Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

‘Captain here.’ He pictured Ransome on the bridge, assessing it, making a plan, preparing another if it all went sour.

‘Recover the sweep.’ He hesitated. ‘Take it easy, Philip.’

Sherwood nodded to Clarke. ‘Bring it in.’ He heard the Buffer panting along the side-deck. ‘Clear the quarterdeck and take cover!’

He waited, half-expecting his limbs to defy him, to begin shaking.

‘Nice and easy, Stokes. It’s probably a bit of wreckage.’

Clarke said nothing, but reached out with a gloved hand to let the incoming wire slide over it. He remarked flatly, ‘Clean as a whistle.’

Sherwood waited. Even in the poor light he could see the wire, bright and burnished, proof, if any was needed with old sweats like Clarke on the job, that the wire had been running along the bottom.

‘Guttridge! Fall our the gun’s crew.’ Sherwood glanced around. He could barely see beyond the guardrail.

If it was a mine, it was coming in right now towards the counter.

‘Pass the word to the bridge, Buffer.’

The Buffer stood his ground and called, ‘Gipsy, tell the bridge. It’s probably a mine.’ To Sherwood he said affably, ‘I’ll stay with you, if you don’t mind, sir.’ He folded his arms and could have been grinning at him. ‘I ’ear congratulations is in order, sir?’

Sherwood gave a short laugh. Maybe that was it. They were all going quietly round the bend without realising it.

’Slower , Stokes!’

Clarke gritted his teeth. He could feel it now, as if he and not the winch was taking the full strain, like a fisherman with a marlin on his line.

Sherwood got down on his knees and winced as a rivet dug into his leg.

it’s there. It must be.’ He made up his mind. ‘Tell the captain.’ He reached up and added, ‘Give me that flashlight, Buffer. I’m going to have a look, and to hell with the bloody black-out!’

He switched on the light and saw several things at once. The float trying to rise to the surface as it floundered towards the winch, the otter already shining brightly in the beam while it moved nearer. Directly below his outstretched arm was the mine.

Sherwood heard Clarke give a gasp, and as if from a mile away someone calling to the bridge on the intercom. The deck seemed to tilt right over, and he guessed that one screw had been thrown into full astern to pivot the ship round.

He saw the mine sway towards him, but found he could watch it without fear. Seconds only to live. He shouted into the spray, 7 love you!’

Then the mine veered away, caught unawares by the violent change of course. It collided with the otter at the end of the sweep and the dark sea lit up to a vivid explosion.

Sherwood felt himself knocked flat by a solid waterfall which swept over the deck without making a sound. But as his hearing returned he caught snatches of cheering, and felt the Buffer thumping his back and yelling, ‘We’re goin’ to need a new float, sir!’

A seaman called, ‘All them dead fish! Pity we can’t ’ang about to net ’em for the galley!’

Sherwood staggered to his feet. His cap had vanished,as had the Buffer’s flashlight. A bloody close thing. There was nothing in the manuals about using a torch in enemy waters.

Down in the engine-room Campbell watched the revolution counters moving into unison again, and saw one of his stokers giving him a thumbs-up while the glistening machinery roared round within inches of his hand.

The whole place had boomed like an oil drum beaten by a giant hammer. Campbell looked for his E.R.A. and they exchanged quick grins.

Then he turned back to his dials, his lips moving to the tunc of an old hymn.

‘Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, Always bloody well sweeping, Sweeping in the morning, And in the afternoon…’

Campbell wiped his streaming face. Alf Bone had been right to get out of it, he thought. Just for a split second back there…

He had felt his eyes fixed on the curved side, streaked with oil, each droplet quivering to the beat of the twin propellers as if it was alive.

Just for one agonising moment he had believed that which all of them dreaded had happened.

The telephone shrilled noisily beside his little metal shelf, where he kept his engine-room log.

‘Chief here.’ He had to press one grimy hand over his other ear.

‘This is the captain. All right? Sorry about the noise – don’t know what the neighbours will think.’

The Chief grinned and felt the tension draining away like sand from a glass. ‘We’re okay, sir. Let me know when you intend to do it again!’

On the bridge Ransome gave the handset to the boatswain’s mate. To Morgan he said, ‘Let’s hope that’ll be the last of them!’

Morgan removed his cap and allowed the spray to soak into his curly hair.

He had imagined that he actually saw the mine as Ransome had flung the ship hard over. Another moment, and – He felt his legs shaking. No casualties, no damage.

Then the boatswain’s mate turned from a voicepipe and said unsteadily, ‘Beg pardon, sir, but the gunnery officer is reportin’ the starboard guardrail ’as carried away in the – er – bang!’ It was all he could do to prevent himself from bursting into insane laughter.

Ransome climbed into his chair for the first time and nodded gravely.

‘Tell Mr Fallows that I shall indent for a new one when we return to harbour!’

Mackay hid a broad grin, and touched his young assistant’s arm.

‘Like a bunch of kids!’ But he did not hide his admiration, or his relief.

Long before dawn it was obvious to everyone that there was no last-minute change of plans. The full force of the attack was under way.

Throughout the night Ransome and the watchkeepers who shared the bridge with him had felt the air trembling to an unbroken procession of bombers flying toward the Normandy coast. There must have been hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.

And now, as dawn made a reluctant grey brushstroke on the clouds, the coastline was outlined by a backcloth of fire. Red and orange, with a wall of smoke rising like the gateway to Hell.

How must it look to the thousands of troops who would be in their landing-craft? Heading towards their next rendezvous, a cross on a map, an aerial photograph at some last briefing?

Very few of these many craft were yet visible from Rob Roy’s bridge, but Ransome knew they were stretched across the Channel, the rearguard still leaving the assembly area while the leaders were preparing for their baptism of fire.

Ransome levelled his glasses and watched the ripple of flashes which seemed to dart from the land itself. Seconds later the heavy shells began to fall amongst the invisible armada, while the air quaked to the echo of their explosions.

As at Sicily, the big ships were firing from below the horizon, the glow of each fall of shot giving shape to the land, like a terrible panorama of death.

Bedwortb cruised through the support craft with an impressive bow wave, her signal light flashing briefly like a solitary blue eye.

’Proceed as ordered , sir.’ Mackay lowered his father’s big telescope.

‘Slow ahead together.’ Ransome rested his hands on the screen and watched the first low shapes of landing-craft butting into the choppy water abeam. No bagpipes this time. It seemed wrong somehow. They had survived this far. The greatest invasion of all time had begun.

He saw some fast motor launches leading the way as the larger landing-craft turned obediently to follow.

Part of the Canadian Third Division, heading for the beach codenamed Juno.

Ransome thought of the pipe-smoking major he had met on the beach in Sicily. Perhaps he was here too on this bleak, terrible morning.