Marine L SBS

by Ian Blake

  ‘Some out on patrol?’ he asked, knowing a full flotilla consisted of twelve submarines.

  Garnett shook his head, but did not elaborate. They walked up the gangway, acknowledged the salute of the Marine sentry and went below to the wardroom, which had been turned into a temporary conference room. A trestle-table covered in a baize cloth stretched the length of the room. Otherwise it was empty except for three lieutenants standing by the bar, whom Garnett introduced as being the captains of the three submarines which lay alongside.

  Garnett bought drinks all round, then said: ‘Roger was asking where the other subs are.’

  The oldest-looking of the three lieutenants, Jack Jewall, smiled wryly through his luxuriant black beard. ‘Have you not heard our little rhyme for the S Class?’

  Pountney shook his head.

  ‘Twelve little S-boats searching earth and heaven,’ quoted the youngest lieutenant, who looked hardly more than a schoolboy. ‘Starfish goes a bit too far – then there were eleven.’

  ‘Eleven watchful S-boats doing fine and then,’ Jewall intoned, ‘Seahorse fails to answer – so there are ten.’

  ‘Ten stocky S-boats in a ragged line,’ Garnett chimed in. ‘Starlet drops out of sight – leaving us nine.’

  ‘Nine plucky S-boats all pursuing fate,’ said the third lieutenant, who looked as if he never spoke much. ‘Shark is overtaken – now we are eight.’

  There was a pause and Pountney said: ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No,’ said the Commander. ‘Unfortunately not.’

  ‘Eight sturdy S-boats – men from Hants and Devon, Salmon now is overdue – and so the number’s seven.’

  ‘Seven gallant S-boats trying all their tricks,’ said the schoolboy lieutenant. ‘Spearfish tries a newer one – down we come to six.’

  ‘Six tireless S-boats fighting to survive.’ They were taking it in turn now, building up the litany of destruction into a kind of chant. ‘No reply from Swordfish – so we tally five.’

  ‘Five scrubby S-boats patrolling close inshore. Snapper takes a short cut – now we are four.’

  Everyone paused for breath at this point, but then a voice behind them said: ‘Four fearless S-boats too far out to sea. Sunfish bombed and scrap-heaped – we are only three.’

  Pountney turned round. A tall, cadaverous, balding officer with a lot of gold on his epaulettes stood in the wardroom doorway. Everyone sprang to their feet.

  ‘I’ve heard a lot about you chaps,’ said the Captain after he had been introduced to Pountney by Garnett as Barney Hawkes, the Captain SM Eighth Flotilla. ‘What do you think of our little ditty?’

  ‘An exaggeration, I hope,’ Pountney said.

  ‘Sadly not,’ said Hawkes gravely. ‘The Med’s not the ideal place in which to operate a sub. The water’s too clear, it’s too shallow, and the enemy’s airfields are too close for comfort. I know you’ve lost men in some of those submarines.’

  Pountney nodded. Besides the two lost in the Salmon, he knew that Bailey and Davidson had not returned from a routine submarine patrol earlier in the year. And only the previous week he had been told that the experienced and reliable Tim Robertson and his paddler were missing after taking part in an operation off Sardinia in which their submarine had been reported sunk by Italian destroyers.

  Hawkes tossed back his drink and said: ‘Well, we’d better get down to it before the Yanks arrive.’

  Two of the lieutenants took that as a signal to leave. Jewall stayed behind and seated himself next to Hawkes, who slapped a thick file on to the baize-covered table and indicated that Pountney should take one of the chairs opposite him.

  Hawkes asked Pountney how much he knew, and when Pountney told him, he said: ‘I can’t add much at this point except to say that the landings will be in French North Africa and that it is an American operation, though British troops and ships are involved.’

  ‘Why American?’ Pountney asked.

  ‘Oran,’ Hawkes replied. ‘That’s why. We want to avoid fighting if possible. If the French Navy knew it was a British operation it would fight to the last man and the last ship. Need I say more?’

  Pountney recalled his fracas with the French naval officer in Beirut, and shook his head.

  ‘"He that is not with me is against me,"’ he quoted inscrutably.

  Hawkes raised bushy eyebrows. ‘Very profound, Major. I hope you’re not given to spouting too many Biblical quotations.’

  ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,’ Pountney added. ‘Hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’

  The two naval officers looked at Pountney doubtfully.

  ‘Just giving you the SBS philosophy, that’s all.’

  Hawkes coughed into his hand; Jewall tried to hide his smile.

  ‘Quite,’ said Hawkes. There was a pause, then Hawkes said: ‘Jack here will be taking you across in the Seraph. He had three folbots of the latest design delivered to him this morning.’

  ‘How will we know where to land?’ Pountney asked.

  ‘Tony Eden did a submarine recce two nights ago and made sketches of the area. It’s a lonely beach at a place called Messelmoun, about twelve miles west of Cherchell and seventy-five miles west of Algiers. You know Tony, of course.’

  Pountney nodded. He had not seen Eden since he had reconnoitred that possible landing beach on Rhodes with him the previous year. It seemed a long time ago now. Since then Eden had made great strides in forming the Combined Operations Pilotage Parties – known to everyone by their initials COPP – whose purpose was to survey landing beaches and guide the invasion forces on to them. This had been one of the original purposes of the SBS, but Pountney had been glad to relinquish it for more active pursuits such as blowing up railway lines and attacking enemy airfields and shipping.

  As Hawkes finished speaking there was a knock on the wardroom door and Eden entered carrying a large folder. There were greetings all round, then Eden spread out a long strip of paper on the table, a pencil sketch of the shore where Pountney was to land.

  ‘The powers that be wouldn’t let me go ashore,’ said Eden. ‘This is the best I could do.’

  The sketch was remarkably detailed and neat, considering it had had to be assembled from looking at the coastline through a periscope. It showed a lonely stretch of beach with a solitary two-storey villa in the middle, half hidden from the sea by tall pine trees. The house was labelled simply ‘white with red roof’.

  ‘No beach gradients?’ Pountney asked, though it wasn’t really a question. He knew Eden could not have obtained beach gradients without leaving the submarine.

  ‘I have aerials,’ said Hawkes, producing a wad of photographs from his file and spreading them out on the table. ‘They’ll have to do. The pattern of the waves shows that there are no sand bars in front of the house.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Pountney, studying the prints closely. ‘I don’t want to land our precious cargo on a spit of sand a mile from shore.’

  He could see that in front of the house the succession of waves produced a uniform, evenly spaced pattern. But to the right they became uneven before re-forming and breaking on the shore.

  ‘There’s a bar here,’ Pountney pointed out. ‘And another one on the left edge of this photograph. Not much margin for error.’

  ‘If we can get in near enough,’ said Jewall, ‘I can guarantee to drop you off in exactly the right spot.’

  ‘Can the Seraph get in close?’ Hawkes shot at Eden.

  Eden nodded. ‘We got to within half a mile of the shore and there was plenty of water under us.’

  ‘You’ll need to get in much nearer than half a mile,’ said Pountney. ‘Remember, we’ll have passengers, not expert paddlers, with us.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at those aerials,’ said Jewall.

  He thumbed through the photographs, studying them carefully, before handing them back. ‘They need expert analysis, but I’d say the distance between the waves shows that the s
eabed is sufficiently steep-to. If I had a long gangplank you could walk ashore.’

  ‘Good,’ said Hawkes. ‘That’s something settled.’

  There was another knock on the door and a seaman entered with a signal which he handed to the Captain.

  ‘Something else that’s settled,’ Hawkes said to Pountney as he read it. ‘Your two colleagues will be here in an hour. A Catalina’s flying them in from Malta.’

  ‘Officer of the watch told me to inform you two staff cars approaching, sir,’ the seaman said, adding with some awe: ‘One of them’s the Admiral’s car, sir. The other’s the Governor’s.’

  Hawkes stood up. ‘You must excuse me. I should be on the quarterdeck to greet them.’

  ‘Who’s the Admiral?’ Pountney asked Jewall when Hawkes had left them.

  ‘Vice Admiral Sir Frederick Edward Collins,’ Jewall replied. ‘Flag Admiral, North Atlantic station.’

  ‘And the Governor?’

  ‘General Sir Noel Mason-MacFarlane,’ said Garnett. ‘Headed the British Military Mission to Moscow until recently.’

  Pountney whistled. Even he was impressed. ‘Big guns indeed. And where are the Yanks we’re meant to be delivering?’

  ‘They’ll be with them.’

  The door opened and the three men waiting at the conference table stood to attention. Suddenly the wardroom was full of American accents, lots of gold braid and unfamiliar uniforms.

  The Governor, easily distinguishable because he was in civilian clothes, said: ‘At ease, gentlemen. There will be no formalities. I want everyone to speak their mind.’

  His aide-de-camp ushered the Americans to their seats. There were three of them, two Army officers and a Navy captain. The tallest Army officer – he stood literally head and shoulders above everyone else in the room – particularly caught Pountney’s attention. He was, Pountney could see from the two stars on his shirt lapel, a major-general. His long, oval face, youthful, vigorous and almost unlined, was dominated by a prominent hooked nose that had given him, Pountney soon learnt, the nickname ‘The Eagle’ from the British Prime Minister. His demeanour was patrician, almost regal.

  The Governor, an amiable-looking man with a clipped moustache who was dressed in a tropical suit, sat at one end of the table. Hawkes sat at the other with Jewall and Pountney on either side of him. The Admiral took the chair on the Governor’s right. His flag lieutenant pulled out a notebook, ready to take notes.

  ‘We haven’t had time to brief our side,’ the Governor said to the American general. ‘Perhaps you could do so?’

  ‘Sure,’ said the General. ‘Gentleman, my name’s Clark. Mark Clark. I am General Eisenhower’s deputy for the upcoming operation, which has been given the code-name Torch. I have the authority to reveal to you that at this moment two large convoys of Allied troops are readying to sail, one from the United States, the other from Great Britain. Nearly seventy-five thousand troops in all. They will land simultaneously on the shores of Morocco and Algeria.’

  A ripple of astonishment went round the table and Clark acknowledged it with a slight smile.

  ‘As you know, both countries are French colonies. They are defended by one hundred thousand fully armed and equipped French troops. If the operation is to be a success, it is essential that the landings are unopposed. I have been assigned to conduct the negotiations which will bring that about.’

  Clark paused and the Governor smoothly intervened. ‘I think we should explain that the French are governed by agreements with the Germans that they will defend any French territory attacked by the Allies. If the French stand by these agreements there will be bloody fighting ashore, though there’s no doubt that, with our air superiority, we would prevail.’

  Pountney was gripped by the enormity of what was being unfolded.

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Clark, ‘if the French fail to comply by fighting, Hitler will certainly occupy Vichy France. The whole country will then be under the Nazi jackboot.’

  Heads I win, tails you lose, thought Pountney. Poor bloody Frogs, they were going to get it in the neck either way.

  ‘How do we know they’re willing to negotiate?’ Admiral Collins asked.

  ‘As you know, we still have diplomatic relations with the French,’ Clark replied. ‘The French Resistance in North Africa have been in touch with our people there. There is no doubt that elements of the French Army are prepared to back the Allies.’

  ‘At whatever cost?’

  ‘At whatever cost,’ Clark said quietly.

  The silence that descended was profound. There was no one present who did not realize the gravity of what was being proposed. After a moment the Governor broke it by asking: ‘And who is the leader of these elements?’

  ‘General Mast, who commands the Algiers garrison,’ Clark replied. ‘He has pledged that his troops will not fight, provided a certain French general assumes control of all French forces in North Africa and announces they have joined the Allies.’

  The Governor nodded. ‘I see. Is that General de Gaulle? As leader of the Free French, I assume he is mixed up in this somewhere?’

  Clark shook his head. ‘Emphatically not. Most of the French Army regard him as a traitor who has flouted the authority of Marshal Pétain, the legitimate leader of France. De Gaulle knows nothing; nor will he until the landings have taken place.’

  ‘Who else is there?’

  ‘There is such a man,’ said Clark. ‘We have code-named him Kingpin. That’s all I can tell you at this moment.’

  The Admiral grunted. ‘I hope he lives up to his code-name.’

  ‘So do we, Admiral,’ said Clark. ‘So do we.’

  Another silence followed, which was again broken by the Governor. ‘That is the background. Now for the detail. First of all we need to know if we can we deliver the General and his colleagues to the rendezvous. Captain Hawkes?’

  The Captain outlined the result of Eden’s reconnaissance and the availability of the submarine and of the SBS with folbots to take the party ashore.

  ‘So it’s a practicable proposition?’ the Governor asked.

  Before Hawkes could reply, the Admiral intervened. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that one of my submarines should surface close to the enemy coastline during a three-quarter-moon period to deliver these officers ashore? It’s madness.’

  A silence again descended on the conference. If an admiral said ‘no’ to an operation, that operation did not take place. It was as simple as that.

  ‘You must understand, Admiral,’ Clark said quietly, ‘that a lot of lives hang on the success of my mission.’

  ‘And I have the responsibility of protecting my men and my ships,’ the Admiral stated flatly. ‘Not to mention trying to protect the lives of valuable personnel belonging to the United States Army.’

  The Governor looked at the faces on one side of the table and then at the other. Deadlock. He turned to the US naval officer sitting on Clark’s right.

  ‘Captain Wright?’

  ‘The Admiral’s right,’ the Captain said immediately. ‘Such an operation poses unjustifiable risks.’

  ‘So, if there was an American submarine available to mount such an operation, you would refuse permission?’

  Wright shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I didn’t say that, exactly.’

  The Governor had made his point, and he said quietly: ‘This operation has the highest political backing, gentlemen. The very highest. That is why I am chairing this meeting. It is not a military decision but a political one. I must know if it can be carried out by the Royal Navy. If the Royal Navy can’t do it, I must find another way.’

  The Americans murmured their agreement. The Admiral sat back in his chair, his bluff face suffused with repressed anger. But when he spoke his words were soft and slow. ‘I hear what you’re saying. Then you must address your questions not to me but to the officers who will be risking their lives.’

  All eyes turned to Hawkes, who said: ‘I should like to introduce you to
Lieutenant Jewall. He is captain of the Seraph, which has been allotted to this operation.’

  ‘Lieutenant Jewall,’ said Clark, fixing the young officer with an intent stare. ‘Can it be done?’

  Jewall glanced at the Admiral. The Admiral’s face was wooden.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ Jewall said eagerly. ‘I can get you there. And with any luck get you back.’

  Clark’s face relaxed. ‘Thanks, son. That’s all I need to know.’

  The Governor turned to the Admiral. ‘We have your permission?’

  The Admiral, his expression still set, said gravely: ‘You have.’

  The Governor smiled. ‘I’ll inform London immediately that it can be done and that the submarine will be sailing tonight.’

  He rose from his seat.

  Pountney rose, too. ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  All faces turned towards the large, taut figure of the SBS officer.

  ‘Yes, ah . . . Major . . .?’

  ‘Pountney, sir,’ Hawkes said briskly to the Governor. ‘He and two of his officers will be delivering the General and his colleagues to the rendezvous in their canoes.’

  ‘Yes, Major Pountney?’

  ‘Our passengers will need to practise, sir.’

  ‘Practise?’

  ‘Getting in and out of the folbots. It needs practising. It can be tricky.’

  Clark leant forward. ‘We are going to be in your hands, Major. You tell us what to do and we’ll do it. Practise all night if we have to.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, sir. Just an hour or so of your time will do.’

  ‘You have it, Major.’

  The meeting broke up and Jewall took Pountney abroad the Seraph, where he found Ayton and Harmon unpacking their kit in the torpedo stowage department. The spare torpedoes had been offloaded and the space converted to bunks and a stowage area for the three folbots.

  ‘What’s it all about, Jumbo?’ Ayton asked.

  ‘You’ll know soon enough,’ Pountney replied. ‘It should be an interesting little jaunt.’