14. Post Mortems
Home Fleet Naval Anchorage at HMS Proserpine
Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands
Saturday
August 17, 1940
The trip back from Alternate by motor torpedo boat had taken three hours, the sleek craft cruising down the east coast of Mainland and around South Ronaldsay to Hoy. Smoke still hung in a pall over most of the Hindsight base as the craft docked at HMS Proserpine, and very little of what remained was recognisable. Davies had been picked up by a boat out of Longhope, on the western side of South Walls, and had been collected at the lifeboat station there as the MTB had passed through. He was wet, cold, battered and bruised, but was otherwise physically sound despite his ordeal. His mental state was another matter however, and as the group continued on to HMS Proserpine, the Texan was unnaturally silent… as were they all, for that matter.
Black: everything was burned black, and the smell of ash and soot was all-encompassing and pervasive. As Thorne, Davies, Trumbull and Donelson walked across the open ground south of the anchorage, they entered a landscape alien enough to have been another planet. Fires were still burning in isolated areas, although damage crews using water tankers with powerful hoses had most of them under control, and most of Hindsight had been burned or completely destroyed. The hangars… storage buildings… the tower and the personnel quarters: nothing much remained other than smouldering foundations or burned out, skeletal frameworks of charred wood and twisted, scorched metal.
The concrete runway that had taken so long to build in anticipation of their arrival, six weeks earlier, had been rendered useless in seconds. Huge craters scarred the surface at irregular intervals along more than half its length, and the intense heat of incendiaries had opened jagged, longitudinal cracks right across it in many places. It’d be weeks of constant repair work before any of their aircraft could use it again, and the real truth was that they all knew that that work would never commence.
Much of the supplies for the aircraft had also been destroyed, along with a large proportion of their cannon ammunition and most of their remaining AMRAAMs, all of it lost in flames as the hangars and storerooms went up. At least the underground tanks buried at the far end of the strip remained intact along, with their thousands of litres jet fuel. It was a small mercy in light of what had been lost.
Kransky and Kelly appeared together, separating from a crowd of fire fighters near the ruins of the main hangars and walking toward them. Their clothes and faces were singed and blackened with soot, the tracks of tears dry against both men’s dirty cheeks. To what extent those tears had been as a result of the heat or of the horror of it all was anyone’s guess. Kransky carried a long-handled shovel, but dropped it the moment he caught sight of the group of Hindsight officers approaching. The men almost staggered over to their position near the remains of the collapsed tower, and they stood together for just a few moments, all silent.
“You’re all right there, Mister Kelly…?” Trumbull asked in a faltering voice, noting the thick bandages that swathed both of the man’s arms from wrist to elbow.
“I’ve been better, to be certain, Mister Trumbull, but I’ll live,” Kelly grimaced in return, trying to make light of his situation but unable to find any humour, “which is more than I can say for some o’ the poor bastards they’ve got down at the infirmary right now.”
“Kelly nearly died trying to get through to the control bunker with a group of fire fighters after the raid… as well as dragging a dozen men or more to safety before that…” Kransky added, feeling the Irishman had left too much unsaid.
“There was work to be seen to,” Kelly shrugged, playing down his actions and in no mood to be lauded a hero when so many others had died, “no need for exaggeration…”
“At least two sticks of bombs bracketed the bunker,” Kransky began softly, his voice almost breaking with emotion. “Another scored direct hits on the closer trenches…” He shook his head slowly. “It wasn’t just explosives… they were using phosphorous and a persistent incendiary that stuck to anything it touched…”
“Napalm…” Thorne muttered softly, knowing that putting a name to what Kransky was speaking of was meaningless even as he spoke.
“Drews… Cassar…” Kransky continued, his voice faltering a second time, “Nick…” Eileen groaned softly, her eyes closed in despair as he spoke that last name. The list continued: more personnel from the SAS… several of Kowalski’s marines… British troops posted to the base after their arrival whom they’d all come to know well.
Kelly, whose temperament generally leaned toward one of light-heartedness even in the face of the adversity he’d suffered in his own life, suddenly found the terrible and overpowering sense of loss unbearable and turned as if to leave. He took a few steps past the group, only to stop momentarily at Eileen’s shoulder as he turned his head to speak.
“I’ve no time for stupid principle in times like these, missus…” He spoke gently, the honest sincerity in his voice obvious. “I’m mighty sorry for yer loss… all o’ ye.” Unable to look directly at him as she struggled to retain control of her emotions, Eileen could do no more than give a single nod, but that recognition was in itself more than enough. With a silent acknowledgement in return and a grim, mirthless smile, Kelly set off in search of something productive to do to aid the cleanup operations.
Thorne stared off into the empty space over Kransky’s right shoulder rather than directly at him, his fists clenching at his sides as Davies also walked away, composed on the surface but inwardly distraught and needing to be alone. Trumbull, holding back his own tears through sheer willpower, reached across and placed a comforting arm around Eileen’s shoulder. She instantly turned to him completely and buried her face against his neck, her whole upper body wracked with sobs as she wrapped her arms tight about him.
“I need to see…” Thorne said with simple softness as he finally found the strength to stare directly into Kransky’s eyes. The intensity of his expression almost chilled the tall security chief out of his own despair, and he could only nod slowly. A moment later he led Thorne off in the direction of the command bunker.
The burial ceremonies were carried out quickly that very afternoon. Most of those present at the services were suffering from what might’ve been considered at the very least a mild state of shock, and many would later have difficulty remembering any real detail, had they been asked. Thorne was unsteady in both his stance and speech as he delivered what seemed to be an endless procession of eulogies, speaking a few words for each of the dead as they were lowered into newly-dug graves at Lyness Naval Cemetery, situated to the west of the docks and main buildings of HMS Proserpine. The ceremonies would by-and-large exist in the mourners’ memories as no more than a blur of sadness and pain, and most would be grateful for the lack of clarity.