The Baltic Run Read online

  The Baltic Run

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  ONE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  TWO

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  THREE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  ENVOI

  One

  Next in Series

  Copyright

  Endnotes

  ‘He who enters the Baltic Sea in an armed boat does so at his peril.’

  17th Century Swedish Saying

  Author’s Note

  When Sir de Vere Smith, VC, DSO (and bar), OBE (mil, div.) died at his country house in Gloucestershire at the age of ninety in June, 1990, he was naturally accorded an obituary by The Times, The Daily Telegraph and the other broadsheets. After all, he had once been a national hero, winning the Victoria Cross at the age of nineteen. Then in middle age he had come out of some kind of semi-retirement to become a distinguished destroyer skipper in World War Two, fighting at least two convoys across the North Atlantic with Grossadmiral Doenitz’s wolf packs out to get him.

  But it was pretty obvious that the anonymous obituary writers were somewhat puzzled by the man who had appeared to have spent the last forty-five years of his life doing a little farming, shooting in winter and in summer sailing his beloved ketch, the Swordfish, in the Solent. Why had he not been employed again after the Second World War, they must have asked themselves? After all he had been only forty-five. Why, too, had he lived in a sort of semi-retirement in the 1930s? More importantly, how had he spent the 1920s after winning his VC?

  His brief entry in Who’s Who obviously gave them no clues. All it records is that the subject ‘spent the ’20’s travelling’. There is no indication to where Sir de Vere travelled. But how did he get all those foreign decorations for gallantry that are recorded in Who’s Who: awards from Greece, Belgium, Yugoslavia, even a Croix de Guerre avec Palme from France, a country notorious for not giving awards to Englishmen in the inter-war years?

  The Times obituary writer contented himself with ‘De Vere Smith, or “Common Smith, VC” as he was widely known in the ’20’s, spent that decade on government service in Europe and elsewhere’. The obituary writer of the Daily Telegraph went a little further. He wrote: ‘The ’20’s greatly resembled our own time. Europe was in a state of flux. The German and Russian empires had collapsed. New countries were springing up everywhere. There was war and strife on all sides in Europe. It seems that young de Vere played a part in helping those emerging countries, which were friendly to Britain, keep their newly won independence.’ How, the man from the Telegraph did not explain.

  It was only after the death of his second wife last year, the former Countess Krystyna Oleksy (whom de Vere rescued from communist Poland in 1946 under mysterious circumstances, which still have not been explained) that his papers came to light. They are a collection of handwritten accounts of his exploits in the 1920s and early 1930s. These ‘adventures’, as he called them, are not particularly well written and the grammar is definitely shaky (young de Vere persisted, for instance, in mixing ‘to’ and ‘too’ and his use of the apostrophe is haphazard), but they are a real find. Today anyone who had lived the kind of life de Vere had done in the 1920s and was prepared to have it ghostwritten by a professional would make a fortune. Publishers would be lining up outside his back door with their chequebooks open. TV and Hollywood wouldn’t be far behind, either.

  For young de Vere had really led an amazing life, gun-running to the new Poland, helping to prevent a massacre of Greeks in war-torn Turkey, giving a hand to the German authorities in their first attempt to crush Hitler and his Nazis… Between 1920 and 1933, when he was officially ‘retired’ (though perhaps this was just another cover job carried out by the Secret Intelligence Service?), de Vere Smith – ‘Common Smith VC’ – popped up in every trouble spot in Europe.

  From what he relates in his ‘adventures’, he seems to have been a typical, upper-class Englishman of his time. As a contemporary and friend Lt Commander ‘Dickie’ Bird, DSO, RM, wrote long afterwards in his autobiography, Down To The Sea In Ships Again, ‘I would describe him (de Vere) as an Englishman of the very finest type. That is to say he regarded his own country, whenever he thought about it at all, as being the supreme country. In the whole world. He did not force his opinion down other people’s throats – it was simply so. If the other chap didn’t agree, well that was his funeral.’

  In those exciting dangerous days in Continental Europe when everything was in pretty much the same turmoil and chaos as today, ‘Common Smith, VC’ ensured that a lot of ‘chaps’ who disagreed, were carried off in a box, feet first, pretty damned quick, or ‘pdq’, as he always put it.

  Today I suppose they don’t make Englishmen like him any more. Who, today, would risk his neck in highly dangerous places for precious little pay and then keep his lips permanently sealed about what he had done for the country and the Empire? Today, I should think most people would laugh at his type: a clubland hero of the kind fictionalised by writers like John Buchan, Dornford Yates and ‘Sapper’.

  But de Vere Smith was not a fictional hero; he was the real thing. A man who risked his neck time and time again without complaint, believing that he was doing so for the good of his country and his fellow countrymen. Still, I feel, that even in our own cynical age, when all values have vanished and we live only for gain and money, there are perhaps some of us who would take a sneaking pride in men like ‘Common Smith VC’

  This is his story…

  ONE

  A MISSION IS PROPOSED

  ‘War’s hell, but peacetime will kill you.’

  Old Sailors’ Saying

  One

  Lieutenant de Vere Smith shivered violently.

  Now the fog was rolling in, wet, cold and sad. Out on the North Sea the little coastal freighters heading for the Humber were beginning to sound their foghorns at regular intervals. It was like the moans of lost souls. Raindrops dripped mournfully from the gas lamps lining the Promenade. Even the little horse gamely pulling the heavy black cab to Withernsea’s LNER station hung its wet head miserably.

  Smith hunched his broad shoulders deeper into the comfort of his British naval warmth and told himself once again that he had been beached at the end of the world: Yorkshire’s remote east coast in a rainy, cold winter, with half the population dead from the recent war and the Spanish Flu and the other half still recovering from both.

  The wind from the sea lashed a fresh burst of icy raindrops against Smith’s face, and for a moment he was tempted to turn back and seek the sparse comforts of his bleak room at the Commercial Hotel. But he didn’t. Ever since their Lordships had banished him to this little fishing village for ‘your own safety, Smith’, as they had expressed it, he had made himself walk five miles in the morning and five in the afternoon, whatever the weather. He had to recover fully from the wound he had received at Kronstadt, if he were ever to be fit enough for active service. The only trouble was that the call had still to come. Their Lordships seemed to have forgotten he had ever existed, dammit!

  Doggedly he continued his progress down the windswept Promenade. Here and there yellow petroleum lanterns flickered in the windows of the little houses facing the sea. But most were empty, as they had been ever since the Huns had bombarded this part of the coast, back in 191
4.

  1914! The thought startled the young officer a little. Back then he had still been a spotty kid at Harrow-on-the-Hill, the high point of his existence mutton and tinned peas at the Tuck Shop at sixpence a go. He grinned ruefully at the memory. A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then. He turned to his left and started climbing the slight hill that led into North Road. Somewhere a tinny gramophone, a Decca perhaps, was playing a scratchy record with a selection from ‘Chu Chin Chow’.

  The jolly music seemed to inspire the lonely young officer, dripping with rain and shrouded in the fog. Abruptly he burst into the old school song, singing as lustily as he had ever done as an innocent lad back at Harrow before the war,

  Then the joyous dream retreating

  Fades again the empty air.

  Golden vision, false and fading

  Oh, that you were true as fair…

  He stopped as abruptly as he had begun, as he recalled how that ‘joyous dream’ had finally retreated…

  * * *

  Suddenly the fog off the Soviet naval base had seemed to split. Dramatically the whole of the Red Fleet had been revealed, silhouetted stark and black against the lights of Petrograd. The great dreadnoughts and cruisers lay silently in their berths like sheep in their pens, just waiting to be slaughtered. The four little motorboats leapt forwards like savage hunting dogs let off the leash at last.

  On one of the ships an Aldis lamp began to clatter. A siren howled. Somewhere a red flare flashed into the night sky in the same instant that that first star shell exploded over the little craft. Still they came on, bows high out of the water, a wild white bone in their teeth. They twisted and turned crazily, as tracer started to zip flatly across the harbour at them.

  The lead boat shuddered. At the helm of the Swordfish he had seen the two white splashes as first one and then the other torpedo slapped into the water. Automatically he counted off the seconds as he fought to steer the little craft, which was now surging into battle at forty knots. Five. He blinked as the night sky was lit up by a great searing light. Next to him CPO ‘Nobby’ Clarke cried, ‘Hell’s teeth! They’ve got a hit!’ The next instant, the sky was full of flying metal and the air stank abruptly of burnt cordite.

  Now the second little craft surged forwards to make its attack. Rattled, the Red gunners turned all their weapons on the vessel as it skimmed across the harbour. Tracer sped towards it in a lethal Morse, red, green and white. A pom-pom opened up with a steady thump. Shells exploded all around the craft in flurries of wild white water. Still the young skipper surged on, disappearing at times behind that flood of water. Smith prayed he’d make it. Surely they hadn’t come all this way to fail now?

  Suddenly, the number two swung round in a great wild curve, white spray flying high in the air. She had launched her tin fish. Again Smith started to count. One… two… three… four… five…! His face was slapped abruptly by what felt like a flabby damp fist. A great jet of orange flame seared the length of the Red cruiser’s deck. The paint started to bubble and pop obscenely. Burning men began jumping overboard, screaming with panic as the great ship started to keel over to port.

  Her boilers burst. Great clouds of steam arose. A mushroom of smoke, like a giant smoke-ring, erupted from her funnel. And then, with dramatic suddenness, the cruiser was gone altogether, shrieking and groaning like a live thing as she did so.

  ‘Did you see that, sir?’ CPO Clarke yelled above the roar of the engines. ‘If I hadn’t seen it with me own orbits, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. Twenty thousand tons of steel gone in twenty ruddy seconds. Cor, stone the ruddy crows!’

  Smith did not answer. He was concentrating on his own attack now. There was one more CTB to go in before him and then it’d be his turn and already the Red gunners were recovering. Everywhere searchlights were clicking on, parting the darkness with icy white fingers. The third craft was now spotted. The enemy gunners opened up with a terrific crash. The sea all around the tiny craft boiled and heaved. To Smith it appeared that the daring young skipper would never be able to penetrate it alive as he headed for his target, a fleet tanker, a huge vessel packed with oil.

  Suddenly the craft shuddered. Had it been hit? No, suddenly he saw the flurry of bubbles as its first torpedo sped towards its target. ‘He’s launched his fish, sir!’ Clarke bellowed into his ear, as Smith steered to starboard trying to keep Swordfish in the shadows and away from the searchlights for as long as possible.

  Smith nodded and watched transfixed as the flurry of bubbles sped remorselessly through the glowing water. At that range the ‘fish’ couldn’t miss. Both torpedoes struck home with gigantic hammer blows. The aft tanks went up at once. A great hiss. Flames, tinged with oily smoke, shot into the sky. The tanker started to sink at once. Flaming oil raced down the suddenly tilted deck. Screaming, burning men flung themselves overboard only to find that the water all around the sinking tanker was blazing too, now. Like a giant flame-thrower, a great all-searing, all-consuming torch hissed and roared terrifyingly across the sea.

  Clarke, hardened old salt and veteran of the mass destruction of Jutland that he was, turned his head away, unable to watch that hideous scene with men being literally flayed of their flesh to reveal the bare gleaming white bones beneath in seconds. Smith swallowed hard, feeling the hot choking bile rise into the throat. But he forced himself to look, like he had done as a midshipman at Jutland when he’d watched the Iron Duke go down, and as he had done in all those mid-Channel clashes of the last terrible year of the war.

  ‘Clarke,’ he bellowed thickly, ‘we’re going in now!’

  ‘Ay ay, sir,’ Clarke said, turning to his front once more as Smith opened the throttle wide out. ‘I can see her, now, sir… the Spartak.’

  ‘Yes, I see her as well!’ Smith yelled, throwing his silk muffler over his shoulder and crouching a little in anticipation of what was to come. He thrust home the throttle to its fullest extent. The nose of the craft rose right out of the water. Suddenly the boat was hitting each separate wave as if striking a brick wall.

  Almost immediately two searchlights coned in on the flying vessel. The warning sirens shrilled on the Spartak. The pom-poms and the heavy machine guns on the deck facing the English boat started to spit fire. Scarlet flame slashed the night. Tracer hissed towards them, growing larger and faster by the second. But they seemed to bear a charmed life, as Smith swung the boat from left to right, drenching those on deck with seawater. Time and time again the Russian shells missed the boat by feet.

  Now, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the searchlights and the brilliance of the tracer, Smith forgot all his fears. His whole being was concentrated on the Red battleship. Next to him Clarke shouted off the distances, ‘Eight hundred… seven fifty… six hundred, sir… five hundred.’

  ‘Fire… one and two!’ Smith yelled with all his strength, his face wild with excitement. ‘NOW!’

  The boat shivered. A cough of yellow smoke. The two one-ton torpedoes bounced from the holes on either side of the hull. One heavy splash. Another. ‘Running true, sir!’ Clarke shrieked above the clatter of the heavy machine guns and the boom of the Red guns.

  Smith flashed a look to his front. There was a momentary flash of bubbles. The torpedoes were on course. He waited no longer. With a jerk of his powerful shoulders, Smith flung the little craft round. Behind them, like two vicious steel sharks, the torpedoes headed for their prey. As Smith fought his way out of the harbour, Clarke swung round to stare at the Spartak, counting off the seconds at the top of his voice like a man demented.

  As one, the two torpedoes exploded right in the centre of the battleship just as Smith had planned. A vivid orange flame sprang up. There was the creaking and rending of tortured metal. Abruptly panic-stricken, desperate men were flinging themselves over the sides everywhere as the towering superstructure began to waver and tremble violently. One man dived straight from the radio mast, missed his distance, and crumpled on the steel deck like a sack of wet cement. Othe
rs fought desperately to get out of too tight portholes. For all knew the Spartak’s back was broken; she wouldn’t last much longer.

  But Smith had no eyes for the dying Spartak. Now he concentrated on getting the little craft out past the boom, before the Red speedboats came speeding in from Kronstadt, just across the water. His little craft, torpedoes gone and armed only with Lewis machine guns, stood no chance against their two-pounders. He had to get out before the Reds tracked him!

  Now the little craft, weaving crazily from side to side so that its wireless mast seemed to touch the very water, ran the gauntlet of the Soviet artillery. Shells plummeted into the water on all sides. Time and time again the handful of men on deck were soaked by huge torrents of falling water. Shrapnel ripped the length of the boat, tearing great ragged holes in the woodwork. Somewhere Smith smelled something burning. But he had no time to find out where it was. He prayed only that it was not the engine room.

  The dark shape of the boom loomed up in that lurid light. Men were running along it, firing from the hip as they did so. Clarke grabbed hold of the Lewis gun. He pressed the trigger, crying, ‘Try this little lot on for size, you Red boogers!’ The gun chattered into frantic frenzied life as he ripped off a whole drum at the running men. They were swatted off the boom like flies being cupped by a giant hand.

  Smith flung his head back and forth to cast off the great beads of sweat that were threatening to blind him. Which way should he go out? Close to the boom or on the far side, where it was darker? He decided on the far side. It was an almost fatal decision. As he swung the boat to port, the twin searchlights coned him perfectly. Almost blinded by the cold white glare, he yelled, ‘Knock them out… for Crissake knock them out, Clarke!’

  The Chief Petty Officer slammed another drum onto the Lewis gun and swung it round. Too late! The artillery piece, sited together with the searchlight, fired first. The three-inch shell slammed into the bow of the flying craft. It reared up like a wild horse being put to the saddle for the first time. Smith felt something like a red-hot poker being plunged into his left shoulder. His arm dropped to his side, useless.