a good show and I was going to take my wife but now it seems I’ll be busy.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“No, you’re not. And don’t worry about my wife. She’s used to this kind of last minute cancellation and I’ll take her some other time. Now clear out and let me get on with it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
* * *
Smith used one of the tickets as he was told because he did not know what else to do. He left his bag at his hotel and went out to Daly’s. There he sat through the first twenty minutes of Maid of the Mountains. It was a good show and the house was packed but he saw none of it. He saw a dark coast, the sea breaking gently on a shallow-shelving, long beach with a sharp lift of dunes beyond. And beyond them the loom of woodland, dark, silent. Secret.
He left the theatre and walked, lost in thoughts that revolved in his mind and threw up possible solutions to the mystery that he probed and worried at, but that remained just possibilities. There might be other possibilities that he could not dream of. It was a long time before the shrilling of the air-raid whistles brought him back to the present and he found he had been walking east. It seemed only minutes but his watch would have told him he had walked for an hour. He did not need to look at it because he knew where he was and that he was close to the little house belonging to Eleanor Hurst. But Eleanor was still in France. And besides, she wanted nothing more to do with him…
A fast-striding policeman, an elderly man, a ‘special constable’, peered at him and said, “Air-raid, sir. There’s a shelter in the street you’ve just passed.”
The warning was superfluous and the policeman looked at Smith curiously. There was gun-fire all around the eastern perimeter of the city, searchlights sweeping the sky and now the far-off but familiar whistle, glow and crump! Of an exploding bomb.
The ‘special’ said, “I suppose it’s the Gothas again, sir.” And then he shouted, “There y’are!” He pointed. In the sky to the east of the city the wavering beam of a searchlight had locked on to an aeroplane, a very high, tiny thing of silver in the light. But it was a Gotha. They were big biplanes, enormous compared to aircraft like the Harry Tate, with the range to reach London with a half-ton of bombs each. They had a ceiling of fifteen thousand feet but this one looked lower than that as it twisted and turned, but still the light held it and the gunfire burst around it.
“Go on! Blast the bleeder!” The ‘special’ ground it out.
But then the Gotha side-slipped out of the light. The searchlight beam swept the sky, searching, but did not find it again.
‘The ‘special’ muttered savagely under his breath then glanced at Smith. “Be wise to take shelter, sir.” He was disapproving. He obviously thought an officer should have more sense than to be walking the streets in an air-raid for no good reason.
Smith could not explain his presence but air-raids in the streets were the business of firemen and ambulancemen, and of the volunteer patrols formed in each street. He was none of these. If he could not help, then: “I’ll go back to my hotel.”
“You watch out then, sir.”
Smith turned back. He had not covered fifty yards and was approaching a side street when he heard a far-off hiss climb quickly to a shriek and he threw himself down close by the wall. The pavement heaved under him and the blast sucked out the windows above his head to shower him with falling glass as the roar of the explosion battered his ear-drums. He saw the dust roll out in a cloud from the side street just ahead. The pavement heaved under him again and there was the thump! Of another bomb exploding but this one sounded further away. Dust still boiled out of the street ahead of him. He started to rise and was on hands and knees when the house groaned above him. He stared up and saw the whole wall of it toppling like a falling tree; he went down again with his hands over his head, pressed in tight against the wall. Then it burst about him and that was all he remembered.
* * *
There was light and there were voices. He heard the murmur of them as far away, deep but with a lighter tone among them, the voice of a woman. Eleanor Hurst? He heard them in the drowsy moments of slow awakening. Then there was a rustle as of a woman’s skirts and the voice said softly, “Yes, I think he’s waking.”
He opened his eyes. She was young and pretty but she was not Eleanor Hurst. She was a nurse, a VAD and she stooped over him with a half-smile on her face but watching him intently. He thought she had a nice face, young, anxious. He turned his head on the pillow. There were screens around his bed and on a chair at one side sat Hacker, who now shot his cuff to glance at a gold wrist-watch and drawled, “About time.” But he looked relieved.
Smith lay still for a moment thinking about it, drowsy but not tired, just waking slowly and drawing his world together again. He remembered the bomb, the toppling wall. He asked, “What is this place?”
Hacker answered, “A hospital for officers. One of those houses given up for the duration. Near Regents Park.” He was shaved, neatly uniformed, buttons and Sam Browne belt gleaming but there were dark smudges under his eyes. “I went to your hotel this morning and found you hadn’t got back last night and started searching. Had a hell of a job finding you. Wasn’t till the forenoon —”
“Forenoon!” Smith jerked upright in the bed, fully awake now. He stared at Hacker and asked, “Well?”
Hacker nodded. “I’ve got your orders in my pocket. What you wanted.”
And Smith thought that he had been sleeping the day away while time ran out — wasted!
The nurse returned. “I can’t find Doctor Blair.”
Smith asked quickly, “My clothes, please?”
“Well, the doctor will have to see you before —”
“But I’m all right! What was wrong with me?”
“You were unconscious and bruised. A few minor lacerations.”
“That’s nothing. I’m all right.” He was. He was stiff and sore but he felt as though for once he had slept well; he was eager to be away.
The girl explained patiently, “A doctor must see you before you can be discharged.”
“He has. Colonel Hacker is a doctor and he’s just been looking at me. Right, Colonel?”
The girl looked at Hacker and he looked at Smith then said gruffly, “That’s right.”
The girl hesitated. “But the Colonel isn’t Medical Corps —”
Smith said quickly, “Seconded for Staff duty.”
Hacker nodded and smiled at the nurse.
The girl blushed and gave way. “Well, I suppose in that case —”
Smith jumped in. “Fine! Fetch my clothes, nurse, there’s a dear girl.”
She brought them and he saw someone had cleaned his uniform tolerably well and his boots had a shine to them. He dressed rapidly.
At the front door she admonished him, “But you must take care, sir. A wall fell on you. You looked an awful mess when they brought you in.”
“I will.” Smith could see Hacker’s car waiting at the kerb with the driver at the wheel, the engine running
and Hacker gesturing urgently from the rear seat. Smith added sincerely, “And thank you.”
She looked over his shoulder. “Why, here’s Doctor Blair now.”
Smith saw him, a grey-haired man in a white coat walking across the road from a house opposite. “My compliments to him.” Smith was across the pavement and into the car. He waved to her as it pulled away.
Hacker grumbled, “You really are the bloody limit, Smith.”
“Well, you told me you were a doctor.”
“Of philosophy, dammit! If they report this —”
Smith grinned. “You might get your name in the papers.”
Hacker was not amused. “Along with the other dirty old men who impersonate doctors. Thank you. Oh, well, I’ll go in and apologise when I get the chance.”
“So will I. Where are my orders?” He ripped open the envelope Hacker gave him.
Hacker said, “We had to see a lot of people — that Admiral of yours is a demon! Had to do a lot of talking, a lot of persuading. But they came around. Mind you,” he added cautiously, “they weren’t enthusiastic. In fact they are just covering themselves.”
Smith scanned the orders. He was required forthwith to reconnoitre with the force at his disposal the coast south of De Haan and take any requisite action. He was to be careful of hazarding his ships or his men.
It was sufficient, all he had hoped for because he knew his case was hard to argue; he had argued it enough to know. The Navy was fighting desperately against mounting losses of merchant shipping from U-boats and with one eye always on the German High Seas Fleet where it lurked, waiting, in its North Sea base in the Jade river. To the Admiralty the threat hidden in the woods south of De Haan was a problematical one and a sideshow at that.
He stuffed the orders in his pocket as Hacker said, “There’s a train for Dover in half-an-hour. And I’ve sent a signal asking for another reconnaissance flight.”
Smith said, “I don’t think you’ll get it. I talked to one of the pilots at St. Pol and he said it wasn’t on. His Squadron Commander won’t have it.”