Throughout the slow passage, signals were received about various formations and last-minute changes.
    The gun muzzles swung across the grey clouds, the Oerlikons ready to rip into action if a bombed screamed through the haze and drifting spray. And still nothing happened.
    Into the Channel and west along the coast, the sea merging with the sky as dusk began to close in. Past the Isle of Wight, with the Needles watching us like pale spectres as we growled abeam.
    One signal reported that the attack was to be delayed; some of the landing-craft had been re-routed back to shelter because of the weather. If the Skipper was worried he did not show it.
    We overtook two elderly trawlers, painted grey and classified for the duration as minesweepers. Long thin funnels, and low-lying greasy smoke. Old-timers both of them, and they rocked in the swell as our tight line ploughed past them. An old RNR two-ringer gave us a wave and our lads waved back.
    The Skipper appeared on the swaying bridge. 'It's on again. Tuesday morning.' He bit hard on his unlit pipe. 'I must be getting past it.' We all laughed, and the tension began to steal away like mist.
    It was like heading into a void. No stars, nothing, while we continued westward to the first rendezvous.
   We changed course yet again, tested the guns, and timed the ammunition supply.
    When the third hand came up to relieve me there was a strong smell, Pusser's ki, that glutinous cocoa beloved by sailors. I had been shivering badly. Cold and some fear as to how I would behave. When I looked at my watch it was well past midnight. So we would attack tomorrow.
    The word seemed to stick in my mind. Tomorrow. But the scalding hot ki did much to help. It usually did. This time it was so thick you could almost stand a spoon in it, and there was a deeper taste. Rum. Somebody's illegally hoarded tots, but it was marvelous.
    The signalman grinned through the darkness. 'Just the job, eh, sir?'
    I went below and tried to rest, but only when dawn came up did I feel I could sleep. By then it was too late.
     Later in the day we sighted the first labouring formation of landing ships, with ranks of little landing-craft tossing about like corks on either beam.
   I felt a lump in my throat. They looked so frail, so ugly, and yet everything depended on them and their youthful commanders. They were the lowest vessels afloat, and we had to reduce speed to keep station on them.
    There were the usual moans. 'Roll on my bloody twelve!' While our doughty coxswain, 'Once I get ashore after this you'll not get me to sea again in ten million bloody years!' Except he did not say 'bloody'.    
    But the tension seemed to have gone altogether. Our Scouse gun layer was whistling 'Maggie May' while he crawled around his two-pounder, too engrossed even to look at the lengthening ranks of landing-craft. He had come to us as a hard case, and had been more in the detention barracks than out. But in Coastal Forces he had found his proper place in things. Ashore he was as bad as ever, but once at sea you never had to look for him or to check his work. In a weak moment he had once spoken about his upbringing in Liverpool, his home which made all the other slums seem good places to live. We would need his skill and his aim tomorrow, I thought.
    A destroyer boiled past, her loud-hailer rasping out instructions to the various landing-craft. They did not really need to be told to keep proper distance apart
 

Invasion craft seen off the coast of France.

Route of MTB ... Click on map to enlarge.

and on the right bearing, but when darkness found them once again it would make station-keeping an even worse nightmare.
  We looked around for other warships but they did not seem much in evidence. With their superior speed they would soon overhaul this strange armada. But it would have been reassuring to see a few of the big fellows before night fell.
   It was hard not to count the hours, difficult to concentrate on the other ships' blurred outlines, their giveaway bow-waves, and the spray which burst above their blunt stems. No more signals. No recall. Surely to God the Germans must know what we're up to?
    On and on, and another slight change of course. There were several angry cries of alarm as a torch splashed light on the superstructure of one of the bigger landing-ships. It vanished almost immediately, and doubtlessly somebody had been torn off a strip. But I felt the shock of it around me, as if everyone expected swift attack from the darkness.
    It was unnerving to think of all those vessels and all the thousands of men who were being carried towards the enemy coast. How much worse it must be for the soldiers. Waiting, waiting, their imaginations running riot, as mine was.
    I felt the deck gratings bounce under my boots and heard the sullen bang of an exploding mine. God, it sounded close. Perhaps it was one of those poor little minesweepers that had run across the edge of a field, or had picked up a drifter.
    They were the real heroes. It was a bad risk at any time, but to put out sweeps in pitch darkness to clear a passage for this giant armada was tempting death. There were more violent bangs, and I was aware that the watch keepers were being joined by the others who had been snatching a break below.
    No need for a call to arms or bugle to rouse them. We were one, like family.
    The Skipper came up from the tiny chart-room, rubbing his eyes and patting his pockets as he always did. To make certain he had everything he needed. Perhaps to reassure himself.
    He showed his teeth in the darkness. 'Jerry must be stone deaf.'
    A voicepipe crackled and the Skipper said quietly, 'We are now entering the danger zone.'
    The signalman chuckled. 'Never been out of it meself, sir.'
    I raised my glasses to study the labouring ships abeam. Big shapeless lumps still without identity in the protective darkness. It was getting me down. I heard someone murmuring softly, 'Oh, God, oh, God,' over and over. It was like being doused with icy water when I realized it was me. That did more to steady me than anything.
    Dawn soon. If only the sickening motion would stop. If only ...was going to throw up.
 
NEXT ... HOIST BATTLE ENSIGNS

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