Audacity by Alan Evans

Author:Alan Evans [Evans, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2014-10-01T23:00:00+00:00

10—Night Action

Smith gave his orders to his officers. They sat about his cabin while he leaned against the desk. Ross had come straight from putting the prisoners under guard, still dirty from worming about in the belly of the guard-boat, planting the scuttling charges. Gallagher was towelling his hair but wore dry clothes borrowed from McLeod. The navigator sat by the door, one ear cocked for any call from the wheelhouse. Danby, typically, had tucked himself unobtrusively into a corner.

Smith said, ‘We’ll be up with the tug inside the hour. I intend to call on her to stop then go alongside and Mr. McLeod will lead the boarding-party this time because there may be need of his German. I want to know if the tug carries the crew of the Anna—and if not, what happened to them. Whether she sent a warning signal before we took her. And I believe the cargo is still aboard the Anna, in her hold, and I want that confirmed. Understood?’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

Gallagher asked, ‘What about the Camel, sir?’ Naturally he was eager, wanting his precious plane. Both were precious in Smith’s eyes and he had blasted the flight commander for risking his life diving over the side to save the seaman—if they ever got the Camel it would still be useless without its pilot. ‘I’d foreseen such a possibility,’ Smith had told him angrily, ‘and posted lifesavers at the side for exactly that purpose!’

Gallagher had answered simply, ‘I didn’t think of that at the time, sir. I just saw the man in the sea and went in after him.’ There was no doubt he was brave.

Now Smith said, ‘As soon as McLeod has secured the tug I will put you aboard to inspect the Camel, and, if it seems sound, see to its transfer. Take any of your own men you’ll have use for. Are any of them seamen?’ Because transferring the Camel would be a task for men used to working afloat.

Gallagher combed his thick, still damp hair with his fingers. ‘A few regular Navy, the P.O. for one, but the rest’—he shrugged—‘a trip in a pleasure-boat off Southend is about all they’ve seen. Some never went to sea till they were drafted across the Channel to France.’ They were ‘hostiles’, signed on in the Royal Naval Air Service for ‘the duration of hostilities’, as mechanics, riggers or armourers. Gallagher said, ‘But I can find what I want among ‘em.’

Smith nodded, pushed up from the desk, and smiled around at them. ‘I think there’s time for a meal for all hands, Mr. Ross. See to it.’

He wondered if there were prisoners aboard the tug. He would know by nightfall. And then? He wanted the gold and they all wanted the Camel for the desperate gamble that might get them out of this trap that was the Baltic.

*

Ross came out of the wheelhouse to stand at Smith’s shoulder. ‘She’s less than a mile ahead now, sir.’

Smith nodded. Audacity had worked up to fifteen knots, hammering after the tug at twice her speed.

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