The White Guns (1989) (9 page)

Fairfax stayed where he was, his voice pleading. 'There are wounded soldiers below, some in a bad way.' Craven's head appeared beside him and then Fairfax shouted, 'Women too! Nurses and civilians.' When Marriott said nothing he added desperately, 'We can't just leave them, sir!'

Marriott wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist.
What the hell does he expect me to do? I'm not God.
He looked at Evans's grim features. 'What's the Russian doing now?'

Evans gave an indifferent shrug. 'Still there. Waiting.'

Marriott stared at the handset and then spoke into it again. 'I'm going to make a signal. See what else you can find out!' He snapped down the switch and took the pad Silver was holding out. He had guessed what might happen.

Marriott waited for the strain to leave his eyes clear enough to write properly.

Then he tore off the flimsy and said, 'Give this to Sparks. Immediate.'

Even as he said it he knew it was hopeless. Was it for Fairfax?
Or for me?
It did not take long. Marriott watched the coaster and imagined all the people inside her ancient hull. Some too badly wounded to care. Others who just wanted to get home. Civilians who were running away. Nurses too.

Silver came to the bridge and regarded him impassively.

Marriott asked, 'What did it say?'

Silver did not have to read the reply.

'From N.O.I.C. repeated Admiralty. Permission denied. Ensure that Ronsis awaits escort. Do not, repeat not, interfere.'
Silver looked at the distant silhouette. 'That's the lot, sir.'

Marriott returned to the loud-hailer. 'No good, Number One. Tell the master to await escort and not to do anything foolish.'

Fairfax called bitterly, 'Like what, for God's sake?' Then in a more controlled tone he said, 'I'll tell them.'

A moment later his head and shoulders reappeared on the bridge wing and he called, 'Understood, sir.'

Marriott's voice boomed across the water, metallic in the loud-hailer. 'Return on board. Fast as you like.' He hesitated. He could feel Fairfax's anguish and wanted to understand it if not share it.

'It's over,
Number One.'

It seemed to take an age for the boarding party to clamber down into the bobbing dinghy at the foot of the ladder.

Eventually Fairfax reported to the bridge and saluted, the formality strangely alien here. 'They were making for Denmark, sir.'

'Tell me about it later, Number One.'

They both turned as the sound of engineroom telegraphs echoed across the choppy water, and moments later the
Ronsis's
single screw started to churn the sea into a mounting surge of froth. Her length appeared to shorten as she began to turn heavily, the gap between her and the slow-moving gunboat widening, breaking all contact.

Fairfax muttered, 'The ship
stank,
sir. They'd no proper medicine or dressings. I never thought –'

Marriott kept his distance, hating what he had to say and do.

'Just take it off your back. As I said,
it's over.'

Someone shouted, 'Look at that! She's altered course again! She's makin' for the Swedish mainland!'

Marriott stared incredulously, but knew the ship's master must have been making this decision even as he had listened to their exchange across the water between them.

The Russian vessel had begun to move. Silver said,
'She's
got radar, right enough, sir!'

Rae grinned. 'The Ruski may be fast, but he'll never catch the old cow!'

Marriott could almost read the ship's captain's mind. Run his old ship aground, then the Swedes would have to take his passengers into their protection. It was a wild and unlikely scheme, but when you saw no alternative –

The lookout's voice was raised almost in a scream.

'Torpedo runnin' to starboard, sir!'

Marriott flung himself across the bridge, all else forgotten as he stared at the thin white line which was cutting across the leaden water as precisely as a razor.

'Full ahead! Hard astarboard!'

Someone was shouting, 'Second torpedo running, sir!'

Twin parallel lines fired at extreme range, the torpedoes streaked past the motor gunboat even as her bows lifted to the great surge of her four screws and cleaved the sea apart.

Fairfax yelled, 'Call her up, man! For God's sake do something!'

Silver let his binoculars fall to his chest as if he could not bear to watch. He had seen so many vessels fall apart, theirs, ours, neutrals, even hospital ships. Nobody had been immune to the sea mine, the impartial killer, or the torpedo in the night. Death could take its choice. Like the youngster in his bomber, pressing the switch over Berlin or Coventry. What did it matter to him? His plane and crew were his first responsibility; they all knew that if one percent of their bombs ever found their proper target they had been lucky.

'Midships! Steady!
Hold her, Swain!' Marriott wrapped one arm around a stanchion and felt it tearing at his muscles as the hull lurched upright from its fast turn. He saw the livid red flashes, just seconds apart, then the crash of the explosion rolled across the water and lifted the gunboat as if she was on a wave crest.

Evans was crouching over the wheel, his eyes slitted against spurting droplets of spray; he did not even flinch as the hammer blow boomed around the boat and over the sea, as if it would never stop.

Marriott raised his glasses and glanced briefly at the
Ronsis,
already gushing smoke and flames, her outmoded poop twisted as if the two torpedoes had broken her back. Then he swung round to seek out the other vessel but saw only the frothing backwash of her wake as she turned and headed towards the invisible mainland.

'Slow ahead.' Marriott glanced at the compass. 'Steer Nor'-East.'

He looked at Lowes. His face was white and he was shaking. Shock, the suddenness of disaster. The fact that such things were impossible according to the rules of war, and there
was
no war any more.

Marriott said, 'Fall out action stations. Stand by to take on survivors.'

He shook Lowes's arm. It felt limp, as if he had died in the explosion. 'Snap out of it, Sub!' Then he beckoned to Able Seaman Rae. 'Relieve the cox'n.' He saw Evans's quick nod as he stepped down from his grating.
Taking charge,
as he had done so often.

Marriott looked at Fairfax. 'Well?'

Fairfax replied, 'You were right, sir. It's over now. For
them
anyway.' His voice was bitter, hostile.

Marriott regarded him gravely. 'What did you want me to do, start another war? The Russians are our
allies.
They suffered because of the Germans. The
Ronsis's
master must have known what might happen.' He waited, feeling the helplessness running through him, dragging him down. 'We had our orders. Furthermore, I suspect the Russians knew them better than I did.'

Another explosion, deep and throaty, shook the hull, and Marriott watched the old ship as she seemed to topple on her side, her tall funnel falling with the foremast and cargo derrick, machinery smashing through the hull which had been too old for war, probably for the first one as well. She was in halves, bow and stern pointing towards the mocking sunshine like ill-matched memorials.

Silver said tersely, 'She's goin'.'

The bow section went first, throwing up bubbles and steam, then the high poop rolled over and Marriott caught his breath as he saw a liferaft with several tiny figures clinging to it, smashed underneath and carried to the bottom.

'Signal to N.O.I.C. repeated Admiralty.'
Marriott saw some of his men lining the guardrails with scrambling nets and heaving lines; two even carried boathooks. There could not be many left alive. She had gone under in about five minutes.

Silver questioned softly,
'Sir?'

'Reporting Ronsis torpedoed and destroyed by unidentified warship.'
He turned away angrily. They could work that out for themselves at Kiel. He tried to calm his voice.
'Am picking up survivors. Request assistance. Will return to base as ordered.'

A voice called, 'There's one, Jim! Get ready with the nets!'

Another gasped, 'Christ, look at
that!'

As Marriott called for another reduction of revolutions he heard a woman screaming. It made him shudder, and when he looked at Fairfax he saw that he was reliving it, remembering that he had seen and probably spoken to some of them.

In the bows the coxswain stood with one arm outstretched, pointing to something or somebody in the water as the raked stem ploughed through the litter of flotsam, coal dust, and corpses.

It was a trick of the light, but Marriott could almost believe that Evans was smiling.

The blue-painted jeep with RN on the sides rolled across protesting sheets of steel which the sappers had laid to cover the edges of smaller bomb craters. Marriott gripped his seat and watched the hundreds of figures at work with picks and shovels, while bulldozers and tractors stirred up even more dust in the hazy sunshine.

It felt like an age since they had put to sea to make a rendezvous with the coaster
Ronsis,
and yet nothing had changed, or had it? When Commander Meikle had driven to the end of the pier to collect him Marriott had noticed an army three-ton Bedford easing along a narrow track through the piled-up rubble and twisted girders. Just days since the young RE captain had driven a shovel into it to mark the end of the buried roadway. How they must have laboured, he thought, all day, all night, until it had become wide enough for the German sailor with his wheelbarrow. And now a three-tonner was able to get through. Easy for the army driver after what he must have seen in all the eleven months since Normandy, D-Day.

Meikle wrestled with the wheel and swung off the track to avoid a parked army tank, one with the Guards Armoured Division's crest painted on it.

He said, 'No consideration at all.' He could have been driving down the Strand or round Hyde Park Corner, Marriott thought.

They halted at some barbed-wire gates for a cursory check, then with smart salutes from some red-capped military police Meikle accelerated out of the scarred gateway and on to the main road.

Marriott realised dully that it was the first time he had been outside the dockyard.

There was little difference here. Shattered houses, broken electric cables dangling from posts, craters, and still more craters, some so huge they had swallowed whole streets.

Like London, he thought grimly, where Wren churches and tiny back-to-back houses in the East End had seen it through on equal terms. Raids night and day, and then the 'flying bombs' which were launched from the Low Countries and flew until their rocket fuel ran out. Then they fell with deadly effect. But at least you could hear them, until the engine cut out. The huge V2 rockets struck from thousands of feet with the speed of light. Those who escaped death or injury often heard the explosions long after the rockets had found their target. Could they have stood it if the army had not overrun the rocket bases in time? He watched the passing scene, horse-drawn carts, busy army scout cars and lorries, and everywhere the khaki uniforms of the occupying power.

He tried not to think any more about the
Ronsis.
The opinion in the gunboat was divided. Some said it was all you could expect from the Reds. Others claimed stoutly that, but for Joe Stalin, Germany would have won the war.

Beyond the needs of duty and watch-keeping Fairfax had said next to nothing. It was like a cloud hanging over him, the reality of victory, the clinking of chipped mugs filled with hoarded brandy already forgotten.

Meikle had been waiting for them to tie up on their return to Kiel. He had waited, watching the army medics with their stretchers lifting some of the survivors on to the pier and to the waiting military ambulances. The sailors too, some from the moored MLs, had helped to carry or guide the dazed and bewildered people to safety. They had picked up twenty-three, but three of those had died within hours of rescue. Burns, broken limbs, shock, they had all taken their toll.

There were two women amongst the survivors. One a nurse in army uniform, the other a young civilian who had almost lost her reason. A German soldier who spoke some English had explained that she was trying to escape from the advancing Russian troops with her child. After the torpedoes had burst into the ship's side she had not seen the child again.

None of them really understood what had happened, and only those who had been on deck had realised what the
Ronsis's
master had been trying to do. He had vanished when the bridge had been turned into one huge fireball.

That had been yesterday. Meikle had accepted his written report and had handed it to his leading writer who even now was crouching in the rear of the jeep. He had said little but, 'They'll want you at HQ tomorrow. There are bound to be repercussions. Working together won't be easy – I don't envy the negotiators when it comes to sharing out the victors' spoils.'

He had not been making a callous joke. It was just one of the known facts, as far as he was concerned. When he had returned to his jeep he had called back, 'There may be some senior officers present.'

Marriott wanted to reply,
What did they do to help ? I asked for assistance, but none came, so what was I supposed to do about it?

Now he was here in Meikle's jeep, the air rushing past the open sides, the floor bucking as the wheels skidded over badly filled holes and scattered bricks.

It had been a rough night. Marriott had stayed in his cabin, smoking his pipe and thinking about it. What could he have done? What
should
he have done?

Meikle said, 'That's the main railway terminus over there. Roof's caved in, of course, but we'll soon get some rolling stock on the move. We'll damn well need it before long.'

Damn
from Meikle sounded like an obscenity. He never seemed to lose his temper. Cold, confident, and without feelings.

Marriott saw some women in rough working clothes sweeping rubble from a pavement. One was quite pretty despite her clothing and a kerchief over her hair to keep the dust and smoke away.

She glanced up briefly and their eyes met. Not afraid, but cautious, as if she expected them to call her to the jeep for some reason.

Meikle commented casually, 'Venereal disease is pretty rife here. That must be rammed into our people. The PMO will probably get some films and lectures going.'

'I thought there was a non-fraternisation order in force, sir?'

Meikle took his eyes off the road and studied him calmly. 'I've heard that sailors don't take much notice of orders of that sort, eh?'

Then he called, 'What time do we have, Lavender?'

The White Rabbit replied instantly, 'Half an hour, sir.'

'Plenty.' Meikle swung off the road and braked hard. They waited for the dust to settle on the shimmering bonnet, and the warmth of the sun reminded Marriott that he had barely slept. Figures moved past, as if the jeep was not there, as if there was no purpose in anything.

Meikle said, 'Don't be taken in by hard-luck stories, Marriott. I've seen the reports already. They'll try to suggest ill will between us and our allies, especially the Russians.'

'After what I saw, I think they may be right, sir.'

Meikle sighed, then snapped his fingers. 'Briefcase, Lavender!'

He laid it on his lap and dragged out a crisp new file. It seemed to be full of photographs.

Meikle said, 'Take a look.'

Marriott turned over each picture and felt his mind shy away, stunned and aghast at what they showed in every horrific detail.

Long trenches, only partly filled by bulldozers, showed the piles of skeleton-like corpses. Many were naked, men or women it was difficult to say. Some had their hands tied and had bviously been shot through the nape of the neck at point-blank range. Pictures showed corpses in heaps, staring and obscene. Almost worse were those who still stood on their sticklike limbs and stared at the cameras. They should have been dead, if only to save them from this final humiliation.

Meikle asked quietly, 'You knew about the concentration camps?'

Marriott went through the photographs again, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing.

'Not like this.'

'In Poland. But there are many more. Machinery of mass-extermination. Hitler's much-vaunted final solution.' His voice was cool, matter-of-fact.

Marriott thought of the wounded German soldiers, the sailor with the little flag of truce, the injured nurse whose eyes told him some of the horrors she must have witnessed. Even the girl back there with the broom.

'Surely they're not all like that?'

Meikle tossed the briefcase back to his writer. 'We shall see.' He revved the engine and peered at the road. 'They're all guilty to me until I know differently.' Then he turned and studied Marriott's strained features. 'Getting your last command blown from under you wasn't part of some
jolly game,
you of all people must see that? You fought to survive, most of all to
win!
Just remember that the next time you want to pin your heart on your Number Fives!' He steered easily on to the road. 'If it had been me I'd want to make them pay for it!'

They drove the rest of the way without speaking.

The temporary headquarters for Naval Operations had once been a school. Later it had been used as a hospital for dealing with the mounting pressure of air raids, and as Marriott walked beside the commander he was aware of the stark contrasts on every hand. The peeling remains of children's paintings and drawings, from last Christmas he thought, Santa Claus on his sleigh, reindeer and trees covered with snow. In one empty room where desks had once stood, there were piles of rough palliasses, deeply stained with dried blood, awaiting disposal in one of the many fires which the army had built to rid the place of filth and the danger of disease. Parts of the roof had gone and, once, he looked up to see the sky, very pure and clean overhead.

A few German sailors were busily removing rubbish and unloading steel cabinets from some army trucks; they stamped to attention as the two naval officers passed, their eyes staring and empty.
How do they see us?
Marriott wondered. Then he thought of Meikle's photographs, the horror of that place, the appalling suffering which must have made death more than welcome when it came to release them.

He recalled what he had told Fairfax, and the young sublieutenant's face when he had spoken so harshly. Perhaps he had been wrong. Maybe it was better to keep your enemy in a periscope or gunsight, or through a bomb-aimer's crosswires.

Here, it was like seeing yourself in defeat.

Meikle snapped, 'Wait here.' He strode over to speak with a petty officer who was sitting rather self-consciously at a desk, isolated in the corridor, a sub-machine gun dangling from the back of his schoolroom chair.

Meikle came back and said, 'The Operations Officer has a visitor, but he wants us to enter all the same.' He sounded quietly irritated. 'Just remember what I told you.' He ran his eyes over Marriott's attempt at formality. But his reefer jacket needed a press, and he had made this particular collar last from the other meeting. 'Hmmm.' The room looked over what had once been a pleasant garden, a study or library, Marriott decided.

Maps and telephones were everywhere, and two RNVR officers and several telegraphists and signalmen were kept busy answering them, making and passing notes while a fat Yeoman of Signals waddled amongst them like an impressive guard-dog.

At one end of the long room were a desk and some chairs, rescued from nearby houses, one still scorched from a near-miss.

The Operations Officer was tall and angular, a regular, with the three rings of a commander on his sleeves. He looked very tired, but had a warm smile as he gestured to the chairs.

'I'm Rodney Boucher, Marriott. The
Bloke
here for the moment until better things are fixed up. Sorry to drag you up here –'

But Marriott was looking at the other officer who was sitting half-concealed by the back of a tall swivel-chair.

The Operations Officer hesitated. He had a studious, almost gentle manner which one would hardly expect from an officer who was trying to build some semblance of order in a shattered dockyard and the movement of naval vessels there.

'This is Commodore Paget-Orme.'

The seated figure swivelled round and regarded Marriott for several seconds. He was the sort of senior officer who would make anyone feel crumpled and uncomfortable. His reefer was dark and shining, the very best doeskin, and the single thick stripe around his sleeve was like the gold on Meikle's cap. New.
Bought for the occasion.