by Nevil Shute
“I just sat down for a minute. The surgeon gave Rollot and Jules a draught or something. He’s staying here till morning.”
“I know that,” said Colvin. “Did he give you one?”
“I don’t need anything. I’ll sleep all right.”
“Let’s see you do it. Give me your boots; I’ll pull them off for you.”
Obediently Boden stretched out his right leg; Colvin took the gum-boot and wrestled it off. “Say,” he said, grasping the left one. “I spoke pretty sharp that time you said I ought to write to Junie. I ought to have clipped you on the jaw.”
Boden smiled faintly. “Do it now, if you like.” The other boot came off, and he lowered his leg to the ground. “Are you going to write to her?”
The older man stood silent for a moment. “I dunno,” he said at last. “I dunno why you want to get me talking about Junie all the time. It don’t do any good. Come on now. Get up, ‘n get your clothes off, ‘n get into bed.”
Obediently the other got up and stripped off his jersey. “Don’t you ever want to see her again?”
“I dunno. Junie’s a young woman still. If she can meet up with some proper guy that has a settled job, ‘n can treat her right, I’d not want anything better for her. Suppose I was to write, I’d only get her unsettled all over again.”
Boden stopped in the act of pulling off a sea-boot stocking. “It gets you,” he said, staring at the other. “It got me, just the same as it’s got you. So that nothing’s ever quite the same again.”
There was a pause. Then Colvin said roughly: “Go on and get into your bed. I dunno what you’re talking about.”
Boden pulled off his clothes in silence. Presently he said: “How many Jerries do you think we scuppered?”
“I dunno,” said Colvin. “Forty-five — fifty, maybe. Rhodes said he put eight hundred and thirty gallons of that Worcester Sauce on them, all in next to no time. I reckon we got all there were.”
Boden said: “Counting the ones in the first boat, that’d make sixty or seventy in all.”
“I guess so. What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.” He got into his bed. “Thanks for tucking me up; I might have sat like that till morning.”
“You R.N.V.R. want a nursemaid with you,” said Colvin. “Good night.” He switched out the light, closed the door behind him, and went to find the young surgeon.
“Look in upon Lieutenant Boden, quiet, in half an hour,” he said. “If he’s awake give him a sleeping dose.”
9
I WENT UP to N.O.I.C.’s office next morning and rang up the admiral. He asked that Simon should go to him to report. I told him Simon was in hospital, and he asked for Colvin; I promised to take Colvin to him as soon as we had got the party straightened up.
I met McNeil and had a short talk with him; then he went back to London on the morning train. I was left to do all that was necessary. I had a talk with N.O.I.C. and made arrangements for Geneviève to go on to the slip; she was leaking badly. While she was there we could survey her for repair.
I talked of leave to the old commander. “I’m going to send the whole ship’s company away for ten days’ leave,” I said. “The shore party can do anything that’s necessary. About that Wren who drives their truck. If you agree, I think she’d better go as well.”
“If you like,” he said amiably. “That’s Wren Wright?”
“I think that’s the one,” I said. “She’s refused leave recently, I understand, because she wanted to see the thing through. They may as well all go together; then they’ll all be fresh when they get back.”
He nodded. “What are you going to do next?” he asked. “Are you going on to do it again?”
I was silent for a moment. “That depends on what the vessel’s like,” I said. “I’d like to pack this party up, myself, and do something quite different. But I’m afraid that other people will decide that one.”
“Why do you want to pack them up?” he asked mildly. “They seem to be a most successful ship, from what I hear.”
I did not really know myself, to express it in words. I only knew that I had a feeling that they’d done enough. “They don’t run under proper naval discipline,” I said at last. “I don’t think it’s a sound arrangement to mix nationalities in a ship’s company like that. It may work well enough for a time, but it can’t go on.”
I went up to the hospital soon after that to see Simon, but he was still asleep. I went down to the dock and had a talk with the manager, and then I went back to the hotel for lunch. I telephoned for a car after lunch, and Wren Wright came with the little truck and we drove out to Dittisham.
She was looking pale and drawn. “‘Afternoon,” I said as I got in. “You’re going off on leave. The whole ship’s company are getting leave. Has N.O.I.C. told you?”
“They told me at the Wrennery, sir,” she said. “I think I’ll probably be going off to-morrow morning.”
I said: “A change will do everybody good. Where are you going to?”
She said: “To Derby.”
“I thought you lived in Norwich?” I said idly.
“I do. I’m going first to Derby, and then on to Norwich.”
How she spent her leave was no concern of mine, but the mention of Derby struck a chord somewhere. Derby, somehow, was a part of this affair. I sat in silence for a few minutes as she drove through the lanes, and then it came to me. Derby was where Rhodes’s mother lived.
At Dittisham I found them all up and about, smart and clean in new uniforms. Already Geneviève had disappeared, towed down the river to the shipyard by a motor-boat. I told Colvin that all the lot of them were to get off on leave. I told him that he’d got to produce the report, since Simon was in hospital.
He said awkwardly: “I’ll do my best, sir, but I don’t write so good. I’d rather someone else did it.”
Boden was there. He said: “I’ll write it, if you like.”
“Aye,” said Colvin, much relieved. “You write it, ‘n I’ll tell you where it’s wrong.”
I left them to it, and went on to fix up the leave of the Free French and the Danes. McNeil was arranging hospitality for them in London in conjunction with their own headquarters; most of them had nowhere of their own to go to. Presently I came to Rhodes.
“You’d better give me your address on leave,” I said, “in case we want to get hold of you.” I got out my notebook and a pencil.
“I shall be at Derby for the first four or five days, sir,” he said. He gave me the address. “After that I’m going on to Norwich.”
I shut my notebook with a snap. “I suppose I can get that one from the Wrennery,” I said. He grinned, and flushed quite pink. It was odd to think that that lad had done what he had on Sunday night.
When I came round to Boden and to Colvin I ran up against a difficulty. Each of them came to me in turn and asked if he could stay at Dittisham. Boden came first.
“I don’t want to go away,” he said. “One of us ought to stay here to look after things. I don’t want any leave.”
“I want you all to get away,” I said. “The vessel will be in the shipyard for ten days, and longer.”
“I’d rather stay here. I’ve got nowhere special that I want to go to.”
I knew that this lad wanted careful handling. “You’ve got a home in Yorkshire, haven’t you?” I said. “Your people will want to see you.”
He was silent. At last he said: “I suppose I ought to go and see my people. But I shan’t stay there more than a day or two. After that I think I’ll come back here.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “You won’t come back here till your leave is up. That’s an order.” I paused. “I tell you what you can do, if you like. If you get fed up with Yorkshire there’s a lot of paper work about this thing wants doing in my office. You can come down to the Admiralty and give me a hand.”
He brightened; he was evidently pleased. “That’s awfully good of you, sir. I’ll be with you on Monday morning.”
>
Colvin came next, and he said much the same as Boden. “I guess I’ll stick around,” he said.
I put that idea out of his head. “You can go to Torquay if you like,” I said. “But nobody stays here.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to go to Torquay.” That rather surprised me. “I got no roots in this country,” he said. “Not like them R.N.V.R. boys.”
“You’ve got to come with me to Newhaven to see V.A.C.O.,” I said. “After that I’ll find you a job if you want one, but you don’t stay here.”
He grinned. In the end I sent him up to Scotland with the East Coast convoy out of London, to tell me how the double Vick formation against E-boats worked out in practice. He put in a very clear and informative report, written up for him by Boden, at the end of his leave; so that was quite good value.
I had tea at Dittisham with them, and then went to Dartmouth in the truck, with Rhodes in the back, to go to see Simon in the hospital. I found him awake and in a bit of pain from his injured hand; moreover, he was in an open ward, so I didn’t stay very long. In any case, McNeil had taken his account the night before.
He told me that they had taken off the remains of the third and fourth fingers that morning, and tidied up the rest for him. “I shall not be long here, in hospital,” he said. “A week — no more. Then I shall be back at duty.”
It occurred to me that this was probably another one; none of these fellows seemed to have much use for leave. “I don’t know about that,” I said. “You won’t be fit for duty, and I want everyone to have a spell of leave.”
He said: “There is no time for that. As soon as the ship is repaired we must go again, with guns. How long will that be?”
“Ten days or a fortnight.” McNeil had told me something about his new idea that morning, but I was by no means sure that I agreed. “Tell me,” I said, “what is it that you want to do, exactly?”
He leaned forward from his bed, tense, eager, and a little feverish. “To-day,” he said, “Douarnenez will be seething, hot for revolt against the Germans. We have shown them what the English can do now. The next step is to bring them arms. Seventy Tommy-guns, and about three thousand rounds for each — Colvin says that we can carry that much in the ship. Then, when we want to land a force in Brittany, we shall find them fighting at our side.”
A nurse swept down upon us. “This patient is not to get excited, Commander,” she said severely. “You may talk for two or three minutes longer, but not if he goes on like this.” She laid him back upon his pillows and smoothed out the sheet.
“Over-enthusiasm,” I said. “That’s what you get, you see.”
From his pillow he eyed me earnestly. “You will see Brigadier McNeil? I cannot say how important it is. They will receive the guns and hide them, secretly, to use to help us when our fellows have to land one day.”
I nodded. “I’ll talk it over with McNeil,” I said. “Have you thought out how you’d get the guns on shore?”
He said: “The fishing fleet must take them from us, five or ten to each boat; in that way they can be hidden and smuggled on shore easily. We will arrange that there is an alarm one night, so that the boats must scatter and put out their lights.” He paused. “An alarm that British raiders are near by. Then we can make a rendezvous, in the dark night, to pass the arms to them.”
If the fishing fleet would play, that was as good a way to do the job as any other. Distribution before the arms got on shore was obviously sound. “I’ll see McNeil about it when I get to London,” I promised him. “It’s a matter of high policy, of course. For all I know, they may not want to give the Bretons arms just yet.”
Simon said: “In a war like this, sir, policy depends on opportunity. And now, we have an opportunity that will not come again.”
He was obviously tired, and in a good bit of pain. I left him, and on my way out stopped in the office to speak to the surgeon-commander.
“He’s getting on very well, so far as we can tell at present,” I was told. “We removed two fingers — oh, he told you that. Apart from that, he’ll have the full use of the hand, I think.”
“He said that he’d be back on duty in a week.”
The surgeon snorted. “We might discharge him from here in a week if all goes well, but there’s such a thing as sick leave. I shall recommend him for a month.”
“You may recommend what you like,” I said. “You won’t get him to take it.”
There was a short silence. “I agree, he seems to be difficult upon that subject,” the surgeon said. “He’s a funny sort of chap. Foreign, isn’t he? And an army officer?”
“Yes,” I said shortly.
“Anyway, he won’t be passed as fit for general service for at least a month after he leaves here. If he goes back to work at all it must be for light duty only.”
I left the hospital, and went down to the shipyard to see Geneviève. She was just coming up on to the slip; I stayed there till the cradle had come up and we could see the underwater body. Water trickled steadily from a point by the stern-post where the planks had sprung; the foreman said it was the engine and propeller vibration that had done that. At the bow the damage from the shell hit by the stem extended to the water-line; she had taken in water there. Apart from those points she was sound enough, and they weren’t serious.
I left for London on the early train next morning. Colvin came with me, and all the Danes and Bretons travelled in the next coach to us; Colvin was seeing them up safe to London. I rang McNeil from Paddington when we got in; he was in his office and I went there with Colvin before going on to Newhaven to see the admiral.
McNeil had two of the same typed flimsies on his desk; he passed them over for us to read, without comment. They were marked MOST SECRET, as before.
The first one read:
DOUARNENEZ. Riots and anti-German demonstrations continued throughout Monday. There have been many arrests. There are not more than three hundred German troops in the town, and no effective reinforcements nearer than the Panzer concentration at Carhaix. Oberstleutnant Meichen, commandant, has telegraphed Generalmajor Reutzel stating unless reinforcements are sent he cannot guarantee to control the district. Ends.
The second one read:
BREST. One officer and sixteen other ranks were executed by shooting at the Fort des Fédérés this morning. The officer was Leutnant zur See Engelmann, a native of Kassel. These men were part of the crews of Raumboote R.83 and R.172, stationed at Brest. It is reported that they refused duty on being ordered to Douarnenez to replace vessels destroyed by fire. Ends.
“I don’t get that,” said Colvin. “Was this Germans that got shot, at this place Fort des Fédérés?”
McNeil took the signals back from him. “What it means,” he said, “is that you started a mutiny in the German Navy. These Raumboote were ordered to go to Douarnenez, but the crews had heard what happens to Raumboote at that port. Some of the men mutinied, and were tried and shot within a day. The Boche won’t stand that sort of thing.”
“Say,” breathed Colvin. “What do you think of that?”
I said: “The other one is interesting. I had no idea that the coast was so lightly held.”
McNeil said: “There are strong concentrations inland. But the control of the population is evidently worrying them. They may need more men for that.”
“Well,” I said, “the Russians can do without them.” That was early in October, 1941, when the Russians had been retreating steadily for three months.
“That’s the point,” said McNeil. “That is why we must keep up the pressure.”
I pulled out my case and lit a cigarette. “I haven’t seen V.A.C.O. yet,” I remarked. “I’m going down there now. My own view is that this vessel has done enough. She has been clearly seen now, at Douarnenez, and they know she’s easy meat so long as they don’t get too close to her. I think her usefulness is over.”
“Is that what you’re going to tell your admiral?”
“Subject to wh
at you say — yes.”
McNeil was silent for a minute. “In general,” he said, “I think I agree with you. I don’t think we should send her out again on an offensive operation; she’s getting too well known. I think that she is valuable still because of her great similarity to the fishing vessels of the fleet. I’ve got in mind this gun-running that Simon wants to do.”
“He told me something about that,” I said. “Is it in line with your policy?”
“Yes, it is. A town that’s in that state of ferment should have arms. Tommy-guns and ammunition are coming forward quite well now. I can find seventy for Douarnenez, if Simon can think up a scheme to put them in the town.”
“He wants a diversion,” I said. “He wants the fishing fleet to be broken up one night, so that they scatter without lights. Then he can rendezvous with them in some quiet cove, and pass the arms to them.”
“From Geneviève?”
I hesitated. “It would be best to use a ship that looks like another fishing-boat of the fleet for the job, I suppose.”
“I agree,” he said. “She should be useful for some time to come for missions of that sort. But I agree with you, she should not do offensive operations any more.”
“Personally,” I said, “I don’t care much about her doing anything at all.”
“She ought to do this gun-running,” he said.
I nodded. “We might let her do that. But after that is over we should give that district a long rest, or else start something different with another ship.”
We left it like that: that we should review the operations of the ship again after this next trip over to the other side. I left McNeil, and went on down to Newhaven with Colvin that same afternoon to see V.A.C.O. It was dark when we got there, a fine starry night. It was fresh down by the sea, after a day of travelling.
The admiral had us in at once. He got up from his desk as we came in. “‘Evening, Colvin. ‘Evening, Martin. I understand I’ve got to congratulate your vessel on another very good show.”