Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) (13 page)

He felt Pleydell move beside him, and somehow knew he was shivering. Trying to keep out of everybody’s way.

He said, ‘Enemy coast on the starboard bow, Mark. Nothing much to see.’

Chitty the signalman murmured, ‘’Ere comes Number
Two, sir.’ One of his hands rested against the machine-gun mounting at the rear of the bridge.

Foley said, ‘Pass the word forrard.’ Chitty had eyesight like a cat. Then he saw it, the frothing moustache of a bow wave as Claridge’s ML surged out of the darkness. Tony Brock had already dropped his mines and had gone ahead to cover the rest of his little group.

Now it’s our turn.
He thought of Allison, down aft by the twin Oerlikons. He would learn more up here on the bridge, but you never put all your eggs in one basket. He shut it from his mind.

‘Starboard ten.’ He heard Bass’s instant acknowledgment, imagined his eyes glinting in the faint compass light as he brought her round.

‘Midships. Steady. Steer North forty-five East.’

Foley raised his watch and peered at the luminous dial. Eight o’clock. Right on time.

He heard a sharp clink from abaft the bridge, and imagined somebody getting a savage blast from Richmond, the leading hand in charge.

‘Ready, sir!’

He said, ‘Tell the Chief. We’re starting the run.’

Bass eased the wheel as the deck lifted and pitched in the offshore current. He kept his eyes on the compass, and tuned his ears only to Foley and the voicepipes, but he could feel the nearness of land, smell it.

There were some faint explosions, but nobody spoke.
Crump. Crump. Crump.
There might have been flashes too, but Foley had been right about the Met report. There was low cloud everywhere. Perhaps Allison would remember his prediction.

He tensed as a column of water lifted like an awakened ghost, and vanished just as quickly.

The seaman with the handset said, ‘
One
, sir!’

‘Very well.’ It always made him jumpy, as if he expected the mine to explode against the hull, although if it did none of them would live to hear it. The depth was eight to ten fathoms hereabouts. A good channel for a fast convoy making the best use of the darkness.

He heard more explosions. Flak, the R.A.F. carrying out a raid somewhere. He glanced over at Pleydell’s slight form. He would know.

‘
Seven
, sir!’

He heard Bass mutter, ‘Get a bleedin’ move on!’

Foley looked up as the belly of one cloud bank lit up with a dull flash, fire rather than explosion.

Pleydell said, ‘One of them has bought it.’ A different voice, perhaps a different person. As if he was there, seeing it, describing it for all those people.

Like my own father.

Foley could hear the engines now, labouring, at least one of them coughing and roaring. The clouds flickered with fire, and the sounds were already much louder.

Chitty said, ‘Comin’ down!’ Later, on the messdeck, he would be sorry for them. But here and now you thought of number one, and your mates. And the boat.

‘
Eight
, sir!’ The seaman’s eyes glowed as he peered at the sky, but his voice remained calm.

‘Tell the Chief. Stand by!’

Foley swung round as the seaman called, ‘Number Nine’s jammed, sir! Richmond says that the release bracket ’as sheared!’

A live mine. And a new piece of equipment which had broken down, the very item on which Shannon had worked before putting to sea. It was hard to think. The noise seemed to be over and around them, defying all they knew.

Richmond was a good leading hand, one of Shannon’s own mechanics; he was down there now. Waiting. They all were.

The sea suddenly opened up, everything standing out in the eye-searing glare of light and fire as the aircraft broke through the low cloud and began a shallow dive towards the sea. It was so bright that he could see the camouflage on the body and wings before the flames engulfed it, so as it hurtled overhead it looked like a giant crucifix, the sparks still trailing after it as it hit the water.

Pleydell said softly, ‘Somebody was still trying to fly it.’

Foley found that he could ignore it, had already forgotten that men might have lived through the furnace.

A terrible death. Maybe the worst, if there was any choice.

But this time it was to
use
. A weapon.

The reflected glare was all but gone, and he knew that, temporarily at least, his night glasses would be useless.

But it had lasted long enough. The choice was his. There, right across the dying glow, was a convoy.

Maybe only three or four vessels. An hour later and they would have been right amongst the mines. He pounded his fist on the screen and allowed the sudden pain to steady him.

‘Close up, action stations!’ He waited, counting seconds, expecting the night to come alive again with star shell and tracer. Like that other time.

He called, ‘Full ahead, all engines! Port fifteen, steer due north! Steady as you go, ’Swain!’

The sea seemed to boil past either beam, and where there had been faceless water Foley could measure their speed as the hull bounded across short, steep waves. Shannon and his mechanics must wonder what the hell was happening.

Someone shouted, ‘Here we go!’

Foley watched the tracer, so deceptively slow, rising like livid balls of green fire before streaking down across its own reflection with the speed of light itself.

The enemy were as startled and blinded as they were.
You must believe that.
He cupped his hands.
‘Open fire!’

The sea was being torn apart by the tracer. He saw Chitty duck as metal whined above the bridge.

And there was a live mine still on board.

Chitty gasped, ‘That was bloody close!’

Bass bared his teeth. ‘Shouldn’t ’ave joined then, should yer!’

Down aft, Sub-Lieutenant Allison was clinging to a stanchion with all his strength, and yet, as the hull reeled over in response to the full rudder, it felt as if he was going over the side. It was hard to think, to gauge distance as the twin Oerlikons suddenly came to bear on a target and hammered into life. Allison saw the gunfire reflected on the streaming side of another vessel, so that it appeared to be shooting back at them.
A low, anonymous shape, smoke pouring from a funnel or perhaps a shell burst, and then all at once rearing up and above him. In the unbroken clatter of automatic fire he saw the heavy bow, even some crudely painted numbers, the stem rearing around as if it and not the ML was still turning. Allison felt bullets hiss past him. In the flashes he saw a man lying by the after hatch, hit by gunfire or unable to stay on his feet, it was not possible to tell. He knew he was out in the open, barely able to hold on, and yet he was able to see and record everything. Faces appearing on the other vessel’s side, staring, mouths open in silent anger or terror. Another burst of machine-gun fire swept through them, and Allison heard the wheelhouse glass shattering as the bullets searched out another target. The Oerlikons fell silent, and he thought he heard the gunner swearing, meaningless words, while he waited for new magazines to be slammed into place.

But above that, in the smoke and flickering fires, he could hear someone screaming. Like a woman or a trapped animal in terrified agony. It was neither.

‘You all right, sir?’ He felt someone gripping his arm, dragging him up the deck, which was already tilting in the opposite direction as the helm went over. Allison nearly choked, his mouth doused in salt water. It tasted of petrol.

It was suddenly important to remember the sailor’s name. ‘I’m sorry . . .’

The man shook his head and his face opened up in a huge grin. ‘I dunno! Some mothers do ’ave ’em!’ He was actually laughing, face and oilskin flashing
in the renewed gunfire. It was almost worse than the scream.

Allison watched the nearest vessel beginning to burn fiercely. Perhaps they were carrying fuel or ammunition? But she was going fast, and he saw more splashes, men jumping or falling overboard as the Oerlikons found their target again. Another was firing from amidships: the Scouse who had served as much time in the detention barracks as at sea, until this boat.

One of the guns had jammed, and Allison found himself climbing up the mounting, his cap gone, one hand bloody as he shouted, ‘I’ll fix it!’ Somehow he contained the desire to laugh. ‘Cormack, isn’t it?’ He had remembered this one’s name.

The seaman peered at him and wiped his face with his sleeve.

‘Then you must be Dr. Livingstone?’ They both clung to the guns as the deck heeled over once again. Cartridge cases rattled on the deck; somebody was using a fire extinguisher beside the life raft.

Another shouted, ‘Hold on, Bill! Don’t try to move, for God’s sake! The skipper’s turning – Old Chris’ll get us back, you’ll see!’

The roar of engines eased slightly and Allison saw another ML moving purposefully to intercept. Just for an instant he had thought it was something else. A split second, less. But he had imagined the clatter of an E-Boat’s cannon shells. It was the senior officer’s boat.

Perhaps it was getting lighter. But the clouds were still there. He peered around, his eyes stinging and raw. Of
the small convoy there was no sign, just hazy fires, and thick banks of smoke, dark objects rising and dipping as the ML’s wash swept through and over them. As if they were rising from the dead.

Brock’s voice, metallic and hard in his loud-hailer, cut above everything else.

‘Well done! Take station on me! We will return to base! Watch out for fighters!’ He raised his hand and held it above his head as his boat increased speed again.

Allison saw that the other journalist was propped on something below Brock’s bridge, his red scarf pulled up over his face. He turned away and retched. It was not the scarf. He had no face left.

The seaman watched him.
Poor little sod. But give him the benefit. He might be all right after this.

Allison tried to say something, to make him understand. It had all happened so fast. No long-range weapons, no radar, no steel plating.
And I am not afraid.

‘Skipper wants you with him on the bridge, sir!’ The man sounded strained, impatient. ‘Chop-chop, that means,
sir
!’

Allison groped his way forward, trying to put things in order, to remember each separate moment.

Ships had probably been destroyed, men had been killed, and he had come through it. But the unknown voice seemed to rise above all else.

Old Chris’ll get us back, you’ll see!

He gripped the handrails of the bridge ladder and stared at the sea surging past on either beam. Black no longer. The night was almost over. He heard Foley’s
voice, then somebody else gave a quick, nervous laugh.
So be it, then.
He looked at the sea again.

He heard someone say sharply, ‘Move that clutter, Len, Jimmy the One’s comin’ up!’

The real battle was over. He belonged.

The army hospital was certainly off the beaten track. The driver of the naval mail van peered at the shabby building and said doubtfully, ‘I ’ope you can wangle a lift back, sir.’

Foley climbed down and felt the gravel drive rise up to meet him. He could hardly remember ever being so tired. He waved to the driver and turned towards the main building; it had been a lodge for fishermen and nature lovers, someone had told him. There was the faint glint of a river just beyond a line of trees. He tried to concentrate. The Frome, that was it.

Maybe he should have waited until he was feeling himself again. He looked at the empty, bleak windows. She might have been moved, might not even want to see him . . .

A tall military policeman stepped out of a doorway and, after the slightest hesitation, threw up a salute.

‘Sir?’

Foley explained, his mind still crowded with the busy hours since he had conned his command alongside that same pier again. They had been lucky. Both of the other MLs had taken casualties; Brock’s had lost two men killed, not including the war correspondent. Brock had sounded more peeved than sorry. ‘Wouldn’t keep his bloody head down when I told him! He was a useful chap, too!’

They had ditched the last mine while still a few miles offshore, and Signalman Chitty had finished it off with one rifle shot. There had been an immediate session in Operations, when Captain Chavasse had interrupted the debriefing repeatedly with pointed and impatient questions.

366’s only casualty had been a seaman named Howard who had been knocked almost senseless when he had slipped and struck his skull on a winch bracket. Bass had commented, ‘The last place ’e’d feel it!’

Allison was back there in charge, and pleased about it, or so it seemed. As if he had suddenly gained the equivalent of another year’s experience, a long time in this service. Or had somehow found his place at last in their small, intimate world.

The redcap led the way through another building, his boots thudding noisily on the uncarpeted floors.

There were a few figures sitting in one of the rooms, wearing the familiar blue dressing gowns you found in most military and naval hospitals. Filling in the time . . . until when? Foley knew it was his own fault, but he had always hated hospitals, and would never forget his last stay in one. It was the same in this godforsaken place,
he thought. Unfinished card games, a cribbage board abandoned on a table. A radio was playing some music, turned down until it was almost inaudible, presumably so it would not disturb other patients.

Some of them looked up and a voice called, ‘Up the navy!’

Another added, ‘Right up, you mean!’

There was not a whole man amongst them.

Foley paused and said, ‘You’ve got it made here, haven’t you?’

They all laughed, as he knew they would. He had been there. But it never helped.

Another door.
No visitors without passes. Out of bounds to unauthorised personnel.

The redcap stopped. ‘I’ll fetch the sister in charge.’

Foley peeled off his raincoat. ‘Any chance of a lift back to the coast when I leave?’

‘Like askin’ for gold dust, sir.’ His eye fell on the medal ribbon. ‘See what I can fix.’