“We did what was expected of us. I only hope they’re satisfied!”
He opened his eyes, and knew that Ainslie was shielding his face from the sun with his cap. They must have lifted him on to some sort of support, like a seaman’s unrolled hammock.
“I’ve laid off our course.” Ainslie was resting one hand on his shoulder, and it was strangely comforting. “We’ve had a signal from H.Q.” He must have felt Kearton’s attempt to move, and the hand gently restrained him. “Our R/T has been knocked out. Lieutenant Stirling’s boat came close enough for his loudhailer—he was full of it. He sank the patrol boat with one torpedo—the other misfired. He wanted you to know. He was actually laughing.”
“And what was the signal, Toby? Important?” He was becoming drowsy again. Something Laidlaw had fished out of the engineroom medical cabinet.
Ainslie moved the cap slightly, to conceal his expression.
“Short and sweet. All it said was Well done!”
Kearton tried to lie still. Laughing would bring back the pain. Or the tears.
Turnbull was watching Spiers scribbling notes on a signal pad. They were standing near the twin Oerlikons, which still pointed seaward, the barrels and mounting scarred and blackened from a burst of cannon fire. One of the gunners lay nearby, stitched in a length of canvas. It was Ordinary Seaman Yorke. With an ‘e’, he thought, and wished that he had liked him.
He heard footsteps and saw Glover coming aft with a sack of waste from Dawson’s working party. He was grinning.
“You survived then, ’Swain? Tsk, tsk!”
Turnbull ensured Spiers was out of earshot before he snapped, “Don’t forget, Glover. You’re still up for First Lieutenant’s report!”
Glover put down the sack and faced him.
“I’ve bin goin’ over it. An’ I ain’t so sure.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “Th’ Naval Discipline Act. Section Seven, or maybe Eight … I think I can appeal!”
Turnbull turned his back on him and watched the Canadian M.T.B., tubes empty like their own, turning now to follow astern.
A near thing, the closest he’d come to buying it since that other time, when Bob Kearton had come back to search for them.
He thought of Ainslie’s face as he had reported the signal to the Skipper. Well done.
Christ, he thought. Maybe it was just as well their own W/T couldn’t reply.
He looked at Glover again.
“When we get alongside and things settle down, you must join me in the canteen, and I’ll stand you a tot. Maybe several!”
Spiers was calling him again. There was a lot to do, shorthanded or not, before they entered harbour.
But it was worth it, if only to see Glover’s face.
Good or bad, they were still one company.
Kearton eased his body over the side of the cot, his feet touching the deck carefully as he tried to prepare himself. It had been a mistake. He should have remained on the bridge, propped up in one corner. What was he trying to prove? It was almost dark in the chartroom, although on deck there was bright sunlight and the sea had seemed almost colourless in the glare.
The final passage had taken longer than he had hoped. The damaged motor gunboat had finally broken down, and had been taken in tow by Red Lyon. Stirling’s boat had resumed station directly astern. Their time of arrival at Malta would be midmorning.
Over the loud-hailer he had told them, “We left together. We enter harbour together.”
He moved again and took the weight on his feet, and held his breath as the pain seared his side like hot metal. He clutched his sweater and waited for it to subside. Even the sweater was a mystery, and how they had managed to get him into it without making him pass out.
“Are you sure you should be doing this, sir?”
He sat down again. He had forgotten Ginger, who had been with him since he had struggled down from the bridge. He was standing, legs astride, his back to the chart table, holding an open cutthroat razor, with a towel still draped over his shoulder.
“But if you insist.” He looked strained and crumpled, but still managed a cheeky grin. “You want to show them your wonderful shave, I expect.”
Kearton touched his chin.
“I’m just glad you’re on my side!”
“I’ll see if it’s all clear, sir.”
The sliding hatch closed, and Kearton made another attempt. He was ready for the pain, could meet it like an opponent. He took a few steps, not resting against the chart table before he retraced them. He was still trying to recall each moment in order. Sounds, colours, faces.
And the rocket: that was never out of his thoughts. A warning, so that they would not miss the final rendezvous, or a challenge? To show them he was already there, ahead of them. If so, it had cost him his life, and the lives of a lot of others. Only he would have known.
“Ready if you are, Skipper?” It was Ainslie, the sun behind him, his face in shadow.
Kearton picked up his cap but lingered, looking at the table. The charts, rolled or flattened, ready for use. Ainslie’s spare pencils rattling together in a little tube, exactly as he remembered them. Waiting for the dawn …
“The pilot boat came out earlier. We were hardly near enough to land for me to take a fix … He must have been expecting us.” He smiled for the first time in many hours, and seemed very young again. “Not soon enough for me!”
Kearton climbed slowly to the bridge. Measuring each step, waiting for and meeting the pain. Ainslie went ahead, and he knew that Ginger was also close by in case he fainted.
The sun dazzled and almost blinded him as he stepped into the open bridge. A quick glance around: faces he knew, some better than others. But other faces were missing, the helmsman and the lookout who had been beside him. The stains were still there.
Turnbull had looked toward him, and he saw the nod. No smile.
Kearton turned to look ahead, almost falling in the process. The pilot was in the lead, exactly as he had imagined it when Ainslie had first brought the news. And not an empty sea ahead, or the merest hint of land, but Malta reaching out on either bow: headland and fortress, and a thousand windows flashing in the sun like private signals.
Spiers tilted his cap over his eyes.
“The harbour seems to have filled up since we left. Glad we’ve got the pilot to hold our hands!”
Ainslie joined him and said, “D’you want to sit on something, Skipper?”
“No.” He reached out immediately, and held his arm. “No, Toby. I’m all right.” He stared out at the headland. Crowds of people, someone with a small child on his shoulders; both were waving. He added quietly, “I’ve got to be. Now.”
Turnbull kept his eyes on the pilot, but he had already seen the other ships, some of them huge and impressive. Cruisers. He leaned on the spokes. And a battleship, not one of the ‘old faithfuls’, but a newcomer commissioned only last year. Somebody meant business this time.
He thought of the moment when the torpedoes had found their target. Like an earth tremor; the flames had still been visible even after the supply ship had been blown apart. And the aftermath, the sea strewn with fragments, the remnants of a midget fleet. He allowed his eyes to leave the pilot and rest briefly on the ships.
We were just in time.
Kearton said, “Glasses, anyone?” and felt the binoculars instantly come within his grasp. “Many thanks.” He had spoken almost unconsciously, and did not notice who had offered them.
The pilot was leading them into Grand Harbour itself. A dockyard job, then …
He touched the thin plating and one of the jagged holes. Close. Too close for some.
He steadied the binoculars with effort. Overlapping rooftops, the crucifix of a church of golden stone almost side by side with the ornate domes of Malta’s eastern past; bombed buildings, and repaired ones. People on the waterfront, where he had recently begun to see stalls and barrows displaying fruit, even flowers. And further still, the official building where he h
ad stood on the balcony with Garrick, watching this same great waterway. The other buildings were hidden at this angle, but perhaps she was there. On the old wall where Brice had seen and spoken to her, and done his best to reassure her.
If she was watching now, what might she think? Tracer and shell damage to the hull, but at that distance it might not seem so cruel.
He turned, too quickly, and felt the pain reminding him. It seemed a little less sharp.
“Pilot’s altering course, sir!”
Kearton moved the binoculars. The pilot boat would be leading them directly abeam of the battleship. It came to him: he had heard a bugle when he had been trying to find the other building. Her roof.
The binoculars were heavier now, and he knew he should take Ainslie’s advice, but he braced himself and focused again. A ceremony of some kind seemed about to begin aboard the battleship. Royal Marines, bayonets shining in the glare. He moved the binoculars once more: they felt like lead. Then he held them still. There was a flag flying above the grey superstructure and powerful guns, the flag of a rear-admiral. And they were going to steer straight past, battered and blood-stained, with a ceremony already about to begin.
He gripped the screen.
“Have the hands fall in! Tell Dawson, be ready to pipe!”
Suppose Brice was right? Was it Rear-Admiral Ewart Morgan’s flag, and if so …
Ainslie saw the battleship’s upper bridge rising above him, shutting out the sun like a cliff.
Then he heard another bugle, and saw Kearton’s face.
Nothing else seemed to matter. And he was sharing it.
He said, “Not this time, Skipper.” There was cheering now. “They’re saluting you!”
The pilot was sounding his horn. One blast. Turning to starboard.
But not before he heard Kearton murmur, “Us.”
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Epub ISBN 9781446494899
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Published by Arrow Books 2009
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Copyright © Bolitho Maritime Productions Ltd 2008
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First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Century
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ISBN 9780099484271
The Glory Boys Page 30
