Last Lift from Crete: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 2

by Alexander Fullerton

  At 1025 two aircraft had appeared ahead and were identified as Hurricanes. They’d hung around, patrolling to the northward, for about an hour, and when the ships were in the channel between Crete and Antikithera Island one of the aircraft had flashed a message to Carnarvon: Have to leave you now. Good luck. They’d flown off eastward, presumably to Maleme. It had been half-past eleven when they’d left, and at that time the force had been steering due south with Agria Grabusa, the north-western point of Crete, seven miles abeam to port. At 1220, by which time Elaphonisi lighthouse was coming up on the port bow, a signal thumped up in the pneumatic tube from the office down below; the yeoman of the watch, PO Tomkins, extracted it and brought it to the captain.

  Napier read it, then held it out to his navigator. “We’re to rendezvous with the First Battle Squadron ten miles south of Gavdo at 1430. How does that look?”

  Jack went to the chart to check distances and courses. He had in mind that there was a much earlier signal on the log—it had been repeated to Carnarvon for information—ordering the 37th Destroyer Flotilla to meet the battle fleet south of Cape Littino at noon. Thirtyseventh DF was the Tribal flotilla with brother Nick’s Tuareg in it, and presumably that rendezvous would have been effected by now. There’d be Barham, Valiant, Formidable, plus the destroyers they’d had with them already, and now this bunch, and presumably after they’d joined up they’d all be heading back to Alexandria.

  He told Napier, “We can hold these revs, sir, and alter to onethree-five when Elaphonisi bears oh-five-eight. That’ll be in about ten minutes.”

  “Good.” Napier looked round. “Yeoman—bend on, but do not hoist yet: Course one-three-five.” He told Jack, “Warn me when we have three degrees to go on that bearing, would you?”

  Jack nodded. “Sir.” He moved to the pelorus, where he could keep an eye on it. He saw that Napier was still looking at him, either critically or thoughtfully.

  “Everard,” speaking quietly … “it’s not the end of the world, you know.”

  “No, sir.” Lining up the sight on that lighthouse. “I know.”

  You didn’t have to talk about it. Everyone in the ship felt the same despondency. Napier added, lifting his binoculars, “It’s the end of Demon, though.” “Demon” had been the code-name for the Greek evacuation. He added, training his glasses slowly left to study the rocky coastline and the Cretan mountains that rose behind it, “The Germans will be going for this place now.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tuareg was rolling in quite a lively fashion as, with Masai and Afghan following, she zigzagged astern of Blackfoot towards the Kaso Strait. Tribal-class destroyers did tend to roll, in any kind of a beam sea; but it was a small fault to put up with, Nick thought, for the pleasure of driving such a lovely ship. Resting his eyes from binoculars, he was looking for’ard over the front edge of the bridge. The flare of “B” gundeck hid “A” gun from his sight; beyond “B’s” twin muzzles and that jutting flare was the narrow foc’sl and sharp prow splitting the sea ahead, carving deeply into it and sending it curling out and back, the white of the broken water vividly bright against varying shades of blue. Harry Houston, who was officer of the watch, informed him from the step behind the binnacle, “You have a—ah—visitor, sir.”

  Nick was on his bridge seat, a wooden-based affair in the port fore corner behind the chart-table alcove: glancing round he saw the young Royal Marine captain, Brownlees, lurching for’ard from the ladder, grabbing hold of fittings here and there for support as he approached. Captain Brownlees looked uneasily aware of the destroyer’s motion.

  “I wondered if we might take a shufti at that chart now, sir, as you suggested earlier. Hope you don’t mind me barging up like this.”

  “You’ve timed it well. We’ll be going to action stations in twenty minutes.” He told Houston as he slid off the seat, “I’ll be in the chartroom.”

  A haze of land on the port bow was the mountainous eastern end of Crete, and a more nebulous but higher haze to starboard was the ridge of mountain which ran like a spine along the lizard-like shape of Scarpanto. A smaller island, Kaso, lay this side of Scarpanto, but it was lower as well as smaller and from this distance you couldn’t see it. The flotilla had sailed from Alexandria at 6:00 this morning—having got into harbour at 10:00 the night before and spent several hours fuelling and ammunitioning. They’d steamed all day at 20 knots, and at 8 pm this evening, by which time they’d have passed through that Kaso gap, they’d be stopping the A/S zigzag and increasing to 30 knots for the night dash to their target area.

  Putting in marines, he thought, who in a few days’ time would have to be brought out again. He didn’t mention the thought to Brownlees.

  “Is that Crete?”

  The Marine was pointing. Nick, pausing near the head of the bridge ladder, nodded. “Yes. And the high ground on the other bow—there— is Scarpanto. Italian.”

  “Scarpanto where they’ve based a Stuka group?”

  “Right. Not a bad reason for going to action stations before we get too close to it, would you say?”

  “Perhaps”—Brownlees staggered, caught at something—“perhaps you’ve a point, sir.”

  There’d been no let-up for the fleet since Operation Demon had ended three weeks ago. It had been logical and obvious that Crete would be the Germans’ next objective: so Crete had to be supplied, and the waters to the north of it patrolled; and down in the south Tobruk was under siege and there was a desert army to be supported. Two destroyers, for instance, operated what was known as the spud run out of Alexandria up-coast to Tobruk every single night with ammunition and stores, leaving for return to Alex the same night with the army’s wounded. You couldn’t let yourself be caught on that coast in daylight now.

  And just as the Greek evacuation ended—fifty thousand men had been lifted, most of them from open beaches—London had decided to run a convoy from Gibraltar right through to Alexandria, bringing tanks and aircraft for the defence of Egypt. A German panzer division had been identified in the desert, and without tank reinforcements Wavell would have been at a hopeless disadvantage. The Admiralty had pointed out that with powerful Luftwaffe forces now based in Sicily—Malta was under day-long, day-after-day attack—the chances of getting a convoy through without appalling losses were extremely slim: Churchill had overridden the objection, insisted on the convoy being sent. Incredibly, it had turned out well: low cloud and bad visibility, conditions never heard of in the Mediterranean at this time of year, had come like a gift of God to protect a wild gamble. It had been a complicated operation, code-named “Tiger”: Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham hadn’t just sailed his Mediterranean Fleet to meet the convoy, he’d also run two convoys of his own into Malta and carried out two bombardments, en passant, of Benghazi, and he’d brought the tank convoy from Gibraltar into Alexandria harbour on 12 May.

  The fleet had benefited from “Tiger.” With the convoy had come reinforcements, the battleship Queen Elizabeth and the cruisers Naiad and Fiji.

  After five days of heavy air attacks on the airstrips and on Suda Bay, the German military assault on Crete had opened 36 hours ago with parachute and glider landings. Twenty-four hours before that, all RAF and Fleet Air Arm operations finished. On 15 May there’d been three Gladiators, three Fulmars, and three Hurricanes working from Maleme: they’d fought virtually to the last man and the last aircraft, and now the fleet had no air support at all, no hope of any—only the certainty of German air assault from fields at Scarpanto, Tatoi, Eleusis, Mycene, Molai, and Argos. And from Crete itself too, when they captured Maleme—which they might have done already. After the first day’s fighting they’d already had part of the airfield in their hands. Other airborne forces were fighting furiously for the airstrips at Retimo and Heraklion.

  Brownlees unfolded his own map. He’d wanted to see the naval angle, relate map to chart. There were about one hundred and fifty marines in each of the four destroyers, and their colonel was in Blackfoot.

  “W
e’re to be landed about”—he pointed—“here?”

  “Right in that corner. Almyro Bay—also called Almirou Bay, on some charts. I’ll show you the detail in a moment on a different one, but you’ll be landing beside a village called Yeorgioupoleos … Look, here’s Retimo. Alternative spellings Rethimnon or Rhithymno, take your pick. But it has an airstrip—fairly primitive, I gather—about here.”

  The marine nodded. “Germans are on a hill that commands both the airstrip and the road south-west out of Retimo. On and around it. There’s to be an attack by Aussies from Retimo itself at the same time as we barge up the other way … Why are we having to start so far west?”

  “Is five miles far, for leathernecks?”

  Brownlees smiled patiently. “I’m thinking of the delay, possible hold-ups.”

  “It’s the best spot. The only one, probably. The pilot”—he reached to a shelf above the table and tapped the spine of Mediterranean Pilot vol. IV—”this tells us that for five miles east of our village there’s a wide coastal bank with hidden rocks in it. Then it gets openly rocky from about where your hill is right up to Retimo.” He pulled the marine’s map closer and bent over it. “I wonder why we haven’t planned to bombard the German positions—lob starshell over that hill and then plaster it with HE before your attack. It wouldn’t have presented any problems.”

  Brownlees shrugged. “Colonel mightn’t go for that. Rather do it softly, softly, I should guess.”

  Nick thought that if he’d been in Reggie Marsh’s place when the orders came … Well, he hadn’t been, and wasn’t. He pulled another chart out from under the one they’d been looking at. “Now—here’s your landing area …”

  “Speed 30 knots, sir!”

  “Very good.”

  Blackfoot was flying the signal. Nick leant out to port and looked astern, saw Masai’s and Afghan’s answering pendants going up. Tuareg’s was already close-up. Cape Sidaro, Crete’s north-east corner, would be abeam before much longer; Kaso was behind them, about twenty miles on the starboard quarter. They’d come through without even a sniff from the Luftwaffe. Not that one should count chickens yet: it was 8:00, and it would be an hour before it was dark enough to start feeling safe.

  “Executive, sir!”

  He glanced at Pratt, who called down to the wheelhouse, “Threeone-oh revolutions.” Now he was taking bearings: and Ashcourt had got a pad ready, to write the figures down for him. The ship was still at action stations, and would be until the light went. Pratt said, “Paximadia, two-eight-one. Plaka, two-one-three.” Then he took the beam bearing last, because that was the one that changed fastest: “Sidaro, two-fivethree.” He straightened from the pelorus and put a hand out for the pad. “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Your pleasures don’t bear thinking about, chum.”

  “Don’t they, hell. They’re all I have to keep me warm.”

  “Sub.”

  He turned quickly. “Sir?”

  “Go down and bring me the pilot, would you.”

  Nick met Pratt’s glance, and winked. But he did want the book of sailing directions. Sooner or later—it was a certainty, he felt, not speculation—they’d be told to start getting the army out of Crete, and he might as well start familiarizing himself with details of the few small ports and the coastline.

  It would be a matter of taking them off beaches again, he supposed. Such ports as existed—Suda Bay, Retimo, Heraklion—were all on the island’s north coast; and even at this stage it was chancy enough to be on the northern side in daylight. All right, so you’d make your pick-ups in the dark: but you’d have to get to the embarkation point in darkness, load the troops—which wasn’t always the smoothest, fastest evolution—and then back either to Kaso in the east or to Antikithera in the west: two or three hours’ steaming at full speed, and you’d still be in those straits at daylight, with no air cover and your ships crammed with soldiers. Like the Dutch transport that young Jack had seen go down.

  Nick had seen Jack in Alexandria, just before they’d sailed for “Tiger,” the convoy operation. He’d been—well, his usual self. Polite, but under the politeness, hostile. Or defensive? Yes, defensive: and you couldn’t blame him for that. Nick didn’t blame him: only wished, as he’d wished for years, that he could cut through the barriers.

  Was every man allowed one truly colossal failure?

  “Blackfoot’s altering to port, sir.”

  Cutting the corner. Midnight was zero-hour for landing the marines; a few minutes saved now might prove valuable later. Nick told Pratt, “Follow him round.” Pratt was a reliable navigator and a good man to have around. He’d make a good first lieutenant before long. There’d be plenty of opportunities coming, with the rate at which destroyers, sloops, and corvettes were beginning to pour out of the yards at home. None too soon, at that.

  But Jack, Sarah’s son …

  It was a safe way to label him, in your mind. Your stepmother’s son, when his name was Everard, was obviously your half-brother; people took it for granted. You couldn’t tell anyone the truth, ever, but out of your own need to be honest or loyal—something like that—you couldn’t deny it, deny him either. Nick hadn’t been able to get close to him, help him, or really talk to him; Sarah had made it impossible, and he’d been forced to accept the situation—accept, without really understanding it even now, her fierce, long-standing hatred. Only Nick and Sarah knew that Jack was his own son, not his father’s. It was Sarah who’d worked the deception, fooled the old man completely and left him, Nick, to guess in silence at how she’d managed it.

  It was now 2200 and pitch dark. Standia Island three and a half miles abeam to port. Everyone in the bridge was dressed for the cold. The Mediterranean Fleet had shifted into summer whites several weeks ago, but once the sun went down there wasn’t much feel of summer.

  Beside Nick in the dark bridge, Dalgleish said, “Must be a lot of ships plugging around tonight.”

  “Yes.” Nick asked Pratt, “Are we on the ball with recognition lights?” “All checked, sir.”

  There were lights fixed to the lower edges of the foreyard, and a locked steel box in the chartroom where you could change the combination. To challenge an unidentified ship at night you pressed a key here in the bridge, and the pre-set sequence of colours flashed out at her. You’d have your guns loaded and trained before you made the challenge.

  As Dalgleish had remarked, something like half the Mediterranean Fleet was in the Aegean tonight. A lot of ships: and also a truly vast number of aircraft squatting, ready bombed-up and fuelled, on the German airfields all around, waiting for first light, knowing they’d have the sky all to themselves. A Stuka pilot’s dream of heaven: plenty of targets and no airborne opposition. They’d be getting in a good night’s rest—to be fresh and eager for the dawn.

  The Luftwaffe had made only one kill today; they’d bombed and sunk the destroyer Juno, who’d been with Admiral King’s Force C. But there’d been air attacks all through the daylight hours, and the cruiser Ajax had been damaged by near-misses. Ajax—with Orion and Dido and destroyers—was part of Force D, under Admiral Glennie. By the sound of things, tomorrow would see a lot more action—there’d been reports of German troop convoys from the Piraeus and from Milos Island heading south for Crete, and several squadrons were being deployed to search and intercept.

  Including—later tonight—this flotilla. After they’d put the marines ashore, the Tribals were to make a sweep north-westward before turning down to pass through Kithera and join the battle-fleet—Force Al as it was now being called—under Admiral Rawlings with his flag in Warspite. The C-in-C, directing operations from Alexandria, was keeping a force of big ships in that south-west area in case the Italian fleet should so far forget itself as to venture out to sea.

  Carnarvon, Jack’s cruiser, was down there with the battle squadron.

  What else had been happening … Well, the 14th Destroyer Flotilla had bombarded Scarpanto airfield last night, the cruise
rs Gloucester and Fiji—Force B—had made a night sweep up to Cape Matapan, and King’s Force C had had a brush with Italian torpedo-boats in the Kaso Strait. During the day Gloucester and Fiji had joined Rawlings’s battleships, and so had Glennie’s Force D, Orion and company; and tonight Forces B, C, and D would all be up here in the Aegean looking for those invasion convoys. Force C had been scheduled to pass northward through Kaso about two hours astern of this flotilla; the three groups had orders to foregather off Heraklion at dawn, after their night sweeps, and hunt north-westward towards Milos Island.

  In daylight, with no air cover. Evidently all risks were to be accepted, to stop seaborne invasion forces reaching Crete.

  “Captain, sir. Signal …”

  “Read it to me, Yeoman, or tell me what it’s about.”

  He didn’t want to ruin his night-vision by going to the light. PO Whiffen told him, “Bad news, sir. Gerry’s got Maleme airfield. It’s a general signal to all ships.”

  “Gerry” could fly in his heavy stuff now, in the big Junkers 52 transport planes. Men, weapons, ammunition, stores: he’d got the back door open and he could expand, consolidate. Even if the fleet did stop all surface invasion forces—which they would, of course.

  “Messenger!”

  “Sir?”

  “Give him that signal, Yeoman. Harris, take it down to the wardroom and show it to the captain of marines.”

  Twenty-three-fifty: Tuareg lay stopped and silent four hundred yards offshore, and only about half that, a cable’s length, from the little island of Ayios Nikolaos. On the shore opposite the island, which had a church on it and a rough, narrow causeway connecting it to the beach, a huddle of white buildings which comprised the village of Yeorgioupoleos gleamed in the darkness. Rocky Pratt was hunched at the gyro repeater, checking shore bearings, and the echo-sounder was humming as it recorded the depth of water under the ship’s keel; in this sheltered bay, with every star reflected in its surface, it would have been a waste of time to anchor. It would have been noisy, too. Crete wasn’t a German stronghold—not yet—but there were pockets of invaders everywhere and the marines were treating this landing as a raid into potentially enemy territory.