Ship of Force (21 page)

Trist saw the opportunity to avoid a court martial and all it entailed. He hesitated, reluctant, then nodded. To Smith he whispered, “
Get out
!”

For a second or two Smith did not move. He was trying to find words to try again. And then he realised, slowly, that it was hopeless. Trist did not believe him, did not want to.

Dunbar was dead but Smith remembered his warning about Trist. “He never does anything he doesn’t have to…Mister Cautious himself.” Trist would not authorise any operation out of the ordinary. A bombardment, convoy escort, a sweep of the Belgian coast — all of them were arguably within the brief for Smith’s flotilla. But not a reconnaissance in force off the coast by De Haan where no U-boat would or could have its base.

Trist would not authorise it.

Smith walked out.

They halted outside the house, for a moment a silent group. Smith was fighting down his anger with Trist, and with himself because he had let his temper run away with him again. He thought he had made a fool of himself, fouled it all up. If he had bided his time, got Trist alone, maybe buttered him up — No. He recoiled from that. But if he had to? No matter. He had handled it badly and now somehow he had to set it right.

There was a fire in the town, sparks flying up amidst the smoke. There was another across the basin that smelt like a paint-store burning. The smoke coiled across the water, acrid. The air-raid was over but as always there was the distant rumbling of the guns at Nieuport and this day they seemed louder, nearer.

Hacker said quietly, “I have some friends in London. I propose to go to them.”

Smith nodded. Friends? He knew he had no influential friends. Except…“There’s someone in London I might talk to as well,” he said. There were rules and he was about to break one of them, or try to. He could see no other way.

Hacker asked, “When will you be ready to leave?”

Smith looked down at himself. His kit was in his cabin aboard
Marshall Marmont
. He had to get out to her.

Hacker said, “Curtis is in the basin and is still on detachment to me as requisite. He can take us across to Dover.”

But Eleanor Hurst put in a word. “Look, I want a bath and my hair washed and clean clothes and I want to go home today, but before anything else I want to go somewhere and have a drink and sit quietly.” She paused for breath. Her voice had a high pitch to it.

Hacker asked anxiously, “Are you all right? Do you feel ill? The doctor —” He gestured towards the house.

Eleanor said desperately, “I don’t want the doctor and I’m not ill but I’m not all right, either. If you want to know how I feel then I feel as if I’d been captured as a spy and threatened with shooting. As if I’d been thrown out of a boat into the sea, hauled out of it again and then shot at. As if I’d been involved in a blazing row with a man I’ve never seen before and never want to see again.”

Hacker put an arm around her shoulders and said gently, “Of course. I’m sorry.”

She looked up at him. “Can’t we just go somewhere where we can have a drink and sit quietly in a seat that doesn’t go up and down and sideways? Just for a few minutes?” Her legs trembled under her and she was close to tears. Hacker was solicitous but awkward while Smith stood aloof and stared at her blank-faced.

But it was Smith who said, “Just down here.” And took her arm.

He led her along the quay past the French destroyers where the hands were securing the guns and gathering up the spent brass cartridge-cases whose clanging sounded like a badly executed carillon. He led her to Le Coq, Hacker marching along stiffly on the other side of her. It was not yet noon and the bar was empty but for one customer. Mrs. Victoria Sevastopol Baines sat at her customary table at the back of the room with the customary glass before her. Smith thought that was one stroke of luck and delivered Eleanor Hurst over to her.

“Mrs. Baines, this is Eleanor Hurst. We had the good fortune to pick her up this morning when her ship went down.” That was true enough and all he could say. He could sense Hacker’s Secret Service eye on him, worrying. He explained to Eleanor, “Mrs. Baines owns a tug and she’s helped me out of trouble on occasion.”

Victoria fussed over Eleanor like a mother-hen and bawled at Jacques for cognac in a voice that shook the bar and made Eleanor flinch. But she found the old woman comforting.

Smith felt the cognac warm his stomach, felt his tense muscles relaxing and his thoughts begin to move again. He did not have to talk. Victoria Baines did the talking.

She asked only a couple of questions about the sinking and got brief, vague answers from Eleanor: a U-boat had attacked them and
Sparrow
had picked her up. It was enough for Victoria. She could fill in the details herself; she had seen enough ships sunk. Smith thought she probably assumed the sinking was somewhere in the Channel and that the ship had been British. Victoria chattered on, making plans. “There’s a hotel in the town. I go up there to have a bath — there’s nothing so grand as that in the
Lively Lady
though she’s snug enough. You’ll be able to have a bath and a sleep and I’m sure I can get you some nice clothes. I’ll get Jacques to send out for a cab —”

Hacker stood up. “That won’t be necessary. I have a car nearby. I’ll go and whistle it up.”

“That’s very kind of you, Colonel, I’m sure. One of those Staff cars is it? Well, it’ll be nice for it to be doing something useful for a change, won’t it?”

Eleanor’s lips twitched and Hacker said drily, “Yes, madame, it will.”

He walked towards the door and Smith said, “I’ll be waiting aboard
Marshall Marmont
within the hour.”

“Right.” Hacker passed out of the bar through the open door and as Smith watched his broad back receding down the quay, memory stirred.

He turned to Eleanor Hurst. “The day I left — I was going to come back but then I saw Hacker at your door —” He stopped.

There was a silence. Eleanor Hurst’s face was blank for a moment as she stared at him but then her lips tightened and he thought, You bloody fool, you’ve done it again. He said lamely, “He’d come to see you about — this other business.”

Now Victoria’s face was blank, turning from one to the other but the bright eyes were watchful and she smelt a row brewing. “What about another drop o’ —”

Eleanor said softly, “That’s what you know
now
, but what did you think
then
?”

Smith could not answer her. He remembered her mood, her blazing anger in that bedroom and he waited for it to burst upon him now. He waited.

She laughed and that was worse than the outburst he had expected. She laughed and said, “Well, Commander, my life’s my own and what I do with it is my business. How I spend it and who I spend it with is my business. It has never been your concern and never will be. I’m grateful to you for saving my life but I think we’re all square now.”

Smith had deserved it, he knew that. But she had not deserved it. He said, “Eleanor, please —”

“Sir?”

He looked around at the interruption. It was Buckley, who said, “The captain sent me up to the Commodore’s to find you but I spotted you in here, sir. I was to tell you we’ve shifted the picketboat; she’s lying just at the end of the quay here.”

Smith stared at him, trying to remember what he had been about to say to Eleanor. Buckley shifted under that taut, empty stare. “He thought you’d be in a hurry to get off, sir.”

Hacker was to take him to Dover aboard Jack Curtis’s CMB. Hacker had to see his friends and Smith had to talk to someone. The mystery of what was hidden in the woods by De Haan was still unsolved.
Schwertträger
. If he was right then the time was running out. Two days. Two days at the most…

He said, “Very good. I’ll come now.” He stood and picked up his cap as Buckley saluted and left.

Smith stooped over Eleanor. “I was wrong and it’s not fair you should be hurt. I’m sorry.”

She did not answer him or look at him, stared past him at the door. So he went to it and out, put on his cap and walked towards the end of the quay, the pinnace and London.

* * *

He and Hacker scrambled into a leave train as it pulled out of Dover and stood throughout the journey in the corridor. The train was packed with the men and their equipment, most of them still with boots and legs coated with Flanders mud. Hacker had telegraphed ahead and there was a car waiting for them at Victoria. A hospital train had preceded them and the station was crowded with ambulances, wounded on stretchers, wounded limping on crutches or with arms in slings, some with eyes bandaged and holding on to comrades. And there were the faces behind the barriers that waited and watched, anxious or hopeful. The one or two that lit up when they saw the man they waited for even though he might be a shattered wreck; he was alive and home and now that was enough. Smoke and steam hung in the station and their smells mingled with the smell of damp khaki serge, sweat, dirt, antiseptic and the exhaust fumes of the ambulances creeping through the crowd.

It happened every day. Often it happened all day and all night.

On the way from Dunkerque they had talked and learned a great deal about each other. Smith found that Hacker had been an artillery subaltern until Intelligence claimed him. “They seemed to think I’d be useful. Bit of luck, really. Most of the chaps I knew as a subaltern are dead. I had trouble getting things done at the start because I didn’t know the strings to pull then. But once I learned that I got on all right. I mean, half-colonel isn’t bad for a chap who’s really a civilian. And it’s an interesting job most of the time.” He paused, then added, “Not too bloody funny sometimes, though.” He appeared languid and easy-going. Smith found him to be hard-working and serious.

Now in the car Hacker said, “About Eleanor.” He paused, for once embarrassed. “There was nothing between us except that I recruited her for the Belgian job. She had a bad time and I’m sorry, though I had no choice. We
needed
her. But that was all there was to it. She’s a fine girl.”

Smith said, “I know.” But he had already wrecked his chances with Eleanor Hurst.

He got out of the car at the Admiralty and stared up at the great building with the wireless aerials strung across its roof. Hacker handed him his bag and said, “When I have any news I’ll come round to your hotel, but this will take time.”

Smith answered, “I don’t think we have much time.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Smith shook his head. “We’ve
got
to make them believe!”

Hacker stared at his intensity as Smith went on, “We know the evidence is just words: soldiers in De Haan talking of
Schwertträger
. A U-boat Commander mumbling it when he was delirious, but he
wasn’t
delirious when he told me: ‘the blow will fall soon.’ I
saw
him. And he talked about a spring tide. You get two of those a month when the tide is exceptionally high and the next one on the Belgian coast is early on the morning of the 12th. That’s the day after tomorrow. That’s
soon
! Whatever
Schwertträger
may mean it
is
a threat, it
is
connected with the woods south of De Haan and it could easily be timed to start on the morning of the 12th.
We’ve got to get them to see that
!”

Hacker was silent a moment, then said, “I believe you. And I know some strings to pull now. We’ll make them believe.”

The car pulled away. Smith watched it go and was glad he had Hacker on his side. He’d got to know the man and liked him; he could prove a friend. But now Smith had to test another and he turned towards the Admiralty.

* * *

Rear-Admiral Braddock growled, “What are you doing here?”

Smith came straight to the point. “I need help, sir.”

“Sit down.” Braddock looked thoughtfully across the desk at him. “The opinions you expressed on anti-submarine flotillas and convoys — I quoted them.”

“Yes, sir?”

“They made an impression. Let’s say that yours was one more vote that was counted. The convoy system is to be extended.”

Smith said from the heart, “Thank God for that.”

Braddock nodded. “I’m convinced it will be the saving of us. The reduction in shipping losses where convoys are used certainly indicates that. So you were right.” He thought Smith could be a bad-tempered, moody, stiff-necked, hard-nosed, infuriating officer. But he was right when it mattered. He went on, “I hear you’ve been busy. How are you getting along with Trist?”

Smith said baldly, “I’m not.”

The Admiral scowled, waited, and Smith told him the whole story, from his first hearing of
Schwertträger
to Trist’s refusal to allow him to attempt a reconnaissance of the woods south of De Haan. And he said what he wanted to do.

Braddock still scowled. “I wouldn’t say that you go looking for trouble as a rule, just that you seem to attract it. I promised you help, but coming to me for this, bypassing the chain of command! Trist will rightly say you’re going behind his back.”

“I know.”

“It won’t endear you to him, or to a lot of other people. I don’t like it myself.”

“I don’t like it, sir, but I believe time is against us and there was no other way. I had to use the back door. A LieutenantColonel in Army Intelligence is trying the same method.” He told Braddock about Hacker.

Braddock said, “Um. So the pair of you are trying to get orders for you, over Trist’s head, to attempt this reconnaissance. Well,
I
can’t give ’em.”

“No, sir. But you’re the only man I know who might be able to — or prepared to…” He stopped, uncertain how to put it.

The Admiral finished for him: “…persuade the right people.” He was silent, thinking that while he knew something of this young man, he knew little about what he really wanted. Thinking also that he himself was nearing the end of a long and distinguished career — but for the war he would have been retired by now — and he did not want to tarnish it with some backstairs-engineered blunder. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Was that what was making him hesitate, the risk to his reputation? If he was worried about taking that sort of risk then he had stayed too long and he should get out. And what about Smith, sitting there expressionless as a Chinaman but ready to risk not only his career but his life? He thought of this young officer’s seemingly wild escapades, the enormous risks he had taken, the women, the scandalous talk he had caused. Now he sat quiet. Not tall nor handsome. A little shabby and the fair hair needed cutting. No jutting jaw nor blazing eyes. The eyes looked tired now but were steady on Braddock.