Action This Day (A Commander Steadfast Thriller) Read online

  ‘What now?’ was all that Steadfast could mutter in reply. Cunningham had no authority over Madcap, so why should he want to see him, he wondered. He concluded that Moresby must be making trouble and prepared himself for a difficult interview.

  The two men got into the same sand-coloured Humber Super Snipe staff car that had brought Steadfast to Alexandria only a week or so ago. The driver sped along the seafront and Steadfast sat back to enjoy the rush of cooling air from the wound-down windows. The officer by his side seemed unwilling to open a conversation and occupied himself by shuffling folders, most of which were stamped ‘Secret’ or ‘Restricted’. This slack security did nothing to reassure Steadfast of the safety of his own mission in this city heaving with foreigners.

  At HMS Nile Steadfast was quickly whisked along the increasingly familiar corridors past the increasingly familiar faces of duty officers and security staff until he was once more inside Cunningham’s office.

  ‘Come in, Steadfast, and close the door,’ said the admiral.

  ‘It’s not often I get a “decode recipient only” signal – London normally trust my staff – but that’s what I’ve got here. Turns out the message is for you.’

  Cunningham handed Steadfast the signal, which read ‘Signs prisoners are to be moved. Advance operation to night of 24-25’.

  ‘God Almighty!’

  ‘Caught you on the hop has it?’ enquired Cunningham.

  ‘Let’s say it’s not welcome news.’

  ‘I don’t want to pry into the details of your plans, but if we can help, you will ask, won’t you?’

  ‘I know you would help, sir, but I reckon we’ll be OK.’

  ‘How are things going with the boats?’

  ‘We’re making progress.’

  Cunningham showed no interest in this half-hearted reply, and simply said, ‘Good’.

  As he was about to depart, Steadfast wondered whether he should seize this moment to ask for Baines’ removal. But he now relished the prospect of vexing Moresby by the safe return of his useless officer.

  ‘Yes, we’ll be fine, thank you, sir.’

  ***

  Having much to think about, Steadfast refused the offer of a lift back to the jetty. He walked out of the Ras-el-Tin Palace into the hot sunshine from the south and the dazzling glare from the Mediterranean Sea to the north. After two years of working in the Atlantic and the North Sea, every day of sunshine was a luxury. He lifted his face up to feel the full heat of the generous sun, taking in as much as he could before the night-time operations that were now so close.

  By the time he was back at the jetty with his commanders Steadfast had resolved that Baines’ boat would stand off shore during the operation, leaving Fergusson and Truscott to manage the difficult night navigation close to the shore.

  Baines had returned from the repair yard, but his boat was still absent.

  ‘What’s the damage, Baines?’ he asked.

  ‘Superficial, sir, just skin deep. The boat will be fixed by tonight.’

  ‘Damn good thing, because I’ve got news for you gentleman. London’s been on. They’ve got more gen on our prey. He – well, all the prisoners – are about to be moved. My guess is that means the Italians are going to hand them over to the Nazis. Anyway, the op’s brought forward to the night of the twenty-fourth/twenty-fifth. That means we leave here at midnight tomorrow.’

  ‘But we’ve hardly started our night working up,’ exclaimed Baines.

  ‘True. We’ll have one more chance tonight and that’ll be it. Meanwhile the rest of today and tomorrow is for preparations: provisions for five days, full load of fuel, as many spare barrels of fuel that you can carry, full load of ammo. And don’t forget to make sure the greasers check every last pipe, nut, bolt and valve on the machinery. We’ve a long trip ahead, far from any friendly ports.’

  7 - Surprise At The Target Bay

  The second night’s practice went smoothly, with Baines kept off-shore. As the three boats returned to the jetty, Steadfast reminded his commanders to conduct a meticulous inspection of their boats and provisioning early on the next day.

  ‘You’ll only have eight hours or so to fix any deficiencies,’ he reminded them. ‘I’ll be round mid-morning to check on progress. And one other thing, gentlemen, make sure you’re thorough but do your best not to look as if you’re preparing to depart on something big. We’re almost certainly being watched, so try not to give anything away.’

  ‘Watched?’ asked Fergusson.

  ‘I’ve already located one nosey-parker – a harmless one and not very good at his job. But I’d bet a week’s salary there are others – better disguised, better trained – who have seen every move these boats have made since they detached from Moresby. But, when was a Royal Navy vessel not kept under observation in foreign parts?’

  ‘What do they want, sir?’ asked Baines.

  ‘Nine times out ten these people haven’t a clue why they are watching. They just record comings and goings and report them back to Italy or Germany or God knows where. I reckon it’s just local curiosity in our case. There’s no need to be alarmed, but we mustn’t take chances. And don’t forget: whites for day time work but only navy blue and black for the night operations. We’ve got to be invisible, gentlemen.

  ‘And one more thing. I’ve popped something special in each of your cabins. You can take a look when you get to sea. There’s a few people round here might disapprove, but if you use it at the right moment it could save your bacon. If you don’t use it, drop it over the side before we get back. It’s best if no own knows.’

  Steadfast was amused at the puzzled look that came over his commanders’ faces. He knew that they would never guess what his gift was. And he sincerely hoped that they would never have need to use it.

  ***

  At midnight the three boats put to sea at half-hour intervals. As they left Steadfast revealed the name of the fort to them, now that it was too late to be accidentally passed to a local. ‘It’s called Fort Pakapshëm,’ he said, breezily adding, ‘I’m told it means “untakeable” in Albanian.’

  ‘Is that local humour or hard reality?’ asked Truscott.

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ replied Steadfast, ‘but the job of the Royal Navy has always been to do impossible things. One more or less is not much in years of war.’

  Ahead of them were two nights and two days of steaming at 20-knots across what they hoped would be an empty sea. They were to rendezvous at Point Z shortly before midnight on the twenty-fourth.

  When dawn broke on the twenty-third each commander found his craft alone in a vast sea. They were now well beyond the fishing grounds of the small Egyptian boats and could only look forward to a day of ploughing onwards towards the Adriatic. Steadfast had told them that their isolation and the sheer cheek of making the crossing would protect them from attack. But, by now, each commander had opened his bundle and realised that Steadfast had more practical ideas on how to avoid an air attack.

  It was Fergusson who first found his need of Steadfast’s gift. 371F was making steady progress when, in the early afternoon of the first day he heard the dreaded drone of aeroplane engines. Within two minutes he could see a Breda Ba 75 at about 2000 feet. In the clear Mediterranean air he could easily pick out its familiar cantilevered wings and the sunlight reflected off the glazed underside of its fuselage. If I can see him that well, thought Fergusson, he can see me all too clearly. He dashed below, opened Steadfast’s parcel, returned to the bridge and had soon run up an Italian flag.

  ‘The guns, sir?’ called Lieutenant Bertram Golding.

  ‘Keep the covers on, lieutenant and send as many men below as you can spare. The others should carry on as normal. We’ve not a chance if we’re spotted for what we are. Our only hope is bluff.’

  The plane swooped lower to look more closely at Fergusson’s boat. Nearer and nearer it came, while Fergusson struggled to look like a relaxed Italian commander in Mare Nostrum. Then it continued on its course and the
tension on the small boat eased. Just after Fergusson had ordered the flag to be lowered, and the boat was about to settle back into the routines of the long voyage, a look-out cried: ‘It’s coming back.’

  ‘The flag! Put back the flag!’ he ordered.

  The plane came rather lower this time and circled the boat in a more deliberate manner.

  ‘He’s seen through us,’ cried one of the able seamen.

  ‘Action stations, sir?’ asked Golding.

  ‘Hold it, Golding, just keep looking unconcerned.’

  Twice the plane circled the gunboat with its covered guns. The two men in the stern playing a game of cards and a man sunbathing on the foredeck played their part in maintaining the boat’s insouciant air.

  As the plane banked for the last time, its pilot looked down on the gunboat. Fergusson gave a friendly wave.

  ‘He’s waving back, sir,’ cried Golding.

  ‘You can thank Mr Steadfast for that little trick,’ replied Fergusson, as the plane turned away and resumed its course.

  ‘Has he got any more tricks up his sleeve?’

  ‘Well, he also left us a German flag.’

  ‘I don’t fancy trying to pull that one a second time. Especially on Jerry.’

  ‘You may not have a choice, lieutenant. We may have to fight our way back to Alex, but we’re done for if we have to fight our way out. If we down a plane or sink a ship, we’ll have half the Italian Navy scouring the sea for revenge.’

  That was the last that any of the boats saw of the Italians during their passage across the Mediterranean. Steadfast had been right in trusting to the audacity of the venture to ensure its successful outcome. But as night fell on the twenty-fourth the commanders’ thoughts turned to the prospect of hostile coastal patrols and a contested landing.

  ***

  All three boats were standing off the contact bay, which Steadfast called Bay C, well before midnight on the twenty-fourth. At half-past eleven, Steadfast flashed the recognition code in the hope that the partisans were there early. There was no response. He repeated the signal at midnight. Still no response. He wondered whether his mission was to fail at the first step – without the partisans he could do nothing. And there was no fall-back plan if the initial rendezvous failed.

  Steadfast turned to Fergusson. ‘I’ll take the dinghy and investigate. One flash will mean I’ve made contact. Two flashes means we’re coming back. Three flashes means send in help – armed help. Acknowledge with the same number of flashes.’

  Two seamen silently rowed Steadfast inshore proceeding as slowly as they could without falling prey to the ebb tide. The boat seemed heavy in the choppy sea. Progress was agonizingly slow as the seamen endeavoured to avoid making the least noise. Steadfast peered into the darkness as he tried to make sense of the black emptiness ahead. Now and again he thought he could see the rocks. For a moment he imagined that he had caught a glimpse of a sandy beach. The one thing that he could not see was anything that looked remotely like a partisan, or evidence of their being nearby.

  When they were about fifty yards from the shore, Steadfast, in the faintest whisper, called ‘Stop.’ The men froze, oars in mid-air, water dripping back into the sea while the boat pitched and rolled gently in the darkness.

  ‘Italian voices!’ he explained.

  There was no doubt about it. They could hear two Italian voices on the beach – a beach that the partisans had particularly nominated for its freedom from Italian activity. The obvious explanation, thought Steadfast, was that the partisans had been captured. That meant terminating the mission right there. And, if the partisans were in Italian hands it was likely that the Italians also knew that British boats were on the way. No wonder no one local wanted to touch this operation.

  The night was turning out badly. First there were no partisans at the agreed rendezvous point and now the welcoming party turned out to be Italian. With no means of radio contact and no other rendezvous point Steadfast was stuck. He signalled to his seaman to turn the dinghy round and return to Fergusson’s boat. As the dinghy slowly swung round and began its return to the gunboat, black thoughts filled Steadfast’s mind. Was he really to return to Alex, not only empty-handed, but without having even made an attempt to release the prisoners? A wild idea came to him: why not try without the partisans? He guessed that the seamen would relish the thought of some action. He began to form a plan for an attack of his own.

  While deep in his new plans for a naval raid, Steadfast heard the gentle bump of a wooden oar against a muffled rowlock. He turned around and dimly saw a small dinghy coming towards him. He reached for his pistol, and searched the darkness for signs of how many men were in the boat.

  ‘Peacock,’ came a voice from the darkness. Steadfast lowered his pistol on hearing the password for that night and replied ‘Lightning’. He had found the partisans.

  It was not hard to locate the partisan’s dinghy since it was enveloped in a cloud of foul-smelling cigar smoke. Soon the two dinghies were side by side. An outstretched hand in the darkness announced itself as that of Enver Gozhita, the local partisan leader. ‘The Italians are on the beach. My men have had to move off to another inlet on the north side of the fort. There are three inlets. We call them të tre motrat – three sisters in English. The fort’s in the middle one, and there are smaller ones to the north and south. You’ll have to move two km south to pick up my men.’

  Gozhita had barely finished explaining the change of plan when loud shouts of ‘Enemy boats!’ came from the beach and machine gun fire started to spatter the sea.

  ‘We’re spotted!’ cried Steadfast. ‘Get the hell out of here,’ he shouted to the oarsmen. ‘Fast!’

  Fortunately the night was too dark for the Italians to see the dinghies. Their fire was as much an act of bravado as a serious attempt to harm Steadfast’s party. Even so, the seamen rowed like they had never rowed before. As they reached 371F the two seaman finally found time to voice what they had been thinking: ‘I thought this was just a drop-off and pick-up do. No one said anything about being shot to blazes on a beach,’ complained the first.

  ‘The commander wasn’t prepared for a hot welcome either,’ replied his companion.

  Back at the gunboats Steadfast realised the need for a change of plan, but first he had to get to know his new collaborator. In the dim light below he could now take a look at the man who was to master-mind the night’s proceedings. He was of medium height with a square face, covered in a thick, dirty and unkempt beard. His tousled, knotty hair showed no signs of any recent attention. He wore a patched old black jumper, smeared by greasy fingers and the oily dirt of guns and engines. His baggy trousers, far too long for him, hung in great folds above his tough but down-at-heel boots. He stank of cheap cigars, of life on the run, of sleeping on floors and washing under open-air pumps. His unsmiling grim face revealed a hard and determined man, wearied by war but not beaten. When he opened his mouth he revealed himself to be near toothless. The only smart thing about him was his clean, well-maintained Sten gun – a testament to the seriousness of his enterprise. Steadfast decided that Gozhita was the man for the job, but the sooner they both went up top the better for Steadfast’s nose.

  ‘You look like a partisan, but you don’t sound like one,’ said Steadfast, attempting to open the conversation with Gozhita.

  ‘So how should I sound?’

  ‘I hadn’t expected you to speak English – and so well.’

  ‘Oh, that! I was at LSE for three years before the war.’

  ‘What’s LSE when it’s at home?’

  ‘It’s at your home, commander. Don’t you even know your own country? London School of Economics – one of the top places in the world for social sciences.’

  ‘Ah, not the sort of thing my family know about. We’ve been Navy for over 200 years. We never had any time for education. But why …’

  ‘Why’s an economics graduate leading a bunch of dirty partisans? Because, when this stinking war is done, and the Ita
lians have ruined our country even more than we’ve ruined it ourselves, we’ll have to build a new country: one like yours with universities, factories and a proper political system. You’re fighting to preserve your way of life. We’re fighting to change ours.’

  This was one of the first lessons Steadfast had ever had in politics, and it made him realise that there was more depth to Gozhita than he had thought.

  Turning to Gozhita, Steadfast said, ‘We’ve lost the benefit of surprise so we’ll have to make a quick change of plan. I suggest that I first put to sea to make the Ities think we’re retreating. Then, once we have fooled them into thinking that we’ve cleared off, we can start taking off your partisans.’ Gozhita nodded his approval as he calmly chewed on the stump of a dead cheroot. One hour more, one hour less or one day more, one day less – none of it mattered to him. He knew his battle was to be long and hard. He had learnt to live with meagre results for much effort.

  ‘Baines, Truscott, wait here. And don’t make a sound. We’ll be back in twenty minutes. Fergusson, full speed ahead, straight out to sea. Make as much noise as you can.’

  ‘Full speed, sir?’

  ‘Well, we want the Ities to thing we’ve scarpered, don’t we?’

  ‘Of course, I see now, sir.’

  MGB 371F shot off into the darkness, its three 16 cylinder Paxman VRBs roaring like the combined cars of a Grand Prix race.

  ‘This’ll fool them,’ shouted Steadfast as the boat bumped and bounced over the darkened sea.

  Five minutes later Steadfast ordered Fergusson to slow down, turn around and return to the rendezvous point where Baines and Truscott were still waiting.

  ‘And this time, not a whisper.’

  A quarter of an hour later all three boats were standing off the northern inlet, which Steadfast had decided to call Bay X for ‘extra’ since it did not figure in the original plan.

  ‘There’s around a dozen men on the beach,’ explained Gozhita.

  ‘Are they any good?’ asked Steadfast, thinking of the hand that Moresby had dealt him.