Band of Brothers

by Band of Brothers (retail) (epub)

  Stack’s voice: ‘Cease fire!’

  Making it official: it had ceased, pretty well. Ben pressed the buzzer: Barclay was still down for’ard, where those hits had been a couple of minutes ago. Here, engine-noise ruled the roost again, with no guns to drown it. Distant gunfire, though—ahead—tracer-sparks matching the thin snarl of Oerlikons, and the flashes of shellbursts, on and around the M-class sweeper which Stack had allocated to Monkey and Ted Bland. To the right of it, what looked like an MGB was static and on fire but still fighting back, with something like four hundred yards between them. Stack told Sewell, ‘Steer for that, Cox’n.’ The radar voicepipe was bleating, and Ben answered it. ‘Bridge.’

  ‘Skipper, sir.’ This was Barclay, in the bridge behind him. ‘Point-fives are wrecked, port side, Merriman was wounded and Tomkins is dead. Direct hit from a 37-mm, probably. There were other hits for’ard but no flooding’s—detectable, so—’ He’d paused for breath. Adding then, ‘Merriman was hit in the face and chest. Got him into a bunk for’ard, sir, given him morphine, when there’s a chance I’ll—’

  ‘Christ.’ Stack had been silenced. Wordless, for the moment… Ben too—reminding himself that not everyone stayed lucky. Stack’s shout emerging from surrounding noise again: ‘Say Tomkins is dead?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And Merriman—’

  ‘Christ…’ A sigh: a movement in the dark like a dog shaking itself, coming out of water. ‘All right. No other damage, you say—’

  ‘Well—’

  Explosion… Head up again, to see the glow of it dying down over whichever of the other two boats that was. Barclay was saying there was no other serious damage as far as he’d been able to see, no other casualties either. Ben thinking again about luck—the awesome truth for instance that one direct hit from a four-inch was all it would take to sink you. Conversely, the partial balancing of such odds-against by virtue of being such a very small target… Stack had reduced the revs; she was down to something like twenty knots again. Astern, the Torpedoboot was still on fire aft. Ben ducked to the pipe again, invited the radar man to start again. Poor old Tomkins: he was old—or rather, had been—well up in his thirties, one of the older hands—married, with children of whom he carried snapshots to show around. As Stack well knew, of course. Wheeler was telling him, ‘Surface contacts, sir—one right ahead—or it could be two in line, I think, range 1700 yards—an’ there’s a bigger one on green two-five, 3000…’

  ‘Plot it, Ben.’ Stack, listening and now cutting in. ‘Go down and—’

  R/T call: ‘Dog Two to Dog Three. Want help, Ted? Over.’

  That had been Monkey. So the one stopped and burning was Bland. He hadn’t replied to Monkey’s transmission yet, but Stack was now on the air, calling Dogs 2 and 3, telling them he was about to put himself between Dog 3 and the sweeper, and what was Dog 3’s present state?

  Radar again… In present circumstances you really didn’t need it, except that one of those contacts—the bigger one he’d mentioned—was probably the Heilbronne. Which one did need. Ben shot down to deal with it from the wheelhouse and make some sort of a plot based on a new QH position, plus whatever ranges and bearings one had or could estimate.

  Howling wind, and cold… A hole in the forefront, port for’ard corner, and an elongated one in the port side. This was above the wrecked point-five turret, of course, looked like the entrance and exit of a shell that had passed through without exploding. Probably at the same time: when Tomkins and Merriman had got theirs.

  ‘Topdog. Dog 3.’ Bland’s tones from the speaker had a jerky, breathless quality. ‘I have—fire aft but—responding to treatment. Other damage we—can cope with. Taking this sod’s fire off me’d help. I’ve some casualties. Engines’ll be OK, probably, soon as—’

  Interference… Then he was audible again, signing off. Ben meanwhile had cleared some rubbish, moved the chart out of the wet and had Wheeler back on the voicepipe, was jotting down radar bearings and ranges before getting a new position from QH and sorting it all out on a plotting diagram.

  Back to the voicepipe… Wheeler telling him, ‘All grass to the right of the big’un, sir, the rest of it comes an’ goes, like. Them two astern’s close together, sort of.’

  ‘The torpedo-boat we’ve been engaging.’

  ‘And ’is oppo, sir.’

  The other T-class, the starshell expert; he must have moved over to stand by his chum. If he stayed there it would make things easier for the MTBs, presently. But more immediately important was this one, Wheeler’s ‘big ’un’—the Heilbronne, sure as eggs. And its position—based on this gunboat’s present QH position and the range and bearing by radar, then that position as a range and bearing from the reference point YY. For Furneaux immediately, and for an amplifying enemy report to go out on the Portsmouth Operational Wave. He was getting this ready now—scribbling it out on a signal-pad…

  ‘Topdog—Dog 2.’ Monkey’s voice, loud and clear. ‘I’ll engage your sweeper on his starboard side, if you like. Lit a small fire on an older-type M-class five hundred yards astern of him, meanwhile. Over.’

  Buzzing and crackling…

  Stack’s voice out of the speaker then: ‘Monkey—Topdog. Well done. How about a depth-charge on your way by? Then come on round, form-up astern of me and we’ll take it from there. Over.’

  ‘Roger, Topdog. Out.’

  Ben had the Heilbronne’s position. Should be able to see the bastard by now. But he’d still needed it in figures, for the signals. He sent the scrawled one down the tube to Willis, and went back up, emerging into darkness with red tracer whipping over and Stack shouting, ‘As she goes, Cox’n, through the middle!’

  ‘As she goes, sir!’

  ‘Stand by.’ Barclay, talking to the gunners. He was pretty good, Ben thought, very level and unflurried, you might well have thought this was an exercise. Natural to him, with that quiet and reserved everyday manner of his, maybe. But damn good, with Tomkins dead and Merriman the AA3 in God knew what state down there. The most he could have done for Merriman at this time was give him a heavy shot of morphine, poor sod…

  ‘Skipper, sir—the Heilbronne’s bearing and range from Barfleur—’

  ‘You do it, Ben.’ Stack had his glasses on the sweeper that was belting 37-mm and 20-mm explosive shells at them, one stream of it coming at a much lower trajectory than the rest just at this moment, lashing past at about head-height—tin-hat height—but mercifully wide. Stack adding, ‘R/T to Mike One, give him that position and the shape of things here. Tell him we’ll clear out soon as we have Ted with us. Open fire, Alan!’

  Crash and flame of guns. In the course of the past half-minute the M-class had tired of potting 874 and shifted all it had that would bear to this target. While Bland, lying disabled out there to starboard, was still engaging it with—well, only Oerlikons, now. Other guns knocked out, Ben guessed. No Oerlikon now, even: he’d have had to cease fire anyway as 875 moved in, fouling his range. The German on the move again meanwhile—white bow-wave visible, which it hadn’t been in recent minutes—and 875 pitching up with all her guns very much in action. Giving Bland a chance to make at least temporary repairs: essentially, to put fires out and get an engine going.

  Ben had fumbled the microphone of the R/T out of its stowage, crouched down now close against the armoured side of the bridge, starboard side, under the canopied ledge that served as a daylight-hours bridge chart-table.

  Switching on…

  ‘Mike One from Topdog, d’you hear me? Over.’

  Crackling… Then: ‘Topdog—Mike One, receiving you loud and clear. Over.’

  The man himself. Tonight, not dancing the night away. Or the other thing, either. Ben told him—this other man—‘Position of the target five minutes ago was half a mile south of YY, steering west. There are two T-class a thousand yards ahead of her—one of them on fire, and the other seems to be standing by him—one M-class on target’s port beam and two more M’s between five hundred and a thousand yards o
n her seaward side. We and Dog 2 are currently engaging the leader of this pair in order to extract Dog 3 who’s having problems, but we’ll be out of your way directly. The T-class that’s on fire and both the seaward-side M’s have had some guns knocked out and fires started. Good luck. Out.’

  Crouching over the microphone, trying to shield it as far as possible from the continuous racket of the guns. He’d felt some hits while he’d been talking, Stack had reduced the revs, and had also had wheel on, manoeuvring under more or less constant helm, making the boat harder to hit but also keeping all the German’s attention while Monkey came up on him on the seaward side. There’d been a hit aft, then… Then more crackling in the speaker, and Furneaux’s voice: ‘Topdog—Mike One. I can see your fireworks. Can’t delay more than five minutes, though. If the scene’s dark when you disengage, illuminations on the seaward side would be nice. Out.’

  ‘Nice’. Funny word… Checking the time by his watch’s luminous dial: 2336. On his feet, then, replacing the microphone, in a blaze of multicoloured tracer and a sight of the sweeper’s lower bridge with flames inside it, also a seaboat in davits abaft the single funnel well ablaze, and six-pounder shells bursting in that area. Stack was shouting into a telephone, ‘All right, Chief—best you can.’ Focusing his glasses on 874, Ben saw no movement of any kind, but no fire either now. Stack told him—a shout into his good ear although it wasn’t all that good by this time—‘Port outer’s been hit, bugger it!’

  ‘866 coming up astern, sir!’

  ‘Hard a-starboard, Cox’n.’

  ‘Message passed to Mike One, sir. Says he’ll leave it five minutes max, and if the fires are out when we disengage he’d be glad of illumination on the seaward side.’

  ‘He’ll get it. Give me the mike… Hey, see that!’

  Monkey’s depth-charge—just about under the sweeper’s stern. He’d have dropped it close ahead of her as he swung 866 across her bows from the seaward side, and it had exploded with a shallow setting on its pistol just as the German’s stern passed over it. A huge mound of white water swelling and then erupting, the ship’s afterpart lifting with it, crashing down in a flood of sea swamping over and emerging then almost on her side, slowly righting as the huge disturbance settled. She’d have either no screws at all now, or ones that wouldn’t turn on the twisted shafts. Her guns were silent and her upperworks were still bright with that internal fire.

  Ben pushed the microphone into Stack’s hand: ‘The mike, you wanted.’

  ‘Yeah. Ship’s head, Cox’n?’

  ‘South forty east, sir!’

  ‘Steer that.’ Towards 874, roughly. Barclay was back on the bridge and was passing the order to cease fire, Stack reaching to the telegraphs and putting the three working engines to slow ahead. Ben’s head singing from the comparative silence: it surprised him that he could hear any of these smaller sounds now. Even the click in the speaker as Stack switched on…

  ‘Monkey—good on you, boy. Dog Three, how’re you doing? Over.’

  Silence: except for the fact you could barely hear yourself think. One thought however was clear: that the priority, urgency, was to clear out—quick.

  Stack was trying again: ‘Dog Three—Topdog. How’s tricks, Ted? Over.’

  ‘Topdog.’ Now, he was answering. ‘Dog Three. First lieutenant—Worbury. Skipper’s died, sir. Had a head-wound… Sir, starboard outer’s mended, and there are hopes for the starboard inner. Ten knots, meanwhile? Over.’

  Bland dead. Oh, Jesus…

  Stack was telling Baldy, ‘Take station astern of me, Worbury. I’m damn sorry… Monkey, you’re tail-ender. Course north, ten knots. Out.’

  Furneaux would have heard that, would know the field was being cleared for him now.

  Chapter Eight

  He’d called the other two to within loud-hailer distance, one on each quarter, Chisholm’s 562 to port and Heddingly’s 564 starboard. All three still paddling northward—on an interception course to the convoy—on one engine apiece at revs for about six knots, consequently tossing around a bit. He’d have carried on at this low speed, creeping in to close quarters as inconspicuously and quietly as possible, but radar had just reported new arrivals coming—apparently—to join the convoy, from the west, and it seemed inadvisable to hang back until the escort had been thus strengthened.

  On his seat in the bridge’s starboard forward corner, he switched on the fixed loudhailer system. He was listening-out on R/T but not using it himself at this stage; it could have amounted to telling the bastards you were coming. He’d heard Stack initiating the gunboats’ withdrawal northwards, anyway… Testing the hailer by tapping its microphone, then bawling into it ‘D’you hear there?’ and getting for answers a thump and then a booming, long-distance echo of his own voice across dark, jumpy sea… He told them, ‘Starter’s orders, chaps—and we have to look slippy. Radar just picked up a middleweight and two widgers coming east from vicinity of A A—could be the T-class and R-boats we had a while ago. Joint’s jumping, anyway—and radar shows the target now five thousand yards nor’-nor’-east—steering west, seventeen knots estimated. So—quarterline starboard, twenty knots for two miles, then slow to twelve. I’ll steer to leave the nearer M to starboard, passing ahead of him to get in on the target’s bow, and I’ll disengage to port. You two go the other way—detour to starboard, cross astern of the M, approach from the quarter and disengage to starboard. OK? Anything unclear, speak now.’

  Cocking an ear to the wind, for a few seconds… But there was no interruption to the engines’ drowned rumbling, wind and sea and battering hulls. Nothing to wait for, therefore. Loudhailer again: ‘Right, chaps. Quarterline starboard—execute!’

  Twenty knots wouldn’t be exactly sneaking in. But with the target’s escort about to be reinforced—the hell… Time now—2342. Mile and a half to go, roughly: at twenty knots, four and a half minutes. And they were in quarterline now. Telegraphs to half-ahead, therefore, throttles easing open: no need for signals. He’d flapped his seat up out of the way, was on his feet behind all the controls, with his coxswain’s burlier figure close on his left. Power building, 560 thrusting forward: stern-down and bow lifting, the start of the hammering impacts you felt all the way up your spinal column…

  Hugh Lyon was returning from the after end of the bridge—the screened shelter behind it where the gunners waited—all but Vibart, gunlayer 3rd class, in the point-five turret, and Bellamy the Oerlikons’ number two and loader, who for the time being was still up here as a lookout. So was Woods, on this starboard side; and Perrot, Leading Signalman, propped in the after corner between the flag-locker and the signal-lamps’ stowage, keeping an eye open for signals from the other boats. Lyon paused there, between him and Woods, training his glasses too on the others—rather too highly visible, fast-moving explosions of brilliant white and widening, trailing wakes… Lyon wondering—aware of a familiar pre-action tautness of his own nerves, and a slight shortness of breath—whether Mike Furneaux had any fears on this first appearance as a flotilla SO. He’d certainly shown none. Which was what made one wonder: total lack of fear, or vast self-confidence?

  Achieving command itself would be the big one, Lyon supposed. After that, maybe, having a few more boats tucked under one’s wing wouldn’t make so much difference?

  Not to the Mike Furneaux’s of this world, anyway.

  A species apart. That was probably the answer. Horses for courses. By the same yardstick he, Lyon, was probably in his right niche as a second-in-command. Talking to Betty once he’d said something like ‘When I get my command’, and she’d goggled at him: ‘Command?’ Then seen from his expression that he wasn’t exactly overjoyed at this reaction, and covered up with some unconvincing waffle…

  Ourselves as others see us, he’d thought. Moving up now to the forefront, port side. Maybe how Furneaux saw him too. Might well be—and he could be right, at that. You didn’t all have to be bloody Errol Flynns.

  John Flyte had gone down to the wheelho
use to try to prepare a radar plot, which would be made use of at later stages—from the time they slowed to twelve knots. Furneaux had told him to keep the picture up to the minute with everything that came from Davies but to pass on only what he, Furneaux, would want or need to know. Priority at the start would be the movements of the Torpedoboot and two Raumboote who’d been on their way back eastward—and might yet be there ahead of them.

  2345. A minute and a half to go, roughly. Flyte would call up to the skipper when you’d run the distance, anyway.

  ‘Perrot.’ Furneaux, still with his glasses up, and not turning. ‘Stand by with the blue lamp and “George twelve”.’

  ‘George twelve—aye aye, sir.’

  Meaning ‘speed twelve knots’. But—loudhailer, and now the blue lamp. Once the shooting started, he’d be back on R/T, no doubt.

  ‘Light showing green five-oh, could be a ship on fire, sir!’

  ‘All right, Woods…’

  Focusing on it, Lyon saw that that was exactly what it was. Some of the gunboats’ handiwork, no doubt. An escort stopped and burning and left behind by the rest of the convoy as they steamed on westward. Furneaux had taken a quick look at it before resuming his sweeping across the bow.

  ‘Bridge!’

  Lyon ducked to the port-side branch of the voicepipe. ‘Bridge.’

  ‘Four and a half minutes coming up, sir.’ Flyte paused for about two seconds. ‘Time’s up—now.’

  ‘Pass “George twelve”, signalman.’ Furneaux eased the throttles back. The bumping-around was immediately worse again, as the revs came off and she slumped deeper in the waves, slamming through them.

  ‘Bridge!’

  Lyon answered again. Grabbing for stability at the correcting sphere on the port side of the binnacle: she’d dug her bow in and the sledgehammers were getting busy. Flyte told him, ‘Only radar contact port side is on red two-zero, sir, Davies reckons the T-class, range about 024.’

  ‘No R-boats?’