Virginia Ranelagh was aged thirty-two, but was already a widow, having lost her husband in the evacuation of Crete. They had married on the outbreak of war and she had hardly seen anything of Vernon after that. Her parents had begun the war well. Her father, RNR, had got a new post at a training establishment in Scotland. Her mother was soon running a string of WRVS canteens. After months of separation, their much anticipated weekend together for the 1941 New Year had ended their war when a bomb flattened their house. All the family that Virginia had left was a brother, who had just been promoted to Army captain. ‘But there doesn’t seem to be much for the Army to do at the moment,’ she remarked.
‘Not like the Navy, eh?’ responded Steadfast.
And so the evening went on. They ate from the five shilling menu – the most the restaurant was allowed to charge in wartime. (Some places got round this rule by adding a hefty cover charge, but Nino’s was not that type of establishment.) Their five shillings bought them soup (consommé for her, mushroom for him), Lancashire Hot Pot, followed by a peach melba and a Queen’s pudding. They drank. They danced. They talked of love and life. But never did they dare allude to the subject of Steadfast’s secret mission.
It was ten o’clock when they left Nino’s and walked the short distance to Virginia’s flat off Tottenham Court Road. Neither felt inclined to talk much as they stumbled their way from lamp post to lamp post, giving the impression that they had drunk more than they had.
Outside the flat Virginia fumbled in her bag for her keys. Then she slung the bag over her shoulder and used the tips of her fingers to find the keyhole. Once inside the flat, Virginia closed the door behind them and quickly readjusted the blackout over the doorway before switching on the light. Then she dropped her handbag and keys to the floor, flung her arms around Steadfast’s neck and burst into tears.
They had only known each other for a couple of weeks, having met at a hotel in Keswick when Steadfast was on leave after a year as first lieutenant on HMS South Riding with the Atlantic convoys. He had just come off the convoy and was awaiting his first posting as commander. So he was in a buoyant mood when he first heard Virginia’s ready laugh on the far side of the hotel lounge that night. He looked up from his none too exciting copy of ‘Punch’ to see her attractive figure and her stunning hair. When she later rose to walk out of the room, her sensuous way of moving drew him irresistibly to her. She seemed like a ray of optimism and light in that drab winter, when all seemed hopeless. (America had not yet joined the war, so only the most credulous could then expect a hopeful outcome.) Yet in those dark days of the war, Virginia laughed and entertained, perhaps because it came naturally to her, perhaps to help her forget what the war had cost her. One thing was certain, her bright air was not caused by any ignorance of the war’s progress. She worked in Admiralty intelligence and was keenly aware of the slender thread defending Britain’s shores and trade routes. But the one thing she did not know was why the Admiralty had so urgently ordered Steadfast to attend Admiralty House the next day.
Steadfast pushed Virginia gently away so that he could look into her face under the dim light: ‘Virginia, don’t cry,’ he pleaded.
Virginia shook him off sobbing: ‘Don’t cry! How could you! You’re off on some horrible mission. I know it. All the secret jobs are … are … well, ones you don’t come back from.’
‘I’ll be back. I promise,’ he urgently replied.
‘Promise? How can anyone promise anything in this beastly war?’
‘I promise I’ll come back because I’ve got you to come back to. We’re made for each other and we’re going to stick together.’
‘Oh, George, don’t be so naïve. Look what happened to Mummy and Daddy – they meant to stay together. They probably made promises, too. But this time I’m not going to lose you.’
‘But you won’t.’
‘Don’t try to fob me off, George. Can’t you tell them you won’t do it?’
‘I could, yes. But do you want a coward in your bed?’
‘Don’t say that, George. Don’t give me those silly, impossible choices.’
‘I won’t. There’ll be no coward in your bed.’
And with that he led Virginia to the bedroom and closed the door. Between the sheets, surrounded by a light aroma of diesel, she surrendered to a hero and decided that she liked it that way after all.
2 - A Motley Collection
The following day a car arrived at Steadfast’s hotel in the grimy backwaters of Bayswater. He was in no mood to pay attention to the attractive Wren driver, despite her charming welcome as she escorted him from the hotel steps to the car. He had much to think about and felt like sitting in the back – but he decided that he could not ignore his driver to that extent.
The car set off through the war-torn streets of west London towards Admiralty House in Horse Guards Parade. Ragged gaps in the terraces showed the scars of the worst of the Blitz and piles of rubble in bulldozed heaps were evidence of more recent attacks. Freshly delivered milk bottles stood on doorsteps and the first postmen and postwomen were trudging from house to house. Steadfast thought of what might be in those small envelopes. From bases all around the country there would be news of the boredom of training and waiting. From docksides around the Empire there would be long but guarded accounts of the mix of tedium and terrifying action that was the lot of the Navy and Merchant Navy. And from far flung land bases there would be Airgraph letters – photographed and reduced to microfilm before being sent home for enlargement and printing. What lengths the country went to save on air cargo! And now they were sending him all the way to Alexandria.
As the car drew up outside Admiralty House, Steadfast realised that he had never entered this holy of holies, from where Britain had protected her shores and sea lanes ever since 1788. In fact, as he told himself, not many lieutenant commanders were summoned here to receive their orders – usually they came to beg for appointments.
The Wren stopped outside the main door: ‘I’ll wait over there, sir,’ she said, pointing to a row of reserved parking places.
Inside Admiralty House Steadfast showed his pass to the officer on the reception desk: ‘Oh, yes sir, the First Sea Lord said you were to go straight up. The Wren will take you,’ nodding in the direction of a fierce looking woman at a nearby desk – clearly chosen to keep unwanted post-seeking officers away from the sea lords, thought Steadfast.
The commander was soon in the magnificent office of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord. He glanced around this historic office and momentarily recalled his hero David Beatty, who was First Sea Lord in the 1920s. As he turned towards Pound he couldn’t help thinking that he was not a man in the same class as Beatty. Indeed, he had been rejected as a possible First Sea Lord in the late 1930s and only held the post now because the better candidates had died early deaths. Pound was most definitely not on Steadfast’s list of heroes, but he was jealous of Pound for having worked with both ‘Jacky’ Fisher and Winston Churchill during the Great War. Now he was the man who held Steadfast’s future in his hands.
After welcoming Steadfast, Pound congratulated him on his work on the Defiant.
‘I’ve just had a first report of your convoy, Steadfast. Wonderful work, wonderful! Two E-boats down in one convoy. We need more of your type in the Navy. Especially for jobs like this one. How are you, by the way?’
‘You know … two arms, two legs and still moving.’
‘That’s the spirit!’
‘I think Goolden’s given you the details, hasn’t he?’ said the First Sea Lord without waiting for a reply. ‘I just wanted a chance to underline how damned important this operation is. Only one man in the World knows about this new compound. If the Nazis get him you can imagine what that could mean for us, eh? So, it’s Churchill’s orders: get him out, whatever it costs.’
Steadfast indicated his acceptance of the mission and Pound responded, ‘I knew we could trust you, so my staff have already arranged for your drive
r to take you off to Lyneham. We can’t hang around with this one, can we?’
‘No, sir.’
Steadfast took his leave of the admiral, and went back downstairs towards the exit. As he was leaving, the officer on the desk called out ‘Commander, you’ll need this,’ pointing to a suitcase. ‘Mediterranean kit, sir. Your size. And the extras: razor, toothbrush and so on. You won’t have time to get anything yourself.’
And nor did he. As Steadfast walked down the steps of Admiralty House, he was briefly warmed by a fleeting moment of winter sunshine before the Wren brought the car smoothly round and stopped within a yard of him. They were soon retracing their steps westward, through Knightsbridge and Hounslow, and out into the war-less open countryside.
With a three or four hour journey ahead, Steadfast thought it was time that he took an interest in his driver.
‘Have you being doing this for long?’
‘Since September 1939, sir.’
‘You’re doing your bit, then. What did you do before?’
‘Women’s fashion. I was an assistant in Powner and Salthouse – it’s off Bond Street. Or rather, it was off Bond Street. Bombed to bits now.’
‘Do you miss it?’
‘No. I’d rather bow and scrape before handsome young officers than dowdy old women.’
‘Well, I’m sure the officers prefer it that way too.’
Her name was Patricia Brackenberry, she told him, and she was engaged to an army lieutenant although her family was stuffed full of naval officers.
‘How do they fancy you marrying the army, then?’ quipped Steadfast.
‘There weren’t keen at first, but as soon they met Andrew they were won over.’
What a charming young woman, thought Steadfast. Normally he would have responded more fulsomely to her willing overtures to enter into conversation, but today he felt no temptation. The Wren soon realised that her passenger was content to ride in peace. She settled down to the drive along the un-signposted roads.
As they got nearer to their destination, Brackenberry asked: ‘Have you been to Lyneham before, sir?’
‘No. In fact I’ve never been in an aeroplane before.’
‘I suppose that’s only natural, you being a Navy man.’
Steadfast dropped back into his thoughts. The more he pondered on the operation, the more it puzzled him. Yesterday, in Goolden’s office, he had been rather surprised at the offer. Now that he thought more about it, his suspicions began to grow. On the surface it was just a raid on an isolated bit of coast. But why was there no one else in the Mediterranean able to do the job? Why were they flying him all the way out via Nigeria and Khartoum to Alexandria? There could only be one explanation: no one locally would touch the job. And he had promised Virginia that he would come back. How confident he had been yesterday when she was in his arms, her pleading eyes earnestly seeking reassurance in his. Now he was less sure that he would be able to keep that promise.
‘Penny for them, sir.’
‘Oh, nothing. Perhaps I’m a bit nervous about flying. I’ve always had the ground or a deck under my feet.’
‘Mr Churchill does it, sir, so it can’t be that dangerous.’
‘Yes, but then he always was one for danger. Either it gives him a thrill or, as some say, he just doesn’t sense it.’
‘Whichever it is, we can’t do without him.’
They lapsed back into silence and the car purred its way through the sleepy Wiltshire countryside until Steadfast heard the Wren say: ‘Lyneham, sir.’
‘So it is. I was far away. It’s been a bit hectic lately. I think I need to catch up on some sleep.’
‘Of course you can’t tell me your destination, sir, but I know where these planes go. I guess you’ll have plenty of time for sleep in the air.’
At the gateway the slouched sentry, his gun propped against a pile of sandbags, took one look at the Wren, straightened up to his full six feet two inches, and gave her a wink that betrayed a close acquaintance. (Did Andrew know? Steadfast wondered.) The sentry turned to Steadfast: ‘Could I see your pass, please, sir.’
Steadfast showed him his papers and immediately the sentry pulled himself up and gave a particularly sharp salute. Yet one more person, Steadfast noted, who seemed to have been primed to pay special attention to him.
‘All in order, sir.’
So he was expected, as, doubtless, were many other VIP passengers that day. But he wasn’t a VIP. Or was he now a VIP? That was how he was being treated. Once more he worried about just what he had let himself in for.
The Wren, clearly familiar with the airbase, drove confidently off to the passenger lounge, stepped out of the car and held the door open for Steadfast to get out. She thought he looked somewhat preoccupied, but risked a final, ‘I hope you have a good trip, sir.’ Steadfast, feeling somewhat guilty at having paid her so little attention, replied, ‘Thanks so much for the drive. I’m sorry I’ve been rather poor company this morning.’ The Wren smiled, adding, ‘I expect it’s the flying, sir. I’m sure it won’t be that bad. Perhaps we’ll meet again?’
Steadfast walked through the narrow door of the dreary make-shift mizzen hut lounge. The concrete floor that had once been painted light grey was now scuffed and dirty. Around the walls were a dozen or so steel-framed chairs with fraying upholstery. A small low table was spread with the usual stock of disintegrating magazines that were so dull that nobody could be bothered to steal them. A half-dozen officers from all three services were standing by the tea bar, talking in low voices. In another huddle was a group of men in three-piece suits clutching bulging briefcases. Diplomats or politicians, Steadfast thought to himself. He pondered on the oddity of the situation. Everyone in the lounge was on war business of the highest priority, yet not one person could talk about where he was going, for what purpose, or who he was going to see.
About an hour later an orderly came in. The murmur of conversation abruptly ceased and all eyes turned to the newcomer.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you’ll be boarding in about a quarter of an hour. The forecast for the run down the Bay of Biscay is cloudy with light winds. There’s no moon tonight so you shouldn’t be troubled by visitors.’
Half-an-hour later the plane was in the air and Steadfast was sleeping soundly despite the intense cold of the unheated fuselage. Some hours later he was woken by a shake of his shoulder.
‘Gibraltar, sir. You can stretch your legs on the tarmac if you wish. We’ll be here for twenty minutes.’
Steadfast eased his cold stiff body out of the plane and walked up and down in the warm winter sunshine. He could hardly remember when he had last felt so warm. Was it before the war? he wondered. All too soon an orderly was back to hustle Steadfast and a new group of passengers into the plane for the next leg of the journey.
The rest of the flight, via Lagos and Khartoum, was uneventful, although Steadfast was surprised to find himself shivering with cold as they cruised at 10,000 feet across the Sahara desert.
***
When the plane landed on the rough Egyptian airstrip at Dekheila, Steadfast could feel the North African heat even before the door had been opened. In less than a minute a ladder had been dropped down to the tarmac and he and his fellow passengers, limbs stiff and numb from hours of flight, struggled down to the ground. They blinked and screwed up their eyes in the glare of the fierce sun beating down from the sky and up from the concrete apron. A bevvy of keen looking young officers eyed the newcomers, each searching for his charge. Steadfast’s escort had no trouble in finding him, he being the only passenger in naval uniform.
‘Lieutenant Commander Steadfast, sir?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Welcome to Alex, sir. There’s a car over there. We’ll soon whisk you away from the stinking heat of the airstrip.’
‘Thank you, lieutenant.’
The lieutenant led Steadfast over to a waiting sand-coloured Humber Super Snipe staff car. Its bulbous wheel arches, tall radiator and long bo
nnet gave it an alien appearance in the land of desert and camels.
‘I’ll take you to the admiral, sir.’
After a short drive across the empty landscape the car was soon fighting its way through the crowded city streets of Alexandria, lined with small shops. In many places both traders and their goods spilled out onto the pavements and roadways. Here, only 50 miles from El Alamein, the front in the Western Desert, daily life continued as it had for hundreds of years.
‘How are things in the desert?’ asked Steadfast.
‘Looking good, sir. They say that Rommel’s retreating.’
‘Nice to know there’s some good news somewhere. There’s not much to cheer about back home.’
‘I don’t think we’ve much to cheer about in the Med either. But we’re still here, so welcome to our little hot spot.’
The car was now running along the mole between the open water and the main harbour. Steadfast caught the smell of the sea, so refreshing after the sandy desert. He didn’t envy the soldiers in that regard.
When the car drew up at a long, low palace-like structure Steadfast drew in his breath.
‘What the hell’s that?’
‘The Ras-el-Tin Palace, sir. Or HMS Nile to you and me. It’s the Med fleet’s base.’
‘Fit for a King by the looks of it.’
‘That’s no surprise, sir. It is the King’s palace, but we’re camping here as well. You’ll usually catch the C-in-C on his flagship, but he’s here today for some meetings.’
Action This Day (A Commander Steadfast Thriller) Page 2
