Torpedo Run (1981)

by Reeman, Douglas

  So that was it. Don Richie was dead. Whitcombe did not have to tell him.

  The tubby captain added slowly, ‘When you said you knew his wife just now I got a bit bothered. She was here this morning, just before you, in fact. She had already been told in the usual way, but we felt we owed it to her. After all he did, killed in action seems a pretty small reward, for her anyway.’ He looked round as Kinross’s voice intruded through the door. ‘In fact, he shot himself.’ He gave a warning glance. ‘Enough said for now.’

  Kinross entered, his eyes questioning. ‘All done?’

  Whitcombe said breezily, ‘Early lunch. We can talk some more later.’

  Devane followed the others, his mind grappling with what Whitcombe had disclosed. Richie dead. They all expected to die, but not like that. Why the hell had he done it?

  As the door swung behind the ill-matched trio the little Wren ventured, ‘The one called Devane, he looks nice. Different.’ She fell silent under their amused stares.

  The officer had heard her but said nothing. The little Wren was brand new. She had a lot to learn. But she too found herself thinking of the young lieutenant-commander with the sun-tanned face and hands and the slow, almost shy smile.

  One of the Glory Boys, as Kinross had called them. She had seen too many go through that door never to return to become involved.

  A messenger brought over a bulky file with Richie’s name on the jacket.

  ‘This has just been delivered,’ he said.

  She looked at the tall filing cabinet in the corner. It was jokingly called the Coffin. But with a man’s file in your hands it never seemed so funny.

  The little Wren who had only just joined the special operations staff took the file and carried it to the cabinet. Once she glanced at it and the bare wording, KILLED IN ACTION. But she saw only the face of the man called Devane, because he was real, and Richie she had never met.

  Devane felt bone dry, which was surprising. They had had plenty to drink, before, during and after the lunch in a small club at the back of St James’s, which in spite of the many uniforms in the bar and dining room seemed to ignore the war.

  They had been back in the Admiralty bunker for most of the day. Between them, Whitcombe in his bluff, outspoken fashion, and Kinross with his reserved, carefully formed explanations, had built up quite a picture of the new flotilla.

  They sat and watched Devane’s face as he studied a typed list of officers in the flotilla.

  The names were like small portraits of the men, or at least half of them were. The new flotilla had been constructed from others which had been working in the Mediterranean and Devane needed little to remind him.

  One of the boats was commanded by George ‘Red’ Mackay who had been transferred from a Canadian flotilla based at Alexandria. Devane smiled. Red had a loud, harsh voice and was terrific. Another CO was Willy Walker, who looked and walked rather like a disdainful heron. Faces and names, odd moments of brash bravado and others of sheer, gut-tearing fear. Interlaced tracers in the night, or a German E-boat boiling through the sea with a bow wave like Niagara Falls. Men cursing and firing, the lethal glitter of torpedoes as they leapt from the tubes.

  Whitcombe asked gently, ‘Approve?’

  Devane did not answer directly. ‘I notice there are extra people, five to a boat?’

  Whitcombe met his gaze. Devane’s eyes were what you always remembered after you had met him, he thought. Blue-grey, like the sea. There was no sense in pretending or beating about the bush.

  ‘Yes. Once you are on your own in the Black Sea you’ll be hard put to get replacements. So we’ve made certain you’ll have one officer and four key ratings in addition to each normal complement. A tight squeeze, but there it is.’

  You don’t know the half of it. He asked, ‘When do you want me to leave, sir?’

  ‘A few days’ time. You’ll be told. But it’s absolutely top secret, John. I’ve laid on accommodation for you in London. I suggest you take it easy and report daily to me.’

  They all looked at the blue folder which lay on Devane’s lap.

  ‘You’ll be working with Lieutenant-Commander Beresford, but you’ve done that before.’

  Another face. Intelligent but moody. One of the cloak-and-dagger brigade.

  He replied, ‘Yes. Pretty good officer.’ He grinned at the old joke. ‘For a regular, that is.’

  Whitcombe seemed satisfied with his reactions. ‘Remember this, John, yours is an independent command. You’ll have to rely on your own judgement most of the time. Beresford will be there to keep the Russians off your back. He’s good at that kind of thing.’

  They all stood up. It was over. For the moment.

  Devane said, ‘I’d better make up some story for my parents’ benefit.’

  Kinross nodded. ‘I can help there.’

  He’s had plenty of practice, Devane thought grimly. ‘I could use another drink.’

  The Royal Navy had thoughtfully commandeered a small but elegant block of flats in what had once been a quiet square. ‘Nice an’ near to ‘Arrods,’ as the accommodation petty officer had explained.

  Devane stood at his window and looked down at the square, his head ringing like an oil drum. After yesterday’s meeting with Whitcombe and Kinross he should have left it at that and gone to bed. He never slept well these days, but the gin bottle beside the bed, two-thirds empty, showed that it was no cure either. He was drinking too much, and too often. Devane hoped he had hidden the fact from his parents, especially his mother. His father would say he understood. He had been in France in that other war. But Devane was troubled all the same. He had seen it happen to others, the desperate, feverish faces after the flotilla had swept down on a heavily defended convoy, or when they had been ambushed by German E-boats.

  The small green square had been given over to ranks of vegetable patches. Digging for Victory. Even the iron railings had been taken away to be melted down for much-needed scrap. A few civilians were moving along the pavements, small, foreshortened figures, shabby and pathetic at a distance. But Devane knew differently. Without their tenacity, their British bloody-mindedness, as Whitcombe would term it, the swastika would have been flying over Buckingham Palace long ago, no matter what the armed forces tried to do.

  A sailor was standing on one corner, his hand on a girl’s sleeve. It was like watching a mime, the sailor, a Norwegian, trying to make friends. The girl, used to being pursued by servicemen, just that bit standoffish. How much worse for the Norwegian than for me, Devane thought. His country occupied, his own world confined to another allegiance, and the hatred of the enemy. Them.

  Devane had had a light breakfast which had been brought to his bedside by a naval steward. The latter was obviously used to the tide of officers who came and went through the little block of flats.

  It was strange how it could relax him. He had vaguely heard two air-raid warnings during the night, but nothing serious enough to drag him to a shelter.

  Devane had re-read his folder of intelligence reports during breakfast, and the coffee had tasted just like pre-war.

  He was going to the Black Sea, to a war he had only seen on the newsreels. To Devane the enemy was sea and sky, U-boats and aircraft, the Atlantic or the Med. He had learned to recognize fear in himself and in others near him. From it he had gathered the necessary hatred to hit back, and to hit hard.

  The intelligence pack explained the technical side; about the five boats, all of which were new. They were of the latest British Power Boat design with certain extras. Power-operated guns, twin torpedo tubes, four thousand and fifty horsepower and a top speed of thirty-nine knots. Impressive.

  Devane hoped there would be accommodation arranged ashore for the crews when they were in harbour. He smiled. In Russia. A seventy-one-foot long MTB, with all the additional gear and ammunition for her extended patrol area, had barely room enough for her seventeen-man complement. Now there would be twenty-two! He could hear the moans already.

  But this
type of craft was the biggest, according to Kinross’s precise notes, which could safely stand the ride overland without first being dismantled from bridge to keel, or without falling apart on the journey. He should know.

  Devane re-examined the details of his own command, the leader. His first lieutenant was named Dundas, with a high recommendation. Ex-merchant service, he had come straight from the Royal Naval Reserve. He was twenty-six. The additional officer, the third hand, was a RNVR lieutenant called Seymour. He was twenty-two, with two years in coastal forces. All it said of his earlier existence was the title of journalist. At that tender age it probably meant his local church magazine.

  The boat’s coxswain he did know. Petty Officer Tom Pellegrine, DSM and bar, who had been Richie’s coxswain since the beginning. He was a regular, which was fairly rare in coastal forces. They usually retained regulars for ships and equipment more valuable than wooden MTBs.

  But a good coxswain was vital. The bridge between officers and ratings. And packed in that little hull, he would have his work cut out as a peacemaker.

  It would be strange to take over a new boat, a fresh flotilla. They must have got used to each other while regrouping and working up. He would have to start as he meant to go on.

  There was not much in the pack about German naval forces in the area, except that they were a mixed collection of small craft and, like his own, had been carried across country, then floated down the Danube to their new killing ground.

  Information about the Russians was even scarcer. The whole of their naval squadron, listed in the pack as the Azov Flotilla, was commanded by a distinguished officer called Sergey Gorshkov, but the man described as the real link with the British was shown as Nikolai Sorokin, a full captain, who had already made his mark against the Germans in the Baltic.

  The liaison part would rest with Ralph Beresford. Devane had spent many hours with him in the Eastern Mediterranean and working on special missions amidst the Greek islands, Most people’s idea of the peacetime regular officer. Good-looking, dashing would be a better word, Beresford was an unexpected choice for the new job.

  But Devane had seen the other side of the man. Tough, almost fanatical about each operation. He liked Beresford, or what he knew of him, and had tried to tell himself to leave it at that. One thing was certain, Beresford was not just brave, he actually enjoyed the danger and the risks, and pushed his luck to the limit.

  Devane studied himself in a mirror, as he would a rating at divisions or behind the defaulters’ table.

  There were lines at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes seemed steady enough. He pushed a comb through his dark brown hair and sighed. It was no use. He would never make another Kinross.

  The thought made him chuckle, and he saw the tiredness and strain fade from his face like a curtain. Was that all it took?

  The telephone jangled and he swung round like a fighter. In that split second it was all there. The alarm in the night, the frantic scramble to action stations, the brain taking over, ordering. Demanding.

  Devane sat down and silenced the telephone. He must try to get over it. Otherwise his new command would imagine they had some bomb-happy nut to decide on their futures, which were precarious enough anyway.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘RPO ’ere, sir.’

  One of the guardians of the lobby which had probably sported a hall porter in safer days.

  ‘What’s wrong, PO?’

  He could hear the man’s breathing. So it was not Whitcombe yet. Perhaps it was off. It happened in the Navy. You arrived with tropical gear only to discover you were going to Iceland, or the appointment had been cancelled altogether.

  ‘I’ve got a lady ’ere, sir. To see you.’ It sounded like an accusation.

  Devane sat bolt upright on the edge of the bed. ‘Can you put her on?’

  He heard mumblings, then the man said, ‘Well –, sir, it’s not really proper, I – I mean, this is all ’ush ’ush.’ He faltered, his voice less confident. ‘But if you say so, sir.’

  Devane waited. Somehow he was not surprised. He should have guessed it might happen.

  ‘John? This is Claudia.’

  He could see her as if she were right here with him. Dark, vivacious, lovely. She had always seemed so poised and confident, and he was shocked by the thought that she did not know how her husband had died. And he did.

  ‘Hello. I’ll come down. I – I heard you were in London.’ Half a lie was better than a whole one. ‘I’m terribly sorry about Don. Really.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’ She sounded as if she had turned away from the telephone or was looking to see if the regulating petty officer was listening.

  ‘I must talk, John. You’re the only one I can –’ The line went dead.

  Devane felt very calm, and without any possible reason. He dialled the special number to Whitcombe’s HQ and was immediately told by a crisp female that he was not required to report again until 1500.

  Then he pulled on his jacket and jammed his cap on to his head. He patted his pockets to make sure he had all he needed.

  He glanced at himself once more in the mirror. Aloud he said deliberately, ‘You are being a bloody fool, and you know it! Stop right here.’

  Devane strode to the door and ran quickly down the stairs to the lobby.

  Claudia Richie was sitting on a padded bench by the doorway, her legs crossed, a cigarette in one hand.

  She turned and watched him. Even the movement of her head, her lovely pale neck seemed to make him clumsy, obvious.

  Devane took her arm. ‘How did you find this place?’ He cursed himself as the words came out.

  She dropped her cigarette into a large brass shell case which did duty as ashtray or umbrella stand as the occasion demanded.

  ‘Long time ago. With Don.’ She looked at him steadily. ‘Can we go somewhere?’

  They walked into the warm sunlight and down towards Sloane Street. At any other time Devane would have been studying his surroundings, the people who lived or worked here despite the daily bombings, the frugal rations and the endless queues for everything from cheese to dog food.

  But he was conscious only of her and the way other men looked at her as they passed. She had not changed, and he could never imagine her giving way to austerity. Even to grief.

  She asked, ‘You heard I was at the Admiralty?’

  ‘Yes. I feel rotten about it. You don’t deserve it.’

  She had slipped her hand through his arm, as if to exclude the passers-by, the watchers.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  Devane said, ‘Of course not.’ He was getting confused. Her hand on his arm did not help. ‘Where are you living, Claudia? Still at the farm?’

  She nodded. ‘Still at the farm.’ She did not hide the bitterness. ‘It’s being run by conscientious objectors and Italian prisoners of war. Can you beat that?’

  She turned her head and looked at him, and Devane could see the pain in her brown eyes. Eyes so dark they seemed to fill her face.

  She added, ‘But the farm really runs itself. They need all the food we can grow nowadays.’

  Devane thought about it. She was the same age as himself. Don Richie had been about two years older. Devane had always thought of him as a typical gentleman farmer. They had quite a lot of them in Dorset too.

  She seemed to read his mind. ‘Don never took much of an interest in it.’

  He shook his head, bewildered. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘No. Your Don and mine were different people, I expect. He wanted to be a winner, he needed it. Racing, sailing, everything. To him the MTBs were just an extension of his previous victories.’

  Devane glanced at her anxiously. She was wearing a thin blue dress, and her shoes were hardly made for walking for miles. She looked restless and lost, and in some odd way he felt responsible for her.

  He asked, ‘Where are you staying in London?’

  She stopped dead and disengaged her hand. ‘Why? Why did you ask that?’

  De
vane lowered his voice. ‘I’m sorry, Claudia. I just thought I’d take you there. I can guess what you’re going through.’

  Her lip quivered very slightly. ‘I doubt that, John.’ She put out her hand impetuously. ‘I’m being stupid. I don’t want to embarrass you.’ She put her fingers to her mouth. ‘Be a darling. See if you can get a taxi. Quickly.’

  Devane looked round, searching for a cruising taxi. She was cracking up right in front of his eyes, and for some reason she wanted to be with him and nobody else.

  A taxi idled to the kerb and the driver, a very old man with a walrus moustache, grinned at them. ‘Spot of leave, eh, Skipper? Just th’ job!’

  His casual acceptance seemed to bring the girl to her senses. She said calmly, ‘The Richmond Hotel, Chelsea, please.’

  Devane opened the door and made to follow her into the taxi.

  She turned, her face almost brushing his as she said, ‘No. I’m sorry I dragged you out like this. It was stupid of me. I’m certain you’ve got plenty to do.’ She was pulling the door as if to sever their brief contact immediately.

  Devane said, ‘Don’t go. I’d like to talk. It’s two years since we last met.’ The words seemed to tumble from his lips, but he was conscious only of the fact she was leaving, had changed her mind about something important.

  The old taxi-driver was whistling, but not too loudly for him to follow the drama behind his back.

  Devane added desperately, ‘Can I call you?’

  Her glance settled on him and her mouth lifted for the first time in a small smile.

  ‘If you want to. But what’s the point? It’s over.’ She leant forward and rapped the glass.

  ‘All right, driver!’

  Devane stood back and watched the taxi edge into the traffic, oblivious to curious stares of two saluting seamen who had just passed him.

  She had wanted to tell him something and had changed her mind. Or lost her nerve at the last minute. But why? The question rang in his mind like a bell.

  It was true what he had said. He had not seen her for nearly two years. At some naval party or other in Ipswich. And before that he had known Don as the popular farmer-cum-sportsman in the West Country. His farm, the one now run by Italian POWs and conscientious objectors, was close to Dartmoor. They had often met on their naval reserve training or while competing in some sailing race or other.