Black August (20 page)

‘Sail, sir! But why, may I ask?'

Gregory frowned. ‘Didn't you know that you were to act as transport for my men?'

The Lieutenant-Commander looked a little astonished. ‘No, I've had no instructions, and the Owner's ashore at present, so is our Engineer Officer. Of course, we are more or less standing by expecting to be ordered up to London, but we were told we should have a couple of hours' warning, and they may not be back for some time.'

‘I see, but the matter is of the gravest urgency.'

‘We are to take you up the river with us, I suppose?'

‘I've no idea.' Gregory drew the bulky packet from his pocket and showed it to the sailor. ‘OFFICIAL SECRET—Not to Be Opened Until Out of Harbour' was scrawled across it under the bold printed lettering, ‘O.H.M.S.'

‘Sealed orders, eh? Well, sir, the crew is complete, so we could get under way in half an hour, or less, but we must wait for the return of the Captain.'

Gregory frowned. ‘That's awkward—I thought you would be expecting us and ready to leave immediately. Anyhow, I'd better get my men on board at once—that will save a little time.'

‘We've had no instructions about you here,' demurred Fanshawe, ‘but as you say it's so urgent perhaps that would be best.'

‘I've got some stores, too—mostly tinned stuff—I wonder if one of your people would be good enough to show my men where to stow them?'

‘Certainly, sir—Mr. Broughton!' The Lieutenant-Commander turned to the officer of the watch. ‘Show the troops where to stow their stores, please—better use the foremost mess-deck.'

Gregory stepped over the gangway and beckoned Harker to him. ‘Tell the men to unload the lorry, and get the stores on board, will you?'

Harker grinned: ‘What's the big idea, General? Are you standing us all a Mediterranean cruise?'

‘In the interests of discipline, Mr. Harker,' said Gregory with studied coldness, ‘I should be glad if you would confine yourself to a prompt execution of orders when on parade. In the Mess, of course, you can express any opinion that you wish.'

A strange look came into Silas Gonderport Harker's eyes. First anger, then surprise, and finally amusement tinged with a flicker of respect. ‘As you say, sir.' He brought his heels together with a click and marched back to the waiting men.

The lorry was speedily unloaded, and the supplies carried on
board, the sailors giving every assistance. Veronica with Ann behind her came up the gangway.

‘Er—excuse me,' the Lieutenant-Commander spoke in a rapid, low-voiced aside to Gregory, ‘these ladies—are they—er—to be in the party?'

‘Yes, worse luck,' Gregory's tone was bitter and the stare with which he regarded the women left no doubt in the naval officer's mind as to his extreme disapproval of their presence.

‘It's a bit irregular, isn't it, sir?' he hazarded.

‘Damnably so, but instructions were passed from M.I.5 to take them along, so I had to lump it—better send 'em below somewhere, hadn't we?'

The sailor accepted the glib lie with an understanding nod and cocked an appreciative eye at Ann. He did not appear to share Gregory's apparent misogyny. ‘I'll take them below to the wardroom,' he volunteered.

As Fanshawe turned away Gregory gave a swift glance along the jetty. No sign of the Captain yet—Broughton was busy with the stores and troops—the quarter-deck free of officers for the moment. He caught the eye of Rudd, who was standing near, and strolled casually up the starboard ladder to the bridge. Rudd followed.

For two very fully occupied minutes Gregory was in the wireless room, while Rudd lolled close to its entrance. By the time the Lieutenant-Commander returned from below, the General was standing once more by the rail on the quarter-deck watching the approaches to the lock.

‘Look here' he addressed the sailor anxiously—‘how soon can we move off?'

‘I've got to wait for my Captain, sir.'

‘Yes, yes, I know, but you don't seem to appreciate the urgency of the situation. This ship should have been ready and waiting to take me and my men to sea at once. If you've had no instructions someone's made a bloomer at the Admiralty and they will get it in the neck.'

Fanshawe smiled: ‘That's hardly my fault, sir.'

‘Of course not, but I must carry out my instructions—can't you get her ready to move off directly the Captain does turn up?'

‘Yes, there's no reason we shouldn't do that.' He turned to his petty officer: ‘Quartermaster, call the hands, stations for getting
under way—ask the engine-room to tell me how soon they will be ready—it's urgent, so skip!'

Broughton, who was standing near them hurried forward. Gregory kept an anxious eye on the jetty while preparations were being made but there was still no sign of the Captain when, some twenty minutes later, the Lieutenant reported to the Lieutenant-Commander that the ship was ready to proceed.

Gregory, who was standing near shook his head with a worried frown: ‘If that Captain of yours doesn't turn up soon,' he observed quietly, ‘we shall have to leave without him.'

‘But we can't possibly do that, sir,' said the Lieutenant-Commander in a shocked voice.

‘Why?' asked Gregory, ‘surely you can navigate the ship yourself?'

‘Oh, yes, Broughton and my other lieutenant and I can do that between us, it's not that.'

‘I see, but of course your Engineer Officer is ashore as well, isn't he? Is that the trouble?'

‘No, not exactly, but—'

‘Well, what is it then?' Sallust cut him short impatiently. ‘I understood you to say that you had a complete crew.'

‘Yes, nearly eighteen of them are in irons at the moment, we had rather a bother with them last night—demonstration in sympathy with those bad eggs in the Battle Squadron; normally they would be in prison on shore, but instructions were to keep them here for the time being. We had a bit of bad luck with our Gunner this morning too—the front wheel of his push bike got in a tramline and he went over the handlebars—they've detained him in hospital on shore, but of course I could manage easily with the rest.'

‘Then for goodness' sake let me get on with my job.'

‘I'm sorry, but I've already told you, sir—I can't sail until my Captain turns up. I have no official order—unless you've got one you can show me from a Naval Authority?'

‘Of course I haven't.' Sallust spoke with unusual heat. ‘I received my orders verbally from Eastern Command when they handed me the packet I showed you, but you should have had your instructions from the Naval people here in the early hours of the morning.'

‘Quite, sir, but you see my position, don't you?'

‘Now look here, Commander,' Gregory had suddenly become
very amiable again, ‘I quite appreciate that it is an awkward situation for you, but there's a war on you know—or its equivalent at all events. The Government seems to have got the country into a ghastly mess and now it's looking to the Services to pull it out. It's my job to get my troops wherever they're ordered at the earliest possible moment—you must understand the urgency of the matter. I appeal to you as a brother officer to get this ship under way without any further delay.'

The Lieutenant-Commander smiled, obviously sympathetic towards the General's anxiety to be off. ‘I'm sorry, sir it's quite impossible—I can't put to sea without my Captain. I tell you what though! I'll slip over to the signal station and try and get him on the telephone; it's not a long job, and if I can't get in touch with him I'll ring up the Secretary's office at Admiralty House and ask if any instructions have come through.'

‘Splendid!' Gregory grinned suddenly. ‘That's awfully good of you—I wish you would.'

‘Righto! I won't be five minutes.' With a friendly wave of his hand Fanshawe disappeared over the side.

Gregory paced slowly up and down the quarter-deck. His lean, rather wolfish face showed a nervy satisfaction, but his sharp eyes were never off the jetty for more than a moment, and when the Lieutenant-Commander reappeared he walked quickly over to the gangway to meet him.

‘It's all right, sir,' came the cheerful hail, ‘I haven't found my Captain but I can explain why those orders never came through!'

‘Can you? That's good,' Gregory nodded.

‘Yes, all the wires are down and the private line's been cut, so they are sending dispatches by road and one of the cars was wrecked outside Strood round about two o'clock this morning. The Secretary at Admiralty House seemed to think instructions about your party must have been among that bunch.'

‘I see, but he agreed to our sailing at once.'

‘Well, he could hardly do that himself, and when he went in to see the Admiral the old man was so up to his eyes in it that he couldn't get anything very definite, but he says General Instructions are that where communications have broken down officers will be expected to act on their own initiative, rather than remain idle, and that every opportunity should be taken to act in conjunction with the sister services—so in an emergency like this, I think that lets me out.'

‘Good for you. Then I'll slip down to the wardroom for a moment if you don't mind.'

A pleasant smile spread over Fanshawe's face. ‘Rather, sir, and I think we'd better make you an honorary member of the Mess.'

‘Thanks,' Gregory tapped his pocket. ‘When we're clear of the lock I'll come up again and we'll open these orders.' Then he went below.

The orders when opened caused Fanshawe considerable surprise. They were not destined for London after all but ordered to proceed to a point some miles east of the Goodwins, and there to lie-to until nine o'clock the following morning, at which hour a second set of sealed orders, enclosed in the first, were to be opened.

The naval man thought it devilish strange—so apparently did Gregory, but he suggested that possibly they had been detailed to act as escort to some personage of importance who was leaving the country in a yacht, and who intended to rendezvous with them there.

However, the orders were definite, so His Majesty's destroyer
Shark
proceeded down the Medway, and making her pendants to the signal station at Garrison Point put out—under these somewhat strange conditions—to sea.

It was now obvious that the troops would have to spend at least one night on board, so arrangements were made by which that portion of the crew quartered on the lower mess deck handed it over to the soldiers, and mucked in temporarily with their shipmates on the upper. Ann and Veronica were allowed to occupy the absent Captain's cabin, and Gregory that of the Engineer Officer; Kenyon and Silas Harker shared that of the Gunner.

The weather clearing they were able to spend most of the afternoon on deck, and the Tommies seemed already on the friendliest terms with the men of the sister Service.

Fanshawe excused himself from dining that evening by saying that he had an urgent matter to attend to on deck, and Broughton was again officer of the watch, so Mr. Cousens—a tall, freckle-faced lieutenant with a pleasant smile, played host in the ward-room.

They discussed the many rumours and catastrophic events until, the port having gone round the table, Cousens stood up and bowed to the girls. ‘I hope you'll forgive me, but I go on at midnight,
so I must snatch an hour or two's sleep.' He smiled round on the others; ‘Please ask the steward for anything you want.'

When he had left them Gregory signed to Rudd, who had been helping to wait on them, to shut the wardroom trap hatch which communicated with the pantry, then he lay back in his chair at the bottom of the table.

‘Filthy port, isn't it?' he remarked casually, ‘still, that's no fault of the Navy; just hard luck on the poor devils that they can't take vintage wine to sea, the constant rocking breaks the crust and turns it into mud.'

Kenyon shrugged. ‘It's not too bad, I like a wood port for a change; but I was wondering where we shall be this time tomorrow.'

‘This time tomorrow!' the General echoed. ‘Well, I can give you a very good idea. If the weather is reasonably favourable we shall be heading westward—a hundred miles or more south of the Isle of Wight.'

‘My hat!' exclaimed Veronica, ‘we're not going out into the Atlantic in this cockleshell, are we?'

‘We are, my dear; so you'd better make up your mind to it.'

‘Ye Gods! But I shall die.'

‘I trust not.'

‘Tell us, General,' Harker leaned forward across the narrow table, ‘just how do you happen to know what's in that second set of secret orders?'

‘I ought to,' Sallust replenished his glass with a second ration of the despised port, ‘since I was responsible for planning this expedition.'

They all regarded him with quickened interest as he went on slowly: ‘I realised that these Naval birds would never swallow the whole draught at one gulp, that's why I allowed for a twenty-four hour interval before opening the second lot. Fortunately, as it turns out now, that gives me a chance to put you wise concerning my intentions.'

‘
Your
intentions?' inquired Kenyon with peculiar emphasis.

‘Yes,
my
intentions; which are—with due respect to oil consumption and the hazard of picking up fresh supplies—to run this hooker down to the West Indies just as soon as ever I can.'

‘The West Indies!' Kenyon frowned. ‘The War Office must be crazy to send troops out of the country at a time like this.'

‘Oh, the War Office had nothing to do with it,' said Gregory mildly. ‘I'm acting entirely on my own initiative.'

‘What! You had no orders about proceeding somewhere in this ship!'

‘No—none at all.'

‘But—damn it, man, you boarded her and ordered the ship to sea; do you mean you had no authority to do that?'