Williams - The Secret Channel

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Mike Williams 2008

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Paperback ISBN 978-185418606-5
ePub ISBN 978-185418697-3

ePub created by Thorogood Publishing Ltd

This book is respectfully dedicated to the people of the Isles of Scilly - especially those from Tresco - and to all the servicemen and women, British and French, of the many covert flotillas who courageously kept open secret channels between England and France during the Second World War.

Mention should also be made of the extreme sacrifice during that conflict of the Dorrien-Smith family - the proprietors of Tresco island - who lost three sons, killed on active service.

The story is based upon the fact that such a covert flotilla operated between Tresco island and Brittany, delivering and bringing back secret agents together with vital intelligence about German troop dispositions and coastal defences.

HMS Godolphin is pure imagination, included to provide the Tresco flotilla with a focal point and context for its shore-based activities.

Certain names have been inspired by the names of real people, but the characters are figments of my imagination based upon Service experience. Any similarity between them and persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

In order of seniority of rank.

Silently, in the dark, the two canoes slipped away from the parent motor gunboat, as the two hunched figures in each paddled in unison for the distant shore. With well-practised rhythm, their twin-bladed paddles created a regular, synchronised succession of phosphorescent flashes, as they cut in and out of the oily black sea.

Theres the answering signal from the reception party, Number One. Tremayne spoke quietly, little above a whisper, to his First Lieutenant. Three white flashes, followed by a green one.

The night sky was already just beginning to lighten. The previously invisible outline of the Brittany coast started to take shape as an indistinct, but emerging, darker mass, as the first signs of the early spring dawn gradually began to appear in the black sky. The relatively calm sea was similarly dark, swelling and subsiding gently like slowly moving, glistening black treacle. Through their binoculars, the eyes of the two anxious young naval officers on the MGBs cramped armoured bridge, strained to follow the phosphorescent wake of the disappearing canoes as they steadily made their way, under cover of darkness, to the dangerous rock-strewn beach some five hundred yards away.

Tremayne suddenly became conscious of their proximity to the shore, as the gentle evening breeze carried the characteristic, yet indistinct, smells of the land mass across his vessel. For a moment, he thought about how often people become aware of the smell of the sea when on the coast and yet so rarely experience the reverse effect on their senses. A quick, instinctive glance at the luminous face of his watch brought him back to their immediate reality and the need to leave the area as quickly as possible.

Within a matter of minutes now, MGB 1315 would start to become visible to any keen-eyed sentry, awake in the German blockhouse at Pen Enez and, all-too-quickly, be a sitting duck for the adjacent battery of 88mm anti-aircraft guns, sited in their adapted role as coastal defence weapons.

The thought of those long, menacing barrels and the devastating impact of their flat trajectory, high-velocity shells on his vulnerable boat, sent a shiver down Tremaynes back as he slowly lowered his binoculars. The mounting tension was evident on the bridge and among those at action stations, on deck, manning the MGBs weapons and compulsively checking their guns cocking mechanisms for the umpteenth time.

Thank God theres no moon, Number One, but its high time we took our leave. Well make our move now. If were seen, it could mean trouble for our recent guests. It wouldnt take a genius to work out why were standing off, so close inshore. Turning to the other silent, duffel-coated figure beside him on the bridge, Tremayne, in hushed voice, gave the order to return to base.

Take her home, Coxn. Gently does it. Run her quietly at first until weve cleared Le Libenter, then lively as she goes, if you please, back to New Grimsby.

Aye aye, sir. Course set for 0-four nine, Petty Officer Bill Irvines clipped response, quiet though it was, immediately confirmed his East Belfast origins.

A stocky, strongly built man of forty-one, Bill Irvine had progressed from boys service to able seaman through the course of the Great War. He had served in Admiral Beattys Lion at Jutland and had been a contemporary of boy Jack Cornwell who, at sixteen years of age, had been awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for gallantry in that costly, but inconclusive engagement against the German High Seas Fleet twenty-five years ago.