by Alan Evans
Deed of Glory
Alan Evans
© Alan Evans 1984
Alan Evans has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 2001, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in the U.K. in 1984 by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd
This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd
“A deed of glory intimately involved in high strategy.”
Winston Churchill of the Raid on St. Nazaire.
Table of Contents
1: Saracen
2: “Our necks in a noose…!”
3: Engel
4: Landscape with Figures
5: E-boat Alley
6: “Enemy in sight!”
7: A Dirty Game
8: “…it should be quite a party.”
9: The Raid
10: “Were you so sure?”
11: Dirty Bill
12: Phoebe
13: “Dönitz is there…!”
14: “…we’re ducks in a barrel!”
15: No Way Out
16: Chariot of Fire
Epilogue
Extract from Seek Out and Destroy by Alan Evans
1: Saracen
Thursday, 20th June 1940, was a day of high summer with a blazing sun in a clear, blue sky. In the forenoon Lieutenant John Ward stood by B gun mounting forward of the bridge of the Tribal Class destroyer Saracen, bound for St. Nazaire. Her crew were at action stations as she entered the broad estuary of the Loire in the wake of her sister ship, Punjabi. Ward wore his steel helmet pushed to the back of his head so he could more easily use the glasses that hung on their strap against his chest. He was in shirt-sleeves, jacket discarded, but even so sweat ran down his face and he could feel the sun’s glare reflected from the gun. At Narvik too, despite the bitter cold, all the guns had radiated heat like that—then, however, it had come from firing. Now the guns were silent, the ship quiet save for the steady pulse of her engines and the hum of the fans.
Ward was twenty-four years old and very tall with thick, black hair and brows, dark eyes and a bent nose. The scar left by the wound he had got at Narvik was weathered now and hardly noticeable, a thin line from mouth to ear on the right of his face.
He considered himself an average, run-of-the-mill naval officer and lucky to be such because he had only just scraped into Dartmouth and had passed out of it narrowly, despite dubious reports and comments: “Must learn to control his temper”, “outspoken to the point of insubordination”, “high spirits and exuberance should not be allowed to interfere with his studies.” He had kicked over the traces in a reaction against his father’s constant lecturing on the Perseus Group and its workings. His father had given his life to the huge group of companies but Ward had different ambitions.
At sea he did better. He learned to curb his temper and competing in the Navy boxing championship helped there, teaching him the controlled use of force. A big stoker bent Ward’s nose and should have won the championship because he was a better boxer, but Ward hung on and in the last minute landed a knock-out punch. He realised that had been luck, but also that if he had not hung on he would not have had a chance to get lucky. That was another lesson. He grew up, but a devil still lurked behind his black eyes, in the hard stare or glint of humour that went with his slow grin.
In the summer of 1939 Saracen came home after a year off the coast of war-torn Spain, rescuing refugees from both sides. He suggested to his father, “It would be a good idea if you shifted every factory out of the cities into the country.”
“That would cost a fortune!”
“It’ll cost more than that if a war comes, Dad, from what I saw of the bombing in Spain.”
“You could be right. So pack in the Navy, Jack. If war comes I want you in the business.”
Ward shook his head. “Sorry. Just these two weeks’ leave and I’m off again.”
His father eyed him with exasperation. “I thought this naval game was just to pass the time until you started real work!”
Ward had spent the last year of this naval ‘game’ on a wartime footing, ready to fight for his life. He said patiently, “I always told you I wanted to go into the Navy.”
“But not stay in it! Be reasonable, Jack. You’ll be the one to take over the Perseus Group when I retire, and you need to get in some experience.”
“Geoffrey is the best-suited—”
“Your brother is an accountant, business-trained and I have a good deal of respect for him. But you’re the one with flair. You must run Perseus—”
Ward said, “No.”
They had a row then. Ward did not want to quarrel because he was fond of his father, but he would not give an inch
“Then you won’t get another penny out of me, you bloody idiot!”
“I’ve taken nothing for years—not since I went to sea!”
He walked out of the house and spent the rest of his leave in Paris. He had planned to, anyway. He even had the girl lined up…And at the end of his leave he went back to Saracen—and to war.
Saracen canted gently under helm as she followed a bend in the buoyed channel. Ward wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, lifted the glasses and set them to his eyes. St. Nazaire was an evacuation port for the British Expeditionary Force, the troops being lifted from here as others were taken off from Dunkirk. Although the German army was not so close here as at Dunkirk, and was said to be more than thirty miles away, the Luftwaffe was present. St. Nazaire lay six miles from the sea and still distant from Ward by nearly five but a pall of smoke clearly marked the position of the town, and black specks circled above it like flies over a corpse.
The estuary was wide, the navigable channel running close to the flat western shore. The sun set it shimmering in heat-haze and Ward, glancing over his shoulder, saw another shimmer above Saracen’s funnels from their hot breath. The new paint on the forward funnel, covering some of the scars of Narvik, caught his eye.
The girl had asked, “Do you paint?”
The party was at Aunt Abigail’s house in Chelsea that was always full of artists, writers, musicians, or phoneys. Ward reckoned they were phoneys for the most part, talking, posing, wearing weird clothes. Fair enough. They thought he was weird too, if their glances meant anything.
He answered, “Yes.”
“Oil or water-colour?”
“Oil.” He thought there was oil in the Admiralty paint and he had given a hand at slapping on plenty of that in his time. But then he said, “I’m only kidding.” And explained because he liked the girl.
He was going to see her again some time, if he got back from this trip, which didn’t seem all that likely: they were bombing the hell out of St. Nazaire at the moment.
He had been odd man out at the party, just as he was in his mother’s family. He had no desire to paint, sculpt, or compose like cousin Mark. He had a voice that would carry in a gale but was not tuned to sing grand opera in the cities of the world as did barrel-chested Uncle Daniel. Ward’s mother was a concert pianist: she had taught him as a child and he had tried very hard because he loved her, but they were forced to admit that while he might play a useful pub piano he would never appear on a concert stage.
He did not want to. He watched his family from the side-lines, with respect for their talents and amusement at some of their eccentricities. They regarded him, hulking and somewhat sinister, with perplexity. He just wasn’t like them at all.
The party had been to celebrate the safe return from Paris of Patrick, Aunt Abigail’s only child. Abigail Ward, once a ballerina, now was a widow and owned a chunk of London. Her husband had go
ne in with his brother, making the Perseus sports car in the years just before 1914. He had survived that war only to die at the wheel of a racing car when Patrick was still a boy. Understandably therefore, if foolishly, she doted on Patrick. A tall, slender youth, he had lived a life of idleness until suddenly he announced that he wanted to be an artist and the place to learn was Paris. His delighted mother sent him and supported him generously. Ward found Patrick rude, sarcastic, infuriating, but always had a feeling that this was an act and that Patrick would turn out all right at the end and when he was ready. Patrick got very drunk at the party, spoke to no one and walked out early. There was some criticism of his bad manners, though not by Ward. Aunt Abigail was upset. Then, the next morning, she telephoned Ward only hours before Saracen sailed for St. Nazaire to tell him tearfully that Patrick had joined the Army. “Some awful county regiment, infantry.”
Ward’s reaction was that if the Army needed Patrick then the war must be going very badly. He thought now, grimly, that it was. Most of the B.E.F. had been shipped out of St. Nazaire but many would never leave. Astern of Saracen lay the wreck of the liner Lancastria, her masts sticking out of the water of the estuary. Five days ago the liner had been bombed. She sank in thirty minutes with the loss of thousands of lives. There had been survivors, however, and some of these were still in hospitals ashore. There were also hundreds of Polish soldiers who had just arrived in St. Nazaire. The destroyers Punjabi and Saracen had been ordered to bring them all out.
Ward lifted the glasses again and the mile-long boulevard to the west of the town came up in sharp definition. The aircraft overhead were clearer now and he thought they were Heinkels. Where bombs fell more smoke balled up from the pall hanging over the town and a battery of Bofors guns was firing from the boulevard. He could see the smoke and flame, pale in the sunlight, at their muzzles.
The Heinkels drifted away, shuffled into formation and shrank into black specks again. The Bofors battery ceased firing, were hooked on to the towing trucks and rolled away along the boulevard. A ship waited in the St. Nazaire basin to take them aboard. Ward swept slowly with the glasses from west to east past the outstretched arms of the breakwaters guarding the locks and basins within. Punjabi and Saracen were following the deep water channel that ran on past the breakwaters and to the east of them. Now Ward could see over the stone pier that was the Old Mole. Beyond lay the dock built by the French to take the liner Normandie. It was one of the biggest docks in the world, the massive gate was open and all seemed intact. The Germans would probably use it soon.
Ward lowered the glasses. No ‘probably’ about it. Saracen’s captain, Lieutenant-Commander Julian Gates, had told him that the French were seeking an armistice.
Surrender would mean that Germany ruled this coast right down to the border with Spain.
*
Punjabi and Saracen berthed in the Normandie dock and Gates told his first lieutenant, “We want a landing-party. A good killick and a couple of men, one of them able to drive a lorry, and borrow an S.B.A. from the doctor.” A sick berth attendant might well be needed to bring off wounded. He thought a moment, then added, “Send Jack Ward up to lead the party.” That was no random decision. In Gates’s experience, Ward could be relied on. Any officer could get into trouble but Ward got out of it too. He had shown that knack in Norway and it might be needed here.
*
The chosen killick, Leading Seaman Jenkins, rasped, “Here, you, Tracey! And Mackay! Come wi’ me. Landing-party under Mr. Ward.”
Mackay was eighteen, Scottish and new to the ship. He muttered to Tracey as they followed the leading hand, “Ward? Isn’t he the big, bad-tempered looking—”
Jenkins threw over his shoulder, “Don’t go by looks! He’s a lovely bloke if you treat him right, just don’t get across him. Now get a move on!”
*
Ward climbed to the bridge and reported to his captain. Gates carefully filled his pipe and sucked on it to test the draw. “Don’t want to hang around here too long. Any sign of those Poles?”
“That looks like them, sir.” Henderson, the navigator, pointed to a distant column of troops marching through the dockyard towards the ships.
Gates grunted, “Good. Got that map?” Henderson passed it to Ward, a well-worn road map of the area. Gates said, “A job for you, Jack. Punjabi is sending parties for most of the wounded from Lancastria but one lot is our baby. There are four or five chaps in a hospital outside the town.” The stem of his pipe traced across the map and stopped at a pencilled circle. “There. You’ve got a killick who can drive, so requisition a lorry from that lot at the end of the quay and bring those wounded back—quick. We understand Jerry is still some way off but his bombers aren’t, so we won’t want to sit here much over a couple of hours. Anything else you need to know?”
“No, sir.” That was enough to be going on with.
Gates said, “Good God! They’ve brought their bloody bikes!”
Ward looked back over his shoulder and saw that the Polish infantry were wheeling their bicycles along the quay.
*
Ward belted a pistol around his waist, donned his battered cap in place of the heavy steel helmet, found his little party, and led them at a fast walk towards the lorries at the end of the quay. There were demolition parties busy in the port; a detonated charge thumped! and a distant crane leaned and fell. Ward looked along the length of the great dock. This would take any battleship in the world. Surely they would destroy it too and not leave it for the Germans.
Leading Seaman Jenkins was Welsh, dark, wiry and pugnacious. Like the two seamen he carried a slung rifle. He glared at Tracey when the young seaman ventured, “Didn’t you say you’d been to France before, sir?”
Ward nodded, “That’s right.” They had talked when they shared a watch in the quiet of the night. “I was on leave in Paris for a couple of weeks not long before the war.” That had been after the row with his father, a bitter memory especially now that his father was dead.
Tracey grinned. “That would be a bit different.”
Ward had been there with a girl. He had not looked up Patrick in Montparnasse because a little of Patrick went a long way. He and the girl stayed in a small hotel near the Champs-Elysées and for most of the time the only other guest was an elderly Frenchman speaking carefully correct English. He was an engineer and stayed at that hotel whenever he came to Paris. He told Ward and the girl the places they should see. Sometimes they took his advice and always found it good. He even lent them his Renault to drive out into the country. The two of them spent one afternoon under trees by a stream on a day as hot as this; but it had been cool and hushed in the dappled green shade…
Ward said, “Yes, it was different.” He came back to the thumping of the demolition charges, the marching Poles, the jumble of army trucks ahead, and all of it under a sky smeared by smoke from the fires set by the bombing. One truck stood apart from the others, a three-ton Commer and it looked remarkably clean. A soldier stood to one side, scowling at it, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
Ward asked him, “Are you in charge of this truck?” The soldier answered without turning, “For about five more bloody minutes.”
Jenkins barked, “You’re talking to an officer!”
That swung the soldier around. In one practised movement he nipped out the cigarette, came to attention and saluted. “Driver Gibb, T., sir!”
Ward returned the salute, “Easy.”
Gibb relaxed and apologised. “No offence meant, sir, but I’m chocker, right up to here.” He lifted his hand, flat, to the level of his neck to show how fed up he was. “I’ve looked after her like a baby, brought her over only a couple of weeks ago and now I’ve got to ditch her in the drink.”
Ward asked, “Is it roadworthy? Will it go?”
“A-one. Not much juice, though. Where d’you want to go, sir?”
Ward showed him the map. “That hospital.”
Gibb nodded. “I know it. I’ve been driving all r
ound here for the past week. Only thing is, I’ve got orders to get aboard a ship.”
“So have I. With a party of wounded from that hospital.”
Gibb hesitated, then: “Can’t leave the poor bleeders.” He grinned, “Anyway, your ship won’t go without you, sir, so I’m sure of a lift home.” Ward was far from certain of that but Gibb was going on, “I’ll take you straight there. It’s only about a ten minute run. If you get in the front and your lads hop in the back—”
The journey took longer because they had to detour around streets blocked with rubble from the bombing. Parties of men and women were digging in the debris, pulling out survivors. Ward frowned as he watched them. His father had not survived. When Saracen returned from Norway in May 1940 she went into the dockyard and Ward to his home. His father had been killed in his office by a bomb during a daylight raid and buried the week before.
Ward comforted his mother and talked to his younger brother, Geoffrey. They walked on the lawn behind the house, Ward with his hands dug comfortably in his pockets, Geoffrey limping along with the stick that a bad fall when climbing in Wales had condemned him to. He didn’t let it cramp his style, though: the many things he could still do he did to the utmost.
Ward said, “Father reckoned you couldn’t run the Perseus Group.”
Geoffrey shrugged, “He would. He never let me try, always made it clear who was the blue-eyed boy.”
“And after I told him what to do with the job?”
“He didn’t believe it; said you’d come back. ‘Give him another year to get it out of his system and see sense.’”
“Because he didn’t like losing an argument or anything else. He chose to forget I’m on active service these days. We’re all the same. That’s why you’ve got your bloody back up now.”
Geoffrey glared at him, then laughed, “Look who’s talking!”
That’s better, Ward thought. He said, “I’m no businessman, and Dad knew it. He’d have given you the job pretty soon. Look, we all know the old boy paid top salaries to put the best men in the driving-seats of every company in the Group. They run themselves. In the beginning, interfere as little or as much as you like. You’re the accountant. Feel your way…”
