Corporal Cotton's Little War Read Online Free PDF

towards the sea. From inside the radio cabin, the cheeps of the wireless set began abruptly.
    The sun was already disappearing behind the mountains and the dark water looked like black silk. The crews of tugs, oilers, transports and naval vessels watched them in silence as they slipped past, the white ensign trailing limply from the mast. There was no cheering, no interest even. They were just a very small launch moving out on to the dark sea.
    ‘We should be well on our way before nightfall,’ Cotton heard Patullo say as Claudia headed towards the entrance to the harbour. ‘We should be able to do most of the trip in darkness, and, one thing, there are plenty of islands and they’re not far apart. We ought to be able to slip from one to the other without being seen too much.’
    He called to Cotton. ‘Get the crew’s names, Corporal,’ he said.
    Cotton set about the job carefully. He regarded it as his right. He was senior man on board after the officers and Duff. He had a record sheet unstained by black marks and a good, if unimaginative character. He made out the list on canteen notepaper in his neat hand.
    Lieutenant Shaw, in command.
Lieutenant Patullo, i/c operation.
Chief ERA Duff, engine room.
Corporal Cotton, Royal Marines.
Stoker Docherty.
    Pte Howard, RASC.
Pte Coward, RASC.
LAC/WOp Bisset, RAF.
Mr Gully, carpenter--boat builder, civilian

    Gully was a pink-faced, foul-mouthed man in his late thirties, fat and unhealthy from too much boozing, with greying hair that looked as though it had been cut by placing a basin on his head and snipping round it. He wore false teeth that looked as though they’d been rifled from a corpse, all dingy grey-green molars and bright-red vulcanite gums, and his jacket and trousers were of a standard of cleanliness that Cotton wouldn’t have been seen dead in. He carried a boxful of tools, a concertina and a brown-paper parcel containing his belongings. ‘One of these days,’ he had said as he climbed aboard, ‘I’ll make meself a kitbag.’ Over one ear he wore a cap with a broken peak, so that Cotton - his own cap top-dead-centre, like Cotton himself, straightforward, squared away and no nonsense - considered him the scruffiest thing he’d ever seen and felt he ought to identify him firmly on his list so that nobody could blame the navy.
    He’d been carpenter on one of the Glen Line vessels which were being used as assault ships by the army and, at least, he didn’t appear to be put off by the nature of what he’d undertaken.
    ‘I hope you know what you’re in for,’ Cotton said.
    ‘Sure I do.’ Gully’s dreadful teeth flashed in a grin. ‘I’ve lived off burgoo and bloody Ticklers all me life.’
    ‘In case of emergency, naval discipline. Okay?’
    ‘Oh, Christ, hark at him.’ Gully grinned again. ‘I was too young to be in the last war, me old flower. I’m going to enjoy this one. I’m a bloody good chippy - best there is - and I ain’t got nothing to worry about.’
    Only the Germans, Cotton thought.
    Howard and Coward, the RASC men, were both young and -except for the position of the spots from which they both suffered - surprisingly alike even to their names. Anonymously blond, blue-eyed and with cheeks that looked bare of beard, they were like cherubs and were already known as the Heavenly Twins. Leading Aircraftman Bisset, of the RAF, was a Jerseyman, tall, thin-faced and intelligent-looking. Because of his accent, Cotton assumed he was a Hostilities Only and was startled to find he was a Regular like himself; a sort of gentleman-ranker out on the spree, he decided, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that he had a shady history and wouldn’t be much cop in a tight corner. He’d been working naval frequencies for a long time, however, and knew what to do, though his ability was largely hidden from view by a sleepy-eyed manner and a smile of enormous charm that only served to make Cotton, on the look-out for dodgers, all the more