by Alan Evans
Seek out and destroy. With three MAS boats? How?
3. The Boats
Morning found Smith impatiently pacing the deck of Harrier. The sky was grey and mist drifted on the surface of the lagoon. The city seemed to float on the water, rising spectral out of the mist. Close by was the long stretch of the quay leading to the San Marco and the Doge’s Palace with its exquisitely colonnaded front. That and the faces of the houses lining the quay were piled with sandbags, protection against air raids. Gondolas clustered before the palace.
An hour to wait for the boat sent by Devereux. Smith chafed at the delay. He had not taken to Devereux, and hated the idea of dragging an interpreter around with him. He wished that he knew Italian, but he had hardly a word of it. He wished that he knew how to start to carry out his orders. But he did not. He swore bad-temperedly, scowled down at Harrier’s boat lying at the foot of the accommodation ladder and at the steward in his best number one dress crossing the deck to go down into her, probably on his way ashore to buy some fresh food for the wardroom.
Smith’s eyes lifted to the quay, the Riva degli Schiavoni, swept it as he turned, then checked. There was the girl of the night before, more than a hundred yards away but he was certain it was the same girl, the same straight back, the swinging walk, the tilt of the head. The quay was almost empty but for her. Helen Blair. La Contessa.
He remembered the name when he was halfway down the ladder. He dropped into the sternsheets of the boat beside the startled steward and said with forced casualness, ‘I think I’ll stretch my legs ashore.’ The crew tugged at the oars and the boat shot across the narrow neck of water. Smith was first out of it and on to the quay. The girl walked a score of yards away, young, slender, with dark hair piled shining under a small hat. She wore a dress that was simple, silken and expensive even to Smith’s untutored eye. Her head turned at his sudden appearance.
That was when a warning yell came from above them and further along the quay to seaward where a machine-gun was mounted on a platform on the roof of a hotel. An instant later the machine-gun opened fire. Smith’s head jerked round and he saw the biplane banking round a balloon and coming in low over the lagoon, wings rocking, heading straight for him. He sprinted across the quay. The girl stood frozen, a hand to her face and lips parted in shock, staring at the aircraft. Smith grabbed her round the waist and dragged her along with him to the nearest building, into a gap in the stacked sandbags. The engines of the bomber roared over their heads and there came the crump! of an exploding bomb. The ground bucked under them and the girl shook in Smith’s arms. Then the engines were droning away. The machine-gun hammered on briefly, then stopped. In the silence voices were lifted, nervous, excited.
Smith took a deep breath, trying to steady his breathing. Christ! That was close. The girl still clung, her eyes wide and staring out at the empty sky. They were squashed together in the narrow space between the sandbags that smelt of damp earth. Smith pushed out of it and away from her. ‘Wait here,’ he said.
He trotted across the quay. There was a crater about fifty yards away, people appearing along the quay and heading for the crater, curious. He stood on the edge of the quay and looked down into the boat its crew still at their oars, the steward in the sternsheets. Blown dust from the explosion lay on all of them and the steward was blaspheming with rage at the filth on his best suit.
Smith asked, ‘Anyone hurt?’
Silence, then the boat’s coxswain answered, ‘No, sir. There was a lot o’stuff flying but we all had our heads down.’
The steward grumbled, ‘Sod this for a lark. First yesterday and now this morning. Never a minute’s bloody peace.’
A voice murmured in the boat, ‘If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t ha’ joined.’
That raised a laugh and Smith grinned, left them and returned to the girl. She was out in the open on the quay now, patting her dark hair casually back into place. She and Smith had escaped the flying dust that covered the boat’s crew. And he had been right the previous night when he had glimpsed her and guessed she was lovely. Hers was a cool, elegant beauty but he suspected passion might lie close beneath its surface.
He said, ‘I had to see to the men. You’re all right?’
She seemed calm though pale. ‘Quite, thank you. And your sailors?’
‘They’re swearing a bit but not hurt. They were down below the level of the quay.’ He gestured at the ragged stones that carpeted it now, hurled there by the bomb.
The girl looked round at them and at those beneath her feet, and said quietly, ‘Yes. I see. I believe I must have been standing just about here.’
Smith changed the subject. ‘Didn’t I see you here last night?’
‘I walked this way, yes. I have a house not far from here. But today I came in my launch.’
‘Miss Helen Blair?’
Her brows lifted. ‘That’s right.’
He explained, ‘An Italian officer was with me and recognised you. He said you are much respected.’ He held out his hand. ‘David Smith.’
She shook the hand, released it quickly. ‘You’re on the destroyer?’
‘In her but not of her — I’m just a passenger. Now I’m waiting to go to San Elena. I have to join some MAS boats there.’
‘San Elena?’ Helen Blair hesitated a moment, then: ‘I’ll take you there, if you like.’ She glanced once more at the rubble around her. ‘I owe you that, at least.’
Smith did not hesitate. ‘That’s good of you. Thanks.’ He could do without Devereux’s boat, suspected he would manage very well without Devereux’s interpreter. Zacco clearly spoke more than just a ‘little’ English.
The girl set off along the quay away from the Piazza San Marco and Harrier, the heels of her buckled kid shoes tapping briskly, Smith walking at her side. They swung out to pass the crater and the crowd now gathered round it. Further on a flight of steps led down from the quay and at the foot of them lay the small motor-launch, smart with white paint and gleaming brasswork. Helen Blair said, ‘This is mine.’
Smith moved to hand her aboard but she was too quick for him and led the way down the steps, sure-footed on the weed that covered them. She cranked the engine into life with the dexterity born of long practice, cast off, took the wheel and steered the launch out into the lagoon.
Smith stood beside her, leaning on the coaming of the cabin as she eased the launch around to port and they ran along close inshore. They passed a narrow canal that cut under a bridge in the quay and wound away between tall pink and terracotta houses standing out of the water. The girl nodded. ‘The canal Ca’di Dio — that means house of God. I suppose because it leads to the Church of San Martino. My house is the one on the left and just inside.’
It was narrow, four-storeyed, its flaking stucco decorated with painted scrolls and panels. The tall windows of the top two floors had little iron balconies and looked out over the lagoon towards the Porto di Lido and the sea.
Smith was very conscious of the girl beside him, and that she was keeping a cool distance between them. The conversation she made was merely polite but it was better than no conversation at all and he wanted to know more of her. ‘You look after your boat well. She’s very smart.’
She smiled faintly. ‘Thank you. But my crew see to that. I have a yacht.’ She took one hand from the wheel to point a slim finger. ‘Sybil. There she is.’
The cutter, a trim, grey-painted little craft, was moored out in the lagoon. She had a single mast forward, the lift of a cabin in the waist, and a well in the stern where two blue-jerseyed figures worked at some task.
Helen Blair said, ‘I bought her two years ago in the south and sailed her up here. She used to be owned by a Swiss businessman who sailed her when he got a few weeks away from his office in Switzerland, but the war made that difficult for him so he sold her. The two sailors came with her. They’re Swiss, German-speaking and I don’t have a word of it. They only know a few phrases of English but I’m fluent in Italian and we get on in
that. There isn’t much room aboard but we only potter up and down the coast a few miles.’
Mention of the seamen reminded Smith of Buckley, aboard Harrier and wondering where the hell his hare-brained officer had got to. Smith grinned at the thought, then asked, ‘Does the navy mind you — pottering?’
‘Oh, no. They all know me and what I’m doing. They even warn me where mines are laid though that isn’t really necessary — we draw so little water it’s unlikely we’d touch a mine anyway.’
They were passing another canal that led inland and Smith glimpsed two towers. Helen Blair said, ‘You’ll find the Italian Naval Headquarters up there.’ Smith only nodded. Devereux had made it clear that any dealing with the Italians would be done by him. As if mention of the navy had reminded her, the girl went on gravely, ‘The news of the war is not good. There is a big battle in the north and rumours of a retreat.’ She finished bitterly, ‘This bloody war!’
The strength of her bitterness startled him. He remembered Devereux had said the Italians were falling back but — a retreat? He did not like the sound of that.
Helen Blair glanced across at him. ‘Your ship has been in action. I heard there were several wounded and dead. I’m sorry.’
Smith said grimly, ‘So am I.’ He stared out across the water. ‘I hope to do something about it.’
The girl said with distaste, ‘An eye for an eye?’
‘No. Vengeance is no good.’ He saw her flinch at his words and he wondered why. He went on, ‘It’s meaningless. Voss was doing his duty as I shall try to do mine.’ That sounded pompous but it was true.
Surprise made her ask, ‘Voss? You know the other captain’s name?’
He nodded. But he did not want to talk about Voss or Salzburg — this girl intrigued him. His eyes kept turning to her but he sensed she was keeping distance between them still. He said, ‘You hate the war.’
‘Don’t most people hate the war and want it ended?’
He knew that was true. ‘You have a special reason?’
‘Not special.’ Her tone was cool. ‘Personal.’ And there she was telling him to mind his own business.
The launch slipped inshore of a line of destroyers and came up past a boatyard, the slipway running down into the lagoon. The girl said, ‘That is the SVAN yard where they build the MAS boats.’
Smith saw the hulls of two on the slips, men working on them. Then the boatyard slid astern and the launch went on, passed a long stretch of parkland, a deep fringing of green to the wintry grey-blue water of the lagoon. Helen Blair said, ‘There is the island of San Elena — and your MAS boats.’
She pointed ahead. The island was a low-lying, bare expanse of grass and reeds separated from the parkland and the rest of Venice by a narrow canal like ditch, spanned by a single wooden bridge. The girl said, ‘And the tower is that of the Church of San Elena.’
The tower on the church stood solitary above the flat green of the island, about a quarter-mile away. The MAS boats were moored at the furthest point of the island and before the launch came to them it passed a small inlet with a wooden building, a shed or workshop, on its shore. On a slip inside this building lay a craft like a barge but they were past before Smith could make out its details. He guessed that must be the workshop of the Mad Professor whom Zacco had mentioned, then returned his gaze to the MAS boats now close ahead, moored bows on to the shore and side by side.
MAS stood for Motobarca Anti-Sommergibile or Anti Submarine Motorboat. They were long, low little craft with slender lines, built of wood. Men were clambering about them. They had to climb because there was no real deck to tread. Right aft was a counter a yard or so long, then the stern cockpit. Forward of that was the housing of the engine-room, then the forward cockpit and the foredeck which was rounded, giving the boats a cigar shape. This much Smith already knew from photographs and descriptions. Now he saw that movement aboard them was complicated still further by their torpedoes, two of them, each eighteen inches in diameter and fifteen feet long. There were no torpedo tubes. The ‘fish’ were carried on the narrow side decks, one either side of the forward cockpit, and held in clamps, further obstacles to movement.
Aboard the boats they had now seen him, his arms deliberately laid on the top of the cabin coming so that the three gold rings of his rank were clearly visible on the cuffs. A tall figure in the after cockpit of the nearest boat straightened his cap and men climbed out of the cockpits on to the foredecks to balance there in line and at attention. The launch slowed and Helen Blair turned her, laid her neatly alongside the nearest boat. Smith said, ‘I hope we will meet again.’
She did not look at him. ‘It’s possible. But I am very busy and I’m sure you have your duties, Commander.’
That was a polite dusting-off and Smith grinned wryly. ‘Thank you for bringing me.’ He raised his hand in salute, then turned and clambered up on to the counter of the MAS and saluted again in the traditional act of respect when boarding. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the launch curve away across the ruffled surface of the lagoon, the slim figure of the girl at the wheel. Then he gave his attention to the boats and their men.
The tall officer returning Smith’s salute was Pietro Zacco, still impassive and watchful. Smith could understand that: he was watchful himself. This was his command — with these men and their boats he had to go after Salzburg, and on them would depend his career and his life. His gaze went beyond Zacco to the men standing at attention, to the other two boats and their rigid captains and crews. He said, slowly and clearly, ‘The men can carry on. I would like to see over the boats and meet the other officers, but first I want to talk to you.’
‘Si, signore.’ Zacco seemed to understand. He shouted an order over his shoulder and the rigid figures relaxed, dispersed about the boats. He turned back to Smith. ‘Signore?’
Smith said, ‘I have a lot to learn about the Royal Italian Navy, these boats and the men in them and very little time. I need your help. Captain Devereux said you spoke a little English. Last night I watched you listening to him and when I talked you understood me. So — how good is your English?’
Zacco answered evenly, ‘It is good. I studied it and before the war I talked with many people in England. My ship went there many times.’ He paused. ‘Captain Devereux did not ask me about my English.’
Smith nodded, unsurprised, but made no comment. ‘And the other two captains?’
‘Pagani speaks well. Gallina a little but he understands a lot.’
Smith said from the heart, ‘Thank God for that.’ He was rid of Devereux’s interpreter. ‘Now I’ll see them.’
‘Yes, signore,’ Zacco shouted, the officers clambered over from the other two boats and were introduced. Both were reserve officers like Zacco but he was the senior of the three. Tenente Gallina was bearded, short, broad and stolid while Tenente Pagani was lean, dark and raffish with a long sweep of moustache and the look of a pirate about him.
Smith said, ‘I am sure we will get on well together, gentlemen.’ Pagani looked sceptical. The others showed nothing at all, reserving judgment. Smith went on, ‘And now — the boats.’
He was conducted over each boat by its captain. He might as well have gone over the same boat three times because they were identical, but at least this gave him three opportunities to study the boats and a chance to look at all the men and exchange a word or two with some of them, Zacco interpreting. Each after cockpit was six feet long by five feet wide and a Colt machine-gun was mounted on a post there. Here also was the wheel and the entrance to the engine-room beneath its low housing. Smith peered in at the big petrol engines and the electric motors crammed into the restricted space. From there he worked along the narrow strip of deck that ran either side of the engine-room, past the torpedoes to a forward cockpit hardly more than four feet square. Here was mounted another machine-gun and stretched across the deck forward and aft were the tackles for hoisting the torpedoes.
That was all. There was no cabin since the range of t
he boats was limited by their restricted fuel capacity and their crews were not expected to be long enough at sea to need one. There was no wireless either, because no such apparatus small enough had yet been designed to fit into their crammed hulls.
He returned to stand on the counter of Zacco’s boat, Gallina, Pagani and Zacco in the cockpit. They watched him, warily silent. He heard, faintly, the sound of singing. It seemed to come from the shed farther down the shore. He asked absently, preoccupied with other problems, ‘What is that?’
Zacco supplied, ‘That is Tenente Balestra. He is in the workshop. Nobody knows what he does there, but all the time he sings. He is the one called the Mad Professor. He is an engineer. That song is Le ragazze di Trieste — all about the girls of Trieste.’
Balestra sang well and he sounded happy. The three captains were clearly not and Smith needed to know the reason. He probed, ‘You are volunteers?’
They glanced at each other and shook their heads. Smith had gathered that much. Zacco said diffidently, ‘We were told that Captain Devereux wanted volunteers for an experimental mission. But we also heard that the captain thought it was a waste of time and would soon finish, that he was simply acting under orders. You understand?’
Smith did, all too well. ‘Going through the motions’ was one phrase. Devereux had made it clear to Smith he considered his mission a waste of time. Apparently he had also made that clear to the Italians. Smith said, ‘So?’
Pagani said stiffly, ‘We did not join the navy for that. There were no volunteers. So they put all the names in a bag and ours came out.’ He finished cynically, ‘We won.’
Smith, took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked at Zacco and asked, ‘The boats are ready for sea?’
‘Yes, signore.’
‘Very good.’ Smith clapped his cap smartly back on his head. ‘Let us go to sea.’
The other two captains returned to their own boats, bellowing orders. Smith stayed with Zacco and stood with him in the after cockpit as the engines fired and roared, settled down to a steady rumbling. Zacco stooped, reached into the engine-room and pulled out oilskins and sou’westers, one set for himself and another for Smith. He dragged on the oilskins and Zacco hung Smith’s cap in the engine-room. The moorings were slipped.
