The colonel asked, “How do you rate our chances?”
“Evens.” He tried to smile. “It’s all a matter of timing.”
“Isn’t everything, old boy?” The colonel yawned. “I’m going to have some breakfast. In that sphere the Navy does have the edge on us.”
Down in the wheelhouse Midshipman Keyes heard the colonel laugh, the clatter of his boots on the ladder, and then turned his attention back to the plot table. Like the navigator’s yeoman, it was new, and it was only too easy to recall Rigge lying with his head smashed against the side, the bodies sprawled in the smoke.
The new man said brightly, “There, sir, that’s fixed it.”
Keyes nodded. He was thinking of that last leave. Georgina’s perfect body above and below him, consuming him until he had been like a man possessed. He had written to her several times while the ship had been at Greenock, but had only had a postcard in reply. But then she was a star. She would be working all hours. He wondered if she was thinking of him at this moment. What his mother would say when he took her home on the next leave. He would soon be eligible for promotion, too. The picture built up in his mind. The veteran sub-lieutenant, and, all eyes turned to watch him pass with this dazzling girl on his arm.
Tyson staggered through the door and rasped, “Get down aft. Number One wants you to help Mr. Noakes with the heavy towing gear. It’s got to be ready for emergencies.” He glared. “Well, don’t just stand there, chop bloody chop!”
A signalman was busily cutting open a large canvas sack, tumbling bright bunting all over the wheelhouse deck.
Tyson asked sharply, “What’s all that?”
The signalman did not bother to look up, but spread out the uppermost flag. A big naval ensign, scarlet, with black cross and swastika.
He said, “All ships will hoist German colours in fifteen minutes, sir.”
He said it so importantly that Rumsey, who was on the wheel, muttered, “An’ God bless us, every one!”
Tyson stared, his eyes bulging from his head. Each thrash of the screws, every dragging minute was clawing at his entrails like hooks. The sight of the enemy flags, here inside their defences, was like finding the Germans right amongst them. He felt the bile in his throat, an icy chill on his skin.
Rumsey darted him a glance and snapped, “I’d get up to the forebridge, Bunts, afore the new yeoman starts — a-barkin’ for you!”
He did not like the look of Tyson. Toffee-nosed little bastard. Rumsey had seen plenty of supposedly hard-cases crack open after their first taste of battle.
Drummond watched the flags breaking at masts and gaffs throughout the flotilla. They made the only patches of colour in the formation against the sea and the swirling flurries of snow.
All that day they had headed towards the French coast, but apart from sighting the conning tower of a British submarine they had the sea to themselves. The submarine had been positioned as a final marker. Once contact had been confirmed, she had flooded her tanks and dived deep, her part completed.
They were right on time, and despite poor surface visibility were keeping in their tight formation like Roman troops on a field of battle.
Towards dusk Sheridan stood beside Drummond on the gratings, moving his sea boots restlessly and dabbing his wet face with a piece of rag.
Drummond said, “They’ll be setting the time fuses aboard the Ventnor and Lomond.”
Even as he said it he was conscious of the finality. One of the officers on each ship would be down there now, squatting amidst their tons of high explosive, putting the whole thing into operation. Acid upon copper, like the ticking of a clock.
He added abruptly, “Hands to action stations. Section by section. Check them yourself. Then come back here.” He hesitated and said simply, “If anything happens to me, Number One, I want you to do your damnedest for the others.” He avoided Sheridan’s eyes. “Right?”
“You can rely on me, sir. ” He added firmly, “This time.”
It was almost midnight when the lookouts reported flashing lights dead ahead. But in fact they were the bursts of anti-aircraft fire reflected and distorted by snow and low cloud, many miles away. The R.A.F. had managed to do part of their work anyway. It was strange. Eerie. With the engines pounding away and the fans giving their confident purr you could hear nothing outside the ship. The snow was like a great damp curtain, so that the ripping red pin-pricks of the flak were without menace or substance.
Sheridan peered at his watch. It was nearly time.
He said quietly, “We’re in, sir. I don’t know if we’ll get out again, but the Germans have been caught napping up to now.”
Drummond looked at his own watch. It was just after one in the morning. What the hell was Beaumont doing? He should have left the M.G.B. and boarded Lomond for the final run-in. Drummond found he was sweating badly, fearing he was right, dreading the possible consequences. If Beaumont stayed in the command vessel, de Pass would have to take Lomond in on his own. Just thinking about it made him feel sick. De Pass could never do it. Not in a thousand years. Selkirk would be all right, but even he needed instructions.
He heard the colonel say, “I’ve got my lads ready to disembark.” He was carrying a Sten gun and chewing on a sandwich. “By God, it’s thick up ahead.”
Drummond looked at Wingate. ‘-‘Have the battle ensigns hoisted. Get those Jerry flags down!”
A light blinked feebly from somewhere on the port bow. A challenge.
Drummond heard the squeak of halliards as the flags soared to the yards. By the time it was light enough to see them, the ship might be on the bottom.
Another light gleamed against the snow as Lomond flashed a quick reply. De Pass had put out his recognition signals as ordered. He was keeping his head so far. They were all largely guesswork, but would give the flotilla time to get that little bit closer.
A searchlight licked out from starboard, swept like a scythe over Lomond and Ventnor and then, surprisingly, vanished.
Drummond snapped, “Carry on, Number One.” He heard him run for the ladder, and added, “They’ll be on to us any second now.”
A blue light winked brightly from water level, and Drummond knew that the command vessel was in sight of the main objective, the great concrete wall and iron caisson which formed the centre-piece of the dock area.
On either beam the M.L.s were moving forward like dark wings, their machine guns and cannon swinging to cover the darkening mass of land which was at last showing itself through the snow.
Drummond said tightly, “The M.G.B. will lead us through the outer defences. Ventnor will take the caisson, Lomond will sheer off for the submarine pens.”
Tracer crackled over the masthead and whistled away through the snow.
In the shuttered wheelhouse Mangin gripped his spokes and muttered, ” ‘Old on, me lads!”
Behind his heavy curtain Keyes turned his head slightly to look at the navigator’s yeoman. His name was Farthing, and he seemed a nice chap.
Farthing was fiddling with the plot, and said between his teeth, “Christ, I’m bloody scared, sir. ” He forced a grin, which only made him look worse. “I’m not like you, sir, this is the first real scrap for me.”
Keyes heard the impartial mutter of machine gun fire, and then an insistent thumping sound which puzzled him.
Farthing said hoarsely, “Heavy mortars, sir. There used to be an army range near my home.”
Mangin and the others looked up at the deckhead as the first shells exploded close by. The detonations were muffled, but beat against the hull like hammers wrapped in sacking. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Rumsey, Jevers and the others stared at each other, eyes gleaming in the compass lights.
A loud bang rocked the ship violently, and somebody cried out with alarm. _