He heard Devane behind him, the shuffling feet as the Russians and the watchkeepers moved round in a crowded dance to let him through.
When he glanced at Devane, Dundas saw nothing to concern him. He looked calm and unruffled.
Over his shoulder Devane called to the interpreter, ‘Tell them to stop worrying, will you? It’s a piece of cake.’ He grinned at Dundas. ‘Let’s see what he makes of
that.
’
Seymour, who had nothing to do until the flotilla went to action stations, watched each man on the bridge and tried to memorize every detail. It was something he had been teaching himself since he had first taken up journalism for a local
newspaper. He wondered what they would say if they could see him now. The boat pounding across the water, dull pewter now in the dying sunlight, the men at their stations watching the sea and the sky, searching for the first hint of an enemy.
And the commanding officer, one of the Navy’s real-life heroes, within feet of where he was standing. So confident, able to make a joke when everyone else must be tensed up like a coiled spring. Seymour’s glance fell on Devane’s hand, and he saw that it was gripped so tightly around a voicepipe that the knuckles were white against the tanned skin, as if it was taking all his strength to hold him there.
Seymour looked away, confused and troubled. It was like stumbling on a friend’s secret, finding that all you believed was false.
Devane said, ‘Starboard twenty, Swain. Steer north by west.’
Carroll’s lamp clacked in time with his words, bringing the twin lines of MTBs round together on to the new course.
They were committed. From this moment it was all a matter of timing and faultless execution. Right now, as some of Sorokin’s ships were bombarding enemy positions along the Crimea, and the fighter-bombers played havoc with ground positions, a submarine would be surfacing to put the first raiding party on the island. It was a backwater as far as the Black Sea battleground was concerned, but in a few hours’ time it would become a small part of history.
Devane dragged his hand from the voicepipe and massaged his fingers.
Don Richie should be standing here, not me
.
He saw Seymour watching him and made another effort. It will soon be over.
‘Action stations, Number One. Go round yourself. Keep them on top line.’
Seymour relaxed as the alarm jangled through the boat. He was almost thankful. It was not good to steal another’s secret.
‘Go to the chartroom and check those calculations again, Number One.’
Devane wedged his elbows against the screen and trained his glasses beyond the port bow. It was supposed to be dusk, but the sea was already dark and vaguely menacing.
Dundas replied quietly, ‘They seem all right, sir. I checked them just now –’
‘Do it again!’
Devane could feel the lieutenant’s resentment as he groped his way to the ladder. But it was all taking far too long, and the sickening motion created by the boat’s dead slow progress for the past hour did not help.
Seymour said, ‘Zero hour, sir.’ He spoke very carefully, as if he was well aware of Devane’s mood.
Devane moved his glasses another few inches. The little island was right there, blocking their path, or should be. It was unfair to take it out of Dundas. He was a damn good navigator, and the boat was lucky to have someone who had been so expertly trained in the merchant service.
He could feel the others crowded in behind him. The Russians, the bridge team, some spare hands with belts for the machine-gunners.
Dundas returned. ‘It’s dead ahead, sir. Four miles.’ He waited, expecting a sudden outburst. ‘Commander Orel knows the place well, and his notes on the chart were a great help.’
‘Good.’ Devane lowered his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. ‘The raiding party should be ashore by now.’
If only the MTBs had radar, how much easier and safer it would be. On several occasions in the Mediterranean they
had ‘borrowed’ the services of an American PT boat. All of their craft were fitted with radar. It had made the flotilla’s cat-and-mouse chase amongst the Greek and Adriatic Islands far less of a gamble.
Someone moved up beside him, and without looking he knew it was Orel.
How must it feel, Devane wondered. If the Germans had invaded and conquered Britain he might be looking from seaward at the Isle of Wight and trying to imagine what was happening to his friends and relations in an occupied country. Maybe Orel was thinking of someone in particular.
Dundas said, ‘If we receive no signal, sir, will we still go in?’
Devane swung on him and then said, ‘I’m sorry I choked you off just now. Not deserved.’ He touched his sleeve. ‘I think not. No signal will mean that the sub withdrew without landing the raiding party. Her skipper probably knows better than anybody what the risks are.’
Orel leant forward, sensing perhaps from Devane’s tone that the first optimism was beginning to fade away.
Devane turned towards him and then blinked as the Russian’s features, the upper bridge and flapping ensign were suddenly illuminated by a vivid red glare. For a split second longer he thought that an enemy patrol had pinned them down with a star shell, or that some coastal battery had been tracking them with detection devices. But then came the explosion, crashing out of the glow like a thunderclap, and Devane knew it was something else.
The Russian interpreter was already explaining, but Devane said abruptly, ‘The Russian submarine. She’s hit a mine.’
As if a great hand had come out of the shadows to existinguish the glare, the sea became dark again.
Voices murmured and flowed down either side-deck, and Devane heard Seymour trying to restore order.
One thing, it was a quick death. Immediate. Like the bomb had been for those people in the pub. Either the submarine had lost her bearings in the minefield or she had struck a ‘drifter’. Either way, it did not make much difference now.
If the Russians had kept to their timetable, the raiders would be ashore. The only thing which was not according to plan was that the whole island would be on the alert.
He snatched up the microphone. ‘
Parthian
, this is
Merlin
. We’re going in! Start the attack!’
He glanced at Pellegrine’s shadowy outline. ‘Full ahead all engines!’
The bows rose several feet as the MTB leapt forward with a roar of motors. But surprisingly it broke the tension, the sudden anxiety which the explosion had thrown at them.
Fingers closed on Devane’s arm and he saw Orel staring at him, his eyes almost feverish as he shouted above the din of power.
The interpreter, who was still trying to stay on his feet after the violent increase of speed, shouted something, but Devane said, ‘Don’t bother!’ He forced a smile and added, ‘I think I
know
what he said.’
Orel was satisfied and relaxed his grip. When Devane glanced at him again he seemed as controlled and as impassive as ever. But for those few seconds the mistrust and the uncertainty had been left astern.
‘Here comes the welcome!’
Red balls of tracer lifted as if from the sea and winged far abeam, and Devane thought he heard the heavier bark of artillery. But no tell-tale waterspouts shot upwards, and the tracer too stopped almost immediately.
Leading Signalman Carroll shouted, ‘There’s the signal, sir!’
Devane nodded and watched the drifting flares, two green over one white. The Russian raiding party might still be wondering what was happening, or if they would ever be rescued now that their submarine had taken a last dive. But they had fired the flares, and would not have much longer to wait before they knew they were not alone.
Boots scraped on deck, and Devane heard shouted commands as the Russians crowded forward on either side, weapons at the ready. It was to be hoped that the island’s defenders were still confused, otherwise one good burst of machine-gun fire might sweep the soldiers overboard like rag
dolls.
Orel was standing close beside the coxswain, peering forward with one hand resting on Pellegrine’s shoulder. They were rushing headlong into shadow, and only Orel really knew what this place was like.
‘All engines half ahead! Starboard fifteen!
Steady!
’ Devane gripped the rail beneath the screen for support as the deck tilted over. ‘Stand by to open fire!’
A solitary bullet thudded into the hull, and Devane found time to wonder who the marksman was. A startled sentry, most likely. A tiny island, well clear of the war’s main thoroughfare, the sight of five MTBs rushing out of the gloom straight for the solitary inlet would be enough to terrify anyone.
Devane wanted to move round the bridge, to see if the other boats were reacting as planned. But he dared not take his eyes from the onrushing shadows, not for a second. They all trusted him. He must do the same for them.
‘Grenades exploding to port, sir.’
But spray lancing over the flared bows hid the explosions. Devane saw a few dull flashes and imagined he heard the impartial stammer of automatic fire. Men were fighting out there. Hated enemies, with no quarter at the end of it.
Tracer flashed diagonally across the MTBs’ approach and churned the sea into froth.
Devane shouted,
‘Flares!’
It seemed to take an age before the anchorage leapt into stark outline beneath the drifting lights.
It all seemed much smaller now, with no room for error or panic.
‘Slow ahead port and centre! Half astern starboard!’
Devane winced as metal shrieked out of the gloom and ricocheted from the bridge.
‘Stop starboard!’
He forced himself to remain upright as tracer hummed and whimpered overhead or streaked blindly out to sea.
‘Slow ahead all engines!’
He pounded the rail until the pain steadied his racing nerves. There it was. Pale, wedge-shaped and blurred in the
dangling camouflage nets.
More tracer ripped past the bridge and then hammered the hull like massive boots.
Without realizing he was shouting, Devane called, ‘The bastards are on to us! Open fire! Knock that gun out!’
The bridge shook as the twin machine-guns on the port side rattled into life, joined by the Oerlikons’ sharper note, and then the full onslaught from Walker’s boat which was following nose to tail.
Devane looked round for Dundas, but he had already gone to rally his boarding party.
He heard a sharp exchange of light automatic fire, the wild whooping of the Russian soldiers as they tensed themselves for the impact.
But the E-boat’s cannon had ceased firing, and Devane guessed that its crew had probably been wiped out in the first barrage.
‘Easy, Swain! More to starboard!’
Devane saw a small boat drifting from its moorings, probably a dinghy, then felt the shudder as it was ground to fragments between the two hulls.
‘All engines slow astern!’
He heard yells from aft as grapnels were hurled on to the enemy’s deck.
One of the seamen holding the spare ammunition belts gave a sharp cry and fell to his knees. He was trying to speak, but it sounded as if he was drowning in his own blood.
Devane gritted his teeth.
Now
.
‘
All stop!
’
As the motors died he heard the other sounds, gunfire and shouts, the stampeding boots of the troops, a grenade or two being hurled at some resistance on the shore.
He saw Walker’s boat edging up to the E-boat’s stern, more men with lines and wires jumping down on to her deck like pirates in an Errol Flynn film. Some of them had been fighting with German E-boats for years, but it was doubtful if any had been as close as this to one before.
Devane watched the feverish preparations to get the
E-boat ready for towing clear. She was big all right. Standing high from the water with her torpedoes and stores removed she looked twice as large as her captors.
He saw Dundas appear on the German’s bridge, his gestures, even his expression very clear in the reflected gunfire and flares.
Seymour called, ‘There goes the second party of soldiers, sir!’
Mackay’s boat was already gathering sternway as she reversed from some kind of pontoon. Her cargo of soldiers were scampering into the gathering darkness, machine-guns raking the shadows as they ran.
Carroll finished preparing his rockets. ‘I can fire the recall whenever you’re ready, sir!’
Devane waved to Walker’s boat as she turned crabwise to receive a towline. He saw Walker’s yellow scarf waving like a banner, and marvelled that they had all managed to reach this point without serious incident.
If they could move the E-boat under her own power that would really be something. But it was more likely the Germans had removed all her fuel before attempting any repairs.
Orel was thumping his interpreter on the shoulder to emphasize something, and even the flicker of automatic fire from the land seemed unreal and without menace.
Carroll hurried to a voicepipe and then said urgently, ‘Sir! W/T have signal.
Most immediate!
’
Devane trained his night glasses on some separate flashes, high up to starboard. That must be the small hill he had seen on the chart. Men were creeping round even as he watched, trying to kill each other, hand to hand.
‘Tell me.’
‘Two enemy surface units approaching from north-east. Discontinue operation immediately.’
Devane took precious seconds to consider it. The signal was officially from Black Sea Fleet HQ, but it would have come through Beresford. That wasted time. Two surface units probably meant destroyers, and there would be more where they came from.
He picked up the microphone handset. ‘
Kestrel
, this is
Merlin
. Do you read me?’
He heard Mackay’s harsh voice as if he were here on the bridge. ‘This is
Kestrel.
Loud and clear.’ There was a distorted chuckle. ‘What’ll we do?’
Devane ducked as something clicked against the side of the bridge. There were still a few Germans nearby, it seemed.
‘Take over, Red. Recall the soldiers and supply covering fire. Tell
Harrier
and
Osprey
to take charge of the tow. Make good use of the darkness. It’ll be a long, long day tomorrow.’ They had all heard the signal and were probably wondering what he might do. ‘I’m taking
Buzzard
with me, got it?’