by David Black
Harry struggled back to his feet in time to see Poulenc disappear down the hatch. It was just Harry and the Captain now, and the two young matelot watchkeepers, lashed by their securing lines to the bridge wings; they steadied themselves for the wind as Radegonde clawed her way to the crest. Durandal was already up on hers, so they got a good look at her now. She must have been just over thirty-five degrees off Radegonde’s starboard bow and her conning tower and periscope stands looked bashed about. It was impossible to tell whether she was trimmed down, as she needed to be to fire her gun; the sea was too confused. But the gun was raised, and even with their eyes screwed against the wind and flying water, both Harry and the Captain could see she meant to fire again. There was a puff of white smoke, snatched instantly into oblivion, and then they heard the bang.
Harry never saw that shot land in the sea either, distracted by Bassano struggling on to the bridge, holding some bulky lump of mechanism. It took him a moment to realise it was Radegonde’s TBT – her target bearing transmitter – the gizmo they used to aim their torpedoes for surface shots. He’d never seen it out of its box, and right then was wondering why Bassano was bothering to show him now. Because Poulenc had told him to, presumably; hope springing eternal and all that utter bollocks. Bassano wrestled the device on to its binnacle, but even he must have known it was going to be useless to them.
‘That was actually quite close,’ said Syvret aloud to no one in particular. It took Harry a moment to realise he’d been referring to where Durandal’s 12-inch shell had landed. When Harry looked back at the Captain, he seemed to be strangely detached. Radegonde didn’t dig into the next wave, but rose on it smoothly. They all awaited the Captain’s orders. But none came. Durandal was again on her crest when Radegonde breasted hers. They could see the gun fire clearly, and for the first time, the effect of the recoil on the wallowing submarine; how it seemed to shiver her and drive her down by the bows, squash her into the chasing seas. Then came the dull boom and as Radegonde, barely crawling forward now, her speed cut to steerage way, began her next descent, a giant candle of water appeared at her starboard beam, less than 200 yards away, and Harry heard the splinters hit the conning tower beneath him.
Syvret bawled into the control room voice-pipe; the man below must have received an earful of water along with the orders he shouted, and immediately, as Radegonde came off the crest, Harry felt her accelerate, but still on the same heading, still shunning the cross-seas, but still battering onward towards the edge of the cyclone.
If they kept going like this, in less than half an hour, Durandal would be firing over open sights; aiming her 12-inch naval gun like a sniper’s rifle, directly at their guts. They dropped into the lee of the next wave, and Syvret continued staring ahead into its slab-grey front.
What was Boudron de Vatry doing? Harry kept asking himself. Why was she here and not running? What was there to gain? Was it rage at being thwarted by someone he considered a lesser man? They could see his boat had suffered damage, but what must she be like below decks, having slashed her way across the most turbulent seas and winds the system was generating? How many aboard must be injured? What state were his battery compartments in? Yet he didn’t seem to care. He could be cruising to safety. So what if that fat slab of France’s gold reserves had slipped through his fingers? So what if he’d realised too late that Pascagoula was a decoy and France’s gold reserves were still in Martinique? What about all the propaganda potential he was carrying with Tassereau and his entourage aboard. Tales of coup d’état and French neutrality violated by a cavalier, aggressive – nay, imperialist – United States. Yet he was risking his command and his crew just to slake his petulance; to vent his spite.
In the relative quiet of the trough, Harry watched Syvret’s unblinking profile. Then he heard Bassano say something in his ear.
‘Saint Joan,’ he said. ‘Shaw’s Saint Joan.’
Harry turned to him, disbelieving that his friend was going into one of his literary reveries at a time like this. But Bassano was grim-faced. He was making a point, not sampling literary allusions.
‘The Chaplain’s speech, after she’s been burned,’ he said, staring fixedly at the Captain. ‘“I did not know what I was doing. I am a hotheaded fool; and I shall be damned to all eternity”, that’s what he said.’
He was talking about Captain Syvret, and when Harry looked back at the Captain, he knew the truth of it. For all his own hatred and contempt for Boudron de Vatry, it was as if Captain Syvret knew now he had been guilty of the same sins, the same pride, the same reason-clouding lust for vengeance; to the point where even his crew and his boat had been offered up for sacrifice. Knew it as certainly as he knew it was now too late. And Harry knew it had not been Syvret’s fatal decision that had brought them to this pass, but his own. And only he and poor Cantor knew. He’d had to interfere, hadn’t he? To know better. To play God.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, he repeated to himself endlessly in his head.
The next round from Durandal’s gun or the round after would hit them. They were too close now to miss, despite the bouncing platform Durandal made for her gun layer. And in this sea, they would all die. How absolutely bloody pathetic, thought Harry. After everything, this.
They rose on their next crest, as Durandal was corkscrewing down the face of hers, but it was a mountainous sea that followed her; they could all see that and held their breaths. And then another wisp of smoke was snatched from the muzzle of Durandal’s gun, and it was as if they were left looking directly down its barrel. And then everything happened in what seemed like slow motion.
God had sent no miracle to save Saint Joan from the stake, but to save Radegonde He sent a big wave.
The recoil from her gun squashed Durandal into the wave’s face again, but she was far down the face this time and it buried her bows into the trough; just as the rising, towering wave rolled under her. It caught her aft end and twisted it against her bow, buried in the confused seas ahead, and it was as if the torque of it shoved her stern out of the water, her twin propellers whining and screaming; not against water, that would give them power, but fresh air. And as the wave pushed, her stern climbed higher.
Harry saw a figure tumble from her bridge front into a sea that was now vertically below him. Up and up until her stern stood proud, upright, two thirds of her length standing out of the wave front, and the rest of her, the submerged end of her, now pointing directly down into the abyss of the Atlantic Ocean. And she hung there, until the wave enfolded her, and thrust her down; and she was gone. Nothing left; any dying bubble lost in the tumult of the storm.
Harry, Bassano and Captain Syvret and the two young watchkeepers stood rigid, their eyes fixed on the spot where a moment ago 130 French sailors had once manned a French warship. And then Radegonde went over the edge of her own wave, and down into her next trough, and all they were left looking at was a wall of water.
Postscript
It was a clear, blue summer’s day in Liverpool. It had been morning when Captain Charles Bonalleck, Assistant Chief of Operations to Flag Officer, Submarines, got off the train at Lime Street Station. It had taken all night to get up from London, and most of the previous day just to get from Portsmouth to London. But he was here and feeling chipper with himself; he was, after all, reputed throughout the trade to be able to sleep through even a depth charging, so the overnight train journey hadn’t taken that much of a toll, and his hangover wasn’t that bad. He’d certainly had much worse. There was a warm sun, calling seagulls overhead, and the city centre area was getting into the full bustle of the day as he walked to the Liver Building on the corner of Chapel Street, leading down to the docks.
If you’d passed him on the street, and noticed the smile that wreathed his face, you would have said there goes a man with a clear conscience, and you would have been right; as clear as any man’s who cared for nothing but himself.
Because in many ways the Bonny Boy was a changed man these days. A much soberer man.
Because when you’ve as good as committed bloody murder because of drink – and got away with it – it tends to focus the mind wonderfully. Especially on your own survival in a hostile world. Oh, the Bonny Boy still enjoyed his drink, but not so much as he was prepared to risk his own survival anymore, there were too many debts to pay off against all who’d wronged him. And they were legion.
He was up in Liverpool, summoned here to meet his boss, the FOS, Vice Admiral Max Horton VC. Another submariner from the last war, except Max had since done considerably better for himself than Charles, the Bonny Boy, Bonalleck. Apart from in the VC department. The Bonny Boy did have his own VC. And now another DSO – to add to his previous brace from the last lot. The Distinguished Service Order was what they handed out when they’d run out of that month’s quota of VCs, and he’d just been gazetted for one for the sinking of that Jerry heavy cruiser back in 1940. One of the few good news stories to come out of that whole Norwegian debacle. And, of course, he’d made sure he got the credit for it. Should have been another VC of course, but he wasn’t bitter. Things had worked out quite well after that little action, considering his real role in it and what he’d done afterwards.
Max wanted the Bonny Boy here to back him up, for he was meeting his own boss, Admiral Sir Percy Noble, the Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches; the man who ran the Atlantic convoys. The Liver Building, overlooking the Mersey shorefront, had been the C-in-C, Western Approaches’ new lair since February, so obviously the old crock was keen to show it off; which was why Sir Percy had dragged Max half way up bloody England, and why Max had dragged the Bonny Boy behind him. Except, knowing Max, he’d probably commandeered a Coastal Command Anson and flown up to Speke, while he left the Bonny Boy to catch a bloody night train crammed with all manner of wartime riff-raff from pongos going on leave to travelling salesmen of ladies’ foundation wear.
The Bonny Boy would have been angry if it hadn’t been for one of the items on the agenda; a report he had written, grandly titled: Proposals for the establishment of operational hunting/support groups along the north Atlantic convoy lanes and Western Approaches.
Max had liked that when he had read it; liked it so much he had spent twenty minutes lecturing the Bonny Boy on how he had been having the same thoughts himself, before going on, in exhaustive detail, to demonstrate how he, in fact, knew far more about the matter than even the Bonny Boy did. When that happened you knew you’d scored. It was always a sure sign Max liked an idea, when everyone suddenly discovered the boss had thought of it himself ages ago, but was extremely grateful to you for reminding him.
Now Max was up here to sell it to Sir Percy. And the Bonny Boy was here to ‘remind’ Max of the answers to any awkward questions that might need answering. Never mind, Bonny Boy, Captain Bonalleck said to himself, as he sipped tea in the spare office he’d been plonked in to wait. You put that one past him, and it all adds lustre to your cluster.
And wait he did; but he didn’t mind. It gave him more time to savour the other exquisite aspect to all of this. The idea had come from that Free French sub’s little battle around convoy SC27 back in the spring; written as an addendum to the action report of her Royal Navy Liaison Officer; which was thoughtful of the Royal Navy Liaison Officer as it saved the Bonny Boy from having to unpick it from the full report, which as a formal document, was not supposed to be for picking at.
And a bloody good report it had been too, but it was never going to go anywhere; not written by a Wavy Navy type. ‘Thank you very much Sub-Lieutenant, just file it in the bin on your way out,’ he’d parroted to himself when he’d read it. No, he’d told himself, by putting his own name to it, he’d be doing the report – the service even – a favour. It will have more traction as it climbs the rungs of command if it’s written by a Captain; because you are a Captain now. Promoted as well as decorated since that little fracas with the Jerry cruiser; you clever chappie, you.
All that, of course, was before he read down and saw who the RNVR Sub-Lieutenant was.
Sub-Lieutenant Harry Gilmour RNVR. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
After that, it all became pleasure rather than business, for Sub-Lieutenant Harry Gilmour had once served under him. That was why the Bonny Boy hated him; and feared him too.
The door opened and in swept Max, firing off greetings and bonhomie. He was bareheaded, so no salutes, and he was carrying nothing except a little signal flimsy. He took a seat the way people do when they are only passing through.
Max Horton was a big, bluff man, gimlet-eyed and craggy of jaw with slicked dark hair worn close to his big round head. No nonsense was what his whole persona said, in case you hadn’t heard him the first time; which was unlikely. He filled his uniform, and he looked like his sleeves had sported ranks of gold braid since birth.
‘Everything with Sir Percy went splendidly,’ he announced. ‘Didn’t need you in the end.’
That was that subject dealt with. Next.
‘There is another matter’, and he brandished the flimsy. ‘Someone somewhere in the Min. of Inf. has decided they’re finally going to release the loss of Pelorus.’
‘Sir,’ said the Bonny Boy in his finest non-committal; thinking, where was this going? All he knew was that Pelorus’s loss had been suppressed at the time. They never gave a reason. Maybe it was because they’d feared her loss might take the shine off him having just sunk the German heavy cruiser Graf von Zeithen. For, as everyone knew, the Bonny Boy had commanded Pelorus during that action, and he was keen to keep it that way.
‘It’s to do with the matter of that RNVR Sub you had aboard,’ said Max, leaning back like nothing in the world could worry him now; a true Max danger signal. ‘Your fourth, or was it fifth?’ Watch officer, he meant. ‘It was in your report. Something about him leaving his station. All very serious.’
‘His name was Gilmour,’ said the Bonny Boy; if anyone knew when not to dissemble, it was him. ‘It was his first war patrol.’
‘Ah. A new boy,’ said Max. ‘A new RNVR boy.’
‘Yessir.’ The Bonny Boy was too cute to let himself be led. Could Max know about the connection between Gilmour and the discussion paper? Surely not. Or, worse, could he know about what had really happened aboard Pelorus on the patrol?
‘What are your thoughts about where we go now?’
‘Sir?’
Max was now getting exasperated. ‘Dammit! What are your intentions? Are you going to want to nail him for it? Good God, man! Do I have to spell it out?’
Caution, Bonny Boy, he said to himself; although how sweet that would be, to see Gilmour crushed. For Sub-Lieutenant Harry Gilmour knew everything that had happened aboard Pelorus’s last patrol, and why. And Charles, the Bonny Boy, Bonalleck had long dreamed of destroying him for it.
‘His was a very grave dereliction of duty, Sir,’ he said, testing the water. ‘The sort of thing, in the trade, that makes you wonder whether you actually want to ever sail with a chap like that again. Whether you want anyone to have to sail with him.’
Max frowned, silently. Obviously that had been the wrong answer. Max continued to say nothing. The silence dragged on, but the Bonny Boy was buggered if he was going to give that little Gilmour shit even just one inch of line.
Buggered, dammit.
However, when you stopped to consider, it really was no disgrace giving way, not to Max when Max wanted his own way; whatever that way was. He always got it in the end. Always.
‘Although,’ the Bonny Boy said eventually, reluctantly, ‘he was very young at the time, Sir. And it was, as I said, his first patrol and first action.’ But what he said to himself was: one day.
‘Quite,’ said Max. ‘Young, and raw.’
Max stared long and hard at the Bonny Boy, as if daring contradiction.
‘He’s been an LO since Pelorus was lost,’ Max said eventually. ‘With the Free French. And they seem to rather like him. So we must assume he’s mended his ways, or just pulled the wool over their eyes. I don’t care. What do
es concern me is that the French are proposing to give him a Croix de Guerre for some feat of derring-do . . . sticking his thumb in a hole on one of their vin rouge barges, probably.’ Max was wrong about that. The little shit had served aboard a T-boat before he went to the French; with some distinction too. The Bonny Boy had always kept a weather eye out on young Gilmour’s progress through the trade. But he didn’t want to let Max know that.
‘I don’t care,’ continued Max, ‘I just don’t want us to be seen trying to put him up against a wall while the French are trying to garland him in glory. It wouldn’t make us look good. But as you’re prepared to let bygones be bygones, then it doesn’t arise.’
Max paused again, daring his man to challenge him.
When he didn’t, Max said, ‘Good man, Charles. I can always depend on you to do the right thing. Carry on. I’ve got to dash.’
Author’s Note
It is true that a substantial quantity of France’s gold reserves ended up on the island colony of Martinique. In May 1940, in order to save it from German occupation, the French Navy light cruiser Émile Bertin had sailed from Brest carrying the reserves. She eventually unloaded at Fort-de-France, where the gold ended up at the centre of a prolonged and rather convoluted intrigue involving the British, American and Free French governments. That story, thankfully, has no bearing on the tale just told.
