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

by Alexander Fullerton

  It would be enough. You only needed a few hours: essentially to refuel, and embark water, stores, torpedoes and ammunition.

  “You two got nothing better to do than stand around like stuck pigs?”

  Hugo Wykeham, first lieutenant. Beside McClure he was like a giraffe looking down at a monkey. Paul said, “Only wondering how long we’ll be in for.”

  Their captain, Ruck, was still “inboard”—up on the first floor of the old stone building with its many bomb-scars—communing with Shrimp Simpson, who commanded the Malta submarines. Paul, looking past Wykeham, saw Creagh, the gunlayer, slinking away as if he didn’t want to be noticed. Paul was gunnery as well as torpedo officer. He called, “Hey, Layer, got those figures yet?”

  Figures for ammunition expended. It had to be an exact figure, since magazine and ready-use locker space was extremely limited, and you didn’t want to sail with one less shell than there was room for. You couldn’t take one more, either, unless you kept it under your pillow … Creagh told him, “Can’t get down there, not just this minute, sir.” Because the hatch to the magazine was in the gangway, there wasn’t a hope of opening it up.

  “What a bloody shambles!”

  James Ruck, lieutenant-in-command—shouldering through, staring around at the rabble … Wykeham, who’d been leaving with McClure in tow, turned and came back as Ruck moved sideways into the wardroom, edging in between the table and his own bunk on the forward bulkhead. In this space you could not have swung a cat round, not without annoying it considerably. Ruck, straddling the bench seat and opening a drawer to find cigarettes, muttered, “Some bastard’s been at this drawer …” He swung round with a cigarette in his mouth, and gestured to them to gather round. “Listen. News for you.” He struck a match. “It’s started, at last. Came over the BBC half an hour ago—the Army’s attacked, at El Alamein. Started last night with a super-colossal artillery barrage—about a thousand guns all opened up at once and then just carried on. Big advances, fierce battle raging, etcetera. This looks like the big one we’ve been waiting for. And so, as the Italian fleet might just conceivably find reason to come out—”

  Laughter included a cackle from CPO Logan, the coxswain, who was standing in the gangway, listening. Ruck threw him a glance, then went on, “In case they do, it’s Iron Ring routine. All boats away to patrol off Taranto and such-like places. In fact this flotilla’s being reinforced for the purpose, a couple of boats joining us from Gib and two or three from Beirut.”

  “How long have we got, sir?”

  Ruck told Wykeham, “Believe it or not, four or five days. Better allow for only four. But there’s no panic, anyway, far as we’re concerned.” He glanced over his shoulder again, at CPO Logan. “Want me for something, Cox’n?”

  “No, sir, not really—”

  “Then don’t let me detain you.”

  He watched him move reluctantly away; then told his officers quietly, “Reason we aren’t joining the madding crowd is we’re earmarked for a special job. Cloak and dagger stuff, there’s a lot of it about at the moment.” He looked at Paul. “We’ll be taking two torpedoes less than usual, Everard, so as to have room in the reload stowages for canoes. Folboats. Consequently we won’t embark torpedoes until the last day, in case it gives anyone ideas.”

  “Two-four-oh revolutions.”

  “Two-four-oh revs, sir …”

  “Steer three degrees to port.”

  Nick had taken over at the binnacle from Chubb, to con Harbinger up between columns two and three. Now it was just about full daylight, the commodore had signalled for the zigzag to be renewed, but the plunging, wallowing freighters, agleam from spray and seadew, were on their mean course at this moment. Columns were one thousand yards apart, but ships in column had only four hundred yards between stems and sterns, and combing through them like this—Harbinger’s bow-wave curling high, wake spreading in foam as she drove ahead at twenty-two, rising twenty-four knots between the tall-funnelled Harvest Moon to port and the shabby little Timaru to starboard—you had to watch out for that zigzag, the sudden, simultaneous change of course by this whole mass of ships. He was driving her up through them so the merchant navy-men could see her at close quarters and be reminded they did have some warships in attendance. In any case he wanted to take a look around, and eventually have a chat with Tony Graves, up ahead there. Graves had reported over TBS that Astilbe’s radar, RDF Type 271, was on the blink. Apparently it had been out of action for some periods during the night, and they’d taken it to pieces now in the hope of having it in operational order before sundown. Nick was prepared to send Harbinger’s RDF mechanic over to Astilbe by seaboat, if Graves wanted him.

  He raised the loud-hailer, aiming it at two figures in the port wing of the Timaru’s bridge. The Timaru was one of the pair designated as rescue ships. He called, “Morning, Timaru … Did you hear the BBC news?”

  A wave, and the other man lifted his cap—straight up, then down again, in Charlie Chaplin style … The news being that three thousand miles to the east the Eighth Army’s offensive was going well: Kidney Ridge was being held against frantic Panzer onslaughts, while the Seventh Armoured and Forty-fourth Divisions of the XIIIth corps smashed into enemy defences facing them. Every news bulletin was being listened to intently in anticipation of the great breakthrough.

  “Zigging to port, sir!”

  A warning from Chubb, who’d been watching out for it and spotted the beginning of the swing. Nick stooped to the voice-pipe’s copper rim. “Port ten.”

  That desert offensive had opened with a barrage from nearly a thousand guns. He remembered Cruance telling him, “Don’t forget we have an army poised at the Egyptian end as well …” Under Generals Alexander and Montgomery they’d launched that one first, on 23 October, while over in the west the huge forces for “Torch” were massing and converging. The scope of the entire strategy was staggering: and so were the risks, the cost of failure. He couldn’t think that in the history of the world there’d been anything of such dimensions. And this—he was looking out over lively, white-streaked sea as the solid block of freighters swung to a new course and Harbinger dodged through them like a dog through a herd of cows—this mob, unknown to itself, was part of the same far-reaching plan, might even be the key to its success.

  “Midships, and meet her.”

  Slanting away now, course nearer west than north, a vacant billet to starboard and the Colombia just ahead to port. “Starboard five …” He’d brought her over too far: he was aiming her now for the midway point between the Sweetcastle and the St Eliza. And—in terms of what was happening here—even if to Cruance and Aubrey Wishart and no doubt a whole team of other planners whose minds were geared to immensely broad strategic concepts, even if to those backroom brains the raison d’être of SL 320 was to entice U-boats to attack it, SL 320’s escort commander had a much more straightforward object. It was embodied in standing orders in the well-worn phrase “safe and timely arrival of the convoy,” and it was simply to get as many of these ships as possible home to UK ports. That was the job, and you could forget the rest: they needn’t even have explained it to him. His preoccupation at this moment wasn’t what was happening in the Western Desert or how many convoys might be on their way to Gibraltar, it was this worry about the defective RDF set in Astilbe. No small worry, either. With only three escorts possessing radar, and night attacks on the surface being the U-boats’ favourite method of assault …

  “Steady as you go.”

  “Steady, sir … three-three-four, sir.”

  Lancing through between that next pair … He used the loud-hailer again, to wish them good morning. No response from the Sweetcastle, but there were waves from a group on the stern of the Omeo, her next ahead. And he saw the turn to starboard just developing now: in every one of these ships a zigzag bell would have rung, telling the quartermaster to put his wheel over. “Starboard five …” Putting a foot wrong here might be rather like being trampled by a herd of elephants. Comi
ng up between the Omeo and the Coriolanus, whose single squat, blackened funnel was emitting rather too much smoke. Not all that much, though; he decided to be tactful, leave it to the commodore to deal with it if it worsened. “Increase to ten degrees of wheel.”

  “Increase to ten … Ten o’ starboard wheel on, sir …”

  The commodore—the Chauncy Maples—was the next ahead to starboard now, as all ships settled back to the mean course. The next leg would be out to starboard … “Midships.” The leading ship in column two, abeam to port of the commodore, was a Dutchman, the Toungoo. “Steady!”

  “Steady, sir … Three-three-seven.”

  “Steer three-three-five.” He put up the loud-hailer, aiming it at the Chauncy Maples. “Morning, Commodore!”

  Sandover was in the bridge wing already, and ready with his loud-hailer. He got in first: “D’you reckon the Eighth Army’s bogged down, at Alamein?”

  Harbinger pounding forward through the gap, pitching and smashing through the waves, white spray streaming and green water slamming into the forefront of the bridge and the gunshields down below it. Nick said no, he thought the breakthrough would come pretty soon now. Then they discussed the Burbridge, the passenger ship due to join up with SL 320 further north. And some domestic detail: for instance, the full recovery of a man who’d been ill with stomach poisoning in the Baltimore Cross, number seventy-two, one day out of Freetown. Harbinger had ranged up alongside her in loud-hailer distance so that Mackenzie, the doctor, could give the freighter’s captain advice on how to treat the condition. None of the merchantmen carried doctors.

  Harbinger was drawing ahead now, and Nick let Chubb take over again at the binnacle. Astern of her, the convoy slewed away to starboard. Ahead, the trawler Stella was fine to port while broader on each bow the masts and superstructures of Paeony and Astilbe swayed more distantly against grey-gleaming sky.

  “Come round a bit, Sub. Leave Stella some sea-room.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The Australian didn’t need to bend his stocky frame far, to reach the voice-pipe. Asdics pinging monotonously as Harbinger thrashed on to overhaul that trawler. Whose captain’s name was—Nick made the effort, and won—Broad …

  “Signalman: make by light to Stella—”

  The HF/DF bell rang, interrupting him. It was the first time it had rung since they’d started northward. Nick was closer to the voice-tube than anyone else, and he answered it. “Bridge, captain.”

  “U-boat on bearing one-seven-one, range eighteen, transmitting sighting report, sir!”

  Like a swift kick in the stomach …

  And there’d be no mistake. That was Gritten, the PO Telegraphist, on the set.

  “Anything more than that, Gritten?”

  “I’d say he’s just surfaced, sir. Not positive, but—he’s repeating it now, sir. On 4995 KCs, and the usual prefix. He is just up, sir—unless it’s very wet where he is … I never heard this operator before, sir. Clumsy, like. Not long out of training-school, I’d guess …”

  Straightening from the voice-pipe, thinking it out. Distances, and times … The German was eighteen miles from here … say about seventeen astern of the convoy. It might easily be the one Paeony had had a sniff at and then lost: it would have stayed down and trailed the convoy from astern, using its hydrophones, listening all night to Harbinger’s screws, for God’s sake. It probably hadn’t intended to attack, before Paeony had happened to stumble on it—they weren’t normally supposed to, when they found a convoy, their standing orders were to shadow, report, so that Flag Officer U-boats could order this, that and the other bastard to converge, form a pack for a concerted assault … Well, the German would be travelling in this direction, if he was following, so you wouldn’t have to cover eighteen miles to get at him. Ten to one he’d dive before you reached him; but say half an hour to get there, another half-hour to hand out some discouragement … Getting back to the convoy would take longer, since it would have moved on during that time: say an hour and a half, or two and a half altogether. It was almost certainly too late to silence those signals: by the time Harbinger got into striking distance, U-boat headquarters at Kernéval would have a convoy position, course and speed …

  Nine minutes past seven. They’d been out of their kennels, used the cold-water washbasins and holed-up again. Jack leant with a shoulder against the thin wood partitioning, wondering how he’d ever thought for a moment this scheme had a chance of working.

  Trolley muttered, “They’ve ballsed it up, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t see how they could have been here before—”

  “Hey!”

  The outside door—at the foot of the stairs—had crashed open. Feet were pounding upwards. Too noisy—he thought, too many—to be them. So … what, guards, sent down here to round them up?

  “Better keep out of sight in case it isn’t them.” Trolley offered, “I’ll open my door a crack. No point both of us—”

  “OK.”

  It sounded more like six people, than two. And they were off the stairs now, on the plank flooring, coming this way … It could be a group of goons coming to use this latrine before going on duty: in which case—

  The door was flung open, and a voice called loudly, “Everard? Trolley?”

  Jack pushed his door back. He saw Barmy Morrison, with Cockup Cockrace just behind him, both of them startled for a moment by the sight of German uniforms. Jack asked Barmy, “What d’you think you are—the town crier?” Trolley snapped, “Shut the bloody door, at least!” Cockup limping forward with a smile on his pale, moustached face as he opened his coat and tugged at the waistband of his trousers. Pulling the rifle out awkwardly: it had been down his leg like a splint, but he limped anyway from having been shot in the knee at some stage, and no-one would have seen a difference without looking closely. Morrison, beaming, crowed, “Piece of cake, mein Herren, keine bother whatsoever!”

  “We haven’t even started yet.” Jack took the rifle from Cockup. “Frank, you ready?”

  “Yes. Let’s move.” Trolley told the other two, “Act as you would if we were real Germans. Forget it’s us, just be yourselves being escorted to the dentist and nothing special about it. And for God’s sake keep your traps shut, will you?”

  Cockrace asked, “One point … If the gate sentry’s clued-up enough to remember the dentist goes off on the toot on Wednesdays, what’s the drill?”

  “I try to bluff us through. This Wednesday he must be working, for a change. If I see it isn’t going to work—” Trolley was moving towards the door, herding them—“I’ll act as if I’m fed up, someone’s given me the wrong orders. I turn you about and we march back here, abort the operation, dump the rifle, slope off … Now come on!”

  Out, and clattering down the stairs. The building was still empty, so that much of the gamble had come off. Jack slung the rifle, goon-style. The Escape Committee had had it in their keeping for several months; some idiot had pinched it somehow, from a drunk or otherwise unwary guard, and there’d been a tremendous hue and cry, searches and mass punishments. It was said the guard had been accused of selling it and had been shot, and the Committee had been only too glad to get rid of it.

  The cold drizzle was a good enough excuse for turning up greatcoat collars. Cockrace and Morrison marched in file—POW-style marching, which meant shambling—with Jack as armed guard to one side in front of Trolley as the NCO strutting behind. Along behind the hospital block and then left to join the road leading to the gate. Where they’d be stopped, of course; and possession of the rifle would make the offence extremely serious, might even justify the firing-squad with which they so much enjoyed threatening would-be escapers. Otherwise it would be another dose of solitary, then transport to the Straflager: which not only was said to be escape-proof but was also miles from anywhere. Unlike this dump, which wasn’t so far from the Swiss border … Trolley asked in a low mutter, “Got your train tickets, you two?”

  “Yup.”

  “Money?”


  “Rolling in it … Permission to sing ‘Land of Hope and Glory,’ sah?”

  “Will you shut up, for Christ’s sake?”

  Cockup murmured, “Zey have vays of mekking us shot op.”

  They’d wheeled on to the road now, and the gate was fifty yards away. It was because there was never a dental party on Wednesdays that it had seemed feasible to mount this excursion. If there’d been a real dentistry session you couldn’t have done it. The snag was that the gate sentry might be smart enough to know which day of the week this was.

  Thirty yards to go. The sentry was standing squarely in front of the gate, this side of it, gazing at them as they marched towards him. Not many yards to his right, at the corner of the wire, was one of the tall lookout boxes on stilts, with a machine-gunner in it. Jack was careful not to glance upwards, because such a movement might have displayed his beard.

  Barmy began gabbling over his shoulder, “Hey, fellows, I forgot to mention—”

  “Shut up!”

  “Yeah, but listen—news bulletin on Hut Four’s set, crack of dawn: the dingdong in the desert? Well, sounds like we’re about to hit ’em for six!” Trolley bawled in German. “Talking is forbidden!” A dozen yards ahead, the sentry moved. Swinging the gate open …

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  From “The U-boat War in the Atlantic”—official German account:

  In spite of the sighting reports by radio from the U-boats, convoy … coming from the south, maintained its course and … passed through the centre of the patrol line.

  “Red two-oh, sir, beam-on!”

  CPO Bearcroft had sighted the Burbridge. They’d been searching for her, and had had her on the 271 screen for some time, but it was pitch dark under low cloud and although the wind was still only force four it was out of the northwest, right in their eyes and with spray in it. Altogether a lousy night, with a shadower astern of the convoy piping up from time to time, plus this errant passenger ship who’d failed to make the rendezvous yesterday at noon, failed again at dusk after yet another engine breakdown. They hadn’t received her signal until after she’d missed the first one; her master obviously wouldn’t have wanted to break radio silence unnecessarily and advertise his ship’s position, but it had caused headaches. A ship on her own in the Atlantic could easily disappear without trace; when she hadn’t shown up for the third rendezvous Nick had left the convoy and come out to get her.