Right of Reply

by John Harris

  They had arrived at a point he’d hoped and prayed would never be reached. The code word ‘Dash’ had arrived that morning, as he’d been expecting from the moment they’d received the preparatory warning following the news on the radio of the rioting in King Boffa Port. The panic button had now been pressed, and he hoped to God it wouldn’t be the first in a series of escalatory movements that would trigger off something too big to be stopped.

  He stood by the table in his headquarters cabin with Leggo, staring across the piles of maps and papers towards Fraschetti and Lyall, who were busy with a new series of opportunity targets that had just come in. On the large table in front of him were charts of the beaches round King Boffa Port and the more inland objectives of the base they were to capture, together with a timetable of events in chronological order, prepared by Leggo. In the centre, on the top of the maps, was the blue file tied with white tape.

  On the bulkheads of the cabin next door there were batteries of radio receivers and transmitters, connecting them with London and the radio link set up at Pepul, as well as with the troops who were to land on the beaches. Across the corridor was the cabin of the Gunfire Support Committee and Downes’ quarters, containing his staff and the fleet navigators and gunnery officers, and the RAF liaison team.

  Behind the bridge was the dark cabin where the radar scanners sent their sweeps revolving across the screens with a cold phosphorescent fire that lit the faces of their operators and the air was filled with the faint pinging of the sonar; and next to it the communications centre, with its clicking tele-printers, where the radio operators bent over their sets, expertly plucking information from the cacophony of Morse signals in their headphones.

  Hodges stood for a moment, watching the officers grouped over the chart table. Outside, he could hear the sound of voices and the engine noises vibrating as the speed increased. Then the door opened and a naval petty officer appeared, holding out a slip of paper for Hodges.

  ‘Message from the Commander-in-Chief, Malalan Forces, sir,’ he said.

  Hodges took the sheet and glanced at it. ‘COMEMFO to COMHOJ. We stride together towards victory. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.’

  Hodges’ mouth twisted as he passed it to Leggo. ‘General Aswana always did like drama,’ he said. ‘He’s heard of the Navy’s penchant for clever signals.’

  He turned to the petty officer who was waiting with his signal pad. ‘Reply,’ he said. ‘COMHOJ to COMEMFO. Thank you. Good luck.’

  The petty officer raised his eyes as Hodges turned away.

  ‘That all, sir?’

  Hodges nodded. ‘That’s all,’ he said firmly.

  He waited until the door had closed again, then he turned to Leggo.

  ‘For what it’s worth, Stuart,’ he said, ‘and unless someone at home changes their mind, we’re committed.’

  Hodges lit his pipe slowly, deliberately, in a manner that told Leggo he was far more worried than he showed. When it was glowing to his satisfaction and the air of the cabin was blue with smoke, he moved away from the table and indicated to Leggo to follow him to one side.

  ‘Right, Stuart,’ he said. ‘Let’s hear what you found out.’

  Leggo turned and picked up the blue file. Opening it, he removed a yellow pamphlet which he passed to Hodges, following it with another sheet of yellow paper unmarked by ink.

  ‘We’ve found the printer, sir,’ he said. ‘The captain of the Aronsay Castle identified the paper at once. The Provost people had the chap up and, though he’s admitting nothing, of course, I don’t think there’s much doubt. He had stocks of it and it’s exactly like the stuff the pamphlet’s printed on. Not that that means anything, but his typeface seems to check, too.’ He passed across a menu card and a notice for a carnival dance, relics of the Aronsay Castle’s days as a cruise liner. ‘You’ll notice that there are flaws in the “t”s and the “w”s on the pamphlet that show in these, too. There’s also one other coincidence that seems to clinch it. The chap’s name was Spragg.’

  Hodges looked up from his study of the menu card. ‘Should that mean something to us?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so, sir. The suitcase Drucquer’s pamphlets were found in belonged to a Private Spragg.’

  Hodges sucked at his pipe, waiting, and Leggo continued.

  ‘The Provost people talked to this chap, Spragg, sir. He won’t say anything and his address is different from Private Spragg’s, so it’s hard at the moment to pin him down, but I dare bet we’ll find they’re related. Drucquer’s Spragg isn’t married and this one is, and that, of course, would explain the difference in addresses. I think the coincidence’s too big to be ignored.’

  Hodges thought for a moment, sucking at his pipe, then he looked at Leggo.

  ‘Thank you, Stuart,’ he said. ‘We’ll let it lie for the moment. Signal the captain of the Aronsay Castle to keep a sharp eye on this Spragg, though. He’s not to go ashore – anywhere – without our permission. There may be a case here for the civil police, but as we have no civil police with us, there isn’t much we can do until we get back – if we get back.’

  He blew out smoke for a while, then he stared at the blue file in Leggo’s hands, his eyes glittering as though he regarded it as something poisonous and dangerous.

  ‘Every unit under my command,’ he said slowly. ‘Every single one. Apart from the Guards, the Tank regiments and the Marines, there isn’t one which hasn’t shown some sign of disaffection. In the 20th/62nd it’s a sit-down strike over food. In the 19th/43rd tyres are deflated as the trucks are moving aboard. In the 4th/74th, ammunition’s mislaid – deliberately, the commanding officer thinks. Duck’s suddenly dropped out of the operation with faulty engines and the captain reports that he suspects sabotage. Good God, Stuart, what’s happened to the Army?’

  He sighed. It was a very different Army from the one he’d joined as a young man. Nobody then had imagined for a minute that with nothing in the way of tanks and mechanisation, that they had much of a chance against Hitler’s panzers. But the country then had been fighting for its life under a Prime Minister who had everyone’s confidence, and they’d all firmly believed in what they’d been fighting for.

  Now it seemed that in an attempt to see that there was to be no more scuttle, the Prime Minister was risking not only his country’s military reputation but also its honour. Not many people were behind him, and it was clear the troops didn’t have much faith in what they were doing. The country wasn’t fighting for its life. It was merely standing, somewhat dogmatically, for a very small principle which could easily have been thrown overboard.

  ‘I wish,’ Hodges continued, ‘that I were even happy about the support troops. But I’m not. Whatever Braka says and whatever General Aswana insists, the fact remains that they’re entirely inexperienced.’ He sighed. ‘Still,’ his words came slowly and as though with difficulty, ‘inexperienced troops are better than unwilling troops.’

  As he finished speaking, the door opened and Admiral Downes appeared. His mouth was tight and there were two deep lines between his brows.

  ‘Nasty bit of information for you, Horace,’ he said quietly.

  Hodges said nothing, but he seemed to brace himself for the worst.

  ‘Radar’s picked up two or three pips,’ Downes continued. ‘Bearing two-two-five and about twenty-five miles away from here. One large one and two – probably three – smaller ones. They look like submarines and a mother ship.’

  Hodges frowned. ‘Whose? Not ours?’

  ‘’Fraid not. I suspect Russian. You know we received a signal saying they were around. But I didn’t think they were so close.’

  ‘What are they up to?’

  ‘I’d like to know. We’ve been watching them for some time. Decided not to worry you until we could confirm them. They appear to be waiting for us.’

  Hodges frowned and Downes went on.

  ‘It may be normal practice, of course. It’s been common to report sightings and radar pick-ups of Ru
ssian submarines near exercises of NATO and Western Alliance fleets and this may be the same. On the other hand…’

  ‘…it may be something else.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  Hodges was silent, considering this new hazard, and Downes gestured.

  ‘I’ve arranged for the chopper boys to fly off as soon as it’s light, for a look-see,’ he said. ‘We’ll have their report for your breakfast reading.’ He managed a grin. ‘I hope it won’t spoil your appetite,’ he ended.

  Three

  From a point high above the sea, it was possible to penetrate into its very depths. Sometimes, in shallow waters on a clear day when the sun pierced the unexplored fathoms, you could even see the very bottom and the sad wreckage of ships, and sometimes, with the sun rising or sinking, and a sheen of gold across the water, ships and the big single-sailed fruit boats heading through the islands for Machingo stood out sharply like silhouettes against the glow. But, with the water stirred as it was now into low slow swells, the pale rain-washed light diffused by the uneven surface, it became harder to pick up floating objects and searching became a chore.

  The dawn had provided a soggy beginning to the day, with weeping grey skies and an oily lift to the sea, but the rain had stopped as the light grew stronger and, though the clouds still obscured the sun, they were thin and the light was surprisingly bright.

  Hodgeforce was clear of Malalan waters by midnight, though the departure from Pepul had not gone unaccompanied by mistakes, and now, with the first of the daylight, they were heading on a course of a hundred and seventy-eight degrees in the direction of King Boffa Port.

  Ten miles to the south, near a small convoy of fruit boats bound for Machingo, a naval helicopter, startlingly bright against the drabness of the sea, chattered low over the sweeping water, the blue-green waves, diminished and oddly solidified by the height, stretching as far as the pilot could see.

  Lieutenant Charles Childers, the pilot, peered downwards, his eyes squinting a little behind the sunglasses that the perspex cabin made it necessary to wear, particularly with the sun pushing through the cloud cover. Just below him, the little convoy slid away behind, the bright triangular sails stiff in the breeze, the black faces of the crews and passengers turned upwards, gaudy strips of cloth fluttering as black arms waved at them.

  They weren’t looking for fruit boats but it was necessary to investigate everything, and it was an old dodge for hostile submarines to hide beneath friendly fishing vessels and small coastal craft to frustrate radar. The helicopter had therefore circled the heavy wooden boats with their lateen sails for several minutes, watching for the lurking shadow in the water. But there was nothing, only the heaps of bananas and limes and oranges and paw paws, and the mammies in their gay printed lappas lounging on the high afterdeck where the helmsman leaned on his heavy oar.

  Childers glanced backwards briefly, then he noticed that Petty-Officer Rubens, crouching near the radio, was flapping a hand at him, his heavy Jewish face rapt as he listened to the sound of a voice overlayed by the crackling of interference.

  ‘They’ve changed course.’ Rubens looked up and jabbed a finger to starboard. ‘Leopard reports they’re moving away. We need course two-three-oh.’

  ‘Course two-three-oh. Right.’

  The helicopter’s blades tilted and the aircraft lifted, its tail lurching round as she headed, nose down, further towards the west. The chopping noise of the engine came through the fuselage like a pulse, and they could hear the wind scratching at the fuselage like a horde of small animals trying to get inside.

  Listening to it, his eyes never leaving the sea, Childers found himself wondering what he was involved in. Nobody had explained his mission to him, but someone had whispered that he was there to search out a Russian ship which was supposed to be shadowing the convoy.

  Even to Childers, who normally never worried very much with politics, the implications were obvious, and he found himself wondering what a Russian ship was doing moving on roughly the same course as the great armed convoy he’d just left. Not long before, he’d seen a squadron of Navy fighters scream over his head, the sun gleaming on their polished fuselages, their needle-shaped snouts picking out the light. They had swept above him with a majestic indifference, as though investigating him, then they had turned north with the curious lurching swing of high speed, one of them swinging wide and losing its position in the formation as they headed back towards Pepul.

  Doubtless they’d just come back from the area of King Boffa Port. Childers knew the convoy’s course and he knew that the fighters were keeping a sharp watch ahead near their destination, and while he was never the man to question what he was told to do, he was conscious nevertheless of an unnamed and even hardly shaped worry at the back of his mind.

  Childers was an orphanage boy who had never known a home and having only recently got himself married and set up house after courting the same girl for years, he had an unholy fear that what had suddenly seemed like paradise was soon to be cut short by some major holocaust before he’d even got used to it.

  The helicopter was now heading on to its new course and the watery sun was glinting off the perspex directly into Childers’ eyes; and it was because of this that he didn’t see the vessel to his left until a hand banged his shoulder and he saw Leading Seaman Phillips, the winchman, pointing.

  ‘Over to port, Skipper,’ he was saying. ‘Looks like a big tug or something.’

  Childers moved the steering column without speaking, and, as the tail of the helicopter swung round, he felt a sense of relief as the sun ceased to leap from the perspex at his eyes.

  Almost immediately, he saw the vessel in the distance, just edging into view beyond the edge of the fuselage, a chunky little ship, pushing along with a white bone beneath her fore-foot. She had a jutting prow and a short stack, from which small smudges of diesel smoke burst in puffs.

  ‘Faster than she looks,’ Childers observed at once. ‘Raked bow. Cutaway stern. She’s no tug.’

  He caught the bright red band on the funnel and, pressing closer, he swept round the stern of the strange vessel until he saw the gold hammer and sickle design against the red.

  ‘Towing something,’ Phillips said, staring down.

  ‘Trawl of some sort.’ Rubens lifted his head from the radio for a moment. ‘Biological or hydrographic. You can see the cable streaming out. There, from that gallows on the forrard well.’

  ‘Probably just a phoney,’ Childers pointed out. ‘To make her look innocent.’

  While they watched, two men just aft of the ship’s funnel began to struggle with a meteorological balloon which beat against them as it whipped backwards and forwards in the wind caused by the ship’s passage. The men grabbed and clawed at the swinging bag, trying to hold it steady, while a third man fought to clear the coils of nylon cord which appeared to support instrument boxes.

  ‘Radiosonde and radar target,’ Phillips said.

  Childers shook his head. ‘The way they’re handling that bloody balloon,’ he commented, ‘I’ll bet they’re not in the habit of doing it very often. There isn’t much wind.’

  The balloon had broken free now, bouncing its way along the deck, and the nylon cord snaked out and snapped taut as it jerked upwards, then the big orange ball hung in the air, a bright blob astern, rising swiftly.

  ‘They shoved it up pretty damn quickly,’ Childers observed. ‘Funny they should do it just when we were watching.’

  ‘Think they did it for our benefit, Skipper?’ Phillips asked.

  ‘Let’s have a picture of her just in case. Watch that cord for me.’

  While they swung round in a wide arc ahead of the strange ship, they continued to discuss her, as Rubens radioed her position and course to Hodgeforce.

  ‘Bigger than she seems,’ Childers went on, staring down. ‘Plenty of room for extra bunkers. Big fuel valves on deck. Big booms and winches. Radar and wireless antennae. She looks East German to me. Seen plenty like that in the Balt
ic – from Rostock or Pomerania or even Riga.’

  A group of men on the Russian’s bridge were staring up at them now as Rubens lifted his camera, and from among the superstructure and fittings they could see other faces. They looked brown, as though they’d been in tropical waters a long time, and the ship looked too clean and well-found to be anything but a naval vessel.

  ‘That chap on the end of the bridge looks like you, Rube,’ Phillips said. ‘Same sort of black hair and blank look.’

  ‘Drop dead,’ Rubens said.

  As they swung east they caught the full reflection of the light on the sea and were temporarily blinded, but they could see the bedspring wireless aerial moving above the bridge of the ship.

  ‘Reporting us for “buzzing” ’em,’ Childers said. ‘There’ll be a lot of diplomatic activity in Whitehall tomorrow when the protest arrives.’

  ‘Something to keep the politicians busy.’

  As they swept close once more, one of the men on the stern of the vessel, bare-chested in the sunshine, waved, then he made a gesture which, started during the Second World War by Winston Churchill, had long since been adapted by Servicemen the world over into an obscene gesture.

  ‘Up you, too, mate,’ Phillips said.

  ‘He deserves a bomb on him for that,’ Childers grinned.

  He glanced back at the Russian sliding away beneath them, and moved his hand in a circular gesture.

  ‘Let’s have another look round,’ he suggested. ‘There must be some reason to explain what he’s doing in these waters because, by God, I’ll bet he’s not fishing.’

  Childers’ report reached Hodges’ desk via Admiral Downes whose face contained a trace of sly humour, so that Hodges wasn’t certain whether to be annoyed with him for his cynicism or cheered up by the fact that there was one among them who could still see a funny side to what he personally was beginning to consider an approaching tragedy. Downes seemed to regard them all as puppets in the hands of the politicians, and the politicians as utterly beyond the pale.