Marine H SBS

by Ian Blake

  3

  ‘Shit,’ Tiller muttered under his breath as he strained to see out of the tiny front windows of the Welman. Between the two buoys he could see bobbing on the water ahead was, he knew, the first anti-submarine net. It stretched from just below the surface down to fifty feet. As if that was not bad enough, there would be a second net half a mile further on that stretched from fifty feet down to one hundred feet, the theoretical maximum depth at which the Welman could operate. Then beyond that again was a third net which was laid like the first.

  ‘Well, here goes,’ Tiller said to himself. He opened the main vent lever and heard the air in the ballast tanks on either side of the craft being released and the gurgle as it was replaced by water. Slowly, the water rose up the front window and then he was submerged. Carefully, he eased forward the joystick which was between his knees and felt the Welman tilt downwards.

  There was so little room in the craft that its sides touched his shoulders and his legs were bent at an awkward angle as his feet worked the bars that controlled the rudder.

  The first net was a filthy-looking contraption, its heavy steel mesh draped with green slime and coated in barnacles. It moved with the current like a flag flapping lazily in the breeze.

  Tiller stopped the Welman and allowed it to sink vertically. The needle of the depth gauge swung steadily round. The glimmer of sunlight disappeared and the visibility began to deteriorate. The needle reached fifty feet, but still the netting barred his way. Tiller swore. Despite the cold his hands felt clammy and sweat pricked his eyes.

  Then suddenly the net was above him and he eased the Welman under it. Then hastily, too hastily, he brought the joystick towards him, instinctively aiming for light and, eventually, fresh air, and it took him a few moments to bring the craft under control. He forced himself to move the joystick forward and once more the Welman dipped down. At fifty feet he saw the second net ahead of him, alarmingly close. He put the motor in neutral and again allowed the Welman to sink. Sixty feet . . . seventy-five . . . eighty . . . The needle swung inexorably around. His heart began to pound. Being so deep seemed unnatural, defying nature. Ninety feet . . . one hundred, and the net was above him. Below him, he thought he glimpsed the bottom: mud and rock and waving fronds. He passed at full speed under the net.

  A spume of water suddenly erupted in his face. It was like being hit with a high-pressure hose and he heard himself shouting as he gasped for breath. He struggled to maintain control of himself and the lurching Welman.

  He saw that the water, icy cold, was spurting from a crack in the front window with terrifying strength, and soon it had soaked him from head to foot. Somewhere behind him a fuse blew and the tiny cockpit filled with fumes.

  He turned off the engine, set the hydroplane horizontally and groped desperately for the valve which would operate the compressed air to expel the water from the ballast tanks. He found it and twisted it, then heard the reassuring sound of the hissing air.

  The water continued to pour in. He could feel it around his ankles now. He watched the depth indicator. The Welman was rising but the water coming through the cracked glass was offsetting the loss from the ballast tanks. The craft rose to forty feet and the needle hovered there. He knew there was only one thing left to do. As he pulled the lever that released the keel, the Welman shot to the surface like a cork.

  He could see the sun on the water and hear the approaching launch. The Welman lurched unevenly on the surface, its stability gone with the lead keel. The water slopped around his calves and the fumes made him take great gulps of oxygen from the mask. He could hear someone clambering aboard and working to release the clips on the conning tower hatch, and at last a blast of fresh air swept the fumes away. He clambered out and was violently sick into the loch.

  Two weeks later, after the commanding officer aboard HMS Titania had submitted a report of the incident, he was informed by Combined Operations Headquarters that there might be a fault in the Welmans and that they were not to be taken below fifty feet. But training was to continue.

  January became February, and February turned into March, but still no word reached Kingairloch. Once the SBS men were packed and ready to move to Scapa Flow to mount the attack, but then the op was cancelled. The group at Kingairloch House was replaced by another. The days got longer and gradually less cold, and still they practised manoeuvring the Welmans under the submarine nets without taking them below fifty feet. An admiral came to see them in action, and two weeks later a general. At the end of March Tiller was given the additional training necessary for him to become an instructor in Welmans, but still there was no sign of any action.

  Then, one bright morning in mid-April, Tiller was called before the CO, a lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy.

  ‘You must know the Welman like the back of your hand by now, Sergeant.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Inside out.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The officer’s hands lay on a mound of paper. He flicked at it as if not knowing what to do with it. He probably didn’t, Tiller decided.

  ‘Nothing seems to be happening, does it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Tiller had long ago been told that most wars consisted of hanging around waiting for something to happen. Certainly this one did. He’d learned to be patient, to conserve his energies, so that when it did happen the surge of adrenalin in him carried him through. He’d seen others – brave, experienced men – fall to bits from waiting. They hadn’t been able to handle it. He had learned to cope by going into a kind of mental limbo, a sort of hibernation. But this had been a very long winter, and spring must surely be around the corner. He wanted action, and he wanted it now.

  ‘I’ll be frank with you. I’m in a bit of a dilemma, Sergeant,’ said the CO.

  A new course of Jeepmen was being run round the upper deck by the resident PT instructor. They could both hear the thudding of feet above them and the voice of the clubs roaring at one of the laggers.

  ‘I consider you one of my best men, Sergeant. I expect that from the Corps, of course. You handled that emergency very well. If any op’s going to be mounted I’m going to need you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that, sir. I’m looking forward to removing the bottom of the world’s biggest battleship.’

  ‘But yesterday I received a request for your transfer.’

  Tiller’s heart sank. Was his luck about to run out?

  ‘An old chum of mine wants you.’

  Oh, Jesus. Instructing Wrens in the art of saluting, perhaps. Tiller felt the rebellion welling up in him.

  ‘And because he’s an old chum I’m inclined to let you go.’

  Bloody navy, bloody old boy network, bloody paper-shifters! Why hadn’t he joined the bloody army? He knew why he hadn’t joined the bloody army.

  ‘But, sir, I . . .’

  ‘No buts, Sergeant,’ the CO said briskly. ‘We’ve all got a job to do. Of course, it’s up to you, but if you refuse I’d really have no option but to return you whence you came.’

  Tiller remembered the captain and his polished pate and pips, and the clerk with the hacking cough.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The fact is, I have been told there is no hope of any operation in the near future. The nights are getting too short. The RAF is claiming it can do the job. With these new blockbuster bombs I dare say it can. The Russkis want to have a go, too. So you Sardine Men are some way down the pecking order.’

  Tiller said nothing. He wasn’t running the war. They could have removed the bottom of the Kraut battleship weeks ago – he knew that and he knew his CO knew that too. But his CO wasn’t running the war either.

  ‘So I’d advise you to think carefully before coming to any decision.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I will.’

  Why the fuck doesn’t he get on with it? Tiller wondered as he watched the officer rummaging in a pile of paper in his pending tray.

  ‘Ah, here we are. The post is as a Welman
instructor.’

  It could be worse, Tiller decided. Filing paper in Whitehall and teaching Wrens to salute would be worse. He couldn’t think of much else, though, that could be. He knew he’d never make a good instructor: he was too impatient. He waited but when the CO seemed disinclined to enlighten him further, he asked: ‘Who’s requested me, sir?’

  ‘A very old chum of mine,’ said the CO enthusiastically. ‘Passed out of the course at Greenwich together in ’35, and then we both served in the Hood. Major Tasler. You know him?’

  Blondie, the old bastard. Why hadn’t he let him know direct?

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The grin that split Tiller’s face did not go unnoticed. ‘You seem happier now, Sergeant, at your prospects. You’ll accept the job?’

  Instructor, hell. Blondie wouldn’t make him an instructor. He was up to something.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Even when you don’t know where the post is?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The CO’s eyebrows were raised. ‘Well, I must say such loyalty is most commendable.’

  ‘May I ask where it is, sir?’ Tiller didn’t much care where it was. Tasler was always where the action was and that was what mattered.

  The lieutenant commander glanced at the paper. ‘Somewhere I’ve never heard of, I’m afraid. Hyatt’s Ferry. Mean anything to you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The CO bit his lip. ‘Ah, yes, here we are. Northern Ceylon. Know Ceylon, do you?’

  Christ almighty, what was Blondie up to?

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Nor do I. Pretty place, I believe. But my guess is you won’t be there for long. You know where most people end up when they go to fight the Japs?’

  ‘Where’s that, sir?’

  ‘Burma, Sergeant. Burma.’

  Jesus.

  ‘I went there when Singapore fell in ’42. A stinking rotten place full of flies and mosquitoes. It’s hell on earth during the monsoon. The land’s mostly impenetrable jungle, the coastline’s nothing but mangrove, mud and crocodiles. Sure you still want to go?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Want to think about it for five minutes?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good man. I know that Major Tasler is keen for you to go.’

  ‘Is he already out there, sir?’

  ‘Good heavens no. He’s a staff officer at Combined Operations HQ in London. Richmond Terrace. You’re to be there on Friday at 1400 sharp. He wants a word with you before you depart for the Orient. A number of Welmans, incidentally, are earmarked to go to Ceylon by ship. Here’s your travel warrant. A boat’s leaving for Oban in an hour. My orders are for you to be on it. Good luck.’

  He leant across the desk and shook Tiller’s hand. Tiller saluted and turned.

  ‘Oh, Sergeant . . .’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What do you think of the Welman? You can be honest.’

  ‘A death-trap, sir.’

  The CO grinned broadly. ‘You’re right, of course. Oh, just one other thing. It’s the Japs who have the biggest battleship in the world.’

  Richmond Terrace was a narrow street almost opposite the Cenotaph which connected Whitehall with the Victoria Embankment. Tiller always found the Cenotaph a depressing monument with its permanent collection of withered wreaths. One year he had attended the annual ceremony of honouring the dead of the Great War when the Marines had provided the guard of honour. ‘We shall remember them,’ the padre had intoned and everyone present had reverently repeated the words. He recalled the ceremony now as he turned into Richmond Terrace. He didn’t seriously expect anyone to remember him if he copped it. Why should they?

  There were sentries outside the headquarters of Combined Operations, a large, ugly, red-brick Victorian building part of which overlooked the Thames. But Tiller was in uniform and they didn’t look at him twice. As he went through the swing doors a large limousine with a flag on its bonnet drew up. Tiller went up to a glass enclosure where a commissionaire sat with an appointments book. The man was thumbing through this when there was a stir in the large hall. Tiller looked round. Down the sweep of the stairs came a tall, slim figure whose naval cap glistened with a double band of gold braid – irreverently called ‘scrambled eggs’ by everyone in the navy – and sat at a jaunty angle on his head. Beneath the cap the long, handsome face of the ex-chief of Combined Operations was set in a slight smile, for he was fully aware of the stir he was causing. He raised his hand to his cap to acknowledge the salutes of those he passed in the hall, making the one broad gold and three thin stripes of a full admiral on his sleeve glitter and reflect the light.

  Near the door he stopped so abruptly in front of a chief petty officer who had just entered the building that his large entourage tagging along behind him almost collided with one another. Tiller could hear him clearly.

  ‘Bainbridge, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Javelin, November 1940. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You were just a leading seaman, then chief. Torpedoes.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘We had bad luck, didn’t we, Bainbridge? I thought we had those Jerry destroyers. Instead, they had us. We’ve got Jerry on the run now, though.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. We have.’

  ‘Good luck, Bainbridge.’

  ‘And you, sir.’

  The mercurial figure swept through the door and was gone.

  Tiller looked at the commissionaire, whose eyes seemed to have misted over. ‘You know who that was, don’t you?’ the man said.

  Tiller nodded. He knew. Nineteen thirty-eight in Malta it had been. Once met, never forgotten.

  ‘What a man!’ said the commissionaire. ‘If we had more like him we’d have won the war years ago. Here’s your pass, Sergeant. Room 431 on the fourth floor. The lifts are over there.’

  Room 431 was in fact two rooms. The inner one, next to the corridor, housed a blonde Wren, a desk and a typewriter, the outer one, with a view over the Thames, housed Major Henry Tasler DSO, Royal Marines, his red-gold moustache even droopier than Tiller had remembered it. They shook hands like old friends, which indeed they were. With Tasler was a naval commander – a sharp-eyed, ruthless sort of cove, was Tiller’s first reaction to him – and a mild-looking civilian in tweeds who was sucking on an empty pipe. The commander had propped himself on the corner of a table, the civilian was seated, legs crossed, in the only comfortable chair in the room. It looked as if he had been there some time.

  In the presence of these two strangers Tasler’s greeting was restrained, though he explained to the two men that he knew Tiller well.

  ‘Tiller was with me on the Bordeaux raid,’ Tasler said.

  The commander’s face softened slightly in admiration. ‘Is that so?’

  The civilian nodded his approval. He obviously knew all about the raid by Marine canoeists which had been mounted at the end of 1942 to sink Axis shipping in the River Gironde. Tiller and Tasler had been the only survivors and had taken several months to return to England via neutral – but very unfriendly – Spain.

  ‘The major tells me your escape line worked well on the whole, Sergeant,’ the civilian said after inspecting the bowl of his pipe. Tiller remembered the farmer’s cupboard again, and felt queasy at the thought.

  ‘It got us out,’ Tiller said, and then felt ungrateful. The French farmer’s hiding them had been a far braver act that anything he, Tiller, had done during the whole operation.

  ‘Rather more sophisticated nowadays, of course,’ said the civilian, bowed over his pipe bowl, ‘but we were pleased how well it functioned.’

  Then he glanced up sharply and looked Tiller straight in the face. He had a very penetrating gaze quite at odds with his quiet demeanour. ‘The major tells me you worked with him in his Boom Patrol Detachment for some time. You were his first choice to test the Sleeping Beauty, but you left just before the prototype arrived. How long were you with hi
m?’

  Tiller glanced at Tasler. The Royal Marine Boom Patrol Detachment was just the cover name for Tasler’s unit which had been formed to develop a British explosive motor boat and various other methods of attacking enemy shipping. It was a top-security unit. Tiller had never heard its true function mentioned by any outsider before. But Tasler nodded at him encouragingly and said: ‘This gentleman knows all about what we were up to.’

  ‘For six months,’ said Tiller.

  ‘And then you were seconded to the Special Boat Squadron as an explosives expert?’

  ‘That’s right. In the Aegean.’

  ‘Clandestine operations in caiques mostly,’ the commander said. It wasn’t a question, but Tiller nodded his agreement. These frigging officers – for the man in tweeds was obviously an officer too – seemed to know more about him than he did about himself.

  ‘An immediate DCM,’ said Tasler proudly as if he had been awarded the decoration himself. ‘Tried to sink two Jerry destroyers by turning a speedboat into an explosive one. Didn’t succeed, but he then sank them with limpets.’

  The civilian’s eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Good man. Congratulations.’ He sucked at his empty pipe as if trying to clear its stem of some obstruction, but his eyes were still fixed on Tiller.

  ‘You like that sort of work, Sergeant, obviously.’

  Tiller hesitated. ‘What sort is that, sir?’

  ‘Well, ah,’ the civilian seemed at a loss as to how exactly to describe it. ‘Let’s say secret work.’

  Had it been secret work? Pirates, more like it.

  ‘As long as there’s action, sir.’

  ‘I think we can promise you that. And you can keep your mouth shut, I’m sure.’

  The commander seemed to have made up his mind. He unhitched himself from the table and said abruptly: ‘I’ll leave you to it. Good luck, Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, Charles,’ the civilian said. ‘I don’t think we need bother Sergeant Tiller any further.’