Marine H SBS

by Ian Blake

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  1

  ‘Name and rank.’

  ‘Tiller. Sergeant Tiller.’

  The captain’s pen stayed poised over the form in front of him, a frown of anger wrinkling his forehead. It was so deep that the bald patch, which gleamed an unattractive pink through his thinning hair, puckered too. The three pips on his epaulettes twinkled under the glare of the bare bulb which dangled from the ceiling. His batman, Tiller decided, must have spent hours buffing them to such perfection.

  ‘Tiller, sir,’ the captain grated, not raising his eyes. ‘It’s normal to address officers as "sir".’

  Sergeant Colin ‘Tiger’ Tiller, Royal Marines, watched the furrows ripple up the officer’s bald pate, and noticed the scrawny neck poking out from his collar, an odd contrast to the pudginess of the fingers holding the pen. He stiffened instinctively. ‘Tiller, sir,’ he snapped.

  In his mind’s eye he was back again on the parade ground at Eastney Barracks, facing the drill sergeant, his scarlet sash across his tunic, his metre stick tucked under his arm, his barrel chest gleaming with medals.

  ‘Seventeen years old and never been kissed, eh, Tiller?’ The accent was Scottish, the tone as abrasive as a cheese grater. ‘Well, stand up straight, laddie, straighten your arms and feel the seams of your trousers with your thumbs, and one day you may be lucky. In the meantime you are on parade, you poor wee sod, not slouching around in a brothel. Are we ever going to make a proper Marine out of you, you miserable, spotty-faced schoolboy? Well, are we?’

  Tiller could still remember the smell of the sergeant-major as the man stuck his face within inches of his own. It wasn’t a smell of sweat or tobacco or rum; it was the smell of absolute, total, crushing authority – but, curiously, also of someone who cared. Not for him, of course, but for the 250-year-old traditions of the Royal Marines and the ineradicable belief that they were the best fighting force in the world.

  The pudgy fingers moved. ‘That’s better,’ said the captain silkily, pushing the pen with deliberate sweeps. ‘Some of you people seem to think that just because there’s a war on, Army Regulations don’t apply to you.’

  The officer picked up a blotter and rocked it across Tiller’s name with a force which made Tiller wonder if he was hoping to obliterate it. He then added the date, 1 December 1943, and blotted that. He still hadn’t looked up. ‘Well, let me tell you, Sergeant, they bloody well do.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  There was something in the way Tiller spoke that made the captain raise his eyes. For the first time they took in the height and breadth of the man in front of him, the leather-brown face, the blue gimlet eyes – now fixed on some indeterminate point behind the captain’s head – and the sand-coloured beret with its curious winged cloth badge.

  The captain’s look had meant to be a withering one. But it changed to bafflement when he saw the cap badge. What on earth did it signify? Then his gaze fell on the red and blue Combined Operations badge – a montage of the RAF eagle, a tommy-gun and an anchor – that adorned the upper sleeves of the sergeant’s uniform. The captain knew that meant the man was commando-trained, and almost certainly serving with special forces of some kind.

  He didn’t like being reminded that while he pushed a pen others were actually fighting. He averted his eyes downwards but this only made matters worse, for they next encountered the parachute wings displayed above the sergeant’s left breast pocket. And below the wings was sewn, not very neatly, a ribbon of vertical black and red stripes which showed that the wearer had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for bravery in the field.

  The captain’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He passed a hand nervously over his nicotine-stained moustache. His bald patch glowed with a thin veneer of sweat. The silence was palpable. So palpable that the clerk clicking away at his typewriter at the back of the office stopped and discreetly watched.

  If the captain had just wished the sergeant good luck on his next assignment and hoped he would be comfortable during his short time in the transit depot, that would have been that. The sergeant would have saluted and left the office and the clerk, who seemed afflicted by a hacking cough, would have had to go back to hitting his typewriter with his forefingers, and would not have been able to delight the corporals’ mess that evening with the humiliation of his superior.

  But the captain was not a pen-pusher for nothing; he had not spent nearly four years in the north of England in the meticulous administration of supply dumps, base camps and transport maintenance workshops, for nothing either. He always felt he had had another job to do too, and that was to uphold discipline and enforce the King’s Regulations wherever they might be flouted.

  What was more, he had just caught the end of a flicker of a smile on Tiller’s face as he had remembered that drill sergeant at Eastney and the part he had played in making him an efficient, dedicated fighting machine.

  ‘Is that a regulation cap badge, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Special Air Service, sir.’

  The captain hesitated, shuffled the papers in front of him, found Tiller’s movement order, and then looked up in triumph. ‘But this says you are a member of a unit called the Special Boat Squadron.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well?’

  The clerk coughed and smiled encouragement at Tiller. He could see that the captain was walking into a trap of his own making.

  ‘My commanding officer never got round to having a cap badge designed, sir. And as the Special Boat Squadron was part of the SAS before the SAS was split up at the beginning of the year, we continued to wear the SAS badge. When we were in uniform, that is, sir.’

  The enormity of Tiller’s last sentence percolated slowly into the captain’s mind. From being a flabby white, his face became suffused with a reddish hue. His colourless eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, bulged in disbelief.

  ‘When you were in uniform?’ he queried. ‘You mean that on occasion you were on active service in His Majesty’s forces out of uniform?’

  Tiller remembered that the last time he had seen his commanding officer the major had been wearing corduroy trousers, brothel-creepers and a trilby hat. He remembered too the disgracefully dirty fisherman’s trousers his squadron commander, Captain Magnus Larssen, had worn. They had been supported by a wide leather belt to which was always attached Larssen’s commando knife, a 9mm Colt pistol and two 36 grenades. He wore the trousers week in week out until they had practically walked off him.

  Tiller liked the way the captain had emphasized ‘His Majesty’ as it made the hole Tiller hoped the officer was digging for himself that much deeper.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Dodecanese campaign, waged for the possession of a scattering of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, had been a bitterly contested one, in which the SBS, with their motorized caiques, had played a prominent part, although no one could say it had been an orthodox affair.

  ‘And your commanding officer knew this?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The clerk’s grin broadened. He forgot to cough. He didn’t know what the end of this conversation was going to be but he knew now it was going to be one worth repeating.

  The captain leant forward. At first he seemed dumbstruck. Then he spoke very slowly. ‘You’re quite sure you know what you are saying, Sergeant? Are you telling me your commanding off
icer allowed his men to wear civilian clothes while on active service?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The captain became suddenly jocular. ‘And I suppose he wore them himself, too?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Tiller hesitated, but couldn’t resist it. ‘He was particularly fond of wearing a trilby, sir.’

  It was too much for the captain. He opened a drawer and drew out a notepad. ‘And what is the full name and rank of your commanding officer, Sergeant?’

  The decorations awarded most officers and men were not commented on by the press. There was a lot of bravery, but not enough space to describe it: the paper shortage was acute. The names of those officers decorated appeared in the court page of The Times and that was about it.

  Very occasionally, however, the army’s public relations wallahs made sure that the press splashed the story of the award of some particular decoration across their pages. Often, as with the Dodecanese campaign, it was a deliberate ploy to divert the public’s attention from an ignominious defeat. The army’s PR machinery had lit upon Tiller’s commanding officer, who had just received a well-merited bar to his DSO for his unit’s work in the Aegean. As a result, just days previously, the story had hit the headlines, though there had been no mention of the special forces unit he had commanded – the censors had seen to that.

  ‘Jarrett, sir.’

  Filled with righteous anger as he was, the penny did not drop with the captain. It did with his clerk, who had difficulty stopping his coughing turning into laughter.

  ‘Come on, Sergeant,’ the captain snapped. ‘I said I wanted his full name and rank.’

  Accompanying the newspaper plaudits there had been photographs of Tiller’s CO receiving his award from King George VI. That, of course, had been more than half the point of publishing the story in the first place. Tiller himself had not known until he had read the caption underneath one of the pictures: ‘The King decorating his cousin at Buckingham Palace during his weekly investiture yesterday.’

  ‘Major the Earl Jarrett, sir.’

  The captain’s jaw dropped. He quickly extracted his handkerchief.

  ‘We called him George, sir,’ Tiller added helpfully.

  A lorry rumbled by outside. The clerk’s cough threatened to become uncontrollable. The captain wiped his mouth and then blew his nose.

  ‘I see,’ he said, though he didn’t at all. Life had never seemed to treat him fairly. Perhaps because he was always trying to avoid it.

  It was the tea lady who saved the captain, or so the corporal told his mates later. At that moment she came through the door without knocking, her trolley clanking and clattering across the floor, and the captain was able to tear her off such a strip that by the time she had gone he had regained his composure sufficiently to shuffle the notebook back into the drawer and to ask Tiller his eventual destination.

  ‘Kingairloch, western Scotland, sir.’

  The captain wished Tiller luck with his forthcoming assignment and hoped he would be comfortable during his short stay in the transit camp. Tiller thanked him, saluted and left. As he closed the door behind him he could hear the captain berating his clerk for not reporting sick.

  2

  To port the clouds hung low over the mountains of Kingairloch, and the north-east wind, funnelled by the narrow confines of Loch Linnhe, was bitterly cold and carried with it more than a hint of snow. The naval barge which had picked up the five-man party from Oban bobbed and swayed as it punched its way into the short, steep waves. Occasionally a spume of spray thrown up the bows was caught by the wind and whipped across the barge and into the faces of those aboard. It was like being hit by icicles fired from a crossbow.

  ‘You should see it when it’s really blowing,’ the petty officer in charge shouted. ‘I’d prefer the Atlantic convoys any day.’

  He had undone the strap above the peak of his naval cap and had tightened it under his chin to keep the cap from flying into the loch. Tiller had never seen that before. Well, there was a first time for everything, he supposed. As he had now officially become a member of one of the Special Boat Sections of the Commandos, he was wearing the coveted green beret. But as all Commandos were volunteers they were just seconded from their regiments and retained their regimental badges. So Tiller wore the burnished badge of the Royal Marines: the Globe and Laurel.

  ‘Where are we heading?’ one of the party asked.

  ‘Loch a’Choire. It’s an inlet further up on the port side. Leads to Kingairloch House.’

  ‘Is that where we’re being billeted, Kingairloch House?’

  ‘Some hope. That’s been requisitioned for a jiggery-pokery unit no one knows the name of. They spend most of their time blowing things up. Night and day they do it. Bloody nuisance if you’re trying to have a kip, but you get used to it.’

  Tiller’s interest was awakened. As a demolitions expert, blowing things up was just his line. However, he doubted whether the real reason he had come to Kingairloch was his line at all. But his old CO, Major Henry ‘Blondie’ Tasler, had urged him over the telephone to undertake the course on Welman miniature submarines – ‘It’s where the action is, Tiger’ – so he had put his name down. Anything to avoid a routine posting.

  Tiller hadn’t earned the DCM and a mention in Dispatches by doing what he was told. But Blondie was different. Blondie didn’t officially request, or order, or demand. He’d simply said: ‘You’re just the man, Tiger. Why not have a go?’

  Tiller called Tasler ‘sir’ when the occasion demanded it because the Taslers of this world – and there were bloody few of them – commanded his respect. The two men had fought together in the 1940 Norwegian campaign and as a very junior corporal, still learning the ropes of leadership, Tiller had noticed that Tasler never ever asked anyone to do anything that he had not himself done first. He made sure everyone had their grub before he started eating his own; and if there was anything dangerous that needed only one man to do it, Tasler did it himself. If it needed two or more then there wasn’t a man who stood back when Tasler asked for help. If Tiller had learnt discipline from the drill sergeant he had learnt leadership from Blondie. He had also learnt that the best leaders didn’t mind being led, so long as they followed someone they respected.

  ‘We’re not under canvas, are we?’ another member of the party asked in alarm.

  ‘You’ll wish you were by the time you’ve finished,’ said the petty officer cheerfully. ‘No, you’ll be aboard the depot ship. HMS Titania she’s called.’

  ‘Titania or Titanic?’ asked the wit of the party.

  ‘Aye, I’ve heard that one often enough,’ said the petty officer. ‘But she don’t move and I’ve not seen icebergs in Loch Linnhe yet.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ said Tiller wryly, pulling his greatcoat more tightly about him.

  ‘The wind’s cold enough and so’s the temperature sometimes,’ said the petty officer, ‘but the water’s too warm – the Gulf Stream sees to that. You’ll be glad it does.’

  The first hint of what they would be doing renewed Tiller’s doubts. Well, it was too late now and Tasler had hinted that if Tiller didn’t get himself fixed up quick he might be posted to a training depot, for his operational record had come to the notice of the RMO. Officially he was due to be ‘rested’. Tiller knew what that meant: he had seen too many good fighting men languish in some ghastly backwater. It might come to him eventually but he was going to avoid such a fate as long as possible.

  A veil of rain swept down the loch, obliterating the land on both sides and churning the water ahead. When it had passed, the party saw the dim outline of a ship anchored close inshore in front of them.

  ‘Is that the Titania?’

  The petty officer shook his head. ‘That’s the Bonaventure. The HQ for the X-craft boys.’

  ‘The lot that got the Tirpitz?’

  ‘That’s them.’

  The launch quite suddenly turned sharply to port and made for the shore. Now broadside on to the waves and wind, she took
on an awkward wallowing motion. Tiller cursed under his breath as a wave slopped over the side right by him. One good thing about operating under the water he remembered from the one time he had been a passenger in a submarine: there were no waves and no frigging wind that cut you in two.

  Just when it looked, in the dim late afternoon light, like the launch was being run ashore, Loch a’Choire opened up ahead of them. As they approached it, darkness and another veil of rain began to swallow up the surrounding land and then pinpoints of light appeared at the far end of the loch. The mysterious Kingairloch House, Tiller supposed. He was surprised that whoever was stationed there did not obey the blackout regulations. But then Kingairloch was a long way from anywhere, certainly well beyond the range of the nearest Luftwaffe base in Norway.

  The launch’s wallowing motion lessened and then ceased, and the land closed in on either side of them. They were in the loch. Then around a bend the party saw their home for the next few weeks: a long, low slab of riveted steel almost indistinguishable in the dying light from the land behind her.

  ‘What is she?’ Tiller asked the petty officer. ‘Or rather,’ he corrected himself as he peered through the gathering gloom at the ship’s antiquated outline, ‘what was she?’

  ‘In Edwardian times the pride and joy of Lord Dunleaven and his family,’ the petty officer replied. ‘Monte Carlo every summer until 1914, but she’s been going downhill ever since then.’

  ‘A steam yacht?’ Tiller asked incredulously.

  ‘Too right, Sergeant. Requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1939, did her bit at Dunkirk, and then served as a harbour defence vessel at Greenock. That is, until even their lordships could see she was a danger to navigation, not to mention her crew. Now she’s called an accommodation ship. That’s a laugh, too.’

  The launch came alongside a companionway which led up to the quarterdeck. They climbed aboard, saluted the quarterdeck as naval custom demanded, and were met by the officer of the day with the traditional telescope tucked under his arm. He sent them forward to the Regulating Office, where they were assigned to cabins the size of coffins. The wizened-faced ordinary seaman who showed Tiller to his cabin chuckled as he did so and said: ‘You wait till you get in a Welman, Sarge. It’ll make this seem as roomy as a suite at the Ritz. Don’t suffer from that claustrophobia, do you?’