Love For An Enemy

by Love For An Enemy (retail) (epub)

  Most of the night he’d been at his action station – the main switchboard, from which there was control of electrical supplies to all parts of the ship. The explosion had sent him and his assistants sprawling, and clambering to his feet he’d seen the running light of the dynamos fade and go out. Darkness, then – except for the feeble glow of the lanterns – but alarming sound-effects from the inrush of sea, bulkheads and frames straining, here and there giving way…

  It was at this point – Currie got Fallon’s account of it later – that he’d tried to get the diesel-powered dynamo going, and failed. There were two, in fact, but as luck would have it the other was in pieces, having a major overhaul. Anyway, the submarine arrived about then and was berthed alongside, and connecting cables were passed out to her through scuttles in the lower deck – two levels down from the upper deck. With so much water in the ship her stern was just about resting on the mud by this time, and the urgency of getting power to the pump in Y boiler room was extreme. Luckily it was a very large pump, and even more luckily its starter was high up in the compartment, just inside the access door. But it was still very much touch-and-go: the boiler room was filling faster by this time, and literally every minute counted. Fallon therefore had the submarine start supplying power immediately – the cables being connected at that end, but live and not connected to anything at his end – heavy cables, thick as a man’s arm. He took the live end of one of them himself, and his C.P.O. had the other: in rubber boots and keeping well apart – or as far apart as was possible – with teams behind them taking the weight of the cables and hauling them along, they’d begun the journey down through the ship, with only hand-torches and lanterns for lighting; down ladder after ladder, only too well aware of the need for haste but having to be very, very careful not to stumble and touch the ship’s steel with the cables’ live and naked ends. Finally, Fallon with his cable first, they got into the top of the boiler room – a compartment about the size of a small suburban house – and with the aid of two other men he got the cable connected to one terminal of the starter. Then the Chief struggled in with his, and they joined that up. They were standing on the highest grating in the compartment, and the water was already up to their knees. With the second cable connected, Fallon closed the starter switch and heard the glorious sound of the pump’s motor starting – invisible down there in the black, scummy water.

  He and his helpers had stayed on the grating until they’d been certain that the water-level had begun to fall. Knowing – then that they had a chance: although the battle against flooding wouldn’t end until she could be got into dock. He’d been up the wardroom later in the day for a hurried meal, and had given Currie a condensed account of the forenoon’s struggle down below. By this time work was in progress to clear the boiler and raise steam, so as to start one of the ship’s own dynamos. Meanwhile the T-class submarine remained alongside with her diesels rumbling steadily, and water extracted from the nether regions was flowing out over the side through a huge flexible pipe rigged through the gunroom – the snotties’ mess – in through the door and out of one of the scuttles.

  Fallon had told Currie, ‘We’ll be at it bloody weeks. Aiming to dock Valiant first, Commander (E) tells me. And there’s flooding all over, see. Compartments, cable passages, you name it. We’re going to need portable pumps, lots of ’em. Battle’s hardly begun, yet. No squash for me, I tell you that!’

  Queen Elizabeth was on an even keel, however – thanks to her engineers and the counter-flooding operation. With thousands of tons of sea in her she was several feet lower in the water than she should have been, but it wasn’t all that noticeable to any outsider’s eye. Not even the felucca men would be able to guess how badly she’d been injured. This was the hope, anyway, and plans were afoot for photographs to be taken – for international publication – of the quarterdeck ceremony of hoisting Colours, with the guard and band of Royal Marines paraded and the Commander-in-Chief presiding. He – Cunningham – was continuing to live on board, and there’d be no change in the ship’s routine. A very large bonus was that from the air there’d be no sign of any abnormality.

  Valiant’s wounds couldn’t be hidden so easily. She was heavily down by the bows and there was nothing that could be done about it until they got her into dock. She was to be moved into A.F.D.7 – the 40,000-ton Admiralty Floating Dock – in the next day or so, for temporary repairs which would take about six or eight weeks, and after that go under her own steam to some other dockyard – in the U.S.A., probably – and QE would take her place in the dock here.

  Meanwhile, the Eastern Mediterranean fleet had no capital ships. If the Italians knew it and took advantage of it, the Med could be theirs. As would Cyrenaica, Egypt, the Canal – which might well be the moment for Spain to make its bid for Gibraltar…

  Two more Italians had been caught. The information had been late in coming: Egyptian police had made the arrest at one of the dockyard gates just before 5 a.m., and the Egyptian authorities had been slow in handing them over. Their names were given as Gunner Captain Vincenzo Martellotta and Petty Officer Diver Mario Marino. They’d been interrogated at Ras el-Tin, declined to answer any questions and were now on their way to a P.O.W. camp near Cairo. The Army had been asked to arrange for them and for Valiant’s pair to be segregated from other prisoners and allowed no communication with the outside world for at least six months. This was aimed at suppressing news of the successes they’d achieved, and as far as it went, Currie thought, it was fine. But three targets had been hit, and only two teams of Italians caught, so one lot was still at large. Another thing as yet unexplained was that there’d been a fourth explosion in the harbour, about a cable’s length off the coaling arm and only a minute or two after QE had blown up. It had looked and sounded like an exceptionally powerful depthcharge, although there’d been no boat or ship anywhere near at the time.

  * * *

  Early that afternoon a liberty-boat from one of the interned French cruisers slid alongside the pier that before the war had belonged to Imperial Airways – the international flying- boat operation – and landed about twenty sailors with red pompoms on their caps. It was an open launch with high gunwales, and the last man out needed help in making it up on to the stone steps – two others reaching down and sharing the effort of hauling him up and over. He was no lightweight: an exceptionally broad, muscular-looking matelot, built like a wrestler or a weightlifter.

  There couldn’t have been anything seriously wrong with him, anyway; on the jetty he’d shrugged free of his helpers and was barely limping as the three of them followed the others towards an exit about fifty yards away. It was manned by two policemen and under surveillance from a hut which had been one of the sailing clubs’ headquarters but was now in use as a Customs outpost.

  There was a strong scent of joss-sticks. Bales of them were being unloaded from a freighter on the outside of the Arsenal Mole. Sniffing the air and looking for the source of the incense-like smell, Emilio met the steady gaze of a dark-skinned civilian who, in his shirt-sleeves, was framed in a window of the Customs shed. Mouth opening and shutting – talking to someone behind him in the hut, while watching them approach: watching him, in fact, not the other two. Then he’d passed out of the man’s sight – rounding the end of the hut; beyond it, passing the far corner, he risked a glance back over his shoulder.

  And wished he hadn’t. In the open doorway, two members of a British naval patrol lounged, smoking cigarettes and watching the Frenchmen slope by. The Royal Navy men wore webbing gaiters, webbing belts and bayonets in scabbards, and their cap-ribbons were printed H.M.S. GANGES in gilt capitals… That close: close enough to read their cap ribbons. His alarm had in fact been only momentary: if they’d stopped him they’d have got a stream of French and had a French naval paybook pushed under their noses. Genuine, authentic, with Emilio’s photograph in it. And the man on his right had muttered ‘Keep going, pal. They never bother us.’ He’d nodded towards the policemen ahead: ‘Nor
do these guys. Comic turn, really.’

  He was walking normally as they passed through the gate. Either the braising and stiffness wearing off, or his own strength of mind beating it. The fact he was being watched by two armed British sailors might have helped in that respect, paybook or no paybook. The elder and fatter of the two policemen meanwhile beaming at them under his fez, calling in French: ‘Have a good time, boys!’

  ‘You bet!’

  Fat chuckles, thumbs stuck under his leather belt…

  ‘Straight over, then right.’

  The way the others were straggling off, too. Their immediate destination was somewhere in the maze of streets that filled the neck of land between this end of the modern harbour and the western curve of the eastern one. They’d turned to the right outside the gate, then left to slant across the top of Rue de l’Arsenal; then the length of another block – well, two blocks, at this point – and after that there was a main thoroughfare to cross, Rue Ras el-Tin. Over this – avoiding bicycles, horse- and donkey-carts, motorcars whose drivers seldom took their thumbs off their horns – and on the far pavement having to fend off a child of about eight who begged them to meet his sister. Then, beyond it, they were into meaner streets and alleys.

  ‘I was never in this part before.’

  ‘When you’re with the likes of us, you get to see the world, eh?’

  ‘Get to smell it, too.’

  They’d lost the rest of the boatload by this time, and were shouldering through the crowd in single file. Passing cafés where Arabs puffed smoke through hubble-bubbles, a stall that sold flat unleavened loaves the size and shape of dinner plates, a string-beaded doorway from which a young fellah woman with the look of a starved crow beckoned. The Frenchman who was leading shouted – as a scream of wailing Arab music fell behind – ‘Might have to wait a while. Could be early for Cleo yet, eh?’

  ‘The hell it is.’ The other shook his cropped head. ‘She’s expecting us.’

  Reek of sewage – so strong and sudden that Emilio shied from it like a startled horse. The man behind him laughed. ‘Not exactly salubrious, this bit. But don’t worry, Cleo’s a stickler for hygiene.’

  ‘I don’t worry. Shan’t be laying a finger on her.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘I’m not here to indulge myself. Believe it or not.’

  ‘Always thought Italians were randy devils.’

  ‘Not here to catch a dose, either. Take that home as a present for my girl?’

  ‘Who said anything about a dose? We’re fit, aren’t we?’

  ‘Well – if you always look like that…’

  The one leading had stopped. ‘Here. This is it.’

  There was an iron grille across an arched entrance, with a padlock on it.

  ‘Merde.’ Shaking it… The other one tugged at an iron bell-pull. ‘Thought you said she—’

  ‘Attendez.’ A slim Egyptian youth had appeared behind the grille; inside the stone archway a small, heavily carved door stood open. ‘Un petit moment, Messieurs.’

  ‘Mam’selle Cleo nous attend, hunh?’

  ‘Bien sure.’ He was taking the padlock off. Long, thin fingers, wrists like pipe-stems, big, sensitive eyes and a girlish mouth. ‘Bien sure… Tous les trois?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Grinning at Emilio. ‘Not really digging your heels in, are you?’

  ‘It’s all I’m digging in.’ He told the boy, who was re-fastening the grille behind them: ‘You’ll be letting me out again in five minutes.’

  ‘Cinq minutes?’

  ‘Pour changer les vêtements, c’est tout.’

  A change of clothes was all he’d come for.

  * * *

  In mid-afternoon the news came in that during the early hours of the morning, while de la Penne and his friends had been up to their tricks in the harbour here, Force K from Malta had run into a minefield.

  They’d been racing through heavy seas to intercept a convoy off Tripoli: cruisers Neptune, Aurora and Penelope, destroyers Kandahar, Lance, Lively and Havock. At 0039 Neptune had exploded two mines, the second of which wrecked her screws and steering gear. Aurora and Penelope had then also struck mines. Aurora had been able to start back at reduced speed towards Malta with two of the destroyers, while Penelope although damaged herself had made preparations to take Neptune in tow as soon as she drifted clear of the minefield. But at 0100 Neptune had hit another mine, Kandahar had then gone in either to take her in tow or to pick up survivors if she sank – she’d developed a heavy list – and Kandahar had herself hit a mine which blew her stern off. Finally at 0400 Neptune had fallen foul of yet another – her fourth – which exploded under her bridge, and five minutes later she’d rolled over and sunk.

  There had been heavy loss of life. Neptune’s crew had been ordered to abandon ship, but the extremely rough sea took its toll of those who tried to reach Kandahar – who as far as had been known when this signal had been initiated was still afloat but immobilized and slowly sinking. There was no doubt that if she was still afloat by first light tomorrow the Luftwaffe would find her and use her for target-practice – the only surprising thing was that they hadn’t taken a hand in these events already – and Vice-Admiral (Malta)’s intention was to sail the destroyer Jaguar after dark to take off her ship’s company, returning to Malta before sunrise. Sea conditions in the area were still very bad, apparently.

  Things in general were about as bad as they could be, Currie thought. Unbelievably bloody awful… All you could do was keep your head down, nose to the grindstone, get on with whatever it was you had to do and hope to God the naval situation might end up as slightly less appalling than it seemed.

  There’d been no news or sightings of the other two-man torpedo crews, either. The only thing that was new in relation to the Italian break-in was that during the day a number of small incendiary floats had been found drifting in various parts of the harbour. They had time-fuses, and were packed with calcium carbide. Some had been found burning, others had apparently failed to ignite; the assumption was that they’d been intended to set spilt oil ablaze.

  About all we’d have needed, Currie thought. Set the whole damn place on fire.

  At five-twenty a messenger came looking for him with a telephone message scrawled on a sheet of signal-pad:

  Lieutenant-Commander Currie, from Miss Seydoux. Message timed 1711. Please contact me urgently at Lucia’s apartment. VERY urgent.

  He didn’t have any telephone number for Lucia’s apartment. Nor could he see what could possibly be so urgent. She might want him to take her to some party – or conceivably take them to one. Otherwise, why at Lucia’s? But it came as an intrusion – at a time when anything of a social or personal nature struck one as incongruously trivial and out of place. Considering too if it hadn’t been for Fallon and his minions there wouldn’t have been any power on the telephone lines, even. Currie was in the staff office when the message was delivered to him, and although there was a telephone up there which could be used for shore calls through the ship’s exchange it certainly wasn’t intended for calls of this sort. (What in old navalese would be called the ‘poodlefaking’ sort.) The extension in the quartermaster’s lobby – near the quarterdeck gangway – was the one normally used for such purposes.

  He’d do it later, he decided. And call the Seydoux house; if she was still at Lucia’s someone would give him the number.

  Back to work…

  The C.-in-C. had called for reports on various matters relating to the human-torpedo attacks, on which he’d be reporting to the Admiralty as soon as the extent of the damage had been fully assessed, and Currie’s chore was to assemble data on the times at which the boom gate had been open, and what for. He’d established that it had been opened for various exits and entrances early in the night, and closed at 2339, then opened again at 0040 to admit the 15th Cruiser Squadron and four destroyers, and closed behind them at 0150. An hour and ten minutes did seem a long time to have left it open: and this obviously had been t
he time when de la Penne and company had slipped in. But in general principle, if there was to be criticism of the gate being opened for ships to enter harbour during the dark hours, it might be relevant to point out that only four nights ago Galatea had been torpedoed and sunk right outside the swept channel, and that last evening the destroyer Jervis (since then damaged alongside the oiler Sagona) had sighted and attacked a U-boat only twenty miles out. The risks of keeping ships hanging about outside, therefore, would have to be balanced against those of opening the boom and letting Italian saboteurs sneak in.

  The files of data on various aspects of the night’s disasters were getting thicker by the hour. Out of curiosity he’d glanced through a preliminary report from Valiant, and had been intrigued to learn that after de la Penne had told Captain Morgan, at 0500, that there’d shortly be an explosion, Morgan had asked him where exactly he’d set the charge. De la Penne had refused to answer this, and had therefore been returned to his incarceration below decks. Then after the explosion he and Bianchi had found their own way up on deck, ‘feathers ruffled, but otherwise undamaged’.

  Delighted with themselves, no doubt. But putting them down there in the first place had certainly saved lives. Here in QE the count so far was seventeen, all stokers who’d been in compartments now flooded and shut off.

  Who still were in those compartments, of course.

  ‘Yes, he’s here. Hang on.’ Mervyn Thomas, a green-stripe cipher officer, put the telephone receiver down on the desk. ‘For you. Henderson, at Ras el-Tin.’

  He reached over, picked it up. Anticipating good news for a change: ‘Found more of the bastards, have you?’

  ‘No. Not yet. But I believe you’re acquainted with a young Frenchwoman by name of Seydoux – first name Solange?’