Eagle at Taranto (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  He was near to the wire now, moving very slowly, one hand questing cautiously on the ground ahead for mines. Now he could touch the wire, but he was at pains not to. There might be tins hung on it, or some other form of alarm. The wire spread away into the distance on either side — except for a place to his right, maybe a dozen yards away, where there looked to be a gap. To his left front was a sand-bagged pit under sagging camouflage and that, he knew, was a machine-gun emplacement; there was the dull gleam of a. barrel in the black hole between the sand-bags.

  He edged along to his right, slowly, carefully, and — there was a gap. And beyond it, another ten yards on and ten yards behind the wire, was another machine-gun pit, similar to the emplacement on this side of the missing section of wire. He lay still, staring at the gap, and thought: Invitation? “Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly.” Balls to that. No point. So, what then? Was this just a place they’d missed out of carelessness? No. He could see double shadows to the wire on either side of the gap, suggesting it had been cut and rolled back on itself. So —

  He grinned, squirmed around and worked back the way he had come until he heard a soft challenging hiss in front of him, to which he whispered in reply: “Dunbar.”

  “Come in.”

  He moved on and came face to face with Corporal Timms, lying behind his rifle. Jamie said softly, “Wire. Two m-g posts. Good defensive position. Got that?”

  “Wire. Two m-g posts.”

  Jamie nodded. “Right, now I think they’ve come through, so let’s set up a party.”

  Crawling on hands and knees, he skirted Timms and saw the men moving, turning to follow him, shifting dark shapes. He knew where he was going and led them, seeking his way, the terrain laid out in his mind’s eye. He was soon on his feet, far enough now from the eyes behind the machine-guns for that to be safe, and moving in a crouching walk. Now he was intent not only on the ground in front of him but the shadows and darkness ahead.

  This was the place; he’d noticed it on the way over. There was a winding depression between two ridges. It had seemed to offer good cover on the way to or from the Italian wire but he had distrusted it and given it a wide berth.

  He waved Timms and the patrol down into cover and went forward alone. Cautiously he worked around to the rear of the lower of the two ridges, scouted its slopes and found them empty. He returned to the patrol and led them around to the rear of the high ridge. Again he left them deployed about fifty yards from the foot of the ridge and went on alone.

  He did not have to go far. There was cover and shadow at the foot of the ridge, enough to hide him as he worked in on his belly, but no cover at the top of it. He lay still for some minutes at the foot and was able to see, one after the other, the slight movements of men on the crest of the ridge, easing themselves in cramped positions on the cold earth.

  He counted four, but from the way they were spaced along the crest he guessed there were others between them that he could not see. He thought there would be a dozen to twenty. They had come out through the gap in the wire early in the night and laid here in ambush ever since. They had been waiting when he led his patrol over. If he had taken that inviting route through the depression —

  He made his way back to his men, moving slowly and carefully. He went to each one in turn and gave his orders, then watched them deploy in a line along the route leading from the ridge to the more distant Italian wire. He took his own place in the line, nearest the Italian wire and farthest from the ridge. He lay down, looked at his watch and thought, Not long now. There was little of the night left. He waited.

  He could have done with a drink: a large Scotch. It was bloody cold. He wondered if he might wangle a few days in Cairo while things were quiet? There was a nurse in the Army hospital there who —

  The enemy were moving, had given up their ambush for the night. They stood up raggedly and trailed down off the ridge in a straggling file. Although they were still just shadows, as the file headed towards Jamie he was better able to count them, and was certain there were more than a dozen. They would pass within about twenty yards of him and that was close enough for a grenade, so he eased one from his pocket. He waited until the leading shadow was almost abreast of him. The Italians had shape now: square helmets, rifles carried two-handed, slow-trudging legs and boots.

  He pulled the pin from the grenade, heard the twang! as the clip sprang free, shoved himself up on one knee and lobbed the grenade overhand then sprawled on his face again. He heard a yell, a shot, and reached down, gripped the butt of his pistol and drew it from its holster. Then his grenade exploded, and three more, one — two — three — four, from other members of his patrol. His remaining riflemen opened up a rapid fire.

  Jamie raised himself again and squinted to see, his night vision temporarily destroyed by the flashes. He saw enough and yelled, “Cease fire!” He heard the order passed down the line. The men had been expecting it because he had told them, “We want a prisoner or two.” That would round off the patrol’s success: a prisoner to take back for interrogation.

  The firing stopped and Jamie trotted forward, pistol in hand. One enemy soldier was on his knees, his hands in the air. The others lay in a ragged line, as they had trudged. The ambush had been murderous; there was only that one survivor, and he was shaking, in a state of shock.

  Jamie thought his condition was little wonder. The Italians had been stiff, cold, hungry and weary, looking forward to breakfast and hot coffee. Then the grenades and rifle-fire had come at them out of the darkness of the desert, at point-blank range. Jamie felt no remorse, however: they had been waiting to do very much the same to him.

  He got his patrol moving at the double with two of them hustling the prisoner along between them. As they passed the ridge a machine-gun hammered from beyond the wire and a line of tracer swept slowly across the desert floor like a scythe, but short of the patrol.

  Jamie called, “Corporal Timms!”

  “Sir?”

  “Give me your rifle. Got any tracer?” Jamie took the Lee-Enfield and the handful of clips from the corporal, handed him the pistol. “That’s no damn good. You keep going with these ridges at your back. I’ll keep ‘em occupied for a few minutes.”

  “Sir!”

  Timms loped away and Jamie dropped down into cover at the foot of the ridge. He ejected the cartridges from the rifle, reloaded with tracer, set the sights and settled down. He fired at the machine-guns — two of them were winking now, looking to be the ones he had last located. He aimed carefully and fired steadily, although he knew he had little chance of putting a bullet through the slit in the machine-gun emplacement. But they would know they were under fire and the tracer would show them where it was coming from.

  Soon they were firing at him, the little red fire-flies curving in to smack and whicker around the ridge. He worked back until the ridge lay between him and the guns, giving him cover, then got to his feet and trotted after the patrol, somewhere ahead in the darkness.

  The machine-guns still rattled away but he took no notice. There was a saying among his men: the Eyeties couldn’t hit a barndoor with a shovel. It had been a good patrol he thought: information gathered, a prisoner taken, a nasty, demoralising defeat inflicted on the enemy and no casualties suffered. He felt strong, fit and happy. He thought again of Cairo. There was that nurse — he’d talked to her when last in the hospital to see the doctors and be passed fit — he’d sized her up, unerringly. Damn! What was her name? But he remembered her slender legs, the thrust of her breasts, and her haunches moving seductively under the cotton dress as she walked away, knowing he was watching her. That was something to look forward to —

  Katy shivered through the familiar pre-dawn vigil of “stand-to” and then watched the glorious sunrise light the desert. It would be her last for a while. She and Bert were returning to Alexandria that morning.

  She stooped out from under the camouflage net, wrapped in her overcoat against the cold of the morning. Bert returned fr
om a restless scouting around the area, talking to soldiers, seeking copy and the human touches to colour his dispatches. His shambling gait was more disjointed than usual because of early morning stiffness. He called to her, “Hey! Let’s get over to H.Q. They tell me there’s a patrol come back. We might hear something good.”

  Katy followed Bert across to the camouflaged tent that was the headquarters of the brigade. A soldier squatted on his heels by the side of the tent and in front of the usual tin of petrol-soaked sand that flamed palely in the sunlight. A kettle was starting to hiss on top of it.

  A small table covered with a blanket stood at the front of the tent and a staff major sat behind it. A soldier stood at ease before him. The major was immaculate; the soldier less so, streaked with dust and sweat, wearing a Balaclava helmet rolled up on his head like a close-fitting woollen cap. He leaned forward to put a notebook and a bundle of stained khaki rags on the table and said, “He copped it, sir.”

  Bert stepped in impetuously. “Who copped it? Enlisted man? Officer? What branch?”

  The major’s face was brick-red from the sun and bisected horizontally by an implacable, bristling moustache. Bert was old enough to be his father but the major glared at him and said frigidly, “Do you mind? I am taking this man’s report.”

  Bert muttered, “Sorry.” Katy expected the Englishman to tell him to get the hell out of it.

  Surprisingly, the major did not. He seemed to have completely lost interest in the two civilians as he turned the notebook over almost tenderly in his hands. Like the scraps of rag, the book too was badly stained. He said, quietly, “Go on, Corporal.”

  The corporal said, “It was mortars, sir. He wouldn’t have known a thing about it. We heard them stonking the area, and when it quietened down again but he didn’t show up, I went back with a couple of men. The place was like it had been dug over. You couldn’t put a foot between the craters. That was all that was left of him, that bit of his shirt and the book in the pocket.”

  The major said, “A great pity.”

  “Bloody shame, sir. Mister Dunbar was a good soldier, good officer.”

  “Jamie Dunbar?” The name was jerked out of Katy, like a cry of pain.

  The corporal’s head snapped around, startled by the girl’s voice. The major said, “Yes, Captain Jamie Dunbar.” Then watching her, he said carefully, “You — er — knew him?”

  Katy guessed what that hesitation meant — a woman who “knew” Jamie Dunbar. But she didn’t care; shock kept her face pale under its sunburn. “I met him. I know a relative of his.”

  Bert was silent on the drive back and they were in the outskirts of Alexandria before he said, “You know, I’ve been thinking. And it’s like this, Katy honey — Mussolini has been threatening Greece for some while. I guess it’s late in the year, so he probably won’t march till the spring, but — aw, the hell with it!” He flapped a hand, discarding cold logic. “There’s no action here and I have this hunch. Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m wrong, but how about us taking a look at Greece? What do you say?”

  After a moment Katy said, “That’s fine by me.” She had made her plans and would tell Bert about them soon, but not now.

  Bert added, “We’ll only be gone three, maybe four weeks, so keep your apartment on.”

  She made no reply to that.

  Bert glanced at her and said, “Too bad about Jamie.”

  “Yes.”

  “He was a nice guy —”

  Katy cut in harshly, “Let’s not make a big production out of it, Bert.”

  “O.K. I’m sorry.”

  The truck dropped Katy at her apartment. She did not know the name of this driver. Powell was dead, and young Hartington — “Call me Harry” — Smythe. And Jamie Dunbar. And —

  Bert said, “I’ll wash up and call around at six. We’ll go some place and eat.”

  Katy promised, “I’ll be ready.”

  She took a shower, luxuriating in it, then put on a white cotton dress, simple and cool. By then it was close to six and she went down to the street to meet Bert because she had promised she would be ready.

  Ward was walking towards the apartment building and had almost reached it when she stepped out onto the pavement. They halted a yard apart. Neither cared to move closer. He said, “Hello.”

  “Hi!”

  “I was coming to see you.” He saw that in spite of shadows of fatigue around her eyes she looked very pretty. He took a breath; time it was said, time it was over and done with.

  Katy knew that his black glower did not signify anger, but rather that there was something on his mind. She got in first: “I wanted to see you, Mark.” Get this over with! “I’m going away, crossing to Greece with Bert. Soon. And then on to the U.S. I wanted to say good-bye. I won’t be coming back.”

  “I see.”

  Did he? There was no change in the expression on his face. She asked, “Have you heard about Jamie?”

  Mark had come to make his own speech, was trying to take her words in, scowling. “What’s he got to do with it? I saw him a week ago. He was going up the line.”

  “He was killed in the desert.”

  “Jamie?” Ward did not want to believe it.

  Katy said, “Blown to pieces...I’m just not doing any good here, Mark. And I know it’s silly, but everybody I get to know seems to die. Except you...Anyway, I’ve made up my mind — I’m going home.”

  “I think you’re doing the right thing.” Ward thought she would be well out of this. He was thinking now not only of Jamie but of many others, especially of the pilot killed in training and his young widow in borrowed black at the grave-side, streaming tears, ungainly, so big-bellied with child that she leaned back on her heels. He said, “A clean break. No letters.”

  Katy nodded, “That’s what I want, too. And no hard feelings?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  One corner of Mark’s mouth went up. “So am I. But maybe we’d have been sorrier any other way. So — all the best.”

  “Take care.”

  They were still that yard apart. He grinned, turned away and in that awful moment she thought he had a look of Jamie Dunbar — a look of death. But as he strode off she told herself that was only because he and Jamie were cousins.

  Bert had seen them together as he wound through the crowds on the pavement. He thought they made a brave, good-looking couple. When he reached Katy he said, “I saw you talking to your Navy flyer. Are we still eating?”

  “Sure.” She smiled brightly. “He had to go.”

  Bert studied her. “Is that all?”

  “Yes.” She would tell him later if she had to, if he pressed her, and she guessed he would. She chattered cheerfully all evening but ate little and blamed the heat.

  Mark walked around for a long time, avoiding the bar at the Cecil, then went back to his tent on the airfield at Dekheila.

  They were both sure they had made the right, sensible decision.

  Ward had been told that morning that the attack on Taranto was a certainty now, and soon, in at most a month. The operation even had a code-name. JUDGMENT.

  Intermission

  It was quiet in the room but for the slow chunking of the long-case clock standing against the wall. Sunlight streamed in through the window but Sarah shivered. A door banged above them in the house, then again, like a distant gun. Mark Ward got up stiffly from his chair. “The wind has shifted around. I’d better fasten that door.”

  He walked out to the hall, the labrador slouching at his heels and Sarah was left in the quiet room but not alone — the girl and the young man were still with her.

  Ward’s story, measured and matter-of-fact, had not been a monologue. Sarah had asked questions, but only when there was some point or technical comment she had not understood. He had not told the full story but she could fill in the gaps he had tactfully skated around. The way of a man with a maid . . .

  He returned and stood at the door. “I think we’
re due for some lunch.” He held the door for her and as she reached it she saw a photograph, as dated as the other two, yellowing. It hung on the wall by the clock, where a man looking up to find the time would see it. Some thirty-odd young men in white shirts and shorts were ranked facing the camera. A line sat on chairs with another line standing behind them, while a few sat cross-legged on the deck. They were on a ship with a glimpse of a guard-rail and another vessel, blurred and out of focus, cleaving through the sea in the background. They grinned at the camera, confident, cheerful, their lives ahead of them, and this photograph was a lark.

  Sarah asked, “Your friends in Eagle?”

  Ward shook his head, “Aircrews aboard Illustrious.” He smiled and growled with affection, “Scoundrels.”

  “But — friends?”

  “Sure. I still see some of them, now and again. But most were killed before the end of the war.”

  He moved on, leaving Sarah staring at the young faces. Most of them dead...

  She followed him slowly along the hall to the kitchen: modern equipment under a dark-beamed ceiling. He took salad and cold meats from a refrigerator, poured her white wine from a bottle in a cooler. He drank beer from a keg standing in a dark, cool cupboard. They ate at the big kitchen table, Sarah sitting across from him as she had faced Rob that morning in her flat.

  They talked of small things: the weather, of course, and wine. Sarah relaxed and after the meal insisted on washing up. Then, as she dried her hands on a towel: “So it had all gone wrong.”

  The old man laughed softly and led the way back to their chairs, the labrador flopping beside him. “No. That’s only when it started to go wrong.”

  BOOK THREE

  Judgment