Alan Evans - Ship of Force

“Evening, Commander. Thought you’d gone to London.”

“I did. May I?” He laid his hand on the back of the chair opposite her.

“Welcome, I’m sure.” The china-blue eyes sharpened as he lowered himself into the chair. “You’re looking peaky. Too thin and too tired. You youngsters are all the same, don’t look after yourselves proper. I told Jack Curtis so the other day. Jack, I said —”

Smith broke in, “Where is he?”

“Gone over to St. Pol. That flying friend of his asked him over there. Some ‘do’ in the mess.”

“What about his crew?”

“They’ll be ashore. There’s nowhere to sleep aboard those motor-boats so they’ve got billets just down the quay. I’m just drinking off. I can show you the house where Jack and his Snotty sleep but I’m not sure about the men.” She paused, then asked, “Is that all you wanted? To find out about Jack?”

Smith said, “No. I want a great deal more than that.”

She met his gaze and after a moment asked, “Are you in some sort o’ trouble?”

“No. But I’m going to be.”

She stared at him and he said, “Can we talk as we go?” And stood and offered her his arm.

He talked with Victoria Baines as she led him along the quay, walling cautiously on the pave in the high-heeled shoes. He had seen her squeeze her feet into them before they left Le Coq. She held up her umbrella against the rain and Smith had to look out for his eyes. She had paused once to stare at him incredulously. Then they walked the last yards in silence and she stopped before a house, neatly painted, the windows shuttered. “This is the place.” And then, “I hope you know what you’re doing…” She went on to warn him, but — “You’re set on it, aren’t you?” And when Smith nodded, she said, “All right, I’ll do it.”

She bobbled off along the quay, bag dangling from one lacegloved hand, grey bun showing under the flowery hat. The picture of a respectable lady of advancing years and modest means. A nanny or a granny. Then the umbrella blew inside out and he heard the crisp oath, and smiled.

He rapped at the door and a minute later was talking to Midshipman Johnson who came down to him in the hall, sleepily and with a greatcoat over his pyjamas, the overlong legs of which concertina’d above his slippered feet. Smith looked at him and thought, They seem to be getting younger.

He said, “You’re early to bed.”

Johnson’s hair stuck up in spikes. He said, “The old lady here was going to bring my supper up to me. She fusses over me a bit, sir.” Smith could imagine it, looking at Johnson, who added defensively, “We’ve got all night in, sir.”

“I’m afraid you haven’t. Can you reach Mr. Curtis?”

“He’s over at St. Pol, sir. Went over there for dinner but he left a note. There’s a telephone there and —”

“Then telephone him. Ask him —” He stopped. That wasn’t right. This was Smith’s responsibility, he wanted that to be clear. He said, “Tell him he is to get straight over here. You know where Sparrow is lying?”

Johnson was wide-awake now. “Across from the shipyard.”

“That’s right.” Smith wrote rapidly in his notebook, tore out the page and handed it to Johnson. “Clear?”

Johnson read it carefully, blinked in surprise but said, “Yes, sir. I’ll telephone Mr. Curtis and bring the boat alongside Sparrow and he can join her there.”

“Get dressed and get on with it then.”

Smith watched him run up the stairs, tripping over the bottoms of the pyjamas, sighed and shook his head and went out.

As he approached Sparrow he felt the wind on his face, coming off the sea and thought it was a fair wind. He saw them gathering on Sparrow ’s cluttered little quarter-deck, Garrick’s tall figure, Lorimer short and stocky and Sanders slim. The quartermaster on the side had obviously had orders to warn them of his coming.

As he stepped aboard he asked, “Ready to slip?”

“Yes, sir.” answered Sanders.

“Lower the whaler.” And then: “Now, gentlemen. First: Wireless silence until further orders. Understood?”

Sanders said, “We haven’t got any wireless, sir.”

Smith remembered that was so; there was just the gap between the first and second funnels where the shack had stood. He looked at Garrick, who nodded acknowledgment. So Smith went on to give them detailed orders. And — like Johnson and Mrs. Baines before them — they stared…

Marshall Marmont’s pinnace slid past the lighthouse and headed along the channel towards the sea. She towed Sparrow ’s whaler and had the crew of the whaler and Buckley aboard. Smith stood in the cockpit with Garrick as a light challenged them from the shore and the signalman clicked his lamp in reply. He knew Garrick was uneasy by the worried glances he shot at Smith, who ignored them because the only way he could lift that worry from Garrick’s mind was to cancel the orders he had just given. He would not do that. It was not easy for Garrick, or Sanders. They were under his command but their orders were unusual, to say the least. He had offered to put them in writing, said he would accept their formal written objections if they wished. They had refused.

He wondered why they trusted him so.

They were challenged again in the Roads. There were a dozen ships anchored there and all of them wary of intruders. They passed ship after ship that loomed out of the rain, towered over them then slipped astern. Until Marshall Marmont’s squat profile showed blurred, hardened and the pinnace swung in alongside her and hooked on. Smith and Garrick boarded her and Smith walked forward past the bridge and the tall turret with the huge fifteen-inch guns. He heard Garrick rasping his orders and then the pipes shrilled and the ship came alive.

He stopped just forward of the turret and stood under the muzzles of the guns, watching as the men streamed past him into the bow. The rain was driving now. He looked at his watch, shifted impatiently and peered out into the murk. Nothing. He would have liked the night to cover him now but he could not wait. Time was against him and this rain-filled dusk would have to serve. He looked over his shoulder past the guns at Marshall Marmont’s single tall mast with its control top and the strung aerial of the wireless. If anyone called her she would hear but Smith had stilled her tongue; they would get no reply. They would acknowledge no orders that would countermand those he had in his pocket.

He turned forward, looked again at his watch and up — There she was! She came creeping in on them over the rain-swept sea, the tug Lively Lady , turning slowly on her heel then nuzzling her stern close in under the monitor’s bow. He watched as the tow was passed and reported secure, winced as the capstan hammered and Marshall Marmont’s anchor was raised. The yell came: “ Anchor’s aweigh !”

The tug was moving ahead. There was a jerk as the loop of the tow became shallow and then Marshall Marmont was moving. The party still worked forward, securing the anchor for sea. He saw the motor-launch foam out of the night and swing alongside Lively Lady and he ran forward to stand in the bow.

The Lieutenant commanding the patrolling launch called through a megaphone, “I understood Marshall Marmont was to sail in the morning.”

Smith held his breath. He saw Victoria Baines’s dumpy figure on the deck of the tug and her bellow came back to him on the wind. “So did I! Till they got me outa me bed to tell me otherwise! Bloody Navy! You bluejackets are all the same! Work a poor old woman to death for the sake of a lot o’ red tape an’ paper work while you run around asking damn fool questions! Why don’t you ask him back there?” She jerked a thumb at the monitor. “I reckon he’ll give you an answer if I’m any judge of his temper!”