Band of Brothers Read online

  ‘Sir.’

  Mike Furneaux drew himself up slightly on his chair. Long-legged, dark and smoothly handsome. Well-heeled, too—Eton and Oxford, father an MFH and Deputy Lieutenant of his county. A minute ago, while they’d all been listening to the SO(O), Furneaux’s and Ben’s eyes had met—Furneaux glancing round not ostensibly at him, more seemingly including him in a general survey of the room, but in those few seconds the MTB man’s stare might well have been asking, ‘Going to spill the beans, are you?’

  Might have been a touch of contempt in it, at that. As if he’d have been interested to know, but either way didn’t really care all that much.

  Which would suggest a high degree of recklessness: lack of concern for the potentially disrupting effect on the flotillas’ spirit and cohesion as—in the Nelsonian concept—a ‘band of brothers’. The essence of it being team-work, mutual trust, interdependence. It was how it was: brothers all in tune, making the same music. You didn’t get that—or keep it—by chasing each other’s wives.

  Furneaux had to be reckoning on Ben turning the blind eye. Could be some special reasoning behind the guess too—depending on whether or not Joan—whose lover he, Ben, had been a couple of years ago—whether she’d kept her lovely mouth shut.

  He guessed she would have. Unless marriage had changed her more than he’d have thought possible. There was one way in which it evidently and regrettably had not. But it was an even more crucial issue now than it had seemed last night—because with Roddy King dead, Furneaux had become the senior MTB officer.

  He’d be well up to the job professionally. Bags of experience, a considerable reputation, two well-earned DSCs. Well-liked, too. Despite being—in Ben’s own opinion, but not having known him more than a few weeks—a somewhat supercilious sod, at times… But as things were now, as the MTBs’ SO, he was going to have to work very closely with Stack; there’d be times when they’d need virtually to read each other’s minds.

  Stack was saying, ‘Lieutenant Furneaux, MTB 560, will have 562, 563 and 564 with him. All things being equal, he’ll put himself ahead and inshore of the enemy—’ the pointer’s tip touched Barfleur again—‘off the point here—and I’ll open the attack from seaward with MGBs 875, 866 and 874, do our best to hog the bowling and give you blokes a clear run in.’

  ‘Using starshell, sir?’

  ‘We’ll see, Mike. Maybe. With just a little luck—’

  ‘Enemy may do it for us.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Not a bad start: they were more or less reading each other’s minds. The timing—distances and speeds—was a worry. MTB and MGB engines were notoriously unreliable, and running them at more than half power for any length of time was inviting trouble. And you needed to cover the last few miles—ten miles, say—at low revs, silenced. But—assuming a solution was found to that problem—the broad intention was for the MGBs to make a diversionary attack from seaward, on the target’s starboard bow; the MTBs, attacking with torpedoes from inshore with the blackness of the land behind them, were to disengage to starboard after firing, MGBs staying clear of them by also disengaging to starboard—the opposite direction, roughly. There was to be a post-action rendezvous position—position XX—at Pointe de Barfleur 045 degrees 15 miles; and several other reference points were established. Navigators making notes of all this. Stack checked the time, and raised an eyebrow at the SO(O). ‘Communications, wavelengths, and recognition signals, Harry—you’ve got all that. One thing I’ll say first—I don’t want jabbering on R/T. Radio silence includes voice radio, in my book. Until we see the whites of the buggers’ eyes, OK?’ He saw their nods… ‘Radar too. Where we’re going tonight they’ll be expecting us, won’t they. It’s a prime target and that’s the only place we have a chance to hit it.’ He’d touched the top of the Cherbourg peninsula with his pointer. ‘They know it, and we should not make it any easier for the bastards by advertising our presence. Especially on the way over, with a chance of warning ’em we’re coming.’ Looking at Furneaux: ‘All right, Mike?’

  A nod. ‘On the way over—yes, sir. But when I’m inshore with my unit—effectively detached—’

  ‘Up to you, then.’ A glance at the SO(O). ‘Harry…’

  ‘Before you saw fit to join us in there, Ben—’ Stack told him, ten minutes later in the SO’s office—‘We were talking about old Rod.’

  He nodded. ‘Bloody shame, sir.’

  ‘Well—on our own like this, forget the “sir”. On duty, in public, sure, we toe the line, but—old mates, right?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  A nod. ‘Up yours too, cobber.’

  At the Felixstowe base two years ago Stack had had command of an MGB—under an SO by name of Hichens, probably the finest ever, who’d been killed in action six months ago—while Ben had been first lieutenant of an MTB, and the Canadian ‘Monkey’ Moncrieff, who was now skipper of MGB 866, had been Stack’s first lieutenant. Being the only Australians in the flotilla, Ben and Stack had naturally become good friends. In fact the three of them had. Then Ben’s boat had come to grief in a fracas with German destroyers off the Dutch coast, Ben had been brought back unconscious and woken up some time later in hospital, and he and Stack hadn’t seen each other since.

  Hadn’t seen Joan since then, either.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t attend your wedding, Bob.’

  ‘Through being wrapped in bandages head to foot and semi-conscious, you mean?’

  ‘Oh, I think they had me up and using crutches, by that time.’

  ‘Well… But you’d met Joan, hadn’t you… Hell, of course—’

  ‘Before you did. Might even have introduced you—uh?’

  ‘No.’ A jerk of the coal-black head. ‘You were around, course you were—knew her before I did, sure. But it was that smarmy pongo—Billy something, Welsh Guards—who introduced us. Regretted it soon after, poor sod… Remember Billy?’

  ‘Sort of. Vaguely.’

  Quite clearly, would have been a more truthful answer. Billy Bartholomew, a friend and brother officer of Joan’s brother’s, had come up to Ipswich now and again to see her. She’d been stationed in Ipswich then. But old Billy had been wasting his time, she’d only used him as a stalking horse, sort of. Ben was pretty sure he’d never got to lay a finger on her.

  Stack asked him, half smiling, ‘Didn’t cause you too much heartache, I hope—when I carried her off?’

  ‘Hell, no.’ And that was the truth. Joan had had a lot going for her—she really had—but he’d have married her like he’d have married a redback spider. He shrugged. ‘The best man won—eh?’

  ‘Well—’ a shrug—‘Why’d I argue with that! Ben, what I was going to say a minute ago—about Rod King—it’s an ill-wind blowing good for young Newbolt. He gets 563—he’ll be confirmed as CO. King recommended him for command some while back, now he gets it. Ironic, huh?’

  Roddy King had gone out in MTB 545 last night because his own boat, 563, had not been part of the duty unit. Mark Newbolt, who’d been 563’s first lieutenant but was taking over now as her skipper, had only recently celebrated his twenty-first birthday.

  Ben saw no irony in it. Men did get killed, and from his short acquaintance with King he thought he’d have been as prepared for it as anyone.

  He agreed about young Newbolt, though. There were several 22-year-old COs in the flotilla, and others not much older, but twenty-one was good going.

  ‘No sour grapes, Ben?’

  ‘Certainly not. I’m lucky to be at sea at all.’

  Because after getting crocked-up that time and then as it were cobbled together, he’d been left with only one eardrum that worked. They’d given him a shore job to start with; then it had been a stroke of luck, a sympathetic senior officer agreeing that an MGB navigator didn’t need sharp ears—although a skipper or first lieutenant certainly did—that had got him back to sea. And that of course was as far as he’d go, he’d remain a navigator until Kingdom Come.

  Or thereabouts
.

  Which was perfectly all right, he told himself. Not fooling himself entirely, but—well, it was a fact he was a damn good navigator, and he took pride in that.

  ‘Incidentally, thanks again for asking for me.’

  ‘Mutual advantage. I get a pilot I know I can rely on, you get to see your sheila once in a blue moon. Saw her last night, huh?’

  Ben nodded. ‘Did indeed.’ He added, ‘You and Joan have a cottage near here, Alan Barclay said.’

  ‘Four miles away. Sounds a better deal than it is, mind you, I’ve—we’ve never got to enjoy it all that often. Last night, for instance—my first night back, and she’s away on one of her long-haul trips. Other times, she’s there and I’m not.’

  There was a pause, while Ben hoisted that in. Having seen her last night foxtrotting and quickstepping around with Furneaux. And now, by seeming to accept the lie at its face value—Joan’s lie to his old mate, her husband—putting himself clearly offside. He asked him—stuck with it now—‘Be back soon, will she?’

  ‘Is back. I was out there today, briefly.’

  Checking the time. Somewhat distracted: which was hardly surprising, in the circumstances. Talking about the cottage and its surroundings, then: it was at a village called Rodmell—Barclay had told him this, and that it belonged to some relation of Joan’s. They were mostly titled, Joan being the daughter of an earl—she was Lady Joan Stack—as well as—now—a driver in the MTC.

  Stack was saying, ‘You must come out there some time, Ben. Did you visit the pub at Alfriston yet, by the way?’

  He nodded. ‘With Monkey. Got everything there, huh? God knows how.’

  ‘Black market connections, is what I heard. Don’t quote me.’ Nodding… ‘Anyway—it’s good to have you around. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to say more than hello yesterday.’

  ‘You had to make your formal calls, you said.’

  ‘Well, I did. NOIC Newhaven here—’ NOIC standing for Naval Officer in Charge—a retired admiral masquerading as a captain, with his offices in what had been the Guinness Rest and Relaxation Home—‘then Fort South wick. Daily routine, I can use the blower—scrambler—but having been away so long—well, you know, personal contact…’

  He’d been up on the east coast for the past five weeks, relieving an SO who’d gone sick and for whom there’d been no other suitable replacement available. When Ben had arrived at Newhaven, MGB 875 had had a temporary CO and Grant McKellar of 863 had been acting SO of the flotilla.

  All back to normal now. Or to what passed for normal. On the surface, and as far as Stack knew, normal.

  It felt like being an accessory, an accomplice. Not at all a good way to feel. In Stack’s situation, he asked himself, wouldn’t you count on any mate worth his salt tipping you off?

  It would be a damn sight easier to break this kind of news to someone you didn’t like, though. Especially Joan being an ‘old mate’ too. If you could put it that way. Well—you could… Another aspect—less personal, therefore more easily arguable—was that blowing the gaff at this juncture could be extremely damaging; and the other side of that coin was that if all concerned kept their mouths shut the whole thing might blow over, the affair come quietly to an end with effectively no harm done.

  Could happen. Furneaux with new responsibilities might come to his senses.

  If Joan let him.

  In the long run, Furneaux wasn’t Stack’s problem. Joan was. When Ben had been corresponding with Bob about getting himself transferred to this flotilla, the marriage had lasted nearly two years, Bob had been reported as still considering himself the happiest man on earth, and it had seemed reasonable to assume the leopard had changed her spots and it might be safe to fraternize again.

  Stack asked him, ‘Tell me about your girl?’

  ‘Well. Name’s Rosie. Rosie Ewing. Widow.’ He shook his head, smiling, at Stack’s quick glance. ‘She’s twenty-five now, wasn’t married long. Her husband flew Spitfires, got himself shot down just before I met her. Now she’s in SOE.’

  ‘That show…’

  ‘You’d think she was hundred per cent Pom, but Dad was a Frog so she’s bilingual. I met her first in London when I had the desk job. Outfit called NID(C). We had a fair amount to do with SOE. Shipping their agents over, and munitions to the French resistance, bringing shot-down flyers out—all that malarky.’

  ‘Which is what you’ve been doing since, in the Dartmouth flotilla?’

  ‘Exactly. How I got to it. My chief in London—name of Slocum, RN captain—astutely agreed a navigator can get by on one ear. And I ran into Rosie again—we’d lost touch, sort of—’

  ‘Going to marry her?’

  ‘When she’ll consent to—when or if.’

  ‘Good on you, Ben.’

  Checking the time again, though. ‘About bloody time we heard…’ Jerking round, then, at a thump on the door as it opened.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Mike Furneaux: his eyes on Stack—who’d already begun to move—and a jerk of the dark head back towards the Ops Room. ‘It’s coming in now on the scrambler, sir.’

  Chapter Two

  Leaning over his chart-table in the gunboat, hearing the familiar sequence of reports and orders from the bridge only a few feet away, up there behind him: Barclay’s ‘All gone aft, sir’, and the clink of the telegraph as Stack gave her a kick ahead on the starboard outer, telling Charlie Sewell, ‘Port wheel, Cox’n’ and adding to Barclay, ‘Let go headrope’, and then—with the engines stopped and put astern—‘Take off the back spring.’ Ben meanwhile scribbling a few quick and simple calculations on a signal-pad. True course—which he’d laid-off on the chart—216 degrees. Westerly variation was a plus, easterly deviation a minus. And—feeling the tremble in the boat’s timber as her outer screws backed her away from MGB 866, alongside whom she’d been secured—and, since it was now four hours short of high water at Dover, you’d have an easterly set of roughly one and a half knots. Which in four hours’ time off Barfleur would have become a westerly of about a knot and a quarter. Another movement of the telegraphs bringing further changes in the vibration: outers stopped, then slow ahead, Stack’s rasp of ‘All right, Cox’n, take her out’, and Petty Officer Sewell’s quiet acknowledgement. He’d be putting on starboard wheel to ease her over that way, steering her out through the narrow bottleneck of the harbour entrance. Stack telling Barclay, ‘Fall the hands out, Number One.’ Sailors would have been lined up for’ard and aft, since taking in all the breast-ropes and springs, and were now being fallen out to secure the deck gear for sea. The boat meanwhile still propelled only by her two outer screws. Ben transferred the result of those calculations to his notebook—course by magnetic, south 40 west—slung binoculars round his neck and went up into the bridge.

  The light was going fast. Effectively, it had gone; and it was still a few minutes short of 1830. The darkening effect of low cloud, of course. Over on the other side—the French side—the Heilbronne would be clearing Le Havre in similar conditions. The recce flight had reported her as being still inside but that there’d been some movement in progress, four or five escort vessels filing out into the swept and buoyed channel. Being a daylight reconnaissance, the aircraft would have been a Spitfire, one of the very fast, unarmed PRU probes that covered not only the French but also the Dutch and Belgian ports. Whether the enemy would know they’d been spied on was a toss-up. Might not, if the Spit had taken its quick look—using the last of the daylight, ducking under the cloud-ceiling as it were en passant—a slant-view from a mile or so offshore, over the Baie de la Seine.

  MGB 875 was beginning to pitch a little as she met the incoming tide and the beginnings of the swell; with a faintly pinkish glow still emanating from the horizon in the west, the direction of Selsey, and the wash from her powerful, rumbling progress startlingly white in the surrounding gloom, washing along the dark line of the east pier. It was going to be a little bit bouncy outside, but nothing much; wind only about force 2 at present with no
more than a slight chop on the sea, but this long swell out of the Atlantic, a legacy of last week’s storms.

  The rest of the unit would be clear of their berths by this time, following her out. Ben focused his binoculars on 866, Moncrieff’s boat. Hearing Stack growl, ‘Didn’t know we’d lost Binns, Alan.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Barclay… ‘Looked for you to tell you, but—’

  ‘When I was ashore, dare say. Not that it’d have made any odds…’

  Binns, a green-stripe—‘special’—sub-lieutenant who spoke German, was carried as an extra officer to man the QD gear. Also known as ‘Headache’, it was a contrivance for eavesdropping on the enemy’s voice-radio. Binns had been rushed off to hospital with acute appendicitis and it hadn’t been possible to replace him at such short notice.

  Stack had had his glasses trained astern. Without lowering them or looking round, telling whoever was nearest the telegraphs—it happened to be Harper, a leading seaman, also second coxswain, who’d come up to report that the gear on the upper deck had been secured for sea—‘All engines slow ahead.’

  Harper—six-four and about sixteen stone, known to his friends as ‘Tiny’—repeated the order, pushing the two centre levers over. Starting the inner pair would push her up to ten knots, from about six or seven, at these low revs. The next step would be to go to half-ahead, working up to cruising speed by the time of passing C2A buoy, about two miles offshore. It was the departure point for all Coastal Force operations from this base; the Newhaven turn-off, as it were, from the swept channel that ran from the Nab Tower at Spithead all the way round to Dover—thence through the Downs to the Thames and on to join the East Coast Convoy Route.