The White Guns (1989) (22 page)

Durham smiled. 'You'd better make certain
you
don't get done, my lad!'

Ginger sauntered away. Tomorrow or the next day and they would do business. After all, the two-and-a-half would be used to dealing on the side in his old job.

On the bridge Marriott consulted the charts once more, then said, 'Stand by to alter course, Sub. We shall steer South-Twenty-East.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' The response was as before.
Still sulking.

'You ready, Bunts?'

He could hear the smile in Silver's reply. 'Ready-aye-ready, sir!'

'Make to convoy and escort.
Alter course in succession!'

He leaned against the compass and saw the six-pounder shining in the reflected glare of the lights. It was still uncanny to see the gun unmanned, and covered with its canvas hood.

'All acknowledged, sir!'

Marriott straightened his back.
Forget it. It's over, finished.

'Starboard fifteen – steady – Steer South-Twenty-East.'

'Steady on South-Twenty-East, sir.'

Marriott crossed the bridge to watch the navigation lights astern. Little triangles of white, green and red. Follow my leader.

'Got her, Sub?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Call if you need –' He did not finish it but lowered himself into the oily warmth of the companion ladder.

The wardroom was empty. Marriott saw Durham's empty glass sliding and rattling this way and that inside the fiddles to the boat's slow roll.

Just one Horse's Neck. Or a strong brandy with a cup of black coffee.
He thought of his mother as he threw himself down and covered his face with the duffel coat.

That would be all she needed. A court martial in the family.

What would the neighbours say?

When Jackson entered to switch off the deckhead lights he paused and looked at Marriott's sprawled figure.

It would be strange if he ever went back to general service in some battlewagon or cruiser where the officers were always at a distance. Here you could see them as people, human beings.

He grinned as he turned off the lights and thought about the watch he would offer to Durham. Well,
almost
human.

Marriott paused on the big floating pontoon and watched as his men made final adjustments to the mooring lines. It was a strange feeling. Still part of Germany, the Third Reich as it had been for so long, and yet because of the Russian presence it seemed so completely different.
Foreign.
He smiled at his choice of description.

It was surprisingly warm, even humid, with a noon sun high overhead in a sky empty of cloud.

He saw Lowes salute as Lieutenant Commander Durham and the Russian officer who had boarded the MGB from a fast launch stepped down on to the pontoon. Far beyond them the two oil-tankers lay at anchor, high in the water with only ballast aboard for the journey. The ML was tied alongside one of them and all were hemmed in by busy launches as the passage crews were taken aboard for transfer to the naval vessels, and Russian sailors sent out to replace them.

He had told Lowes to keep an eye on everything, had rammed each point home until he had seen his youthful face stiffen still further like a fractious child's. He knew he was being unfair but he had given the same instructions to Townsend and Adair. This was not Chatham or Felixstowe; to all intents it was Russia.

Durham was in deep conversation with the Russian, a scholarly-looking lieutenant named Butuzov. Marriott had heard Ginger Jackson already refer to him as
Boots-off.

They had been at it all morning, visiting the two tankers, making notes, while the obliging Butuzov had translated all the demands and complaints. It was much as Durham had predicted.

Durham said, 'We're going to meet the top man.' He gave a brief wink. 'All downhill from now on.' But his eyes suggested differently.

The Russian attack on the port area had been overwhelming. It had taken place within sight of the war's end, and with the German divisions in full retreat or surrounded with no ammunition or tanks left to fight with. It must have been like hell, he thought. Great areas of houses and shops scorched away by rocket-fire,
Stalin-organs
and then flamethrowers as the last fanatical defenders had been harried and defeated in a street-to-street, room-to-room carnage.

Lying alongside a crumbling jetty was a Russian destroyer. She was one of the old
Woikow
class, which like the British V & Ws had been launched in the closing months of the Great War. She was heavily armed, and seamen with machine-pistols guarded each brow and both ends of the jetty. Her three funnels gave her a quaint old-world look, but there was nothing ancient about her guns and torpedo tubes.

'What now, sir?'

They walked up the first brow and saluted the limp white ensign with its blue stripe and prominent star, hammer and sickle emblems.

Durham said in a stage-whisper, 'We talk. But first, we drink.'

Marriott could only stare at the destroyer's quarterdeck. It was almost covered with bicycles, with several baby-prams lashed beside them under a canvas canopy.

Through a door and down a ladder to the wardroom. There was barely a space here either. Wireless-sets and gramophones, clocks of every kind from ornate pendulum ones to humble alarm versions. Boxes, crates, suitcases, some bursting open to reveal women's clothing and a few fur coats.

'What's going on, sir?'

Durham watched as the interpreter opened a door and ushered them forward. He replied shortly, 'It's how they do their shopping. At gunpoint!'

The destroyer's captain was introduced, and then the senior officer with four gold rings on his sleeves stepped forward and gave Durham a hug. He was a heavily built figure with tousled black hair, and very shaggy eyebrows.

Marriott noticed that he was careless in his dress, and his jacket was open from the throat down, revealing a none-too-clean shirt.

The lieutenant, whom Marriott could now only think of as
Boots-off,
introduced him as Senior Captain Sakulkin.

They all sat down around a beautiful mahogany table. It had certainly not come from any dockyard, Marriott thought.

They waited while a Russian seaman poured vodka into small glasses, then left the bottle beside its twin in a big bucket of ice.

Then came the toasts, each one carefully translated by the unflappable Boots-off.

To Stalin, and Churchill, to victory, and to the total destruction of Fascist Germany.

Despite his caution Marriott could feel the vodka making his head swim. Once he glanced at Durham, but apart from his reading glasses steaming over he showed very little change.

Marriott turned as the senior captain used his name.

The lieutenant looked at him impassively. 'Captain Sakulkin bids you welcome.'

The captain grinned and raised his glass.

Boots-off added, 'And says it is good that you want to share in our great Russian victory.'

Marriott smiled and lifted his own glass. 'Tell Captain Sakulkin that we were quite busy too.'

They all roared with laughter.

Then the lieutenant said wearily, 'Now we return to Article Three of the Allied Ships Dispersal plan.'

Marriott felt a drop of sweat fall on his hand. It was like an oven, and he had noticed that all the scuttles were screwed shut. Perhaps this was how the Russians broke down resistance to their arguments.

A hand reached over his shoulder as the sailor refilled his glass. As it withdrew Marriott saw that the man was wearing at least three watches on his wrist before his sleeve slipped down again. He thought of the rules and regulations in Kiel, the eagle-eyed redcaps and naval patrolmen. Some rules would always be broken, but not to these extremes. What did they do? Rob the civilians and loot their homes, or did they do that as a matter of course?

Durham pushed his glasses on to his forehead so that he looked like a benevolent owl.

'I would refer the captain to the report given at Flensburg three days ago by your naval surveyor. He was most satisfied with these vessels, and said as much of two further tankers which are now being refitted.'

More translations.

The lieutenant said, 'Captain Sakulkin says that this interpretation displays a lack of trust between allies.'

There was a discreet tap at the door and an armed seaman stood stiffly in the doorway.

There was a brief exchange and then Sakulkin gave a curt nod.

Boots-off explained, 'It is one of your officers, Lieutenant Marriott. The captain has excused you.'

'Thank you.' Marriott walked carefully through the door and climbed thankfully towards the sunlight. After the sealed cabin it felt like the Solent.

He had been half-expecting Lowes, worried about some unexpected setback, but it was Fairfax.

'Hello, Number One. All finished out there?' He hoped his voice did not sound slurred.

Fairfax tore his eyes from the great heap of bicycles.

'The Russians have taken one of our passage-crew, sir.'

'What?' He took his arm and led him away from the watching gangway-staff. 'Tell me!'

'We were transferring the German passage-crew to our boat and the ML when suddenly they pulled out one of the young sailors. It seems he had no proper authority, sir. Everyone else did.'

'Bloody hell! Somebody has made a damned mess of this. There's not much we can do. The rules come from the top –' He stared at him and added, 'That's not all, is it?'

'It was one of
my
passage-crew, sir, in the
Augsburg.
After all this happened the German skipper told me that the youth is the son of the senior German officer at Kiel. Von Tripz, I think he said his name is. The skipper assumed it was okay and didn't want any trouble.'

'Well, he's got it all the same, the bloody idiot.'

It was all coming back through his foggy brain. Von Tripz had been the captain of the dockyard when the port had fallen to the British. He had stayed on under RN control as his knowledge and experience would prove invaluable. He had been cleared by the officers investigating war crimes and Nazi connections. A man of honour, they had said. And now his son was in Russian hands.

Fairfax was watching him anxiously. 'We
could
make a signal –'

'It would be too late. There's more to this than meets the eye. Quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say?'

He felt the anger running through him with unexpected force. Another
incident
– well, so be it. The Russian's
share in our victory
had been almost the last straw. Pictures flashed through his mind. The final drink with Stephen, and then the newsreel shots of the
Repulse,
all those other faces, from Alexandria to Malta, North Africa, Sicily and on to Salerno. And that was just the part he had shared.
And then Normandy.

He exclaimed, 'Well, this time they can bloody well get stuffed!'

A seaman made to bar his way but relented as he re-entered the furnace heat between decks.