Twelve Seconds to Live (2002)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Brayshaw was always easy to talk to. And that was as far as it went, although he must have been tempted a few times when he heard what some of the more junior officers said and thought about his lord and master Chavasse.

  Foley said, ‘A flap on?’

  ‘Something to do with another device, I understand. All very hush-hush at the moment.’

  Foley smiled ruefully. ‘Which means it’s all over the south coast by now!’

  ‘Anything I can do? I’m told that you’re on operational stand-by. Rather short notice, I thought.’

  Foley nodded. Brayshaw missed nothing.

  He said, ‘I’ve got my cox’n and a couple of hands rounding up the libertymen. It’s the Chief I’m bothered about.’

  Brayshaw pursed his lips. ‘Overnight leave?’ and raised an eyebrow. ‘In this place?’

  ‘I heard there’s another pub somewhere. On the way to Lulworth, I think they said.’ He clenched his fist. ‘It might as well be Scapa Flow for all the chance I’ve got. I wanted to get him working on some new gear – I thought we’d have plenty of time at the rate things are moving here.’

  Brayshaw smiled. ‘You do pretty well, from what I hear.’ He was serious again. ‘I think I might help. If it’s the pub I remember, I can take you there myself.’ He paused. ‘If you like, that is.’

  They both turned and stared at the Humber staff car, its Royal Marine driver standing beside it, cleaning one of the windows.

  Brayshaw said gravely, ‘I have a couple of errands to run. Lulworth may well be on the route. Seven or eight miles, no problem. I’ll leave word with my chief writer.’

  He hurried away.

  Foley stared towards the anchorage, more crowded than ever now. A flap on . . . Bass had told him some cars with red-painted wings and motor cycle escorts had been seen speeding away on the Weymouth road. Another device, as Brayshaw had described it, maybe like the one that had killed an officer from Portland, which Masters had been sent to investigate. Brayshaw had been there, too.

  He thought of his new Number One, and wondered how long it would take for him to find true confidence. Allison was eager and intelligent, but he knew nothing yet of the total dependency required in a small warship. He could be thrown into command on their first operation. He heard Brayshaw returning and was glad of it.

  The marine driver’s eyes moved over his extra passenger, pausing briefly on the D.S.C. It was apparently enough.

  The gates opened and Brayshaw spoke to the master-at-arms nearby. Through the open window Foley heard the distant wail of air raid sirens. The balloons would be up, the A.A. guns alerted. Hit-and-run raiders no longer had it all their own way, at least not in daylight; there was a new squadron of fighters a mile or two inland. He recalled the dead pilot officer, the fixed stare. He might have been one of them.

  No use going over it again. He concentrated on his new orders, or what he knew of them. Two other MLs would be joining 366, coming round from Poole. The senior officer was Lieutenant-Commander Tony Brock, R.N.V.R. like himself, and said to be in line for a new flotilla all of his own. Foley had come up against Brock several times. Big, like his reputation, a man who had once skippered a luxury yacht for some rich Greek before the war. A man who had a way with women, if half of what was said of him was true. An old R.N.R. hand had once remarked on that aspect of Brock, ‘Like a rat up a pump! Anything in a skirt!’

  But he was brave enough. Perhaps too brave, if that were possible.

  He recalled Harry Bryant’s parting comment on Critchley. I could be wrong about him, too.

  He tried to relax and watch the road across the marine’s shoulder. People look at you and they think it’s easy. Because you don’t appear to worry. Because that’s how they see you.

  He recalled his last leave, and the others before that. His father had served in the trenches in the Great War and had been gassed, like so many, when all the rules had been thrown away. He wanted so much to do something to help the war effort, but even the Home Guard had reluctantly turned him down. A civil servant, he now worked for the Ministry of Food, perhaps essential, but not the war as he still saw and remembered it. And Claire, his young sister, and her ‘sinister’ Polish airman, as his mother would have it.

  He had always lived near the Thames. It was beyond coincidence, but when he had learned to sail a dinghy it had been at one of the local boatyards above Teddington Lock. ML366 had been built by that same yard, like so many others which had quickly learned to adapt to a new purpose, or go under. Small though she was by naval standards, she must have seemed like a battleship in that quiet backwater of the river.

  Foley saw the driver’s eyes shift to his mirror, his brows tighten with irritation.

  Brayshaw half turned. ‘Damned fools, far too fast on this road!’

  There were no marks of rank or authority on the Humber, not that it would have made much difference, Foley thought.

  It was a three-ton lorry, with barely enough room to overtake as it roared past, dust and straw flying from the sides while its driver gunned the engine for an approaching hill. There were a few faces, khaki uniforms, patches of colour: Italian prisoners of war on their way somewhere. Whoever was in charge obviously did not care, or was past caring.

  Foley jerked upright, his mind suddenly clear, ice-cold, like the air from Brayshaw’s window.

  He heard Brayshaw exclaim, ‘Brake, man!’

  The marine was already doing just that, the big car swaying on the rutted road as if fighting back.

  Foley had time to see the top of the other vehicle, nothing more, as it was hidden by the hill’s sudden hump. He heard the crash, then another, and imagined that both vehicles had collided head-on.

  They braked sharply on the crest, and Foley pulled himself out and on to the road. The marine muttered, ‘Jesus, that poor bastard’s bought it!’

  The car must have been struck a glancing blow by the speeding lorry. It had swerved into one of the low stone walls and gone out of control; the impact of the second crash had smashed it sideways into a tree. One wheel was still moving and there was a stench of petrol. But no fire.

  Foley found himself running, the others behind him. He vaguely heard the squeal of brakes somewhere, the lorry stopping at last. But all he could think of was the dead airman being carried ashore, and the Wren standing by the car, this car, holding her cap in her hands. And he had not forgotten it, how she had looked. For all of them.

  ‘Let me!’

  He dragged open the door. The car was half on its side, the tree forcing the other door inwards; the roof too was folded like wet cardboard. There was glass everywhere.

  He heard the marine call, ‘Switch it off, sir!’

  Somehow he managed to reach out and lean across the girl’s body to turn the ignition key. The immediate silence was almost worse.

  Very carefully he put his arm around her shoulders, between her and the damaged door. There was glass in her hair and near her eyes; one leg was folded under her. She had been hurled aside by the final impact. It was like being someone else, like watching someone else. The jacket was half open and he felt inside. A faint heartbeat, or was it imagination? It was like that sometimes . . .

  ‘I think she’s alive!’ He unbuttoned the rest of her jacket. His hand was wet; she was bleeding. Then he saw the sunlight coming through the door where it had been caved in by the collision. The panel had burst apart and the glass had splintered through it like long, jagged knives.

  ‘Bandages, anything!’ He heard distant voices, the men off the farm lorry. He wanted to kill them.

  He straightened her leg and carefully pulled her skirt up over her knees. A lot of blood. He gripped her thigh, his fingers slipping on the blood-soaked skin, harder and harder, until a hand came over his shoulder, a bandage, a duster . . . he never knew. He felt a muscle contract and looked into her face. Her eyes were wide open, so still that for a moment he imagined it was too late, then she moved her head slightly, but her eyes never left him. Her h
and came from somewhere, more glass falling around them, until she had found and gripped his. Understanding what had happened, and what he was doing.

  She tightened her grasp. ‘Please.’ He withdrew his hand from her thigh and covered the blood with the makeshift bandage. ‘That’s better!’ She was trying to smile, but the pain was winning. ‘My father’s a doctor, you see?’

  She must have seen Brayshaw for the first time, and tried again to cover herself.

  Foley heard another vehicle pulling up. Voices, authority. It would be out of his hands soon. Too late . . .

  He put his hand over hers and said, ‘I’m Chris, by the way. You’ll be all right now. I’ll make sure of that!’

  She nodded, but her eyes were so dark she could have been unconscious once more.

  He said, ‘We’re going to move you. Very carefully.’ He felt the marine’s shoulder hard against his, knew the man had turned to look at him as he persisted, ‘What’s your name? I’d like to know. Very much.’

  Brayshaw murmured, ‘Ready now, Chris.’

  Perhaps it was the use of his name which sparked something.

  She tensed against the pain, but held on just long enough. ‘Chris . . . I’m Margot.’ Then she fainted.

  It all took time. Police arrived, military, and one local constable on his bicycle. A breakdown crew came to drag away the smashed car, and an ambulance from an army hospital.

  Foley stood in the road, the girl’s cap in one hand.

  Brayshaw signalled to his driver. ‘I’ll go with the ambulance. You’d better take the Old Man’s car. You are on operational stand-by, remember?’

  ‘I’ll not forget. If you’re there when she comes out of it, tell her . . .’

  Brayshaw smiled.

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  The marine waited for Foley to settle into the seat beside him. He had not even noticed the blood on his uniform, the cuts on his hand.

  ‘I expect you could do with a wet, sir?’

  Foley looked at him. ‘I’ll buy one for you, too. Thanks.’ He wanted to thump his arm, but his hand did not move. It was still gripping her skin, with her fingers in his.

  The marine grinned to himself. Not so dusty after all. They could pick up the lieutenant’s missing tiffy at the same time; even Pusser Chavasse couldn’t moan about that.

  It was late when Foley eventually arrived back at the inlet, the lengthening shadows hiding the scars and giving back some of its original memories. The wardroom was a village school again, the operations section only three small cottages huddled together facing the sea. You could even imagine bathing suits hanging out there to dry for another day.

  They had found Petty Officer Shannon in the pub and he had downed his drink without comment or protest. The marine must have warned him in some way to say nothing about Foley’s bloodstained uniform.

  Brayshaw’s chief writer had been waiting for them. Captain Chavasse had been told about the car’s errand of mercy but not, he suspected, its other mission to the pub outside Lulworth.

  ML366 was strangely quiet, considering that her full company was aboard. Pitching gently at her moorings, with just a hint of music coming from the crew’s messdeck, and the occasional stammer of morse from the W/T office opposite their tiny wardroom.

  Foley entered his cabin and examined the girl’s cap, which he had brought with him, unwilling to leave it, or let it go, as if it were a kind of talisman. He held it to the light; one of her dark hairs was caught in the H.M.S. cap tally, and a small piece of glass. He held it between finger and thumb. Brayshaw had even found time to pass a message to his chief writer, who had written it meticulously on the back of an old Request Form.

  She will be OK. Don’t worry. Keep your head down.

  Foley laid the cap on his bunk and looked down at the stains on his jacket. In the pub nobody had mentioned it. Careless talk costs lives.

  He wondered what Brayshaw had left unsaid. Was she badly hurt? So much blood . . .

  He opened his locker and took out a bottle of gin. He would have to watch it, be on top line tomorrow. He felt the deck quiver. The Chief was down there now with his machinery. They trusted him . . . Our Skipper.

  Someone shouted, ‘Pipe down! Remember the watchkeepers, can’t you!’

  But there were no watchkeepers, apart from a sentry on the bridge. A small company, brought together by something nobody ever bothered to explain.

  He looked at the Wren’s cap again. She had been afraid. But more of what he was doing to her, exposing her body, than for her safety. My father’s a doctor, you see?

  Where was it leading, anyway? He looked at the empty glass, but could not recall filling it, let alone drinking the neat gin.

  In Coastal Forces, the ‘little ships’, each operation might be the last. They all knew that, or should by now.

  He wondered what Allison was doing. Avoiding his skipper, most likely. Or worrying about tomorrow. Foley glanced at the bottle. Like the rest of us.

  He thought of the wrecked car, and the girl holding her cap. This cap. For all of them.

  A crooner’s voice drifted aft from the messdeck. ‘I’ll see you again . . .’

  It was drowned out instantly by, ‘Turn that bloody row off!’ And there was laughter as well.

  He picked up the cap, and after a slight hesitation put it into his drawer and locked it.

  He wanted to smile, laugh at himself. But all he said was, ‘Margot.’

  5

  ‘During the Night . . .’

  Petty Officer Bert Coker lifted the reefer jacket from its hanger and eyed it critically in the filtered sunshine.

  ‘Best I can do, sir.’ He picked an invisible hair from one lapel. ‘But you did give it a rough time, if I may say so.’

  David Masters leaned one elbow on the desk and tried to remember the name of an officer he had spoken to earlier. It seemed impossible that things could have moved so fast since that moment when he had left Rear-Admiral Fawcett at Portland.

  After the ‘incident’ he had returned here to learn of the unexpected operation which required the removal of Foley’s ML and two others from the special countermeasures team. Temporarily, he had been assured, but the boats were needed elsewhere for their normal duties, the staff officer had explained: normal duties meant just about everything.

  Like the incident, perhaps Bumper was keeping apart from it until he could issue further directions. Or apportion the blame.

  He had thought several times of Foley and the dead airman. Fate or luck? Something had made him hesitate, and avoid acting too hastily. An ML was no match for a couple of E-Boats, even if one was damaged; Foley would know that better than most.

  At Bridport he had found the army sappers, and a local render-mines-safe officer with his team who had answered the call from Plymouth. The device was in shallow water near an unused slipway, and had been discovered because its parachute had tangled around some old mooring piles. The lieutenant in charge of the Plymouth team had been impatient to act, clearly irritated by the presence of so many ‘gawping squaddies’.

  It was so often something simple that brought disaster. Masters had never forgotten one particular house where a magnetic mine had been reported, again betrayed by the parachute caught around a chimney stack. Somewhere in south London, not all that far from Clapham Junction, the ever-busy and, in wartime, vital span of track and sidings. It had been his third ‘beast’.

  The area was completely cleared, dead. Only a wireless blaring somewhere, abandoned when police and wardens had sounded the alarm.

  But there had been a small cellar, which nobody had remembered or found time to search. Used as an extra air raid shelter, someone recalled afterwards.

  The critical moment . . . the safety callipers closing around the fuse. Holding his breath. Then the first pressure.

  He had felt someone move behind him, and in a mirror above a dust-covered sideboard he had seen what looked like an apparition rising out of the very floor, not five feet fr
om the suspended mine.

  Old, ragged, wild-eyed, he too had been covered in dust and fallen plaster.

  Masters had spoken loudly enough for his rating to hear him from the other side of the jammed doorway.

  ‘Run for it! Warn the others!’

  The apparition had spoken for the first time. ‘I was in the Royal Engineers in the last dust-up, y’know. Worked on these things when I was on the Menin Road. Not so big, of course.’

  The callipers had taken hold. He would never forget. The vagrant with the cultured voice, and the fuse which he had been too eager to make safe.

  Like Bridport. There had been an old fishing drifter moored by the slipway, so dilapidated that even the naval shipwrights could find no use for her. When Masters had told him to have the drifter warped closer to the sodden parachute the lieutenant had almost forgotten himself.

  ‘Take too long, sir. I’ve got divers who can go down right now and deal with it!’

  He had seen the lieutenant’s expression alter when he had said quietly, ‘Do it. I’m not here to argue with you.’

  From the size of the parachute it was obvious that it was a small bomb of some kind, similar to the one Downie had sketched, and Sewell had dislodged from its rack in the Junkers before it had killed him. Not large enough to destroy a vessel of any size, too powerful to waste on an isolated target.

  Something in his manner and tone had warned the lieutenant, or maybe they had already formed their own views on Commander Critchley’s successor. A long warp had been rigged, and all the spectators ordered to retire from the moorings. Some of the men had been openly amused at the precautions. A sledgehammer to crack a nut.

  The drifter was cast off, and from behind the nearest buildings more men took the strain on the line.