SOE by Fredric Boyce

Author:Fredric Boyce
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Charlie

Lt E.C.Crocker, O.S.S.

Oscar

J.R.B. Oxford, B.A.

The Gallant Maj (R.N?)

Maj J.G. Bedford, RE

The Phoney Doctor

R.C.G. Moggridge, Ph.D.

Archie, in a canoe fitted with the Budig apparatus, had been joy-riding round the harbour on tow from a Freighter; the fun started when the Freighter came in towards the mole to cast off the tow. She sailed in, serene in her confidence to check her way by reversing with her electrics; alas, they failed to function and she proceeded on to the rocks with a sort of majestic inevitability. She finished well and truly stuck with the tide falling fast, and all that was accomplished by turning engines full on was a slight forward movement followed by frantic protests from the propeller hitting rocks.

Archie departed for the escort vessel a mile or so away. flapping his Budig way across the harbour like an exotic water insect. He enters the story no more, except that being an apt student of Trials Committee methods, he managed to break his machine; but lacking the finesse to which the Trials Committee aspires, he broke it in mid-sea, and had a long and weary paddle back to harbour. There, as a revenge on an unkind fate, he left his canoe tied to the rope from the raft in the swell trap. This in a single stroke cut all communication between raft and shore and was the cause of much fury when the Freighter finally reached harbour.

Meanwhile the seaborne members of the Trials Committee, ever chivalrous, had sailed to the assistance of the Freighter in distress. Charlie and Oscar, in a canoe, had been towing a Wheelwright* laden with the Gallant Major and half a ton of lead; casting off their tow, the exuberant pair started to pull a 15-ton Freighter off the rocks by means of their 1½ horse engine. Charlie in the bows was holding the tow-rope. The canoe twisted out of line. The rope engaged on a recessed portion of the Oscar torso, and in a remarkably short space of time the canoe was inverted and two bodies were in the water. The turn over had something of the smoothness and style of a first-class serve at tennis. Charlie struck out for the Freighter, while Oscar climbed on the still inverted canoe and started to roar with laughter. The shore party was already so convulsed that they had to sit down on boulders to give rain (sic) to their mirth.

The merriment was increased by the spectacle of the Gallant Major, nobly paddling to the rescue of all and sundry on one heavily laden Wheelwright. He and Oscar then added to the fun and games by trying to right the canoe from the Wheelwright. Every time they got the canoe nearly vertical, it floated away from them, leaving them the alternatives of dropping the thing, or of diving into the widening gap of water between the two craft. Unfortunately for the onlookers, they succeeded in avoiding the second alternative; but during the third attempt the canoe cut a neat 6” slit in one of the Wheelwright’s buoyancy chambers, which flattened with a derisive hiss.

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