Band of Brothers

by Band of Brothers (retail) (epub)

  That was a thought.

  ‘Less than an hour, sir, I’d guess. I’ll check.’

  He stumbled down. Feeling remiss not to have thought of this himself. In the Dartmouth flotilla he’d invariably had all such data in his notebook—and in his head—every trip, before putting to sea. He flipped through the Nautical Almanac, found the answer, and came back up. ‘Moonset’s 2308, sir.’

  The gunboats would be in their intended waiting position, about six thousand yards offshore, by 2240. With Furneaux and company a mile inshore of them, the two units thus more or less straddling the target’s predictable track, the established convoy route. But if by then the moon had broken through, the MTBs’ position would be somewhat invidious—to put it mildly. Furneaux would be daft to attack with the moon behind him; he could hardly stalk the convoy from that side either.

  Or maybe he could. If he stayed inshore but kept well ahead—several miles ahead, say—until moonset?

  But the Heilbronne would be making seventeen knots, allegedly. If she turned up off Barfleur now, by moonset she’d be passing Cherbourg—or slipping in there, even. Slipping out again when the weather was such that Coastal Forces couldn’t operate.

  On the other hand, if she didn’t round Barfleur in the next half-hour—

  ‘Alan.’ Stack called to Barclay. ‘If you were Mike One, how’d you play it?’

  ‘Attack soon as I had the chance, sir.’ Barclay must have been thinking it out too. As a second-in-command should. In the next ten minutes his CO might do a Roddy King—or fall overboard, have an epileptic fit—whatever—and the problems would then be his to solve. He added, ‘From seaward, with or without the moon. I’d switch over now while I had room.’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Yes—I reckon… I was thinking about moonset, but between now and then—seventeen knots, he’s into Cherbourg—or, his escorts have played hell with us, driven us off even—’

  Barclay interrupted, ‘Looking on the bright side?’

  ‘M-class sweepers, Alan, and/or T-class torpedo boats—four or five of ’em, four-inch guns for Christ’s sake? All we want’s the target, then the hell out—right? But listen—suppose it’s half an hour now before they’re round the point—it’s then another half-hour to moonset, also half an hour at the Heilbronne’s seventeen knots to Cap Levi. So if Mike stalked him from ahead—’

  Stack cut in—not needing their views, only testing their tactical judgement—‘That what you’d do, Ben?’

  ‘No, sir. Because (a) it’d be giving that strong escort half an hour to clobber us, (b) longer an attack’s delayed the better chance Heilbronne’d have of getting into Cherbourg. I was only seeing that alternative—suppose they showed up suddenly and Mike didn’t have room to move out—and with the moon behind him by that time—’

  ‘So you’d shift out by a mile or so. Would you count on me guessing what you’re up to?’

  ‘On you allowing for it as what I might do—yes.’

  ‘Alan?’

  ‘Yes. As you are doing.’

  ‘How it should be. Yeah, spot on.’

  ‘But he might come up on R/T in any case, to make sure of it.’

  ‘I’d think more of him if he bloody didn’t. Hell, if I’m guessing what he’s at—and we all know how we’d play it from there on—huh?’

  Meaning the tactics for an attack by a mixed force of MTBs and MGBs. The combined flotillas would no doubt have exercised such operations, practised them in varying scenarios—maybe used them in action too, on occasion. The only goof who didn’t know much at all about it being bloody Quarry—the new boy here… He had his glasses up, sweeping slowly back down the starboard side, his body balanced against the erratic motion. Six pairs of binoculars in all, all at it—the signalman right aft, lookouts at the sides and himself here, Stack and Barclay in the forefront. Black night, black sea thumping, surging, a small white explosion from each impact streaming over and away to port. Ben with an echo in his mind of Bob Stack’s comment How it should be—meaning minds in tandem. His and Furneaux’s, for Christ’s sake. The thought of it triggered a snapshot of Bob’s wife as she’d looked last night when finally he’d had a minute alone with her—alone except for dozens of mostly Canadian pongos and their women frolicking around. Joan’s wide eyes on a level with his own: fantastic eyes, it amazed him that he’d half forgotten… He’d asked her whether she and Mike were staying here—knowing the answer, as it happened, because Monkey had been brash enough to check—and she’d told him yes, of course we are—aren’t you? Typical of her as she’d always been—straight answer to a straight question and if you don’t like it, sod off… Asking him then, ‘The pot’s not thinking of calling the kettle black, is it?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You know damn well. Unless the smash-up you had destroyed your memory as well as your poor old ears?’

  ‘But neither of us was married, Joan. Nobody was being cheated on. And this is an old mate of mine you’re—’

  Rosie had come into sight then, returning from the ladies’ room. He’d reminded Joan, ‘You used to tell me remember?—when you’d committed yourself to one guy you’d go straight?’ She’d shaken her head—expression of wearisome contempt—and he’d added quickly, ‘You meant it, too. Dropped me like a hot potato, for instance—uh? Why not get back to that—for your sake, Bob’s sake—all our sakes…’ There’d been no time for her to answer, as he’d put out a welcoming hand to Rosie: ‘Better?’

  ‘Message passed, sir.’

  ‘Very good.’ Mike Furneaux had his glasses up, looking back at the boats astern of him, Chisholm’s 562 and Heddingly’s 564. He’d got the unit in line ahead now, instead of quarterline. Unit less one…

  ‘Port wheel, Cox’n.’

  ‘Port wheel, sir.’

  Petty Officer Thompson—a big man, Furneaux’s height, but heavier. Home town Huddersfield: married, three small children, two girls and a boy. Throwing the wheel over… 560 had been leading the unit on south seventy-five east, was now reversing course to head back westward—from this end of her beat, so to speak. Pointe de Barfleur bearing south twenty east—155 true—distance four thousand yards. The left-hand edge of land—the point, in fact—was discernible on radar, but to the left of it looking southeastward into the Baie de la Seine there was nothing on the screen except for what Taff Davies, the Radar Operator, referred to as ‘grass’.

  She was coming round slowly—making only a few knots on the silenced centre engine, wings stopped. 562 starting her turn now, Chisholm tucking her stem inside the curve of 560’s wake.

  563—Newbolt—was still absent and unaccounted for. There’d been what had looked like a short and sharp action—culminating in a sizeable explosion—fifteen or twenty minutes ago, a few miles north, and obviously it could have involved 563.

  But Newbolt would have sent out an enemy report, in that case. The alternative—well, didn’t bear thinking about.

  Furneaux hadn’t said a bloody word about it.

  ‘Steer north seventy-five west.’

  ‘North seventy-five west, sir…’

  Lyon, returning to the bridge, moved up between them. He was a head shorter than either his skipper or the coxswain, but stocky, big-boned—a back-row forward. He told his skipper, ‘All happy back aft, sir.’ Referring to the guns’ crews, whom he’d been visiting. Only the point-fives were manned, at this stage, although they were at action stations; the others—the Oerlikon gunner, Markwick, and the torpedo-cum-Vickers men, ABs Wiltshire and Garfold, were in shelter abaft the bridge.

  Lyon queried, wondering whether the skipper had noticed—‘Cloud’s thinning, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid it is.’

  There was a lot of motion on her, at this stage in the turn—struggling round, with the weather on her beam. MTBs were built for speed, not for wallowing. Who was it who’d first referred to them as ‘flying bedpans’?

  Furneaux lowered his glasses, glanced up again—at the landward sector
in particular.

  As of now, it was still overcast, stars and moon still covered. Elsewhere—in the north and west—there were some cracks here and there and one sizeable clear patch. But again—with the wind from the west there was no obvious or immediate threat of any clearance here.

  ‘Sub?’

  ‘Sir!’

  John Flyte, the boat’s ‘Spare Officer’: smallish, fair, aged twenty. Furneaux told him, ‘See what radar’s getting, if anything. Ask Davies if he thinks it’s land-clutter, if we’ll get anything this close in.’ To Lyon then: ‘It is thinning, you’re right. Plenty of time to move out though, if we have to. Other hand, if it stays as it is now…’

  Wordless thinking, then. The kind he did most of. Glasses back up. But he added suddenly—surprisingly—‘SO’s expecting us to attack from inshore. If we can, we will.’

  It made sense, Lyon thought. Especially as the main strength of the escort would normally be on the seaward side, where the gunboats would keep them busy, when the time came. Looking back into the bridge as the boat listed hard to port, bow down, foam swirling across her forepart, washing around the Oerlikon and smashing against the front of the wheelhouse, flying over… He’d ducked behind the screen: straightening then, looking back into the bridge again, identifying the various dark, goon-suited shapes as Leading Signalman Perrot in the port after corner and on the lookout stands AB Bellamy and OD Woods, respectively port and starboard. Bellamy who captained the flotilla football team, and Woods whose mother and father had been killed a few months ago in a raid on Plymouth.

  Didn’t know much about Perrot yet. Only that he was single and came from somewhere in the Midlands.

  ‘Course north seventy-five west, sir.’

  Lyon turned back, cleaning the front lenses of his glasses with an already damp wad of absorbent paper. The target and its escorts could reasonably be counted on to make their appearance somewhere back on the starboard quarter, as they rounded Barfleur—and even the 286 radar, highly temperamental as it was, should surely be capable of picking up a ship the size of the Heilbronne at a range of at least five miles. Even her escorts, some of which would be likely to show up first, T-class torpedo-boats displacing about 1300 tons and/or M-class sweepers of about 700—on a good day you’d expect to get them at, say, three miles. So working on that—three miles—if they were making seventeen knots—or call it eighteen for simplicity, since that was divisible by three—they’d cover those three miles in ten minutes.

  The point being—if you got them at that sort of range and the moon was looking dangerous, that was about how long you’d have—ten minutes—to get out to seaward of them, across their bows far enough ahead not to be spotted.

  How Furneaux’s mind would be running, Lyon guessed. Most of the time you had to guess.

  Glasses up again now, sweeping across the bow.

  ‘Searchlight—’ a yell from Perrot—‘port quarter, sir!’

  Barfleur: on the point itself, or near it… A finger of brilliance appearing to shorten as it swung away eastward. Furneaux had his glasses on it, Davidson too. There was the hope it might conveniently illuminate something—like the Heilbronne or one or two of her escorts as they came around the point. Have to be damn close in, though: and the coast wasn’t anything like steep-to, either near the point or anywhere around the bulge.

  But they wouldn’t be burning that light for nothing.

  Looking for skulking MTBs?

  Or using it as a substitute for the Barfleur lighthouse. They did quite often switch on a coastal light when a convoy was due to pass: a courteous gesture, in the view of Coastal Forces… But in that case they might be reckoning that the Barfleur light itself would be visible too far out—with the implication that MTBs from England might also be some distance offshore, could not yet be in here on their convoy’s route?

  Wishful thinking…

  He left it, swung back to search the sector ahead. Expectation of the target coming up astern at any moment didn’t mean you could take anything else for granted. Especially with Cherbourg just around the corner.

  ‘Skipper, sir—’ John Flyte blundering up, hanging on there in the corner while 560 stood on her ear… ‘There is land-clutter, but—’

  ‘Radar, bridge!’

  ‘Wait, sub—’

  Lyon answered the radar call. ‘Bridge.’

  ‘Two surface echoes—green one-oh range 052 and—green twelve, 055 sir!’

  Fine on the starboard bow, at respectively 5200 and 5500 yards. Flyte, who’d only just come up from visiting Davies, muttered ‘I’ll be damned’ and went below again.

  ‘Both closing—drawing right, sir.’

  Furneaux was in his corner with his glasses up on that bearing. Searchlights astern were one thing, unidentified enemies approaching from ahead quite another. Stooping to the pipe: ‘What do they look like, Davies?’

  ‘Medium-small, sir. M-class, or trawlers, like.’

  The size of the blip in the tube was all he had to go by.

  ‘Ranges now?’

  ‘Ranges—051, and—053, sir. Bearings green twelve and—one-five, sir.’

  He’d taken another quick look at the sky over the land. Lyon in a sort of reflex looking up too: false alarm, though, there’d been no great change.

  ‘Port wheel, Cox’n. Reversing course. Signalman!’

  ‘Port wheel, sir—aye aye, sir.’

  Perrot had answered from the port side—the high side, at this moment. Furneaux told him, ‘Blue lamp to 562—nuts starboard, then “Do not engage” and “Follow me round”.’

  Nuts starboard meant enemy in sight starboard: they weren’t, but it would hold good for radar contact. There were signal-pamphlet code-letters for the other two phrases too, and Furneaux undoubtedly knew them, but he had a signalman now: having a dog, why do your own barking? Lyon appreciating that by making this about-turn to port he’d also be increasing his distance from the enemy’s westward track. They’d be locally-based ships, he guessed, out of Cherbourg. The Germans would have been expecting an attempt at interception, and since it was as important to them to get the Heilbronne out to the Atlantic as it was to their enemies to nobble her, they’d be fielding whatever they had available.

  Such as—here—a pair of M-class sweepers or armed trawlers, say, reinforcing whatever escort the U-boat support ship had brought with her. And—remembering that recent schemozzle—other units already out there.

  But these might have been in that action. In which case, Newbolt in 563—something had blown up…

  And the skipper would be as sharply aware of it as anyone. If not more so.

  ‘Radar, bridge!’

  ‘Bridge.’ Furneaux ducked quickly to the pipe. Davies told him—the Welsh tones high with frustration—‘Lost ’em, sir! It’s all grass now and jumpy again, it could be jamming, sir!’

  ‘All right.’ A pause. 560 bedpanning round… Then: ‘I’m reversing course, Davies, turning to port, see if you can pick ’em up again on the quarter when we’re round.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Fuck it.’ Straightening, looking up at the sky again. ‘Steer south seventy-five east, Cox’n. Ship’s head now?’

  Perrot called, ‘Message passed, sir!’

  ‘South ten west, sir.’

  ‘What’s the searchlight doing?’

  ‘Still there, sir, sweeping.’

  There was a slight luminosity over the land, southwestward. It would have been why he’d asked, ‘Ship’s head now?’—to get his bearings, know which way was which. Crashing around as she was, and under helm, wind and sea seemingly coming from every direction at once…

  ‘Close up the guns, sir?’

  ‘Point-fives’ll do for now.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ Lyon was searching over the port quarter for the ships radar had lost and of which bearings and ranges were now entirely notional. Traversing to his left, seeing Chisholm’s boat closing in astern, Heddingly’s still turning. Back across the quarter then�
�keeping the glasses moving. In darkness you saw an object best by sweeping over it, not by looking directly at it.

  ‘Radar—’

  ‘Radar, sir?’

  ‘Search between red one-seven-oh and red nine-oh.’

  ‘Red one-seven-oh to red nine-oh…’

  ‘Plot!’

  Flyte answered.

  ‘What’s our distance from Pointe de Barfleur, Sub?’

  ‘Two point two miles, sir.’

  ‘Radar, bridge!’

  ‘Yes, Davies?’

  ‘Nothing in that sector, sir.’

  ‘Keep trying.’

  Straightening: and yet another look skyward. He’d be considering the chances of the moon staying hidden long enough for an attack from inshore to remain a practical proposition, Lyon guessed. Especially knowing there was a patrol out there which, if one needed to shift one’s ground seaward at short notice, one might run into—almost inevitably then giving the game away, losing the vitally important advantage of surprise.

  Chapter Six

  Ben had called up to Stack, to tell him, ‘In position, sir, near as damnit. Might come round to south five west, though. Stream’s setting west now.’

  ‘Steer south five west, Cox’n.’

  Charlie Sewell’s echo then, distant-sounding through the pipe with the background of sea-noise and engines’ rumble. ‘South five west, sir…’

  ‘Time now, Ben?’

  ‘2232, sir. Half a mile to go—we’re five minutes ahead of schedule. Might reduce to 1400 revs?’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  Ben noted: 2233, reduced to 1400 revs, silenced outers.

  Down to six or seven knots, now. With some further reduction in noise—which when you were only three miles offshore and liable to run into God knew what at any moment, wasn’t a bad thing at all.

  The guns were closed up and ready, gunners in tin hats, eyes slitted through balaclavas knitted by the kindly ladies of Women’s Institute branches all over England. Woollen garments worn under goonsuits were mostly of the same provenance.

  Rosie had asked him—en route to the station that morning, when he’d told her he mightn’t be able to ’phone tonight—‘Isn’t it frightening, Ben? Don’t you get frightened?’ He’d thought about it, casting his mind back, then told her, ‘You get tense, before it starts. You know—tight gut, sort of thing. But then you’re too busy.’