The Gatecrashers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 6

by Alexander Fullerton

  1700: Tomblin brought tea and biscuits. He asked, “Mislaid ‘em, sir, ’ave we?”

  “What?”

  “Convoy give us the slip, ’as it?”

  Harvey-Smith had the watch now. He was senior watchkeeper and also Calliope’s first lieutenant, which in a cruiser gave him responsibility for anchors and cables, seaboats and other upper-deck gear. He looked old for his two and a half stripes—and he was. He’d been passed-over for promotion a few years before the war, and retired, but he’d come back for war service—complete with a drink problem, on which Treseder was keeping a baleful eye.

  One might have hoped for some more information by this time. Some damn thing …

  Something did come in just after 1800: another Secret Immediate from Admiralty, announcing: Air reconnaissance this afternoon confirms only Lützow is now in Altenfjord and no heavy units are in Narvik or Trondheim.

  All one learnt from that was that the two heavy-weights were definitely at sea, hadn’t just moved to one of their other Norwegian bases.

  Christie murmured a few minutes later, “I suppose we could have gone past them, sir, just out of radar range. In which case …”

  “It’s possible.”

  Christie was talking about the convoy, of course. But the German battle group could be just as close. There were still a couple of hours of daylight left, anyway. A month or two ago there’d have been no darkness at all: and in two months’ time, in November, darkness would last round the clock, the sun never lifting itself above the horizon. That was the best time for running convoys north, from the point of view of cover from the bombers; the snag then was the weather, the constant gales and above all the ice— ships deep-laden with it, spray freezing as it came aboard, and the constant hard work of getting rid of it—chipping, shovelling, steam-hosing …

  Haselden, Engineer Commander, came up—ostensibly for a smoke and a chat, but Nick allowed a silence to grow until he was obliged to come out with it.

  “Bit worried about fuel consumption, sir, at these revs several hours now.”

  “So am I,” Nick pointed at Lyric, a low, racing profile three miles on the beam. She was turning at this moment, as Calliope was too, to a new leg of the zigzag. “Particularly for them. But we have two oilers with the convoy, so they can all top up tomorrow.”

  Haselden seemed a pleasant-enough fellow, and he’d been quite right to raise the matter, but at that moment, with other things on his mind, Nick could have done without him.

  If the convoy was as little as thirty miles to the north or south of its prescribed track, Christie was right and they could have passed it already, overhauled without making contact. On the other hand it could be thirty miles ahead, still: so if you turned now to try a sweep to the north or south, you might miss it, lose it completely … It would be best to hold on, he decided. At least, as good a bet as any … When the light went, of course, it would be real needle-in-haystack stuff …

  A decision he’d have to make soon was the question of a night cruising formation. Enemy ships were at sea, and night encounters tended to be sudden, their outcome decided by speed of reaction; and this was no fighting formation he had his ships in at present. On the other hand he was reluctant to reduce the width of the line-of-search before he had to.

  “Captain, sir?”

  The chief telegraphist—CPO Tarrant—was offering him a clipboard. The plain white signal-pad sheets on it told him that whatever this was, it wasn’t classified.

  “If it’s bad news, Chief, I don’t want it.”

  “I’d guess you’d enjoy this lot, sir.”

  “Well,” he nodded, “I’ll buy it, then. What is it?”

  “BBC bulletin, sir. Eyeties’ve jagged in. Armistice signed, the lot!”

  Italy—surrendered?

  After—how long? Putting memory to work … June of 1940—when Mussolini had felt sure he was joining the winning side. Russia hadn’t been in it at that stage, because Hitler hadn’t yet ratted on his Soviet ally. When the Nazis had invaded Norway, and Nick and Tommy Trench had been trapped in a fjord in a broken-down destroyer, Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, had broadcast: “We wish Germany complete success in her defensive measures.” As when France fell, the Nazi ambassador in Moscow was offered the Soviet government’s warmest congratulations on the Wehrmacht’s “splendid success.” The Italian jackal and the Russian bear had been eager for whatever pieces of the carcase they might snatch.

  The dark age seemed more like thirty years ago now, than three.

  “Sir,” Tarrant pointed: “Flashing, sir—”

  A port-side lookout was also reporting it. An Aldis clashed as a signalman jumped to answer the winking light. Nick swung round to read the message for himself: it was Laureate reporting surface radar contact on bearing 358, seventeen miles.

  “Yeoman—twenty-inch, port and starboard—Six Blue.”

  “Six Blue—aye aye, sir!”

  Yeoman of the watch PO McLoughlin bawled to that signalman as he acknowledged Laureate’s report. “Shift to the twenty-inch, ‘Arris. Make to Laureate and Legend, Six Blue?”

  Leading Signalman Merry was taking the other side. The twenty-inch lamps were powerful, signal searchlights more than lamps, and the most distant of the destroyers would see them easily, with no need for the intermediate ships to relay the message down the line. The order “Six Blue” would turn all ships simultaneously sixty degrees to port, leaving them in a slightly staggered line-ahead formation but steering more or less directly at that radar contact.

  It was probably a wing ship of the convoy’s close escort. In which case it had been a lucky chance they’d picked it up, at long range from their own wing ship. If it had been just a few miles farther north, you’d have scraped by without knowing it.

  On the other hand, this could be an enemy. The only safe way to play it was to assume exactly that.

  “Message passed, sir!”

  “Executive.” He told the officer of the watch, “Bring her round to oh-oh-four.” The big lamps’ shutters clashed again, passing the executive order to carry out the turn. Calliope’s wheel was over now. It was the quickest way to get the whole force pointing in the right direction: now he’d adjust the course as might be necessary and also reorganise his ships into an attacking formation, on lines which he’d explained to the destroyer captains at the conference in Akureyri.

  “By light to Moloch, Yeoman. ‘My speed twenty knots. Destroyers form line astern six thousand yards on my port beam. Executive.’ “

  “Twenty knots, sir?”

  “Yes, please.” The reduction in revs was to allow the destroyers to gain bearing on Calliope, in the process of forming the squadron into two divisions, the five destroyers in their primary role as a torpedo force and the cruiser on her own as gunship. As they moved in closer to the enemy, Trench would have the option of keeping his flotilla together for a combined attack of the classic kind, or splitting it into two subdivisions; his decision would depend on the number of enemy ships and their formation. On the way in, Trench or his subdivision leader would also act as flank-markers for Calliope’s gunnery, reporting their observations of fall-of-shot over the talk-between-ships telephone.

  Calliope was steadying on the ordered course, vibration and fan-noise lessening as engine revs decreased. Destroyers racing out to port: a sight of sheer beauty, if you’d had time to watch it … He told Treseder, “Get the hands up, please.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Treseder swung to face aft. “Bugler!”

  Action stations …

  CHAPTER THREE

  . . .

  The Italian surrender announcement had been received in “Port HHZ”— codename for Loch Cairnbawn—as an excuse for a party. Broadcast the night before, it had been followed that morning by news of landings around some place called Salerno, and a glance at a map had been enough to show this had to be aimed at capturing Naples. As for the surrender, everyone realised that the German armies in Italy wouldn’t be laying d
own their arms. The tide had turned, with a vengeance—North Africa had finally been cleared in May, the landings on Sicily in July had resulted in the island’s capture last month and now Anglo-American armies were advancing in Italy while Russian forces progressed westward and, in New Guinea, American and Australian troops had just re-taken the Huon Gulf ports. But there’d still be long, hard roads to travel, and lakes of blood would flow before the end of it.

  In fact it was likely to get tougher, as the beasts were cornered.

  This morning the X-craft men’s party spirit had been dissipated in drizzle and also anxiety over the whereabouts of the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. RAF recce flights from North Russia had confirmed that only the tiddler of the group—Lützow, so-called “pocket battleship,” 10,000 tons and eleven-inch guns—still lurked in her berth in Altenfjord. All three of those ships were listed as targets for the X-craft.

  “Ace up, king towards.” Spinning the dice to decide who would start …

  Not that anyone was all that keen to play; but there was time to kill and a few of them were hanging around, waiting for news. Soft drinks on the table: this was mid-forenoon, “standeasy” time in the wardroom of the depot ship Bonaventure. Paul Everard, Dan Vicary, Johnny McKie and Tom Messinger … McKie won it with a jack, and scooped the dice into their leather pot. Vicary, a South African, growled, “Trouble is, man, the bastards might pitch up in some hole we never heard of. Some new anchorage, nets and stuff we don’t know about?”

  From the trots of X-craft alongside floated the rumble of Gardner diesels charging batteries.

  “I wouldn’t think it’s likely,” Tom Messinger mumbled, “RAF ’ll have been flying recces all over those fjords, won’t they. At least—”

  “Three nines, in two … Surprised the Russkis allow it. Seeing they wouldn’t let the RAF use those same airfields for bombing attacks on Tirpitz.”

  “Wonder why the hell …”

  “Bloody-minded, aren’t they … Tirpitz might have gone south d’you reckon?”

  “Then she’d be in bomber range from this end, and the RAF could look after the whole issue!”

  “God forbid.” Paul shook the cup. The thought of bombers doing the job—after all this training and preparation and with all of them now keyedup and ready … A voice behind him suggested, “Someone shove up, so I can honour you with my company?”

  “Hello, Louis.” McKie asked him, “Nice outing?”

  “Except I’m developing a chronic dislike of towing.”

  Louis Gimber had been out in X-12 on a night exercise, and he’d missed the party. His brown eyes rested on Paul as he slid in behind the table. Gimber had regular features and gleaming black hair that seemed always to have just been combed. He was the “tall, dark and handsome” kind that girls were supposed to like; but not all of them found him as irresistibly attractive as he thought. Paul had reason to know this, and to feel guilty—as well as some quite different emotions—when he thought about himself and Jane. Which he did, a lot. But he was probably the only man in Loch Cairnbawn who did not suffer from the delusion that Louis Gimber was every woman’s dream.

  Gimber asked him, “If they’d let us decide it between ourselves, would you take the passage job and let me have the fjord end?”

  “Hypothetical question.”

  “Would you?”

  “Would I hell.”

  Messinger’s nines were still the highest throw. Paul threw two pairs and failed to make it a full house. Gimber persisted, “Think of the happy ending you’d be in line for. Coming back to my girl, with a clear field?”

  “That’s a bloody silly remark, Louis.”

  Vicary, the Springbok, had a reddish face pitted with old scars, either smallpox or acne. His rough-hewn features were in total contrast to the decidedly film-starish Louis Gimber’s. He shook his head. “Stow it, would you mind?”

  It wasn’t the taunt about Jane he minded, which was Paul’s business and Gimber’s, and at that probably intended to be mildly humorous, since Gimber had no idea how far things had gone. What annoyed Vicary was the assumption that operational crews were unlikely to get back. He was right, too.

  Gimber suggested evenly, with his attention on the dice, “I think you might consider minding your own business, Dan.”

  They didn’t like each other. Resentment from Vicary’s side was the primary cause. It emerged as contempt, from a rough diamond to a smoothly polished one. He envied those good looks and disliked Gimber’s awareness of them, and was jealous of his reputation as a Don Juan. Gimber’s family was rich, too. On the subject of the alleged success with girls, Paul knew he could have delighted Vicary and doubtless softened his attitude considerably, by imparting certain private truths; but it was out of the question, obviously.

  He’d first met Jane when a group of X-craft men on weekend leave from Fort Blockhouse at Gosport—where the initial training had started—had got together in London to celebrate someone’s twenty-first. It had been a long, hectic evening, culminating in a wild party in the Bag o’ Nails. Louis had let them all know that he was serious about this girl, really serious, so although Paul had been strongly attracted to her he’d behaved himself, even tried to discount the encouragement she’d seemed to be giving him whenever Louis wasn’t in close attendance.

  Gimber was a romantic. He lived up to his own appearance. He was also sure of himself, of his own appeal to women in general and to Jane in particular. So much so that he’d actually asked Paul to telephone her and ask her out for a meal, a few weeks later: little knowing that by this time the stable door was already wide open.

  “How about it, Paul? Seriously? Passage CO?”

  “You’re nuts. Anyway, what d’you think Jane is—one of your harem, to be handed over as a quid pro quo?”

  “You misunderstand me, old boy. I’m not making you an offer, I’m simply pointing out that if you took the passage-crew job it would be a natural result—whatever view of it Dan here may care to take.”

  Vicary suggested, “Why don’t the pair of you go down to a cabin flat and bash each others’ heads in?”

  “Nothing to fight about. She’s Louis’ girl. I’ve taken her out a couple of times, that’s all.” He jerked a thumb towards Gimber, “At his instigation.”

  “Nice cosy arrangement … Whose turn is it?”

  “Mine.” Gimber rattled the pot. Nobody was taking much interest in the game, though. Certainly not Paul, who was thinking about Jane.

  She was flattered—or comforted—by Gimber’s adoration. He was a very useful escort, too, when he happened to be in London. Plenty of money—family house in Oxfordshire and another one in Town. Recalling some of those early conversations, Paul could hear her now, telling him, “And he’s so nice looking: and he knows his way around …”

  “Aren’t you in love with him—or supposed to be?”

  She’d shaken her head. “I’ve never said I was, either. He just assumes that whatever he feels must …” He’d had to wait again, until she said “Really, it’s like being with a brother. Someone one likes, but—”

  “Honey—the way you dance together …”

  “You mean like I dance with you?”

  “Not in front of him, you didn’t.”

  “Well, what d’you expect? I don’t set out to hurt him, for God’s sake! Paul, he’s sweet to me!”

  “So?”

  “Well, for instance, where do I come in?”

  “You know darn well where you come in! Here!”

  He’d laughed. She was fairly outrageous: unless it only seemed that way to him, from his own rather limited experience … By this time he was too deeply involved with her to be sure of his own clarity of vision, or wisdom. He was in no doubt she lied about some things—perhaps they all did, to their boyfriends—and he thought she was probably a good actress. She was certainly two-timing Louis Gimber—who loved her, or thought he did; so you had to be aware that two-timing was perhaps to be expected.

  Rather extraordi
nary, really. In his own case it wasn’t love. Infatuation was the other thing, the other word people used: so, infatuation, and difficulty keeping his hands off her. Hands or mind. He thought this amounted to infatuation. It couldn’t be love, he guessed, because he could see through some of her tricks too clearly and detachedly. Could you look at anyone that analytically and love them?

  His father had asked him, when Kate had been away in the ladies’ room at the end of that lunch, “How’s your love-life?”

  He’d hesitated; then admitted, “Exciting.”

  “Lucky man. One or more?”

  “Just one, right now.”

  The first one who’d ever meant anything much to him. Until he’d met Jane he’d thought he might be different from the other Everards— including his own father—in that respect. Now he knew he wasn’t. He was hooked. Just as a girl called Fiona had had first his father and then Jack Everard hooked: Jack who’d been a prisoner of war in Germany and had been reported “shot while attempting to escape.” The news had come through last Christmas.

  Rough luck on Fiona. One dead, the other married …

  But Jane had been married—for a matter of months only, to a fighter pilot who’d been shot down over Dieppe. She cried quite often, especially in bed.

  “Hey! Four kings!”

  Paul came out of his thoughts—with Jane’s sexy, tear-stained face in his memory and, right across from him, her would-be fiancé pointing accusingly at Johnny McKie. “Did I not hear the click of a finger turning up the fourth?”

  “No, you bloody didn’t!”

  “Hi, Don …”

  Donald Cameron had just walked in. Cameron, skipper of X-6 and the senior sea-going X-craft officer, had been the original of the species, the first recruit. He’d carried out the trials with the prototype, X-3, in the Hamble River, before any of the rest of them had even heard of X-craft. Don was twenty-six, married, and he had a four-month-old son.