Battlecruiser (1997) (11 page)

It would be strange when they eventually got together with the escort carriers and he finally met the others. All the bright, boastful types, the fighter pilots, shooting lines
about how good they were, probably looking with pity or sarcastic delight at his ungainly Walrus.

Buck snatched up his binoculars and strained against his harness.

‘What is it?’ Rayner swore to himself as more cloud enveloped the wet perspex.

Buck looked at him, his eyes bright, confused.

‘A light. A flash. I’m not sure.’

Rayner shrugged. ‘Ready, you guys – I’m going around!’ He added, ‘Hold onto the tea, Rob!’

It was probably nothing. No survivor would have a light strong enough to be seen at this distance, even if he had the strength to aim it.

He was reminded of the captain’s face when he had mentioned the chances of finding anybody alive. He would know better than any of them. One of eight survivors, they had said. Everything lost, wiped out in a second.

‘Coming on course again, Dick.’ Buck was speaking through his teeth, unusually on edge. Uncertain.

It was still worth a try. He tilted the aircraft, and saw the first real sunlight on a hostile sea.

Buck shouted, ‘
Aircraft! In the drink!
’

Rayner eased the controls again and watched the scene fade away into another bank of bumpy cloud.

‘
On
it, Eddy. Not in it.’ He was surprised that he sounded so calm. But for Buck’s alertness, they could so easily have missed it. Just seconds, but Buck’s warning had given him time to pull out his powerful glasses even as they completed their turn. Just seconds . . . that was all it took. The flash Buck had seen must have been sunlight reflected from the wing as it tipped and rolled on the uneasy swell. A float plane, single-winged, edging slowly past a small yellow dinghy. Seconds. He had seen the twin black crosses on the shining wing. He had met one before. An Arado 196,
the kind carried by large German warships. Ships like the
Minden.

Buck asked hoarsely, ‘What should we do?’

Rayner said, ‘He hasn’t seen us, and with his engine going he won’t have heard us, either. When he does, he’ll come after us.’ He saw the sudden comprehension in Buck’s face. ‘He’s a hell of a lot faster than we are, and he has twenty-millimetre cannons, and machine-guns. We’d never make it.’ He twisted round to involve all of them, so that they should understand. ‘He’d have us for breakfast.’ He thought of his brother Larry, going down in the Med. Quickly? Slowly? Had he known? Had he suffered?

He heard Morgan, the ex-milkman, clear his throat on the intercom.

‘Then the old
Reliant
would never know about it.’

Rayner tried to ease his fingers on the controls. Morgan had spoken for them all. The German float plane had put down to investigate the drifting rubber dinghy. For reasons of intelligence, because of the fellowship of one pilot for another? It must not matter now. This plane and these men were his responsibility. The rest was a myth, as his brother must have found out for himself.

He said shortly, ‘Stand by depth charges. I’m going in. We’ll only get one chance.’

Buck said in a small voice, ‘All set!’

Hardie, the trainee gunner, murmured, ‘Steady the Buffs!’

It was unreal, hurtling through the cloud, the engine’s roar rising to a scream, protesting like those disturbed gulls. Then the bright, hard sunlight, and more cloud, ripping through the wings and struts like pressurized steam.

And then there was only the sea. It seemed to be hurtling to meet them, even though the Shagbat’s top speed was a hundred and thirty knots at best.

It was all there. The float plane, no longer swaying uncomfortably in the swell but already moving, the twin floats cutting razor-sharp furrows as it continued to gather speed. The abandoned dinghy was already drifting away, its solitary occupant lying over one side, as if he had fallen asleep.

Rayner felt his jaw crack with concentration.
He’ll have us for breakfast.
His own words echoed back to mock him.

Fifteen, ten seconds . . . they roared over the moving plane, the Walrus’s crooked shadow blotting out everything.

‘
Now!
’

He felt the aircraft jump as the two charges were released. Thank God for a good crew to check every small detail. If only one charge had jammed, it would all have been too late.

‘Come on, old girl!’ He felt his seat lean over, and was in time to see the other plane altering course violently as pilot and crewman realized their danger.

They had missed. With one eye on the compass, he swung the Walrus into another turn.

He stared down, startled, as Buck’s gloved fingers fastened on his arm like a vice. He was shouting into his mouthpiece, but no sound was coming through.

Rayner watched, the moment frozen in his mind as the two depth charges exploded almost simultaneously. Not that near: any U-Boat commander would have merely crossed himself and grinned. But close enough for the finely balanced float plane. The explosions had blasted off one wing completely, so that the plane was turning over onto its side, the sea thrashing around the propeller until it, too, came to a sudden stop. Like a dead bird. No menace. Nothing.

Buck was switched on again. ‘You did it, Dick!
You clever old bugger!
’

Rayner allowed his nerves to settle. ‘You’re not so bad yourself, kid.’ He added more sharply, ‘Now give me a course to steer. We’ll head back.’

What the hell is the matter with me? They could have shot us down without a thought.
Would have, if they hadn’t been so curious about the dead airman in the dinghy. Or were they just doing what he himself would have done, out of humanity?

The thoughts disturbed him, and he dismissed them.

They climbed steadily into the cloud again, each man reliving privately what they had seen and shared.

Hardie was crouching beside the controls, a mug of tea in one grimy fist.

‘Char, sir?’ He watched as Rayner dragged off one glove with his teeth.

Then, almost shyly, he said, ‘Nice to have you as skipper, an’ no mistake.’

Rayner leaned back in his hard seat and sipped the tea. It was the finest he had ever tasted. Later on, maybe much later, they would set up the drinks and celebrate, and somebody would paint a little symbol on the side below the cockpit to represent their kill. After this, he would be accepted. One of them. And later, he knew how much it would mean to him.

But now, all he wanted to do was find
Reliant
and report what they had found, and where. At the same time, he knew he would never forget how he had felt.

‘Aircraft’s hooked on, sir!’

Sherbrooke walked to the extreme side of the bridge and peered down at the surging water, so far below, after his last ship. He could see little of the Walrus but for the tips of the wings, but the great arm of the aircraft hoisting crane was turning slowly inboard, where the handling party
would be waiting to secure the plane to the catapult again.

The Walrus pilot had done well, and he sensed the relief all around him when the garbled signal had been received and the plane was sighted, flying within feet of the water. It had all taken time. Slowing the ship and turning to provide some sort of lee while the Walrus had manoeuvred carefully alongside. One false move, or a sudden change in the weather, and the aircraft could have been smashed against the hull like a toy.

Once, Stagg had called up from his own private bridge beneath this one, a small nerve-centre which was connected to the main communications systems and transmitting station, and complete with its own radar repeater.

When Sherbrooke had told him that the Walrus was ready for recovery, Stagg had said tersely, ‘Taking long enough!’

‘All secure, sir.’

Sherbrooke walked past his chair and looked through the forward screen. It was misty: perhaps more fog was on the way. If so, Rayner was luckier than he knew.

‘Resume course and speed, Pilot. Inform Captain (D) that we have recovered our aircraft.’

He could picture the senior destroyer captain very well, a stocky, almost square figure, who had been in destroyers for most of his service, from picking up terrified White Russians at Odessa after the revolution, to the battles of Narvik and the bloody evacuation of Crete. Sherbrooke liked what he had seen of him, although he had sensed that Stagg was less than enthusiastic. The Captain (D) had been tipped for promotion to flag rank, and possibly that was the rub, although Stagg surely had no reason for jealousy.

‘Course two-nine-zero, sir. Engines half speed ahead.’

Sherbrooke joined the navigating officer by the gyro compass repeater.

Rhodes said, ‘Visibility’s falling again, sir.’

Sherbrooke wanted to return to his chair, but every muscle was telling him how much he needed to rest. It would be fatal.

‘I’ll see what Rayner has to say, then I’ll speak with the admiral.’

There had been another signal from the Admiralty, brief and unhelpful.
There are three U-Boats in your vicinity.
That could mean anything. When Stagg had been informed he had snapped, ‘Probably heading up to Iceland. I’m not breaking radio silence to ask!’

A door slid back and Lieutenant Rayner walked into the bridge.

Sherbrooke said, ‘You did well. Tell me about it.’

‘An Arado float plane, sir. I couldn’t just leave it. If it had climbed after us, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

For one so young, who had already proved his skill as a pilot, he looked drained, and unusually downcast.

Sherbrooke said, ‘Go on.’ He saw Rhodes step back, as if to offer some privacy in this crowded bridge.

‘They were looking at a dinghy, sir. There was a dead airman in it. They were doing what we would have done.’

Sherbrooke watched him gravely. What
you
would have done, he thought. So that was it. Like shooting someone under a flag of truce. But it was not like that.

He said, ‘They would have done for you, given the same opportunity. You must know that. Accept it.’

Rayner forced a smile. It made him look young and vulnerable.

‘I guess so, sir.’

Sherbrooke heard the sounds resuming around him, felt the bridge returning to normal. He said, ‘One enemy
aircraft destroyed. I shall see that it goes on your report. Well done.’

Another door crashed open and Stagg strode into the bridge. Was it simply that he found his own small, private bridge too restricting, or did he hate to feel like a mere bystander?

He stared keenly at Rayner, still in his flying jacket, and said, ‘So you destroyed a German aircraft, eh? It’s not a lot for me to act on, is it?’

Sherbrooke prepared to interrupt, but there was no need. Rayner answered, very calmly, ‘It was an Arado 196, sir. It could only have come from a sizeable German warship. It’s too far to be from anywhere else.’

Stagg regarded him coldly. ‘You think?’

Rayner said, ‘I
know
, sir.’

Stagg bent his head, apparently frowning. When he looked up, his teeth were set in a grin. ‘Good lad! I like your style!’ He turned to Sherbrooke. ‘But it’s not enough, is it?’

Sherbrooke said, ‘I have a feeling about this one, sir.’

Stagg shrugged. ‘That’s not enough either, Guy. There’s too much at stake. Now, if we had that ruddy carrier . . .’ He thrust his hands into his reefer pockets, his thumbs jutting over the front like horns. ‘It’s no go. Not this time. Come to the chart room. We’ll be ordered to Scapa – I can almost see the bloody signal!’

He glared at the mist beyond the damp glass. ‘And this damned stuff isn’t helping!’

They both stared at a bridge speaker as Evershed’s voice intoned, ‘Director Control to Bridge. Radar transmissions are returning. Some repeaters still out of use.’

Sherbrooke looked questioningly across at the repeater whose failure had so unbalanced Evershed. It was still dead.

Stagg rasped, ‘Wait till I get my hands on those mental cripples!’

‘T/S – Forebridge.’ There was no mistaking Frazier’s calm, unruffled voice. ‘Repeaters are now in use.’

Sherbrooke took a handset and said, ‘This is the Captain. What are the prospects, John?’ He could feel Stagg’s impatience and frustration. If they were not recalled by the Admiralty, he would make the decision himself. Sherbrooke could almost pity him. Almost.

Frazier replied, ‘Got every mechanic on to it, sir. This isn’t the first time it’s happened.’ That was as far as he would commit himself.

Sherbrooke replaced the handset, feeling Stagg’s eyes upon him. Eventually Stagg said, ‘I shall break radio silence. It will be up to the Admiralty and the C-in-C Home Fleet to decide what to do next.’

It was the first time Sherbrooke had ever seen him look so deflated. He had not even attempted to bluff his way out of it with the usual style.

The speaker again, a different voice, sharper, and intense.

‘Contact, sir! Ship bearing three-two-zero, range two-two-oh!’

It was as if an electric shock had ripped through the bridge, momentarily rendering every man incapable of movement.

Then the voicepipes began to chatter, and even the radar repeater showed a faint sign of life.

‘Start plotting!’

Sherbrooke returned to his chair and gripped it, his mind reaching out as if it were unrolling an immense chart. A ship. Somewhere out there, eleven miles away.

‘Target is moving left. Range steady at two-two-oh. Rate two hundred – closing!’

He could picture Evershed, all his doubts forgotten for the moment, while his brain, eye and mind reacted to each range and bearing. Eleven miles, and closing at the rate of two hundred yards a minute. Fast, then. Committed.

The enemy had altered course, probably heading due west on a slightly converging track.
Reliant
must bring all three turrets to bear, and at once.

Stagg was suddenly beside him, his face very grim. ‘I’m going to my perch, Guy.’ He looked at him with fierce intensity. ‘Fight the ship, Guy! Destroy that bastard!’ Then he was gone.

Sherbrooke said, ‘Alter course, Pilot. Steer three-zero-zero.’ He reached for the red handset and imagined the Chief snatching up his own telephone, his boiler suit spotlessly white as usual.