Last Lift from Crete: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 2

by Alexander Fullerton

  The word “evacuation” hadn’t been used yet. Not publicly.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The mine-sweepers had come out at first light to sweep the two-mile length of the Great Pass, Alexandria’s main entrance and exit channel, and now Tuareg was leading Afghan down it with the early sun a hot glare fine on the port bow. At this range you could smell Alexandria quite distinctly: the smell was a blend of many compounds, but you’d get a fair approximation to it by mixing horse manure with rotting vegetables, joss-sticks, and swamp water. It was quite a different aroma from Port Said’s, which had more blocked drains and cheap perfume in it, or from Haifa’s, which with an offshore wind was loaded with the scent of wet hides. It wasn’t exactly a nice smell, Alexandria’s, but it was a comforting one in its familiarity and its promise—almost certainly illusory, in present circumstances—of rest and relaxation.

  Two mines had been exploded on the sweepers’ trip out northwestward, and they’d just set off another right on the edge of the channel, between North Shoal and the port-hand buoy half a mile beyond it. Dead fish floated belly-up where that one had gone off; Tuareg was passing through them now at 15 knots, her pendant numbers fluttering from the port yardarm. She’d identified herself already, from much farther out, to the Port War Signal Station.

  Over the jagged stone top of the outer breakwater, which was a couple of miles long, the upperworks of the demilitarized French warships stood out as a foreground to the more distant montage of roofs, cranes, masts, and minarets, all vague in the soupy haze of building heat. Drawing the teeth of the French squadron without bloodshed or much worsened relations had been an individual achievement of A.B. Cunningham’s, last July. If Cunningham hadn’t decided to ignore at least one utterly inept instruction from Whitehall there would have been bloodshed—as there had been at Oran—and quite possibly Alexandria would have been blocked with scuttled French ships as well. They looked pretty now, with the new day gleaming on them. Pretty, and also sad. But at least they were afloat and intact. There was one battleship—the old Lorraine—four cruisers and three destroyers; the French admiral’s flagship was the heavy cruiser Duquesne.

  Looking farther to the left, over the northern part of the long breakwater, the lighthouse of Ras-el-Tin was a white finger trembling in the haze. Most of the naval administrative offices were in the buildings grouped near that lighthouse. Beyond it to the north-east lay the walled palace of King Farouk.

  “How’s her head, Pilot?”

  Pratt glanced quickly down at the gyro compass … “One-one-three, sir.” It was as it should have been: Nick had thought she was slightly askew to the line of the channel. Pratt added self-righteously, “We’re between the centreline and the southern edge, sir.”

  About three thousand yards astern of Afghan, Admiral Glennie’s cruiser flagship Dido was leading Orion and Ajax into the top end of the Great Pass. Nick hadn’t any idea what might be happening now in Cretan waters or in the Aegean; there’d been no signals that Tuareg’s code-books could have coped with, and nothing of interest in plain language. The only ships the Tribals had encountered during the dark hours had been a northbound force comprising the assault ship Glenroy escorted by the AA cruiser Coventry and the sloops Flamingo and Auckland … The stunning, really frightful news had come last night in a BBC broadcast, and it had nothing to do with Crete. It rang now in his mind, that calm newsreader’s voice: The Admiralty regrets to announce the loss with all hands of the battle-cruiser Hood … Hood had been sunk in the Denmark Strait by Bismarck. She’d blown up, apparently, just as three other battle-cruisers had blown up at Jutland a quarter of a century ago. Coming on top of yesterday’s losses in the Aegean, there’d been a shock effect to the news: it left you winded, groping for some reason to believe that things weren’t quite as hopeless as they seemed.

  “Shall I come round now, sir?”

  Tuareg was passing the last of the port-hand buoys; the course to the harbour entrance would be 090 degrees, due east. He nodded to Pratt: “Yes, please,” and told Dalgleish, “Fall the hands in, Number One. I’ll berth starboard-side to.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Dalgleish moved aft. “Bosun’s Mate—pipe hands fall in for entering harbour.”

  Special Sea Dutymen had been closed up ten minutes ago; the rest of the ship’s company would have been getting themselves cleaned and smartened for the formality of entering harbour. Tuareg and Afghan would be berthing one each side of an oiler that was moored near the coaling arm, on the Gabbari side of the harbour near the battleships’ berths. Near ABC’s headquarters too: he might well have his telescope focused on the destroyers as they slid by. Later they’d have to shift berth from the oiler to buoys farther in, near the depot ship, and have their ammunition brought out to them in lighters.

  At some early stage, mail should be delivered to them. Dreading disappointment, really frightened that there’d be no letter from her, he was trying not to think about it …

  “Course is oh-nine-oh, sir.”

  “Very good.”

  The next turn would be to port, to about 015 degrees, to enter the gap between the outer breakwater and the quarantine mole. At that point Nick would take over the conning of the ship. He looked astern, and saw Afghan following round. Two returning, where four had left. These would be sad days for A. B. Cunningham—sending his ships out, seeing fewer and damaged ships come back, wishing to God he could be at sea with them himself, and caring as fiercely as everyone knew he did for both men and ships. Tuareg was crossing the foot of the other channel, the Boghaz Pass, where the mine-sweepers were doing their stint now; the Boghaz was the more northerly-leading channel, the one you’d take if you were leaving harbour bound for Port Said or the Levant.

  Johnny Smeake asked him, “Mind if I hang around up here?”

  Nick glanced round: he hadn’t immediately recognized the voice.

  “Johnny—no, of course I don’t mind. Make yourself at home.”

  “Thank you.” Smeake flicked a half-smoked cigarette away to leeward. “Never thought I’d be coming back in someone else’s ship.”

  Aubrey Wishart glanced at Fiona’s portrait as he answered Nick’s offer of some coffee. “Thanks, but I’ve just had a bucketful.” He stooped, peered closely at her. “Must say, Nick, you do pick ‘em.”

  There was mail on board, two sacks of it that had come over from Woolwich, the depot ship, by skimmer. Nick had seen the little grey-hulled speedboat coming bouncing round the end of the coaling arm just as Wishart, in the Commander-in-Chief’s barge, had been approaching Tuareg’s gangway; he’d been waiting to receive the rear-admiral with the pipe and side-party due to him, while oiling continued on the other side. A. B. Cunningham’s barge was a thing of beauty, green-painted and ornamented at the main cabin’s sides amidships with brass dolphins that gleamed golden in the sun, and crewed by sailors whose boathook drill was impressively precise. Tuareg had only been secured at the oiler for about five minutes before the barge had come into sight, sliding out from behind the far side of Queen Elizabeth, the flagship; at first it had looked as if the Cin-C himself had been about to pay them a visit—until keen eyes had checked that ABC’s tin “Flag” wasn’t mounted in its socket for’ard.

  Queen Elizabeth was moored with her stern to the jetty at Gabbari, just a few hundred yards away, and ABC’s headquarters was the rectangular building behind the quay to which the jetty led. Wishart had murmured to Nick as he’d followed him in through the screen door, “Been let out of school for ten minutes. Thought we might have a chat. You’ve had a rough time, I gather.”

  They’d be sorting the mail in the ship’s office now, under the supervision of young Chalk. Most of the noise, shouting and clattering that one could hear, came from the oiling operation—the stokers and the oiler’s men. This day-cabin—with the sleeping-cabin and bathroom aft of it—was on the ship’s starboard side at upper deck level, in the raised after superstructure. The scuttles looked out on to the oiler’s deck and, across that, to A
fghan.

  Wishart lowered himself into an Admiralty-pattern armchair, and shook his head at Nick’s offer of a cigarette. He was a big man, heavily built, with shrewd eyes behind a genial expression; if it hadn’t been for the war, he’d have been retired by this time. He looked tired, and Nick thought there were more lines in his face than there had been a few months ago. Wishart explained, “Trying to cut down. One smokes too much, ashore. Can’t stay long anyway, old lad. As you can imagine, we’re slightly on the hop.”

  Nick asked him, “Can you tell me what orders I’m getting now?”

  “Yes. You’ve got today and tonight to lick your wounds. You’ll sail at 0600 tomorrow, escorting Glenshiel to Plaka Bay with Special Service troops. You’ll be senior officer of the escort, which will consist of you, Afghan, Highflier, and Huntress.”

  A whole day in harbour … It was all he needed to know until, later in the day, the operation orders would come in sealed envelopes, by hand of officer, to the captains of the ships involved.

  He reached for the bell. “If you’d excuse me, I’ll pass on the glad tidings.” One watch could go ashore this evening, if the men wanted to. If they had any sense, he thought, they’d stay aboard and get some sleep. The engine-room department would be busy anyway, attending to the numerous defects that couldn’t be worked on when the ship was at sea. Leading Steward McEvoy knocked, and came in; Nick told him, “Ask the first lieutenant to spare a moment, please.”

  “Sir.” The door clicked shut. McEvoy was Nick’s personal attendant; the other two stewards, the wardroom pair—one of them a petty officer—were Maltese.

  Nick asked Wishart, “How are things up there now?”

  “Well, starting with your relations—Carnarvon’s on her way here at 12 knots. Engine-trouble. Repairable, her plumber says, but she’s going to be hors de combat for a day or two. Which is not all that convenient. Before long we won’t have many ships undamaged …” He shook his head. “We’ve recalled Force C—at about midnight, that was—and now the battle squadron too. It’s slightly complicated, because Rawlings sent Lord Louis’s flotilla to look for more Gloucester and Fiji survivors and then sweep the north-west coast, and one of ‘em—Kipling—had trouble with her steering-gear. So she’s lame too, and Rawlings was taking his ships up to Kithera to meet the rest of that flotilla as it came south. Should all have been extricated by now, with luck.”

  “So everyone’s recalled to Alex?”

  “Except for what’s heading north. And Jaguar and Defender, who’re running ammunition into Suda. But—yes, mostly. No point leaving ‘em up there when they’re out of ammo, is there.”

  “Carnarvon?”

  “She got a real bollocking yesterday evening, not far short of Elaphonisi. Near-missed three or four times, apparently. She’ll be here tomorrow at first light.”

  Dalgleish arrived. Nick told him, “We’re under sailing orders for six tomorrow morning. Tell Chief, please. So long as ammunitioning’s completed you can give leave to one watch from 1600 to midnight.”

  Dalgleish nodded. “That’s marvellous, sir.” The whole day and night in harbour, he meant. “Here’s your mail, sir.”

  Nick took the bunch of envelopes—about eight or ten, he guessed—and put it down on the corner of the table without looking at it more than he could help. It scared him, that the answer was so close, that he had only to put his hand out again and collapse the pile to see what was in it—or what wasn’t.

  “Thank you, Number One.”

  Wishart said, “Perhaps you’d tell the barge’s cox’n that I’ll be out there in three minutes.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “You might mention it to Commander Smeake too.”

  Nick asked, when Dalgleish had gone, “By the fact we’re carrying troops to Plaka, do I gather there’s no immediate likelihood of having to bring the army out yet?”

  Aubrey Wishart hesitated, his eyes on the pillars of sunlight slanting through the scuttles. Dust-specks swirled in them: the Egyptian flies avoided them, buzzing and circling in the darker areas. There was a reek of oil-fuel. Wishart shook his head. “No.” Nick was still keeping his eyes away from those letters. “In strict confidence, old lad, you can’t assume it. If we were evacuating, we’d aim to do it from Heraklion, from Sphakia, and from Plaka Bay. The Suda Bay lot would cross to Sphakia, and the Aussies from Retimo would cross to Plaka: those garrisons would fall back across the mountains and we’d lift them from their respective beaches—90 per cent of it from Sphakia, probably. But you see, the beaches and the withdrawal routes do have to be secured.” He sighed. “I will have a cigarette, if you’ve one to spare.”

  Nick opened the box and pushed it across the table. “So in fact we’re preparing to evacuate?”

  “On the contrary. Orders from London are that Crete is to be held at all costs.”

  “Does London understand anything about the Crete situation?”

  “That might be a very pertinent question, Nick. But—” he leant forward as Nick flicked a lighter for the cigarette. “Thanks. Things aren’t going at all well ashore. Morse, who’s NOIC at Suda, is pretty sure we can’t last. The army are fighting like mad dogs, but they’re in the same boat we’re in—they can’t fight dive-bombers with bayonets. Every time they get the upper hand—and they’ve had it, several times—in come the blasted Stukas. They’ve really done incredibly well, but in the long run it’s the bloody air that counts.” He nodded. “Only that. If we’d had a few squadrons of Hurricanes and proper airfields to operate from, we’d have had the Boche licked hollow.” He sent a cloud of smoke spiralling through a wedge of sunlight. “The tide could still turn, you know. I’m not saying we will evacuate. Certainly Whitehall’s still expecting miracles.”

  “ABC must have his problems.”

  “Believe me, Nick, he’s got ‘em coming out of his ears.”

  “Getting the pongoes out of that island is going to be a lot trickier than Dunkirk was. Distance, lack of air cover …”

  “It’ll be perfectly bloody, old lad.” Wishart paused, thinking about it. Then he added, smiling, “Not much worse than sneaking through the Dardanelles minefields in a shaky old E-class, though?”

  “It might be. As I remember it, we all got quite a bit of zizz-time in. In this lark sleep’s what you don’t get. You have to be closed up at action stations three-quarters of the time, and when you take a chance and let one watch get their heads down the Stukas seem to hear of it and come running. I imagine the whole fleet’s about shagged out.”

  “It is. ABC’s only too well aware of it.”

  “Well, we’ll pull it off, of course we will, but—how many pongoes will there be to lift?”

  “About twenty-two thousand … Now, listen. What I came to tell you, Nick, is that ABC wants to see you. Lunch—in QE, 12:45 for 1:00. To spare your chaps the effort, I’ll have one of QE’s boats sent for you at 12:30. All right?”

  An invitation—or command—to lunch with ABC in his flagship was very much all right.

  “It won’t be formal or elaborate. And the C-in-C may not be present for much of the time. Lorrimer of Glenshiel will be there, though, and perhaps one or two others. Creswell, possibly—you know him, don’t you?”

  He did, from way back. Hector Creswell was now Rear-Admiral (Alexandria), in charge of the port and its security and all movements in and out; but he was a destroyer man, he’d had the first Tribal—Afridi—that came off the stocks, and he’d been Captain (D) of the flotilla of Tribals that Philip Vian had now.

  Wishart said, “Now I must push off … I’m taking Smeake ashore to tell his story, did I mention that?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  He’d also said there’d be a tender coming to collect Masai’s ship’s company, who’d be accommodated in a transit camp.

  “Sorry. Going daft. Tell you the truth, we don’t get all that much sleep, either.” They were both on their feet, and Nick was looking down at the letters, seeing the edge of one dark blue
envelope that could—just could—be from Fiona. Wishart was saying, “Tell you frankly, old lad, I know you’re at the sharp end of it, but I’d rather be in your shoes than mine. Except—”

  He’d cut himself short, remembering something else … “One thing. At lunch, don’t mention Juno.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know she was sunk, day before yesterday? With King’s ships, Force C?” Nick had nodded. “Well, her first lieutenant was Walter Starkie, and he was lost with her. He was married to ABC’s favourite niece, and his previous job was as the old man’s flag lieutenant. He thought the world of him, and—” Wishart frowned. “It’s been quite a blow to him. On top of all the other things, Gloucester and …” He stopped, put a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “One thing you’d like to know. When your troubles were in full flood yesterday—Blackfoot and all that—your name was mentioned as being the senior CO left in the flotilla, and ABC asked me why you were still a commander, with your record.”

  Nick smiled. “I liked him before you told me that.”

  “He knew a certain amount about you, anyway. I answered that it was because you were an outspoken cuss with a penchant for insulting Prime Ministers.”

  Nick wondered what he had said.

  “In fact I told him the bare facts as I know them. Norway—he knew all about that—and the interview you had afterwards with Winston. He’s—er—” Wishart smiled—“rather on your side. He’s had a number of extraordinarily offensive signals from that quarter. Now look, I must be off.”