Alan Furst - Dark Voyage

“See anything?”

“No.” Then, “I see that.”

A flare burst red against the sky, sputtered as it floated toward the earth on its parachute. A second followed, both well east of where DeHaan thought they’d be. On deck, the crewmen called out to one another in low voices. The second flare was almost gone when there was an orange flash, with a low crump that came rolling out over the water seconds later. Then another. Ratter counted out loud, as though calculating the distance of a storm by the interval between lightning and thunder.

“They’re really at it, now,” DeHaan said, listening hard. He heard the fight as a series of brief stutters, whispery and dry, the volume climbing and falling. Joined by a louder version, deeper, not so fast, which went on for a long time, then ended with another flash. So much for silent assault. DeHaan had seen the knives, and assumed their use would lead to a quiet conclusion, but it hadn’t. The heavy machine gun returned, and this time it continued, and, through the binoculars, he could see what looked like lines of flying sparks. DeHaan glanced at his watch, where seconds turned into minutes. And, at eleven minutes, more or less, the battle ended.

0305. Kees had joined them, they were all in oilskins now, with hoods up, as much against the wind as the rain. No whitecaps yet, but the waves were slapping hard against the hull and the rain blew sideways.

“Back any time now,” DeHaan said. The planning said three hours, then they would return to the shore and show a signal light.

“An hour overdue,” Kees said. “And soon enough it’ll be dawn, and we’ll be sitting out here. For no particular reason.”

“If somebody shows up,” DeHaan said, “we’re repairing a valve.”

“Or the J-40,” Ratter said. This was meant as a joke. The J-40 Adaptor was an old navy story: a small steel box with a handle, nobody knew what it was for, eventually a cook put a carrot in it and cranked the handle and it came out the other end shaped like a tulip.

“You think they know what’s going on, at Bizerta?” Kees said.

“They’d be here if they did,” Ratter said.

“They could’ve seen the flares, or maybe had word on a telephone, or a radio.”

“So, where are they?”

“Well, with the French, you never know.”

It was 0335 before they saw the light. DeHaan breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally,” he said.

After a moment, Ratter said, “What’s he doing?”

They stared through their binoculars. The light was yellow, with a powerful beam blurred by the haze, on and off, on and off. Ratter said, “That’s no recognition signal, that’s Morse.”

“Three short, three long, three short,” Kees said. “Where I come from that’s an S, an O, and another S, and, the way I learned it, it means save our souls. ”

“I’ll want the rifle,” DeHaan said to Ratter. And, to Kees, “Boat Four-get the crew up here and prepare to launch.”

“You shouldn’t be the one to go,” Ratter said.

DeHaan knew he was right, and pretended to think it over. “No, it’s for me, Johannes. And right away. Get the signalman to make back Confirmed. Help coming. ”

DeHaan went quickly to his cabin, snatched the Browning in its holster and worked on buckling the belt, beneath his oilskin, as he ran back up the ladderway. On deck, organized confusion. The number four lifeboat- Santa Rosa painted on its bow, for which he silently thanked Van Dyck-was swung out on its davits, ready to lower. Of the three-man crew, the AB Scheldt was already aboard, settling the oars in the oarlocks, and AB Vandermeer was trotting from the forecastle. The signalman was standing by the boat, working the shutter on the Aldis lamp, and Ratter was just emerging from below, Enfield in hand. “It’s loaded,” he told DeHaan. “Eight rounds on the clip.” He handed DeHaan extra clips, which he stuffed in the pocket of his oilskin. Meanwhile, Patapouf, the assistant cook, was running toward the boat. What now? Cocoa?

DeHaan grabbed Ratter by the sleeve, pulled him close and said, voice low and tense, “What the hell is he doing here?”

Kees, standing by the winch a few feet away, saw what was going on. “Braun’s got a sprained ankle,” he said in an undertone. “Patapouf’s the listed replacement.” DeHaan grimaced, nothing to be done about it, and climbed into the boat.

The boat swayed as Patapouf struggled over the gunwale, then settled himself on the bench, chin held high with bruised French dignity. He’d seen the officers squabbling and knew that it was about him. Turning to DeHaan he said, “I served in the army, Captain.”

Rifle in hand, heading for God only knew what on the beach, DeHaan was embarrassed, and nodded that he understood. Ratter put a flashlight on the seat next to DeHaan. “If you need help, two short, one long.”

“Lower away,” Kees said, as the winch engine produced a squirt of steam and began to grind.

At the oars, Scheldt and Vandermeer worked against the heavy sea as the boat rode up the waves and smacked down in the trough, and, even with DeHaan and Patapouf bailing away, the water rose to their ankles. When they were halfway to shore, the man on the beach started signaling again, which gave them a position fix, a few hundred yards east of where the tide was driving them.

“Signal back, Cap’n?” Vandermeer said. He was a tough kid, short and skinny, with fighting scars on his face, who’d been hired off the dock in Shanghai.

“No,” DeHaan said. “We don’t know who else is out there.”

A fast ride in, once they hit the shoreline, and they vaulted over the side and ran the boat up the gravel shingle, then dragged it higher, into the dune grass, safe from the tide. It was raining harder now, and their oilskins snapped in the wind. DeHaan took the flashlight, and handed the Enfield to Patapouf. “Know how to use it?”

“Yes, sir. I think so.”

“What’d you do, in the army?”

“Cook, sir, during the war, but they taught us how to shoot.”

DeHaan handed him the extra clips.

They headed east, footsteps crunching on the shell litter. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. Then, an English voice, somewhere above them, almost lost in the rumble and crash of the surf. “Who are you, then?”

“From the boat,” DeHaan said. “Captain DeHaan.”

They saw him as he rose, silhouetted against the sky, Sten gun pointed at them, then swung aside. “Glad you came. It’s a fucking horror up there.”

“Where?”

“Few hundred yards inland.” He joined them, looping the Sten’s strap over his shoulder. “I’ll take you,” he said. “If I can find it-should’ve left fucking breadcrumbs.” Was it Sims’s sergeant major? DeHaan wasn’t sure, the man’s watch cap was pulled down over his forehead, and he was limping. “Stepped in a hole,” he said.

“Who are you?” DeHaan said.

“Aldrich. Sergeant Aldrich.”

They set off along the beach. After a few minutes, DeHaan said, “What happened?”

“Christ-what didn’t!” They crunched along for a time. “We left one guard and our Arab with the boats-ahh, skyline here, gents.” He bent low to the ground, scurried up the dune, over the top, and down the other side, to a twisting, stony path flanked by broken boulders. “Bloody fucking thieving bastard, turned out. He ran off with them. Or someone did. Or who fucking knows. Anyway, we couldn’t find Wilkins and we couldn’t find him.”

“And Major Sims?”

“Couldn’t find him either.”

They trudged on in silence, the path turned to dreamscape-low canyons of splintered rock shining wet in the rain, scrub trees and brush, terrain that forced a tack every few yards, over ground which rose and fell so that, with a blank horizon, it seemed as though the land had closed behind them. “He took two men,” the sergeant said, “and they went to circle round the flank, and that was that. When we finally got those bastards to give up, we went looking for him, but..” DeHaan felt his foot slide, tried to catch himself, then fell flat on his back. “Careful, there,” the sergeant said-a comic line, now that it was too late to be careful. “The whole bloody mess was more than we bargained for,” he went on, as DeHaan got to his feet. “You’ll see.” When they were again on their way he said, “We called out to them, whistled, flashed a light, but they were just, well, gone. It ain’t all that rare y’know, I was with the expeditionary force, May of ’40, up by the Dyle River in Belgium, and it happened all the time.”