Band of Brothers

by Band of Brothers (retail) (epub)

  Newbolt had to be somewhere in that lot. Poor bugger: getting it in the neck, and then some. At least half of it from this sod whom one was about to hit: but from this one and another of the same species, a mile or less away southeastward.

  In very recent and vivid memory, had been the sights and sounds of young Newbolt’s successful attack. The gunboats had been following him south at his own speed of eight knots—on silenced outers and a mile astern of him, having given him a head start. Radar, on the blink again, had lost him at less than half a mile, to Stack’s extreme annoyance. He was on edge with concern for Newbolt and his crew anyway: shouting to himself at one stage, ‘Eight knots, Christ’s sake, what sort of bloody chance’d that give him?’ Questioning, Ben realized, his own judgement in having let Newbolt go on with it, in his crippled state… Anyway—there’d been the sight, sound and shock of the first torpedo hit—then the second—so you knew it couldn’t have been Mike Furneaux’s work, Furneaux having only one shot in his locker—and that holocaust ensuing—and the Torpedoboot a dark cut-out against it—as it had been a minute earlier, against German starshell—more or less in profile and also right in their way. The gunboats having to get down there in a hurry, and the German in any case much better knocked out of the game, if possible—for everyone’s sake, but especially for Newbolt’s. Stack had crash-started the inners, slamming them and the outers to full ahead, 2,400 revs.

  Pent-up anxiety translated into action—that far—and then this further wait, sweating self-control…

  Tracer, suddenly—coming this way. Bastards woken up, or something…

  ‘Go ahead, Alan!’

  ‘Master Gunner, open fire!’

  Barclay had yelled it into the telephone. Bennet as Master Gunner had to start it. It was a procedure Ben had seen used in gunnery exercises but never before in action. The master gun—or rather guns, in a twin mounting such as the point-five turret—were loaded with 100 per cent green tracer, and picked the targets; all other guns in all the accompanying boats followed that lead, hitting where the green tracer hit. The theory of it was that whatever got shot at got shot to bits. In fact this would be a very limited use of the technique, since there was to be only one target, with no latitude—or time—for shifting between different points of aim; the target was to be solely the Torpedoboot’s bridge. To hit him hard and leave him reeling—with any luck the skipper and officers and helmsman dead, controls and communications shattered. It should be achievable here—touch wood—touching in reality the cold steel of the twin gas-operated Vickers—because you were catching the bastard on the hop—through his having been preoccupied with exacting revenge on poor Newbolt—and hitting him at pretty well point-blank range. The double stream of green tracer hitting him now, Bennet not needing to use his open ring-sight thereafter, only hose-piping the streams of it slightly left to find the bridge and stay on it, pouring the stuff in, Ben squeezing his own triggers and within a second or two stone deaf, the vibration of the two guns’ extremely high rate of fire rattling his teeth while he guided his yellow tracer to merge with the green. Stack had ordered the wheel hard a-port, and 875 was leaning into the turn, in the course of it opening her after guns’ arcs of fire to the enemy at a range of less than a hundred yards. Six-pounders, point-fives, Vickers and Oerlikons all hitting the same target with a mix of incendiary, high-explosive and armour-piercing, the six-pounders in particular delivering wholesale destruction in every burst: and the guns’ racket, colossal on its own, combining with the roar of the four supercharged 1,250-horsepower Packards at full blast to create a volume of sound that was unbelievable. The German’s bridge was already a mass of flame: Ben’s bones and muscles juddering with his guns, firing on the beam now as into a furnace as the gunboat drew ahead, overhauling—firing abaft the beam, then on the quarter—with only one gun, though, the left one had jammed, damn it—

  A bang on his shoulder—a fist—and Barclay’s yell like a seagull’s shriek to pierce the noise: ‘Cease fire, Ben!’

  He grumbled—inaudibly even to himself—‘Spoilsport…’ But he’d have needed to clear the left-hand gun, anyway, and change the pans on both. Wouldn’t have had anything to shoot at now anyway: what was left of the engagement was visibly all astern—Monkey still at it, for the moment. It had only lasted seconds. Ben excusing himself to Barclay—although still not hearing his own voice—‘Sorry, but you know I’m deaf…’

  Stack, on R/T: ‘Dog Two—d’you hear me? Over.’ Waiting, then, he put his glasses up to look back astern at the bonfire-like Torpedoboot. It was sheering away to starboard: but there’d be no steering from that bridge now, you could bet. Nothing from that bridge.

  ‘Starboard wheel, Cox’n.’

  ‘Starboard wheel, sir…’

  R/T: a sudden roaring from the speaker—so loud Ben actually heard it: then it cut out and was replaced by Monkey’s voice: ‘Topdog, Dog Two. Heard you loud and clear. Over.’

  ‘Dog Two. George two zero. Repeat, George two zero. And I’m altering thirty degrees to starboard. When we find Mark I’ll go in close—alongside, if I can—while you give me a lee and/or see off any interference. God knows where Mike is. Out.’

  ‘Roger, Topdog. Out.’

  Telegraphs to half ahead, revs reducing to twenty knots. R/T again, then: ‘Mike One—Topdog. What is your situation? Over.’

  Atmospherics: nothing else.

  Engines slowing, now; volume of sound lessening, and the gunboat’s posture in the water levelling.

  ‘Steer south forty-five east, Cox’n.’

  ‘South forty-five east, sir…’

  Stack had his glasses up again. Ben too: reflecting that this was the second time tonight that Furneaux had been lost—or seemed to be. The last time, it had sprung to mind—‘unbidden’, as such thoughts tended to be labelled—to wonder how matters involving Stack and Joan might be affected, if the bugger really had gone; and the answer had been that the only difference would be himself and Monkey relieved of any obligation to discuss the events of Saturday night. No other difference, because Furneaux himself was incidental. If she’d reverted to previous form—as she had, obviously—she’d very soon replace him. You could bet on it.

  And still have a soft spot for her.

  Extraordinary.

  But—happy times. Exciting times. And she had got under one’s skin, somewhat. Remembering it now one thought of that girl, not of this one ratting on old Bob.

  Searching carefully with the binoculars. His ears felt as if they’d been stuffed with plasticine. There was still plenty of tracer down there: what Stack was steering for, no doubt. That other ‘T’: there was certainly nothing coming from the one they’d just hit. He was a blazing hulk, you could forget him: and the ‘M’ would as likely as not go to his assistance: no option really, it would have to. Two for the price of one, effectively.

  Newbolt would be somewhere under that tracer. In what state, though—God only knew. It could be Furneaux they were shooting at now. Could be…

  ‘No casualties, sir.’ Barclay had pushed in beside Stack. ‘And the only damage is superficial. CSA gear’s gone for a burton, guardrail aft’s carried away—oh, and the ventilator, and the steps at the back of the bridge here—all smashed. God knows how Michelson and Foster got away with it.’

  ‘Devil looks after his own, they say.’

  ‘Ah. That’s a point…’

  A bark of mirth from Charlie Sewell. Who’d been on that wheel for—what, close on seven hours. Time now being—0159. Barclay was saying, answering a question from Stack, ‘A few holes for’ard, yes sir. Few more, that is. All above the waterline—as far as one can see.’

  ‘Got off damn lightly.’

  ‘Well—considering—’

  The darkness split—a mile away. The tracer had cut off; a streak of flame shot up, hung for a moment and then darkened, disappeared. The sound and shock arrived, then—that distinctive, underwater thump.

  ‘My bloody oath.’ Stack, with his glasse
s on it. ‘My fucking bloody oath…’

  ‘Steer for where it was, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Cox’n. Ben, all engines full ahead—’

  ‘Topdog.’ Furneaux’s voice, loud over the R/T… ‘Mike One. Kiss that one goodbye. Fish blew his stern off. Look—on my way to Mark, but I’d appreciate assistance. Got a few problems. Over…’

  Chapter Eleven

  Ben had never cut a man’s arm off before, but he had a few minutes ago. Pausing in the wheelhouse now on his way back up to the bridge, for the more mundane task of checking the position again by QH. Young Carter, the Liverpudlian OD who had ambitions to become his navigational assistant, had fixed a mattress over the damage in the corner and port side, primarily for the sake of the blackout. It was a lot better than having to take the chart down to the wardroom, which was now also a sickbay and emergency operating theatre. The arm, belonging to Newbolt’s spare officer, a midshipman by name of Sworder, had been connected to his shoulder only by sinews, which Ben had severed with a razor while Barclay had been struggling to cope with a spouting artery. After they’d embarked the dead and wounded Ben had gone down there to lend a hand, and become caught up in helping with some of the more urgent and basic tasks. They’d got them more or less settled now: Sworder unconscious in one of the wardroom bunks, full of morphine and with Barclay and AB Michelson binding-up the shoulder-stump—having tied the artery—and Mark Newbolt semi-conscious in another—with shell-fragments in his back and from ankle to shoulder in his left side—and in the forward mess, next door, a leading stoker by name of Chivers and a seaman torpedoman called Lloyd who according to Newbolt had been wounded in two separate actions. Merriman was in there too, of course. Barclay was being assisted by Charlie Sewell and this Michelson, the Oerlikon gunner who’d been brought up in a Barnardo’s home.

  ETA Newhaven—Ben had drafted the signal, one of several which would have gone out half an hour ago—was 0700. Wind was up to force 4 and by the feel of it still rising. She was making hard work of it, and a lot of men were being sick. Ben hadn’t been yet but suspected it mightn’t be long before he was. Alan Barclay, down there with the wounded, was about the same colour as the white-painted bulkheads, had looked as if he was either going to faint or cut his own throat with that razor; Ben had taken it from his hand, told him, ‘Gimme—I’m a dab hand at this.’

  He’d wrapped the arm up in a towel, and someone had taken it up and ditched it.

  The ETA might hold good, he thought. If it had been less rough you might have reckoned on getting in by nearer 0630; but with revs on for twenty-three knots she was making-good less than twenty. An uncertainty from the navigational angle was whether wind was beating tide, or vice-versa. Wind from the west causing eastward drift, and the tidal stream setting westward at about two knots. You set the best course you could, knowing it would need adjusting from time to time: also that with the weather as it was, very accurate steering was a near-impossibility. Leading Seaman Harper was on the wheel now.

  Furneaux, with Monkey in 866 keeping him company, wouldn’t be in until nearer nine. There was a chance they’d be given some air-cover after first light—Stack had asked for it, as insurance against opportunism by the Luftwaffe. But Furneaux’s best speed was eighteen knots, which in these conditions would bring him down to nearer twelve: MTBs, being flat-bottomed, tended to get blown around like leaves. Stack had left Monkey to escort him home in case of more total breakdown. Most of 560’s engine and hull-damage had been sustained earlier in the night, but in that final stage of the action Furneaux had had a direct hit in his wheelhouse, blast and fragments from it killing his spare officer—John Flyte, a sub-lieutenant—and wounding Mike himself, his coxswain, signalman and an AB named Bellamy, who was a celebrity in the flotilla by virtue of being captain of its football team. Furneaux had told Stack over R/T that he’d been hit in his legs, left arm and shoulder, that the coxswain and signalman had also been hit in the legs, and Bellamy in his back. You could imagine how it must have been, the blast back into the forefront of the bridge. Johnny Flyte had been in the wheelhouse when the shell had exploded in there, apparently: he wouldn’t have known much, if anything, about it. There’d been no question of embarking any of them: for one thing it had been a hell of a job getting Newbolt’s dead and wounded out—near-impossible, in fact, but necessary—and for another Furneaux had passed the R/T microphone to his first lieutenant, Hugh Lyon, who’d added another major item to the report of damage—that the steering-gear compartment was holed and flooded, virtually open to the sea—but had assured Stack that he had it all in hand and, while glad of MGB 866’s company, was confident of getting the boat home.

  Ben went up into the bridge. ‘Tiny’ Harper looming huge at the wheel, Stack on his seat in the starboard fore corner—as always, with binoculars at his eyes.

  Fresh air was a great improvement on the vomit-scented fug below.

  ‘ETA 0700 looks reasonable so far, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ Glasses down… ‘Get the signals out, did they?’

  ‘Oh, strewth—yes. Sorry, skipper, should’ve told you. You saw Monkey’s—’

  ‘Negative. Didn’t expect much else—uh?’

  Moncrieff had signalled that he’d found no survivors from the Torpedoboot. Stack had told him to make a search of the area where it had gone down, but not to hang around, not to search at all if the M-class sweeper had been anywhere near by that time. Furneaux was to have started for home right away, Monkey to make his search and then catch up with him.

  ‘You did darned well, Ben, getting Mark and his boys out.’

  ‘Bit hectic, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Thought we’d seen the last of you, one time.’

  ‘That was this clumsy bugger Harper’s fault.’

  ‘Beg pardon, sir?’

  ‘I’m not picking any fights with you, Harper.’

  ‘No. Well—glad o’ that, sir.’

  ‘Specially as you made a first-class job of it yourself. Not only in general terms either, I might have gone in if you’d been less quick on the ball.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  It hadn’t been easy to find 563, in the first place. The fact she’d been on fire hadn’t helped—she’d looked like just another of the smaller patches of burning oil, with which the entire seascape had been covered by that time. But Furneaux had been on his way over to Mark, to stand by him, and Stack had called him on R/T again, asked him to switch on 560’s fighting lights, and this had led them to him. 563 had been low in the water, immobile and with a fire in her afterpart; proximity of fire to high-octane petrol storage naturally turning thoughts towards the possibility of explosions, and presenting the alternatives either of keeping well clear—which was hardly realistic—or getting on board immediately to evacuate the survivors double-quick and then clear off. There were survivors: both gunboats were using Aldis lamps as searchlights while Stack was bringing 875 cautiously in towards the wreck—Harper hurriedly rigging a scrambling-net over the port side, meanwhile, and Monkey manoeuvring 866 up close to windward, beam-on, to provide a lee—and at least two men were seen waving from Newbolt’s bridge. Stack had reduced to outers at low revs, was nosing up on the windward side, and as he closed in the relative rise and fall of the two boats—indicative of the difficulties to be faced in boarding, let alone transferring wounded—became more plainly daunting with every yard’s diminution of the gap. The MTB’s movements were comparatively sluggish, since she was waterlogged, but the gunboat was pitching and rolling like something idiots might pay for in a funfair. Barclay meanwhile, mustering volunteers to go over, had been including himself in the boarding party, and Stack had vetoed this, on the grounds that it was the first lieutenant’s job to organize the reception of the wounded, get them below and fix them up, to whatever extent was possible. Ben had therefore taken his place and gone on down, found Harper and a few others preparing to leap over as soon as they were up close enough. He’d excluded Harper, who’d be a lot more useful on the
gunboat’s deck—using his size and strength to haul men on board—and picked only two to go over with him: Harrison, layer of the for’ard six-pounder, and Lynch, leading motor mechanic.

  ‘It’s going to be a bastard, fewer the better. I go first—then you, Harrison…’

  He jumped at what looked as good a moment as any—the MTB well up, the gunboat in a roll to port. Landing in a sprawl and a stink of smouldering wood, paintwork and metal, and men in the shattered bridge dragging themselves back to make way for him. There were dead as well as live ones. Newbolt had been sitting, propped against the binnacle: he had multiple wounds, it seemed from neck to knees, and was conscious but weak, presumably from loss of blood. There was a lot of it around. His first lieutenant, Kingsmill, was dead beside him, CPO ‘Badger’ Gilchrist was dead too but in a sitting position, jammed between Kingsmill and the wheel. Ben grabbed the others and pulled them inboard as they came over. The rise and fall between the two boats was frightening: Stack was doing his best to hold the gunboat clear, but they were crashing together all the time, the gunboat tending to override the MTB, and the gap between them when there was one was a potential death-trap.

  They’d cleared the bridge first. The dead as well as the living. Partly out of a horror of leaving anyone who might not be dead, partly so they’d have proper funerals in due course. They had to be just slung over, from the top of the MTB’s rise, caught then in the arms of Harper, Michelson, Barclay and ‘Banjo’ Bennet. Two of Newbolt’s men who had no serious injuries themselves helped with the transfer of their mates before following them over. Ben had elicited from Newbolt that the SPs—code-books and suchlike—had already been ditched. He and Lynch made a final search below—the water in her forepart was waist-deep and surging to and fro as the sea flung her around, and the internal lights weren’t working—while Newbolt’s PO Motor Mechanic, Talbot—who had a head-wound and blood flowing down that side of him—stood by to break the fuel pipes that led from the tanks to the engines. Ben sent Lynch back into the gunboat—Harrison had already gone over—and yelled at Talbot, ‘OK, do it!’ The MM ducked out of sight, back into the confines of the boat, which was not only on fire but rising and falling ten or twelve feet several times a minute, rolling savagely and smashing itself against the gunboat alongside. She might have slipped under at any time, with all that water in her, and weakened bulkheads. You had to make sure of her destruction, that was all, not leave her with even a remote chance of salvage by the enemy. The fire was another hazard, adding considerably to the danger of the job the MM was doing. Having done it, he came up—staggering, needing help now despite having insisted that the head-wound was only a scratch—leaving the petrol gushing through down there and the fire still burning only feet away from it. Ben hoisted him up and over, into the arms of Bennet and Michelson, and then followed—misjudging his grab for the scrambling-net and avoiding having at least one leg crushed, probably only by Harper seeing it happen and heaving him up to safety.