Donald Cameron 7.Ship of Fate by Philip McCutchan

Author:Philip McCutchan [Philip McCutchan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2015-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

CONTACT was expected to be made with the Free French airborne troops at 1100 hours. They were to be dropped a little south of Cape Fegalo and as soon as they were seen to have landed Oleander would head in for the beach and lie off as close inshore as possible. Boats would be sent away to bring off the troops in relays. When the embarkation was complete Oleander would head back to lie off the western invasion beaches until dark, when she would move towards the coastal village of Ain-ei-Basr. where the troops would be put ashore with Vice-Admiral Boulin. Boulin would guide them to the anthrax pits behind Beni Saf, and at a pre-arranged signal — three flashes from an Aldis on high ground — Oleander would move in to carry out a diversionary bombardment of the port: and Boulin would establish radio contact with Algiers once he had secured the pits.

Forrest, acutely aware that originally the plan had included Halberdier and Forsythia, didn’t see a lot of hope. In an aside to Cameron he said. They’ll be mown down in minutes. The Nazis’ll be guarding that dump like a nun’s virginity.’

‘No other way, is there?’

Forrest shrugged. ‘It seems not.’ He’d asked Boulin why the paratroops couldn’t be dropped directly on to the target; the Frenchman had been precise about that: they wouldn’t have a chance. What hope there was lay in the clandestine approach from ground level. The airlift to the vicinity of Cape Fegalo was being made simply in the interest of getting them quickly into the area.

Forrest went on. ‘The nub of the whole damn show lies in the fact the pits can’t be blown up!’

‘I imagine anthrax is something you can’t destroy easily in any case. How do you do it — burning, drowning, burying?’

Forrest shook his head doubtfully. ‘Don’t ask me. Burning’s the most likely, I suppose. Anyway, that’s not our worry.’ He brought up his binoculars and studied the line of the shore as the corvette came round Cape Fegalo. Here there had been no landings; but back to the eastward the tanks were still moving ashore from the landing craft, pushing through the shallows and up the beaches into what sounded like a heavy curtain of fire. As Perry-Grant left the bridge with permission to visit the heads Forrest said restlessly, ‘Our worries are ship-bound — right, Number One?’

Cameron sensed what was behind the remark: Perry-Grant and Leading Seaman Newcombe. He knew that Forrest had taken Perry-Grant’s shouted remark more to heart than he need have done: Don’t you know anything about maintaining discipline? Certainly, it was important to uphold an officer’s authority, but, in Cameron’s view, not when that officer had already made an abject exhibition of himself in front of ratings. Any upholding would have been somewhat too late and could only have lowered the standing of the upholder.

Forrest, however, was seeing himself as the cause of it all in having entrusted the landing party to Perry-Grant. There

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