Dauntless (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  The chaser crept into that patch of floating debris and her crew lined the sides of her and searched among the litter for signs of human life. They found none, though they patiently quartered the area, creeping back and forth across it until there could be no question of anything being missed. Finally Petersen accepted that he would have to abandon the search; there was no point in going on.

  He looked up from the surface of the sea as the look-out at his elbow pointed and said huskily, “Jesus, Cap’n! On the bow!”

  Petersen squinted out on the bearing that was due east as the chaser crept along with her bow towards the Gulf of Alexandretta. He was staring into the first rays of the sun showing over the Amanus mountains and sending shafts of light sparking blindingly up from the sea. He heard Cleeve say at his side, “Sir, I can’t see anything out there. We’ve —”

  Petersen cut him off. “You were hoping to see some action. It looks like you’ll get your bellyfull.”

  It was Cleeve’s turn to strain his eyes into the rising sun. And then he breathed, “Oh, my God!”

  Still far distant but menacing, sharp and black in silhouette against the light, Walküre came thrusting out of the Gulf.

  10 — The Legion

  The dump was theirs but this was still only a beginning.

  Taggart was bellowing, “Sarn’t Major! Ack and Beer companies man the perimeter! M-g’s at the corners! Even numbers face out and odd numbers face in! Charlie company sweep through from north to south — and I want outposts! Commanders of Number One sections to me!”

  They came at a run and Taggart gave his orders. Then, as the sections scattered to take up their outpost positions outside the dump, Taggart turned on Smith and explained, “Odd numbers to face in to pick up any birds flushed by the beaters of Charlie comp’ny. There might be one or two hiding under the netting.” His tone was calm but his eyes glared. He looked across at the little group of prisoners and wounded under guard and the wild glare died away. He said quietly, “Poor bastards. But they were the lucky ones.” His gaze returned to Smith. “We were lucky. Hardly lost a man. Incredible, and all down to surprise. By God, we owe you something, Finlayson owes you ...” He rubbed at his face and walked away.

  Smith found his pistol was empty. When had he fired it? He could not remember. The barrel was sticky wet and he wiped it on a dangling loop of camouflage net, re-loading with fumbling fingers as he strode behind Taggart to the northern perimeter of the dump. Charlie company were falling in there, chivvied by the non-coms who stalked up and down the line.

  Men of A company were bellied down under the trees on the northern perimeter. Taggart halted there, Smith stood beside him and they stared out to the north and the east. To their right the railway track ran down from the north and it was deserted, but for a dozen kneeling figures about two hundred yards away. Smith could make them out in the growing light.

  Taggart said, “Carmichael’s demolition gang.”

  Smith nodded. Sergeant Carmichael was a quick bow-legged Scot. He and his gang carried ten big packs. Smith had seen those packs loaded with the charges, coils of slow and fast fuses and a handful of Number 8 detonators like cartridge cases without bullets.

  Taggart said, “Carmichael knows what he’s doing. He was a shot-firer in a pit in Scotland before the war and he’s done a lot of demolition work with the Engineers.”

  Further round to the right and lying north-east of them were the lights marking the town of Lydda and there were more of them than before. Just the other side of Lydda was a Turkish garrison and it would be wide-awake now after the firing at the dump. Smith looked over his shoulder, over the shadowed alleys of the dump and the prowling figures of Charlie company sweeping through them to where the outer darkness of the last of the night hid the station. That was only a quarter-mile from where he stood and there would be troops there, if only a guarding platoon. Then three miles further south lay Er Ramle where there was the German anti-aircraft battery and the Turks had cavalry.

  Taggart read Smith’s mind: “We haven’t got long.” He shrugged inside his stained and ripped tunic. “It’s turned bloody cold.”

  The day was coming. There was a thin line of orange light along the Hills of Judaea where they lifted out of the plain in the east but it had a murky, dirty tinge to it. The summer had gone and the rains were on their way. Smith’s eyes came down and focused on the lights, yellow in the approaching dawn, that marked Lydda. “Where are the outposts?”

  Taggart pointed towards the town. “Straight out a couple of hundred yards there’s a corporal and two men. Others out on either side and in rear.”

  Smith moved towards a gap in the wire. “I’ll walk out that way.” Taggart was the soldier and this was his business. Smith was wasting Taggart’s time standing here.

  Taggart said, only half-jokingly, “Don’t get lost out there. And remember the password when you come back. We’re in the middle of enemy country. We can’t challenge twice.”

  Smith answered, “I’ll remember.” He picked his way through the flattened wire and started to walk towards the lights. He found Buckley was dogging him as always and grinned to himself. Voices called behind him in the dump but they grew fainter as he walked out. The day was coming on them quickly now. With every stride he took the visibility lengthened, the scattered clumps of cactus could no longer be taken for men, their own lumpy, spined outlines were now clear. He could see the railway lines not only where they lay just a hundred yards away on his right hand, but stretching straight and dull-silver, running away to the north.

  “Who goes there?” The challenge came sharp from a cluster of cactus below a slight rise in the ground.

  Smith answered, “Dauntless!”

  “Advance an’ be recognised!”

  Smith walked on and a khaki figure rose up from among the cactus ahead of him. The soldier said, “Hullo, sir. Having a look round?” He jerked his head, indicating the rise. “Corporal’s up top, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Smith passed through the cactus and climbed the low lift in the ground in three long strides to halt when he could see over the crest. The corporal lay before him, peering over the crest. Another private lay a couple of yards away. Both of them had rifles tucked into their shoulders so they peered out over the pointing barrels.

  The corporal turned his head to take in Smith with one quick glance then faced forward again, but not before Smith caught a glimpse of a face covered in a paste of sweat and dust and a fringe of carroty hair poking out from under the pushed-back cap. Smith remembered him. At Taggart’s briefing aboard Morning Star he had said: “It looks a right bastard.”

  It still did. They weren’t out of it yet by a long chalk.

  Smith waited silently with the two soldiers as the day grew upon them, until they could see Lydda as a crowding of white houses. Carmichael’s demolition gang still worked close by, spaced along the railway track at intervals of twenty or thirty yards. Carmichael’s voice came to him, the accent clear though Smith could not make out the words. A minute later the Scotsman trotted back towards the dump on his bowed legs, his team behind him.

  On the other side of the railway a road ran north and south, from the station past the dump and on northward to the town ...

  The corporal said huskily, “They’re just coming out, sir. On the road this side o’ the town. See ’em?”

  “Yes.”

  Tiny, ant-like figures were moving out of Lydda, a marching column, and was that a horse at their head? But then his attention was distracted and he cocked his head, listening.

  The corporal told the private. “Joe, you nip back and tell the Major —”

  Smith said, “Wait.” And when the corporal turned to stare at him; “Can you hear a train?”

  Now they all heard it, like distant, panting breath. The corporal muttered, “Strewth!” And then, “Anything been said about water, sir?”

  Smith saw the tunics of the two soldiers were black with sweat down their backs. They had been out here
alone and could easily have sneaked a drink but they had not. Discipline. He said, “Take a mouthful, no more.” He unslung his own bottle and let the water wash cool around his mouth before he swallowed. It was water from Dauntless and briefly he wondered if he would see her again.

  He turned as rifle-fire spattered briefly, distantly behind him, from the other side of the dump, to the south of it. That would be a curious patrol from the station. A Vickers rattled and the rifle-fire ceased. He told Buckley, “Go and relieve that sentry. Watch our rear.” In case of a Turkish patrol edging around the dump. “And send him up here.”

  The man came up at the double and dropped down beside the corporal. In the silence that followed they heard the train more loudly, closer. And —

  “Here she comes.” That was the corporal.

  Smith licked his lips, his mouth already dry again. He could have emptied the bottle but it was slung on his hip. The train was coming, had passed the town and the body of marching men. It would arrive in less than a minute. He ordered, “At the train. Six hundred yards. Ten rounds rapid.”

  The three rifles cracked as one but then stuttered as the faster shot got ahead of the others. The smoke wisped from the barrels and Smith smelt it sharp on the morning air. He saw the train slowing and said, “Five hundred!” There was a pause in the firing as the soldiers thumbed at the back-sights. The train stopped and there were men jumping down from the wagons. At five hundred yards and in this poor, leaden light, they were not so much men as moving dots but you could see the colour of their uniforms. He could not be sure ...

  But the corporal said, “Christ! They’re Jerries!” And fired.

  Smith stared at the men who were running towards him now and deploying into line as they ran. Here and there a section halted as one to kneel and fire, then rise again as one and run on. They had been hurriedly thrown into action but were moving like a well-oiled machine. Crack troops. These were the men Smith had sought. This was part of the Afrika Legion.

  There was a ripping in the air overhead and ricochets bumbled and whirred. Smith knew that soldiers breathing heavily from running would make poor marksmen but he found he was instinctively crouching, lowering his head so he could just see over the crest. The corporal was re-loading, thumbing the rounds into the breech and closing the bolt as the clip fell away, firing.

  Men had fallen out there, bodies lying on the plain between the clumps of cactus, but the line came on and there was another behind it and a file running up the railway track to outflank the British outpost. Smith glanced behind him over the two hundred yards of ground, sprinkled with the inevitable cactus, that lay between them and Taggart’s command in the dump, and saw a man standing in the gap in the wire and waving furiously. Taggart? Smith faced forward and found the line nearer, the file on the track coming up on his right. Had he hung on too long? Almost.

  Blast whipped a hot breath past his face then the thump of an explosion slammed against his ears like a blow from an open hand. He spun around and saw the cloud of smoke and upthrown earth, the twisted rails and the crater in the railway track. Even as he watched there was another explosion. Another. They came again and again, marching regularly back towards the dump along the line of the railway and every one left a crater, splintered sleepers and twisted lines. The first fruits of Carmichael’s work. The railway to Gaza and Beersheba was severed for two hundred yards.

  He shouted, “Cease fire! Retire! At the double!”

  The corporal got off one last shot then pushed back from the rise and bounced to his feet. He yelled, “You ’eard the officer! Leg it, lads, an’ keep your heads down!”

  Smith followed them out through the cactus, Buckley appeared alongside, and they were all out in the open and running for the dump. It was a long two hundred yards. The wire came slowly up towards Smith as the sand dragged at his boots, his legs felt like lead and there was a pain in his chest. He was aware that the machine-guns, the Vickers mounted at each end of the wood facing him, were firing now and loaded with tracer that slid out lazily, pale sparks in the light of day. Rifles blazed and he could see the heads of the men lying behind them, their hands working the bolts as the dump came up at him, until he stumbled through the gap in the wire and threw himself down.

  He lay still a moment, winded, then pushed up on to his knees. Taggart squatted on his heels behind the rifle-men, elbows rested on his knees with the rifle dangling from one hand. He stared out through the wire intently but spared a glance for Smith. “All right?” He had to shout it above the rattle of musketry and the hammering of the two Vickers. Smith lifted a hand. Taggart faced forward again but he went on: “Carmichael has reported he’s just about ready and I think it’s time we left. We’ve got a tiger by the tail here. We’ve slowed ’em but they’re still coming on.” He glanced at Smith again, “Your Afrika Legion.”

  Smith crouched beside him, staring out at the open ground. The long line of men was gone, only a figure lay very still here and there, but rifle-fire winked from where the survivors had found what cover there was in a fold of the ground or behind a hummock of sand. One of the Vickers fell silent for a moment and a German seized his chance, rose up and scurried forward a dozen yards to throw himself down again out of sight. Smith’s head turned, eyes seeking the line of the railway. Firing came from that direction too, and almost abreast of the dump.

  Taggart said, “That’s right. They’re working down that flank. They’re north, south and east of us. There’s only our way out left open and it’s time we took it.” He raised a whistle to his lips and blew one long blast. Both Vickers ceased firing and a moment later Smith saw their crews rise from their positions and trot back through the dump, humping the guns and their tripods, and ammunition boxes. Taggart’s whistle shrilled again and the firing ceased in the line before him. Rifles still snapped in the open ground like fire crackers but Taggart’s men were on their feet and scurrying back through the dump with rifles at the high port across their chests. Taggart turned on Smith and Buckley. “Come on!” The three of them ran after the soldiers, pounding down a lane between the net-draped heaps of sacked and crated supplies, the dust swirling around them as it was kicked up by the boots.

  Smith almost fell over a man sprawled full length with his head and shoulders under the netting. He paused, Buckley hovering impatiently, just long enough to see the prone figure was Carmichael, saw him cut six inches off the end of a short length of black safety fuse, carefully push a matchhead into the end of the fuse and rub the matchbox over it. The matchhead spurted flame and Carmichael tucked the fuse away under the netting and dragged a crate in front of it.

  Smith ran on. They emerged from the lane, filed through gaps in the wire and were out of the wood and trotting across the open ground with its scattered clumps of cactus. A hundred yards out they came on a straggling, well-spaced line where a platoon of the battalion lay, rifles covering the dump, a Vickers mounted at each end. The other soldiers kept running, streaming through the line and going on, headed for the train.

  Smith and his two companions halted. Behind them Carmichael and his demolition gang were filtering through the trees and breaking into the open ground. They no longer carried the big packs. As they came on, more smoke wisped above the trees to add to that from the fires which had smouldered since the dump was taken. It thickened to drift on the breeze over the dump. Carmichael halted, panting before Taggart, who asked, “All right?”

  “Aye, sir, fine.”

  “What’s that smoke?”

  “They had a lot o’ coal oil, hundreds o’ gallons. We splashed some about and set it alight.” Carmichael took a breath. “I set the charges in the ammo mysel’. We’ve less than two minutes now. I think we should get out o’ it.”

  Taggart watched the other men trotting towards the train. The groups of running soldiers were stringing out into a long line, the non-coms gesturing with sweeping gestures of their arms. One half of the line halted and went to ground with a Vickers at its centre but the rest of
the line ran on.

  Taggart answered Carmichael, “Too bloody true. When that lot goes up —” His whistle pierced the din again and they ran until they came on the flank of the second line, flopped down behind a low dune and stared over the top of it. They could see men of the Afrika Legion scurrying in the dump now.

  The ground lifted beneath them as a flash leapt up in front of them from the dump. The crash of the explosion drowned the firing, smoke and debris soared, seemed to climb for ever and the dust boiled out towards them, rolled over them in a choking cloud. Smith dragged out his handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose. Through that fog of dust he saw Taggart climbing to his feet and heard his yell: “On your feet and fall back! Pass it on!” His whistle shrilled. “Fall back! Pass it on!”

  Figures moved through the swirl of red dust that was billowing away, settling. The dump came into view as a smoking ruin of littered wreckage and trees felled like matchsticks, only stumps left standing. There were fires burning, pillars of yellow flame that belched black smoke to roll down like the dust. No one moved, no one lived in that seared area of ground. But somewhere beyond it was more of the Afrika Legion and its reaction would be swift. Smith stood up and with Buckley followed Taggart as he headed for the train on the run. The job was done. The Afrika Legion would be too late at Beersheba and now was without supplies and ammunition, crippled as a fighting force.

  Now the battalion, and Smith, had to get out if they could.

  The battalion were all running ahead of him but stiffly, tiredly, two ragged lines of them carrying their wounded, and the further line was almost to the train. Two trucks in the centre flew Red Cross flags from short poles. Smith thought he could see the blonde head of Adeline Brett showing above the side of one of them. A Vickers was mounted in the first truck and the last.