Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) by Douglas Reeman Read Free Book Online Page A

further disfigured by hastily built air raid shelters for theseoccasional hit-and-run attacks. But to him it was
a naval establishment
, and in his eyes it would stand against any other.
    It had been a solitary plane, spotted flying in from the Channel, low over the water, then climbing and turning above one of the beaches near the road to Weymouth and the Bill. No bombs had been dropped, and there had been no reports of mines being laid in or around the bay.
    By a twist of fate the aircraft had been caught out by one of the army’s local mobile batteries, which had been formed to deal with similar individual attacks. The plane had been shot down. The army was dealing with it.
    Until the telephone call. Portland had sent a mine disposal team; the admiral had thought it necessary.
    Chavasse had said, ‘Just take a look, Masters.’ He rarely used first names. ‘No chances, right? Can’t afford to lose
you
at this stage!’ His short, barking laugh had followed Masters out to the waiting car.
    It had taken more than an hour to cover only a couple of miles; the road had been jammed with service vehicles which seemed to reach as far as the eye could see. Impatient military policemen, redcaps, on foot or motor cycles, were somehow managing to turn the traffic round on the narrow road and divert it through Dorchester.
    An air attack now and half the transport in southern England would be wiped out, Masters thought.
    He was not the only passenger. Paymaster Lieutenant-Commander Brayshaw was also going to Portland on a mission for Captain Chavasse. He was the captain’s secretary, and probably knew more about the organization,the efficiency or weaknesses of the establishment, than anyone else. Quiet and easy to talk to, he was doubtless just what Chavasse needed. Masters suspected he had been sent along to make sure that things remained under control.
    The car, the same big Wolseley, jerked to a halt, the tyres embedded in the roadside mud.
    ‘Up there, sir. I can see the turn-off.’
    It was even the same driver, cap tilted forward, hair black against her collar. Masters had heard that she had applied for a transfer to Plymouth, where she had originally been stationed, the day after his arrival. Five days ago. She was still here.
    Another redcap appeared and waved them around the last bend in the road where a barrier had been erected, and while other cars and lorries headed away for the diversion, the Wolseley was suddenly alone. Brayshaw wound down a window and peered at the sky. It was completely clear and blue, no vapour trails to betray aircraft, only the distant line of barrage balloons towards Weymouth, like basking whales in the hard sunlight.
    He shut the window and shivered. ‘The old stable door policy, I see.’ Then, ‘What do you expect to find when we get there, David?’
    Masters had heard him asking questions in the makeshift wardroom. Not mere empty curiosity; he was genuinely interested. Perhaps the white cloth that separated the stripes of gold lace on his sleeve also separated him from the ones who went out to risk, and often to die.
    Masters watched the road curving again beyond the windscreen, the way her gloved hands controlled thewheel; one who was used to driving. Strange if you thought about it. It took so long to train drivers when there were more essential trades to learn that they were always asking for people who had already learned to drive, in that other world before the war. The leading Wren was one of them. He smiled to himself. He was not.
    He considered Brayshaw’s question and waited for the face to form in his mind: Lieutenant Clive Sewell, who seemed too old for his rank, and must have scraped through all the objections to achieve it. A serious, intelligent face, thinning hair, and a careful, deceptively hesitant manner of going about his work. He looked like a schoolmaster, which in fact he had been before joining the navy and volunteering for the misleadingly named Land Incident