Most Secret

by Nevil Shute

  “No,” he said heavily. “I don’t.”

  There was nothing we could do about it, and no chance of further news. McNeil took some action of his own that was not my affair, and we went down together on the midday train as we had fixed. It was a silent, anxious journey for us both.

  We got to Dartmouth at about five o’clock and walked up to the Naval Centre. The truck was parked outside it and the Wren was there with it; she stood up and saluted when she saw us. “Wait a bit,” I said to her. “I shall want you.” We went into the office.

  Nothing had come through about our ship. It was too early anyway for us to have heard anything unless she had put in to Falmouth or Penzance, and she had not done that. I had arranged this time for her to be admitted to the port during the hours of darkness on the proper signals; the nights now were so long that that was necessary. I checked up that this was all in order, and then went outside with McNeil.

  There was still about an hour of daylight. I said to the Wren: “Take us up to the Watch Point again—where we went before.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  As we drove out of the town McNeil said cheerfully: “How’s the rabbit?”

  She did not answer for a moment. Then she said: “He’s dead, sir.”

  “Dead? How did that happen?”

  “He was killed in the air-raid.”

  I said: “I’m very sorry about that.” She did not answer, and we drove on to the Watch Point in silence.

  The evening light was grey upon the sea when we got there; the rain held off, but it was heavily overcast. There was no report of our ship; indeed I had not expected that there would be. I had a word or two with the old petty officer and told him what we were expecting; then there was nothing we could do but hang around and wait. We should have been more comfortable in the hotel, perhaps, but after London the sea air was fresh up on that cliff.

  I went aside presently and found Wren Wright sitting in her truck. “Miss Wright, I’m very sorry to hear you lost that rabbit,” I said. “Was Rhodes upset?”

  “He was a bit,” she said. “He was such a nice rabbit.” She hesitated. “I think he felt it frightfully,” she said. “You see, there was his dog as well.”

  I hadn’t heard that one, and with a little encouragement she told me all about Ernest. She seemed to know a good deal about Rhodes. She told me how they had found Geoffrey in his hutch.

  “It was after that he went and worried them at Honiton to get out this new oil,” she said.

  “Worcester Sauce?”

  She nodded.

  “Did he tell you what was in it?”

  She shook her head. “He only said it makes burns very bad to heal. He was terribly—bitter, sir, after the raid.”

  There was nothing to be said to that; it was just another little drop to swell the flood of misery that comes from war. I turned back to the Watch Point, but there was nothing new. It was now very nearly dark.

  There was no object in staying there; they might come in any time during the night, cr else they might not come at all. McNeil and I went out presently and got into the truck again. I said to the Wren: “Take us down to the hotel—the one upon the quay.”

  “The Royal Sovereign.” As we drove down I was thinking out what we had better do. I felt that it was necessary for me to meet the ship as soon as they came in, whatever hour it was. I had arranged for the young surgeon-lieutanant with his ambulance to be at Dittisham all night if need be; that was fixed up. But when they came in, quite apart from wounded men, they might want anything. They might have prisoners—all the officers might have been hit—they might have urgent news for V.A.C.O.—anything. There might be any kind of an emergency demanding energetic action, when my brass hat and McNeil’s red tabs would carry weight.

  They could ring up the hotel from the Naval Centre when news of the ship came in. I could get the Duty Officer to do that.

  We drew up outside the hotel and got out; it was dark by that time. I said to the Wren: “I shall want this truck to-night, Miss Wright, as soon as they get in. You’d better park it here and let me have the key. Then you can get along.”

  She said: “That’s quite all right, sir. I’ll be here.”

  “They may come any time,” I said, “or they may not come in till to-morrow.” It was blackly in my mind they might not come at all. “If I want the truck to-night I’ll drive myself.”

  She said: “I’d rather wait.” And then she said quickly: “It might be very awkward if they came in and they—they kind of wanted anything and you hadn’t got a driver, sir.”

  I hesitated; there was truth in what she said, although I knew that wasn’t her real reason. She followed up before I could speak.

  “I’ll just slip back and tell them at the Wrennery and get my coat, sir. I won’t be more than ten minutes.”

  I said: “All right,” and turned into the hotel with McNeil. We decided that the only thing to do was to have dinner and sit by the fire till something happened. I rang through to the Duty Officer and told him where we were, and then we went and washed and had a gin in the bar, and presently we had another. McNeil said: “Is that Wren of yours outside?”

  It was raining in the street; I could hear it rippling in the gutter. “I expect she is,” I said. I went out to the door; in the dim light I saw the dark mass of the van parked by the pavement a few yards away. I went out in the rain and tried the door, and there she was, sitting at the wheel.

  “You’d better come inside, Miss Wright,” I said. “It’s cold as charity out here.”

  She said: “I’m quite all right, sir.”

  “You’d better come on in. Brigadier McNeil wants to buy you a drink.”

  She laughed shyly and got out. I took her into the hotel and took her coat; we went into the bar. McNeil was very good with her. “On a cold night like this I should think you’d like a ginger wine,” he said. “With or without gin?”

  She said: “Lieutenant Rhodes gives me a tomato-juice cocktail when we come in here.” She was refreshingly naive. “I think I’ll stick to that.”

  He ordered it for her. I was not very familiar with the drink, and said: “Does that have gin in it?”

  “Non-alcoholic,” said the brigadier. He took it from the barmaid. “It’s just tomato-juice and … other stuff.”

  “Worcester sauce,” the barmaid said. “Tomato-juice and Worcester sauce, that’s all it is.”

  That made a little silence; we none of us could think of anything to say. We talked about the weather and the war for a bit, but none of the subjects that linked us together could be talked about in a bar, and in the background of our minds was Worcester Sauce.

  We took her in to dinner with us, after a little argument. “I had my tea in the Wrennery before you came,” she said. Still, she managed to do pretty well in spite of that, and we gave her a glass of port to top up with, and then we settled down in long chairs before the fire in the smoking room.

  We were still waiting there at midnight, half asleep.

  I stirred as it struck twelve. I said: “You’d better go on back to the Wrennery and go to bed, Miss Wright. I don’t suppose they’ll come now.”

  She said: “What are you going to do, sir?”

  I yawned. “I’m going to have a double whisky. I shall stay up a bit longer.”

  She said: “I think I ought to stay, sir. I’ll go and see if I can make a cup of tea.”

  She went and raked out the night porter, and presently she came back with her tea while McNeil and I drank whisky. There was nothing we could do but wait. McNeil made up the fire. Then we sat on before it, half asleep, hour after hour.

  At twenty-five to three the telephone-bell rang. I roused and heard the night porter going to it in the passage. I went out and took the receiver from him.

  “Duty Officer here, sir,” it said. “Your ship has just signalled for permission to come in.”

  A great load slipped from my shoulders. “Fine,” I said. “I shall wait here till
I hear her pass up-river; then I shall get along to Dittisham and meet her there.”

  I rang off; behind me were McNeil and the Wren. “Coming in now,” I said. “We’ll wait here till she passes and then get along.”

  McNeil said we’d better have another whisky, and I didn’t disagree. The Wren was radiant. “It’s splendid—I’ve been terribly anxious. It’s silly, I know.”

  “They’ve done a bit of good this time,” I told her. And then the telephone-bell went again.

  “Duty Officer here, sir. Your ship has just made this signal: ‘Requests permission to berth alongside at Dartmouth to land casualties.’ Is that all right?”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Where will you put her?”

  He thought for a minute. “It’s raining so hard. The west ferry pontoon is vacant, and that’s got a roof. The ambulance can back down there and we can have some light. I’ll put her at the west ferry pontoon, sir.”

  I said: “Right. Make that signal to her. Then ring up the hospital and tell them to prepare for casualties.” Behind me I could feel the Wren listening. “Ring up Dittisham and get that ambulance and the surgeon back, quick as they can get. See if the hospital can send down a few ratings for stretcher-bearers, and get a rating or two down to the pontoon to help them berth her.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  I put down the receiver and turned to McNeil. “She’s got some casualties to land. She was bound to have, from what we heard. She should be berthing before long now.”

  By my side the Wren said timidly: “Have they been in action again, sir?”

  I glanced down at her; all the sparkle had gone out of her and she was looking tired and worn. I could not tell her much. “They were in action, I think,” I said. “If what we heard was true, they’ve done very well. But we shall know before long.”

  We gulped down the whisky and put on our coats. It was pouring with rain; outside it was pitch-dark and windy, a dirty kind of night. The streets and the quayside were quite deserted. The pontoon was only a hundred yards from the hotel; I sent the Wren to drive the truck round and McNeil and I walked across through the rain.

  For a time we three huddled on the pontoon, finding what shelter there was in the black darkness between bales and crates, staring down over the black running water to the river mouth. Then she came. We saw her moving white mast-head light and then her red port light; we stood there watching those two slowly moving lights till she loomed up on top of us out of the darkness to the slow uneven chugging of her engine in the rain.

  A truck drove up just before she berthed, and a petty officer and a couple of ratings in oilskins tumbled out of it and began fumbling with a flood-light of some sort to get it rigged. I moved up to a bollard and caught her heaving-line myself, and with McNeil pulled in her warp and made her fast. The ratings took her stern line and the light came on; then we were over the bulwark and on board.

  In the shadowy light we saw that she had taken punishment. There was a gaping hole in deck and bulwarks at the bow, starboard side, close up beside the stem; they seemed to have stuffed it up from the inside with sails or mattresses. Around the flame-gun it looked as if they had had a fire. One hatch was open. Half of the little wheel-house had been carried away, and the same burst had damaged the engine, cracking one cylinder casting; they had come home on five.

  Colvin came to meet me from the wheel. “ ’Evening, Colvin,” I said. “What casualties have you got?”

  “One stretcher case,” he said. “Louis Richier got a splinter in his back. Then there’s two walking cases. Captain Simon lost two fingers, sir—left hand. Jules Clisson—he’s got a wound in the throat and jaw.”

  I said: “Any dead?”

  “Two, sir. André the maître, he got killed right out. I made that chap Rollot maître in his place right away; them Frenchies won’t work right without they have a straw-boss. And then Caspar, one of the two Danes, he died about midday.”

  It was a heavy list for so small a ship’s company. “I’m very sorry you got this bad luck,” I said. “Did you go into the harbour?”

  He stared at me. “How in heck did you know that?”

  “We got a report a few hours afterwards from somewhere on the other side. It said you got two Raumboote moored up against the quay.”

  “Sure we did,” he said. “We made a proper muck of them. But then one of them little cannon, like you wanted us to have, got going and did all this to us in two shakes just as we were getting back into the rain.”

  “You’re not hurt yourself?”

  “Not a scratch, nor Boden, nor Rhodes. Rhodes got a bit of fire all round about him when they split his oil-pipe for him, but he hopped out all right. I reckon his asbestos overall saved him.”

  “Did he get burned at all?” I asked, thinking of Worcester Sauce.

  “I looked him all over this morning myself, but I couldn’t find nothing. I reckon he was too darned quick.”

  The rain streamed down upon us steadily; in the shadowy half-light everything was soaking wet. The ship had water in her, too; I could hear it swishing as she moved at the pontoon. “She’s not taking much,” said Colvin. “We pump her out each watch, ’n that’s enough to keep it under.”

  The ambulance came slowly backing on to the pontoon, and the young surgeon came on board. “It’s a fine show,” I said to Colvin. “Far better than I ever thought you’d do. Now let’s get these casualties on shore.”

  Simon, still in his blue civilian suit, his left hand grotesquely bandaged and in a sling, was talking to McNeil down aft. I had a word with him, and then set to work with the surgeon to get the stretcher case on deck and to the ambulance. I glanced aside as the stretcher was eased over the bulwarks on to the pontoon. In the dim semi-darkness Rhodes was standing on the pontoon with his Wren, in among the crates, in the wet, windy rain. He was in fishing clothes, as they all were. The two were standing very close together, holding hands, watching what went on on board the ship. They did not seem to be talking.

  We got the casualties into the ambulance and it moved off. McNeil was taking Simon independently to the hospital; it was necessary that he should get his information out of Simon before the doctors got at him to dull his mind with pain or drugs. They went into the truck with the Wren driving them; I saw them off and turned to Rhodes.

  “You’ve had a pasting,” I said, “I’m very sorry. How did you come to go in there?”

  He was dead-tired, almost falling over as he stood. “Simon told us when he came back,” he said. “You couldn’t miss a chance like that. If there’d been fifty men behind us we could have taken the whole town.”

  He was too tired to give a proper story, and I didn’t ask for more. “As it is,” I said, “you’ll take a drop of leave.” I turned back to the ship. Colvin was there on deck, and Boden with him. “Would you like to leave her berthed here for the night?” I asked. “I’ll get you transport up to Dittisham. Or will you take her up?”

  He said: “The ferry comes here in the morning. And besides, she’s not just like we’d care to have the public looking at her, sir, in daylight. I’d like to take her to the mooring ’n finish off the job.”

  I nodded; it was better so. I went to telephone the shore party to get out in the motor-boat and meet us at the mooring with a lantern, and to telephone to the young surgeon to get back to Dittisham. Then I got back on Geneviève; we cast off and felt our way up-river in the darkness and the rain.

  Boden was standing by me at one time. I said to him: “You’re not hurt, Boden?”

  He shook his head. “I was lucky. But we hurt a lot of Jerries, sir. Rhodes must have got over fifty with the flame-gun this time, on the Raumboot and the jetty.”

  “The French got some,” I told him. “They seem to have risen and attacked them in the streets.”

  “The French did? Oh, that’s fine …” he breathed.

  I saw them all on shore and the ship safely in the hands of the base party. Back in the villas I stayed wi
th them while they had a meal; most of them were too tired to eat and took only a drink of cocoa or of wine before they tumbled into bed to sleep. One or two wanted the assistance of the surgeon and his sedatives; I stayed there till they were all asleep. The young surgeon would stay with them till they woke, sleeping himself upon an empty cot.

  It was six o’clock and very nearly dawn before I was ready to go. The Wren was waiting there for me with the truck, looking about all in. She drove me back to Dartmouth in the rain.

  This is the story of what happened on their operation, made out from the official report and from what they told me in conversation from time to time:

  After they left Dartmouth they set a course to pass ten miles off Ushant, and they held to that all day. It was raining practically the whole time that they were out, with only short intervals; we had chosen those conditions for their trip, of course, but it didn’t make it easier for them. Apart from navigation difficulties, they were all wet after the first few hours, and stayed wet for the remainder of the time.

  They saw a German aeroplane towards the evening of the first day, perhaps thirty miles from the north coast of Brittany, flying north-west. It was a Heinkel III; it passed within a mile of them flying low and purposeful just underneath the clouds, and it paid no attention to them. No report it may have made did them any harm.

  They were off Ushant at about eight o’clock at night in darkness and wet mist, and altered course down into L’Iroise. From then onwards it was tricky, anxious work for Colvin and Boden. Visibility was practically nil; from time to time they heard the foghorn at Le Jument, but not clearly enough to take a bearing of it. They went ahead, boldly trusting to their tidal calculations and dead reckoning, and stopping every now and then to make a sounding to compare with the depth shown at their estimated position on the chart.

  Two hours later they had run their distance. They were making for a little rocky cove that lies between Beuzec and the Saints. The cliffs run straight along that portion of the coast a hundred feet or so in height, but at this cove a sheep-track ran down to a tiny beach, completely covered at high water. They had a good map of the country behind. Simon had studied it till he knew the way from the beach to Le Rouzic farm by heart, but now their trouble was to find the beach.