The Rear-Admiral said, ‘The PQ convoy. What’s the position now?’
The Captain turned. ‘They’ve not yet made up time, sir.’
‘God damn and blast these bloody delays...’ The Rear-Admiral’s tone was bitter, but he knew it couldn’t be helped; ships did develop engine trouble from time to time and a lame duck couldn’t be left behind. This time, after making good initial progress towards the safe zone, no less than three merchant ships in the convoy had broken down and two of the destroyer escorts had sustained damage in a night collision during the zig-zag. It was all calamity; but they were doing their best out there as they moved to the north of Bear Island, attempting to get the three merchantmen under the towing pendants and drawing them on however sluggishly for Archangel. Chain-smoking, the Rear-Admiral thought about the hazards of the Arctic convoys: they were no one’s idea of an easy run. The weather conditions could be terrible, with storm upon storm as the cold winds blew from the North Pole or from the north Russian wastes of Siberia. In winter the ice was another enemy, as the decks turned into skating rinks and the guns themselves became layered in ice and the rigging expanded into great thick cylinders. It took a hell of a lot of warm clothing to keep the cold out, and if the other enemy—the German U-boats and surface ships and dive-bombing aircraft—sank the ships, then the men in the water were dead within minutes. Almost certainly that would have caused many of the casualties when the mighty battle-cruiser Hood had blown up in the Denmark Strait as a result of a lucky salvo from the Bismarck penetrating her too-lightly armoured sides. A ship’s company of 1,419 men, and just three survivors: one midshipman, one signalman, one stoker. Many more than that would have been flung into the sea; but the icy waters had done the rest...
An officer, a lieutenant RNVR, came into the ops room with a signal. He approached the Duty Captain and handed the message over. The Captain read it, and turned to the Rear-Admiral.
‘From the Vice-Admiral in Victorious, sir: convoy now coming under attack by Stukas in position due south of Bear Island. Reconnaissance aircraft report German heavy units closing from the west.’
The Rear-Admiral nodded. Within the next ten minutes another signal was brought in. Two of the broken-down merchant ships had been sunk as a result of direct hits from the Stukas. The Rear-Admiral got to his feet and stalked over to the plot. He examined it carefully, pulling at his lower lip, then turned away and walked up and down the room. He wished he was on a compass platform somewhere at sea. The atmosphere of the ops room was not for him, vital though his job was—more vital, in the wider sense, than those of the individual seagoing officers. As he walked, he was called to his telephone. He sat down and took up the instrument. ‘Operations,’ he said in a clipped voice. ‘Rear-Admiral speaking.’
‘Charlie.’ It was the First Sea Lord in person, on the scramble line. ‘News for you. SOE’s been on the blower. The Resistance in the Vest Hammarfjord area of Norway has contacted by radio. Jane’s coming off in the Castle Bay. She’s safe and sound, I’m delighted to tell you.’
The Rear-Admiral cut the call, suddenly, almost viciously, his face blank but a vein throbbing at his temple. Jane... too damn silly, he’d always said, why the hell don’t they let you use your real name, it can’t make any difference to the cover, but she’d told him he was way behind the times and didn’t understand her kind of warfare. Well—he didn’t; but he understood his own all right and he knew exactly what his duty was and his voice was steady and almost matter-of-fact when he gave the order that he’d been about to give when the First Sea Lord had come through. He got to his feet again and said, ‘Vian’s force is to be diverted. He’s to steam at maximum speed to join the PQ convoy. Inform C-in-C Home Fleet.’
‘Very good, sir.’ The Captain looked at him with a worried expression. ‘What about the Castle Bay? She’ll be left uncovered when Force F pulls out.’
The Rear-Admiral’s face was still blank. ‘Expendable,’ he said abruptly. ‘The convoy’s safety has to come first.’ To the extent that they could not be allowed to sway a senior officer’s judgment, daughters had to be expendable as well.
***
Just as Cameron passed the word for the small armada to increase speed, the floodlights ahead went out again. Now it was going to be difficult to find the jetty. The fishing-vessels moved on faster; Cameron saw the jetty just in time, and put his engines astern to bring the boat up and lay her neatly alongside. As soon as the gunwales of the fishing-boats touched the men jumped on to the jetty and formed up under their leaders at the inshore end.
By this time the foray had been heard. Once again, the floodlights came on: the gate guards were seen clearly, their weapons at the ready and a look of puzzlement on their faces as they saw the German uniforms.
A challenge was made. One of the Resistance leaders, dressed as a hauptmann, gave the reply in excellent German. The sentries lowered their rifles. Cameron watched from the power-boat’s cockpit, keeping out of sight: all the Naval ratings were concealed, although the line of supposed German soldiers was acting as a screen between them and the base. Cameron had no German, but the sapper sergeant was able to get the gist. He whispered in Cameron’s ear: ‘The Norwegian’s telling the guard that they’ve intercepted the power-boat—us. We’ve been brought in as prisoners. He’s asked to speak to the base commandant as a matter of urgency.’
‘What’s the reaction?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
Cameron sweated in spite of the cool of the night. The atmosphere was eerie, even claustrophobic with that curious over-hang of the mountain above the base. The dialogue continued; Sergeant Horne was unable to follow it all. Then an officer came out from one of the buildings, leaving a door open behind him—the door through which the Germans had retreated from the commando attack before the arrival of the lorries via the supply road. Horne said, ‘Wide open. Now’s the time, I guess. Why in hell don’t they go in?’
He had scarcely spoken when the Resistance leader seized his chance. Shouting his men on, he doubled forward, firing as he went. The German officer went down; so did the gate guard. The Norwegians piled in through the gateway. Cameron yelled at his seamen to man the close-range weapons and as a body of Nazi infantry appeared, running from the rear of the buildings, he directed his fire straight into them. It had a devastating effect; the German advance halted, and split up, leaving many dead and wounded. By this time the Norwegians had reached the open door and were piling through. As they did so, the pill-box opened towards the jetty: one of the fishing-vessels lost its mast as the shell whined on across the fjord. At once, a Resistance man detached from the main body, ran for the pill-box, and lobbed a grenade through one of the observation slits. There was an explosion and a cloud of smoke; after that, no more firing. Cameron’s close-range weapons were ready to mow down any fresh gunners that might be sent in as replacements. The part of the force detailed to watch the supply road, kept back on the jetty until now, doubled away to the right to take up their positions in tree cover clear of the minefield. So far there was no sign of anything coming along the road, but there was plenty of time yet and oncoming vehicles probably wouldn’t be using headlights; on the other hand, Cameron had an idea that the earlier reinforcements had been already on their way to the base when the initial commando attack had gone in. The garrison on the far side of the fjord was surely too far off for reinforcements to have arrived so quickly as a result of the attack being either heard or reported by radio as it developed.
In that thought lay hope for the present.
As the last of the Norwegians vanished through the door, Horne put a hand on Cameron’s shoulder. He said, ‘Okay. I’m going in now, sir.’ Without waiting for any response he climbed out of the boat’s cockpit and mustered his demolition party with their gear. As the sappers scrambled ashore and ran towards the gate, Cameron stood by to give them covering fire. The German infantry were taking cover round the sides of the buildings or lying on their stomachs in the compound ready
to snipe. Cameron’s fire kept them nicely pinned down, but before they had made the door three of Horne’s sappers had been picked off, one of them crumpling as he almost reached the door’s cover.
Now the compound was deserted except for what was left of the Germans. Bodies lay everywhere, and here and there a wounded man cried out; some of them tried to drag themselves along the rough ground to safety. Two of the unhurt men ran out to help them. Cameron was about to give the order to leave them alone, but he was too late. One of the seamen opened fire from the power-boat’s foredeck, and the Germans spun and dropped. The rest of them made a strategic retreat round the back of the building. Cameron felt a little sick, but the gunner had done the right thing; the enemy was the enemy and Operation Forestay wasn’t intended to be a picnic. Nevertheless Cameron called out, ‘Next time, wait for my order before you open fire.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ The response was surly, and the gunner spat over the side. All Germans were bastards, better dead.
After that came silence. Except for the wounded, nothing moved anywhere. Under the floodlights, the dead looked stark and grotesque in their various attitudes. Worry dug like a knife into Cameron. By this time, surely, the German command would have ticked over that there was likely to be a British ship in the outer fjord?
***
There was much anxiety aboard the Castle Bay as well; Forbes was beginning to give up hope that the commandos would ever return. He stared from the bridge towards the entry into the channel past Svalbard Point as though willing the inflatable dinghies to paddle into view.
Beddows, who, like the Captain, had scarcely left the bridge since the ship had entered almost twenty-seven hours earlier, voiced, not for the first time, thoughts similar to Cameron’s. He said, ‘If anything’s gone wrong, why don’t the buggers come out and look for us?’
Forbes shrugged, head sunk in his shoulders as he hunched his body over the rail of the bridge. There was no answer he could give and Beddows knew it. Beddows tended to harp, and Forbes found it irritating, though he was refraining from saying so. All their nerves were on edge now and personal habits, under such circumstances, tended to grate. Forbes had no doubt that he had some bloody infuriating habits himself... thinking along these lines he decided to answer his navigator’s question along the same lines as he had answered it so many times before.
‘They don’t bloody well need to, Pilot. They’ll know the Scharnhorst and the Hipper are closing. So why bother?’
‘I suppose you’re right, sir.’
‘I know I bloody well am.’
Silence. Forbes went back to his useless scrutiny of the entry channel. The wait, the lack of all information since the last garbled signal from C-in-C Home Fleet, was agonizing. But when you chose the sea life you found yourself waiting for something or other half your time, even if, in the days of peace and Cunard White Star, it was only for some stupid sod of a VIP who hadn’t turned up at Southampton or at New York’s Pier 90 on time and was sufficiently VIP to be waited for while the Captain thought about tugs and tides and owners and bit his finger-nails down to the quick. If it wasn’t that, then it was the tides themselves: you fiddled about with your speed all the way across the North Atlantic so you could make your arrival when the tide was right, only to find that there had been some balls-up ashore and you had to wait for the next one. Or you waited for promotion... a hell of a long time that could be, too. Forbes sighed and shifted his weary body, stamping his seabooted feet against the Norwegian summer cold. Thank God it wasn’t winter... his thoughts went back to promotion and the years you could spend as Second Officer, doing the twelve to four watch at sea, the graveyard watch. He had done his apprenticeship in the Clan Line and had then got a berth as junior Third Officer in the old White Star Line—Majestic, Olympic, he’d sailed in both of them. When the merger came with Cunard it was the White Star officers who got the dirty end of the stick and their seniority went for a burton while they watched the old Cunard officers sewing on the extra gold stripes. Then, when you’d begun to get there and saw a Staff Captaincy looming, the ruddy war came along and because you were RNR you shifted to Grey Funnel. Forbes reflected on the periods he had spent in peacetime, training with the RN for varying stretches. They had been grand old ships, mostly gone to the breakers’ yards now: the battleship Iron Duke—not broken up yet, but resting on the bottom off Lyness in Scapa, filled up with concrete after taking a Jerry bomb and now used as an accommodation ship for the naval drafts—once flagship of the Grand Fleet and wearing in succession the flags of Jellicoe and Beatty. Her sister ship Emperor of India, the battlecruiser Tiger, two light cruisers, Caledon and Calypso, and a course at the Whale Island Gunnery School: that was about the lot. There had been some good times, right enough... but if he hadn’t been RNR he might still have been aboard the Mary or the Elizabeth, sailing the broad seas fast and independently of convoys, carrying troops to the battle areas. Not aboard a ship waiting outside Vest Hammarfjord for young Cameron to come back with his commandos... just how good a navigator had Cameron proved himself?
Footsteps clattered on the bridge ladder.
Forbes turned. It was the Paymaster. Forbes yawned and said, ‘Still up, are you. You’d make a damn good liner purser. They work all hours too. What is it?’
Chamberlain said, ‘Signal from the Admiralty, sir. For information only... Force F is withdrawing northward.’
‘Jesus Christ! Didn’t I bloody well forecast that? Any orders for us?’
‘No, sir, nothing.’
Forbes blew out a long breath. Now they were really on their own, and still no Cameron.
CHAPTER NINE
In Vest Hammarfjord the strange and unnerving silence had continued until it had been broken by three separate happenings that came in swift succession. The first was rapid footsteps coming from the right of the base: in the floodlights men were seen doubling from the trees towards the roadway—the remnant of 20 and 21 Commandos. As they met the Resistance forces detached to watch out for German reinforcements, the second silence-breaking noise was heard. This was the still-distant sound of what seemed to be a large number of heavy lorries moving fast. The reinforcements, no doubt summoned by radio from the base.
The third sound was ‘something different: an explosion from right ahead of the power-boat as one of the dome-shaped buildings went up. Cameron went flat; so did all the Naval party. Debris hurtled into the air, smashed the floodlights, smacked against the mountain overhang, and came down again. Muck rattled on the deck of the power-boat like hail on a tin kettle. As the uproar ceased, Cameron came upright. Men were running fast towards the jetty: sappers, some of them covered with blood but keeping on their feet, some of them being carried like sacks. As they jumped aboard Cameron saw that Sergeant Horne was not with them.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
‘Balls-up,’ one of the sappers said briefly. ‘Total balls-up. Sar’nt Horne’s bought it. So have a lot of us.’ The man wiped a hand across a smoke-blackened face, a hand that shook. ‘The whole bloody show’s a bollocks... all the charges were blown by rifle fire, and blown right where they did no bloody good at all—in the barrack block.’
‘The barrack block... was that where the Resistance entered?’
‘I guess so, yes. There’s nothing left of the poor sods. And the Nazis told us they’d taken prisoner all the men from the rock fall—the injured—what was left of them. They’ve shifted ‘em out already. We’d best get out, sir. Nothing more we can do now, I guess.’
Defeat, total failure, lay as heavy as lead. So many lives thrown away for no result whatever. Under heavy fire Cameron took aboard all the men of 20 and 21 Commandos that he could manage and, badly overloaded, with troops finding a foothold wherever they could, some clinging like flies to the gunwale, brought the power-boat off the jetty. More commandos plus the Norwegians detailed for the road watch piled aboard the fishing-vessels. Cameron called across to the skipper of the nearer one.
‘You�
��d better follow me.’
‘Where to, Englishman?’ It was Nordli’s voice.
‘Out through the channel. No doubt you’re familiar with the pilotage?’
‘Yes. Very well, we shall come to transport your commandos, then we shall leave for another part of Norway for a while. If you wish, one of us will lead.’
Cameron said, ‘Right. You know it better than I do. I’ll act as rearguard if the Jerries follow in.’
The Norwegian waved an arm from his wheelhouse and turned south for the channel entry. Cameron fired a farewell burst from his close-range weapons, then moved away into the darkness of the fjord: dawn was not yet in the eastern sky but it wouldn’t be too far off now. As the boats put distance between themselves and the base, which by now was filled with Germans firing blind into the night, headlamps came on along the supply road.
They had made it only just in time.
Within ten minutes, so far unpursued, the fishing-boats were into the channel for the outer fjord. Cameron followed in, keeping a sharp lookout ahead while Petty Officer Harbin watched out astern for any sign of a German craft. As he went, Cameron got the story from one of the demolition party.
‘I guess it was a trap, sir.’
‘How’s that?’
‘As soon as the Resistance entered, they were surrounded. No chance. Then the Jerries got us too. There was fighting... but the Jerries got hold of the charges and I guess they shoved them in with the Resistance. Result as intended: they got blown up in the exchange of fire.’
‘So how did your lot get away—those that did?’
‘We’d been forced back, away from the Norwegians. I guess we were meant to be interrogated. When the charges went up, we were just lucky. We were protected by a shelter wall, a blast wall.’
Cameron nodded; in effect the Resistance had blown themselves up by continuing to fight back. There had been plenty of heroism that night plus a lot of bad luck. The fortunes of war, but there was a sour taste to it all. So much planning, so many troop and ship movements, so many dangers to the Resistance in working away behind the Nazi backs, and it had all to end like this, in ignominious retreat and the leaving of so many dead behind them. Cameron forced his mind away from the contemplation of failure and concentrated on his pilotage, following the motions of the next ahead and watching out for rock projections and sudden shallows that could rip sides and bottom. When they had gone nearly half the distance the sound of an engine was heard astern, and Cameron passed the word to the fishing-boats for more speed. They went ahead a fraction faster, but it was not enough. Bullets zipped up from the rear and two men, commandos, died. They slid over into the water. Cameron brought his weapons into fast action, firing blind. Evidently the aim was not too good. The Germans were coming still, and doing better: more men lost their grip and footing as the bullets hit, and slid over to join the first two. Soon the small flotilla was coming up to the ledge on the northern side of the channel; Cameron ordered one of the close-range weapons to be unshipped from its mounting, and handed the boat over to Ricketts.
Under Orders (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller) Page 10