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

by Alexander Fullerton

“Is the list increasing?”

  “Well, it was, but I’m not certain, it could have got to where we are now and stopped.”

  One thing after another … He said—thinking aloud—“We may have to ditch that one.”

  She’d still have one two-ton egg to lay underneath the Lützow. Gimber hadn’t commented. He had enough on his plate with the passage job; what happened afterwards would be Paul’s headache. Paul asked him, “How’s Ozzie now?”

  “Oh—he’s OK. Sleeping it off.” Gimber dropped his voice somewhat. “To be honest, he isn’t really a hundred per cent yet. Be a bit much to expect he would be, after several days of all that.” He’d paused … “Anyway, it’s hard to judge, we all look like rats and feel like—” He checked the splurge of words. “Well. Every two hours from now on, right?”

  “Yup. And you’ll surface to ventilate at midday—so take the noon call first, will you? Tell Ozzie I’m glad he’s better.”

  Because he might need him as a replacement for Dick Eaton. It wasn’t a happy idea, to start with one member of the team already played-out; but maybe a dose or two of Benzedrine … There’d be no option, if Eaton didn’t make a quick recovery: and it wouldn’t be enough to have him claim to be all right, then maybe collapse at some crucial moment. The first lieutenant’s job was a very complicated one, requiring a lot of experience and skill: you couldn’t put just anyone on that seat. You couldn’t do without him, either. Jazz Lanchberry would have his hands full, Brazier’s task as diver was something else altogether, while Paul’s business was at the periscope, conning the midget and her high-explosive cargo through whatever obstacles lay between her and the target. Under, over, or through the nets, and the man who did the trimming had to be one hundred per cent sure and right in every move he made.

  Paul wondered whether he could possibly take the boat in with a heavy list—accepting some clumsiness in the boat’s handling as the price of taking her in fully armed.

  Gimber asked him, “What time tomorrow do we change round?”

  “Soon as it’s dark. Which would mean about nineteen-thirty … Is it nice and quiet for you now?”

  “It’s quiet. I wouldn’t call it nice.”

  “What, because of the condensation?”

  “Mostly.”

  Like water trickling down your face and neck as you hung up the telephone. They were too busy keeping the inside of the boat and her essential equipment dry to bother much about themselves. Human bodies, fortunately, didn’t rust or get insulation problems. But clothing clung damply to cold skin: and Gimber’s beard felt like a wet cloth around his jaw.

  With Setter dived, it was almost too peaceful. Sitting and gazing at the depthgauge—which did have to be watched—it would have been easy to doze off, now one had less Benzedrine in the nerve system. The yellowish gleam from that circle of glass was mesmeric: and the constant thrum of water-noise was only background, the basic structure of the silence.

  There was this list to watch, as well. Still six degrees. Just one buoyancy chamber flooded, he guessed, and the flooding now complete, so that this was as far over as she would lean, unless it began to affect another chamber too. If it did get worse, the boat might become awkward to handle, and it was going to be tricky enough inside those fjords without having a craft that wouldn’t do what she was told. It would be for Everard to decide, anyway.

  Gimber was humming—running through it for (he thought) about the second time, “A Life on the Ocean Wave.” It was the Marine bandsmen’s signature tune, but it was on his mind because that lunatic Brazier had been bawling it out when they’d been passing the new tow. But he was also humming to keep himself awake. Trigger Towne meanwhile checking hullvalves: one of his routines, crawling through the boat from stern to stem, stopping wherever his mental check-list told him to. In the control room now, he suggested mildly, “Mind changing the record, skips?”

  Gimber looked round at him. Two long-term prisoners in a deep, damp dungeon, staring at each other like men about to come to blows.

  “Have I regaled you with that ditty more than once?”

  “You been bloody torturing me with it ever since we dived.”

  “I hadn’t realised. Sorry. If it starts again, tell me.”

  “Yeah.” Towne said, “Why not give us a renderin’ of ‘Eskimo Nell’?”

  “Oh, I doubt I’d remember it well enough to—”

  “Garn! I heard you do it, word perfect!”

  Months ago. Some jaunt ashore when they’d been at Port Bannatyne. He remembered now: they’d been stuck in Gouroch and had to spend a night at the Bay Hotel. He began to run the verses through his mind, checking whether he could still manage it. Silence, meanwhile—except for Towne’s heavy, dog-like panting as he crawled towards the W and D.

  Ozzie Steep screamed in his sleep.

  Gimber jumped, his gut tightening with the shock of it. Towne froze— like a pointer. The scream echoed in the steel enclosing them. As it died away, an echo only in your mind now, Ozzie began to snore. Regular, piglike honks.

  Towne said to Gimber, “Some lucky lass’ll have that for life … Shake him, shall I?”

  Steep choked: then yelled stridently, “Get her up! Christ’s sake, up!” He screamed again. Gimber shouted—while the noise still reverberated and Towne was already crawling forward, furious-looking, virtually trotting on all fours—“Wake him up!”

  Setter surfaced at seven-twenty that evening, by which time it was pretty well dark.

  Eaton had only toyed with supper, sipped at a mug of soup and then turned in. He’d been dozing in his bunk. MacGregor had heard him groan, and sent for the coxswain.

  Chief Petty Officer Bird seemed to be embarrassed at having to play the part of doctor. Theoretically he’d been taught how to deal with any more or less ordinary kind of injury or illness, but there was very rarely any opportunity to practise his art, beyond handing out a few asprins or bandaging a cut.

  “Where’s it ’urt, sir?”

  “There.”

  Setter pitching, slamming through the waves, diesels hammering away and the boat full of cold Arctic air.

  “I’ll ’ave to—er—exert a slight pressure on that spot, sir. If you don’t mind …”

  “Oh, bloody hell!”

  He’d twisted away, in agony.

  “Sorry, sir.” Bird glanced at MacGregor. “We won’t do that again.” His chuckle was entirely forced, as he edged out around the table; there was hardly space between it and the bunks for a solidly built CPO like Bird to slide through sideways. He shook his head, unhappily. “Well, I dunno. Proper turn-up, this is. Strike a light …”

  MacGregor asked him, “Are you trying to tell us something, cox’n?”

  Bird was in the gangway, with a hand on the latched-back watertight door for support.

  “Rather not ’ave to say it, sir. Let alone bloody do it.”

  “Come on, let’s hear.”

  “Captain, sir.” This was Garner, the PO telegraphist, pushing past Bird. “Cypher, sir.”

  “Thank you, PO tel.” MacGregor looked back at Bird. “Go on.”

  “I better check in the manual before I—er—confirm the diagnosis, sir.”

  “Appendix?”

  Bird winced. “I’ll just ’ave a little read, sir.”

  “All right. But make it quick.” He passed the cypher to Massingbird. “Sort this one out in your book, Chief … Ellis, let’s have some coffee in here!”

  The wardroom flunky’s head appeared round the bulkhead from the galley.

  “Tea do, sir? I just wet some.”

  “All right.”

  Massingbird growled, “Can’t tell the difference anyway.” Brazier helped him with the decoding of the signal: they’d discovered, by the time the coxswain came back, that it was from Sea Nymph to Flag Officer Submarines, repeated to forces and authorities concerned in Operation Source. Decoding work ceased now: Bird was staring gloomily at Eaton, who was on his back with his eyes shut. Bird looked at
MacGregor and raised his eyebrows, gesturing towards the control room. MacGregor got up, and they went aft together.

  Sea Nymph’s signal was to the effect that X-8 had been forced to jettison her side-cargoes, and had been badly damaged by the explosion of one of them at a range of several miles. She had now been abandoned and scuttled.

  Brazier muttered, “Leaves us on our todd.”

  X-8 was to have been X-12’s partner in the attack, each with a halfshare in Lützow. Now X-12 would have that target to herself; just as X-10 would be the only boat attacking Scharnhorst. Tirpitz would still be honoured by the attentions of three boats—Cameron’s X-6, Place’s X-7 and Henty-Creer’s X-5.

  The messenger of the watch appeared in the gangway and asked Paul, “Step aft just a minute, sir?”

  MacGregor and Bird were waiting for him, near the diving panel. MacGregor told him, “Bad news, Everard. Cox’n says there’s no doubt at all, it’s his appendix. Which of course means he must be operated on.”

  “When?”

  CPO Bird suggested, “Sooner the better, sir. Playin’ safe, like. Not that safe’s the word for it.”

  “Don’t under-estimate your own abilities, cox’n. Even more important, don’t let Sub-Lieutenant Eaton think you’re anything less than confident. But as to the timing—it can wait twenty-four hours, can’t it?”

  “Depends, sir. But I’d sooner …”

  “After the crews change, we’ll have one less body in the wardroom. We’ll also have time on our hands. Will you do the job in the wardroom?”

  “Well—if that’s all right, sir.”

  “He’ll be laid up for the rest of the patrol, won’t he.”

  Bird nodded. “Best if he could be in your bunk, sir.”

  “Why the hell?”

  “On its own, sir, no bunk above nor below it, so there’s access like, and a light right over it. I could stand on the bench—that way I’d be right on top of the job, like.”

  MacGregor nodded. “All right. When the time comes, I’ll take over the first lieutenant’s bunk … But we’ll do it tomorrow night, cox’n, after the transfer. I’ll go deep, so it’ll be quiet and steady for you.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Paul was wishing it could have been done immediately: Bird was obviously worried. But this surface passage tonight was necessary, in order to keep up to schedule, and as long as Setter had the X-craft in tow, with the possibility of some emergency at any minute, you couldn’t guarantee there’d be no interruptions … MacGregor asked Bird, “He isn’t going to die on us before tomorrow, is he?”

  “Well—if it turned what they call acute, sir, I reckon he’d let us know. I mean he’d sing out, like. Then we’d need to look lively, no matter what.”

  “All right. You’d better read-up your manual carefully, cox’n. I’ll break the news to him, and I’ll tell him you’ve taken out an appendix before and you say there’s really nothing to it. Purely for morale.” He turned to Paul. “What are you going to do about this?”

  “I’ll take Ozzie Steep, sir. There’s really no option.”

  A highly unsatisfactory solution, none the less. Everything seemed to be going wrong, at this point. Three boats out of the running, X-12 with a duff side-cargo, and now she’d have a first lieutenant who’d be decidedly below par right from the start.

  “Better warn your friend Gimber. Perhaps he could make sure Steep gets a lot of rest between now and change-over time … Make sense of that cypher, did they?”

  Paul nodded. “X-8 abandoned and scuttled. Had to ditch her sidecargoes, and the explosion wrecked her, apparently. Leaves only five of us in it now.”

  On his way to the wireless office, he was wondering whether X-8 had had to ditch her charges for the same reason that his own boat might have to get rid of one of hers. But he’d hang on to it if he could—as long as the list didn’t get completely out of hand. It was Ozzie Steep who’d be coping with whatever trimming problems might arise … In the W/T office, he called through to Gimber.

  “How’s that list now, Louis?”

  “No worse than it was. Hard to tell, though, when you’re being thrown all over the bloody shop!”

  “Yes, I dare say. Second question—is Ozzie completely fit now?”

  “Well,” Gimber was shouting, over the noise surrounding him down there, “up to a point, yes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Look—Trigger’s got his head down—he and I have stopped taking pills—and Ozzie’s on watch with me.”

  “So you can’t talk about it.”

  “My God, you’re quick, Paul!”

  “Is he really on top of the job, is what I want to know.”

  “Well—I’m on top of it, so—”

  “You mean you wouldn’t trust it to him alone?”

  “Right. I may be wrong, but …”

  “Listen. Dick Eaton’s out of it. Appendix. As soon as we’ve swapped over tomorrow evening Setter’s going deep while her cox’n operates. See? I need Ozzie. And you say you could be wrong, so …”

  “Not that wrong. Not for the action job. Just making out until tomorrow evening’s one thing, but …” There was a pause. Gimber finished, “No. Out of the question, Paul.”

  There was a longer silence. You couldn’t argue with that degree of certainty. Paul asked him, “Is he still sick, or—”

  “Washed-out. It was very bad for several days, you know. You can’t imagine. It leaves a man—well, drained.”

  Paul said, “And that leaves you, Louis.”

  “I thought it might. About ten seconds ago, I thought—”

  “There’s no alternative.”

  Roar of the sea drumming around hollow steel … Then Gimber’s voice grating through his teeth and over two hundred yards of wire, “Jesus Christ Almighty …”

  He’d been dreaming—re-dreaming, that old one about being crushed under rocks. Every detail was the same, and no less frightening for being familiar. He’d woken, struggled to shake it out of his mind, and he’d succeeded, but only to have it replaced by nightmarish reality—Eaton’s appendicitis, for a start. Remembering it, Paul got out of his bunk and took a look at him. Eaton was asleep, but twitching and murmuring to himself, the actual words indistinguishable under the hammering racket of the diesels and the noise of seas crashing against the casing and guntower overhead. Setter was inside the Arctic Circle now, and the air inside her had a bite to it; it would be knife-like on the bridge, but none of the X-craft men was standing a watch tonight.

  Eaton had been appalled by the decision to put Gimber in his place. Disappointment had seemed as bad as the pain in his stomach. He drew plenty of sympathy: the others knew how they’d have felt—even without the prospect of being operated on by CPO Bird. As Jazz Lanchberry observed, out of Eaton’s hearing, Bird would be deft enough with a marlinespike, but splicing rope and wire didn’t make for a surgeon’s hands. And Bird himself looked about ready to jump overboard.

  Paul turned in again. The object was to get in a sound night’s sleep, since once you’d embarked in X-12 there wouldn’t be much, if any. Tomorrow, there might be some restful periods, of course … Thinking about the procedure for the change-over, the rubber boat and who’d go first in it, and so on, he dropped off to sleep. His father, glad to see him after so long a break, asked him, “What are you up to now, old chap? You’re not going on this crazy attempt to nobble the Tirpitz, are you?”

  Paul told him yes, he was. His father was wearing rear-admiral’s stripes on his sleeves, he noticed. But Operation Source was supposed to be highly secret. He made this point—a little stiffly, considering it was his father he was talking to—and Jane burst out laughing.

  “Secret, my foot!”

  Tossing her hair back—a warmly familiar gesture …

  But Jane—with Nick Everard? She was Paul’s girl or Louis Gimber’s, or both, but—his father’s? She could see how shocked he was, and she was amused, enjoying it. He wondered where Kate was, and wh
ether she knew about Jane. Jane telling him, with a hand squeezing his father’s arm, “Even the Germans know all about it. They’ll have the welcome mat down for you!”

  He woke again, feeling as if it was her laughter that had woken him. It was an enormous relief, this time, to be awake, to know it hadn’t been anything but a dream. He could see how Jane had got into it: he’d had Gimber in his mind a lot, naturally, and if you thought about him long enough you were bound to get round to Jane. As to his father, and the question he’d asked—well, he’d been thinking about him too, wishing he’d told him about this X-craft business.

  MacGregor had said he’d be diving Setter on the watch, so the X-craft team’s sleep wouldn’t be interrupted. But Paul didn’t feel like sleeping any more. He was lying there thinking about the attack plan, and the trimming of the boat with that list on her, when a new signal came in.

  He checked the time while the control room messenger was shaking Massingbird, and saw it was just after 1:30 a.m.. So they’d be diving in not much more than half an hour. Massingbird was cursing softly as he climbed out and went to fetch the code book; when he came back and slumped down at the table, under the dim red light that was supposed to be good for bridge watchkeepers’ eyesight, Paul slid out and joined him.

  “I’ll give you a hand.”

  Massingbird stared at him. “Thought you chaps were supposed to be getting your beauty sleep?”

  “Ah, but I’m lovely enough already … You read out, I’ll look up?”

  The signal was from Admiralty, to practically everyone under the sun, and it conveyed an intelligence report to the effect that Tirpitz’s crew would be changing her gun-barrels and also dismantling her A/S detection gear for overhaul between 21 and 23 September.

  Massingbird read the message over, combing his beard with his fingers. He asked Paul, “How in hell would we get to know a thing like that?”

  “Haven’t a clue. Unless we have spies in Norway. Which we do, of course.” But the information could have been obtained from intercepted signals, too. “Doesn’t really matter, long as it’s reliable. If it is, it’s good news—guarantees she’ll be there and won’t stir during those three days.”