Dust on the Sea (1999)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Gaillard had seemed different in some way, no less thorough with his briefing and details for his officers, but at times almost jovial, which was unusual if not unique.

  Blackwood thought he knew why. At the final officers’ conference in Alex, Brigadier Naismith had made it clear that Force Trident would be kept in support of his main assault group. Quite suddenly, that had changed. While an unheard-of north-westerly gale had whipped the sea into a raging barrier of waves severe enough to pose a real threat to some of the low-slung landing craft, Gaillard had received new orders. In his mind’s eye, Blackwood could see the map. The U.S. Seventh Army was to land on the south-west beaches, which would favour their small, fast-moving troop carriers. The British Eighth Army would land on the south-eastern coast, then strike inland to capture any airfield which could be used for supply and reinforcements.

  One other landing area remained between the two major armies, on the southernmost corner of Sicily. The First Canadian Division would overcome all opposition, believed to be Italian troops, and press inland to Ragusa and Pachino. The planners had considered everything, the suitability of the various beaches, the experience and, of course, the rivalry of every major unit. The Canadians were well trained, but without combat experience. In addition, Intelligence had discovered a last-minute obstacle to the line of advance from the beaches where the Canadians would be landing, and several carefully prepared strong points had been located on the headland to the west of those same beaches.

  The weather had been bad enough, and nobody would know the full extent of the confusion it might have caused until the nakedness of daylight. The Americans’ landing should have been a sheltered one; the gale had changed that. With strict communications silence imposed, it was impossible to assess the damage to ships and to morale.

  Gaillard had exclaimed, ‘History, gentlemen! Once again, the Royal Marines will be the first to land!’ He did not mention Naismith. He did not need to.

  Now those same faces were scattered throughout the ship. Watches checked, weapons and equipment ready to move. The human brain could only stand so much preparation.

  Blackwood heard the sea sluicing along the hull. The gale had dropped soon after sunset, leaving a steep and heavy swell. It would make the final approach no less hazardous.

  Gaillard joined him by the chartroom.

  ‘Any ideas, Mike?’

  Blackwood knew it was no casual question. He was sounding him out. Testing his nerve, his combat attitude, as the instructors termed it.

  ‘Being swamped will be a major risk once we embark, sir. We should leave more space for them to work the pumps if need be. They’re difficult little craft at the best of times.’

  ‘Good thinking. Tell Mr Craven, he can deal with that. I want our people to be on top line, not waddle ashore like seasick day-trippers at Eastbourne!’

  Blackwood could not see his face in the shadows. Was he so certain, so confident? Nobody could be sure of anything at this stage. Half the invasion fleet could have been scattered, or swept miles away from their allotted positions. And if the enemy knew they were coming it would be a hard slog. He almost smiled. Not a bit like Eastbourne.

  Gaillard said abruptly, ‘Been so busy lately, I’ve not had much of a chance.’ He seemed to be making up his mind. ‘Meant to ask you, Mike. When we were in Burma giving the Japs a bit of stick, did you have anything to do with a marine named Finch?’ One hand tapped impatiently on a chart cabinet. ‘He was sent with a landing party from the cruiser Genoa.’

  Blackwood thought of the men he had met, most of them for the first time, except for the few like Paget. Faces stamped with strain and fatigue, shocked by seeing friends killed. Holding together because of what they were, because of what, in their different ways, they were all proud of.

  ‘I don’t think so, sir. Is he joining this commando?’

  Gaillard sounded surprised. ‘No. I just thought you might remember the fellow.’

  ‘I could ask Sergeant Paget, sir. He was there. He might know.’

  Gaillard snapped, ‘No. Forget about it.’

  A bell tinkled somewhere and he said, ‘Midnight.’ He seemed to take several deep breaths, like a sprinter on the blocks. ‘Time to go!’ He strode away to speak with the ship’s commanding officer, and Blackwood saw marines getting out of his way. Like him, hate him, it made no difference now.

  He found Craven and told him about the pumps.

  Craven listened intently and said, ‘I remember my colonel in the Norway caper, sir. Keep ’em busy an’ keep ’em smart, they’ll do the rest!’

  Blackwood joined Lieutenant Fellowes on the starboard side and found time to marvel that men could work so smoothly in total darkness while the ship dipped and swayed around them as if bent on self-destruction. Beyond the rail it was black, with only leaping spectres of spray to show the sea’s heavy motion. The landing craft were alongside, their screws and rudders painting the water with streams of phosphorescence.

  ‘All right?’

  Fellowes tried to smile. ‘Nearly threw up, sir. But I’m more bruised than sick in this rust-bucket!’

  Blackwood touched his arm. He spoke like a veteran already.

  He looked towards the land. If the calculations were correct the ships were some eight miles south-east of the Sicilian coast. He tried to recall the map. The jutting spike of the peninsula, Punta Castellazzo. The cove almost adjoining it on the western side. Just like one of those hairy exercises, except that this time they would be shooting back.

  He said suddenly, ‘Keep with Sergeant Paget. If he says hit the deck, you do it. Don’t ask questions.’ He smiled and hoped Fellowes would see it, and that it might reassure him. Blackwood’s not bothered, so it must be okay.

  He could hear the marines slithering and kicking out with their boots to lower themselves into the little landing craft. No time for mistakes now. He hoped they would all remember what Despard had told them about falling into the sea fully loaded. Nothing left to bury.

  He said, ‘You might feel scared.’ He waved down the protest he knew would come. ‘Don’t let it throw you. The first time is always a sod. It’ll pass.’ He thought suddenly of his father. It must have been the last time he had seen him. ‘Remember, they’ll be looking to you.’

  A voice called, ‘“A” Troop embark! Come on, move your bloody selves!’

  The marines, half crouched beneath their loads and wary of the heaving motion, hurried past.

  Someone muttered, ‘I’d like to move that big-headed bastard!’

  A companion laughed. ‘Never volunteer, Taff!’

  Fellowes had gone, and the deck seemed empty of armed marines.

  Percy Archer stood watchfully by the cargo port, having heard most of it.

  ‘All set, sir?’

  Blackwood nodded, and thought of the garden at Hawks Hill, where he had walked and talked with his father. For the last time. There had been roses there.

  He heard what Archer said, but could not move. He remembered what the girl had told him about the hospital, the officer whose mind had almost been broken by his experiences. How a solitary rose had saved him.

  She had told him in the night, her breath warm and unsteady across his shoulder.

  He put his hand on Archer’s arm.

  ‘Keep your head down today. We’re supposed to make history, remember?’

  Together they clambered down and were guided the last few feet by some of his men.

  The moon was in the first quarter, but now it was gone.

  ‘Bear off forrard! Get under way and take station!’ That was Gaillard, already in position.

  He felt Despard beside him, and heard him say quietly, ‘Like a needle in a haystack.’ He might have been grinning. ‘I reckon we’ll have the jump on them with any luck!’

  He knew the others were listening, straining their eyes in the darkness, although they were all shadows, without substance.

  Everyone would know about it. Vaughan and his patient aide, the m
en and women at headquarters in Alex and in London. And she would be one of the first to know if the worst happened.

  H-Hour was two forty-five in the morning, about two and a half hours from now. Before that time Force Trident would be overrunning the first objectives. Or wiped out.

  He thought of his words to Fellowes. Really, there was no choice at all.

  The course to steer for the selected cove was north-west. Had the gale still been blowing they would have been butting head-on into it, probably unable to forge ahead.

  Blackwood felt the spray dash over his shoulders like rain; it seemed ice-cold after the heat of the day. It could hardly have been much worse. The swell made accurate steering impossible, lifting the landing craft’s stern and causing the blunt ramp forward to plunge dangerously near to the surface. The tightly packed marines were soaked, huddled together, glad of their steel helmets for once, if only to keep their faces free of water. Within twenty minutes of embarking two of the landing craft had had to turn back, one with engine trouble, the other so filled with water that it was unsafe to try and hold formation.

  The land was no longer invisible. One horizon was eerily lit by drifting fires, followed by the flash and rumble of bombs. The R.A.F. were playing their part and keeping to time, lighting up the town of Pachino, a ready marker for the troops once they were ashore.

  Blackwood could feel the tension as every lurch and stagger carried them closer to the land. But still no challenge, no devastating bombardment from shore batteries. Perhaps they were waiting for the last moment, when there would be no room to turn and claw away.

  Gaillard came up to the forepart of the craft, and clung to a stanchion while he tried to peer ahead whenever the ramp dipped down into another welter of spray.

  ‘God damn! Where the hell is it?’

  Blackwood saw his eyes and face light up as a vivid flash revealed the nearness of land, and for an instant he believed they had been sighted, that their presence was no longer a secret. But there were more flashes and explosions, from somewhere beyond a cliff, the shells bursting far away, in the opposite direction.

  Gaillard exclaimed, ‘Shooting at the Raf, not us!’ He swung away. ‘Got that, Cox’n?’

  Blackwood felt the hull turning slightly; they had not been so far off course after all. It was incredible. He wiped his streaming face with his sleeve and saw the land. He also saw the other craft, black, anonymous shapes, low down on the heaving water. He heard pumps working wildly, in this vessel or the other he did not know. The sound was deadened, and he could sense the nearness of the spike, Punta Castellazzo, reaching out like an invisible protection. He tensed, the rattle of one or maybe two machine guns probing through the din of trapped water and the irregular crash of the bows into solid rollers.

  The marines had ducked down at the first sound of gunfire. He did not have to look to know it. Instinct, training, guts.

  But no bullets cracked against the hull or whined off the thin plating. Someone else was getting it; there was no time to think about them.

  Blackwood called, ‘Ready!’ They were pressing behind him, and somewhere abeam the other craft would be doing their best to cover the last few yards. The ramp was being lowered; it always left you feeling naked, ready for the sickening, crushing blow, or worse, the realisation that you could not hide it from those who followed.

  There was a great lurch, followed by several more which seemed to shake the hull from ramp to stern.

  Blackwood knew that the landing craft had beached crookedly, that water was surging past him, flooding the hull, choking the pumps.

  He felt his boots slide, and would have fallen but for his hand on the ramp. ‘Forward, Marines!’ Did he speak, or was it all in his mind? But he was wading waist and sometimes chest deep through the water. When he glanced back he saw the others following, in sections, as they had been trained to do, without panic, and remembering to hold their weapons high. Others carried cans of drinking water, ammunition, grenades, the tools, as Churchill had called them.

  Disjointed thoughts flashed through his mind. Robyns, the lieutenant who had died, who had been drinking his precious water just minutes beforehand. The wounded Corporal Sharp, who had not wanted to leave his unit. Pleading to stay with his friends. Even his words, ‘Just get me to the bloody sea!’ seemed to sum it all up.

  He heard sharp, controlled orders being passed, men fanning out, weapons cocked and ready, probably not yet able to grasp what they had done. Another machine gun came to life, but again the sound was distorted. Not our party.

  It was a shelving, sandy beach, but beyond it there was no cliff as described in the intelligence pack. Blackwood heard his men running up a hard slope of what felt like limestone. Maybe they had landed in the wrong place after all? He could almost hear Vaughan’s rage all the way from London, or wherever he was at this moment . . .

  Gaillard was beside him, staring into the darkness as more marines scrambled over the rough stone, child’s play after what they had been trained to do. Most of them were carrying packs of supplies as well as their weapons.

  Gaillard turned as one of the landing craft started frothing astern. Their part was done. This would be no place for an undefended ‘shoe box’ when daylight found them.

  He said, ‘Bloody good show, eh, Mike? Enemy soil, the first step into Europe!’ It was like hearing a newspaper headline.

  Blackwood said, ‘And we did it.’

  Gaillard was still looking towards the sea. ‘Get the machine guns sited. We have to assume that nothing has changed, but I want to hit them where it hurts. We’ll see what the youngest general since Wolfe will have to say about that!’

  ‘Ready to move, sir!’ That was Paget’s voice. He hoped that Fellowes would remember his advice. ‘M.G. section closed up, sir!’ Despard and his beloved Bren guns, thinking of nothing but the job in hand, certainly not of the home he had once known in the Channel Islands. That might destroy him.

  Archer was beside him again, his rifle in the crook of his arm, like a gamekeeper out for a stroll. Blackwood thought of the exploding fuel, and Archer’s comment about Gary Cooper. Maybe more like a poacher . . .

  Archer said quietly, ‘You’ve got a smile a mile wide, sir.’ He sounded surprised.

  Blackwood watched a file of men climbing up the slope, where a cliff should have been.

  He said, ‘I’d forgotten. It’s my birthday today!’

  Force Trident had landed.

  Sergeant ‘Sticks’ Welland flopped hard on the ground and winced as a sharp stone tore into his elbow.

  ‘The bastards are awake now, right enough.’ He groped down to fix his bayonet, wondering why he had got himself stuck with one of the new lieutenants.

  Lieutenant Bruce Hannah said, ‘Where are they? I thought the other troop was covering that side.’

  Welland strained his ears. He heard the muffled vibration of engines, the next wave of landing craft moving into the cove. He grinned into the darkness. Well, we were bloody first.

  He ducked as several shots echoed around the headland. No flashes, so somebody must have blundered into an enemy patrol.

  He said, ‘We’d better get closer, sir.’ It was all he could do to keep his patience. Bad enough when you knew an officer, but this one he didn’t know from Adam. Straight from commando training in England, keen as mustard, and he heard he was supposed to cut quite a dash with the girls. They must be bloody hard up, he thought.

  Hannah said, ‘We’ll send a runner to the Colonel.’ He was thinking aloud. Like an exercise.

  Welland heard someone shouting, Italian by the sound of it. He half-rose on one knee. ‘Take too long. The first strong point is dead ahead of us. Remember the photos they showed us?’ He could not recall them either, but he had to do something.

  There were more shots from a different bearing, and he heard another Italian voice. It sounded like surrender in any language.

  It was taking too long. He stood up, and sensed the rest of the section follow
ing his example, screwed up to the limit. Some of them were in action for the first time. He glanced at the lieutenant. Like this idiot!

  He shouted, ‘Move!’ and broke into a run, his eyes everywhere, his finger already tight on the trigger.

  The tracer seemed to rise from the ground itself, a heavy machine gun by its sound. It would explain the delay in their response to the patrols meeting on the slope. It would take a good while to move a gun like that; there were probably several of them, sited and trained on that other beach where the Canadians would be landing.

  He tugged the pin from a grenade and let the lever fly before hurling it over the slope. It sent splinters cracking and hissing past the crouching marines. Welland already had another in his hand when long streams of vivid scarlet tracer zipped past and raked the slope from side to side. He took a deep breath. Despard’s Brens; that single grenade had given him all he needed. He nudged the officer. He should have known. ‘Ready, sir?’

  The lieutenant got up and ran forward, his revolver in his hand, a man already overtaken by events for which he was unprepared.

  More shots, up, and from the left. Welland charged on, yelling at the top of his voice although he did not realise it. A shadow bounded to meet him and steel glinted in the sporadic gunfire. Welland parried the blade and swung his rifle butt, felt bone breaking as he found the other man’s jaw. He ran on, and heard a brief, choking cry as one of his marines finished the job.

  More figures loomed out of the darkness, arms raised, voices cracking in panic, as if they had just been roused from their beds. It was laughable. And then one of them dropped on one knee, a light machine gun already jammed to his shoulder. There was a savage burst of fire from two of the Stens, and the soldiers, those trying to surrender and the solitary, would-be hero, seemed to pirouette round in the flashes before falling together in an untidy embrace.