To Risks Unknown Page 22

  Crespin said harshly, ‘Do you have to keep on about it?’

  ‘Yes, I think I do.’ Coutts half turned as another terrible scream echoed down the beach. ‘You’re sickened because of what the partisans are doing. Just remember how you’d feel if it was your girl up there by the road in a pool of blood.’

  Ross waded up the beach and looked at both of them impassively. Then he said, ‘We’ll be afloat again any minute, sir. If we fill the boats with people we should be able to manage all right.’ He sniffed the air. ‘Maybe we’ll get a wind to blow us home this time.’

  Crespin made himself turn and look at the village. ‘We’ll take all who want to come with us,’ he said slowly. ‘Reprisal leads to reprisal, and I don’t want to cause any more suffering in this place.’

  Ross looked at Coutts who gave a brief shrug. Then he said, ‘If I may say so, sir, you did well. Very well.’

  Crespin realized that he was still carrying the pistol and with a sigh thrust it into his holster.

  ‘We all did, Skipper.’ He walked slowly along the beach, his eyes on the rock pinnacle. ‘I suppose that has to be enough.’

  12. Crespin’s Promise

  WITHIN HALF AN hour of refloating the schooner every foot of space was filled in readiness for the return voyage to Gradz. The frantic preparations went on at full speed unhampered by the enemy except for an occasional stray bullet from the hillside beyond the village where Soskic’s rearguard stayed to cover the final withdrawal.

  Crespin watched the last of the Yugoslavs being hauled aboard from the dinghies which had been used for ferrying them from the beach, and wondered how they were managing to find any more space. They must be jammed like sardines, and he could feel the hull yawing uncomfortably as the last group struggled over the bulwark and were guided or pushed towards the hatch.

  He saw a partisan jump clear of the abandoned half-track as a great tongue of flame licked greedily along its side before engulfing the whole vehicle in a mass of fire and smoke. The motor mechanic had managed to dismantle the Vierling gun which was now stowed in the schooner’s bilges. Its extra weight above the keel might help to give the hull some stability and make up for the packed humanity between decks, Crespin thought.

  Some of the rearguard ran down the beach and launched one of the dinghies. They were yelling and cheering with excitement, and one of them was able to stand up and shoot towards the hills in spite of the crowded figures around him.

  Crespin said, ‘We shall have to tow that lot behind us. Make the line fast and signal for the others to fall back now.’

  He saw Ross staring at the sky, and when he turned he saw to his astonishment that it had clouded over in the space of minutes. When he had last found time to look it had been clear and pale blue, with a hint of morning sunlight already warming his face. Now there was just a low blanket of cloud, and the sea which had looked so placid and inviting had changed to a hard, threatening grey.

  Ross called, ‘I’m not happy about this! I think we’re in for a blow!’

  Crespin did not answer. He had heard of these Adriatic gales. The ‘Bora’, as it was known, could come with the force and the suddenness of a tropical storm. He thought of the wretched people crouching below deck and the miles of open water beyond the cove.

  ‘Make another recall to those people ashore. We must get under way immediately!’ He crossed to the other rail and lifted his glasses. Beyond the headland and its protective pinnacle he could see the nearest island on the far side of the channel. But that, too, had changed, and the top half of it seemed to have been cut off by low cloud or a belt of fast moving rain. And the channel itself was already breaking into ranks of short-ridged rollers, their crests crumbling in the face of the growing wind.

  A bullet, almost spent, thudded dully into the hull and brought a chorus of muffled cries from below. Some children were weeping pitifully, but whether from fear or hunger, Crespin did not know. Maybe their parents were amongst those corpses beside the road which Coutts had described so brutally.

  He breathed out slowly as some running figures came down the beach and jumped into the last boat. They were pulling strongly for the schooner when more shots came from the village, the gun flashes almost completely hidden by smoke from the blazing half-track.

  In the bows Preston returned fire with his Bren, sweeping slowly back and forth, the empty magazines mounting beside him in a steady pile.

  Crespin watched narrowly as the other boat picked up the tow and then shouted, ‘Up anchor! Get under way, Skipper!’

  Soskic managed to jump to the schooner’s bulwark before the last dinghy yawed away on the end of its line, and Crespin saw that his eyes were shining with grim satisfaction.

  Crespin asked, ‘How many did you lose?’

  ‘Seven.’ Soskic pulled up his coat collar and watched as the seamen struggled amongst the crouching refugees to loose the two big sails. ‘But we made them pay ten times over!’

  Ross shouted above the din of banging canvas and engine noise, ‘I’ll make for the middle of the channel. We must get a bit o’ sea room, sir!’

  Crespin nodded. The old schooner was fore and aft rigged, and would not be easy to handle with so much dead weight aboard.

  Soskic clung to the hatch coaming and said suddenly, ‘You have seen the weather signs, eh? It is not good for us.’

  Crespin looked at him. ‘We have to get away from here. There’s no damned choice in the matter.’

  Soskic shrugged. Then he said simply, ‘We are in your hands.’

  As soon as the schooner was clear of the headland the wind came down across her quarter with a smashing impact which heeled her over until the lee bulwark was almost awash. Astern the two towed boats were veering away diagonally, and Crespin could see the partisans baling frantically, even using their hats as they struggled to stay afloat. It was bad, and the wind still rising.

  Coutts shouted, ‘God, the headland has disappeared!’ It was true. Within minutes the visibility had fallen to yards as wind and sea lifted and surged together into one insane symphony. ‘Those two boats are pulling too far round!’

  Crespin had to yell above the shriek of the wind. ‘If you stay here you might as well shut up! But if you want to do something useful then go and help calm those poor devils below!’

  Coutts seemed about to protest. Then he gave a shrug and clawed his way to the hatch. The deck was heeling so badly that he appeared to be standing at a forty-five-degree angle.

  ‘And start the pumps, Skipper! This hull can’t be too good after all these years.’

  Ross’s face was streaming with spray but he managed to shout back, ‘Just the one pump, sir!’ He bared his teeth as a big wave lifted over the rail and sluiced down the full length of the deck, sweeping some partisans into an untidy heap of limbs and weapons below the foremast.

  Soskic was watching through narrowed eyes. ‘What do you intend, comrade?’ He sounded neither worried nor critical. Merely interested.

  ‘I was going to cling to the island on the far side of the channel. But unless this wind drops we’ll have to go about and try to beat straight for Gradz.’

  Crespin swung round, ducking, as the mainsail exploded above his head with the force of a gunshot. It was split from head to foot, and as he stared he saw the wind paring it away, so that within a minute the canvas was reduced to a garland of tattered ribbons.

  He yelled, ‘Get the other sail off her, Skipper! We must use the engine alone!’

  All around him men were struggling and cursing as they fought with the spray-swollen halyards and tried to remain on their feet.

  ‘Come round, Skipper!’ Crespin watched the deck tilt over once more, and stay there, with the water creaming inboard as if the schooner was already rolling on her beam ends. ‘Hard astarboard!’

  Ross spat some of his beard from his mouth. ‘Wheel’s hard over! She’s not answering!’

  Another crested roller cruised from the mist of spray and broke hissing over the we
ather side. The schooner shuddered and settled more firmly on her side. Below his feet Crespin could feel thuds and scrapings, and imagined the trapped people falling helplessly in blind, terrified confusion.

  The foresail came down in a sodden, flapping tangle, and as if released by a hidden spring the deck began to swing upright again. Crespin watched as the bows lifted and lifted, so that Preston and his Bren appeared to be pointing straight up towards the scudding clouds. Then down she dropped, the smashing vibration shaking every timber and throwing more men bodily against the bulwarks.

  But she was turning, crashing into the advancing rollers, then lifting wildly before careering down again into the next trough, and the next after that.

  Crespin peered astern. It was a miracle, but both boats were still there, tossing like leaves on a whirlpool. One of the partisans even managed to wave to him before falling back into his boat, his legs sticking unheeded above his frantically baling companions.

  Ross had tied himself to the wheel and was hauling at the spokes with all his strength. ‘She’s taking it well. Just so long as the engine keeps going!’

  Crespin needed no reminding. In spite of the wind and sea his ear was constantly listening to the engine’s labouring beat with its steady accompaniment from the pump. If it failed now the schooner would broach to and capsize in minutes. The people crammed between decks would know little about it until she was already on her way to the bottom.

  He had lost all sense of time and distance. His world had become confined to the next eager line of waves, his reflexes reduced to withstanding each sickening climb and jolting descent, while he waited for the old schooner’s seams to burst apart and surrender to the onslaught.

  As if in a daze he saw two figures emerge from the hatch, a dripping corpse between them; man or woman he did not know for its face was masked in blood. The men waited their chance, rising and swaying with their lifeless burden as if in some macabre dance, then as the last wave receded along the deck and gurgled from the streaming scuppers they heaved it overboard and ran for the hatch again without a backward glance.

  Crespin tried not to think of the others. And the children. He yelled, ‘Any sign of land?’

  Soskic replied, ‘We must be clearing the Mljet Channel!’

  Crespin stared at him. Surely Soskic was mistaken. But in his heart he knew that he would know these waters like the back of his hand. And if he was right it meant that they still had the full ten miles of open sea to cross before they could reach the inlet at Gradz.

  He peered at his wrist with amazement. His watch had gone, torn from the strap without his knowing. In spite of the gale raging around him he had a sudden picture of his mother when she had given him the watch as a present. It had been when he had received his commission at Dartmouth. Now, like her, it had gone forever. Another link wiped away.

  He said harshly, ‘Well, we shall just have to stick it out!’

  Twice more Crespin saw bodies thrown over the side, but they were soon forgotten when Ross informed him that the pump had given out and the water was gaining in the bilges at an alarming rate.

  Coutts came on deck soaking wet and covered with oil and slime. ‘Some of those people will drown if we don’t get ’em up here!’

  Crespin shouted, ‘If they come on deck we will turn turtle!’ He grasped Coutts’ sodden coat. The goatskin felt slippery with oil. ‘Just get down there again and organize a bucket chain!’ He added savagely, ‘Do as I say quickly. Try saving a few lives for a bloody change!’

  He saw Coutts’ sudden anger and knew that he would kill himself now rather than give in to the sea.

  As the soldier slipped and fell through the hatch Soskic shouted, ‘You have a fine way of doing things. I could use you in my little army!’ He was grinning as if it was a huge joke.

  Crespin turned as a man tipped the first drum of water over the hatch coaming and wondered how Coutts was managing to cope with translating his orders into deed in the confusion and darkness below. He said, ‘The sea has taught me one thing. If you turn your back for a moment you’re finished!’ He saw Preston staring back from the bows to listen and realized with a start that the roar of wind and water seemed to be fading.

  Soskic gripped his arm. ‘You see? The sea is ashamed, your words have had a fine effect.’

  Crespin wiped his streaming face. It was incredible. With the same suddenness of its arrival the storm was already moving on and away, the wave-crests flattening in its wake as if spent with the fierceness of their efforts. Astern the clouds were thinning, and through the curtain of spray the cliffs of the mainland stood out with sudden brightness as the sun broke through once again.

  In the towed boats the partisans paused in their baling to cheer and wave their arms, and even as he watched Crespin saw the cloud shadow moving rapidly across the water, like a trapdoor being raised, until with eye-wrenching brilliance the sun swept across the schooner and opened up the sea ahead of her pitching stem. First one and then another island appeared, shining momentarily in the sudden glare before fading again in a drifting haze which masked the bared horizon in a long curtain of fine vapour. The schooner, too, appeared to be wreathed in steam as the heat explored the streaming planking and rigging, soaked into the exhausted men and made them stare at one another as if witnessing some kind of miracle.

  And there, dead across the schooner’s bows was Gradz. It was little more than a purple hump in the filtered sunlight, but as the word was passed below Crespin heard a chorus of shouts and cries, while in the open hatchway he saw bearded faces and dark-haired women staring up at the tattered sail, their eyes filled with wonder and disbelief.

  Coutts emerged from the hatch dripping and filthy. He looked guardedly at Crespin and then grinned. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I’ve got the pump going again.’

  Crespin ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Thanks.’ Then he smiled. ‘For everything.’

  Ross pointed suddenly. ‘Aircraft, sir! Red four-five!’

  Crespin wiped his glasses on his shirt and followed the line of retreating clouds. Then he saw it, glinting brightly as it flew into the sunlight, like a child’s toy.

  He said slowly, ‘Reconnaissance plane.’ Around him he could sense the sudden tension. ‘Might not see us.’

  But it did. It was a very small, high-wing monoplane, and as it turned into the sun it began to lose height until everyone on deck could see the bright arc of its propeller, the twin black crosses on the wing.

  Coutts snapped, ‘You men on deck! Hold your fire until I give the word!’

  Crespin lowered his glasses and glanced at Soskic. ‘Have you seen it before?’

  ‘Occasionally.’ The commandant was lighting a cigarette, but his eyes were following the approaching aircraft. ‘The Germans use it for patrolling the main roads usually.’ He threw the match over the rail. ‘But this time I think they look for us.’

  Crespin could hear the plane’s high-pitched engine now above the schooner’s heavier beat. It was taking its time. Making quite sure. Then quite suddenly it dived steeply towards the sea, the sunlight flashing across the Perspex windshield as it levelled out above its own reflection.

  Coutts glanced questioningly at Crespin. ‘Shall we shoot at the bastard?’

  Crespin raised his glasses again. ‘Wait a bit longer.’

  The little aircraft flashed down the port side less than a cable away, making the water shimmer below it in a miniature shock-wave. Then it pivoted neatly and began to climb again, turning and rising until the sunlight blotted out its silhouette and its tilting wing gleamed in the glare like burnished steel.

  Coutts said half to himself, ‘Watch out for the Hun who comes out of the sun!’

  ‘Here he comes!’ Preston swung the Bren round and jammed the bipod on top of the capstan.

  With a sudden roar the spotter plane swept straight across the schooner’s poop, the shadow floating over the water like a black crucifix.

  ‘Open fire!’ As Crespin shouted
above the engine’s roar the air quivered to the onslaught of gunfire as every man who was in position to shoot poured a sporadic burst after the plane. Machine-pistols, the Bren, anything, even though there was almost no chance of scoring a single hit.

  Coutts grinned. ‘That’ll teach him, the cheeky bastard!’

  Crespin did not watch as the aircraft grew smaller and smaller against the clearing sky. He said, ‘Full power again, Skipper. You know why this time!’

  Then he sat on the hatch cover and tried to light his pipe with some damp tobacco. It was useless to keep looking at the island. You could not make it get any nearer just by willing it so. And the harder you stared, the farther away it seemed to be.

  Coutts crossed to his side and offered him his light. ‘Try this. You’ll run out of matches in a minute.’ He waited until Crespin succeeded in getting his pipe going. ‘Pity about the spotter plane,’ he said quietly. ‘It could have been worse. No bloody Messerschmitt would have been put off by our popguns!’

  ‘What time is it now?’ Crespin watched the pipe-smoke drifting across the rail.

  ‘Half past eleven, if my watch is still all right.’ Coutts held it to his ears. ‘In case I don’t get time later on, let me just say that I think you’ve been bloody marvellous. The way you got us out, and in a poor old relic like this!’

  Crespin said, ‘Tell me again, when we’re in Malta.’

  The minutes dragged by without anyone saying a word. When he looked towards the bows Crespin saw the island had already grown, so that it spread out on either hand, with the paler shadows of Korcula overlapping beyond. He could see the tallest hill and the deeply shadowed headland where they had anchored the schooner and waited for Coutts to return in the dory.

  It all seemed so long ago. And here they were, with a clapped-out old schooner and over a hundred bewildered but grateful people, going from one uncertainty to another.

  Something like a deep sigh came from the watching men in the bows, and when he got to his feet Crespin knew the reason before he reached them. He saw the smoke first, a dirty brown smudge peeling from the edge of the channel, hanging against the washed-out sky as if it would never move. He raised his glasses as the men stood aside to let him pass.