CHAPTER 14

The second in command aboard the Gull, like his skipper and the rest of the crew, wore nondescript clothing and had a two-days' beard. Except for Sterns and me there was not a uniform aboard—if one excepted Mladineo in his bastard GI and Partisan cap outfit. Had the second in command been dressed in uniform he would have been wearing a blue jacket with a stripe and a half in wavy design about the sleeve, for he was a sub-lieutenant in the Naval Reserve—the "Wavy Navy," as the officers who proudly write "RN" after their names (for Royal Navy) would say. He was a mere wisp of a lad, more than six feet tall but certainly weighing less than a hundred and twenty pounds. As we cruised north in the brilliant moonlight he stood on the deck in front of the little wheel-house with a big pair of night glasses in his hand, peering almost constantly into the vague horizon.

"What do you see with those things, Blake?" I asked.

"Well, you see a lot you would never see without them," he answered with a friendly grin; "but they tear your eyes out after a while. Have a look magnification; the impression is rather what one would expect if he suddenly turned into a cat. You see in the dark.

"If you'll spell me off for a few minutes I'll go below and get a cup of tea," Blake said. "Shout if you see anything at all. If we meet a ship it will be point-blank range by the time we see them, so there won't be much time to waste."

For the next quarter of an hour I searched one hundred and eighty degrees of horizon diligently without seeing anything but low cloud banks. Blake returned and relieved me of the bulky binoculars, sweeping the sea before us in a swift rotary gaze. Abruptly he paused to steady the glass, then he bolted for the wheel-house and shouted down the ladder to Taylor:

"Island, I think, on our starboard bow."

"Okay," Taylor called back. "It checks. I reckoned we'd pick it up within the next minute or two. How much do we clear1?"

"About a mile, I guess," Blake answered.

"Dead on!" Taylor answered. "Thank you."

When Blake returned to his post I borrowed the glass to look at the island I had failed to see.

"Right over there," he said, orienting me into the darkness. With great difficulty I discerned a faint intensification of shadow on the horizon. "There's a bit of low mist over that way," he added kindly. "I don't wonder you failed to see it. One's blinkers have to become accustomed to this job. They were never intended for it."

An hour later the wind began to rise and by midnight it was blowing briskly. Taylor's prophecies were correct to the letter. A faint low mist lay upon the sea, but overhead the moon was clear and the stars sparkled; the wind freshened momentarily and big seas slowed us down.

Blake and I talked and took turns with the glasses. The lad was full of romance and poetry, and the mood of the moment —excitement and adventure—made him talk freely about himself and his ideals. Although he looked scarcely twenty years old he had already taken part in many operations like the present one, mostly along the coast of France. He appeared completely fearless and inspired, like a missionary in a dangerous land. In time we would win the war and all the wrongs of the world would be righted: meanwhile, he was delighted with his duties. His face was as fresh and charming as his ideas as he stood with his feet well apart on the heaving deck, his slender figure swaying in the wind. He swept the horizon from east to north, then from west to north again and noticed out of the corner of the eye as he lowered the glasses that we were leaving a wake shaped like the letter "S."

"That lad at the wheel has got the wind up," he laughed. 'This is his first time out and he's a bit nervous. Instead of watching the compass card he's thinking of home. Look at the course he's steering!"

From where I stood I could hear nothing of what he said to the helmsman through the whistling of the wind, but I could see his face in the moonlight as he leaned against the wheel-house door. A kindly smile failed to mitigate its seriousness as he delivered his admonition. There was much gentleness in this lion-hearted young warrior. I reflected thinking that it's hard to win a war against countries that produce officers like him. ...

At two o'clock I went below for a few winks of sleep in the fo'c'sle after visiting Taylor at the navigation table in the cabin and arranging to be called as soon as we made a landfall, which should be a little before daylight. The mounting seas were putting us behind our schedule and it might be day before we could reach the little house on the southern shore where Mladineo had planned our first contact with the island. Mladineo himself had been asleep below, like Sterns, since early in the evening.

When they turned us out the island lay just ahead in the cold white light of dawn and the Gull moved smoothly through the quiet seas in the lee of the island. Steve shivered in the wind as he peered through the glass in search of familiar landmarks.

Turning suddenly and handing the glass to me he said: "Look, right there . . ." pointing with his arm.

The binoculars revealed a steeply rising shore surmounted by big hills, and half way up, on one of them, there appeared to be a little village, a cluster, of stone dwellings surrounded by high walls.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"That's the fort we took," he said. "Remember the story I told you at Catania? That's the fort where we got our arms."

Taylor asked: "How far are we from the cove you mentioned?"

"It's a couple of miles east of here," Steve answered. "Stay on this course—or better, just keep within a thousand yards of shore. There are no rocks here."

A few minutes later we were opposite the entrance to the cove. Taylor and Sterns were on deck and there was evidence of some tension in the atmosphere.

"Had we better man the guns?" Taylor asked me. "And what flag should we fly—if any?"

"Man the guns by all means," I answered, "but be absolutely sure that no one cuts loose without orders to shoot. You can count on them, can't you? The Partisans might fire a few shots, not recognizing us. It wouldn't do to blast back at 'em . . . and hoist your own colors."

"I'll make it clear to them," Taylor answered. "I'll see that they don't load—that they keep the chambers empty—until they're told to shoot."

Suddenly the decks were alive with hurried figures as nets were cast aside and oil-drums split open to reveal the wicked machine guns and their belts of shining brass cartridges. Taylor was giving his orders quietly and the men took up their positions behind the guns, verifying and checking with expert, nervous fingers. The Royal Navy's flag fluttered briskly up the halyards to the mast. We were in close now, virtually at the entrance of the tiny little sheet of sheltered water. A house stood at the back of it and there was no sign of any living thing ashore.

"It's strange," Steve said. "There ought to be a sentry on duty. Keep the house covered and work her in as far as you can. There's plenty of water."

Taylor stood beside the helmsman. He took her in stern first—a wise precaution, and we backed slowly across the little inlet until scarcely fifty yards lay between us and the house. Steve and I stood at the rail in the stern, he armed with a megaphone as well as his pistol and Marlin. Finally a figure appeared cautiously in the doorway. Steve shouted his own name and that of the Bog s Noma and a few interrogative phrases of Serbo-Croat I was unable to undertand, then the man in the doorway stepped out, carrying his rifle in both hands "at the ready" and ran down to the edge of the water to shout replies to the questions. Their conversation lasted only a minute or two.

"It's all right," Steve called, grinning happily. "We're absoluteiy all right. Everything should be normal on the island. This man was at Headquarters in Vis three days ago. . . ."

I relayed the message to Taylor, who had already guessed its content from the look on Mladineo's face, which he had been watching through the window in the back of the wheel-house. He laughed and waved his hand, then signaled the engine room for quarter-speed, and the Gull crept back through the narrow entrance to the sea. The figures behind the machine guns relaxed as we headed toward the town of Vis, twelve miles away.

But when we were under way Mladineo betrayed some surviving anxiety, first by asking that we keep far enough off shore to be out of gunshot, then by saying he thought it would be best to keep the guns manned as we entered the harbor of Vis.

"The town could change hands in the night," he said. "We may as well take every precaution."

It was broad daylight now and we were doing exactly what we had planned to avoid, cruising up the coast without any cover and with no hope of cover if we should be attacked. There was no way in which the fisherman we had talked to in the cove could get a message to Vis, so we would have to go in under the Partisan guns, knowing that they were all laid on us at point-blank range from the moment we rounded the point and approached the harbor.

"You might as well explain that to them," Steve suggested, after we had talked a bit. "We must be sure that none of these machine guns start clattering under jittery trigger-fingers."

Taylor and Blake were in the wheel-house. I joined them there and relayed the message, one of the gunners stepping over to listen.

"They aren't likely to shoot at us, are they?" Taylor asked.

I called to Mladineo and inquired. He nodded solemnly and shouted back: "They're practically certain to shoot. That's why it's so important that no one cut loose here without orders."

I translated this cheerful message faithfully.

"Good God! What are we supposed to do when they open up?" Taylor wanted to know. The men looked at one another with unhappy faces. There was no place above the waterline on the little Gull that afforded any cover. She was as fragile as an egg-shell.

I discussed this point with Steve.

"When they open up we'll head straight for the battery that fires on us and proceed at reduced speed," he said. 'That way they will probably know we are friendly. They are not likely to fire anything very big—just rifles or machine guns. That's the only way we can hope to get in. . . .

"But they have some big guns," he added, after a moment. "That's one of the reasons it's so important not to open fire-even if someone should be hit aboard. Of course if the Germans hold the coast we're in for it, either way."

Taylor and Blake and the helmsman listened solemnly as I explained the situation. There was no comment, but Taylor stepped over to each of the gunners in turn and gave them their orders.

At eight-fifteen, we rounded the point and approached the narrow entrance of the harbor. Great hills guarded it at either side and a light-house stood on a promontory to the south. We would have to pass quite near it to get in.

At first there was no sign of life ashore, although we were less than half a mile from the light-house. Steve and I stood in the bows, he with his megaphone, I with the binoculars.

"Don't see a soul," I told him. Then a rifle cracked.

"Here it comes," Steve said. "See that they do as I asked."

That first shot was followed by a whole volley from the same point near the light-house. I signaled to Taylor to head straight in toward it and reduce speed. He nodded, his face tense. We were on the course now, but the fire increased. I was still unable to discern any sign of life. Mladineo waved his megaphone above his head. A bullet smacked the wheel-house.

"How about it?" Taylor shouted. "Do we carry on?"

"Straight ahead," I answered. "They'll stop as soon as they see what we're up to."

(I was hoping they would.)

Steve looked at me and grinned. "I wish they'd shut it off," he said. "It's disagreeable, isn't it?"

We were really out of range for accurate rifle fire, particularly in a cross-wind, but it was disagreeable. We would not long be out of range. . . . Suddenly the firing ceased.

"We ought to be all right now," Steve said. There was still no sign of life on shore. It was not until we were in so close we dared advance no farther for fear of piling up that a solitary figure with a rifle slung across its shoulders came down the rocky tip of the headland to speak with us. It cupped its hands and shouted. Steve bellowed back through the megaphone.

"Stevo Mladineo of the Bog s Nama . . ." and the rest was incomprehensible. The little figure on the rocks had lots to say and it took some minutes for him to get his message shouted up the wind to where we lay, wallowing in the choppy water. Finally Steve had it all and they waved at one another to indicate agreement.

"He wants us to wait here," Steve said. "He's notifying the authorities in town. There's a telephone. We're all right now. They'll let us in in a few minutes."

This message brought a great expression of relief to the faces in the wheel-house and behind our machine guns. We all took a deep breath and looked at one another and laughed. It had been easy, after all!

Soon the little figure reappeared and motioned for us to proceed toward the port, indicating with a sweep of the arm that we were to stay well in against the southern shore. Steve had not yet been recognized. The Partisans were prepared to take a chance on us, but they wanted to keep us well covered all the way.

As we were now in so close that men on shore could see what we were doing I suggested to Taylor that the guns be put away. That would have a reassuring effect on anyone who was watching us through a gun-sight. We reached the entrance to the harbor itself a few minutes later but another figure on the shore stopped us there and indicated that we were to wait for a patrol boat which we could see making its way across the bay.

When it came alongside we noted that its decks fairly bristled with machine guns. There must have been twenty of them pointed at us, most of them on ten-inch tripods and behind them men lying on their bellies. They were an ugly sight, viewed from that angle, but it took Mladineo only a few moments to establish his identity. Then there were happy shouts of greeting and we were ordered to go on to the town, which lay against the hills on the far side of the port.

The Gull's engines thumped and rumbled softly as we pushed across to where a small crowd waited on the sea-wall. Eager hands caught our rat-lines and strong arms warped us in until the dainty Gull came to rest against the timbers.