Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

Ransome pictured his men around the ship. Hargrave down aft to oversee the guns there and take charge of damage-control. He would doubtless prefer to be here on the bridge, but the old lesson of too many eggs in one basket was never more true than in a ship at action stations. Mr Bone, grim and resentful, and no doubt clicking his dentures, would be ready to assist with anything but an act of God. And beneath all of them, Campbell with his team, sealed in their oily, thundering world, protected from the sea or a torpedo by steel plate little thicker than plywood. Fallows brooding over his mistake during the air attack; Cusack in the wardroom with his senior S.B.A., Pansy, waiting, probably as young Morgan had pictured it, as they had off Cape Trafalgar, their instruments rattling impatiently.

He thought too of Midshipman Davenport, with Boyes, man-ning, the plot-table in the wheelhouse. Two boys from the same ..school, but a thousand miles distant from each other. After this, Davenport would be ready to pickup his first ring. But not in Rob roy , which was just as well.

Sherwood said, ‘Time, sir.’

Very well.’ Ransome crossed to the central voicepipe.

‘Revolutions for half-speed, Cox’n.’

He could picture Beckett without effort, even though he had never seen him at the wheel. Part of his own strength, like Campbell and the horny Buffer.

‘Revolutions one-one-zero, sir.’

Ransome made to move away but asked, ‘All right down there, Cox’n?’

He heard a laugh. ‘Yeh, sir, like bugs in a pusser’s blanket!’

Ransome moved to his chair and leaned against it, feeling the deck shiver and sway with each thrash of the screws.

Less than ten miles. The enemy’s coastal batteries could doubtless shoot this far.

He looked up as the stars as they flitted between the pale Clouds. Like that moment at Plymouth, he thought, the darkened outline of Codrington House through the rustling trees. Her mouth against his, his arm around her shoulders. Would she know what he was doing? Could the fate or whatever it was which had brought them together, tell her that too?

’Aircraft , sir!’

Ransome swung round. ‘Bearing?’

‘Not certain, sir!’ The man was swinging his powerful night-glasses in a full arc. ‘P’raps I was wrong, but it was a sound.’ He nodded firmly, ‘I’m sure of it, sir.’

Ransome touched his arm as he passed him. The seaman was one of the best look-outs. It was why he was here on the bridge.

Sherwood joined in. On every ship heads would be twisting round, men dragging off helmets or woolly hats so that their hearing would not be distorted or tricked.

Sherwood suggested quietly, ‘Bombers?’

Ransome stood away from the side and cupped his hands behind his ears. ‘Shouldn’t be. Wrong direction.’ He stared at him through the darkness. ‘Those gliders we heard about?’

Sherwood shook his head. ‘No, sir. Too far out. They’re supposed to be letting them off their towlines somewhere in a fifty-mile drop area inland, according to my notes.’

‘Aircraft, sir!’ The seaman lurched back from his night-glasses, and no wonder.

It was like some great bat, black against the stars and reaching out across the slow-moving ship as if about to seize her from the water.

Someone shouted, ‘For Christ’s sake, they’ve released them in the wrong place!’

Ransome felt his face stiffen as the huge glider passed directly overhead, the air rushing over its wings like a great wind through a forest. There was another glider directly behind it, swaying wildly as its pilot realised what had happened.

The strong headwind, a last-moment miscalculation, or inexperience; it was all too late now.

They heard the first glider smash into the sea, even saw the white spectres of spray as one of the wings was ripped away by the terrible impact. Ransome tried not to see it in his mind. The airborne troops packed inside, loaded down with weapons and equipment.

Tritton’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘First lieutenant, sir!’ He sounded shocked out of his wits, and huddled down as another glider tore overhead and then dipped heavily towards the water.

Ransome asked, ‘What does he want?’ When Tritton remained silent he shouted, ‘ Pull yourself together!’

Tritton replied in a small voice, ‘Requests permission to lower rafts and scrambling-nets, sir.’

Ransome turned away, his mind cringing as another glider hit the waves and flopped over in a great welter of spray. Men were dying, drowning, not knowing why or how.

He heard himself say, ‘Denied! We are here to support the landings, not search for those who lost their way!’ He did not recognise his own voice. ‘One of the trawlers will carry out a sweep.’

Sherwood watched him, feeling his anguish and sharing it, perhaps for the first time.

Morgan whispered, ‘God, what a decision to have to make!’

Sherwood saw some tiny pinpricks of light, far away abeam lifejacket lamps. A common enough sight to sailors. But to those poor devils it must be a moment of horror.

‘Flare, sir! Dead ahead!’

Ransome stared across the screen and saw the red flare drifting like a drip of molten steel.

He wanted to think about it, what it meant; the Royal Marines already ashore, or the Germans at last facing the reality of attack. The bridge suddenly lit up, as if a giant torch had been directed over it. Faces and fittings stood out but left the rest in darkness. The horizon astern flashed again, like lightning or a great electric storm. Ransome waited, counted seconds as they did at Dover. Then he heard the far-off roll of heavy gunfire and almost simultaneously the express roar of shells passing overhead.

Whoooosb! Then the tell-tale blink of lights from the land as the first great salvoes found their mark.

Ransome tugged his cap more firmly across his forehead and stood high on the gratings. Falling further and further astern now, the abandoned airborne soldiers – those who had survived the crashes – would hear the huge shells ripping above them from the invisible bombarding squadron, and would know they had been forgotten.

It was a madness, more terrible this time because he could not control it, but the smashed and abandoned gliders were made suddenly meaningless.

’Slow ahead together!’

They were committed. In minutes now the first landing-ships in this sector would be passing to starboard.

Their madness was about to begin.

Hargrave clung to the shield of the after four-inch gun and tried not to blink as the horizon flared up again and again. It was still dark, and yet in the regular flashes the fragments of the whole stood out like parts of a crazy dream.

He recalled hearing Ransome’s voice in the background when he had told poor Tritton his decision. Hargrave accepted it was the right one but still wondered if he would have done the same.

He had seen the great gliders hurtling out of the sky, some hanging on longer than their companions before smashing down into the sea.

Why should it seem different from any crashing aircraft? Men died every day. Hargrave rejected the argument immediately. What must those soldiers have been thinking when they realised the inevitable? All the training and preparation wasted? Or small, precious moments like the last farewell on some railway station or garden path? A wife, a child, a lover?

He winced as another massive salvo thundered overhead. There were battleships as well as cruisers back there. The navy he had been bred for. Great guns, order and discipline. The old flagship Warspite, the darling of the Mediterranean fleet, would most likely be adding her voice to the onslaught, and dropping her salvoes of some nine tons a minute on targets she could not even see.