“Good thinking.” He had not seen Spiers arrive on the bridge. Tall and broad-shouldered, he moved with the easy familiarity of someone who had wasted no time in getting to know his own boat.
He watched the next boat astern. Spiers knew all their names, too. 977’s skipper, Geoff Mostyn, was a face from the past, encountered briefly at Dover during those early, testing battles with E-Boats and armed lighters: he was short, stocky and tough, a Geordie from Newcastle. Very outspoken, or had been then. Kearton had sensed a certain wariness the last time they had met. Did the new half-stripe really make such a difference?
He recalled that meeting, when they had been given orders to leave the Rock. “Get up and scram,” as he had heard the coxswain translate it. The third skipper was a Canadian, like the rest of 986’s crew. Mostly from the Canadian flotillas which had already been on active service in the Mediterranean. All volunteers. They must be keen, he thought.
Lieutenant John Stirling R.C.N.V. R. had seemed very relaxed, with an easy, untroubled smile. He had commented little on his own experiences, but was eager to point out that he came from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
“Where all the best sailors are made!”
Mostyn had retorted, “Probably ran aground there in the first place!”
They obviously got on well together. A good team. The only hurdle was here.
“You’ve been to Malta before, Peter?”
Spiers seemed unprepared, either for the question or the informality.
“A few times, sir. Covered a couple of relief convoys from Alex, when things were getting a bit dicey.” He paused. “The going was rough. One convoy had to turn back because they lost too many merchantmen to make it worth pressing on.” He seemed to be reliving it. “Bomb Alley, we called it. Another time we gave up because the escorts simply ran out of anti-aircraft ammunition.”
The bridge was dark now, but he could see him shake his head. “I don’t know how they put up with it. And then …”
Kearton said quietly, “Tell me.”
“The time we did get through, and got alongside, there were people waving to us. One woman brought some flowers. I’ll never forget it.”
“It does you credit. Nor would I.”
A hooded shape loomed through the gate and announced breezily, “Freshly brewed char, gents!” before he saw Kearton. “Oops, sorry, sir.”
Kearton felt his limbs relax. “Bang on time. Bell, isn’t it?”
The seaman grinned, his teeth almost glowing against the sea’s backdrop.
“ ‘Dinger’ to his friends, Skipper!” That was Ainslie, the faint compass light moving across his duffle coat as he turned to share the joke.
Spiers said, “When we alter course—” He got no further.
There had been no sound, no tremor that might have been discerned through the regular beat of engines. It was no more than a sensation. Instinct.
Kearton stood by the screen, his mind and body responding to the hull beneath him.
No flashes to light up the sea, only darkness. Even the horizon had disappeared.
His stomach muscles tightened, as if anticipating a blow. There it was again, faint but persistent. Down in the engineroom, it would have been lost in that confined space of shafts and machinery.
It had been a series of explosions, far away and regular, in a pattern. Not bombs or gunfire. He breathed out slowly. Or mines … It was still buried in his memory. Waiting.
He said, “Depth-charges. Not in our neck of the woods, but pass the word to all hands.”
A submarine, detected and under attack. Theirs or ours?
He thought of the destroyer Kinsale. Maybe she had got to grips with a U-Boat or an Italian submarine while she was still on passage to Malta.
He heard a voicepipe being snapped shut.
“Nothing from W/T, sir.”
Ainslie cleared his throat and said precisely, “Some more tea, I think.”
Nobody answered.
Kearton moved back to his original corner. The twin machine-guns on the wing of the bridge were uncovered, pointing at the sky, the ammunition clinking to the shift and sway of the deck. More voices now, murmuring to one another. Another fanny of hot tea on its way.
Kearton closed his eyes tightly and heard someone mutter, “Nice tot of grog would be a bloody sight better!”
He leaned back against a handrail but hardly felt it, reminded of the flask of brandy he had often carried. Now it was on the bottom of the North Sea.
“I’m going down to look at your chart again, Pilot.”
“Can I help, Skipper?”
Ainslie’s boyish informality did more to ease the tension than he could ever know.
“No, I’ve got to manage on my own!”
Several of them laughed as he climbed down from the bridge.
He paused, staring at the black water sliding beneath the side.
They had laughed. But he was speaking the truth.
The following day proved calm and sunlit, and even when they were closed up at action stations they could feel a touch of warmth on their faces. The sea, too, was clear and empty. Speed was increased to eighteen knots, and the distance between the boats opened to half a cable again.
Kearton had gone down to his cabin to snatch a few moments to shave and change his shirt, his first commanding officer’s words lingering in his mind.
A skipper who looks scruffy, thinks scruffy! It still made him smile, although he could remember very little else about the man.
He had passed the little W/T office, with its incessant stammer of morse and an occasional human voice, until the telegraphist realized he was passing. French or Italian, there had been too much static to be certain, but somehow it sounded strangely sad.
Like the cabin, as neat and unlived in as ever, the bunk still waiting, unused. He returned to retrieve his newly repaired pipe and the tobacco; he had seen Ainslie smoking a pipe in the wardroom. For some reason, it had made him look younger than ever.
He sat for a few minutes, but he knew he would fall asleep if he lingered. It was still strange to be continuously at sea like this, one day after another. Before, he had been used to sighting an enemy-held coastline almost as soon as their own had slipped into the mist.
He took out his pocket notebook.
Two days, and they would reach Malta. New orders? A change of direction …
“You’re wanted on the bridge, sir!”
The messenger sounded breathless, anxious.
He snatched his cap and hurried on deck. Maybe he had been expecting it. It had happened often enough in the Channel, and in the North Sea. But not usually the work of a U-Boat.
He reached the bridge, and took time to wipe the lenses of his binoculars. Drifting wreckage, seeming scattered for miles on this tideless sea. Decking and pieces of timber, smashed cargo crates. Probably an old freighter, fallen astern of a convoy or risking a run on its own. A drifting lifebuoy bearing a Greek name, which was not listed in any of their intelligence notes.
Perhaps a U-Boat had been investigating this same drifting flotsam, if not the actual cause. Either way, the plan had misfired.
There was still a long, trailing slick of oil, and now a few corpses. At reduced speed, the three M.T.B.s circled the remains.
Kearton moved his glasses slowly. So many times, and yet he had never become accustomed to it.
The U-Boat sailors had most likely been lookouts, or the gun’s crew. All wore life-jackets, and two appeared to be clinging to a small raft. Or had been.
The depth-charges, which they had felt, had done their work well.
Kearton let the glasses fall to his chest.
“Signal, resume course and speed.”
We must have looked like that, to the Fisherman. He turned away.
“One of ’em’s still alive, sir!”
Someone else said, “More’s the bloody pity.”
Spiers snapped, “Port twenty!”
“Belay that!” Kearton had thrust one
hand into his pocket, fist clenched so tightly that the pain steadied him. “Hoist that one aboard. Dead slow ahead.”
Like a spell breaking. Orders shouted, some seamen already up forward, one over the rail shaking out a rope ladder. Lights flashing and clattering between the boats, somebody standing on the Canadian’s searchlight platform, training a camera.
Kearton looked down as the bow’s shadow moved slowly across the motionless raft.
It only took a few minutes, but the time seemed endless. Taking the forbidden risk …
Then the raft was bobbing along the side, its only occupant still staring at the sky, the remains of a leg trailing in the water. The sea churned into life again beneath the stern, and the bridge shook to the sudden response from the Chief and his crew.
Spiers said, “Have him taken to the wardroom,” and as an afterthought, “With a guard.”
No unnecessary diversions. No distractions. The orders were clear. Garrick would hit the roof if he heard about it … When he heard about it.
And for what?
Kearton stared across the littered deck and saw the coxswain looking back at him. Waiting. Then, deliberately, Turnbull gave a blatant thumbs-up.
Further astern now, the other boats resuming their station and distance, and fragments still tossing in their combined wake. That, too, would soon be forgotten.
But a debt had been paid.
The three officers stood together on the small bridge as the helm went over, and 992 settled on her final approach.
It was dawn, or near enough, the sea opening up from either bow and land rising from the shadows, still unreal in haze and smoke.
The engines sounded louder, catching a throwback from the coast, the first time for a thousand miles.
The last hours had been the longest, while they had waited to make the easiest and grimmest landfall most of them had ever experienced. For most of the time a prolonged air raid had been in progress, and the flash and glare of exploding bombs and the angry criss-cross of tracer and ack-ack from the defenders made further chartwork unnecessary.
Air raids or not, a boat had come out to greet them. A luxury motor-yacht in peacetime, but showing her pilot’s flag, and two mounts of machine-guns to mark her latest, and perhaps final, incarnation.
Kearton leaned forward to look along the forecastle, where the two-pounder gun’s crew stood watching the land reaching out. As if they had never moved.
He lifted his binoculars and saw the pilot boat turning slightly, faces visible now in her wheelhouse. They had already passed two minesweepers, heading out to begin the day’s work; there had been warnings on W/T of another bout of enemy minelaying. There was no exchange of friendly or frivolous signals this time.
Malta had endured over two years of seige and bombardment. He could smell the smoke, taste it, feel it in his throat.
He heard the wheel creak. Turnbull needed no unnecessary instructions.
He saw the mooring lines already laid out on deck, and a heavy C.Q.R. anchor propped up like a plough beside them, in case they had to let go in an emergency and no moorings were available after this latest air raid.
Spiers had dealt with that. He was gazing at the nearest land, obviously reliving the experiences shared in that rare moment of candour.
Kearton shifted the glasses again. To starboard, Fort St Elmo, bomb-battered but imposing, even majestic. And beyond, through another drifting bank of mist or smoke, the Grand Harbour itself.
Spiers said, “I’ll carry on, then.” It was a question.
Ainslie twisted round as well, his chin rasping across his coat. He was attempting to grow a beard, without much success. Kearton had already heard the brief exchange between them when Spiers had suggested a shave was in order before entering harbour. Ainslie had tried to offer some sort of explanation, and there had been a sharp retort.
“Just stay on the bridge, Pilot, and the wind will blow it off!”
“Fall out, guns’ crews!”
They were moving to their stations for entering harbour, dwarfed now by the long defences on the opposite beam. Fort Ricasoli, which Ainslie had already checked against his log.
Part of history, but the guns were pointing at the sky today, and there were great gaps among the nearest buildings, like broken teeth.
Leading Seaman Dawson had appeared on deck below the bridge, barking out names and gesturing with his fist. His flattened nose gave a twang to his voice, and Kearton had heard the sailors exchanging crude jokes and comments about it. It would be more than dangerous if Dawson overheard them.
He looked aft, and then astern at their two consorts. Figures already appearing on deck, preparing to do justice to the occasion. He had already seen that their own spotless White Ensign, which had greeted him at Gibraltar, was flying again.
He trained the glasses across the ruined buildings and rubble. Valletta had suffered constant air attacks, and had lost more than half its houses. There was a sloop moored alongside at a pier, White Ensign flapping listlessly in the strengthening light. An officer was watching their approach through binoculars; another was reading something, a letter perhaps. An ordinary start to the day.
Except that most of the sloop’s stern had been blown off, and been shored up by dockyard workers to keep her afloat. She would be used as an accommodation vessel until she was towed to the breakers. Or until the next air raid.
The officer with the binoculars had focused on Kearton, and threw up a smart salute. It was one of the saddest and bravest things he had ever seen.
He let the glasses fall to his chest again and cleared his mind. Take on fuel, and check all defects immediately. Signal for dockyard aid if need be.
The dust was settling, and there was a sheen of pale sunlight across the harbour. Not many other ships at anchor, which was no surprise.
“Signal, sir! We’re going in!”
The pilot boat was turning, someone waving a flag.
A quick glance astern: the others were following closely, men on deck with heaving lines and rope fenders.
A mooring place had been cleared. The rest looked like a scrapyard.
“Starboard twenty! Midships! Steady!”
He licked his lips and felt the grit between his teeth.
There were people on the improvised jetty, a few uniforms. The reception party.
Beyond them there were others, civilians, all sizes and ages. As if they had risen out of the ruins.
They must watch every incoming vessel, large or small. Everything came by sea: fuel, food, ammunition. Everything.
“Slow astern!”
A heaving line snaked across the gap but fell short. He heard Turnbull mutter, “Sailors, I’ve shit ’em!”
Another followed and was seized by one of the onlookers. Somebody gave a cheer as the hull loomed over them, and the fenders creaked against the jetty.
People were waving, cheering, shouting. Men, women, even a few children. They said Valletta was built over a maze of tunnels and shelters. Even the famous catacombs were not immune.
Ainslie turned, faint stubble shining in the frail sunlight.
“We made it!”
There were soldiers now, military police, their red caps making a show of authority. They knew about the U-Boat survivor.
The engines were quiet, the smell of fuel hanging over the bridge. The Chief would be making his report shortly.
Spiers climbed up to join them.
“All secure, sir.” He saluted, then his eyes moved to the jetty, perhaps surprised that it was not as he remembered it. “I’ll get the prisoner brought up.”
Turnbull had stepped away from the wheel and was looking toward the Grand Harbour.
He saw it differently, through the eyes of the young seaman he had been in his first ship, the battlecruiser Hood. The nation’s pride, and the largest warship in the world. Had he remained serving in big ships, what might he be today?
Like the mighty Hood, he thought, lying broken, dead on the sea bed.
/> “You’re wanted, ’Swain!”
He sighed. That said it all …
Ainslie pulled himself out of his trance of relief and faced the telegraphist who had just appeared, pad in hand, pencil gripped between his teeth.
“What is it, Weston?”
“Signal, sir.” He nodded toward Kearton’s back. “Priority.”
Kearton took the pad and read the signal. It was very brief.
MEET NOON TOMORROW. WELCOME TO MALTA. GARRICK.
At that moment, the air raid warning sounded.
“Down this way, sir! Not far now!”
Kearton stepped over bricks, scattered the width of the narrow street. There had been two air raid alarms since they had moored alongside. Hit-and-run attacks, a few explosions, and once a column of smoke like a solid pinnacle against the blue sky; the crack of ack-ack, then the all-clear. One moment the streets had been full of people, trying to live their lives, or clearing up bomb damage. The next, it was deserted, as if nothing had survived.
He had been openly stared at, and there had been plenty of smiles as well. They seemed to know he had just arrived in Malta, and all that it signified: his appearance would have told them that.
His guide had halted by another turning, where soldiers were re-erecting a signpost that bore several pointers, naval, military, and emergency aid stations.
Throughout most of the journey he had caught sight of the Grand Harbour, reassuring in some way. But what about the civilians who lived here? They must sometimes ask ‘why?’
His guide was grinning.
“This is it, sir.”
He wore army battledress and boots, a webbing belt with a holster of some sort at his hip, and his eyebrows were pale with dust or sand, but topped by a naval cap and the familiar H.M.S. tally. It was another link.
“I’ll be waitin’, sir.” He grinned again. “Or someone will!”
Kearton looked around at the street, rising slightly, a panorama of tawny buildings, old and new, outwardly unscathed, or patched up, some even overgrown. There was a door, already open, a petty officer studying him across a barrier of sandbags.
“’Tenant-Commander Kearton, sir?” He did not look at his watch. He did not need to. “This way.”
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