by David Black
More than likely Grainger hadn’t wanted his command stuck behind a sand bar, her room for manoeuvre severely constrained if something untoward turned up. Like an enemy air attack. Or E-boats. The anchor problem was more than likely all eyewash. Harry smiled at the thought his friend hadn’t changed much.
Once inside the anchorage, however, Scourge was ordered to go alongside the largest of the transport caiques, open her torpedo loading hatch and offload all her torpedo reloads. She could keep what was already in her tubes, but the rest had to go. It had been backbreaking, sweaty work under an unrelenting Aegean sun, and it had lasted into the night, hauling the one-and-a-half ton monsters out and over on the caique’s creaky system of derrick and pullies. But space had to made for the paratroopers and all their arms and ammo, V-Force, all ten of them, including Lt Col Verney, the two Royal Signals corporals, with their big radio set, mini-generator and coils of aerial and the six Royal Engineers with all their kit to get Symi’s stone wharf going as a military port.
And, of course, once the torpedoes were out, the pongos and all their paraphernalia had to go aboard – and be stowed! All in a space less than two hundred and nine feet long and twenty-four feet wide – a lot less when you considered all the submarine stuff already in there, not to mention Scourge’s thirty-nine crew, including her captain.
‘It won’t be for long,’ the brigadier’s utterly indifferent staff officer had told Harry while handing over his orders. ‘Symi’s only a hop, skip and a jump away. A nice afternoon for a Med cruise, what! God, it’s hot! How do you stand it in that tin box of yours?’
‘We’re usually underwater,’ had been all Harry could bring himself to reply.
A surface passage would be quicker, he was told. He was expected to sail there on the surface, in daylight. He’d been psyching himself up to actually refuse that order if Pleydell did actually write it, when the whole idea got kiboshed first thing the next morning when a Feisler Storch came puttering over, sounding like a flying lawnmower, way up in the sky so it was only a gnat against the impossibly clear blue.
‘Where has that come from?’ Harry had said, craning his head up and shielding his eyes to see it, already snappy and irritated after a long and snappy and irritating night. ‘I thought your lot were supposed to have blown them all up,’ this last to Lt Col Verney, standing on Scourge’s casing with him.
‘Rhodes,’ had been Verney’s reply. It turned out that Rhodes had airfields too, more than one of them. ‘But last intel said there was only three Junkers transports and one of those jobs on the island,’ he’d explained, jerking his thumb skywards. ‘Them, and around ten thousand Axis troops.’
Harry frowned. ‘How come if Rhodes is Jerry’s main base and it has more than one airfield, Jerry put all his bombers on Kos, in one bag for you to blow up?’
Verney smiled. ‘Most of the ten thousand troops on Rhodes are Italian. And what with them surrendering and all that, I suppose Jerry thought his air support was better off on another island in case the Italians decided to cut up rough and come in and nick them. Anyway, once we grab Symi, the Jerries on Rhodes will be surrounded by us as well as all those reluctant former chums. Hopefully.’ A big grin had followed.
‘Hopefully?’ was all Harry had been able to bring himself to say.
‘I know,’ Verney had replied, still grinning. ‘You couldn’t make it up.’
‘Well, with that little bugger about up there, we still go submerged. At least during daylight,’ Harry had said. ‘Presuming you want your arrival on Symi to be a surprise.’
‘Definitely a good idea,’ Verney had said. ‘We’re not exactly sure who’s there.’
That had been the first of several conversations he and Verney had had on the mechanics and the wisdom of the whole operation.
The plan had been simple enough. Grabbing Symi gave the British force a base astride the lines of communication between Rhodes – Jerry’s main base in the Aegean – and mainland Greece and the German army in Yugoslavia. And so, unable to be re-supplied, Jerry on Rhodes would then wither on the vine. All Scourge had to do was get the initial occupation force ashore on Symi, then the island could be built up as raiding centre for the armed caiques, and eventually, for the flotillas of MTBs and MGBs that had also been promised as reinforcements by C-in-C Med in Alexandria.
‘Wouldn’t it be smarter for us to be going back to grab Kos right now, instead of Symi?’ Harry had asked. ‘Seeing as Kos has an airfield… for these Spitfires that are supposed to be on their way… Symi’s just a volcanic pimple.’
This conversation had taken place round Scourge’s wardroom table as the boat was inching its way, submerged, east-nor’-east towards its objective. The table, like everywhere else on board, had been crowded, Harding, listening, all ears, with a mischievous grin on his face, two para second lieutenants, one lolled back, sound asleep with his mouth wide open and gently snoring and the other hunched over the table, oblivious to all around him, scribbling endless lists in his little notebook with a stubby pencil. And, of course, Verney, who, like Harry, was nursing a mug of coffee.
‘You’d’ve thought so,’ Verney had replied. ‘But who knows what wonders are working their way through the brigadier’s mind?’ He’d paused to muse for a moment. ‘It could be because the Spitfires aren’t coming now, of course. Last guff I heard, they were going to throw an ad hoc group together from leftover Tomahawks instead. Better fighter-bombers than Spits. Could make more sense. And meanwhile, best for the rest of us not to sit about on our arses for too long, eh? “Best to be up and doing, what!”’ This latter in his best brigadier impression voice.
Everywhere you went on board, you were stepping over bodies, lying down or propped up. And you had to bend because every inch of Scourge’s deck space and passage was covered, so you were walking on a layer of boxes of stuff from ammo and grenades to rations and radio batteries.
‘How are they doing?’ Harry had asked on one of his frequent tours, making sure none of these pongos was breaking his boat.
Ainsworth had cast a mean eye over the sprawled humanity. ‘Have you noticed, sir, how none of them ever take their damned berets off?’
Harry looked again, and indeed, did see nothing but a sea of maroon.
‘I think they go to bed in them,’ Ainsworth had added. ‘Apart from that, I’ve got ’em quiet. Can you be imagining the racket, them all going jabber-jabber, whinging and moaning. I told them the sea’s full of Jerry U-boats, and their secret listen-o-scopes’d hear ’em five miles off, and ka-boom, we’d all be fish food. I’ve got the other boys all along, fo’rad to aft, watching, so as they don’t touch anything or pull the wrong lever. So we’re all right, sir.’
Of course they were, the para three-pipper had assured Harry. In fact, not long now ’til his chaps would be off his hands. Just a matter of getting the troops up on deck and into those two huge inflatable rafts the Americans had given them. The manuals proudly boasted each one could carry a dozen fully armed men! It would be a milk run.
The heat had been bloody and the air had got fouler by the hour, putting everyone’s mood on edge. Harry made sure a daisy chain of ratings kept the drinking water flowing among their guests.
Then another chat with Verney about the relevance of the whole campaign. It had been the two huge, black rubber rafts, collapsed and stowed where Scourge’s torpedo reloads should’ve been that sparked his train of thought. All the kit he’d seen at Gib, in Algiers and Malta for Husky and then for the Salerno landings – new, just out the wrapper, the latest technology, nothing spared. That was the real war.
And now there was this sideshow.
What with the Spitfires being diverted away, then the news that the more MTBs and MGBs that had been promised were definitely coming, but not yet. And no landing craft, just ancient, wooden local workboats – cobbled together lash-ups. And a frontline submarine having to be used to launch what might end up as an opposed landing with nothing more than two inflatable dinghies capable
of carrying less than a dozen fighting troops at a time and supplied not even with the outboard motors the manuals said they came with because ‘the noise might alert the enemy’. He couldn’t even remember what idiot had told him that. It meant that the soldiers were going to have to actually paddle ashore, knackered before they even started fighting… the ones who actually did get to go ashore, that is, because some of them would have to stay in the raft to paddle it back for the next load.
Harry had said as much to Verney, this time on the back of the bridge just after they’d surfaced at sunset, with not much longer to run now that they were cracking along at twelve knots.
‘You’re sort of right. It is a sort of sideshow,’ Verney had said. ‘But what are you going to do? Tell Alexander to fuck off?’
General Sir Harold Alexander, Britain’s overall theatre commander.
No, Harry hadn’t thought that a practical idea. But he hadn’t liked the idea of his crew, his boat, even himself being frittered away on a sideshow when the real war against Germany was being waged a couple of hundred miles to the west in Italy. Were they really going to risk British lives for nothing more than a bit of tidying up round the edges? The answer was, obviously, yes. He remembered the feeling of impotent anger rising in his craw.
And then this had happened. This fucking mess on the forward casing.
When they’d arrived off Symi, Harding had navigated them in close to the island, marking off each bearing from all the hilltops and headlands he’d picked out and studied from the army’s maps and the PRU photographs, to make sure exactly where they were. Once hove-to, the torpedo loading hatch was opened and Verney’s folbot was hauled up. He and Sgt Probert were going to paddle ashore and flash the all clear if it was safe for the rest to follow.
The collapsed rafts were already being hauled up behind them, and Verney and Probert were getting ready to cast off when all industry on the casing abruptly ceased. All Harry saw was McCready, who had the deck, in deep conflab with the cox’n and the para three-pipper – Captain Tolland, his name was; he was in charge of the airborne contingent. It was Verney in overall command of the ground forces.
McCready suddenly held up both hands in a gesture of frustration and headed towards the bridge, obviously on his way to break the bad news. Harry could see immediately the young sub lieutenant was shaking with fury. Down on the casing, Harry had seen that Verney had got back out of his folbot and was now getting into it with the para captain.
‘What is it, Tom?’ Harry had said, slowly, trying to keep McCready calm.
‘It’s the air line adaptors, sir,’ McCready had replied, swallowing hard. ‘The pongos have forgotten them, sir.’
The American inflatable rafts had come aboard as army kit and, therefore, not the Royal Navy’s responsibility. However, having had his cox’n, Chief Petty Officer Ainsworth, inspect them anyway before he loaded them, Harry had discovered that being US equipment, the air valves for inflating the rafts wouldn’t accommodate the Royal Navy’s air line nozzles. So Harry had asked the para captain before they’d sailed, did he have adaptors that would match up Scourge’s low-pressure air lines to the raft’s valves? Yes, the para captain had replied, he was certain. Being army kit, it was the Royal Engineer team that was responsible, and he’d been categorically assured that they knew exactly what was required. Harry had pointed out that ‘knowing what was required’ and ‘having what was required’ were two different things, which was when the para captain had become quite sniffy and had practically told him to stop flapping. Yes, everything was under control! Which had made everybody happy, until two minutes ago, with the boat riding off an enemy coast and the troops ready to go, when the senior Royal Engineer warrant officer was asked for the adaptors, and he had replied, ‘What adaptors?’
Verney was now ashore. Before he’d paddled off, he’d told Harry that he’d had, ‘an idea’, and would be, ‘back shortly’. And with that, he and Probert were gone into the night. That had been several hours ago.
If Harry had been able to see what Verney was up to ashore at that very moment, he might have succumbed to apoplexy. For the lieutenant colonel and his sergeant were sitting at an outside café overlooking the island’s main harbour, drinking ouzo with a gathering of half a dozen or so local worthies.
*
It was not long until first light when Probert turned up alone, paddling his folbot with all the slow deliberation of a man knackered. One of the lookouts had spotted his flashing torch from the beach, but it had taken an age for the man himself to be half-hauled out of his seat and onto the port bow plane. He’d looked in no shape to negotiate the conning tower ladder, so Harry went down onto the casing to speak to him, if Probert’s breathless, staccato gasps counted as a conversation.
‘It turns out Lieutenant Colonel Verney has had an idea,’ Harry had later informed Farrar and Harding, back on the bridge.
The plan, in short, was that Harry should forget about getting the paras ashore by inflatable raft. Instead, Scourge should abandon the designated landing beach, cruise round to the island’s main harbour and unload them directly onto the town’s stone jetty. Verney’d be sending a local man out in a boat to guide them in once they’d got themselves round to the other side of the island.
Harry’s first question had been, ‘Is there a garrison?’
‘Yes,’ Probert had wheezed. Mostly Italian, but a platoon of Jerries, pioneer troops or engineers, he wasn’t sure, there to operate the harbour. ‘It’s used by E-boats,’ he’d added, ‘sometimes.’
‘So we’re looking at an opposed landing?’ Harry had asked. ‘From my submarine?’
Probert had shaken his head. No. Verney had had an idea about that too. All would be revealed later.
Really? Harry had thought to himself. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was still the ‘fucking mess’ he’d first identified, whether Verney was having ideas or not.
Harry had then said, ‘If we’re still talking about the element of surprise, we’d need to do our transit submerged, and I’m not sure there’s enough amps left in the box.’
Although Scourge had been on the surface all night, she hadn’t been charging, lest the racket from her diesels this close inshore woke the whole island.
Then there was the question, what do we do with the rafts? Broken open and ready to be inflated, it would take hours to roll them up into the same compact shape they’d arrived in, so as to get them back down the torpedo loading hatch. And they didn’t have hours. The eastern sky above the island was already lightening.
‘Dump them,’ Harry had said.
When Probert had heard, he’d gasped, ‘No! The boss says we have to keep them, sir!’
And even though the para captain was staying way back in the shadows, for obvious reasons, even out the corner of his eye, Harry could see him visibly agitated at the suggestion his rafts were going to get jettisoned.
‘And even if we do get there without being spotted,’ said Harry. ‘How do I know there’s enough depth alongside this wharf to accommodate a boat this size? And fenders. Any suggestion of any fenders? So as I don’t collapse my saddle tanks when I bang up alongside the stone walls… and then can’t dive anymore? Hmmn?’
With Probert finally capable of speech, the whole story had come out.
He and Verney, having hidden their folbot in the scrub, had fast-marched across the shoulder of the island, folded map in hand and moonlight above, between the peaks of its precipitous interior and down into the small town that surrounded the harbour. There hadn’t been an Eyetie or a Jerry in sight, just a gaggle of old fishermen sitting about outside a café, who had spotted them immediately, and known just as immediately who they were, and so invited them over for a drink.
Verney, with his seriously imperfect Greek, had got the drift of their questions pretty quick. Was this the liberation, and should they wake everyone up and start celebrating? Not quite, Verney had said, but if they could spare some fishing boats, it could be.
‘Small inter-island steamers use the jetty, apparently, sir,’ Probert had assured them. ‘The sponge trade. It’s where they load them for transport to the mainland… from all the islands around.’
Harding, who’d been looking at the chart and working out distance against the feeble charge they had left, had added, ‘I’m sure if we switch off all the lights and go dead slow, the batteries will hold out.’
‘It still leaves the matter of the garrison,’ Harry had added. ‘What if they decide they want a moonlit stroll tomorrow night, and are there to meet us when we arrive off the stone jetty? Then there are these bloody rafts!’
‘Leave the rafts to me, sir,’ said Number One. ‘Leave the garrison to Olly,’ Probert had said. And then Probert had paddled back to the beach, intending to run over to town with the news that the sub would be there the following night., Farrar, who, when everyone had got squared away, then motored Scourge right into the two-fathom line, had Ainsworth buoy both the rafts and had then ordered them shoved over the side into the shallow water, to be collected at Captain Tolland’s leisure another day. *
Just over sixteen hours later, in the dark, with the moonlight dancing on the water, Scourge lay hove-to at periscope depth off Yialos, Symi’s tiny harbour town. Harry had made no attempt to surface because up there, lying close in to one of the harbour’s headlands, was a vessel of some sort – small, but he couldn’t tell what. The shadow of the land destroyed any sense of its full outline or true size. A right idiot he’d look if it turned out to be an Eyetie MAS-boat, or worse, one of those ‘sometimes’ Jerry E-boats.
