J. E. MacDonnell - 096 Read online

  Wind Rode's bridge had seen all this before. They weren't interested. Their attention, drawn to it by the yeoman's call to the captain, was for a flag. They'd seen this before, too, but here, amongst the scores of starred and striped ensigns, to their eyes the flag of the Australian Commonwealth stood out like a shout of welcome.

  "Well I'm damned," muttered Bentley. "I didn't know the old coot was up this way. Yeoman! Make: `R.P.C. lunch on board today'."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  But before the request for the pleasure of the addressee's company aboard Wind Rode could be transmitted, she became the addressee of a signal herself. It could hardly have been more brief. "Repair on board." Three words. Their meaning was explicit. Enlarged, they said: "The instant you have anchored your ship you will present yourself in mine." Perhaps you had been thinking that the lone ship in there wearing the Australian flag amongst that American mass could be none other than one commanded by an old coot named Holland? If so, it is feared that your following of these naval chronicles has taught you much less than it should have. A mere commander would have sent the "R.P.C." message, not that terse and concise order.

  Captain Bentley, V.C., etc., anchored his ship quickly and obeyed the order quickly. And in the motorboat he spoke quickly to Leading-seaman Billson.

  "He's already on the quarterdeck. For God's sake don't make a balls of it."

  "No, sir," answered Billson, stolidly.

  Nor did he. The boat pulled up abreast the gangway, while its stern swung gently in until it touched the bottom platform. Perfect. Phew, breathed Bentley, and he jumped on to the platform. As he walked up the ladder- only commanders and other nonentities run up a ladder this one-he thought he heard something that sounded like a scurrying of feet. But when his head appeared above the gunwale, and the pipes shrilled their captainly respect, he forgot about that odd sound. His ears, instead, were met by another.

  "I see you still have that ruffian Billson carting you around," said a prim and acidulous voice.

  Quarterdeck or no spotless, rigidly-to-attention quarterdeck, Bentley grinned.

  "I'll pass on the word that you remembered him, sir," he said, saluting then holding out his hand. "Ruffian he may be, but you have to admit he knows how to handle a boat."

  "His boat handling ability was never in question," agreed Captain Sainsbury, V.C., etc. "I seem to remember I had some small hand in his training. However, what undoubtedly is in question is his knowledge, and yours, of correct naval procedure."

  "Eh?" said Bentley, and then, abruptly as realisation and memory flood in, "Oh my God!"

  "Precisely. Many of the service's customs are obscurely based, it is true, and one supposes that youth must have its whims, but the next time you indulge yourself in one of them I do wish you would let us know in advance.

  The best-trained piping party finds it somewhat difficult, to say the least, to cross over to the port side of a cruiser's quarterdeck when they have already been drawn up on the starb'd side."

  Oh Christ, Bentley thought. In his eager excitement at meeting his mentor again, the prim-faced old maiden aunt who had taught him most of what he knew, he had clean failed to notice that that bloody Billson was heading for the port ladder-reserved for libertymen and such. Now he knew what that scurrying sound had been.

  He turned his head slowly. They were still there, lined up at the head of the gangway; the officer of the day, the chief quartermaster, the leading-seaman quartermaster, the bosun's mate, the sideboy - representing all the pomp of a cruiser's ceremony. Their faces were stiff and respectful, and their eyes were grinning.

  "I'll have that bugger Billson's guts for a necktie," Bentley growled in his throat.

  "I beg your pardon?" enquired Sainsbury.

  "I said," Bentley said, looking straight at the piping party, "that I did it deliberately, to test their quickness of reaction."

  "Ah," murmured Sainsbury, "an exercise, I see. A destroyer testing a cruiser's efficiency. There should be more of it-I suppose."

  The grins slipped down from eyes to mouths. This cruiser and that destroyer had sailed together before, and these men knew these two captains. Sailors claim to know many things, even unto an admiral's bank balance and the way he treats his wife, but certainly this lot knew that the younger captain was the heavyweight champion of the Fleet, and that once he had served as first lieutenant under their captain. As for their personal relationship- blind Freddy could see that they were the best of friends. Any other commanding-officer coming alongside the wrong gangway would not have been treated to an acid, eye-glinting castigation; it would have been simply acid. The very fact that Sainsbury's homily had been delivered within earshot of junior ratings was evidence enough.

  Sainsbury nodded to the officer of the day, who fell-out the piping party. At this indication of formality's end, two officers came forward from beside the triple-barrelled gunhouse of Y-turret.

  "You remember Commander Blaskayne?" Sainsbury murmured.

  "Of course."

  "Nice to see you again, sir."

  The voice was gruff; unlike most voices, it fitted perfectly the owner's frame. Bentley nodded to a heavy reddish face, and shook a big hand with thick fingers. As on that first time, he got the immediate impression of an old time seaman, though Sainsbury's second-incommand could be no more than thirty-five; a bosun type, Bentley thought, one who would seem to be more at home splicing rope than using a sextant. He had another impression-that the commander's greeting had been simply and honestly meant. An odd but pleasant counterpoint, he reflected; this bluff fellow against Sainsbury's prim fastidiousness.

  The reflection made him smile a little. He turned to the other officer, and as Sainsbury said, "You will also remember my first lieutenant, Lieutenant-Commander Cowdray," the smile involuntarily eased under the compulsion of a remembered dislike.

  "How d'you do, sir?" Cowdray said.

  Bentley knew that this fellow's greeting would be formal. The face was thin and dark, the same characteristics of Dalziel's, and his hair was black, extending in side-levers almost level with the bottom of his ears. But where Dalziel's face held a clean, hard saturnity, this face looked-Bentley could find no softer word-slimy.

  Junior, Cowdray had his hand held ready to accept the handshake which the senior officer must initiate. Casually, Bentley clasped his hands behind his back. Cowdray's smile slipped off under the tightening of his face. Sainsbury's expression did not change.

  "Good morning, Number One," said Bentley, then turned to the captain. "I didn't expect to see Tempest in here this morning, sir."

  "Life is full of surprises, my boy. However, it is too hot to talk here. Please follow me."

  "Goodbye, Commander," Bentley said to Blaskayne, and nodded to Cowdray then he walked after Sainsbury to a hatch leading below.

  "He hasn't changed much," said Cowdray, with an edge of bitterness to his tone.

  Makes two of you, Blaskayne thought distastefully. He said, with bluff and pretended innocence:

  "Why should he change? Seems to me he's doing all right as it is. Boxing champion, one of the youngest post-captains in the Service, his own flotilla-not to mention his cross. That's a pretty impressive tally."

  "Yes, it is," said Cowdray in a hard flat tone. "Trouble is, he's aware of it. You saw that. Didn't bother to shake hands. It was a deliberate snub. I'm not a bloody sideboy, you know!"

  "Speaking of your job," said Blaskayne, suddenly hard-faced, "how's the painting of the fore top messdeck coming along? I don't want to sail with wet paint everywhere. Better check on it."

  It was an order. Cowdray nodded curtly and moved off to his `tween deck province.

  Bentley flopped his weight into a chair and Sainsbury said:

  "I see you still dislike my first lieutenant."

  "I see you've still got him."

  Sainsbury pushed a box of cigarettes across the low coffee table. It was perhaps the most significant evidence of the relationship between them when he said, to another officer about one of his own:

  "How can I get rid of him? He is, one must admit, not the most desirable of shipmates, but unfortunately- if you will excuse the paradox-he does know his job, and performs it well. Between decks Tempest is in excellent shape."

  "Good for him. So transfer him to an old destroyer or a frigate. He looks senior enough to be due for command."

  "Unfortunately," and Sainsbury offered his vinegary smile, "he is due, but not fit for command. You have, I should think, a similar situation obtaining with your own first lieutenant?"

  Bentley was momentarily startled; not so long back those had been precisely his own thoughts. The sharp-witted old coot. He didn't miss much. Then the other implication struck Bentley. His tone was belligerent. "You can't compare Bob Randall with that septic specimen, for God's sake!"

  "On the contrary, my dear boy. In two respects they are most comparably similar. Both do their respective jobs well, and both are not command material."

  "I could argue about the degree of that comparison. Randall does a bloody sight more than see the messdecks are kept clean!"

  "I was," Sainsbury admonished him gently, "once in command of a destroyer."

  "All right. But there's a third aspect. Nature and personality. Randall's as much like the louse as I'm like a... like a bloody ballet dancer!"

  Bentley was again startled. Sainsbury's acerbic face smiled infrequently enough, but Bentley couldn't remember the last time he had heard him chuckle.

  "Your pardon, Peter. I was imagining you in a tutu and toe shoes."

  "What the hell," frowned Bentley, "is a tutu?"

  "I see your cultural education has been sadly neglected. However, I did not bring you aboard to discuss either ballet or junior officers. You will lunch with me?"

  "Of course."

  "And you will, I suppose, wish to imbibe before lunch?"

  No, Bentley thought, grinning inwardly, you just couldn't expect talk any different to that from such a face. And it wasn't an act. "Imbibe" means to drink, to absorb, and so, precisely, Sainsbury used the word.

  "Naturally."

  "Whisky?"

  "Scotch?"

  "Yes."

  "We do all right in the luxury liners, don't we? No thanks, it's too hot. You have beer?"

  "I think a bottle can be arranged."

  "A bottle. If I didn't know you better," Bentley said, "I'd get the impression you'd become stingy. Or couldn't hold your liquor," he added maliciously-remembering that on more than one occasion Sainsbury's bony frame had still been erect when all of them, he and Randall included, had been figuratively, and in one case actually, under the table.

  "If you persist in becoming obese," Sainsbury smiled, "I suppose I shall have to keep you company. Press that buzzer, would you?"

  Bentley did so, remembering that smile - twice within a minute-and thinking with pleasure that either the old boy had become more mature, or else the comforts and easier life aboard a big ship had psychologically fattened him after the lean rigours of life aboard a bucking tin-can.

  Suddenly, impulsively, he said:

  "It's damn good to see you again."

  For a moment their eyes held, this young captain now without a father and the man who had been almost that to him. Then Sainsbury coughed, and the steward came in, and the moment of intimacy passed.

  It was not forgotten.

  Bentley thoroughly enjoyed the meal. He was a destroyerman, and at heart always would be, yet it was the confines of his own address which enabled him to appreciate so much his lunch here; the food was well cooked and the service was swift and silent. And the company-which others might have found awkward-he enjoyed as much as the food.

  They chattered easily, mainly about the war and old times shared, though Sainsbury forebore from mentioning Bentley's father, who had been killed some months before aboard Wind Rode. Then, over coffee and a liqueur brandy, Bentley returned to the particular.

  "What's up? Why are you here? You didn't get me over just to lunch."

  "Questions, questions," Sainsbury sighed. "You are just as impetuous as ever, aren't you?"

  "I'm damn curious."

  "Yes. Well now, first I have a few questions of my own. The answers could be illuminating. You've been out on patrol?"

  "Yes."

  "Where, exactly?"

  "Up towards Mindanao."

  "Ah."

  "Ah what?"

  "Patience, my boy. What, if anything, did you see?" Now, mentally, Bentley uttered his own "Ah.". This could be very interesting. But he curbed his impatience and began at the beginning.

  "We contacted a submarine and sank it-or Benson did."

  "Good. Where?"

  "Off Pusan Point on Mindanao. Benson clobbered a shore battery there, too."

  A shade of disappointment flitted across Sainsbury's face.

  "Pusan Point is a long way off," he murmured.

  "Biak's not."

  Sainsbury's head jerked up. He looked at Bentley sharply.

  "You found something off Biak?"

  Bentley told him what they'd found, while he noted that those clear, shrewd eyes were watching him intently.

  "I thought it odd," he concluded. "Jap destroyers, only three, unsupported by aircraft or heavier units have never come so close to Manus, at least not to my knowledge. They were headed towards the harbour, yet they must have known it held big trouble. The bastards also knew they were well within the range of Yank aircraft."

  Sainsbury's eyes were gleaming, yet instead of discussing the subject in hand he said, reprovingly:

  "I do wish you would use more temperate language, by boy."

  "Eh? Oh, sorry. Okay, the blighters knew they were in range of Yank aircraft. Does that satisfy you?" he grinned ironically.

  "It does not."

  "Come again? Blighters offends you? Why, I've known you yourself to so far forget decorum as to call the Japs devils. Once, you even said bloody devils."

  "I, too, am a captain," said Sainsbury. "I am not required to guffaw at your alleged wit. For your information, I myself have referred to both Germans and Japs as bastards, especially those employed in the submarine service."

  Bentley goggled at him. "Then what the devil are you offended at?"

  "At your use of the word Yank."

  "I think you're serious," Bentley said wonderingly.

  "Most serious, believe me. The American civil war was fought a long time ago, but, if I may steal a phrase, the memory lingers on. In those days the term Yank, or Yankee, was to southern Americans an expression of distaste, even opprobrium. In the United States Navy today, in ships which are right here, in fact, there are many southern Americans serving. They like being called Yanks as much as the Japs like being called little slant-eyed yellow bastards."

  "Oh come on! Surely that's taking it a bit far? I don't object to being called an Aussie, or even a Digger."

  "Perhaps not. But think back, my boy. From your own experience you are well aware that Englishmen find distasteful the terms Limey and Pommy. Especially do they dislike being called kippers."

  Bentley smiled. "I imagine you're right."

  "Be sure of that. I have known a bar-room brawl to start with the use of the word Yank. If you say it, so will your men. Elsewhere it would not matter so much. But here we must be more circumspect. You might be good enough to remind your libertymen of that."

  "Will do."

  Bentley lit a cigarette. The idea came. He rejected it. But they were very old friends. From a composed face he said:

  "May I have some more coffee?"

  "Certainly."

  The steward came in with a fresh pot. He poured and was about to leave when Bentley said:

  "Just a moment, steward."

  "Sir?"

  "What is the Missouri?"

  A waiter in a first-class hotel is well trained. A steward in the captain's cabin of a cruiser is disciplined and trained. This one barely batted an eyelid in front of his astonished mind.

  "The Missouri is a large river in the United States, sir. I think it is also a state, sir."

  "Right. Anything else?"

  "Yes, sir. The Missouri is an American battleship."

  "Thank you, steward. That's all."

  "Aye aye, sir." When he'd gone Bentley said:

  "You noticed that emphasis on the word American? The beggar heard our discussion."