Dive in the Sun (8 page)

Duncan gave his slow smile. ‘We was out checkin’ the wire one day, when we ran into old Dick Masters, the constable. He told us he’d just got the griff about the boys pullin’ back to Dunkirk. I was so worked up about the mess the Pommies were makin’ of it I said I wanted to make for Cairns and join up. My old man didn’t even bat an eyelid.’ Duncan grinned affectionately. ‘He just waved his fist across our land—an’ we’ve got quite a piece—and he said, “I built this up from nothing! I’ve worked hard all me life, an’ I’ve seen drought, famine, death, good times, an’ bad, an’ I’ve made something for a man to be proud of. But d’you know, boy, the thing that still stands out most in my memory is the morning that me an’ my cobbers hit the beach on the Dardanelles. So I’m not goin’ to stand in
your
way now!”’

‘He must be a fine man,’ said Curtis quietly.

Duncan nodded. ‘He’s a, bloodthirsty old bastard, that’s for sure!’

Jervis was peering at the chart, his mind confused by the casual conversation. ‘It’s a long way from that village to the south coast. I wonder if we shall be able to contact the army all right.’

‘I got a brother in the Eighth Army,’ said Duncan slowly. ‘Reckon we should spot him soon enough.’

‘I didn’t know that, Steve.’ Taylor’s voice showed rare surprise at the secret.

‘Well, I didn’t want you to think I’m always boastin’; I’m a modest guy, y’know!’

As the clock turned down the hours, Curtis found that the preparations for leaving the boat helped to settle his nerves, and now that he had made his decision he felt a new feeling of relief overriding his other fears.

The compass got steadily worse, and once he surfaced the boat for the briefest period possible to try to fix his position.

He opened the hatch, half blinded by the dazzling sunlight, and more than apprehensive about what he might find.

The horizon was clear but for the thin white line of the distant headland. They were well off course, as he had feared, but still close enough inshore to pick out the twisted point marking the curve of the coast. Somewhere behind that line he knew he would find the village. As he swung his binoculars in a wide arc he saw a tell-tale wisp of smoke on the horizon, and even as he watched he saw three slim grey hulls scudding in a tight formation across the sparkling water. The sun beat down on his neck, warming his limbs and driving the stale, chilled cramp from his bones. Destroyers, and moving in fast. The hunt had started. In the far distance he could faintly hear the heavy drone of aircraft, probably taking off from the aerodrome at the rear of Vigoria.

The hatch clanged shut over his head, and the boat began to dive once more.

Duncan licked his lips. ‘Man, did you smell that air, George? I just can’t wait to get out of this can!’

Taylor nodded, and watched the compass closely. Outwardly calm, he was vaguely troubled by the new turn of events and the fact that he didn’t feel the security he had hoped for. He had thought that the only thing that mattered was to get the skipper and Steve together again. They seemed to be hitting it off all right, and the skipper appeared to be something like his old self again, but—he fidgeted in his seat—there
was
something else. The danger? He scoffed at himself with disgust. What was danger anyway? You couldn’t see it; you couldn’t feel it; so what the hell!

I hope we get back soon, he thought desperately. I don’t want Mum all worked up worrying about me. He sighed deeply, suddenly feeling his weariness. Everybody worrying about somebody else. Makes you sick! The compass swung lazily, mocking him, and he muttered obscenely under his breath.

‘Want me to take over?’ Jervis sounded strange, too.

‘No. I’m not dead yet!’ he answered shortly. Bloody regular officers, he reflected with sudden anger. Nice as pie when things were going wrong, but once out of a jam and they were trying to ram rank down your throat.

Jervis sank down on the deck, feeling lost and at the same time in the way. He sat heavily on the coaming of the diving compartment watching the other three as if he was looking in from outside the boat and their world. The cold excitement of leaving the boat and cutting the net, followed by the nerve-stretching attack on the dock, left him weak and limp, and what might have been the greatest moment in his life, and the conclusion to a great episode in his career, had suddenly widened into something frightening and unreal. He watched Curtis searching through the lockers, a lock of his fair hair falling across his grimy face as he tossed unwanted articles aside with little grunts of impatient irritation and built up a small pile of equipment beside him on the oil-smeared deck.

Duncan stared woodenly at his controls, his hands and shoulders moving slightly at each perverse swing of the little boat, but from the faraway expression in his eyes Jervis could tell that he was already scheming and plotting over the next few hours, which might well decide whether they would live or die.

Jervis shook his head jerkily as a wave of fatigue brought the damp ache into his bones to replace his fading energy. He stared round at the unheeded and dripping hull, all at once realizing just how important the tiny boat was to all of them. It was not just a weapon of war, another machine of destruction, but the very breath of their existence. Take it away,
or
just abandon it, and they were all naked and out of their element. He wanted desperately to burst out with his ideas to the others, but something akin to a hidden pride checked him, and he sat staring from one face to the other, and tried to fathom out the exact course which events might take.

He had considered most possibilities in the past, but all his ideas had included the Navy and everything that went with it. He had always been surrounded and protected by it, and had been brought up to rely on the strange tradition and comradeship of the Service, which was more like a religion. Everywhere he had been he had always been surrounded by others of his own mould, and he had imagined himself after this operation, stepping ashore in Malta or Alexandria, and finding himself right back amongst the safety of the only life he understood. He could not bring himself to realize, even partly, just what it would be like suddenly to find himself washed ashore on some unknown beach, like a piece of flotsam discarded by the sea, and to find a way through a country which hitherto had been merely a collection of superior holiday resorts in his own experience, and was now a sullen, alien territory, with every sort of danger and hazard to keep him and his companions from reaching safety.

He nearly screamed aloud when Duncan started to talk about his father, and Curtis had begun to question the Australian about his farm and that distant life. It was crazy and unreal, and as if they were two strangers passing the time on a long-distance train journey, especially when, a short time previously, the skipper had been almost on the point of striking Duncan while the enemy dock had groaned threateningly overhead. And what was all that about murdering the previous diver? Jervis looked carefully at Curtis’s set face and cold eyes as if he might find the answer there.

Curtis paused in his search and glanced up quickly, scanning the boy’s face questioningly. ‘Get out of that diving suit, Ian,’ he snapped, ‘and start smashing it up, and all the other diving gear. Got it?’

Jervis coloured and dropped his eyes, as if caught out in his thoughts, and began to struggle out of his suit. So there
was
no chance of a change of plans. It was all decided, and they were going to abandon the boat. He had held on to the forlorn hope that perhaps the damage wasn’t quite so serious, and that there might still be a chance of making for the rendezvous.

As if in answer, Taylor let free a stream of curses as the compass danced madly in its case.

Jervis thought of the towing submarine’s cosy wardroom and the smell of closely-packed, friendly bodies, and the buzz of casual but steadying conversation, which spelled safety and hope. He bent over his task, his eyes stinging with tears and loneliness.

Curtis sighed and sat back on his haunches to survey the pile of gear beside him.

‘I think that’s about all,’ he was thinking aloud. ‘Tinned food and chocolate. A torch, two escape maps, and a couple of grenades.’

Duncan smiled bleakly. ‘Not exactly a campin’ outfit, is it? Still, I daresay we’ll get by.’

Curtis eyed him, his blue eyes troubled. ‘I’m not looking forward to it myself, you know!’

He was amazed that he was able to think so clearly again, and that the ache of fear only lurked in his heart and not in his limbs. Perhaps it was because something outside his own will had taken over command of his actions, or maybe it was just the inevitability of disaster.

‘Matter of fact,’ continued Duncan calmly, ‘I’m thinkin’ it might be quite amusin’!’ He released one hand from a lever to wave down the obvious protest. ‘No, quite seriously, it’ll be a sort of change for us.’ He looked around the control-room, taking in the dirt and disorder, and the crumpled figures of the others. ‘It’s time we got shot of this for a bit. We ought to find the trip back quite interestin’!’ He laughed impetuously. ‘Say, Ralph, what a lark it’d be if we captured Mussolini or somethin’ like that!’ He chuckled and rolled his eyes. ‘Might even latch on to some little Eye-tie senorita, too! They say the sheilas round here are quite somethin’!’

He looked across at Jervis’s stooped head, and his eyes
crinkled
into narrow slits. ‘Why, the boy he’d be really learnin’ a few things!’

Jervis smiled weakly, but didn’t answer.

‘See? He’s thinkin’ about it already.’

Jervis licked his dry lips. ‘I was just wondering about the strength of the enemy around this part of the coast,’ he said at length, his voice quiet and unsteady.

‘Strength of the beer more like! Christ, what wouldn’t I give for a dirty great pint of Tooths’ beer right now!’ Duncan smacked his lips noisily.

Curtis was watching Jervis with sudden interest, and waved the Australian into silence. The boy had changed. He looked as he himself had felt such a short time ago. And with Taylor already showing signs of strain, it was cutting down their slim chances even more.

‘How d’you mean, Ian?’ he asked casually. ‘What have you got in mind?’

Jervis swallowed hard, his face pale. ‘What I mean is, Skipper, do you think there’ll be many German troops around here, or will the Italians be in control?’

‘It doesn’t make a lot of difference, surely? We have to avoid them all, that’s the only certainty we have. Don’t imagine that the Eye-ties are soft, because they’re not, and remember, it’s their country we’re messing about.’

‘That’s right,’ said Duncan brightly. ‘So long as they only outnumber you twenty to one, you’ll find ’em pretty tough!’

Jervis looked across at Curtis with something like pleading on his round face. ‘We’re not cut out for this sort of thing, Skipper! We’re sailors, not soldiers! We haven’t got a clue about getting across open country and all that sort of thing, and living off the land!’ The words poured from him like a flood.

‘You speak for yourself!’ Duncan wriggled in his seat. ‘I’ve done it all me life till I was stupid enough to get mixed up with this caper!’

Curtis’s mouth tightened and his eyes looked like twin pieces of blue glass. ‘Look here, Ian. Lots of our blokes have had to ditch before now, and have made it! In Norway, for example, when the country was deep in snow and England
across
the other side of the sea. You must have heard or been told about it?’

‘But, Skipper,’ Jervis had committed himself, and seemed incapable of reading the warning in Curtis’s face, ‘that was a country where the people were all for the British——’

Curtis cut him short. ‘Whereas, this country is warm and full of food and God knows what else,
and
with a bit of luck the army are waiting for us at the other end by now! If you weren’t up to this sort of risk, you should have got your father to wangle you into something safer!’

He knew that his words were cutting the boy in half, but he knew, too, that everything depended on the others being ready to back him up when the time came. Without another word he crawled through the diving compartment and into the battery room, his mind already busy with his hazy plan.

Duncan breathed out slowly. ‘Well, Ian, I’m not the one to brag, but I could have told you that would happen!’

‘I—I’m not afraid! It’s just, it’s just …’ he faltered helplessly, all his defences down, ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this before.’

‘Hmm. It’s not exactly the kind of affair we want to dabble in every day, is it?’ He leaned over and banged the boy’s shoulder. ‘Cheer up, cobber! D’you want to live forever?’

When eventually the motor died away, and the midget submarine settled on the soft sandy sea-bed, the Adriatic was dark and still and allowed the boat and her crew peace and time to dwell on their thoughts for the morning which was yet to come. A destroyer cruised seawards looking for the unknown marauder which had left its mark painted in the sky over distant Vigoria—a sullen, flickering red glow which refused to be quelled.

Somewhere in the darkness, beyond the destroyer and her consorts, the towing submarine’s commander watched the glow in his periscope. ‘There’ll be no rendezvous after all, I’m thinking,’ he said softly.

The thick, damp air of the control-room was tense and expectant as the small boat moved slowly and carefully
towards
the surface. Each of the four men stooped across the controls was thinking the same thoughts, and wondering what was awaiting them in the world above their heads.

The hands of the brass clock pointed at four o’clock, and even in the boat’s confined space Curtis seemed to feel the chill of the dawn mingling with the foul, fume-laden air. He stole a quick searching glance at the others, noting their bulging pockets and rumpled battledress blouses. They had all discarded their waterproof clothing to give them some semblance of uniform should they run straight into an enemy patrol. Curtis shivered, in spite of his taut muscles. He had heard that the Germans had a quick way with suspected saboteurs.