To Risks Unknown (11 page)

Crespin took a handset from a messenger. ‘Captain speaking.'

Magot's voice seemed to come from miles away. ‘Nothin' very bad down here, sir. Some leaks from that, er, explosion.' He paused. ‘I thought we had been tinfished, sir.'

Crespin dropped the handset. The stench of blood seemed to be all over him. ‘Get this man off the bridge.' He saw Dunbar and Lennox the S.B.A. covering the dead seaman with an oilskin. He wanted to find compassion or disgust. But all he could think of was the unknown stoker who had broken his collarbone.

‘Light in the water, sir! Two points off the port bow!'

His legs moved automatically. ‘Slow ahead! Stand by with scrambling nets!'

Somewhere, in another world it seemed, a single gun fired and a shell whimpered across the sea to explode with a muffled roar. Pantelleria's coastal artillery had fired at last, but to no purpose.

‘Stop engine.' Crespin felt the side of the bridge pressing against his chest as he leaned out to watch the soldiers being pulled aboard. There were only two rafts and about half the men who had started out. He screwed up his eyes and tried to clear his brain. Less than four hours ago? It was a lifetime.

Major Barnaby climbed heavily on to the bridge and glanced at the silent figures around him. ‘Lost fourteen chaps, including Mr. Muir. Several wounded, too.' He sighed. ‘But still.'

Scarlett asked harshly, ‘Did it go all right?'

Barnaby seemed to come out of his daze. ‘Fair enough. We killed a few Jerries, I should think, and the rest are probably having a good drink before the last of it runs into the sea.' Then he laughed. It was a toneless, empty sound.

‘All clear aft, sir.'

‘Very well.' Crespin was still watching the soldier. ‘Full ahead. Starboard fifteen.' He waited. ‘Steady. Steer three-three-zero.'

Wemyss crossed to his side. ‘Sir, I think …'

Crespin did not turn. ‘Keep your thoughts to yourself please. Work out the new course. We will change in thirty minutes.'

When he did look again Wemyss had gone into the chart room and Scarlett and the soldier had disappeared.

Somehow he managed to get into the chair and for several minutes sat staring at the water creaming away on either side of the stem. The raid had succeeded, and no doubt when daylight came Scarlett's promised air cover would be there to see them safely back to base. Scarlett was efficient. Like Gleeson at Gibraltar who had said that results were more important than methods. Like himself, who had deliberately murdered helpless fishermen with no more thought than if he had been crushing a beetle.

There was a step beside him and Petty Officer Joicey's stocky shadow moved on to the grating.

‘I've been relieved on the wheel, sir.' He looked over the screen. ‘I thought you might like a wet?' He held up a large mug.

Crespin took it with both hands and felt the hot metal shaking uncontrollably against his teeth. It was thick cocoa laced with neat rum. He felt it searing his stomach, holding him together.

‘Well, 'Swain, what did you think of that?'

Joicey shrugged. ‘I didn't see much from down there, sir. But what I 'eard suited me very well!' Then he took the empty mug and walked back to his wheelhouse. Crespin could hear him whistling.

When he looked over the screen again Pantelleria had vanished.

LIEUTENANT DOUGLAS WEMYSS
pushed open the sagging door of the building labelled ‘Officers' Club' and strode purposefully through the noisy mass of uniformed figures who crammed the main room from wall to wall. Three air force officers staggered to their feet, and before anyone else could make a move Wemyss wedged himself at the small table and gestured to Porteous who was staring round the place with a mixture of surprise and awe.

Sousse had taken such a battering in the desert fighting that it was, Wemyss supposed, fortunate to have any building left in one piece. But this place was pretty bad, and even the bright tablecloths and red-fezzed waiters could not mask the dinginess and mauling of battle. Union Jacks and giant pictures of Churchill hung everywhere, but served more to cover up splinter holes and cracks left by the bombing than with any sense of patriotism. It was strange to think that such a short time ago officers of the Afrika Korps were probably sitting at this very table below pictures of their own leader.

Porteous laid his cap beside him and said, ‘God, it's
hot
in here!'

It was, too. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and a dozen aromas of cooking, and with every window and bomb hole sealed against possible air attack the atmosphere was overpowering.

Above the roar of voices and the clatter of glasses Wemyss realized that someone was singing, and when he stared over the heads at the next table he saw a girl standing on a small dais, the words of her song all but lost in the din. She was dark-skinned, but looked more Greek than Arab, and she was singing in French. As her mouth moved to the accompaniment of a three-piece orchestra her eyes wandered around the crowded room and were, he thought, incredibly sad.

He turned his back and signalled to a harassed waiter. To Porteous he said, ‘I've a flask of brandy in my hip pocket. We'll just use the local hooch for washing it down. I don't fancy falling dead from drinking meths, or whatever they use here.'

Porteous nodded absently. ‘If you say so.'

Wemyss studied him thoughtfully. Ever since the action with the E-boat he had hardly said a word. For a whole day after returning to Sousse the
Thistle
had laid alongside the old freighter replenishing ammunition, covering the new collection of scars and arranging for the burial of their first real casualty.

Now most of the ship's company were ashore, free from the crowded life between decks for the first time since leaving England.

Wemyss felt the raw alcohol burning his stomach and said, ‘Aren't you glad you're ashore and not O.O.D. like Shannon?'

Porteous came out of his trance. ‘I keep thinking about those people in the water.' He looked at his glass. ‘I've never seen a dead man before. Just relatives, and they were in their beds.'

‘I know.' Wemyss wondered what he was doing here with Porteous. At the same time he knew he was glad he had brought him instead of Shannon. Maybe it was because he and Porteous were poles apart. Wemyss was a professional, with little left over except for simple enjoyments of the land. Like this miserable hole, for instance. Porteous was out of his depth, a born bumbler, who tried hard but was as vulnerable as an injured sparrow.

He said roughly, ‘We did what we had to. It was us or them. And I must say you got your lads organized well enough when the moment came.'

Porteous's eyes were wretched. ‘Leading Seaman Haig did most of it. I heard the order, but I just stood there watching that fishing boat.'

Wemyss thought of Crespin's cold anger on the bridge, his sudden withdrawal into himself. He replied gravely, ‘You weren't the only one.' It was no use. They were getting morbid. He asked suddenly, ‘Tell me, what made you volunteer for this caper?' He held up the glass. ‘And don't give me all that crap you gave the interview board.'

Porteous smiled for the first time. ‘I suppose I was desperate really. The only thing I've ever achieved in my life was getting this commission.'

Wemyss stared at him. ‘
What?
And you a barrister with an influential father and God knows how many others in the family before you!'

‘Exactly. I never felt that I'd got where I was on my own. My father is a hard man in some ways. Even when I joined up it was the wrong thing as far as he was concerned. A waste of time, he said. They'll always need lawyers, but you'll be just one more junior officer, and not a very good one at that. And he wanted me to enter the Guards when at last he realized I was determined to go. All my family have been in the Brigade.'

Wemyss watched him with new understanding. Porteous was not boasting. It was just another relative fact as far as he was concerned. But to Wemyss it was another world. University, the Guards, judges and barristers all came under the category of ‘they'. All the same, he was glad to be spared Porteous's obvious uncertainty. Wemyss had made his way up the ladder by a much harder route. As a young apprentice he had sailed out of Liverpool for the Far East with a tough skipper who placed more faith in his fists than in the Merchant Shipping Act when it came to matters of discipline.

Porteous blurted out, ‘I suppose I wanted to prove myself
to
myself more than anything. But it doesn't seem to be working here either.'

Wemyss touched his arm. ‘Look, my lad, I'm ten years older than you in age but about a hundred in experience. I've knocked around and done a lot of things, and to be fair, I've not had your chances or your background to help me. After this lot's over I'll be lucky to get a job in anything but some clapped-out old tub, while you'll be up there at the Old Bailey with people hanging on your every word and a dirty big Rolls-Royce and chauffeur waiting to whisk you to your club as soon as you've got some poor devil hanged or acquitted. But don't think about that, or what's gone before. This is now, and maybe tomorrow, and what you're doing is important, believe me it is! Leading Seaman Haig probably knows more about depth-charges and eye-splices than you'll ever learn in a month of Sundays, and so he should. He's been in the Andrew for damn near seven years. But if things get really tough, and I mean tough, you'll be the one he comes to for his orders. You'll be the chap who decides if he is going to live or die. Either way, that's all right. But make sure it's to some useful purpose, see?'

Porteous nodded gravely. ‘I'll try, Number One.'

‘You do that!' Wemyss grinned, both at Porteous's serious face and at his own words. Pompous bastard, he thought. Must be getting stoned. He added, ‘In most other ships you could probably sink out of sight until you knew all the answers. In the
Thistle
it's more difficult. And if Commander Scarlett has any say in the matter it'll get
more
difficult rather than easier.'

A tattered Arab sidled between the tables and stopped by Wemyss' massive shoulder. With a furtive glance at the nearest waiter he whipped out a bundle of grimy photographs and hissed, ‘Here, Captain, you like good time? You want pretty ladies?'

Wemyss took the top photograph and then pushed it across to Porteous without a word.

Porteous studied it for a full minute. ‘Well,
really
!'

Wemyss grinned. ‘Obscene, isn't it?'

‘It's not the obscenity that annoys me, Number One. It's the very
impossibility
of it!'

Wemyss threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘If only your father could see you now! He'd be proud of you!'

Porteous smiled shyly. ‘I think I'm ready for the brandy now, if you don't mind,' he said.

Crespin lay back in one of the battered wardroom chairs with his feet propped on another, his shirt open to catch the churned air from a deckhead fan. The ship was very quiet, with only the lap of water and the creak of fenders against the wrecked freighter to break the silence. If he opened the wardroom door he would hear the occasional shuffle of feet from the quartermaster at the gangway, or the muffled sounds of music from the messdeck where the duty hands listened to the nostalgic voice of Vera Lynn, wrote their letters home, and more to the point, awaited the return of the libertymen who would no doubt need to be lifted into their hammocks after a night ashore.

But he kept the door closed because he wanted privacy. He had stayed in his small cabin alone until Shannon had called on him to report that six of the
Thistle
's stokers had broken up a café in the town and were being held very firmly by the military police. It had been a good excuse to send Shannon ashore to get it sorted out, and another to quit the cabin, the sides of which seemed to be crushing in on him like a trap.

He reached out for his glass and knocked it on to the carpet. Breathing hard he leaned over and retrieved it, the effort making him sweat more freely than ever, and poured himself another glass of neat gin. The water jug was empty and the bitters were out of reach on the sideboard, and he was too tired to ring for the steward. Too tired, and probably too full of gin to make the effort, he decided.

He wondered vaguely what Wemyss and the others were finding to amuse themselves. Probably the same as himself. Wemyss had obviously wanted to take him ashore with him, if only to break the tension which had built up between them. But it was not Wemyss' fault. There was no single, sensible reason which could be put into words, even if he wanted to.

A man slipped and fell heavily on the deck overhead and he heard Dunbar's voice, harsh and unfeeling. ‘'Ere, give me that bottle, you drunken bastard!' There was a brief scuffle and the sound of a splash alongside. Then Dunbar again. ‘'Ad a good run ashore, 'ave you? Gome back full to the gills and poxed up to the eyebrows, I shouldn't wonder!' There was some sort of mumbled protest. ‘Well, get forrard on the double and turn in afore I put you on the first lieutenant's report!' The culprit's unsteady feet shuffled away and Dunbar followed him with, ‘An' get yer 'air cut!'

The petty officer was probably seething at being kept aboard while his mates enjoyed themselves, Crespin thought.

He looked around the deserted wardroom, the litter of magazines, tattered and out of date, the coloured picture of King George, its glass cracked after some Atlantic gale, and all the companionable homeliness of a small ship, where men were thrown together and had to make the best of it.

What stories this place could tell. And what of the officers who had sat as he was doing with the ship resting in harbour? Some promoted, some killed, but all part of the ship's history.