Now they were going to add to that same history. One way or the other.
The lieutenant of the passage crew shouted, ‘Nothing to report, David!’ He grinned through the darkness. ‘Sorry! I mean sir!’ He stood aside as his companions dived past him, each handing over to Drake and the others with a minimum of delay.
Seaton heard someone call, ‘Good luck!’ Then the dinghy was clear, scuttling back to the submarine like an ungainly water-beetle.
Seaton slipped the tow and hurried to the hatch. When his boots hit the control room deck it seemed as if the others had never left since the last time.
As he watched them going through their checks he found time to notice what a good job the depot ship had done on XE 16. Fresh paint, a sheen of oil on every working part, she was like new.
He heard the back-echo of the towing submarine flooding her tanks as she dived and steered away to safer waters. The other two X-craft would, or should be on their way by now, heading to the rendezvous for one last contact before the attack.
Drake said, ‘Checks complete, Skipper.’
‘Very well.’
Seaton tossed his cap on to a newly fitted rack of weapons. He rarely calls me by name now. Another barrier.
‘Dive, dive, dive. Thirty feet. Eight-five-oh revolutions. Course zero-nine-five.’ He watched Jenkyn’s hands as he opened the main-vent valves. Tell me when you’re satisfied with the trim.’
Drake and Jenkyn had become so practised and experienced at working together that Seaton was almost able to ignore what they were doing as they pumped water back and forth, adjusting the boat’s trim so that she would answer instantly to rudder and hydroplanes.
Niven was leaning over the chart, his eyes slitted with concentration, doing what Seaton often did. Shutting out the others with his back.
Drake reported, ‘Trimmed for diving.’
Seaton ducked his head and moved to the table. He said, ‘We will stay at this depth and speed until the first fix.’
Niven seemed fascinated by the large-scale chart of the target. It was a narrow inlet, pointing north into the coast like a crack. There was not much depth, and shallows on either side of the entrance.
Seaton said quietly, ‘I’ll bet many a U-boat commander cursed the mind which planned that for a pen.’
Niven ran one finger along the pencilled course. Eastward to the inlet, then a sharp northerly turn, do the job and out again. His finger traced the outward course more slowly, as if examining the idea of survival.
He said, ‘The escape run is almost due south, sir. Straight across the Baie d’Audienne.’
Seaton replied, ‘Better chance that way.’
He followed Niven’s finger. The inward and outward courses made one great right angle, like a cocked hat. The three submarines were on their way to the pick-up area already. Their people would be having breakfast. Powdered eggs and tinned sausages. He swallowed hard, amazed that he could feel hunger at a time like this.
‘And there’s the château the Airborne boys are going after.’
It was about eight miles inland, and unremarkable except for a fine seventeenth century clock tower, according to Venables’ information. It would be remembered for a lot more after the raid, Seaton thought grimly.
Niven said, ‘At least we’re free of mines. They’ve laid quite a broad field to the south-east, towards Lorient.’
‘With rocks to port and shallow water by submarine standards, there’s been no need.’
Seaton closed his mind to the possibility that the chart was wrong about those rocks. That would ruin everything before it started if he drove his command aground.
Niven twisted his head to look at him. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.’ He watched Seaton’s surprise. ‘At first I thought it was just bravado, big-headedness on my part. Then I imagined I was trying to cover up something, and that my fight with the German frogman was a fluke, outside my nature.’
‘And now?’
‘I find it hard to explain. Like doing something better than anyone else for the first time in my life. Not merely well, or as my father would say, “could have been worse”, but good enough for,’ he dropped his eyes, ‘for you.’
Seaton smiled. ‘Thank you. But it’s your father you really want to impress, isn’t it?’
‘Once. Yes, it was. My brother –’ He shrugged. ‘Well, I expect you guessed.’
‘Most of it.’
‘The funny thing is that my father never really wanted to be in the Service. My grandfather told me one day, when he’d had a row with him about something. I was just a boy, but I never forgot that. You see, in our family it was expected. The thing to do. There was never any question of choice.’ He sighed like ah old man. ‘Maybe that’s what he had against me. I actually like the Navy, and nothing, not even his success, can wipe out his original protest at being sent to Dartmouth.’
‘I see.’ Seaton watched him, understanding his need to talk, to explain. ‘And you’ve been fighting him ever since?’
‘I suppose so. Decia, my wife, is a bit like that.’ He had lowered his voice, and Seaton guessed it was because of Drake.
Seaton did not know what to say. ‘It’s difficult in wartime. Separation.’ He thought of her words to him. About Trevor. Lovers, but not in love.
Niven nodded. ‘Don’t I know it.’
Jenkyn called, ‘Can someone give me a spell? I’ll wet the tea.’ Niven straightened up. ‘I’ll take over.’
Across the control room Drake watched him dully, his shoulders glittering with droplets of condensation, as if he had been standing in summer rain.
Seaton opened his pocket-book, XE 16’s codename leaping out of the page at him. Goliath. That was most likely Venables’ idea, too. David and Goliath.
He wondered what Nina was doing right at this minute. Lying asleep, as he had watched her so often in those precious seven days. Her body perfect in the moonlight, her soft breathing the only proof that he was not just dreaming.
The book closed with a snap. He must not think like that. She was almost beyond reach now. Every turn of the screw was taking him towards the final separation.
Seaton glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes more and then up to take a look around.
He turned back to the chart, but saw instead her face as she had watched him leave.
I don’t want to die. Especially not now. How many had said or thought like that? Like his father’s war, on the firestep of a trench in Flanders. A last hope, and then over the top into the wire, the chattering machine-guns. Oblivion.
Jenkyn’s face appeared. ‘Char up, gents! Cheaper than Lyons!’
Seaton swung round, showing himself to the others. He could not give in yet. He owed it to these men. Now more than ever before.
He grinned. ‘When it’s over we’ll have something stronger.’
Jenkyn grimaced. ‘You’re on. Though it’s right bloody now I needs it!’
Seaton licked his lips and shivered. The strain of waiting was making him ache all over. It even seemed to reawaken the injuries he had received from the German boots in Bergen.
It was hard to accept that the other two midgets were close by, or ought to be by now, manoeuvring into position just south of the last headland before the inlet.
He swallowed, tasting Jenkyn’s tea. He must have half filled the mug with sugar. A thick corned beef sandwich completed their breakfast. Or was it a last supper?
‘All ready?’ He touched the periscope hoist. The control room lights were all extinguished except for essential ones above controls and chart. It would give the man at the periscope a better chance to accustom his eyes without delay.
‘Ready, Skipper.’
‘Right. Two-five-oh revs. Periscope depth.’
XE 16 tilted very gently towards the surface, her motor vibrating in response to the reduced speed.
‘Nine feet.’
Seaton was already on his knees, his hands controlling the periscope’s slow rise, his body moving with it as it
broke the surface.
The sky was the first thing he noticed. Very clear, with a few tiny stars to prove that night was still retaining its grip. But he could see the land, black and solid above the sea’s oily sheen. God, but it looked hard and unwelcoming.
He heard Niven say, ‘The headland should be about red four-five, sir.’
Seaton eased the periscope round carefully, feeling the hull sway more noticeably in the undulating swell.
He watched the land reaching away in clinging darkness. But it would not be long now. Behind him the newly fitted R/T set was spitting and murmuring to itself as evidence that it was switched on. It was like hearing the fish speaking their own special language.
Seaton tensed as something moved above a long, unbroken roller.
‘Stand by to dive!’ He steadied the handles and murmured quietly, ‘God Almighty.’
The others knew better than to speak, but he could feel their anxiety.
He said, ‘It’s a man in the water.’
He made himself follow the bobbing head as it idled slowly towards the periscope. The leather helmet and brightly coloured Mae West told him it was a ditched airman, probably from that last big raid over the rocket site.
The lens had him perfectly now, and Seaton could see the way his arms were spread out on the surface, wide apart. His head was thrown back, the mouth open as if in one last appeal, a final curse against those who had sent him here to die.
Seaton wanted to lower the periscope, but could not do so. It would be cheating, an insult to a man who had died alone. He saw the face right by the periscope, held in the crosswires, the empty eyes ignoring it.
He heard Niven gasp as something scraped against the hull.
Seaton said, ‘His boots.’ Then he swung the lens away to leave the sea empty once more.
To Niven he said, ‘Take over here. I’m going to see if this damn set works.’
As Niven ducked down to control the periscope their eyes met.
Then Niven said, ‘Poor devil. It seems wrong to leave him there like that.’
Seaton sat by the small steel cabinet with its twin red lights. He took the handset off its clip and pressed the button.
Niven would in all probability be dead in a few hours. Yet he could find pity for one who was beyond aid.
He said, ‘Hello, Dodo, hello, Dodo. This is Goliath. Do you read me? Over.’
More crackles and clicks, then a voice came through the speaker, faint at first, but unmistakably Allenby’s.
‘Hello, Goliath, this is Dodo. Yes, I read you loud and clear. Over.’
XE 26’s codename was Oyster, and Winters’ response was clearer and louder.
They were all on station. No faults. No breakdowns.
Seaton said, ‘This is Goliath. Proceed as planned. No changes. Good luck. Over and out.’
There was no point at this stage in exchanging useless remarks. But knowing that each was nearby made all the difference.
And they had gone over it, and over it again, until they could memorise every known detail. Known detail.
Gervaise Allenby would lead in XE 19. His would be the honour, as he had put it. He was experienced and highly skilled. But not so much as Seaton. If anyone was going to catch it, it would be the one in the lead. They all knew that, no one more than Allenby.
Winters had only done one previous operation in a command of his own. He was to enter last, or hold back if the worst happened and try again later. It had sounded fine when the operations officer had explained it at the briefing.
‘Like waitin’ for the N.A.A.F.I. to open,’ Jenkyn had remarked.
Seaton said, ‘Lower the stick. Take her down to thirty feet.’
He scrambled to the table, feeling it tremble slightly as Drake depressed the hydroplanes. He moved the parallel rulers once again, checking the bearings, knowing there was no need. But just in case.
‘Alter course, Alec. Steer zero-five-zero.’
‘Thirty feet, Skipper.’
‘Increase to eight-five-oh revs.’ He looked at Niven. ‘Start handing out the Sten guns.’
He had a momentary picture of Major Lees and his formidable sergeant, McPeake; they had done their work well. Niven showed no trace of surprise as he took out the Stens and spare magazines.
Now Syren would become the Lodge Hotel again, but surely some memories would remain? Some remnant of the youth and eagerness which had passed through its doors.
At least old Duffy was still there, watching over the loch. The pale creeping mist and the bitter winter days.
He said, ‘Grenades, too. Make sure they’re primed.’ He saw Niven look at him questioningly and smiled. ‘I know. But check everything again.’
Apart from her powerful side-cargoes, these weapons were the only teeth XE 16 possessed.
A fat lot of use they would be, Seaton thought. But it gave Niven something to keep him busy, and a small confidence for those who still believed in it.
He tried not to look at the clock. One hour to go. Then over the top, and the best of luck.
He thought suddenly of the cottage. Maiden’s Nettle still asleep beyond their window. Her arm across his chest, her mouth touching his skin.
The memory was so clear, so deep inside of him that he felt defenceless, the pain of it pricking his eyes like smoke.
Jenkyn kept his gaze on the ticking gyro repeater, holding the boat on course with little effort. There was hardly any motion, and even when they had been at periscope depth it had been as gentle as a loch. Making it easy for them. The last ride to bloody hell. He thought of that creepy sound, thudding and scraping against the hull. Poor sod. Drifting all alone. Somebody, somewhere would be waiting. Hoping. Husband, son, lover? What difference now?
At least we will all be together when it happens. Snug in our tin coffin.
I hope she doesn’t take on too badly when the news gets to her. We’ll get the Victoria Cross for this little lot. It will be something for her to have. To show Gwen when she’s grown up enough to understand why the world once went raving mad.
Drake heard him sigh and shifted his buttocks on the hard seat. Like Jenkyn, he was thinking it was all too smooth. When you had a lot to do, like when they were in Italy, or probing towards Bergen, the time passed swiftly. He picked a shred of corned beef from his teeth. The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast.
He thought of Decia and that letter. Was she scared or repentant? Or just saying it to tempt him to some new mischief?
Just thinking of her lithe, sensuous body, her demands and her submissions, made his mind swim.
He heard a click and turned to see Niven watching him, a Sten gripped in his hands, the muzzle aimed at his stomach.
Niven said softly, ‘No magazine.’ He turned away. ‘This time.’
Drake stared at him. He wanted to explain. To tell him. But how could he? The others were here. The old firm. How the hell would he start?
Niven looked at his watch. Thirty minutes. He felt parched, although he had drunk his tea and plenty of water as well. Parched and sick.
The look on Drake’s face. Guilt, astonishment, momentary fear. But Niven had found no enjoyment, only disgust with himself. Not for making Drake think he was going to shoot him, but for knowing he could have done so.
It was all suddenly plain. His blind anger and hatred told him that. He was still in love with Decia, and nothing which Drake had done would change it. But it made it all the harder to bear. Knowing that Drake had been with her when he had not.
His words fell in the quiet control room like stones.
‘I’m all right now.’ He waited for Drake to face him again. ‘But don’t imagine I couldn’t have done it. Before, when I thought I knew, I wanted to take you outside and beat hell out of you.’ Nobody spoke or moved as he continued flatly, ‘But I knew you’d win. It’s your way. And then I’d have been no better off.’
‘Look, Richard, let me explain!’
Seaton said quietly, ‘In case it’s slipped your
notice, we’re about to go into action.’
Niven looked at him, his eyes pleading. ‘That’s why, sir. I didn’t want you to think we were letting you down because of our own troubles.’ He turned to Drake. ‘I don’t need explanations. Not any more. I’ve grown up. Too late, as it happens, but I have. Do you honestly think she would see beyond your body? My God, you’re the one who needs pity if you imagine she’d throw her life away on you, friend.’
Drake breathed out very slowly. ‘I know. That’s what was in the letter. The brush-off. I wanted to tell you.’ He shrugged heavily. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Jenkyn did not move his eyes from the compass. ‘I think you’ve said it, chum! The bloody pot-full! Now, for Christ’s sake let’s do what we come to do, an’ try to stay sane!’
Seaton said, ‘Well put, Alec.’ He looked at the others. It had cost both of them a great deal, but at least it had cleared the air. ‘We started as a team. Let’s keep it that way.’
Less than half an hour later XE 16, Goliath, reached the shallows by the inlet and turned her nose towards the north.
In his bunker beneath a Sussex farmhouse, Air Marshal Ruthven sat with his chin on his hand, watching the activity beyond the great window behind his desk. There was only one reading light on in his office, and he could see the girl’s reflection as she poured coffee for both of them.
She was a beautiful girl. Strained to the limit, sometimes near to tears, but with an inner strength any man would be lucky to have.
A phone buzzed and he lifted it with his other hand. Below in the ops room counters were being moved or replaced, acts of sabotage marked on the wall chart with angry scarlet stars. Railways, bridges, ammunition dumps. It must be driving the enemy wild, making him even more dangerous.
The voice in his ear was Venables.
Venables sounded alert. Confident. But Ruthven was a good judge of men. He knew Venables would never show weakness, even at the point of a knife.
‘All reported going well, sir. Towing submarines and supporting destroyers are in position Zebra.’
‘Good.’
He had a feeling that Rear Admiral Niven was with Venables, but he said nothing about it. The admiral was probably under the weather. Ruthven had heard he had had a row with his son. A bad start to Citadel, but he had seen it coming for a long time. Rear Admiral Niven was a front-man. But without people like Venables backing him, he was empty.
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