Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  The two boats met presently, circling in the darkness. It was obviously unwise to approach the destroyer again; she was still vicious and they had no more depth-charges to attack her with; the fire from Oerlikons could never sink her. There were other vessels near at hand to pick up the survivors of Geneviève. It seemed to Sanderson that there was nothing more that they could do without exposing their boats to a risk that was quite unjustifiable. So he set a course for Ushant and for Plymouth, with the intention of reporting as soon as possible in order that the Air Force could get out and finish off the destroyer.

  He got back, as I have said, at about 09.20.

  At that time, in November, 1941, it was not too easy to produce a force of bombers at a moment’s notice. All we could get hold of was a flight of three Hudsons, which took off at 10.53 and were over the Iroise at 11.31. But the Germans had been too quick for us. The Hudsons found the destroyer just going into the Rade de Brest, in the part they called the Goulet, towed stern first by two tugs with another at the bow for steering.

  The Hudsons had all the flak of Brest against them in broad daylight, and they dropped their bombs from a high altitude. I don’t know that I blame them, but they didn’t do much good. They took some photographs which got to me in London a day later; these showed the bow of the destroyer to be missing completely. It was as if she had been cut off with a knife just forward of the bridge. They got her into Brest all right and she was still there when I left the Admiralty and went to sea; I don’t know what became of her eventually.

  There was nothing more for me to do at Plymouth. I rang up V.A.C.O. and told him very shortly what had happened, and he told me to meet him in London to report. I rang up N.O.I.C. Dartmouth and told him baldly that Geneviève would not be coming back to Dartmouth for some days, and that he need not keep a watch for her that night. Then I picked up my bag and drove down to the station to catch the fast train for London.

  It was not till I was sitting in the train that I realized that that was the train I should have caught in any case, that it stopped at Newton Abbot at 3.40, and that Leading Wren Wright would be there to meet me with the truck. I thought about that for a time. I could not bring myself to sit on in the train and leave her there without instructions. It seemed to me that there was very little reason to defer a nasty job; when I got to London I should have to send a note to Casualties, and they would send out the telegrams to the relatives. There was no real reason why I should not see Miss Wright.

  The train stopped in Newton Abbot for less than five minutes. I got out as soon as it drew to a standstill and went through the barrier; she was there standing by the car. She smiled when she saw me.

  I took her by the arm. “I’m not coming back to Dartmouth,” I said. “I’m going on to London on the train. Come on to the platform in case it goes; I want a word with you.”

  She stared at me. “Is anything wrong?”

  I did not answer, but piloted her through the barrier and to my carriage. We stood by the door, and the people and the porters and the trucks thronged round about us.

  “Look, Miss Wright,” I said. “We’ve had a bit of bad luck this time. It’s not been announced yet, and until it is I don’t want you to talk about it. Can you manage to do that, do you think?”

  She had gone very white; her eyes were very big and dark. A truck of mail-sacks came, and we had to move aside. “I think so,” she said.

  There was no point in beating about the bush. “They were sunk,” I told her. “A good many of them were picked up by the fishing fleet, I think. I don’t know any details or any names. I only know the fact. I don’t want that fact talked about just yet.”

  “I see, sir,” she said. She stood staring at a jet of steam issuing up between the carriages in the raw air. “Can you tell me how it happened?”

  “They took on a destroyer,” I said. “They did a lot of damage to it, but they hadn’t a chance.”

  She asked: “How long will it be before you get the names, sir, do you think?”

  I had to tell her that I didn’t know. “I’ll keep in touch with you, Miss Wright,” I said. “I’ll let you know the minute anything comes in. Keep your pecker up. It’s going to be all right.”

  Behind us the guard blew his whistle. I got into the carriage and leaned from the window. She said: “Thank you for telling me, sir.”

  She had very little to be thankful for, poor kid. The train began to move. I said: “Try not to tell anybody. I know it’s going to be hard, but — try.”

  She said: “I won’t tell a soul. Thank — thank you ever so much, sir.” Then I was sliding away from her down the platform, and she was standing there, with tears beginning to run down her face, in the crowd and the smoke and the steam. I sank down into my seat, thanking God that that was over.

  I got to London at about nine o’clock and went straight to the Admiralty. V.A.C.O. was there, and I told him the story, and then we telephoned McNeil and got him to come over. We had a long talk over it that night, but there was nothing we could do.

  “I’ll probably get some kind of a report to-morrow,” said the brigadier at last, “ — from the other side. We’ll know how things stand then.”

  10

  BUT NO REPORT came through.

  We waited on, day after day, for news from Douarnenez, and nothing came at all. We got a message from the other side about the damaged destroyer at Brest; it only told us what we knew already from air photographs. There was no news of Geneviève or her crew, and for some reason that I didn’t clearly understand McNeil could not ask for any. “We’ve just got to wait,” he said. “We’ll get a message before long.”

  But when we did hear something, it was from quite a different source.

  It came from the Casualties Section. They rang me up about midday on November the 7th, a week after the action. “Is that Commander Martin?”

  “Speaking,” I said.

  “That party of yours, that we notified as missing. One of them has turned up — a lieutenant R.N.R. named Colvin. He was one of them, wasn’t he?”

  “He’s one of them,” I said. “Is he alive?”

  “Oh, yes — at least, he was alive when he was brought in. He was brought into Portsmouth this morning in an A/S trawler. He’s in Haslar Hospital now suffering from exposure.”

  I said: “Where did the trawler find him?”

  “He was in a boat, quite a small boat, so they said. Drifting about some ten miles south of St. Catherine’s. They said he seemed to have been in it a long time. He was only just conscious, or not conscious at all. Of course, it’s been very cold these last few nights.”

  “I know,” I said. I paused. “Was he alone in the boat?”

  “Yes, quite alone.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “I’ll get through to Haslar.” It is about two hundred and thirty sea miles from the Iroise to St. Catherine’s. We had had half a gale most of the week, and it had certainly been very cold. I rang up Haslar Hospital and spoke to the surgeon-commander.

  “I’d really rather that you didn’t come to-day,” he said. “He’s sleeping naturally now. He’ll have a bad time when he wakes up, but I think he’ll be all right. He seems to be a man with a good constitution, but he isn’t a young man by any means.”

  “I know,” I said. “What about to-morrow morning?”

  “I think that should be all right, if you don’t stay too long. Half an hour at the most.”

  “I’ll come down then,” I said.

  I went down next day to Portsmouth and over to Haslar by the ferry. I went through to the officers’ block in the garden quadrangle, bleak and with a little snow lying upon the rose-beds. I found Colvin propped up in a clean white bed in a cabin to himself. He looked grey and old, and smaller than the strapping chap that I remembered from a week before.

  “Say,” he said, “it’s real nice of you to come down, sir. We got shot up and sunk. I guess you heard about that from the M.G.B. boys.”

  “I was
very sorry to hear it,” I said. “How did it happen?”

  He said: “It was this way.”

  They had gone creeping into the Iroise at about 21.30, without lights, slowly and as quietly as they could. It was a clear, calm night with very little cloud; the moon was not yet up, but there was fairly good visibility under the stars. It was a bad night for them; they realized that from the start, but they went through with it according to the plan.

  They had intended to anchor in the Anse des Blancs Sablons three miles north of Cap de la Chèvre before zero hour at 23.00 and let the scattered vessels of the fishing fleet come to them there. They changed that plan when the extreme visibility of the night was revealed. It was too risky for them to approach the coast alone; they would certainly be seen by the shore patrols. Instead, they hung about in the Iroise six or seven miles out to sea, waiting for the diversion that the M.G.B.s would make.

  Five miles to the south of them they could distinctly see the lights of the fishing fleet clustered about the Raz. It was risky for them, waiting there like that; after the attacks that they had made on Raumboote an isolated fishing vessel in those parts would have drawn immediate suspicion. They waited for an hour, stemming the tide with the engine turning over slowly, tensely watching the horizon for the first sign of a ship. But their luck held for the time, and nothing came to worry them.

  Exactly at 23.00 the show started, down to the south by the fishing fleet. They saw the tracer-bullets flying through the sky and heard the crash and rumble of the depth-charges; immediately every light went out. The firing only lasted for about three minutes; searchlights came on and began to sweep the sea. Once or twice a beam passed over them but did not hold them; several times, away to the south-east, they saw fishing vessels caught and held in the white light. Some of these were heading to the north towards them, and some back to the east towards Douarnenez. In a quarter of an hour the fleet was scattered all over the Iroise, and the moon was just coming up over the hill.

  They went forward then and began to close the coast. When they had come within about four miles of the rendezvous a searchlight caught and held them; they went on steadily, each man inwardly terrified and miserable. It held them for the best part of a minute; then travelled on and immediately they saw another fishing vessel outlined in the beam. She was half a mile inshore and travelling upon a northerly, converging course with them. Presently the searchlight, hunting for the enemy, picked up another one.

  They held their course towards the Anse des Blancs Sablons, and twice more they were caught and held in the white, blinding light. It must have been clear to the German searchlight crews by this time that a number of the fishing vessels scattered over the Iroise were making for the Anse, and Geneviève went in with the crowd. Presently the searchlight ceased to bear, and they rounded up in the Anse at about five minutes to midnight.

  Seven other vessels were there to meet them, as had been arranged; in the pale moonlight all the eight of them were as like as peas. They lay together in a cluster about half a mile from the white beach, man[oe]uvring about and shouting from boat to boat. Presently one of them came alongside Geneviève and made fast to her with warps; they lay grinding the fenders and the work of passing out the cases was begun. Later on another came up on the other beam.

  Several of the Breton fishermen came on board. Colvin saw Simon talking to an old man from the first boat. “Chummy, they were, sir,” he said. “Like as if they’d met before some place. I’d say he was the one that Simon fixed up with that time he went into Douarnenez.”

  “Bozallec,” I said.

  “Aye. That was the name.”

  It took much longer than they had estimated to tranship the guns and ammunition. It might have been easier had they anchored Geneviève and let the others come alongside one by one. Colvin said they had not done that because they were certainly under constant observation from the shore, and a successive man[oe]uvre of that sort would have roused suspicion. Instead they kept under way the whole time, stemming the tide that streamed up from the south. The fishing vessels were unhandy in a close man[oe]uvre of that sort; there was much bumping and boring, and long delays while circling for position. The effect from shore was probably one of clumsy, innocent confusion, but it was about 01.50 before the last case had been passed and the last gulp of sour red wine drunk to seal the ceremony.

  By then the moon was well up; on the calm water it was very light indeed. It would not do for one ship to strike out alone towards the west while the others turned south and eastwards round La Chèvre for home. The Bretons saw that well enough and were prepared to accompany Geneviève till she was off the land. They all left the Anse des Blancs Sablons together heading about south-west, as if returning to the Raz to go on fishing.

  “Captain Simon, he was well in with them, sir,” said Colvin. “They’d have done anything for him, they would.”

  The eight vessels passed outside the Bouc. It seemed then that they had gone far enough together; there was a good deal of shouting from boat to boat, and then Geneviève altered course to west and went on out towards the Atlantic and safety, towards Dartmouth and home.

  Ten minutes after they had left the other boats a searchlight blazed out dead ahead of them, not half a mile away, and held them in its glare.

  “Properly caught, we were,” said Colvin grimly.

  Blinded by the light, they could only see the bulk of the vessel. It was obvious from the height of the light that she was something much bigger than a Raumboote. She began flashing at them with a signal-lamp. There was nothing they could do but to hold straight on and try to bluff it out as stupid Breton seamen. As the vessels drew together they prepared for their last action.

  All that this preparation could amount to was that Rhodes slipped into the control seat of the flame-thrower and checked his pressures. They could not man the Bren-guns or the Tommy-guns till action had commenced; their deck was flooded with white light and any preparation of that sort would have given them away at once. The Bretons played up well under Simon’s guidance. The gunners stood nonchalantly, hands in pockets, cigarette in mouth, staring at the bulk of the destroyer as the vessels closed. They must have looked very like a fishing crew.

  They did not answer the flashing signal-lamp; that was not in the part. In a real fishing vessel nobody would know how to read Morse. They just held on towards the enemy, and presently they were lying stopped alongside, about thirty yards away from her, opposite the bridge. She towered above them. She was only a small destroyer, somewhat similar to our V class, but to them she was immense.

  The officer of the watch hailed them in bad French through a megaphone. “What ship is that? Where are you from?”

  Rollot, the maître, was standing by Simon at the entrance to the little wheel-house. They whispered quickly together. Then Rollot called out in rich Breton dialect: “Fishing-boat Marie et Pierre, from Douarnenez. We left the fleet and came out here because of the firing.”

  There was a pause. Then: “Come in closer and take a line and come alongside.” It was very calm. “I shall send an officer on board you.”

  Simon turned to Colvin in the wheel-house and translated quickly. “This is the end of it,” he said. “Shall we give in to them, or shall we fight it out?”

  Colvin said: “I guess we’d better fight it out. The boys would like it better that way. Can Rhodes get his fire down to the stern from here?”

  “No. It is too far.”

  “Well, let him take the bow gun and the bridge in the first place ‘n then train aft. I’ll see if I can work her down that way to help him.”

  From the destroyer a voice cried impatiently: “Come alongside, or we open fire on you.”

  Simon bent to the speaking-tube. “Rhodes, fire at the bow gun and then the bridge, and then work down the decks towards the stern. We shall go slow ahead. Fire quickly now as soon as you are ready.”

  The young man said: “Very good, sir.” Their gun drill was never very formal in that sh
ip.

  The fire burst out and lit up the destroyer brilliantly. The jet curved lazily towards the A gun’s crew, landed amongst them and enveloped them in flame. A great fire rose up from the forecastle of the destroyer immediately; they must have had cordite charges open for loading.

  From the wing of the bridge a machine-gun opened fire on them. They replied with Bren and Tommy gunfire, and the flame jet travelled slowly to the bridge. That machine-gun ceased to fire abruptly, but another opened up upon them from the waist of the destroyer and began to spray them. The flame paused upon the bridge, and then began to work along her length towards the gun. There was a sudden clang of gongs, and screams, and shouted orders.

  The ships were lying bow to stern side by side. Colvin put on full power to go ahead towards the stern of the destroyer. He turned to Simon. “We want to get that flame to bear on their aft gun quick as we can,” he said. “Tell Rhodes.”

  If they had managed to do that, if they had burnt the Z gun’s crew as they had burnt the A gun’s, I believe they might have got away with it. The destroyer then would have had nothing but small arms and machine-guns to fight them with, unless perhaps some A/A cannon. But as it worked out, they never got the aft gun. As they went ahead she went astern; she gained speed more quickly than they did and her stern kept well out of range of their fire.

  Then the Germans opened fire with their stern gun, probably about a four-inch gun, loaded H.E. There was never any doubt about it after that. The range was only about two hundred yards. The first shell pitched over them and burst behind. The second was a direct hit somewhere near the bow, and the ship disintegrated.