Free Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) by Douglas Reeman Page A

ports which had become a first line of defence, and attack. Harwich and Felixstowe combined were the main base of the convoy escorts, destroyers and sloops. He thought of the Number One who had just left them. And the Glory Boys. Right down as far as the Dover Strait, Hellfire Corner as the war correspondents liked to call it. They didn’t have to sneak the convoys through, with the krauts just on the other side of a twenty-mile strip of water. The lads called it Shit Street. It suited.
    He thought he heard voices from the chart space below and forward of his position. The skipper and the new boss, the two-and-a-half from
Vernon
, Masters. They seemed to be getting on well enough, so far. But then, they had both been through the mill.
    He considered promotion again. Face it, he thought, you don’t want to leave the boat. Not after all . . .
    The sub-lieutenant moved up beside him, his duffle coat pale against the sky and sea. Brand-new, probably. Like him.
    ‘The Needles are abeam, estimate about ten miles, ’Swain.’
    Bass nodded, his eyes on the faintly lit compass. ‘Who needs radar, eh, sir?’ and for a moment he thought he had gone too far, then Allison said, ‘She handles well.’ He reached out to steady himself as the hull lifted and dipped again, spray drifting over the bridge like gentle rain.
    Bass had seen him the previous day when they had left the inlet, wearing his second-best jacket, but the single wavy stripe was still like new, and the trousers also. He had heard the skipper say cheerfully, ‘Grey flannel bags are my advice, Sub.’
    Sub.
Bass had noticed that, too. As if the skipper could not yet bring himself to forget Harry Bryant. A good first lieutenant unless you crossed him. Then, you thought a cliff had fallen on your head.
    Anyway, they were heading back to base. Three hours, maybe more if there was other traffic around Weymouth. He licked his lips. Time for some ‘ki’. The skipper would already have thought of that.
    Steps on the short ladder, two darker shapes against the new paintwork.
    ‘Some ki, ’Swain?’
    Bass grinned.
    ‘Jarvis, shift yerself! An’ don’t spill any of it!’
    He wiped his face with his hand. No, he did not want to leave her . . . not yet in any case. That was what he always said.
    Foley glanced at his passenger. ‘Getting rather lively, sir.’ And to Bass, ‘Alter course a point to port, ’Swain. The currents hereabouts are a bit bothersome.’
    Masters said, ‘You know this area well. Good thing, on this kind of work.’ He had learned quite a lot about 366’s commanding officer, what he had achieved both before and after getting his own boat. He had survived the loss of his last; they had been shot up somewhere in the North Sea. His skipper and seven of the ratings had been killed. It had been bitterly cold, freezing, when the rest of them had baled out, their only support a small life raft. Another had died before a rescue launch had found them, eleven hours later.
    Masters had asked him about it, why he had not received a decoration of some kind. Foley had just given a distant smile.
    ‘Well, you know this regiment, sir. You don’t get a gong just for staying alive.’
    For an instant Masters had imagined it was aimed personally at him. But he knew, even after so short a time with this young officer, that Foley would be unable to tell you a lie to your face. He wore the blue and white ribbon of the Distinguished Service Cross, but, like thesmile, it seemed as if it were shared with the boat, and the rest of his small company.
    Foley heard the rattle of the cocoa fanny, and imagined his men throughout the hull reaching for their chipped and battered mugs.
    Petty Officer Ian Shannon, the Chief in this vessel, knew more about the three-shaft Hall-Scott motors than anybody. Withdrawn and taciturn, in his thirties, he was the oldest man aboard. He had managed a small garage on the North Circular Road outside London, and had wanted to buy a small