To Risks Unknown Page 25

  The admiral nodded. ‘My intelligence reports have said something like that.’

  Crespin thought of the butchered villagers, the children crying as they were lifted aboard the schooner.

  ‘He’s a Chetnik, sir. He’s no longer interested in helping anyone but himself. He was working with the Germans when I was there.’

  Scarlett could not hide the sneer in his voice. ‘And what was your precious Soskic doing? They’re all bloody Communists, whereas Kolak has already proved his loyalty as a Yugoslav officer.’

  The admiral seemed to sense the return of tension between them.

  ‘Crespin’s report does seem to bear out what I have heard from other, wider sources. There is a military mission over there now, and I have no doubt that we will be able to send more help to the mainland in the very near future.’

  Scarlett said, ‘If the Communists are allowed to take over from the Germans they’ll never let go!’

  The admiral smiled gently. ‘Well, they are Yugoslavs, too, Captain Scarlett. They must decide what to do with their own country.’ His eyes flashed. ‘But that will be after the Germans have been driven out!’ He stood up and hobbled to the chart. ‘All over the Adriatic it is the same story. The patriots and partisans are holding down more enemy divisions than all of our troops in Italy at this moment! If we are to be any use we must act right away, before they are crushed or drained of supplies. I have the authority to tell you that as far as our government is concerned we will help those who are actually fighting the Germans. The overwhelming vote seems to come down in favour of the partisans!’

  Crespin shot a quick glance towards Scarlett. He expected another protest, some new attack, but his face was quite blank again.

  The admiral added slowly, ‘But our immediate task is to help clear the offshore islands. To do that the partisans need arms and medical supplies as well as military aid.’ He looked steadily at Crespin. ‘In your Taranto despatch you told of this German ship. The Nashorn?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I have made some sketches of her. She mounts two big guns, probably five point nines, and a lot of smaller ones.’ He took the drawings from his shirt and handed them to the little admiral. ‘But as you can see, she is not just another armed merchantman.’

  The admiral placed a pair of steel-rimmed glasses on his nose and peered at the papers.

  ‘Hmm, quite impressive, I must say.’ His eyes gleamed above the frames. ‘You did not waste your time on Gradz, it seems.’ He added to Scarlett, ‘You were wise to choose Crespin for the task. Very wise indeed.’

  Scarlett’s eyes were like stones. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The admiral folded the drawings and placed them on Crespin’s report.

  ‘Would you be so good as to take these and have some copies made. I will study them on my way back to the U.K.’ He watched as Scarlett gathered up the papers and added, ‘I’ll leave you to fill in the details, but this time I want an all out effort.’

  ‘I shall need extra facilities, sir.’ Scarlett stood looking down at the admiral’s shoulder. ‘I intend to move my headquarters up the east coast to Brindisi, and I must have some more vessels and equipment.’

  The admiral smiled calmly, ‘One thing at a time. Results first. Then we shall see what we can do.’

  He spoke very gently, yet Crespin could sense the strain between him and Scarlett, and guessed that Oldenshaw had come to Malta for reasons other than to welcome his return from Gradz.

  The door closed and the admiral said, ‘I’ll not detain you much longer. You will have a lot to attend to, I expect.’ He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Don’t like it when my people start getting at odds with each other.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I heard most of what you two were saying, and I can guess the rest.’ He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. ‘Captain Scarlett has been doing this sort of work for a long time. He’s pushed hard, and spared nobody, least of all himself. But’—he lingered over the word—‘there comes a time when we all need a change, if only to obtain a different viewpoint.’ His eyes opened and fixed steadily on Crespin. ‘I may be taking him away from this theatre of operations. At home, his experience could be invaluable, whereas if he goes on pushing himself to or beyond the limit out here,’ he shrugged, ‘he might be doing less than his best, and that would be a pity.’

  Crespin asked, ‘May I ask why you are telling me this, sir?’

  The admiral’s answer was indirect. ‘I listened to you talking about your work on Gradz. Also I have had other information from different sources, about things you did not recount. You did well. You could easily have ended up dead. It is quite obvious to me that you believe in these people and what they are trying to do. To have a cause is one thing. To believe in it, another entirely.’ He frowned. ‘I’m wandering again! What I was going to say was, would you be prepared to take over this sector of operations if need be?’

  Crespin nodded slowly, ‘If you think so, sir.’

  The admiral looked at the overhead fan. ‘Everyone says that. But I have to know. Do you think you can help these people?’

  He nodded. ‘I do.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’ The admiral lurched to his feet. ‘Getting too old for this sort of thing. Like trying to lap Brooklands in an Austin Seven!’

  Crespin smiled, feeling a sudden warmth for this strange, wizened man. ‘They are noted for a good performance, sir!’

  The admiral was already on his way to the door. Then he stopped and looked back at him. ‘This war may last a long while yet. It has already gone on so long that some people tend to forget its purpose. It will be effort wasted if we end with the same bloodied hands as the enemy.’

  Crespin stood looking at the closed doors for several minutes, the admiral’s last words hanging in his mind like an epitaph.

  Oldenshaw seemed to know everything. Perhaps that was his real strength. Old he might be, difficult he certainly was, but he knew the power and the weakness of his own people like the steel of a well-tried blade.

  Crespin took out the gold watch and looked at it. He wondered how his visit would have ended if Oldenshaw had not been there, listening and testing in his own inimitable style.

  Then he closed the watch with a snap. When he thought of Scarlett’s eyes he did not have to search far for an answer.

  A heavily shaded lamp enclosed the bed in a small circle of warm yellow light, leaving the rest of the room in darkness and distorted shadow. Crespin lay on his back, the crumpled sheet pulled down to his waist, while his mind floated between drowsiness and the fierce recollections of the last hour. Or was it longer?

  Through the half open door to the other room he could hear a drumming beat of music from the radio, and he could picture the bottle of wine and two glasses on a small table, also ignored as he had taken the girl in his arms. Now their two uniforms lay entangled beside the bed, disordered and limp, as if they, too, were spent by the intensity of their embrace.

  Crespin propped himself on his elbows and peered at the open window. She had thrown back the shutters and he could see her naked body outlined against the stars, her hair moving in a slight breeze as she stared down at the street below.

  ‘Come back to bed. You’ll get pneumonia over there.’

  He heard her laugh quietly. ‘You were asleep.’

  ‘Never!’

  She crossed to the bedside and stood looking down at him. ‘You were, and you were snoring!’

  Crespin reached out and touched her thigh. The edge of the lampshade left the upper part of her body hidden in darkness, but her thighs shone in the light like pale gold. He felt her body quiver as his hand moved gently around the soft skin.

  She said quickly, ‘I’ll get that wine if it’s the last thing I do!’ She sidestepped away from his hand, and seconds later he saw her push open the door and walk fully into the light of the other room.

  He called after her, ‘Suppose your friend the nurse comes back unexpectedly, what the hell will she think if she finds you like that?�
� He had to speak, if only to clear the sudden dryness from his throat. She was beautiful, with a teasing innocence which went to his head like a fever.

  She walked slowly towards him, the light at her back making a halo across her hair and bare shoulders.

  ‘I’d tell her it was none of her damn business who I have in my bed!’ She sat on the side of the bed and handed Crespin the wine, her eyes searching his face across the rim of her own glass.

  Impulsively she added, ‘I have been sick with worry. Week after week and no news. And now that you’re back at last it’s just to say goodbye all over again.’

  He touched her shoulder and ran his fingers lightly down the length of her spine.

  ‘We’re not going to talk about it. Not now.’ He saw her brush her eyes with the back of one hand and continued gently, ‘Here’s to us!’

  She lifted her glass. ‘To us!’

  Then she said, ‘But promise me you’ll take extra care. Things have been going very badly for Scarlett since you went away. He seems desperate to make a success of this new operation. He appears to need it, like some personal thing.’

  Crespin replied, ‘To him it is personal. But don’t worry, Scarlett isn’t going to do anything to jeopardize his whole position just to get his own back on me.’ He slipped his arm round her waist and cupped her breast in his fingers. It felt smooth and warm, and he sensed the same desperate longing coursing through him again like fire.

  She shivered and then reached across him to put the glass beside the lamp.

  ‘Darling?’

  He pulled her closer. ‘What is it?’

  She shook her head and then kissed him lightly on the mouth. ‘Nothing. Just darling.’

  Somewhere in the far distance a man laughed, and from the harbour came the mournful toot of an outgoing tug. The sound seemed to break through the girl’s inner thoughts, and placing her hands on Crespin’s chest she levered herself away from him and stayed for several seconds just staring at his face. Then she gripped the sheet and pulled it down between them. She seemed to sense Crespin’s sudden tenseness and said quietly, ‘You mustn’t mind the wound now. Not now, or ever.’

  Crespin lay back, feeling her fingers on the savage scar along his leg, her hair brushing like silk over his thigh. Then the warm, firm pressure of her lips, and from a great distance her voice, husky and strangely gentle. ‘Now you’ll never worry about it any more, my darling.’

  Crespin’s wineglass fell and shattered beside the entangled uniforms, but, like the girl, he heard nothing.

  14. Watch them Burn

  WITHIN A FEW days of Crespin’s return Scarlett began to put the next phase of his new operation on the move. Under cover of darkness the Thistle and the rest of Scarlett’s special force, the armed yacht, two M.L.s and the old schooner, slipped through the Otranto Strait, and after hugging the protection of the Italian mainland entered their advanced base at Brindisi. The port, situated as it was sixty miles deep into the Adriatic, came in for fairly regular bombing raids, and hardly a day passed without the seamen running to their stations, only to find the sneak raiders had been and gone almost before they could uncover the guns.

  But the advantages of the new base far outweighed the discomforts. Gradz and the other islands in which Scarlett was now so interested were less than one hundred and forty miles away. A day’s steaming, and well within reach of future operations.

  What those future operations were going to involve nobody seemed to know. Except possibly Scarlett, and he was saying nothing. Crespin saw little of him in the days which followed, and for that he was thankful. But as days began to drag into weeks it became obvious to everyone aboard that the first expectation of action was falling once more into anticlimax.

  It was made worse by the fact that Brindisi was bustling with naval activity, which only helped to give the ship’s company a further sense of frustration and disillusion.

  Motor torpedo boats and gunboats, which had already moved their base up from Taranto, were constantly on the move, and most days saw them snarling back into harbour, their battle flags and bullet scarred hulls proclaiming another clash with the enemy on the other side of the Adriatic.

  Whenever Crespin saw Scarlett the latter was curt and formal, and seemed content to keep his officers at arm’s length by passing all orders and instructions through his small collection of assistants. He spent many days away in either Taranto or Malta, and each time he was careful to take the girl with him. When Crespin did manage to see her she said it was just a way of getting his petty revenge. For when she accompanied him on his tours to see the ‘powers that be’ he hardly spoke to her at all, and only confided in matters of routine and fleet communications.

  Coutts had vanished completely, and although he had gone without a word, Crespin guessed that Scarlett had sent him back to Gradz to pave the way for his final move into the enemy’s own territory.

  As the long days followed on each other Crespin found himself almost praying for action. Anything which would jolt the ship from her torpor and gloomy resignation. Morale was very low, and unless something happened soon it would get even worse. The lengthening string of defaulters and men under punishment told their own story. Fights ashore, drunken brawls with other seamen, even acts of insubordination aboard the ship herself showed how bitterly the Thistle’s men felt their lack of purpose.

  Even Wemyss seemed different. Whether it was guilt or resentment which had changed him, Crespin did not know, but the first lieutenant spent most of his off duty time ashore, and made a point of going alone. Altogether, the atmosphere aboard ship was brittle, to say the least.

  Shannon, on the other hand, was thriving. He carried out his daily duties with obvious relish, and though he, too, went ashore alone, he always returned bright-eyed and sleek, and Crespin thought that he at least had found a new interest somewhere in the town.

  The two sub-lieutenants rarely left the ship, and were usually to be found at the end of each frustrating day sitting in the wardroom, either in companionable silence or engrossed in some complicated discussion which always ceased immediately when Crespin appeared.

  Instead of feeling more used to Crespin they seemed almost afraid of him now, and he guessed it was because of Wemyss’ strange withdrawal. A first lieutenant, good or bad, was the essential link between captain and junior officers. Without it the gulf became uncrossable. For this and so many other reasons Crespin craved to get back to sea. If they were never going to Gradz, then he wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, if only to drag the ship back into a single entity again.

  The weather was worsening, while to the north there had already been reports of heavy rain which slowed the Allied advance to a painful crawl. Tanks were bogged down, and while the wretched infantrymen probed the yellow mud for mines and slogged through one battered village after another, the retreating Germans fought a savage rearguard action without let up, knowing, as did everyone else, that winter would soon grind the campaign into a stalemate.

  And then, one month to the day after Crespin’s return from Gradz, Scarlett sent a signal. Shore leave was to cease forthwith. All officers of the special force were to muster in the Thistle’s wardroom at 1900. Scarlett’s Circus was, it appeared, in business again.

  A few minutes before the arranged time Crespin stepped into the wardroom and watched the assembled officers. The place was filled almost to overflowing, and it was hard to imagine a more mixed or a tougher-looking collection, he decided. Their clothes were as varied as their faces. Battledress and khaki drill, sweaters and coloured scarves, they did indeed look like a bunch of pirates.

  Scarlett arrived a few moments later, and Crespin was immediately aware of the change in him. Not so much a change as a return to the old Scarlett he had first met, jovial, confident and shining with good health. Even the lines of strain had gone, and as he strode to the wardroom table he flashed a broad grin around the assembled officers, his teeth white in his tanned face.

  Following him, tired an
d dishevelled by comparison, came Coutts. He saw Crespin’s glance and gave a brief shrug. He looked gloomy and a trifle irritated, and stared at the other officers with obvious dismay.

  Scarlett said cheerfully, ‘Well, gentlemen, the waiting game is over!’ He gestured with his thumb. ‘You all know Captain Coutts, our scruffy Guardee!’ There were a few laughs. ‘He has just returned from Gradz, and the news he has brought is almost too good to be true.’

  He unrolled a chart very carefully across the table and leaned over it, his face set in a frown of concentration.

  ‘The partisans have been stepping up their attacks on the enemy’s communications, so that the Germans are having to withdraw more and more troops from the islands to reinforce their garrisons on the mainland.’ He tapped the chart with his finger. ‘Apart from our little island of Gradz, the larger ones of Hvar, Korcula and Vis are almost completely in the hands of the Yugoslavs. In the near future, the very near future,’ his smile moved round the table, ‘the partisans will link up into one solid force, and with our help will tie the whole occupation army into knots!’ He swung on Coutts. ‘Do you wish to say something?’

  Coutts stood looking at the chart, his hands in his pockets. ‘The real stumbling block is the Nashorn.’ His eyes flickered towards Crespin. The merest glance, but Crespin could almost feel the strain and the anxiety of his words. ‘At present the Germans can still prevent any unified action amongst the partisans merely by keeping this ship patrolling the channels between the islands. In the last two weeks the Nashorn has destroyed three partisan schooners and has shelled several villages as reprisals for sabotage.’

  Scarlett wagged a finger. ‘Now then, let’s not be pessimistic again, eh? The Nashorn’s presence is a great problem, but it is not an insuperable one.’ He looked around the intent faces. ‘She has a base, as you should all know by now if you have read my intelligence reports. That base is her weakness. It is also the most perfect place for a full scale attack by the partisans.’