Decoy (19 page)

‘I don’t want everyone firing from the poop, though,’ Ned said firmly. ‘We’ll never keep track of who’s doing what, and in the excitement someone will empty a magazine into his next door neighbour’s navel! So spread them out – between the two hatches forward, wing of the bridge, along the boat deck, and so on.’

Jemmy asked: ‘What if the fellows forward sink the drum before it reaches the bridge?’

‘Give them a box of chocolates and bring me my smelling salts,’ Ned said. ‘Don’t forget the Sten is a short-range weapon. You’re more likely to sink the drum with Captain Painter’s 4-inch on the poop.’

‘Oh yes, why don’t we suggest to Painter that he gives his chaps some practice with the 4-inch?’ the Croupier exclaimed.

Ned eyed him coldly. ‘Are you mad? Do you want to be on the poop squirting away with a Sten while those DEMS gunners are right behind you with a loaded 4-inch? You’d get blown over the side with the muzzle blast!’

‘True, true,’ the Croupier agreed. ‘It could also scorch my lovely locks.’

‘Not only that,’ Ned said, ‘It can destroy the balance chambers in your ears. A friend of mine has just had the left one destroyed, so he progresses in circles to the right, walking into the arms of fat old ladies. He created a sensation as he ambled down Oxford Street. Or at least, he did until he called in at Swaine, Adeney and Brigg and bought himself a decent walking stick. Now he uses it to make his own straight line.’

‘A right-winger, eh? Ought to go in for politics.’

‘It’s not so funny having balance problems. In fact this chap gets dizzy and he uses a shooting stick, not an ordinary walking stick. When he feels dizzy he opens up the stick and sits on it, just as though he’s at the butts waiting to pot a passing pheasant.’

‘Must alarm people, seeing a chap sitting on a shooting stick in Oxford Street.’

‘No doubt. Doesn’t bother him though – they’d be even more alarmed if he fell flat on his face in front of them.’

‘Very well, Ned, point taken, beware of muzzle blast. Now, with a couple of men at each position, and perhaps ten spaced out along the boat deck, shooting clear of the boats, we should have sixteen blazing away. If I can squeeze in another seven it means we all get a shot or two at the barrel.’

‘Yes, do what you can. The three of us had better be on the poop.’

‘To watch the drum sink!’ the Croupier said cheerfully.

‘To watch it float past entirely unharmed,’ Ned said.

‘Oh, come
on
, Ned don’t be so gloomy.’

‘You should have seen us in the
Aztec
when the Teds dive-bombed us in the Bay. We fired thousands of rounds of 20 mm Oerlikon and .303 Vickers at ’em, but they trumped us.’

‘You should have had your chum at the wheel – the one who keeps turning to the right!’ Jemmy said.

‘We were doing high-speed turns all the time: as far as those Ted bombers were concerned they were shooting at snipe.’

‘Two snipe with two barrels,’ Jammy said, ‘that’s the mark of a good shot.’

‘I know,’ Ned said, ‘but those Ju 88s carried four bombs each, so for them it was one snipe with four barrels.’ He remembered that last half an hour, with the
Aztec
leaking from damage caused by near-misses. ‘One snipe flying on one wing.’

The Croupier nodded sympathetically. ‘Still, I guarantee we’ll sink that first drum before it gets abreast the bridge.’

Jemmy jerked his head in a twitch which thumped the bulkhead. ‘Okay, I’ll hold the stakes. Who’s betting what?’

‘Case of champagne that we sink it before it reaches the bridge!’ the Croupier said.

‘Very well, a case that you don’t!’ Ned said.

‘Oh no you don’t, Ned,’ the Croupier said firmly. ‘You said it would float past the poop unharmed.’

Ned sighed. ‘This is taking champagne from babies. Very well, you say it’ll sink before it’s abreast the bridge and I say it’ll reach the poop unharmed. Case of champagne and Jemmy’s the witness and judge.’

‘Agreed,’ said the Croupier. ‘But we’d better check with the ship’s chief steward that he
has
a case of champagne.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Jemmy said. ‘If no champagne, its cost equivalent, but these ships are well provisioned – they stock up with whatever’s going wherever they call. D’you know why we eat such glorious steaks? Last trip took the
City of Norwich
to New York, where the chief steward stocked up with choice steaks from Chicago.’

The next day was not very typical for the North Atlantic in winter. The wind was about Force 5 on the Beaufort Scale and from the south-west, and (on this leg of the zigzag) the
City of Norwich
was steaming south-west at revolutions for sixteen knots. Ned was standing on the bridge muffled in duffel coat, woollen balaclava helmet and two pairs of gloves: an inner pair of silk (Clare had cadged them from an RAF pilot patient) to keep his left hand warm, and an outer of thick wool. The wind seemed as sharp as a knife, whipping round the men on the bridge at better than thirty knots.

The
City of Norwich
’s bow was rising and falling as she butted into swell waves, so that the seamen on the fo’c’sle had to hold on with one hand as they hauled the big, empty oil drum to the starboard side. Ned knew how difficult such a seemingly easy job could be: as the bow dropped one seemed to become weightless, and it was difficult to walk, as in a dream. Then, as the bow began rising, one’s weight increased. He had seen men having to work on the foredeck of a destroyer in a seaway alternately forced to their knees and then spreading out their arms like wings to keep balanced.

Painter looked at the Sten guns. Yorke’s was slung over his shoulder but the Chief Officer, Harding, could not get used to such a small weapon: it could not be held with the butt under the arm like a shotgun, and he was not used to handling a gun that was a cross between an automatic and a 12-bore shotgun in size.

‘You look like somebody’s grandma trying to make up her mind whether to rob the bank or nip into the White Swan for a glass of Guinness and an arrowroot biscuit.’ Painter told Harding unsympathetically, adding hastily: ‘And don’t point the blasted thing at me!’

‘It’s such an odd shape,’ Harding grumbled. ‘This butt thing – it’s just a piece of gas pipe welded on to the breech and with a flat plate to go against your shoulder. Butt, I suppose you’d call it.’

Ned nodded sympathetically. ‘Just imagine you were a commando with a blackened face creeping through a blackberry hedge with it. Respirator, webbing belts all over the place, spare magazines, probably a water bottle as well – you’d be glad of a nice simple gun. A Purdey is best for rocketing pheasant, but give me a Sten for battling the Wehrmacht at close range on a dark night.’

‘What about the Thompson sub-machine gun?’ Harding asked nervously.

Ned remembered a brief course on the different types of small arms that were coming over from the United States and Canada, held in a quarry near Glasgow. The instructor, a raw-boned sergeant from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, was clearly bored stiff with having to explain the same weapons week after week to what he no doubt regarded as a supercilious and idle bunch of naval officers.

Browning automatic rifles, Ross bolt-action from the First World War, Springfield which was very much like it, Hotchkiss machine guns… Different ammunition, too: none of the British .303 with rim – now it was .300 rimless. And then came the famous Tommy gun with the round drum, reminding one of the film
Scarface
, with Paul Muni, and gangs fighting for control of Chicago. Well, God knows how they did it with Tommy guns, unless the chatter of them firing made the enemy drop dead from fear. All the gangster films where the villains poked Tommy guns through car windows, and, a cold smile on their faces, proceeded to riddle the targets in the next cars with magazines full of bullets, had turned out to be sheer rubbish.

The only way to fire a Thompson sub-machine gun accurately (at least those early models with the circular drum magazines) was to have an elephant sitting on the foresight to keep the barrel down. Ned had been the first to be chosen at the quarry to fire the damned gun, and the dour sergeant had made no mention of recoil: he gave the impression that the gun was the answer to the German Schmeisser, and a dozen men from his regiment equipped with it could liberate Holland and, with a few extra magazines and a packet of sandwiches, Belgium as well.

The gun had fitted the body snugly: butt tucked in under the right arm and the pistol grip and trigger nicely placed for the right hand, and the left hand on the grip forward of the magazine. As the sergeant explained, it was a piece of cake. Fire a few rounds from the hip, sir, the sergeant had said: sense where you’re aiming, like a cowboy with a six-gun.

Squeeze the trigger…and the gun started climbing, hammering away like a run-amok pneumatic drill with the muzzle lifting and combining with the recoil, becoming too much for the left hand to hold down. So stop firing – but the bloody gun leaping up and forward like a seasoned warhorse meant he could not get his finger off the trigger: the gun pressed forward and up and up and up and – then it stopped firing.

‘You’ll find the magazine is empty now, sir,’ the sergeant said laconically. ‘The magazine release is – ah, that’s it sir. Ran away with you, did it?’

‘Runs away with everybody, I should think,’ Ned had said sourly, ears ringing and so deafened he could hardly hear what the man was saying.

‘Those American gangsters you see on the films seem to have the hang of them,’ the sergeant said, fitting another magazine, ‘and I’m told they’re sending over straight magazines, instead of these things that look like what my mum baked flans in, but nothing’ll ever make ’em any good for anything but scarin’ birds in a cherry orchard.’

And that, Ned remembered, had been an accurate assessment. By comparison the Sten handled like a tame dove.

‘The Thompson sub-machine gun?’ he asked Harding. ‘Well, if you can imagine trying to handle a well-greased hysterical pneumatic drill which has no “off” switch, then you’ll know!’

‘But in the films –’

‘In the films,’ Ned said, ‘the heroine can kiss the hero a dozen times and his hair stays straight and so does hers, and her lipstick… You try it and you’ll find you’ve got lipstick all over your collar –’

‘–and she’s cussing you for messing up her hair!’ Painter interrupted. ‘But Commander, I think they’re ready on the fo’c’sle to let the first drum go.’

Ned saw the muffled figures standing beside one drum which was ready to be pitched over. ‘Very well, I’ll go aft and wait on the poop. When I wave with both arms, perhaps you’ll pass the word. I’ll wave each time we’re ready for another barrel. I see we have six, thanks to Mr Harding and the Chief Engineer.’

Painter nodded. ‘Since Mr Harding is going to be firing his share of the bullets that will defeat Hitler, I’ll handle the telephone to the fo’c’sle. I’ll make sure they drop it promptly when I give the order.’

As Ned clambered down the companionway on his way to the poop, Painter went into the wheelhouse and picked up one of the telephones, pressing the call button below it.

Through one of the horizontal slits in the armour plating blocks of special concrete on the forward side of the bridge, he saw the third officer, muffled in oilskins against the spray, move across the fo’c’sle to answer the ’phone, normally only used for passing orders and reports when the ship was anchoring or weighing. Painter gave him his orders and put down the telephone.

He turned to the quartermaster, a thin and lugubrious-looking man wearing a knitted red woollen hat, a thick jersey of unbleached wool, which Painter guessed was a gift from one of the Australian or New Zealand organizations which sent gifts for seamen, and a pair of Navy bell-bottom trousers, bought or exchanged from one of the DEMS gunners. For all his sad appearance, this man was one of the ship’s wits and practical jokers, as well as being one of the two best quartermasters.

‘Judkins – a nice straight course, eh?’ He glanced up at the clock on the bulkhead behind Judkins where he stood at the wheel, and saw from the settings of the contacts that the next zigzag was not due for twenty minutes. ‘We’ve got to give them a fair chance of hitting the drums.’

‘Ho yes, sir,’ Judkins said. ‘After all, we’re all on the same side.’ With that he sucked his teeth and bent his head to peer at the compass in front of him. ‘I can keep her within three degrees either side of the course.’

‘Good enough.’ With that Painter went out to the starboard side of the bridge, where he had a good view of the poop with its solitary 4-inch gun and three men wearing duffels and holding Sten guns. He then saw that the 4-inch gun’s regular DEMS crew were over on the port side, out of the way.

He could just distinguish Ned by his distinctive stance and waved in acknowledgment as he saw him lift both arms in the air. He went back into the wheelhouse, picked up the fo’c’sle telephone and as soon as the third officer answered said: ‘First barrel over the side, and make sure it lands well outboard.’

By the time he was outside again he heard the rapid stuttering of the Stens of the two men abreast the foremast and a few moments later froze for a moment, even though he was expecting it, as Harding opened fire, followed a moment later by the Marine sergeant, who was in the gun position with him. The Marine was cursing, but Harding was happily shooting short bursts. Then more Stens opened fire from the boatdeck as the drum passed down the ship’s side and Painter saw the three men on the poop lift their guns and fire in what seemed a casual manner. He caught sight of the drum and saw it was much closer to the ship than he expected. If any of those bullets ricocheted against the ship’s hull by way of the engine room, there would be complaints from the Chief Engineer that he had not been warned.

‘Chiefie’ was, as an exasperated Harding had once exclaimed, ‘a long unshaven complaint wrapped up in a sweat rag’. But Harding had never been on board with Chiefie when the
City of Norwich
had been in convoy. In the early days, before independent sailing was either the policy or organized, she had at times been in 6-knot convoys. Station-keeping was a nightmare, with the helmsman’s two-hour watch leaving the man worn out with the concentration of keeping the lubberline against the course on the compass card. Worse, because it took longer for the correction to come into effect, was the changes in speed. The officer on watch, seeing that the ship was creeping up on her next ahead, would telephone down to the engine room (engine room telegraphs being a thing of the past in wartime) to say ‘Up two revs, please,’ or ‘Down three revs, please,’ and if Chiefie had answered hastily putting down the receiver before the explosion, which was invariably preceded with a rumbling: ‘You silly buggers up there don’t…’ Like all merchant ships there was a sharp division between ‘deck’ and ‘engine room’. In most ships where it was a rule that all officers eating in the saloon had to be properly dressed in uniform (which meant leaving lifejacket and steel helmet in a pile outside the door), the engineers preferred to eat in their own mess where they need not scrub up and wear uniform, especially if they were in the middle of a massive overhaul of some piece of machinery which would coat them in oil and grease.