The Volunteers Read online

  He had applied to join what was laughingly described as the Land Incident Section, Admiralty, which in plainer words meant the mines disposal section. It had meant yet another course at the mines and torpedo school, HMS Vernon, in Portsmouth, where he had learned to recognize and deal with the latest German magnetic mines.

  Allenby worked on the models and on the real thing with utter dedication, and when he picked up his second stripe he was sent almost immediately to deal with his first challenge.

  He still did not know how he had managed it, let alone survived until this damp, sunny morning.

  Many of his associates, trainee officers like himself, had only gone to their first mines. At least it was quick, and there was never anything to clear up.

  The Germans were good at it. Booby traps, other traps to explode the big mines if the first deception failed; it was like fighting a person and not just a machine.

  Allenby had dealt with sixteen mines of various kinds, one of which had been in a hospital where seven elderly patients had been too ill to be moved.

  Even his mother had been impressed by his George Cross. Pinned on by the King himself.

  But Allenby knew that without a change the chance of survival was a bad risk. Sooner or later you overlooked some small difference, or your nerves destroyed your caution.

  He had seen the request for applications for Special Service and had put his name down with the same detachment as when he had volunteered for mines disposal.

  He had had an interview with two men, a naval officer and another in civilian clothes. Very businesslike, with every detail of his work and successes at their fingertips. They did not try to make him change his mind as he had half expected. Too many young officers had been killed in the long winter nights as they had pitted their skills against the best that the enemy could invent.

  Quite the reverse, they had smiled and said he would hear from them soon.

  In three days he was ordered to Portsmouth to take up his new appointment.

  And then this morning, long before dawn, he had been roused from his bed by the duty officer.

  There had been several massive raids on London and the docks, the Army Bomb Disposal units were working full out to deal with bombs that had failed to explode and would most likely be fitted with delayed-action devices so as to cause the most havoc.

  Allenby would normally have reacted calmly, gathered his wits like his equipment and gone to work. But his defenses were down. He had stepped back from the work the instant he had received his orders to move.

  The officer had said flatly, “There’s just nobody else available.” So here he was. One more time. Perhaps the one that would cheat him at the moment of release.

  It was on the outskirts of Southampton. Lines of familiar working-class houses, side by side, back to back. He felt his stomach muscles tighten. The worst streets. No side gates, no breaks in the terraced houses where you could run and hide. In another hour he would have been on his way to Portsmouth. Something different. A shift of odds.

  He would have to be extra careful.

  Hazel, the young rating who had been his assistant for the past few months, was unusually quiet. He was a pleasant youth of nineteen, with fine, almost delicate features. He was well educated, considerably better than his lieutenant, and it was a crying shame he had not been given a commission, Allenby thought. Allenby had mentioned it to the commanding officer.

  “Lacks officerlike qualities. Nice enough chap, but-” That word “but” made all the difference in the navy.

  But Allenby had spoken to others, and his George Cross had been useful for the first time. Hazel had been interviewed again and was getting. a chance after all.

  When Allenby had told him, the young seaman had hung his head.

  “I-I know you’re doing it for the best, sir.”

  “You don’t want it?” Allenby had pretended to be angry. It was hard to do, Hazel was one of those gentle souls who managed to short-circuit even the angriest petty officer.

  “I’d rather stay with you, sir.”

  If it had come from anyone else Allenby would have been embarrassed. But it was just Hazel’s way.

  The call to Portsmouth had at least settled things. Hazel would go to King Alfred after all. He would probably get chucked out but at least he would have had a fair crack of the whip. He was the sort of quiet one who might win a VC, Allenby decided.

  Hazel said sharply, “There it is!”

  The usual, the “Unexploded bomb” notice, the air of utter desertion and emptiness. As if every living soul had been spirited away. Another policeman waited by the barrier, his features softening with relief as the battered jeep rolled to a halt.

  He said, “Number twenty-eight, sir. Left side. Old Ma Kenilworthy’s place, it is.”

  When Allenby did not speak he added, “We’ve been busy movin’ people out all night.”

  “We’ve been a bit busy too.” Allenby patted his crumpled blue battledress to make sure he had everything he might need. He saw the hurt in the policeman’s eyes, and was surprised by his own lie. He had not been busy, but had spent the previous evening in the mess, farewell drinks all round. And his head felt like it. That worried him too. There was no room for blurred thoughts.

  “You wait here, Tim. I’ll take a look-see.”

  He saw the driver start with surprise at the casual use of a rating’s name. The driver was new. He’d soon learn. He’d better.

  Allenby walked through the barrier and down the center of the street. Every house alike, and no parked cars, naturally. A cat washing with one paw stopped to watch him as he walked unhurriedly past.

  Allenby always pictured it as a scene in a film about cowboys and Indians, the marshal walking up to match pistols with the bad guys. He mentally ticked off the house numbers. It was funny how you could tell they were all empty, he thought. Strips of paper across the windows in case of blast. A faded Union Jack painted above one of the front doors. A welcome home perhaps for some son or husband?

  Chalk marks on the walls. So there were still children here, not evacuated like the lucky ones.

  There had been one previous bombing in the street. It must have been early in the war, he thought. A solitary bomb had knocked down a house, and the disposal crews had shored up the two adjoining ones to leave a neat, clean gap. It was like a missing tooth. He wondered briefly what had happened to the people. He quickened his pace, his eye taking in two important details. In the gap between the houses the fire service had constructed a large, metal static watertank. In some air raids there were not enough hydrants to supply the hoses. But the tank would also afford cover if the worst happened.

  The other sign that caught his eye was a hole in one of the sloping roofs, the remains of a parachute wrapped around the chimney. Number twenty-eight. He turned and looked along the empty street. The jeep and the policeman were hidden from view, and only Hazel, his heavy satchel across one shoulder, stood watching him.

  Allenby felt his lips twist in a smile. Poor chap, he was more scared of being selected for a commission than he was of any mine. He had always had absolute faith in Allenby, and never suggested even once that they had been lucky with this job or that job.

  He walked to the front door and pushed it open. The hallway was narrow, and full of dust from the roof. Normally, he guessed, it would be spotless. An old lady living alone. Maybe that was her cat?

  He stood motionless, getting his bearings, his ears pitched to the slightest sounds, except that there was nothing to hear. Allenby gripped a door handle which obviously led into the front room. He opened the door very slowly, holding his breath. It grated against something solid and would not budge. It was the mine. It had to be. Suspended by its parachute.

  One false move or knock and you’d had it.

  He swore under his breath and went out the front door. He waved to Hazel and when he came panting down the street Allenby explained what had to be done.

  That was another thing about Haze
l, you never had to repeat a single word.

  “I’ll have to go out the back and break in through the other door, the kitchen, I think. You stay in the hall outside the front room.”

  He glanced up the street. Some pieces of newspaper had come to life and were rolling about on their own.

  Allenby added shortly, “This needs to be fast. There’s a bloody breeze getting up. We don’t know how long that thing has been hanging there.”

  Hazel nodded, his features concerned. “I’ll rig the telephone, sir.”

  “No time, Tim. If I yell out, you run like hell for that watertank. If the mine goes off you should be safe there until rescue arrives.”

  He realized that Hazel was staring at him, eyes wide with sudden shock.

  “You mean-” He struggled for words.

  Allenby patted his arms, “I mean, we’ve got to be careful on this one.”

  He went through the house and into the kitchen. There was a small yard outside which backed on to another exactly like it. There were photographs on the mantelpiece, one of a soldier in a beret with a tank behind him. A ration book lay forgotten on the kitchen table.

  He wondered momentarily what some of his brother officers would think if they knew he had been brought up in a house not much bigger than this one.

  He went into the yard and peered into the next room through the only other window.

  As he shaded his eyes and pressed his face to the glass he felt the familiar twist in his stomach.

  There it was, hanging through the smashed ceiling, long and evil, grimy with the filth of exhaust gas from the aircraft which had released it. About eight feet long, maybe a bit more. At a guess, like one he had dealt with just a week back. His mind grappled with the details, the margin of success and otherwise. This kind was packed with fifteen hundred pounds of explosive, hexanite. Deadly and devastating. He thought he saw the mine quiver and guessed that the parachute lines had slackened slightly.

  With a hammer he smashed the window until there was ample room to climb through. Even after all this time he hated destroying other people’s property. That was his mother, he thought with a grin. We’re not made of money. Some of us have had to work hard for every penny. And so on.

  He saw a shadow through the crack in the hallway door and knew Hazel was there. Ready to push through an extra tool if needed. His just being there made all the difference.

  Allenby ran his fingers over the side of the mine. It was like ice. He held his breath again as his fingers found the fuse cap. The parachute lines were taut, and the bulbous nose of the mine’s cylinder shape rested in the remains of an old sofa. He withdrew the safety calipers from his pocket and fitted them to the fuse. They would keep the fuse from moving and coming alive while he was working.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Hazel called in a fierce whisper, “What’s happened, sir?”

  “The fuse is bent. Won’t budge. I shall have to unscrew the damned keeping ring by hand. Give me the spanner.” For a moment their fingers touched through the small gap in the door and Allenby heard himself say, “It’s a Charlie. If the fuse goes you’ve got twelve seconds, right?”

  “Right, sir.” The fingers vanished. Then he said in a small voice, “What about you?”

  “I shall be through the back window faster than a priest out of a knocking shop, believe me, Tim.” He pictured his possible escape route. Out through the back yard. A place where they delivered coal. Not much but it would support the weight of a house if need be.

  He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, what the hell was the matter with him? It was not the first fuse that had jammed. Dust filtered down onto his wrists as he worked steadily and with regular pauses to watch his progress.

  The breeze was getting up, and he almost cried out as a loose slate clattered down the roof and shattered on the pavement outside.

  He thought suddenly of his last leave, perhaps the first time he had realized his nerves were getting raw.

  His mother had been going on about shortages and queues and had suddenly remarked, “But, of course, you aren’t troubled with things like that in the services!”

  He had seen the warning light in his father’s eye, that quiet docile man who never complained about anything. He had only one leg; the other he had lost as a young sapper on the Somme.

  Allenby had heard his own voice, high and almost unrecognizable. “For Christ’s sake, you don’t know what it’s like. How can you? Every day men are getting killed and maimed and all you can bleat about are your bloody rations!”

  The keeping ring moved very slightly, perhaps an eighth of an inch. The worst was over. Soon the repair teams would arrive and put a tarpaulin over the old lady’s roof, and the houses would fill with ordinary, decent people again.

  A brick fell beside him; it had missed his head by inches. Even as he stared at it he heard a slithering sound and to his horror saw the great steel cylinder drop just a few inches before the parachute lines checked it again.

  Allenby stared at it, frozen, unable to accept it. There was a sudden whirr of mechanism, the sound was almost gentle.

  He had less than twelve seconds to live.

  He stood up and almost fell again. He yelled, “Get out, Tim! For God’s sake!”

  Through the window, cutting one hand on the jagged glass, his lungs bursting, his heart pounding like a club.

  There was a gap in the wall. With a desperate sob Allenby hurled himself the last few feet. He dug his elbows into the ground and pressed his hands to his ears.

  But when the mine exploded he heard nothing. It was a new sensation, more like being drowned than buried.

  Someone was yelling and sobbing, but he was past recognizing his own voice.

  Oblivion when it came was merciful.

  2

  PROTHERO’S NAVY

  LIEUTENANT KEITH FRAZER tapped on a door marked “Special

  Operations, No Admittance” but no voice called out for him to enter. It was hardly surprising, he thought, the door was solid steel.

  He pushed it open and stared round a long, low room with a curved ceiling. It was incredible to think that this maze of rooms and passages was deep beneath part of Portsmouth Dockyard. It must have been a wine or spirit store at one time. Two Wrens were hammering at typewriters but both looked up as he entered. They were young and seemed tired, and their shirts did not look crisp as was expected in the Wrens.

  No wonder, he thought. The air was damp, stale and confined. A place under siege.

  “Sir?” The nearest girl glanced at his gold shoulder flash. “You must be Lieutenant Frazer.”

  Frazer grinned. “That’s right.” He had been making so many explanations in so many offices since he had left Liverpool it was refreshing to discover someone who apparently knew exactly what was happening.

  Liverpool, the Levant, even the Atlantic, all seemed lost in time, and yet it had been only two weeks since he had reported to another office here in Portsmouth near the barracks.

  He said, “I think I’m expected, Miss er-“

  She had a friendly smile and looked as if she was about to tell him her name. If so, she decided against it.

  She said, “The Boss is with the Commodore. You are to wait in the next office. Second Officer Balfour will take care of you.” She dropped her eyes to her typewriter and then asked, “Do you know a Lieutenant Allenby, sir?”

  He turned his cap round his fingers. Allenby, he was one of the team. They had met only briefly at the pistol range where they had been put through their paces at handshooting by two tough Royal Marine sergeants. They had been shown how to use a commando knife too. It looked as if he was going to get closer to the enemy than he had expected.

  “Allenby,” he said. It formed slowly in his mind. A pale, unsmiling face dominated by dark brown eyes. Withdrawn, or maybe he just didn’t like Canadians. “Yes, I did meet him for a few seconds.”

  She nodded and slammed the typewriter carriage into position.

  He
asked, “Bit of a lad, is he?”

  She looked up and Frazer was shocked to see that her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “I-I’m sorry, hell, I had no idea what-“

  The other Wren darted round her desk and guided him to the next door. Her head did not reach his shoulder but she seemed to have the strength of an able seaman.

  “It’s all right, Lieutenant. Just forget it.”

  He found himself in the next room, slightly longer and brightly lit to reveal all the cracks and stains which even the wall maps and charts could not completely disguise.

  Second Officer Balfour, like the Wrens in the outer office, had slung her jacket with its two blue stripes across the back of her chair. She too was young, with short auburn hair, blue eyes and a nice mouth.

  She said, “Sit down. The Boss will be here soon.” She was smoking a cigarette and leaned back to watch him through the smoke as he settled in a chair. Every other chair and table seemed to be filled with files and clips of signals.

  Frazer said, “I’m afraid I upset one of your girls just now. “

  The blue eyes were motionless. Not even a blink.

  “She’ll be fine. Bad news.” She threw the cigarette into a metal bin. “There’s a war on.”

  Frazer changed tack. In Levant he had created his own system. He had been respected for it, even by the captain. Here he just seemed to get more and more confused.

  He said, “I’m supposed to see the Operations Officer as well. “

  She gave a brief smile. “You’re seeing her right now.” She leaned over the desk and held out her hand. “Lynn Balfour. “

  Frazer could not help noticing the way her shirt curved around her breast when she reached over the desk. She had a firm, warm handshake.

  He said uncertainly, “I guess you know about me anyway.”

  She opened her packet of cigarettes but did not offer him one.