by Nevil Shute
“About right, too,” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, anyway, that’s the way they look at it. In Douarnenez they were pretty uppish with the Germans just at first, and there were a lot of executions.”
“Uppish?”
“Throwing excrement at German officers, and demonstrations of that sort. The Boche won’t stand for that; he shot thirty of them in one day, in public, up against the market-place. That only made things worse, of course. I don’t know how many have been executed in all — possibly a hundred, maybe more. It’s difficult to get the figures. It’s not a very big place, about fifteen thousand inhabitants, I think. Now they’ve gone sullen and all bloody-minded, and the Gestapo are working on them.”
“That doesn’t sound so good,” I said.
“It’s not. That’s why I want to do something for them. Put on a bit of a show.”
I glanced at the solid, well-dressed officer before me with a new respect. It was impossible not to like him, not to appreciate his manner. He was absolutely candid, absolutely direct. He sat there looking at me like a great St. Bernard dog.
I asked: “What sort of show have you got in mind, sir?”
He said: “Well, there are several of the German Raumboote based upon the port. We want to do something against one of those.”
I thought for a minute very hard. “The Raumboote is rather like our own M.L., isn’t it? I’ve not had a great deal to do with them myself.”
“Much the same sort of thing,” he said. “They use them for the fishery patrol.”
“And you want to do something against one of those?” I reflected for a moment. “That’s because they are based upon the port, and because everybody knows about them?”
He nodded. “That’s exactly it.”
Instinctively I recoiled from the idea. “I see that you want to create a diversion, sir,” I said slowly. “But tell me, why must it be a naval diversion? What I mean is this. Anything done upon the sea tends to develop into a big show, because you have to cover your stake. A ship — any sort of ship — takes a long time to make and costs a lot of money. You may plan to fight your Raumboote with one ship, but before long you’ll find it necessary to send other ships in support of your one ship. And before you know what’s happening your little show has turned into a considerable operation.”
I paused. “I don’t know much about these matters,” I said diffidently. “But I should have thought a land diversion would have served as well. A bomb laid up against an oil-tank, for example. There you only risk one man and one bomb.”
“It wouldn’t have the same effect,” he said. “As a matter of fact, an oil-tank is very difficult. It has been done, but the chance of getting away without detection is very small. A bridge is easier, and high-tension cables are very simple, of course. You can hurt them quite a lot by blowing up the pylons, and they can’t put a guard on every pylon in the country. But none of those would influence Douarnenez very much.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “Their minds are turned entirely to the sea. I thought the same as you at first, but you must understand the sort of town it is. The whole life of the place is centred round the harbour and the fishing fleet. It’s just like Brixham must have been thirty years ago.”
I nodded without speaking.
“It’s got the strongest fishing fleet in France,” he said. “But I suppose you know all about that.”
“I’m ashamed to say I don’t,” I said. “I know it’s quite a big fleet. How many vessels sail out of Douarnenez?”
He pulled out his notebook again. “I can give you that.” He fumbled for a little, and found the page. “On March 1st there were a hundred and forty-seven sardine-boats, Diesel-engined wooden vessels sixty to seventy feet long. There were thirty-six sailing tunnymen, ketch-rigged, about a hundred and ten feet long. And there were seven sailing crabbers, about a hundred and thirty feet. A hundred and ninety vessels all told, excluding small boats.”
“That’s a very strong fleet,” I said. “What do all those ships do now?”
“They still go out fishing.”
“Are those the fishing-boats that the destroyers see when they make their sweeps? Between Ushant and Belle Isle?”
He nodded. “Those are probably the ones they see. The tunnymen go down to the Bay of Biscay; the sardine-boats don’t usually go south of the Île de Sein. It’s the sardine fleet that concerns us now.”
I stared at him. “Wait a minute,” I said slowly. “I thought I knew something about this. Didn’t two or three of them come into Falmouth in June of last year? Loaded with refugees? Or am I thinking of some other boats?”
“No, that’s right,” he said. “There are several of them in Falmouth harbour now.”
“Big, beamy boats, with a high sheer and one mast laid down in a tabernacle? Go everywhere with their engine?”
He nodded. “If you ever saw their nets you’d know them again. Very fine-mesh nets, dyed blue.”
The suggestion crystallized the image in my mind: blue gossamer nets hung up to the one mast and drying in the sunlight, very foreign-looking in Falmouth harbour. “Of course I know those boats,” I said. “I saw them there this spring.”
I stubbed out the butt of my cigarette and glanced at him. “What is the exact proposal, sir?”
He fixed his candid, china-blue eyes on me. “My young men want to cut out one of the Raumboote and destroy it.”
“I see,” I said thoughtfully. We sat in silence for a minute. “How do they propose to do that?”
He said: “Let me give you the whole thing. I told you that there were a hundred and forty-seven sardine-boats sailing from Douarnenez. That’s quite true, but for one reason or another not more than about sixty are at sea on any one night. They go out after midday, according to the tide, and go to their grounds — thirty to sixty miles away perhaps, anywhere between Ushant and the Saints. That depends on where the fish are.”
He paused, and then went on: “There are five Raumboote based on Douarnenez at the moment. Two of those are always at sea with the sardine fleet — sometimes three. The fleet stays out all night and usually for a second night. Then that fleet comes back to harbour, and a fresh lot go out next day.”
I said: “What do the Raumboote do? What are they there for?”
“To stop the Bretons making a run for England.”
“I thought there was a German in each boat?”
He shook his head. “Not in every boat. There’s usually a German reservist petty officer, an old Bootsmannsmaat or someone of that sort, in every other boat or every third boat. But there aren’t enough of them to go round. The Germans depend a good deal on the fact that the wives and families of the crews are left on shore. If any boat is manned by Bretons without many home ties of that sort, then that boat gets one of the old German petty officers allotted to it.”
“I see that,” I said. “All the same, I should have thought it would have been a fairly simple matter for them to slip away by night.”
He shook his head. “It’s not quite so easy as it might appear. They have to have a working light for handling their nets. The boats with Germans in them have an orange shade over this light; that tells the Raumboote where the Germans are. The Raumboote cruise around on the sea side of the fleet all night, counting the lights all the time. If any boat tried to get away she’d be spotted by her light. If she put out her light, it’s probable that one of the Germans in the other boats would see, and light a flare to call the attention of the Raumboote.”
I lit another cigarette and sat for a moment, staring out of my window at the bricklayers working in the dusty, sun-drenched court.
“How is the Raumboote armed?” I said at last.
He consulted his notebook again. “Let me get this right.” He turned the pages. “One flak gun on the forecastle. Two machine-guns just aft of the bridge. One light flak — an Oerlikon or something of that sort — mounted right at the stern.”
; “And searchlights, of course?”
“There are searchlights on each side, mounted on the wings of the bridge.”
I stared at him curiously. “Did all this information come to you from the other side?”
He said seriously: “Well, it doesn’t just come. We have to send over and get it.”
“Quite so,” I said.
There was a little pause.
“You say that one of your young men brought forward this proposal,” I remarked. “That was for dealing with a Raumboote?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“How does he intend to make the first contact with it? Would you require us to supply White Ensign ships to carry out the operation?”
He said: “Oh, no. That wasn’t what we had in mind at all. What he proposes can be carried out with the resources that we have available. But as it is essentially a naval operation, we felt that you must know about it and pronounce upon it.”
“I understand,” I said. “What is it that he wants to do?”
“The Raumboote control their sardine-boats by coming up alongside and shouting at them through a megaphone,” he said. “That’s how they manage them. So long as they stick to the fishing-grounds arranged beforehand the Raumboote just cruise round and leave the boats to themselves. But if one strays away, the Raumboote steam after it, and the officer in charge orders it back by shouting at it through a megaphone.”
“They do that at night, too?” I asked. “Guided by the light that the sardine-boat wears?”
“That’s it,” said the brigadier.
“They come within thirty or forty yards?” I was beginning to see the outline of his scheme.
“Closer than that. Both vessels have their engines running. They have to come very close to make themselves understood.”
“I see,” I said thoughtfully. I glanced at him. “A very easy target.”
“Yes, a very easy target,” he repeated. “As you know, we’ve got several of these sardine-boats in this country. We want to send one over with a special crew and with a special armament and let it mix in with the fishing fleet during the hours of darkness. It should not be very difficult to draw the Raumboote alongside and deal with it.”
I smiled a little. “Who thought of that idea?”
“The young man I was speaking of. Captain Simon.”
I said: “Is he one of the ones who go over to the other side?”
“Yes. It was he who gave us most of this information.”
I paused for a moment, and fixed the name in my memory. “He’s an Army captain, I suppose?”
The brigadier hesitated. “Well, yes. We had to regularize his position. He holds the rank of Captain in the Royal Engineers, seconded for special duties, of course.”
I thought about that answer for a minute, then put it on one side and reverted to the operation. “It seems to me,” I said thoughtfully, “that it’s going to be pretty difficult for your sardine Q-ship to get away. The noise of gunfire will attract the other Raumboote, and any other German ships that there may be about.” I eyed him, and then said more positively: “I shouldn’t think your ship would have a chance of making her escape, even if she should sink her Raumboote. And quite frankly, sir, I’m not at all convinced that she would sink it. What armament would you propose to give her for the job?”
He said: “A flame-thrower — one of the big ones. A flame-thrower and a few Tommy-guns.”
I was silent for a minute, re-arranging my ideas. When I had spoken I had been thinking of a conventional sea battle, an ill-considered venture, a desperate affair of young fools in a fishing-boat with little guns attempting to engage a powerful, well-armed motor vessel twice their size. I had been ready to veto anything so suicidal. But there was more behind this thing than that. There was some thought behind it — genius, perhaps.
I knew about these modern flame-throwers. I had been to a couple of Staff demonstrations, and had seen them belch out their disgusting fury in a violent, cherry-coloured spout enormous in diameter, ploughing and devastating the bare earth far, far from the gun. I had seen them smother and envelop a tank in a furnace. I had seen the sickening effect upon a dummy man.
I stared at him. “That’s not a bad idea,” I said very quietly. “There might be something in that one.”
He smiled. “I must say, it attracted me,” he said candidly. “It’s something different, you see. I think that they would get their Raumboote all right, and I don’t think that the other ships would interfere with them. You see, it’s something new.”
“It would light up the whole sky,” I said.
“It would. But from a distance it might well look like a spontaneous explosion of the petrol-tanks. In any case, it would be...puzzling. And in the general confusion, I think our ship would get away.”
“I think she might,” I said. “It would certainly be devastating if it came as a complete surprise.”
“Well, yes, I think it would. We’re really getting quite keen on it over in our office.”
I asked: “Have you worked out any tactical plan of how it would be used?”
He said: “We thought of mounting it amidships, with the fuel-tanks in the bottom of the boat. The flame-gun would stick up above the bulwarks, camouflaged as a heap of nets.” He paused. “In action, the first thing to do would be to get rid of the forward flak — open up first upon the forecastle of the Raumboote and burn up the gun crew. Then traverse aft and give the bridge a good dose to get rid of the officers, and then train aft to the machine-guns, and the flak crew at the stern. It ought not to be very difficult.”
“It should not be,” I said. “I imagine that you’d clear the decks all right. But you’d still have the crew within the hull to cater for, and the Raumboote would still be under way. What would you do next? Would you board?”
He said cheerfully: “Oh, I don’t think so. There’d be no need to run that risk, you see. You’d treat her like you treat a tank.”
I glanced at him in enquiry.
“Give her a good hosing with the oil unlit. Get it well down into the cowls and ventilators and hatches, and let it drip down well inside. Then give her a burst of flame, and light her up.”
All war is a grim business and we had had two years of it, but I shivered a little.
“That ought to work all right,” I said mechanically.
“I think so, too,” he said. “I can’t see any flaw in it. In fact, over at our place we think it’s worth a trial.”
There was a pause. I sat in silence for a little time, trying to think up some fresh argument against this thing. I did not want to stop it now, but I wanted to bring all the possible difficulties up for discussion before I put it to my chief.
He said: “You see, it’s something new. That is of value in itself. And it’s something rather horrible to happen to the German crew, exactly what the French would wish to happen to them.” He leaned towards me. “That’s what concerns us most, of course. A thing like that will have a wonderful effect in Douarnenez as soon as it becomes known.”
I said: “If it’s successful, if you destroy your Raumboote without survivors, it may never become known.”
“Oh, yes, it will,” he said, and smiled a little. “We’ll see they get to know about it on the other side.”
That was his business and not mine, and my mind swung to another aspect of the matter, one which was really more my concern. “This sardine-boat that you want to use as a decoy,” I said. “You’re thinking of using one of the ones at Falmouth, I suppose.”
He shook his head. “Not one of those. There’s another one at Dartmouth.” He paused, and then he said a little diffidently: “As a matter of fact, we’ve already requisitioned her.”
I thought to myself: “Oh, you have, have you?” It was not the first time that the Army had displayed an inclination to set up a private Navy, and I knew that my admiral held strong views upon that subject. But I kept my own counsel, and all I said was:
“What’s her
name?”
“Geneviève,” he said. “She was a Camaret boat really, but they’re all very similar.”
“What about manning her?” I asked. “Have you thought about that?”
He said: “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk over with you. Simon himself has a fair knowledge of the sea — yachting, you know. I suppose that’s what turned his mind to an adventure of this sort. It was he who discovered this boat at Dartmouth, the Geneviève. And as a matter of fact, he’s been in touch with two of your young officers down there. He wants to work them in.”
I said aloud this time: “Oh, he has, has he?”
The brigadier said: “I really felt, when I heard that, that it was time I came to see you people.” He smiled charmingly. “I didn’t want you to feel that we’d been trespassing outside our territory.”
I smiled back with equal charm. “Oh, not a bit,” I said. “Who are these naval officers?”
“They’re both of them lieutenants in the R.N.V.R.,” he said. “One of them, Boden, is in a trawler that goes mine-sweeping from Dartmouth. The other one is in some technical shore job down there — Boom Defence, or something of the sort. His name is Rhodes. He’s in the Special Branch, I think. He has a green stripe between the wavy rings.”
“That’s Special Branch,” I said. “He’s probably some kind of a technician.”
The brigadier said: “He’s the one who knows about the flame-thrower.”
I made a note of the names on my pad. “If this thing should go forward,” I said carefully, “I see no reason why we shouldn’t lend those officers to you, if you really want them. Was it your idea that Captain Simon should go in command?”
“That is what we should like,” he said. “The proposal came from Simon, he’s the man who knows the local conditions over on the other side, and we have confidence in him. But since this has to be, in its small way, a combined operation, we should want to agree the commander with you people.”