To Risks Unknown (6 page)

ONE WEEK AFTER
leaving England, almost to the exact hour,
Thistle
dropped her anchor in the busy roadstead beneath the protective shadow of the Rock. After the rain and greyness of Portsmouth dockyard and the savage squalls which had dogged them across the Bay of Biscay it seemed to the corvette's small company like entering another world. Everywhere was bustle and a great show of purpose and preparation. There were stately troopships, their rigging bedecked in khaki washing and decks crowded with half-naked soldiers whose skins were already changing from pink to pale tan. There were cruisers and destroyers with at least two battleships, and the waters of the crowded harbour were churned and crisscrossed by countless launches and pinnaces as if to emphasize the importance of this, the gateway to the Mediterranean.

But it soon became obvious to everyone aboard that if the
Thistle
was momentarily with part of a great fleet she was not of it. A launch came alongside with fresh despatches, and almost before the weary seamen could feast their eyes on the shore the corvette was moving again, this time to an oiler. While all hands turned to and rigged fuel hoses, Crespin was whisked away in the launch with hardly enough time to change into another uniform.

Wemyss had seen him over the side and had asked, ‘Any orders, sir?' He had gestured towards the white waterfront buildings which shimmered in a heat haze as if coming alive. ‘A drop of liberty would do our people a world of good.'

Crespin had stared at him for a few moments. ‘No leave, Number One. As soon as we've taken on fuel we are to move out to the anchorage again.' He had felt like adding that there was nothing he could do about it anyway. It was all in the despatches. But something in Wemyss' eyes made him keep his resentment to himself. He had merely added, ‘They can buy their damned souvenirs later. When they've achieved something.'

It had been unjust, and as he sat moodily in the launch's cockpit he knew he was only voicing his own disappointment.

The lieutenant who had come out in the boat said, ‘Nice little ship you've got there, sir.' He was smartly dressed in whites and looked as if he had never set foot aboard a ship in his life.

Crespin eyed the other officer calmly. ‘I suppose
you
don't know what's happening?'

The lieutenant stared at him and then grinned apologetically. ‘Sorry, sir. Hush, hush, and all that.'

Crespin relaxed slightly. As I thought. He knows damn all.

But it was good to be back in the Med. He had half-expected to feel the rebirth of fear, but so far he was all right. And the clear sky, the healthy-looking sailors aboard the anchored ships and, above all, the crushing burden of defensive tolerance you found in England which was so alien here made it seem like a homecoming.

His escort appeared to assume that Crespin's silence was a kind of rebuke, and ushered him ashore and into the waiting car without another word.

As the vehicle ground slowly through the narrow streets past gay cafés and open-fronted shops, Crespin marvelled at the normality of it all. The only thing you really noticed was the absence of women. But the streets were jam-packed with servicemen of every kind and of many nationalities.

Wemyss had been right all the same. After the hasty departure from England and the voyage south his men could do with a sight like this.

The
Thistle's
company had settled down quite well, too, in spite of the terrible weather and the uncertainties which always came with a new venture. And the little corvette was not the best sort of ship for starting from scratch. There was never enough room. Men ate and slept herded together in a single messdeck, which did nothing to improve tempers. Stokers and seamen, signalmen and quartermasters, each used to their own ways, were expected to live in each other's pockets, so that men only just in their hammocks for a few hours sleep were awakened by others being called for duties elsewhere, cursing and staggering against the swaying hammocks while the ship dived and reeled through every maddening gyration.

The weather had been bad, although it was hard to see it with the same eyes through the window of a slow-moving car. In the wardroom it had been uncomfortable enough, with chairs lashed together when not in use and everything damp and jerking about with a mind of its own. In the crew's quarters it was much worse. Water slopping around the steel deck while the men sat hunched at their tables trying to eat food already cold and flavourless after its precarious journey from the galley.

The
Thistle
had kept well clear of land and away from the convoy routes. Her purpose had been to reach Gibraltar and not to get involved in the affairs of the Atlantic. If ships could think then she must have wondered at the behaviour of her masters. Even when the W/T office had reported a heavy U-boat attack on a convoy barely thirty miles away Crespin had held down his personal feelings and had maintained his set course.

There had been one disturbing incident to mar the short voyage. Or two, if you stopped to consider the aftermath.

Four days out, with the weather beginning to change in their favour, they had suddenly sighted a man in the water. It had been quite impossible of course, for the corvette had the sea and sky to herself. But as Crespin had rubbed the sleep from his eyes and run quickly on to the bridge he had seen the lonely figure for himself. Not a corpse drifting and forgotten from some massacred convoy, eyeless and without meaning like so many in the past, but a living, and at that moment, wildly excited human being.

The
Thistle
's off-duty hands had lined the rail while a scrambling net had been lowered and three strong seamen climbed to the waterline to haul the gasping survivor aboard. He had been all in, and would doubtless have died within hours.
Thistle
's stubby silhouette must have looked like something from heaven in his red-rimmed eyes.

It was later, when the survivor's speech returned to his salt-swollen tongue that they all realized what they had found. He was a German.

Wemyss, who spoke the language quite well, had announced flatly, ‘He's off a U-boat. He was watchkeeping on the conning tower two nights ago when a great wave swept right across the bridge. His safety harness snapped and he went over. His mates never saw him go.'

It should not have made any difference. Men killed in action were taken for granted. Captured ones hardly raised comment any more. But this particular German made all the difference in the world. Maybe the
Thistle
's company wanted to make their first useful gesture, as if to prove themselves, to start the record the right way. Or perhaps the battered little corvette had fought the bitter Atlantic battle for so long that she could not bring herself to accept this pitiful symbol of that savagery.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Crespin had been shaving in his sea cabin on the following morning when Lennox, the Leading Sickberth Attendant, had rushed in hardly able to speak coherently.

‘The Jerry, sir! I can't understand it, but …'

For a moment longer Crespin had imagined the German had died. It was not unknown for survivors to recover only briefly from their ordeals and then die without any visible reason.

Lennox had made another effort. ‘He's
gone
, sir!'

The ship had been searched from stem to stern. But the German had indeed vanished. One minute sleeping in the sickbay, the next oblivion, as if he had been imaginary.

Wemyss had suggested doubtfully, ‘Perhaps he had some kind of brainstorm, sir? Or maybe being in the drink alone knocked his mind off balance and he …'

Crespin had interrupted. ‘He just walked away, eh?'

Wemyss had shrugged. ‘Well, I don't like Germans, sir, but I don't like what you're suggesting either!'

‘And neither do I, Number One. But like it or not we've got a bloody murderer in this ship, maybe more than one.'

Wemyss had said thickly, ‘It's a bad beginning.'

Crespin jerked from his thoughts and realized the car had stopped outside a tall building, the plain unmarked entrance of which was guarded by two marine policemen.

Three minutes later he was sitting before a large desk in the presence of a Commander Gleeson, a harassed-looking officer who dryly announced himself as ‘Rear-Admiral Oldenshaw's man in Gib.'

Then he leaned back in his chair and placed his fingertips together below his chin. He looked rather like a schoolmaster running the rule over a new boy.

‘So you're Crespin, eh?' He nodded briskly. ‘A good trip?' He did not pause. ‘That's all right then.'

Crespin said quietly, ‘I've made a full report. We picked up a German survivor but lost him the following day.'

Gleeson's eyes hardened.
‘Lost
him, for God's sake?'

‘Overboard.'

Gleeson seemed very relieved. ‘Oh, is that all. Thank heaven for that! For one second I imagined he'd escaped or something.'

Crespin watched him impassively. You callous bastard. Aloud he said, ‘Well, it's all in the report.'

‘Quite so, Crespin.' He shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘Now there's a bit of a rush on, so I'll be brief. You're going to Sousse, and you're sailing tonight at 2300. Suit you?'

Crespin tore his mind away from that gasping, sodden survivor and all that his disappearance implied. Half to himself he said, ‘North-east coast of Tunisia, about nine hundred miles from this room. At cruising speed I can be there comfortably in four days, sir.'

Gleeson did not look up. ‘Then you'll have to do it
uncomfortably.
I want you there in three, right?'

Crespin clenched his fingers tightly. ‘I think I know my ship's capabilities, sir.'

‘So do we! That is why she was chosen for this work.' Gleeson's voice was smooth. ‘Do what you have to, but get there in three days. You'll report to Commander Scarlett at Sousse and he will brief you.' His lips curved slightly in a smile. ‘Stop thinking of possible breakdowns or getting your own back on senior officers who are too stupid to understand, and just remember this is important,
damned
important.'

Crespin stood up. He wanted to get away, for he knew he might say something to Gleeson which both of them would regret.

The commander eyed him calmly. ‘I know what you've been through. I was here when it all happened. Bad luck.' It was the same tone he had used for the missing German. ‘But this is a different sort of war you have come to join. Methods are not so important as results. Get to Sousse and let off steam there if you like. I should think that you and Commander Scarlett will get on like a house on fire.'

Crespin picked up his cap. ‘I don't think I know him, sir.'

Gleeson walked with him to the door. ‘You will, Crespin. Of that I am quite sure!'

The interview was over.

At the prescribed time
Thistle
weighed anchor, and once clear of the harbour limits altered course to the east. Crespin walked out to the port wing of the bridge and stared back at the Rock. As it fell further and further astern it seemed to rise from the sea like a symbol of that other world before the war. The town below the great natural fortress was a mass of glittering lights, some of which ran up the side of the Rock itself as if to reach for the stars in an unending necklace. Without looking over the rim of the bridge he knew that most of the off-duty seamen were also staring back along the corvette's sharp wake.

How different it must seem to most of them, he thought. At home, and all over Europe, the lights had gone out for the duration. At night the only ones you ever saw were bursting flak or the glow of burning buildings.

He turned his back on the dancing reflections and walked into the bridge. ‘Very well, Sub, you can inform the chief that I'm ready to increase speed now. I want revs for fourteen and a half knots.' He saw Porteous's pale outline by the chart table and could almost feel him digesting his order before he passed it down the handset. It was just a formality, for Crespin had already told Magot what was expected of his department if they were to reach Sousse on time.

Magot had regarded him with something like hurt before saying, ‘If you
say
so, sir. If it's really necessary.' He had craned forward so that Crespin had been able to smell the encrusted oil and dirt on his boiler suit. His tone had suggested that perhaps Crespin might still change his mind.

Crespin had said, ‘I do, and it is, Chief!'

Magot had vanished through his hatchway muttering to himself, and was no doubt down there now watching his dials and cursing the lack of consideration from the bridge.

Porteous came back breathing hard. ‘The chief says he'll do his best, sir.'

Crespin smiled to himself. Porteous's embarrassed air implied that Magot had also said other, less repeatable things.

At midnight Wemyss and Shannon appeared to take over their watch.

In the airless chartroom Crespin said, ‘It'll be a change to be able to hug the North African coastline without being shot at, Number One.'

Wemyss leaned on the chart, his big hands encompassing the Western Mediterranean as he studied the pencilled lines and bearings. ‘Can I ask you what we're going to Sousse for, sir?' He did not look up.

Crespin listened to the watchkeepers handing over their duties, their voices muffled by the increasing beat of the engine. ‘I don't know myself yet. A Commander Scarlett is coming aboard as soon as we get there. He seems to be the man in charge.'

‘I see.' Wemyss sounded strangely relieved. ‘At least we'll be
doing
something again.'

‘You've not heard anyone mention that German, Number One?'

Wemyss looked up, caught off guard. ‘No, sir. But I'm keeping my ear to the ground. There's been a good bit of speculation on the lower deck, of course, but most of the lads seem as baffled as we are.'