Newbolt called as the group came through the bridge, ‘Bad luck, you fellows.’
‘Could’ve been worse, sir.’
‘Yeah.’ One of them laughed: ‘Six inches higher, they’d’ve ’ad your goolies.’
Fox would have been joking about it too, Newbolt guessed, if he’d been with them… They’d gone on down—a knot of four men, two of them needing help. This wasn’t by any means a steady platform now, with so little way on.
Another thought occurred. ‘Mid?’
‘Sir?’
‘Go round the guns, see they have fresh pans and belts on and the ready-use topped up, empties cleared away. Tell ’em I say they did bloody well, but stay on their toes—it’s nothing like over yet.’
Buzzer from the engineroom: he snatched the ’phone up. Hoping to be told he could go ahead on the port wing now… ‘Bridge!’
PO Motor Mechanic Talbot told him, ‘Sorry to say it, sir—’
‘Christ—don’t!’
‘Yeah, well. Any other way—but there’s not… Got to stop starboard, sir.’
Chapter Five
Ben flipped the folding seat down, sat, glanced at the recessed deckwatch and reached across Admiralty chart 2613 for his navigator’s notebook. 2154 now. He fiddled a Senior Service out of the tin, lit it, then took a pencil from the rack and noted under earlier entries the course-alteration they’d just made—at 2150—to south fifty west. Position then 045 Pointe de Barfleur seven and a half miles: he also noted 9 knots on silenced outers.
Pencil back where it belonged, then. Leaning with his shoulder against the bulkhead, idly watching a figure change in the window of the QH—a grey metal box bolted to the wheelhouse side above the chart table. Half an hour to go, roughly—other things being equal. Stack’s intention was to hold on until he was about three miles off the point and then turn west-northwest, cutting to about six knots on one engine—or as little as it might take to stem the weather—and expecting by then to have the MTBs a mile or so inshore of him. You didn’t need a precise R/V position with them, for the simple reason that the target would act as a magnet drawing the two units together.
Stack’s concept. He’d made it work a few times, apparently.
Four and a half miles to go now, anyway—at nine knots, half an hour; but hoping that within that time radar might pick up the van of the Heilbronne’s escort—alternatively for a squawk out of Furneaux on R/T when he did.
If the buggers hadn’t slipped past already.
He sucked in another lungful of sweet Virginia, exhaled it slowly. Thinking first of Rosie tucked up in bed in the flat she shared with another girl in Regent’s Park; then of last night, the fact that at just about this time they must have been on the dance floor, with the three-piece band—two geriatrics, a schoolboy and from time to time a heavyweight female vocalist—switching from one slow foxtrot to another, and bloody Furneaux—it must have been just about at this time—looking down his nose at Rosie, that supercilious look—and Joan asking her—laughingly, in what was very much her own manner—‘You poor thing, how did you get lumbered with him?’
Meaning himself, Ben Quarry.
‘Tracer, green three-oh, sir!’
A lookout’s shout. Young Carter’s, he guessed. Then Bob Stack’s, and Barclay’s in the background saying there was nothing there now, Carter swearing there definitely had been…
‘Don’t doubt you for a minute… Close up guns’ crews, Number One.’
It was about time for that, anyway. But—green 30… Ben laid it off lightly on the chart and measured some distances—anticipating the question he’d be getting at any moment. Jotting in the notebook meanwhile 2156, tracer green 30.
‘Pilot!’
‘Sir.’
‘What might be on green three-oh?’
‘Nothing, sir. Closest it’d come to the bulge—towards Cap Levi, that is—is four miles. That’d be eight miles away. MTBs should be closer inshore and a lot nearer Barfleur.’
‘Too right.’
No-one else had seen this tracer, and there’d been none since. Ben was asking himself whether if it had been up to him now he’d have altered course to investigate, or held on. It wouldn’t have involved much of a diversion. But the answer was, surely, that there was no time to waste on any diversion whatsoever: Stack would hold on, leave whoever was doing whatever out there to get on with it.
In Stack’s place, he thought, he’d have had radar watch set by now and he’d be telling ‘Mad Priest’ Wheeler to search around that bearing of green 30. After all, if there was some sort of action in progress there, you wouldn’t be giving much away—if anything.
Not a chance, though. Wheeler had done a one-hour trick as lookout and was back up there now, port side.
Carter again, then: ‘More tracer, same bearing, sir!’
A moment’s pause…
‘Right. Got it. Well done, Carter… Bearing is—green three-five, say. Hey—’
‘Starshell starboard, sir!’
That had been a shout from the back of the bridge—the signalman, Miller, getting in first this time. Starshell on or near the same bearing as the tracer, presumably; Ben made a note of it. Time—2158. If Stack was going to allow himself to be distracted by whatever might be happening out there, he thought, decision-time would be now.
Conceivably, that action could involve—or have involved—an advance unit of the Heilbronne’s escort, or a covering force of some kind. Supposing the Heilbronne had got by already—rounded the point before Furneaux and his boys had got there?
If it had, it had. It would be up to the Hunts now—out west there. But God forbid…
Stack arrived in the plot like a ton of coal coming down a chute.
‘Quick decko, Ben…’
A cigarette too: if only a few drags…
‘We’re here, sir—couple of minutes ago. This is the bearing you saw the tracer. Could be Mike—circumstances we don’t know about?’
‘He’d have put out an enemy report. So’d anyone else, once they’d let rip.’ Pocketing the lighter, breathing smoke. Eyes on the chart meanwhile—as well as dripping all over it—reinforcing the picture he needed to keep in mind. Ten o’clock shadow darkening the tough, wide-jawed face.
A nod ‘OK.’
‘You wouldn’t use radar even with that action in spitting distance of us?’
‘No. Wouldn’t tell me anything I really need to know, and it might give away our position here.’
‘Well—I suppose—’
‘So why chance it?’
He nodded. ‘OK—sir.’
‘What I do know is what we’re here for, Ben.’
‘Right.’
Crushing the cigarette out, leaking smoke as he turned away. ‘And I want this bastard.’
Savage tone, wolfish look—directed at the Heilbronne, obviously, but the latent violence—in a normally mild-mannered man, irrespective of what he looked like—making Ben, alone again now, wonder how he’d react if or when Monkey did tell him about his wife.
You wouldn’t want to be in Furneaux’s halfboots. That was for sure. You really wouldn’t. Furneaux might have been making a secondary error, thinking of Bob Stack as he might have of one of his own kind of people. Which he was not. In fact he might break Furneaux’s bloody neck.
Stack would just about have got back up there and had time to have picked up his glasses when there was a shout of ‘Ship on fire, sir—green five-oh!’ Other voices then, including Stack’s and Barclay’s… Ben noting, 2200, vessel on fire green 50. He thought of going up there to take a look, but they’d all lost sight of it literally within seconds. Fire out, or ship sunk—probably the latter, to have vanished so suddenly. He lit another cigarette instead: aware that Stack was right, he did smoke too much… Thoughts back to Furneaux, then—last night on that dance floor, Furneaux’s fleeting look of alarm, and then the smile, deliberately assumed composure… ‘Why, Ben! What are you doing this far from home?’
Stupid b
loody question. He’d ignored it. Furneaux smiling down at Rosie—a rather supercilious look: ‘Well, well!’ But she’d been looking at Joan—or at Ben looking at Joan… They’d stopped dancing, were in a small, tight but distinctly awkward circle, the crowd of other dancers shuffling round them. ‘Hello, Joan.’ He’d thought for a moment she was expecting him to kiss her, but Furneaux wasn’t giving her that much rope… ‘Hello, Benjamin!’
As lovely as ever. Maybe more so. Tall, dark, skin like ivory, huge dark eyes, stunning shape in a green dress that went marvellously with her colouring. She was his own age, but she still looked about twenty. Smiling glance at Rosie, and then that ‘You poor thing’ line. Ben had told her, ‘Actually, she’s a very lucky girl, name of Rosie Ewing, and I’m a very lucky man, at least I will be when she consents to marry me. Lady Joan Stack, Rosie. And this is Mike Furneaux. Is Bob here, Joan?’
‘Actually, he isn’t.’
‘What I thought. But since you were here—well… You know he’s my CO now?’
‘Of course.’ The smile had faded. ‘He told me you were joining him.’ There’d been a renewal of effort then, brightening up: ‘I’ve been looking forward—madly—’
‘Look—let’s dance.’ Furneaux, unsmiling. ‘I’m sure Ben didn’t come here to stand around and—’
‘Ben and I are old friends, Mike, and we haven’t seen each other for an age. Last saw him in hospital, now I come to think of it—you didn’t even know who I was, Ben!’
‘I think I remember, vaguely. So I must have done. You and Bob were engaged then—right?’
She’d seemed not to hear that. References to Bob seemed to be dampeners. Instead—belatedly—‘How d’you do, Rosie. Actually, you could do worse, you know. There, Ben, I’ve put in a word for you!’
‘Speaking from experience, should one take it?’
Rosie: with her claws showing. Joan in two minds for a moment, then shrugging: ‘We did know each other quite well—didn’t we, Ben. So—yes, the devil one does know… All the girls were after him, of course… Ben, let’s have a natter before the evening’s over?’
Furneaux said, ‘Might allow it. Two minutes, maximum?’
‘Bloody cheek. You’d think the swine owned me.’ In the swine’s arms, though, moving to the music, calling over her shoulder as they drew apart, ‘See you, Ben. You too I hope, Rosie…’
‘Well.’ Rosie had begun dancing at arms’ length, almost. ‘Wasn’t that nice. Another old mate—how condescending can you get, incidentally?—and an old girlfriend—’
‘Someone I knew, that’s all.’
‘So I gathered. Never guessed I was coming to a sort of general reunion. Any other old flames likely to roll up?’
‘Well—let’s see, now…’
She’d taken it all very well, he thought. Despite Monkey grinding on about Bob having to be told and Ben as a fellow Australian being the best man to do it, and the nurse—Monkey’s girl—wanting to know about Joan’s family and where and when they’d known her before this, and so forth. Ben had suggested, after meeting Rosie’s eyes a couple of times, ‘You tell her, Monkey. We’ll leave you to it. Least, I hope we will.’ He’d asked Rosie—although they’d only been sitting down about three minutes—‘Dance? Please?’
She had every reason to have been needled, he thought. To start with, finding they had to be in a foursome instead of on their own. Then Furneaux’s condescending manner, and Joan being such a dish, really startlingly so, and Rosie’s instincts or intuition doubtless alerting her to the fact he and Joan had been—well, close, at some earlier stage. However long ago, it would have grated—just as it would with him, if Rosie had introduced some Adonis who was displaying anything like that semi-proprietorial, teasing attitude towards her that Joan had towards him. In fact it was simply Joan’s way—nothing to do with him, not now, not in a long time now, in fact as far as he was concerned never, at any depth. Whereas he and Rosie were all-important to each other, despite the obstinacy she had about marriage, they wanted all they could get of each other. He thought that to her he might be primarily a kind of refuge—from the state of nervous tension she was living in at this time, preoccupation with the idea of returning to SOE work in occupied France despite the fact—which he’d come to recognize even more clearly during the ensuing night—last night—that the prospect terrified her.
The thought of which tortured him.
But it was probably going to happen, at some time. He knew that once she’d made her mind up nothing he said would stop her.
Dancing again, though. Fortunately Joan and Furneaux weren’t on the floor. Probably having supper, having arrived so late. The vocalist was giving tongue: It’s not your swee-eet conversation… Ben suggested, ‘Meet in London next time, shall we?’
‘Now you’re talking. Might even use my flat, sometimes.’
‘What about what’s her name?’
‘Goes home, now and then, at weekends. I’m sure we could arrange it, if you can ever get away properly—I mean for long enough.’
‘There’ll be times. Maintenance periods, so forth… Darn it, this was supposed to be so far from the base there wasn’t a chance we’d run into anyone.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Never did run smooth—isn’t that the theory?’
Oh, no-o-o…
‘But I want it to. As much as anything on earth. It’s got to.’
Just the nee-ahness of you.
‘Rosie—mind if we don’t stay up late?’
‘Not in the very least.’
‘Thank God for huge mercies.’
‘Something’s slightly huge.’
‘Your fault, entirely.’
‘Oh, is it—’
‘Also the fact I love you—truly, desperately—’
‘Tell me upstairs.’
‘Bet on it. But listen—I’m sorry—again—but I must have a word with Joan Stack. Having said I would, and—her husband being an old friend—it’s bloody awkward, actually—’
She’d laughed, mimicking him. ‘Actually?’
‘Oh, God…’
‘Better watch that, Ben. I love you as you are.’
‘Rather glad you do—old gel—actually…’
‘Pilot!’
‘Sir?’
‘Come up a minute.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ Grabbing his binoculars off their hook…
It was pitch black to start with, after the chart-table light. He paused with his back against the top of the companionway while his eyes became acclimatized, or began to. Making out relatively motionless dark figures in the usual places, the gunboat soaring and plunging on the swell: rolling too, in her slow southward progress in a deep rumble of muffled engines.
Astern, that white smudge in the dark was Monkey’s MGB 866, but he’d have had to have put his glasses up to see 874, astern of her. He moved over to Stack’s corner instead, putting a hand in greeting on Barclay’s shoulder en passant… ‘Skipper?’
‘Found your way up, then…’ Sarcasm… ‘Notice a difference, anywhere?’
‘Not—as yet—’
‘Try the overhead.’
His eyes were more or less attuned to the dark by this time. Putting a hand out to the side of the bridge to steady himself against the roll—she’d be a lot more comfortable at twice the speed—he glanced up, and saw at once what Stack was showing him. The cloud—breaking up. Not all over, but here and there: even a couple of stars visible, in cracks here and there, and an area of radiance—perhaps not radiance exactly, but less-dark cloud, right ahead there.
Absorbing the full message, then: thinning cloud and half a moon behind it—over the land.
‘Strewth.’
Eyes down, on Stack—solid black except for the whites of his eyes, against an all-white background as she leaned hard over, driving her shoulder into it. ‘That’s torn it—will do, if—’
‘Damn right.’ Turning away, as the boat juddered her way up out of the trough. Putting his glasses up. ‘Change t
hings, couldn’t it.’
‘Certainly could… Alan, here.’ He gave Barclay elbow-room where he’d been before, in the forefront, moved himself to the starboard side, behind Stack. Looking astern at the other gunboats—finding he could just make out 874 now, astern of Monkey. But putting his mind to this new, unexpected development—primarily the fact the MTBs might find themselves better off attacking from seaward… although by this time Furneaux would have them close inshore. Lying cut, probably: or just stemming wind and sea. Might have been there for some while: Stack had put his foot down, so to speak, after seeing those starshell at—well, 2112, 2115, when a degree of anxiety had set in—and it wasn’t unlikely that Furneaux might have reacted similarly. In any case he’d be in there now, in ambush as it were, he’d have an eye on the thinning cloud over the land and he’d have to decide—if he hadn’t already—whether to bank on the target showing up before the moon did—in which case he might risk staying put—or to play safe, take his unit a few miles out to sea while he had the chance.
And let Stack know about it, presumably. Although that would mean breaking R/T silence.
Sweeping over the beam again. No sign of any ship on fire.
‘Time now, pilot?’
He lowered his binoculars, checked his watch’s luminous dial. Might give old Bob one for Christmas, he thought. ‘Twenty-two thirteen, sir.’
‘And what time’s moonset?’
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