by Nevil Shute
I stood down on the hard with the shore party and watched them go. They slipped their mooring and went down between the wooded hills by Mill Creek till they were lost to sight. Then I turned away; the Wren was going to drive me back to Newton Abbot in the truck.
She was beside me. “Wish them luck,” I said a little heavily.
She said: “Do you think I’m not?”
I glanced down at her, smiling in what I meant to be a reassuring way. “They’ll be all right,” I said. “It’s not as if they were going out to look for trouble this time.” She knew well enough what they had gone to do.
She did not answer that. I glanced at her again. She seemed to have got much older in the last few weeks, much more mature. I saw for the first time that she was wearing an engagement ring, turquoise and diamonds, very little stones: a ring that a lieutenant who had nothing but his pay might give his girl.
I said: “I see that I’ve got to congratulate you, Miss Wright. Is that, by any chance, for any of our chaps?”
She raised her hand and looked at it. “It’s for Lieutenant Rhodes,” she said. “You must have known. It’s horribly conspicuous. I suppose the new look goes away after a time.”
She wasn’t at all excited over it; she wasn’t even smiling. That seemed to me rather dreadful and unnatural.
“I’m terribly glad,” I said as warmly as I could. “I hope that you’ll be very, very happy.”
“That’s awfully sweet of you,” she said. “I’m sure I hope so, too.”
The shore party had dissipated; we were momentarily alone by the waterside. I did not want to go away and leave her in that frame of mind. “You mustn’t feel like that,” I said. “You get a double lot of troubles when you get engaged, but you get the hell of a lot more fun.” It wasn’t quite what I had wanted to say, but it was the best that I could manage impromptu.
She glanced up at me. “I suppose you had it in peace-time,” she said unexpectedly.
I did not understand her.
“Getting engaged, I mean,” she said. “It must have been lovely to get engaged in peace-time, when you had time to give to it. I suppose some day there’ll be a world again where people can live quietly, and fall in love, and get married, and have fun. Where you can keep a rabbit or a dog — or a husband, and not have to stand by and see them killed. Where you can think of other things than burning oil, and rain, and darkness, and black bitter hate.”
I stood there thoughtful, looking out over the river. I was thinking that the Women’s Royal Naval Service has its complications and its limitations. If Geneviève went on upon this work, Leading Wren Wright would have to be transferred to other duty.
“Don’t worry too much,” I said as gently as I could. “This isn’t going on forever.” I turned towards the car. “Let’s get along to Newton Abbot.”
“Very good, sir.”
We drove that thirty miles mostly in silence. She knew all the movements in Operation Blanket; she knew that I was going to Plymouth to see the supporting M.G.B.s away. At Newton Abbot station, as we drew up in the yard, she said:
“Will you be coming back to Dartmouth, sir? Would you like me to meet you here?”
I reflected for a moment. The M.G.B.s would be back very early in the morning. Geneviève could hardly be back before dark; as before, I had made arrangements for the port to be opened for her on her signal. I got out of the truck, crossed to the time-table upon the wall, and looked up a train. The afternoon train from Plymouth stopped at Newton Abbot at 3.40; that seemed suitable.
“You’d better meet me here at 3.40 to-morrow afternoon, Miss Wright,” I said. “I shall be coming back to Dartmouth then. This is going to be another middle-of-the-night show.”
She nodded. “Very good, sir. I’ll meet you here at 3.40 to-morrow afternoon.”
“That’s right,” I said. I hesitated, and then said: “If I were you I should go to the pictures to-night, and go to bed early.”
She said quietly: “Thank you, sir.”
I went on by train to Plymouth and got there early in the afternoon. I got down to the dock at about four o’clock. The two M.G.B.s were running their main engines to warm up, and taking on a few last-minute stores from the pontoons that they were moored to. Captain (D.) was there to see them off; I made my number with him as representing V.A.C.O. and we stood chatting for a time. At five minutes to five Sanderson came up to us, saluted, and reported that everything was ready and correct.
The captain took his salute. “Very good, Sanderson,” he said. “Carry on as soon as you can. The best of luck.”
The young man saluted again and went back to his boat. The captain walked up to the other vessel, 261, at the pontoon astern of 268. Above the heavy rumble of the engines he shouted to the young officer upon the tiny bridge: “Good luck, Peters.” The young man smiled and saluted.
Then the boats slipped bow and stern ropes from the pontoon and moved out into the stream, great clouds of steam vomiting from their exhausts in the grey evening light. They turned downriver to the sea, and very soon were lost to sight behind Drake’s Island.
I had a cabin reserved for me in the barracks, but I didn’t use it. I dined in the ward-room; then, wanting to be on hand for anything that might occur, I went back to the Commander-in-Chief’s office. It was a fine, starry night, without much cloud; I wondered if it were the same over on the other side.
There was no news for me in the Operations Room; indeed, I didn’t expect any. The boats were bound to wireless silence except for the greatest emergency; there would be nothing for me till they came back to Cawsand at perhaps four-thirty in the morning. I left instructions with the Duty Officer to call me when anything came in, went down into the shelter, and fell asleep upon a bunk.
I woke up with a start and looked at my watch. It was nearly seven o’clock. I was annoyed; it seemed to me that the boats must have been back for some time. I smoothed my hair and uniform and went up to the Operations Room again; in the east the sky was getting grey. But there was no news of the M.G.B.s.
“Nothing has come in yet,” the Duty Officer said. “There was no point in waking you.”
He lent me a razor, and I went and had a shave. I got a cup of tea and stayed on in the Operations Room. It was about 09.15 when the signalman passed a message to the Duty Officer.
“That’s your Operation Blanket,” he said. “268 and 261 are passing Rame Head now.”
He rang up Captain (D.) to tell him; I spoke to him myself and asked permission to go down to the pontoon to meet the boats. Ten minutes later I was down there watching 268 as she came first to the pontoon.
She came in rumbling thunderously, vomiting white clouds from her exhausts. From the great flare of her bow to her squat transom she was glistening with water all over; the few dry spots upon her upperworks were streaked with salt. Her two young officers wore duffle coats; they were surprisingly wide awake and fresh-looking after the rough, lumpy trip they must have had across the Channel and back.
And then I saw she had no depth-charges left in her racks. 261, following behind to the pontoon, had none either.
Captain (D.) stepped across on to the slippery little deck of 268 as soon as she was moored; I followed him. Lieutenant Sanderson nipped down from the bridge in time to salute him as he came on board.
“Good morning, Sanderson. Everything all right?”
The young man’s jaw stuck out more prominently than ever. “Everything’s quite all right on board 268, sir. 261 reports one minor casualty. We had to depart a little from the operation orders. After creating the diversion, at about 02.20, we carried out a joint attack upon a German destroyer with depth-charges. I don’t think we sunk her.”
He turned to me. “Before attacking we saw the destroyer sink a fishing-boat by gunfire,” he said bluntly. “I’m pretty sure it was Geneviève.”
This was his account: From the time that they left Plymouth everything worked out to schedule for the first part of the night. They kept in
company at about twenty knots, each clearly visible to the other in the darkness by the broad white wake they made. They were off Ushant at about 21.45 and altered course down into L’Iroise; at 22.10 they slowed to seven knots and went on upon their silent engines.
The sky, they said, was cloudless and starry, and though the moon was not yet up, they picked up the high loom of land at Cap de la Chèvre without great difficulty. The next thing they saw was the lights of the fishing fleet away to the south by the Raz de Sein, a little galaxy of yellow and white lights low down upon the water in the distance. That was all satisfactory and according to plan and they went on, meeting no opposition and expecting none.
They kept to the westward of the searchlight which, they knew from Geneviève, was located on the cliff at Beuzec. They closed the south shore of the bay somewhere near Goulin and reached a point about two miles off shore at 22.50. There they stopped engines and lay side by side upon the water for a few minutes, perhaps five miles from the fishing fleet, and between them and Douarnenez.
At 22.57 they started up main engines and turned to do their stuff. The wind was light and in the south-west; under the lee of the land and the Chaussée the water was fairly smooth. The boats had good conditions for high speed. They went roaring down upon the fishing fleet at thirty-seven or thirty-eight knots side by side. Their depth-charges were all set for fifty feet, and when they got within a mile or so of the twinkling lights 268 let one of them go to call attention to their approach.
It burst behind them in a great column of water, and as they closed the fleet 268 began firing tracer from her 20 mm. cannon low over the swaying lights. 261 let go another depth-charge and joined in the cannon-fire with her forward Oerlikon. The lights began to vanish one by one. They did not dare to close the fleet at that speed, fearing a collision, so they swung six points to starboard and went roaring round the north of them. Each of the boats dropped one more depth-charge, “just to help them with the fishing,” as Sanderson put it, and then they swung eight points to port again.
The fleet was now behind them, and all lights were out. They drew away, still firing over where they thought the boats must be. Simon had told them that the Raumboote lay normally to seaward of the fleet, and they hoped by their fire and by ramping round to seaward of the fleet that they would draw fire from one of them and make it show itself. But if there were a Raumboote there at all it lay doggo; it would have been no match for them, and probably realized it.
At 23.12 the fleet was far behind and they were getting rather near the Chaussée. They swung right round to starboard and headed north, slowing to twenty knots. At 23.17 they stopped their main engines and lay upon the water side by side, their silent engines ticking over slowly.
They had done their stuff. There were no lights now showing from the fleet, and the moon was just coming up above the land south of the bay. The night was fine and starry; soon it would be very light. By their operation orders they should now have set a course for home, but as sometimes happens, operation orders got mislaid.
In conversation with me, as distinct from his report, Sanderson was quite frank and unashamed. “If we’d beat it for home then,” he said, “we couldn’t have got into harbour before dawn. It only meant lying for two or three hours in Cawsand Bay. Conditions out there were so good I thought we’d lie out there and see if the good Lord didn’t send us a nice Jerry.”
He said that there were several searchlights playing about the coast, two from a point upon the mainland near the Raz de Sein and several up on the high ground of the Cap de la Chèvre. Several times he saw these searchlights pick up a fishing-boat and hold it in their beam; from the disposition of the boats so held it was evident that they had scattered widely over the Iroise. He began to wonder about Geneviève. The rising moon, white in a cloudless, starry sky, was flooding the bay with light; they could see the land right round from St. Mathieu in the north to Penmarch in the south. It was a bad night for any ship to slink about the other side, trusting to darkness for her safety.
That was one of the reasons that made Sanderson disregard his orders. He stayed to support Geneviève if there should be trouble. He lay some ten miles out from La Chèvre, drifting slowly northwards with the tide towards the rocks called La Vendrée. It was a beautiful, calm, moonlit night. The two motor-gunboats lay there stopped upon the water for nearly three hours, watching the shore, running their engines now and then to keep them warm, ready to dive inshore again to help out Geneviève if there were any trouble, ready for action against any German vessel that showed up.
They saw nothing to disturb the quiet of the night. Presently the searchlights shut off one by one; there was no sign of anything upon the waters. Simon had been uncertain of the time that he would leave the coast; provisionally he had estimated that he would have finished his transhipment of the Tommy-guns between 01.00 and 01.30. Sanderson was quite happy lying as he was and he gave Geneviève another hour to get clear. At 02.10 he came to the conclusion that the party must be over, and he might as well get under way. He made a signal to 261, and the two boats got going, laying a course to pass about ten miles outside Ushant, planning to reach Plymouth about dawn and go straight in.
At 02.13 there was a sudden, blinding yellow glow upon the water four or five miles astern of them. It lit up the whole sky, drowning the moon and showing up both boats in yellow light. It was not sudden as a gun-flash is. It was continuous, its origin a smoky yellow streak. There was only one thing that could possibly create a light like that.
Both M.G.B.s turned violently to starboard, worked quickly up to full speed on the reverse course, and went to action stations. They tore down to the incident ahead of them at forty knots, half their length clear out of the water, leaving a wide streak of foam behind. They each had two depth-charges left.
They could see the flashes of gunfire now. In the last bursts of flame they saw the scene; there was a destroyer there. It seemed to them that Geneviève was engaging her bow and her bridge with the flame; an aft gun, beyond the reach of fire, was pumping shells out on a forward bearing. The bulk of the destroyer, lying head to the north, came between them and Geneviève; she was silhouetted to them against the glow of flame. The engagement was going on upon her starboard, landward, side; they were approaching from the port.
As they came near the glow faded and died; a searchlight blazed out from the stern of the destroyer; in its beam the gun, perhaps a four-inch, went on firing forward up her side at the unseen target. The destroyer was on fire forward; there was fire on her bridge and wheel-house and the forward guns were silent. A machine-gun was firing from her midships.
The motor-gunboats roared into attack. It was not clear to them if the destroyer was lying stopped, or moving ahead, or going astern; there was no sign of wake or bow wave. 268 was to the north as they ran in side by side and 261 to the south; so to make sure of her Sanderson attacked the bow and Peters took the stern.
The destroyer was so busy with the target on the other side, and with putting out her fires, that the motor-gunboats were not seen till they were right on top of her. Sanderson thought that the alarm was raised when they were about three or four hundred yards away. A machine-gun in the waist got off a few rounds at them as they approached, and they replied with their two Oerlikons, spraying the decks of the destroyer with little bursts of cannon shell, white and scintillating in the darkness. Then they were right on top of her.
Sanderson, in 268, attacked the bow. He approached at right angles to her length, running at forty knots; thinking that she was stopped he steered a course to pass under her bow about fifteen feet ahead. When he was right on top of her he saw that she was moving slowly ahead through the water. His fifteen feet slipped down to ten as his bow crossed her track, to seven as the bridge passed her rusty cutwater, her anchors vertically above their heads.
They dropped one of their depth-charges a few feet on her port bow, and the other a few feet on her starboard bow. The quartermaster at the little wheel
swung 268 violently to starboard to clear the stern; but for that they would probably have been cut down. The transom passed the stem of the destroyer with not more than two feet to spare, and then they were running free and blazing back at the big German ship with both their Oerlikons.
They could now see what the Germans had been firing at, and what they saw was this: There was a wooden vessel, or the remains of a wooden vessel, floating bottom up about two hundred yards from the destroyer. About ten feet of her hull was showing, keel and garboards. Lying out upon this was a young man in a naval officer’s cap, and he was firing at the destroyer with a Tommy-gun. Beside him was another man, hatless and in a jersey, passing him drums of ammunition. This showed up quite clearly in the light of the fires on the destroyer, and in the wavering beam of the searchlight when it came that way.
268 passed within about fifty yards of this party. There was wreckage and survivors swimming in the water, and in the background there were two or more fishing-boats, apparently coming forward to pick them up. Sanderson swerved to port to keep away from any swimmers. He was now under a heavy, concentrated fire from the destroyer, and was replying with both Oerlikons. He said it was quite hot.
As he roared by the wrecked boat the two men upon the keel looked round at the noise, and the one in the naval cap waved cheerfully at them. They waved back, and saw him turn again to fire at the destroyer with the Tommy-gun. The searchlight went out suddenly, but who put it out, whether the Tommy-gun or their own Oerlikons, they did not know. Then their two depth-charges detonated behind them, and almost immediately there were two more explosions from the stern of the destroyer where 261 had laid her two remaining charges.
They went tearing on into the darkness, and the wreckage of the fishing-boat was lost to view. With the searchlight out, the moon and the fires still raging on the destroyer made the only light, and visibility was suddenly reduced. They circled round to port, but it was not easy for them to see what damage had been done. As the great columns of spray subsided it appeared to them that the destroyer was badly damaged at the bow; her forecastle appeared to be wrecked by the explosion of the depth-charges beneath her. She had not been going fast enough, however, for them to get under her midships section, and Sanderson did not think that she was sinking. The two that 261 had put down aft had probably done little damage other than shaking her up; she had been moving away from them.