He thought about it …
“I should imagine that to police the shoreline near the ship, plus both villages and whatever beaches they keep their praus on, you’ll need every man you’ve got. I want a lookout post established on high ground, too, but we’ll use sailors for that … All these weapons of yours—obviously you must be armed, but let’s not make a show of it. If the natives are friendly, or even just not obviously hostile, let’s keep it like that. No rough stuff, women strictly taboo, and arak is not to be so much as sipped even if it’s forced on them. See your men understand it.”
The marine said grimly, “They’ll understand it, sir.”
“They must also understand it isn’t any kind of picnic. It’s a very tricky operation and we’ll be lucky to get away with it. One shot at the wrong moment could ditch us all. Make sure they don’t load a single gun unless they’re about to be attacked. Even then, I’d sooner there wasn’t any noise. They’re not to be seen, either—there are bound to be Jap aircraft passing over. Everyone keeps under cover and dead quiet all the time. Any sign of the enemy landing, you fall back on the perimeter around the ship. We’ll discuss that contingency after we see the lie of the land, though … What else?”
“Rations and water for one day, I suppose?”
“Yes. And medical equipment? Snake-bite, etcetera?”
“Goes with Platoon HQ, sir. If we had an RM band, it’d be their pigeon.”
“Why don’t we?”
“Very few of these small cruisers do have, sir.”
Defiant’s band was a volunteer group of bluejackets. They were pretty sound on the National Anthem and on “Hearts of Oak,” but they were capable of some fairly extraordinary sounds when they strayed from that beaten track.
Nick said, “Mosquitoes are likely to be a problem. Make sure every man has his tin of the smelly stuff … And I think that’s about all the direction I can give you. Do your homework, brief your troops and have the gear ready … Did you say P-14 rifles?”
Haskins nodded.
“They had them in ’14-’18!”
The marine said, “We’re lucky they don’t give us pikes.”
At 11:40, Exeter had sunk. Encounter followed her a few minutes later. The report came from the American destroyer Pope, who at the time of her last message had been under attack by dive-bombers.
It was 12:30. A midday air-raid which had started just as the ship’s company were being piped to dinner had again been driven off by the Dutch shore gunners. Work on the dummy funnel hadn’t stopped, and it was still in progress now although the ship’s company were at lunch. Nick had a look at it on his way for’ard: despite the promise to Sibbold that he’d turn in, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to sleep. In any case, he’d have his own lunch before long. He went in through the screen door under the foc’sl, and up the ladderways to the reconstructed bridge.
He even had a reconstructed bridge seat, he saw. A solid timber job rather like the one he’d had in Tuareg. Up here, where so short a time ago men had died and he’d lain unconscious in his own blood, the work was finished. In fact there were improvements: his own telephone to the director tower had been sited in easier reach from the chair than it had been before, for instance. He went into the chartroom: chart 1653c was spread out on the table, with a track drawn in on it and notations of times and courses; Chevening’s navigator’s notebook lay open on it, with neat lists of data such as shore bearings at the turning points.
“There you are, sir!”
He looked round. “Hello, Bob.”
“Been scouring the ship for you, sir. An SDO messenger went down to your cabin and reported you missing. And Harkness didn’t know where—”
“I think you’d better stop regarding me as some kind of helpless idiot, Bob. I’m back to normal. Apart from this arm, which is a minor inconvenience—”
“You’ll feel better still when you hear the news, sir. About the Yanks who were trying the Bali Strait?”
“Well?”
“Bandoeng sent out a Beaufort reconnaissance flight. It’s back on the ground now. At 10:30 it found all four destroyers well clear to the south and on course for North West Cape at thirty knots.”
“Ah.” He nodded, restraining the urge to cheer. “That was news worth waiting for.”
Sloan would be all right. Even if Jordan’s engine spares didn’t arrive—the railways were being bombed, and you couldn’t count on it—his prospects for a fast exit via the Bali Strait were a lot better than the obstacle race Defiant had ahead of her. Nick wondered again about transferring his wounded to the American.
CHAPTER TEN
The Montgovern was alone, down by the bows, making eight knots southward through a milky dawn. Her pumps had been slowly losing their battle against the inflow of sea, and she had ten feet of water in number one hold now. If her engines had been stopped it would have eased the pressure on cracked frames and leaking bulkheads. But you couldn’t stop—the destination was still Malta, and a stopped ship would get sunk anyway.
The light was growing. It was only in the last few minutes that Paul had realized the heavy dampness they’d been steaming through was a sea-mist. When it lifted, she’d be exposed—to her obvious enemies, and also to the Vichy French in Tunisia, who might object to an intruder in their territorial waters.
The wind was down. There was a low swell, and the sea was loud, thumping and swishing around the damaged bow, banging in the cavity where the torpedo had hit. She sounded, right up there in the bow, like an old sow guzzling with her snout down in the trough.
The Vichy coast, he guessed, would be only a mile or two to starboard. He wondered if they had a hope in hell of reaching Malta. Or whether they’d just keep going as long as possible and then turn and run for the beach. If they ended up ashore here, the French would intern them all. A Vichy prison camp would be a truly rotten place to spend the rest of the war.
Well, you’d be able to catch up on some sleep.
He decided to go and find out, or try to find out, what was going on. It had been hours since Mick McCall’s last visit, and even longer since the last flare-up of action. All through the first part of the night there’d been explosions, leaps of flame, outbreaks of gunfire and the rumble of distant battle. One ship, so heavily on fire that she’d been unrecognizable, had crossed about a mile astern of the Montgovern, heading for the coast and incapable of answering signals. And in the early hours of the morning a Hunt-class destroyer had appeared, exchanged shouts with Mackeson and then sheered away again into the dark, towards the running fight to the north of them. They’d stood to the guns when she’d first appeared—a small, menacing bow-on shape that could have been an E-boat, at that distance—and several other times when they’d heard the throb of engines, E-boat or aircraft.
On his last visit McCall had told them that one of the merchantmen sunk during the night attacks had been the Blackadder, the commodore’s ship.
Beale was a dark mound recognizable as human only because you happened to know there was life inside it. Paul went over and told him he was going aft for a few minutes.
The mound grunted. Withinshaw mumbled, “’Ave one for me too.” Withinshaw was a mound with a shine on it, because he was wearing an oilskin over his other gear. Like a great seal, slumped against the ammo bin. Wally Short was horizontal under a piece of old tarpaulin hatch-cover, and McNaught was stamping about and slapping his arms against his sides, whistling between his teeth.
In the saloon Paul found Brill asleep, and Woods, the Army gunner, gulping coffee. He poured some for himself, and Woods gave him a cigarette: he’d only come down here for a moment, he explained, to thaw out.
“Are you lot paddling, up front?”
“We’ll be swimming before long, I dare say.”
“Well, I don’t know.” Woods yawned. “We’re still afloat and moving. If we hadn’t been knocked out of the convoy we might have been cinders, by now. Real firework show, wasn’t it?”
Hi
s hands were shaking, Paul noticed. Or perhaps he was only cold, still shivering.
Thornton stirred, and sat up. The cipher expert had been flaked out on the sofa. He stared at Paul as if he was wondering who he was, or about to challenge his presence here. Then he flopped down again and shut his eyes. Paul yawned, and told Woods, “When I’ve drunk this I’m going up to see if Bongo’s feeling sociable.”
“And I’m going back to my useless gun.”
“Useless?”
“Low-angle, so it’s no good against bombers. And it’s on the stern, so E-boats or what-have-you had better not attack from ahead … But I’m looking after a Bofors and some Oerlikons as well, so it’s not a total waste of time, I suppose.”
The door opened, and the RAF man blundered in, the grey-haired flying officer. He was too old-looking for the rank, Paul thought, and now he was grey-faced as well as grey-headed. He stared at the coffee urn, then shook his head and turned away. He muttered, “What a way to earn a living …”
“Seasick?”
“What do you think?”
Paul suggested, “Try tightening your belt, and lying flat.” “Can’t lie flat, I’m on lookout. Does a tight belt help?” He nodded. “And don’t drink any liquid.” “Why don’t they tell one these things?”
“Perhaps you didn’t ask.” He put down his cup still half-full. He thought he really shouldn’t have left the foc’sl. He told Woods, “I’m off. Good luck.”
“I’d better go too,” Woods muttered as they left together. “Sort of spooky, isn’t it. Alone, and this fog …” He went aft, and Paul went for’ard and up to the boat deck, unaware that he and the Army man had had their last off-duty conversation. He was right, it was spooky. It was like being in a ghost-ship, dead men lost to the outside world. It was the fog, the enclosed, hidden feeling it gave you, and the lack of sleep, and the surrounding threat … Daylight was noticeably stronger as he made his way up to the bridge, but it was a woolly sort of light, a cocoon of it that hemmed the ship in on her patch of grey, heaving sea. Her motion was peculiar, like the lurching of a man with a heavy limp: the result of the water inside her forepart, of course, but you noticed it more up here because of the swaying of the superstructure.
Mackeson was in the front of the enclosed bridge, and Pete Devenish was in charge of the watch. No sign of the master. Devenish asked without turning his head, “Who’s that?”
“Everard, sir.”
Mackeson looked round, lowering binoculars. “Problem?”
“The gunners are wondering what the future holds, sir. Thought I’d try to find out. I’m sorry, I suppose I shouldn’t—”
“I’m no soothsayer, Everard. Anyway, no, you shouldn’t. We’ve got twenty lookouts posted around this ship, and you’re one of them.”
“Sorry, sir, I’ll—”
“Need every pair of eyes we’ve got, in this muck. But since your father’s a very old friend of mine, we’ll overlook it this time. Eh, Pete?”
Devenish muttered, with binoculars at his eyes, “Please yourself.”
There were lookouts in both wings, Paul saw. Gosling was one of them. There’d been others on the boat deck, he’d noticed on his way up, and of course McCall would be up in his Bofors nest. The fog was like cobweb all around the ship and the shine on the sea’s humpy surface was visible through it over a radius of perhaps two or three hundred yards. Mackeson murmured, “Wonder where he is now? If he’s in the Java area, he won’t be shivering like we are. And it’ll be something like early afternoon, out there … Well, look here.” Thinking about Paul’s father seemed to have made his mind up for him. “I’ll tell you what’s happening, then you can go into the chartroom and take a look, and after that you can make yourself useful by going round the ship and giving them all the gist of it. All right?”
He nodded. “Sir.”
“We’re about two and a half miles off the Tunisian coast, off a place called Kurbah, which means we’re inside the Kurbah Bank. Our course is two hundred and twelve degrees, and in another ten miles—just over an hour—we’ll be off Ras Mohmur. That’s the point at the top of the Gulf of Hammamet, and it’s near the port of Hammamet, which is a Vichy French base inside the curve of the Gulf. Are you with me so far?”
He was using his binoculars all the time he was talking. He didn’t move his lips much when he spoke, and you had to listen carefully to hear what he was saying.
“At that point we’ll turn to port a bit and steer due south, straight across the entrance to the Gulf, for another ten miles. We’re taking this inshore route for two reasons: one, to avoid the Pantellaria-based E-boats and torpedo-bombers who made hay with the convoy last night, and two, because the French have a swept channel here inside the minefields, and we hope we’re in it.”
“Did the convoy lose much, sir?”
Mackeson hesitated. Then he murmured, “Going by the signals we’ve seen, and what the captain of the Hunt told us—well, there may be three survivors on course for Malta.”
“Three …”
“That seemed to be the state of things a few hours ago. But there are also some other stragglers, like ourselves. The Hunt’s trying to round us up and get us together. But information’s scanty, at the moment, and obviously nobody’s using his wireless much.” He took his glasses away from his eyes, blinked, put them back again. He started a slow sweep down the starboard side. “Now. Halfway across the Gulf of Hammamet, in about two and a half hours’ time we intend altering course to the east—actually to one hundred degrees—for the straight run to Malta. It’ll take us just to the north of Linosa—that bit’ll be after dark—and we’ll be taking our chances as far as minefields are concerned. We’ll be close to Lampedusa, too. At our present speed of about eight knots—well, call it twenty-four hours. If nothing gets any worse, we ought to stay afloat that long. Barring further enemy action, of course. So, all those things being equal, ETA Valletta some time after dawn tomorrow.”
“But that’s marvellous!”
“It’s also highly improbable, Everard. It’s what we’re aiming at, that’s all. I did say, ‘barring further enemy action.’ You can’t bar it, can you? We’re in an extremely vulnerable state—you can see that for yourself. Once this fog goes—well …”
“It might not, sir?”
“Then we’d be bloody lucky!”
“You think it’s going to lift, then?”
“My dear boy, I’m not God!”
“Steady there.” Humphrey Straight pushed up past Paul. “Royal Navy officer admitting he ain’t God?” Devenish laughed. Straight growled, “Better watch it, Commander. They’ll ’ave you for bloody sacrilege. Hey, what’s—”
“Ship, green eight-oh!”
The signalman was shouting from the starboard wing, outside. Mackeson rushed out there. Straight slid a side window open and raised his glasses, cursing at Paul to get out of the way. Paul went out into the wing behind Mackeson.
Narrow, bow-on, trawler-like. A little upright ship with a small gun on its foc’sl, like a harpoon gun on a whaler. It had come from the direction of the land—from the bow, in fact, which suggested it might have come from Hammamet—and now a light was flashing from its bridge. In English, slowly spelt-out morse. He read it: “What ship are you?”
From the bridge window Straight bellowed, “Tell the little bugger we’re Noah’s Ark!”
Mackeson told the signalman, “Make to him: Please identify yourself.” He called to Straight, “Better turn away, captain.We’re half a mile inside his territorial waters. I’ll try to stall him while we do a bunk.”
The signalman had passed that message, and the Frenchman was flashing again as the Montgovern began her slow and cumbrous turn to port. Paul read: “You are in the territorial water of France. Stop your engines or I fire.”
Mackeson said, “Make to him—slowly—I am in international waters and I have a destroyer escort within call. Keep clear of me.”
He added, as the signalman began calling at about
half his normal speed, ”In other words, piss off s’il vous plait.” He looked round. “Everard, nip aft, tell the pongo to stand by with the four-inch and man his telephone.”
“Aye aye, sir!” He flew—down to the boat deck, down the length of it and down again at its after end to the well deck, across that—skirting the crated deck cargo—and up another ladder to the poop. “Captain Woods?”
“Yup?”
“Commander Mackeson says close up the four-inch and man the telephone!”
“We are closed up. Try the phone, Reynolds.” He told Paul, “We’re loaded too. What’s it about, anyway?”
“Vichy patrol. Told us to stop engines or it’d fire.”
Woods laughed. The soldier at the telephone shouted, “Stand by to fire one shot under his bows, sir!”
“Set range two hundred yards, sergeant.”
“Range two hundred set, sir!”
“Report ready!”
“Ready!” Then: “Fire!”
The gun roared, and recoiled. The breech thudded open and the empty shell-case was a yellowish streak that flew out, clanging on the steel gundeck. Another shell had gone in, the breech was shut and number two had slammed the intercepter shut.
“Ready!”
The splash of the shot they’d fired went up about twenty yards short of the Frenchman’s stem. And the little ship was already slewing away to port. The soldier at the telephone barked, “Cease fire!”
Woods muttered, “Spoilsport.” The Montgovern was under helm again, coming back to her course down-coast.
Soon afterwards course was altered again, to one hundred degrees. Visibility was still low, but patchy; sometimes you could see half a mile. Attack was expected—awaited, even wanted, almost. To end the waiting,
which was mind-wearing, exhausting … It was odds-on that the Frenchman would have reported their position. Most of the Vichy people were said to be pro-German, but on top of that the patrol boat’s captain had been made to look silly, which had never been the way to warm the cockles of a Frenchman’s heart.
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 21