Back to Battle (30 page)

The following day, determined not to do what he’d so disastrously done before, he set off to find Charley. Hugh’s impending wedding seemed a good excuse, because Rumbelo had mentioned that, since she knew everybody concerned, it would be nice if she could be there.

He took the train to Dover, but the woman who opened the door to the flat where she’d lived was a stranger, the wife of a British colonel in training in the area. She had no idea where Charley had gone and, even at the Castle, there was no one who knew.

‘She went to London, I think,’ he was told. ‘Somebody said she was going to get married.’

Depressed by the news, he borrowed a telephone and rang the Admiralty but nobody there knew her name.

‘How about Upfold? She might be using her unmarried name.’

There was another long silence. ‘No. Nobody called Upfold here except the porter. He wouldn’t be any relation, would he?’

‘No,’ Kelly said slowly. ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

Determined not to be beaten, he dialled Directory Inquiries and badgered them for a quarter of an hour. But of all the Upfolds and Kimisters available there was none that could possibly be Charley. Finally, he had a brainwave and obtained Mabel’s number. If anyone knew where she was, Mabel would. But when he rang the number in North Wales he’d been given, it wasn’t Mabel who answered but another woman.

‘She left here over a year ago,’ she told him. Some time after Dunkirk, I believe. Her husband was posted to some job in Scotland but I’ve no idea where.’

Still undefeated, Kelly found an army list, discovered what he could about Mabel’s husband then, ringing Army Records, learned that he’d been promoted brigadier.

‘Where is he now?’

‘In India.’

‘How about his wife?’

‘The last address we’ve got is North Wales.’

Slowly, flattened, Kelly put the telephone down, then, disappointed and suddenly lacking interest, he took the train back to London. Almost the first man he met at the Admiralty was Corbett. He looked old, as if the work of the last two years had aged him.

‘I heard you were on your way home,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad. Things are beginning to move here now that the Americans are in with us, and I think before the end of the year we’ll see quite a change.’ He smiled. ‘It looks like being an American war from now on, of course, with us as junior partners, but at least they’ve got all the right ideas and it’s become policy to bring home everybody who’s likely to be needed for a second front. I hear you’re getting the cruiser, Chichester.’

‘Chichester?’ Kelly frowned. ‘There must be better cruiser captains than me.’

Corbett smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But you’ve also got Sarawak and the destroyers Marlow, Meteor and Morris to make up a new group, Force T. You’re not captain of Chichester. You’ll be flying your flag in her. You’re being upped to Rear-Admiral.’

It was strange to be consorting with the mighty.

Since there was little point in going to Thakeham, Kelly went instead to Liphook to see Latimer to check on his state of health and, finding him recovered, recruit him for his staff. Using his telephone, he also contacted Seamus Boyle, who was in Bath, and got him appointed as his secretary. Rumbelo went without saying because he’d been nagging at him all weekend to get him out of going to Scapa. It was exciting to be able to work small miracles and pleasant to see his name in print: ‘Rear-Admiral Sir Kelly Maguire.’ The ‘Sir’ was a bit of a cheat, of course, because he’d only inherited that, but it sounded good all the same.

He felt he couldn’t let the occasion go without informing First Officer Jenner-Neate but he was just sitting down to write the following day when a telegram arrived.

‘Congratulations. Just noticed.’ The signature, ‘Helen Jenner-Neate,’ was as dignified as she was herself.

There was a lot to do. He had to call on Gieves to order a new uniform and have all his gold braid changed, and it gave him a lot of pleasure to be asked to a party at the Dorchester that was attended by cabinet ministers, admirals, generals, air marshals and actresses by the dozen.

Hugh and Paddy were married at Thakeham in July. The weather was good but spirits were a little dampened by the continuing Japanese successes in the Far East and the fact that the Eighth Army had just been flung back almost to the gates of Cairo. But Hugh was recovering quickly and Paddy was pulling out all the stops to get herself appointed to a hospital ship in Glasgow, because Hugh had been told he was being given a shore job there.

Curiously, there was still no sign of Kelly being ordered to his new command, which was lying at Belfast, and he began to wonder if Corbett had been wrong. Nobody was saying anything, however, and a succession of unimportant jobs suitable for his new rank was found for him at the Admiralty. But none of them seemed to lead anywhere and he began to wonder even if he’d gone wrong somewhere and he was being shunted into a backwater. Corbett was suddenly secretive, too, giving nothing away, and he came to the conclusion that his new command was the shortest he’d ever held. To get his hands on two cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers was what every naval man asked and to have them snatched away again before he’d even seen them was hard to bear.

He was on leave and weeding the garden at Thakeham when a signal arrived ordering him to report at once to the Admiralty with a view to flying to Gibraltar, and he came to the gloomy conclusion that his hopes of a command at sea had finally disappeared out of the window.

To his surprise, he found Boyle waiting for him and, with the Afrika Korps suddenly in full retreat after a massive battle at El Alamein and the Eighth Army whooping after them in full cry under a general called Montgomery who was known to the public only for his odd habit of wearing more than one badge in his hat, they could only assume that their unexpected appointment had something to do with the Med.

At Gibraltar, Kelly was once again sworn to secrecy and informed there was to be a major landing on the North African coast. The date was governed by the need to help the Russians and to avoid the deterioration in the weather. The Americans were running the affair and Eisenhower, the American general in command, despite a lack of battle experience, was proving enormously popular with the officers beneath him.

Cunningham was there, too, and it was he who briefed Kelly. He grinned in his usual way, quite unabashed at having summoned him to his side. ‘Sorry about Force T,’ he said. ‘But this other thing came up and when your name was mentioned we had to hold that in abeyance for the time being, because you’re more use here for the moment. This operation’s going to provide the second arm of a pincer that’ll finish the Germans for good and all in North Africa, make the Mediterranean and Malta safe, and provide a springboard into Europe. There’ll be three main landings, at Algiers and Oran inside the Med and at Casablanca on the Moroccan coast. In addition there’ll be a smaller landing at Hellilah to secure the port installations there for further moves eastward.’

‘And me, sir?’

Cunningham smiled. ‘There’s always a snag, isn’t there?’ he said. ‘The assault was originally to have been entirely American but in the end some of the troops are going to have to be British, though we’re keeping ’em well hidden under the American cloak. However, there’s still a fear that the French are going to resist and we’ve laid on a few cloak-and-dagger operations to contact their key men. Mark Clark’s being embarked by submarine to land west of Algiers and you’re for Hellilah.’

‘Why me, sir?’

‘Because you speak French and so does your secretary, and we have a Frenchman there who says he can do a deal if he meets a man with the right standing. He mentioned your name. Admiral Buzon. Know him?’

‘Never heard of him, sir.’

‘Well, he’s heard of you and he’s hoping to bring his people in behind us. It’ll be your job to make sure he knows exactly what we want – chief among which are undamaged port installations. We have a French pilot and a Desoutter four-seater, and he’s going to fly you and Boyle to Ain Aflou where there’ll be fuel. From there you’ll go to Amimoun where Admiral Buzon’s car will be waiting for you. Boyle’s to know nothing of all this in advance, by the way. He’s here merely to make sure no linguistic errors creep in. You’ll be flown to your new command as soon as it’s over.’

The strain placed on Gibraltar’s resources and the organisation of auxiliary craft, tugs, tankers, colliers, ammunition vessels and special personnel by the coming invasion was tremendous, and the staff had established themselves in damp, airless offices under the Rock where Kelly was wheeled into Eisenhower. He was a tall man who explained the seriousness of the task.

‘There are a few of our people, I guess,’ he said, ‘who fancy that the French have only to know that the Americans are running the show to welcome us with open arms, and ships have loud-hailers on their bridges ready to make appeals to them.’ He gave an infectious grin. ‘So that they won’t think it’s a Gaullist or an Englishman making the announcement, we’ve picked Americans who speak French with bad accents. I guess we’re hoping it’ll have the same effect as Joshua’s trumpets at Jericho.’

‘Probably attract a terrific fire when they hear their language being massacred,’ Cunningham commented.

Eisenhower smiled and continued. ‘You have four days, and by the time you get back the convoys should be approaching Gibraltar. They’ll need to be assured that it’s not going to be too tough, because most of these guys are pretty green and we haven’t had the time to give them the final polish. You’ll be put on board the United States cruiser, Tyree, for the landing.’

The French pilot had a familiar look about him and Kelly recognised him as Leduc, the man who’d flown him into Santander in 1937. They left as soon as it was dark and an hour later were picking up Spanish Morocco. It was odd to look down, with the lights from the dials reflected on their faces, and think they were about to land in neutral, if not enemy, territory. Dimly-seen mountains swept back beneath them as they began to descend and, as the machine rattled to a stop on a stony airstrip, faces appeared in the dark alongside and there were muttered words in French. They didn’t leave the machine but they could tell they were at a high altitude from the brisk air. Men were busy on the wings with cans as the tanks were refilled, then there was a bang on the fuselage and a figure appeared in front of the nose to swing the propeller.

Lifting out of the darkness, Leduc turned east and they flew along the edge of the Little Atlas Mountains, navigating by dead reckoning, with all three of them checking to make sure there were no mistakes. Eventually, growing stiff and cold, they saw three lights winking at them from below in the shape of an L, and Leduc tilted the aircraft to sideslip in.

‘I hope you can do it,’ Kelly said.

‘I’ve been doing it for six months into France,’ Leduc smiled. ‘Dropping agents.’

As the machine rumbled to a stop, there was a bang on the door and a dark face appeared alongside. As they were led to a car they heard the aeroplane swing round and, as the car drew away, saw it moving off into the darkness.

Nobody spoke and they drove in silence for an hour over a road that seemed specially designed to shake the liver loose before eventually pulling up at an unlit house. Escorted between a high hedge of aloes on to a veranda, they moved through a door into total darkness. Then, as the door clicked behind them, the light went on.

Wondering if it were a trap, Kelly stared round him. There were half a dozen men in the room, all obviously French and, judging by the cut of their jibs, all-naval men. As he was still blinking, a door opened and a tall man with a lean face advanced towards them, smiling, his hand held out in greeting.

Kelly and Boyle exchanged quick glances and smiled back.

‘Archie Bumf!’

‘Admiral le Comte d’Archy de Boumfre-Bouzon,’ the man who had brought them said indignantly.

There was an enthusiastic and delighted greeting between the three of them, then wine and food were brought and even before they’d finished it they were getting down to work with directions, distances, lists and numbers.

‘True Frenchmen are waiting to welcome the forces of freedom,’ d’Archy announced. ‘There will have to be a fight, of course, because Darlan doesn’t like the British and it will be consonant with honour. But it won’t last long and, here, it will not take place at all. The lighthouse at Pou will be lit and we shall be holding a practice blackout to make the task easier. But you’ll have to be quick and if there’s any resistance it will come from the battery at Mersa-el-Fam where the commander has strange ideas about patriotism. A solitary salvo into the countryside behind should be enough to convince him that resistance would be pointless.’ Papers were pushed across. ‘These are the co-ordinates and we would prefer that the salvo did not land on the battery.’

Poring over the maps for the rest of the night, they slept during the next day. Leduc was waiting for them at Amimoun the following evening and the journey back to Ain Afrou was without incident. Leduc asked no questions and they refuelled quickly and were soon crossing the narrow strait in a south-east to north-west direction. Gibraltar, brilliantly lit, was impossible to miss and, as they touched down, they were met by a car and rushed up the winding road to the galleries in the Rock.

‘I think you’d better get some sleep,’ Kelly was told. ‘A Catalina will be leaving tomorrow to meet Tyree.’

The Catalina was an American aircraft with a British crew and, squatting in the blisters, they were flown directly north-west. The weather in the Atlantic was deteriorating and there were a few anxious faces. The Eighth Army was still chasing Rommel along the north coast of Africa and British submarines and surface ships were hammering every attempt to carry supplies to him. After three hours, they saw a vast collection of ships plodding doggedly eastwards and the Catalina landed on the water within reach of a destroyer, which put down a whaler.

It was difficult putting out an inflated dinghy and climbing into it in the seas that were getting up, and they even began to wonder if they’d make it. But the destroyer gave them a lee and they were soon on board the whaler and heading for Tyree.