Alan Evans - Ship of Force

For a moment he could only stare, unable to take it in. Eleanor Hurst. Eleanor !

And though she in her turn gazed at him blankly, she recognised the face. But not the man. This man with his cold, savage stare was a stranger. But then Buckley yelled and a shot crashed out in the hall, a door slammed. Shooting broke out at the rear of the house, a fusillade, and there was the sound of shattering glass. Smith heard distant cheering and knew that was Finlay and McGraw but then there was firing closer, inside the house and he ran out on to the landing. Buckley stood crouching, wide-legged, pistol covering the landing. He turned his head fractionally. “A feller popped out of a door an’ jumped back when he saw me. I fired a shot at him but he got away.”

Smith answered breathlessly, “Let’s see if we can do the same.”

The orderly still sat frozen behind his desk. Smith ran for the stairs and down, Josef hustling the girl behind him, Buckley bringing up the rear. As they reached the hall a door at the back of the house burst open and a man came through it, pistol in hand, shouting. They all fired at him but all of them missed and he ran back through the door and they heard him shouting again.

Smith led them out of the house, down the steps and past the car. God knew if he could ever start it again — and where could it take them? He yelled at Galt but he was already coming. They crossed the square and at the corner of the houses where the road ran in, Smith halted and looked back. Men showed in the lighted doorway of the house but Smith and Galt fired at them and they disappeared. They ran after Josef and the girl, caught up with them and halted again at the last of the houses. Smith panted and rubbed at his face, peered into the darkness. The firing still crackled away at the rear of the house and flashes continually lit the sky. Then a klaxon brayed out its alarm over the countryside and he swore.

His orders to Finlay and McGraw had been: “When the shooting starts blaze off all your ammunition at the back of the house, rapid fire and no let-up; then run.” Had one of them been wounded? Could they cope with a wounded man? He knew they could not but neither could he leave one behind.

Come on! Where the hell were…?

Finlay pelted out of the darkness and vaulted the low wall, McGraw tumbling over behind him. The latter grinned madly and shouted at Smith, “Yon patrol came chasin’ back when the balloon went up an’ Ah got the bloody lot!”

Smith shoved him down the road. “Good enough. Now run for it!”

Back along the road, through the hedge and into the open country, Josef and Galt with Eleanor Hurst, an arm apiece between them, Buckley and McGraw behind them. Smith came on the scrub, followed it, marked the ruined cottage coming up and knew the railway line should be…

There was a train on the line, the little engine puffing slowly, two coaches drawn along behind. He could see the glow on its footplate that silhouetted a man with a rifle. And still the klaxon blared behind them. He ran on because the train was stopping, he could see heads stuck out of windows, heard a voice bellowing. The train halted a hundred yards away in a hiss of steam as Smith jumped over the rails. He turned his head as he ran and saw the others were all close behind him and he saw the troops jumping down from the train. He thought briefly that it was probably a leave train or a draft for De Haan. But there was a whistle shrilling and the soldiers were starting to double after Smith and his little party.

The dunes. Breath rasping, a pain in his chest and legs like jelly, his boots floundering in the soft sand. A ship-board life did not make for distance running and a glance showed him the others in no better shape than he, barely trotting on unsteady legs.

The trench. Seeing it at the last instant and barely clearing it, staggering through the wire, falling and rolling on with a rip of cloth then on his knees and gasping out, “Down! Defensive fire! Hold ’em off!” He sprawled on the sand and tufted grass, fumbled the torch out of his pocket and flashed its beam at the sea. The beam wavered as he panted. Short. Long. — Short. Long. — Short…

Then a pistol cracked out behind him and Buckley yelled, “Patrol!”

Smith turned and saw them a hundred yards or so north, just vague, moving blobs of blacker shadow against the sky’s darkness. They were on the track that ran along the top of the dunes, two — three of them as the group disintegrated at Buckley’s shot, the men going down. Smith turned further, slithering right around on his stomach at the sound of more firing. The spurts of flame came from inland in the dunes and others close where Galt and Josef fired back at them. He looked again towards the sea and shouted hoarsely, “They’re here!” It was no more than a shadow but he knew it was the whaler. He stared down the twenty foot drop at the beach below. With the ebbing of the tide there was now nearly a hundred yards of that smooth, open sand before the sea. A hundred yards under fire. The shore guns would be manned…

He wriggled back to Josef. “Give me that pistol!” He took it, then shouted, “Finlay! You and McGraw see these people to the boat! You can see it running in! We’ll keep the patrol busy!”

He saw Eleanor Hurst’s face pale in the darkness and her eyes watching him. Then Finlay and McGraw each grabbed one of her arms and the three of them went plunging, sliding down the wall of sand to the beach below and Josef went after them.

Smith shouted, “At the patrol! Rapid!” Because the patrol commanded the beach while the troops inland did not, though the muzzle flashes showed by their spreading that they were working around the flanks. Smith and Buckley and Galt fired away. The pistol-fire would hit no one, fired at that range and in the darkness but the patrol did not know that and Smith suspected they would be rear-echelon troops anyway. It worked. The patrol went to ground, their firing ceased and the figures running jerkily down across the sand to the surf passed unscathed.

But now? He could just make out the black shape of the whaler in the surf, and the jerking, running shadows blending with that shape. The beach stretched out in a long, long two hundred yards.

He said, “I’ll hold them off! You two go now!” He tossed aside his empty pistol, exchanged it for the other.

Buckley said, “No bloody fear. We can go together an’ make a running fight of it.” Then he added, “sir.”

Smith was speechless at this breach of discipline. And Buckley !

But then Galt gave his view without being asked: “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but ah don’t fancy the idea o’ leavin’ you up here. If we all goes thegither then yin can help the other.”

Before Smith could answer the decision was made for them. A machine-gun hammered from the surf and tracer slid through the night in a line pointed at the luckless patrol. Smith blessed Dunbar’s foresight or caution in shipping the Vickers in the whaler. He shouted, “Right! Let’s go!”

They jumped together. Smith had a brief, bizarre memory of playing like this as a child, falling through the air down the first steep drop then landing in a spurt of sand to slide down the last few feet of the wall to its foot. Then they were running for the whaler as the Vickers fired burst after racketing burst at the crest behind them until they drew close and the firing ceased. Smith could see the Vickers mounted in the bow, Finlay and McGraw nearly to their waists in the sea, and holding on to the whaler’s stem. Smith splashed into the sea with the other two and waded out. The Vickers fired again right over their heads. Tack! Tack! Tack !..

Hands grabbed them from inside the boat and Finlay and McGraw shoved them up and out of the grasp of the sea, into the whaler. They stumbled between the men at the oars, Smith seeing Lorimer’s face floating like a pale moon towards him, mouth opening and closing…“Shove off!”