A Dawn Like Thunder (11 page)

He could hear gentle snores from one curtained bunk and some restless thrashing about from another. Should the scream of the alarm klaxon shatter the stillness he knew from experience that these same men, like the others who were resting throughout the boat, would be at their stations in seconds, some of them probably not even realizing how they had got there. They had surfaced during the night to start the noisy diesel engines in order to charge the precious batteries and ventilate the boat. It would be the last time until the operation was finished. Or cancelled. He glanced at his watch: seven in the morning. He tried to remember what the time had been when Nelson had sighted the combined fleets of the enemy on this October day.

He heard sounds from the galley, which was only paces away, its smells of cabbage-water and greasy food constant reminders.

A whole day before they would leave
Turquoise
and head for the land.

And I will not be going with them.

He opened his chart very carefully on the table, but even so the snoring stopped for a few moments. He could almost hear the unspoken complaint:
Don't forget the poor bloody watchkeepers!

As if on cue, a pair of feet emerged from a bunk and Peter Napier slid down beside him. He looked tousled but fresh, and Ross guessed that he probably did not have to
shave yet in any case. He asked, ‘Want a look?' and studied him as he leaned over the chart. How old was he – nineteen, twenty perhaps? And yet he seemed so much younger.

He said, ‘We've just passed through the Great Channel, see? The Nicobar Islands to the north of us, and Sabang and the tip of Sumatra about forty miles to the south. Plenty of room, and over a thousand fathoms under the keel.' He smiled. ‘For the moment, anyway.'

Napier touched the chart. ‘And that's our destination?'

‘Salanga Island is at the top of the Malacca Strait, which is about one hundred and sixty miles wide around there. It narrows quickly after that – even a submarine would find it tight. So if the Japs are putting some sort of radar on the island, it would make these landing operations even more hairy.'

He watched his hand move on the chart as if it were thinking and planning independently. ‘Just follow the drill. If you think the observations don't match the reports, you pull out.' When Napier said nothing, he touched his arm.
‘Right?'

‘A piece of cake.' He turned and looked at Ross, momentarily uncertain. ‘You wanted me out of this, didn't you? Because of what happened to David. But, you see, I
needed
to do it. When it was offered, I took it with both hands!'

Ross nodded. So like David for those few seconds: brown eyes, the vivid emotion on the face. Like that day he had wanted to call off the mission – the cruiser and the floating dock. David had not thought it was a ‘piece of cake'.

‘I'm sorry. I felt responsible.' They both smiled. ‘I still do.'

The messman paused by the curtained entrance. ‘Breakfast in about fifteen minutes, gents.' He smacked his lips. ‘Tinned bangers and powdered egg! Just the job!'

Ross sighed. They must have stomachs made of iron.

‘By the way.' Napier sounded casual. ‘I met that pretty Wren before we shoved off from the base.' He hesitated. ‘You know, the petty officer. A real dish.'

Ross replied quietly, ‘You didn't waste much time.'

‘Oh, it wasn't that. When I met her I was looking for you.' He glanced only briefly at the curved deckhead as the hull gave a sudden shiver. ‘She was upset. I could tell.'

‘What about?'

‘I don't know. Maybe I imagined it. I don't think so. She's not like the others.'

‘How so?' It was good to let him talk. Whatever he showed outwardly, he must be nervous about the operation, his first. Or was it something else?

‘Well, I heard somebody say at the party that she's – well, half-and-half, if you see what I mean?'

Ross said, ‘I do believe you're blushing.' But all he could think of was her suppressed anger when she had entered Pryce's office, as if she had known they were talking about her. He added lightly, ‘She's probably cheesed off at being bothered by lovesick subbies!'

‘All the same . . .' They both looked up as
Turquoise
's commander strolled into the wardroom, yawning and scratching his black beard.

‘Any char yet?'

A curtain twitched slightly. ‘Not so much bloody noise!'

Jessop swiped the curtain where he imagined the occupant's backside would be and growled, ‘Don't be so bloody disrespectful to your captain!' Then he grinned. ‘All quiet up top. I had a quick peek at first light. Like a mill-pond.' He became businesslike again. ‘We received no signals when we were charging batteries last night. So it's still on.' He glanced at the chart. ‘Our chummy-boat landed
a party of squaddies yesterday, so we would have heard something if that had misfired.'

Ross, too, was looking at the chart, the neat lines and soundings, depths and compass variations, seeing it as it really would appear. Rocks, small beaches, and the headland where the radar station was said to be. He could guess what the bearded submariner was thinking. How could men volunteer for that kind of work? Put ashore to fend for themselves in an area known to be crawling with Japs. Sheer courage, or was it a kind of madness? An Australian major who had been instructing them in jungle warfare had said, ‘Keep it in your minds at all times. This enemy is like nothing you've known before. No use bleating about the Geneva Convention and a prisoner's rights if you get captured. All the territory they've taken is held by fear, by sheer bloody savagery.
So keep it in your minds.
Get them first.' He had stared around at their intent expressions, face by face. ‘They kill people like us,' he had lingered over the final word, ‘eventually.'

Ross thought suddenly of Villiers. He had actually gone back to Singapore, and he had no doubt that he would go again if it was suggested to him. And what of the girl in England, another man's wife? Perhaps she might change his mind.

Napier stood up and looked for his shoes. ‘I think I'll go and see how my Number Two is getting on.'

He left the wardroom and Jessop said thoughtfully, ‘When I fix a ship in my crosswires I try not to think of the people who are going to die when I fire a salvo. But this is different. I prefer
my
war.' He grimaced suddenly. ‘God, smell those sausages! Whoever invented them should be marooned on a desert island for a year with nothing else to eat!'

Ross knew his mind was somewhere else, planning,
preparing in case the operation had already been discovered by the enemy. But he asked, and he was surprised at how calm he sounded, ‘By the way, what time
did
Our Nel first sight the combined fleet?'

Jessop paused, a mug of tea halfway to his beard. ‘Six o'clock in the morning. It wasn't until eleven-forty that
Victory
hoisted
England Expects
.' Then he grinned broadly, his teeth very white through his beard. ‘That would have suited me, Jamie. One hell of a battle, but knowing that the admiral was up there, taking the shit with all the lads!'

Peter Napier paused in the doorway of the heads and dabbed his lips with his handkerchief. He had been sick, without warning. Now, as he splashed his face with brackish water, he looked at himself in a mirror. He had heard Ross and Jessop laughing in the wardroom. The sound had helped to steady him, to restore him.

But the face he saw in the glass was that of fear.

The launching of the two chariots from
Turquoise
's saddle-tanks had gone like clockwork, or one of those regular drills in Scotland. That was the only similarity: here, the sky was bright with moonlight and stars that appeared to be touching the water, and the sea was almost warm to the touch.

Bill Walker, the Canadian lieutenant, had left first, his being a slower chariot than Napier's newer model.

Walker's Number Two was a taciturn Tynesider named Nash. It was a marvel how they managed to understand one another.

Peter Napier peered at the luminous dials of the compass and depth-gauge. He had tested everything within minutes of seeing the submarine swallowed up in the darkness; there had been no faults. He should have felt the usual
excitement, that heady exhilaration which had so surprised him after his first dive. Ross had been on the submarine's casing to see them depart, and Napier had sensed his disappointment at being left behind, as well as his concern for his dead friend's brother: he had seen it in his eyes when they had gone through the last briefing before changing into their rubber suits.

The briefing had been yet another grim reminder of danger and the possibility of death when they had packed their additional equipment inside their clothing. Known in the Special Operations Force as the
Just in Case Kit
, it had no longer seemed so funny with the mission and the land a sudden reality. It contained a pistol and ammunition, a small bag of gold sovereigns, compass, knife and compact tool kit, and a square of silk on which was written in several Oriental languages that the British government would reward anybody who helped the bearer in distress. And finally there had been a tablet of poison, as a last defence against capture and what would certainly follow.

Napier waved his arm and felt his Number Two, Nick Rice, pat his shoulder. A slow and careful dive, twenty, thirty feet, the water pressing the suits around their limbs, the control-panel gleaming as if it would light up the whole ocean. Then up to surface depth again, the bubbles frothing around their heads and visors while Napier made one more check on the compass. There was a strong undertow, a vague cross-current, which would have to be watched and taken into consideration for the last approach.

Napier pictured the target area as he and the others had seen it through the main periscope at full power when
Turquoise
had risen as close to the surface as her commander had dared. Lush green islands and inviting blue water, the headland little more than a hump with the sheltered water of the natural harbour beyond. Nothing had
moved; it had seemed they had the world to themselves, the perfect seascape. And then, brighter even than the reflected glare, they had seen the small but distinct flashes, like some haphazard and meaningless signal. Jessop had said professionally, ‘The MA/SBs are there all right. Probably moored in two groups – the sun's catching their wheelhouse glass, or something similar. We must have got the right information for once!'

But that was then, just a few hours ago. Now, with every turn of the little propeller, they were drawing closer to something real and hostile, filled with a menace even the bright moonlight could not dispel.

Napier felt his Number Two leaning over to adjust something and wondered what he thought about it. Until he had volunteered for Special Operations, Nick Rice had been a leading telegraphist and had served mostly in destroyers on escort duty. In his late twenties, he was a serious, withdrawn sort of man, but in training and on final exercises they had worked well together, although they had never become quite as close as some of the other teams. Perhaps Rice could not bring himself to trust and have full confidence in an officer he was permitted to call by his first name, like one of his messmates. Or maybe he was waiting to see how they would both react in ‘the real thing', as Captain Pryce chose to call it.

Napier tried to put everything from his mind, but faces came and went like spirits in the water. His brother; Ross's obvious anxiety over his safety; the awe with which some of the others regarded him because of his prized decoration, although Ross himself never appeared to notice it. No wonder David had said, ‘The sort of bloke you'd follow anywhere. I know I would!'

Rice was touching his shoulder again, his visor shining in the moon's cool glow.

Napier saw the trailing cloak of green phosphorescence, and when he twisted around in his seat he realized that more of it was writhing away from the chariot's propeller. They had been warned to expect this in tropical waters, but it was still something of a shock. Surely somebody would see it once they had worked closer inshore. The phosphorescence Rice had seen must be from the other chariot, leading the way into the attack. He thought of the Canadian's face during that final briefing. No sign of uncertainty, let alone fear, but then he had taken part in several such attacks, both in Norway and in the Mediterranean. He had even been able to joke about the suicide tablet. In his gentle Ontario drawl he had said, ‘Well, we'll just have to take their word for it. I don't suppose anybody's been able to report whether it works or not!'

Some drifting seabirds rose, flapping and screaming, only yards away. Napier put his arm across his face without knowing why, and then felt angry and ashamed.

He could just make out the glow from the other chariot's wake. They were about seventy-five yards apart. He eased the throttle to maintain the distance. At any other time they would have been congratulating themselves. It was all going without a hitch – unusual even after so much intense training. It was, many said, still very much a by-guess-and-by-God operation.

Down now. He watched the gauge. Twenty feet, with barely a quiver from the motor.
Slight alteration of course. Check time and compass again.
He could feel his heart pounding like a sledgehammer, his mouth raw from sucking in air from the cylinders.

Now.
He eased the joystick and held it steady until they were running with their heads out of the water in a gigantic spearhead of moonlight rippling on the flat water, making it look like beaten silver. He clung to the controls and tried
not to yawn. There they were, the two targets, overlapping at this approach angle, hunched and black in the moonlight. He could even make out the stick-like tripod masts on the moored vessels. Small and fast, like the earlier MTBs, about seventy feet long, according to the Intelligence pack, lightly armed but with enough depth-charges to blow a dozen
Turquoises
out of the water.