The Glory Boys (3 page)

“You’re getting a new command, which is why I had you brought back here in such a bloody rush. But you knew that before you requested to make the handover yourself, at sea.” He glanced at the door. “Go well, did it? Your successor has a good record … Hammond, isn’t it.”

Kearton felt his hand pressing his leg. The well-known faces, the jokes, the strength of comradeship under all conditions. The moments of stress, and sometimes fear. They would soon forget, and rally around their new skipper. It was the key to survival.

Morgan was continuing, “She’s a different class of boat. Bigger, too—but I’ll fill you in when I’ve explained the reasoning behind it.”

Kearton wanted to moisten his lips, ease the strain. Had he been bluffing, even up to the last few seconds? Unfit for duty. Until …

Morgan said, “Who would have believed, a year ago today, that we might truly be on the offensive again? You’ve heard of Dick Garrick.”

“Captain Garrick, Combined Operations.”

Morgan turned impatiently. “Rear-Admiral Garrick, or soon will be, to all accounts.” And, almost to himself, “We were snotties together, and
that’s
hard to believe, when I look back.”

When he spoke again, his voice was level.

“You’re going to the Med. Gibraltar first, for orders to take command. It would require too much time to explain the haste, but I want you ready to ship out in three days—
right
?”

Then he came around the desk, as if coming to a decision.

“It’s part of a new group, three boats so far. My guess is Italy, the ‘soft underbelly’, as Churchill calls it. With Rommel and his Afrika Korps in full retreat at long last, Italy seems the most likely target, don’t you think?” As usual, he did not anticipate an answer.

Kearton watched the neat figure move to one of his wall charts, and then back behind his desk.

“Who’s the senior officer, sir?”

Morgan faced him once more and allowed himself a smile.

“You are. Or you will be, at Gib.” Then he snatched up the telephone, the moment past. Perhaps he saw it as weakness, a crack in his armour.

“My assistant has all the details—she knows what to do.” He covered the mouthpiece but did not turn toward him. “You’re getting a half-stripe, by the way. Acting, of course. We’ll just have to see …” He snapped into the receiver, “
Yes
, I got your message! What is all the fuss about this time?”

Kearton felt a hand on his sleeve and realized that the door was open.

She said, “This may take some time. Sir.”

The same passageway, the noise and bustle, more unreal than ever.

A new command, and promotion. Lieutenant-commander.… He could still hear Morgan’s words, and the rare show of warmth.
Acting, of course
.

“Is this really happening?”

She held out a fat envelope.

“It’s all in here, sir. Someone will take your uniform to the outfitters while you’re at the base. Captain Morgan has fixed it—with Gieves, he said.”

They walked back through the same office, the Wrens still hammering at their typewriters. He saw a clock: it was less than ten minutes since he had been conducted through this ‘short cut’. He stopped abruptly, and saw her turn.

“Can you wangle me a telephone? I’d like to make a private call.”

She seemed to consider it, biting the end of the pencil which had never left her hand.

“I think we can manage that.”

He said, “I’d like to let my mother know. Some of it, anyway.”

He saw two of the Wrens bending over another who was seated at one of the desks. One girl had her arms around her shoulders, and her eyes were red with tears. He heard the second officer say softly, “I couldn’t deal with it earlier,” then she turned to face him, excluding everybody else. “She was on leave. She only just got the news. Her brother’s reported missing, presumed killed. His ship hit a mine.”

Kearton walked across the lobby, where hotel guests had once lingered, planning their days, and how best to enjoy their leisure. Another world, which might never come again.

He thought of Morgan.
Ready to ship out in three days
. A lifetime. He glanced at the two portraits on the wall. By then,
the
remains of the holly and the faded ribbons would have been swept away.

A new beginning. He saw the Royal Marine climbing out of his car to stand beside it. Waiting.

He hesitated, half expecting to hear the shout … or had it been a scream?

But he was quite alone.

The duty petty officer in his white belt and gaiters pushed open a door marked
Officers Only
and peered up at the dockyard clock.

“If you’ll wait ’ere, sir, a boat’ll be along directly.” He sighed. “There’s a queue of ’em linin’ up already!”

Kearton saw his suitcase just inside the little room, the raincoat folded across it. His other gear had already gone ahead, or so he had been assured, but he had long ago discovered that it was better to take no chances in the navy.

The petty officer glanced at a list pinned to a square of plywood.

“H.M.S.
Kinsale
. Came in yesterday. Always in a rush, in destroyers!”

Someone shouted and he looked in that direction. “Call me if …” But he did not finish it. “What’s the matter? Don’t they teach you to bloody read in the trainin’ barracks? Officers only!” He strode away, already calling to somebody else.

A young seaman was standing beside his kitbag and lashed hammock where they had been unceremoniously dropped, a regulation suitcase at his feet: as new as he was. His dark blue collar and carefully pressed bell-bottoms said it all.

For some reason it seemed to help, steadied Kearton’s mind.

He said, “First ship?”

The boy, and he was no more than that, stared at him, the face and the uniform, and nodded jerkily.

“Y-yes, sir. I was delayed.”

“You still ’ere?” The P.O. was back. “Wait by the stairs!” Then he relented slightly. “I’ll carry the bag—
you
might lose it.” He looked at Kearton and grimaced. “What’s the Andrew comin’ to these days, sir?”

Kearton stood by the solitary window and imagined he could feel warmth in the sunlight through the glass. But it was two o’clock in the afternoon, and would be dark in a couple of hours. He shivered, trying to recall what it had been like. The first ship …

He stared across the harbour. Portsmouth: always crowded, always busy. Speeding motor-boats and scruffy working craft, a backdrop of moored ships in dull grey or dazzle-paint. Some preparing for sea, others enduring the indignities of repair or overhaul. The waiting was almost over. He wanted to yawn, and restrained it.

Captain Morgan’s three days had become five. And he was feeling everyone of them.

Going over his orders until he knew them almost by heart, not that they ever gave much away.
Go there. Do that
. An unfamiliar bed, and never free to meet and discuss things with men he knew. He had spoken to his mother twice on the telephone; the first attempt had been cut off. Something one of them must have said. A click on the line, then it had gone dead.
Careless talk costs lives
.

They should have been prepared, after all this time. He had also written to her, not saying much. But she would know. She would tell his father then, in her own way.

There was sudden movement abeam of a moored escort vessel, and, subconsciously, his bruised body responded. An Air-Sea Rescue launch, the colours vivid against the sloop’s hard-worked and dented plates. He thought of the Fisherman, the weathered features, the handshake. He would be back at sea again, a fisher of men. If only people knew.

“ ’Tenant-Commander Kearton, sir?”

He was still not used to it, and he was not the only one. The questioning glances, and even when he had seen his own reflection in a shop window it had been like glimpsing a stranger. Could that little piece of gold make such a difference?

It was a tough-looking seaman, cap chin-stay pulled down, face reddened by the cold air. A leading-hand’s killick on one sleeve: probably the boat’s coxswain.

“I’m from
Kinsale
, sir.” He indicated the case. “Ready if you are, sir.”

His collar was pale, dhobied and scrubbed until it was almost colourless: a proper Jack, unlike the young rookie with his bag and hammock.

Another seaman had appeared and was already picking up the case. He, too, had glanced at Kearton’s sleeve and the new gold lace.
All right for some
. But he said cheerfully, “My brother’s in Coastal Forces, sir.”

The leading hand grinned. “Then God help us!”

The same petty officer was waiting at the pier, where an assortment of boats was jockeying for position, offloading personnel, or waiting for others to arrive.

“Can you take another one, sir?” He gestured to the young sailor. “’E’ll be adrift otherwise.”

Kearton nodded. “He’s joining
Kinsale
. I’m only a passenger!”

He climbed down into the boat and felt the engine quiver into life. He was back.

HE WAS SUDDENLY
wide awake, but for a few moments he could not recall having been asleep. His body reacted more instinctively, identifying the pressure against one arm and then the other, the vibration beneath and around him, even as his mind was still grappling with it.

There was a tiny deckhead light, just enough to see the opposite side of the cabin, and the other bunk, obviously empty. And the outline of the door, the one thing that really mattered if the alarm bells or worse should shatter the silence.

He lay listening to the sounds as the hull leaned over: the clatter of loose gear, boots thudding along the deck overhead. Familiar, yet so different from the thrust and plunge of an M.T.B. in any kind of sea.

His first ship on active service, before he had been accepted for Coastal Forces, had also been a destroyer, one of the old V & W class, built for the Kaiser’s war. Compared with those, the new breed of destroyers like
Kinsale
seemed giants, superior in speed, armament and performance. They had been deployed at once, mostly in the Mediterranean, and had been in the thick of it throughout those first, decisive months. Now, as far as he knew,
Kinsale
and one of her sisters were the only survivors of their class. Fine ships, and so often in the news reports: one, the
Kelly
, had even withstood torpedoes, only to be sunk by
bombers
during the battles for Crete. She was still remembered, not least because of her flamboyant captain, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who had survived both attacks and was in service again.

And now
Kinsale
was going back to the Mediterranean. Rejoining the Fleet, as her commanding officer had remarked almost casually when he and Kearton had been introduced, a few hours before
Kinsale
slipped her moorings and headed out into the Solent.

He lay quite still and listened to her now, waking up, albeit reluctantly. Another day: early morning, and still black on deck, but the morning watch taking comfort from the knowledge that all the other hands were being called, to have their breakfast, work ship, and be ready to take over the forenoon watch
on time
. It never changed: four hours on watch, four hours off. Snatch any sleep you could when you got the chance. He rubbed his chin. He would have a shave … His mind was now fully alert, the uncertainty almost gone. Sometime today they would sight Gibraltar.
Kinsale
was making good progress, and the navigating officer, whose cabin he was sharing, seemed confident about their E.T.A.

Throughout the four days he had been aboard he had kept mostly out of the way as the ship’s company went through all the usual drills and exercises: action stations, defence against possible air attack, submarine alert. Even abandon-ship instruction, if only for the benefit of new hands like the youth who had shared the motor-boat at Portsmouth.

Out into Western Approaches, then south into the Bay of Biscay. It had seemed
Kinsale
would have the sea to herself. There had been an alarm when an unidentified aircraft had been sighted off the Isles of Scilly, even as they caught a final glimpse of England, but nothing worse. The last sight of home had had far more emotional impact, even if the old Jacks made light of it.

He sometimes wondered what the commanding officer was thinking about it all.
Back to the Med
. After a brief visit to England, new radar equipment fitted, a boiler-clean, and maybe a scrap of leave for the lucky ones. They had rarely met during the passage. He was a commander in rank, and obviously proud of his ship, but he remained aloof, spending most of his time on the bridge either sitting on a tall, rigid chair, which was bolted to the deck and in full view of the other watchkeepers, or snatching a few minutes alone in his hutch-like sea cabin, also on the bridge.

Kearton clambered from the bunk and waited, testing the motion. To give himself more time, delay the inevitable.

In many ways it would have been easier to take up his new appointment directly from the home base. He had read and reread his orders, if only to stop himself finding flaws in the concise wording. He could almost hear Captain Morgan’s voice dictating them. There would
be
no flaws.

He could see the three boats in his mind, ‘D-Boats’, they were termed. Larger and more powerful than all the other motor torpedo boats. He had served very briefly in one as part of a passage crew, while his own command had been undergoing repair.

He saw his new working rig, battledress, some still called it, swaying from a rail on the bulkhead, replacing the gear he had been wearing when they had fished him out of the drink.

He heard a clatter from the wardroom pantry: a mug of tea would soon be arriving to start the day. This day. And somebody was laughing.

After Gibraltar,
Kinsale
was going back to the war.

He had never left it.

The three M.T.B.s were moored well clear of the main anchorage and away from the comings and goings of various harbour craft, isolated, if that were ever possible at Gibraltar. Two lay alongside
an
elderly supply ship, and the third rested against a battered pontoon, rubber fend-offs squeaking now as a small launch ploughed past. There were plenty of ships at anchor or alongside, but a distinct lack of the usual bustle and activity. It was Sunday, and war or no war, routine took first place.