Pickles remembered now how he had felt embarrassment at the way his father had always dropped his g’s. But he had been right. All the way. Try as he might, Pickles had met this strange barrier at every stage. He had helped to make it worse by fighting back, by trying to play a part he had never known. He had run short of money two weeks after joining the Saracen, at a time when the new ship was open for one party and celebration after another. He had borrowed ten pounds from a tailor in Portsmouth. Once in debt he had increased his misery until the small tailor had come to the ship to press his demands. It might have been better if the man had gone to the Commander, but instead he had approached Pringle, who with a show of hurt pride had paid the man and sent him packing. From that moment he had made Pickles’ life a nightmare. He had piled one humiliation after another on him, each time with some sneer or jibe at his upbringing and background. The other midshipmen in the gunroom stayed silent and watchful. Taking no sides. They, too, obviously agreed with Pringle.
Then Chesnaye had joined the ship, and a small glimmer of hope had returned to Pickles’ heart. It was rumoured that Chesnaye was under a cloud because his father had failed in some way, that he too was from a poor family. He had felt something like love when the tall, grave-faced Chesnaye had stood up for him against Pringle, but even this had been soured by jealousy when Pickles had seen that the other midshipmen had accepted the newcomer in spite of his alleged faults. He was one of them. He belonged whatever he did.
There was a sudden clatter of feet to his right, and he craned his head to watch the first section of marines reappear on the top of a wedge-sided fall of rock. They were already a hundred yards away, but he could detect the sudden urgency and desperation in their movements.
A burst of machine-gun fire sent the pale dust dancing once more, and three marines skidded down the rock face their bodies torn and bloodied. The young marine lieutenant, Keats, seeing his men falter and hang back from the sun-dappled ridge, leapt forward, waving his stick. ‘Come on, lads! Forward, marines!’ He staggered and fell at once as the next burst smashed into his crouched body.
De L’Isle raised his binoculars and dug his elbows into the slope. ‘God! What a mess!’ In a louder voice he shouted: ‘Round to the left, men! Get that Lewis gun mounted and spray the slope!’
More marines ducked and ran forward. Some made it, others fell writhing before the unseen death which sang and whistled in the dusty air.
In twos and threes De L’Isle’s party reached the top of the cliff and flopped down amongst a long line of smooth boulders. The Lewis gun began to chatter, and some of the men shouted encouragement to the section which was pinned down on the right.
De L’Isle was breathing heavily as he rested his binoculars on a piece of sun-warmed rock. To Pringle he said sharply: ‘No need for you to bother about us. Get your party across this gully and up on to that ridge there.’
Pickles listened and moved up alongside the sweating marines to peer at the long, dark-sided ridge which lined the other side of a deep gully. It was slab-shaped with a tall pinnacle at one end, like the steeple of a petrified church. He saw too a small, stone-walled hut, roofless and deserted, at the foot of the pinnacle, perched on the ridge, as if forgotten for many years. He heard De L’Isle say: ‘Make for that. Once up there you’ll get a good view over the ridge and across the valley beyond.’
Pickles turned his head and looked at the rolling panorama of hills and cheerless ragged ridges which undulated away to the south where the high arrogant peak of Achi Baba still dominated the Peninsula. A barren, arid, unwanted place, he thought. Gorse, a few sparse trees and the ever-moving dust. Somewhere to the north the troops were waiting. But did it matter? Did anything count in this cruel land?
A bullet whimpered overhead and passed away over the sea behind him. He shivered and drew his head deeper into his shoulders. A sniper? They were said to be everywhere. On every hill and ridge. No man could move in the open and live. He stared at the dark ridge again. Yet we have to get there, he thought. Three officers and three seamen.
The Colour Sergeant called from what seemed a great distance, ‘Ready, sir!’
Major De L’Isle wiped the sweat from his eyes. ‘Must clear those batteries before noon,’ he said absently. Then, as if having come to a decision, he blew sharply on his whistle and lumbered to his feet. As the Lewis gun sprayed the slope beyond the cliff edge the ragged line of marines rose from cover and began to run forward. Slowly at first, and then when nothing happened faster and more wildly. There were a few unexpected rifle shots from the foot of the ridge, and three more marines cried out and fell face down in their own blood. Even more unexpectedly, as if from the rock itself, a handful of blue-grey figures rose directly in the centre of the small advance, their alien uniforms and dark faces suddenly very clear and close.
The marines faltered, but De L’Isle waved his stick and screamed: ‘Get them! Get them!’ The words seemed to be wrung from his very heart.
Two of the Turkish soldiers dropped to their knees and began to fire their long rifles as fast as they could reload.
Pickles realised that the strange real enemy was directly in his path, but he could not stop himself from running, nor could he draw his revolver. Faster, faster. The rifle muzzles spurted yellow flame directly in his eyes. A marine, yelling like a fiend, screamed and clutched his stomach as a bullet smashed him down, but another marine reached the seemingly paralysed Turk and drove his bayonet deep into his throat. The Turk gurgled and rolled on to his face. With a sob the frantic marine turned and swung the bayonet again, the full force of his body pinioning the writhing man on the ground like an insect.
From the flank Colour Sergeant Barnes bellowed: ‘Just give ’im two inches! Don’t make a bloody meal of it!’
The battle-crazed marine faltered as he withdrew the reddened bayonet and blinked dazedly towards the parade-ground voice, then obedient and happy he staggered after the rest, the Turk already forgotten beside the bodies of the others.
Like savage, desperate animals the marines fell into the position vacated by the small enemy outpost, fear temporarily forgotten as lust and hatred dispersed itself in a frenzy of preparations.
Grenades banged on the right, and another ragged cheer announced the end of the hidden machine-gun. De L’Isle said unevenly, ‘It’s a start, anyway!’
A big shell sighed overhead, and then another. In the far distance beyond the ridge two green puffs of lyddite smoke blossomed and hung unmoving against the dull hills. The monitor had fired at last. Two vague, unchartered shots to give the enemy something to think about.
The marines settled down amongst the rocks and readjusted their sights. Sergeant Barnes strode briskly towards Major De L’Isle and saluted. ‘Fifteen killed, sir. Ten wounded.’ His pale eyes watched the Major’s face with something like affection. ‘I’m afraid one of the young gentlemen ‘as bin ‘it too, sir.’
Pickles, who had been fighting to regain his breath, jerked upright at the words. All the things Chesnaye had said and done, all the pent-up fears and wants of the past weeks roared into his brain as Barnes added sadly, ‘Must ’ave got ‘it just as we reached ’ere, sir.’ Pickles stood up and began to run back across the open ground.
A wounded marine cried out: ‘Help me, fer Christ’s sake! Me eyes, I’m blind!’ As Pickles dashed past he screamed again: ‘Come ’ere, you bastards! Don’t leave me!’ Another marine, dead and cold-eyed, lay with his torn shoulder already alive with blue flies, his mouth half open as if in rebuke.
A bullet snickered past Pickles’ head, but he ran on, deaf to it and the shouts of the marines. Perhaps this was how it was meant to end. He tucked in his head and ran even faster.
* * * * *
Richard Chesnaye forced himself to lie quite still until his mind was able to break through the enveloping pain, and only then did he try to move. Very gingerly he took his weight on his hands and pushed himself slowly into a sitting position. The sudden movement made him cry out
, and with something like terror he forced himself to look at the long dark stain which was soaking his right thigh and staining the dry stones at his side. His throat felt raw with sudden thirst, and as he stared round the small, saucer-shaped depression into which he had fallen he was aware for the first time of the complete stillness and sense of loneliness. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he twisted his head to look around him, his eyes taking in the clear empty sky and the unmoving bent grass which crested the edges of the depression, and the clump of faded yellow balsam. He stared dazedly and uncomprehending for several seconds at the brown, claw-like hand which hung over the grass by his head, its wrist lined with dark dried blood upon which the flies were already at work.
He tried to concentrate, to recall the exact moment when he had been singled out from the frantic, noisy dash across that vague open ground and had been thrown down by the savage, white-hot blow. He lifted his wrist and then sighed with despair as he stared at his broken watch. Hours or minutes? The high unshielded sun gave him no clue. He stiffened as a distant rattle of machine-gun fire echoed through the dusty grass. They were not all dead, then. As if to settle his disordered thoughts a pain-racked voice, cracked and unrecognisable, cried out and then died before he could judge its distance. His ears began to pick out other sounds too. The far-off rumble of heavy guns, the background to some other battle.
He fell back again on the warm earth, his eyes closed against the glare. His brain told him to make just one more effort to move, but something else held him back. The pain washed over him, and in his mind he saw a sudden picture of his father framed against the deep green of the English lawn and the worn, leather-bound books along the wall of his room. He flinched as a spent bullet thudded into the ground by his side, and tried to think more clearly. Was the ship still off the coast or even afloat? With sudden clarity he remembered the small knot of Turkish soldiers and the flash of bayonets just before he had fallen. He recalled, too, that he had been keeping his mind blank when it had happened, yet unable to tear his eyes from the desperate, spurting rifles which blocked his way. Perhaps the dead hand which gripped so fervently at the grass by his head belonged to one of those soldiers? In any case it could not be long before others arrived. He felt his stomach muscles tighten as he imagined the figures tall against the sky on the edge of his hiding place, the agonising moment of discovery. And then the bayonets.
Another burst of firing cut through the lazy air, and it was followed immediately by distant shouts and more firing. Through the ground at his back he felt the sudden thud of running feet, and he imagined he could hear quick, desperate breathing as the running man drew nearer.
It was then that he realised just how desperately he wanted to live, and the approaching, hidden terror made him roll on to his side, his bloodied fingers groping frantically for his revolver. Whimpering and cursing, he tugged at the holster, the agony in his thigh adding to his sense of urgency. Just as he succeeded in freeing the flap a shadow blotted out the sun, and he tightened his body into one agonised ball, unable to look round, but waiting for the murderous thrust of steel.
As if in a dream he heard Pickles say: ‘Thank God, Dick! Here, let me have a look!’
Chesnaye allowed himself to be rolled on his back, still only half believing what he saw. Pickles, breathless but engrossed, his round face screwed in set concentration as he tore open the side of the dripping trousers. More pain when his hands found the place, but a quick reassuring grin when the warm snugness of a bandage and dressing cut off the probing sun and the eager flies.
Pickles sat on his haunches. ‘I don’t know much about these things, Dick, but the bullet seems to have missed the bone.’ He grinned widely, as if the realisation of what he had achieved had suddenly reached him. ‘I knew I’d find you if I ran far enough!’
A shell passed overhead, and Pickles said: ‘We must get out of here. The rest of our chaps are about a hundred yards further on, by the ridge.’
Chesnaye felt the relief coursing through him like brandy. ‘I’m ready when you are!’
Pickles sat upright and wrinkled his nose like a dog. For a long moment he stared at the dead Turk and then said: ‘Seems a bit quieter. We’ll chance it.’
Together they crawled over the lip of the depression, their faces brushed by the grass and ageless gorse. Chesnaye kept his right arm across Pickles’ shoulder, and dragging his damaged leg between them the two midshipmen pulled themselves towards the ridge which had now lost its shadow and shone in the sunlight like brown coral.
They paused for a brief rest and Chesnaye said slowly, ‘There’s a lot to do, Keith.’
Pickles grinned. ‘You can say that again! We’ve not started yet, and, quite frankly, I think it’ll be up to us again!’
Chesnaye stared at him with open wonder. Then he gave Pickles’ shoulder a quick squeeze. ‘Thank you, Keith, I’ll not forget.’
Pickles sighed as three marines charged from cover and hauled them to safety behind a slab of broken rock. Dusting the grit from his trousers he said flatly, ‘I’m not sure that I will either!’
Major De L’Isle greeted Chesnaye with a savage grin. ‘Well done, lad. We’ll be needing you as soon as my orderly can patch you up. Think you can make it up to the top?’ He beamed as Chesnaye nodded vaguely, but then turned on a scowl for Pickles’ benefit. ‘By God, you should have been shot for what you did! You’re raving bloody mad, did you know that?’
Pickles stood in the centre of an admiring circle of staring marines and felt the prickle of real happiness for the first time since he had stepped aboard the Saracen. He looked down at Chesnaye’s drawn face and said, ‘I suppose I’ve got used to running!’
8
The Pinnacle
The distant hills danced like a mirage in the twin lenses of Chesnaye’s field-glasses so that it took him precious minutes to refocus them and assess what he saw. Each second added to the pain in his leg, which in spite of the dressing felt raw and torn, and the more he looked through his glasses, the more hopeless seemed the task. It was quiet on top of the ridge. Quiet and with very little cover. The three naval officers and three seamen had crawled back and forth over an area which measured about fifty yards by twenty and represented the highest part of the ridge. Highest, that is, but for the tall, bleak pinnacle.
It was funny how clearly he could think about the job in hand. Chesnaye moved the glasses slightly and watched two faint shell-bursts to the north. Perhaps the concentration was the only thing holding back the nausea and agony, or the sense of defeat.
He tried again. Everything seemed to come back to the pinnacle. The ridge was good enough to pinpoint the enemy bombardment area, but then again was invisible to the ship. The pinnacle was the monitor’s aiming mark, a known object on chart and gunnery grid-maps. It glimmered in the bright sunlight, smooth and unlovely. It was about sixty feet high with a deep cleft just below the top. His heart quickened and he looked sideways at Sub-Lieutenant Pringle, who was squatting tensely behind some boulders his back against the wall of the derelict hut. His sun-reddened face was worried and brooding.
Chesnaye cleared his throat . ‘We’d better send a runner back to the beach with the first signal.’ He spoke through tight lips, intolerant of Pringle’s silence, which was even more unnerving than his noisy protests when the party had landed. ‘What d’you say?’
Pringle jerked himself from his thoughts. His eyes flashed with some of his old arrogance. ‘What’s the hurry? We’re probably wasting our time, anyway!’
Pickles said quickly, ‘Shall I go?’
Chesnaye wrote on his pad and handed the folded signal to one of the seamen. ‘No, Keith. You and I are going up the old rock needle here.’
Pickles looked up and grimaced. ‘Ouch!’ Then with a look of concern. ‘Can you make it? I would have thought he could go!’ He spoke loudly enough for Pringle to hear.
‘Now that’s enough from you!’ Pringle leapt to his feet, his face working furiously. ‘Just because y
ou’ve been doing some petty heroics you think you’re something, eh?’ His face twisted with anger. ‘Well, I know a few things about you! By God, I’m sick of the lot of you!’
Chesnaye nodded to the gaping seaman, who tore his eyes from the gesticulating Pringle and began to climb over the side of the ridge. Below him the marines in their prepared positions watched him descend with interest.
With the whiplash crack Chesnaye had heard before, the sniper’s rifle sent the birds wheeling from the ridge in screaming protest. The seaman hung for a moment longer, his eyes on the pinnacle above him, and then plummeted down the side of the ridge.
The hillsides re-echoed again to the rattle of the Lewis gun as the marines swept the silent rocks in a miniature dust-storm in a vain effort to find the hidden marksman. Then there was silence once more.
Chesnaye bit his lip with sudden determination. ‘Here, give me a hand, Keith.’ Slinging his glasses round his neck he walked to the foot of the pointing rock and began to climb up towards the small cleft. Each move was agony, but his mind was too occupied with the urgency of his task and the fact that he had just sent a man to his death for nothing.
Pringle’s nerve snapped as the two midshipmen turned away from him. He shook his fists in the air and yelled: ‘What the hell is happening? For God’s sake let’s get out of here!’
Pickles paused ahead of Chesnaye and held out his hand to help him. ‘I know how he feels,’ he said hoarsely, ‘and that makes a change!’
Chesnaye forced himself to grin, and dragged himself further up the steep edges of hot stone. Once there and I’m done for, he thought. He could feel the blood beginning to pump through the bandage, and his right foot seemed to be dead.
He heard another crack, and a bullet smacked hard against the pinnacle, hurling small splinters against his hands. With a sob Pickles pulled him unceremoniously into the cleft and a tiny, wonderful patch of shade.
H.M.S Saracen (1965) Page 15
