Battlecruiser (1997)

by Reeman, Douglas

She said, ‘I really will get that drink now.’ She leaned back in his arms and looked into his face. ‘We both knew this would happen. I told myself I should end it before it began, but I thought we might still . . .’

  He said, ‘Be friends?’

  She did not respond. ‘Of course I find you attractive – what woman wouldn’t? Some of the people I meet . . . What I’m trying to say . . .’

  He touched her mouth with his fingers. ‘Don’t say it. I know. I feel so alive when I’m with you that I want to ignore all the risks, all the pain that might come to you because of me.’

  She slipped away from his arms, and he walked to the window and peered through a slit in the black-out curtain. Moonlight, no beams sweeping the clear sky, no bright sparks of flak above another part of this great city.

  He heard her voice somewhere, and thought for a moment that somebody had called to see her. He stared down at her brother’s dressing gown. Oh, this is Captain Sherbrooke, who’s just dropped in for a drink. How would that look?

  She came in, smiling at the confusion on his face. ‘I phoned the night staff. They’ll send a car for us in the morning, and drop you off at the Admiralty first.’

  ‘You are a very smart girl.’

  She brought two glasses and filled them carefully. She seemed happy, at ease, until she asked, ‘The day after tomorrow, then?’

  So easily said, and yet it meant so much.

  ‘Yes, back to Greenock. Get the machine in motion.’

  She took a sip, and said, ‘This will knock me out, and I promised you some sandwiches.’ She tried again. ‘You know, I think I’m beginning to see your ship as a rival.’

  He smiled, feeling her leaning against him on the small sofa.

  ‘Don’t. She’s my protector, in a way. I can’t explain it.’

  She saw that his glass was empty. ‘I’ll bet you didn’t even taste that!’

  She watched him refill it, watched his hand, his serious profile. Stop it now.

  He said, ‘I’ll remember this when I’m away.’

  ‘Until the next time.’

  He looked at her over the rim of the glass. ‘Yes. The next time.’

  ‘Promise?’

  He said, ‘I think you should turn in.’

  She nodded gravely. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘I’ll bunk down here. That will make it quite safe.’ But the humour eluded him.

  ‘I agree. Call me if you need anything.’ The door closed, and he was alone.

  Nobody would believe it. Least of all me.

  He did not hear her come in later and switch off the light, nor feel her remove his shoes.

  She crouched by the sofa, looking at him as he slept in the darkness, remembering him with his men and with the dead prostitute in the off-licence, and whispering to him.

  ‘We both knew this might happen. I love you, but I can never say it. Our future could have ended tonight, if that bomb had come our way. It would be all over without ever beginning.’ She wanted to touch his hair, but dared not. ‘So why do we have to pretend? If you wanted me now, I wouldn’t be able to resist, because I want you, too. And you, dear man, ashamed as you are of your honourable scars, might hate me for it.’

  The following morning they were both awake early, he unable, at first, to remember where he was. They barely spoke, and then only like two people who had just met.

  The car arrived on time, and dropped Sherbrooke at the Admiralty as arranged.

  He walked past two saluting sailors, scarcely noticing them, and made his way to the operations office where he was to meet Stagg.

  Much to his surprise, Stagg was already there, tapping his watch with one finger.

  ‘Where the hell have you been, Guy? I’ve had half of London out looking for you! The club said you hadn’t even been there!’ It was like a cruel game, and he knew Stagg was enjoying it.

  He continued, ‘Never mind, I can guess. Can’t say I blame you.’ He changed the subject. ‘You’ll have to go north today. The intelligence is ready. I want you to brief the captains, all of them, and explain what we’re taking on. It’s top secret, of course, so make sure it sinks in!’ He gave his famous fierce grin. ‘Operation Sackcloth – rather apt, I thought!’

  He looked pointedly at his watch again. ‘I must see Hudson. If you want to hang about, I’ll drive you to the club for your gear.’ He winked. ‘Can’t have you vanishing again, can we?’

  Sherbrooke walked around the outer office until he found what he thought was a friendly face at one of the telephones.

  ‘Could you get me a line to the D.O.I.? It’s rather urgent.’

  She studied him. ‘It’s Captain Sherbrooke, isn’t it? I saw your picture in the paper, about the German cruiser.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She picked up the telephone. ‘My brother was in a battlecruiser.’ Then, into the mouthpiece, ‘Can you get a number for me, Ann?’

  Sherbrooke wondered what he should say. If she would even be there.

  ‘Which one was that?’

  She looked up, and did not blink. ‘Hood, sir.’ She held out the telephone. ‘Don’t be too long, sir.’

  You never got used to the ambush of memory.

  Her voice said, ‘I knew it would be you.’

  It was a good line: she sounded very close, like last evening, her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Can I talk, Emma?’

  ‘Yes. I’m alone at the moment.’ Another pause. ‘You’re going away, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I only just found out. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘We should have understood. Accepted it, and not fought against it.’ He started to say something, but she said, ‘No, listen, Guy. I’ve only got a minute. We will meet again. We must.’

  ‘Yes. It’s all I care about.’

  It was as if he had remained silent. ‘I just wanted you to know. I want to be with you. With you, d’you understand?’

  He said, ‘I love you, Emma.’ But the line went dead.

  He replaced the telephone. ‘Thank you very much.’

  The operator watched him walk away. Lucky girl, whoever she is, she thought.

  That evening, Captain Guy Sherbrooke was on a crowded train heading north. He was no longer alone.

  12

  Operation Sackcloth

  Sherbrooke moved restlessly around his large day cabin, patting his pockets, trying to remember if he had all the notes he might need, and some clean handkerchiefs. The shape of the new pipe, smoked for the first time in her flat, brought her sharply to his mind. He could see her filling it for him while he had sat with his hand wrapped in the towel, afraid that the shameful trembling would return. All around and below him, he could sense, almost more than feel, the ship stirring, preparing for sea once again, the shouted orders, muffled by watertight doors, the occasional trill of a boatswain’s call, the squeal of a winch.

  In a moment, he would leave this private place and join the rest of Reliant’s company, as they raised the anchor and made their way from Greenock into the Firth of Clyde, to skirt the Isle of Arran before changing course to the west, and into the Atlantic.

  How good was security this time? Reliant always drew attention, and with the new carrier Seeker in company and the six powerful destroyers ready to take up their stations in open water, somebody might put two and two together. Stagg would be sailing aboard Seeker, and would then make the transfer at sea, a suitably dramatic beginning to Operation Sackcloth, and so typical of the man.

  Another glance around the cabin. Little more than three months since he had taken command, and yet it felt as if he had always had her.

  He thought of the pile of Cavendish’s personal gear, the broken picture frame.

  And Emma’s voice on the telephone, very controlled, and yet he had sensed the emotion. I want to be with you. All the risks held at bay, so that she could make him understand.

  Petty Officer Long hovered in the doorway of his small pantry.

  ‘’Nother cup before you go up, sir?�
��

  He grinned at Long’s mournful face. ‘Better not. Might disgrace myself!’

  Long nodded, satisfied. It was not a passing mood. Something had happened to the Captain, as if he had shed something – or found it, more likely.

  He had been discussing the change in Sherbrooke with Dave Price, the rear-admiral’s chief steward.

  ‘Well, it has to be a woman, Dodger.’ He had given a wintry smile. ‘Not like my guvnor, like bloody quicksilver, he is.’

  Long understood what he meant. Price had served the rear-admiral before, and had told him a thing or two. Like a rat up a pump, as he had often described his master’s insatiable appetite for women.

  Sherbrooke looked at the clock. Frazier would be down soon, ready to proceed, all loose ends tied up. Even the destroyer Mediator, which had been forced into Gibraltar with shaft problems, was waiting to slip with the others. Stagg had made it absolutely clear that there would be ‘no more bloody excuses’.

  There were voices outside, and Long said, ‘They’re too early, sir.’ He sounded quite outraged at the intrusion.

  It was not Frazier but a bluff, squarely-built man with thin, sandy hair and a weathered face, deep crows’ feet etched around the eyes.

  ‘Sorry to make a pierhead jump, Captain Sherbrooke.’ He held out his hand. ‘Pat Drury, B.B.C. I’m supposed to be sailing with you.’

  The handshake was hard and rough, more like a farm worker’s than that of a top war correspondent. He could have been any age from the mid-thirties to fifty.

  Sherbrooke said, ‘This is Petty Officer Long. He’ll look after you while you’re aboard, Mr Drury.’

  He could sense Long’s disapproval, and added, ‘We shall be weighing anchor shortly. I’ve passed the word: you can visit the bridge any time. Just let us know where you are if the balloon should go up. Reliant’s a big ship. You might get lost.’

  Drury smiled. ‘I’ll find my way.’ He glanced around the spacious cabin and gave a silent whistle. ‘This is the way to live! You should see some of the dumps I’ve ended up in during this war!’

  Sherbrooke could not look at Long’s pixie face. He said, ‘It’s yours, until this jaunt is over.’

  He noticed that Drury’s eyes were grey, like slate, and seemed to miss nothing. Hard, like his handshake: a man who probably liked to be thought tough, and unable to be impressed by anything, or anyone.

  The deck gave another shudder, the Chief testing something, taking no chances.

  Drury dropped a suitcase on the carpet. ‘My guess is that you feel a bit isolated from your crew sometimes, Captain. Maybe you couldn’t afford to lower the barrier, even if you wanted to?’

  Sherbrooke picked up his favourite binoculars. They had been ashore for an overhaul when Pyrrhus had gone down, which made them doubly valuable to him now.

  ‘My ship’s company can make up their own minds about that. A barrier, as you describe it, is an obstacle. That’s no use to any captain.’

  There was another tap at the door. Long bustled away, muttering, ‘Like bloody Piccadilly Circus!’

  It was the Canadian lieutenant, Rayner.

  ‘I just heard you wanted to see me, sir. I was in the sickbay – the doc was checking me out.’ He glanced without interest at the civilian. ‘He says it’s all great.’ He grinned, his relief and his pleasure at catching the ship at such short notice very obvious.

  Sherbrooke said, ‘I’m glad. As you saw, we’ve got you a new Shagbat, and there’s another one on board to keep you company.’

  Drury interjected, ‘When I was aboard the Seeker yesterday, I saw a lot of fighters, Lieutenant. I would have thought they’d be more to your taste.’

  Sherbrooke sensed Rayner’s caution, if not actual resentment, and said gently, ‘It’s all right. Mr Drury is on our side. He’s with the B.B.C.’

  Rayner, unimpressed, said, ‘That’s good to know, sir,’ and then, to the correspondent, ‘No, Mr Drury, the Walrus’ll do me just fine.’ He faced the captain again. ‘I’ve met my new gunner, sir. I think we’ll hit it off all right.’

  Sherbrooke knew what he was thinking, of his old Walrus drifting at the mercy of the sea, with the dead gunner still inside.

  He said, ‘I wanted you to know right away, Lieutenant Rayner. You’ll be getting a gong. The D.S.C.’

  Rayner swallowed, momentarily lost for words. Finally he said, ‘Thank you, sir. We all shared in it.’

  ‘I know. But it goes with the job, remember that. Now carry on.’

  The door closed, and Drury commented, ‘He liked that, coming from you, personally, I mean.’

  Sherbrooke said, ‘So did I.’ Drury was experienced, and some said uncompassionate in his reporting of the war as he saw it. But for once, at least, he had been unable to conceal his surprise. Not a barrier in sight.

  The door opened and Frazier stepped into the cabin, his cap beneath his arm.

  ‘Ready to proceed, sir. Tugs standing by.’ Just the hint of a smile, something private. ‘A formality, of course.’

  Sherbrooke picked up his cap.

  ‘Hands fall in for leaving harbour, John.’

  They climbed to the broad quarterdeck together. Seamen and marines were already forming up, without fuss or any outward show of excitement. They walked along the familiar deck, beneath the angled muzzles of the four-inch secondary armament and the squat multi-barrelled pompoms, nicknamed ‘Chicago Pianos’, with the great tripod masts and layered bridges waiting to receive them. A glance here and there, a nudge from one seaman to his oppo, a formal salute from a petty officer or some divisional lieutenant. It was routine, part of their lives, but even to those who understood it, this leavetaking was no less inspiring. A great ship was preparing for sea. Operation Sackcloth was about to begin.

  Down in the cabin, Pat Drury dropped into a deep chair and scratched his leg. It was still hard to understand why the captain of Reliant should have to exchange all this for a tiny cabin on the bridge, where he would never be allowed to rest.

  He smiled broadly. But a gift horse was just that.

  He said, ‘I’ll have a drink – er, Long. Something strong.’

  Long almost smiled with pleasure. ‘Sorry, sir. The bar’s closed.’

  Right on time, with signals flashing back and forth to and from the shore, Reliant’s massive anchor clanked, dripping, from the water to be brought home into its hawse pipe. She was free of the land.

  Rear-Admiral Vincent Stagg stood by one of the polished scuttles in his day cabin and stared into the distance.

  Sherbrooke watched him, very aware of Stagg’s mood, and in some measure sharing the frustration he was unable to conceal.

  He knew what Stagg was looking at, the familiar, unchanging profile of the Rock of Gibraltar, a refuge to generations of sailors, and the guardian at the gates of the Mediterranean. Stagg would not be regarding it in that light. After their fast passage from Greenock, out into the Atlantic before altering course again and anchoring here, it was an anti-climax. To a man with Stagg’s lack of patience, it would seem like something far worse.

  Stagg’s swarthy-faced secretary and his flag lieutenant were also present, sitting on opposite sides of the cabin as if they disliked any sort of contact. And the new boy in Stagg’s force, Captain Thomas Essex of the Seeker, had also come across from his ship for this meeting.

  Sherbrooke liked what he had seen of Essex, a lean, serious-faced officer who had spent most of his war in the Atlantic, and nevertheless retained a dry sense of humour.

  Sherbrooke knew he was not the only one to share Stagg’s frustration. After all the dash and the promise of action, Gibraltar seemed to represent the very opposite. The weather did not help. It was hot, even sultry after the cold to which they had become accustomed, and with scuttles and watertight doors opened wide, a kind of torpor seemed to permeate every part of the ship.

  Stagg said, ‘In spite of everything, the Germans are still holding out. They’re being attacked by the R.A.F. and American bombers,
and any attempt to run supplies to them from Sicily is chased and harried by our M.T.B.s and destroyers around the clock.’ He stared out of the scuttle again. ‘Look at them . . . more troopships than you can shake a stick at. All waiting to go to Alexandria, and even Malta, to prepare for the next move.’ He faced them, his forehead damp with perspiration. ‘The enemy is pinned in on the peninsula. They can’t break out, or hope to win, and the longer they leave it the more resources fall to us. The harbours they left full of wrecks and the facilities they demolished are being occupied and put back into use by our light coastal forces – even destroyers are involved, although not without risk, and some expected losses.’

  What remained of the Afrika Korps was clinging to its last toe-hold in North Africa. Even the old French naval base at Bizerte was still operating despite the bombing raids, and a chronic shortage of supplies and ammunition. If the Desert Fox had indeed been replaced by General von Arnim, as intelligence had claimed, then his spirit lingered on.

  Stagg said, ‘The Commander-in-Chief is well aware of the danger in delaying some strong course of action. If the Admiralty could see its way . . .’ He glanced sharply at Captain Essex. ‘You were about to say?’

  Essex smiled gently. ‘You know what Jack says about the Admiralty, sir. That it’s like the cinema – the best seats are high up and right at the back!’

  Paymaster Lieutenant Villar laughed, but choked it short as Stagg shot him an icy look.

  He said, ‘I have intervened personally with the C-in-C, Admiral Cunningham. He, at least, will see the sense of my argument. Enemy installations around Bizerte are well-defended, and can still give a hot reception to any of our smaller craft if they move inshore to find a target.’

  He looked directly at Sherbrooke. ‘We could knock them out. Right up Reliant’s street, wouldn’t you say, Guy?’

  The casual use of his name was no accident. Essex would feel outnumbered; the others did not count.

  He answered, ‘It would be very hazardous without air cover. We don’t know for certain how many aircraft the enemy have at their immediate disposal, but with Seeker in close company I think it could be done. Without air cover . . .’