Dangerous Waters (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  Soon, some sort of light was seen ahead. That light came and went, flickering and fading, and distantly the sound of the rifles was heard again. The light was probably the rifle flashes, overlaid by the weaving of the searchlight. In any case, it meant they had the end of the tunnel in their sights now. Cameron cannoned into Kopoulos, who had stopped.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Cameron snapped, his nerves playing him up badly.

  ‘We are nearly there,’ Kopoulos said unnecessarily. ‘I shall go first. My gun is the best we have between us, and will cause the most alarm and surprise.’ Cameron didn’t argue the point; the Greek was undoubtedly right. Kopoulos got on the move again and within another half-minute crammed on speed and came out from the exit, right into the heart of the strongpoint, with his sub-machine-gun blazing from a crouching position just clear enough of the exit to allow the rest of the party to emerge and join in with their rifles.

  The Germans, as Kopoulos had predicted, had been caught right on the hop, taken utterly by surprise, wonderfully fooled by sheer, old-hat simplicity. The first gunfire went slap into their backs as they crowded a makeshift firing-step by the summit of the westward-facing rocks. A number of dead men hurtled down, colandered by the Greek’s sub-machine-gun fire, to fetch up bloodily on the rock floor. As other men ran in from left and right, the Greek swung his gun in a murderous arc of fire, his eyes narrowed and glinting, and Cameron and the naval ratings pumped bullets into any German that came into their range, firing virtually point-blank into the field-grey uniforms. Cameron felt a slight burning sensation in the flesh of his left upper arm, just below the shoulder, and thought little of it, quite unconscious of the pouring blood. From the corner of his eye he saw two of his seamen fall; then, as the fighting continued all around him, four figures swept over the summit from the west: Leading-Seaman Wellington and his hands, firing down into the centre, picking off the remaining Germans one by one. A chance shot going upwards from the defenders took one of the naval party, and the body fell, streaming blood from the throat, to end as the Germans had ended, on the rock.

  Cameron dashed sweat from his eyes and looked around as the firing faltered and fell away. Kopoulos was now laying about himself with his knife, driving it into chests and backs, slitting the throats of cowed men. As he was thus occupied, Cameron saw a German officer, a hauptmann he believed, coming towards him with a white handkerchief held above his head and the other arm hanging limp at his side. Cameron called out to Kopoulos.

  ‘They’re surrendering, Kopoulos. Leave them.’

  A Greek word came back at him, obviously a four-letter one. Kopoulos carried on with his bloody work. Cameron shouted, ‘Put down that knife, Kopoulos! We don’t fight on after a surrender. Drop it or I’ll have you disarmed.’ He caught the eye of Petty Officer Pike, and nodded. Pike took his meaning, moved for Kopoulos and, with surprisingly wiry strength, pinioned his arms. Kopoulos raved for a while, but then slackened and dropped the bloodied knife.

  He said, ‘Yes, you are right and I am sorry. You English have your ways... and your orders. Me, I have suffered torture from the Nazis — but yes, you are right. I stop now.’

  Cameron blew out his breath in relief. ‘We’d better find Razakis pronto,’ he said. ‘There could be other Germans in the vicinity. I’d rather not hang around.’ He turned to the German officer, who had halted a few paces away and stood with a British rifle nudging his backbone. He asked, ‘Do you speak English?’

  ‘A little,’ the German answered.

  ‘Where is Razakis, and his daughter?’

  The German hesitated. Cameron said, ‘I’ve not much time. If necessary, I’ll get Kopoulos to make you answer. I dare say you can guess what that will mean.’

  The threat alone did the trick; the German officer shrugged and capitulated, looking nervously towards the Greek. Kopoulos seemed to be known to him, if only, perhaps, by reputation. The hauptmann swallowed, muttered something in German, then told Cameron to follow him. Cameron did so, gesturing the rating with the rifle to continue covering his prisoner. Kopoulos joined them as they followed the German. He asked in a rough voice, ‘Where are you leading the Englishman, Nazi swine?’

  ‘To Razakis...’

  ‘Yes? Is he not in his cave below?’

  ‘No, he is not there —’

  ‘Yet that would be the most secure place to hold him, I think! Do not forget that I know this place well, Nazi. Do you take me for a fool?’ The Greek’s voice rose in anger. ‘Where is Razakis? Is he dead? Or do you intend to lead me and my English friends into an ambush? Is that it?’

  ‘I am sorry.’ The German spoke stiffly, his face wearing a wooden look now. ‘I do not know what you mean. There is no ambush, and Razakis lives. The daughter also.’

  ‘Then before you lead the way anywhere, Nazi, tell me where Razakis is.’

  The officer said, ‘He is outside the strongpoint. The strong-point was at risk —’

  ‘Because this was where we would expect to find Razakis — yes! So you moved him.’ Kopoulos once again brought out his knife and laid the point against the German’s throat. ‘Have a care that you do not lead us astray, Nazi. Now move.’

  The German moved; Kopoulos, shouldering the naval rating out of the way, moved behind him, drawing his knife round the neck until the point was just below the hair-line at the back. Keeping close, he and Cameron followed, making through the close-set rocks towards a track that ran down in a northerly direction, heading away into mountainous country, excellent terrain in which to hide a wanted man, real bandit country by the look of it, stark and empty beneath the all-seeing moon.

  They didn’t reach the track.

  They had gone only some half-dozen paces when a high scream came, as though from under their feet, from the very bowels of the earth, a scream of purest pain, shrill — a woman’s scream torn from the throat as though by physical torture beyond all endurance.

  6

  EVERYTHING seemed to be in a state of flux: the Fleet and the land forces had been badly caught out by the sheer size and ferocity of the German onslaught on Crete; and the RAF seemed to have gone out of existence, to the disgust of the men on land and water. As Wharfedale headed on her easterly course to rendezvous off the island of Scarpanto with the heavy Mediterranean Fleet units — for what possible purpose, Sawbridge and his officers had no idea whatsoever — a cancellation of those orders came via the W/T office in another signal in naval cypher: Wharfedale was to reverse her course and was now to rendezvous with the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla, currently withdrawing at speed from the Aegean towards Alexandria.

  ‘Back to first base,’ Sawbridge said. ‘That was what we came for in the first place!’ He joined the navigating officer at the chart table and tried to work out a time and place for the rendezvous: there was in fact precious little information to go on, and Sawbridge could only anticipate that the rendezvous position would be anywhere he cared to guess between his present position and the south-western tip of Crete beyond Sphakia. As he said to Bradley, it all depended on the speed of the Fifth Flotilla and he could only make the assumption that they would be proceeding at their maximum. On the other hand, it was unlikely they would have left the Aegean without coming under attack and all or any of the destroyers could well have sustained damage that would cut their speed.

  Sawbridge said edgily, ‘Damn signal could have been a shade more precise... having been made at all, I doubt if any security would have been shattered by adding a little more gen.’ He scanned the chart again, then sighed and said, ‘All right, Pilot, bring her round on the reciprocal.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  The orders were given and Wharfedale came round hard to port, her rails going under on the turn. Sawbridge paced the compass platform moodily. Command was fine, but could be a two-edged sword. Unless orders were precise, you were left to assess, which largely meant guess, for yourself — like now. You stood a fifty-fifty chance of being wrong every time, and then the Admiralty dropped on you
like a ton of bricks. Nevertheless, there were bright spots: Sawbridge, and for that matter all his ship’s company, would be glad enough to join up with Captain (D)5 as Lord Louis Mountbatten’s appointment was known officially. The Fifth Flotilla was something of a crack formation, welded into a fine fighting team by their Captain (D); it would be an honour to be part of it, even if the constantly changing orders should leave them there only for a short time.

  Sawbridge stopped his restless pacing and stared around the horizons through his binoculars. No enemy in sight, on the sea or in the air. So far, so good. The dawn was not so far off now; Cameron was much on Sawbridge’s mind and he aired his thoughts to his First Lieutenant.

  ‘0400’; he said as the watch changed. ‘Cameron’s party should be on their way back, I should think.’

  ‘If they haven’t been cut up, sir.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be a bloody defeatist, Number One! We have to assume they’ll make the rendezvous.’

  ‘The new orders could help in the pick-up,’ Drummond said. ‘Purely fortuitous... but we’ll be rather nearer Sphakia at noon than we would have been if we’d continued to Scarpanto.’

  Sawbridge nodded. ‘A similar thought did cross my mind too. But it’ll depend on Lord Louis — and his orders.’

  Drummond agreed, but added, ‘Lord Louis always gives a chap a sporting chance, sir. And he’s human.’

  ‘Maybe, but war’s war after all. Anyway, I’ll ask permission to detach. Lord Louis may have some knowledge of this man Razakis, who’s said to be so ruddy important!’

  Wharfedale rushed on, still under full power and flinging back an immense bow-wave as the dawn stole up from the east behind them, from way beyond Scarpanto and the German air bases at the island’s southern tip. Probably, Sawbridge thought, those air bases had had something to do with the movement of the heavy ships with which he had been ordered previously to rendezvous; the force may well have included Cunningham’s aircraft-carriers, while the main armament of the battleships could deliver some devastating broadsides on to those airfields...

  At a little before 0700 hours the masthead lookout reported ships ahead, hull down on the horizon as yet and unidentifiable. Sawbridge immediately pressed the alarm rattlers, bringing up the watch below to join the watch on deck at full action stations. By now their position on the chart was almost due south of Cape Krio at Crete’s south-western tip — west now of Sphakia. They hadn’t any land in sight and if the ships were Lord Louis’s, then he too was keeping well clear of the island and no blame to him for that. On the iron-deck, Mr Vibart stood by his torpedo-tubes and shaded his eyes ahead and to port towards the approaching ships. Soon, as they came fast towards the Wharfedale, he was able to make an identification. ‘Destroyers, Charlie,’ he said to his Torpedo-Gunner’s Mate.

  ‘Lord Louis, sir?’

  ‘Right,’ Vibart said. ‘Kelly, Kipling and Kashmir... I’d know ‘em anywhere.’ A moment later the compass platform confirmed the identification over the tannoy, and action stations were fallen out, back to second degree of readiness. Vibart, feeling conversational, said, ‘Lord Louis... I served under him once, or did I tell you before now?’

  ‘Yes,’ the TGM answered, grinning. ‘You did an’ all!’

  ‘Back in 1934,’ Mr Vibart went on with a touch of wistfulness, not to be silenced in the retelling for the umpteenth time. ‘In the old Daring. Good days, they were. Lord Louis, he was a lad all right! I was an LTO then... but the skipper talked to me like I was an officer. Knew all the lads’ names, where they come from, whether they was married or not.’ He fell silent, pondering on past peacetime glories before the Navy had become ninety per cent reserves and hostilities-only ratings, some of whom were wet as scrubbers and didn’t even know how to tie a cap ribbon with a decent bow, or how to wear their black silks, a proper shower... by now Wharfedale was manoeuvring to join the flotilla and come up in rear of the column. Mr Vibart watched as the ship swept up on the port bow of the leader, HMS Kelly, passing close now. He stared across the water towards the leader’s compass plat-form: Lord Louis was there all right, you could always tell him, like the late Admiral Beatty, by the set of his cap, which was itself of a slightly different pattern from those of ordinary officers, hard to place the difference but it was there all right, kind of individualistic. The Captain (D) was in the fore part of the compass platform, smiling and talking and watching the Wharfedale, as she swept past with her bosun’s calls piping in salute to the Senior Officer. Lord Louis returned the hand salute of Wharfedale’s captain and almost involuntarily Mr Vibart’s right hand also went to the brim of his cap in personal tribute to his old skipper, who really didn’t look all that much older. Lord Louis, Captain RN now and cousin of the King, or something like that anyway, and he could talk to any rating, man to man and no bull. Pity the whole Navy wasn’t like that; Mr Vibart shook his head sadly as his hand came down from the salute, and he busied himself by a little hazing of his torpedomen, who were sometimes a bloody lazy bunch...

  On the bridge, the signal lamps were busy. A welcome was being sent across from Captain (D) before Wharfedale had put her helm over to take station in line ahead: I DID NOT REALLY NEED YOU BUT AM DELIGHTED TO HAVE YOU. AM PROCEEDING TO JOIN C-IN-C UNLESS I AM REQUIRED TO TAKE OFF TROOPS FROM SPHAKIA.

  Drummond was grinning as the Yeoman of Signals read off the message from his pad. ‘Didn’t really want us... it smacks of a cock-up somewhere!’

  Sawbridge nodded. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time, Number One. Fleet Signal Office at Alex... however, there’s a bright spot — if Lord Louis does get orders for Sphakia, we’ll be back where Cameron needs us, and with luck we’ll even make the noon rendezvous.’ He sounded greatly relieved.

  Drummond asked, ‘Are you going to put it to Captain (D), sir?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll summarize my orders.’ Sawbridge turned to the Yeoman and dictated an informative signal, asking permission to keep to his rendezvous with the landing-party. Soon a reply came back: permission was granted if circumstances permitted nearer noon. There was a good deal of background information as well; Lord Louis was a believer in keeping his ships’ companies in the picture. The situation in the north of Crete had become hopeless, with the troops in Suda Bay virtually out of vital supplies that it was not possible to replenish; the continual bombing had put the port out of the reckoning as a supply base although the cruiser-minelayer Abdiel and a handful of destroyers had performed miracles. Things were not going too well.

  And, in the immediate and local sense at any rate, matters were to get sadly worse. At a little before 0800 hours, with the Fifth Flotilla some forty miles off Crete, the German dive-bombers were seen roaring in from the north-east. As they approached, the anti-aircraft umbrella went up, the tremendous din of it threatening to split ear-drums. The whole sky was peppered with bursting shrapnel; the pom-poms kept up a continuous barrage and as the Stukas roared down at their immense speeds the Oerlikons blasted away at them, the men in the straps almost turning somersaults as they strove to elevate enough to hit the screaming dive-bombers and their iron-faced, goggled pilots. But nothing could keep those bombers at bay: almost as soon as the attack had come in, Kashmir had been hit and sunk, going down almost immediately the bombs blasted her; then Kelly was hit with her helm hard-a-starboard and, moving through the death-filled water at thirty knots, turned over to float for a while upside down until she sank to the bottom.

  At once, Kipling was seen to be going in to pick up survivors. Sawbridge passed the orders to take Wharfedale in to her assistance. Kipling was moving in a hail of bombs from the Stukas, moving bravely and steadily in towards the swimming groups of men; soon Wharfedale also was under ferocious and sustained attack, with great gouts of water from near misses drenching her decks. The officers and men on her compass platform stared in horror as they saw a change in the tactics of some of the Stukas: the German pilots were swooping in now to machine-gun the survivors in the water. There were cries of fury and frustration from
Wharfedale’s decks as the men, hit by the streaking bullets, threw up their arms and vanished beneath the water. A moment later, Wharfedale was hit aft.

  *

  A count was made of casualties: fifteen men at the after guns, on the searchlight platform and at the torpedo-tubes, had died. Their bloody remains lay in tatters along the after decks and guardrails. Another eleven had been wounded in various degrees and were under the care of the Surgeon-Lieutenant in the sick bay, in the officers’ cabins and in the wardroom. The structural damage had been enough to force the destroyer to break off the picking up of survivors, now left to the gallant Kipling: immediately the bomb had hit, her rudder had jammed and she had become a menace rather than a help, and Sawbridge had taken her out of harm’s way and then kept her zig-zagging, steering by the alternate use of his port and starboard engines. After superhuman work on the part of the shipwrights and engine-room ratings the rudder had been freed, and Wharfedale was once again under command. But both her after guns were out of action and would remain so short of a dockyard refit, while her stern plating and quarterdeck were badly damaged and there was much twisted metal around. The bombing attacks continued but by a miracle as it seemed — and by the sustained ack-ack fire from both ships —no more damage was done and Kipling remained totally unscathed throughout. At 1100 hours she signalled that she had picked up all survivors including Lord Louis and was pulling out. Immediately, Sawbridge made a signal asking permission to detach and take his damaged command back for the coast and the execution of his previous orders. The reply came back from Kipling: REQUEST GRANTED. THE BEST OF LUCK GO WITH YOU.