by David Black
With the motor gunboat off their port beam, Scourge was now coming up on the first ship in the line: the Cavour-class battleship. He’d ordered the helm to nudge Scourge a little closer in so they would pass within a few score yards of the anchored stern, so the Italian’s quarter deck was now rising like some city tenement above them. Aboard the battleship, a sailor, then half a dozen more, came to the rail to look down on them. One of them, then all of them started to wave and call out, ‘Ciao!… Inglese!… Amici!…’
Harry stepped to the voicepipe, ‘Mr Ainsworth… casing party to the casing now, I think, if you please.’ He stepped back, raised his cap and waved up at the grinning Italians. ‘Well, well,’ he said to Harding, who was frowning at them instead. ‘Our enemy at bay.’
‘Uh, what? Oh, yes, sir,’ said Harding who’d obviously been thinking something else. ‘Cheeky bastards though. Look at ’em. It’s like they never caused all that bloody bother.’
‘Beautiful ships though, Miles, their battleships. You’ve got to agree,’ said Harry, looking thoughtful. ‘When you see them up close, it would have been a shame to blow holes in them.’ And for a moment, he could almost see the battleship through his periscope, engulfed in flame and smoke, all mutilated steel, a capsizing hull with a blanket of running men covering her as she rolled. ‘I’m glad she made it… that they all did,’ he said. ‘Her and her scruffy crew. At least someone’s getting to go home… as Shrimp always used to say, “It’s not as if they’ve actually done anybody any harm.”’
Harding laughed, ‘That’s not what I’m seeing, sir. I’m seeing a whole row of prime targets. I’m seeing us sticking three torpedoes in each one of the bastards, right into their guts. And what a sight it is. And then I’m seeing Dickie Bird sewing three lovely battleship-shaped strips of red cloth onto our Jolly Roger.’
Looking up, it was apparent that there was now quite a crowd round the battleship’s stern rail, and when he looked down the row of ships, there were sailors starting to gather on the other quarterdecks. Immediately below, coming out the gun well, the half a dozen immaculately uniformed casing party was spilling out, dazzling in their whites, with Ainsworth himself as their senior rate. Obviously, curiosity had got the better of even him – a chance to see the enemy, or a former one least, at close quarters.
Scourge was now passing the first battleship. Harry could read the name on her stern – Ceasare.
‘Attention on the casing,’ he called down. The line snapped to. ‘Three cheers for the Eyeties… stand by!’ he cried, then, aside to Bird, ‘Yeoman. Dip the colours!’ then back to the bridge front, ‘Caps off!… Hip, hip!…’
Then in unison, the casing crew and everybody on the bridge yelled a throat-tearing yell, ‘HOORAY!’
And again… and again.
The Italian sailors, manning their stern rails, went crazy. Jumping up and down, cheering, whistling, laughing, slapping each other on the back and blowing kisses.
Harry called over the bridge front, ‘Stand easy on the casing!’ The Scourges, all of them laughing now too, just stood grinning at each other and at the slab grey walls passing and waved their caps back.
Harry turned back, and all he could see was the crazy battle light in Harding’s eye and that evil grin of his.
‘…We could still do it, sir,’ Harding was saying, all malevolent smiles. ‘We could, you know… pretend we never heard the signal… we just say we turned up off the coast and thought they were trying to invade… just a thought, sir.’ This from the man who’d refused to allow a mob of cut-throat commandos to ‘murder’ out of hand a lowly Luftwaffe Gefreiter because it ‘wouldn’t have been British’. Harding then gave a chuckle, and he went on, ‘A naughty thought, of course. But you know me, sir. What about you, sir. What d’you see?’
Harry looked back at the Italian ships and their waving sailors, cavorting like children. What he saw was a lot of young lads, all going home… to their mums and sweethearts, wives and bambinis, to their own beds and lives… and futures.
He said, ‘I see a lot of sailors, just like you and me… well, maybe not quite like you, Miles. …But a lot… and it’s all over for them… all this nonsense. It’s done. And beautiful ships too, of course.’
Miles, still gazing at the ships, shrugged and said, with all the insouciance he could muster, ‘Only if you’re a big soppy Jessie, sir, and wished you’d married Mrs Miniver.’
‘But only if she was played by Betty Grable instead of Greer Garson though,’ said McCready, the official officer of the watch, who’d been so completely silent until now that Harry and Harding had forgotten he was there.
‘You’re a dirty little boy, Tom McCready,’ said Harding, ‘and the captain should subject you to regular underwear inspections.’
Although he was laughing, Harry’s attention was drawn to a commotion on the quarterdeck of the second-but-last ship, the second of the Duilio-class battleships. There were several glintings on metal. He tensed. But in that instant, the milling mob on the deck parted, and there stood, in un-serried ranks, the ship’s band – the glinting had been the sun on their polished trombones and tubas. The band members had obviously all just tumbled up there on deck, but what in God’s name was going on?
As he watched, Harry ordered another three cheers. Looking down on the casing, he could see the Scourges were obviously warming to their celebrity now and enjoying their audience’s appreciation. They hadn’t yet spotted the band.
Until out of the blue, it struck up, and the unmistakeable strains were belting out across the water at them, and bloody professional they sounded too, the band of the Italian battleship Andrea Doria playing Lillybulero loud and clear, like it was being played by the Royal Marines on the parade ground at Guz.
Everybody on the Italian ships and on Scourge’s casing were waving and cheering like mad now, and all to the strains of Lillybulero.
*
Captain Philips didn’t rise to greet Harry. He was sitting behind his desk, looking grim and distracted. Harry snapped to attention. Oh, God. What had he done wrong now? Surely teasing Eyeties hadn’t suddenly become contrary to naval discipline? And anyway, how could the news have got back here so fast?
‘Sit down, Lieutenant Gilmour,’ said Philips. Harry did as he was told. Philips continued, ‘Leave your patrol report on the desk,’ Philips said, gesturing to the small folder Harry had been carrying. ‘Right. Your verbal report please, and keep it brief. There is someone here waiting to speak to you after we have concluded.’
Harry did as he was told. When he was finished, Philips stood and with his hand, gestured for Harry to rise too. ‘Cap on. The officer here to see you, Lieutenant Gilmour, is Captain de Launy. He is from Admiral Cunningham’s staff, which is to say now, the First Sea Lord’s staff, just so as you appreciate the gravity of the interview about to take place. This man is not your friend, Mr Gilmour, and you should remember that. He is here to ask you questions on a matter the admiral has insisted be resolved. I recommend you be concise and frank in all your replies. Remain standing, Captain de Launy will be using this office for the interview.’ And with that, Philips placed his cap on his head, saluted Harry, paused for Harry to return the salute and then left. A moment later, a tall, slim officer in his late thirties/early forties entered. Salutes were exchanged.
‘Lieutenant Gilmour? Please take a seat.’ And the officer, all tanned golden in his immaculate whites, removed his cap and sat too. Dark hair, swept back like a cruiser’s bow wave. Even on this short acquaintance, Harry could see he exuded all the qualities of a steel hawser. A small dossier and a notebook was placed on the desk in front of him.
‘I have here a request from the Captain S of the Twelfth Flotilla to C-in-C Mediterranean requesting you be court-martialled,’ said de Launy. The voice was quiet, and Harry formed the impression that it was never used to saying things it didn’t mean. He felt his stomach lurch. Bonalleck, coming back to haunt him again.
*
Outside, at the far
end of the Lazaretto’s wardroom gallery, Wincairns was leaning over the rail, watching the Scourges hand over their boat to the base personnel. He was smoking like he meant it and halfway through a lung-bursting drag when Captain Philips joined him, carrying two large gins.
‘Well, he’s in there with him now,’ said Philips, passing a gin and receiving a cigarette in return. He lit up.
‘Do you know this chap?’ asked Wincairns. ‘You navy lot all seem to know each other from somewhere.’
Philips shook his head. ‘No. He’s a skimmer. A destroyerman, which I am assuming is why Cunningham appointed him, him being one himself. A very cool customer indeed.’
‘Indeed, as you say. When he came to buttonhole me, I felt like I was being measured for my coffin.’ Wincairns took a belt of gin. ‘Did he give you any indication of what he’s got?’
Philips laughed a sardonic laugh. ‘Given that he’s had communications with everyone, I would guess he’s got everything. Whatever that might be, in all its glory. He’s got statements from Shrimp,Sam Bridger, Bonalleck’s Commander S Twelve, Admiral Barry too. And even from Horton. Needless to say, our Captain de Launy wasn’t giving anything away about what was in them.’
‘I know what’s in them,’ said Wincairns, ‘or at least I’ve a bloody good idea.’
‘You do? How’s that, George?’
‘Do you know what I do out here, George?’
Philips gave another of his sardonic laughs and not just because they both had the same first name. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Good. But since it’s you, I’ll give a little teaser. I’m not military, but then you’ve probably realised that. I’m more Foreign Office. The what’s-going-on department. All that intelligence bumpf that keeps coming in from London… out here, I’m the spigot from which it spouts. Here to make sure the right people at the sharp end get to know what they need to know. I also keep my ear to the ground because the person I report to, back in London, likes to know what’s actually happening at the sharp end, especially the stuff that doesn’t make it into all the official flummery that flows back to him. So, I’ve been making inquiries of my own. Ignoring my own usually sage advice and predictably coming to regret it.’
‘All this nonsense between Bonalleck and young Gilmour? Is that what you’re talking about?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘Bonalleck has been trying to kill him. At least that’s what it looks like. I don’t think the evidence would pass any legal test just yet, but I can’t imagine anyone, least of all my boss or even Captain de Launy’s wanting it to ever get that far.’
Philips stared at him. ‘So what Chief Gault told me… and I told you… it really is worse?’
‘Oh yes. It wasn’t difficult to flesh it out when I decided to look. De Launy has talked to all the big players. But it’s all there too, in the correspondence files and the Twelfth Flotilla’s logs, and it’s also all the talk of your lower deck. I believe that is the expression for the common Jack Tar? Yes. It’s amazing what you can find out just by opening a file cabinet or listening to what the chat is in the gin joints.’
‘Kill him?’ said Philips at last.
‘Oh, it didn’t start out like that. Just a little doctoring of the files, knobbling medal recommendations…’
‘He must have done that under Admiral Horton’s watch,’ said Philips. ‘That wouldn’t have been a good idea. I bet that backfired on him.’
‘Thus stoking the fire more, if you get my drift,’ said Wincairns. ‘It’s like Gault says. It all goes back to Pelorus. She’d just sunk a Jerry cruiser and ends up sunk herself… rammed by one of our own coastal convoys on her way home in the dark. Our hero, the Bonny Boy, is skipper.
Philips said, ‘A few of us thought he would bag a bar to his VC for that.’
‘Except that his luck ran out that fateful night… or at least that is the story he puts about,’ said Wincairns. ‘His heroic works have had all the burnish taken off them by the cruel mistress of fate… at least that is the story he wants put about. Unfortunately, among the survivors is Gilmour… popped up like a bad penny… and he has a different version of events. One that says that Bonalleck was lying drunk when his crew torpedoed the Jerry. And that he was still drunk when he was hurrying home to court-martial said crew for their zeal in showing him up, and that was why he blundered into that convoy. And the young Gilmour, full of righteous indignation and dripping wet straight from the lifeboat, apparently had the effrontery to tell him as much to his face. But being a good chap, Gilmour didn’t go blabbing to teacher. Some might call it loyalty… I’d call it the first indications of wisdom by young Gilmour. Telling tales against a senior officer? Who’d want to listen? Anyway, Bonalleck doesn’t see it as loyalty… and the seeds of loathing are sown in the Bonny Boy’s breast. There’s someone out there who knows the truth.’ Wincairns paused to consider, then added, ‘And I gather, within your service, Bonalleck has never had the reputation of being a forgiving soul in the first place.’
‘Correct,’ said Philips.
‘What happened next, all the petty stuff, I’m sure de Launy must have it all in graphic detail. Where it gets serious though, is when Bonalleck’s pestering gets him a sea job running a flotilla in the Med… and bad luck and trouble sends Gilmour back into his clutches. Our Chief Petty Officer Gault is pretty short on the specifics from here on in, but it’s obvious it’s now that the potential to do real damage presents itself to our man. And damned cunning about it, our Bonny Boy has been too, I can tell you. The first thing he does when Gilmour’s boat comes under his command is to send it inshore to the Franco–Spanish border to disrupt the blockade runners, telling him intelligence says the coast is clear when we know it isn’t. However, Gilmour, being a good skipper, has told his crew their mission, and when they get back, sailors being a chatty bunch, they tell their chums on the depot ship, especially all the office scribblers… who see all the signals and hear all the chatter… and Gilmour’s crew discover nobody’s ever heard of any new intelligence reports and that the coast is still heavily mined and patrolled. They also learn about safe conduct ships… there are such ships? Is that right?’
‘Yes. We allow special ships passage. If they are carrying medicines, Red Cross parcels, that sort of stuff, we promise not to sink them. It’s all very regulated,’ said Philips.
‘Well, one was on its way through when the Bonny Boy sent Gilmour onto that coast, and although a warning it was coming was to be flashed to all submarines in the area, the Bonny Boy didn’t flash it to Gilmour. There is a big hole in the Twelfth’s log listing signals to Scourge where the warning should’ve been. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if the intrepid Lieutenant Gilmour had sunk that ship… to Britain’s reputation… to the navy’s reputation. Nobody would’ve cared that nobody had told our Mr Gilmour what she was. And that’s when Jack Tar starts wondering… has the Twelfth’s skipper got it in for the Scourge’s skipper? Which is how I know about it. It was the talk of the mess decks back in Algiers. The Bonny Boy next gets active against Mr Gilmour by cosying up to the Yanks. Suddenly, we see there are memos flying… him bending over backwards to facilitate our new Allies. Especially when he learns, from me I regret to say, where Field Marshal Kesselring is going to be on his holidays. The paper trail shows him become a veritable font of helpful ideas. Like, why not nip in and bump him off? I’ve got just the sub and just the skipper to take you there. And guess what? His offer comes right at the moment the Yanks’ cloak-and-dagger mob have splashed ashore with this idea about using the local Italian mafias in Sicily and the mainland as off-the-shelf guerrillas… and they’re lugging a sack full of loot and free guns to snag their interest. So the Yanks say, “Yes, please,” and Bonalleck is told to round up a few of those commando cut-throats that are always hanging around sub operations… and now they have a mission. Except Bonalleck hasn’t told anybody at C-in-C Med. And this is where we disappear through the looking glass. A R
oyal Navy captain, holder of the Victoria Cross and the officer commanding a Mediterranean Fleet submarine flotilla… freelancing his services… offering to carry out ops for a foreign power… okay, well, the Americans… but still without telling his own side what he’s doing… because it lets him get his favourite sub skipper tangled up in a highly risky mission… to do something wholly un-gentlemanly and distinctly un-British, all without the official sanction of their lordships. I think it’s safe to say that at this point, the man has gone mad.’
‘Good grief,’ was all Philips could manage.
‘Then there was the Americans shooting up Gilmour’s sub… by accident… convenient accident. Well, I don’t believe in accidents, especially not convenient ones. Have I found any proof though? Well, my answer to that is I said he was mad, not stupid. But I tell you what I do know now… he’s not going to stop unless someone stops him. I sat through a liaison committee discussion about that incident, and it was plain as day something was up. When I started asking afterwards, what do I find but a whole trail of signals lost down the backs of the sofas and subs being where the shouldn’t be, and at the very centre of the whole tangled web, guess who’s there? Captain Bonalleck. And do you know something else? I think your Mr Gilmour knows it too. I think he knows what Bonalleck has been up to all this time and hasn’t known what to do about it. What could he do about it? It’s an utterly preposterous, fantastical tale. Who would believe him? Well, I do… now.’
‘What d’you think is going on in my office right now?’ asked Philips, absently contemplating the rainbow swirls of oil on the water below him, so as not to think on how angry he was. It wasn’t just that Bonalleck had been out to bring down this one lowly lieutenant, he’d actively worked towards and intended to sacrifice a king’s ship and her crew and the good name of the service in the process. It was beyond comprehension.
