The Neptune Landing (Tinfish Run Book 3) by Ronald Bassett

Author:Ronald Bassett [Bassett, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2015-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

Six

LCF49 ran ashore under the sea-wall of Courseulles, among men of the Regina Regiment who were still dragging corpses from the tangled wreckage of small craft in the shallows. There was a litter of abandoned equipment, crushed into the shingle by tank tracks — weapons, webbing and water-bottles, helmets, a boot that still contained a severed foot, spent cartridges, broken sandbags collapsed over empty gun-pits. ‘It’s like Southend, the day after Bank ’Oliday,’ Lobby Ludd decided. ‘There’s even blokes queuing fer the Mystery Trip.’ A long file of German prisoners, sullen-faced, waited to be embarked in a tank landing craft.

As soon as the tide had receded the damage to the ship was apparent. The port rudder had obviously struck an underwater obstacle, either rock or concrete, and its steel shaft had been wrenched to just foul the screw. Miraculously, the only damage to the screw was a small, V-shaped cleft, the size of a fingernail, in the tip of each blade. If the rudder shaft could be straightened, the screw’s function would seem to be unimpaired. The distorted shaft, however, was twice the thickness of a man’s arm, and the possibility of achieving repairs on an open beach still within range of enemy guns, a battleline only a mile away and a German counter-attack likely at any moment, was remote. The group of men on the cluttered, wet sand under the stern eyed the damaged rudder dejectedly.

‘Somewhere around here,’ Turk said, ‘there’s a dock-and-repair ship, but I don’t know where. If we show up with this, we might find ourselves ordered back to Southampton. Even worse, we could be told to unship the guns and scuttle her in deep water. There’s not going to be much employment for close support craft once the landing’s established, and it might be thought that a dry-docking for repairs just can’t be justified — not for two or three weeks of operational life. We could be written off,’ he snorted, ‘and all because of a bloody bent pintle.’

They stared at him, mildly shocked, not having seen their predicament in such a serious light. ‘I suppose we couldn’t saw it off, and pretend we didn’t know?’ Taplow chuckled, but nobody smiled.

Lobby Ludd had descended to the sand from the bridge. ‘From Group Commander, sir. “Report state of seaworthiness immediately,”’ Turk frowned.

‘Sir,’ Lobby Ludd suggested, ‘if it was bent crooked, it can be bent straight, can’t it?’ He pointed. ‘Them Canadians up the beach ’ave got a soddin’ great bulldozer that’s pushing around clapped-out tanks like they was nothing. I reckon if yer gave the bloke a couple o’ tots — ’

Turk stared in the direction indicated. ‘Summers,’ he said slowly, ‘why didn’t it occur to you that a ship could be repaired by a bloody bulldozer? Because it sounds damn stupid. That’s why the Admiralty still says that tanks won’t float.’ He grinned. ‘Ludd, if Group Commander flashes again, it’ll be impossible for you to read him through the smoke, and tell Henry that his VHF receiver has developed a fault.

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