Dust on the Sea (1999)

by Reeman, Douglas

  He saw his sergeant, Larry Godden, with one of the webbing packs open by a vibrating light fitting. He was showing a commando sergeant some of his tricks, as he called them. The sergeant was named Welland, and called ‘Sticks’ for some peculiar reason. He retched again. All part of the mystique which made these men different. But it was amazing how quickly you sensed an atmosphere, even a mood, when working in such close contact with people who had already risked their lives on this sort of operation. There was a Royal Marine lieutenant in this section too, a Lieutenant Capel, tall, good-looking, and apparently super-confident. He had joined Force Trident straight from England, and he had heard him described as a climbing expert, highly skilled at scaling cliffs, work which required not only strong nerves but a top level of physical fitness. Steve Blackwood had gathered, from his time among them, that Sergeant Welland also prided himself in that direction, and that he disliked the lieutenant intensely.

  He had heard him say to another N.C.O., ‘That bloody Hannah was bad enough! But at least he had guts when it came down to it!’

  The other officer’s name meant nothing, but Welland’s contempt stood out like a beacon.

  Godden was saying patiently, ‘This is a Ready-Safe, okay? And this one is a Ready-Sefe. ’Ere, feel the difference. You can tell ’em apart when it’s as black as a boot all round you!’

  Welland felt the fuses doubtfully. ‘Suppose you get ’em mixed up?’

  Godden smiled. ‘Bang!’

  Welland sighed. ‘Rather you than me, chum. Where did you learn all this stuff?’

  Godden’s eyes shone in the light as he glanced across at his officer.

  ‘Oh, ’ere an’ there. You know ’ow it is.’

  Steve Blackwood felt the bond between them. Something they shared with no one else.

  He pulled out his wallet and opened it with great care. It was the photograph she had given him that night when they had visited the pub across Portsmouth Harbour. She had wanted him to have it, had insisted, and, looking back, it was as if she had known they would not meet again. He swallowed, but not because of the motion. Not for a while. It must have cost her a lot to give it to him like that. She hardly knew him. She could have any man she wanted with her looks and her background.

  He gazed at the photograph. Younger, the hair much longer, but it was her right enough. Like the portrait of her mother, which he had seen for himself at Hawks Hill. She was wearing jodhpurs, one hand holding her hair from her face, the other stroking the nose of a horse.

  Sticks Welland heard the boots moving outside and said quietly, ‘What’s your bloke like?’

  Godden did not look up. It was a precaution, something you did without thinking if a copper was watching you. Or you were protecting someone.

  ‘Good as gold. Knows ’is stuff, too. Not bad for a Kiwi.’

  Welland nodded. ‘And a Blackwood. That counts for a lot around this mob.’

  He scowled as he heard the lieutenant’s voice, having a go at some unfortunate marine. Throwing his weight about. Not like the first attack; he had been careful then, eager to show he was ready to learn. Afterwards they’d all been like men who had been on a binge, or had smoked something like the Chinks did in Singapore. But not him. Mister-bloody-Perfect. Well, we’ll see about that!

  He watched the New Zealander carefully replacing the photograph in his wallet. Poor bugger. As if there wasn’t enough to worry about without that.

  Like that first time he had asked Pam to go to the cinema with him. She had still been wearing her N.A.A.F.I. uniform, and she had not resisted or pretended surprise when he had put his arm around her in the back row of that notorious flea pit, which had since been bombed flat.

  Just before the main film she had made an excuse, and had slipped away to the Ladies. He had half expected she would not return. She was probably used to something better.

  But she had snuggled down beside him, her eyes fixed on the screen as the film had begun with a crash of thunder and lightning.

  She had gone to the Ladies for one reason only. When his hand had reached the top of her stocking and touched cool, bare skin, he knew what it had been.

  They all looked up as Despard lowered himself into the compartment, his face wet with spray. The craft had made another turn, and he had been up there, checking progress.

  Steve Blackwood was surprised to see the big lieutenant squatting beside him.

  ‘All set to go?’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘Steve?’

  He guessed it had never been easy for this man, who looked as if nothing on earth would ever defeat him.

  ‘I think we’ve checked everything. A couple of hundred times!’

  Despard regarded him searchingly, perhaps comparing. ‘We go in after the others. The plan suggests a good position for setting your charges. A fall of lava rock – it should be enough.’ Again the hesitation. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  Steve Blackwood nodded. The sickness was leaving him, or maybe it had just been nerves.

  ‘I’ll have to rely on your scaling team. I’m not much of a hand at rock-climbing, especially in the dark!’

  Despard glanced over at Welland. Still brooding. That was bad. Unusual, too, for a real pro like Sticks. Despard knew some of it, and could guess the rest. If it wasn’t for the danger, it would almost be funny. At long last the sergeant had met his match, albeit an officer, someone as big-headed about physique and women as he was. He had heard Lieutenant Capel going on about the girls, ‘gels’, he had swept off their feet without even trying. That and his affected drawl had put up the backs of his fellow lieutenants, so Welland’s silent fury was understandable. But dangerous. He would stamp on it.

  He said, ‘Just remember it’s the Germans we’re up against this time, not a bunch of half-hard Eye-Ties. They say they’re not expecting trouble, but you can never tell. If they cut loose with those explosive boats, it could be nasty.’ Almost distantly he added, ‘I had a pal in the old York when they attacked her.’

  Had. He did not need to elaborate.

  Not for the first time, Steve was glad that Despard was with this section, although he sensed that he hated and perhaps resented being away from the vanguard. He almost smiled at the term. He was already fitting in.

  Despard said suddenly, ‘I hear you’re to be congratulated.’

  He stared at him.

  ‘I haven’t said anything –’

  Despard smiled. ‘He told me. The Captain. He’s quite chuffed about it. I’m glad for him.’ And, quickly, ‘You too, of course!’

  The boat was slowing down. As if they were feeling their way.

  Steve Blackwood said quietly, ‘You’re fond of him, aren’t you?’ and was aware of the instant guard, the last barrier.

  Despard turned his head as a voice came through the opening.

  ‘Stand to, sir!’

  He wrenched his mind back from the moment, like the marksman easing the pressure on his trigger when every second is precious.

  ‘You could say that. Yes. I’m no guvnor’s man, saying it in the hope of another pip on my shoulder. I’ve got as far as I ever will in the Corps, as far as I want.’ He looked down, surprised, as the New Zealander touched his arm.

  ‘I know that.’

  Despard moved his holster slightly and got up. The moment was almost past.

  He said abruptly, ‘He’s in danger. I should be up front with him.’ He looked into the shadows and snapped, ‘Stand to! What the hell do you think this is!’

  The two Royal Engineers were suddenly alone, the hull around them alive with metallic scrapes and hurrying feet.

  Godden grinned at him.

  ‘Like a bloody confessional, ain’t it, sir?’

  Steve Blackwood nodded and groped for his steel helmet.

  If he lived after today, he would never forget it. Despard’s intense loyalty made his own anxiety and uncertainty seem like nothing. Something he had seen in her brother’s eyes when he had been with his men, and before they had slipped out of Palermo.
Pride.

  He shivered. And he was not even sick any more.

  He said, ‘Just don’t get your bloody fuses mixed up,’ and tugged the chinstay into position. ‘Bloody bang, indeed!’

  He was ready.

  Marine Percy Archer cocked his head and listened to the changing beat of the engines. Slowing down again. He could imagine the tough-looking two-ringer in the wheelhouse peering at his chart, probably saying a prayer or two in case he had made a mistake. He doubted it. These R.N.R. officers might lack the polish and easy authority of their regular opposite numbers, but they were real sailors, not like some. Plus the fact that they knew their straight-laced companions would be quick enough to point out any failure on their part. At the start of the war, the regulars had smiled politely at the reservists. The R.N.R. had been labelled Really Not Required, and the part-timers, the R.N.V.R., had been made to suffer Really Not Very Reliable. Within a few months, that had changed. Oh, how it had changed. If anything, the amateurs were now the professionals.

  He climbed carefully on to a bollard and peered towards the nearest island, or where it was supposed to be. Not even a bloody seagull. It was as if the landing craft was completely alone, ploughing on into nothing.

  He went through his own practised routine again. Ammunition pouches, filled and fastened, and the stupid respirator also correctly fastened so that it was less likely to catch on something. The gas mask had got more blokes into trouble than any other single item. He grimaced. Except women. Railway station lost property offices were always full of them. Cinemas, buses, canteens: they got their owners put on charges every day of the week. They would never use gas, not after what they had said about the Great War: men coughing their lungs out, men blinded, the foulest death of all. As a kid he had known a bloke at the Green, heard him every morning, cough, cough, cough. The war, they said. Gas. Then one day the coughing had stopped. He’d lost, after all that time. It was strange to realise he had never once laid eyes on the man.

  Everything clipped or taped down. He turned his rifle over in his hands. There were men all around him, some doing what he was doing, others chatting to their special mates. And a few staring into space. Archer was able to shut them out. Here, or on some beach, or in a crowded ship’s messdeck, it was a ritual, a must.

  He was satisfied. Fairly. His fighting-knife would not slither out if he had to jump from the ramp, his rifle was loaded and ready, with one up the spout. Piling swivel and sling, taped, noiseless. The steel helmet was a bloody nuisance. It distorted the sounds, clattered like a tin can if it touched anything. Once he had seen two marines duck when a shell came too close. The rim of one helmet had smashed the bridge of the other man’s nose. Useless.

  He heard Captain Blackwood speaking, probably to the colonel, who had been with the two-ringer for most of the journey.

  It reminded him of the time when the colonel had gulped down his Scotch as if it was the last drop on earth. An officer who was always on top line, ready to crack down on any defaulter without mercy. Like poor Lieutenant Hannah. But Captain Blackwood had said nothing about it, and he had been the first one to risk his own neck and a sniper’s bullet to rescue the silly sod.

  He felt the sea surge against the flat side, and the tinkle of sand or gravel. God, it must be shallow here. Or else it was a sandbar.

  They were all quiet now; he could see all of them, even though it was pitch dark. Faces he had come to know so well. To respect, to doubt, even to admire, and some he would never know in a thousand bloody years. But in this lot you had to trust somebody. So today it was Blackwood, tomorrow somebody else. He grinned, embarrassed. No, it wasn’t like that with him. Whatever you were doing, he always made you feel as if you mattered.

  But the colonel, he was something else. One of the corporals had overheard him giving the officers a pep talk just before casting off. Bloody eavesdropping would be nearer to the truth. But he had told him about Gaillard’s final rockets about surrender and retreat. Nobody needed to say that sort of thing in the Corps, especially not another marine.

  He sorted it over in his mind. Suppose it was true about Gaillard, and the buzz he had heard about people being shot. It made sense. Surrender, retreat, or being too badly wounded to escape from the enemy, they all amounted to the same thing in the end.

  He felt somebody push past him. Sergeant Paget. Strict but fair, and would always forget a bottle after he had given it. A good bloke. For a sergeant, that was.

  Paget peered at him. ‘Must be close. I can smell the bloody place!’

  ‘Reckon they’ll be on to us, Sarge?’

  Paget wiped the spray from his mouth. ‘Would you be, in their boots? Stuck out here on guard duty, surrounded by rocks and bits of volcano poking out of the sea, while your mates are getting their arses shot off in Sicily? They should be so lucky!’ He turned as if by instinct and said, ‘Here, sir!’

  Archer tried to relax, muscle by muscle. He had pins and needles in his left foot, and wanted to stamp it. That would make him really popular.

  He saw the other lieutenant scramble past: Fellowes. Didn’t have a clue, but seemed ready to listen to others who did. An actor, they said. Just what we need in this regiment.

  Dead slow. Dead slow. The vibration made everything shake and rattle. Enough to wake the bloody dead. In fact, he knew that their approach would be almost soundless. He gripped his rifle. All the same . . .

  ‘Starboard beam! One of them’s in trouble!’

  Another voice snapped, ‘Silence, that man!’

  Archer raised himself on his toes. It was probably a sandbar. That’s better.

  The flare exploded, a blinding, glacier intensity which made men duck or cover their eyes. There had been no sound, or if there had been it was lost in the growl of the engines. It was like a film suddenly jammed in the projector, motionless, although that was another illusion. The other landing craft had slewed round, almost bows-on, only her frothing wash, sandy yellow in the unwavering glare, betraying their frantic efforts to go astern, to free the hull from yet another treacherous spit of land.

  Archer shaded his eyes and tried to see the island. The flare was already dying, and he could just make out the nearest hump of solid ground. Even that looked unreal, as if it had been transformed by the light; it was pale, like salt. He heard the clatter of ammunition belts as one of the machine gunners swung his sights towards the shining patch of water.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ Archer hurried forward. It was Blackwood’s voice. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed. He kept telling himself it was just bad luck; they would tow the poor bastards off and try again. The third landing craft was somewhere to port. They must be wondering what the hell was happening.

  Some of the seamen were already running aft; one fell headlong as the flare died, as if somebody had switched it off by hand.

  Archer felt the sudden quiver of increasing speed, spray pattering over the side, hitting his helmet. They were not turning. Not going to help the other craft. It was so bloody dark after the searing light he could barely think straight.

  And then came the tracer, angled down, but at a guess not from any great height, probably a ridge or a fold in the cliff.

  Bright green balls of fire. Flashing above their own reflections on the heaving water, dead straight and flat trajectory: a small but powerful cannon.

  Archer’s experienced eye had time to take this in, to estimate the range and force of the shellfire, as the invisible gunners found and straddled the grounded landing craft.

  Flashes now, and separate explosions, and then writhing banners of flame, fuel and ammunition, and there were men out there, too, burning and dying.

  Archer stared until his eyes watered, until the boat turned again and steel blotted out the scene. Men he knew, like those pressed around him. Like me. Who believe it only happens to someone else. There was a loud explosion, and then hundreds of small feathers of spray as fragments rained down in every direction. There was another explosion. Then the
re was only darkness.

  Archer had moved without realising it. As if, like the imaginary hand on the light, some greater force had taken over.

  Somebody must still be alive back there. Even if only one.

  ‘Prepare to beach!’

  Archer moved his rifle, something so familiar that it was almost a part of him now. It felt slippery, and he knew it was not from spray.

  And Blackwood was beside him.

  ‘All right?’

  Archer tried to grin but his jaws felt locked. He knew it was important, perhaps for both of them.

  He barely staggered as the ramp came down and water surged amongst them like surf.

  He tried again. ‘Never better, sir!’

  Somebody only a yard away threw up his hands to his face and pitched into the swirling water. He did not move again, and Archer realised he had not even heard the shot which had killed him.

  He ran after Blackwood and tried to empty his mind of everything but the job, stage by stage, as it had always been.

  But all he could feel was the hatred.

  ‘Get down!’ Blackwood dropped on one knee and peered ahead and upwards as dark shapes spread out on either side, gasping for breath like old men.

  ‘Second section, follow me!’ That was Tom Paget, keeping his head. If he had doubts, he was giving nothing away to his men after the unexpected turn of events.

  A few stray shots cracked and ricocheted from the rough ground, to be challenged instantly by a burst of Lewis gun fire from the landing craft. It was going astern; Blackwood could see it in his mind. The ramp raised like a drawbridge. No way back.

  Gaillard was beside him, dragging at his night glasses. ‘How many, d’you think?’

  Blackwood listened, thankful that his heart was steady again. He wanted to laugh. Steady? How could that be?

  More shots, a light automatic, sparingly used.

  He winced as someone called out, ‘Oh, Christ! Oh, Christ!’ Another casualty.

  He said, ‘Only a picket, I’d say. My guess is that the main body are on the far side, watching the other craft or what’s left of it.’ Just something to say. To keep his nerve, to shut out the pitiful cries from the wounded man, rising and edged with fear as realisation drilled through the pain.