The Torch Bearers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 5

by Alexander Fullerton

  Asdics pinging as the speed fell off. Familiar sound: and the sick feeling, sense of inerradicable loss and waste was also familiar now, joining an already semi-digested residue in the dark corners of memory … And there’d been no U-boat here: the bastard would have sneaked away out of it, and he could have fired that shot or salvo from any direction at all. Bruce had been on her own: the torpedo had been meant for her, not for the cruisers who’d been out of range and had their sterns pointing in this direction. Nick cut the revs again, slowing her to about eight knots. He had his own glasses at his eyes now, as did everyone else who possessed a pair, intently examining the rumpled Biscay surface, rolling white-streaked green. There was enough white in the green for no-one in Bruce to have seen the white feather of a periscope when that bastard had poked it up.

  “Object red three-oh, about three cables’ lengths, sir!”

  Chubb had been the first to spot it. Nick swung his glasses that way, and found it at once. A hump in the water: black, sea-washed, dark in the white swirl where the green broke open around and over it. He knew at first glance what it was: everyone knew, because the sight was not unfamiliar. Closer in, one saw detail: that the body was supported by its inflated lifebelt, slumped in the waves and rocking to their motion, the edging of broken water seething to and fro as the arched hump lifted and subsided.

  “Port fifteen.”

  “Port fifteen, sir … Fifteen of port wheel—”

  “Captain, sir.” Warrimer was on his right. Nick looked at him, and Warrimer said quietly, “That body’s headless, sir.”

  “Slow together. Midships.”

  It was half a minute before anyone else saw it as Warrimer had just for an instant. But Nick had verified it for himself now: the body was enclosed in a black-looking, sodden duffel-coat, and pinkish blood was seeping into the water from its jaggedly severed neck.

  There was nothing else here.

  “Signalman—by light to the flagship.” He interrupted himself, to call down to the wheelhouse: “Three-four-oh revolutions. Port twenty.” Straightening, putting his glasses on the cruisers which were several miles away now: he dictated, “No survivors. Am resuming station.”

  At least Freelling had left him to get on with it, not bothered him with signals.

  Coming up to midday: and Cape Finisterre lay about a hundred and fifty miles on the port bow. Harbinger was the tip of an arrow-head formation, with Goshawk on her starboard quarter and Watchful to port, and the two cruisers still in line abreast astern of them. Revs for eighteen knots, maintaining the zigzag, and asdics pinging, pinging, a banshee keening into the hidden depths. Nobody talking much, but everyone’s thoughts would be much the same: the three destroyers were ships in mourning, ships feeling each others’ company more closely in the aftermath of Bruce’s loss.

  Freelling had flashed a message of sympathy, and Nick had thanked him for it. Those signals were on the log, as was one to Admiralty reporting the loss with all hands. And on Bearcroft’s TBS log was Nick’s last message to Bruce, Negative. Resume station.

  HF/DF had heard nothing, and the only blips on the RDF screen were those of the ships astern. A Liberator had made a few wide circles around the squadron earlier in the forenoon, but that was the only aircraft they’d seen. The U-boat had most likely been on passage across Biscay, either going out on patrol or returning to its French base, because current Intelligence reports indicated that U-boat concentrations in the southern area were to be expected mainly in the Canaries-Madeira-Azores vicinity, and from there southwards to Freetown, a disposition aimed at taking advantage of the Azores air gap, and at convoys between the UK and the Cape of Good Hope.

  Or from the Cape northward, homebound. A convoy such as Kate might be taking passage in …

  He scowled, catching himself at it again—fretting, worrying like an old woman … As if he was the only man in the ship with a wife, for God’s sake—which he most certainly was not. Matt Warrimer, for instance—Warrimer, still at the binnacle but nearing the end of his forenoon watch, was married. He was a Londoner, he’d been in some broking business for a few months between coming down from Oxford and the watershed of September 1939; he’d married his wife in London during the blitz of 1941. He’d gone directly from his honeymoon to sea in the Atlantic, while his wife stayed on in London where she had some hush-hush Military Intelligence job. He’d admitted, “It wasn’t an easy time.” And Tony Graves, with his rather stout, staid wife who lived in Liverpool, which had also been subjected to the fury of the Luftwaffe: Graves, who was an exceptionally good asdic man, simply got on with it, and wrote to his wife at such length and so frequently that his letters must have been like instalments from some endless serial—which wouldn’t have found much of a readership, as there was so little of interest that could be sent through the post, even when you censored your own letters … Bearcroft was from Liverpool too, and he had two small daughters as well as a wife: he carried family snapshots in his paybook, and tended to thrust them under people’s noses. Mr Timberlake was married, too—to a woman who bore some resemblance to Popeye’s girlfriend Olive Oyle: but quite a few of the older men in the ship, those in or near their thirties, say, had anxieties far removed from the ship herself. All of which made him ask himself what right he had to be fussing.

  The answer was, he’d had the luck—and in wartime it was good luck, by and large—not to have any really deep, vital involvements. Until now. At least, he’d never felt for anyone as he did for Kate. You lived and learnt, and old dogs could learn new tricks.

  “Pipe hands to dinner, sir?”

  “Yes, please.”

  It would be a quieter mealtime than usual, on the messdecks. The Harbingers had had a lot of friends in Bruce.

  The next day’s pipe of “Hands to dinner” came when they were passing the latitude of Lisbon; and at the end of the afternoon watch the flagship signalled for an alteration of course to port, to cut the corner as they rounded Cape St Vincent. At sunset the cape was distantly abeam, and Nick heard Graves quoting Robert Browning’s verse to Mike Scarr:

  Nobly, nobly, Cape St Vincent to the northwest died away;

  Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red reeking into Cadiz Bay;

  Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

  In the dimmest northwest distance dawned Gibraltar grand and grey …

  Scarr had been taking evening stars. Still cradling his sextant he remarked to Chubb, who had the watch, “Aren’t we lucky to have such an erudite first lieutenant?”

  “You can say that again.” Chubb frowned. “Erudite? What’s—”

  “Don’t you have schools in Australia?”

  “Plenty, for those who need ’em. Me, I’m—”

  The zigzag bell had rung. Graves finished the sentence as Chubb paused, watching to see the turn was being made in the right direction. Graves suggested, “Ignorant?”

  “Too right.” Watching the swing, Chubb nodded. “And happy.” He asked him, “Let’s hear that piece again? Who’s sneaking into Cadiz Bay?”

  Gloom was lifting, largely because an effort was being made to counter it. The awareness of loss was still there, but although the destruction of one of your own group and the death of friends was a blow that staggered you when it came, by this stage men had learnt to weather the shocks quickly—at any rate more quickly than they could have done a year or two years ago. As initial shock faded you thought There but for the grace of God—and then tried to put it out of mind.

  Gibraltar, grand and grey, grew out of a dawn mist next morning. Speed had been reduced to twelve knots at 0400, when Cadiz had been less than sixty miles northeast; the Rock loomed massive against sunrise as the cruisers formed into line for the approach to harbour.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs:

  We shall have to watch … Spanish reactions to preparations for “Torch” which will become evident at Gibraltar … How much of these preparations wo
uld exceed the normal for a big Malta convoy?

  Captain Cruance, RNVR, was a tall man with white hair and a stoop, and he lived in a hole in a rock. That was how he’d describe him to Kate, Nick thought: some day, some place, when they’d be together and all this would be finished, would be in the early stages of being digested into history. The notion matched a feeling that history might well be in the making, here and now; and behind that was the puzzle of what his own part in it might be. Cruance stooping, as he shook his hand, as if he’d lived his whole life with the weight of the Rock bearing down on him; and he was as pale as if he’d just slid out of some crevice in it, would slither in again when his visitor left.

  “I’m delighted to meet you, at last, Everard. Heard a great deal about you, from a mutual friend.”

  He didn’t have to ask the friend’s name. Cruance glanced at the young paymaster lieutenant who’d brought Nick to the tunnel. “Thank you, Hobday. I’ll give you a call when we’ve finished.”

  “Right, sir.” Neither Hobday nor Cruance spoke or looked as if they belonged in the Navy. Cruance turned to Nick, as the door shut. “Please sit down, my dear fellow … I’d offer you coffee or something, but we’re not quite that well-organised, as yet.” “Just moved in?”

  “I’m what they rather quaintly refer to as the ‘advance party.’” He sat down, facing Nick across a littered desk. “I have to see to it that it all does become organised by the time Sir Andrew Cunningham gets here—”

  “A B Cunningham?”

  “His very self.” That quirky smile again. “Although my boss so far has been Admiral Wishart.”

  Hobday had mentioned Wishart, in the car on the way to this subterranean headquarters. Harbinger had only just secured at the oiling berth when he’d arrived. There’d been a signal allotting berths to which Harbinger, Goshawk and Watchful were to move when they’d completed fuelling, and the one to Harbinger had added that orders would be arriving “by hand of officer.” The officer turned out to be a tubby, freckle-faced “paybob,” but he’d brought no orders, only a message.

  “Captain Cruance’s compliments, sir—”

  “Who’s Captain Cruance?”

  “Staff Officer (Operations), sir … He’d be grateful if you could find time to call in at his office, at your convenience. He has all the details there, and he’d like the opportunity to—well, discuss certain plans which involve you, sir.”

  “You say he’s Staff Officer (Operations). Whose staff?”

  “It’s—a very new set-up sir. I think he’d prefer to explain it to you himself.”

  Mysterious, and distinctly irregular. Hobday had added, pointing towards the end of the jetty beyond the oiling installation, “I have transport here, sir, if you were free to come at once. Otherwise if you’d name a convenient time after you’ve shifted berth, I could come whenever—”

  “I’ll come now.” Tony Graves could take her into the other basin: it would be good for him to get in some ship-handling practice. And the sooner one could find some answers to current questions, the better … He asked Hobday, who was driving the car himself despite the fact it had roundels painted on its doors and evidently belonged to the RAF, “Who did you say this Captain Cruance is SO(O) to?”

  The paymaster had hesitated before he answered.

  “I was rather simplifying, sir, with that SO(O) answer. His immediate boss is actually Admiral Wishart.”

  “Rear Admiral Aubrey Wishart?”

  A nod … “But it’s for Captain Cruance to explain, sir.” He’d added diffidently, “If you don’t mind?”

  If Aubrey Wishart—Nick had thought then, and continued thinking now as Cruance mentioned him—if Wishart was behind this, or involved, there had to be some sense in it. Wishart was a very old friend, about the oldest and best he had in the Navy. He’d been on Admiral Cunningham’s staff in the Eastern Mediterranean, when Nick had been commanding a destroyer flotilla there, and one had heard since that they’d moved him to some desk job in the Admiralty when Cunningham had transferred, six or seven months ago, to become the Royal Navy’s representative on the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee in Washington.

  He asked Cruance, “Is Admiral Wishart coming here?”

  “No.” The white head wagged. “He’s holding the fort in London. But Admiral Cunningham will be on his way quite soon, and I’ve so much to do before he gets here that frankly it’s nightmarish. We’re sharing this tunnel with the RAF, which puts space at a premium—quite apart from its being so frightfully damp and airless. I hope I may be able to get some improvement made, somehow … But as well as ourselves and the Air Force, the offices on the other side of the tunnel are all reserved for Americans. Notably a General Dwight D Eisenhower.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard of him.”

  “Well, the only ones any of us have heard of so far are in the Pacific area, aren’t they. But you’ll hear plenty of this chap, if things go right.” He blinked, as the corollary struck him. “Or for that matter, if they go wrong!”

  “Combined Op, is it?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “A Yank general isn’t coming for the fishing. And I was at Tail o’ the Bank in the Clyde a few days ago. Packed with all sorts of stuff—including LSTs. Also carriers.”

  Cruance nodded. “The enemy’s noticed some of that, too.”

  “I’m not surprised.” It would have been difficult for an alert enemy not to have discovered such a concentration of ships. But the only discernible expression on Cruance’s face was one of mild satisfaction. Nick asked him, “Doesn’t it worry anyone?”

  “If our guess is right—and it’s an informed guess—they’ll be divided in their opinions as to whether we’re mounting a very large Malta convoy or an assault on Dakar.”

  “Why should they think Dakar?”

  “Perhaps they’ve reason for it. They could have been fed some clues that point to it?”

  “I see.”

  “It’s rather my line of country, actually. I’m basically NID, Naval Intelligence, but my speciality is deception. Of course here and now I’m a Jack of all trades—including furniture removals, interior decoration—”

  “Where will the landing be?”

  “Ah … Well, Sir Nicholas, at risk of boring you by stating what must be self-evident, I must say that all this is Top Secret: indeed, it’s Hush Most Secret, in the newer vernacular. I’m sorry, but I’m obliged to make the point … And the only reason I’m about to impart a certain amount of this secret information is that you’re cast for a rather special role in the operation, and you’ll need to have the broad picture in mind. But it is very, very important that we maintain the strictest possible security. We’re going to considerable lengths to do so. For instance, only about three people now on the Rock know that ABC is coming here. He’s taking passage in a cruiser, from Plymouth, and the impression is being given that after a call here he’ll be continuing in her to the United States. It’s a much bigger and more important operation than you can yet have guessed, and I’m bound to emphasise that in the area of security nothing should be risked. For instance, and with all respect, I’d suggest that nobody in your ship, other than yourself, should know anything at all about it. You could be sunk, men picked up—”

  “If nobody else knew what to do, and I dropped dead of a heart-attack?”

  “We’ll just say prayers for your continuing robust health.”

  “I’d suggest that Goshawk’s captain, Lieutenant-Commander Audsley—”

  “You won’t have either Goshawk or Watchful with you on this job.”

  Nick stared at him. Cruance explained, “You’d have taken Bruce with you, from here. I’m—very sorry about Bruce, by the way. I should have said so at the beginning … But the other two have a more humdrum task ahead of them, you see, as part of a screening force, and those are plans I can’t even dream of interfering with … You must know as well as anyone how short of destroyers we are—at the best of times, which this c
ertainly is not, with demands soaking up everything we’ve got!”

  “Hence the disbanding of my group. Just as we were beginning to amount to something.”

  Cruance caught the tone, and the feeling behind it.

  “I know … We heard, moreover, that you sank three U-boats during your last eastbound convoy. Most impressive. And an extremely regretable necessity—I mean this temporary disbanding.”

  “Can we be sure it’s temporary?”

  “We can be sure that’s the intention … But incidentally, Admiral Wishart—and I understand Admiral Cunningham too—was surprised to hear you were back in small ships. You had a cruiser—Defiant—which you succeeded in extracting from the Java Sea débâcle?”

  He nodded.

  “Admiral Wishart has been somewhat out of touch in recent months, deeply involved in planning some peripheral elements of this operation, and he was surprised because he’d been under the impression that you’d have remained a cruiser captain, after such an achievement—or even gone on to—higher things …” Cruance had shot him a quick glance: assessing the results of that little hint. He wouldn’t have seen any reaction at all. Nick recognised—and dismissed immediately—the carrot that was being held out, and which in effect was meaningless, coming from this character … And in other respects he was baffled—some enormous landing operation in which he’d have some highly individual role, so individual that he’d be carrying it out—apparently—with a command consisting of just one destroyer?

  Cruance said, after a few seconds’ finger-drumming on the desk, “I think the best way to approach this is to start by describing the broad essentials of the operation. Then when I come down to detail of your own sideshow, you’ll see it’s of very considerable importance.”