Battlecruiser (1997) (20 page)

Hardie, the other member of their little crew, said, ‘They were ditchin’ their gash, sloppy buggers!’

Rayner eased the stick over. The small figures working on the freighter’s deck had been covering something with another piece of canvas, he imagined to protect it from the sun. For only a second, it had registered. ‘Look at her stern!’

Buck sounded startled. ‘I can’t see anything, Skip! What is it?’

The ‘gash’ being dropped over the stern; the canvas which had almost covered something. Metal tracks, like narrow railway lines.

He exclaimed, ‘She’s laying mines, for Christ’s sake! Rob, call up the ship! We’re getting out, fast!’

He felt the engine responding loudly and saw the sea’s glistening face slide away like the side of a steep hill.

His mind was almost too full to cope. Laying mines, and the launching rails had been empty. The Spaniard had dropped the lot. They were not for mooring. The ocean was too deep in this area; he had checked it on Rhodes’s
chart before they had taken off. Three thousand fathoms. They would stay on the surface, drifters, uncontrolled and mindless, and lethal to the unwary. He tried to swallow, to get the words out to Morgan.

‘Mines, Rob! Tell the ship!’

There might be dozens of them, hundreds, for all he knew. Or he might be making a bloody fool of himself. But if he was right . . . He heard the splutter of static and wondered if they would be able to make contact. The Spaniard might have been laying the mines for hours, or ever since their reported encounter with the raider.

Reliant
had to know.

He did not feel the explosion. It was more like being lifted violently, and then dropped again. There was foul-tasting smoke in the aircraft, and for another instant Rayner imagined they were on fire. But the smoke was thinning even as he struggled with the controls, and stared with shocked disbelief at the jagged holes, feeling the inrush of cold air. They had been hit. And with the realization came the pain, like a hot iron in his side, probing and burning, and making him throw off his goggles as if he were choking. Buck was holding him, staring into his face while he dragged at the leather flying jacket.

Rayner gasped, ‘You know the course, Eddy? Hold her on it!’

‘I can manage, O.K.?’ He withdrew his hand and saw the blood.

Rob Morgan, one-time milkman in Cardiff, was back again. He looked pale, transfigured, in some way. ‘The radio’s smashed.’

Buck said, ‘How’s Jim?’ He put his arm round Rayner’s shoulders and held him upright. Morgan’s brief shake of the head said it all. ‘Up to us then, Rob. Here, give me a hand. Get a dressing.’ He darted a glance at the compass
and altimeter. The old Shagbat was flying herself. He wanted to laugh, or cry. But he knew he would not be able to stop.

Rayner blinked, hard. ‘How long, Eddy?’

‘Half an hour. Don’t worry. I’ve got her.’

Rayner let his head drop back. That long? How could it be? It had only just happened. Flak. He should have known. Guessed.

He had felt his trousers filling with the blood running into his groin, thick blood. He bit back the pain. Obscene. But there was a dressing on the wound now. How had they managed to do that?

Morgan said, ‘Convoy in sight, Skipper.’ There was neither relief nor emotion. He was beyond both.

Rayner tried to move. ‘What about Jim?’ The Walrus was turning, losing height. As it did so, the sunlight lanced through the splinter holes and passed slowly across the other seaman’s open eyes, but they did not close to it, or blink.

Rayner said, ‘Aldis. Call them up . . .’ His voice was little more than a whisper.

I have to get them down. I must.
It was only when he felt Buck’s grip tighten that he realized he had spoken aloud.

‘Hold me up. Watch the flaps . . . nice and steady.’ If the depth charges exploded, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Vaguely, he heard the clack-clack of the Aldis lamp, and Morgan’s voice.

‘They’ve seen it!’

It was not even possible to know if they were badly damaged. They would have to ditch, and wait to be picked up. Or left, like the Germans in their Arado. Tit for tat . . .

He said quietly, ‘See that girl for me, will you, Eddy? Tell her I would have written.’

Then they hit the water, and Buck felt spray spitting through some of the holes.

Rayner might be dying, but Buck watched his gloved, bloody hand retaining control as if it alone was alive. He stared at the sea as it corkscrewed up and down, tossing the little flying boat like a leaf on a millrace, and held the bloodied hand in his own as the engine coughed and shuddered into silence.

‘We’re down! You did it, you crazy bugger!’

Morgan said, ‘
Reliant
has to send somebody.’ It was getting to him now.

Rayner murmured, ‘She’ll come. You’ll see.’ And then he passed out.

Buck tried to wipe his friend’s face with his one clean handkerchief, but his fingers were shaking so badly that he gave up the attempt.

‘You tell her yourself,’ he said, and afterwards he convinced himself that he saw Rayner’s lips curve in a faint smile.

Lieutenant-Commander Clive Rhodes lowered his glasses, and watched more smouldering debris being manhandled and levered over the
Orlando
’s side,
Reliant
’s seamen working easily with the Australian soldiers, as if they had been doing it for years.

He heard the captain speaking to the transmitting station on one of the bridge telephones, obtaining a clear picture of any damage sustained when the two big hulls had touched one another. It made Rhodes sweat just to think of it.
Reliant
was of thirty-two thousand tons displacement, and the old cargo liner had not been built with that sort of ship-handling in mind. And yet Sherbrooke had conned his ship so close that her great flared bow had hidden the men who had been waiting to assist the boarding parties.
One error of judgment, one freak gust of wind at the moment of impact, and it could have been a disaster. He had handled her like a destroyer, or, perhaps, like the ship he had once commanded.

Sherbrooke joined him, and said, ‘We will recover our people now.
Orlando
’s master seems to have everything in hand.’

Rhodes remarked, ‘I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been here.’

Sherbrooke looked at him, or through him, his eyes distant, as if he were reliving it.

Then he smiled. ‘I did have a few doubts myself, Pilot.’

‘Aircraft! Green four-five! Angle of sight three-zero! Approach angle zero!’

Across the gunnery speaker they heard Evershed’s voice, clipped and tense, as if he had been waiting for it.

‘Follow Director!’

But it was Bob Yorke, the yeoman of signals, who grasped the situation. Snatching up the long, outdated telescope which he preferred to any pair of binoculars, he hurried on to the bridge wing, his lips moving silently as he found and held the slow-moving flying boat in the lens. Sherbrooke thrust his hand into his pocket and clenched his fingers around his pipe as the Walrus’s kite-like outline dipped towards the searing water, as if it could no longer stay airborne.

Yorke did not even blink in the glare. ‘From Walrus, sir.’ He frowned, unused to the slow, hesitant flashes. ‘
Have sighted minelayer to the north-west. Mines on convoy route.
’

Somebody said in a whisper, ‘Poor bastard’s been hit.’

Rhodes was watching the flying boat also, much closer now to the sea. It must have been tricked into getting too near the minelayer, whatever she was.

Sherbrooke said, ‘Signal, Yeoman. Make to commodore.
Convoy will alter course in succession. Steer two-five-zero.
Then find a flare to shake up the lookouts.’

Rhodes waited by the wheelhouse voicepipe, missing nothing.

Sherbrooke added curtly, ‘And call up Captain (D) and tell him what’s happening.’

Stagg’s telephone came to life and a signalman reached for it.

Sherbrooke said, ‘
Wait.
’

‘All acknowledged, sir!’

A quick glance at the clock. How many minutes? ‘
Execute!
’

Sherbrooke strode out on to the wing and seized the loud-hailer.

‘
Orlando
, ahoy! Boarding parties will remain on board!’

He watched the troopships wheeling round after their commodore, with a kind of ponderous dignity.

Somebody gave a nervous laugh. ‘That’ll get the Bloke on the hop! He’ll think we’re leaving him behind!’

There was a muffled bang, which touched
Reliant
’s hull like a nudge.

Sherbrooke watched the tall waterspout rise directly alongside the light cruiser’s bows. It seemed to take an age to cascade down, and then there was smoke. No flash, but as
Diligent
thrust out of the falling spray he could see that she was already slowing down, her curving wake dropping rapidly until finally she was stopped altogether.

Sherbrooke observed her coldly. ‘Half speed ahead both engines. Steady on course . . .’ He hesitated, and looked over at Rhodes. ‘Where’s the Walrus, Pilot?’

‘Down, sir. In a bad way.’

‘Signal Captain (D) to stand by and assist
Diligent.
Report extent of damage.’

He shut out the clatter of signal lamps, and levelled his glasses on the sea. The Walrus was rocking about, her power gone. It was a marvel they had made it at all.

He seemed to hear Rayner’s voice.
We can manage.
Then he made up his mind. ‘Alter course for the Walrus, Pilot. Reduce to seven-zero revs in five minutes. That should do it.’ He turned away and saw a boatswain’s mate staring at him. ‘You – Oldfield, isn’t it? Pipe the seaboat’s crew and lowerers to clear away the port whaler.’

He moved quickly to the radar repeater, thinking only of the pleasure in the man’s eyes, because he had called him by name. His father had once told him,
remember their names. It’s just about all they own!

Stagg walked across the bridge. ‘How is
Diligent
making out?’

Rhodes called, ‘Down by the bows, sir.
Montagu
is standing by.’

‘Seaboat’s crew ready, sir!’

‘Very well.’ He looked over at Rhodes. ‘Slow ahead. Dead slow, if you think fit. Tell the Chief what’s happening.’

Stagg said sharply, ‘
I’d
quite like to know, too.’

‘We can’t recover the Walrus, sir. It’s probably too badly damaged. I’m picking up its crew.’

Stagg stared at him, then stalked out on to the open bridge wing.

The orders were very faint when heard from up here. ‘Turns for lowering! Lower away! Avast lowering!’

Sherbrooke had seen it done a thousand times, the boat dangling at the full extent of the falls, swinging gently above the sluggish bow wave. The five oarsmen in their bulky life-jackets, their coxswain ready to shout his commands.

‘
Out pins!
’

Stagg raised one hand as if to prevent it, as if he could still not believe what was happening.

‘
Slip!
’

Then the boat dropped freely onto the receding bow wave, veering away on the long line which would carry her clear of
Reliant
’s side and towering superstructure. A lonely moment for any boat’s crew.

Rhodes said, ‘They’re almost up to the plane, sir.’ He sounded completely absorbed. ‘Boat’s cox’n is signalling.’ He snatched up his glasses again as the tiny figure in the whaler’s sternsheets semaphored with his hands, while the whaler lifted and rolled against the drifting Walrus.

‘
One dead
, sir.
One wounded. Am returning.
’

Stagg snapped, ‘Get that boat hoisted and alter course after the others immediately!’

He walked to the door and paused. ‘And then, I should like to see you in my quarters as soon as is convenient, and provided it does not interfere with the safety of this ship!’

Rhodes and his assistant, Frost, had heard every word, and Sherbrooke knew that Stagg had intended it that way.

‘Whaler’s coming inboard now, sir!’ That was Yorke, his eyes unusually grave, as though moved by what he had just witnessed.

‘Carry on, Pilot. Bring her round and increase to one-one-zero revolutions.’ He felt the instant response, like a shiver pulsing up through the bridge from the very keel.

He heard Rhodes say, ‘Port ten . . . midships . . . Steady.’ Relaxed once more, now that the ship was moving again and gathering speed.

Frazier must have witnessed it all, from his isolation aboard
Orlando.

What would he have done in my place?

He trained his glasses on the listing
Diligent.
It would
be her captain’s decision, to abandon and transfer his men to the destroyer
Montagu
, or to try and make it into harbour unaided. Halfway between the light cruiser and
Reliant
, the battered Walrus flying boat might remain afloat for weeks until another storm found it, yet another victim of the Atlantic.

He heard Rhodes speaking on a telephone, and waited.

Rhodes said, ‘The man who was killed was named Hardie, newly joined this ship. Lieutenant Rayner was wounded.’

It had probably been no more than a fluke; none of the mines dropped by the unknown enemy might ever have found a contact in this convoy. Only one would have been enough to turn a triumph into disaster. He looked at his hands, but they were quite steady, which surprised him. He felt the ship slicing through the water, overhauling the passive merchantmen like a greyhound, resuming her rightful place at the head of the convoy. Where
Diligent
had been when she had struck the mine.

One of the young signalmen said, ‘I was thinking just now, Yeo . . .’

The yeoman of signals patted his blue collar. ‘Leave thinking to horses, my son. They’ve got bigger heads than you have!’ He smiled, knowing what was puzzling him. ‘Go an’ wet some tea for the watchkeepers.’

Sherbrooke said, ‘Take over the weight, Pilot. I’m going to see the admiral.’ He paused. ‘But first, I’m going to the sickbay.’

It was not until eight bells of the first dog watch that he finally made his way aft toward the admiral’s quarters. Every muscle and bone ached, and he felt as if he had been on his feet for days without respite.