Curtis’s eyes flicked back to him and he nodded. A stroke of the paddle spun the prow of the canoe away from the shore and it headed out to sea. Smith bailed but with his head turned on his shoulder and watching the beach. The surf was nudging at the sterns of the lighters, reaching halfway up towards their blunt bows. They would float on the tide in less than an hour.
He looked down at the compass and checked their heading, looked up and saw the tug but knew it was not the one they had seen on the way in. This one seemed bigger, standing higher out of the water but her mast was shorter. So there were two at least. At least. There were more than forty lighters to be towed.
They shot past her stern and on into the night. Curtis still drove steadily, unhurriedly, with the paddle. A third destroyer loomed and Curtis tried to haul off from her but with only partial success as the tide was setting them down on her. They passed her close, too close for Curtis who swore softly. The canoe was low in the sea, far below the destroyer’s deck but the lights from the shore were behind them, might show them up. He worked the paddle with his shoulders hunched for the shouted challenge, the shot, but it did not come.
How many destroyers might there be, anchored in that long line offshore? Smith calculated, guessed: five, six? He thought five, at least. He bent over the compass, watched their heading and stuck out right hand or left as a helm order to Curtis.
And he thought it was so simple and how could it have eluded him? The lighters were no more than timber boxes, probably brought down to the woods by De Haan in sections and then put together. He had seen timber lighters like this used for landing troops in the Dardanelles. A spring tide at Nieuport. Yesterday’s attack there had taken the enemy to the north bank of the Yser. There they were halted but the crossing would come tomorrow. With that first grey dawning the lighters would run aground behind the British lines at Nieuport and the troops would charge ashore. They might have a hatch to let out the guns but more likely they would just smash out a section of the box-like bow and run the guns ashore and up the beach on their fat wheels. In the first half-light the British at Nieuport would be attacked in the rear by two or three thousand crack troops, picked men with their own field-guns, as the other attack came in across the Yser. Once across the Yser they could sweep down the coast to Dunkerque, turning the flank of the British Army, cutting the lines of its communications and supplies, thrusting on to Calais…
The U-boat commander had been involved and Smith could guess how; they would have sent him and his boat to creep off Nieuport one night and confirm the depths along the line of the shore. And when he did not return they’d then sent another.
A spring tide because, though it only came twice a month, it rose higher than the normal tides by two to three feet. So on that shallow beach the grounding lighters would discharge their racing troops much nearer their objective.
Schwertträger…sword-bearer…stab in the back.
It was so obvious now. For three years the Generals had schemed and planned to try to break the deadlock on the Western Front. What was more obvious than an attack in rear? Trist had even given him the answer, thrust it under his nose only hours before when he said the British planned a landing on this coast to take the Germans in the rear. Even then Smith had not seen it.
Schwertträger had one subtlety. The obvious places on this coast to assemble lighters were the ports of Ostende and Zeebrugge. They could be brought down the canals. But the Navy bombarded both ports and there were thousands of Belgian eyes to note the massing of the lighters and pass word of the concentration by means of pigeons or secret agents like Josef. So. Don’t use a port at all. Use a stretch of coast suitable for nothing but fishing boats, where there were few people and woods right down to the dunes to hide the lighters. And seal it off.
If only he’d had the courage of his convictions, if he had not bungled, if he had somehow seen to it that this reconnaissance was made twenty-four hours earlier. But he had not and the force was on the point of sailing. For Christ’s sake where was Curtis’s CMB?
Then he heard the mutter of its idling engines and the muttering grew into a low throbbing and it was suddenly there, the low, black hull, nearly as invisible as the canoe, lifting out of the darkness.
Curtis steered towards it. A seaman crouched just aft of the cockpit called softly and raised an arm. They slid in alongside the CMB with a final thrust of Curtis’s paddle. Smith grabbed at the side and as the seaman reached out to hold on to the canoe Smith shoved the compass at him and hurled himself aboard the CMB. “Slip! Full speed ahead for Sparrow!” He saw Curtis following, wide-mouthed and panting, face running with sweat as he shoved into the cockpit and took the wheel from Johnson.
The seaman was tugging at the canoe and Smith snapped, “Shove it off! Leave it!”
“Slipped!” The shout came from forward where a seaman crouched in the bow. The engines’ note rose and the bow of the boat with it as she accelerated, starting to work up to her full speed of close on forty knots.
Smith sat down and pulled on his boots, dragging them on over wet socks. He was stiff and aching, soaked from backside to feet and stood up easing the clothes from his skin. He went to stand beside Curtis and stare ahead. After a moment he said, “You did very well. I’m sorry about your canoe but we’re short of time.”
Curtis shrugged and grinned. “To tell you the truth, sir, I was a sight more concerned about getting me back aboard this boat in one piece. I’ve never seen so many Germans and guns that close before.” He did not add how he had watched Smith peering curiously, coldly, at the lighters, the troops, noting every detail on the beach. As if he was merely a spectator and they were not within hailing distance of a German beach and thousands of the enemy, and inshore of two or more destroyers. He glanced at Smith who stood with his arms crossed on the cockpit screen staring ahead as the spray wet his face and the wind blew at the fair hair. The fingers of one hand tapped restlessly, were still, and tapped again.
Smith thought that Marshall Marmont should be up with them at first light but first light would be too late; by then the lighters would be aground at Nieuport. He could run at full speed for Dunkerque and give the alarm but still the lighters would sail and once at sea they would be part of an armada. The destroyers from Zeebrugge would also be out in force and this time they would not ‘shoot and scoot’ to maintain a threat in being, because they could not abandon the lighters. They would fight. They could not win a battle like that but they would fight it to its bloody end. Both sides would lose and Britain the more because she could not afford such losses, she had to keep the sea.
There was no decision to make; his duty was obvious.
Spray soaked him now. The wind of the swift cruising of the CMB set the clothes dank against his skin and he shuddered all the time as he stared into the dark.
Curtis eyed him covertly and wondered what he would do. What could he do? Curtis was not a fool and had drawn his own conclusions and they were close to those of Smith.
Rain drove in on top of the spray, rain that was warm but stung their faces. Smith narrowed his eyes against it and saw the dark blur of her under the plume of her smoke as Curtis said, “Sparrow on the port bow.”
The midshipman worked the lamp, a brief stab of light that was instantly acknowledged by a flicker from Sparrow taking shape before them, slipping slow and slower across their bow as the engines of the CMB dropped in tone from a rumble to a mutter. Curtis swung her around and slid her in towards the larger boat.