Torpedo Run (1981) (34 page)

By now she would be in England. In Devon again. But his mind refused to accept it. She was still there, in that quiet room, waiting for him.

A dull thud jerked him back to the present. A hatch slammed shut. Or a man falling headlong as the boat caught him unawares.

Dundas hovered by his elbow. ‘I’ll get down aft, sir.’

Devane saw that Chalmers had come to the bridge. In a stunt like this one, it would be safer to have Dundas working with men he knew and who trusted him. Chalmers could take over the bridge if his CO bought it.

‘Warn the engine room. Minimum revs in about ten minutes.’ He could feel the towel which he had tucked around his neck getting damper with spray, or was it the sweat of fear? He realized Dundas was still there. ‘Something wrong, Number One?’

Dundas fumbled with his coat and the heavy pistol-belt he had donned.

‘Good luck, Skipper. In case. . . .’ He sounded awkward. ‘You know.’

Devane was moved. ‘Keep your head down.’ He felt shocked by his own words. What Beresford had often said. It sounded like a betrayal. They had barely spoken since that
evening, and then on matters of routine.

‘One more time.’ Devane looked at Chalmers, but he was standing a hundred miles away, or could have been. Searching the darkness ahead. Poised, taut like a spring. Maybe he had heard those same words when his boat had been blown up at Sicily. He knew their true value.

Pellegrine shifted his seaboots and muttered, ‘What wouldn’t I give right now for a few jars at the Nelson, then back ’ome for a bit of the other.’

Metcalf, who was acting as spare hand on the bridge, asked, ‘The other what, Cox’n?’

Pellegrine glared at the darkness. ‘Gawd Almighty!’

Carroll and some of the others laughed, and Dundas said, ‘No bother there, sir.’ Then he climbed down and disappeared aft.

The minutes ticked past and still nothing happened. The sea’s motion became less violent, and Devane knew it was because the land was creeping out on the port bow to shield them from open water. But no flares burst overhead, no tracer ripped past their slow approach to destroy their puny challenge.

‘Dead slow. Tell the first lieutenant to keep a close watch astern for the launches.’

Orel had handpicked his men. Men who knew the coast. Some perhaps who had lived there, who would be waiting for victory, yet dreading what they would discover.

Another dull glow lit up the sky, but with a difference. The bottom of it was black and uneven, something solid.

‘Enemy coast ahead, sir!’ No jokes this time.

‘All guns stand by.’ Devane licked his lips. They felt as if they were glued together.
Come on, Jerry. What the hell’s got into you?

The motors sounded louder now, and he wondered if anyone on the shore had heard them yet. Guns manned and pointing at
Parthian,
at him. The local airfield alerted so that even the survivors would be strafed into oblivion.

Devane thought of Lincke and was suddenly calm. It did not matter how either of them felt. They had to prove something. To settle a score which had already cost too many
lives.

‘Here come the launches, sir.’

Four low shapes. Like long predators, darker than the water which held them, as they overtook their escorts and swept towards the shore. Not even a sound or a glint of metal to betray them. It made them all the more sinister.

Devane had seen the soldiers, tough and hard-faced, being mustered to collect their various weapons and equipment. The other Russians who had changed sides because of the old hatred left by the revolution would find no mercy or quarter there.

A seaman said fiercely, ‘God, how much bloody longer?’

Pellegrine snapped, ‘Silence! As long as it takes, see?’

Devane readjusted his night glasses. In a matter of hours the big push across the Kirch Strait would begin. Russian troops on the Crimea for the first time since the big retreat when hundreds of thousands of men, Russian and German, had frozen to death.

Once across the minefields which the enemy had laid in the strait, and on to the peninsula, it all depended on planned support and no shortages of ammunition, and men to replace the casualties.

Far to starboard a flare burst against the clouds. But it was over the land and no immediate threat. Devane saw the familiar faces suddenly clear and pale in the light. Men he had come to know and respect.

Another flare, even further to starboard. Someone was getting nervous, or suspicious.

Devane heard the sudden splutter of water as the boat’s outlets were forced deep into the sea by the off-shore swell. Like a nervous animal scenting danger, when there was none to see.

The port machine-gunner nestled more firmly against his twin guns and repeated over and over, ‘Come on, yew bastards! Let’s be ’avin’ yew!’

The six-pounder moved very slowly from bow to bow on its power-operated mounting, and Devane could imagine the tough leading hand behind it, the ‘skate’ from Manchester who had been with Seymour when he had been cut down.
He wondered if Priest was thinking of his women and his brawls ashore now.

Another shadow loomed above the water, and Devane knew they were as near as they could expect to get. They would have to stop and take stock of their bearings soon. Once again he was amazed that it had been so easy. Perhaps on this part of the Crimea the troops felt safe. A secure distance from the real front and the savagely contested strait.

Carroll said in a whisper, ‘The Ruskies
must
be ashore by now!’

Devane could picture them creeping up into the rugged darkness with their weapons out and ready. A knife for the throat of an unwary sentry, grenades for the weapon slits and blockhouses, burp-guns and mortars for the real work.

A launch glided past and Devane let out a slow breath. It was empty. At least twenty-five heavily armed men were ashore and undiscovered.

The tension was unbearable, and when something metal clattered across the engine room Devane thought for an instant it would make the machine-gunners overreact with a burst of tracer.

A second launch moved abeam, and Devane saw a figure waving a white flag or a handkerchief as he passed.

Chalmers said bitterly, ‘He’s well out of it.’

Devane turned his head to look at him when the whole bridge and fore deck lit up with a single explosion. It came from high up, and for a moment longer he thought they had been tracked by a shore battery. Then he saw the flashes along the shoreline, sharp and deadily, as grenades were flung into dugouts and bunkers. The first explosion had barely died when it flared up again with livid brightness. Great flames leapt towards the clouds, and Devane saw what he guessed to be blazing fuel running down a slope like molten lava.

‘Starboard ten. Slow ahead all engines.’

The deck vibrated confidently, and Devane smelt the high-octane as Ackland opened his throttles with great care.

There was a lot of firing now, small-arms and light automatic weapons which seemed to fan out from the landing
point, the progress marked by little stabs of fire and the occasional bright star of a grenade. A mortar was brought into use, and Devane heard the dull crump of bombs exploding further inland, the slow response from a German artillery position until it too was bombed into silence.

All hell will be let loose now. Devane watched the flashes and listened to the brittle clatter of machine-guns. A tall, tree-shaped burst of flame lit up the land and the water’s edge where one of the launches was trying to stay in position, and Devane guessed that the raiders had blown up the RDF station.

‘Twenty minutes past midnight, sir.’

‘Very well. Remind me at the half-hour, Bunts.’

Across the water, Devane heard a grinding roar of tracks, magnified by the sloping wedge of land. Tanks or troop-carriers rushing to the scene, but still a long way to travel.

‘There’s supposed to be a road of sorts at about red four-five. Any armour will come from the town. We’ll have the advantage over them.’

Chalmers said quietly, ‘For a while anyway.’

The raid was spreading in both directions, and Devane could imagine the alarm changing to terror as the defenders heard Russian voices like their own right amongst them.

The killing would be terrible. Devane found himself thinking of Richie. He would have enjoyed this, had he lived. The blind, white-hot anger which accompanied the slaughter and made men do things they might have believed impossible. Courage or madness? It was hard to tell.

An explosion, very near the water, rocked the hull, and Devane heard fragments falling on the deck and splashing alongside.

‘On helmets, everyone!’

Pellegrine steadfastly ignored the call. He had never been known to wear a ‘battle bowler’ as he called it. Nor would he.

The raiders must have discovered another fuel dump, for that too was blazing fiercely, and some of it was running down to the sea’s edge to make a small fiery barrier.

Metcalf said, ‘They’re throwing supplies into the fire, sir.’

Devane lowered his glasses, sickened. Metcalf was mistaken. In the powerful lenses he had seen the kicking bodies, some of them burning like torches as they were hurled into the river of fuel. He heard someone retching helplessly and was glad that he at least had not become so hardened that he could watch human beings burned alive and stay unmoved.

‘Time, sir.’ Carroll sounded hoarse.

‘Right. Make the signal for recall. Tell
Kestrel
by R/T to execute phase two.’ He heard the men moving about, grateful to have something to do to disperse the terrible spectacle amongst the flames.

The boatswain’s mate said, ‘Still, I suppose if it was
our
country an’ they was fighting for the Nazis –’

‘Hold your noise,
damn you
!’ Chalmers’ face was staring and wild in the reflected glare. ‘You don’t know what it’s like!’

Devane said sharply, ‘Easy, David. He didn’t mean it like that.’

Chalmers stared at him like a stranger. Then with a great effort he said, ‘Couldn’t help it. Should have been ready.’ He bent over as if he were going to vomit. ‘I saw my chaps die like that. We were swimming. The boat had gone by then. We were making for a destroyer which had been hit by a bomb but was still afloat. As I swam I could hear the burning fuel coming after me.’ He pushed his knuckles into his mouth. ‘I could
hear
it!’

Carroll called, ‘
Kestrel
’s acknowledged, sir.’ He was unwilling to intrude on Chalmers’ despair.

Chalmers stood up very slowly and turned his back to the land. Then he said simply, ‘The fire took all but three of us.’ He seemed perfectly calm again.

Devane touched his arm. ‘Go aft and relieve the first lieutenant.’

As Chalmers made to leave the bridge the boatswain’s mate blocked his path.

‘Sorry for what I said, sir. No ‘arm intended.’

Chalmers looked at him and then replied, ‘I know. I’m the one to apologize.’

Pellegrine pouted like an enraged pig. ‘I dunno, I really
don’t know
!’

Metcalf asked in a whisper, ‘What, Cox’n?’

‘Tomorrow, that’s what. It’s me birthday!’

Devane thrust his hands deep into his jacket as the green flare exploded to recall the raiders to the beach. Pellegrine had judged it perfectly. It had been a near thing. He shook himself from his apprehension. What did it matter anyway? The boatswain’s mate was probably right the first time.

But he thought of the burning, frantic shapes, of their agonized screams which he could hear in his mind if not in his ears, and knew that it did matter. Very much.

Carroll said, ‘First launch loaded and away, sir.’

Devane nodded. Mackay and Willy Walker in
Harrier
were already moving out to open waters.
Merlin
and
Osprey
would screen the final withdrawal.

After that it would be a matter of a few hours before they knew if Barker’s ruse had worked or not.

Dundas appeared on the bridge. ‘Ready to move, sir.’

‘Very well.’

Thank God Dundas had enough sense not to question him about Chalmers, a man who should never have been sent back to this kind of warfare. He had been scarred too deeply to forget or to recover.

Star shells exploded across the glittering water, but the cloud was low and the smoke too dense for them to be of any use.

‘New course, Roddy. Jump about.’

He saw another launch gathering speed as it throbbed past. There were a lot of bandaged heads and limbs in that one. As he watched he saw a corpse rolled over the side and left to float astern like so much rubbish.

We shall never understand the Russians, he thought. Not in a thousand years.

‘Last one clear, sir.’ Dundas watched him guardedly. ‘No casualties to us.’ He grinned as the relief took hold. ‘Makes a change.’

Devane looked up as another star shell exploded directly overhead.

‘And if Orel’s gunboats are in the right place at the right
time, we should keep it that way.’

It was an easy lie, an expected one. Before Pellegrine’s birthday arrived,
Parthian
would be badly mauled even if the ruse had worked.

But at least it would be over. For the lucky ones. The few.

‘Ready to take up new course, sir. North seventy east.
Osprey
on station astern.’

‘Carry on. Increase revolutions for twenty knots.’

The land had already dipped into the shadows again, but here and there a fire still flickered, and a pattern of sparks circled above the beach where men had perished for their treachery. Or their beliefs.

Devane settled himself in his corner. So now we wait.

Captain Barker stood with his heels together, hands in his reefer pockets, and surveyed his operations room. It was considerably larger now that he had had a wall removed and an adjoining store transformed into an extension of his command post. The lights were very bright, so that the charts and wall maps, coloured markers and flags stood out like parts of a pattern.

A seaman was collecting empty teacups, and Barker’s new officers were by their telephones, sharpened pencils and signal pads within easy reach.