Back to Battle (35 page)

Verschoyle was smiling. ‘I’ve got something for you, too,’ he said. ‘A bit of news.’

‘They’re giving me the Home Fleet?’

‘Eventually. But not yet. No, it’s not that. I’m on the track of Charley Upfold.’

‘What!’ Kelly sat bolt upright.

‘Steady on! I haven’t got much. I heard it from a chap who was in here till two days ago. She’s still with the Navy. Or was.’

‘Where, for God’s sake?’

‘She went to Ops Division Signals Room at the Admiralty. Some lecherous bastard called Lewis had his eye on her and got her there as his secretary.’

Kelly’s heart sank and Verschoyle grinned.

‘Nothing came of it, old son. I gather he was a bit of a shit and he was eventually sent to North Africa. He’s still there.’

‘And Charley?’

‘Well, she isn’t waiting for Lewis, because he turned out to be married with two kids.’

‘And now?’

Verschoyle’s smile died. ‘Well, there I’m stuck for a bit. You see, she left London.’

‘Where for?’

I don’t know. And neither does the Admiralty, so she’s not a Wren. But leave it to your Uncle Sherlock. When they let me out of here I’ll have nothing to do and it’ll stop me getting bored.’

Uncertain whether to feel depressed or encouraged by Verschoyle’s news, by September Kelly was back at sea and Chichester was full of American officers, naval, military and air. There was little to fear in the Mediterranean now but the Germans were sneaking U-boats past Spain armed with acoustic torpedoes which homed in on the sound of a ship’s propellers, and several ships had had their sterns blown off. They were also believed to be developing some sort of radio-controlled bomb, and ships were taking scientists to sea with special receivers to pick up the wavelengths.

Despite the fact that an advance into the Balkans towards Vienna seemed a good idea, somehow the American government was not in favour and they weren’t throwing their full weight behind the Italian campaign; but as the summer ended, Chichester and Sarawak found themselves moving west round Malta and Pantellaria with Force H from Gib, guarding the western flank. Sacks of orders had arrived on board and, though they knew there was to be another landing, they were still in the dark as to where it was to be.

‘I’ll bet the Germans have worked it out,’ Latimer said grimly. ‘I have – and I was supposed at school to be a bit dim. It has to have a suitable beach, it has to be near a major port and it has to be within fighter cover. It’s Salerno.’

The hot purple blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea was thick with north-bound shipping west of Sicily and east of Sardinia. Capri was fifty miles away and they were all waiting expectantly when Latimer appeared on the bridge, grinning.

‘Allied troops have landed at Salerno, sir,’ he said. ‘And the Government of Italy’s handed in its chips. They’ve surrendered. They’re coming in on our side.’

Kelly smiled. ‘If they do as well for us as they did for the Germans, Hitler’s got nothing to worry about.’

People were dancing in the squares of the twin towns of Messina and San Giovanni as they passed, with wild festivities, floodlit churches and fireworks, but the fact that the Germans hadn’t surrendered, too, was obvious when the Luftwaffe attacked just before midnight.

The first indication that something was happening was the crack of gunfire from the port side of the fleet. Immediately, the alarm sounded and the guns began to bang away. The barrage was too much and the German airmen failed to make much of their attack.

‘Timid as a bean-fed mare,’ Latimer said.

By this time, they’d learned that the Italian armistice terms included the immediate transfer of the Italian fleet to the allies and the requisitioning of merchant shipping, and during the early hours of next morning, they were instructed to accompany Warspite and Valiant to meet the Italian ships twenty miles north of Bone.

‘Second time round,’ Kelly observed dryly. ‘I did this in 1919, too, with the German High Seas Fleet. There’s nothing quite so dramatic as seeing your enemies coming in grovelling.’

After the dark days of Crete and Greece when Cunningham had run the Mediterranean Fleet on a shoestring, there was a strange emotion running through the ship, and they were off Bone at dawn when the Italians came in sight. As the two forces steamed towards each other at twenty knots, the gunnery officer was comparing their silhouettes with his cards. ‘I never thought in 1941 that I’d survive to see this,’ he said.

His eyes narrowed and as the Italian ships dropped anchor – two fifteen-inch battleships, Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio, five cruisers and nine destroyers – he voiced the hopes of every man on board.

‘Perhaps we can go home now,’ he said.

With the Italians out of the war, they had somehow expected to put the Med behind them, but the Americans at Salerno had run into trouble and the squadron was ordered to bring their great guns to bear. The hills were close and full of German artillery shelling the airstrips and landing places, and it was the Navy’s job to knock them out.

Observers were landed and in the sunshine they could see the leaping fountains of earth and stones and drifting smoke. How much damage they were doing it was hard to say but the American troops were enthusiastic. A heavy shell made the sound of an express train and the thought of an express train filled with high explosive passing overhead was always encouraging.

They were so close inshore, they could see soldiers stripped to the waist unloading stores, the great fifteen-inch shells from Warspite and Valiant flinging houses sky-high, and ammunition dumps going up in fearsome explosions of black smoke and debris.

Every hour or so, German fighters roared in with their cannon going, coming in low as they stood off the shore at night. The following morning, they moved in again, blotting out German positions as the Americans consolidated their grip. The thunder of the great guns provided a deep base to the battle, and the smaller armament of Chichester, Sarawak and two American cruisers, Savannah and Philadelphia, a higher-pitched counterpoint.

For two days and nights they hammered the shore, until the possibility of a large-scale disaster changed slowly to success, and for safety, Kelly sent for a copy of the Admiralty report on the new radio-controlled bomb.

‘Make to all ships,’ he said. ‘“In the event of attack by glider bombs, one officer is to do nothing but observe and report on the behaviour of the bomb.”’

Almost immediately, Rumbelo sang out.

‘High level bombers to starboard! About 16,000 feet!’

Unexpectedly the aircraft remained just out of range, then one of them peeled off and steered parallel to the group’s course at a distance of about five miles. As they watched, there was an orange flash beneath its wing and what looked like a smaller aircraft swung away towards them.

The bomb, fitted with stubby wings, was hurtling towards them at tremendous speed, and while it was still in flight, the next aeroplane peeled off and released another. Fighters were being used to distract attention, but Rumbelo, stationed on the bridge as usual, had long since developed a flair for picking out from the approaching aircraft those which were heading for the ship and those which were not.

‘Aircraft astern,’ he said calmly. ‘Coming up fast.’

‘Make to all ships,’ Kelly snapped. “‘Independent action.”’ The navigating officer had a man on either side of him reporting on the progress of the bomb, and they watched it pass overhead. Almost at once, there was a deep thump beyond Sarawak, which was turning in a tight circle to starboard, the bright sun catching the curve of her bows, and a column of brown smoke lifted into the air.

‘Morris hit,’ the midshipman sang out.

The next few minutes were extraordinarily exciting, with a calm sea and the spotting plane sitting like a vulture high in the sky. Morris was stopped and on fire, but her guns were still banging away, while the bigger guns of Chichester and Sarawak tried to reach the aeroplanes waiting to drop their bombs. The Oerlikon and Bofors crews were aiming at the approaching missiles and the petty officer telegraphist, knowing the bombs were controlled by radio, had put every set he had to transmit at full power in the hope of disturbing the enemy frequency; and they were all banging out ‘Balls to Hitler.’

‘Warspite’s been hit, sir,’ Latimer said. ‘She’s still firing but her steering seems to be jammed. There’s a tug going to her. Morris reports she’s still underway but her speed’s limited to fifteen knots. Savannah and Philadelphia also report hits.’

‘Here comes another,’ Rumbelo reported. ‘Straight for us!’

Kelly watched the bomb. The missiles were arriving at about four hundred miles an hour but it was obvious the controller in his aircraft could only change their direction and could not prevent them losing height.

‘I think a turn to starboard, Pilot,’ he said quietly, ‘and when it follows, hard a-port. That ought to fox it.’

Chichester was moving at full speed to starboard, and as the bomb followed her turn, the navigator ordered hard a-port so that the bomb, swinging after them again, stalled and splashed into the sea. From the time of sighting to its arrival had been only eight seconds.

With Salerno secure, the squadron was moved to Algiers and Kelly flew ahead, sitting on an uncomfortable bench in a Dakota troop carrier.

Cunningham, who was setting up a new headquarters at Naples, appeared only occasionally, and the supply of stores, repairs and maintenance of fleets and bases had almost broken down, so that Kelly, with other senior officers, found himself involved in reorganising it twelve months too late. He was glad to move to Naples in the New Year.

‘Same hard-arse aircraft as last time,’ he said to Boyle as they climbed aboard.

Cunningham informed him that his squadron was to move to the Tyrrhenian because there was a new landing at Anzio in the wind and organisation was difficult because the politicians were not prepared to postpone any landings across the Channel.

‘Plan seems to be a bit of a dog’s breakfast,’ he confided; ‘Alexander’s orders are clear enough but for once the Americans don’t seem to have the same sense of urgency.’

As they dropped anchor in Naples Bay, landing ships were waiting with their flotillas of assault craft hoisted at the davit heads. Orders came on board in sealed sacks and the briefings explained what had to be done. The Allies, it appeared, were in serious trouble at Cassino, and it seemed logical to use sea and air power to dislodge the Germans by landing behind their lines.

‘I just hope the Germans have been briefed how they’re supposed to act,’ Boyle said.

The destroyers remained underway all night, constantly dropping small charges because of the fear that frogmen might try to attach limpet mines to the troopships, and on every ship, young Americans were preparing their equipment with the introspective, dedicated concentration of men about to go into action, chewing gum, talking laconically and polishing their sub machine-guns.

They sailed in the evening to join up with the transports, followed astern by long lines of landing craft. Surprise was complete and the assault wave got ashore without a single casualty, but nobody had heard of Suvla Bay at Gallipoli in 1915, and the same sad story was played out again as the troops consolidated, and the whole object of the landing was lost on the first day.

During the evening, Dornier 217s appeared and the defensive pattern of dodging to sea with every gun and radio set going on full power to disorganise the glider bombs began. Alexander arrived from Naples in a destroyer, urbane, handsome and looking as if he’d just come out of a bandbox. He was worried because the general in command at Anzio had concentrated on getting his supplies ashore and had not pushed inland.

‘Looks like being a costly withdrawal instead of an advance,’ he said as he took a drink in Kelly’s cabin. ‘And if the casualties are high, the effect on the morale of cross-Channel invasion forces could be disastrous.’

Instead of withdrawing, however, he fired the general in command and put another in his place, and when he returned he looked even more pink, polished and unperturbed than ever.

‘Two years ago,’ he said, ‘the Germans would have pushed us back into the sea, but they seem to have lost their zip a bit and I think we shall hold.’

Anzio was monotonous and dangerous. Throughout February, supplies were poured ashore and the difficulties were added to by the bitter weather. From time to time, they returned to store and reammunition in Naples, which was a festering sore on the face of Italy, packed with narrow streets and mouldering houses all the worse for four years of war. It seemed to be full of starving children and girls of all ages selling themselves to the troops so that their families could eat. The Italian males, both the soldiers and the civilians, seemed to have lost their backbone and, with a vicious black market encouraged by the troops, it was a sick city full of corruption and distrust.

Anzio ground on. When it had started, the British had been joking that they’d soon be requisitioning the Coliseum in Rome for the opening of the Flat, but progress remained snail-like and during Match Kelly was more than delighted to receive a signal ordering Force T home. They arrived in the same bitter weather that they’d left, with cold winds and sleet. Off Land’s End, they were ordered to Plymouth but nobody seemed to expect them, and they were left kicking their heels in the Sound.

‘Shore staff seem as efficient as ever,’ Kelly observed tartly. ‘Better call my barge away, William, and I’ll go and tear ’em off a strip or two.’

A boat manned by Wrens who seemed to have been picked solely for their good looks passed them with the mail as they left the ship’s side. The acknowledgement to an admiral turned out to be smiles and waves, and Kelly grinned back. They were a joy to see, and the men leaning over the guard-rails seemed to think so, too. Sailors were lonely, sentimental creatures and were always ready to give affection to a pet or a girl friend, and the girls were already doing well in the form of cocoa, chocolate, cigarettes, even lipstick and silk stockings bought in Africa, which were tossed down with every kind of lewd suggestion and request to meet them at the dock gate, which they accepted with even wider smiles, language as basic as the sailors and not the slightest sign of embarrassment.