by Alan Evans
‘Yes?’
She hesitated, but then said only, ‘You needn’t take all your kit, only what you need.’
‘There’s just the one valise anyway.’
They heard Buckley’s tread on the stairs and he appeared lugging Smith’s valise. ‘Thank ye, Miss. All the best to you.’
‘And to you, Mr. Buckley. Take care of —’ She checked, then finished: ‘Take care.’
Buckley grinned at her. ‘I know what you mean and I’ll do my best, Miss.’
He passed through the doorway and Helen Blair turned to Smith. ‘You too, David. Be careful.’
‘I always am.’ He held out his hand to her and she gripped it, let go. He saluted her and turned away, walked off along the quay with Buckley.
*
At nightfall Hercules sailed out between the arms of the Porto di Lido. She towed astern of her the pontoon, a wooden coal barge fifty feet long, decked over and strengthened to take the gun. It was stacked with ammunition from the dump on La Certosa. Menzies stood on the deck forward of the wheelhouse where was gathered the crew of the six-inch gun.
Davies turned to him. ‘Permission to carry on, sir?’
Menzies nodded. ‘Please.’
Davies faced the gunners in the twilight and held them with his fierce glare. ‘Now listen you lot because we haven’t much time and this looks as if it’ll be dodgy. First, we’re running the pontoon aground and we’ve got to get camouflage up because by morning we might be under observation. We haven’t much in the way of netting so we’ll use whatever we find on the ground, bushes and so on. That gun’s got to look like just one more bump on the coast.
‘Second. Billings.’ The scrawny little runt of a signalman looked up from where he knelt on the deck with Buckley, a field telephone between them.
Davies said, ‘Probably a mile o’ telephone wire to be laid before morning.’
Billings nodded and Davies’ glare switched back to the gunners. ‘Third…’
As he went on with his briefing so Billings proceeded softly with his, talking out of the corner of his mouth: ‘See Buckley, mate, soon as you’re ready to connect up you tie back the wire to summat solid like a gatepost or a rock, because it’s a certainty some big-footed, awkward bugger’s gonna come along an’ trip over your wire and if you haven’t got it tied back he’ll yank the telephone away and maybe bust it. Now, connecting: you bares the wire like this, unscrew your terminals —’
Menzies tried to listen to both Davies and Billings, tried to remember all he had learned in the last day or two, wished to God he had learnt more. He was terrified that he would make a stupid mistake. He knew now that Smith would not blast him but that was all the more reason for not making a mistake. He could not let Smith down.
Smith conned his ship but was aware of the little group on the deck just forward of the wheelhouse and Menzies standing very stiff in the back, guessed a little of how he was feeling. Smith thought that Menzies would do his part; he was quick and eager. He just hoped the youngster would survive.
Fred Archbold had the wheel. Smith told him quietly, ‘Once we’re ashore you are to come back down the coast and lie off Piave Vecchia. You’ll be able to anchor close in to the shore. Keep a watch round the clock and steam up. If you see a red flare and a green one that will be the gun in trouble. Come and pick them up and you’ll have to be quick.’
Archbold sucked at the cold pipe stuck in one corner of his mouth. ‘What about you, sir?’
‘I’ll be with the marines. You just carry out your orders.’
Fred Archbold thought, ‘An’ where will the marines be if Fritz runs over them like a steamroller?’ He answered, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
They were at sea and the night closed around them.
10. Battleground
HM Drifter Hercules steamed north-eastward along the coast, so close inshore that Smith kept a man in the chains heaving the lead. They passed Porto di Piave Vecchia at the old mouth of the Piave river shortly before midnight and made good another two miles before Smith ordered quietly, ‘Port five. Steady. Steer that.’ Hercules crept in towards the shore, marked by a thin silver line of breaking surf, the land beyond it so low-lying as to seem a continuation of the sea beyond a reef.
Menzies was in the wheelhouse now, and nervous. Smith said, ‘Tell Davies to be ready to work the pontoon in.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Menzies scurried away. Davies was doubtless ready with his gunners but the errand gave Menzies something to do instead of worrying.
The seaman casting the lead chanted, ‘By the mark two!’ That was close enough for Hercules, drawing near ten feet. Smith ordered, ‘Stop engines.’
The anchor plummeted down, the cable roaring out and Hercules lay to it. Now in the quiet they could hear the rumble of gunfire inland, and closer but faintly the crackle of rifle-fire, the brief stutter of a machine-gun. The pontoon was hauled in to the port side and Menzies, Davies and his gunners boarded it, slipped the tow. With splashing of sweeps and muttered cursing they edged it away towards the shore. Meanwhile Smith had gone down to the boat now lowered and lying alongside to starboard. He wore a pistol belted about his waist. Buckley crouched in the bow and a seaman from the drifter’s crew pulled them to the shore, sliding past the unwieldy pontoon and leaving it astern: Buckley had a Lee-Enfield rifle slung across his back, a bandolier of cartridges across his chest. As they ran into the shallows he jumped over the bow and hauled the boat in.
A voice shouted the challenge at them from the darkness: ‘Venezia!’
Smith answered quickly with the other half of the password given him by Garizzo: ‘San Marco!’
He jumped down from the bow and splashed ashore. An Italian marine appeared out of the night, still suspicious, rifle trained on Smith and Buckley. Obviously he was wary of an enemy attack from the sea. Though a risky business for the attacker, that was always a possibility.
Smith shone his torch on himself and said, ‘Inglese.’ He pointed out to sea and said, ‘Ship.’ The marine nodded and Smith asked, ‘Capitano Garizzo?’
The marine shouted rapidly over his shoulder, there was movement in the darkness and a petty officer came down with another marine. The PO eyed Smith and said, ‘English!’ He slapped one marine on the shoulder. ‘Capitano Garizzo! Ca’Gamba!’ Smith thought that if Garizzo had warned his sentries to look out for him then he’d been pretty sure Smith would come. He had seen Ca’Gamba marked on the map, ‘Casa Gamba’, a tiny village a thousand yards inland. If Ca’di Dio meant a house of God then this meant house of Gamba. But now he again pointed out to sea because the pontoon and gun bulked there, inching in towards the shore. ‘Gun. Cannone.’ He stamped his foot on the beach. ‘Here.’
The petty officer nodded vigorously. ‘Si! Cannone! Bueno!’ His teeth showed white as he grinned approval.
Smith remembered with relief that Davies could speak some Italian. It would be needed. The marine, his guide, beckoned. Smith told the seaman in the boat, ‘Go back to Hercules and bring ashore the rations for the gun-crew.’ He turned and, Buckley at his heels, followed the marine up the beach. They came on a dirt road running along the line of the shore and their guide led them towards the front line. The rain still fell in a steady drizzle. The crackle of rifle-fire grew louder as they advanced and a flare burnt to the north, its light reflected palely on the waterlogged fields. The road ran above the fields like a low causeway and bore to the left away from the coast and inland, rutted with a succession of water-filled holes that soaked them to the knees as they trudged through.
They walked for fifteen minutes and Smith reckoned they had covered close on a mile when the marine said, ‘Ca’Gamba.’ There lifted out of the darkness a scattering of little low houses with tiled roofs and shuttered windows, strung along the road. They passed four of them and came on a fifth that stood no higher but rambled longer and larger. Two marines stood sentry at the door, waterproof capes bulging over the ammunition pouches beneath, rain dripping from their caps.
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The guide spoke quickly to them while Smith and Buckley waited. Then one of the sentries opened the door behind him, shouted something and Smith caught the word, ‘Inglese!’ There came an answering bellow from within and the sentry beckoned Smith. He pushed through the doorway, felt the door drawn shut behind him as he passed aside the blackout curtain, took off his cap and entered the room. It was narrow but ran from front to back of the house and was lit by a paraffin lamp hanging from a nail in a beam. To the right lay a wide fireplace, the ashes of a dead fire there, and a marine crouched over a kettle hissing on a primus stove. Smith saw through an open door to another room where two marines sat before a battery of field telephones set up on a trestle table, signal pads in front of them. One of the telephones tinkled and a marine snatched it up, put pencil to pad.
Smith’s gaze returned to the centre of the room where a table stood under the lamp. Two officers sat at the table, one a lieutenant, sharp-faced and sharp-eyed as he watched Smith — but the other was Garizzo. His cap lay on the table alongside the map spread there and his stubbly hair showed thick and black but flecked with grey under the light.
He stood up. ‘English! You have come with your fishing-boat!’
Smith nodded. ‘And a gun. Six-inch.’
‘Ha!’ His wide mouth curved in a grin. He said softly, ‘A gun!’ His hand slapped down on the lieutenant’s shoulder.
‘You hear that, Achille! We have a gun!’ He flapped the hand in introduction: ‘Tenente Achille Sevastano, my second-in-command. Capitano Smith.’
Sevastano rose, bowed, smiled and Garizzo bawled at the marine crouched over the primus, ‘Caffe!’Then he dragged another chair up to the table and motioned to Smith to join him.
Smith said, ‘My signaller is outside. With your permission?’ He shouted, ‘Buckley!’ Garizzo echoed the shout with a bellow to the sentries in Italian and Buckley came in through the curtain. Smith told him, ‘Stand behind me and listen.’
Once seated Garizzo pointed at the map with-a thick finger. ‘My position. Here. We hold a line from the Cavetta canal — here — to the sea —’ Smith followed the line marked in pencil on the map as the finger traced it, took out his own map and copied the details as Garizzo briefed him rapidly on the dispositions of his force.
Garizzo sat back in the chair as the coffee came, black and bitter, and scolding hot. ‘So, questions?’
Smith said slowly, apprehensive, ‘The line seems— thinly held.’
Garizzo grinned without humour. noticed that also. ‘Reserves?’
‘No reserves. Tomorrow, maybe. But for now — no reserves.’
‘You expect an attack?’
‘The Austrians are out there now, probing. I think they will attack at first light and try to run over us. Where is your gun?’
‘It’s mounted on a pontoon — here.’ Smith marked its position on the map with his pencil.
Garizzo stared a moment, then nodded. ‘And you?’
‘I’ll be upstairs in one of the houses here, observing for the gun.’
Garizzo frowned. ‘Not good. They will be shelled. But you will not find a better place. With your feet on the ground you will see nothing. It is very flat here.’
Smith looked at his watch and stood up. ‘I have a lot to do. I’ll report to you here when I’m ready.’
‘Before the light.’ It was not a question: Garizzo said, ‘Because when the light comes we will be out of here and in the trench.’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘About three hundred metres forward.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good luck, English.’
Smith shook the hand and left the house with Buckley. As they walked quickly back along the road Smith asked, ‘Have you ever been a signaller for a forward observation officer?’
‘No, sir. But Billings gave me a few tips.’
That had been done on Smith’s orders. Billings was the only real signaller they had and Smith wanted him with Menzies. He had told Billings the procedure must be simple, yet it had to work. Now he thought it would not only be simple but rough and ready. ‘You’ll have to learn damn quick.’
Buckley was resigned to that. He had found that with Smith he must learn a number of things very quickly as each different situation demanded. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Back on the shore Buckley sought out Billings and together they set out with the reels of telephone wire, laying the line forward to Ca’Gamba and the house there. The pontoon with its gun was already aground in the shallows and moored close to where a stunted copse ran down to the water’s edge. Davies had split his gunners into two parties. One of them was stringing up camouflage nets forward of the gun and lacing them with branches hacked from the copse, the intention being to hide the gun from any raised observation post in the Austrian lines by disguising both gun and pontoon as an extension of the copse. The other party splashed back and forth between pontoon and copse humping the ammunition ashore and arranging it in small well-separated dumps under the withered little trees, the charges stacked carefully with groundsheets below and above.
A map was set up on a board at the edge of the copse, a field telephone close at hand. That would eventually be the link with Smith in the house at Ca’ Gamba. He huddled over the map with Menzies and by the light of a shaded torch marked on it the house from where he would be observing and pencilled in the position of the Italian trenches. When it was all done he asked Menzies, ‘Any questions?’
Menzies took off his cap and scratched his head, thinking, then said, ‘No, sir. I think I’ve got it all.’
‘You’re in command here,’ Smith told him, ‘but if you’ve got any sense you’ll take heed of suggestions from Davies. He’s done this before, and many times.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
The boat from Hercules had returned loaded with rations for the men ashore. Smith ordered the seaman in the boat, ‘Get back to the ship now and tell Mr. Archbold to return to Piave Vecchia.’ He made one last, quick tour of the position and told Davies, ‘Be ready at first light.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Smith looked at his watch. It was time he was gone. He set out once more for the front carrying the pack with the rations for himself and Buckley, following the looping, trailing telephone wire. Sporadic rifle-fire winked and rattled distantly ahead of him. He met Billings hurrying back to the shore, the signaller coming panting out of the darkness. He paused only to say, ‘We tested the line a minute ago, sir. Mr. Menzies came through clear as a bell.’
‘Very good.’
Billings trotted away.
It was still dark when Smith came once more to the straggling row of houses, deserted now, the sentries gone, but Garizzo and Buckley stood on the road by the biggest house. Garizzo said deeply, ‘You’re in time, English. Are they ready back there?’
‘They’ll be ready.’
Garizzo nodded towards the darkness in the north. ‘So will they. There have been patrols out in no-man’s land, looking for us. They found us. They know where we are.’ He shot a glance at Smith, stubborn and angry. ‘There is an estimate that our army has lost four hundred thousand men in dead, wounded and prisoners. There is talk that only a miracle can stop the Austrian and German advance now. We’ll see.’ He paused, brooding, then: ‘I’m going forward. I have left the primus’— he grinned — ‘so you English can make tea. And there is a telephone. I’ll be on the other end in a dug-out up there. So. You’re welcome, English. My house is yours.’ He laughed bleakly and strode away into the darkness.
Smith watched him go, thinking that it did not seem so dark, he could make out the other houses scattered along the side of the road. He glanced at his watch; it would soon be light. He entered the house with Buckley and found Garizzo’s telephone on the table inside. Blankets still screened the door and windows and Smith used his torch, sweeping its beam across the ceiling.
Buckley said, ‘Over there, sir.’ He pointed to the right-hand wall where a trap was set in the ceiling. They lifted the table over and Smith climbed o
n to it and shoved the trap up into the loft above. He poked his head through and used the torch again cautiously, saw a bare, dusty wooden floor under the sloping roof, a pile of sacks in one corner and in another an old tin trunk on its side, open and empty. The owners had taken everything they could.
He climbed into the loft, Buckley passed up the two telephones and then came up himself. Smith said, ‘Let’s have a hole there.’ He pointed and Buckley lifted his foot and booted the tiles so a few of them cracked and slithered away leaving a gap a foot square. Smith went down on one knee to peer out through it. Buckley sat down a few feet away with his back against the end wall of the house and a telephone set up either side of him. He quickly tied back their wires to a beam as Billings the signaller had told him.
Smith ordered, ‘Test those lines.’
Buckley wound on the handle of one of the field telephones, sending the tiny current from the batteries down the wire to ring the bell at the other end, heard a voice in reply, answered it and repeated the action with the other telephone. ‘Both working fine, sir.’
Then they waited as the night slipped away and the day came greyly. There was mist gathering, of course. The light opened around them until Smith thought visibility to be about a half-mile. Unless the mist closed in it would let him see the zig-zag line of the marines’ front line trenches three hundred yards in front of his position, the communication trench running back from them to emerge at the houses to his left. The land was low-lying and flat. To his right and about twenty yards away another track ran between the houses and forward through the trenches towards the enemy lines now hidden by the mist. Like all the tracks in this flat countryside it was more of a causeway, raised feet above the marshes. The marshland was coarse grass interspersed with sheets of dully glinting surface water.
Smith was using his binoculars now, his map on its board resting on his knee. He ordered quietly, ‘Target!’