The White Guns (1989) (11 page)

Silver grinned. How could they settle down to civvy street when it was all finally over?

He realised that Rae was staring at him, his eyes wide and unblinking.

Silver asked, 'Wot is it?'

Instead of answering, Rae put one finger to his lips, then shook his head to indicate he did not want anyone else to hear.

Then he leaned over the table, his mouth to Silver's ear.

'There's something moving against the hull, Bunts.'

Silver glanced at the others but they were still chatting, reading, or doing repairs to their clothing.

Had it been anyone else .. . Silver nodded very slowly. They had all owed their lives to Rae's quick senses more than once.

He felt a chill run down his back in spite of the hot air.
There it was again.
Not driftwood this time. He tried to think clearly. They had all been lectured on the 'Werewolves', the Nazi youth who would hit back after the occupation forces had dropped their vigilance. Suppose that was one of them? Jesus Christ, the sound was right against one of the main fuel tanks. A
limpet-mine
–

Rae said, 'You go. I can't get out without drawing attention –'

Silver nodded then threw one leg over the bench and made for the door.

He clambered up the. ladder, his mind groping for an explanation. If he had shouted an alarm they would either have taken it for a joke, or could have cleared the lower deck with such a scramble that whatever it was alongside might blast them to oblivion.

It was an unwarlike scene on the upper deck.

Green, an AB who was standing in as gangway sentry, was leaning against the guardrails, his hand cupped to conceal a lighted cigarette. He saw Silver and blinked anxiously. 'Weren't doin' nothin' wrong!'

Silver snapped, 'Where's the O.O.D.?' He had almost called him
Snow White
like the others.

The sentry gaped at him. 'Back there aboard one of the MLs. There's a party for one of the officers, a birthday I think –'

Silver glared at him. 'I don't give a toss what he's doin'! 'Ere, give me the piece!'

The sentry unwound the lanyard from beneath his blue collar, then dragged the Smith and Wesson revolver from its holster.

'Fetch
'im then. Double quick!'

'But, but –' Green's eyes were popping with anxiety, and he probably thought Silver had finally cracked.

'Just tell 'im we may have a frogman alongside the 'ull!' He watched the man scurry along the pier as if the fiends of Chatham were after him.

Silver swallowed hard.
Just what we need.
And neither the officers nor the coxswain on board.

He heard Craven's heavy tread and felt something like relief.

'Christ, Bill, I'm glad you came. I'm a buntin' tosser, not a bloody gunner!'

Craven took the revolver and flicked it open to check that it was loaded. Rae had obtained a Lanchester sub-machine gun and was watching the side of the deck as if he expected to see a mob of frogmen come swarming over the hull.

Craven said, 'It's between us an' the pier.' He sucked his teeth. 'Get ready to clear the boat. God, I thought we was past all this shit!'

For a big man he moved easily and fast and Silver saw him climbing beneath the shattered pier, groping his way single-handed amongst the rusty supports, the revolver shining in the shafts of sunlight through the gaps in the footway.

Craven was aware that he was more angry than afraid. Like those moments when he had been with Jimmy the One aboard the clapped-out
Ronsis.
Fairfax was a good enough officer, unlike some, but Craven had been astonished at the way he had reacted over the German passengers. What the hell did they matter after what they had done? He licked his lips and steadied his feet on an oil-covered spar. God, the whole place stank. Maybe it was just a bit more wreckage drifting past, but it was better to be careful than bloody well croaked.

He stiffened as he saw something moving slowly down the gunboat's smooth side. The water was so thick with oil and effluent it looked like a human head bobbing on the surface. One arm moved out of the water, a hand groped for some kind of hold, but the rest of the swimmer's body was completely hidden in the dark, filthy harbour.

'
'Ere's one of the bastards!'

Craven heard the slither of feet, then Rae appeared beside him, dragging at the cocking lever of his sub-machine gun.

The swimmer was startled by the shouts and lost his hold, to vanish completely for a few seconds below the surface.

In that short time Craven had a dozen thoughts all at once. He had heard Sub-Lieutenant Lowes's footsteps running along the pier, a sudden din of voices from the moored gunboat. At any second the mine or whatever it was would explode against the hull, right by a fuel tank, and the whole pier would brew up and likely take the MLs with it. Like the time in Ostend when an MTB had blown up in the basin and had set all the others ablaze. But uppermost was the thought,
He can't stay down forever. I'll take one of the bastards with me!

The head broke water right below his feet and he tightened his grip on the trigger and felt the hammer take the first strain.

Rae exclaimed thickly,
'Christ, it's a bloody kid!'

Others were here now, and one seaman dropped on his knees and snatched the boy's hand as he slipped, gasping, into the oil again.

They pulled him up, none too gently, on to the pier. He was, at a guess, about ten years old, covered in oil and quite naked. Droplets of blood ran through the oil to show where he had bumped against the pier or the side of the gunboat.

He stood in a puddle of filth and stared at their strained, intent faces. Then he tried to smile, his teeth white through his coating of dirt.

'Haben Sie Kaugummi?'

Silver groaned. "E wants bloody chewing-gum!' Some of the others laughed, but Craven snarled,
'You fuckin' Kraut!'
As he turned away he stared at the revolver in his fist; it was shaking so violently it was a wonder it did not go off. Another second. Just that, no more, and he would have blown the boy's head off. He tried to stop his hand from quivering, knowing that some of the others were watching him.

He heard himself mutter, 'He's about the same age as my kid brother.'

Sub-Lieutenant Lowes pushed through them. 'What's going on?'

Silver gestured to the naked boy. 'The
enemy,
sir!' He wanted to laugh, to scream, anything. It had been a near thing.

Lowes peered severely at the boy. 'Inside the dockyard perimeter – that's a serious offence, Silver!'

'Then you'd better tell him, sir.'

Lowes hesitated. 'What
d'you
suggest?'

Silver reached out and grabbed the boy's wrist, swinging him round.

'Look at 'is ribs! Would you like a nipper of yours to wander amongst all this shit beggin' for food?
Chewin gum,
as
'e
put it!'

Ginger Jackson suggested, 'Probably got through the wire up at the wall. Left 'is clothes and decided to swim 'ere.' He grinned. 'He could have had his arse shot off!'

Rae uncocked the Lanchester and the German boy started with sudden fright.

He said calmly,
'I'd
have shot the little sod anyway.'

Silver sensed the sudden tension. 'Fetch a towel and get some grub from the galley, Ginger. Best get rid of 'im before 'e becomes another
incident.'

Lowes rubbed his chin, worried and unsure, with the feeling he had handled it rather badly.

Craven was repeating, 'I could have
killed him!'

Rae watched the other leading the naked boy to the gunboat's side.
Soft lot of buggers. '
I thought you hated the bastards?'

Craven handed the revolver to the resentful Green. 'This was different.'

Silver sighed. Their first contact, and somehow he felt the unknown boy had won.

Lieutenant Vere Marriott lightly touched the peak of his cap in response to Fairfax's salute and said, 'A smart turnout.' He had just completed his rounds of the boat and for the thousandth time had been amazed at the way a sailor could live, sleep and work in such confined quarters.

In time of war there was usually more room. Only one watch stood at their stations on deck and in the engineroom while the remainder tried to pretend that being off-watch was being normal. In harbour Marriott, like most commanding officers, would send as many hands ashore as possible. To find relief on firm ground or to drown their sorrows as the mood took them. But now, with no shore facilities available, except for the occasional supply boats or the NAAFI manager's battered van which stood amidst the wreckage and desolation to dole out chocolate and shoe polish, magazines and elderly pork pies, they had had to look inboard at their own resources.

They had seemed cheerful enough as the coxswain had called the messdeck to attention and he had moved amongst the men he thought he knew so well. The same sharp comments from the coxswain about the cruder pin-ups, the same chuckles from those uninvolved.

Fairfax had done a good job, he thought. Even poor Lowes, who had come to him in dismay to reveal what had happened with the German boy's unexpected arrival in their midst, had worked hard.

He had blurted out, 'I thought the cox'n was angry, sir, but it was all
my
fault. I don't want anyone else on your report because of me!'

There was not a dishonest bone in Lowes's body, Marriott thought. With a face like his it would be quite impossible to lie anyway. He knew little about him, other than that he had been brought up by an indulgent mother who was not short of a shilling or two, his father having gone off with a showgirl when he had been just a child.

He had tried to reassure him. 'I'd have done the same myself.' Nonetheless it was worth looking into. If security was that slack at this stage, other visitors might be after something more than chewing-gum. Ginger Jackson had hinted that they had packed the lad off with a bag of goodies. That too was typical. He had seen German survivors wrapped in oil-soaked blankets, shivering on the deck of the ship which had rescued them. Moments earlier they had been deadly enemies. Then it all changed, or seemed to. Cigarettes, mugs of scalding tea, and occasionally a tot of rum. How could men readjust so quickly from murder to small acts of kindness? The brotherhood of the sea? It had to be more than that. Perhaps it was like a fever which took some longer than others to fight away from?

Fairfax said quietly, 'I've not had the chance to speak with you about –'

They faced each other and Marriott said, 'Try to forget it. It's a different world here.' He saw the chief steward who had been sent to supervise the food and drink which filled the small wardroom, throwing some crusts over the side and looking up for gulls to eat them. Chief steward – he was more like a butler than that. During his rounds Marriott had remarked on the spread of food, the ranks of freshly polished glasses.

The butler had replied haughtily, 'We do our best, sir.'

He didn't know much about Kiel anyway. The gulls, like everyone else, stayed away from the harbour and its stench of death.

Fairfax followed him to the bridge, strangely tidy and deserted although they could hear the gentle murmur of one of the Chief's generators. Making certain that, when the great man came aboard, the engines at least would not let them down.