The Torch Bearers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 5

by Alexander Fullerton

  Warrimer had never heard his captain rave like that before. He hadn’t known him or served with him long but he wouldn’t have believed he was capable of such loss of temper. You could almost feel the heat of anger still radiating from the hunched, brooding figure while Bearcroft read out that signal: there was a moment or two of silence, and then a quiet, “Put it on the log, Chief.” He raised his voice: “Bring her round, Sub. Starboard wheel, back over to the other wing.” Asdics pinging: an accompaniment to the noise of wind and sea and the ship’s creaking, jolting, slamming progress. He’d taken another bite at his sandwich—Warrimer had organised kye and corned beef for distribution to all hands at their action stations—then tossed it away to leeward … “Chief—take this down!” Shouting over the general racket … “Same addressees. ‘Your’—whatever that time-of-origin was—‘MV Burbridge passengers include wounded men and nursing sisters. Transfer to other ships in present weather conditions is impossible. Following this night’s sinkings convoy now has twenty-three ships surviving but pending arrival of reinforcements further losses are inevitable.’ Ask the doctor to code that up, Chief.”

  The night’s losses had been the Malibar—who’d burnt because she’d had two hundred tons of palm oil in her number two starboard D tank, and when she was torpedoed abreast numbers two and three holds it had ignited and engulfed the bridge—and the Springburn, also in column one, the Harvest Moon and the Danish Tylland. Four losses seemed to be the nightly quota—“par for the course,” Bruce Hawkey the engineer had called it … Harbinger was rolling like a drunk as she turned her port beam to the thrust of wind and sea; the moon was a filtered radiance, but it would be setting soon. Carlish called down, “Midships. Steer oh-seven-five.”

  “Oh-seven-five, sir …” CPO Elphick’s low, phlegmatic tone … And in sharp contrast to that drawl, an explosion—torpedo-hit—somewhere down there on the beam. Then you could see exactly where—flame spurted, lighting in silhouette a black tracery of ships’ masts and upperworks, fire reaching skyward, widening and brightening so fast that there could be no doubt they’d got one of the two oilers—and they’d been in the centre …

  White rockets rushed up to burst flaring under low black cloud. And a snowflake now, back over the convoy’s other quarter …

  The trawler Gleam had been plugging up between the slightly crooked columns three and four. For a time there’d been only three ships in column four, since it had had a vacant billet at the tail end to start with and then the leader, the Tylland, had dropped astern, sinking, and had been abandoned. Cartwright, Gleam’s one-eyed skipper, had led the Orangeman from column six to the rear of column four, and he’d been trying to get the others ahead of her to close up—as much as anything in compliance with the escort commander’s orders to get the oilers and the Burbridge surrounded again. The Cressida had taken the Tylland’s lead position, but there was a large gap into which the next two had to be persuaded to shift up. Cartwright, chewing one of his black Burmah cheroots, had been on the Redgulf Star’s port beam, between her and the Burbridge, addressing the oiler’s master by loud-hailer, when the other one—the English Ardour, in column five—went up in a crash and a blast of flame. Cartwright immediately put his wheel hard a-starboard, rang down for maximum revs from his ship’s single screw, and turned under the Redgulf Star’s stern to get to the stricken, blazing ship. But the rescue ship Archie Dukes, the English Ardour’s next astern in column five, had put her helm to port, simultaneously stopping engines—partly to avoid running into the burning oiler but also to come up on her windward side and stand by for rescue work. Collision between the trawler and the Archie Dukes was narrowly avoided by Cartwright holding full starboard wheel on and just grazing under the rescue ship’s counter, so closely that he had to reverse his rudder in order not to swing his stern into the Dukes as he swept by. In this way he ended up three cables’ lengths astern of the burning, exploding tanker, on her starboard quarter and in the still-overwide gap between columns five and six. He was turning again, to get up there and risk the flaming leeward side of the Ardour—likely as not there’d be crewmen in the drink on that barely-approachable side—when he saw the U-boat diving, no more than a cricket-pitch length ahead of the trawler’s bow. There was no time for the Gleam’s gun to fire: it couldn’t have been depressed far enough to hit, at such close range, and the Cimba in column six was directly in the line of fire; Cartwright’s first lieutenant was yelling at the gun’s crew to get off the foc’sl and hang on … This was only seconds before the trawler crashed into the submerging U-boat. Gleam had been rising to a wave: her forepart swung down into the German’s hull abaft the conning tower, smashing into the engine-room section like a huge axe-head. Flames from the oiler lit the whole scene in flickering red and yellow, showing the two ships locked together at right-angles and Cartwright leaning out of an open window in the front of his bridge with the black patch in place over his left eye and the cheroot jutting from between his teeth; he’d stopped his engine just as he’d struck, and then put it astern. He had to spit the cheroot out before he could bawl down for all hands to get up on deck.

  As Gleam withdrew her stem from the enormous hole it had carved, the U-boat rolled over and sank. But Gleam wasn’t going to float long either. Cartwright’s first lieutenant came back to the little glassed-in box of a bridge to tell him that the crew’s quarters down for’ard were rapidly filling. It was a big compartment and it meant there wasn’t a hope of saving her. Cartwright rang down to stop the engine—knowing that while it was still running his chief stoker would not have obeyed the order to come up—and ordered the dinghy and the two Carley floats to be cut loose from their stowage. Most of the convoy had drawn clear by this time: there was only the sinking trawler, the blazing tanker, the Archie Dukes with her boats in the water picking up bodies in some of which there might yet be life, and Astilbe nosing up into the flames with hoses gushing from her foc’sl.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  4 November 1942:

  General Alexander to Prime Minister: After 12 days of heavy and violent fighting the Eighth Army has inflicted severe defeat on the German and Italian forces under Rommel’s command. The enemy’s front has broken …

  A cock woke him with its crowing: he’d been having a dream with that noise in it, listening to it in his sleep. He knew immediately where he was, and why, and that he couldn’t have slept for more than about an hour. He could see it would be daylight soon. He’d drunk water from a ditch, and eaten a carrot and the centre of a rotten onion; he was very hopeful that before long he might find an egg or two. They’d have to be eaten raw, but with the number of hens that were roosting in at least one of the other sheds there’d have to be some, somewhere. The problems were going to be (a) moving around in daylight without being seen, (b) getting to the eggs before someone else did; the two requirements in combination might prove difficult to accomplish.

  He’d disturbed the hens, when he’d tried that hut first: there’d been a lot of flapping and squawking, and he’d been expecting someone to come running from the house—with a gun for a fox, perhaps … But the hens had gone back to sleep and no-one seemed to have heard. He’d found this broken-roofed, open-sided shed, full of old timber and sacks, straw and other rubbish—kindling for the house fires, he guessed. The straw and sacks were wet, but he’d made a bed of them, a nest that might be improved on when it was light.

  Dawn was spreading from behind the house, which from as much as he could see at this stage seemed to be semi-derelict. Well, say in bad repair … He could see that its roof was uneven, and the surroundings over-grown. The house had shutters on its windows, all of them fastened. To the left was a clump of trees in a circle that might surround a duck-pond.

  He’d hidden the bicycle in undergrowth half a mile up the lane. It was well covered, and he’d be able to find it again when he was fit to leave and head south. He felt that his decision had been the right one, that he did have a chance and it would have been stupid not to
try. If it didn’t work and he was caught, at least he wouldn’t spend the next couple of years in Offlag IVC wishing to God he’d had a bit more staying-power. Meanwhile he hurt more or less all over and he knew he’d be black with bruises. He’d massaged the sprained ankle, and he’d been trying to keep it propped up so that it ached less. He had the thought of eggs in his mind quite a lot: an egg was nourishing, he was extremely hungry, and he knew he was going to need all the strength he could gather. They would be raw, of course: he’d shut his eyes and try to believe he was in the flat in Eaton Square, in bed with Fiona, swallowing Prairie Oysters.

  She’d still be indulging in such pleasures, he guessed.

  Because of the way she looked, and the way she was.

  Break some bastard’s bloody neck!

  He’d heard the actual words, and knew he’d muttered them aloud. Talking to himself, with his eyes fixed like a wolf’s on the silent house. Shack, whatever … And with muscles taut—as if he’d been about to do exactly that—spring out, break a neck … But forcing himself to relax now, to be sane: and with a resolution in mind, a vitally important one—that if he came face to face with the farmer or anyone else and couldn’t get away, he’d surrender, not try to escape by using violence. That would be fatal, you’d have the whole countryside out looking for you, and the hunt would have only one end. You had to stay sane and cautious, despite that kind of image in the mind: images and desperation driving one to the brink of madness. He told himself he could stand it: he’d been on the run before—in Crete, eighteen months ago. Of course, that had been quite different, in a lot of ways: for instance, it had been mostly warm, during the first months, and he’d had plenty of companionship, and the locals had been well-disposed … But thinking about himself as he’d been such a short time ago was like thinking about a younger brother. That girl in Alexandria, for instance—how shocked he’d been when he’d discovered she had a husband! Really only months ago, and he’d been so innocent and naïf …

  A door had opened. Alert, straining his ears, he heard a female voice call out in German. Then the same door banged shut. Silence now. The sounds had come from somewhere on the other side of the house, probably the back of it. So it was, after all, inhabited. Well, it would have to be—someone had shut the hens up, last night, before he got here. The house’s front door, in the middle on this side facing him, was still shut, and by the look of the grass it wasn’t used. There was a cart lying half on its side, one wheel missing and a shaft broken: he was looking at that corner of the house when a child appeared—a boy. Short pants and a thick wool jacket. That was a well he’d gone to: he’d tossed a bucket down, and the winch-handle clanked over. Jack smelt woodsmoke, a new fire starting. The boy was winding the bucket up now. You could imagine the fire in there, warmth, food … He heard the boy grunt with the effort of lifting the full bucket over the well’s brick surround: then, leaning sideways almost horizontally to balance the weight, he’d gone staggering round the corner of the house and out of sight.

  At least he knew where to get a drink. It was light now, more or less. He could make out a few rows of what must be cabbages, and a stack of logs. But it was coal-smoke he was smelling now: some ground-floor shutters were being pushed open from inside.

  The sun came up red, angry-looking, between the house and the clump of trees. Nobody else had appeared. He’d heard a woman’s voice, and a sharper one which was probably the boy’s, and after about half an hour he saw them both—mother and son, or big sister and little brother—as they appeared around that same corner. The boy wore a coat and cap now, a cap with a shiny black peak, and he was carrying a school satchel. The girl was in a woollen dress with a shawl around its upper part. They were coming this way and she had a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Mother,

  Jack decided: it was the proprietory, affectionate attitude of a parent. The path they were following—a beaten track through orchard-length grass with patches of nettle in it—would bring them close by this shed. He kept absolutely still, with his eyes half-shut in case their whites showed: he guessed, seeing her at close quarters, that she was in her middle twenties. She was fairish, though not exactly blonde, with a round face and a rather solid figure—broad-hipped, heavy-thighed. Her hips swung attractively as she walked with a long stride that made the boy trot now and then to keep up with her. She was swinging a bucket too, and doing most of the talking—in German, of course, which he didn’t get a word of, but at the end of the track leading to the lane it was obvious she was calling parting instructions after him: “Work hard and mind you come straight home!” something of that sort.

  He heard the hen-house being opened, and the noise of birds stampeding out. She’d be feeding them from that bucket: he could hear her talking to them while she did it. Then the sound of a car engine: it came down the lane and stopped, a door opened and shut and then it moved on again, no doubt with the child inside it. The girl was in sight again, and she’d stopped to listen. School bus, he guessed, or neighbour.

  He watched the girl go back around the side of the house. Then there was nothing to watch for a long time, except the sun’s slow rise into cloud. A cold wind from the north bent the chimney-smoke away to his right. He wished the girl would reappear, but she didn’t. While she was hidden in the house, he couldn’t make any move: all he could do was wait. She might live alone in the house with the boy—there might be no farmer, father: or there was one and he could be sick, or lazy … But she was young: a husband of her own age-group would almost certainly be in uniform and in the war, wouldn’t he?

  After a while the door at the back of the house was opened, and it was about five minutes before it shut again. Stretching his imagination to account for all the circumstances as seen or heard, he guessed there might be an outside lavatory, a privy at the back. As they had no running water here, used that well, there’d have to be, he thought. He was in need of it himself—which was probably what made him think of it—but to move out of his shed would have been foolhardy and to relieve himself inside it unwise: he’d no idea how many days and nights he’d be spending here, and it was uncomfortable enough without that. The length of his stay had to depend on whether he could get some food: but for the moment, having eaten and drunk so little recently, the other urge was controllable.

  An hour might have passed. Hens pecked close by without taking any notice of him, and the morning turned greyer, colder. He was thinking he was going to have to creep away and prospect elsewhere when the door at the back opened and shut again and a few seconds later the girl appeared round the side where the wrecked cart was. She was wearing what looked like a man’s overcoat and a woollen hat, and she was carrying a basket; she walked straight down the path towards the muddy entrance from the lane, and disappeared.

  Jack lay still, watching the house and listening. Only the hens moved, muttering to themselves. The cock might have turned in again. There was no sound from the lane.

  He’d had various kinds of rubbish on top of him: he pushed it off now, extricated himself as quietly as possible, and crawled out. The hens eyed him suspiciously and moved away. He was against the corner of the shed, crouching with his weight all on one leg while he looked around. Nothing moved. He hopped around to the back, leant one shoulder against the planks and did what he’d been wanting to do for quite a while.

  It seemed he had the place to himself. Unless there was some inactive, housebound husband, parent, grandparent, grandparents plural … But there’d been no voices. The only times he’d heard the girl’s voice had been when she’d had the boy with her and when she’d teased the hens. But the one thing there had to be inside the house was food.

  Eggs—he remembered that intention, suddenly, and stopped. Then thought—try the house first. Eggs as fallback, last resort …

  The back door was locked. A path of cinders led from it between unweeded vegetable patches to the brick-built lavatory he’d expected. A rickety fence beyond it separated vegetable garden from orchard. No gate, so
that land didn’t belong to this house. Turning back, he saw that all the shutters, upstairs and downstairs, were closed and fastened; but he knew she hadn’t shut the ground-floor ones in front. He went back—through nettles and brambles on the other side of the house, so as not to walk right into her if she happened to be coming home at this moment—and tried the front windows. Sash windows, with heavy frames in bad condition. The first one he tried wasn’t latched, didn’t need to be because it was stuck solid: the next moved easily. He slid it up, climbed in, shut it again behind him. Despite his clumsiness—the sprained ankle made him less agile than he might have been—he’d made very little noise, but probably enough to be heard by any inmate who wasn’t stone deaf. He waited for a few moments, listening: he was in a bedroom and it was obviously the child’s. No sound from anywhere: the house felt empty, he just about knew it was. He crept out, into a passage. Dead-end to the left, two doors in the facing wall, an open end to the right: he went that way, into a central hall that was evidently the main living area. The front door, the one she didn’t use, was on his right now, there was a heating-stove in an alcove with wood piled near it and heavy, ugly furniture grouped to face it, and a flight of stairs leading up above a door that led into the kitchen. The passage he’d come through was continued on the other side of this living room, with a drab-coloured curtain covering it.