The White Guns (1989) (5 page)

He was getting weary. 'I'll be off now. Don't make a fuss tomorrow. We'll be under way first thing.' They shook hands, making light of it as usual.

Then Macnair said, 'I'll miss you lot.'

They watched him go and Cuff muttered,
'Rust
indeed!'

Marriott leaned on the guardrails and stared at the swirling water with its awful stench. Dead ships, dead people, too, probably. He saw some German sailors marching along the top of some rubble, in step, swinging their arms, two petty officers barking out orders until they reached a solitary tractor around which was a group of Royal Engineers. There was a great pile of picks and shovels, jacks and pit-props although nobody had seen them arrive.

The senior petty officer stamped to a halt and shouted, 'All present,
sir!'

A young captain of the RE sounded relieved that somebody had chosen a PO who spoke English.

He said, 'Tell your men that we are going to begin here.' He picked up a shovel and jammed it between some bricks. Then he opened a large plan and added, 'You will start to clear the road to the gate over there!'

The Germans listened to the repeated orders and then stared at the endless heaps of rubble. Even they must have forgotten there was a road there.

Marriott said, 'God, it'll take years, and this is just the fringe of it.'

Cuff said savagely, 'So what? They bloody well started it!'

A British sergeant climbed into the tractor and revved the engine. The sound seemed to move the watching sailors into action and moments later the air was filled with the ring of shovels.

Marriott looked away. It was not much, and the young captain in the Royal Engineers would know it. But it was a start, like a feeble heartbeat.

They didn't look much like prisoners of war, he thought. Many would be waiting to get away from here, to find their families if they were still alive.

He glanced at Cuff but saw only coldness in his eyes, resentment.

Marriott climbed down into his own boat once more and found Lowes busy writing a letter, probably to his mother. It nearly always was. His forehead was lined with concentration.

Marriott looked around the place which had been their refuge, their home. The worn cushions which were supposed to keep you afloat if the worst happened. A rack of pistols and two Lanchester sub-machine guns. A picture of the King which had been moved to cover yet another repair where a cannon shell from a German fighter had found its mark off the Belgian coast. Old magazines, and a photo of a smiling full-breasted nude whom Fairfax insisted was his aunt.

He could not picture the boat being sent to the Far East in the future or at any time. The pumps were running twice as much now, the hull was leaking badly, but he doubted if she would ever get another refit. He looked at himself in the stained mirror and grimaced.
Like me. Bloody well shagged out.

Lowes looked up, a lock of fair hair falling across his wide, innocent stare.

'When can we get ashore, sir?'

'Good question.' He thought of the picks and shovels, the grim faces of the British sappers. 'I'm not sure we'll like what we find.'

Lowes touched his teeth with his pen. 'I'll bet Lieutenant Commander Macnair is going back to something
really
special. All those
gongs
– I mean, sir, they must give him something?'

Marriott tightened his mouth and saw the young subbie flinch.
He's going home to die, don't you understand?
But he heard himself say, 'I'd like you to join us tomorrow morning. See him off properly.'

He saw the cloud pass from the youth's face. God, Fairfax was once like him. He tried to shake off the mood and added, 'Open the bar. Let's drink to Spruce.'

He watched Lowes unlocking a cupboard which they called 'The Bar'.

We were all like him, a thousand years ago.

But it was not just Marriott and his two sub-lieutenants who were on deck at dawn. Silent figures lined the four hulls, two of which were spewing out octane smoke, and tugging restlessly at their lines.

Marriott clamped his teeth on an unlit pipe.
And then there were two.
It was a wonder they didn't order the lot of them back to the UK. He watched the pale sky, another fine day above the drifting smoke. It was eerie to watch it writhing endlessly above the strewn wrecks in the great harbour and through the gaunt buildings, shattered cranes and gantries.

There was a small cheer as the two boats thrashed astern to leave their consorts by the pier. Just like all those other dawns, when your heart seemed to fill your mouth so that you could barely breathe. Except that this time there was a small launch here to guide them out. It was so strange to see lights displayed again without a thought for blackout or darken-ship. He saw the pilot launch rocking in the swell, her red and green lights like bright, unmatched eyes reflecting from the oily water. Cuff must have decided to disregard Meikle's warning about behaviour and his boat's horn blared over the harbour in a drawn-out banshee wail. Marriott found that he had his cap in his hand, caught up by the sadness, the wild elation, too, of this moment.

'A cheer for Spruce, lads!' And they were all at it. Remembering, thinking of lost friends, knowing that things would never be the same again.

The only one who did not cheer was the coxswain, Petty Officer Robert Evans.

He had seen some shadowy figures moving along the dockside, groping their way to an early start on clearing away the destruction. He considered his feelings, as he had from the moment they had tied up here and when with the Skipper he had confronted that great mass of Germans.

He had felt his heart beating faster, his body go cold when he had seen their faces so close, had even smelt them. His fingers closed over the little leather case he carried in his pocket, the reward he had not been allowed to wear in case he was captured. The
Croix de Guerre.
Tomorrow he would have it added to his other ribbons, watch their faces when he went amongst them. He probed his reactions yet again. It was still as before. Hate was not strong enough, nor loathing either. It was like a dedication and a pledge. It would not bring his family to life but he would make them pay for what they had done.

Marriott said, 'See what you can do about breakfast, will you, Swain?'

Evans stared at the harbour but the two motor gunboats had already faded into the shadows.

'Aye, aye, sir.' Even the quaint British phrases had become second nature by this time.

Marriott regarded him closely. 'All right, Swain?'

'I was remembering, sir.' He replaced his cap and adjusted it with care as he always did. 'And thinking how it would have been if
we
had lost.'

Marriott fell in step beside him. 'If ever you want to talk to me about anything –' He did not need to go on.

Evans regarded him for several seconds. 'I am not an officer, sir, but I hope you would allow me the same privilege.'

Marriott lowered himself into the hatchway and heard Ginger Jackson rattling cups in the wardroom.

He had been touched by what Evans had just said. There was a lot to him they might never discover. There was danger too, although he did not understand why.

Fairfax banged through the door. 'Another day, sir. What wouldn't I give for a pretty girl and a walk through some Hampshire grass!'

Ginger Jackson put their plates down with elaborate care. 'I found some sardines, gents.'

Lowes exclaimed, 'For
breakfast?'

Marriott looked at the plate, with Ginger's familiar thumbprint on its rim like some exclusive hotel crest.

No, nothing would ever be the same again. Not for any one of them.

Marriott stood by the break in the guardrails and looked towards the dockyard. He shivered in the early morning sunlight but knew it was not because of the air. So short a while, and yet this place had changed him in some way. Like being on a devastated island or in some man-made prison. He could not explain it. Even a pot of Ginger Jackson's best coffee and some powdered eggs had made no difference.

Alongside, Cuff's command creaked uneasily against the rope fenders, while just astern of them the three long Fairmile motor launches were astir with early activity. Decks being swabbed down, white sweaters moving in the smoky light as some of the hands prepared to receive fresh stores and supplies, although God alone knew how they would get here.

Marriott glanced at his watch and thought of Macnair.
Getting spruced up.
In another half-hour, colours would be hoisted. It did not matter if it was Dover or Rosyth, Alexandria or Port Said, routine went on. Perhaps it was why they had won. They had not been prepared for defeat. In the navy, routine and tradition were everything.

Marriott heard Fairfax coming along the wooden deck and smiled despite his uneasiness. He thought of Cuff's incredulous anger when the new commander had made his comment about rust.

Fairfax saluted. 'I'll hold the fort in your absence, sir.'

Even in the familiar working-dress again, he seemed different.

Marriott was conscious of his own clean shirt, collar and tie beneath the rough serge battledress blouse instead of his favourite sweater, the polished shoes in place of the comfortable scuffed seaboots. He knew Fairfax was watching him as usual, waiting to begin the new day in the same fashion as any first lieutenant, no matter how small the ship.

Fairfax said, 'The Jerries must have been up and digging since dawn, sir.'

As he spoke, a German sailor, his uniform grey with clotted dust, appeared out of the fallen masonry above the pier, pushing a wheelbarrow full of broken bricks where just yesterday there had been a solid barrier of rubble. More likely they had had men working all night. Marriott realised that before getting up to see Macnair's departure he had slept like a log. He could not recall the last time he had been able to do that.

Fairfax added, 'I'll take on stores as soon as we get the buzz.' He hesitated, sensing Marriott's mood. 'Will you be long at the, er – HQ, sir?'

'Hope not. It'll probably be a lecture. A pep talk on how to behave.'

He saw the coxswain mustering a small party of men below the bridge, his face as expressionless as ever.

Marriott said, 'I'll be off then.'

As he stepped ashore he glanced at the hill of fallen bricks and girders as if expecting to see the silent army of Germans still waiting for orders, for some authority who would reveal what lay in store for them. Instead, a naval patrolman, extremely smart in white belt and gaiters, with a Thompson sub-machine gun slung over one shoulder, stepped out of a makeshift sentry-box and saluted. 'I'm to show you the way, sir.' He gestured to the other boats. 'Someone else will guide the rest of the commanding officers, sir.' He had a homely West Country accent, which made Marriott feel that neither of them belonged here.

As they fell into step together Marriott looked around him, knowing that he would never forget what he was witnessing. On every hand there was devastation of such magnitude that it seemed impossible it could ever change. The RAF's massive 'blockbusters' had changed the order of a naval dockyard into one giant scrap-heap. It was a nightmare of impossible proportions. Beside one dry dock, towering above them as they strode past, was a complete destroyer, lifted bodily by a single bomb and dropped on the land. Vehicles, caught by falling debris and collapsing dockside sheds, had been flattened. Marriott was used to the sights of war, but he found himself staring at an out-thrust arm in field-grey uniform which hung out of the window of one of the crushed lorries. The vehicle, like its occupants, had been wiped out, but the man's arm seemed strangely lifelike.

The sailor remarked, 'Hundreds like that, sir.' He lowered his voice as if in respect for the dead. 'At the U-Boat pens where I'm taking you, the RAF caught two submarines while they were inside. One was ready to sail when the roof caved in. She's got her whole crew inside. Stinks a bit, I can tell you, sir.'

Marriott stared at the out-thrust arm. The skin was tanned, with a pale line where a wrist-watch had once been.

The sailor saw his glance and grinned. 'Someone got there before me, lucky bugger!'

The closer they drew to the huge slablike U-Boat pens the more unreal it became. Figures wandered amongst the wreckage like puzzled ants. Khaki battledress and the dark blue of the navy. Germans marched this way and that, usually with a British petty officer or army NCO in charge. The order
'Eyes right!'
as one party trooped past Marriott and his escort made it all the harder to accept. The Germans
saw
Marriott, and yet they did not seem to realise what was happening. Empty, apathetic, like the living dead.

Ashes swirled over the U-Boat pens and Marriott heard the muffled stammer of pneumatic drills and the clash of shovels. The army had got power from somewhere, and he thought he could smell baking bread. It was almost as unbelievable as the total destruction.

'Here we are, sir.' The man pulled aside a sacking curtain and gestured into a long room with concrete walls. It had probably been a last briefing room for some of the U-Boats which had sheltered and refitted beneath the massive concrete, Marriott thought. He recalled with sudden clarity his own brief time in a destroyer-escort in the Western Approaches. The long, pitiful lines of rusty freighters and precious tankers. Preyed upon by U-Boats from the moment they left England, and from the instant they began their return voyage with the food and fuel of survival.

And always the hated signals from the far-off Admiralty.
There are now ten U-Boats in your. vicinity. There are now fifteen U-Boats in your vicinity.

Then the roar of torpedoes in the night, the blazing fires on the black Atlantic, a stricken ship falling slowly astern, to sink alone or be finished off by another U-Boat.

Close the gap. Don't stop. Don't turn back.

Marriott hesitated and then walked back from the entrance and stood for a long moment looking down into one of the docks. The U-Boat was afloat, untouched by the bombs, ready to leave to join one of those packs in the Atlantic perhaps, when the surrender had been ordered.

Even here in defeat she looked evil.

Marriott breathed out slowly. And it was the first one he had ever seen. Perhaps it was the fear which had offered all of them the hatred, the fire to hit back and finally to win, when the odds had seemed overwhelming.

Someone coughed discreetly behind him and he turned to see the same harassed leading writer peering at him anxiously.

'I – I wondered where you were, sir.'

Marriott sighed. 'Lead the way, or has the meeting started without me?'

'Commander Meikle will see you now, sir.' It was not really an answer.

Marriott followed the leading writer's scurrying figure into the cold shadows of the concrete room. He reminded him of the White Rabbit, the way he was muttering to himself and consulting his watch. Perhaps the new commander made his subordinates like that.

'Won't keep you a tick, sir.' Another peep at his watch and the door closed again.

Marriott stared around the room, the bare benches and much-used canvas-backed chairs. The U-Boat officers must have gathered here too.

The White Rabbit reappeared, a sheaf of signal flimsies clutched in one paw.

'This way, sir.'

The adjoining room was brightly lit by freshly rigged lights, the cables of which snaked through another door like part of a film set. In the dead centre of the room was a desk, completely covered with files, signal clips and a jar of freshly sharpened pencils. On one wall, illuminated by its own special lamp, was an enormous map of the area, Schleswig-Holstein and the Danish border right down to Kiel and the bay of Lübeck. To the east of the sector was a thick red line marked with several Russian flags. Perhaps for the first time Marriott began to see the full extent of their responsibility and authority. It was huge, with the sprawling mass of Kiel but a tiny part of it.

God, if it's all like this . . .

He looked at the scattered cases and metal cabinets which littered the room, a nerve-centre, which even now was reaching out beyond the chaos to naval vessels and personnel and heaven knew who else.

Meikle entered from the other door wiping his hands on a small towel. Without his elegant cap he looked younger, but his thick curly hair in its neat regulation cut was iron-grey, brushed back from a high and intelligent forehead. He merely glanced at Marriott and then gestured to a chair, which apart from his own was the only one present.

Even Meikle's blue working-dress was impeccable, and the shirt cuffs which showed evenly at each wrist were crisp and starched.

'All settled in, Marriott?' Again the quick scrutiny which missed nothing. 'I gather Macnair had a rowdy sendoff this morning.'

Marriott thought of Cuff's blaring horn, their combined sense of pride and loss.

'Hope we didn't wake you, sir.'

Meikle was searching through a file and did not look up.

'Hardly. I was down in Plön for most of the night with the military commander there.'

Marriott stared. Meikle looked as if he had just showered after a good night's rest. Instead –

Meikle said, 'I wanted to speak to
all
my commanding officers separately. Something which, I gather, was rather unusual under your previous arrangements, hmm?' He did not pause for a reply. 'I have to know my people, even if I cannot always be with them. If I can't work with someone – well, that's something else.'

Marriott saw his lips tighten and could guess what the
something else
implied.

Meikle looked at him directly for the first time. His eyes, like the glance, were dark and deep.

'Your duties under my command will be as varied as the situation here demands.' He looked down at the papers again. 'I shall recap. Two of your flotilla remained in Denmark to be used at the discretion of the N.O.I.C. there. Two left this morning for the UK. That leaves your 801 and Lieutenant Glazebrook's plus the three MLs, some trawlers and the salvage vessel HMS
Sea Harvester.
She is under the command of one Lieutenant Commander Crawford, something of a diving expert.' He pursed his lips. 'He's going to earn his bread-and-butter in this harbour.'

Marriott blurted out, 'But the flotilla, sir? Surely it will be regrouped.'

Meikle shook his head. 'I think not. The Pacific War – well, that's hardly our concern, not yet anyway. Our work is here in Kiel and our adjoining responsibilities. The Naval-Officer-in-Charge is setting up his own HQ and a full operational and communications staff as well as a minesweeping command are sorting out their allotted stations.'

Marriott stared at the big wall-map, but all he could see was the dismantling of his flotilla. New faces had replaced those killed and wounded, different boats from time to time had filled the gaps. But always the
same
flotilla. He could almost hear the voices of those lost faces singing their old morbid song after some particularly hairy raid or close-action.

What is left of our poor squadron? ... Twenty crosses in a row!

To be no more. Because of some brasshat's order they had been wiped out, something which even the enemy had failed to achieve.

He searched Meikle's features for some indication of his feelings, but there was nothing.

Marriott said abruptly, 'So that's all they care!'