THE WALRUS SPLASHED DOWN INTO THE SMALL BAY AT SEABORN House—the vast estate south of London that Raiding Forces used as their base of operations—like a plump greenhead duck. The sun was coming up fuzzy pink over the horizon. For once there was not a cloud in the sky and it was a beautiful sunrise, but in the distance, the fog was beginning to roll in.
Raiding Forces’ sniping officer, Lieutenant Harry Shelby, Sherwood Foresters, was standing by at the dock to greet his returning Lovat Scouts team. Royal Navy Lieutenant Randy “Hornblower” Seaborn, DSC, was also there—pacing back and forth like a caged tiger—waiting impatiently to see Major John Randal. The youngest officer in his grade in the Royal Navy, the first naval officer to earn parachute wings, and the holder of the prestigious Distinguished Service Cross, which is only awarded for valor, he was the skipper of HMY Arrow, a 40-foot yacht that had belonged to his parents, Commodore Richard and Brandy Seaborn, before being activated for National Service at the start of the war and assigned to Raiding Forces.
When he arrived on the dock, Major Randal called to his young naval officer, “Well, Mr. Hornblower, I can see you have a story to tell me.”
“Yes sir, I most definitely do!””
“Let’s go take a look.”
Lieutenant Seaborn and Major Randal strolled down the pier to admire Randy’s new toy.
“Before I forget, sir,” he began, “my mother asked me to extend an invitation to you to have dinner with her this evening at the Bradford.”
“My pleasure, Randy,” Major Randal replied. Brandy Seaborn was a glittering golden girl and one of the most likeable women he had ever met. Which reminded him that her sister-in-law, Captain the Lady Jane Seaborn, the drop-dead gorgeous widow who owned Seaborn House, was conspicuously missing, along with her platinum blonde bombshell of a driver, Royal Marine Pamala Plum-Martin. Captain Lady Seaborn worked for Special Operations Executive. For reasons never quite clear, she had decided to adopt Raiding Forces as her personal project and was a tireless supporter and promoter of the small Commando unit. She had arranged relationships with several intelligence agencies that had need of an action arm that could go across the Channel and perform certain tasks. So popular was she with the men that the troops had privately begun to refer to Raiding Forces as “Lady Jane’s Own.”
Major Randal and Captain Lady Seaborn were in the early stages of a romantic relationship that he did not fully understand. She was fabulously wealthy, with a long list of suitors that included at least one international movie star. The two had been attracted on first sight, but the exigencies of war had made their courtship problematic. Major Randal wondered briefly where she was at this moment, but those thoughts were dispelled by the imposing sight of the Royal Navy motor gunboat docked at the end of the pier. “MGB 345” was painted on the bow by way of identification. The warship was crammed with weapons.
“What is this?”
“Sir, this is a Fairmile C-Type gunboat,” Lieutenant Seaborn explained, almost beside himself with joy. “A skeleton crew from the 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla brought it up, said ‘Compliments of Combined Operations,’ and then departed for their home station on the next train.”
Major Randal was so taken back by the sheer magnificence of MGB 345 all he could say was, “This has to be a mistake.” The deadly, sleek motor gunboat bobbed innocently but gave off the ambiance of a napping Doberman pinscher. To his eye she looked like a destroyer. “Randy, are you sure you know how to operate something this big?”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Searborn protested. At this juncture in his brief but meteoric career, he probably would not have been intimidated by being offered command of an aircraft carrier. He continued in a slightly hurt tone, “You are jesting, right?”
“What are her armaments?” Major Randal asked. “She’s got guns sticking out everywhere!”
“There’s a 2-pounder on a power mount forward, a 40-millimeter cannon manually operated aft, two 20-millimeter Oerlikon automatic cannon amidships, and a pair of .303 Vickers machine guns on the bridge. There are mounts for six additional .303-caliber MGs, but we shall have to scrounge them somewhere.”
“Okay, break it down for me.”
“Sir, the 345 is 110 feet overall, 17 feet 5 inches at the beam. Shallow draft—only draws 6 feet—which means she can work close inshore. That’s perfect for our operations. Fully armed and equipped she weighs 72 tons and is powered by three Hall-Scott supercharged petrol engines, 1,200 horsepower each. The auxiliary engine is a Stuart 20-volt lighting set. She has side exhaust.
“Top speed is 32 knots with a cruising speed of 22 knots and a range of 500 miles at a speed of 12 knots.
“MGB 345 carries W/T radio, echo sounding sets, and smoke-making apparatus. The echo sounding gear is going to be a tremendous aid to navigation, sir. Brings us into the twentieth century, finally.”
“What’s her crew?”
“Two officers and fourteen men, none of which we have, sir.”
“That’s a problem, isn’t it?”
“Yes sir, it is. Coastal Forces, the gunboat command, are saddled with the lowest priority in the Navy. Since Raiding Forces is not officially in the Navy, our priority is even lower, not that it matters very much. There are not enough sailors in Great Britain to man all her capital ships, much less the ‘mosquito fleet.’”
“Sir, the 345 may look like a battleship to us, but to the Navy she is a mosquito.”
“Well, you’re practically an admiral now commanding your own flotilla,” Major Randal said. “There’s the Arrow, the French fishing schooner you captured for transporting military stores over to the French Resistance for SOE, and now the 345. What’s your plan, Mr. Hornblower? You have only four sailors.”
“It is a problem, sir,” the young officer admitted. “I am twenty men and three officers short, bare minimum.”
“I know you have a plan, Randy. You always do.”
“Yes sir, but you are not going to like it.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“First, I intend to try to identify reserve officers still in training but not yet assigned who would like to volunteer for special service. I shall go looking for former yachtsmen who have not been called up yet and pensioners who have recently retired but want to go back on active sea duty in small boats.
“Then, staying as far away from the 15th MGB Flotilla as I can, because we’ll have to rely on them for our support service, I shall try to recruit individual active duty sailors one at a time. To be honest, sir, rounding up a full crew is going to be difficult. The Navy is short qualified seamen.”
“How do you plan to work out the transfers for the ones who want to join?”
“All hands will have to volunteer for SOE, and Aunt Jane will have them reassigned to Raiding Forces. She and I have already discussed how to arrange it. Pamala said she would help too.”
“Plum-Martin should be a real asset when it comes to recruiting sailors,” Major Randal said dryly. “What’s the part I’m not going to like?”
“I intend to use Sea Rover Scouts to crew the French schooner.”
“Are you nuts?”
“No sir. I see no other option.”
“But Sea Rover Scouts—”
“Major, I am never going to be able to recruit all the men I need short of a miracle. The Sea Rovers are excellent sailboat handlers. Saltwater is in their blood; they’ve been sailing under canvas since they were in diapers. The Royal Navy has always had the rating ‘Boy’ for sailors fourteen to seventeen years old. My plan is not to recruit any Rover under seventeen—well, maybe sixteen if they are really good. The lads will be called up for National Service the minute they turn eighteen anyway. I want to get them first.”
“I don’t know—”
“Sir, your regiment, the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, has a 70th Battalion made up exclusively of boys under the age of call-up. What I plan to do is not all that much different.”
“They only guard static positions,” Major Randal protested. “They don’t go on secret missions in the dark of night.”
“Yes sir, but once Nazi paratroopers start dropping in,” the young swashbuckler pointed out, “the 70th shall have to maneuver like the regular battalions.”
“You got me there, Randy. What about missing school?”
“You can write them a note, sir,” Lieutenant Seaborn said with a straight face. “Commander Tweedleton has volunteered to go along on operations with us to doctor the engine.”
“You’re kidding!” Commander Tweedleton was a long-retired Royal Navy officer who commanded a volunteer team of on-the-beach sailors that maintained the Arrow and were modifying the captured French schooner to carry out clandestine SOE missions.
“No sir, all the retired Navy pensioners on our support team have been begging me for a berth.”
“We’re going to need to think about this . . .”
“Shall we proceed aboard, sir?”
Randal stepped aboard the craft and began an hour-long inspection tour. MGB 345 was even more impressive close up. Having been developed as an escort vessel, primarily for east coast convoys, the motor gunboat had a mess deck below and sleeping quarters for the crew.
“Are you planning to have your crew stay on board or at Seaborn House?”
“On board, sir. It builds unit cohesion,” Lieutenant Seaborn replied. “Live together, fight together.”
“You’ve come a long way, stud.”
“Ahoy, 345!” The two officers looked out and saw Royal Navy Commander Richard Seaborn, OBE, standing on the dock. “Ahoy, MGB 345!” he repeated.
“Ahoy, Father.”
“Permission to come aboard?”
“Permission granted, sir.”
Commander Seaborn nimbly navigated the boarding plank. He moved with the ease of a lifelong sailor. “What is this boat, Randy?”
“MGB 345, sir.”
“I can see that. What is she doing here?”
“The 345 is my new command, sir.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. MGBs are a lieutenant commander’s berth.”
“Not this one, sir.”
“Combined Operations Headquarters assigned her to Raiding Forces,” Major John Randal explained. “She’s one of three MGBs the Admiralty provided COHQ for raiding operations. General Bourne promised it to me some time back.”
“You have a MGB with no crew?” Randy’s father shook his head in wonder. “Well, that is typical of the Admiralty when they are compelled to do a thing they do not actually want to do. What are you planning on doing for a crew? There’s no possibility of ever having one assigned from the Navy.”
“Actually, Father, I intended to talk to you and Grandfather to see if either of you has any suggestions for me.”
“My advice was to ship out on the Hood, remember?” the commander blurted. “Randy, you must have been born under a lucky star . . . command of a warship at your age and grade is unheard of . . . at least in the peacetime Navy. I am simply staggered, as will be your grandfather. Of course we’ll help you in any way we can.”
“You two sailors work out our naval strategy,” Major Randal said. “I’m going to grab a couple hours of sleep before heading to London to get our marching orders. And don’t forget, Randy, we’re on alert for immediate deployment. We’ll have to postpone your recruiting safari until we find out what our future holds.”
“Sir!” Lieutenant Randy “Hornblower” Seaborn responded cheerfully. “And remember, mother at the Bradford tonight.”
Major Randal should have noticed, but did not, that Commander Sea-born studiously avoided making direct eye contact when his son mentioned the dinner engagement. Walking down the gangplank he heard the commander say, “You are going to need two sub-lieutenants as watch officers, a midshipman, three engineers, at least one electrical rating, two petty officers . . .”