“Please, Jack …”
“I’m sorry. It’s true, you see. Why can’t I—” “Nick. He’s why. There, now I’ve—”
“Damn Nick, and—”
“Listen to me, Jack.” She’d been twisting her glass round and round, and not looking at him. The floor was crowded with dancers who hardly moved, only swayed and shuffled, girls with their eyes shut or half-shut, dreamy, lost, their arms tight round their partners’ necks. Not a man in the club, apart from waiters, who wasn’t in uniform. Fiona turned her face towards him: light radiating from the bandstand shone in her wide, slanting, incredibly beautiful eyes. She told him, “I’ve been thinking—this afternoon, while you were asleep, I was getting it all a bit straighter in my mind. It isn’t really complicated: it’s just been getting over our heads so we haven’t been able to see it properly … Listen. First—you will come back, from whatever you’re about to do. And Nick will come back from where he is, and I’ll marry him if he still wants me to, and we’ll forget—you and I, Jack—all of this, what we’re—what we are to each other now. I’ll be a faithful wife to Nick, and you and I will be friends, and—”
He’d laughed. She went on doggedly, “And you’ll marry someone else—”
“Fairy tales.” He shrugged. The band was playing “Honeysuckle Rose.” “Believe it if it makes you happier.”
“All you want to do is make me miserable!”
She’d said that loudly, angrily, and the girl at the next table had turned to look at them, interested in seeing a quarrel developing. Interested in Jack, too. Fiona caught on at once, and turned her back on her. She put her hand on Jack’s, on the table between their glasses. “I’m sorry … But listen. I did a lot of thinking, this afternoon. And another conclusion I came to was that we don’t have to be ashamed of this, Jack, not the way I’ve felt a few times lately. Because I’m not Nick’s wife—not yet—and I’m not even his fiancée, in any formal or definite sense. What’s more, he knows I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve been careful to let him know, because— well, never mind, but that’s how it’s been …” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to be tied down. Not for a while, anyway. He knew it and accepted it—that’s what matters. But—this thing between us is different, isn’t it? And—Jack, don’t tell him, please. Don’t even let him suspect it? And when I am his wife—”
“I’ll be your lover.”
She frowned. “There has to be a solution, Jack. And this is it, what I’m telling you now. You’ve simply got—”
“Wait.” He took both her hands in his. With her back to that other table, she was facing him on the velvet-covered seat. “A better idea still … If we make your fairy story come true—if I did come back— would you marry me?”
That was the point at which she’d begun to cry.
They were supposed to have intuition. Perhaps she’d sensed the truth which up to now she’d been shutting her mind to?
In a sense, his own mind was shut to it too, though. The odds were— as Smith and the other man had warned him—against one’s surviving this expedition. That was plain fact, unarguable; you could only accept it and, at one level of awareness, believe in it. In your heart, you didn’t. It wasn’t a matter of odds or logic, just a natural trust in your own fate. He thought that was it. All he knew was that he and his team were to be landed on a jetty in some enemy port, in the face of heavy opposition, then sprint some five hundred yards—by night, under fire, with enemies in defended points and gun emplacements determined to stop them; then reach another quayside—presumably an inner harbour—where they’d take over a berthed E-boat and fire its torpedoes at a static target 150 yards away.
That was all he knew. Nothing about where, when or what for.
Commander Smith had told him on that first evening in the house at Cardiff, “I’ve got an E-boat here. Only one in captivity, so far as I’m aware. Someone caught it off the Dutch coast and brought it back alive, and I’ve been allowed to borrow it for you to practise on.”
With his team of engineers and torpedomen he’d spent that week getting the hang of it. They’d christened the boat Sauerkraut: it had an S identification letter on it, not E as one might have expected. They’d taught themselves to start it up and get it away from a quayside in a hurry while at the same time checking that its two torpedoes, German 50 cm, were “armed,” set to detonate on impact.
At the end of the week the Royal Marine section had arrived; one sergeant, one corporal and two marines, all commando-trained. And the instructors, themselves commandos—a captain named Trolley, and two sergeants, Woburn and Hislop. They started at once on a rigorous training programme: endless physical training, close combat and weapons drill and route marches by day, and by night practising the assault over a specially set-up course on land that was being reclaimed as an extension to the docks. The ML and its crew joined them. Then in later stages a force of commandos under training was brought in to act as defenders opposing them. The mock assaults were conducted in all kinds of weather, with real explosives being thrown around, searchlights blazing in their faces … They could do the whole thing now in about one-twentieth of the time it had taken them to start with, and after that considerable expenditure of energy they were still able to do their stuff with the E-boat quickly and smoothly and without using lights. When it came to the real thing there’d be plenty of light anyway, from gunfire and explosions; if they got that far alive, Trolley pointed out, when the ammunition wasn’t blank and the grenades weren’t thunder-flashes.
Jack detested Trolley. He shaved his head, didn’t drink or smoke, and disapproved of Jack’s weekends in London. The four Royal Marines comprised the “protection party.” It was their job to ensure that the naval group did get through to the E-boat and that the opposition was held off while they took control of it and loosed off its torpedoes.
Local inhabitants and dock workers had been allowed to believe that the exercises were being held to train personnel in guarding shore installations against enemy raiders. There’d been a larger group training here over the same ground, apparently, shortly before Jack’s team had arrived; they’d all been commandos, army men.
Jack had begun to think they wouldn’t get much better now, and that there was a danger of going stale. Smith had agreed with him: but it hadn’t bothered him at all. This, plus certain other clues, indicated that the deadline was approaching. Jack had recalled that the man who’d recruited him, up in Scotland, had said they’d be part of a larger force, and it seemed to fit in with there having been others here before them; Smith hadn’t mentioned such a thing, but when Jack asked him a question about withdrawal from the target area—responsibility for ordering it was surely his own, but there seemed to be some confusion about it—the commander had begun, “Well, the military force commander—”
Then he’d seemed to bite his tongue. He’d demanded, “What makes you think other people might be involved?”
Jack told him. The commander swore. Obviously the main force, which must have a naval and a military component, had to be assembling and training somewhere else, in great secrecy. And a raid on the coast of Europe would hardly be sent off from Wales; this group must surely move to a jumping-off point somewhere on the south or east coast, joining up with the main body after they’d reached that stage in their own training.
It was at about this point that Tubby Sharp, the RNVR lieutenant commanding the Fairmile launch, had come up with a good idea. He’d suggested to Smith that the E-boat, if they might be allowed to use it— keep it—would be a lot more suitable for the job than his ML would be. The German boat had a lower profile, much greater speed but still more than adequate range; its twin high-speed MAN diesels could push it up to more than thirty knots when necessary; and its torpedoes might come in handy if the raiding force met seaborne opposition. And— most cogent point of all—the motor launch had been giving a lot of trouble with machinery breakdowns, and its unreliability had been worrying them.
Smith went up to Lo
ndon rather doubtfully, but returned to announce that the proposal had been approved. Sharp and his crew were to transfer to Sauerkraut. But modifications were to be made. The one-pounder AA gun aft was to be replaced by a 20-millimetre Oerlikon—she already had a 20-millimetre for’ard, between her torpedo tubes—and extra armour plating was to be fitted to the front and sides of the bridge. From the orders that Smith gave to the two ERAs it seemed likely they’d be sailing from Cardiff not later than the middle of next week. There was also a suggestion—it fitted in with what he’d already guessed—that they’d have a week or more in some other harbour for any finishing touches that might still be needed.
One way and another it was pretty obvious, Jack thought, that there’d be no more weekends in London. He’d asked Smith a personal favour.
“If this operation does go ahead, sir, and I get bumped off, would you mind letting someone know what’s happened?”
The commander hadn’t looked too happy. He’d pointed out that next-of-kin would automatically be notified.
“This isn’t kin, sir. It’s someone who wouldn’t hear, and who’d really need to know.”
Smith sighed. “Better give me the name and address.”
“Just a telephone number, sir. The one you have already.”
“Your sister?”
“Well. Not exactly.”
“So?”
“If you’d ask for Mrs Gascoyne. Just say—well; that I’d asked you to call her, in certain circumstances, and just not to expect me back.”
Smith hated it. It showed, clearly. And very likely it was the “Mrs” that irked him particularly. He said disapprovingly, “Not a very pleasant task you’re asking me to perform, Everard.”
“I’m sorry, sir. But I’d be extremely grateful. Frankly, there’s no one else I could ask. Especially in view of—well, security—”
“Speaking of which—does this Mrs Gascoyne know what you’re involved in?”
“She knows nothing about it, sir.”
“Well.” He was still frowning. “I sincerely trust the occasion will not arise.”
He didn’t look at Jack as he said it. From his position on the sidelines, of course, all Smith could see would be facts, probabilities, the odds against. He’d see Jack, as the team’s leader, as the least likely of them all to get out of it alive. You could understand this, because in his place you’d take the same detached view of it; but you could guess, too, that if Smith were in your shoes he’d have the same instinctive trust in personal survival that you had yourself.
They’d begun to play “Don’t Get Around Much Any More.”
“Oh, I’ve been an age. I’m sorry, darling!”
Fiona, back from her excursion. It was extraordinary; you could let her out of your sight for just ten minutes, and then suddenly seeing her again be astonished, knocked for six all over again. Nobody, he thought, could ever get used to Fiona … He eased the table back to give himself room to stand up and to let her in, but she’d noticed the girl at the next table giving Jack the eye again, and she’d turned to her. “Hello.”
The girl smiled, glancing again at Jack. “Hello.” She was about nineteen.
Her Air Force escort beamed up at Fiona: “Why, hello, there!”
Fiona ignored him. She told the girl, “If you haven’t managed it yet, my dear, you never will. I’d give up, if I were you.”
“I—beg your pardon?” Blushing …
Fiona pointed at the airman. “Make the most of that. “She slipped in behind the table, sitting so close against Jack that she was almost on his lap. She murmured, “Poor little thing. But beggars can’t be choosers, can they? … Darling, I feel absolutely marvellous. The old duck in the lav sold me a pill for half a crown. It’s called benzedrine. Isn’t it what they give commandos?”
“I wouldn’t know.” He warned her, “Better watch the booze, though, if you’ve had that.”
“Oh, phooey! Anyway, let’s dance!”
“All right.”
“No. Wait.” Her hand cool on his. “Let’s just listen to this one.” “Anything you say.”
“I’m crazy about it …” She did a double-take: “Well, I say! Give me a drink, you mean bum!”
He poured her one. Then she wanted a cigarette. She held his hand with the lighter in it, stared into his eyes while the pianist repeated huskily that he kept pretty much to himself. She murmured, blowing smoke out with the words, “You’re awfully sweet, Jack.”
“No, I’m not. Not sweet.”
“The rest’s an act. All the tough-guy stuff.” She asked him, “Would you really want to marry me?”
Wykeham grunted, “All right, Sub. Go get your head down.”
Quarter past midnight. Paul lowered the binoculars which he’d had at his eyes for the last two hours. The night air was cold, with spray in it now and then as the submarine lanced her way eastward through a slightly choppy sea. The fore casing—looking down on it from this bridge—was a jet-black finger with, up near the pointed bow, two great bat-ears that were the turned-out hydroplanes a few feet above the jumpy surface. The steel was wet, glimmering from a faint radiance of stars. The clouds were shredding, which was bad luck on Bob McClure because they’d be out of sight of land at diving-time tomorrow—no, today—and Ruck would be sure to insist on star-sights for a fix of their position. Bob was still rather slow at working out his sextant observations, and morning stars invariably left him in a bad temper.
There was a certain fascination, Paul found, in his messmates’ idiosyncrasies. He dropped into the hatch and climbed down into the control room. The coxswain, CPO Logan, was PO of the watch. “Kye, sir?” he offered.
“Thanks, cox’n. Just the thing.”
The chart table light was burning, and Ruck was there, checking courses and distances. He too had a mug of the coxswain’s cocoa at his elbow. Paul took his and put it on the wardroom table while he pulled off his wet Ursula suit and extra sweater.
Beside Ruck: “Excuse me, sir. Just the log …”
Ruck pushed it over to him. At the end of each watch you had to enter a weather report: wind, sea, visibility, sky conditions. Ruck asked him, “What’s the sea like?”
“Should have some broken water tomorrow, sir.”
Earlier, Ruck had been in something of a quandary: the problem being that if he’d set a course directly for the position ordered in that signal, Ultra would have had to dive at first light still fifteen or twenty miles short of it, and in the time it would take to cover that distance at dived speed the enemy could pass unseen and unheard. He’d discussed it in the wardroom with Wykeham. They could have made it on time, or nearly on time, but only by going flat out on both engines with no battery charge: then they’d have been in the right place, more or less, but in rotten shape to start the day.
His decision had been a compromise. If the troopship convoy was routed directly from Taranto to Benghazi they’d be steering a course of 165 degrees, following a track that did pass through the position given in Shrimp’s signal. To be on that track was more important, Ruck had decided, than to be in that particular position on it; and he could get to it sooner by joining it forty-eight miles farther south, approaching it at right-angles and then, when he was on it, turning up towards Taranto. He’d be on the enemy’s route, and dived before the light came, and he’d have at any rate some power in the batteries.
It was a good solution, but one danger in it was worrying him: Shrimp might have ordered some other boat to a waiting position fifty miles downtrack of Ultra’s. He would, undoubtedly, have deployed other submarines to intercept; the doubt was at what intervals he’d have disposed them. And you couldn’t signal to ask: breaking wireless silence would alert the enemy to submarine activity on his convoy’s route.
“Read my night orders before you turn in, Sub.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Ruck moved away—into the control room. Prowling, thinking, sipping at his mug of kye. Paul reached for the night-order book, and studi
ed his captain’s neat, sloping handwriting. After 0200, any submarine sighted was not to be attacked without prior challenge and identification. That was the only point that would affect him, during his next watch: and one always made sure of knowing the challenge and reply letters for that two-hour period, anyway. Ruck’s other instruction was to McClure: morning stars, before diving … Paul chuckled as he put his initials to the orders as confirmation that he’d read them. Then he drank the kye, returned the mug to the control room messenger, and turned in.
Engine noise was a loud and constant rumbling. He could also hear, as he pulled the blankets up, the sea crashing and banging along the hull inside the casing, booming against the tower. Four hours’ sleep now— three and a half anyway—if there were no interruptions. Then he’d be taking over from McClure at 0415, allowing the diminutive Scot to get busy with his sextant and logarithm tables.
Paul wondered where his father was, right at this moment. Judging by the BBC news of Jap successes in the southwest Pacific there’d be no bases for Allied ships to operate from, by this time. If any Allied ships still floated …
Jack Everard hated his half-brother Nick, Paul’s father. Paul suspected the influence of Jack’s mother, Sarah, Nick’s stepmother: she was a dried-up, bitter creature, and she hated Nick, for sure. Impossible to know why. The Everard family past was a murky area, impenetrable to the outsider— the term “outsider” including himself, because though he was very much his father’s son he was also something of a mixture: part-Russian parentage, and upbringing in the USA … It seemed quite natural to him that others—Jack, for instance—should see him as an outsider. And yet if Nick Everard should be killed out there he, Paul, would become Sir Paul Everard, with the family house and estate in Yorkshire on his hands and those backbiting relations to deal with. He thought, with his eyes shut and the regular thumping and slamming of the sea in his ears as Ultra drove on eastward, that it would be a hell of a lot better all round if his father survived.
A Share of Honour: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 4 Page 7