The Glory Boys (34 page)

“I’ve had a signal from H.Q. There was another attack on the rest of our convoy. No damage that time. The change of course must have caught them on the hop. Not for long, I’ll bet.”

Turnbull glanced across the bridge. Spiers was at the voicepipes, gesturing as he spoke to someone, probably the Chief, as if he could see him. Ainslie coming up from the chartroom, yawning hugely as if caught unawares. A youngster again.

Everyone was busy, but the Skipper had still found time to tell him about the W/T signal.

He said, “If we can keep this up, sir …”

Kearton shifted the pipe to the other side of his jaw.

“We can. We will.” He pulled his cap lower across his eyes and stared astern at the other vessels. Then he said, “Open the galley. Something hot.” Their eyes met, and Turnbull sensed that Spiers had looked around from the voicepipes to listen. Maybe to be a part of it.

Kearton had turned away from the sun.
Somewhere else
.

Turnbull heard him say as if to himself, “While there’s still time.”

Kearton felt something brush against him and pushed himself away from the side of the bridge. He was on his feet, fully conscious, but it was as if he had been rudely awakened. It was dark, and the sound of the engines was regular and monotonous, but it seemed louder because of the stillness and the night. He shook himself.

“What is it, Pilot?”

Ainslie said quietly, “It’s the Chief, sir.”

“Trouble?” He had not heard the voicepipe. And it was about midnight, a warning in itself.

Ainslie must have shaken his head. “No, he just wanted to know if he could ditch some empty fuel cans. Keep his place tidy!”

Kearton reached down to rub his leg, as if the injury was still there.

“No. Tell him …” He stared past him at the tiny green light, the emergency buzzer drowned by the Chief’s Packards.

The W/T office, next to his own empty cabin.

He pressed the instrument to his ear, one hand covering the other.

“Bridge.” He could feel the silence now. “Something for me?”

He heard him clear his throat. “Yes, sir.
Natal
, repeated H.Q.” It was the other telegraphist, not Weston; the name escaped him, and nothing else mattered now. He imagined him in his small compartment, the signal pad under the solitary light, very aware of its importance, and his own.

“Maintain course and speed. Two bandits closing from due north.”
He cleared his throat again.
“I am engaging.”
He ended with the time of origin, but Kearton scarcely heard him.

‘Bandits’: usually fast attackers, probably Italian, but could
be
E-Boats. The Germans had been moving them down into the Med and the Adriatic.
Natal
had been warned. He thought of Spiers again. Radar … She was well armed, with six 4.7s, and a cluster of other short-range weapons, and depth-charges. And two sets of torpedoes, if he could remember clearly.

One of the lookouts broke into his thoughts.

“There goes
Natal
! Boy, she’s in a rush all of a sudden!”

Kearton waited. “Thank you. Well done. Acknowledge, will you?”

He straightened up and said aloud, “Unidentified fast craft closing from the north.” He saw Spiers’ white scarf beside Turnbull’s shapeless oilskin. “Pass the word, Number One. The waiting’s over.” The destroyer, backed up by Red Lyon’s M.G.B. on their flank, should be more than a match for the ‘bandits’. From Sicily or the Italian mainland; it might take too long to muster an additional attacking force. And at first light there would be air support, if need be from Malta itself.

He rubbed his chin, and only then realized that he still had the pipe jammed between his teeth.

But to be on the safe side … He reached over and encountered Ainslie’s arm, and felt him jump.

“Chartroom, Pilot. Fix our position as best you can in all this flap, in case we have to lay off another course.” He could feel his arm; it was rigid. “A diversion, to keep our prize intact.”

Ainslie said, “They left it too late.” As if he was telling himself, or searching for some flaw.

Spiers said, “I’ve spread the word, sir. A few wisecracks, of course, but I’ve got a good memory for voices.” He walked to the side and stared in the direction of
Romulus
. “
They’ll
be damned glad, anyway. I can take over while Pilot’s doing his stuff.” He hesitated, and Kearton could see him, his head cocked on one side. “If you still think—”

He never finished it. There was a thin, high-pitched whistle, which ended abruptly in a scream and a sudden explosion. The
night
was transformed into searing detail, stark and glacial, all sound quenched by the starshell. The little green light and its attendant buzzer were both trying to raise the alarm, like the starshell, which
Natal
must have fired immediately after her first sighting.

Kearton rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and fumbled for his binoculars. Everything was unreal: the voicepipe, and a disembodied voice, surely not still asking about used petrol cans? Turnbull struggling out of his oilskin, as if it was trapping him. And something snapping underfoot. He had dropped his pipe on the deck.

The glare was already fading, but the figures around him seemed frozen by it, incapable of movement. And it was still strong enough to see the other vessels astern, dominated by the
Romulus
.

He closed his mind to them. Everything had to be concentrated in the small, silent world of his binoculars.

Surrounded by froth, like some enraged sea monster, saddle-tanks shining glassily on the periphery of the glare, the submarine was alive, and moving.

“Number One!”
But Spiers was already running to his station. The ex-submariner, Jay, would be with him, overtaken by events.

Kearton stumbled, but someone grasped his arm. He had the intercom in his hand and waited, counting the seconds.

“
Growler
to all units! Tally-ho! Attacking!”

“Ready, Skipper!” That was Turnbull, formality forgotten.

“Full ahead! Port twenty!” He felt the deck tilt, and heard the binoculars swing against the bridge armour.
“Midships!”

He crouched, straining his eyes to hold on to the target, the U-Boat, smaller now without the aid of the powerful lenses.

He saw another M.T.B. sweeping past, shining in the glare, showing her number, 977. It was Geoff Mostyn, known as ‘Geordie’ to his friends; and he seemed to have plenty of those.
His
two-pounder was already hammering out a steady stream of tracer, and another gun of some kind was quick to follow.

Kearton realized that the submarine was fully surfaced, to obtain the best possible speed, and not only that, her deck-gun was manned and had opened fire. Daring, desperation, or cold-blooded courage, she had shown no sign of turning away or attempting to dive. She was still heading straight toward the prime ship of the convoy,
Romulus
.

“Steady! Easy! Steady!”
He was telling himself: Turnbull, like Spiers, knew what to do. What to expect.

He felt his mouth go dry as something exploded outside his line of vision. The sound was almost swamped by the rising thunder of engines, but he knew it was a direct hit on Mostyn’s boat.

It was now.

“Fire!”

He sensed rather than felt the slight shudder as both torpedoes left their tubes.

“Both running!”

“Hard a-port!” He watched the shadows closing in, like a vast curtain, the sea leaping over the bow as they continued to turn. He had lost count of the seconds, if he had ever begun, but he could still hear them in his brain. Like a giant clock.

“Midships!”

He saw Mostyn’s boat, still moving, but very slowly. No more flames, but a lot of smoke. Some shapes below the bridge, others standing by them. The living and the dead.

He pounded his fist below the screen. He could see the
Romulus
, at a different angle now, turning, trying to run, when it was too late. They had completed their alteration of course, so that he saw himself starkly against the screen, silhouetted by a livid, contained explosion. It shook the whole hull, and he thought of the Chief and his little crew in their confined world. It must have felt like hitting a mine.

He shaded his eyes, but the sea was almost in darkness again. Blasted apart by the twin explosions, the remains of the U-Boat were on their last dive, to the bottom.

“Half ahead!” The sky held a hint of colour now. The smoke was clearing away and he saw the
Romulus
, much nearer again; she seemed to tower over them like a cliff. There were people lining the rails, waving, cheers almost drowned out by their combined engines. Cheers …

Kearton raised his arm, and thought how heavy it felt.

Ainslie was beside him. “Shall I take over, sir?”

Kearton stared across the water, rising and falling between the various hulls. He could see a tell-tale patch of oil spreading across a few fragments of flotsam. There was never very much after a submarine had been destroyed.

He realized what Ainslie had said.

“We’ll go and help Geoff.”

Spiers was here, too, and shook his head, only once.

“We’ll stand by, anyway. He would expect it.” No name. ‘Geordie’ was dead.

He heard the banshee screech of a siren.
Natal
was returning to take charge. The bandits must have fled, once they knew their ruse had failed.

Spiers said, “I’ll go aft and check the towing gear, sir. Just in case.”

He must have stopped below the mast and turned, and his voice was pitched a little louder.

“I hope they’ll all be bloody pleased to see us when we get back, after this!”

Turnbull kept his eyes on the compass.
I know someone who will
.

They did not need to take the damaged M.T.B. in tow, and, at first light, friendly aircraft flew out to meet them.

Landfall.

THE TWO OFFICERS
stood side by side on the edge of the jetty looking down at the smoke-blackened M.T.B. below them. A couple of dockyard officials in stained overalls were beside the bridge, comparing notes and pointing out additional defects; otherwise the boat was deserted, lifeless.

The midday sun was pitiless, but without warmth. Kearton shivered, but the weather was not the reason.

After the urgency and tension of their return, the moorings were deathly quiet and still. Even the usual harbour sounds and movements seemed distant, unobtrusive.

The emergency fire-parties, the pumps, mechanics and men with cutting gear, had long since departed, and so had the medics and stretcher-bearers. Kearton had been here since 977’s small company had gone to temporary quarters ashore. It had been hard to gauge their feelings. As someone had remarked, they had been bloody lucky. Kearton had seen one of them giving a grin and a thumbs-up as he marched past, but he had turned to stare back, as if with a true sense of loss. Perhaps it was gratitude.

Apart from Mostyn, who had been killed outright in the first and only direct fire from the U-Boat’s deck-gun, there had been two more deaths: the coxswain, who had clung to
life
just long enough for another helmsman to take his place, and a seaman hit by shell splinters.

Her first lieutenant had not only survived, but had refused the offer of a tow, and had conned the M.T.B. and dealt with minor injuries himself until 977’s heaving-lines had been hurled ashore.

He had gone with his men, after a powerful handshake and a smile, and the repetition of his skipper’s last words before the action.
“We’ll show those bastards!”

They might never know who he had meant. The U-Boat, or the higher authority which had put him there?

Kearton had gone aboard himself. Reliving it, like all those other times. The smells and the stains, which even the hoses and extinguishers had been unable to disguise. Fuel and ammunition had been spared; even one shell splinter hitting a torpedo would have left nothing but dust on the sea. He had seen where the shell had exploded, in the chartroom directly below the open bridge identical to their own, and the blast had left a jagged hole.
Where I would have been standing
.

“Take more than a month to patch that up.” Brice had moved nearer the edge. “When I saw them leading the way, I thought for a moment it was you, Bob.” He turned his back on the water, as if he wanted to shut it from his memory.

Kearton fell into step beside him, knowing Brice had not been here waiting since before dawn merely out of friendship or courtesy.

He said, “I told them to lead. They deserved it.”

He glanced up toward the gates and the road beyond. Like the jetty, it looked deserted. Everyone would be at Grand Harbour watching the latest arrival, the
Romulus
, and her dashing escort
Natal
, decks lined with men and calls shrilling in salute to her superiors.

He had heard a hooter or tug’s horn, and had been surprised at the force of Brice’s response.

“One bomb on that little lot and there’d be more than a few cracked windows around here! There would be no cheering then!”

Kearton had seen some fighter planes patrolling in pairs, back and forth across the great anchorage, a rare sight at any time.

He realized Brice had stopped outside the wooden hut, and pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket.

It was locked, and there was no patrolman loitering nearby to ward off unwelcome visitors.

Brice gestured toward the main building above the steps.

“I have to make a phone call, Bob.” He pushed open the door. “The Boss has had to abandon this little hideaway, at least for the moment. There’s a flap on.” He swore under his breath as the solitary telephone began to ring. “For Christ’s sake, they know where I am!” He picked it up, and said without inflection, “Brice,” and then, “Yes, I
know
that. Twenty minutes.” He made a small, impatient gesture. “Fifteen, then.” He put the receiver down and stared at it. “You must be dog-tired. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through … actually, I
can
.” The strain was clear on his own face, and in his eyes.