Twelve Seconds to Live (2002)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Allison stooped and said, ‘All right, Skipper . . . sir?’

  Foley raised his head and looked at him.

  ‘Did you get it under control down there?’

  Allison saw the torn jacket, the shoulder and side bare to the bitter wind and drifting spray, and the dressing which Harrison was trying to hold in position. And blood. Black against the grey paint, and the thin plating which could hardly deflect a spent bullet.

  He said, ‘Here, let me,’ and felt Foley wince as he moved the heavy dressing. ‘Sorry, sir. But I can do it. I took a first aid course at King Alfred.’ He was speaking jerkily, afraid he might lose the impetus which had carried him this far. ‘During the dog watches, usually. To get out of sporting events, you see . . .’

  Harrison murmured, ‘That looks good.’ He sounded relieved, and possibly surprised.

  Foley gasped as they covered him with somebody’s duffle coat, then stared around the bridge again, coming to terms with it.

  ‘Wood splinter,’ Harrison said. ‘Big as a baby’s arm. An inch or so inboard and it would have done for ’im, sir.’

  ‘I’ll have another go when it’s a bit lighter.’ He broke off as Foley said, ‘You’re all surprises, Toby.’ His teeth were very white against the dark backdrop of sea and cloud; he was grinning despite the pain, and the shock of being rendered helpless at the very moment the boat, his boat, needed him. ‘I don’t know what it is you’ve got, but don’t ever lose it. Promise me that, will you?’

  He tried to lift his arm but the pain stopped him. ‘Take over.’ He took another sharp breath. ‘Number One. The E-Boats have pulled off, for the moment, but they might be back. The MGBs are here, at last.’ He attempted to smile, but failed. ‘One of ours is in trouble. Starboard bow. We’re closing now. Get forrard and get ready to come alongside.’ He shook his head suddenly. ‘I can manage up here.’ His hand came up again and reached Allison’s wrist. ‘And the fire really is under control?’

  Allison made himself stand, feeling the heavier motion, the reduced speed, and saw the other motor launch for the first time. Drifting and out of control, smoke hanging over and around the hull, pale against the black water.

  ‘The fire’s out, sir.’ Somehow he knew it was important for the skipper to be reassured. The rest, whatever it entailed, had to wait. He trembled. The stage must be reset for the next episode.

  The hold on his wrist tightened. ‘Good lad, Toby. I’ll not forget.’

  Bass looked down from his wheel. ‘I’ll take her in, sir.’ He might have chuckled. ‘Done it a few times.’

  Leading Seaman Harrison said, ‘I’ll come forrard with you, sir.’

  Allison nodded. He must have learned a lot since Ganges, he thought vaguely. Harrison’s tone, for instance. The unspoken warning.

  Somebody called, ‘Watch yer step, sir!’

  It was slippery, treacherous on the unsteady forecastle deck. Plenty of spray, but still a lot of blood as well. Allison recalled the terrible scream, the sound cut off like a slammed door. Somehow he knew Harrison had silenced the dying man, perhaps to prevent a panic, or to lessen his misery. A cannon shell had smashed him down even as he had reloaded the gun and had blasted off both his hands, and he had been badly wounded in several places by the same jagged splinters which had pockmarked the forepart of the bridge and chart space. Allison retched, but controlled it. One of the severed hands was caught around a mooring cleat, whitened by the constant spray, like a torn, discarded glove.

  He tried to shut it from his mind, his brain, and made himself stare at the other motor launch. He could just make out the number on her shining hull, ML417, one of the extra boats which had been called in for the minelaying escort.

  So unlike his time aboard the old destroyer, in the convoys, those long lines of hard-worked, rusty merchantmen. The flash of an explosion in the night as a torpedo had found its target, and then a ship falling slowly out of line, dying as you watched. And the commodore’s signal. Close up. You must not stop. Fill in the gap, until the next one caught it.

  This was different. People you knew, if only by sight, or responding to a wave or some witty signal when the senior officer chose not to be looking. He recalled the charred messdeck, the few possessions scattered amongst the debris.

  He said, ‘Stand by with the fenders!’ and watched the other boat moving down on him, or so it appeared. But Bass was gauging it, and the skipper would be holding on. Making sure. Like hearing him speak. Good lad. I’ll not forget.

  He could smell the damage now, burned wood, and the lurking danger of leaking fuel. A heaving line snaked out of the night and a hand caught it neatly, as if it was broad daylight, and in harbour.

  ‘Take her head rope!’ Allison winced as the two hulls jerked together and the rope fenders took the full shock. He wondered what it must be like in the engine room, the Chief and his small team sealed in with the pounding machinery, the din which would drown out the sound of an approaching shell, until it was too late.

  He heard the tough leading seaman say, ‘Lieutenant Baldwin’s the C.O., sir.’

  Some of the injured men were being dragged across the treacherous gap between the two boats. Others lay where they had fallen. A sub-lieutenant, he guessed the Number One, was urging the last few to jump to safety.

  Harrison murmured, ‘Was the C.O., anyway.’

  He turned as Foley called down from the bridge. His voice seemed stronger. Unchanged.

  ‘Cast off, Number One! She’s going down!’

  Allison stared at the other boat. If there was anyone else, it was too late.

  ‘Let go! Fend off, forrard!’

  A shadow moved up beside him. Without looking he knew it was the subbie, his opposite number.

  He said, ‘Lost seven chaps.’ Someone cried out behind them. ‘Skipper bought it in the first attack.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘So long, old girl.’

  Allison watched the other hull turning on her side, bubbles bursting around the motionless screws and through the shell holes along the bilges.

  The subbie turned away as somebody took his arm to guide him aft. But he hesitated, and then seemed to shrug.

  ‘Maybe I’ll do it for you some day, eh?’

  The engines were growling again, and the next boat astern was taking up station even as the abandoned motor launch lifted her stern and dived out of sight.

  Brock’s boat came creaming past, rounding up the depleted flotilla. The loud-hailer was mercifully silent.

  The E-Boats had gone. Allison felt something like weariness sweeping over him and had to shake himself. It was not the time to step back and be thankful. It never was.

  He said, ‘Clear up here, Hookey. Get more hands from aft if need be. Must get the three-pounder on top line again, right?’

  It had come out sharper than intended, but Harrison replied, ‘Right, sir!’ He was satisfied although he would never say as much. That’s more like it. No room for passengers in this boat.

  He glanced at the corpse of the man he had known for several months. A lifetime. His knuckles still ached from the punch he had thrown to silence his screams; he had been finished anyway. He peered at the splinter holes and jagged scars. Only two sorts of matelot in this man’s navy. The quick, and the dead.

  He thought about the motor launch he had watched go down. He had had a good friend aboard her. He had not been one of the survivors he had seen dragged over the side. When it happened, it was the best way to go. With your mates. And with your boat. He thought of the other Jimmy the One, his quiet so long, old girl. It had broken through his defences, and that had surprised him.

  A group of figures were scrambling towards him, the ‘extra hands’. There was a lot to do before daylight found them again.

  ‘Come on, you idle sods! Move yerselves!’

  Leading Seaman Nick Harrison, the Buffer, was back.

  Petty Officer Ian Shannon, the Chief, wedged himself in one corner of the bridge, an oilskin covering his familiar overalls to protect
him from the keen air which must be a testing contrast to the heat of his engines.

  ‘I’ve been right through the boat, sir.’ He hesitated, looking over the screen at the sea, as if he loathed it. ‘It’s not a dockyard job, as far as I can estimate, but it’ll keep us in harbour for a week or two.’

  Foley held the enamel mug to his mouth and swallowed the last of the thick, clinging cocoa, ‘ki’, which Shannon had organized in the engine room. With the galley in ruins, it was all they had. A good tot of rum would help, but they were not out of danger yet.

  He considered what the Chief had told him, and could picture the damage for himself. And the human cost. Scott, the new telegraphist, killed by shell splinters on his first trip in 366. He had only spoken to him a couple of times and could hardly recall his face. Hutton, seaman gunner, who had lost both hands in the attack, a likeable youngster who had been in their small company for six months or more. And another seaman named Miles who had been cruelly scarred across the face by wood fragments which might have blinded him.

  Foley touched his side. It felt raw, and when he moved, it hurt like hell. A close thing. But he had been lucky and he knew it.

  Shannon said, ‘I’ll be getting back then, sir.’ Like so many of his calling he felt out of place on the bridge, away from his engines, which even now he was listening to, sifting each sound and vibration.

  ‘You did well, Chief.’

  Shannon smiled. ‘We all did, I reckon, sir.’

  Foley heard him retreating from the sea and sky. Did he ever think of the garage he had once managed, and the wife who had left him for somebody else? The only man aboard who never received any letters when the mail boat came alongside.

  Another of the men they had taken from the sinking ML had died. That made eight, including her skipper. Almost half her complement.

  He reached over and wiped the salt from the glass screen. It was still dark, but at this time in the morning watch you seemed to get a kind of second sight, the sea and full-bellied clouds acting like a warning. More ships were lost returning to base than on operations. Tired and spent, thinking of getting back to a warm bed, perhaps. Or maybe a letter from home. Allison always seemed to receive a lot of mail. It was hardly surprising. He could hear him now, speaking to some shadowy figure by the midships gun mounting. After this night nobody would try to take the mickey out of him again.

  Dougie Bass returned to the wheel and took over from the helmsman who had relieved him for a well-earned break. Bass had been on the wheel almost continously since they had quit their little base with its church and solitary pub.

  What was she doing now? Asleep? Or had someone got news of the operation which had misfired? As if the enemy had known, and been waiting for them.

  One minelayer sunk, and it was unlikely that anybody would have survived, and ML417 shot to pieces. Against that, they might have put paid to an E-Boat with the depth charge ruse. Might, if, maybe. It was hardly anything to crow about.

  A voice seemed to ask, And what about you?

  Foley eased himself to his feet, and sensed that Bass had taken his eyes from the compass to watch him. And there was Harrison, the tough leading hand, one of the hard men, who had been so concerned that he had been unable to accept that his skipper had been brought down. A wood splinter, big as a baby’s arm, which might have ended everything.

  And the other ML’s Number One, older and probably far more experienced than Allison, who had seemed suddenly lost, crushed by what had happened to his boat, and to his skipper.

  Was that how it would be?

  ‘Aircraft, sir!’

  Foley swung round and felt the dressing pulling at his torn skin. He cupped his hands to his ears, turning slightly to find and gauge the sound.

  ‘Ahead, sir! Moving left to right!’

  That was Chitty, at his station again. He missed nothing.

  Foley said, ‘Stand to! Warn the engine room!’

  Allison was here, dragging out his binoculars, his jaw still working on a scrap of food from somewhere.

  Foley watched his faint silhouette against the clouds. A youth who had dodged extra sport and studied first aid as an excuse; he could well imagine it. The same youth who might just as quickly have been thrown into command of this boat.

  Cocking levers clicked into place, and a figure lurched aft with a new magazine for an Oerlikon.

  Foley licked his lips and felt the cold air probing through his torn jacket and sweater, and against his skin. Then he heard it. One aircraft, perhaps searching for some clue which would bring the whole pack down on them at first light. Louder now; he could imagine the pilot, alone in his cockpit. A different sort of war.

  At any moment he might drop a flare and . . . night into day again. He felt his teeth snagging together. Shivering, but not from the cold.

  Bass muttered, ‘Come on then, let’s be ’avin’ you!’

  ‘There, sir! Starboard bow!’

  Foley saw the small flares falling slowly towards the sea, touching the troughs and serried waves with colour.

  Green, green, then red over green. The recognition challenge. Foley took a long, ragged breath. Probably one of Coastal Command. Looking for them.

  There was a prick of light; the signalman must have been poised with his finger on the trigger, and then a solitary white flare exploded like a bright star before fading and drifting down again with the wind.

  Tony Brock had replied to the signal.

  There was still a long way to go.

  Foley said, ‘Go aft, Toby.’ He was thinking of the young seaman who might have lost his sight for good. ‘Find Miles for me, will you? Tell him we’re going home.’

  Afterwards, he wondered how he had managed to get it out.

  A near thing.

  The same Operations Officer yawned hugely and scratched his side.

  ‘That about does it, David. Quite enough, too, for one bloody night, I’d say!’

  David Masters studied the plot, and the scribbled comments and times on the wall chart. Outside it was very dark, or so it seemed away from these glaring lights. And yet he had heard Reveille sound over the tannoy system, what felt like hours ago.

  It was a physical effort to think, but he went over it again. The two minelayers were on their way to Plymouth; a fresh escort should already be in company. The motor launches would enter harbour at ten o’clock. Handling parties would be mustered, ambulances standing by. It was a familiar scenario, and yet . . . He rubbed his chin, his hand rasping over the stubble; he could not remember when he had last had a good night’s sleep.

  He looked at the incident log. There had been three all told. Two magnetic mines had been reported, one in Swanage, about twenty miles away, and the other on the outskirts of Poole harbour. An unidentified sighting had been made off Durlston Head, and minesweepers were waiting until daylight.

  It was all in hand; there was nothing more he could do. So why should he feel such a sense of frustration? He should be used to it. The teams were experienced. They were all volunteers. It would make no difference if he was able to be present with every one of them.

  A telegraphist poked his head around the screen.

  ‘Call for you, sir. In your office?’

  ‘Who is it?’

  The man grinned, despite the hours he had been on watch, the strain of listening to the reports. Ships vanishing. Men dying. Symbols on a chart.

  ‘Rear-Admiral Fawcett, sir.’

  The Operations Officer almost choked on his cup of tea.

  ‘At this hour? Does he never sleep?’

  The yeoman of signals muttered, ‘Not on his own anyway, lucky bugger!’

  It had been a long night, so the Ops Officer chose to ignore the remark.

  Masters climbed the steps into his office and shut the door. He could smell the stale pipe smoke, evidence of his last brief visit.

  Bumper Fawcett came straight to the point.

  ‘I shall be with you at noon, or thereabouts. I’ve been foll
owing the situation, and I’m unhappy about it.’ A pause, and Masters could hear his quick breathing. His anger. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, I want a full investigation, and tell Brock I shall expect a report from him, not in some bloody document, what?’

  Masters rubbed his aching eyes. ‘I shall arrange it, sir.’

  ‘Too bloody much of this cloak-and-dagger nonsense! Find out what’s wrong, then stamp on it, that’s always been my scheme of things!’

  The line went dead.

  Masters glanced around the office, hating it, and thinking suddenly of his last commanding officer, before he had been given Tornado. After a patrol, no matter how wearing and dangerous, his skipper had always appeared on the bridge shaved and smartly turned out for entering harbour. ‘Not vanity, David. It’s my way of saying thanks to our lads. Showing them that it matters.’

  He peered at his watch and strode down to the Operations Room again.

  ‘Can I have a car? Now?’

  The Operations Officer nodded and gestured to a messenger. ‘For the Big Chief?’

  ‘For me.’ He heard a car starting up, and reached for the blackout curtain. ‘If anything . . .’

  ‘I know. I’ll call you right away.’

  Masters waited for his eyes to accept the darkness and headed for the main gates. Groups of sailors were marching between the huts, and there was activity around the sick quarters: there would be wounded to attend to. Hope to offer, where there might be none. ML366 had been in action; Chris Foley had not been reported injured. But information was limited, censored.

  The driver was a marine, the one he had seen talking with the Wren, Foley’s girl.

  The car moved off through the gates, where two ambulances were already waiting to enter.

  ‘Bad luck, eh, sir?’

  Masters touched the scar on his cheek. There were no secrets here.

  He said, ‘I’ll be as fast as I can.’

  The driver nodded. The officer had told him politely to shut up.

  It only took a few minutes, but it seemed an hour. When he got out of the car he could see the house already framed against the sky, the line of trees beyond, and was suddenly angry with himself. What was he trying to prove? Every day men were being killed, by accident or by booby-trap, or by some device not even fully understood. He had met every one of them and sometimes had watched them go, on what had proved to be their last mission.