Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

They passed Stillwater Cove, keeping to the shallows and the greatest darkness by the shore, avoiding the deep water channel. The pinnace made an easy three knots despite the drag of the tow because the tide was flowing now and urging them on. They rode smoothly through the night with only the slow, dull churn of the picket-boat’s engine, the muffled scrape and clink of Jenner’s shovel in the tiny engine room and the clump of the closing furnace door. Here there was no one to see or hear them. Smith ordered an increase in speed and as the shovel clanged like a bell below: “Quinn.”

The signalman started. “Sir?”

Smith’s tone was mild but had an edge to it. “Tell Jenner that if he does that again his shovel goes over the side.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“And him with it.”

He maintained the attitude of calm throughout the long haul up the estuary. He found himself continually stifling yawns, but far from being drowsy he was strung to a tight pitch. This was an awful gamble. Success could ruin him while failure would be an ignominious disaster. He thrust the thoughts aside. His decision had been taken and he believed it right. And now he was committed.

They rounded the bend and entered the pool with an odd mixture of relief and heightened tension. The waiting was over but now the action would begin. The men shifted and wiped sweaty hands for the hundredth but the last time. The pool was open before them, picked out by scattered lights along the shore and more lights marked the ships that lay there. U.S.S. Kansas , the battleship, was a floating mountain far across the pool. The collier Gerda was a squat shadow, barely lit but seen against the lighted backdrop of the shore. And something else showed against that backdrop. Smith called softly, “Stop engines.” They closed the collier, slowing as the way came off the pinnace, stopped. They drifted in silence but for the burble of water under the bow.

Smith stared, and saw it again, was sure now. A boat was rowing around Gerda . It was halfway along the port side and creeping towards the stem, hardly moving at all, the deliberate pacing of a sentry. He watched until the boat worked around the stern of the collier and disappeared from view. It was odd behaviour for a neutral vessel in a neutral port.

Kennedy said, “A guard-boat. That does it.”

“That does it.” Kennedy had spoken his thoughts aloud: the operation was off. Kennedy could not dissemble. He was a sea-officer not a diplomat and he had patently disbelieved in the cruisers heading for these waters. He was not alone. Smith knew that most of the officers sided with him, including Garrick, and regarded this operation as an act of madness. He had not called for volunteers. He knew the men he wanted and named them. Kennedy was here reluctantly but because he was needed. He disliked his orders but he was obeying them.

Smith turned to look at Kennedy and met his gaze that was both expectant and relieved. Smith saw the twitch of surprise when he said, “Not by a long shot, Mr. Kennedy. Bring up the whaler.”

Wakely answered, “Already coming, sir.”

The whaler sprouted oars like a man waking from sleep, arms stretching. The oars came in again as it ran alongside the pinnace. Smith gave Kennedy his orders then stepped over to sit in the stern by Somers. He paused, then called, “Sergeant Burton! Come with me.” Burton’s square bulk rose from the block of marines and he picked his way lightly them to swing over into the whaler. Smith ordered, “Give way.”

The whaler headed across the pool, giving Gerda a wide berth, keeping out in the sheltering dark, passing her. So for another half-minute then the whaler turned and pointed back downstream, heading for the collier. Now Smith could see there was a light on her deck, aft of the bridge on the starboard side, and he could make out a dangling ladder on that side. The light was on the superstructure amidships but he could not see a man there. But there would be a lookout, somewhere. He could see the guard-boat creeping again up the port side of the collier towards the stem. He gauged the relative distances and speeds as the whaler slid down on the ship and saw that they would meet the guard-boat under Gerda’s stern and was content.

He spoke in a hoarse whisper but his voice carried down the length of the whaler: “No shooting except in self-defence, and at this moment no shooting at all. Mr. Somers, you will need four men.” Somers picked them. They were closing the stern of Gerda now. The guard-boat had seen them, Smith could tell that from the accelerated beat of its oars and the swing of the bow towards them, before the voice lifted, the words incomprehensible but the tone enquiring, suspicious.

Smith replied nasally, “ Kansas !” The man nearest him, bent over the oar, face only inches from Smith, gasped, “Blimey.”

Smith continued his drawling, “Have you fellers seen anything of a swimmer? The son-of-a-bitch went over the side because his furlough was stopped and when I get my hands on him—“

The whaler came from the direction of Kansas . There were two men in the guard-boat and they waited, listening to Smith’s impersonation, a poor impersonation but good enough to get him alongside. At the last moment one of the men yelped as the whaler swept down on him and Smith snapped, “Oars! Somers!”

The oars came in, the whaler thumped against the boat and Somers and his four men leapt over the side like frogs to smother the men in the boat.

“Shove off! Give way!” Smith left Somers to drift away down the port side while he took the whaler skimming down the starboard side of the Gerda to the dangling ladder. The oars came in again and he snatched at the ladder and started climbing. He heard a voice on the deck above him but right aft, a voice that called, puzzled. He was aware of Burton at his heels and that he had started climbing without taking his pistol from its holster. His head lifted above the rail and he swung one leg over then the other, took a pace forward and saw the man hurrying from the stern towards him. The man halted a couple of yards away, just in the pool of light that flooded over Smith. He gaped and the hand at his side lifted. It held a pistol.

Smith snapped testily, “Put that away. I am a British officer.” For an instant the man hesitated, the pistol still pointed at the deck and Smith took a long stride and grabbed it with one hand, the man’s throat with the other. Panic twisted the man’s face and he jerked back. Thick-set and strong, he hauled Smith with him and his free hand came up to claw at Smith’s face. At the instant that Smith realised he was out-matched in weight and strength, Burton appeared. In one smooth movement he plucked the man away from Smith and threw him face-down on the deck, Burton’s hand at his throat, Burton’s knee in his back.

Men spilled around Smith, hurrying soft-footed forward and aft. He crossed the deck, fumbling the torch from his pocket, blinked it twice and got one flash in return from the pinnace. He turned and stared into the muzzle of a pistol, had the briefest gut-sinking impression of an officer’s jacket pulled on over pyjamas, a bearded face and eyes that glared death at him. Then a figure plunged from the gloom and crashed into the officer, flame blinded Smith and the discharge of the pistol deafened him.

He rubbed at his eyes and when the wheeling circles were gone he saw Somers crouched on the officer’s chest, pinning him to the deck. Somers held the pistol. Smith’s ears still rang and he swore. The cat was out of the bag. He ran forward and saw a door open below the bridge, a man framed in that door and behind him the lighted interior of a cabin, the paraphernalia of the wireless office. He saw Able Seaman Beckett leap for that door and have it slammed in his face. He added his weight to that of Beckett but the door was bolted solid and the port clamped shut. He swore again and snarled at Beckett, “Guard it. He comes out with his hands up or you shoot him.”