Back to Battle

by Max Hennessy

  ‘How long are you here for?’

  ‘I pick up a ship tomorrow for Naples. I’m doing some research at the university there.’

  Kelly grinned and the boy mixed a pink gin for him. ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘You’re old enough now. How’d you get here?’

  ‘James Verschoyle brought me. We came by car.’

  Kelly made no comment. Though he and Verschoyle had spent all their youth at loggerheads, the dislike had disappeared in the muddled years of the thirties and had not returned even after Christina’s remarriage. It was curious, but Verschoyle was Verschoyle and nothing could change him.

  ‘What’s Verschoyle doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘Appointment to the admiral’s staff, I understand.’

  ‘Good for him. He might relieve me.’ Kelly finished his drink briskly. ‘Been to Thakeham lately?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hugh said. ‘Everybody sent their regards.’ He passed across a photograph. ‘That’s the house. I thought you’d like to have it.’

  ‘Who’s the sailor in the background?’

  The boy laughed. ‘Your godson. Kelly Rumbelo.’

  ‘In uniform already? God that makes me feel old!’ Kelly paused. ‘How about you, Hugh? Have you ever thought what you’re going to do for a living?’

  ‘Not really. In fact, it seems funny to be thinking of work with a war coming.’

  ‘You think one is?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Kelly paused. It was certainly rapidly becoming clear that, despite Russian help, the Nationalist superiority on land was growing decisive, and when it finally did, doubtless the Germans and the Italians would persuade Franco to raise the old cry of ‘Gibraltar for the Spanish!’ as a trigger to start another war in which they could legitimately take part.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I do. In which case you could always join the Navy.’

  Hugh looked faintly guilty. ‘Isn’t the navy a bit out of date?’

  Kelly’s face grew red. But then he hesitated. The politicians had always seemed more concerned with the expediency of party political ends than with long-term national interests and their subservience to the Treasury made them spoil every ship they touched for the necessary extra ha’p’orth of tar.

  He took refuge in indignation. ‘Just let those buggers, Hitler and Mussolini, start something,’ he growled, ‘and you’ll soon see if we’re out of date.’

  Hugh grinned at his expression. ‘I meant, hasn’t the Air Force become more important?’

  The boy had a point, Kelly thought. If a war came, then certainly the Air Force would count for a great deal. Air power was going to be a decisive factor in the next bunfight, and that was something that had never been understood by the clots in Parliament or by the War Office and the Admiralty, probably not even by the bloody Air Ministry, come to that!

  He pushed the thought aside.

  ‘Never mind the Navy for tonight,’ he said. ‘We’ll find somewhere good to eat. How about your mother? Seen her lately?’

  Hugh shrugged. ‘Yes. But I don’t think she’s desperately interested in me – even now.’

  ‘How is she?’

  Hugh looked up, puzzled. ‘She seems content enough.’ He clearly couldn’t understand how any woman who’d married her first husband out of pure selfishness and been the cause of the break-up of her marriage to the second, could possibly be content with her third. He hadn’t yet learned that things didn’t fit into neat patterns.

  ‘How about James Verschoyle? How do you get on with him?’

  ‘Surprisingly well really.’ Hugh frowned. ‘Do you hate him, Kelly?’

  Kelly thought about it. Whatever else ‘Cruiser’ Verschoyle was – and, God knew, he had a soul that was still a dark tinge of grey at times! – he was always his own man, shrewd, clever, cynical, well aware of what was going on and determined to manoeuvre it to his own advantage.

  ‘No,’ he said equably. ‘Occasionally we even bump into each other professionally. We just don’t talk about our private lives and, as a naval officer, he’s among the best.’

  Hugh looked puzzled and Kelly tried to explain. ‘As you grow older,’ he said, ‘you realise everything isn’t just black and white. There must have been something wrong with your mother and me because we never did anything but quarrel.’

  Hugh frowned. ‘She never does anything but quarrel with James Verschoyle.’

  ‘But she’s stayed married to him, old son,’ Kelly said gently. ‘That’s something she didn’t do with me.’

  They ate at the Rock Hotel. The place was full, and Kelly noticed more than one woman with her eyes on him. It didn’t bother him, because he often found people watching him, perhaps to see if a man with his country’s highest decoration for courage ate from his knife or was rude to waiters. They all knew him. Quite a few of them didn’t like him even, because it had always been his habit to say what he thought – especially about big ships. Forthrightness, he liked to think it was, though he knew that at times it bordered on downright rudeness. But at least people knew where they were; he’d never sought popularity, and he was far too old now to change.

  ‘Ever thought of marrying again, Kelly?’ Hugh asked.

  Kelly’s head jerked up, as he realised his thoughts had been far away. ‘Once,’ he said. ‘No, twice. Once with Charlotte Kimister. You’ll remember I once took you to her house for tea when you were a boy.’

  ‘And the second time?’

  ‘A Spanish girl.’ Kelly’s smile was faintly embarrassed. ‘Bit younger than me but not so young as to be improper.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Kelly took a sip of his wine. He’d noticed the girl several times when he’d visited Algeciras, just over the border in Spain. He’d thought at first she was one of the growing army of German and Italian agents watching the Rock, but then it had dawned on him that it wasn’t the Rock she was interested in but himself. She’d been introduced to him as Teresa Axuriaguerrera but it had turned out that she was the widow of the Conde de Fayon, who had been murdered in Madrid by Fascist troublemakers in 1936. It had been a warm, satisfying relationship, but after her disappearance there had been only one brief letter indicating that she’d thrown in her lot with the Basques in their fight for autonomy, and he’d been forced to suppose that her political beliefs were stronger than her need for a husband.

  ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘The war got in the way.’

  He realised that the boy was watching him closely and had been all evening. ‘You’ve got something on your mind, old son,’ he said abruptly. ‘Don’t you think you’d better spit it out?’

  Hugh frowned, ill at ease and uncertain. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I really broke my journey here to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well–’ Hugh met his gaze ‘–Paddy and I–’ ‘Who?’

  ‘Paddy. Pat Rumbelo. The Rumbelos’ daughter.’

  ‘Is that what you call her?’

  Hugh affected surprise. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Not really. Mostly it was “Wally”. After Wally Hammond, the cricketer. She never failed to clout my leg-breaks over the fence.’

  ‘She’s decided to be a nurse. As soon as she’s old enough.’

  ‘Has she now?’ Kelly hadn’t missed the change of tone in the boy’s voice.

  Hugh raised his head and stared him in the face. By God, Kelly thought, that’s his mother, because whatever else Christina was, she was no coward. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Paddy and I were wondering–’

  ‘–if I thought you should get married.’

  Hugh grinned. ‘How did you know?’

  Kelly smiled. Hugh had spent far more time at Thakeham than with his mother, sailing with the Rumbelo children, playing cricket, teaching Pat Rumbelo the finer arts of rugby football, cricket and wrestling. Kelly had been cutting the lawn the first time it had dawned on them that they were adult and he’d seen them untwine their young bodies from the half-nelson they’d been demon
strating and stare at each other, a lanky fair-haired boy and a petite dark-haired girl, both suddenly a little startled at their discovery.

  ‘Stuck out a mile,’ he said.

  ‘She suggested I should ask your opinion.’

  ‘Shows her good sense. It’s an indication of the Rumbelos’ intelligence that they have such clever children.’

  ‘Well, should we?’

  Kelly smiled. ‘She’s a bit young still. Come to that, so are you.’

  Hugh made a gesture that was faintly irritated. ‘A man’s got to think ahead a bit, ain’t he?’

  Kelly smiled, pleased. And there, he thought, is me. Often he heard little inflections, small phrases he knew had been picked up from himself, and it was flattering, because it indicated the boy wished to emulate him.

  ‘I don’t mean now,’ Hugh went on. ‘I mean when we’re old enough.’

  ‘Which, I imagine, will be soon.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kelly paused. Charley Upfold had been only thirteen when she’d decided to marry him and she’d never once changed her mind until his own thoughtlessness had finished it all.

  ‘Age don’t really make much difference,’ he said slowly. ‘And females know their own minds much better than men. I’d certainly say marry her. But not until you can afford it.’

  Hugh was smiling. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you’d see it my way.’

  Kelly smiled back. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Every time. If only for the fact that when I was your age I didn’t.’

  The following morning, Kelly drove Hugh to the quay for the steamer to Naples, then headed slowly back to his flat to pick up his briefcase. As he entered, the telephone was ringing and he snatched it up fiercely.

  ‘Admiral’s secretary, sir. I’ve been trying to get you for some time. The admiral would like to see you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘There’s a job he wants doing, sir.’

  Kelly put the telephone down slowly. He’d grown used to being Corbett’s hatchet man. His languages dispensed with interpreters, which was no bad thing, and, he suspected, he’d become known for his cool cheek. He’d been sent into Bilbao in April because the British Government had been dodging its responsibilities to eager British shipping with the claim that the approaches were mined and the coastal guns insufficient to deter Nationalist warships. He’d found that the mines were 1914–18 types, all useless and all swept, anyway, while the approaches were controlled by batteries of modern guns crewed by men trained by one of the finest artillerists in Spain, and Westminster had had to climb down. With Hood waiting outside the place with her fifteen-inch rifles, the supply ships that had slipped in had kept the town’s resistance going until June, when he’d gone in a second time to bring out what was left of the British residents.

  It was Verschoyle who met him as he appeared in Corbett’s office. He hadn’t changed much and was as languid and good-looking as ever.

  ‘Hello, Cruiser,’ Kelly said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Being groomed to take over your job, I suspect.’ Verschoyle smiled. ‘You’re away so often fixing things, the admiral thought he needed another assistant.’

  ‘How’s Christina?’

  Verschoyle looked faintly sheepish. It was an odd expression for one who was normally so arrogant. ‘All right. She gives me hell a lot of the time but I’m no angel either and somehow it works.’

  Kelly felt no resentment. There had been a time when he’d hated his former wife but he’d long since recognised that his marriage had been a disaster and as much his own fault as hers. He glanced pointedly at Verschoyle’s thickening middle. ‘You’re getting fatter,’ he said. ‘More of a battle cruiser than a light cruiser these days.’

  Verschoyle smiled. ‘Fleshpots are too easy to come by with a wife like Christina,’ he said. ‘She has too much money.’

  ‘What am I wanted for?’

  ‘Seems Santander’s about to fall to the Nationalists and there are a bunch of nuns there whose lives are in danger. They’re being held as hostages, but it appears there’s an unidentified local authority up there who’s willing to exchange them for two “loyal” generals who’ve been held in custody in Mallorca. The British vice-consul’s sorted out the details with the aid of a Roman Catholic priest called Father Eufemio. It seems we have the generals in Gib now, and we have the name of a woman who knows where to find him.’

  Admiral Corbett was perusing a report as Kelly opened his door and he waved wordlessly at a chair. For the Navy, there was plenty to worry about just then because the Germans and Italians were parading in the Spanish waters big new ships that made the British vessels look as outdated as the dodo.

  He put the report down at last. ‘Sorry to drag you out, Kelly,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard what it’s about?’

  ‘Is Santander in our diocese, sir?’

  ‘As much as Bilbao was,’ Corbett said. ‘Home Fleet’s asked us to help and you’ve become a sort of naval Scarlet Pimpernel. There doesn’t seem to be any other choice.’

  Kelly drew a deep breath. ‘Sir, I don’t think Intelligence is my strong point.’

  Corbett looked up. He’d had a high opinion of Kelly ever since the trouble in Rebuke at Invergordon. ‘You’re pretty good at it all the same,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I’m best at sea, sir, and that’s where I think I ought to be.’

  Corbett stared at his fingers for a moment, deep in thought. ‘Intelligence,’ he insisted, ‘is finding out what you don’t know from what you do. It’s what the Duke of Wellington called guessing what’s at the other side of the hill, and if the Germans and Italians remain as awkward as they are at the moment and a war comes out of it, then we’ll need a few good guessers.’

  He paused, as if he’d said his last word on the subject, then went on quickly. ‘You’ll know about the nuns,’ he said. ‘And there are also a few other odds and ends to be collected. Fortunately, there’s a woman called Jenner-Neate who runs the Child Relief Fund and she knows them all. It’ll take you three or four days, I imagine, so fetch ’em out, Kelly, and I’ll see you go back to sea.’

  Kelly grinned. ‘How do I get there, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘We have the hostages in Badger. She’s up there waiting for you.’

  ‘And me, sir?’

  ‘You’re a pilot, aren’t you? You’d better fly. There’s a woman at the Presidencia who has all the details, but just be a bit diplomatic how you ask for her because it seems she’s already being watched, and the police chief’s a fanatic called Neila who used to be leader of the Santander Socialists, and takes his victims for what he calls a “paseo” at night or in the early morning. “Paseo’s” a euphemism for a ride á la Al Capone. So, make sure you keep your nose clean. We don’t want to have to use diplomatic pressure to make sure it doesn’t happen to you. You were asked for by name, by the way. The woman seems to know you. Teresa Axuriaguerrera. Know her?’

  Kelly’s heart gave an unexpected thump. Did he know her? Not half he didn’t! It was like something coming out of the past, what had been a pleasant dream suddenly becoming flesh and blood in front of him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said briskly. ‘I know her.’

  ‘Then–’ Corbett knew Kelly well and he shot him a sidelong glance ‘–you’d better get on with it, hadn’t you?’

  Three

  They flew him up at once to Biarritz where a Frenchman called Leduc was standing by to pilot him into Santander. The arrangements had all been made ahead of him and Badger was already inside Santander Bay waiting for him to send her the refugees.

  It was a risky flight, and a regular service machine had been shot down only three days before by Italian fighters, but in the first light of the day the little Beechcraft skimmed over the water at only three hundred feet, level with a filmy cloud bank, tattered, thin and insubstantial as a cobweb. It was easy to identify Badger in the bay, and with her, her sister ships, Blanche, Brazen and Beagle, all lying close to the Spa
nish nationalist cruiser, Almirante Cervera, with the German battleship, Graf Spee, half a mile away, holding a watching brief. Leduc gestured at the sky.

  ‘Keep your eyes open,’ he said.

  There appeared to be a panic at Santander, because Nationalist machines had bombed the aerodrome only a few hours earlier and men were busily filling in the craters. Leduc took a look at it, laughed, seemed to shut his eyes and landed between the holes, wriggling like a snake. Parked at wide intervals round the perimeter of the field were Russian monoplane fighters like grasshoppers, their stubby fuselages on bow legs. They were said to be the fastest fighters in Spain.

  The game was already clearly up, though. The advancing enemy troops were Italians and Moors with a formidable artillery support of 65 mm weapons, German ack-ack, and six-inch and three-inch guns, an artillery orchestration twice as powerful as Kelly had seen even when he’d been a spectator from the Senior Officers’ War Course at manoeuvres in England. There were also said to be plenty of Fiat-Ansaldo tanks, with machine guns and cannons, and plenty of air cover from Italian Fiat fighters based at Villarcayo. The bombers were German, escorted by new German Messerschmitt monoplanes operating from Aguilar del Campo. In reply, Santander had the eighteen Russian fighters, a random collection of worthless bombers, chiefly old French Bréguets and Potez, and seventeen even more worthless Gourdoux which were supposed to be dive bombers. They had hardly any automatic weapons, a few six-inch guns from Bilbao, a few 75s, and one four-inch battery The guns were of all nationalities, ammunition was faulty and there was a shortage of telephones.

  The newspapers, marked by vast blank spaces where the censors had been at work, seemed to consist largely of slogans and the sayings of demagogic politicians. Nobody seemed to take much notice of them and Kelly suspected that the men who thought them up were keeping well out of the firing line. One day, he thought cynically, there might be a war in which they would see the unprecedented sight of a politician with a bullet hole in him.

  Finding a room at the Hotel Jauregui, he was just brushing his teeth with a mouth full of peppermint foam when the tap water failed. Flinging his toothbrush into the bowl in a fury, he managed to clear his mouth and, going outside, found militiamen and girls washing, shaving, making up their faces and collecting water by an artificial lake, watched by the swans that inhabited it. Already long-range machine gun bullets were flitting through the trees, and as he left the hotel, aeroplanes came over and dropped bombs. A house was blown to pieces and a fine thick dust came floating down to dull the tram-lines and lie in the folds of clothing. Nobody was hit but a girl collapsed in a hysteria of fear, her skin damp and puffy, her limbs jerking, her lips forming terrified words.