J. E. MacDonnell - 096 Read online

  "Breaking up noises, sir, loud and clear."

  "No doubt?"

  "None whatever, sir."

  "You're right, Ping," said Benson, his own tone false. "We have a beautiful tide of oil up here. Good work. House the dome."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  Benson turned to the first lieutenant and the navigator. To one he said, "Take her parallel to the coast, go on to thirty knots," and to the other, "All right, Number One, there are two shore guns still in action.

  You have five minutes."

  It took less than that. Now Witch was on a steady course, which not only helped her aim but also her loading-men were not cursing and slipping on heeling decks. Together, all six guns in rapid broadsides, they were delivering just under a hundred 50-lb. armourpiercing shells every minute.

  No doubt the Japanese guns were properly emplaced, but Witch's projectiles left her with a muzzle energy of 2800 foot-tons, and arrived with not much less. That is a smashing force. Presently from the dark mass of the shore there gushed a brilliant spew of yellow flame. It showed only briefly, which told the bridge that the energising food was shells or cordite. Either was enough. There would be no men left alive near such a rupture.

  Even so, Benson let his guns fire two more broadsides. From the range of six miles Pusan Point returned nothing but twinkles of red.

  "Cease firing."

  "Check, check, check," Donovan sent to the guns.

  When the ship had stopped its berserk bellowing and there was only the stink of their own cordite to bite at the back of their mouths, Benson said:

  "Well now, Pilot, what do you think?"

  "I think," answered Pilot, "we should get to hell out of here. And just as fast as she'll take us."

  Benson's quizzical grin trained round the bridge.

  "Any arguments?"

  Unprintable words, but in respectful tones, answered him. It was that sort of bridge.

  "Carried unanimously," said Benson. "Let's go."

  She swung, and she went.

  Guns were not sponged out-it was a bit difficult to open fire with a great bristly brush halfway up the barrel, and that currying treatment could wait till morning, when visibility was enlarged, and thus safety. The guns were trained fore and aft, and left a quick-loading angle of ten degrees.

  Action stations fell out. Guardrails were hauled upright again and the stanchion pins inserted. Base clips were replaced on ready-use cordite and the lockers clipped shut. Gun captains took a final checking look, then dismissed their crews.

  They went below, but not to turn in. Dawn was shortly after four o'clock and it was not worth undressing, for dawn meant action stations, and this dawn was no different to any other, regardless of the fact that all her main armament and depth charge equipment had been so recently in use. You never knew; some minor, vital part of the communications gear might have been affected, or even the tension on a breech-mechanism lever, and the checking-through at dawn action stations would find this out. Only in this way, in waters like these, could a ship hope to stay afloat. Eternal vigilance, the philosopher said, is the price of liberty; for these men it was also the price of life.

  They had fought and they had won, yet amongst her men in the humid heat of between-decks there was no triumph-none, anyway, that was expressed. There was some chiacking, but that was simply the safety valve of a great relief. That torpedo could have ripped the bow off her, and then the Jap guns ashore would have done the rest. They were lucky it wasn't them a thousand fathoms down instead of the submarine crew.

  This, they thought, though they knew it was not luck at all. Yet no man praised the asdic officer's detection of the torpedo and the captain's swift avoidance of it. Not verbally. If challenged on this, they would have simply answered that that was what Ping and the Old Man were up there for. Just the same, to some further degree, the captain's hold on his crew's loyalty and respect was tightened.

  This is the sort of thing that makes a captain, and thus his ship, successful. There is discipline, of course, but in the Navy discipline is everywhere-by itself it cannot make a ship competent; certainly it cannot make a ship happy.

  Witch was a happy ship. And aboard her that lovely, recently violent night, there were many men who privately thanked God that they were in such a ship, for about one point there is no doubt whatever, and the point is this-to be happy, holding as she does hundreds of aware, experienced and disciplined men, a ship is efficient. You can't fool sailors for a quarter of the time. Familiar, back-slapping, suckholing officers do not make them happy; on the contrary, the effect of such fools is moroseness and suspicion. Witch's men were contented because they knew they were well led.

  Evidence of this was given them after breakfast the following day.

  The ceremony called captain's requestmen and defaulters was held once a week, if demand required it. Today the demand was small. There was one requestman asking for his allotment to his wife to be increased, and one defaulter. "Request granted," said Benson with sober face.

  "Request granted," repeated the coxswain, "about turn, double march!"

  "Now there," smiled Benson, "goes a happily married man."

  "Or else a henpecked one," amended a voice.

  All officers not on watch were required to attend the captain's table, but no one had to look round to identify the owner of that melancholy voice.

  "Look on the bright side, Pilot," said Benson, and then made his own amendment: "I might as well ask the Chief to give me fifty knots. Right, Swain, what's next?"

  "Able-seaman Rohan, sir. Absent over leave in Port Moresby."

  "Hmmm." Benson wrote in the request book his decision about the allotment, but his mind was busy elsewhere. Rohan had done a good job during the shoot against the shore battery, and he was a good seaman.

  "Right."

  "Able-seaman Rohan," snapped the coxswain.

  A big, fit, handsome man of about twenty-five doubled into the chartroom and stood to attention before the captain.

  "Off caps!" Predictably, Rohan wore only one cap, but with coxswains and masters-at-arms the plural was always used, Lord knows why. "Able-seaman Rohan, sir. Was absent over leave in Port Moresby from midnight..."

  Benson listened to the charge with his eyes on the defaulters' book on the table. When it was completed he flicked up his eyes and held Rohan's-he would continue doing this until the trial was over.

  Rohan was surprised; not at the captain's looking at him, but at the way he did. He had never been up before Benson as a defaulter before, and this was a different face altogether to the genial one he was accustomed to seeing.

  "You admit the charge?"

  "Yes, sir."

  What else could he say, with all other hands on board before midnight and the quartermaster and the duty petty-officer waiting up for the lone absentee?

  "Any excuse?"

  "No, sir."

  "You mean you deliberately overstayed your leave?"

  Rohan swallowed. "No, sir, it wasn't that."

  Damn those eyes. They were like gimlets. A man couldn't think.

  "Ah..."

  "You were warned leave was up at midnight, that the ship was under sailing orders? You know the significance of a warning like that?"

  God. Looked like he was in, boots and all. It sounded like he'd committed murder, the way the Old Man said it.

  "Well, man? I asked you a question."

  "Answer the captain!"

  "Yes, sir. I heard the warning."

  "Yet you overstayed your leave. Why?"

  "It was this... this..."

  "This what?" demanded the inexorable voice.

  "This girl, sir," blurted Rohan. He'd never see her again, that was for sure, the bloody nymphomaniac, and anyway he couldn't lie to those damned eyes, even if he wanted to.

  "A girl, in Moresby?" wondered Benson, while even Pilot's lugubriousness was replaced momentarily by surprise. "There must be at least six girls in Moresby, amongst thousands of Americans. How is
it you managed to land such a prize?" asked Benson, looking at the handsome tanned face, knowing the answer.

  Rohan was used to having no trouble at all in landing such a prize in Moresby or anywhere else, and his interpretation of the captain's wonderment was that he did not believe him.

  "I did have a girl, sir!"

  "Watch your tongue," rapped the coxswain.

  But Benson had seen the big fellow's flush, and he understood.

  "No one is doubting your word," he said quietly. "What I'm after is an explanation."

  "Oh... Well, sir, this girl... she sort of made me forget the time, sir."

  "What? How?"

  Eyes that were suddenly as steady as Benson's said, respectfully but definitely, No. His mouth remained closed. "Answer the captain!"

  "All right, Swain. Able-seaman Rohan, what is your action station?"

  It was this quick and deliberate change of tack that made Rohan feel ashamed he had let this captain down by overstaying his leave. Later, it was to clinch his respect and liking for Benson. Little things, but on such apparent trifles a captain's position is solidly based.

  "I'm breech worker of the right gun of A-mounting, sir."

  Benson knew this. "That's a fairly unimportant job in action?"

  Rohan knew what was coming. His head went up a little, but in acceptance of his fate, not defiance.

  "No, sir, it's an important job."

  "You're damned right it is! Especially when our guns have to take on a shore battery! If you hadn't come back aboard just before the ship sailed, A-mounting would have lost half its effectiveness. A loading-number is no replacement for a trained breechworker."

  "No, sir. Sir..."

  "Well?"

  "It won't happen again!"

  Benson's sharpness of tone glissaded down to a more deadly softness.

  "No. Able-seaman Rohan, it won't happen again." His eyes and his pause added, Or else. His tone became crisp again. "Seven days Number Eleven."

  The coxswain was very nearly caught. He recovered quickly and rapped:

  "Seven days Number Eleven! On caps, about turn, double march!"

  The big fellow darted out into the passage, and away.

  "Now there," mimicked the first lieutenant, "goes a happily bedded man, if you'll excuse the brilliant variation on a word."

  "I won't," grunted Benson, "not your envy, neither. All right, Swain. Gentlemen."

  They saluted. Benson returned to the bridge-the flotilla should be in sight any minute, for Witch was close to her full 36 knots.

  It was stand-easy. Men were at coffee in the mess-decks. Rohan stepped into his mess. An oerlikon gunner about half his size said eagerly: "What'd you cop, Tiny?"

  "Seven days Number Eleven."

  They were surprised, and then they understood. Stoppage of leave was the usual punishment for overstaying it. Out here at sea that meant nothing. But Number Eleven meant working through the dogwatches, when all other hands had packed up for the day. That was something.

  So the Old Man had all his marbles about him, they thought while they commiserated dutifully with the victim. And as regards duty, they knew that Rohan had deserved all he'd got; on a gun the breechworker was just as important as the layer or trainer-in fact, he was senior hand of his gun crew.

  Oh yes, they thought, the Old Man's a bloody nice bloke-but he knows when to dish it out.

  Paradoxically, perhaps, this contented and assured them. Sailors were jealous of their rights, which were few enough. But if you dipped your wick and blotted your copybook, as Rohan had done, then you took the can.

  They said, What a bastard, cobs, and stiff crap, Tiny, and Seven days ain't all that long; and secretly they were off a strip.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CAPTAIN PETER BENTLEY, Senior Officer, Fifth Destroyer Flotilla, was feeling less than amiable. In fact, he was worried.

  Where the hell was he? Benson knew his job, all right, but the most competent destroyer driver couldn't do much about a squadron of Zeros or cruisers, or even a trio of destroyers. Yet surely he would have got off a signal if he'd been under attack? Providing the first bomb or shell hadn't found one of his magazines...

  For the umpteenth time Bentley checked his watch, then checked himself from asking if there was anything on radar astern. The whole flotilla knew how long Witch had been absent. Even a bloody shark's fin back there would be reported!

  A heavily-built young lieutenant-commander brought his rugged-carved and darkly-tanned face over to stand beside Bentley; and, like him, to stare astern.

  "Y'know, Peter," said Randall in a low voice, "I've been thinking."

  "So? What little unpleasantry have you come up with? Bombs or shells?"

  "Torpedoes."

  "Yes, that's possible," Bentley surprised him-but then this happened often between a first lieutenant who was a practical-minded fighter and a captain who was also that, but a needle-witted forecaster of events as well. "If that was a genuine sub contact, Benson might have been drawn on into a pack of the mongrels."

  `But he would have made a signal," Randall protested his earlier belief.

  "When you have a tin fish racing for your belly," Bentley said grimly, "you don't think about signals. After that, it's too late."

  Randall shook his head worriedly. "Poor devil," he growled, "he was a nice bloke. Had a bloody good ship, too."

  "For God's sake!" Bentley exploded with tense lowness, "we don't know for sure he's had the chop. Pack up laughing, will you?"

  "Sorry." Randall raised his binoculars and lowered them. He had quartered the northern horizon only seconds before. "What do we do now? Go back and take a look?"

  Instead of answering him directly Bentley turned his head a little and called:

  "Pilot!"

  Wind Rode's navigating officer was by nature the antithesis of Witch's. He had been known to front with cheerful face the chill force of an Arctic gale. But as he turned at the captain's call his face was unsmiling.

  "Sir?"

  "Position, please."

  "Nanoesa Islands bearing west-sou'-west, sir, thirty miles. On our present course we'll clear them by twenty miles."

  "Very well. Come down to fifteen knots. We'll give her half an hour then return at thirty knots and see what's happened."

  See what's left of her, Randall thought, while Pilot spoke to the yeoman. Up went the G for George speed flag with its numerals one and five. The restless hawk eyes of Nutty Ferris, chief yeoman of signals, watched for the answering pendants of the three destroyers astern. The white and red triangles of bunting were broken out smartly, for this was an experienced, war-trained flotilla, and when all were fluttering at the yardarms Ferris made his report to Pilot.

  Wind Rode's signal came down, followed by the pendants astern; her quartermaster in the wheelhouse got his orders, and via a revolution counter the artificers on the throttles got theirs. Destroyers lose speed quickly, like they pick it up. In not much more than a minute after formation-line-astern from the Leader and distance between ships-remained precisely the same as it had been. All captains were on their bridges, expecting some change of plan from Bentley.

  That drop in speed proved to be the only change.

  Radar is a most efficient instrument for use at sea under normal conditions, with an unobstructed field of view. These were not only normal, but excellent conditions; slight swell on the sea, a few clouds in the sky.

  But radar has two advantages, one major and the other not so important. Like light waves, radar transmissions cannot be bent, so that its surface range extends no further than the horizon, when the electronic particles shoot off into space; and radar, especially at long range, needs something fairly large and solid from which to echo.

  The topmast of a destroyer does not fit into the latter category. And so it was the instrument of Nelson's time, and of the Phoenicians long before him, which was to put Bentley's worries at rest.

  This belonged to a young seaman perched high up the mast in
the crow's nest; in more correct nomenclature, he was the masthead lookout. He was up there not simply because he was young-the older Ferris had better sight, and Bentley's was twenty-twenty, along with Randall's- but because he was a trained action-station lookout, and he did have excellent vision.

  His name was Craven. The one good-conduct badge he was entitled to wear on the left upper sleeve of his serge uniform denoted only three years' service, but two of those years had been spent in Wind Rode, and a good deal of that time as a lookout.