Nick thinking, Sideshow … Cruance getting to his feet. “I’ve a chart in the safe here. Excuse me …”
But he’d forgotten his keys. He came back for them, muttering self-critically. Then he was at the safe again, mumbling as he tried one key after another, “You’ll see the whole shooting-match at a glance, from this …”
He was more of an absent-minded professor than a naval officer. Nick asked him, “Do I gather this is something I take Harbinger to do on her own?”
“Not—exactly …” He’d hit on the right key, at last. “No. You’ll be sailing from here on your own, but you’ll be joining—taking command of—a large number of … er … others. But—” he had a rolled chart in his hand, and he was swinging the heavy door shut—“let me give you the outline picture first.”
He sat down. Glanced round, at the closed door of the office: turned back to Nick, and spoke in a lower tone.
“The code-name for the operation is ‘Torch.’ It’s a joint British and American invasion of French North Africa. We’re going into Morocco and Algeria—not a raid, a full-scale invasion. The Commander-in-Chief is General Eisenhower, and the Allied Naval Commander is Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. There’ll be more than 70,000 assault troops storming Casablanca, Algiers and Oran. Then of course a lot more follow-up, after beachheads have been secured. You’ll appreciate the size of this task—the weight of manpower, equipment and supplies and the distances we have to bring them before they can be put down on those beaches?”
The problems would be staggering: the risks enormous. That much was obvious at a glance.
“Oran and Casablanca, all American. Algiers is an invasion-point only on British insistence—the Yanks didn’t want to go in as far east as that. Algiers will be a joint Anglo-American assault, but it’ll be the British First Army pushing on through the bridgehead. Whereas the Casablanca landings—actually they’ll be at three places, north and south of Casablanca itself—are coming direct from the United States. All other convoys are from the UK. Now, let me show you …”
Unrolling the chart. Nick thinking how remarkable it was that an undertaking so huge in concept could be outlined to him in no more than a minute. The movement of 70,000 men across oceans and on to enemy-held coastlines. If the French did regard themselves as enemies … Cruance murmured, “I should have mentioned, in case it’s not obvious, that the object is to drive the Germans and Italians out of North Africa, thus opening the Mediterranean and also providing opportunities for the invasion of southern Europe. As far as North Africa is concerned, don’t forget we have an army poised at the Egyptian end as well, eh?”
The desert army now on the El Alamein line, he meant. Generals Alexander and Montgomery. Rommel’s drive on Egypt had stopped in late August, early September, when Montgomery had defeated him at the battle of Alam el Halfa, and since then the two sides had faced each other virtually on the Egyptian frontier. But—poised? If the Eighth Army had been reinforced and re-supplied to the extent that it could now be described as poised—ready to attack, roll westward across Libya as the “Torch” invasion forces advanced eastward into Tunisia—you could see the point, all right!
“As you’ll have gathered, the assaults are to be almost entirely American. The entire operation will be represented as American—although all the naval side of it inside the Mediterranean will be ours, and the Algiers invasion too. It’s considered, rightly or wrongly, that the French are less likely to oppose landings by Americans than by ourselves. Resentment lingering, supposedly, over Oran, Dakar, you know … But now …” Cruance touched the chart with a long, bony finger. “The red-ink routes here are the tracks of convoys and naval squadrons. Nearly all, as you see, from the UK and terminating, as I’ve shown them here, where they converge to pass in through the Straits of Gibraltar. But that southernmost one is Assault Convoy UGF 1, direct from US ports and covered by Task Force 34. It comprises thirty-eight ships in convoy, and fifty-six escorts, with a covering force that includes three battleships, five aircraft carriers, seven cruisers—all US Navy …”
Red-ink convoy tracks fanned out into the Atlantic from Britain and curved southward, forming a crescent of interlocking paths over a thousand miles of sea. The American force, UGF 1 and Task Force 34, had much farther to come, right from the US east coast. That track dipped southward to the latitude of the Canaries, then turned up to loop around Madeira for the last part of its approach to the Moroccan coast.
Cruance had given him time to absorb the general pattern of it. He began to lecture again now, pointing at individual red tracks.
“Six British advance convoys, all prefixed KX. Whereas British assault convoys are either KMS or KMF—the S standing for slow, F for fast, as usual. Also, you’ll see that four of them have an ‘A’ or an ‘O’ in brackets after that prefix, indicating either Algiers or Oran as destination. So we have this convoy here, for instance, in all forty-seven ships and eighteen escorts, coming from the Clyde and Loch Ewe, sailing October twenty-second and due to pass through here on November fifth and sixth. Two dates, you see, because it’s in two sections, KMS(A)1 and KMS(O)1. Ditto with this fast lot—eleven and a half knots, actually—KMF(A)1 and KMF(O)1, sailing from the Clyde October twenty-sixth. In both cases the Algerian and Oran components separate west of Gibraltar and enter the Med as separate forces. Then here we have KMS2 and KMF2 … See the system of it?”
He nodded. It was clear enough on paper. When you tried to imagine the reality of it, it was a hell of an operation.
“This is only the first stage.” Cruance pointed out, “There’ll be an enormous amount of follow-up convoys to bring in, and they’ll all need protecting. Just for the assault stage we’ve had to strip other convoy routes almost bare of escorts. It imposes great risks, of course, but there’s no option, you see.”
Nick thought the risks to convoys elsewhere might be fairly small. Every U-boat the enemy possessed would surely be deployed against these convoys. And the result could be devastating: with so many eggs packed into so few baskets and exposed to attack over such distances …
“What about disruption by U-boats?”
“Ah.” Cruance nodded. “This has been a major anxiety. To an extent, it still is.”
He pointed at the red-ink tracks. “Apart from the fact they’ll do their utmost to make a meal of it, what about sighting reports? There are bound to be some—from U-boats and aircraft—with this volume of shipping on the move. So they’ll know we’re coming, and even if the French don’t fight wouldn’t the Germans have time to send troops west through Tunisia?”
“Yes.” Cruance nodded. “And it’s where you’ll be playing your part.” He leant over the chart. “Possible interference by U-boats—and measures to avoid it … Well, to start with, we have a few red herrings laid out here and there—and some still to come—and I’m fairly confident we can keep the enemy confused about our intentions. So if this or that convoy or squadron did get reported by a U-boat or an aircraft, it wouldn’t tell them much. They’d connect it with what they already believe—Dakar or Malta, for instance … Second, the routing of these convoys has been planned carefully. The slow ones are all within reach of our own shore-based air patrols—which will be intensified—and the fast ones, routed right out here as far as twenty-six degrees west, will have air cover from carriers accompanying them. For convoy defence, incidentally, we’ve managed to rake up about a hundred escort vessels.”
He looked as if he thought he’d proved something. But—Nick thought—if enough U-boats were deployed, and pressed their attacks home determinedly, a hundred escorts spread across this amount of shipping wouldn’t cut much ice. There had to be some angle he’d missed. That, or some fairly staggering risks were being accepted.
Cruance told him, “There’s one convoy not marked here. Yours. We’ll put it on now—by sleight of hand, you may say.” His voice changed, to an assumed Cockney accent. “The quickness of the ’and deceives the eye. Now you sees it, now you don’t …” He w
as unfolding a sheet of transparent paper: his narrow, long-fingered hands spread it on the chart, adjusting it so that its latitude and longitude co-ordinates fitted those on the chart. He added in his own natural voice, “Or rather, now you will.”
The red tracks were still visible through the transparent paper, but a new one, green instead of red, had been superimposed on them. It started south of the Canaries slanted up and west of Madeira, crossing all the red convoy routes where they converged towards Gibraltar.
“What you’re looking at, Everard, is the route of convoy SL 320. Nearly forty ships assembling now at Freetown, Sierra Leone, for convoy to UK ports. By the time you get down there the assembly will be complete and they’ll be under starter’s orders. You’ll go there in your Harbinger and assume command of the convoy escort. You’ll sail from Freetown on October twenty-third, and follow this route precisely. No diversions will be allowed under any circumstances.”
The green track crossed ahead of all the advance assault convoys. So if there were U-boats waiting on the assault convoy routes or anywhere near them, SL 320 from Freetown would lure them away northward—leaving safe waters for the “Torch” convoys.
While SL 320 would be slowly shredded.
“My convoy’s to act as bait?”
In a macabre way, it wasn’t a bad idea. If the ends justified the means. And as this was a war not for gain but for survival, they would … Cruance protested mildly, “I believe I’d baulk at the word ‘bait’…”
“Slow convoy, is it?”
“Well—”
Cruance hesitated … Nick nodded, seeing all the answers. He’d have put money on it here and now—slow convoy, and weak escort … He said, watching Cruance, “I’m to bring a large, slow convoy right through a U-boat patrol line. Maybe more than one line? And they’ll flock to the easy pickings. I’ll have escorts who haven’t worked together before—right? Perhaps not many of them, either? And if I’m not allowed to divert, the U-boats should find it easy to stay with me—drawing blood all the way?”
Cruance said, into a silence and while Nick was taking another look at the chart and the green-ink route, “Bait, in normal usage of the term, implies that the material is expendable. That’s not the case here. You’ll be escort commander, and as usual your task will be to get the convoy through with as few losses as possible.”
“What ships will I have in my escort force?”
“I believe—some corvettes …”
“How many?”
“… and A/S trawlers … Numbers depend on the situation prevailing down there. Normally they have a substantial escort force, which might be drawn on, but with ‘Torch’ in the offing …”
Trawlers. Through the middle of a U-boat pack, and no evasive action permitted. A weak escort would ensure that the U-boat commanders saw what a splendid chance they were being offered, and stayed with it. He had an analogy of it in his mind as he stared at Cruance—Cruance finding it difficult, evidently, to meet that stare—an image of ships like wounded swimmers leaving a trail of blood for the sharks to follow.
Taking Harbinger out of Gibraltar next morning, later exchanges with the white-haired RNVR captain still trickled through his memory. For instance, asked whether Aubrey Wishart had personally approved the scheme, Cruance had affirmed, “Of course he did … Are you wondering how the choice happened to fall on you?”
“Obviously it was his decision. But why—”
“To start with it was a question of who might be available, which escort groups were already committed to ‘Torch’ as entities and which could be split up, and so on. How to get enough escorts together and still leave a modicum of protection elsewhere has been quite a problem on its own, you see.”
Anger came in waves. He’d spent the night half sleeping and half waking, his mind struggling with the problems that lay ahead. It was pointless to seek solutions of any definitive kind before he reached Freetown and knew what ships they’d be giving him, but his brain churned independently, ignoring his attempts to stop it.
Cruance had told him, “We produced a short-list, and as soon as Admiral Wishart saw your name on it he said ‘That’s the man I want!’”
Would he have, Nick wondered, if he’d realised Kate might be a passenger in that convoy?
Her image had been part of the incoherent, night-long battle. And he had to take control of it now, he knew, before it led to a thousand other nightmares. This thing was bad enough without inventing far worse angles to it … Meanwhile, snatches of his conversation with Cruance ran intermittently through his mind: for instance, asking him—in the context of Wishart having picked him for the job—“That snap decision was enough to break up my escort group?”
“You could put it like that, I suppose—”
“I’ll put it like this. That it was bloody silly, extremely wasteful and quite pointless. He could have taken anyone at all—”
“Nobody wanted to see your group disbanded.” Cruance making heavy weather of it. “But Admiral Wishart has a very high opinion of your abilities, and—well, obviously there’d be no point in disguising the fact that this is an undertaking which could well turn out to be exceptionally—er—demanding …”
It had been midday when he’d got back on board Harbinger at the berth to which Graves had shifted her—without scrapes or dents, it was a relief to find. Graves was at the gangway to meet him as he crossed it from the jetty. Nick told him, as the squeal of the bosun’s call died away, “We’ll be sailing at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow. Special Sea Dutymen, and single up, oh-eight-forty-five. You can give leave to one watch.”
“Are we escorting the cruisers again, sir?”
“Only ourselves.”
“Us and Goshawk and—”
“Harbinger alone.”
He’d joined his officers in the wardroom for a drink before lunch. Mike Scarr had asked, “May I know where we’re going, sir?”
“After we’ve shoved off, you may.”
“I was just wondering about charts, sir.”
That old dodge. All eyes wide, all ears flapping. Nick asked the navigator, “Is your Med folio up to date?”
Scarr said yes, it was. Nick was aware of glances being exchanged, sharp interest in the prospect of heading east. He waited a few moments, and then asked, “And West African charts, down as far as the Cape?”
“Well, yes, that’s—”
“We’ll be all right, then.” He winked at Graves. Men would be going ashore this evening, and Gib was said to be thick with spies. He could have sailed that night, in darkness, but a run ashore for half the ship’s company and a night’s rest for the others wouldn’t do them any harm.
All those huge “Torch” convoys, of course, would be passing through these Straits during the hours of darkness.
Mr Timberlake took a glass of pink gin from the steward’s silver tray. He raised it towards Nick, who’d ordered it for him. “Your good ’ealth, sir.”
“And yours, Guns.” Timberlake was very partial to pink gin. Nick asked him, “How many heavies did they give us at Greenock?”
The new “heavy” depthcharges could be set to explode as deep as eight hundred feet. They were a counter to the deep-diving capability of the latest U-boats. Timberlake’s facial muscles twitched, betraying sharp anxiety: he said, “Didn’t ’ave any, sir. All we got is Mark VIIs. They’d been cleared out, they said—well, all them ships there … I did report this, sir.”
“I remember now. But you were going to try here?”
“More ’n just tried, sir. I been down on my bloody knees!”
“Well. Long as we’ve got all the Mark VIIs we can carry …” Ian Mackenzie, the doctor, enquired, “Are we likely to be coming back here, sir?”
Nick looked at him. Mackenzie was a short, curly-headed man in his mid-twenties, and he came from Edinburgh. “Why d’you ask?”
“Wardroom’s low on sherry, sir. I wouldn’t bother if we were coming back, but this is the place to get it, of course, so—�
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“Better stock up. While you’re at it, add two cases of Tio Pepe for my private account, would you?”
The Gibraltar Straits were well astern now, and Nick handed over the conning of the ship to Warrimer. Harbinger was already zigzagging, with mean course due west, revs for eighteen knots. Graves and Scarr were both in the bridge, thirsting for information—which they could have, now, to a limited extent … Thinking about the part he would not tell them, meanwhile—what it was going to be like to hold to those orders, a fixed, unvariable course no matter what losses were being inflicted: Nick glanced astern, deciding they’d come far enough to have ceased to be of interest to Nazi ship-watchers on the Spanish coast. He turned to Scarr.
“Give me a course to pass two hundred miles west of Palma in the Canaries. That’ll be a run of a little more than two days. From west of Palma we’ll steer for Freetown, which will take another four.”
Six and a half days’ steaming altogether. Then one day in Freetown: a convoy conference and a meeting with the captains of whatever other escorts were allotted to him. The day after that would be the prescribed sailing day for SL 320.
The Tio Pepe was safely stowed in his private store now. Such a triviality to have bothered with in these circumstances, he’d thought when he was writing the cheque to Messrs Saccone and Speed last evening. Across the flat from his cabin the wardroom loudspeaker had been pumping out the familiar, slightly cloying strains of Your’s … Vera Lynn, the “Sweetheart of the Forces,” featuring as prominently as always in the programme called Forces’ Favourites: the messdecks would have been booming to it too … Graves asked him, “What happens after Freetown, sir?”
“It’s as far as we go. We’ll be picking up a convoy there and taking it home with us.”
Scarr looked puzzled as he moved away, heading for his chartroom to lay off those courses. Graves murmured, “All that way on our own, just for that?”
Nick stared at him. Graves frowned. “Sorry, sir.” He was embarrassed. “Only it seems so—well—”
The Torch Bearers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 5 Page 9
