Band of Brothers

by Band of Brothers (retail) (epub)

  He got an updated position from the QH, and put it on the chart. Time—0010. Position Cap Levi 030 degrees 7800 yards. Wheeler, radar operator, was talking to Stack about yet another contact. It was getting to be like Piccadilly bloody Circus around here, Ben thought.

  ‘Plot!’ Leading Tel. Willis again. ‘In the pipe, sir!’

  ‘Right.’ Reeling it in… Willis adding, ‘There’s more coming, sir.’

  This was a short one:

  Unit from MTB 560, repeated C-in-C Portsmouth. Return independently to base. No assistance required, thank you. T. O. O. 0008.

  He was alive, anyway. Giving damn little away, but—extant. OK, taking less time on the air, for Krauts to eavesdrop. Using W/T rather than R/T for that same reason, probably, also for range—the MTBs might be widely separated by this time—and to have the transmission picked up back in Newhaven as well as Portsmouth.

  Waiting for the next instalment. Cigarette between his lips, eyes narrowed to keep the smoke out while using a rubber to clear old pencil-work from a plotting-diagram. If radar was suddenly going to find a whole profusion of bloody contacts… A fleeting thought then as he marked a starting-position for this unit and tagged it 0011, eleven minutes past midnight: This time last night…

  ‘Plot!—’ Willis again—‘Signal in the bucket, sir!’

  ‘OK.’ He jerked it up. A thought in mind of men like himself and Furneaux coming to grief—as was always possible—and how many women might weep into their grog. He knew the answer in his own case: one… Stack’s voice booming suddenly from the R/T speaker: ‘Dog two—Topdog. You receiving me? Over.’

  Monkey was replying affirmatively. Stack ordering port wheel, meanwhile. Turning away from those radar contacts? Seen sense, maybe. Or had decided the new one should have priority. He’d have some reason, and it would be a good one. You could count on it. Correction to that recent thought, however: there’d be tears shed in Brisbane too. And by her old man. He shook the signal out of the carrier: hearing Stack again on the TCS telling Monkey, ‘Altering to port. Those two are holding on—could be for Cherbourg—and we have a new one—tiddler—due south, 2,500 yards, could be more dangerous. Steering to leave him to starboard. Out.’

  ‘Topdog—your tiddler—on its own, could be Newbolt? At a pinch? Over.’

  ‘Dog Two, I had the same wild surmise. But he’d be chipping-in on this now, surely. Out.’

  Chipping-in on the R/T exchanges, he’d meant. The new signal was from Furneaux addressed to Stack and repeated to the staff at Portsmouth.

  MTB 560 to MGB 875 (R) C-in-C Portsmouth. One tube wrecked by gunfire and two engines knocked out. Stalking target westward, target speed reduced by torpedo hit from MTB 564. Intend attacking after overhauling in vicinity position AA. T. O. O. 0010.

  Position AA meant close off Cap Levi.

  He’d taken a beating, by the sound of it: the forebodings hadn’t been entirely unjustified. With only one engine, in fact, he might well be heading for another. Even if the Heilbronne’s speed had been drastically reduced, allowing him to overhaul, there’d still be several escorts surrounding her, and speed was essential for manoeuvrability—especially after firing, when the time came to disengage.

  Kamikaze stuff, otherwise.

  And only one fish, for God’s sake. But there you were: first time out as the MTBs’ SO, he wouldn’t want to leave his target afloat. In his shoes, who would?

  Back at the pipe, Ben asked Willis whether there was anything else coming in; there wasn’t, so he went back up to the bridge. Stack meanwhile had been on the R/T again, conferring with Monkey; his last words before switching off had been, ‘I’ll challenge first—depending on how it looks—otherwise engage starboard. Out.’

  Ben relieved him of the microphone. ‘Signals from the MTBs, sir—’

  ‘Yeah—right, Ben—all that matters, in ten seconds flat.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ Grabbing for support: wind and sea were getting up. ‘Essentials are—Mike Furneaux’s had one tube wrecked and he’s on one engine, Heilbronne’s been hit and slowed but she’s still afloat, continuing west. Mike’s overhauling her, aims to get her with his one fish—near Cap Levi he reckons. He’s sent Heddingly and Chisholm home.’

  ‘Christ.’ Digesting it… Then: ‘Glutton for punishment, old Mike. We’ll have to stick around. After we’ve dealt with this bugger. Could be Newbolt, but—’ A shake of the head… ‘Ben—get a signal out, tell ’em 874’s on her way home, first lieutenant in command.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir. Re this challenge—letters changed, at midnight?’

  ‘Damn right—’

  The signalman called, ‘Challenge is F for Freddie, reply’s Z for Zebra, sir.’

  ‘Good on you, Miller…’

  Down in the plot again—with the irreverent thought that punishment wasn’t the only thing Mike Furneaux was a glutton for—he drafted a signal informing MTBs 562 and 564 that MGB 874 was on her way back to base via the R/V position which she’d be passing through at approximately 0040, with wounded on board, 1st Lt in command, and only one engine, making about ten knots. Motives behind this were (a) to reduce the danger of mistaken-identity encounters, (b) that the MTBs or one of them might elect to stay with Worbury in case his remaining engine packed up, and (c) the possibility of transferring his wounded to one of them, getting them home and into hospital three times as fast.

  If transference was a practical proposition—which wasn’t by any means a certainty. A moderate sea like this one looked a lot bigger when you tried to hold two boats alongside each other for long enough to transfer even fit and agile personnel.

  He put a time-of-origin of 0019 on the signal, sent it down the pipe and went back up to the bridge.

  Barclay was using the telephone to the guns about holding their fire. ‘There’s a chance it could be MTB 563.’

  ‘I think it is.’ Stack—in a tone of surprise. Glasses up, looking out over the bow. Revs had been reduced: she was plunging along at something like twelve knots, plugging southward like a big fish on a line. Wind about force 3 rising 4, he guessed: having to wait for his night vision to re-establish itself before he’d be much use.

  ‘Five degrees to port, Cox’n.’

  Barclay shouting into a voicepipe: talking to Wheeler about picking up the Heilbronne and/or her escorts; ‘Mad Priest’ Wheeler reminding him, ‘Not as good in the landward sector, sir. Lot of interference, like.’

  ‘See what you can get. We need it.’ Up from the pipe: glasses up too then. ‘Sure it’s him, sir?’

  ‘No. Not sure, at all. Bloody miracle if it is… What d’you reckon, Ben?’

  He was on it—at last. Whatever it was, it was about ten degrees on the starboard bow: broken water, the pale gleam of it, like sea sluicing around and over a half-tide rock and pluming up from time to time, the rock itself no more than a hollow centre to the disturbance. It could be. It had taken keen eyesight to have spotted it in the first place, with the broken water all around. He answered Stack, ‘Looks like an MTB. Although…’

  Leaving it at that. No-one was listening to him, and in any case—well, to an extent you saw what you wanted to see. Although what the hell it could be if it wasn’t an MTB…

  ‘Miller.’ Stack with the glasses still at his eyes… Everything on the move—whatever it was out there soaring and dropping away again, the black white-patched slopes shifting and slanting this way and that, this gunboat hammering, pitching and rolling even harder—at low revs, and beam-on to it. In contrast, Stack and others as upright as cut-out figures mounted on gimbals… Stack calling back to the signalman, ‘Clear-glass Aldis, Miller, starboard side here… Steer ten degrees to port, Cox’n.’

  ‘Ten degrees to port, sir…’

  Barclay into the ’phone to the guns, keeping the lads in touch with events: ‘—starboard bow, but I repeat, do not open fire before the order. We’re about to challenge.’

  ‘Standing by, sir…’

  ‘Make the challenge!’


  White beam lancing out, piercing the night—a lance with a spread of salt-spray around it. Two shorts, one long, one short. Pause: then the same again. Ben had his glasses on that patch of white—which looked decidedly like an MTB’s humped and spreading wake; but if it was Mark Newbolt’s there was no way of knowing what he’d been through or what state he might be in, whether for instance he’d have the updated recognition signals ready.

  Except that—well, bloody fool if he didn’t. He was heading south, must be regarding himself as fit for action. Presumably. Even if he was—apparently—deaf to R/T.

  A flash, over that swirl of wake: expanding into a beam like a searchlight probing this way. Long, long, short, short: Z for Zebra.

  ‘Christ… Miller—blue lamp now!’ Joyous tone, and everyone feeling the same, probably all of them having at least privately given that crew up for lost… ‘Make to him, interrogative numerals five, six, three!’

  ‘Aye, sir…’

  Blue-shaded lamp for its restricted visual range… Barclay telling the gunners ‘Correct reply, seems it is 563!’

  Cheers on the wind. Stack shouting—to anyone in earshot—‘Would’ve given you twenty to one against!’ Miller’s lamp finished passing that question, and the answer came immediately—‘Affirmative’.

  ‘Loudhailer—’

  Miller gave Stack the microphone, and switched on. Barclay was answering a call from radar—Wheeler having to admit he’d been over-pessimistic, that his set had blips between red two-five and red three-oh at 2,500 and 3,000 yards. Stack had cut to outers, meanwhile, Miller’s blue lamp winking astern to warn Monkey. 875 sliding up abeam of the MTB fifty yards clear to port—and Stack’s magnified Aussie tones carrying clearly over the gap of heaving blackness: ‘No R/T, Mark? How about W/T? What else don’t you have—and why not?’

  560 had two working engines now—centre and port. PO Coates had achieved this vast improvement despite his leading stoker, Willoughby, having been thrown across the port engine, burnt and for a while knocked out, when a 20-mm shell had burst inside the engineroom, against the outer side of the starboard engine. The solid bulk of the engine itself had saved Coates, Willoughby and Stoker Hughes from far worse injury. Willoughby was conscious and back at work, helping to plug holes.

  ‘I can have twenty-five knots, can I, when I need it?’

  Lyon called, ‘Red two-oh—escort of some kind!’

  Coates was hedging: ‘Sooner keep revs down, sir. Especially with the weight we got in aft.’

  The aftermost compartment, containing steering-gear and the steering engine—as well as lub-oil tanks—was full of water that had flooded in through the shattered transom. The gear was still working perfectly, but the weight of the flooding was putting a stern-down angle on her; Coates’ point was that the extra drag could only add to the strain on engines that were already in need of nursing.

  ‘All right. And well done, Chief.’

  He handed the ’phone to John Flyte, and put his glasses up. ‘Red two-oh, Number One?’

  ‘And less than a mile, I’d say.’

  He was on it. A Torpedoboot: steering west—or west by south, say. He agreed: ‘Much less.’ Under helm at this moment too, either zigzagging or changing its position in the screen. He was probing the immediate surroundings for a sight of the Heilbronne. He was here now, stalking again, as a direct result of Heddingly’s report that the target was still afloat and continuing westward at low speed.

  With only five or six miles to cover between here and Cherbourg. OK, so she wouldn’t be getting out into the Atlantic now—not even round the corner to Brest—but the brief had been to sink her, not just damage her.

  ‘Flyte—revs for eighteen knots. Steer five degrees to starboard, Cox’n.’

  ‘Five degrees starboard, sir…’

  Revs increasing. 560 dragging her flooded stern like—Furneaux’s own comment to Lyon a minute or two ago—like a duck with its arse full of shot. Another adverse factor was that as a result of the severing of the fuel-line to the centre engine her bilges aft were awash with 100-octane petrol. You wouldn’t want another hit back there.

  Lyon had answered a call from the W/T office. Furneaux, keeping his glasses up, cocked an ear.

  ‘Signal to us from the SO, sir!’

  ‘Let’s hear it. Come another five degrees to starboard, Cox’n.’

  To pass outside that escort, presumably. Furneaux informing Lyon and Flyte, ‘The Heilbronne’s to the left of that Torpedoboot, and there’s another ‘T’ on her port quarter… Go ahead, Number One.’

  ‘Addressed to us from MGB 875, sir.’ Lyon passed it on phrase by phrase from Turner, the telegraphist. ‘MTB 563—’ he’d gagged on it: ‘Christ—563—’

  ‘Come on, what about her?’

  ‘—closing target from seaward steering due south towards Cap Levi. Has only one engine, Limited to eight knots, no W/T, R/T or radar. Newbolt is aware of your own intentions. My position AA 032 degrees three miles course south by west, will assist with starshell if you call for it. Time of Origin—’

  ‘Never mind that.’

  Beyond this, he seemed not to be commenting. Binoculars back on the Heilbronne. Lost in thought, maybe… Lyon put his own glasses up too: looking for the Heilbronne and then for the other escort which Furneaux had spotted.

  ‘All right. Reduce to revs for twelve knots. Starboard wheel, Cox’n.’

  ‘Starboard wheel, sir!’

  Slowing, and turning away…

  Labouring round, as the revs decreased. Movements were sluggish anyway, with that weight of water holding her stern down, although this was the best way to make the turn as far as her engines were concerned.

  ‘All the way round, Cox’n, and steer south. Number One—’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Here, a minute. You’d better understand this. Flyte, you too. You hearing this, Cox’n?’

  He was. Holding the rudder on her, the boat rolling hard as she swung her stem through north, all the weather on her beam: John Flyte fetched-up in a slide beside them, cannoning into Lyon. Furneaux pointing southeastward—over the port quarter, as she was at this moment… ‘Heilbronne’s there—3,000 yards, roughly—with a Torpedoboot on her beam this side and another on her port quarter. There. Other escort or escorts ahead of her, obviously. I’d guess only one, the surviving M-class sweeper. Right? Well—Newbolt’s supposed to be coming down on their beam, roughly—there, from the north. So if I’d gone on as I was, to attack from that beam—well, bugger’s muddle to start with, and when this ‘T’ spotted us we’d ’ve stirred it up for Newbolt too. You with me?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘So—round this way, passing astern of them—well astern, to get round that sod on the quarter there—then overhaul again, attack from inshore. Diverting attention from Newbolt. He’ll have the best chance—with two fish. And we’ll have room enough. Heilbronne’ll be a mile offshore, using the channel through the shallows there—whatever they’re called—’

  ‘Raz du Cap Levi.’

  Flyte: earning himself a grunt… 560 most of the way round, PO Thompson easing rudder off her. Furneaux had put his glasses up: briefing finished, Lyon realized. First ever, of its kind. Having so nearly not got away with it in that last scrimmage, hedging his bets on surviving the next?

  563 rolling and pitching south-by-westward. Mark Newbolt upright on his seat, glasses up and sweeping across the bow. Foam sheeting over and flying away to port: too much of it, making her too visible by half even at this mere eight knots. Still having only the one wing engine, and half-power from it at most. PO Motor Mechanic Talbot’s attempts to get another engine back into commission had come to nothing, and when Newbolt had tried to work up the revs on this starboard one—only minutes after getting under way after his close shave with the trawlers—she’d overheated, the supercharger seizing-up and the engine then jamming itself in neutral. They’d had to lie stopped—once again ‘at the mercy of wind and wave’, as Kingsmill had poetic
ally described it—for another uncomfortable twenty minutes. There’d been flare-ups of action in the southeast, tracer and other fireworks including starshell, and two or possibly three torpedo-hits. There’d also been doubts as to whether the MM was going to be able to get even this one engine going again: Newbolt had had visions of the action being finished down there between Barfleur and Levi and all concerned then legging it for home, leaving 563 stuck here until the Luftwaffe found her in the dawn.

  Code-books and other secret publications had some while ago been put into the weighted sack ready for ditching, but this second time round he’d also considered the details of abandoning ship and how he’d set about sinking her.

  Then Talbot’s great news—again.

  ‘We get back intact—’ Kingsmill had suggested—‘ought to get Talbot knighted.’

  Newbolt had thought, And me shot…

  Not all that flippantly either. The boat and her crew were in this hole for the sole reason that he, Mark Newbolt, had cocked up. First, allowed himself to become separated from the unit; and second, rushed into action when it was the last thing he should have done.

  And—incidentally—failed to send out an enemy report when he should have, before having his aerials shot away.

  Cock-up followed by fuck-up. Vivid awareness of which had resulted in the decision to carry on southward in search of a target on which to use his fish. Knowing there’d been hits and that it was therefore odds-on that the Heilbronne had been sunk, but with a sharp distaste for the prospect of returning to Newhaven in this beat-up state and having achieved damn-all—beyond the destruction of a Raumboot against which he shouldn’t have been in action in the first place—and bringing back with him two perfectly good, unused torpedoes.