Read Online The White Guns (1989) by Douglas Reeman - Free Book Online Page B

and shattered hulks. But nothing could move until they were cleared.
     
Meikle stood back and added softly, 'Remember what I said. No confrontations. Things are touchy enough already and the dust hasn't settled yet!' He turned and climbed into his jeep, then without looking back at the gunboat he drove swiftly into the dockyard.
     
Marriott clambered on board again and strode to the bridge. He was suddenly eager to leave, to find the freedom of open water again, away from all the planning and the endless devastation.
     
'Start up, Number One!' He felt the bridge shake wildly as Adair brought his beloved engines to life.
     
Marriott climbed on to the gratings and peered astern. 'Let go aft!' He saw Evans's hands moving the wheel very slightly. Ready for anything. 'Slow astern, starboard! Let go forrard!'
     
He watched the stern swinging very slightly away from the sagging pier as the breeze thrust the boxlike hull clear. 'Slow astern, port outer!' He saw the backwash from the screws churning the scum and scatterings of charred woodwork against the piles. A dead place.
     
He saw the red and green eyes of the pilot boat rocking on the slight swell, then raised his glasses to look for the nearest wrecks. 'Slow ahead together! Take her round, Swain!' He had seen the new ribbon on Evans's jacket and wondered why it had been omitted from the coxswain's personal documents. He would ask him. Maybe.
     
Fragments of something bumped against the hull and the seamen on the bridge glanced at one another and grimaced.
     
Soon the tall sentinel-like memorial of Laboe loomed abeam and Marriott felt the deck lift under his feet as if eager to be free, like himself.
     
'Half ahead. Course to steer, Number One?'
     
A lamp stabbed across the unbroken water from the pilot boat and Long John Silver triggered his Aldis in reply.
     
Aloud he said, 'An' good luck to you, mate!'
     
Fairfax called, 'Steer North-fifty-East, sir!'
     
Marriott glanced at the sky and smiled. Sharp as a tack. He had learned a lot, and quickly. He touched the screen bathed in bright green by the starboard light. The first time he had seen it switched on since he had taken command. It was a wonder it worked.
     
Marriott said, 'Take the con, Number One, and call me if–'
     
Fairfax's teeth gleamed in the fading light. 'I know, sir. If... '
     
Marriott went below to his cabin and heard Ginger Jackson humming contentedly as he unpacked some of the new supplies.
     
It was funny that in war the simple things were all that counted.
     
In his tiny cabin Marriott changed into his seagoing clothing and scarred old boots. He could feel Meikle's disapproval even from here. He switched on the little reading lamp and opened his curtly worded orders.
     
A rendezvous with a strange vessel. Just the thing for Lowes's next letter to his mother.
     
Then he frowned and opened his personal chart, his eyes lingering on the lines and bearings of the Russian sectors. The carve-up, as Cuff had called it. It was odd that Meikle had not mentioned the meeting with the N.O.I.C. Perhaps Cuff would be transferred to another command? He heard Fairfax moving on the bridge overhead, the clatter of tin mugs as tea was passed around to the watchkeepers.
     
It was all they knew. The amateurs who had become the professionals. The veterans. The survivors.
     
He thought of how 801 would appear from the land as she slipped across the bay, a low shadow apart from her navigation lights. What did they really think – the enemy)
     
He lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes. The engine's regular beat, the sluice of the sea against the long mahogany hull, were like parts of his own being.
     
He stared up at the deckhead and then closed his eyes.
     
The very next instant, or so it seemed, he was sitting bolt upright, his whole body screaming in protest.
     
He snatched the handset and said, 'Yes?' He could feel his chest heaving, wet with sweat, the handset slipping in his fingers.
     
Fairfax's