Turn Left for Gibraltar

by David Black

‘Acknowledge,’ said Carey.

  Wow! thought Harry instantly. That could be a dodgy call. How did he know some Eyetie hadn’t nobbled Verney’s Signalman, and was getting him to lure Nicobar in for a nice surprise?

  As the rating flashed his message back to shore, there was a voice behind them. ‘Can I get a shot, Sir?’ It was the Corporal, at their elbow, his face all anxious and working.

  Carey understood immediately and gestured for Dexter to hand over his kit. If the message was kosher, the Corporal would know the sender, and the jokes to tell. Hell, he might even recognise the sender’s fist on the lamp. The Corporal began flashing now. There was a pause, and then they saw the Corporal’s shoulders momentarily rock. ‘It’s them all right, Sir. Pansy Potter, Sir.’

  ‘Who?’ said Carey.

  ‘Pansy Potter. Captain Verney’s Signalman. He says be prepared to take a message.’ The Corporal was grinning.

  Carey looked at him coldly. ‘Something amusing you, Corporal?’

  The Corporal shrugged. ‘He said some other things too, Sir. Most disrespectful. I’d rather not repeat them.’

  ‘Well, you signal him back, Corporal,’ said Carey, ‘and tell him you did repeat them. To me. And that I’m going to feed his complimentary Navy tot to the cat in retaliation.’

  ‘You don’t have a cat, Sir.’

  ‘Tell him I’m getting one specially.’

  They got set up to receive. Dexter mounted his night glasses on the bridge bracket, adjusted his goggles and crouched with his signal pad ready to take it all down. Harry only knew the signal was coming over when Dexter’s pencil started scribbling. Then it was done, and Dexter had torn off the message and handed it to Carey, who read it and said, ‘Well, bugger me!’

  Nicobar was already at Diving Stations. Carey had ordered it hours ago, before they had surfaced and begun their run inshore, so her crew were all closed up and ready to go. Carey stood them down and ordered Yeo up to take over the bridge watch. When Yeo emerged on to the bridge, Carey grabbed him by the arm and led him right to the front of the bridge.

  ‘That there is an Italian MAS-boat,’ he said, getting behind him and pointing it out to Yeo by holding his arm right along the lad’s line of sight, just to make sure. Yeo flinched at how close the shadowed shape was, and that it had all its navigation lights on. ‘Do not take your eyes off it. Understand?’

  ‘Aye aye, Sir,’ said Yeo.

  ‘Dexter, meanwhile, is watching that bit of the coast there, through his goggles’ – Carey turned and pointed Yeo towards the black shadow of the coast off their starboard bow – ‘in case his pal on the beach, Pansy Potter, decides he wants to chat more. Leave him to that. Now dead ahead . . .’ and then he turned Yeo’s attention to the pools of insipid light being cast from the floods on top of the two tunnel mouths, maybe seven or eight hundred yards away, right on Nicobar’s bow. Carey continued, ‘You see all these Italian workers slaving away? Well, they aren’t. They’re Captain Verney’s landing party, pretending to be Italians. And before you say anything . . . Yes, we’re all very impressed by their audacity and bravado and all that guff, and won’t we all have stuff to tell the grandchildren.’ Then he spun Yeo back to face him. ‘Now listen very carefully. If the MAS-boat moves or does anything at all, apart from just sit there, dive the boat. Right away. Do you understand?’

  Yeo nodded, a solemn nod.

  Carey continued, ‘Don’t call me to the bridge. Just take us down, fast. Anything else happens . . . anything at all . . . get me up here. Got it?’

  ‘Aye aye, Sir!’ said Yeo, with the light of battle in his eyes.

  ‘Harry – you too, Corporal – below with me, now.’ And Carey went down the hatch.

  Round the wardroom table, sitting bathed in the now familiar conspiratorial red light, Napier joined them for their council of war. Right from the very beginning, from when he’d first known Malcolm Carey as First Lieutenant on the old Bucket, Harry had often wondered whether it was because he was an Aussie, or whether it was just the man, that Carey had always refused point blank to dodge an issue. He certainly didn’t this time.

  ‘Tenth Flotilla standing order one, for boats on cloak-and-dagger ops: you don’t mix it with enemy surface craft, on the surface,’ said Carey. ‘No exceptions. However, Captain Verney has a plan he wants us to go along with.’ Carey jabbed the slip of signal pad with Verney’s message scribbled on it. ‘And it involves us mixing it with that Eyetie MAS-boat. On the surface. Anyone any thoughts?’

  He was talking to Harry and Johnny Napier. ‘Not until we’ve heard the plan first, Sir,’ said Harry, answering for both of them. Napier gave Harry a look and then smiled and shrugged. They’d just collectively agreed that they were prepared to disobey a direct Flotilla order.

  ‘Good,’ said Carey, and he proceeded to outline what the pongoes had in mind. The Corporal sat nodding throughout. When he’d finished, Carey turned to him and asked, ‘You think this is a good plan, Corporal?’

  The Corporal drew himself up, pleased at being consulted. ‘It’s as dodgy as hell, Sir. But that’s Captain Verney’s speciality. He’s mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but he’s good at gettin’ away with it. If you’re goin’ for surprise, make it a good one. That’s his approach. And, as he says . . . no op’s any fun unless you get to sneak up behind the buggers at some point.’

  ‘An unimprovable summary of what is being proposed, Corporal, if I say so myself,’ said Carey. ‘Harry, what about you? Thoughts?’

  Harry knew what was happening, he’d been here before: with Malcolm Carey and with their old Skipper, Andy Trumble, now dead at the bottom of the Skagerrak. The decision had already been made. Carey hadn’t become a submarine commanding officer without knowing how to make up his mind. And that was fine with Harry. If he’d been in Carey’s boots, he’d have already decided too.

  ‘Well,’ said Harry, ‘no point in faffing about, is there, Sir? Remember what Andy used to say when there’d be half a dozen of us around the table and ten different opinions?’

  Carey laughed, and Napier looked confused. ‘“Good. We’re all agreed then”,’ said Carey, mimicking Trumble’s best desperado. ‘“We’re on!”’

  The four of them: young men sitting around a table, all in their twenties, all nice lads who in a sane world should have been getting ready for nothing more arduous than taking their girlfriends out dancing or to the cinema. Except they weren’t. They were twelve hundred miles from home, one of them a great deal more, sitting bathed in red battle light, preparing to go into action on an enemy coast.

  Harry was going to miss seeing the actual fireworks. As Jimmy, his station in the coming action was going to be in the control room. Napier would be up for’ard under the torpedo loading hatch, with his three-inch gun team, and a band of part-time cutthroats. Carey had told his Torps & Guns he needn’t bother to clear for torpedo action: MAS-boats were too shallow in draught to torpedo.

  Tonight, Nicobar was going to fight with her gun, so the magazine had been opened and a shell relay line was in the passageway. But there was also a possibility that Nicobar might need people up on the casing too, so behind the shell luggers, two of Napier’s torpedo team were waiting, armed with Thompson guns, and several others with Navy service .45 revolvers on their hips. The Corporal, who was with them, had an arsenal all of his own.

  Yeo was with Carey on the bridge, along with the two lookouts, and tonight, seeing as Carey had overcome his aversion to having the damn things clutter an already tight space, Nicobar’s two Lewis guns had been shipped, and were now swivelling on their bridge wing brackets, manned by two of Nicobar’s more steady Leading Seamen. Apart from the clutter, the other reason Carey seldom ordered the Lewis guns up: they took too long to unship and get down the conning tower hatch if Nicobar needed to dive in a hurry. However, if tonight was going to go to plan, Nicobar wasn’t going to be diving. At least not until it was all over.

  They waited, mostly in silence. Trimmed down on the surface, back at D
iving Stations, the crew closed up for action, but with the watertight doors open, and a clear run through the boat; diesels shut down, and the inside of her all bathed in weak red light. No chat now, everybody waiting for a train.

  Yeo had obviously been briefed by Carey to keep the boys below up to date, for every now and again his plummy tones would come down the voice-pipe to Harry. It was now well into the early hours of the morning, and he had already reported two trains – long, rattly lines of goods wagons hauled by shiny electric locos, barrelling through the tunnels, running from the direction of Villa San Giovanni down on the Straits, heading north. Verney’s gang had worked on through. But half an hour or so ago, all industry had ceased on top of the tunnel mouths. The floodlights had still glowed, Yeo reported, but there were no figures labouring under them. Then Yeo was back on the voice-pipe, breathlessly announcing, ‘Someone’s killed the floods!’

  Carey’s voice came down right after him. ‘Righty-ho, Mr Gilmour. Something’s afoot. Get everybody on their toes.’

  Harry lifted the sound-powered phone and alerted Napier, then the engine room. And then he stood right underneath the hatch, looking up at a flat, black plate of night, with cold drizzle coming down, making a sheen on his face, his ears practically twitching to hear something, anything.

  When it did happen, it happened fast. No flashes, barely even what you’d call bangs – just a series of pressure waves, so Harry felt it rather than heard it, through Nicobar’s steel skin, in his ears, and in his diaphragm. First, there was the explosive sound of another train, roaring out of a tunnel mouth, and then the rippling clanks in rapid succession of a train covering the gap between the tunnels, and then down an octave, the sound of a heavy loco going into the second tunnel . . . and then the first concussion. It lasted the longest, but only by a second or two, a fraction of one moment – and then the other detonations. Bigger. Lots more oomph. And out of the wake of the pressure waves, the mangling, tearing sounds of two thousand tons of train concertinaing itself into piles of falling masonry, rock and earth.

  ‘Well, that worked,’ Harry heard Carey’s voice observe casually through the pipe, then, ‘What’s our friend doing?’

  What happened next, Harry had to piece together later. Yeo’s attempt at a running description sounded like a BBC racing commentator trying to convey the excitement of the final furlong at the Grand National after injecting himself with an overdose of amphetamines.

  Then, through it, Harry heard Carey order ‘Slow ahead, together’, and the engine room, ringing back, acknowledging. Then the sound of heavy machine gun fire came down the hatch, and the sweep and flash of a searchlight somewhere was reflecting off the tiny circle of black cloud base he could see when he looked up.

  Harry learned later, the MAS-boat had woken up immediately: searchlights coming on, turning to sweep the shore and the smashed remnants of the goods wagons still left in the open space between the two tunnel mouths. And as the MAS-boat had got under way, and began curving around to head towards the beach, two machine guns, one either side of its wheelhouse, had opened up on the scrub between the railway line and the high-water mark, spraying it with tracer rounds.

  All this, Carey told him, despite the fact there had been no targets for them to shoot at. From where he’d been on Nicobar’s bridge, he’d seen no movement on the shore at all: the Italians had been firing wildly.

  The MAS-boat had then sped across the head of the bay, right across Nicobar’s bows where she still lay, trimmed down, still invisible in the night. The MAS-boat had briefly masked her port machine gun in the process, and so fast had she been racing, her crew preoccupied, they never saw the little curve of white peel back from Nicobar’s bow as she began to get under way herself.

  Then the MAS-boat had slewed again, to starboard this time, to bring both of her machine guns to bear on the shore, before slowing to a crawl, her searchlights continuing to sweep back and forth across the scrub.

  While the MAS-boat manoeuvred, Carey was issuing his orders, ‘Steer one-zero-zero . . . gun crew close up . . .’, and Harry heard the racket of men going up through the for’ard hatch, and then Carey yelling, ‘Commence firing!’

  And then nothing.

  Next came shouts from above that Harry couldn’t make out, and the bridge telegraph ringing for ‘Full ahead, together’, and Nicobar surging under his feet, as he heard Carey yelling again, ‘Deck party, close up!’ The sound of scrabbling feet from for’ard, from the hatch well; men tumbling up in a rush, and then Carey again, ‘Port ten! . . . Midships!’ And the Cox’n, from a mere few feet away across the control room from Harry, calling it back into his voice-pipe as he touched the helm, only to have his call cut off by the sound of a bloody gun battle breaking out – on the casing, right above their heads! The Brrrrrrp! Brrrrrrp! of Thompson guns, and shouts. But still no three-inch gun firing. Not even a single bang. And that was when Carey shouted down the voice-pipe for everybody to ‘Brace! Brace!’ Then Nicobar hit something. And Harry thought, Oh Christ! Don’t tell me we’ve run aground! Not here! Not now! But they hadn’t run aground. Yes, he could feel it as Nicobar’s way suddenly came off her, but it was as though she’d rammed something, not run on to it. And he knew from his inshore pilot books, there was no reef or bar in this bay. A crunching sound of splintering wood echoing down the conning tower hatch provided the answer. The MAS-boat. They’d rammed the MAS-boat. Next to Harry’s ear, the bridge telegraph rang again, ‘Stop, together’, and with the acknowledgement, the firing fell away too, to just the odd sporadic burst.

  ‘Number One!’ It was Carey, calling down the bridge voice-pipe. Harry acknowledged, desperate to ask what the hell was going on! But keeping his mouth shut: Carey would tell him, or they’d all die, one or the other, sooner or later. ‘Nip up under the torpedo hatch and prepare to receive the landing party. There’ll be a couple of prisoners too. Stow them in the Stokers’ mess.’

  ‘Aye aye, Sir!’ and then he was running for’ard.

  Harry got the shell team organised, told them to push the pongoes forward into the torpedo room when they came in and to get them to stay there. Another pair from the shell team he sent back to help Empney with the flasks of Ky, and he told one of the POs to open the spirit locker and make sure there was a tot in every mug.

  The first pair of boots came down the hatch ladder, and in them was a creature caked in mud and filth, still clutching his Thompson gun for dear life. When the AB who helped him off the ladder reached to take it off him, the man’s grip was like a madman’s, and Harry could see the whites of his eyes – plain murder in them, and fighting fury, staring out of the rimed filth slathered over his face.

  ‘Release the gun and let him stow it,’ barked Harry, ‘or you’ll not get your tot!’

  It never ceased to amaze Harry, the effect an order, any order, shouted as loud as possible, had on the military mind. The shivering soldier jerked his head front and himself to attention and presented his gun, which the AB grabbed, and passed it to be stowed back in an empty torpedo reload rack. And down they started coming. Six soldiers, including the Royal Engineers officer, Cotterell. Harry grabbed his arm, and the soldier turned to face him, grinning a huge grin, his face and hair all filthy and matted; more mad than happy, and completely unable to talk. Harry sent him back towards the wardroom.

  Harry got up and left Carey, Cotterell and Verney sitting around the wardroom table. The two soldiers had stopped talking now and were stuffing cheese oosh into their faces, specially rustled up for them by Johnny Napier, with some of the contraband he’d liberated from the MAS-boat’s galley sprinkled in to give it that extra flavour – lumps of exotic sausage and herbs – and they were mopping up the olive oil it had been cooked in with huge lumps of rustic Italian bread. Neither man had eaten for two days.

  Harry was going back to ‘interrogate’ the prisoners, although every time he said the word to himself he couldn’t help laughing. Him, interrogating prisoners. What would his tutorial group have sai
d, or Shirley? What would she have said? He slid around the corner to the galley for a flask of coffee to take with him, and four tin mugs. As he did so, he could see the backside of one of the POs sticking into the passage from their mess, one cabin up, where he knew the Chief had been working on their seriously wounded prisoner. The PO looked like he was mopping up.

  Bill Sutter did as Nicobar’s medic in the absence of a Surgeon. The boat’s senior rating fixed all the bruises, strains and upset tums, and even, if he were pushed, her more serious emergencies. A young Italian sailor from the MAS-boat had been carried aboard drenched in blood, a crimson singlet bundled into his face to try and staunch the bleeding. A .303 bullet had hit him in the head, and smashed his right cheek and blown most of his lower jaw away. They’d got him on a stretcher as far as the senior rate’s mess and Bill had said, no further, and gone to work.

  Harry had had a glimpse of the mess the bullet had made of the lad as they’d carried him past, and he had looked away, not wanting the image in his head. When he’d gone back to the mess later, Bill had the lower half of the lad’s head swaddled like an Egyptian mummy, so that only his eyes showed above the bandages. He’d performed a tracheotomy so the lad could breathe, and out of the gauze a tube had dangled, riffling weakly with every shallow breath. When Harry looked in the lad’s eyes, they’d been unfocused, and the forehead above them had that morphine sheen that Harry had seen before.

  Harry didn’t go back to look again. He knew there was nothing he could do, just as he knew they were lucky this lad was the only serious victim of the mad scramble of an action they’d all just been through. Carey had told him all about it as they had headed back out to sea.

  After all the demolition charges had gone off, and the Italian MAS-boat had headed right into the shore, hosing the area indiscriminately, all the while they were doing that, the now legendary Pansy Potter had been flashing away in the direction of Nicobar’s bridge on his IR device; lying deep in the scrub back up towards the head of the bay, perilously close to where the MAS-boat had been anchored.