The Horizon (1993)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Douglas Reeman

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  Part One: Per Mare 1915

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two: Per Terram 1917

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Postscript

  Copyright

  About the Book

  1914 – 1918. For three generations, members of the Blackwood family served the Royal Marines with distinction. With the Outbreak of World War I, at last comes Jonathan Blackwood’s turn to carry the family name into battle.

  But as the young marines embark for the Dardanelles, and a new kind of warfare, it dawns on them that the days of scarlet coats and an unchanging tradition of honour and glory have gone for ever. First in Gallipoli, and two years later at Flanders, comes their horrifying initiation into a wholesale slaughter for which no training could ever have prepared them.

  Caught up in the savagery of a conflict beyond any officer’s control, Blackwood’s future rests on the ‘horizon’ – the dark lip of the trench which was the last fateful sight for so many.

  The third in the Blackwood Royal Marine saga

  About the Author

  Douglas Reeman joined the Navy in 1941. He did convoy duty in the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the North Sea, and later served in motor torpedo boats.

  As he says, ‘I am always asked to account for the perennial appeal of the sea story, and its enduring interest for the people of so many nationalities and cultures. It would seem that the eternal and sometimes elusive triangle of man, ship and ocean, particularly under the stress of war, produces the best qualities of courage and compassion, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the conflict . . . The sea has no understanding of righteous or unjust causes. It is the common enemy, respected by all who serve on it, ignored at their peril.’

  Apart from the many novels he has written under his own name, he has also written more than twenty historical novels featuring Richard Bolitho, under the pseudonym of Alexander Kent.

  Also by Douglas Reeman

  A Prayer for the Ship

  High Water

  Send a Gunboat

  Dive in the Sun

  The Hostile Shore

  The Last Raider

  With Blood and Iron

  H.M.S. Saracen

  The Deep Silence

  Path of the Storm

  The Pride and the Anguish

  To Risks Unknown

  The Greatest Enemy

  Rendezvous – South Atlantic

  Go In and Sink!

  The Destroyers

  Winged Escort

  Surface with Daring

  Strike from the Sea

  A Ship Must Die

  Torpedo Run

  Badge of Glory

  The First to Land

  The Volunteers

  The Iron Pirate

  Against the Sea (non-fiction)

  In Danger’s Hour

  The White Guns

  Killing Ground

  Sunset

  A Dawn Like Thunder

  Battlecruiser

  Dust on the Sea

  For Valour

  Twelve Seconds to Live

  The Glory Boys

  Knife Edge

  The Horizon

  Douglas Reeman

  For Kim,

  the girl with a fan,

  with my love.

  We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing.

  We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.

  War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,

  Secretly armed against all death’s endeavour;

  Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall;

  And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

  RUPERT BROOKE

  ‘Safety’, 1914

  Author’s Note

  It was as long ago as the Sixties, when I was writing the book called H.M.S. Saracen, that my late father really began to talk of his own experiences at Gallipoli and on the Somme. As a boy I had sometimes listened to him speaking about them to his close friends, who had shared the same nightmare of trench warfare, but he never mentioned them directly to me.

  The first half of H.M.S. Saracen, which I read to him during the course of its writing, dealt with the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign, and it was that which encouraged him to speak openly about the Great War. He had served as a major with the Royal Engineers, as well as the famous Gurkha Rifles, but it was in his first experience as a very junior subaltern that he was to feel the true and brutal impact of war. Little more than a boy, he found himself in complete command of the remnants of a battalion at Gallipoli, and later, on the Somme with the youth of Britain dying in countless thousands on every front, he endured things which never left him. In his own way he passed some of his experiences on to me, and for that I am grateful.

  PART ONE

  * * *

  PER MARE

  1915

  * * *

  One

  The smart two-wheeled trap stopped on the brow of the last hill, the sturdy pony steaming in the bitter winter air, irritated no doubt, knowing that a warm stable was so close to hand.

  The groom held the reins lightly and glanced at his passenger. ‘Here, sir?’

  ‘Just for a minute.’ Captain Jonathan Blackwood removed his hand from the man’s arm and thrust it back into his greatcoat pocket. For these few moments he needed to get a glimpse of the great estate: Hawks Hill, where he had been born and had grown up with his brothers. There was an icy haze above the red-brick walls by the gatehouse; like a sequence in a dream, he thought vaguely. The distance helped to remind him of what it had once been like, when as children they had played and explored the old house and its maze of cellars and attics. It had been built originally as a fortified Tudor farmhouse, but had been added to considerably over the years. There was still part of a moat to one side of the wall, now a home for geese and swans.

  Jonathan looked down at his uniform, that of a captain in the Royal Marine Artillery. The badges and marks of rank were the only things that distinguished himself and other marines from a regiment of the line.

  For this was mid-January, 1915. He felt his body stiffen as he saw a tree bare of leaves standing alone by the roadside. Another memory. Did anyone here in Hampshire, or anywhere else in the country, know or guess what was happening out there across the English Channel? The war, which had already raged for five months; the war that would, it was confidently predicted, be over by Christmas, which had already ground to a bloody stalemate of unbelievable and horrific proportions. It was certainly no nearer to finishing than when the might of the German armies had crushed the first resistance of the French and then their allies, British regular troops commanded by the legendary General Kitchener.

  The groom watched him curiously. He had been working only a short while at Hawks Hill but had heard stories of the Blackwoods. All had served in the Royal Marines except the first in the family to own this house and estate: Major-General Samuel Blackwood, still spoken of by the locals as ‘the last soldier’, even though they knew little but rumour about him, as it had happened in the eighteen
th century. All the Blackwoods had gone into the Corps after that, although even members of the family did not quite understand the reason.

  This was not much of a job, he thought; but the food was plentiful and he was with horses, something he knew well. He smiled grimly. Anything was better than being over there where this officer in the creased greatcoat had been.

  Blackwood did not even notice the scrutiny. He was still staring at the solitary tree, almost black in this light, and shining in the last flurry of January rain.

  He had seen a forest like that, but every tree had been blasted by fire and explosives. Stripped of branches and life, cut through by mortar and howitzer until there had been nothing, except the endless patterns of trenches which now stretched right across Europe from the Channel to the Swiss border. How could they know what it was like? How could anyone?

  He cleared his throat. ‘All right, carry on, Marker. Let’s go down.’ He heard the man’s intake of breath, doubtless surprised that this youthful-looking officer should have taken the trouble to discover his name.

  Closer to, the neglect and decay were more evident. Sagging gates, rusty and unpainted for years, weeds sprouting in the curving drive. Jonathan Blackwood bit his lip. Had all the childhood memories been another dream? There was a feeling about the house now, as if it were brooding, waiting for him. Parts of the estate and small-holdings had been sold off to pay the debts of Hawks Hill’s last lord and master, Major-General Harry Blackwood, whose extravagances, grand dinners and balls had been the talk of the county and further. He had long been master of the local hunt, and to preserve its standards and impress others, he had spent more money than he could properly afford.

  The wheels came to rest below the imposing entrance. He thought of his cousin Ralf, who had also lived here after the death of his father. They were about the same age, although Ralf was in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, a ‘red’ marine as opposed to the blues of the artillery. But as one testy staff colonel had snapped, ‘There are only khaki marines until this lot’s over, so don’t you forget it!’

  His mind returned reluctantly to David, his oldest brother. How quickly life had all gone, from youths to men with only brief leaves in which to know and understand one another. His middle brother Neil had been killed by a Boer sniper in South Africa. David, like his father before him, had been awarded the Victoria Cross. Two in one family, everyone said. Now both were dead. Jonathan tried to contain the sudden twist of anguish. It had all shown such promise. David had met and married Sarah, who had been betrothed to Neil before his death. She had been a happy, lively girl, the perfect foil for David’s seriousness, and those experiences of his which she could never share.

  The old General had also had an eye for the ladies, and as he had aged, the need to impress them had never faltered. Jonathan did not know how it had come about. It was said that the old man had challenged Sarah to a race. She was a good horsewoman, but the mount must have been too strong for her; she had been thrown at a ditch and was dead when the doctor reached Hawks Hill.

  David had been away with the Home Fleet. It had all been over and done with when he had reached here.

  He had always been a grave, self-controlled man in the face of tragedy, but this final time he could not contain his anguish. He had gripped his younger brother’s hand and had spoken one word. ‘Why?’ It still seemed to hang in the air over this place.

  He climbed down and said to the groom, ‘I’ll need you tomorrow. Bright and early.’

  The man nodded. ‘Mr Swan has got everything done, sir.’ When the captain did not reply he flicked the reins and the pony turned automatically towards the stable yard.

  Jonathan thought of Swan, who had been David’s Marine Officer’s Attendant, and a whole lot more. Batman, servant, bodyguard, friend. He was now in his forties, still a Royal Marine, but only in his heart. Curiously enough, he had been the first to learn of David’s death when the postman had brought the news from the village.

  But perhaps it was only right that he had been the first, a man who had been closer than anyone to David in Africa and then in China during the savage Boxer Rebellion. Then back to the fleet again, until that last link in the chain of tragedy which had left its mark on this house and estate had recalled him. After Sarah’s death David had been given extended leave to help his father, who had suffered a stroke which had left him as helpless as a child. He had died soon afterwards, and the doctor had confided that the General’s heavy drinking had not helped.

  Jonathan walked into the familiar hallway with its fine, curving staircase. He heard Swan’s hurrying footsteps and braced himself for the meeting.

  Swan had been left in charge of the house after David had fired the steward. Like the empty gatehouse, carelessness and neglect were a sign of the times.

  ‘I’m sorry, but this house is not open to visitors yet!’

  Jonathan started. He had been so immersed in his thoughts that he had failed to see the man in a neat suit who was sitting at a small dark desk onto which, in other days, the General had thrown the visiting cards of callers.

  Swan came out and Jonathan was shocked by his appearance. He may only have been in his early forties, but he looked ten years older.

  There was nothing feeble in his tone however. ‘You calls the captain sir in this house!’ He shot Jonathan a worried smile. ‘He owns it.’

  The official stammered, ‘I – I’m very sorry.’ He glared at Swan. ‘Er – sir.’ He tried again. ‘I thought you would have known about the proposed conversion of the house and buildings into a convalescent home for officers.’

  ‘I did know.’ Jonathan glanced around. The paler patches where paintings and portraits had once hung. Proud faces, the smoking walls of gunfire in battles from Trafalgar to the Crimea. Each panorama had been careful not to show the true horror of war as he had seen it in France.

  Swan said, ‘We’ve prepared the other wing, sir. Just like Major David wanted it.’ He waited for the government official to go and said doggedly, ‘I should have been with him. How could it have happened?’

  Jonathan walked into the other room and tossed a dust sheet away from his father’s favourite chair. It was already getting dark and it was not even four o’clock, and the rain was falling again, tapping on the tall windows; the sound which had frightened him as a small child. Was that why he still hated a thunderstorm, he wondered. Once he had been here alone, and when the lightning had filled the place with livid flashes and the thunder rolled against the hillside like an artillery bombardment, it had been as if those very pictures had come to life, men fighting their battles in miniature. He forced it from his mind and concentrated on Swan’s despairing question. How could it have happened? From the first day, upon his entering the Corps, the invincibility of the Royal Navy had been drummed into him as it was into every schoolboy in the country. The Royal Navy was the mightiest fleet in the world: it did indeed rule the waves, the sure shield every Briton accepted as his right. A source of pride, unchallenged since Nelson had fallen at Trafalgar.

  But in times of peace when almost daily troopships had left Southampton and Liverpool unmolested to deal with trouble in obscure parts of the Empire, for ‘a skirmish’ as the General had often scornfully described such campaigns, the dangers of all-out war seemed unreal. The minds of planners and peacetime senior officers ashore and afloat refused to change, so that when war with Germany broke out they found they had been outstripped. Jonathan had been on a short staff course, and had been astounded by the complacency still rife in those first months. Throughout the fleet, gunnery officers were still chosen for flag rank; others were largely ignored. As for tactics, the torpedo and the possible use of aircraft as weapons were discounted and thought vaguely ridiculous.

  He looked at Swan and replied, ‘It was stupidity. There’s no other answer.’

  He could see it as if he had been there. Three of the navy’s big twelve-thousand-ton cruisers, Aboukir, Cressey and Hogue, had been sailing near – too ne
ar – the Dutch coast without an escort. Only a month had passed since the declaration of war. On that calm September morning between seven and eight o’clock a German submarine had closed with the cruisers and had sunk all three, with a terrible loss of life. David had been in one of them.

  Swan watched him, unwilling to break the stillness. He had never known this Blackwood very well. There was much of Major David about him although he was taller, slim and straight-backed, with unruly brown hair and level blue eyes which were now deeply troubled.

  His features were tanned and somehow boyish, although Swan knew he must be at least thirty; still only a captain but promotion was slow in the Corps. Maybe he only looked young because he hadn’t grown a moustache like so many Royal Marine officers. But there was fire too; Swan had been close to officers long enough to recognise it when that stupid official had challenged him.

  ‘I’d like a drink, Swan.’

  Swan grinned, his apple-red face lighting up for the first time. ‘Course, sir. Got some good Scotch . . .’

  ‘Then bring it, and I want you to join me.’

  Swan frowned. ‘Wouldn’t be proper, sir. I knows me place.’

  Jonathan leaned back in the chair and watched the light dying outside.

  ‘But this is your place, Swan. And I want you to be here when I come back . . .’

  The picture refused to form. Suppose I don’t come back? The Royal Marines would soon be in the thick of it. He pressed his eyes tightly shut. The place in France where he had been completing his course with a Home Counties regiment had almost been overrun. They had counter-attacked, and he had seen them die, not in dozens as their colonel had predicted, but in hundreds. In the twinkling of an eye: men falling, being blown to pieces, blinded in the ruthless exchange of fire and bayonet. They gained a few yards but lost it when the Germans had thrown in another assault.

  When he opened his eyes again he saw Swan with the decanter and two glasses. He smiled, and the shadows fell away. ‘Good.’