Dauntless (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  Edwards nodded complacently, accepting the compliment. “I’ll make damn sure I get the credit for it, too. Takes me another step along the way, old boy, because it’ll count for something when the war’s over. It’s like money in the bank.” He sucked whisky and muttered, “I was lucky to get out at all. I was coming down from Adana when I saw the ships and I found an old pal to bring me out in his boat.” He squinted up at Smith. “You don’t seem overjoyed by your success.”

  Smith said flatly, “I’m not. For one thing, it cost the lives of two good men.” There was another reason, a spectre that had haunted him since he began the search for the Afrika Legion, but he asked, “What did you find?”

  Edwards reached for the bottle and filled his glass. “I first got word of them at Lydda where they have a dump of supplies waiting for them. Did that report of mine get through?” And when Smith nodded Edwards went on, “Another thing I found out at Lydda: they don’t run trains down to Jaffa during the day any more. Instead it leaves Lydda well after dark and gets back just before it’s light. But that’s just information; I can’t see any connection with the Legion.” Smith already knew why the train ran at night; the Turks had had enough of being shelled and bombed on their daytime runs. Edwards said, “From Lydda I worked up to Aleppo and then round the Gulf to Adana, by train all the way, riding and hiding how I could, greasing palms. I saw some of the Legion pass through Adana — that was the rear-guard your chaps saw. I also found a railway clerk at Adana I’d used before and he’s been working with and for the German Asia Corps. He didn’t want to tell me anything because they’d sworn him to secrecy and as good as told him they’d shoot him if he talked. I told him I’d give him away if he didn’t talk and that coupled with a big bribe opened his mouth.”

  He gulped whisky, coughed, glanced at the photograph on the desk and drawled “Ye-es. Livvy old girl, I’m for Cairo after this. I need a rest, a bed and a bottle and you-know-what.” He looked up at Smith “But Livvy has to go before long. That other girl, Adeline, was it? Where is she now?”

  Smith said, expressionless, “Get on with it.”

  Edwards gave his hoarse laugh. “Sorry. Not stepping on your toes am I, old boy?” But when Smith neither spoke nor blinked he shrugged and went on. “The Legion’s in a hurry and travelling fast and light. Supplies are waiting for them, so they’ve been able to cut down on the trains. It’s something like five or six hundred miles from Adana down to the front but everything is being cleared from the railway to let them through. Kressenstein insisted on that.” Smith listened, apprehension growing. He had said Kressenstein would ram the Legion south as quick as he could.

  Edwards said, “They’ll pick up their supplies and ammunition at Lydda early on the 31st and arrive at Beersheba by midday. That’s in two days’ time.”

  Smith stared at him. Edwards did not know how bad his news was. He knew it was bad, that Allenby’s attack would take place soon and that the Legion’s presence might endanger the success of that attack. But because he was sent behind the lines he had not been told of the details of Allenby’s plan of attack. Smith knew them all too well.

  Edwards explained, “They’re to relieve the Turkish garrison at Beersheba so that the Turks can be sent down to reinforce Gaza.”

  So the Turks and Germans still believed the main attack would fall on Gaza, they were still using the fine road the German engineers had built to stiffen the defences there. As Allenby meant them to, as the ruse of the staff officer, supposedly wounded, fleeing in panic and losing his briefcase had encouraged them to. Beersheba was the real key to Allenby’s plan of attack, his entire campaign. He was not going to accept a challenge to a bloody assault on the ‘impregnable’ Gaza-Beersheba line. The attack on Gaza would be a feint while the real attack would be made at Beersheba, to take it and roll up the ‘impregnable’ line from that flank. The plan called for surprise and Allenby would clearly have achieved that. It also demanded that the desert fighters take Beersheba before the end of the first day, before it could be reinforced, and before the attackers had to withdraw for more water. That was essential. And that first day was October 31st.

  Smith said thickly, “I’ll send a signal.”

  Edwards stared at his face and said, “It’s worse than I thought?”

  Smith said, “I’ll explain. Wait for me.”

  As he walked along to the wireless office he thought it could not be worse. Allenby’s army could take Beersheba on the 31st but not by midday; the ground to be covered and the defences made that impossible. And before midday the Afrika Legion would be at Beersheba, five thousand picked men, heavily armed with machine-guns and field artillery and highly trained. They would treble or quadruple the fire-power of the defences of Beersheba, the fortress on the left of the line.

  And the spectre that had haunted Smith since he began his search now stood at his shoulder. Right from the start he had asked himself the question he dared not voice: When they found the Afrika Legion — what could they do about it?

  He still had no answer.

  Telegraphist Lofty Williams, emerging from the wireless office stood back to let his captain pass, saw Smith stare right through him, saw his face drawn and pale and heard him whisper bitterly, “Oh, Christ!”

  7 — “They’ll Bury Me There — And I Won’t Be The Only One!”

  Smith went aboard Blackbird and saw Pearce in his cabin.

  “Why didn’t you turn when Dauntless did, when Walküre opened fire? Were you waiting for an order from me?”

  Pearce stared down at his desk. “No, sir.”

  “I’d hope not. I expect you to show some initiative in a situation like that. So?”

  Pearce looked up and said honestly, “I just couldn’t seem to think for a moment.” He had stared dumbly at the scene before him as the look-outs shouted and his first lieutenant pointed at Walküre, her guns flaming.

  Smith asked, “Have you any excuse?” But there could be no excuse. “Any reason?” He let his gaze drift to the photograph on the desk, suddenly aware of Edwards aboard Dauntless who had that same photograph of Olivia Pearce, Chris’s wife and Edwards’s ‘sort of tenant’.

  Pearce’s eyes followed his to the photograph, glanced quickly at Smith then away. He shook his head. “No excuse, sir.”

  Smith said, watching him, “Colonel Edwards came off in a boat an hour ago.”

  Pearce was astonished but that was his only reaction. “The one who acts as an Arab? How on earth did he wangle that?”

  “Some old pal he met.” Smith decided that Pearce did not know about Edwards but was clearly worried about his wife and would not admit it. “You can’t go on like this, Chris. I’ll give you leave as soon as I can.” That, though, would present problems; Pearce was far and away the best man for his job — when he was put to it. There was no one else so qualified. ‘Meanwhile I want to see an improvement. If I can help in any way, just ask.”

  The offer was there. Pearce could unburden himself if he cared to, but he only said, “Thank you, sir.”

  So Smith had to leave it at that. Instead he told Pearce about the Afrika Legion. “I sent a signal to Braddock and he replied ordering us back to army H.Q. in Deir el Belah as soon as Maroc comes up to take over here. I intend to leave Ackroyd in command and fly back, taking Edwards with me.”

  Pearce brightened, was on familiar ground here. “It’s a hell of a long flight, sir, and all of it over the sea or enemy territory. If you have to come down —” he shrugged. “But the Shorts can do it. They’ve got the endurance and this northerly wind helps. It’ll be right on the tail and a good eight knots.”

  *

  The two Shorts charged heavily across the sea, butting into the wind coming out of the north and lifted off, banked gently and headed southward. Smith sat behind Kirby in one of them while Beckett flew the other with Edwards as passenger. Smith watched his little command become toy ships on the wrinkled surface of the sea as they fell astern. Maroc and the chaser should arrive soon, and
then they could start for Deir el Belah.

  It was a long flight and his thoughts were not pleasant company. He had almost missed the Afrika Legion because he had not sailed north to Alexandretta forty-eight hours before but instead had run to Deir el Belah with the two men burned in the fire aboard Blackbird. He had let sentiment affect his judgment when his duty was plain and if the Legion had slipped south unseen, it would have been his fault. No matter that Finlayson and Braddock had thought the Legion would be too late — he himself had not believed it. Edwards had found the Afrika Legion but had not been able to pass his warning until Dauntless with her wireless came to the Gulf of Alexandretta, where she should have been long before. It had been up to Smith and he had almost failed them all, simply because he had not shown the cold, callous objectivity essential to a commander in time of war. His concern over two men he knew might have set at risk the lives of thousands committed to the attack on the Gaza-Beersheba line. He had come to Palestine believing this to be a time of crisis in his career, make or break, and he might have been broken, had survived only by luck. And what if he had to face the same choice again? What would he decide? He did not know.

  Night fell early in the flight and they flew in darkness but the wind did not fail them, nor did the Shorts. They made a landfall at Jaffa, banking to pass low over the little harbour tucked in tight under the town on its hill.

  Kirby pointed, head turned and shouting, “... Boats!”

  Smith saw the harbour was crammed with small craft, dhows or surf-boats as far as he could see in the night. He wondered if the Turks intended to try to supply the Gaza-Beersheba line by this kind of small, coastwise traffic. If so they were being wildly optimistic. Dauntless had already shown how vulnerable such traffic was. So —? He shrugged off that question; he had enough to be going on with.

  The Shorts droned on down the coast past Gaza, marked by the gun-flashes pricking the night, and came to Deir el Belah. A line of buoyed lights had been laid across the anchorage for them and the Shorts turned into wind, its direction shown by the wisping smoke from the funnels of the ships anchored there, and one after the other slid down to settle on the sea. A decked-over lighter took the seaplanes aboard and set Smith and Edwards ashore.

  *

  Dauntless turned to lead Blackbird south. Astern of them, off the Gulf of Alexandretta, the French battleship Maroc patrolled across the channel that was like the narrow neck opening into the bottle of the Gulf beyond. Maroc steamed at a sedate ten knots while the little submarine-chaser No. 101 scurried fussily around her. Maroc was old and slow but she commanded the narrow channel with her 12-inch guns. Walküre was a ship in a bottle and Maroc the fat cork jammed in its neck.

  *

  Smith and Edwards, the naval officer and the colonel still in his flowing Arab robes, walked up through the gap in the dunes. In the darkness a locomotive slowly clunk-clunked along the siding, halted with a hiss of steam and a squealing of brakes and the trucks behind banged together like a ragged salvo of artillery. Smith saw the sapper on the footplate as he passed, the round moon-face shining with sweat. They trudged rapidly up the road, both of them weary, forcing their stiff legs to stretch out. The wind out of the north set the palm fronds waving and clashing above their heads and brought to their ears the thunder of the guns before Gaza. In the night muzzle-flashes flickered against the dark sky.

  An aide met them at Finlayson’s headquarters and ushered them hurriedly through the ante-room into the tent where Smith had seen Finlayson and Braddock before. They stood over the map now as if they had never moved. They were not alone: a lieutenant of Australian Light Horse stood tall by the table, and Jeavons, master of the Morning Star waited a little apart. He looked easier in his mind now, straight and spruce and he had a smile for Smith. Major John Taggart was there also. He nodded, still wary in the presence of the others.

  A haggard Finlayson performed the introductions. The Australian was a Lieutenant Jackson. Smith nodded. He did not know the man but he knew of the Light Horse and Jackson looked a good sample, lean and hard. Finlayson got down to business, outlined for all of them the background of the Afrika Legion, then: “The Legion is on its way to reinforce Beersheba and will pick up supplies and ammunition at Lydda on the morning of the 31st. The Flying Corps are going to try a bombing raid but they say the guns south of Lydda station will keep them high and it will be difficult to hit the dump, let alone destroy it. The chances of cutting the railway line are negligible.” He rubbed at tired eyes and looked at the officers grouped round the map. “The Legion must be stopped. There is only one place it might be done and that is at Lydda. A force must strike inland to destroy the dump and demolish the track.”

  In the silence Smith heard the beating of moths against the lamp and their wings sent shadows fluttering across the map. He said, already disliking the idea, “A landing?”

  “A raid,” Finlayson corrected him. “We haven’t the ships, the men, or the time to mount a conventional landing.” He looked at Edwards. “You were put ashore south of Jaffa and I understand the coast isn’t defended. Could you guide a small force through the dunes and on to Lydda, a night landing and a night march?”

  Edwards hesitated, then: “I could. But it’s heavy going for troops in the sand, they wouldn’t better two miles an hour and it’s all of ten miles from the nearest point.”

  Finlayson brushed that aside impatiently. “We know that! I’m talking of mounted men, a single troop of horse. We know from aerial reconnaissance and your own reports that there are guardhouses spaced along the road from Jaffa to Er Ramle which lies across your route to Lydda. The Turks also have a regiment in reserve camped on that road. Therefore, while you passed through as an Arab, a troop of horse could not. Correct?”

  Edwards nodded, licking his lips.

  Finlayson went on: “There is a Turkish garrison camped outside and just south of Jaffa and another regiment five miles north — that’s about a mile north of the Auja river.” His finger moved deliberately across the map, marking them. “There’s a ford at the mouth of the river where the depth is only three feet, and there is only one machine-gun post. Major Taggart’s battalion will land there in daylight after a preliminary bombardment by Dauntless on the evening of the 30th, that’s tomorrow, and establish a bridgehead, acting in all respects as if preparing the way for a full-scale landing on the next day. There are four motorised lighters fit for this work. Three of these will land Major Taggart’s battalion at the mouth of the Auja.”

  He looked up. “The Turks have feared a landing north of Gaza to turn the line there and have guarded against it. While this will be a lot further north, they will certainly react with all the force available. That will pull in the regiment from north of the Auja, the garrison at Jaffa, and the regiment on the Jaffa-Er Ramle road. The way will then be clear for Mr. Jackson’s troop which will land south of Jaffa in the remaining motorised lighter. They must reach the railway and the dump before first light and at least demolish the track — and if possible destroy the dump.”

  He paused, gazed round at them and asked quietly, “Questions? Colonel Edwards?”

  Smith glanced sideways at Edwards and saw sweat on his face, though the night was chill. Edwards said, “There’s a chance. There’ll be some odds and ends of Turkish troops left about but we should be able to cut our way through. The dump —” He hesitated, then said, “It’s guarded by a company of Germans and they’re not rear-echelon troops. They’ll fight ...” His voice trailed away.

  Finlayson said bitingly, “I asked for questions, not a recital of obstacles to be surmounted. This raid must be attempted.” His eyes shifted round the room. “Mr. Jackson?”

  The tall Australian shrugged. “We’ll give it a go.”

  Finlayson said grimly, “You’ll have to. Taggart?”

  Major Taggart asked, “Has anyone got a better idea?” He waited but no one spoke. He said, “I know what you want, sir.”

  Finlayson rubbed at his forehead with the
tips of his fingers as if trying to rub out the lines etched there. “Thank you, gentlemen. I can think of no alternative. The chances of success are small but so long as they exist we must make the attempt. I will give you your orders in writing.” He looked straight at Taggart. “Will your men obey orders?”

  Taggart answered coldly, “Yes, sir.”

  Finlayson said, “Arms will be sent out to the Morning Star tomorrow morning but ammunition will be carried aboard the lighters. The battalion will sail in the Morning Star and will not transfer to the lighters till the moment of landing and will land at your orders or those of Commander Smith,” now he stared at Smith and said deliberately, “who will use whatever force is necessary to impose discipline and enforce the landing.”

  Taggart said angrily, “That won’t be necessary.”

  “I trust not. But the landing must be made.”

  There was silence for a moment as the threat, or the warning hung in the air. Now Smith knew the reason for the change in Finlayson. Ordering men into action was a heavy enough responsibility but this —! Finlayson had weighed the possible gain to Allenby’s whole army against the lives of Jackson, Taggart and their men and had the guts to give the order. He was already paying for it, had aged ten years.

  Now he asked, “Captain Jeavons? You’re happy with this — ah — unusual extension of your contract?”

  The master of the Morning Star asked in his turn, “I’ll take my orders from Commander Smith?”