He didn’t answer. He was beginning to make love to her. Touching, stroking: hands, mouth, body. From outside, the sounds of London made erotic background music. It was the contrast, the prosaic noise of the streets while here, now—
“You’ll have to get used to not having me around. There’s nothing else could have done it. Broken us up, I mean. If any human being tried, I’d kill him. But—look, this is the stupid bloody truth of it, it’s what’s likely to happen … Will you still marry Nick?”
Motionless, waiting for her answer—which she didn’t have … She whispered with her eyes shut, hiding from it, “You haven’t made it easy.”
“D’you expect me to regret that?”
“You’re so wrong about him, Jack—”
“It’s not him I think about. Not now, anyway … D’you wish it hadn’t happened?”
“You know I don’t …” She did, though. She wished with all her heart it hadn’t. That she’d had the sense to realize how it might turn out, or just never to have met each other; and not, certainly, to be in love with him now—as she was, painfully—or have him in love with her, as he was beyond a shadow of a doubt.
He said roughly, “You’ll have him to yourself soon, anyway. Back to square one. You and him, and no complications.”
“You’re trying to hurt—”
“For Christ’s sake, I’m solving all the problems for you! Look, my darling, it’s going to happen whether you like it or not, so—”
“So it could happen to Nick too … Jack, I think you’re scared— and jealous—of the fact it could happen. I suppose because you’re doing something dangerous. So I’d be left, with Nick. You want to hurt me because the thought of it hurts you and you want to see me suffer too— isn’t that it? For what’s purely in your imagination, and jealousy, and bitterness towards Nick—isn’t it?”
He moved, for the first time in several minutes. Stroking her back. He said, “You don’t want to face facts, that’s all.”
“No, let’s face them. Tell me all about it. Explain the facts!”
“You know damn well I can’t …”
Even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have told her much. He still didn’t know what it was that he was part of. He knew what he had to do, or try to do, once he got to whatever the target area was; he knew all that down to the smallest detail, and also that it would be soon now, that this was likely to be his last weekend in London. But that was as far as his knowledge of it went.
He’d been messing about in boats, in an outfit that came under Mountbatten’s new Combined Operations set-up. Jack was in it because he’d volunteered and because of experience he’d gained in Crete, where he’d spent most of the previous year. He’d been sunk during the Crete evacuation, and left behind when the Germans took over. He’d worked with the Cretan partisans, mostly in getting British and Australian soldiers away by caique and submarine, but also taking occasional swipes at the German garrison—cutting a throat, blowing a bridge, sabotaging transport. There were people and materials to be brought in—often by caique, island-hopping from the Levant. Eventually he was brought out himself, and sent back to England, but he’d acquired a taste for clandestine operations and he volunteered for special service. By chance he’d timed it well, since Lord Louis had recently been appointed to run Combined Ops and suitable personnel were being recruited.
For a long time it was all training and exercising, in secluded Scottish sea lochs. They’d used Fairmile motor launches. All the ML skippers and officers were young reserve—RNVR—people, and as Jack was now a senior lieutenant with a lot of seatime to his credit he found he was caught up in planning and instructing. And getting fed up with it, fast. Then there’d been a raid planned, and he was to command the naval force; like everyone else he’d been mad keen to go, but at the last minute the operation was called off. This happened just after he’d met Fiona: on both counts, confinement in Scotland became intolerable. It was at precisely this low point that he was sent for one morning by the base commander: he had a visitor with him, an RN captain from Mountbatten’s staff, who’d had him sent for.
There was a certain amount of preamble, including questions about Jack’s career to date, and a hint of a new appointment, possibly a move south. Jack would have grabbed at anything at all that might put him within reach of Fiona.
Finally the man came out with it …
“I believe you’d fit the bill, Everard. It’s a very special job—that’s to say, you’d have to volunteer for it. And to start with—as I said—we’d need to have you down south. A few weeks’ special training. Interested?”
He’d nodded. It didn’t matter what kind of a job it was. “Very much so, sir.”
“I must warn you that, if it goes ahead, it will be an unusually, a quite exceptionally, hazardous undertaking. You’d have ten or twelve chaps in your own team, and you’d be landing to—well, with a certain precise objective, although in fact you’d be part of a somewhat larger force. I can’t go into detail, obviously. But it’s a task requiring naval expertise, and quite beyond the scope of our brownjob friends.” The military, he meant. He finished, “I think it might be rather up your street. But the risks, I repeat, are about as steep as they could be. Are you sure you want the job?”
“Certain, sir.”
“H’m … You’re not married, I believe?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well, Everard, I’ll put your name in for it … By the way— what relation are you to Sir Nicholas Everard?”
“Half-brother, sir.”
“Really …”
The usual series of questions followed. And the usual praise of Nick. It was a familiar, boring litany.
At his next interview, which took place in London, the project was described to him in somewhat starker terms by a Commander Smith, also from the planning section of Combined Operations. He asked Jack, again after some preliminary chitchat, “Do you understand the nature of the job?”
Smith had grey hair and a limp: he’d obviously been called back from retirement. Jack told him, “Don’t know the first thing about it, sir.”
“The aspect I have to impress upon you at this stage—and I’d want to off my own bat even if I hadn’t been instructed to—is that it’s going to be bloody dangerous.” Jack nodded. It was a description applicable, he thought, to just about any commando-type operation. The commander added, “To put it very simply, the chances of your returning from it at all, let alone in one piece, are so small as to be negligible.”
Jack laughed.
The commander raised his eyebrows. “That’s funny?”
“Sorry, sir. It sounded a bit—well, dramatic. Errol Flynn stuff.”
“Yes.”The grey head nodded. “My apologies for the cliché, Everard. It just so happens that it’s the truth, and not a bit exaggerated. If the operation goes ahead, it’ll be as I say—your chances of survival will be as near as dammit nil. Barring miracles, of course.”
Jack nodded. “May I smoke, sir?”
“Yes … You still want to do it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Oh … Well, sir”—his lighter flared, and he borrowed that four-striper’s phrase—”it’s sort of up my street. And one can get bumped off here in London—in bed or in a shelter. Then—well, in and around Crete I saw quite a lot of people get killed, and”—he shrugged—”it’s the same risk, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I suppose it is. Except the odds are much worse.”
“Then it must be something really useful, important—”
“Yes, it’s that, all right.” This seemed to clinch it. Smith looked satisfied as he took a pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it. He said, “I can’t tell you much at this stage. You’ll train on a mock-up of the actual terrain, and you won’t be told where or what it is. Your team will comprise ten volunteer other-ranks—six naval, and four Royal Marines. There’ll also be an ML with its own officers and crew, for your transportation. They’ll
be provided from where you’ve been in Scotland.”
“May I pick that boat myself, sir, since I know them all?”
“No reason why not. Subject to their being available, and the CO’s approval. But they’ll come down in a fortnight or so; there’s no need for them yet. You’ll be going down to Cardiff, Everard. We’ve got a house near the docks as our accommodation and headquarters. I’ll be with you most of the time, by the way.” He glanced at his notes. “Monday. Report on Monday evening, by 1800. Here’s the address. They’ll give you a railway warrant in the outer office here. I think that’s about all … D’you have any questions?”
“Will there be any weekend leave from Cardiff, sir?”
“Yes. Subject to”—he quoted the jargon—”the exigencies of the Service … That is, until you know where you’re going. After that, there won’t. You’d better give me a contact address or telephone number, by the way.”
Jack gave him the telephone number in Fiona’s flat. Smith noted it down, and asked him whose it was. “It’s—my sister’s, sir.”
The commander glanced up, quizzically. “Indeed.” He pointed at his file. “The record doesn’t show you have one.” Jack said nothing; Smith frowned. “All right. Cardiff, Monday 1800.”
When he arrived down there, after spending the weekend with Fiona, he found that the naval members of the team had already reported. There were four torpedomen—a petty officer and three leading seamen—and two engineroom artificers. They were all volunteers and they’d all completed assault-course training. Commander Smith introduced them to him individually. Later, when he and Jack were alone, he dropped his bombshell.
“You’ve got those fellows on their own for the first five days, Everard. The leathernecks will be joining after that. By that time you and this bunch will have learnt to handle a German E-boat.”
“Up periscope.”
The big one: ERA Summers sent it up. This first look round would be with the sky search, because earlier in the watch there’d been another Italian seaplane, a Cant, patrolling between Calabria and the Sicilian coast. It had been a long way off, mosquito-like in the circle of the periscope, but its presence was still a warning.
It was eleven-forty now and the course was 270 degrees, due west, to take the submarine out across the bottom of the funnel-shaped straits. Ruck was being cautious, staying out of those narrower waters higher up. There was a pair of trawlers trailing each other around up there—obviously sweeping for submarines—and two A/S schooners nearer, inshore to starboard.
No aircraft now, anyway. He switched to high power and began another, slower search. Cape dell’Armi was five miles on the starboard beam, and beyond it to the left the land fell away northward into the straits, with Reggio Calabria halfway up towards the actual narrows. Just off that point was where the schooners were hanging about, no doubt listening through hydrophones, but at this range they didn’t present much of a threat.
He could see only one trawler now. The other must have shifted up higher. The sea was as it had been since dawn: a low swell and an unbroken surface reflecting the greyness of the sky. Earlier it had looked as if a lot of A/S activity was developing, presumably as a result of the sinking of the tanker, but it had settled down and what was visible now was probably no more than routine patrolling. Ruck might have been absolutely right when he’d said they wouldn’t expect him to be in here now.
Paul took some bearings—Spartivento, a left-hand edge and a distant summit called Montalto—and went to update the position on the chart. He was tired, and once again looking forward to the end of his watch.
“All right, Sub?”
He glanced round. Ruck was looking at him from his bunk. Paul nodded. “All serene, sir.”
“What’s up there now?”
“Only one trawler in sight northward, sir. The schooners are still inshore, about where they were before.”
“The heat’s off, then.” Ruck slid off his bunk. “Not that it was ever exactly hot … No aircraft recently?”
“None since that Cant.” He showed him the new fix on the chart.
Ruck went into the control room. “Let’s take a shufti.” He lifted his hands, glancing at Summers: a moment later he was circling, the toes of his plimsolls stubbing against the raised lip of the periscope well.
Slow search now … A torpedoman—Leading Seaman Winter—came from for’ard, asked Paul, “All right to go aft, sir?” Paul nodded. For the trim’s sake, movements had to be limited. The ship’s company’s heads were back aft, beside the stokers’ mess, and if someone had been visiting there already he’d have told Winters to wait. Ruck said, clicking the handles up, “Down … Come round to three-one-oh, Sub.”
Turning up—towards the narrows where the trawlers were messing around. Paul told Creagh, “Starboard ten. Steer three-one-oh.”
Creagh spun his wheel. “Ten of starboard wheel on, sir.”
Stapleton, the fore planesman, put on a few degrees of dive, to counteract the bow’s tendency to rise as she turned. He was levelling them again as Creagh eased the rudder.
Ruck had gone back to his bunk.
“Course three-one-oh, sir.”
“Very good.”
Stapleton was turning his head to look at the clock. Rather a protracted glance; Paul realized he was having his attention drawn to it too. He said, “There’s a minute to go yet. What’s the matter—hungry?”
The bald head nodded. “Peckish, sir. Peckish.”
It was time not only for the watch to change but also for the midday meal. It would be a cold snack, as usual—pilchards, sardines or corned beef. The main meal was always in the evening, after the boat surfaced and you could use the galley stove. You could smoke, too, when the hatch was open and the diesels were running, sucking air through.
He unhooked the microphone from its deckhead stowage. “White watch, watch diving …”
He was asleep, in mid-afternoon and in the deep, warm, underwater silence. The sleep was deep too—the kind submariners referred to as being at sixty feet. Sixty was a safe depth: down there you were under any bad weather that might be making surface life uncomfortable, and well hidden from your enemies. You always felt safer underwater than you did on the surface.
Surfacing now, though … Becoming aware, through the vague edges of some unpleasant dream, of voices, movement. Then he’d slipped back into the dream state: he was in the Gay Nineties club in London and Jack was crushing a naked Fiona Gascoyne in his arms and shouting at Paul over her head, “Nick left me to drown!” But then it was Nick drowning: alone and half a world away, trying to call to him—to Paul—to tell him something terribly important …
“Diving stations, sir … Torpedo officer, sir?” Shaw, the wardroom flunkey, raised his voice higher: “Sub-Lieutenant, sir!”
“Right!”
It wasn’t, though: not until another second had passed and he knew where he was, that he had not been watching his father drown. He was half off the bunk by then, Wykeham vanishing into the control room, crewmen hurrying past in both directions.
Ruck was at the small, after periscope. Paul asked McClure, “What’s the excitement?”
Ruck ordered, “Shut off for depthcharging. Silent routine. Hundred and fifty feet.”
The periscope hissed down. McClure murmured, “Several little widgers up there hunting us. Too close for comfort. Been dodging ‘em all this watch, but they seem to know we’re here. And some weird tapping noise.”
“Tapping?”
“Like knocking on the hull. God knows. Some new—”
“Boat’s shut off for depthcharging, sir.” Chief ERA Pool made the report. “Auxiliary machinery’s stopped.”
In silent routine, to give the enemy as little as possible to listen to, you switched off everything except main motors and the gyro compass.
Ruck asked Newton, the A/S man, “Tapping, still?”
Newton nodded. His eyes were fixed rather dreamily on the deck-head: his ears, tuned to the unde
rwater sounds that were reaching him through his set, were the only link Ultra had now with the hostile world outside.
“Port beam, sir. Moving aft a little.”
Asdic pings, when a destroyer had you in contact, were like squeaks, little peep noises as the impulses bounced off the hull. Nothing in the least like tapping.
“Hundred and fifty feet, sir.”
“Very good.”
“HE on green one-five-eight, sir!”
“What sort?”
“Reciprocating, sir.” Piston-engined, that meant, as distinct from turbine. Newton was counting, nodding very slightly to the rhythm in his ears. Like a doctor counting heartbeats: blank-eyed, wrapped up in it … “One-eighty revs, sir.” He added, “Drawing left now.”
“Are the trawlers still astern?”
He nodded. “Astern, sir. And—red one-four-oh.”
Paul shifted to the chart table, and McClure obligingly pointed to the last fix he’d put on. They’d come well up into the straits, but not into the real narrows. It was eight miles from coast to coast here, and the submarine was just about in the middle. Paul heard Ruck order, “Steer one-five-oh.”
Watertight doors had been shut all through the boat: it was part of the “shut off for depthcharging” routine. The compartments were isolated from each other, except for telephone communication and also a small tube that pierced each watertight bulkhead just beside its door and through which you could yell if the screw-down valves at each end were first opened. The same tube was for use after heavy damage to check whether or not the adjacent compartment might be flooded.
“Course one-five-oh, sir.”
It was a line of retreat: if it proved possible to keep to it, Ultra would leave Cape dell’Armi four or five miles abeam to port and plug on out into open water.
“That HE’s on the starboard beam, sir. Slowing.”
“What about the tapping?”
“Can’t hear it, sir … HE green eight-five, one hundred revs. This one’s transmitting, sir!”
Asdic transmissions, that meant—from the trawler, or whatever it was. It had come up to starboard on a course parallel to their own and now it had slowed down to probe for her with its asdics.
A Share of Honour: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 4 Page 5