Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

‘Slow ahead together!’

He heard shouts from aft, the grate of wires being manhandled along the deck.

Mackay lowered his telescope. ‘From Ranger, sir. Good luck.’

Two more shells fell close to Dunlin, but it was impossible to measure the damage. Dunlin had stopped completely, and Ransome saw half of her motor boat dangling from the shattered davits. There was a lot of smoke, flames too, shooting from the foot of her single funnel. An old ship built for the Kaiser’s war. It was asking a lot from her. Too much.

He thought of Ranger taking the trouble to make that short but so-important signal. Like old comrades, twins. He thought too of the Wren driver who had told him about her brother, a subbie, who was in Ranger.

Ransome strode across the bridge and gripped Tritton’s arm. ‘Take over the voicepipe.’ He looked at him until the young sub-lieutenant met his gaze. ‘I need to be where I can watch things.’ He shook his arm gently. ‘Don’t worry about being scared. Most of us are, sometime or other.’ He watched his words taking effect, hoped they would stay uppermost in his mind the next time, and the time after that.

Tritton nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.’

Ransome pictured the scene as it must have been in the wheelhouse when the shell had burst into it. He was glad that young Boyes had come through. It was very important for some reason, as if he had become a mascot.

He listened to Hargrave shouting to his party. Thank God they did have good air-cover today, because he guessed Hargrave had stripped most guns of their crews to manhandle his tow-line.

Leading Signal Mackay said, ‘I’ve got my bunting-tosser ready to pass messages aft if need be, sir.’

Their eyes met. Parts of a machine. The family. The Job.

‘Good thinking. We’ll try and tow her from her stern – it seems the bow door may be damaged.’ He made himself take a few more seconds. ‘You can shift your gear after this lot’s over.’ He saw the man’s frown of surprise and added, ‘Into the petty officers’ mess.’

Sherwood grinned at him. ‘ Cheers , Yeoman!’

Ransome leaned over the screen once more, glad he had told him. In minutes they might all be killed, but at least one man would know what he thought of him. Like poor Davenport, clinging on to his first gold stripe even in the presence of death.

‘Stop together! Slow astern starboard!’ He saw Leading Seaman Hoggan running across the forecastle, a heaving-line coiled and ready in his big hands. Once bent on to the tow-line they could get the L.C.T. moving until she was clear of danger.

A deafening bang rocked the bridge and Ransome saw a bright tongue of flame punch through Dunlin’s side.

Ransome shaded his eyes to watch the heaving-line as it snaked over the L.C.T.’s square bridge, where several seamen were waiting to seize it. He could feel Dunlin burning, the heat on his face like a noon sun.

Sherwood said flatly, ‘She’s going.’

Morgan called, ‘Tow’s going across, sir!’

Another explosion boomed against the hull and Ransome saw tiny figures jumping into the sea, some clinging to injured comrades as their ship erupted into flames from bridge to quarterdeck. That big explosion must have been deep in her engine-room. No one would walk away from the there.

‘Ready, sir!’

Ransome stared across at Tritton, his pale face framed against the smoke and fires of a dying ship.

‘Slow ahead together.’ He turned to watch the towing-wire rising from the water. ‘ Stop both engines!’ He bit his lip, made himself ignore the other minesweeper as she began to settle down, buried by fire.

‘Easy now. Tell the Cox’n, minimum revolutions!’ If they parted the wire now, the L.C.T. and then Rob Roy would fall under those guns. The towing-wire rose and tightened again. Ransome was banking on the L.C.T. being empty but for the wounded.

He watched, holding his breath, but the wire remained taut like a steel rod.

‘Slow ahead together.’ He glanced at Sherwood. ‘Tell the Doc to stand-by. They may not have one over there.’

Tritton swallowed nervously. ‘Wheelhouse reports helm answering, sir.’

Ransome nodded and strode to the gyro repeater. ‘Bring her round. Steer one-three-zero.’ He smiled at Tritton’s strained features. ‘You can do it. Just like King Alfred , eh?’

A duller explosion rolled over the water and when Ransome glanced across he saw Dunlin’s keel rolling towards the sky, the screws stilled at last as she began to slide under amongst the struggling survivors.

Mackay licked his lips. ‘From L.C.T., sir. Have two hundred wounded on board. God be with you!’

Sherwood said harshly, ‘Put it in the log. Dunlin sank at…’ He glanced away. ‘Was it worth it?’

Ransome watched the L.C.T. yawing untidily astern and pictured the helpless wounded who had fallen almost before the landings had started.

He said to the bridge at large, ‘For them it was.’

Ransome stood on a flat rock, and shaded his eyes to watch the inotorboat as she zigzagged through a small brood of L.C.T.s to make her way back to Rob Roy. He felt strange, unsteady, standing on dry land, seeing his ship at anchor again for the first time since the invasion had begun.

Then he looked around the littered beach and marvelled that anybody had ever got further than the shallows. This same beach, which had been mined and covered by deadly cross-fire from several concrete emplacements, was a hive of activity, with shirt-sleeved soldiers digging and levelling the shell and mortar craters while the sappers laid fresh tapes to show the safe tracks for tanks and lorries, which arrived in a regular procession from incoming landing-craft.

In three days they had forced the enemy back, and as expected the Eighth Army had borne the worst of it, but had still managed to take Syracuse on the evening of that first day, and two days later the port of Augusta which gave the navy a useful base, a foothold from which future operations could be launched.

But the other side of the story was plain to see. Half-submerged landing-craft, pitted with holes or completely burned-out, abandoned tanks, and the tell-tale reminders of bayonetted rifles with helmets resting on them, to mark where some of the attackers had fallen.

The war made itself heard as it raged without let-up towards Catania, below the brooding presence of Mount Etna. But it was at a distance, and the regular sorties of aircraft which roared above the various beaches should make certain it remained so.

After that first day when Rob Roy had towed the damaged L.C.T. to the more experienced care of a fleet tug, the flotilla had been kept busy on duties which ranged from depth-charging a suspected enemy submarine, Italian or German it was never discovered, to carrying out more wounded, and keeping the beaches clear of obstruction.

They had suffered no further casualties, but there had been no slackening of vigilance, so that when not needed for duty the hands had fallen exhausted on deck, the memory of Dunlin’s end still stark in their minds.

Richard Wakely and his resourceful cameraman Andy had seen none of the aftermath. A gleaming launch had arrived from one of the big cruisers while Rob Roy had been unloading more wounded into a hospital transport vessel, and Wakely had depa i ted without another word. Off to another theatre of war perhaps, later to enthrall his audiences on the wireless and in the news papers? It was unlikely he would ever forgive what had happened in Rob Roy. It certainly seemed as if what Sherwood had said about him was not just a rumour.