The Lion at Sea (17 page)

Rumbelo pointed, ‘Down the next alley, sir.’

At the end of the alley, there was a wharf made of sleepers and alongside it a wooden trawler. It carried German markings and had obviously been sailed round from the Ems. There were two German soldiers in spiked helmets covered with canvas on the quayside, their backs to the town.

‘I can get one, sir,’ Rumbelo said, ‘if you can get the other.’ He unshipped the bayonet on the rifle he carried and signed to Kelly to do the same. ‘One ’and over his mouth, sir, and in with it. Think you can do it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope to God you can, sir.’

Kelly didn’t understand what he meant but, as Rumbelo gave the word and they ran out quietly, he clapped a hand over the German’s mouth and lifted the bayonet – only to find he couldn’t use it.

‘In with it, sir!’ Rumbelo hissed and Kelly saw that Rumbelo’s victim was already stretched on the floor, writhing.

Swallowing, he thrust the bayonet home between the German’s ribs and felt the resistance as it penetrated flesh, then the German stopped struggling and slid through his hands to the ground. In the light of the flames, Kelly saw he was only a boy, no more than eighteen or so, with staring blue eyes and a mouth that opened and shut like a goldfish out of water.

Sickened, he turned aside to vomit, and Rumbelo’s hand came down on his shoulder like a swinging girder. ‘Better him than you, sir,’ he said.

As Kelly pulled himself together, Rumbelo watched with approval. He’d been brought up in a much harder school than Dartmouth but he could recognise courage when he saw it. In his time, he’d met plenty of officers and the best of them were invariably those with the tradition of service in their blood. They were often bastards, but they knew where their duty lay.

‘Better get a move on, sir,’ he murmured.

‘Yes.’ With streaming eyes, his stomach still heaving, Kelly waved to the other men and indicated the trawler. ‘Spread out. No shooting. We don’t want to raise an alarm. And let’s have the stoker closed up.’

Jumping aboard, almost at once they came face to face with a German sailor who appeared abruptly through a hatch. He was grinning, as though someone had been talking to him, and the smile was wiped off his face at once as he saw the British sailors. Then Kelly’s rifle came round and, as the butt cracked against his head, he slid back down the ladder.

‘After him, quick,’ Kelly snapped, jumping through the hatch. At the bottom of the ladder, he saw another German sailor snatching something from a bunk and, as he saw a gleaming knife, he decided that it was his turn to feel what cold steel was like. But Rumbelo’s rifle roared through the hatch and the German fell back, his chest covered with blood.

‘Sorry about that, sir,’ Rumbelo apologised. ‘Didn’t have time for nothing else. Nobody would probably hear it in here, though.’

‘That’s all right, Rumbelo,’ Kelly said. ‘I think you’ve just saved my life.’

‘Makes us all square, sir.’

A third German was found in the galley and, with the unconscious man Kelly had hit with his rifle, he was pushed into the hold, and three British sailors crammed the German caps with their fluttering ribbons on to their heads.

‘Send a man to those chaps on the quay,’ Kelly said. ‘Cut off their shoulder tags and collar numerals and search ’em for papers. They’ll probably help Intelligence. And let’s have someone off to the sergeant to bring down his men.’

Watching in the tension, listening to the stoker below deck cursing the unfamiliar engines and the crack of shells dropping two or three streets away, Kelly tried hard to remain calm. Rumbelo appeared, carrying a spiked
pickelhaube,
a fistful of shoulder tags and papers, and two German tunics, He was wearing another spiked helmet on his bullet head.

‘Looks like a tit on a mountain,’ Kelly said.

Rumbelo handed him the second helmet. ‘Better put that on, sir,’ he suggested. ‘As we’re going out, we might meet some more coming in.’

A few minutes later, the straggling column of exhausted men appeared round the corner, moving in little limping rushes, the man with the union jack at their head. Then the stoker appeared from the shadows. ‘She’s got a head of steam up, sir,’ he reported. ‘I’ll be waiting for the telegraphs.’

They crammed the exhausted soldiers and sailors aboard. They didn’t want to go below, preferring to meet danger with their heads above the deck, but Kelly insisted and they got them all into the hold in the end, except for a few whom he made lie down on the deck. ‘If anybody sticks his head up until I tell him,’ he said, ‘I’ll hit him with a marlin spike.’

Going to the tiny wheelhouse, he set one of
Norseman
’s
seamen on the wheel and leaned from the window.

‘Let go aft.’

‘All gone aft, sir.’

‘Right. Slow ahead.’

As the little wooden trawler began to move forward, they saw half a dozen more small vessels of the same type heading towards them. Kelly saw the helmsman’s face grow taut.

‘Here come their pals, Rumbelo,’ he said. ‘Keep well away from ’em, helmsman. Make those helmets and caps conspicuous, Rumbelo.’

But Rumbelo had already seen the trawlers and was struggling into a German tunic dragged off one of the dead men. A moment later he handed the second through the wheelhouse window to Kelly.

‘If anybody lifts his head, don’t hesitate.’

‘God ’elp ’em if they try, sir.’

As the approaching trawlers drew nearer, a man on the first one shouted across the water.

‘Hoch der Kaiser!’
Kelly yelled back the only German he had ever picked up in Kiel.
‘Guten abend, meine fräulein. Auf Wiedersehen.’

Rumbelo shouted a few
‘hochs’
and the Germans in the two trawlers waved as they passed, heading for the wharf.

‘Right, Rumbelo,’ Kelly said. ‘Here we go! Full speed ahead! Slip down and see if everything’s all right with the engine room.’

Rumbelo came back a little later, grinning. ‘Everything’s fine aft, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve also found some food and fags. I think these chaps were bringing rations for their advanced elements. I’ve got some of the lads opening tins of sausages. When can they come up on deck?’

‘When we’ve cleared Antwerp and not before. And pass the word for that union jack. Let’s have it at the masthead in case one of our own ships decides to try a pot shot at us.’

Two hours later they were at the mouth of the Scheldt. The compass didn’t seem to be working and Kelly eyed the sun and set a course west. He ought to strike England somewhere, he decided.

Almost immediately they went aground on a sandbank.

Despite all their efforts, they remained wedged on the mud for all of six hours. They were lifted off by the tide in the early hours of the next morning and, starting the engine, chugged off into the North Sea.

‘God help us if there’s a minefield around here, sir,’ Rumbelo said. He eyed the horizon. ‘We did all right, I think, sir. How about getting me in your next ship?’

‘Not a chance, Rumbelo. I’m for submarines.’

Rumbelo grinned. ‘I’m due for submarines myself, sir.’

As they chugged on, they could see the glow of the flames of Antwerp growing dimmer, and by late afternoon they were off the English coast in a thinning mist.

A lightship they saw turned out to be the Sunk so that they realised they were off the Orwell and turned the bows south, chugging towards the river mouth, the exhausted men below still sleeping. As they entered the river, a cruiser carrying a commodore’s pennant crossed their bows heading for Harwich.

‘
Arethusa,
sir. Tyrwhitt’s flagship.’

‘Acknowledge them, Rumbelo.’

As the flag Rumbelo had borrowed from the Marines dipped at the masthead, they saw officers on the cruiser’s bridge studying them intently. through glasses. There was a flurry of movement as one of them moved to the after end of the bridge, then below him another man ran along the upper deck, and finally the cruiser’s flag was dipped in response as she disappeared ahead of them.

Eventually they saw destroyers lying in trots, sleek black shapes in the growing dusk.

‘We’ll go alongside the outside chap,’ Kelly said.

As they approached the outer destroyer, the officer of the watch appeared and waved them away.

‘Ignore him, helmsman,’ Kelly said. ‘A spot of Nelson’s blind eye never did the Navy any harm. Starboard side to. Have the fenders ready, Rumbelo. Let’s do the job in style.’

The trawler passed the destroyer, turned and came back up-tide. Again the officer of the watch waved them away furiously but Kelly continued to ignore him. The destroyer’s deck was filling up now with men and everybody’s eyes were fixed on the fishing vessel with its German markings. From a buoy further upstream, the cruiser which had passed them was just swinging with the tide and he could see officers on the bridge still watching them with glasses.

Ropes flew through the air. ‘Who the blazes are you?’ the officer of the watch snarled.

‘Lieutenant Maguire sir,’ Kelly yelled. ‘Late of
Norseman
and before that
Cressy.
Together with
Norseman
’s
pinnace party from Antwerp, survivors of the 10th Royal Marine Light Infantry and the
Hawke
battalion of the Naval Brigade, and two prisoners.’

The officer’s jaw hung. ‘The devil you are,’ he said. ‘You’d better come aboard.’

As Kelly stepped on to the destroyer’s deck, a midshipman appeared. ‘Sir. Message from
Arethusa.
You’re
to report on board at once. We’ve called away the cutter.’

Kelly turned to Rumbelo. ‘Hold your hat on, Rumbelo,’ he said. ‘Tonight I’ll be setting down “reasons in writing”. Let’s have those shoulder tags and one of the
pickelhaubes.’

As he stepped from the cutter to the cruiser’s deck, a lieutenant commander was waiting to lead him to the commodore’s cabin. Tyrwhitt was a sharp-featured man with a keen bronzed face, strong nose, determined chin and bright eyes shielded by huge eyebrows. There was no sign of ostentation or self-importance about him and his manner was brisk as he stared at Kelly under his shaggy brows.

‘That’s the first time my flag’s ever been acknowledged by a vessel as scruffy as yours,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘Maguire, sir. Lieutenant Maguire. I thought you might like this as a souvenir.’ As Kelly produced the German helmet he’d brought, Tyrwhitt’s mouth widened in a smile.

‘Where the hell did you get that, you young puppy?’

‘Antwerp, sir. I took it off a German. I don’t think he had any further need of it. We have two prisoners as well.’

Tyrwhitt gestured at a chair. ‘Well, rest your legs, dammit, and tell me all about it, and let’s have a drink while we’re at it. What about Antwerp?’

‘It’s gone, sir. We saw the Germans arrive.’

‘Well, that’s that. Winston hoped to hold it because the Germans couldn’t have advanced along the coast without it. However–’ Tyrwhitt smiled and Kelly was aware of charm and kindliness beneath the rugged exterior ‘–that’s not for you to worry about. I expect you’ll be wanting to get some sleep and then back to your ship.’

Kelly swallowed. ‘Sir. I haven’t got a ship,’ he said. ‘I was in
Cressy
and I’m a bit overdue for survivor’s leave.’

A thin drizzle was wetting the pavements as Kelly’s taxi headed for the station. He was feeling on top of the world, certain by this time that he couldn’t ever be killed and with a bit of luck not even wounded.

Despite his tiredness, he felt ready for anything, even a bit of a rakehell. This time, he decided, he might try to get Charley in a corner at the back of the house. Then he drew a deep breath, almost a steadying breath. Charley still wasn’t that old and he’d have to watch his step or he’d be making a fool of himself and trouble for them both.

He sat up straighter in his seat. Through the rain that was smearing the windscreen, he saw a sailor trudging towards the station. He recognised him by his bulk as Rumbelo and stopped the taxi.

‘Fancy a lift, Rumbelo?’

Rumbelo grinned and spat the rain from his lips. His blue serge was saturated.

‘No overcoat?’

‘Haven’t got one, sir. It’s in
Norseman.
’

‘Did you get leave? I suggested under the circumstances that you ought to.’

‘Yes, sir. They gave me leaf.’ Rumbelo settled himself in the taxi, smelling of wet wool, and they spoke as old friends and shipmates separated only by rank.

‘Where are you going?’ Kelly asked.

‘London.’

‘Family?’

‘Lor’ bless you, no, sir. I ain’t got any family. I’m an orphanage entrant.’

‘Oh! What will you do then?’

‘Hang about the pubs, sir.’

It seemed a desperately sad way for Rumbelo to spend his leave.

‘Haven’t you any brothers or sisters?’

Rumbelo smiled. ‘Had a brother, sir. But my old man was a sailor, too, so there might be one or two others about as well.’

He seemed remarkably cheerful and his very cheerfulness depressed Kelly.

‘You’ll be seeing friends, I suppose.’

‘Ain’t got none, sir. Least, not ashore. My friends are in the ship I’m in. The ship’s me home, see.’

‘No girlfriend?’

‘One in every port. Nothing regular, though.’

‘Pity.’ An idea struck Kelly. ‘You any good with horses, Rumbelo?’

Rumbelo smiled, unperturbed, the typical seaman. ‘Used to be a stable boy, sir. After I left the orphanage. Two years at it, and six months as a hotel porter before I joined the Navy.’

‘We’ve got horses, Rumbelo. At least, my mother has. I always fall off ’em myself.’

Rumbelo turned, his eyes shrewd. ‘You don’t have to be sympathetic, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll manage. I’ve managed before.’

‘It’s not that. It seems so rotten a chap like you having nowhere to go. After all, you did save my life there in Antwerp.’

‘Just wiping off a debt, sir. You saved mine at Spithead a few years back, I seem to remember.’

‘My mother might be glad of someone who’s good with horses. She’s potty about them. How about coming home with me? There are stables and I know there’s a room for the groom.’