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

by Alexander Fullerton

  The upstairs rooms had to be out of use: the staircase was blanked off with stacked packing-cases, furniture, some rolls of carpet and other stuff. It was the kitchen, anyway, that drew him. He’d started towards it before caution made him stop, warned him to check the other rooms first: there could be old people here, or a bed-ridden husband … He hesitated: then thought that if he did find someone in the house and have to bolt for it—without having had anything to eat …

  Kitchen.

  Entering it, he was facing the inside of the back door, the door they used. On a dresser on his right, three-quarters of a loaf of bread. And a smell of soup or stew: it led him to a covered pot simmering on a coal stove. He tore off an end of the loaf, dipped it in the steaming tureen, and ate.

  Like a dog. Feeling like a dog. Grunting, gobbling, with his eyes fixed on the rest of it … Gasping, then, out of breath, leaning against the wall with his injured foot stretched out in front of him. Two things stopped him wolfing the whole lot: he needed to check the other rooms and didn’t know how long he’d have before she came back, and two, if he didn’t take too much she mightn’t be sure any had gone. If she did realise she’d been robbed, he might not find a meal here tomorrow. But leaving any of it at all wasn’t easy. He stared at it, swallowing, licking his lips, shaking …

  In the other downstairs wing the rooms contained some furniture but were obviously not in use. Junky furniture was layered in dust, and beds had only mattresses on them. There’d be room for a large family in this place, and most likely there’d have been one here not so long ago. Dispersal would have come through males being called up, females drafted to services or factory work; just as the war had split families in England. He limped back into the living-hall, through it and into the other section of passage, looking into the other rooms. One contained a wash-stand, tin bath, drying-rack and ironing board, another contained only an iron bedstead, and the third was the girl’s. Standing, looking round—and on the dressing-table one object held his eye: a photograph frame with no photograph in it. An empty frame, wood with silver corners, placed where you’d expect the portrait of a husband, lover, or parents: prominent, yet empty.

  There was a wireless beside the bed: it had a fern design in fretwork on its front panel. His eyes followed a twist of dangerously frayed flex to the lamp on the dressing-table. Moving closer, glancing again at the empty frame, he saw his own face in the mirror.

  He stood rooted, horrified …

  The creature staring back at him out of red-rimmed eyes was nearer beast than human. Bearded, filthy, mad-eyed, with multi-coloured bruises showing through dirt and beard. He could hardly believe it was himself: it wasn’t only hideous, it was actually frightening. If you were searching for a prisoner on the run and you came face to face with this, wouldn’t you pull the trigger?

  He muttered, “Christ …” And the creature’s lips had moved … He turned his back on it, with the thought that if the girl who slept in that bed caught as much as a glimpse of him—

  She wouldn’t. The guards at the frontier—Swiss—would be the first to have that pleasure.

  Clearly—he shut the bedroom door behind him—the girl and her child were the only occupants of this house. With the stairs blocked, there couldn’t be anyone using the top floor. He decided he’d take a look up there, anyway, make sure … He crawled over the pile of junk: then he was on bare boards, climbing, hauling himself up on heavy bannisters draped with cobwebs.

  There was a wide landing, but since the ends of the house sloped inward there were only two rooms to the right and two to the left. Electric wiring slung from nails hung in dusty loops. From the front room on the left a badly-fitting shutter allowed him a wide view of the front area—the hen-house, the broken cart, the semi-collapsed shed where he’d spent some hours and to which he’d have shortly to return: he reckoned he’d last a day and a night, all right, on that hastily gulped snack. Then he’d look for more: by that time his ankle might have mended well enough so he could take off again, unearth the bike and pedal swiftly south … Beyond the sheds he could see right down the track to the lane, and it was all empty. He thought of the eggs again: he’d have time, it wasn’t likely she’d be back all that soon, he guessed. She’d gone out dressed for outdoors and carrying that basket—for shopping, or to deliver or acquire something—and there was no shop or dwelling within several miles. Perhaps the basket had been full of eggs? But even then, he’d find one or two …

  Unless she got a lift back, from wherever she’d been going. Then she might not be long.

  Just one more small piece of soup-soaked bread?

  Negotiating the furniture on the stairs again—one might assume it had been cleared out of the upstairs rooms—he noticed in passing that it included some mattresses. They were in the middle, surrounded by other stuff. The thought of them was in his mind while he devoured his second helping, thinking also of the discomfort to which he was now returning—to be there, hidden, before she got back. With a few hens’ eggs to keep him going … But the idea of a mattress to lie on, to rest the ankle on: what a dream! Impractical, of course: even if he could have dragged one out there it would be too big for the space, it would show up.

  He stopped chewing.

  Drag a mattress upstairs? Into the empty front room with the view, over the empty downstairs wing?

  Harbinger, zigzagging across the convoy’s rear, was climbing mountains, shooting rapids, hurling herself from beam to beam. The wind was up to force six, with a sea to match it and a bite in the air more like winter than autumn. The convoy ploughed on ahead, at the reduced speed of four knots and in six columns with only three ships in columns one and six, four in the central ones, and the Burbridge and the Redgulf Star as second ships in columns three and four respectively. The corvettes were out ahead, trawlers at the sides; the corvettes and Harbinger had refuelled this forenoon.

  Mike Scarr had the afternoon watch, and Nick was slumped in his deckchair under an oilskin. Scarr thought he was asleep—and he was, off and on, but it was a light, fitful sleep with two figures jostling around in his brain. Twenty-two and five. Twenty-two was the number of ships left in convoy, five the number lost to U-boats last night. If you divided one by the other, even through the fog of semi-consciousness you had to see that in four or five days’ time SL 320 would have ceased to exist.

  It was unthinkable.

  But—you had to think about it. Because with the destruction of the convoy the whole operation would be aborted too. The U-boats would be right where the “Torch” convoy routes converged into the Gibraltar Strait: they’d have run out of targets, but maybe not out of torpedoes … And the conclusion was that in the interests of “Torch,” quite apart from keeping as much as possible of this convoy alive, it was entirely up to SL 320’s escort commander to pull something new out of the bag.

  But how the hell …

  The prospect was so terrible that it only belonged in nightmare. But he was awake now, and it was real: and the core of the reality—like an uncovered nerve in a tooth, agonising every minute of the days and nights—was the Burbridge. Even if it was all in the mind: the coincidence of a ship full of nurses—plus one’s own cowardice, not daring to ask, or even look too closely … There was a degree of sense in it as well as cowardice, moreover: because if fate—fate assisted by Cruance and company—had played such a filthy trick on you and you knew it, you’d then be facing the dilemma, practical and moral, of protecting that one ship even at the expense of others.

  He heard Scarr call down for an increase in revs. He had a vague recollection of having heard a similar increase being ordered only minutes ago. Harbinger must have dropped astern of station, perhaps held to one leg of the zigzag for too long. He was trying to force his mind back to the problem of new tactics—which there could not be, with a four-knot convoy, like a mouse already crippled in a room full of cats—when the wireless office bell rang, and a signalman shouted into the voice-pipe, “Bridge!” There was a gabble, h
ollow-sounding in the tube: then the signalman—it was Bloom—telling Scarr, “Signal from the commodore, sir—Burbridge has completed temporary repairs, convoy speed now seven knots!”

  “Very good.” Scarr hesitated, deciding whether or not to wake his captain. He came to the right conclusion. “Captain, sir?”

  “Yes, pilot.” He spoke without opening his eyes, or moving. His brain was doing all the movement, in these few seconds. “I heard it.” It made all the difference in the world!

  He pushed off the oilskin, sat up, nearly fell out of the chair as the ship lurched hard to port: then he was on his feet. He put his glasses up, training them on the rear ships of the convoy—which was in the act of zigzagging, slanting over to starboard of the mean course. There were only four ships in that rearmost line abreast, since columns one and six lacked tail-end charlies. Grey hulls were sheathed in white and rolling ponderously as they turned, masts and upperworks rocking against the backdrop of pale-grey sky, Harbinger’s bow slamming down into an advancing cliff-face of green water, burying itself in its white explosion, the ship jolting solidly from the impact, sea and spray sluicing over. Then she was climbing again, and the convoy’s grey, slow-moving mass was back in sight … He pointed, called to Scarr, “Take her up to pass between columns two and three. I’m going down to the chartroom, but I’ll be back before you get there.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Scarr’s thin face, running wet, dipped to the voice-pipe. “Starboard fifteen! One-eight-oh revolutions!”

  Nick slid the chartroom door shut. The outline of a plan was in his mind, but its detail needed checking, on two levels. First in terms of the convoy and the U-boats trailing it, and second in relation to the “Torch” convoys approaching from the north and northwest. And it wouldn’t be good enough to get SL 320 away from the U-boats, even if that were possible; for better or for worse, he accepted the obligation to keep the sharks with him, draw them north. As Aubrey Wishart would have known he would: which would be why he’d picked him for this lousy job … All he could hope to do was keep their teeth from closing on his convoy’s throat—for a night, or even two nights. It wouldn’t be an escape, it would be a respite. Those U-boats had tasted blood, they knew there was plenty more: it would only be necessary to provide them with the scent and they’d keep their snouts to the trail.

  The bad weather ought to help.

  Working swiftly: extending the convoy’s progress by two-hourly intervals from its present position. But at four knots, not seven. Until—say—11 pm tonight …

  Midnight would be the German’s optimum time to attack. Say 2300, then, to make the move. The commodore might take some persuading, to reduce speed now, return to the four-knot crawl. But it was essential the Germans shouldn’t know SL 320 was now capable of almost doubling its speed of advance. With that card to play, and the heavy weather, plus a strike by Harbinger and the corvettes well out ahead—leaving the convoy with only two trawlers as close escort when it turned and put on speed?

  Then, if it worked tonight—a repeat tomorrow, only the other way, back on to the ordered route?

  He slid the parallel rule across, on its ribbed brass rollers. Having increased to seven knots tonight, there’d be no point in slowing again. That cat would be out of the bag … Now, Cruance’s overlay: this was the acid test, whether SL 320 could make this diversion and still cross those “Torch” convoy tracks far enough ahead to take the U-boats clear of them.

  Well … Checking them off, one by one. If the Burbridge could maintain seven knots from here on, it looked as if it would be all right. Just all right. No worse than holding a straight course at the lower speed would have been. There’d be a finer margin than Cruance would have liked, obviously: but this was compromise, an attempt both to achieve the vital success of that huge invasion operation and have a few ships of this convoy survive. Those few to include the Burbridge …

  He checked over his workings again, more slowly and very carefully. Courses, times, distances: and the likely spread of U-boats at 2300 when they deployed for their night assault. HF/DF reports during the forenoon indicated that by now all except one shadower would be ahead of the convoy’s beams; a few hours ago there’d been one—the pack leader, in Gritten’s assessment—out ahead, and the rest on the beams and quarters but moving up. The usual tactics, in fact, clawing up ahead while one remained astern to report convoy alterations and snap up any straggler. You had to trust to luck that the convoy’s simultaneous change of speed and course, with darkness and bad weather to hide it, would throw that shadower off the scent. If there’d been just one more corvette, he’d have sent it back to cope with that threat. The fact was, he hadn’t, and lack of escort vessels was the big difference between this ploy and one he’d used in that last North Atlantic trip, when he’d used smoke to obscure a very drastic emergency turn. Tonight, bad weather would do the smoke’s job. But that last time he’d had six corvettes to leave as close escort with the convoy: there was a hell of a big difference between six corvettes and two trawlers.

  The speed trick would be something new. If the commodore agreed to it.

  When he got back to the bridge, the convoy was returning to its mean course and Scarr was aiming Harbinger’s stubby, foam-drenched stem at the gap between the Mount Trembling and the Bonny Prince.

  “Steady!”

  “Steady, sir.”

  The quartermaster’s voice floated from the voice-pipe. “Oh-three-nine, sir.”

  “Steer oh-four-oh.”

  “Steer oh-four-oh, sir …”

  Nick told Signalman Bloom, “I’ll need the loud-hailer in a minute.”

  He’d used it earlier in the day when he’d talked to Cartwright, skipper of the sunk trawler Gleam: Cartwright, who was now Graves’s guest in Astilbe, had bawled over to him—Yorkshire accent booming over the welter of foam between the two ships as they steamed side by side—“Weren’t supposed to ram, I know that, but truth is I didn’t neither, bugger bloody well impaled himself on me!”

  Chubb had muttered vulgarly to Warrimer, “Sounds like a bugger’s defence, to me …”

  Practically every ship had survivors from others on board. Astilbe had the entire crew of the Gleam plus some survivors the trawler had picked up previously, and five men from the English Ardour.

  The Mount Trembling and the Bonny Prince were abeam. The Mount Trembling being one of the rescue ships now. Asked how many survivors he was accommodating, her master replied, “Too bloody many!” He amplified this to “More’n I have crew.” She was only about 1400 gross registered tons; the smaller ships were always picked for the rescue job, since they tended to be more manoeuvrable. Harbinger pushed on up between the columns, between the Colombia and the Omeo: from both of them there were waves in answer to the destroyer’s hail. Looking at the plodding, plunging merchantmen as they fell astern, Mike Scarr wondered which of them might be afloat by tomorrow’s dawn. It was like musical chairs, or Russian roulette: and when you thought of ships that had been here a day or three days ago it was like recalling, not without effort, the names of acquaintances from a distant past. To port now was the St Eliza, and coming up to starboard the taller, bulkier shape of the Burbridge. Scarr saw his captain move over to the port for’ard corner of the bridge, taking the hailer with him and plugging it in on that side to talk to the St Eliza, his back to the passenger ship as they overhauled her. He was asking the Eliza’s master what survivors he had on board: the answer was twenty-one, all from the Dutchman, the Toungoo … While on the other side the Burbridge loomed over them, her rails crowded with waving passengers of whom a fair proportion were women, Harbinger’s captain was the only man on her upper deck not waving enthusiastically back to them. Then it was the Coriolanus to port, and the Chauncy Maples to starboard; with the convoy beginning a turn, altering to a port leg of the zigzag.

  “Come down forty revs and close in a bit, pilot.” He’d crossed over, plugged the loud-hailer in on that side. “Hello, Chauncy Maples. Commodore to speak by l
oud-hailer, please, if he’d be so kind.”

  Sandover had seen him coming, and was ready for it.

  “Good afternoon, Everard. What can we do for you?”

  “I want to suggest you reduce convoy speed, Commodore. Back to four knots, until eleven o’clock tonight. Then crack on to seven again, with a sixty-degree emergency turn to port. I’ll be up ahead to keep the U-boats busy with this ship and both corvettes, while you speed up and turn away. I hope we might get a fairly peaceful night this way.” “What about the no-diversion rule?”

  “It’ll have to be broken again. Otherwise you’ll soon have no convoy left. We could get back on track by another turn tomorrow night—if the Burbridge can keep her end up, now … But I don’t see much alternative, Commodore.”

  Pause, as he lowered the hailer. Weather-noise, ship-noise, and Scarr’s orders to the wheelhouse … Sandover would be thinking it over. Knowing nothing of those “Torch” convoys, the great armada that was on its way, the reason behind the no-diversion rule … But he’d realise something did have to be done, if any part of SL 320 was to have a chance of getting through.

  “All right, Everard. Tell me what you propose in detail.”

  The herd was lumbering round again, zigging the other way. Nick threw a glance over his shoulder and saw that Scarr was on to it, only waiting for the right moment to pass the helm order. The destroyer needed comparatively little rudder to match her turn to that of the more cumbersome freighters: but she’d need extra revs now, being on the outside of the turn, to stay up close to the Chauncy Maples.

  He raised the loud-hailer. “I’d propose reducing to four knots now— before they notice we’re capable of more. Now—right away, sir?”

  “Very well.”