Deep Water

by Tim Jeal

  Soon after four in the morning, Mike raised his binoculars, and, from three thousand yards, peered at the grey-black houses behind the harbour wall before examining the dunes that stretched for a mile and a half, almost to the blockhouse on the headland’s tip. He gave the order for navigation lights to be lit in the manner of local fishing boats, and supervised the raising of sails. With their engines shut down, the two trawlers moved silently across the bay in a moderate offshore breeze. With petrol severely rationed in France, local fishing vessels used their sails more often than their engines. Mike liked to look authentic, though the lack of speed worried him.

  As the rust-red lugsails filled, Mike sent his starboard lookout, Able Seaman Peters, aft with orders to the men by the gallows to drop a couple of weighted drogues to simulate nets being towed. As usual Peters struggled not to salute him. Though dressed as fishermen, he and the other three-badge ABs could not shake off their habitual deference to officers.

  Luciole’s crew swung out the dory, ready for launching, and Mike watched the same preparations being made on Volonté. His second trawler was commanded by a recent arrival at Polwherne, Lieutenant Philip Evenshaw. Perpetually smiling as Evenshaw was, and too manically energetic ever to make a relaxing companion, Mike wished that Tony Cassilis was out there in Evenshaw’s place. He said a silent prayer that Tony was waiting in the dunes at this moment along with all the airmen.

  As they sailed sedately across the bay, Mike tried not to imagine starshell erupting from the blockhouse, illuminating every winch, spar and barrel. The beach at low tide stretched in front of the dunes for at least two hundred yards, and men crossing it would be visible against the pale sand, even if no lights were fired by the enemy.

  Mike planned to anchor at the habour end of the dunes, keeping as far as possible from the blockhouse, preferring to increase the risk of being observed from the village. A moment later he regretted his decision. A match flared on the harbour wall and faded, as if cupped in someone’s palms. Was he a sentry? They couldn’t be that unlucky. But who else would be lighting a cigarette at four in the morning? A married man creeping home after meeting his mistress? Knowing he could do nothing, Mike forced himself to guess what the darkened shops might be: Epicerie, Bar Tabac, Boulangerie.

  As the boats were made ready for lowering, Able Seaman Peters came panting up the bridge ladder in a distressed state.

  ‘A stowaway,’ he gasped. ‘I just found him.’

  Mike stormed into the wheelhouse and faced Martin Cleeves. ‘You reported the ship ready to sail, Number One.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘She wasn’t bloody well ready. There’s a bloody stranger on board.’

  ‘But I searched the ship with Chief Petty Officer Simms. I can’t understand it.’ Cleeves cast his eyes around, as if they might miraculously alight upon some clue explaining the mystery.

  Mike’s fists were clenched and he was breathing fast. He pulled Able Seaman Peters in through the door. ‘Tell Mr Cleeves where he was hiding.’

  ‘Under them new bunks across the stern, sir.’

  ‘Why the hell wasn’t he spotted?’

  Cleeves took a step forward. ‘B-b-because it’s used as a glory hole. The ratings stuff all their spare clothes and kit bags in there.’ He retreated again behind Norbert’s bulk. ‘I’ve seen boxes of tinned food there, life jackets, even some …’

  Mike silenced him with a wave before turning back to Peters. ‘I trust you placed him in custody?’

  ‘Locked in the fish-hold, sir.’

  ‘How old would you say he is?’ murmured Mike, already knowing.

  ‘Just a young lad, sir. Scared silly, I’d say.’

  Wanting to sink to his knees and moan aloud, Mike was saved by the sound of an aircraft. Only one ‘young lad’ in Cornwall would have known where Luciole was likely to be on the day before sailing. As the aircraft roar grew louder, Mike tilted his binoculars skywards.

  A Heinkel 111 was passing half a mile to seaward, looking very black and angular against the paler sky. Flying high and straight, it showed no interest in them – though since trawlers were meant to fish in a single fleet at night, it was possible they might be reported. Moments ago, this plane’s appearance would have depressed Mike dreadfully, now it merely added to the sense of doom oppressing him. Yet he was a little comforted to reflect that the whole operation had been planned in such exhaustive detail that, even if he fell overboard and sank without a trace, everything would go ahead quite satisfactorily without him.

  He said quietly to Cleeves, ‘I want to drop our hook in three cables on this course. Buck up, Martin, and forget the bloody stowaway.’

  After watching Luciole’s two boats being rowed away towards the beach, where they caught up with the two from Volonté, Mike hurried across the raised deck between the engine room and the fo’c’sle. ‘Forgetting the stowaway’ was not an option open to him. He lifted a tarpaulin stretched over some hatches and found the handles. The fish-hold proper no longer existed, having been divided into an Asdic cabinet, two cabins for petty officers, and a magazine for the ship’s concealed Lewis guns and .5 Colts. Mike lifted the hatch-cover and felt for the ladder with his feet.

  With amazing insensitivity, Peters had locked the boy in with the ammunition, not that Mike really blamed him. He had other reasons for shaking with anger as he released the bolt.

  ‘Pleased with yourself?’ he demanded, surprised by the calm sound of his own voice. Leo stared back with a mixture of pride and terror, as Mike had guessed he would. He bent closer, the better to see him in the dim light. ‘We’ve just been spotted by a Heinkel. D’you know what that means?’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Your mother’s life’ll be wrecked if you’re killed.’

  ‘I care heaps more about my father.’

  ‘He’ll be thrilled, will he, if you vanish into thin air?’

  ‘I posted him a letter.’

  ‘Perhaps he’ll frame it, if you’re blown to bits.’

  ‘You can’t leave me in here with this stuff.’ Leo glanced anxiously at the ammunition boxes.

  ‘I can do any bloody thing I like.’ Mike placed a hand on the door.

  ‘Please.’ Leo’s eyes were wide with fear. Over his head was a stanchion that took the weight of the deck, and the steel plates reinforcing it. A single red bulb hung from a flex twisted round a ventilation pipe. Even in the half-light, the boy’s resemblance to his mother tormented Mike: the almost feminine shape of his eyes and lips, his soft pale skin. If anything happened to him, Andrea would blame herself forever – and blame me, too, he thought. The extraordinary callousness of the boy’s stunt made Mike catch his breath.

  ‘Why did you do this?’ he whispered thickly.

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ shouted Mike, starting to close the door.

  Leo blurted out, ‘To stop you doing it to her, of course.’

  ‘It? It!’ snapped Mike. ‘I love her, you dirty-minded little beast.’

  ‘My dad loves her more.’

  ‘You really think so?’ Mike smiled, though he wanted to scream.

  ‘Why else would I be here?’ shouted the boy, as if the words had been ripped from him.

  Mike said nothing. Leo’s sincerity had sneaked under his defences. So it hadn’t been revenge on his mother. He’d done it for his father; risked his life for him. Poor brave little bugger. Mike placed a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll take you back to where you were, if you promise not to move from there.’ Leo nodded assent. ‘There are life jackets under those bunks, so put one on, please.’ He pushed Leo towards the ladder. ‘Go up and I’ll follow. Do you need to visit the heads?’

  ‘I brought a jar for that.’

  Mike could not help grinning for a moment. ‘What else did you bring?’

  ‘Water, and some rags to wipe away my muddy footprints.’

  ‘Very considerate.’

  ‘It was so you wouldn’
t see them.’

  ‘I did realise that.’ They paused outside the galley, before descending again. Mike said quietly, ‘You won’t be the first boy we’ve brought back.’ He had wanted to reassure him, but Leo was clearly crestfallen.

  ‘I must be the first.’

  ‘We brought back a French agent with his whole family, including his petit fils and petites filles.’ Mike grinned at him. ‘Sorry, old chap. Better get below.’

  Back on the bridge again, Mike could see the four boats pulled up on the beach, and, through his binoculars, the tracks of the crewmen who had gone in search of the escapers. Just one alert sentry in that German blockhouse and they could all be blown apart within minutes in a blaze of pyrotechnics to shame Brock’s display after Henley Regatta. And poor Andrea would be sleeping peacefully all the while, her hair spread across her pillow like a golden fan. Even on waking she would be unaware of anything amiss. Very likely she would only know that her life had changed forever, when Peter ’phoned with news of Leo’s letter.

  The sands were still empty – so what the hell was taking the wretched airmen so long to emerge? And where were Tony and the ratings who’d been in the dory with him? Somewhere behind the dunes, a dog was barking. Surely the whole party must be closer than that by now? If only he could risk signalling with an Aldis lamp. The aimless splashings and lappings of the sea against the hull, when Luciole was at anchor, always reminded Mike of how long it would take, from the moment when he gave the order to ring on the engines, before she could reach her top speed.

  He stared at the beach and willed a line of hurrying men to appear. For them a moment of wild emotion, the end of their long ordeal in sight, but the worst dangers only yards ahead. Very likely, they had aroused suspicion locally – incongruous figures, creeping down country lanes and over fields. So when they left the dunes, and went on without one scrap of cover, a searchlight could pick them out like a spot in the theatre. German inactivity, as every one of them must know, could indicate a waiting game, with the deadliest hand held back till last. How hard it must be for those who’d almost escaped before, or, like Tony, should never have been there at all. Wives were waiting; children, parents, lovers, friends, an invisible company many times larger than the number soon to cross the sands. And how much did Mike care about them, now that Leo was here?

  A fragment of Euripides ran through his mind: ‘Love does not vex the man who begs his bread.’ But it certainly vexed the man who might be held responsible for the death of his mistress’s child. Had love ever survived such a thing? The wages of sin, he thought, remembering his conversation with Andrea. If he came back alive, bringing the boy’s dead body – what then? Suicide in the Roman manner? Maybe Peter ought to kill him instead – better tragic irony – slain by the man with no time for Greek theatricals. A smile still lingered on Mike’s lips as the first airman ran onto the beach.

  The ragged figure stopped in its tracks, and almost overbalanced; then he saw the boats and started running again. Others stumbled after him, like faltering runners in a marathon, almost too exhausted to breast the tape. Next came a slower group with a woman in it. And, after an interval, two men half-lifting, half-dragging a third. One of these supporting figures resembled Tony in height and build, but Mike could not be sure it was him. No longer aware of his own problems, Mike wanted to cheer. He swung his glasses round to study the blockhouse and was shocked to see a square of yellow light. A casemate had been opened and a man was outlined in the aperture.

  Scarcely able to breathe, Mike waited. He was determined to do nothing until absolutely sure they had been seen. Almost a minute passed, and then, from the black headland, a dazzling white flare shot skywards followed by others. On the beach, the tiny figures clambering into the boats were lit as clearly as in sunlight.

  ‘Ring on both engines,’ Mike roared into the wheelhouse. ‘We’ll weigh anchor before the boats reach us, so get some way on by then. All right, Martin?’

  ‘Straight at ’em till we turn,’ confirmed Cleeves.

  Cleeves pressed the buzzer for action stations, and men began snatching up steel helmets and running to their places. As Peters pulled off the oildrum lid concealing one of the twin stripped Lewis guns, the counterweighted barrels sprang up into the firing position. Mike watched sadly. Firing against 88-mm cannon behind concrete defences was a waste of time and ammunition.

  ‘Out scramble nets,’ he shouted, as he ran aft, with a helmet in one hand and a megaphone in the other.

  CPO Simms was craning over the stern, waiting for the boats. ‘Don’t even try to hoist them in,’ Mike told him, before going below.

  ‘Leo,’ he called softly. The boy came out slowly from under the bunks.

  ‘Will they get us?’

  ‘I hope not.’ The boy’s lips were stretched tight and his whole body shook. The portholes flickered as more flares went up. ‘Just stay here, okay?’ Mike held out the helmet. ‘Stick this on your nut and lie flat. If you smell smoke, or she starts to list, come up at once. I won’t forget you.’

  On deck, Mike was relieved to see that all the boats had left the beach. Why was it taking the Germans so long to use their guns? They couldn’t have failed to see the men on the sands and grasp what was happening. As more starshells were flung up into the sky, the dying ones spiralled seawards, leaving long trails of smoke.

  The blockhouse opened fire on Volonté first, with two pounder shells mostly, and lighter stuff, judging by the absence of large water spouts, and by the way the sea looked pitted, as if someone had shaken a sieve of gravel over it. It overjoyed him to think that the larger guns were probably fixed in a wide arc seawards, unable to swivel back to bear on the beach. The first shots aimed at Luciole burst astern of her and about six metres above the water.

  ‘Faster,’ Mike shouted to the rowers, who were already slowing. The thought of shells ripping through Luciole’s flimsy hull made his stomach plunge. The half-inch steel plates fitted inside her bulwarks at the bow and stern would offer some protection against cannon-shell splinters but none to anything larger. He thought of the Germans, safe behind their steel gun-shields, and felt sick with envy.

  In the wheelhouse he opened the medical chest with his navigating officer, Tom Bruce. After handing him a morphia syringe, he placed a couple in his own pockets, meaning to give one to Simms, who had served in the sick bay of a corvette. What a luxury it would be to have a proper MO. From the bridge, he hurried down to help the rowers and their passengers clamber up the scramble nets. The oarsmen’s faces shone with sweat. They and their companions were scared and very quiet. The enemy’s gunners were sending streams of red and white tracer down both sides of the boat, hitting and sinking the empty dory.

  Luciole was moving forwards slowly, heading straight for the battery to narrow the target she presented. From outside on the bridge, Mike heard Cleeves ring for full speed. Then Norbert spun the wheel. As the trawler settled on her new course away from the headland, her bows lifted to the thrust of her propellers. Never designed for powerful engines, Luciole’s timbers shook and juddered as broad curls of spray flew up from her forefoot. Behind her counter, a plume of phosphorescence gushed like a magic fountain.

  The bellies of the clouds were already turning luminous when Mike was given a list of the names of all those who had been rescued. Tony Cassilis had not been picked up by Volonté either. Laughter and singing was coming up through all the hatches. Mike thought of Elspeth and her club, and the many times he and Tony had gone there. He remembered Tony’s fondness for one particular song from Funny Face. ‘He dances overhead / On the ceiling near my bed …’ ‘Overhead’ was the only place he would ever be able to imagine him in future.

  A lookout shouted, ‘Aircraft bearing Green-five-oh.’

  Two planes were sweeping in low over the sea. The sound of Luciole’s engines had masked their approach. Running to the bridge, Mike collided with a sailor carrying a tray of hot tea. He arrived at the bridge ladder as Cleeves announced over the lo
udspeakers, ‘Aircraft bearing Green-six-oh. Take cover. Take cover.’

  The alarm bell started to ring though most of the crew were already at their stations. The aircraft were Me 109s, their distinctive fuselages spotted with brown and green camouflage paint.

  Again Cleeves’s breathless voice, ‘Starboard Lewis gun and Colts – aircraft bearing Green-eight-oh, angle of sight oh-five, coming left to right.’ The roar as they screamed down at mast height obliterated every other sound, so that Cleeves’s shout of ‘Open fire!’ scarcely registered as a whisper, though amplified by the speakers. But the men at the .5 Colts in the forward deck ponds, and Able Seaman Peters at the Lewis gun, had not needed to be told. They were firing wildly, swivelling their guns after the planes.

  Mike’s eyes followed the aircraft as they strafed Volonté, starting a fire near her galley that snaked across her stern. If the same thing happened to Luciole, Leo’s quarters would be a deathtrap. Immediately beneath him, Mike saw Able Seaman Peters lying by his Lewis gun. A lump of flesh had been torn out of the seaman’s neck, exposing his windpipe. Incredibly he was still conscious and seemingly in little pain. As Mike reached him, Peters tipped forward and died. In the deck ponds one of the two gunners had been hit by the storm of cannon-shell splinters that had scorched the foredeck.

  The fire on Volonté had forced her to reduce speed to a few knots. Mike expected the German pilots to concentrate on her before dealing with Luciole. He didn’t like to admit it, but he was relieved to have no choice. His clear duty was to leave Volonté to her fate, having signalled her position to the Admiralty. The worst thing to do would be to stay and lose both ships.