Torpedo Run (1981) (21 page)

‘I’ll draft the necessary signals.’ Barker appeared to bounce
to his feet. ‘After that it will be up to me.’

Whitcombe regarded him curiously. ‘And a few others.’

‘About the German, Lincke?’ Beresford seemed eager to cover up Whitcombe’s contempt for higher authority. ‘Do you think his presence means anything?’

Barker was already locking his briefcase. ‘A coincidence probably, or a live wire to put some go into their naval flotillas in the Crimea. I understand that Klassman is still in command,’ he shrugged carelessly, ‘but maybe he needed a jolt too. Like others I could mention.’

He opened the door. ‘In the morning then, gentlemen? Eight-thirty?’

Whitcombe glared. ‘
Nine!
’

They listened to his brisk, retreating steps, then Whitcombe said, ‘Let’s go to the Army mess and have a few drinks. That man really gets under my skin.’

‘You’d never have guessed, sir.’

Whitcombe grinned and then said, ‘Keep an eye on Devane for me. This war isn’t going to end tomorrow. We’ll need him and a lot more before that happens.’

Beresford smiled. ‘Besides which, sir, you’ve made the unusual mistake of growing too fond of one of your glory boys, correct?’

Whitcombe sighed. ‘Right. Trust you to realize that. You’ll make admiral, you see. All brains and no bloody heart. It’ll fit you like a glove!’

Devane opened the door and stood in the quiet darkness, listening, but hearing only his own breathing.

The hotel was small and scruffy, and but for the massive movement of servicemen to the new battlefields in Sicily he knew there would have been no accommodation left, even to sit down.

‘Where have you been?’ Her voice came out of the darkness. ‘I was worried.’

Devane walked to the window and opened a shutter very slightly. It was hard to believe there was a great canal out there, ships and people, a lifeline from one sea to the next.

‘It took time. But it’s done.’ He tugged open his shirt and tried to cool his skin beside the window. ‘God, it’s hot.’

She said, ‘Come here. Tell me about it.’

He felt his way to the bed and sat down beside her, sensing her nearness, her warmth.

‘I had to see several people. Luckily I know one of them from way back.’ He tried to keep his voice steady. ‘They’ve agreed to a burial at the military cemetery tomorrow. I’ve arranged for the Army padre to do it. Seems a nice chap. Comes from Taunton, would you believe?’

Her voice was husky, and for an instant he thought she was crying.

‘You’re good to me, John. I don’t know what I’d have done.’ Her hand reached up and touched his face and his chest. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

He looked down and saw her dark hair framed by a pillow. Her bare shoulders gave a faint glow, like silk, and he wanted to take her in his arms, to love her and to lose himself in her and tell her everything.

‘I know that I love
you
, Claudia.’ He groped for her arm and felt her stiffen.

She said, ‘Sorry. It’s the vaccination. Stings a bit.’

She gripped his hand and lowered it to her breast. It was hot and supple, and he could feel the nipple against his palm as she squeezed his fingers around it.

Devane bent over her and kissed her. ‘This isn’t just a passing thing. Not to me. I want you to accept that. If anything happens, I need to know you understand, even if you can’t share all that I feel.’

Her hand left his and she touched his mouth, his eyes and his hair.

She whispered, ‘I’m so happy.’ She pulled him down and kissed him hard, her mouth opening to contain his, as if she wanted to make each moment last a lifetime.

He said softly, ‘I shall be leaving tomorrow.’

‘I see.’ She struggled up and hugged herself against him. ‘One night. Like the last time.’

Devane could feel the tears against his mouth as she said, ‘But we’re really old friends, aren’t we?’

He lowered her to the bed again and threw his clothes on the floor.

‘Neighbours, too.’

She clung to his neck, pulling herself up to him as he covered her with his body.

‘You
must
come back, John. I need you so. If only. . . .’

The rest was lost as they came together as one.

The room was small and square with a tiny window high up near the ceiling. It was freshly painted, white, like a sick room, or, in its spartan simplicity, a monk’s cell.

Korvettenkapitän Gerhard Lincke lay on his back, fingers interlaced behind his head, as he stared unseeingly at the ceiling.

He disliked the smell of the fresh paint, but hated the dirt and the discomfort it caused far more.

He thought of the speech he would have to make that afternoon to the combined crews of his new command,
Gruppe Seeadler
. Seven sound boats, some with officers and men who were new to their elite service. He would probably make the same speech as usual. In Germany and Holland, in France and North Africa, Italy and Greece. Only the faces changed. They got younger.

Lincke thought reluctantly about his last leave, the one which had been cut short without explanation. The medical officer at Kiel had insisted he needed a complete rest, although Lincke had assured him he had never felt better.

He was not sorry to be back. This time it was Russia, but the enemy, like his speech, was the same. The thought made him smile, so that he looked even younger than his twenty-eight years.

His home was in the old town of Schleswig, and he had been shocked to find his parents so aged and, worse, disillusioned by their country’s struggle against so many enemies.

Lincke had had two brothers. Hans, the youngest, had died at sea in a U-boat. Bernd, the oldest, a pipe-smoking infantry captain, had been captured after the British stand at El Alamein. He was sorry for his brothers, but had been
embarrassed when his mother had burst out that she was actually pleased Bernd was a prisoner in England. At least he will be alive when this butchery is over, she had sobbed. It made him uneasy for her and the whole family if word of her criticism reached the wrong ears.

He threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood up in the centre of the room. He wore a white singlet and pale cream trousers. Matched against them, his fair hair and tanned arms and face made him look more like an athlete than a naval officer.

His uniform hung in a canvas wardrobe, pressed and ready. Lincke’s faithful orderly, Max, saw to that. With its three bright gold stripes, the Iron Cross and the other decorations on one breast, it looked more fitting for a much older man.

On a small scrubbed table was a framed picture of his parents, dwarfed by the massive folder of secret information which he had carried with him from Kiel.

It was strange to learn that some of his old enemies from the Channel and Mediterranean were here also. He wondered if they loathed the Russians as much as he did. Their brutish soldiers, their coarse peasant women who screamed abuse even into the muzzles of a firing squad. Dirt and squalor in this vast terrain seemed even more depressing. Thank God his brother had been taken by the British and not on the Eastern Front, if half the stories of Russian atrocities were true.

He walked to the table and idly leafed open the folder. It would be like a clean canvas for him. He had the backing of the Grand Admiral and of the
Führer
himself. He would cause resentment, even hatred, but he was used to that. The war would be won.
Must
be won. The
Führer
had said so to him personally when he had hung the most coveted decoration around his neck in Berlin. Lincke was no puppet, and made his own decisions, but his meeting with Hitler had stayed with him, had inspired him beyond belief. Perhaps it was because of the different attitude. His admirals had praised him for his victories at sea. Lincke had, after all, sent one hundred and thirty thousand tons of enemy shipping to
the bottom. With one
Schnellboot
that was no mean achievement. But they respected him as a weapon, where as Hitler had made him feel like a man, a German officer.

He scanned the neat writing of the admiral’s secretary, the brief comment about the British flotilla leader named Richie.
Dead.
But not in action. That was very strange. Perhaps they would soon learn more about it. When you fought a fast-moving war in little ships you needed to know your opponents far better than the details of weapons and endurance.

Lincke never believed in luck or coincidence. He had studied all the reports on the unexpected destruction of the torpedo boat escort to the Crimean convoy, the devastating attack launched by British MTBs which were not even supposed to be in the Black Sea.

One surprise was never enough. The same independent unit had attacked and seized a German
Schnellboot,
and even though it had managed to break free, only to be destroyed in their own minefield, it would not stop there.

If only he had been present when it had happened. He had questioned the idiot who had picked up the bodies and some fragments, but had learned nothing. Fools thought like fools. There was no sense in wasting more time.

Lincke had seven boats, with the authority to use the other light forces whenever he thought fit.

A page hung in mid air as he examined a newspaper photograph of Lieutenant-Commander John Devane. The new leader, but not a new name to Lincke. He was one of the British reservist officers who had caused so much amusement in Kiel in those first heady days of war and one victory after another.

People often made jokes at the expense of their enemies, usually to cover up their own uncertainties, he thought. They should have known better. An island race like the British had always relied on their amateur sailors. Dunkirk had proved that, but Drake and Raleigh had known it centuries earlier.

After the war it would be pleasant to obtain an appointment in England. Lincke had been a junior officer in the
Graf Spee
at the 1937 Coronation Review at Spithead. He could
remember it vividly. The long lines of grey ships, the last great review the world would ever know. Among the foreign visitors had been many fine ships now sunk, like his own
Graf Spee
. Even more, the British ones which had anchored nearby, ships like
Hood
and
Repulse, Barham
and
Courageous.
Now only their memories remained.

Privately, Lincke thought it a shame that they were forced to fight the British at all. A total alliance against the Russians and the French, even the Italians, who were once allies and were now said to be deserting and changing sides in the wake of the Sicilian invasion, would stabilize the world.

He sighed. But that was hindsight. His immediate future was here in this miserable, war-torn corner of Russia.

The door opened, and Max, his orderly, servant and faithful guardian, peered in at him.

‘They are waiting, sir.’

Lincke dressed deliberately and with care, examining his even features in a clean mirror to make certain his hair was tidy and did not bristle beneath the band of his white-topped cap.

Korvettenkapitän Gerhard Lincke, holder of the Knight’s Cross and Oak Leaves, and three other decorations, leader of the newly formed
Gruppe Seeadler
, was ready.

He frowned at his reflection. There had been something missing in the folder. What was it? He would send a signal about it. Devane troubled him. There was some clue or explanation which went beyond their old score.

He said, ‘We have made this journey before, Max.’

The seaman stood aside to let him pass.

Lincke was an example to everyone, he thought, and he had known him for a long time. Often in the past he had imagined he might possibly die for Gerhard Lincke. Now, as he heard the assembled crews stamp to attention to receive their commander, he was quite certain of it.

Moored to the dockside, apart and slightly ahead of the smaller British craft, the captured German E-boat presented a picture of strength and power. A few shaded lights hung
from the dripping concrete roof of the pen, so that the E-boat’s hull appeared to glow eerily, the effect magnified by her strange interwoven camouflage of dazzle paint, blue and grey, with stark black stripes striking back from her bows like the markings of a tiger.

Commander Felip Orel moved slowly about the deserted bridge, opening a locker to check its contents, pausing to examine the compass, the torpedo sighting-bar, anything which was of interest but unfamiliar to him.

He could sense the two sentries on the jetty watching him. One British, the other one of his own men. How they symbolized their struggle, he thought bitterly. United because of a common enemy, divided by so much more.

It was past midnight, and in the bunker-like pen it was as silent as a tomb. Just the slap of oily water between the moored hulls, the occasional creak of lines and fenders. Down here, even the guns along the front were soundless.

Orel always found it easier to think clearly at moments like these. Even in the small, crowded hulls of his mixed collection of gunboats and motor launches he had trained himself to remain aloof when he needed to, or find privacy when there was none.

He reconsidered the proposed operation in the Rumanian port which Captain Sorokin had outlined to him that afternoon. It made good sense, but if things went against them the whole Russian force could be destroyed and the supply routes along the Black Sea coast left unguarded and open to attack.

The minds in Moscow still thought in terms of flotillas and squadrons, grand strategy and safe bases to keep a fleet in being. They should be here, Orel thought, especially in a few months’ time when the winter sets in and the guns refused to fire and men froze at their posts.

He admired Sorokin for several reasons. His ability to keep ahead of the powerful staff in Moscow, and to stand up for his command whenever its achievements were criticized or doubted. He could even accept that some of the things which his superior thought necessary were wrapped up in the needs of war. Sorokin was often photographed in
military and naval hospitals, shaking hands with wounded comrades, presenting medals to those who were dying of their wounds or for lack of proper care. Stern-faced, Sorokin had appeared in many a front-line newspaper, his camouflaged combat coat often smudged with the dried blood of those he had just visited.