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‘What do you mean, dead?’ said Wills, though he knew perfectly well, because this always happened with radar. But they were deep in bandit country here, and the MTB was his first command, and this was his first Special Ops run, and he wanted things to go right, not cock up –
‘Valve gone,’ said the radar operator. ‘Two, three valves.’
‘How long?’
‘Twenty minutes.’
Could be worse, thought Wills, lighting his sixty-third cigarette of the day. Could be better. Half an hour without radar, well, you can survive that.
So the MTB swept on blind under the stars: blind, but not unseen. Far down on the horizon, a dirty fishing caique was hauling nets. In her wheelhouse, a man trained German-issue binoculars on the pale streak of water to the westward. Then he picked up the microphone of a military radio, and began to speak, giving first a call sign, then a course and speed that corresponded to the MTB’s.
‘Done, sir,’ said the radar operator. ‘No contacts.’
‘Nice work,’ said Wills, looking at his watch, then at the chart on the table under the red night-lights. ‘Top-hole.’ He rang for port engine shutdown, half-ahead starboard. M-109’s nose settled into her bow wave. One engine burbling heavily, she crept towards Kynthos, twenty miles away now. The breeze had dropped: the sea was like black glass.
‘Still clear?’ said Wills to the radar operator.
‘Clear,’ said the operator.
‘Top-hole,’ said Wills.
But of course the radar could not see astern.
As the engine note faded smoothly, Miller fell just as smoothly from a doze into a deep sleep. After what seemed like a couple of seconds he was awakened by somebody shaking him. ‘Morning, sir,’ said a voice, and an enamel mug was shoved into his hand, a mug hot enough to wake him up and make him curse and hear Mallory and Andrea and Carstairs stirring, too. When they had drunk the sweet, scalding tea, they went on deck.
There was no moon, but the Milky Way hung in a heavy swathe across the sky. By its light he could see a crumpled heap of rubberized canvas on the deck on the forward face of the wheelhouse. He groped for a foot pump, found one, plugged in the hose and started tramping away. The crumpled heap swelled and unfolded like a night-blooming flower, and became a rubber dinghy; an aircrew dinghy, actually, because unlike the naval dinghies it was boat-shaped instead of circular, and thus rowable; but unlike the dinghies used by the SAS, it was yellow instead of black, and would, if discovered by the enemy, be taken for the relic of a crashed aircraft instead of the transport of a raiding party. Andrea drifted up, silent as a wraith, and Mallory. Carstairs made more noise, his nailed boots squinching on the deck, grunting as he dumped his pack and his rifle.
‘Three minutes to drop,’ said a voice from the bridge.
Here we go again, thought Miller.
Then the night became day.
For a moment there was just stark blue-white light, the faces of the men on the bridge frozen, every pore mercilessly limned, the dinghy and the landing party in the slice of black shadow behind the superstructure. Then, very rapidly, things began to change.
The light blazed from a source as bright as the sun, behind them, low on the water. Someone was shouting on the bridge: Wills’ voice. From behind the light came the heavy chug of a large-calibre machine gun. The bridge windows exploded. Glass splinters hissed around the dinghy, and someone somewhere let out a bubbling howl. Then more guns started firing, some from the MTB now.
‘Stay where you are,’ said Mallory, calm as if he were walking down the Strand. ‘Two minutes to landing.’
‘Shoot that bloody light out!’ roared Wills, from the bridge.
They huddled in the shadow of the superstructure. Suddenly the blue-white glare vanished. The blackness that followed it was no longer black, but criss-crossed with ice-blue and hot-poker-red tracers. The MTB’s deck jumped underfoot like the skin of a well- thrashed drum. Whatever was attacking was big, and heavily armed. They heard Wills’ voice shout, ‘Full ahead both!’ The MTB started to surge forward.
But the tracers were homing in now. There was something like an Oerlikon or a Bofors out there. Into Miller’s mind there popped the picture of the back end of the MTB: a huge tank of aviation gas, contained in a thin skin of aluminium and plywood. One Oerlikon round in there: well, two, one to puncture it, one to light it…
Miller found himself longing passionately for a row in a rubber dinghy on the night-black sea –
Crash, went something on the aft deck. Then there was a jack- hammer succession of further crashes. The MTB’s machine guns fell silent. The engine note faltered and died, and she slowed, wallowing. An ominous red glow came from her after hatches.
Mallory’s mind was clicking like an adding machine. Options: stay on board and get blown to hell; go over the side, with at least a chance that they would get ashore and on with the mission. No contest.
‘Go,’ he said.
The MTB had slewed port-side on to the tracers whipping out of the dark. They manhandled the rubber boat over the starboard rail and into the dark water. Miller climbed down, and stowed the packs and the oilcloth weapon bags as Mallory and Andrea lowered them. The orange glow was heavier now, beginning to jump and flicker, so Mallory could see Miller and Andrea working, and Carstairs, eyes flicking left and right, nervous for himself, not for anybody else. Not a team player, Carstairs. Hard to blame him, on top of a burning bladder of petrol in enemy waters –
Whump, said something the other side of the bridge, and the shock wave blew Mallory on to the deck. Then there was another explosion, bigger, and a blast of air, dreadfully hot, that carried with it a smell of burning eyebrows and more glass. Something crashed on to the deck alongside. By the light of the flames, Mallory saw it was Wills, blown, presumably, out of the glassless windows of the bridge. Unconscious at least, thought Mallory, ears ringing. If not dead –
Wills opened his eyes. His face was coppery with burns, his expression that of a sleepwalker. He started to crawl aft. Another explosion blew him backwards into Mallory’s legs. The flames were very bright now, the air vibrating with heat. ‘Into the dinghy,’ said Mallory.
Carstairs went over the rail at a hard scramble, followed more sedately by Andrea. Aft of the bridge, the MTB was a sheet of flame. A man emerged, blazing, and fell back into the inferno. ‘Come,’ said Mallory to Wills. He half-saw other figures going over the rail, heard the splash of bodies.
Wills looked at him without seeing him, and started to walk into the wall of flame. Mallory grabbed his arm. Wills turned and took a swing at him. Mallory went under the punch, grabbed him by the shirt and trousers, and heaved him overboard. The deck was swelling underfoot like a balloon. Mallory went to the rail and jumped.
It was only when he hit the water that he realized how hot the air had been. He found himself holding the rope on the rubber flanks of the dinghy. ‘Row,’ he said. They already were rowing. There was another head beside him in the water: Wills, eyes wide and rolling. He scrambled into the dinghy and pulled Wills after him. Wills showed a tendency to struggle. He wanted to be with his ship –
The night split in two. There was a blinding flash. A shock wave like a brick wall hurtled across the water and walloped into the dinghy. Torpedoes, thought Mallory, against the ringing in his ears. Torpedoes gone up.
Then a thick chemical smoke rolled down on them. Under its black and reeking blanket they rowed and coughed and rowed again, squinting at the radium-lit north on Mallory’s compass, for what felt like hours. ‘Clearing,’ said Miller at last. Overhead, the sky was lightening. They sat still as the fumes thinned around them, leaving them naked and exposed on the surface of the sea. But there was no one to see them. As the last of the smoke eddied away, it was plain that under its cover they had got clear. All around them was black night, with stars. The best part of a mile to the westward, the dark shape of some sort of coastal patrol boat lay half-wrapped in smoke, moving to and fro in the water, shining lights, looking for survivors.
And in that confusing patchwork of light and smoke, not finding any.
To the eastwards, the sky stopped well short of the horizon, cut out by the jagged tops of mountains: the mountains of Kynthos.
Mallory called the roll.
‘Carstairs.’
‘Here.’
‘Andrea.’
‘Here.’
‘Miller.’
‘Sure.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Wills,’ said Wills, in a strange, faraway voice.
‘Nelson,’ said another. ‘And Dawkins. ‘E’s unconscious. I’ve ‘urt me arm.’
‘Okay,’ said Mallory, level-voiced, though inwardly he was worried. There was work to do, and not the sort of work you could do if you were carrying maimed and unconscious sailors about with you. They had hardly started Operation Thunderbolt, and already it was in serious trouble.
Save it, he told himself. They were on the deep sea, with three extra people and a job to do. What was necessary now was to get ashore.
‘Row,’ he said.
They rowed.
After a while, a voice said, ‘I’m getting wet.’ A sailor’s voice: Nelson.
It was true. The side of the rubber dinghy, which had been hard, was becoming flaccid. ‘Probably the air inside cooling,’ said Carstairs. ‘The water’s colder than the air, isn’t it? So it’d shrink–’
‘Got a leak,’ said Miller. He found the pump and plugged it into the side. There was no chance of using his feet, so he squeezed the concertina bag between his hands. After two hundred, his arms felt as if they were on fire. But the tube was not deflating any more. ‘Here,’ he said to Carstairs.
‘Sorry, Corporal?’ said the drawling voice in the dark.
‘Your go, sir,’ said Miller.
Carstairs laughed, a light, dangerous laugh. ‘I’m sorry, Corporal,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’m with you.’
Miller gave a couple more squeezes to the pump. The sweat was running into his eyes. ‘Yessir,’ he said. ‘Yessir, Cap’n, sure thing.’ Carstairs was only a dark shape against the stars, but Miller was sure he was smiling a small, superior smile –
‘Give it to me,’ said Andrea. Miller felt it plucked from his hands, heard the steady, monotonous pant.
‘Carstairs,’ said Mallory. ‘You can row now.’
Carstairs’ shadow froze. But Mallory’s voice had an edge like a hacksaw. ‘Delighted,’ said Carstairs. ‘Jolly boating weather, eh?’
For two endless hours, the oars dipped, and the pump panted, and the black mass of Kynthos crawled slowly up the stars. At 0155, Wills, who had been sitting slumped on the side, suddenly raised his head. ‘Port twenty,’ he said, in a weird, cracked voice.
‘What?’ said Miller, who was rowing.
‘Left a bit.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s a beach.’
‘How do you know?’ said Carstairs.
‘Pilot book. Recognize the horizon.’ Wills made a loose gesture of his hand at the saw-backed ridge plunging towards the sea ahead and to the right.
Carstairs said, ‘You’re in no condition to recognize anything.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ said Mallory, mildly.
‘Straight for the shore,’ said Carstairs. ‘Up the cliffs.’
‘Listen,’ said Wills.
Miller stopped rowing, and Andrea stopped pumping. They listened.
There was the drip of the oars, and the tiny gurgle of the dinghy moving through the water, and something else: the long, low mutter of swell on stone. ‘Cliffs,’ said Wills. ‘Doesn’t feel like much out here, but there’ll be a heave. Lava rock. Like a cross-cut saw. Two foot of swell, bang goes your gear, bang goes you.’
It was a lucid speech, and convincing. Carstairs could find no objection to it. He lapsed into a sulk.
Mallory had seen the beaches on the map, all that time ago in the briefing room under Plymouth. There were half-a-dozen of them at this end of the island, little crescents of sand among writhing contours and hatchings of precipitous cliffs. If it had been him in command of the Kynthos garrison, he would have watched them like a hawk.
The muttering grew.
“Scuse me,’ said the voice of the sailor Nelson. ‘It’s Dawkins, sir. I think ‘e’s dead.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Carstairs, high and sharp. ‘Save it for later. We’ll–’
But Mallory had moved past him, and had his fingers on Dawkins’ neck. The skin was warm, but not as warm as it should have been. There was no pulse. ‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ he said.
‘Throw him overboard,’ said Carstairs. ‘He’s just dead weight.’
‘No,’ said Mallory, pumping.
‘You – ‘
‘I’m taking operational responsibility for Able Seaman Dawkins,’ said Mallory.
There were cliffs on either side and ahead, now, not more than fifty yards away. The dinghy lifted spongily in the swell. They were in a sort of cove.
Andrea said, ‘Wait here.’
‘What are you doing?’ said Carstairs.
Andrea did not answer. He seemed to be taking off his battledress. A pair of huge, furry shoulders gleamed for a moment under the stars. Then he was gone, quiet as a seal in a small roil of water.
‘Reconnaissance,’ said Mallory. ‘Hold her here, Miller.’
Cradled in the bosom of the sea, protected on three sides by a small, jagged alcove of the cliffs, they waited.
THREE (#ulink_47d97a37-041b-5b57-96d8-dd7bb948d5f1)
Wednesday 0200-0600 (#ulink_47d97a37-041b-5b57-96d8-dd7bb948d5f1)
Private Gottfried Schenck was not in favour of Greek islands. The beer was terrible, the food oily and the women hostile, particularly in the last couple of days. Still, it was better than the Russian Front, he supposed. He had thought it a place completely without danger, until the unpleasantness on Saturday. Tonight he had seen the flick of tracer and the flash of a big explosion out at sea. It looked as if things were getting worse. He had commandeered a bottle of wine from a peasant he had met with a flock of goats; vile stuff, tasted like disinfectant, but at least it stopped the jitters. He looked at his watch. Two o’clock. Four hours till his relief at dawn. Time to have a look in the next cove, perhaps have a crafty fag with his mate Willi.
He turned and walked along the edge of the sea, his boots making only the faintest of crunches on the sand.
From his vantage point by a rock thirty yards to seaward, Andrea watched him go, waited, counting; saw the sudden flare of a match beyond the headland …
Not that anybody normal would have seen this. But Andrea’s eyes were used to weighing matters of life and death in thick darkness. He waited in the milk-warm water, counting, watched the sentry come back on to the beach, throw away the glowing butt. Then, with no fuss or turbulence, he sank below the surface.
The cigarette had not done Private Schenck any good. He felt sleepy, and there was a filthy taste in his mouth. What he really needed was a swim, but if anyone caught him swimming on duty there would be hell to pay –
He had arrived at the end of the beach. He turned round and started back, moving smartly to wake himself up, shoulders square, eyes on the tip of his nose, trying as he often did to feel the way he had felt all those years ago at Nuremberg in the temple of searchlights, when he had believed in all this damned Nazi nonsense –
Behind him, something rose from the water beyond the small waves that broke on the shore: something impossibly huge that gleamed with water in the starlight and took two loping steps towards him, clapped a vast hard hand over his mouth and hauled him through the breakers and bent him creaking towards the water, as he tried to shout, but managed no sound at all, like a child in the hands of this terrible thing from the sea. Schenck had given up even before his face hit the water, gently, oh so gently, and stayed there, under those huge, remorseless hands, until his mouth opened and the bad taste of cigarettes and old wine became the taste of salt, and he breathed.
Andrea waited until the bubbles ceased to rise. Then he swam back to the dinghy, and talked low and short to Mallory. A minute later, the dinghy was heading for the beach.
