by Alan Evans
Some time later Smith saw three men trudging up the road from the coast. At that moment an Italian marine clambered out of the communication trench trailing a telephone wire as he came. He went down on one knee by Smith, unslung a telephone that hung over one shoulder and connected it, whirled the handle. He spoke into it rapidly then handed it to Smith. Garizzo’s voice said, ‘The ammunition?’
‘It’s arrived. And my relief.’
‘What?’
Smith repeated it and Garizzo swore. ‘I’m coming.’
He and Smith’s relief arrived together. The officer was a lieutenant in the grey-green drab of the army with the black and yellow flashes of the artillery on his collar. He brought with him a corporal as his assistant and a signaller hung about with telephones and reels of wire. The corporal carried their rations in a huge rucksack, the long, green neck of a bottle protruding from it. The lieutenant knew his job, saluted Garizzo and immediately became involved with him in a long conversation, Garizzo pointing out over the open ground with jabbing fore-finger at the enemy positions, the lieutenant nodding vigorously. Then Smith had to indicate the targets they had registered with the gun, while Garizzo interpreted. When it was over the lieutenant looked at the shell-craters and the ruins of the house then shook his head and muttered something to Garizzo. He grinned and said to Smith, ‘He says you’re lucky to be alive, bringing down fire so close.’
Smith knew that, stared out at the corpses on the battle-ground.
Garizzo said, ‘You did very well.’
He had brought about the carnage and desolation that lay before him now. This was war. Not an academic exercise in gunnery. No sword-waving, posturing figure on a prancing charger but the mutilated bodies of men. This was where blood and guts were literal, the one a sick stench and the other trailing entrails. The pistol still hung in his belt, he had not fired a shot but he had murdered.
Buckley said, ‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘Let’s get out of this.’ Smith looked at Garizzo. ‘With your permission?’
Garizzo stuck out his hand, face serious now, understanding. ‘You saved our lives. Remember that. We will not forget.’
Smith shook the hand, turned away. As he walked down the road Garizzo called after him, ‘Good luck, English!’ Smith lifted a hand but did not halt.
When he and Buckley came to the pontoon aground in the shallows they found ammunition unloaded and Italian gunners swarming about the gun. Hercules lay offshore in deeper water and Smith’s party were aboard the steam-barge alongside the pontoon. Her skipper was impatient to get away because they were in range of the Austrian field batteries, though not in their sight. But if the Austrians sent up a balloon with an observer in its basket the shells would soon fall.
Davies, exhausted and filthy with powder-smoke, said huskily, ‘Good job you ran us aground, sir. If we’d been lying off we’d have sunk when that bloody battlecruiser shelled us. Right bowel-opener that was. Soon as the first brick come down we were off and into the nearest hole — most of us — Billings and Jenkinson weren’t so lucky.’
Smith looked at the craters along the shore. ‘Who was wounded?’
‘Jenkinson, sir. We found Billings — identified him. Mr Menzies did the best he could for Jenkinson but it was hopeless. He died an hour ago.’
‘Then who did Jenkinson’s job in that last shoot?’
‘Mr. Menzies, sir. Soon as the shelling stopped he sent me to look at the gun. He found the shells had cut the telephone wire so he traced the break and fixed it. Then he did Jenkinson’s job, worked out the corrections, gave us the firing orders.’ Davies paused, then asked, ‘Did it go all right, sir?’
Smith answered mechanically, ‘Yes, it went very well.’ Then he turned on Davies. ‘Have you ever seen it?’
Davies knew what he meant and said, ‘You can’t blame yourself, sir. It could just as easy have been you lying out there now.’
The steam-barge carried them out to Hercules, and so they came to Venice.
David Smith was exhausted in body and spirit, the horror of that morning still with him as it would be for many days. Voss and Salzburg had wreaked destruction yet again and he had suffered at their hands. He thought that Devereux might have returned from Brindisi and now that storm would break. At that moment he did not care. He was sick at heart.
Helen Blair saw them from the window of her house, standing on the narrow, little balcony with field-glasses to her eyes, the squat little drifter butting in from the sea. There were men on the deck of Hercules and in her wheelhouse and the girl was certain she recognised one of them. She dropped the glasses on a table, snatched her
cloak, ran down through the house and onto the quay. As she ran it came to her that she was truly happy for the first time in two long, bitter years.
12. In the night
Smith saw Helen Blair on the quay, skirt pressed against her slender legs, a cloak thrown around her and her hair flying on the wind. He watched her, saw her lean forward to talk to Buckley working right forward in the bow, saw her smile and his grin and salute. Lucky Buckley.
Hercules was secured bows-on to the quay and Smith told Fred Archbold, ‘I want a minimum watch. One hand and one officer or leading hand. Everyone else can sleep.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
Smith turned on the red-eyed and weary Menzies. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Yes, sir. I could sleep standing here.’
Smith grinned at the boy. ‘Boredom getting you again?’
Menzies smiled wearily back at him. ‘No, sir. Not so you’d notice.’
‘You did a fine job and I’ll say so in my report.’
That brought back some of the old perkiness. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Buckley poked his head into the wheelhouse. ‘Miss Blair would like a word with you when convenient, sir, if you please.’
‘Very good.’ Buckley disappeared but Smith hesitated, wasted time shifting about the wheelhouse, exchanged forcedly cheerful words with Fred Archbold and Davies. He was reluctant to go because he thought she had made her feelings towards him very clear, but in the end he climbed to the quay and went to her, saluted.
Helen Blair looked tired but the wind beating in from the sea brought a flush to her cheeks and she had a smile for him. ‘It’s good to see you. I was afraid — the fighting — I heard the ship shelling you. Word came that it was the marines’ position.’ She shook her head, then: ‘You’re all right?’ She knew he was not. He had a haggard look, his eyes sunken and haunted.
He grinned faintly, awkwardly. ‘Well, obviously’— he looked down at himself — ‘a bit worn round the edges.’
‘David —’
But he saw Buckley climbing ashore with his valise and asked, ‘Where are you going with that?’
‘Miss Blair said to take it up to the house, sir.’ Buckley’s tone suggested he was simply obeying orders, and that Smith knew about it.
Helen Blair said, ‘That’s right. Thank you.’
Smith realised they had conspired against him, and that he didn’t care.
Helen Blair said, ‘Shall we go up?’
He fell in beside her and they followed Buckley. Menzies and the crew of Hercules watched them go.
*
Again he dozed in his bath, later nodded over his meal and fell into his bed and exhausted sleep. In the evening she came to him.
*
It was dark in the room and they lay twined together close under the covers. The window was open and the wind out of the north-east ruffled the curtains. The long rectangle of the window was only a lightening of the darkness for the night was starless, the sky overcast. The room was cold but they were warm and close under the covers. The water of the lagoon lapped and sucked below the window. She slept, her arm around him, her breath on his cheek. He was tired and sleepy and happy. He watched a searchlight’s beam sweep distantly over the sky like a warning finger across the window, then it was gone. He heard the low mutter of gunfire.
&
nbsp; She had asked, ‘What happened to you?’
‘Nothing. Not a scratch on me.’ He meant he had not been hit. His body was covered in bruises and scrapes but there would be no new scars.
She pressed him, ‘Some awful thing happened.’ He did not answer. He would never forget that morning on the Piave line.
His eyes closed, flicked open again briefly as he remembered their quarrel of two — or was it three? — days ago. But that was past. She had told him then he was a philanderer but she was mistaken. He was sure of that.
His thoughts drifted as he lay between sleeping and waking. Menzies was shaping well, the MAS crews were fine and so was Hercules and her men, but how was he to sink Salzburg?
He looked to Balestra but with little hope that the young engineer might have the answer. Tomorrow... He dozed, to jerk awake imagining the bursting of huge shells lifting the ground under him. Salzburg, Voss, their threat continual and growing. Smith was certain time was running out for him.
He shifted restlessly and Helen Blair came half-awake, kissed him, and so sleep finally claimed him.
*
It was close to noon when they breakfasted and afterwards Smith said he wanted to see Balestra. Helen told him to take the launch and he asked her to go with him but she refused. ‘I — don’t want to know what you are doing. David.’
So he went alone.
Helen walked along the quay to Hercules, saw Davies on deck and asked if she could speak to Buckley. Davies called him and he came ashore. She asked him directly, ‘What happened?’
‘Happened, Miss?’
‘In the fighting. He won’t tell me and I want to know. Please!’
Buckley told her and finished, ‘It was bloody horrible. And the look on his face — he’s not like some o’ them, callous bastards — excuse my language, Miss. And it wasn’t his fault! He had to do it! It was them or us. He did it for me and them poor bloody marines.’
Helen Blair bit her lip, then said hesitantly, ‘It was not for revenge?’
‘Revenge? Never!’ Buckley shook his head. ‘Duty, maybe, because duty put him there — but at a time like that you don’t think much about duty. You stick by your own.’
The girl stood lost in thought for a moment, troubled, then smiled at Buckley. ‘Well, thank you for telling me.’
‘That’s all right, Miss. An’— I think it’s right you should know.’
She left him then and walked away along the quay towards San Marco. She was almost at the church when the two men of the yacht’s crew came hurrying to fall into step alongside her. One of them said in Italian, ‘You have not been to the front for three days now.’
‘No.’
‘They will be wondering. When do you go again?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it the English captain?’
‘No.’ She shook her head but knew she was lying. He was not callous; he had been deeply distressed. That hurt her. But the men were watching. She asked, ‘Are you two all right?’
‘We’re fine. Eating and sleeping, nice and peaceful and quiet. It is you we worry about.’ That was sincere and concern showed on their faces. In two years a close bond had grown up between the three of them.
Helen Blair halted and smiled. ‘I’ll be all right. I just have to think. I’ll be in touch.’
She turned and walked into the church between the towering walls of sandbags and the two seamen watched her go, worried.
*
Smith received little encouragement from Balestra in the workshop on San Elena. He and Lombardo were working on the engine of Seahorse, the torpedo gleaming dully under the yellow lights of the workshop and odd-looking now because of the modifications they had already made. Balestra was singing softly while Lombardo’s muttering was a bass, bad-tempered growl. But they seemed to be working amicably together.
Despite his absorption Balestra was pleased to see Smith and paused to shake his hand delightedly but talked with one eye and his mind on Seahorse. He thought they might be ready for a trial in a week. Lombardo grumbled, head down, ‘Like hell!’ But Balestra only smiled at that.
Smith had to hide his frustration, and left them. He went in the launch to Naval Headquarters. Zacco’s MAS was in the canal outside the gates and as Smith passed on the quay he lifted a hand in greeting. Zacco was not aboard but the crewmen on deck waved and called cheerfully, ‘Capitano! Signore!’
Then, at the foot of the steps of Headquarters, he met the three captains. They gathered round him, grinning, and the big Zacco explained their presence. ‘We saw the drifter. Some of the boats are out of the dockyard and back in service so we asked Ciano’— Ciano commanded all the MAS boats based on Venice, — ‘and he said we could be spared for special duties again. We went to the drifter and then to the house of La Contessa but the old woman there did not know where you were so we came here.’
Smith said drily, ‘I came to see Captain Devereux.’ And to get an unpleasant interview over. At least that Ciano had not demanded to see him was a good sign.
Zacco shook his head. ‘Devereux is not back from Brindisi.’
Smith heard that with relief. He said, ‘And I want to ask about Salzburg.’
‘Salzburg is at Pola.’
‘Pola!’
Zacco nodded. ‘I have the photographs—and the chart of Pola. I went to the office of Devereux to look for you and I thought you would want them so I asked. Also, in Headquarters they are pleased with you. There is a report from a Capitano Garizzo — very good.’
Pagani, the piratical, laughed and slapped Smith’s shoulder. ‘Now you are hero maybe.’
Zacco hauled a big manilla envelope out from under his oil-skin jacket and Smith glanced at its contents, the photographs, the chart with the ships and defences neatly marked, the typed sheets of the brief. He used the magnifying glass that the square and solid Gallina produced. The photographs the Italian fliers had taken were again excellent. The Austrian fleet lay at Pola, half a dozen battleships including three dreadnoughts, Salzburg lying apart as always, this time close inside the mouth of the harbour. The photographs also showed the defences... He asked absently, ‘Any other news?’
Zacco said, ‘There are more reports of some unrest in the Austrian navy. Nobody knows what that might mean.’
Smith remembered Devereux mentioning that when they first met. He knew the Austro-Hungarian Empire was made up of several races and that there was a movement among the Slays for a country of their own, the Yugoslavs he thought they were called or something like that. They wanted independence. That was nothing new, but now.
Zacco was going on, ‘Their army still fights well enough, but our line holds all along the Piave river. There has been heavy fighting in many places but the line holds.’
It had held for two days now. There was a glimmer of hope that they might see the miracle Garizzo had spoken of.
Smith spent the afternoon aboard Hercules with the three captains and Menzies, all of them crowded again into the little cabin with the photographs, chart and typed intelligence brief on Pola spread about the desk. Right at the beginning Smith said, ‘I want to reconnoitre the defences of Pola. Tonight.’ Because he needed to see for himself, and tonight because the weather was still fine and they might soon get a week or more of foul weather when such reconnaissance would be impossible. ‘I will have to get official Italian authority for the operation. I’m supposed to submit a request through Captain Devereux but he isn’t there.’ He looked anxiously at Zacco. ‘Will you do that?’
Zacco nodded and later, after the conference broke up, he took Smith’s written orders for the operation. When he returned Buckley brought him down to the cabin where Smith still pored over the chart and photographs.
Smith asked ‘Any trouble?’
Zacco shook his head. ‘No. They asked why you did not go and I said you were busy with duties, that time was short.’
Smith was relieved, but also puzzled. Devereux’s attitude had led him to expect anything f
rom a flat refusal to the command that he appear at Headquarters and plead his case in detail. But right from the start of this affair the Italians had stuck to their word given to Winter. They had given him the MAS boats and Balestra — and independent command. They had not interfered.
He shook his head. He had got his orders and that was the main thing now.
No. It was not. He looked up at Zacco and asked, ‘How is the morale among the crews?’ Because they had been dumped under his command, a stranger and a foreigner who could not speak their tongue, taken from him and then returned again. That was unsettling, and the morale of these men was essential if he was to hope for success.
Zacco was surprised at his question, then answered it by holding his hands above his head. ‘There!’ He elaborated: ‘Things go well. After the action off Trieste you are trusted, and since you have come we learn that you were captain of Dauntless, and of other actions.’
Somebody had been talking. Smith looked across the cabin at Buckley standing in the doorway but the big seaman did not meet that glance, stared fixedly at the chart.
Smith muttered, ‘Hum. Well. Fine.’
He left Hercules at nightfall and walked back to the house on the Ca’di Dio. In the dusk the three MAS boats ghosted across the lagoon with a low rumble of throttled-back engines. They came alongside the quay and Smith paused briefly to greet the captains and their crews. He sensed in them the tension building in himself.
He ate dinner with Helen Blair, an affair of only minutes. He had little appetite and she ate nothing. Afterwards he went up to his room and changed his uniform for two thick sweaters, old trousers and a pair of canvas shoes. Buckley would bring his seaboots to the boat and Zacco had oilskins for him. He was pulling the second sweater over his head as he descended the stairs and heard the rap at the outside door. His head emerged from the sweater as Helen Blair opened the door.
Buckley stood there, cap in hand. ‘Good evening, Miss. I’ve got —’ He broke off as he saw Smith appear behind the girl, then went on: ‘I’ve got your seaboots, sir. Anything else you want carried down?’
