Blackest of Lies (27 page)

The noise of a metal hatch being blown open violently against its retaining cleats made him start – a naval officer was helping
Lord Kitchener
onto the deck, followed by that runt Hubert, supported by a couple of Marines!  How many lives did the old bastard have?

They were making for the bridge.  Stiffly, he rose to his feet, clutching at railings to avoid being flung overboard, and went to finish the job.

**********

Savill snapped round to face the Signals officer, “Is Lord Kitchener safe?  Was anyone injured?”

“One death, Sir – Marine Hughes.  Took the brunt of the blast.  His Lordship, Colonel Fitzgerald and that new bloke are coming up to the bridge.”

“Thank God for that!  Get a damage report sorted out immediately.”

“Aye, Sir.”  Pressing his mouth tightly against the speaking tube, he shouted over the storm to organise damage control parties, almost losing his balance on the slippery deck as the ship’s bows plunged to her deepest yet into the grey-green depths.

Luck was not with them that evening.  Somehow, the downward movement of the bows seemed to stop abruptly, as if they had struck an underwater obstruction, like a reef.  In any other weather, the ship would have passed over Beitzen’s mines unharmed but the sliver of hope he had offered up was not to be realised.  For a split second, the eyes of the bridge officers met as the immense explosion lifted the forepeak of the ship almost out of the sea, shattering the spine of one of the bridge officers and killing him instantly.  The crew were thrown forwards as the ship decelerated from the huge drag forces exerted by the mangled bows.  Savill pulled himself up from the deck, his head streaming blood from a wound rendered painless by shock, and peered down at the forward deck through the driving rain.  One look was enough – she was going to the bottom. He had, perhaps, only minutes to bring the crippled warship closer into land.  Pushing the dead officer to one side, he made his way over to the speaking tube and shouted down to the Quartermaster, two decks below the waterline.  “Quartermaster, the ship is going down.  Give me 30 degrees of starboard rudder and then get yourself and your men up on deck to abandon ship!”  He turned to the other officers.  “Gentlemen, I thank you for your faithful service but now it’s time to leave.  I ask one thing only of you – do your utmost to ensure the safety of our guests.  Call ‘Abandon Ship!’”

**********

Once again, Farmer had been thrown heavily to the deck.  Fitzgerald caught him by the collar of his greatcoat and held on grimly until he was helped by the returning MacPherson.

“We need to get abaft the bridge,” shouted Fitzgerald into Hubert’s ear as ‘Abandon Ship’ was announced. “The Captain’s pinnace is secured there.”  He motioned to the Sergeant, who understood what was needed and they turned to make their way aft.  The sudden deceleration could be felt almost immediately.  Hubert knew exactly what had happened – it had to be one of Kell’s mines rather than a torpedo.  No submarine could usefully come up to periscope depth in these seas.

Moving towards the first funnel, grasping the lifelines that had been rigged earlier, the group moved out of the shelter of the superstructure.  The force of the wind was unbelievable.  Hubert felt that they’d never make it to the small wooden vessel rocking crazily on its stanchions.  Every step aft, angling steeply up the sloping deck, blew them half a step backwards.  The plunging of the bows constantly threatened to dash them against the bulkheads.

Matthews positioned them in the lee of the bridge while he moved further aft to manage the party already trying to make the pinnace ready to launch when a further eruption from below expelled dark clouds of soot from the four funnels of the ship as cold seawater flooded into the engine room, detonating the boilers.  With no power, the
Hampshire
came to a halt in moments and corkscrewed in the pounding seas, making the lifeboats impossible to launch – the derricks were electrically powered with no mechanical back up.  Matthews looked up one final time to see a towering wave come over the submerged port side before he and his deck crew were swept away. 

Fitzgerald watched as the pinnace was shattered into kindling.  “Hubert!” he roared. “The ship’s dying.  Fifteen minutes and she’ll be down – I’m sure of it.  We have to get the Colonel off the ship or we’ll be sucked under as she sinks.”

**********

As yet another colossal sea hit the bows, Savill heard the ear-splitting screech of the mast aft of the bridge collapsing towards the funnels, covering the deck in a Gordian knot of tangled wire.  None of the lifeboats would be capable of launching now.  He grabbed the Signals officer by the lapels of his oilskins and shouted into his ear.  “Lionel, get a radio message off to Longhope – damn pity we sent the escort home – but send off a distress call.”

“No good, Sir, it was the first thing I tried when you ordered us to abandon.  The set’s been wrecked!”

Savill looked at him, appalled.  “What the hell do you mean – ‘wrecked’?”

“Just that, Sir.  It’s been sabotaged.  Someone’s been at it with a hammer.  I checked the standby set, too.  It’s just the same –
and
the distress rockets. 
They’re
missing – probably overboard.  All we have is the Aldis.”

“But how …?”

“Must have been when we were all on deck to welcome Lord Kitchener.  There’s nothing to be done but get off the ship and make for shore.”

Taking a final look around the bridge of his ship, Savill urged the other man towards the hatch.  It was over for the
Hampshire
.

**********

Farmer looked, terror-stricken, at Hubert.  “Chris, this is going to upset me awfully.”  He started aside as a seaman officer, trying to run towards them with a pair of cork waistcoats, become tangled up in the wire covering the deck.  Momentarily stuck on the open without shelter, he was thrown against the nearest stanchion by a wave and killed before their eyes.  Fitzgerald grabbed the jackets before they were swept into the sea by the hissing torrent of water draining away through the scuppers.  He glanced around to see of any other life jackets were about and, finding none, he snorted to himself.  “Ah, well.”

Sliding gingerly along with his back to the bulkhead, he gently pulled Farmer towards him and began to fit the floats over his head.  “Did you know, Henry,” he said, smiling sadly, as he carefully tied the braids of the life-preserver round him, “that Kitchener once had his fortune read – just once in his lifetime, as far as I know.”  Farmer dumbly shook his head.  “Can you believe that she told him his death would come by water?  Knowing what we know, how curious is that?” He pulled the bow tight and looked steadily into the other man’s eyes.  “Don’t make it come true.”  He threw the other preserver to the Sergeant and pointed to Hubert, huddled on the deck.

“Oswald,” stuttered Farmer through chattering teeth, “What are you doing?”

He patted him on the arm.  “You’re not to worry about me,” he said briskly.  “I’ll be absolutely fine.  I’ll get on to one of the rafts and meet you on shore.  Hubert’s in a bad way, so there’s no way you could both make it aft to the Carley rafts – not in this incline – and you’d never get through all this bloody rigging.”

“But …”

Fitzgerald smiled fondly.  “You did a
wonderful
job - simply wonderful and courageous and decent – and I
thank
you.  I thank you for my sake as well as his but you
have to go
!  We may only have minutes left!”  He grabbed Farmer sharply towards him by the front of the lifejacket.  “Go!” 

Turning round, he pushed Farmer and Hubert ahead of him towards the rail facing away from Orkney, and hung on grimly to the remains of the mast as the ship angled a little deeper and rolled more to port.  Farmer and Hubert, no longer sheltered from the gale, were struck by yet another powerful wave, thrown on to their backs and swept towards the rails.

Screaming in fury, Duquesne appeared on deck and charged towards them, trying at the last minute to reach Kitchener.  He could
not
be allowed to escape his fate.  He slithered quickly across space between them like a loathsome reptile – only a few feet more and he might be able to grab hold of Kitchener’s lifejacket.  He reached out and screamed in pain as Fitzgerald swung a wooden batten back again for another strike. But it never came.  All of Duquesne’s fury became focussed on him alone and the two men wrestled on the pitching deck, inches away from the davits.

For a brief time, Fitzgerald seemed to have the upper hand.  He punched the Boer again and again in the face and tried to throttle him but the ship angled suddenly downward when a hatch, deep below, gave way to air pressure.  It was enough to distract Fitzgerald and for Duquesne to roll him off on to his face.  Grabbing the nearest length of rigging wire strewn all around them, he wound it round and round Fitzgerald’s neck, leaning back to pull it tight.  As the ship lurched again in a roll to port, Duquesne jumped off the other man who slid down the slope towards the rails until the wire snapped tight.  Within seconds, Fitzgerald was dead, sliding slowly from side to side at the end of the wire as the waves pounded the dying ship.

Duquesne grabbed on to a hatch coaming to stop him following his victim and looked down into the sea.  Kitchener was gone.  Stretching his neck as far as it would go, he scanned the waves but no sight of the two men could be seen.  Kitchener was probably dead – no-one would survive in that sea – but he was meant to be
his
.  To get so close and yet not be able to kill him personally! 

Angrily, he wiped the blood from his eyes and looked up to see sailors struggling to launch a Carley raft over the starboard rail. By the time he reached the rail, the raft was in the sea.

**********

Over on the starboard side, the sea was full of bobbing heads and all the detritus of a dying ship.  Men were grasping frantically at anything that would float in the biting cold.  Duquesne jumped and entered the water close to a group of men scalded when the boilers burst.  The salt water lacerated their wounds.  Even over the incredible noise of the gale, their screams pierced his ears.  The
Hampshire
had minutes to go and, if he was not to be sucked down after it, he’d have to swim away from the ship and towards land.  In those conditions, swimming fifty yards was more like half a mile but, exhausted by the waves and bitter cold, he made it towards the nearest raft where he was hauled in and unceremoniously dumped onto the submerged decking.

He looked back at the clouds of steam streaming out of the forward engine room.  Just above, near the quarter deck, two officers jumped overboard holding wooden drawers under each arm.  Someone in his raft sang out, “What do they think they’re doing – committing hara-kiri?”

He turned around and took stock of where he was for the first time.  The Carley raft was a large oval structure, about ten feet long and eight wide, with the edges encircled in a deep layer of cork.  The deck was only a grating and the sea ran through unimpeded.  About fifty other men shared the float with him – their weight pushed the deck deep into the sea, meaning that everyone was up to their waist in freezing water and the waves pounded over them constantly.  Duquesne knew, knew for certain, he would not be able to suffer this for long.  Clamping his jaw tightly shut to prevent his teeth chattering, he fought hesitatingly for breath.

Some men were furiously paddling.  His brain beginning to cloud with encroaching hypothermia, he struggled to understand the reason until he looked back again. The forward funnel of the
Hampshire
was now going under the water, sucking their raft back towards the ship in her final agonies.  Duquesne was hit by what felt like tons of water coming over the side, burning his wrists, twisted for safety around the Carley’s ratlines.

“Look!” shouted a Petty Officer, “Look! She’s going down!

The
Hampshire
, bow deep in the water, had suddenly lurched forward, her propellers high in the air.  With a sickening noise of grinding steel, she began her descent.  Perched high above, many of the crew were hanging to the rigging and derricks, hoping to float away when the ship went under.  Others were now sliding down the exposed hull, trailing paths of blood as their skins were flayed by the exposed barnacles.

“She’s going now,” howled an older seaman, who retched over the side and slid, unseen, into the turbulent water.

The
Hampshire
tucked her bows even deeper and fifteen minutes after she struck the mine she disappeared from sight.

**********

Over on Birsay, a gunner of the Orkney Territorial Force was watching the
Hampshire
, intrigued by her sailing so close to shore.  Visibility was poor with driving mists of rain and black, lowering clouds.  He grinned quietly to himself at memory of his Grannie’s old saying – ‘Orkney has three months of winter and nine months of bad weather’.  He leaned on his gun post to watch the ship pound its way to wherever it was going, suddenly widening his eyes as he saw the blast of orange flame leap from abaft the bridge.  The ship slowed and turned more into land.  It was clear right away that she had been crippled – she began to settle by the head almost immediately.  He raced over to his billet and reported in to his corporal.  Within minutes, the NCO was in the Post Office, a couple of hundred yards away, drafting a telegram.