The Skipper's Dog's Called Stalin Read online

  ALSO BY DAVID BLACK

  Gone to Sea in a Bucket

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 David Black

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781612184517

  ISBN-10: 1612184510

  Cover design by Stuart Bache

  To Mark.

  I wouldn’t have got the show on the road without you.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Postscript

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Gil Syvret was lounging in a high-backed chair, still astounded by the sheer grandeur of Durandal’s wardroom, when the first shot was fired. He’d been in there for most of the evening, at this interminable summit of senior officers gathered from over a dozen or more French warships currently holed up in ports around the English coast. He was sitting at a proper table; behind him, hanging on a wallpapered wall complete with wall lights, was a portrait of the French Navy’s Commander-in-Chief. There was also a drinks cabinet in the space, and the table had a tablecloth and something that should never have been there – ashtrays. He just couldn’t get his mind round it. Durandal was a submarine.

  Gil wasn’t a senior officer himself, but a mere Lieutenant de Vaisseau. However, his Captain was away, detained on staff duties Gil could only wonder about. But they all lived in troubled times, so Gil was now acting Captain of his submarine, and that was why he was here, in Durandal’s wardroom. Aboard his own submarine, all the officers had for a wardroom was a C-shaped cubby off the main passageway; with a banquette and a table top with hollow plinth, which stored a gramophone and other assorted fripperies. And they thought that was luxury, even though the five of them could not all fit in at once. But here . . . here there was enough room for a dozen. More if you squeezed.

  There was even room for them all to leap to their feet and push back their chairs, when the shot went off, and then push for the door; for yes, Gil had to remind himself, this submarine’s wardroom even had a door. And there was shouting coming from beyond it, and not all of it French; a lot of shouting. Gil thought he’d better get up too, although the idea of rushing towards even more bad news tonight was the last thing he felt like doing. He banged his head on one of the deckhead fans as he moved towards the door – a deckhead fan, for Christ’s sake! On a submarine!

  There was a scrum in the passageway and lots of jostling heads. But, being a particularly tall chap, Gil could just see over the throng, enough to observe the distinctive British tin hats in the control room, and the flash of a bayonet. Two bayonets, no, more, and the instantly recognisable harsh Anglo-Saxon profanities of Royal Marines. The British were in the control room, presumably uninvited.

  It had to happen, he thought, sooner or later. That was why that podgy, heavy-lidded Vice Admiral had been here all evening, lecturing them on the honneur of the Marine Nationale, and the course they must now all follow if it were to be maintained. A retired Vice Admiral, to be precise, so just what he imagined his authority was had been left unsaid. Muselier had been his name. Just off the plane from France, he’d said. Managing to be effusive and jovial as he told them France was throwing in the towel; positively crackling with bonhomie as he insisted that it was now up to them to uphold the honour not only of their service, but of the nation too. Wouldn’t shut up, not that Gil had been listening to him. Gil and the boys on his boat – cross-grained, bloody-minded Bretons, poor farm boys from the Charente and the Loire, boys who hadn’t wanted to end up down the mines around Lille and had gone to sea instead – had already made up their mind what they were going to do. None of them intended to hang about while Germans marched into their country and made themselves at home.

  Gil could speak English and was shoving his way through the press of men before he realised what he was doing. Oh, well, heading for trouble again. One day he’d learn to just stand back. He took in the tableau in an instant. Lying sprawled on the control room deckplates was a Royal Navy Lieutenant, with two RN sailors in their distinctive round caps, wearing webbing belts and revolvers, leaning over their wounded officer.

  The officer’s face was fish-belly white, apart from the blood spatter on his left cheek; his mouth opening and closing like a fish too, and his eyes rolling. The two sailors were busy trying to pack a wound deep on his shoulder. Back against the chartroom – yes this infernal affront to submarine design had a chartroom too – stood one of Durandal’s officers, pinned by a Royal Marine’s bayonet pressed against his throat, with another RN officer, a Lieutenant Commander, wrestling and grunting with the Frenchman’s right arm, at the end of which was a pistol.

  ‘Let . . . the . . . fucking . . . gun . . . go!’ the Lieutenant Commander was incanting slowly in the Frenchman’s ear. ‘Or I swear to God I’ll saw your fucking hand off with this bayonet!’ And he brandished it for effect.

  Gil translated, sans the Anglo-Saxon. He had to shout above the din of the general bellowing in the compartment, where four other Royal Marines were holding a crush of French sailors at bay with their levelled bayonets. That they could actually level their Lee-Enfield .303s and fixed bayonets in what, in any normal submarine, would have been a very confined space was yet another affront to submarine design.

  Gil saw by the panicked swivel of the French officer’s eyes that he now understood. After what seemed like an age, he slowly released his grip on the revolver. His RN dance partner took it and released his arm.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ The British officer yelled at him, not looking at the Frenchman, but back at his maimed colleague. But the French officer couldn’t reply because the Royal Marine’s bayonet did not move one fraction from his throat. Gil stepped forward and introduced himself.

  ‘I am Lieutenant de Vaisseau Gil Syvret, of the French Navy submarine Radegonde. I speak English. Whom do I have the honour of addressing?’

  ‘By order of His Majesty’s government and the Port Admiral, Plymouth, I am now in control of this boat,’ said the Lieutenant Commander, staring wildly around him, his statement shouted at no one in particular. He was breathing heavily and clearly quite distressed, thought Gil. Not surprising really, with a badly wounded friend on the deck.

  ‘My dear Lieutenant Commander, if you forgive that I am pointing out the obvious, you have not control over very much of this boat at the moment. Your colleague, however, is disporting himself in wounds on the deck . . .’

  ‘Disporting!’ The RN officer turned on him with rage in his eyes.
<
br />   ‘Ah,’ said Gil, stepping back, hands held open. ‘My English. I know perhaps too many words, and not always the right ones for the moment. But I still suggest we all do something to get this young man to medical help proper. Quickly.’

  The British officer seemed to gather himself, fixing on Gil: ‘My orders are to prevent this boat from sailing back to France, and to secure her. Your crew will be offered repatriation should they choose. But your boat is going nowhere.’

  ‘My dear Sir—’ said Gil. But he didn’t get any further.

  Raising his head and voice the RN officer began bellowing in excruciatingly accented French to the rest of the control room: ‘Nous sommes la marine Britannique! Nous sommes vos camarades!’ We are the British Navy! We are your friends! Which was nice of him to say, thought Gil. Indeed, the words appeared to be instantly greeted with a defusing merriment by Durandal’s crew, until the RN officer’s tone changed: ‘Levez vos mains!’ Hands up! ‘Montez! Montez!’ Get up on deck.

  Gil only had an instant to think to himself, stupid rosbif! before, out of the corner of his eye, he caught one of Durandal’s ratings turning to the main electrical board; a flash of white wrist, and the entire control room was in darkness; the sailor had pulled a circuit breaker. One of the Royal Marines had seen him too, and from the sickening meat-thump that followed, a rifle butt must have travelled through the dark to where the sailor had been standing, and connected.

  What had been all that rubbish about sailing back to France? No one was going back to France. The Germans were not to have France’s Navy. The French Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Darlan, had made that clear. Well, perhaps not that clear given the signal that had been received this evening, and which that chatterbox Vice Admiral had been trying to persuade them to ignore.

  The Vice Admiral might have got somewhere had he not kept going on about giving their allegiance to that upstart from the army, that ex-Colonel, just promoted to General, called de Gaulle, whom nobody had ever heard of and who kept being allowed on the BBC. If France’s Navy hadn’t exactly covered itself in glory in this war so far, that could be put down to lack of opportunity. But the army; the army had been humiliated. And now this de Gaulle Johnnie was telling them about saving the honour of France!

  The lights came back on and broke Gil’s train of thought. There, for all to see, was an RN rating standing at the switchboard now; also, for all to see, were the backs of several French sailors disappearing down the passage, heading aft towards the engine rooms. Everyone was shouting to be heard. The RN Lieutenant Commander turned to Gil, mouthing something. Gil leaned closer.

  ‘We need to . . .’ he said.

  Gil nodded and turned to grab one of the French Petty Officers out of the press of sailors, shoving him towards the wounded British officer, and gesturing up the hatch. With his other hand he was waving the rest of Durandal’s crew back up the passageway leading for’ard.

  Where in God’s name was Durandal’s Captain? Gil had thought it strange he wasn’t around when the officers from all the other French warships in Plymouth and elsewhere along the south coast had begun arriving, but assumed he would turn up later. He hadn’t and now Gil was cursing him. He should be here to take command of his vessel, because everything was starting to happen very fast.

  The yelling RN Lieutenant Commander – gun in hand – was disappearing after the French sailors who were heading for the engine rooms; the matelots still in the control room were struggling to get the wounded British officer to the bridge ladder, on which two blue-serge legs shod in wellingtons had just appeared, coming down.

  The French Navy’s order of battle described Durandal as a ‘Submarine Battlecruiser’ – over 90 metres long, almost 9 metres in beam and nearly 3,000 tons, with a 305mm gun sunk for’ard into her commodious bridge, and at the back, a hangar for a tiny Besson MB411 floatplane. She was a big boat by anyone’s standards. Every compartment was roomy, and there were passageways where sailors could actually pass. She was the most ridiculous thing Gil had ever seen, especially when compared to his 65-metre-long Radegonde, with her mere four main torpedo tubes and two piddlers on the stern and a single 75mm deck gun; altogether weighing in at a puny 780 tons.

  The two legs shod in wellingtons turned out to be a new RN officer, a Commander this time. Armed RN ratings were following him. Gil faced up to the bewhiskered new arrival; an older man who was obviously angry, rather than alarmed.

  ‘We need to calm this down, Sir. Now,’ Gil said.

  ‘Unimprovably put, M’sieur. Couldn’t agree more,’ said the RN Commander as he took in the scene. ‘Are you in command here?’

  But before Gil could answer, more shots rang out. Gil’s eyes rolled; what in God’s name were these idiots doing? There was rapid fire and a lot of pinging as rounds rattled off steel bulkheads and fittings. A deckhead lamp disintegrated; glass tinkled and then there was a scream. Gil was at the aft passageway door when another round whistled past his face. He felt the draught of it. He leaned out again and could see the RN Lieutenant Commander; the one who’d run down the passage a moment earlier. Except now he was kneeling on the deck, swaying, with one leg bent under him and blood beginning to puddle; another body lay further on – a French sailor, trying to rise on all fours as if to crawl. And further beyond, a watertight door was shutting and being dogged.

  Gil spun round, and ran back into the control room, his arms outstretched . . . Outstretched? On a submarine? . . . to corral the remaining French crew there.

  ‘Enough!’ he shouted. ‘Enough! That’s an order. Stop!’

  And as if they’d just been waiting for someone to tell them so, they did. The calm, like the snap of a finger, was followed by the RN Commander gesturing to his sailors and the Marines to lower their weapons. In the swift silence, the distant gurgling of water and the trilling of a sound-powered telephone on the control room bulkhead came all at once. Gil stepped to pick up the handset, his eyes seeking out several of Durandal’s own officers as he moved. Despite the conspicuous absence of their Captain, none of them showed any inclination to step in.

  ‘Control room,’ he snapped.

  ‘Engine room,’ came the clipped reply. Gil listened then answered, purposefully not looking at the RN Commander. ‘He doesn’t speak French,’ Gil said in French.

  But the arch of the Commander’s eyebrows showed that he did. Gil continued to listen, his heart sinking; then he held the handset to his chest.

  ‘The crew aft say they cannot allow you to take over the boat,’ he told the Commander. ‘For the honour of France. Etcetera. They’ve . . . how do you say? . . . “Opened the sea-cocks”. They’re flooding the boat from the engine room pumps . . .’

  The Commander heard Gil out, then began issuing orders to his men. The injured RN officer had already been lifted out, the other wounded were to go next, then the French crew should be invited to follow. Those latter orders the Commander addressed directly in clipped French that did not actually murder the language like most rosbifs. Then he instructed another newly arrived junior RN officer to shut the aft control room watertight door and secure it. The order effectively sealed the boat aft, isolating everyone in there. It could not be opened again from the other side. Only when all was in movement, did the Commander turn back to Gil.

  ‘Tell your chap in the engine room, the Royal Navy says, “suit yourself”.’ And he leaned under the tower hatch and called up, ‘Secure the aft escape hatch!’ Then, pointing to the upper deck, he gestured to Gil. ‘After you.’

  Gil understood now what the Commander intended. If the Durandal’s crew were going to sink her, this Royal Navy officer was going to make sure they sank along with her. Well, at least that was the Royal Navy he knew; simple solutions to even the most complex problems. But Gil couldn’t just stand by and let his fellow countrymen drown because of their own stubbornness.

  The Commander was gazing around the vast control room, with its space enough for spit and polish, and room for everything to be installed w
ith the luxury of fine lines and neatness. Then, as if he’d just noticed Gil, and that they were the only ones left, he turned and smiled. In the silence you could hear the harbour water rushing in; rising steadily up from the bilges to flood the boat.

  ‘Where’s her Skipper?’ asked the Commander, in French.

  ‘Conspicuous by his absence,’ replied Gil tartly, digging out a packet of cigarettes and offering one to the Commander. The Commander scowled with a mixture of amazement and concern.

  ‘I thought French submarines were . . .’ he said.

  Syvret interrupted, ‘. . . were no smoking. Because, unlike Royal Navy submarines, we have open battery cells, that might leak hydrogen; and naked flame and hydrogen do not mix . . . or rather, mix too well.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said the Commander.

  ‘Oh, it’s all innovation here on Durandal, Commander. Battery tops and everything.’

  The Commander smiled. ‘We’ll give the crew to the last possible moment,’ he said, eyeing a tiny lip of water creeping over the edge of the deckplates. Someone must have opened up the watertight bulkhead’s bilge valves. ‘Even if it means I end up ruining my shoes,’ he added before pausing to look around Durandal’s control room again: ‘We’ve had a few fanciful death traps like this ’un in the trade too, you know.’

  The trade; the name the Royal Navy’s submarine service gave itself. So this man really was a submariner, just like him.

  ‘Who thinks them up, Lieutenant, eh?’ the RN Commander continued. ‘Not chaps like us.’

  While they waited for the engine room crew to come to their senses, Gil didn’t need to wonder how his new friend would have reacted to meeting Durandal’s Skipper. Capitaine de Vaisseau Antoine Boudron de Vatry was a high flyer in the Marine Nationale, and Gil knew him by reputation. He might have been about the same age as Gil, but his light shone far more brightly; indeed, he had already acquired a certain notoriety within the fleet, as even young men can achieve if they attach themselves to the right faction. Which made it easy for Gil to guess why Capitaine de Vatry wouldn’t have wanted to be around, if he knew, or even suspected, his command was about to be taken over by the British. He wouldn’t want such a taint on his reputation. It wouldn’t look good for a man who intended to continue his self-advancement under the new Vichy order, to have surrendered his command to the British. But there was another reason why the RN Commander wouldn’t like the Skipper very much. Boudron de Vatry, as anyone in the Marine Nationale could have told you, was perfectly content with who had just won the Battle of France.