The Glory Boys Read Online Free Page B

M.T.B.s were moored well clear of the main anchorage and away from the comings and goings of various harbour craft, isolated, if that were ever possible at Gibraltar. Two lay alongside an elderly supply ship, and the third rested against a battered pontoon, rubber fend-offs squeaking now as a small launch ploughed past. There were plenty of ships at anchor or alongside, but a distinct lack of the usual bustle and activity. It was Sunday, and war or no war, routine took first place.
    The biggest warship visible was a cruiser, quiet now after the bugle calls and shouts of command. The church pendant had been hoisted while Divisions and Inspections were carried out, and a commodore’s broad pendant at her masthead left nothing in doubt. The M.T.B. settled against the pontoon again as the wake rippled along the cruiser’s waterline.
    Petty Officer Harry Turnbull turned his back and stared aft, along the full length of his own boat: M.T.B. 992, the numbers bright on either bow, like everything else above and below deck. Or he would soon know why. He was the coxswain, and he could still feel something like pride. She was his boat .
    He walked a few paces, past the two-pounder pom-pom cannon, neatly flaked mooring lines, and freshly cleaned decks. Nothing left sculling about to offend the eye, or give a bad impression. No matter who was at fault, the coxswain always carried the can.
    He looked up and over the low bridge at the clear sky beyond. The locals thought the wind unusually cold, blowing in from the Atlantic. They should be in England right now, in January: that would stop them moaning about the bloody weather …
    Turnbull was twenty-nine years old, and had been in the Royal Navy for eleven of them. He saw his shadow pass across the machine-gun mounting below the bridge; there was a matching pair on the opposite side. He could not help comparing her with a couple of his previous boats: one gun, if you were lucky. Speed and agility had come first. And there was a pair of Oerlikons aft, ’ ooligans , the gun crew nicknamed them. Like an M.T.B. and motor gunboat combined. He glanced at the White Ensign, scarcely moving now, and never used since the day they had steered out of the builder’s yard. Brand new, like everything else. He wanted to look at his watch, but knew the gangway sentry would see him. Dressed in his best Number Twos, with a freshly blancoed revolver belt and holster at his waist, he was living proof of the significance of this day. For all of them.
    Even that brought it home to Turnbull. 992, like her two sisters, was double the size of those earlier boats: one hundred and fifteen feet on the waterline and over one hundred tons displacement. And four Packard engines to move them. The tanks had been refilled and you could still catch the stench of their 100-octane petrol. Ten fuel tanks, he had checked each one, holding five thousand gallons all told. It was something best not thought about. A burst of tracer and you would go up, not down. It happened to others. Not to you.
    He stared at the gangway sentry again. Glover, a Londoner. Nothing much else known, yet. But the faces and the names would become individuals, personalities, some more quickly than others, and there were thirty of them in this company, which he would soon know inside out. It was a coxswain’s job, or part of it.
    He heard a footstep and the quiet cough that always seemed to precede the man. It was the Chief, who took charge of all those dials and machinery, the very power of the boat. Jock Laidlaw seemed too tall for a cramped, noisy existence between decks. He had a narrow, intelligent face and keen eyes that always watched your mouth when you were speaking. It had become a habit after months of reading his mechanics’ or stokers’ lips when the competition from the engines was too overwhelming, and Turnbull suspected he was probably a little deaf as well, for the same reason. Not an easy man to know, but if you ever managed it, you