The convoy hove-to and boats were lowered to rescue the survivors who were floundering about in the ice-cold water. Before the boats were well away the German bombers turned and came hurtling down again. The ships had long since run out of anti-aircraft ammunition, so they were virtually defenceless except for the Bren and Lewis guns with which some of the soldiers opened fire. As Gregory watched, one plane burst into flames and, turning over, pitched headlong into the fjord. A sudden cheer went up, but it wavered out into a groan as the other planes drowned it in a hellish tattoo, deliberately machine-gunning the survivors from the capsized troopship and the boats that were setting off to their rescue.
With muttered curses and half-choked by the intensity of their bitter fury the spectators stood there impotent to help their comrades but vowing vengeance in their hearts. More dripping, wounded and exhausted men were dragged on to the already crowded decks of the destroyer and she proceeded on her way.
By the time they reached the open sea the men had sorted themselves out a little. A number of those who had fallen in the water were now in borrowed clothes lent to them by the sailors; others had stripped and stood shivering in their greatcoats while their uniforms were being dried in the boiler-rooms. Every one of the sailors had given up his bedding, under which, and a number of tarpaulins, the troops sheltered as best they could from the bitter wind and the salt spray that was now flying over the bow of the ship.
Many of them were seasick and the long day and night that followed seemed like a timeless span of unending misery.
At midday on the Tuesday they put in to a Northern port and the heterogeneous collection of French and British troops, some with uniforms, some without, hollow-eyed, stubble-chinned and incredibly weary, crawled ashore to the reception stations on the docks that had been made ready for them.
As civilians with special passes Gregory and Gussy were allowed out of the dock at once, and an hour later they were on a train for London. Gregory had secured a paper, and before settling down in his corner to sleep he glanced at the front page; a short news item caught his eye and he began to laugh uproariously.
Three neatly-dressed business men and a spick-and-span officer, who shared the carriage with them, and had eyed the two bedraggled strangers with considerable misgiving, glanced up disapprovingly.
'What is it?' Gussy asked, as his friend continued to laugh almost hysterically.
Gregory controlled his shouts of mirth and spoke with sudden intense bitterness. 'Two days ago a German was caught with a camera in a forbidden area on the South Coast. The magistrate fined him twenty shillings and let him go. Is Sir John Anderson a traitor or a lunatic; or is it just that nobody has yet told him that for eight months Britain has been at war with the most formidable, unscrupulous and merciless horde of fanatic-ridden brutes that have ever blackened the pages of history?'
CHAPTER 12
'Seek Out and Destroy the Enemy'
For the next three days Gregory kicked his heels in London. Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust was away on some special business and not returning until the Saturday.
After his long absence he found London surprisingly unchanged. The sandbags were still there but there was no other evidence of war and it was considerably fuller than it had been when he had left it at the end of the previous October. The people were as well clad as ever; nine out of ten of the West End shops were still open and doing good business, so that the gaps among them were hardly noticeable. In the clubs where he lunched everybody was quite cheerful, although some of the officers to whom he talked were a little perturbed about the situation in Norway. An American journalist had apparently blown the gaff during the previous week in a sensational article which had been given a prominent place in the United States Press. He stated that the British had been cut off at Lillehammer and that while the Germans were complete masters of the air and showed splendid initiative, the British, as usual, were quite inadequately equipped for the most modern type of warfare.
As yet nobody knew that the Allies had actually been thrown out on their ear and were now evacuating as fast as they could go, but Gregory kept that to himself, since he was every bit as good at keeping his mouth shut when it might do harm to open it as he was at stating his opinion with fearless disregard to consequences when he thought that a good purpose could be served by so doing.
Apart from the feeling that Britain had had a bit of a setback in her Norwegian campaign, everybody was still full of complacent optimism. They took it for granted that Hitler would either have to attack the Maginot Line and lose a million men to no purpose, or quietly submit to being strangled by the Blockade.
Gregory was not prepared to make any predictions upon Hitler's next move, but of one thing he was quite convinced— Hitler had no intention of fading from the scene through sheer inanition, although it seemed highly probable that the British Government might do so.
On the afternoon of Saturday, May the 4th, his faithful henchman, Rudd, whom his safe return had made as happy as a sand-boy, took a telephone message that Sir Pellinore was back and would be happy if Gregory could dine with him that night. When he got in Gregory rang up to say that he would be there; and 8.15 found him, lean, bronzed and very fit-looking after his few days' rest, at 99, Carlton House Terrace.
When he was not actively at war himself he believed in ignoring to the best of his ability any war that might be in progress, so, according to his peace-time custom, he had donned an admirably-cut, double-breasted dinner-jacket, and no one who saw him could possibly have associated him with the filthy, bloodstained vagabond who had crossed the North Sea in a destroyer five days before.
As Gregory was ushered into the great library on the first floor, which in daytime had such a lovely view over St. James's Park, the elderly baronet came striding forward from the fireplace and placed both his huge hands on his visitor's shoulders. Sir Pellinore measured six feet three in his socks and from his great height he stood for a moment looking down on Gregory; then he boomed:
'Well, you young rascal, so you've got sick of gallivanting about the Continent at last, eh? Dining and wining and womanising in Berlin and Helsinki and Oslo, and five months overdue from that mission I sent you on. But, damme, I'm pleased to see you.'
'It seems to have escaped your memory that I've done a few other little jobs on my own account since then,' said Gregory mildly.
'I know, I know.' Sir Pellinore brushed up his great white cavalry moustache as he strode over to a side-table, where he proceeded to pour out two handsome rations of old, bone-dry Manzanilla sherry.
'The way you bluffed Hermann Goering into sending you to Finland was an epic, and that German programme for world conquest that you got us was worth its weight in hundred-pound bank-notes. But after that I suppose you felt that you had earned a holiday and went to Norway for some fishing.'