The Glory Boys Read online

  He could hear guns in the distance. Another hit-and-run maybe. Or practice? Not that they would need any.

  The door slammed shut, and after the sun it was oppressively dark, the air stale, unmoving.

  Kearton followed the petty officer along a narrow passageway, occasional electric lamps and trailing wires marking their descent. It must be one of the many tunnels he had heard about, which had been dug through the soft sandstone from Lancaris itself to the moat beneath Valletta.

  The petty officer stood by another opening. He was breathing heavily, but said, “Safe from air raids down here, sir.”

  Kearton stared past him into another space, a cavern. It was well lit, with a huge chart covering one wall. Tables, benches, officers and ratings at telephones or working with signals, coming and going. The air was hot and foul, made worse by the hard lighting, some of which was flickering. There was a bin by the entrance, half filled with candle stubs.

  The P.O. shrugged.

  “Ready for the worst, sir,” and he attempted to smile. “You know what they say in this regiment, sir. ‘If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined!’”

  The lights blinked, and Kearton felt the ground shiver.

  “’Ere we are, sir.” His companion did not seem to notice.

  A dim, shored-up room, lined with raw planking, cool air coming from somewhere, a fan or vent. A rank of metal filing cabinets, another wall chart. And the smell of coffee.

  Captain Richard Garrick was sitting at a broad desk, legs crossed, a cigarette in one hand, a telephone in the other. He nodded toward a canvas-backed chair and continued with his conversation.

  “You know the score, Terry—it’s important. No foul-ups at this stage, eh?”

  He held the mouthpiece against his shoulder. “Won’t take long.”

  Kearton sat in the chair and felt it creak. Another survivor.

  Garrick was wearing a lightweight drill jacket, probably khaki, although in this uncertain light it was difficult to distinguish. Surprisingly, there were no marks of rank, only a small strip where medal ribbons might have been stitched, with GARRICK printed on it. His cap, lying on a bench, was the only symbol of authority.

  He appeared relaxed, but the eyes were hard and alert.

  Kearton looked around the makeshift office. Apart from the map, there was only a notice that read CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES. Beneath it somebody had scribbled, That should keep them quiet!

  The phone slammed down.

  “Sorry about that. Means well, but a bit of an old woman.”

  He stubbed out the cigarette and pulled a fresh packet from his jacket.

  “You don’t, of course. A pipe, as I recall.”

  As usual, he did not wait for a response. “Things are moving at last. I read your report—seems you had a good run.” He lit another cigarette. “How long do you need to be ready to move?” Again, he did not wait. “Day after tomorrow. One boat.” He blew out some smoke. “Yours.”

  The floor shivered and grit pattered across the desk. “That’ll bring out all the bloody sandflies, as if things aren’t foul enough in this dump!” He laughed. “Good to have you on the team.” And then, “Heard about your diversion. You took a chance there, just to pick up a Jerry. U-Boat hand, no less.” He inhaled and flicked ash from the cigarette, shrugging. “I’d probably have done the same. In the good old days.”

  More thuds, closer this time. Feet hurrying past the door, a bell tinkling somewhere.

  Kearton asked, “Inshore operation, sir?”

  Garrick nodded. “Good thinking. Might not come off, but I’ve got the specialists geared up and ready to go.” He tapped a ledger by his elbow, but did not open it. “Very hush-hush, no need to tell you that.”

  The telephone rang again. Garrick took his time picking it up.

  He said, “I know that, sir.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “I have him with me now.” A pause, then, patiently, “I’m quite sure, sir.”

  He replaced it almost gently, and sighed.

  “You know … sometimes, I really wonder.”

  Outside the door somebody coughed and scraped his feet. Garrick was up lightly, like a cat.

  “No heroics, Bob. In and out. You’ll have a few extra bodies to carry this time.” He thrust out his hand. “Just wanted to see you again.” He picked up his cap. “We’re in it together,” and the mood changed. “As I was just explaining to the Boss!”

  The same petty officer was waiting for him.

  “Been another hit-an’-run, sir—just to keep us on th’ jump. Brought one of ’em down in flames though, for a change.”

  They had reached the entrance. There was a mat with WIPE YOUR FEET stamped on it, which he had not noticed before, no doubt liberated from a nearby hotel, or what was left of it.

  “Watch your step, sir. One of my lads’ll show you a short cut.”

  He was outside, the sun warm on his face, and the smoke and dust in his throat.

  Had he been sent for because there had been some doubt? He recalled Morgan and the suddenness of his promotion. Acting.… A clear warning, if he needed it.

  There was more smoke now, people running. Some sort of engine coughing into life and cutting out. He quickened his pace, and then, like the others, broke into a run.

  A different street, but he thought he recognized a tower or dome above the smoke.

  Someone shouted, “It’s the cellar!”

  Kearton pushed past a startled group, mostly women in black, either leaving shelter or seeking another. There was an overturned wagon, the contents smashed among the rubble. And somebody sobbing.

  A child was sitting on a crate, her hair covering her face and hands, blood on her bare arm and smeared across her knee. He knelt down and put his arm round her, and tried to brush the hair from her face. She opened her eyes and stared at him as he dabbed the blood from her arm with his handkerchief. It was not serious. She was still shuddering, but trying to smile at him.

  Somebody was saying, “She was in the cellar. She’s lucky.”

  Uniforms had appeared, men carrying stretchers, one unrolling bandages.

  “You won’t need those!” A woman’s voice. “Here, let me.”

  She held the little girl’s arm, gently but firmly, until she had her attention, and then she burst into tears.

  “I’ve got her.” She looked over the child’s head. “They’re all dead down there. I’ll take over now.”

  Calm, matter-of-fact. She looked into Kearton’s eyes for the first time.

  “You’ll know me again if you see me, won’t you?” Like a slap in the face.

  Kearton stood, and stooped instinctively to offer his hand.

  A young woman, dark hair which had pulled free from a headscarf, her shirt torn and stained. A Red Cross armlet stark against her skin. And her voice was as English as his own.

  He said, “Sorry I was staring.” He tried again. “I can walk with you, if you like. Until …”

  She did not reply, but snatched the bloody handkerchief from his fingers and began to dab her eyes.

  “Sorry I went for you.” She shook her head, and her hair, covered with dust, fell across her shoulder.

  More people, peering faces. Questions. The invisible engines roaring into life.

  She repeated, “They’re all dead down there.” She pushed the child away. “Here’s your mother, Carmen. You’re safe now.”

  They stood side by side, the crowd melting away, a few remaining to watch the men climbing down into the blackened cellar. Her hand, still dabbing with his bloodstained handkerchief, was sunburned, strong. There was a plain gold ring on her finger.

  Someone called, making a joke of it, “The Navy’s here!” but fell silent when he saw the cellar.

  Kearton said, “I can take you home, if you like.”

  It was a stupid thing to say, he thought. He did not even know where he was.

  She stared at him, and then she looked back toward that door and its sandbags.

&nb
sp; “Thank you. But I am home.”

  He saw the same rating in khaki, his guide, hurrying toward him, obviously thinking the worst.

  He said, “I’m Kearton,” and made another effort. “Bob Kearton.”

  She faced him, her eyes calm now.

  “Thank you, Bob Kearton. I’ll not forget.”

  A voice was calling his name, and when he turned back again, she had gone.

  He quickened his pace, and saw the gleam of water between the ruined houses. She had dark brown eyes. She was English. And she was married.

  He thought of the petty officer’s reminder. If you can’t take a joke …

  Garrick would like that.

  No heroics.

  4

  A Close Thing

  LIEUTENANT PETER SPIERS wedged himself in one corner of the bridge and braced his legs. There was a steady wind from the south, not strong, but at their reduced speed enough to make itself felt. Plenty of stars, but no moon, so that even the sea alongside was faceless.

  He restrained himself from using his binoculars. It was pointless. Only four hours since they had left Malta, but it seemed longer. They had the sea to themselves.

  There had been another air raid soon after they had cleared the harbour: high-flying aircraft which had not returned when a few fighters had been scrambled to intercept them. A sign of the times, as someone had remarked. The crude repairs to the island’s runways, great craters being refilled with rubble from bomb-damaged buildings and hastily surfaced by sappers and civilians, were proving their worth.

  He remembered when there had been only two or three fighters left in Malta to retaliate: only a token defence. So many setbacks and retreats: it was hard to accept that, finally, luck was changing sides.

  He heard the coxswain repeat, “North-seventy-West, sir.”

  Spiers glanced around at the other shadowy shapes on the bridge, staring into the darkness or listening to the regular beat of the engines and the occasional creak of gun-mountings. He guessed that Turnbull had repeated the compass course because he sensed his first lieutenant was on edge.

  He heard somebody retching noisily abaft the bridge, the sound stifled suddenly, as if he had thrown up.

  He took several deep breaths. He was the only officer on the bridge, and this was how it might have been. His own command …

  He tried to shut it from his mind, thinking of the six extra faces which had been added to their company. Specialists, as an officer from Operations had described them. They had been put aboard from a harbour launch, which had hardly stopped engines long enough to make the transfer before speeding away again.

  One of the seamen had commented loudly, “Long time since they’ve seen soap an’ water!”

  Specialists. They looked like a bunch of vagrants. Even the one in charge, an officer of some sort, who had introduced himself only as Jethro, might have passed as a tramp. Unshaven, dressed in a ragged sweater and fisherman’s reefer, but the voice of command had been unmistakable when some of his baggage had been hoisted onto 992’s side deck.

  “Easy with that, man! One of those little squibs would blow this boat into toothpicks!”

  There were no more warnings.

  What sort of mission? What kind of men would volunteer for it?

  They had studied the chart together; Kearton and Ainslie were down there now checking the final details for the rendezvous. Jethro was with them. All crammed into that confined space.

  The rest of the passengers were in the wardroom, with their odd assortment of weapons, light machine-guns, foreign-looking pistols, and knives. Two of them seemed to be Italian. Collaborators.

  Ainslie had said coldly, “Traitors, from another perspective!” and had not waited to be contradicted. “My aunt used to live in the Channel Islands. Jersey. There were a few of them there, too, when Jerry marched in!”

  Spiers reached out and stretched, loosening the taut muscles, trying to exercise them. He had always been a keen sportsman, playing cricket and tennis whenever he got the chance. He listened to the hull moving and creaking beneath him. When he had not been trying to sell insurance to people who had more money than sense …

  Turnbull murmured, “Skipper’s comin’ up, sir.”

  No matter what, the ship came first.

  Kearton was on the bridge now.

  “Another hour, maybe less. We’ll reduce to ten knots, so warn all hands. It will be a coaster, a schooner of some kind, if everything goes to plan.”

  Spiers asked, “And if it doesn’t, sir?”

  “We get the hell out, and try again later.” He must have touched Turnbull’s arm. “What d’you say?”

  “Roll on my twelve!” Turnbull said, and they both laughed.

  Spiers groped his way to the ladder. How could they make light of it? Pretend? All he could feel was anger.

  Now the motion was much worse, and spray flung aft from the stem clattered across the bridge like hail. Bad enough for the gun crews and lookouts, but in the engineroom it would be impossible to stand. Spiers would go through and along the hull, checking each man, making sure nothing had been displaced by the strain. He could be relied on, no matter what he might be thinking.

  Kearton tried to picture the different faces, as individuals and as a unit. Most of them had been in action of one kind or another, a few, like Turnbull and Spiers, many times. But together, at close quarters, never.

  Some of them must be thinking the same thing about their commanding officer.

  He sensed a movement behind him. Light-footed, untroubled by the swoops and rolls of the hull. He knew it was Jethro, if that was really his name.

  Despite the discomfort and the tension he smiled to himself, remembering the sailor’s loud remark about ‘soap and water’.

  “Soon now, Skipper,” and it was not a question. A brisk, cultured voice, at odds with his unkempt appearance. And very calm. Dangerously so. What made him, and those like him, volunteer for this type of duty? It was one thing to risk death, even to be killed in action, but to be caught and taken prisoner as a secret agent or saboteur was to invite a fate without mercy.

  Kearton felt the spray on his face, as cold as the North Sea.

  “We can only feel our way.”

  Jethro might have shrugged. “They will be there. They have no choice.”

  Ainslie had joined them, but remained unusually silent. Perhaps because of their passenger, the ‘specialist’, perhaps remembering his aunt in German-occupied Jersey.

  “Light, sir! Port bow!”

  A tiny red flash in the sky, then another: two pinpricks. But after the blackness, they seemed like thunderflashes.

  “Port ten. Midships.”

  It might still be a false alarm. Or a trap.

  Kearton heard the two-pounder swinging slightly, the machine-guns on the bridge wing already depressed toward the invisible horizon.

  He said, “Stand by.” He could not see it, but the Chief’s warning light would be flashing above the big Packard engines. Ready for full speed.

  He recalled Laidlaw’s calm assurance. “Old Growler can give you thirty knots at the ring of a bell, sir.” Then his thin smile. “With a following wind, anyway!”

  So different from his last command, forty knots flat out …

  “Stop engines!”

  The sudden silence seemed almost painful, the sea subdued as the way fell off the thrust.

  “Dead ahead, sir!”

  Kearton watched the other vessel, a shape darker than the night reaching out, then angled slightly to avoid impact.

  Ainslie murmured, “They saw us.”

  Jethro pushed past him. “Heard us.”

  There were masts now, loosely brailed sails, and the smell of fuel. Voices too, figures hurrying toward the point of contact.

  The machine-guns moved with them, and the Oerlikons. No chances even now. Especially now.

  Spiers was somewhere below the bridge, by the port torpedo, voice crisp and unhurried.

  There was
hardly any impact, but for a few long moments the two ill-matched hulls swayed together.

  Kearton turned from the side as Jethro called out, “To our next rendezvous!”

  Leading Seaman Dawson shouted, “All clear, sir!”

  The other vagrants had quit the wardroom with their lethal luggage, or if not, it was too late for them now.

  Kearton raised his binoculars, but the other vessel, the spectre, had already disappeared. As if he had imagined it.

  “Standing by, sir! When you’re ready.”

  He heard Ainslie stagger against something and the clink of his makeshift satchel, in which he carried dividers and parallel rulers, plus a clip of sharpened pencils. In case someone was tempted to ‘borrow’ them, as he put it.

  Pleased, relieved that his part of the rendezvous had gone without a hitch. Now the return to base, in time for a proper breakfast. Or another air raid.

  Kearton lowered the binoculars, but kept them inside his coat.

  “Not yet, Pilot. Give them time to get clear.”

  That would bring a few curses. The motion, if anything, was getting worse. He was fortunate that he had never yet suffered from seasickness. He heard someone groaning, and tried to close his mind to it. There was always a first time.

  He sensed that Spiers had returned to the bridge, the white scarf he usually wore on watch rising and falling against the screen with each roll.

  “All quiet?”

  Spiers might have been grinning. “Some of them are moaning, sir. Much longer?”

  Like Ainslie, he was eager to move, and saw no point in prolonging their discomfort. In the engineroom it would be ten times worse.

  Some of them are moaning. He could imagine it. The Skipper’s enjoying himself. Making his part seem important, and never mind the lads!

  Like those other times in the Channel and North Sea. The moments of waiting. Watching and listening for the slightest sign, which could blur the distinction between victor and victim.

  He stared at the sky, saw a few tiny stars, but only for a minute. If only … He touched the side, running with spray like rain. Back to Malta. Maybe there would be new orders waiting. Anything was better than this.