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

by Alexander Fullerton

  “Starboard fifteen.”

  If torpedoes were coming, Tuareg would point her nose between them, comb their tracks. Masai was coming up to port with her “A” and “B” guns in action: it was astonishing that the diminutive Italian could take this much punishment and remain afloat. Well, he wouldn’t, not for much longer. Tuareg’s two for’ard mountings were the only ones that would bear now she’d pointed her stem at the enemy, but with Masai in it as well that still amounted to four, twin four-sevens pumping semi-armour-piercing shells at the six- or seven-hundred-ton torpedo-boat.

  “Midships.”

  “Midships, sir … Wheel’s amidships, sir!”

  If he’d turned to fire torpedoes, he’d done it. He was coming round to port now. Bridge and midships section burning brightly.

  “Port fifteen.”

  “Port fifteen, sir!”

  Houston called down the voicepipe to tell him he couldn’t fire: the Italian was about to pass between Tuareg and Masai. Giving himself a few minutes’ extra life: he’d kept that wheel on and spun right round—like a speedboat, dodging shells.

  Dalgleish shouted, “He’s going to ram Masai!”

  The Italian had flung his wheel hard a-starboard just as he entered the gap between the two Tribals: choosing Masai probably because she was the nearer. Masai’s “X” and “Y” guns fired right over her just before the crash came, and shells whirred only a few feet over Tuareg’s bridge as Nick called down, “Midships!” The Italian had struck Masai right aft as she swung hard in an effort to avoid him, and now the two ships were locked together, circling, Masai’s way carrying them both along, circling like dancers, flames on the Italian dazzling bright and a wide streak of their reflection reaching to Tuareg across a couple of hundred yards of sea. Movement slowing: all guns silent. Masai had stopped her engines: or her screws were done for. Near one would have been anyway. Losing the forward impetus, she’d ceased the process of tearing her own stern off with the Italian embedded in it.

  “Meet her. Steer north. Slow ahead both engines.”

  The Italian was sinking, sagging low in the sea, probably only supported by her stem’s grip on Masai. The sea was washing across her afterpart, rising in a pale fog of steam where it lapped her fires. Masai seemed to be on an even keel: it looked from here as if the damage would be all in the stern twenty feet of her: just the tiller flat, the steering-gear compartment, then. The port screw and shaft might have survived: but one screw and no steering wouldn’t be much help …He ducked to the voicepipe: “Starboard ten.” Up again, with his glasses on that stern, in time to see a sudden lurch and an upheaval of white foam: the Italian had broken loose, dragged out by the weight of his flooded hull. As the torpedo-boat slipped back he saw its bow lift vertically before it disappeared.

  “I’ll want the loud-hailer, Yeoman.” It had only to be fetched and plugged in. He stooped: “Midships.” He put his glasses back on Masai’s stern: the only way she’d get home, he guessed, would be under tow. She’d float, all right; there was a watertight bulkhead immediately for’ard of the tiller flat, and even if that one was ruptured there was another through the centreline of “Y” gun-mounting’s support. It was a matter either of towing her, or of taking her crew off and sinking her. Towing would mean a slow-speed withdrawal southwards, and a lot of Stuka attention from first light onwards—with a towing ship who couldn’t dodge.

  It was a decision for Reggie Marsh.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “One-three-five revolutions on, sir.” Pratt reported it from the binnacle. Those were revs for about 12 knots: Nick was building the speed up gradually, with Dalgleish on the quarterdeck watching the tow and the strain on it. Tuareg had a shackle of chain cable out astern, and Masai’s towing wire was shackled to it, the weight of the cable acting as a spring to absorb the stresses on the wire and on the gear on Tuareg’s stern and Masai’s foc’sl.

  Sub-Lieutenant Chalk, on the bridge end of the depthcharge telephone, reported, “First lieutenant says all’s well, sir.”

  An absence of any protests from Masai indicated that she had no problems either, from the last step-up in speed. Nick let it settle down for a few minutes, then told Pratt, “One-five-oh revs.”

  Thirteen knots.

  It was past 4 am. Tuareg was towing Masai on a course of 227 degrees, south-westward, with thirty miles to go to the Antikithera Channel. Not that reaching Antikithera would mean any lessening of the Stuka threat: with no air cover and with the Luftwaffe ranging freely over the whole area in enormous strength, you’d be bombed as thoroughly down there as you would be here. It was simply a step in the right direction, the direction of the long route south.

  “One-five-oh revs on, sir.”

  Marsh had made a wrong decision, Nick thought. The right one would have been to take Masai’s crew out of her and sink her, then carry on with the ordered northward sweep before turning south to join the battle squadron. All right, so it would have resulted in one fleet destroyer lost. But in terms of this battle for Crete she was already lost: she’d be out of action for many months. This effort to get her away turned her from a loss into a liability; air attacks were inevitable from dawn onward, and with the sitting-duck target of two unmanoeuvrable destroyers chained together, and tied to a straight course and a set speed, the hungry Stukas would be competing for sky-space to get at them. So there’d be a distinct possibility of losing more than just Masai, and in present circumstances here in the eastern Mediterranean that was a risk no one could afford.

  “One-six-oh revolutions.”

  Blackfoot was on the beam to starboard, Afghan to port. Marsh had wirelessed a signal a quarter of an hour ago, to C-in-C and repeated to the various force commanders now at sea, telling him what had happened and that the flotilla was withdrawing via the Antikithera Channel; he’d given an 0400 position, their course, and speed 12 knots.

  “Signalman.”

  “Sir?”

  “Lever … Make to Masai: Are you quite comfy?”

  When the attacks started, he thought, Masai might not be able to use her after guns. Almost certainly not “Y” gun, the quarterdeck mounting, with the strain it might impose on the stern bulkhead. She’d lost her starboard screw and she had no steering: rudder gone, tiller flat smashed and flooded. The port screw and shaft were undamaged, but that wasn’t going to help her without steering. The signalman was just finishing that message. Nick went to where young Chalk was propped in the bridge’s starboard for’ard corner with the depthcharge or A/S telephone in his hand; its lead came up from the door of the tiny Asdic cabinet, so that when you were hunting a submarine you could stand behind the operator and talk over the line to Mr Walsh the gunner (T) back aft at the chutes and throwers. He took the telephone from Chalk and asked Dalgleish how the tow was looking. You looked for the cable’s sag in the water, and for vibration: you could put your hand on it and feel any change. “Think we can stand a bit more?”

  “Certainly looks all right, sir.”

  “Good.” He put the phone back on its hook. The signalman told him, “Reply from Masai, sir: Snug as a bug. Let’s step on the gas.”

  Nick told Pratt, “One-seven-five revolutions.”

  The wind was about Force 2 and north-west; there was hardly any movement on the ship. When they were through Antikithera, of course, conditions might be quite different. He thought, Sufficient unto the day …

  There’d be some evils to this day, he guessed.

  Pratt had been checking the automatic log, timing its ticks against his stopwatch; he told Nick, “Fifteen through the water, sir.”

  Not bad, with a two-thousand-ton destroyer in tow.

  “Let’s go up another notch. One-eight-five.”

  Four-thirty, nearly. Dawn in about an hour. With so many ships in and around the Aegean, the Luftwaffe would be out in force. They’d every reason to be: the Germans wanted to push surface convoys into Crete, and while the Royal Navy was in these waters they weren’t able to. It would be
a straight fight between something like two thousand German aircraft and a couple of dozen British ships, more than half of which were already suffering from defects that in normal times would have put them in dock. Engine-room staffs were having to improvise and make-do, handle their own problems as best they could—anything to keep the ships at sea. Ships’ companies weren’t exactly fresh either: for a long time nobody had been to sea without being bombed, and as they were only allowed into harbour for long enough to refuel, reammunition, and top up with fresh water and stores, they’d begun to equate salt water with high explosive. What with that and the lack of sleep, it was hardly surprising that one saw, here and there, signs of strain.

  Thinking of the dawn and of the bombers jogged him into a change of mind. He’d been hoping to work the speed up to 20 knots, but it struck him now that 15 to 16, which they were already doing, wasn’t at all bad. The round figure of 20 wasn’t worth running risks for: one of those risks being the backwash effect, Masai’s exposed after bulkhead and the forces sucking at it as she was pulled through the water, a suction force directly related to the speed. If that bulkhead collapsed it would mean not only more damage to Masai and perhaps some lives lost, but the sudden jerk and increase in weight would almost surely part the tow; then you’d be at a standstill, picking it up and making it fast again just as the light came—and the bombers.

  He reached past Chalk for the A/S phone again. “Number One?”

  “‘Alf a mo,’ sir.” Then Dalgleish came on. “Sir?”

  “I’m going to settle for these revs. Leave one hand to keep an eye on the tow.” He hung up the telephone and told Chalk, “You can leave it now.” Chalk was sturdy, freckle-faced, boyish-looking. Nick told him, “You did a good job with the boats, Sub.”

  He grinned: “Thank you, sir.”

  Pratt said, “Just under 16 knots, sir.”

  “It’ll do.” He called to the signalman, “Lever, make to Masai: I think this is fast enough. Then to Blackfoot: Intend maintaining present speed.”

  Marsh could object if he wanted to. But there’d been a night in the English Channel in 1917 when Nick had been first lieutenant of the destroyer Mackerel and his captain, Edward Wyatt—who died a few months later on the mole at Zeebrugge—had been greedy for more speed than the ship’s shattered bow could stand. He could remember vividly the lurch and rumble as the bulkhead went: and he could see, as clearly as if he was standing in front of him now, the face of the man who’d been trapped in the for’ard messdeck when the sea burst in. A chief petty officer by the name of Swan.

  He often thought of Swan. And of others like him.

  It was a relief to have come to that quite ordinary, logical decision. So much so that he realized he must be more tired than he’d recognized. He saw Dalgleish just coming from the ladder. With him and Pratt up here—and they’d both had a stand-off—and with dawn about an hour ahead and then hours, even a whole day if it lasted that long, of the Luftwaffe … He made up his mind that half an hour’s cat-napping in the chair would be better than no rest at all.

  “I’m going to have a snooze, Number One. Give me a shake at 5:15, and we’ll close the hands up at 5:20.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Dalgleish poked Rocky Pratt. “I’ll see this bloke stays awake.”

  Someone else had arrived behind him: as he came forward into the bridge, Nick saw that it was Simon Gallwey, the doctor.

  “Can’t you sleep, Doc?”

  “They won’t let me, sir. Cruel men keep bringing me signals to decode. Like this one.” He had a sheet of signal pad in his hand. Nick thought, Twenty-five minutes now, if I’m lucky … He took the signal to the chart table, elbowed his way inside its canvas hood and switched the light on.

  It was to D37—Marsh—from Admiral Rawlings, commanding the battle squadron somewhere down in the south-west; it informed Marsh that Carnarvon was being detached to join them five miles west of Cape Grabusa at 0600.

  Well. Perhaps they had a chance of getting away with it, now. He came out, and handed the signal to Pratt.

  “We’re having company. Carnarvon’s meeting us in the Antikithera soon after dawn.”

  Pratt clasped the sheet of paper to his heart … “Saved, saved!” Laughter in the back of the bridge. But the AA cruiser’s eight highangle guns would make a difference.

  Fighting to wake up, to crawl out from under a deadweight of heavy sleep … The voice broke in again: “Five-fifteen, sir.” The voice was like a rope let down to you: you needed to grab hold of it before sleep closed over your head again, to let the rope haul you up into the light and air. Or you could let go, slip back, forget …

  “Captain, sir—it’s 5:15, sir!”

  The rendezvous with Carnarvon was set for 0600. But the signal Marsh had sent earlier had given this flotilla’s speed-of-advance as 12 knots, not 16. Unless he’d amplified it since then. If Rawlings’s staff man had based his orders on that information, the flotilla would be eight—no, six—miles farther south than anyone expected.

  But it wouldn’t make all that much difference.

  “Captain, sir, it’s five—”

  “Yes, I know. Thank you, Number One.”

  Collecting thoughts … This was Thursday. Thursday, 22 May 1941 …

  “Kye, sir?”

  “Thank you. What the doctor ordered.”

  It was marvellous—the “kye,” or cocoa—thick, hot, and sweet, liferestoring … Marsh might have sent another signal amending the speed he’d given before. Otherwise there could be a delay in effecting the rendezvous. In full daylight six miles wouldn’t make much difference at all, but it wouldn’t be fully light until just before the time they were supposed to meet.

  Before long all ships would be fitted with RDF, new types that were being developed and which even destroyers would be getting—so one heard—in a year or so. It would remove a hell of a lot of problems if they did get it. The Americans were working on it too, but they called it “radar.”

  He’d finished the kye, at the cost of a burnt tongue, and he felt alive again. Pulling off the hood of his duffel-coat, and reaching down beside the chair for his cap … It was a cap he’d owned in 1926, and the oakleaves on its peak were distinctly the worse for wear. The badge was tarnished too, and he could feel ragged ends of gold wire with his thumb. This was his seagoing hat: he also had a new one, smart and shiny, which had been posted by Messrs Gieves to him at a pub in Hampshire where, last autumn, he’d spent a few days with Fiona. She’d opened the parcel during breakfast in bed: then put the cap on her dark, tousled head and pranced around the room stark naked, uttering what she’d imagined to be nautical phrases.

  But think about Stukas now: not about Fiona Gascoyne with her clothes off. Fiona had her bombers to cope with, too: the night raiders on London, where she was stationed in the MTC—ambulances, despatches, driving for the Army or civilian ministries. He thought rather frequently about Fiona, nowadays: ever since a chance meeting in a restaurant, each of them with someone else—an accidental meeting but a watershed in their relationship …

  He got up out of his chair, and stretched. He hoped to God she was all right, after the 11 May raid. The Germans had sent five hundred bombers over, and set seven hundred acres of London on fire. He hoped and prayed to God he’d hear from her soon.

  “Tow all right?”

  “No change, sir, and no problems. May I close the hands up?”

  “Go ahead. Pilot, did you check the rendezvous position?”

  “Yes, I did, sir.” Pratt told him, “We’ll be six or seven miles to the south of it, at this rate.”

  “He hasn’t amended that signal, then.”

  “No, sir. There’s nothing new of any interest on the log.”

  Thinking it out—the flotilla would be passing through the rendezvous position at, say, twenty minutes to six, and at that time Carnarvon, if she was coming at her flat-out speed of 25 knots, would be something between six and ten miles to the west. It would be pretty well light by that t
ime, and they’d be looking out for each other, so they should make contact all right. Marsh probably hadn’t wanted to go on the air again: the more signals you sent, the more clearly you advertised your presence. Although the Germans had to know, surely, that the whole area was crawling with ships, that any bombers taking to the air this morning were bound to find targets?

  On that basis, they wouldn’t be hanging around their airfields waiting for reconnaissance reports. They’d be airborne at first light, and bottlenecks like Kaso and Antikithera would be obvious places to take an early look.

  “Ship is at action stations, sir.” Dalgleish had been taking reports through telephones and voicepipes. “I’ll go on aft.”

  There was a familiar greying in the east. Cape Spada was in that direction, about nine miles away, and the sun would rise there, behind the land. Much closer than Spada and roughly on the beam now, southeastward, Cape Grabusa was a mound of black rock which was staying inky-black while its surroundings lightened.

  “When should we be altering, Pilot?”

  “If it was up to me, sir, when Grabusa lighthouse bears oh-eightfour. That’ll be in about twenty minutes. Then one-nine-five would clear Pondikonisi.”

  Pondikonisi was a small off-lying island. Blackfoot would be ordering the change of course, when it pleased Reggie M. Just on 5:30 now.