Dust on the Sea (1999)

by Reeman, Douglas

Gaillard watched a white-coated messman pouring the wine. The bottle was misted over, ice-cold.

  He said casually, ‘By the way, they’re giving me a gong. I put you in for one, you know. Maybe next time.’

  Not long afterwards, they were called to board the Dakota again. As they walked out into the hard sunlight, Blackwood glanced back at the huddled white buildings, wondering if she was there.

  The same pilot was waiting for them, apparently untroubled by the prospect of the next leg of the flight. He merely remarked, ‘Wizard show, chaps, bang on time!’

  Blackwood looked once more over his shoulder.

  It was nice meeting you.

  He followed Gaillard to their seats and fastened his belt for take-off. No foul-ups, Gaillard had said.

  He braced himself as the plane rolled forward, knowing that Gibraltar offered one of the most hair-raising departures any passenger would ever experience. He could feel her hand on his sleeve.

  They were airborne, the wingtip appearing only inches away from the Rock. Gibraltar, the only battle honour ever displayed on the Royals’ cap badge.

  It was nice meeting you.

  From a window in the small, commandeered house, which had once belonged to a Spanish trader, she watched the Dakota lift hesitantly above the mass of anchored shipping, until the reflected glare made her move back into the shadow of a blind.

  She would freshen up and change. She unbuttoned her blouse and allowed it to fall over her bare shoulder, then she looked at her reflection in a mirror and turned her shoulder to the light again, studying the ugly weals on her skin; some would turn into bruises before they healed. She touched the shoulder with her chin, remembering the marine’s concern, and her own immediate caution. Always there; it was something still hard to learn, to take for granted.

  And yet, for only a few moments, it had been easy to imagine herself with him.

  She stared at the marks on her body. The instructors had told her that the impact of landing with a parachute was like jumping from a twelve-foot wall. The top of a house, more likely. They had not told her to expect these injuries left by the harness.

  She buttoned her blouse again and crossed to the window. The sky was empty.

  She thought suddenly of her brother; his name was Mike, too. Had been . . .

  She tried to push it from her mind. And the man who had loved her. So brief, so desperate; it was hard to believe she was that same woman. They were both dead. Both pilots, they had been shot down within four months of one another. Bought it, their friends would have called it, not from indifference, or because they had become too hardened by war to care. They dared not speak otherwise of death . . . she had seen it in their faces often enough. As she had seen it in the marine officer’s face. Mike.

  She held out both hands and studied them. She had almost expected to see them shaking.

  Surprisingly, she smiled. No fear, then. That would come. Again, she thought of the young captain called Blackwood. Doing what he must, out of a sense of duty, or because of tradition? She remembered the grey-green eyes, when she had spoken of his father. We loved him very much. So simply said.

  She shook herself, angry, disturbed that she could be seeking escape, contemplating it, when there was so little time left, for either of them.

  She watched as a fighter lifted away from the airstrip, the air cringing to its powerful engine. She followed it until her eyes watered in the glare.

  ‘Mike.’ The sound of her own voice startled her, because she did not know whom she meant.

  3

  Operation ‘Lucifer’

  In the relentless glare of early morning the protected waters of Alexandria harbour shone like blue steel. Like Gibraltar, the place was packed with warships and transports of every size and description, hard-worked destroyers and even some battered corvettes transferred from that other war in the Atlantic, as well as landing craft, cruisers, and behind the long line of floats which revealed the presence of anti-torpedo nets, two powerful battleships.

  ‘Alex’, as it was known, affectionately for the most part, by thousands of servicemen, had been resigned to falling to Rommel’s invincible Afrika Korps. Only a little more than fifty miles away, a stone’s throw in desert warfare, the Eighth Army, after so many retreats and setbacks, had made a final stand at a little-known place called El Alamein. If the Germans had broken through, they would have had Cairo, Suez and the whole of the Middle East at their mercy. The reappearance in Alexandria of so many ships and military personnel had been a great reassurance to the local people, although cynics still maintained that the patriotic portraits of Churchill and President Roosevelt displayed in most of the cafès and hotels carried those of Hitler and Mussolini on the reverse.

  A little apart from the main cluster of moorings and naval stores was Mahroussa Jetty, the King of Egypt’s own yacht base. Now, with sandbagged guard posts and a spotless White Ensign flying from its mast, the base had become H.M.S. Mosquito, and was used solely by the navy’s light coastal forces, M.T.B.s and motor gunboats. But even here the forces were subdivided, and moored away from the others were two motor gunboats. They displayed no pendant numbers, and their lean, rakish hulls were disguised with garish dazzle paint, which at speed could confuse even the most experienced lookout or air-gunner.

  They were small compared with the other vessels nearby, seventy feet long and low in the water, but they were powered by three-shaft Rolls-Royce petrol motors which could move them at almost forty knots when necessary. Their wooden hulls had been worked hard, and there were scars along the diagonal planking which even the paint could not conceal.

  A force within a force. These two M.G.B.s were only a part of the Special Boat Squadron, which, in co-operation with the schooners and caiques of the other secret group, probed the enemy coastline in search of ready targets, or to seek information vital to the high command.

  Both boats had just refuelled, and the stench of high-octane was still very evident.

  They were designed to carry a company of twelve; even that made them crowded. But their new status had increased that complement to fifteen. Tolerance and a sense of humour were essential.

  As well as machine guns in quadruple mountings, they carried a pair of twenty-millimetre Oerlikon cannon, to say nothing of the odds and ends they had picked up along the way, both German and Italian.

  In the wardroom of the leading M.G.B., her commanding officer, Lieutenant David Falconer, Distinguished Service Cross, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, sat at the small table, his briar pipe filled and ready to light once the last fumes had dispersed. His open-necked white shirt was fresh today, a luxury possible in Alex, but it was already getting grubby. Everything did in ‘the boats’. He was twenty-six years old and had been on active service since the outbreak of war without respite, unless it was to attend some course or other. In destroyers on the Atlantic convoy runs, and then in light coastal forces, he had witnessed every sort of danger and the courage which inevitably stayed in company. His face and arms were burned by the sun, but refused to tan, and there were deep crow’s-feet at his eyes: the look of an experienced sailor, much older than his years. He found it hard to remember his other life, when he had been a schoolmaster at a small and expensive boarding school in Sussex. To get away from it all he had joined the local R.N.V.R., and had been among the first to be ordered to the nearest naval base. He had never regretted it.

  He glanced around the wardroom, and smiled. His own command. The wardroom was little more than a box, situated directly below the small open bridge and beside the W/T office. And close enough to the all-important galley to be able to make bets on the next meal.

  He looked up as the M.G.B.’s first lieutenant peered in at him. Sub-Lieutenant John Balfour, wearing a single wavy stripe on his shoulder, was twenty, but in contrast to Falconer he looked extremely young. Before volunteering for the navy he had been at school, and by any other twist of fate could have been one of Falconer’s pupils.

  Unlike Falco
ner, he had tanned very easily in the short time since he had joined the squadron. He was pleasant, willing to learn, but a little over-eager to be popular, rather than respected. Falconer liked him, but still found himself glancing at the bunk on the opposite side, which served as a life-raft if required. It had also been the place where his last Number One had coughed out his life the day the Stuka had dropped out of the clouds near Crete, and had bombed and raked the boat with machine gun fire before climbing away like a triumphant hawk. He hoped Balfour would last longer than his predecessor.

  Balfour said, ‘Boat’s clear, sir.’ He was looking at the package of papers, which he had already seen brought aboard by a messenger from the base operations staff.

  Falconer let him stew for a while as he lit his pipe with his usual care. The routine of smoking helped him in many ways, after a raid which had gone badly wrong, or an air attack like the one which had killed his Number One. More than once he had seen his fingers shaking when attempting to hold a light to this same pipe.

  Finally he said, ‘We’ve got a job, Number One. Up amongst the islands again.’ He cursed himself inwardly; Balfour had not been with him then. ‘Conference this afternoon. The brass will be thick on the ground, so I’d better not . . .’ His eyes moved to the cupboard. The bar. ‘Still, a gin won’t hurt.’

  As Balfour busied himself with the glasses and Plymouth gin, he added, ‘Royal Marine Commandos are involved.’ He sighed. ‘Bloody regulars, by the sound of it. That’s all I need!’ He held up the glass. ‘Not that small, for God’s sake!’

  The orders were vague, but to Falconer they seemed to shout out loud. The commandos would be landed on an island. Intelligence had discovered a new detection device, a big advance on the enemy’s radio direction finder, more like radar, which was never mentioned. The brass might have good reason to be worried.

  Nobody had really believed that Monty’s Eighth Army would be able to hold out against Rommel’s giant Tiger tanks, but they had. Few had expected the attack to be turned into a retreat, but it was. The Germans were on the run, and showed no signs of standing and counter-attacking the Desert Rats. Falconer had become as sceptical as all the others, but as day followed day he had allowed himself to believe that the impossible was happening.

  The Allies would have to take advantage of it without delay, and attack the enemy-held mainland. They would have enough choice: apart from Sweden, the whole of Europe and Scandinavia were under the German heel. Invasion would need landing craft, machines and men, above all men, and they would have to be transported by sea. It would be costly enough without the enemy putting some advanced detection device into the market-place. The other hush-hush boys, the schooner force, many of whom were based in Beirut, would also be taking part. Madmen, he thought. Sometimes forty knots seemed too slow; five or six must be suicide.

  Balfour said quite seriously, ‘I hope it won’t interfere with Christmas, sir.’

  Falconer stood up and seized his cap. ‘If that’s all you’re worried about, John, it must be all right!’

  Balfour stared after him. He had not heard him laugh like that since he had joined the boat. And he had called him by his first name.

  He looked at the nude pin-up on the notice board, and grinned. Things could be a lot worse. He was accepted. Almost.

  There was another pause while the vast wall map was replaced by another on a larger scale. Blackwood took the opportunity to glance around the operations room. A long, low-roofed building, full of scrubbed tables and hard chairs, it was more like a converted boatshed, which was exactly what it had been in the King of Egypt’s day. A corrugated iron roof made the interior sweltering under normal conditions, and if there was rain, which was rare, the noise drowned out every word.

  Unsuitable and certainly uncomfortable as these premises were, there was no doubting the easy efficiency of those men gathered here. Veterans, no matter what age they were.

  They were a very mixed bunch, but he was used to that: a small group of naval officers from the motor gunboats which had been pointed out to him, a Met officer, two intelligence officers, and a Royal Navy commander in full uniform, the only one who looked completely untroubled by the lack of air and the drifting pall of tobacco smoke. Blackwood also found time to notice that the commander’s uniform was clean and perfectly pressed, as if he had just collected it from the wardroom stewards.

  His name was Walter St John, and by his appearance he was a man who would take no nonsense from anybody. Aged about thirty, and a regular officer, he had a face which seemed to belong in another time; it reminded Blackwood of the paintings at Hawks Hill. A face which would not have been out of place at Trafalgar. St John was in charge of Special Operations in Alexandria, an extension of Commander Diamond and Major-General Vaughan in London.

  Blackwood became aware of someone watching him, and saw another Royal Marine at one of the littered tables look away.

  Lieutenant George Despard, who had been in Alexandria with the advance party of commandos, was an impressive character, tall, straight-backed and muscular; his arms, propped on their elbows, were almost covered with tattoos. He had a tough face, which could change completely if he smiled. Despard had come up the hard way, through the ranks; it was difficult to discover why or how he had ended up in the commandos. He was a Channel Islander, and that, too, marked him apart: the islands were the only part of Britain under German occupation.

  Blackwood had first met him as a corporal, and their paths had crossed several times since. Despard was a man you would trust with your life, never short of ideas, or courage when he was in a tight spot. Equally, he was one you would never know in a thousand years. Not like Paget, not like anybody.

  Commander St John eyed the new map, and waited for all the throats to be cleared, the feet to stop shuffling. Then he said, ‘This is it. The island of Vasili.’

  The lieutenant with the pointer touched the coloured map. St John continued, ‘Just to the west of Rhodes, which, as you will know, gentlemen, lies at the approaches to the Aegean Sea.’ He had a clipped manner of speaking, not unlike Gaillard, but there were a lot of broad grins at the dry comment, ‘I would not wish you to be in total ignorance!’

  Blackwood saw Gaillard himself sitting, legs crossed, at the commander’s table. Those in the room would be watching him, measuring his chances, and their own by what they saw. The adjustment to Gaillard’s battledress had already been made: a red medal ribbon with blue edges, the ‘gong’ he had mentioned, the Distinguished Service Order. He was surprised at his own anger and resentment; he was being stupid, unreasonable. It was the same highly prized decoration which had been awarded to his father. Gaillard had probably been ordered to display it now, to make the right impression, rather than await an official presentation at a more convenient time. It should not have mattered. But it did.

  St John was saying, ‘The secret equipment, referred to hence-forth as Lucifer, is on this island for several reasons. It is a bad coastline, and should deter nosy people from getting too near. More to the point, it commands two or more local channels, so that the operators will be able to test and evaluate the accuracy of their device. It may be the work of cranks.’ He looked around at their faces. ‘But the human torpedo, the “chariot” as we now know it, was considered laughable when the Italians first produced it.’ He raised one arm and pointed at the wall. ‘And yet, only last year, around this time, Italian frogmen were able to cut through all our defences, right here in Alex, and place their charges under two battleships, the Queen Elizabeth and the Valiant. They were both knocked out of action, and would likely have been completely destroyed but for prompt action.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘And the presence of our Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Cunningham. That no doubt speeded things along!’

  There was laughter, although it had not been funny at the time, with the Eighth Army in retreat, and heavy naval losses when every ship was priceless. The destruction of two battleships, a major force of the Mediterranean Fleet, could have ended it.<
br />
  Even in Burma, Blackwood had heard about it. A Royal Marine band had paraded daily aboard the Queen Elizabeth for Colours and Sunset, as well as giving additional performances for her working parties. To the unwelcome observer ashore, or any enemy agent, the battleship had appeared as usual, and ready to put to sea. He had also heard that it would have been possible to have driven a bus through the great hole in her hull.

  St John said, ‘You will receive your orders tomorrow.’ He looked in Gaillard’s direction. ‘You’ll have all the assistance we can offer.’

  They all got to their feet as St John and his senior intelligence officer left the room. Blackwood heard one of the motor gunboat officers remark, ‘Rather them than me. It’s a bloody awful place!’

  He ran his fingers over the papers and the crude aerial photographs. A dicey one, then. He examined his feelings. They were always dicey. So what?

  Another of the naval officers walked across, and offered his hand.

  ‘I’m Falconer.’ He smiled. ‘David, if you prefer.’

  ‘Right, David-if-you-prefer.’ Blackwood liked what he saw. ‘What do you make of this? You’ve done it before, I gather?’

  ‘My boat’s taking you most of the way.’ He hesitated, seeing it in his mind. ‘And picking you up, with Lucifer.’ He nodded slowly. ‘Piece of cake, if you keep your head down.’ He looked at the others around them, ratings gathering up the papers, making sure that nothing was missing.

  He remembered what he had said about bloody regulars. He had been wrong.

  He said, ‘Care for a gin? Come and meet the real sailors. The Survivors Club!’

  Blackwood glanced round, but Gaillard had gone.

  ‘I’d like that. Can I bring my lieutenant?’

  Falconer nodded. ‘Bring the gin too, if you like!’

  It was settled.

  Michael Blackwood opened his eyes and waited for his senses to awaken. His eyelids felt as if they had been glued together; it was even painful to swallow.