‘You may be right. I would certainly not shirk the responsibility.’
The telephone jangled and Beresford lifted it swiftly to his ear. It was Kimber, the poker-faced intelligence officer.
‘Everything is quiet, sir. Sorokin has received several reports about the diversions. The Germans are running a fast convoy towards Sevastopol. They are bound to be expecting an attack on it. I gather that Commander Orel is in charge. He’s got some gunboats and a couple of heavy support craft.’ He lowered his voice as if others were nearby. ‘The Germans are using F-lighters unfortunately.’
Barker snapped testily, ‘Is this a private conversation?’
Beresford put down the telephone and smiled at him. ‘The diversionary attack is under way, sir. But Kimber has discovered that Jerry is using F-lighters.’ He saw the shutters drop behind Barker’s pale eyes and added, ‘F-lighters are fairly fast and carry heavy armament. They also hump cargo, so they are in fact both convoy and escort. Another worrying factor is that they are too shallow draught for a torpedo attack. I’ve run up against them in the Med.’
Barker walked to another wall map. ‘Well, I know that, Ralph. You’re not the only one with combat experience!’
Beresford turned away. You lying little bastard. You hadn’t a bloody clue!
The door opened and Lieutenant Kimber entered the concrete room, his face pale and tired.
Barker glared. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Captain Sorokin thought I should be with you, sir. He will keep us informed.’
‘See?’ Barker turned to Beresford. ‘Secrecy. Tell us nothing. Damn Bolsheviks!’
Kimber laid some counters on the coloured chart. ‘Parthian’s approximate position, sir.’
Barker leant over the chart. ‘Merlin, what the hell is she doing?’
Kimber shifted uncomfortably. ‘Sorokin requested that a boat be detached to search for the crew of one of their aircraft which has ditched, sir. Lieutenant Dundas in Merlin was at the end of the patrol area and so the nearest. I thought –’
Barker said sharply, ‘You thought, did you? That makes a bloody change around here!’ He swung on Beresford. ‘I instructed Mackay to stay in position, I ordered him to remain in his sector until after the attack on Mandra was completed! Well, did I not?’
Beresford felt a touch of anxiety. Barker was really worried about something. There was sweat on his upper lip and he seemed unable to keep still.
‘You also ordered Merlin to patrol on the flotilla’s extreme westerly flank, sir. She would be the obvious choice to search for survivors. If you like, I’ll go and speak to Sorokin myself –’ He got no further.
‘No. I want you here.’ Surprisingly, he began to hum quietly to himself, his fingers tapping in time against his thigh. ‘Ring Sorokin’s operations staff and find out all you can about enemy movements.’ He stared at the clock. ‘Well, Devane will be in position about now.’ He could not resist adding, ‘Provided he has not forgotten how to obey orders too!’
Beresford spoke to the officer he had already met at the Russian HQ, his mind automatically sifting details, but his attention still fixed on Barker’s busily tapping fingers.
He said, ‘The attack on the German convoy has begun, sir. No reports of damage or casualties yet, but it seems as if the Germans were expecting it.’
‘What about Parthian? Is Mackay still in his sector?’
‘South of the Crimea the weather has closed in a bit, sir. Sea mist, poor visibility.’
‘I did not ask for a weather report!’
‘Lieutenant-Commander Mackay has retained radio silence, sir. As ordered.’
‘Yes. Yes, I see.’ Barker’s hum rose and fell like a disturbed bee. ‘Keep that line open. Any news of Merlin and . . . .’ He shut his mouth and returned to the chart table.
Beresford gripped the telephone so tightly that he thought it might snap. It could not be. Surely not even Barker would set up Dundas’s boat as the bait for Lincke? He shook himself angrily. He was too tired, too rattled to think clearly. It was ridiculous. He tried again, his eyes moving to the nearest wall map.
German coastal forces had to be drawn away from the Rumanian port of Mandra. The Russians had mounted a spirited attack on a legitimate target, except that the target would be more capable of hitting back than a handful of merchantmen. After Parthian’s previous successes, an old hand like Lincke would be looking further afield, searching for flaws, taking counter-measures.
Beresford realized he had started to sweat. It was unnerving. Barker had foreseen this possibility but had sent Dundas to the extreme boundary of the so-called safe patrol area. Safe? In the Black Sea? He must be raving mad.
If Lincke took it upon himself to investigate, Parthian would be in the vicinity. Beresford thought about it soberly. He could see it exactly. The MTB with the new number I painted on her hull, like a bone to a terrier as far as Lincke was concerned.
But things had gone badly wrong. A plane had ditched, and Dundas had been requested to make a search for its crew. As the Russians were laying on such a massive attack to draw the fire from Devane, it was the least they could do.
Barker snapped, ‘Anything?’
‘No, sir.’
Beresford did not dare look at him. Barker would know that every minute was taking Dundas further and further away from his consorts. And Barker could do or say nothing about it without betraying himself and showing what he had planned.
Kimber was on the other telephone, still fuming at Barker’s onslaught.
‘Russian Intelligence reports that the attack on Mandra has begun.’ His eyes lifted to the clock. ‘Allowing for the delays, they should be clear away by now.’ Or dead, his voice seemed to suggest.
Beresford watched Barker’s shadow as he moved another little counter on his chart. Perhaps that was how his son had died in the crazy attempt to capture a German general. It made Don Richie’s crime seem like a joke.
He thought of the letter Devane had given him, the one which lay in his safe.
Come on, John, fight your way home. Just like the other times. It’s not just us who need you now.
The telephone came to life against his ear, and he could feel Barker looking at him.
Beresford said, ‘Dundas has picked up faint radio signals. Probably from a life-raft. He passed the information on R/T to a Russian patrol boat before heading off to investigate.’
Barker stared at him for several seconds. ‘Good. Fine. Dundas should be able to get a fix on it and return to Parthian’s sector without further delay.’
Beresford licked his lips and watched the colour returning to Barker’s face.
It was true. All of it. Barker had staked out Dundas like a goat for a tiger.
Even Barker could not hide the relief, the knowledge that Dundas would be within call of Parthian’s boats once he had found the luckless airmen.
Beresford wanted to hurl the telephone at his complacent, arrogant head.
In every theatre of war men were dying right at this and every moment. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. And what of the ones who counted each hour as another reprieve, he wondered. The first soldiers on the prongs of a raid on an enemy’s position, the ones who rarely lasted. Others who covered the retreats and waited for death to root them out. Were they being used by men like Barker?
He stood up angrily, the telephone hot against his ear. In the end there were no victors. Only survivors.
Some one hundred and fifty miles west of the cramped bunker where Barker and Beresford waited for news, the motor torpedo boat code named Merlin idled like a ghost ship through a swirling maze of mist.
Lieutenant Roddy Dundas recrossed the open bridge and trained his glasses abeam in a hopeless attempt to find the horizon or the sky. It should be dawn, and but for the eerie mists which passed through the gun mountings and rigging like pieces of torn shrouds they would surely have sighted something by now.
The feeble distress signal was intermittent but identifia
ble as the kind used by airmen in rubber dinghies, something for searching vessels to home on. When the sea got colder the signal was the margin of life itself.
He swore under his breath. The boat felt different. Like an hotel where all the old guests have departed. Able Seaman Irwin, boatswain’s mate, was on the wheel, not the redoubtable Pellegrine. There was an excellent artificer looking after the motors, but not a patch on Petty Officer Ackland.
Leading Signalman Carroll murmured, ‘I reckon we’ll see something soon, sir.’
Dundas grimaced. ‘Hope so.’
It was comforting to have Carroll anyway. He peered at his watch and wondered how Devane and the others were managing. Should have started by now. It was always much quicker than you believed it would be. Minutes, when you had imagined it was an eternity.
Dundas thought too of the letter he had seen on Beresford’s desk before he had locked it away. Her name and a box number. So their meeting had not been casual. He felt the prick of resentment behind his eyes. He was being stupid, but could not help himself. That was the trouble in small ships. Too much watchkeeping, too long hours with only the memories to keep you company.
It was no use trying to ignore it. No good to keep saying it was hopeless. He had only spoken to her a few times at flotilla parties in England. God, how he had envied Richie. And now Devane had taken over.
He heard men shifting their feet on deck, the creak of a gun mounting as the muzzle was swung from side to side.
Suppose Devane did not make it back? He tried to repress the wild idea. He would go to her and explain. She might . . . . He swung round as Lieutenant Seymour appeared on the bridge.
‘I’ve been all round, Number One.’ Seymour grinned. ‘I suppose I should call you “sir” as you are temporarily in command.’
‘Right.’ Dundas turned away and added, ‘Sorry I snapped, David.’
‘Is it the temporarily bit you dislike?’
‘I’d like to read that book of yours, when you write it.’ He felt foolish, idiotic. Seymour had done as much as anyone. There was certainly no cause to take it out of him. ‘And discover what you think of all of us.’
Carroll said, ‘Sparks reports another signal, sir. Same bearing.’
‘Thanks.’ Dundas banged his hands together. ‘I wish we could pile on some revs, but we might overshoot or run the poor buggers down in the water.’
‘Who’d be a high-fly boy, eh?’ Seymour yawned. ‘Hope the SO’s all right.’ He glanced to the forepart of the bridge. ‘He’s a real character, is our John Devane.’
Carroll, oblivious to Seymour’s mental picture of Devane, the one he would eventually put in his book, and to Dundas’s hurt and resentment, added, ‘Signal’s very strong, sir.’
Dundas sighed. ‘Get up forrard, David, with three good hands. Have a scrambling net and a grapnel ready. I’ll stop everything when you pass the word.’ He gave a rueful grin. ‘Bloody Russians. I just hope they’re grateful, that’s all!’
Seymour clambered to the deck, nodding to the machine-gunner on the port side, and knowing the man was concealing a lighted cigarette beneath his duffle coat.
Characters, characters; there were almost too many to cope with.
He walked carefully forward, his feet slipping on the wet deck as the MTB pitched uneasily in a quarter sea. It was humid and clammy. In an hour or so it would be sunny again.
He saw Leading Seaman Priest by the six-pounder and beckoned to him.
Priest grinned through the mist. ‘Net an’ fish ’ook ready, sir!’
Seymour clutched the rim of the forward hatch and knelt down, his eyes on the drifting mist. The seamen watched him curiously, glad of something to break the boredom.
Priest asked, ‘D’you think there’ll be some mail waitin’ when we get back, sir?’
Seymour smiled. ‘Don’t tell me you’re in more trouble at home?’
He stiffened as he saw the incredulous expression on Priest’s face. When he swung round again he felt as if his heart and lungs were being crushed in a vice.
A small breeze had lifted the mist very slightly, so that it floated above the dull water like a canopy.
And there, almost dead ahead, her black and white stripes stark against the sea, was an E-boat.
Seymour was twenty-two years old and had seen enough action to prepare him for almost anything. And yet he was unable to move, as if he was under some sort of spell.
Small pictures flashed through his mind, apprehension and despair, and the chilling understanding that this was no chance meeting in the mist.
It was all in a split second, and yet his mind was able to record each part of it. The yellow dinghy lashed to the E-boat’s side, two dead airmen still dangling towards the water like puppets. The trap which they had sprung.
Something snapped inside him and he twisted round on the wet deck, his mouth shaping the words, the warning, even though it was too late.
Then came the cannon and machine-gun fire, crashing into the slow-moving boat like iron flails; flames, smoke and wood splinters ripping through the air, engulfing Seymour, stopping him and hurling him to the deck.
He dimly realized that Priest was running towards the six-pounder, that a seaman called Nairn was rolling over and over, his clothing smoking and then blazing before he vanished over the side.
Seymour managed to lurch to his feet, the agony closing around him, tearing his face and body like claws as he tried to stagger aft.
He heard someone screaming and screaming, the sound scraping his skull until he collapsed against the six-pounder’s shield and tried to press his hands over his ears.
In those terrible seconds Seymour knew that the screaming was his own, and it occurred to him he could not shut it out, for both of his hands had gone. Then, mercifully, all sound and pain stopped.
13
The Bright Face of Danger
Lieutenant Horne exclaimed thickly, ‘I just don’t believe it!’ He stared across the port side of the bridge as a wedge-shaped spur of land swept abeam. ‘They must be fast asleep!’
A seaman at the voicepipes said, ‘Better if we hauled the flags down, eh, Swain? We might get clean up to the ruddy front door!’
Pellegrine tucked his jaw firmly into the neck of his sweater and concentrated on the shifting patterns beyond the bows where the inlet’s sheltered water jostled with the sea.
Unlike the seaman, he knew quite a bit about Devane. If only half was true it seemed unlikely he would begin an attack under false colours. Personally, the coxswain could not have cared less if they had entered the inlet with a Portuguese ensign. All he wanted was to get on with it, then find the open water again.
‘Stand by!’ Devane’s voice sounded clipped in the voicepipe. ‘Port a bit, Swain.’
Pellegrine moved the spokes and strained his eyes through the observation slit. He was not sure what he had been expecting, and after all the ops he had done he should not have had any room left for surprises. At the briefing, Lieutenant-Commander Beresford, ‘his lordship’ as the lads called him, had told them about the German supply and HQ ship which must be destroyed at all costs. She had originally been named Potsdam, a cargo liner of some twenty thousand tons which in peaceful times had traded between Hamburg and the South Americas.
Pellegrine had studied some pictures of the ship, old ones showing her in her peacetime livery.
Now, as she loomed through the shadows at the far side of the inlet, he could not imagine how she had managed to pick up her moorings without running aground. She was huge, vast like a block of tenements, so that the pale blobs of houses dotted about the hillside beyond seemed insignificant by comparison.
He found that he was sweating with anticipation. The engines were growling confidently at half-speed, the bow wave rolling away towards the shore to port and rocking some sleeping fishing boats to starboard. Surely to God someone would sound the alarm?
He heard Devane again as he said, ‘Signal Durston to increase speed and take the
lead.’ His voice grew louder as he lowered his mouth to the tube. ‘Boom ahead. Prepare for some excitement.’
That was all. No doubts, no uncertainty.
Pellegrine wiped his fingers on his sweater and took a firmer grip on the wheel. To the seaman at his side he said grimly, ‘If I catch one, you take over on th’ double, got it?’
The man nodded. ‘What if I get clobbered, Swain?’
‘Then we’ll both sit on a bleedin’ cloud and watch the rest make a potmess of it!’
On the platform bridge above the wheelhouse Devane watched the German launch sliding ahead, some vague shapes crowded in her open cockpit. Lieutenant Harry Rodger in the MTB had dropped well astern, but for all the interest being shown after their brief exchange of signals they could have gone in line abreast with a band playing, he thought.
Two Russians hurried to the forepart of the bridge and cocked their sub-machine-guns. One of them was using the dead signalman to steady his gun.
Devane lifted his glasses and examined the great wall-sided HQ ship. She looked as if she was never intended to move again. Catwalks and derricks, pontoons alongside, even a tug nestling against her fat flank as if for succour. She was damn big.
‘Slow ahead all engines.’
The enemy would be expecting them to reduce speed about now while the boom was opened. He could see it well in the strengthening light. A long line of buoys, no doubt with anti-torpedo nets strung between them. There was no chance of a submarine getting in. She would hit bottom in no time.
Thank God Durston had managed to seize the local codebook before the German launch crew could fling it overboard. He saw the sudden blink of a hand lamp, the responding flicker from the great ship’s upperworks.
Faintly above the engines he heard a clatter of machinery and saw the boom begin to open, a shaded blue light bobbing on the end of the unmoving part.
He cleared his throat, then said sharply, ‘Stand by, torpedoes! Signal Durston to remain in the boom entrance. We’ll pick him up as we leave.’
Torpedo Run (1981) Page 20
