Knife Edge (2004)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Douglas Reeman

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  1970: Learning

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  1980: Leading

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  1982: Daring

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Copyright

  About the Book

  January 1970, and the final chapter in the Blackwood history appears to have closed with the murder in Cyprus of Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Blackwood, and the subsequent sale of the ancestral home. Disillusioned and grieving for his distinguished father, Lieutenant Ross Blackwood believes there is no future for him in the Corps. The Royal Marines have been reduced in strength, and their role in a modern world, after so splendid a tradition, diminished to policing and paperwork.

  But Ross remains a Blackwood and a Royal Marine, and the loyalty and dedication of a Blackwood to the Corps sustain him from vicious guerilla warfare in Malaysia through the moral and political minefields of Northern Ireland, where one man’s terrorist is another’s patriot, to the South Atlantic, and a conflict as bloody as it is unpredictable.

  And he learns, as every Blackwood has before him, that jungle or moor, insurrection or invasion, mere courage is not enough. Survival and victory balance on the knife edge of destiny.

  Last in the Blackwood Series

  About the Author

  Douglas Reeman joined the Navy in 1941. He did convoy duty in the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the North Sea, and later served in motor torpedo boats.

  As he says, ‘I am always asked to account for the perennial appeal of the sea story, and its enduring interest for the people of so many nationalities and cultures. It would seem that the eternal and sometimes elusive triangle of man, ship and ocean, particularly under the stress of war, produces the best qualities of courage and compassion, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of conflict . . . The sea has no understanding of righteous or unjust causes. It is the common enemy, respected by all who serve on it, ignored at their peril.’

  Apart from the many novels he has written under his own name, he has also written more than twenty historical novels featuring Richard Bolitho, under the pseudonym of Alexander Kent.

  Also by Douglas Reeman

  A Prayer for the Ship

  High Water

  Send a Gunboat

  Dive in the Sun

  The Hostile Shore

  The Last Raider

  With Blood and Iron

  H.M.S. Saracen

  The Deep Silence

  Path of the Storm

  The Pride and the Anguish

  To Risks Unknown

  The Greatest Enemy

  Rendezvous – South Atlantic

  Go In and Sink!

  The Destroyers

  Winged Escort

  Surface with Daring

  Strike from the Sea

  A Ship Must Die

  Torpedo Run

  Badge of Glory

  The First to Land

  The Volunteers

  The Iron Pirate

  Against the Sea (non-fiction)

  In Danger’s Hour

  The White Guns

  Killing Ground

  The Horizon

  Sunset

  A Dawn Like Thunder

  Battlecruiser

  Dust on the Sea

  For Valour

  Twelve Seconds to Live

  The Glory Boys

  Knife Edge

  Douglas Reeman

  For you, Kim, with all my love.

  I couldn’t have done it without you.

  The author wishes to acknowledge the friendship and support of Sir James Hann, C.B.E., fellow sailor and kindred spirit.

  “Guard these Colours well and remember that, whatever the problem, a Royal Marine Commando is always expected to achieve the impossible.”

  H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, presenting Colours to the Commandos in Malta, 29th November 1952

  1970

  LEARNING

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are there any further bids, gentlemen?” The auctioneer’s gavel hovered momentarily above the table. “Thank you, Mr. Roberts.” It sounded loud after the sudden stillness. The end of a long two days. It was over, until the next time.

  John Masterman, senior partner of the company which bore his name, closed the leather folder around his papers and a well-thumbed catalogue. He felt tired. Drained, perhaps more than usual, but would not admit it. The faded lettering on the folder said it all. Masterman International Valuers and Auctioneers. Established 1802.

  He glanced through the nearest window. It was only noon, but it looked like dusk in the dull grey light. The new year of 1970 was just three weeks old, and it felt like it, he thought. He was sixty and then some, and his junior partners, especially, often hinted that he should think about retiring. He half smiled. And do what?

  The big room was emptying. A lot of the faces he knew; some were strangers, hoping for a rare bargain, or here out of curiosity. His assistants were removing the last item, an old campaign chest from the Crimean period, while outside, lining the drive, the vans awaited instructions. Like undertakers . . . A few dealers were already collecting in little groups, taking their own bids now that the main event was over.

  He touched the date on the leather folder. 1802. Just a few weeks ago he had been at another auction in another fine old house. There had been some plates from the Horatia Service made by Chamberlains of Worcester and commissioned by Lord Nelson at that same time, three years before the little admiral had fallen at Trafalgar. They had gone under the hammer for far more than he would have dreamed possible.

  He looked at the lines of tall trees, stark and leafless against the surrounding fields. Would they, like this old house, be destroyed when the new road came through?

  Hawks Hill was heavy with memories, overlaid with them, like some of the paintings and furniture which had changed hands here today. Originally a fortified Tudor farmhouse, it had been bought and enlarged by old Major-General Samuel Blackwood, described as ‘the last soldier’. After him, all the other Blackwoods had entered the Corps of Royal Marines.

  But like so many country houses, it had outlived its time in a modern world of austerity and recovery. During the Great War it had been used as a hospital for officers blinded in the hell of Flanders and the Somme. During the last war it had served in a similar capacity, while the estate had been worked by the Women’s Land Army and Italian prisoners of war, the only men of military age available. Twenty miles north of Portsmouth, and some seven miles from Winchester, it had remained almost isolated but for the nearby village of Alresford.

  Masterman thought suddenly of Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Blackwood. He had been due to retire from the Corps; perhaps in some ways he had been coming to terms with it, if not accepting it completely. He had intended to convert the old stable block into a smaller but more practical home for the Blackwood family. Masterman looked at the walls, the pale rectangles where so many pictures had marked the years, the triumphs and the tragedies.

  Some of the vans were moving off now; cars too, probably down to the local pub.

  He wondered where Joanna, the colonel’s wife, was at this moment.
One last appointment, they had told Michael Blackwood. To visit two separate bases where the Royal Marines, his commandos, were carrying out peacekeeping duties, in Cyprus and in Northern Ireland. Blackwood had been in a lot of tight corners since the war, Korea, Suez, Aden, but as one marine had said, he had the touch. The lads looked to him when the going got rough.

  It had happened the day he had been due to leave Cyprus and return to England. A booby-trapped car, they said later. Both he and his driver had been killed instantly.

  It was a new kind of warfare. He frowned, angry with himself. It was plain murder. What must Joanna Blackwood be thinking today? They had a son, Ross, and a daughter. Ross was in the Corps, carrying on the tradition.

  “I can clear up, Mr. Masterman.” It was his assistant. New and eager, waiting for him to leave.

  “I’ll just hang on until . . .” He stared past the remaining handful of dealers, and his clerk, checking the invoices.

  A young man was standing by one of the makeshift benches where a pile of silver frames were awaiting collection. They had been marked down to a jeweller and silversmith in Winchester, a man who often appeared at estate auctions.

  Masterman said, “Sorry, but that lot’s all taken.” The young man had picked up one of the frames and was holding it. A stranger, yet somehow familiar. I must be getting past it. “The buyer is over there by the fireplace. You could make him an offer.” He reached out. “You have good taste, anyway. That’s an Asprey frame, as I recall.”

  But the young man held on to the frame and shook his head. “I don’t give a damn about that. It’s the photo. I wanted to . . .” He broke off, but did not resist as Masterman took the frame from his grip. Despair, anger, defiance, it was all of those.

  He thought the photograph had probably been taken in this very room, by the window. The same trees were in the background, recognizable, but in leaf. The subject was in WRNS uniform, her cap with its Royal Marine Globe and Laurel badge perched on her knee.

  It was like opening a door, or hearing something shouted on the wind.

  “Diane Blackwood, the colonel’s sister. Lovely girl, I understand. Never married . . . died in a car accident just after the war. I believe it nearly finished her brother.”

  “I know.” The eyes were watching him steadily as Masterman unfastened the frame, and removed the photograph.

  “I told them to make sure these were all empty.” He hesitated. “Did you know her?” Ridiculous; he was too young. How could he have known her?

  The other man said nothing. Instead, he pulled a wallet from inside his raincoat and opened it with care, taking out a photograph, which he held up, still without comment. It was worn and carefully repaired, as if some one had tried to rip it in half, but the same photo. The girl named Diane, who had never married.

  Like studying documents, or going through some one’s effects before a sale; it was vague one moment, vividly clear the next.

  There had been a scandal of some kind; the family had closed ranks. Like the Corps.

  Masterman said, “Take the picture. It’s between us, right?”

  Their eyes met, and he was surprised that he had not realized before, or seen it immediately. The same features in some of the paintings . . . or the face of the man who had been killed by a terrorist bomb in Cyprus.

  He held out his hand.

  “If there’s any way I can help . . .”

  He got no further.

  “You just did, sir.” The mouth smiled, but it barely reached the eyes. The handshake was hard. “I’ll not forget.”

  Then he was gone, and Masterman stood gazing at the empty frame, trying to remember every moment.

  His new assistant asked brightly, “Some one from the past, sir?”

  Masterman bit back a sharp retort, and said, “From the future, I suspect.”

  The morning was bitterly cold, and yet the sky was surprisingly clear after overnight rain. A washed-out blue, enough to chill your bones to the marrow.

  Lieutenant Ross Blackwood raised himself very slightly on his elbows, teeth gritted against the pain of loose stones, his uniform denims clinging to his legs. Cold, wet, impatient. He should be used to it by now. He was not.

  Why did the army, and for that matter his Corps, the Royal Marines, choose such godforsaken places for their training exercises? He covered his mouth with one hand while he took stock of the immediate area. On the edge of Dartmoor, this was now a waste of fallen buildings, walls starred with rifle and machine-gun fire or scattered by every kind of lethal device. Even in the hands of skilled marksmen and eager instructors, the bullets were often too close for comfort. Or over confidence.

  There had been a small, private flying club here once. Taken over and enlarged for a fighter squadron during the last war, it had become derelict in the uneasy years following Germany’s surrender. There was a village of some kind, too. Now only crumbling shells where men had tended the land and children had played at being soldiers.

  When he moved his hand he saw the breath from his lips, like steam. The instinctive warning . . . He lifted his binoculars, small and powerful, and scanned the nearest cottages, eyeless ruins, shelled, burned and stripped by the countless drills and exercises this wasteland had seen.

  He thought of the previous week. Or had it been longer? Hawks Hill, the gaping strangers, the expressionless auctioneer, and the silent exchange of signals. Money changing hands, deals settled. Like conspirators. Vandals.

  He tensed. A shadow, dead leaves moving in the bitter air? It was Boyes, his sergeant. Too experienced to make mistakes on an exercise; he had seen and done too much of the real thing. A true Royal Marine. His mind lingered on the old house, as it had once been, and the life he had grown up to accept. His life. His future. Sergeant Boyes had served with his father, and had been at the memorial service. With many others, young and old, some wearing their medals, from campaigns he could only imagine.

  Hawks Hill . . . Soon it would be demolished. Where, then, would go all the memories and ghosts?

  He pictured his mother, strong and beautiful amidst the sadness and the well-intentioned sympathy, which must have torn her apart.

  Afterwards they had walked through the echoing house together, past the bare walls and the packing cases, and some officials from the local council, already making notes.

  She had stood looking up at the one remaining portrait in the empty study, where, as a boy, Ross had first discovered an old photo album with some of the faded prints of the Great War. Groups of officers, sitting cross-legged and self-conscious, at some Corps function or other. Others, grim-faced in steel helmets; and one print of a battlefield, craters brimming with rain and mud. No trees. Nothing. Somebody, perhaps his grandfather, had written beneath that torn landscape, Where no birds sing. Ross had never forgotten it.

  His mother had slipped her hand through his arm and said quietly, “Your father would be so proud of you, Ross.”

  As she had done, he had looked at the portrait. She was taking it to her friend’s house in London, while she was getting her bearings. What would she do without him? Your father would be so proud of you. That was almost the worst part. Thinking back, he must always have been in awe of his father. The colonel. Out of reach.

  He lowered the glasses and wiped the lenses with a piece of tissue. Even that was wet.

  Ross had just returned from Northern Ireland when the news of his father’s murder had broken.

  He had had it all prepared. In his thoughts, he had heard himself coming out with it.

  His father was leaving the Corps, with pride and with honour. There was no point in pretending, making any more excuses.

  Your father would have been so proud of you.

  How would his father have taken it? Reacted to being told that his only son was going to quit the Corps? Break with tradition. The last of the Blackwoods.

  He watched the cottage on the end of the row. Empty windows, a fragment of tattered curtain still clinging to a splintered frame. Wh
ere people must have seen the enemy bombers, and the tiny fighters cutting the sky with their vapour trails as they went after them. The high hopes and the setbacks. Korea, Suez, Cyprus and Malaya, and the Royal Marines were always there, often when it was already too late. The end of empire, some called it.

  But men died because of it. And women, too.

  Tough veterans had seen it all and made light of it. In the Corps, like the navy, the response was always the same. Maybe it had to be.

  If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined!

  What had changed him? He heard a far-off crackle of machine-gun fire, blanks or otherwise. He often wondered how many men had been killed in bleak places like this one, by accident, by ammunition that was intended to make it a little too real.

  He remembered the street in Belfast. Almost peaceful after the initial hostility. Backing up the local police, facing the threats and the bricks from the back of the crowd. And the petrol bombs. And there had been kindness too, like a bridge.

  The police had cleared the street; hot drinks and some doorstep-like sandwiches had appeared. The marines had relaxed.

  There had been a young marine named Jack, new to the commandos, who was always being ragged by his comrades because of his strong Birmingham accent.

  He had been the only one to see the danger, but had not recognized it.

  “Th’ kids’ll be comin’ back soon, sir. My grandad used to play one of them things. He’d never leave it lyin’ about to be nicked!”

  The ‘thing’ was a barrel organ. Ross could see it now. Outside a boarded-up shop, with two ragged puppets propped on the top as if waiting for an audience.

  Before any one could do anything Jack from Brum, as they had nicknamed him, had crossed the street to have a closer look.

  Ross could not recall the explosion. More of a sensation than a sound. Like a shock, and a blinding white flash.

  He twisted round on one elbow, his nerves like hot wires. But it was only Sergeant Boyes. A big man, who could move like a cat when necessary.