A Share of Honour: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 4

by Alexander Fullerton

  If you were close to it when it went off, he thought, you—wouldn’t know a thing about it. It would be an easier death than Slattery’s or Pettifer’s had been … With sudden foreknowledge of what was about to happen he told himself you must not, repeat not, let them guess you ‘re scared of it.

  Passing the control post now. Completely wrecked. Between it and the river end of the Forme Ecluse was the huge slot into which the caisson, when it had been in working order, used to be hauled on its rollers when they’d wanted to open the lock. The slot was about a hundred and seventy feet long, nearly forty feet wide and about sixty deep. They were marching along beside it now, and ahead of him he could see Campbeltown. There were Germans all over the place, even all over her. Forty or so uniformed officers, actually on the ship and the caisson, apparently inspecting the damage. But just standing around, most of them, military and naval officers in long greatcoats and high-fronted caps. Gawping like tourists. Quite a lot of other-ranks around too, and even a few women—garrison officers’ wives, he guessed.

  It occurred to him that they were all either raving mad, or quite abysmally stupid.

  Approaching the end of the caisson, the commander glanced back at the escort and ordered “Halt!” He told Jack, “Wait here, please.” He advanced to the edge of the dock, on the river side of the caisson, a position from which he could call up to some of the officers on Campbeltown’s foc’sl.

  Campbeltown battered, lacerated, scarred. Beautiful old warhorse, he thought. And what a bullseye!

  You could visualize that slow-working fuse. Acid at work on copper. It could blow at any second: literally, every tick of the clock was one you might not have heard.

  And such a crowd of people …

  To his left he could see the pumping house that had been No. 5 Troop’s first objective. It was scarred and scorched, with a litter on its flat roof that would be the remains of gun positions. Inside, there’d be total shambles. Much the same applied to the whole of the port area—machinery, defences, ships inside the locks, fuel tanks, bridges, dock gates …

  “You will please come.” The commander was back. He spoke to the guards, evidently telling them to stay here, then beckoned Jack and led him forward to the end of the caisson, where ladders had been placed. They began to climb, up on to the caisson. Just hours ago, he thought, stepping off the ladder, he’d led his men over this same massive structure: in the dark, lit by gunflashes and shellbursts, explosions—

  Which could have been nothing, compared to the explosion that was coming at any moment now. Before he’d completed his next thought, it might blow. He thought, OK, so let it …

  There was another lot of ladders up here, leaning against Campbeltown’s bow. Crumpled, smashed-in bow. Much easier getting up now than it had been getting down. Hard to believe they’d managed it, without ladders … He wondered whether, if the Germans did get to know about the horrifically destructive force lurking under this steel deck on which they were standing, they’d be able to do anything to defuse it. Presumably they’d have to open up the steel tank that held the twenty-four depthcharges. But the tank itself had been enclosed in concrete … There’d have to be some point of access, all the same, because otherwise the raiders couldn’t have got at the time-fuse to activate it during the approach up-river.

  On the foc’sl, the commander marched up to a group of army officers, clicked his heels and saluted. The fattish character in the middle looked like at least a brigadier. He had also, Jack thought, to be quite an idiot … It was a reasonable guess that he’d sent the commander to bring Jack along, though less simple to guess what for … He was asking a question now—that senior man was—shouting it directly at Jack Everard. The others frowning disdainfully, as if they didn’t much care for his appearance.

  He was glad he’d had the sense not to look in a mirror. There’d been one in the cabin in the minesweeper, and he’d been careful to stay away from it. His face felt as if it had deep cracks in it.

  The spasm of shouting finished. The whole crowd up here were staring at Jack now—goofing at him and muttering to each other. He thought, Trespassers will be blown to bits … It would have been almost worth telling them about the charge they were standing on, just to see the rush for those two ladders, the panic and probably some broken necks … He looked enquiringly at the naval commander.

  “The Herr General demands that you explain how you believed you could destroy this dock, so large, by damage from a vessel so small. Answer, please!”

  He was aware that he might still be suffering from having been knocked on the head, grilled and then half-drowned, that his mental powers might still not be at their sharpest. But even allowing for some impairment of the wits it was difficult to believe that so many people could be so completely unimaginative. If this had happened the other way about— for instance, if German assault troops had attacked the King George V dock in Southampton and left a destroyer embedded in it—wouldn’t everyone assume there’d be a bomb in the bloody thing?

  The biggest bloody bomb imaginable? Right under one’s bloody feet?

  He wanted to laugh, but it might have given the show away. Even to these clowns … It might also have come out as a scream. He told himself, This is what it was all for. It’s why Slattery and the others are dead.

  And the general’s face wouldn’t be any prettier than his own was, in a minute.

  He looked at the commander. “Why ask me?”

  “Because this is a naval affair. Ashore”—he gestured—”military. Here”—he tapped the deck with his foot—”ship, naval business. Please to answer the Herr General’s question?”

  The people weren’t only on the ship and caisson. All round, on quays and docksides, Germans of all ranks milled around, some of them picking up spent bullets and anything else that caught their eyes. Like hens pecking around in a farmyard. He pointed at the caisson, where the destroyer’s stem had carved into its steel.

  “Isn’t that bad enough damage?”

  The commander interpreted what he’d said. Some of the staff officers laughed. The general glanced at them frostily before he shouted more German at Jack. The commander interpreted, “The Herr General says you British are a very stupid people. In one month, we will have working again this dock!”

  “Oh.” He stared—stupidly—at the caisson. “I’d have thought it was a bigger job than that.”

  Again, translation. The general, staring contemptuously at Jack, grunted something to the officers around him. There were nods and smirks … But a new thought had struck the naval man: he swung towards Jack and asked him sharply, expectantly, “Is there explosive in the ship?”

  “Is what?” He blinked at him, while the question sank in. He looked puzzled by it. Other English-speakers had heard the question and repeated it to each other in German; all, including the general, were looking back this way again, and there were some fairly alarmed expressions as well as one or two surreptitious movements towards the ladders. Jack asked vaguely, “Explosive? How could there be?”

  One of the steel barriers that had been added as protection for troops on deck was just behind him. He glanced round, then sat down on it. Touching his bandaged head. “I have to rest. I’m sorry.” Relaxing: very clearly not in any hurry to move. Or taking much notice of that silly question about explosives. He heard the general rap out some order, and the commander’s “Jawohl …” Then a hand on his shoulder, which hurt; he flinched away from it.

  “We go now. Later you may rest.”

  There was sympathy in the man’s expression. Jack got up slowly. They had to be allowed to see he wasn’t in any hurry to leave; but also they must not see that he wanted them to notice it. Actually the general had turned his back now, and was lighting a cigar, while a young officer with a box camera prepared to take snapshots. Hold it. Smile, please … He thought, It’s a dream, all this. Script by Lewis Carroll. He followed the commander to the ladders. But another group of officers had arrived and they were on their wa
y up, had to be allowed to get up here before anyone could start down. Two of them were in Luftwaffe uniform. Jack remembered the Luftwaffe off Crete, about a year ago: the fighters strafing boats and rafts, killing swimmers in the water. One particular boatload of dead and dying men he remembered with extraordinary clarity: he could see it, see the bodies washing to and fro, as he watched the flyers climb over Campbeltown’s stove-in bow.

  Acid burning through copper. Just down there, under their feet. He wondered whether Nick might ever hear about this. Difficult to see how he could, really, when no eye-witness could possibly survive to tell the tale. Nobody within half a mile, he guessed.

  He wished to God he’d been quicker getting the boat round and the fish away. Such damned waste …

  The commander had spoken … Jack glanced at him, questioningly, waiting for a repetition, but with Pettifer and Slattery and their families in his mind. The German said, “We go now.” Below them, gazing upwards and cradling their rifles, the two guards waited. He thought, Stick around boys, you may be lucky … Then he was on the ladder, climbing down.

  It would be dreadful if the time-fuse had failed. Acid somehow diluted or the copper impure and too resistant? Or if it hadn’t been activated properly in the first place? He walked slowly across the top of the caisson, skirting around a pair of quite intelligent-looking officers who were almost certainly engineers. They looked away, with shocked expressions, when they saw his face.

  How would Fiona react, he wondered? That scene he’d imagined— himself at the flat in Eaton Square, pressing the bell, and Fiona opening the door, and—

  And nothing. That stuff was still eating its way through the copper. He was on the caisson, right beside it.

  But otherwise—well, by the time she saw him his face would have healed, presumably, but if his guess was right he’d still be no Adonis. Which—come to think of it—wouldn’t make much odds, because she’d have married Nick.

  Wouldn’t she? Didn’t this change everything? Being a prisoner—and Nick before long getting back to England. How would she hold him off, or explain, or find the courage to tell him she’d changed her mind and intended to marry his young half-brother who was caged up for the duration and had a face like some sort of gargoyle …

  Prisoners of war escaped though, didn’t they? You didn’t have to accept the condition as permanent.

  He’d have to tell her, when he was allowed to write, about his face.

  He climbed down the next ladder, from the caisson to the dockside, and as the guards moved forward he turned and looked back up at Campbeltown’s battered forepart. Still thronged. And still quiescent … “Come, please!”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  Returning now by the same route. It was about 250 yards to the plank footbridge across the Old Entrance; then into the truck again, and they were driving back to the place they’d started from. Expecting, every yard of the way, that colossal detonation.

  The truck stopped, and they ordered him out, then pushed him towards the cellar steps. The commander, from the other steps, nodded curtly and went on inside. Down below, Jack was immediately surrounded, with Trolley to the fore again, wanting to know where they’d taken him and what for, what was going on … He told them, “I was hauled on board Campbeltown. She’s still intact and stuck in the dock gate. It was a general who sent for me—wanted to know what the point of it all had been, just making a dent in their bloody caisson, and all that … Campbeltown’s fairly smothered with brasshats. About forty officers— they’re even taking snapshots on her now. And I’d guess there must be at least a hundred or two Germans on the docks around her, as well as—”

  Campbeltown exploded. Like the most enormous clap of thunder he’d ever heard. For about a minute the earth was shaking, and so was the stone building over them. Part of its outside masonry—a balcony or something—was crashing, cascading down.

  Echoes dying. But objects still falling, out there. Shouts, whistles blowing, the panic starting. In here in the cellar, a very different noise—forty or fifty commandos laughing, cheering, whooping, going mad …

  There was a line that Paul remembered from the prayers for burial at sea: When the sea shall give up her dead …

  That was how it felt. Finding yourself stirring, emerging, with the other near-corpses. Stirring, anyway. Emerging was something else again: the sea hadn’t offered to give up a damn thing, yet.

  Hand-torches were the only sources of light. Faces caught in the splashes of it were white, dull-eyed. There’d been a lot of vomiting in recent hours; the other symptoms were headaches and high pulse-rates and general weakness.

  The control room clock had stopped. Wristwatch time made it 1940. So it would be dark enough now, up top.

  He leaned against the fruit machine. On Ruck’s orders he’d got himself dressed for the bridge, and Ruck was similarly prepared. The two Vickers gunners were standing by, with their guns and a ready-use pan of ammunition each, and the 3-inch gun’s crew had also been told to muster. There might be Italians waiting for them on the surface, or there might not be: they could be searching elsewhere, or they could have convinced themselves they’d made a kill, and gone home. Whether or not they were there now, Ultra couldn’t be dived again, once she got up there. There was air in the bottles to blast her to the surface, and once she surfaced her diesels would take her homewards. If she met enemies, she’d fight: she had her guns, and one torpedo.

  Torchlight flickered over the diving panel. Quinn switched it off again. Ruck ordered, “Stand by to surface.”

  Wykeham said, “Check main vents.”

  “Chief.” Ruck addressing Pool. “Clutch-up main engines.”

  They were within two or three miles of the Italian coast. Surfacing now, if she found she was alone she’d go flat-out seaward on the diesels. If a shore D/F station—the Measures—fixed on her and sent an E-boat out along the beam—well …

  Well, what?

  Stay up, and use the guns, of course. The 3-inch and the Vickers. Vickers GO, the letters standing for gas-operated. He could take those guns to pieces and put them together again in six minutes flat with a blindfold on: he and Creagh had had races doing that. In the 1914 war Vickers GO had been the guns they’d first synchronized with fighters’ propellers for ahead-firing; they were still very good guns with a high rate of fire, despite having been around for so long. How long? Subtract say sixteen from forty-two … The brain didn’t function too well when it was starved of oxygen. A few of the hands were sicker than others, really sick. But once she got up there and they had the engines running, sucking fresh air into her compartments and expelling the poison through the engines’ exhausts—

  Too bloody marvellous to contemplate. Just wait for it. Hope.

  “What?”

  McClure. Down by Paul’s elbow somewhere. Asking What? when he hadn’t said a word. At least, he didn’t think he had. He felt around in the dark for McClure’s head, and patted it like a dog. He promised him, “I’ll stand you a haggis when we get back, Shortarse.”

  Creagh’s voice said, from the wardroom area, “Gun’s crew ready, sir.”

  “Good.” Ruck had heard him. His voice answered Creagh’s, “I hope you won’t be needed, layer. Just stand by down here.”

  “Main vents checked shut, sir!”

  Wykeham reported in his lazy tone, “Ready to surface, sir.” Voices in the dark. Faces lit occasionally, weirdly, by torchbeams, in this steel tube on the seabed, with air in it that wouldn’t sustain life for long.

  “Sub.”

  “Here, sir.”

  “I’ll want you hanging on my legs.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Because of the pressure there was now in the boat. If he was on his own when he opened the top hatch he could be blown out like a human cannon-ball.

  “Can you see what you’re doing, Quinn?”

  “Oh aye, sir.” Quinn flicked his torch on and off as proof of it, then put it back in his mouth, so as to have his
hands free to operate the HP blows.

  “Main engines ready, engine clutches in, sir.”

  “Very good. Number One—soon as the hatch is open, half ahead on main engines, three hundred revs.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Winters.” Leading Torpedoman Winters was on the wheel. Ruck told him, “Soon as we have steerage-way, bring her round to southeast.”

  “Southeast. Aye, sir.”

  The lower lid was open. Janaway flicked a torchbeam upwards for Ruck to see.

  “Take her up slowly, Number One. Try doing it on number four. Surface!”

  “Blow four main ballast!”

  Quinn’s torch glowed in his mouth as he wrenched that blow open and air went thumping down the one-inch-diameter HP line.

  She wasn’t moving. She felt dead, like the air inside her.

  The blowing seemed to have been going on for a long time, and to have had no effect at all.

  “Stop blowing!”

  Quinn shut the valve. He stood waiting, ready for the next move, looking round at Ruck with one hand still on the wheel-spanner on that valve. Ruck was staring at the depthgauge, watching for some movement.

  Nothing.

  “Check four main vent.”

  In case it might be open, despite having been reported shut. Then all that air could have been blowing out into the sea, wasted, instead of driving water from the tank to make her buoyant. That bottled air was Ultra’s only asset, only way of getting up, ever; you might as well open your own veins as waste it.

  Chief ERA Pool came back. “Number four main vent is shut, sir.”

  “Thank you, Chief.” Ruck told Wykeham, “Let’s try blowing one, three and five.”

  This had to work. There was no damn reason why it shouldn’t. But then, there was no reason why blowing number four tank hadn’t worked, either.