Atlantic Fury (16 page)

And then suddenly my seaman's instinct came alive and I was conscious that Stratton didn't intend to anchor. He had reduced speed, but the ship was going in, headed straight for the other landing craft. Wentworth was in the wheelhouse now. The Cox'n, too. And men were running out along the side decks, heading for the fo'c'stle platform. I caught the tail-end of Stratton's orders: ‘… heaving the lead and give the soundings in flashes on your torch. At two fathoms I'll go astern. Get the line across her then. Okay, Number One? Cox'n, you'll let go the kedge anchor when I give the word. And pay out on the hawser fast. I don't want to drag. Understand? We're almost at the top of the tide. We haven't much time.'

They left and Stratton swung himself up the ladder to con the ship from the square, boxed-in platform of the upper bridge. I followed him. ‘Slow ahead both engines,' he ordered down the voice pipe. Their beat slowed and the ship glided, moving steadily and irrevocably nearer the beach. The stranded LCT was growing larger all the time. A spotlight had been switched on and I could see the number on her bows – L4400 painted black on grey. Wentworth and his men on the fo'c'stle were picked out in the beam's glare.

Stratton lifted a phone from its hook. ‘All ready aft?' He stood, staring ahead, his eyes narrowed as he watched the approach of the shore. ‘Let her go.' He replaced the phone on its hook and the ship went on with no check to show that the kedge anchor had been dropped astern. A torch stabbed five flashes from the fo'c'stle. ‘Stop both engines.' The deck died under my feet. Four flashes. I could see the man heaving the lead, bracing himself against the fo'c'stle rail for the next throw. ‘Slow astern together.'

Three flashes. Then two. ‘Full astern both.… Stop both.' The ship hung motionless, heaving to the swell, staggering like a drunkard in the down-draughts. The howl of the wind came and went, a thousand demons yelling murder. The sound of the rocket was thin and insubstantial, but I saw the line curve out and fall across the stern of the other LCT. Men ran to grab it and a moment later a hawser was being paid out over our bows.

Just two minutes, and as the hawser was made fast, Stratton was on the phone again giving the order to winch in. For a moment nothing seemed to be happening. Up for'ard the lead was dropped again, the torch flashed twice. Then I felt the tug astern as the anchor bit to the power of the winch hauling in. Our bows were swinging towards the shore. From the compass platform I watched the sagging line of the hawser come dripping out of the sea, rise until suddenly it was bar-taut and shivering, all the water shaken off it. Our bows stopped swinging then. A ragged cheer came to us on the wind. Men in oilskins lined the beach, standing watching just clear of the surf. It was they who had cheered.

The bows swung back towards the other craft's stern. The hawser slackened momentarily; then tightened again and I sensed that the ship was straightened out now, a direct link between stern and bow hawsers. Stratton sensed it, too. ‘Slow astern both engines.' And as the screws bit, he ordered full astern. And after that we waited, tense for what would happen.

‘Either she comes off now …' The phone buzzed and Stratton picked it up. ‘… Well, let it labour … All right, Cox'n. But don't let the fuses blow. Just hold her, that's all. Leave the rest to the main engines.' He put the phone down. ‘The stern winch – bloody useless when you're in a jam.' His teeth were clenched tight, his face taut. ‘Something's going to give soon. Breaking strain on that kedge hawser is only about forty-five tons. Not much when you're trying to hold a thousand ton vessel. And right now the Cox'n's got to control both ships, and on top of that, there's the added weight of all that sand piled up round Kelvedon's bottom.'

Time seemed to stand still with the whole ship trembling and vibrating with the effort. I left the compass platform and went aft to the port rail of the flag deck. It was dark on that side. No glimmer of light and the screws streaming a froth of water for'ard along the port side, toppling the waves so that all the surface of the water was ghostly white. I felt a sudden tremor. I thought for a moment one of the hawsers had parted, but up for'ard that single slender thread linking us to L4400 remained taut as before. A faint cheer sounded and then I saw the stern of the other ship was altering its position, swinging slowly out towards us.

Stratton joined me. ‘She's coming. She's coming. Ross – do you see?' His voice was pitched high, exhilaration overlaying nervous tension. The stern swung out, the ship's profile thinning till she lay like a box end-on to us, and there she hung for a moment, still held by her bows, until suddenly we plucked her off and Stratton ordered the engine stopped for fear of over-running the stern hawser.

Ten minutes later both ships were out in the bay with their bow anchors down, manoeuvring under power to let go a second anchor. Ashore, men waded waist-deep in the surf to launch a dory. It lifted to the break of a wave and the oars flashed glistening in the floodlights. Clear of the surf, it came bobbing towards us, driven by the wind. We were at rest with both anchors down and the engines stopped by the time it came alongside. An oilskin-clad figure swung himself up the rope ladder and came dripping into the wheelhouse, a shapeless mountain of a man with tired brown eyes and a stubble growth that was almost a beard. ‘Nice work,' he said. ‘I was beginning to think we might be stuck here for the winter with a load of scrap iron on the beach.' He glanced around the wheelhouse. ‘Where's Major McDermott? He's needed ashore.'

‘I'll get him for you.' Stratton went out and the big man stood there dripping a pool of water from his oilskins, his face lifeless, dead with weariness.

‘Bad trip, eh?' His voice was hoarse and very deep. The words seemed wrung out of him as though conversation were an effort.

‘Pretty rough,' I said.

He nodded, briefly and without interest, his mind on something else. ‘The poor bastard's been screaming for hours.' And with that he relapsed into silence until McDermott appeared, his face paper-white and walking delicately as though not sure of his legs.

‘Captain Pinney? I'm ready when you are.' He looked in no shape to save a man's life.

‘Can you take Mr Ross ashore this trip?' Stratton asked.

‘May as well, if he's ready.' The tired eyes regarded me without enthusiasm. ‘I've received instructions from Major Braddock about your visit. It's all right so long as you don't stray beyond the camp area.'

It took me only a moment to get my things. McDermott was being helped down the rope ladder as I said goodbye to Stratton. I dropped my bag to the men in the dory and climbed down the steel side of the landing craft. Hands clutched me as the boat rose to the slope of a wave and then they shoved off and we were down in a trough with the sea all round us, a wet world of broken water. The oars swung and clear of the shelter of the ship the wind hit us, driving spray in our faces.

It wasn't more than half a mile to the shore, but it took us a long time even with the outboard motor. The wind coming down off the invisible heights above was so violent that it drove the breath back into one's throat. It came in gusts, flattening the surface of the sea, flinging it in our faces. And then we reached the surf line. A wave broke, lifting the stern, flooding the dory with water. We drove in to the beach in a seething mass of foam, were caught momentarily in the backwash, and then we touched and were out of the boat, knee-deep in water, dragging it up on to the concrete slope of the loading ramp.

That was how I came to Laerg that first time, in darkness, wet to the skin, with floodlights glistening on rain-soaked rock and nothing else visible – the roar of the surf in my ears and the wind screaming. It was a night I was to remember all my life; that and the following day.

We groped our way up to the road, staggering to the buffets of the wind. A Bailey bridge, rusted and gleaming with beads of water, spanned a burn, and then we were in the remains of the hutted camp. Everywhere the debris of evacuation, dismantled hut sections and piled-up heaps of stores and the mud shining slippery in the glimmer of the lights. The putter of a generator sounded in the brief intervals between the gusts and out in the darkness of the bay the landing craft were twin islands of light.

I was conscious then of a depressing sense of isolation, the elements pressing in on every hand – the sea, the wind, the heights above, grass and rock all streaming water. A lonely, remote island cut off from the outside world. And living conditions were bad. Already more than half the huts had been dismantled. Two more had been evacuated and officers and men were crowded together in the remaining three with the cookhouse filled with stores and equipment that would deteriorate in the open. They were living little better than the original islanders and working much harder. Everywhere men in glistening oilskins toiled in the mud and the wet and the cold, grumbling and cursing, but still cheerful, still cracking the occasional joke as they manhandled hut sections down to the loading beach or loaded trailers with stores.

Pinney took us to his office, which was no more than a typewriter and a table beside his bed in the partitioned end of a hut that was crammed with other beds. The beds were mostly unmade, with clothing and odds and ends of personal effects scattered about; the whole place told a story of men too tired to care. Pinney's bed was no tidier than the rest, a heap of blankets thrown aside as he'd tumbled out of sleep to work. The two other officers' beds were the same and they shared the end of the hut with the radio operator and his equipment. ‘Cigarette?' Pinney produced a sodden packet and McDermott took one. His hands were trembling as he lit it. ‘If you'd like to get cleaned up …' Pinney nodded vaguely to the wash basin. ‘Or perhaps you'd prefer a few minutes' rest.…'

McDermott shook his head. ‘Later perhaps – if I have to operate.' His face looked shrunken, the bones staring, the skin grey and sweating. He seemed a much older man than when he'd come aboard. ‘I'll have a wor-rd with Captain Fairweather now and then I'd like to have a look at the laddie.'

‘There's not much of him left to look at, and what's there is barely alive.' Pinney glanced at me. ‘I'll be back shortly.' They went out and I got my wet things off, towelled myself down and put on some dry underclothes. The only sound in the hut was the faint hum from the radio, the occasional scrape of the operator's chair as he shifted in his seat. He had the earphones clamped to his head, his body slouched as he read a paperback. He alone in that camp was able to pierce the storm and leap the gap that separated Laerg from the outside world.

The sound of the work parties came to me faintly through the background noise of the generator and the rattle of a loose window frame. I lit a cigarette. The hut had a musty smell, redolent of damp and stale sweat. Despite the convector heating, everything I touched was damp; a pair of shoes under Pinney's bed was furred with mould, the paper peeling from his books. A draught blew cold on my neck from a broken pane stuffed with newspaper.

I was sitting on the bed then, thinking that this was a strange homecoming to the island of my ancestors, and all I'd seen of it so far was the camp litter of the Army in retreat. They were getting out and I thought perhaps old Grandfather Ross was laughing in his grave, or was his disembodied spirit roaming the heights above, scaling the crags as he'd done in life, waiting for the island to be returned to him? Those eyes sometimes blue and sometimes sea-grey, and the beard blowing in the wind – I could see him as clearly as if I was seated again at his feet by the peat fire. Only Iain was missing; somehow I couldn't get Iain back into that picture. Every time I thought of him it was Braddock I saw, with that twitch at the corner of his mouth and the dark eyes turned inwards.

Laerg and Alasdair Ross – they went together; they fitted this dark, wet, blustery night. But not Braddock. Braddock was afraid of Laerg and I found myself thinking of death and what Iain had once said. I got up from the bed then, not liking the way my thoughts were running, and went over to the radio operator. He was a sapper, a sharp-faced youth with rabbity teeth. ‘Are you in touch with Base all the time?' I asked him.

He looked up from his paperback, pushed one of the earphones up. ‘Aye.' He nodded. ‘I just sit on my backside and wait for them to call me.'

‘And if you want to call them?'

‘Och weel, I just flick that switch to “Send” and bawl into the mike.'

As simple as that. The radio was an old Army set, the dials tuned to the net frequency. Contact with Base was through the Movements Office. There a Signals operator sat by another set of the same pattern. The only difference was that it was linked to the camp switchboard. ‘You mean you can talk direct to anybody in Northton?'

‘Och, ye can do more than that, sir. Ye can talk to anybody in Scotland – or in England. Ye can get the bluidy Prime Minister if you want.' They were linked through the Military Line to the G.P.O. and could even ring up their families. ‘A've heer-rd me wife speaking to me fra a call-box in Glasgie an' her voice as clear as a bell. It's no' as gude as tha' every time. A wee bit o' static sometimes, but it's no' verra often we canna get through at all.'

A small metal box full of valves and coils and condensers, and like an Aladdin's lamp you could conjure the whole world out of the ether, summoning voices to speak to you out of the black, howling night. It was extraordinary how we took wireless for granted, how we accepted it now as part of our lives. Yet fifty, sixty years ago … I was thinking of the islanders, how absolutely cut off they had been in my grandfather's time. There had been the Laerg Post, and that was all, the only means of getting a message through to the mainland; a sheep's inflated stomach to act as a float, two pieces of wood nailed together to contain the message, and the Gulf Stream and the wind the only way by which it could reach its destination. It had worked three or four times out of ten. At least, that's what my grandfather had said. And now this raw little Glaswegian had only to flip a switch.