Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

Minesweeping… a war without glory, where death lurked beneath the sea or floated from the air. A war without mercy or discrimination. The mine was impartial and gave no warning.

The men who fought this lonely battle did so knowing it was an essential one. Every day each channel had to be swept, otherwise the country’s lifelines were clogged and the vital cargoes could not move.

They were a mixture of young men and old sailors; many of the latter had spent much of their lives trawling for fish, most of the others had been schoolboys before the war.

To keep the sealanes open, four hundred minesweepers, ‘the little ships’, paid the price, and nearly five thousand officers and men died doing it.

The sky above Dover harbour was a clear washed-out blue, so that the afternoon sunshine gave an illusion of warmth and peace. Just an occasional fleecy cloud drifting on a fresh southeasterly breeze, but none of the too-familiar vapour trails which betrayed the silent air battles, the pinpoints of flame as friend or enemy fell into the Channel.

It was April 1943, only a few days old, and the harbour, like the weather, appeared to be resting. There were not many warships of any size moored to the jetties; most of them went to safer harbours, round the corner as the sailors termed it, in the Thames or Medway, or in the East Coast base of Harwich.

Here there was little peace for long. Sneak raids by fighter-bombers, or the deafening arrival of the great shells fired from Cap Gris-Nez to land in the town or amongst some coastal convoy as it scuttled through the Channel.

Lying side by side at one wall were two fleet minesweepers, their ensigns and Jacks lifting and rippling in the breeze to make bright patches of colour against the drab grey and camouflage dazzle paint. They were twins, and to a landsman might appear to be small, foreshortened frigates.

Straight-stemmed, with a spartan superstructure of bridge and solitary funnel making them look businesslike, only the clutter of minesweeping gear and derricks right aft on the cut-down quarterdeck marked them apart from any of the escort vessels.

There was no visible sign of life on board. Sunday afternoon, and make-and-mcnd for the duty watch, a chance to snatch some rest after weeks of sweeping the deadly mines, often within sight of the French coast.

Dover Castle with its bombproof headquarters beneath stood guard over the harbour and its approaches. For at this point the enemy were just twenty miles distant – a jarring thought, if anyone still needed reminding.

In his cabin in the outboard fleet minesweeper, Lieutenant Commander Ian Ransome undipped a scuttle and opened it to let the weak sunshine play across his face. It was good to be leaving the long nights behind, even if the risks might be extended accordingly. He narrowed his eyes to study that part of the town which was visible from his cabin. A defiant, battered place on the very elbow of Hellfire Corner, as the newspapers named it. His mouth moved slightly in a smile. Shit Street was the sailors’ nickname. The smile made him look younger, like a shadow passing away.

He saw his reflection in the scuttle’s polished glass and ran his fingers through his hair. It was dark, and although not originally curly it had somehow become so. Too many days and nights up there on an open bridge, in salt spray and in all weathers. He turned and looked at his cabin. Small, and yet spacious compared with his tiny hutch behind the bridge, where he could snatch an hour and still be ready instantly when the alarm bells tore a man’s heart apart.

He saw the calendar propped on his little desk and it all came crowding back again. The fourth of April 1943. He had been in command of this ship, his ship, for one year exactly.

He stared round, his ears seeking some familiar sound to distract him. But the ship was quiet, with only the far-off murmur of one of the Chief’s generators to give a hint of life.

Ransome sat down at the desk and stared at the clip of signals which had awaited their return to Dover. He had known they would be in harbour for this day. They would have shared a solemn drink in the wardroom, perhaps invited some of the old hands to enliven the occasion.

His reefer hung carelessly from the only other chair, the two-and-a-half wavy lines of gold lace on its sleeves. The Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. A wartime navy; the amateurs who were now the true professionals. On the jacket’s breast above the pocket was a single blue and white ribbon. The Distinguished Service Cross. For gallantry, they had said. He smiled again, but it was sadder than before. For surviving, was nearer the truth. He pulled up the sleeve of his grey fisherman’s jersey and studied his watch. Nearly time. It made him feel sick. Uneasy. Perhaps a year was too long in any ship. Or was it the job? He had gone into minesweepers almost immediately after entering the navy at the outbreak of war.

He reached out and opened a small cupboard, so that the untouched bottle of Scotch seemed to wink at him in the reflected sunlight. He had been hoarding it for today.

He toyed with the idea of pouring a glass right now, and to hell with everything. Later perhaps. He might even invite the skipper from their sister ship Ranger aboard to join him. Even as he considered it he knew he would not.

He began to fill one of his pipes with fierce, jabbing thrusts from an old jar he had found in a junk shop at Plymouth.

Nobody had been to blame. It had happened before. Others would die because of that momentary distraction. Lack of vigilance? Who could tell?

It was often said that the danger from sudden air-attack was at its greatest when a ship was making for harbour.

They had been doing just that after weeks of sweeping, with let-ups only to refuel and take on extra ammunition. No matter how skilled his men had become there were some who had been thinking of a run ashore, a brassy pub behind the blackout curtains where just for a few hours they could dream or make-believe.

David Rule had been an excellent first lieutenant in every sense. He had never tried to gain popularity by being soft, but even at the defaulters’ table he had usually managed to end the day without malice.

Ransome knew he had not always been easy to work with; he had been at it a long time. In war even six months could be an eternity, and Ransome had been sweeping mines for three years.

That was when he had not been needed for escort work, for picking up convoy survivors and anything else a senior officer might dream up. But Rule’s cheerful disposition, impudence when he thought it was needed, had made them into an unbreakable team.

Ransome looked at the ship’s crest on the white bulkhead. HMS Rob Roy, built by John Brown’s on Clydebank just two years before the Germans had slammed into Poland, built when men cared about their craft, before ships were flung together, almost overnight it seemed, to try and balance the horrific toll in vessels and men alike. He nodded, as if David was here with him, as they had intended it would be.

Together they had made the little Rob Roy the best sweeper in the group.

It had been an early dawn when the sweep had put up a mine. Ransome had peered aft from the open bridge as Rule’s sweeping party had slowed the winch, and a boatswain’s mate had passed the word that the drifting mine had snared a wreck, or part of one. God knew there were enough wrecks littering the seabed on the approaches to every harbour.