Quite a large difference, when you thought about it. It would be sensible, Jack thought, for him and Alphonso now to go their separate ways. He bent down and offered his hand.
“So long, Alphonso. Au revoir. Bon chance, amigo.”
Alphonso shook his hand warmly enough, and with a flash of the old happy smile, but there was still cogitation in progress behind those dark brown eyes. Jack had just done his own thinking: it would be a good idea, he’d decided, to head for the south coast. If there was any evacuating still going on that would be the likely area for it. Alternatively one might be able to pinch some sort of boat and sail south. To kick off with, if he followed the shore of the gulf until the coastline curved east, then he’d be able—with luck—to find a way on through or over the mountains, and he’d have to chance his luck along the way in the matter of food and drink. Water, he supposed, would be the most important thing.
He’d gone about five yards before Alphonso caught him up. Jack stopped, looking round at him and frowning.
“Me go. You stay. Or go that way.”
He tried to mime it, putting the flat of his hands towards Alphonso as if to bar the way to him. But this was the sort of game the Italian enjoyed. He was smiling, pointing south and nodding violently, then pointing at both himself and Jack, linking them together. Then he was going through the motions of eating, stuffing food into his mouth and chewing, and taking a drink—he was thinking of it as wine, by the way he smacked his lips—again, apparently it was something they were going to do together.
“Alphonso, I believe you’re bonkers.”
Nodding, laughing … “Si, si!”
He gave up, started off again, trailed by his Italian. Ten minutes later, he saw the houses. A hamlet—a fishing village, perhaps—there were boats and nets. He stopped to let Alphonso catch up with him. The sight of the white houses—cottages—obviously pleased the Italian: he started towards them at a trot, and Jack followed. He thought they might at any rate get a drink of water.
An old woman, in black and with her head covered rather like a nun, turned and scuttled away round the back of the first house as they approached it. Alphonso laughed, turned to wink at Jack, then walked up to the front door and knocked on it. Jack stood waiting, glad to have Alphonso take the initiative now, a dozen yards behind him. He was conscious of looking like a tramp: bearded and none too clean. Well, say like a shipwrecked RN lieutenant. Alphonso looked like a circus acrobat down on his luck.
Right behind him, a harsh voice barked some sort of question.
Jack turned quickly, startled. A man of about thirty, brown-skinned and heavy-set, a peasant or a fisherman, had materialized from God only knew where. He repeated the same question: in Greek, presumably, or Cretan. Jack waved a hand towards the sea, then pointed to himself. “English navy.” He made a swimming motion, and the man nodded, jerked his head in a beckoning gesture and then turned away. Jack, trailed again by Alphonso, stumbled after him along the uneven, stony path. If anything wheeled moved here it wouldn’t be more than a donkey-cart. At about the third house, which seemed to be a small farm or smallholding, the man turned in and beckoned again. He led them past the house, heading towards a barn, and when he got close to it he waited for Jack to get there before he pushed the door open and went in.
Hard-baked earth floor: circular, a threshing-floor. But there was a big rough table at the back, with glasses of wine and a stone jug on it, a group of people vague in the half-light. Early in the day for boozing, he was thinking: then he’d focused on the people. A corporal with a New Zealand shoulder-flash, a dark girl—Cretan, he guessed—and a solid-looking male local who might have been the girl’s father. She looked about seventeen.
The corporal, surprisingly, got to his feet. The girl half-smiled, dropped her eyes. The man who’d brought them in was explaining something to the other one. The girl looked up again, and as Jack met her eyes the smile came back. He said, “My name’s Everard.” His epaulets marked him for what he was. He added, “I was sunk in the cruiser Carnarvon three days ago. What’s the form here?”
“We’re foraging.” The corporal held out his hand. “I’m Chris McGurk. Glad to meet up with you, Lieutenant, sir. This here’s Maria. We come down on the scrounge—they’re s’posed to be gettin’ us some fish. Stuck here till it gets dark again now, can’t bloody move in daylight.” He pointed at the Cretan. “We’re with his lot, dozen of us, up in the mountain there. He’s her brother—Nico, he’s called.” The girl was attractive, in a direct, uncaring way. Long skirts and shapeless wrappings, but she’d have a good figure, he guessed, under all that. The corporal said, “The Carnarvon, you said? We got a rum little bloke with us, name of Brighouse … he come off—”
The brother interrupted, muttering in his own language; he’d lifted one hand, to point. Eyes followed the thick, pointing finger to Alphonso.
“Hey. What’s this?”
They were all staring at Alphonso. Jack said, “He answers to the name of Alphonso. Unfortunately I can’t speak Italian and he doesn’t understand a word of—”
“Italian?”
The brother looked suddenly very angry. Corporal McGurk had a Luger in his fist and it was aimed at Alphonso. The Cretan reached across, grasped its barrel and pushed it down. He growled something to the other man, the one who’d brought them in. Alphonso found himself grabbed suddenly from behind: both his arms were twisted up behind his back, and his young, swarthy face in its fringe of black beard was screwed up in pain. The brother spoke again, and the other one turned Alphonso round and rushed him out: he’d found his voice and he was protesting, pleading in shrill Italian. Nico touched the corporal’s gun again: “No shoot. Shoot no good.” He touched his own ear. “No good. Germans come.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Okay. Good!”
“Look,” Jack told the corporal, “he’s perfectly harmless! He and I have been sitting on a half-sunk caïque together for three days and nights, he’s really—”
“Save it, Lieutenant.” McGurk nodded at him. “Believe me, it’s best.” He looked away, staring up at the rafters, and began to whistle between his teeth. Jack came to life: “Christ, they aren’t going to—”
Alphonso screamed. The sound came from somewhere round behind the shed: then it cut off abruptly. The girl leant forward, crossing herself and whispering. The corporal explained, “We’re liable to be hunted. We’ve no choice, sir.” Maria’s brother leant over to pour Jack a glass of wine.
The director-tower voicepipe called; Nick answered it, and Houston told him, “Harbour and anchorage is empty, sir.”
From up there he could see clear across the point of land. Nick straightened from the pipe, and glanced at his navigator; Drisdale said, “Phew …”
They could have wiped up a few destroyers or MAS-boats; normally one would even have hoped to find some, but noise and fireworks were very definitely to be avoided if possible in this operation. Perfect peace and not a raised voice anywhere was what was wanted. There might quite possibly be a radio set with a German or Italian operator up in the village; to find such a radio and destroy it was a priority job for the landing-parties. Tuareg swept past the point, and Nick said, “I’ll take her now.” He called down, “Port fifteen.”
The inner harbour gleamed like an enclosed lake on a gentle, dewy morning. Light pouring over the eastern hills confirmed that it was completely empty: there wasn’t even a caïque afloat in it.
“Midships.”
“Midships, sir!”
“Yeoman, pass the signal for: Am stopping engines.” He stooped to the pipe again: “Steer oh-six-eight.”
Afghan would come inshore of Tuareg, as she closed in to her own landing-place.
“Message passed, sir!”
“Slow together. Sub, tell Mr Walsh to train his tubes fore and aft.” It was like a picture postcard: Shabby little fishing harbour, wisps of chimney smoke, some old lobster boats moored close inshore. Afghan was hauling out to port and sl
owing, her boats lowered close to the water and her waist crowded with khaki and tin hats. Once they’d got control of the place the soldiers were to lie low, stay inside the houses.
“Stop together.”
“Stop together, sir … Both telegraphs to stop, sir.”
The ships were rolling and pitching as their own wash overtook them: they’d entered at high speed and over the shallows it really stirred things up. Another forty or fifty yards and he’d stop her, about one cable’s length from the jetty. There wasn’t a sign of life anywhere, except for bluish smoke drifting up in still air.
“Slow astern together.”
“Tubes are trained fore and aft, sir.”
Sand-stained water swirled up Tuareg’s sides as her reversed screws took all the way off her.
“Stop both engines.” He glanced at Chalk. “Away motorboat.”
Nine minutes to six. She was still bucking around, to her own and other ships’ disturbance of the water. But apart from that it was as smooth as glass, and barring enemy interference it promised to be a very quiet, peaceful day. The messdecks would be jammed solid, and therefore hot, but exhausted men wouldn’t find it impossible to sleep. Half of the main-deck crew space had been screened off as a hospital; the nurses had Nick’s quarters aft, and Aussie officers had the wardroom. The two doctors who’d come with them were being accommodated in Gallwey’s sickbay. Upper decks were to be kept clear; close-range weapons’ crews would stand normal watches but keep under cover, out of sight. It was all in the orders.
“Motorboat’s alongside, sir.”
The other destroyers’ boats were in the water too, but it would be five or ten minutes before the troops could be ashore. That wasn’t long, but if the Luftwaffe chose to pay a visit now, saw the ships lying off and the soldiers landing, the Italian colours might not impress them all that much. This should have been finished before daylight.
Waiting: controlling impatience. The ship’s movement was lessening as the water calmed. He glanced at Drisdale. “If we wanted to look one hundred per cent Italian we’d have chickens pecking around on the quarterdeck.”
“Might get some from shore, sir?”
Drisdale had taken it seriously, for God’s sake …
“Boat’s left the side, sir!”
About bloody time … He bent to the pipe: “Slow ahead port. Starboard twenty.” She was in as good a spot as any, and it would leave plenty of room for the others to anchor to the north-east of her in a line parallel to the waterfront: all he had to do was turn her round and drop the hook. “Stop port. Midships.” Tuareg was already swinging nicely. He told Chalk, “Up here, Sub, and tell the cable party to stand by.”
Afghan’s boat had reached the nearer landing-place. He asked Drisdale, “How much water?”
“Seven fathoms, sir.”
Two shackles of cable would be plenty, then. He stooped:“Slow astern together.”
“Boats are at the other jetty, sir.”
Troops would be landing, hurrying up towards the village. So far, so good … He was waiting to get some sternway on her, so as to lay the cable out neatly ahead of the ship. “Stop together.” He told Chalk, who was in the front of the bridge with an arm raised for Ashcourt to see from the foc’sl, “Let go!” Chalk dropped his arm. Nick heard the clink of a sledge-hammer knocking the slip off, and then the roar and clatter of chain cable running out. His mind was moving on, meanwhile, to the next stages … The landing-parties would re-embark at 9:30, by which time it would be dark enough, and by 10:00 he’d have his flotilla outside and well clear. The black paint would be used then, for blanking out the Italian colours while the ships sped south across the Aegean; four hours at 30 knots to Kaso, with another three and a half hours southwards from the Strait before the blessed darkness lifted. By sunrise they’d be not much more than two hundred miles from Alexandria, and there’d be Beaufighters to meet them.
In Alexandria, please God, there might be news about Carnarvon survivors … He told Chalk, as he heard the cable’s rush slow and then stop, “Tell him to veer to two shackles, and secure.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
He had his glasses on a column of troops doubling up the road. With the delay he’d run into, he thought he was extremely lucky to be getting away with this. Touch wood … Dalgleish said, beside him, “Captain, sir. Deputation here from the medical party. You did say as soon as we’d anchored—”
“What?”
Lowering the glasses, turning: Dalgleish had an Australian major with him—a doctor—and two Australian-uniformed females. The one pushing forward beside the major was short, stocky, decidedly plain. The other—
He took his eyes off the other one, as the major said, “Wanted to say how grateful we all are, Captain. I’m sure you’re busy; we’ll clear off again now, but—”
“Captain—you’ve done us proud, you really have, sir.”
That had come from the short, thickset woman. The other, who was willowy with light brown hair and a distinct resemblance to Ingrid Bergman, only nodded as she looked at him very directly out of wide, grey, appraising eyes. About twenty-eight, he guessed: and what a business for someone like her to have been through, for heaven’s sake … Then he was telling them, “Kind of you to feel like that. But—” he shrugged, shook his head. Dalgleish shouldn’t have let them up here this soon, and there wasn’t time for speeches. Nick told him, “See they have everything they need.” The Bergman-type girl hesitated as the others turned away: she asked Nick quietly, “Tomorrow—at sea, if it’s okay—could I come up here? Little while, just to see how—”
“You’d better,” he warned her. “If you don’t come up of your own free will, I’ll send an armed escort to collect you.”
“Cable’s secured, sir.”
“Thank you, Sub.” Surprise on young Chalk’s face. The girl had paused at the ladder-head, looking back at him across the bridge: and Fiona would have her eyebrows raised, he guessed. But what was Fiona doing with her spare time—except not writing letters?
Boats were returning to all the ships. Signalmen had been landed with the soldiers, sailors with battery-powered Aldis lamps and semaphore flags; there’d be some “all-clear” messages soon, please God … Beaufighters in tomorrow’s dawn: he warned himself, Better not count chickens. We can’t have all the luck. He yawned—and caught himself in the act, realizing how tired he was. Then a follow-up thought hit him—a really marvellous one: once those signals had been made there’d be no reason at all why he shouldn’t retire to his sea-cabin below the bridge, and sleep like a dog all day.
POSTSCRIPT
There was no last lift from Retimo (or Rethimnon). There was no 37th Destroyer Flotilla, cruiser Carnarvon, destroyer Huntress, assault ship Glenshiel, nor transport Gelderland either. But all the other ships mentioned in the story were present and engaged in the operations as described.
“There is rightly little credit or glory to be expected in these operations of retreat,” wrote Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope in his autobiography A Sailor’s Odyssey. He also said, during the course of the evacuation of Crete, “It takes three years to build a ship, but three hundred to build a tradition.”
The tradition held up. And bringing sixteen and a half thousand soldiers out of the island cost not only ships but the lives of two thousand men of the Royal Navy. With the greatest respect for the memory of ABC, I’d say there was glory.
—A.F.
Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press
BY ALEXANDER KENT
The Complete Midshipman Bolitho
Stand Into Danger
In Gallant Company
Sloop of War
To Glory We Steer
Command a King’s Ship
Passage to Mutiny
With All Despatch
Form Line of Battle!
Enemy in Sight!
The Flag Captain
Signal–Close Action!
The Inshore Squad
ron
A Tradition of Victory
Success to the Brave
Colours Aloft!
Honour This Day
The Only Victor
Beyond the Reef
The Darkening Sea
For My Country’s Freedom
Cross of St George
Sword of Honour
Second to None
Relentless Pursuit
Man of War
Heart of Oak
In the King’s Name
BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN
Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin
Halfhyde’s Island
Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest
Halfhyde to the Narrows
Halfhyde for the Queen
Halfhyde Ordered South
Halfhyde on Zanatu
BY JAN NEEDLE
A Fine Boy for Killing
The Wicked Trade
The Spithead Nymph
BY BROOS CAMPBELL
No Quarter
The War of Knives
Peter Wicked
BY C.N. PARKINSON
The Guernseyman
Devil to Pay
The Fireship
Touch and Go
So Near So Far
Dead Reckoning
BY DUDLEY POPE
Ramage
Ramage & The Drumbeat
Ramage & The Freebooters
Governor Ramage R.N.
Ramage’s Prize
Ramage & The Guillotine
Ramage’s Diamond
Ramage’s Mutiny
Ramage & The Rebels
The Ramage Touch
Ramage’s Signal
Ramage & The Renegades
Ramage’s Devil
Ramage’s Trial
Ramage’s Challenge
Ramage at Trafalgar
Ramage & The Saracens
Ramage & The Dido
BY V.A. STUART
Victors and Lords
The Sepoy Mutiny
Massacre at Cawnpore
The Cannons of Lucknow
Last Lift from Crete: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 2 Page 29