To Risks Unknown (3 page)

After leaving the naval hospital Crespin had gone home. He had known it was a mistake, but something had drawn him there in spite of his inner warnings.

It was an ordinary semi-detached house in the Surrey suburbs of London. Like countless others whose owners had before the war been content with the quiet and unexciting, but nevertheless pleasant, way of life. They caught the same train to town and came back together. They passed non-controversial comments to one another across neat garden hedges on Sunday mornings, while some, the more prosperous, polished the family car. Crespin had been born in one of those houses and had gone to school locally, as did all the other boys.

From the first time he could remember having any sort of definite ambition he had wanted to go into the Navy. He loved ships and everything about them. His father had no experience of such things, and in any case wanted him to follow him into a safe job at the bank. His mother merely wanted him to be happy. Neither was very much help.

Maybe they just let Crespin try for a scholarship entry into the Navy merely to get it out of his system. Whatever the reason, they stood back and awaited results. To everyone's surprise, not least Crespin's, he passed his entrance exam to Dartmouth with room to spare. And at a time when most young gentlemen selected for Dartmouth College were either the sons of serving officers or from influential families it was no small victory.

His parents forgot their fears and showed their pride whenever Crespin came home on leave. It was a fine career, a new dimension, and in their eyes Crespin had suddenly moved to unreachable manhood.

Then everything changed when the Germans marched into Poland. At the time pain and personal grief seemed unending, but now looking back to that first year of war it was strange to realize how quickly everything had altered.

His father had set off for London on the usual train. His usual
Daily Mail
under his arm, his sandwiches hidden in his cardboard gasmask container. He was never seen again. There was an air-raid outside Waterloo Station, one of those sneak daylight ones which came and went in seconds, before the warnings had even had time to set up their sinister wail. Many other ordinary men and women died that morning, but it was no consolation to Mrs. Crespin. There was nothing to show for it. No body, and not even a witness. Just oblivion.

Crespin was first lieutenant of a small destroyer at the time, and when he eventually managed to get home he found his mother terribly aged and like a stranger. He had felt something like guilt. After all, he was trained and paid to fight. They were not. He learned much later in Greece and Crete that war was quite impartial when it came to exacting its dues.

His mother never really accepted her husband's death. One day she was walking with a neighbour, making her way to join one of the food queues at the local shops, when she looked up and said, ‘There's George! It's my husband!' Before her friend could stop her she ran across the road. The driver of the lorry had no time to apply his brakes and she died instantly.

Later the neighbour told Crespin that his mother had a smile on her face as they carried her away. The first smile since her husband had died. The worst of it was that the man she had seen was not a bit like Crespin's father. He had been at the funeral and Crespin had seen for himself. He had returned to his ship, leaving the house and everything else to be sold and to be wiped from his memory.

Why then had he gone back this time? Perhaps like his mother he still clung to the idea that things would somehow return to normal if only he believed it hard enough.

The house had looked the same, but smaller and shabbier. And to his surprise he had found it full of soldiers, like most of the rest in that familiar, tree-lined road. A beefy sergeant had ushered him inside and had gone about his affairs rather than intrude on Crespin's brief visit.

Only the wallpaper was the same. In his old room where he had first read avidly about life at sea he had even found the brighter patches on the wall where his old pictures had been carefully hung.

It would have been better to keep the old memory as it was. He knew that now. But now it was too late. Never go back. Nothing is ever the same.

He jerked from his brooding thoughts as someone rapped on the door and then jerked it open. It was the same gangway sentry, but this time his face was working with excitement and alarm.

‘C-Captain, sir! The first lieutenant's respects, an' there's an
admiral
comin' aboard!'

If the Holy Ghost had appeared on the quarterdeck he could not have looked more confused.

Crespin picked up his cap. That is all I need. Aloud he snapped, ‘Next time wait until I tell you before you barge in!'

He brushed the seaman aside and stepped into the passageway. It was already too late. On the steel ladder he could see a pair of black-stockinged legs which were soon, if clumsily, followed by their owner, a very plain-looking Wren officer. Then came Wemyss, muttering excuses and apologies for the mess and the gaping workmen. And finally the admiral.

For a moment they all stood chest to chest in the narrow passageway, then the admiral cocked his head on one side and said cheerfully, ‘Rear-Admiral Oldenshaw. Glad to meet you, Crespin.' He pushed between them and strode energetically into the wardroom, his gaze swinging from side to side as if searching for intruders.

Wemyss ushered the Wren to one of the chairs and then stood by the door. The admiral's pale eyes regarded him unwinkingly and then he snapped, ‘You can carry on, Number One. I know all about you, what!' Wemyss withdrew with unseemly haste.

Crespin stared at the little man with surprise and growing anger. He looked as old as time. God, when would they stop giving jobs to these ancient warriors just because of the unwritten old pals act?

He said curtly, ‘I am sorry I was not on deck to receive you, sir.'

The admiral squatted on the edge of the wardroom table and smiled. ‘My fault. Quite deliberate I'm afraid, Crespin. Dislike ceremonial, except in its right place. I came to see you, not some bloody wooden-faced guard of honour!'

The Wren coughed quietly and the admiral nodded. ‘Quite. Mustn't get carried away, eh?' He looked round the untidy wardroom. ‘Small ships. Salt of the earth.'

Crespin replied, ‘The refit seems up to date, sir. The main intake of new men will come aboard as soon as we've got our own power connected up again. At the moment they're in the barracks.'

‘Know all that, Crespin. Made all the arrangements myself, as a matter of fact.'

Crespin clenched his fingers until the pain steadied him a little. ‘And I have read my orders, sir. If the refit is completed I will sail for Gibraltar on Tuesday.'

‘It had better be completed!' The admiral eyed him thoughtfully. ‘When you were last in the Mediterranean you commanded the 71st M.T.B. Flotilla. Before that you were in destroyers. You've seen a lot of combat, and you've a damn good record. So you're probably feeling sorry for yourself because you've been given command of this battered little warrior, eh?' He held up a wrinkled hand. ‘Don't bother to argue, your face is full of resentment!' He chuckled. ‘Fact is, I arranged that, too. I needed a captain for his brains, not his rank.'

The Wren officer, who had been touching a ladder on one of her stockings with a forefinger, said suddenly, ‘The admiral means that you were chosen for your experience. Not because you happened to be available.'

Crespin felt the cabin swaying, and it was all he could do to stifle his anger.

‘Thank you, sir.'

The admiral did not smile. ‘You really are resentful, Crespin!' He folded his arms and regarded the other man with a fixed stare. ‘Very soon now the Allies will be landing on enemy soil. Italy will be an obvious starter, but the war cannot be won until our men are in France and then Germany itself. Therefore, whatever we succeed in doing when we invade Italy will be watched and calculated by the enemy. We will be at grips with the real foe. North Africa was too remote for ordinary people's minds to grasp. It was too far away. So when we set our men down on Italian shores it is essential that we get the full co-operation of every living soul who has been living under Nazi oppression. Patriots, terrorists, I don't care who they are, just so long as they can hate Germans and pull a trigger!'

Crespin thought of the
Thistle
as he had first seen her in the open dock. So far he could see no role for her at all.

The admiral must have read his thoughts. ‘You know the Aegean, Crespin, and the Adriatic, the thousand and one places where the enemy's lines are stretched to the limit. As soon as the Allies start making progress these island people and their friends on the mainland will start to revolt. They will cut supply roads, shoot down enemy patrols, and generally cause havoc behind the German lines. The Hun will
have
to take valuable troops to quell these uprisings, and so our advance will go all the faster. More important, it will show the peoples of France and Holland what
they
can do when the day comes to invade Hitler's coveted West Wall, eh?'

‘How can you be sure of all this, sir?'

The admiral's answer was swift and biting. ‘I've not exactly been sitting on my arse for the past three years, for God's sake!'

Then he smiled. ‘I've got people out there now. In Yugoslavia and the Greek islands, and more to send when they're needed.' He became serious again. ‘That is why I asked for a corvette. A destroyer is both too large and too vulnerable. And you know better than most that M.T.B.s are too damn noisy for this sort of game.'

Crespin had a sudden and vivid picture of the burning torpedo boat, the screams and curses of his men dying around him, the bullets and scalding tracers ripping the waters apart and tipping the spray with scarlet. It was no game, as the admiral had implied. It had been sheer bloody murder!

The admiral stood up and consulted an ancient gold pocket watch. ‘Just get the ship to sea, Crespin, and pull these volunteers into one fighting unit. You've done it before, otherwise I wouldn't be here, and neither would you. At Gib you'll get fresh orders, and by that time I'll know a bit more of the next phase of things. It's not going to be easy for you. Nothing worthwhile ever is. But you'll know that what you're doing is important, maybe even vital. By harrying the enemy's communications and working with our terrorist friends you'll be taking the pressure off the main battlefront.' He peered at Second Officer Frost. ‘We'll leave now, eh?'

Crespin said quietly, ‘Thank you for being so frank.' He found that he meant it.

Rear-Admiral Oldenshaw grimaced. ‘Thought I was a silly old fool, didn't you? Imagined I'd dropped you this command because you could both be spared, wasn't that the case? Well, you may still be right if I'm proved to be at fault. So stop worrying about the ship's capabilities and get on with the job. It's probably just what you need after what you've been through. In this kind of war you've got to fight with what you've got. Not what you'd
like
to have. My God, when I first went to sea as a young cadet we went straight to the China Station to fight pirates, and
that
was in a sailing ship! The
Thistle
may not be a thoroughbred but she's proved her value already.' He turned towards the door. ‘The main difference, however, is that this time
you
will be the pirate!'

Crespin followed them up the ladder to the gangway. Wemyss had mustered a small side party and they saluted as the old admiral followed by the tall, unsmiling Wren made their way up towards the dock wall.

Crespin saw the unspoken question in Wemyss' eyes but said, ‘Carry on, Number One, and let me know when the two officers come aboard.' Then he retraced his steps to the quiet of his cabin.

The gangway sentry said, ‘Must be nice, sir. Bein' an' admiral an' that?'

Wemyss smiled faintly. ‘War is like the cinema, Pim. The best seats are high up and at the back!'

Then he turned on his heel and walked forward towards the forecastle. He too had a lot to think about.

TUESDAY DAWNED CLEAR
and surprisingly cold, but by the time the ship's company had completed a hasty breakfast there was some hazy sunlight which, if nothing else, gave a hint of spring.

Crespin stood on the deserted bridge and stared down at his command. It was hard to realize that she was the same rust-streaked vessel he had first seen in dry dock. The previous evening had been a mad whirl of activity, with the
Thistle
being warped from the dock to lie alongside a portion of reserved jetty to await her supplies and the rest of her fittings.

Now she was ready. Her crowded upper deck was clean and neat with guardrails in position and lines flaked down as per instruction book. Crespin guessed that Wemyss had checked each item himself so that his captain's eye would find no outward offence at least. And the great mountain of stores which had been waiting on the jetty had vanished as if the ship had gobbled up every item herself. Food, supplies, ammunition, liferafts and all the small ship clutter of war were now out of sight, jammed, coaxed or lashed throughout the hull until needed.

They had taken on a full load of fuel, and there was still a tang of oil in the crisp air to mingle with that of new paint, the last of which had been slapped on in almost complete darkness.

The tannoy speaker squeaked and then a voice called, ‘Clear lower deck! All hands lay aft!'

Crespin stood back a little to watch as his new company appeared as if by magic. They flowed down either side to congregate in a packed mass around and above the tiny quarterdeck, while petty officers and leading hands made a quick check to ensure that nobody but the essential watchkeepers were absent.

The final men had come aboard the previous morning. Most were strangers to one another. They had yet to be welded into a useful company. They were in working rig, blue overalls and regulation caps, but nevertheless it was possible to see that individuals were already visible amongst the jostling, chattering press of figures.