On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) (36 page)

“
Midships, steady!”

Soaked to the skin, water streaming from his oilskin he yelled
, “Stand by both tubes!” Then, “Launch…Launch…Launch!”

The two torpedoes leapt from their tubes, momentarily skimming the wave crests and them plunging deeper, chasing the speeding cruiser as she turned away, all her
close range weaponry were blazing away at the tiny ‘Ethel’. Then ‘X’ and ‘Y’ turrets caught up and opened fire. As first, through the great spouts of water the massive shells threw up, the torpedoes leapt and cavorted, twisted and weaved, but gradually they matched the enemy’s speed, knot for knot until slowly they began to better it, overhauling her, closer and closer.

*     *     *

The cruiser’s captain faced with the unenviable choice of torpedoes astern of him and the destroyer abeam, chose to keep to his course. Hoping to outpace the torpedoes and let his big guns take care of the destroyer.

The cruiser
’s turn away from Hogg’s torpedoes had presented Barr with just what he’d hoped and planned for. The enemy cruiser was now directly down wind and broadside on to the ‘Nishga’ as the destroyer raced in.

“
Both mountings stand by for a torpedo attack, starboard side, all tubes.” Barr turned to the engine room voice pipe “Make smoke”.

He was looking aft towards the funnels anticipating the clouds of concealing smoke
when the eight-inch shell struck.

The blast threw him back against the for
’ard screen with incredible force, pain shot through his whole body, the impact drove the air from his lungs, he managed to rise shakily to one knee. Gasping for air, his head spinning with pain, he looked about him. The smoke screen was billowing from the funnel, stinging his eyes, but, by the grace of God, sweeping downwind towards the enemy. His mouth opened in surprise the main mast had gone. He staggered to the rear of the bridge and looked down; the ‘Nishga’s’ tripod mast hung over the port side, a mass of wires and crippled steel girders. The crews of the depth charge throwers were already running forward to clear the wreckage. “Petty Officer,” he yelled, “Leave that to your leading hand, take two men aft, stand by to jettison the E boat’s fuel drums on my order likewise the charges in their racks, set shallow.”

“
Aye, Aye, sir,” the burly P.O. grabbed two men by the scruff of their necks and propelled them aft, Barr smiled, action speaking louder than words, or at least more quickly.

He reached the for
’ard screen and caught a fleeting glimpse of the enemy. At last ‘Nishga’s’ four point sevens were doing damage, the forward turret of the cruiser had taken a hit at its base, toppling it from its turntable, its barrels pointing harmlessly at the sky. Then she was gone enveloped once again in choking smoke. The ‘Nishga’s’ four sevens fell silent. The smoke screen had rendered both ships’ gunnery control useless, blind, wrapped in an acrid, oily blackness.

He yelled to the torpedo communications rating,
“Torpedo action starboard! Open sights…Launch when ready...Pilot! Port fifteen take her across the enemy’s bow!”

Barr watched from the starboard wing of the bridge as the t
ubes fired, the deadly fish slipping gracefully into the swell, disappearing rapidly from sight.

The cruiser
’s captain had been waiting, had glimpsed the torpedoes launching, despite the choking smoke. He executed an emergency turn to port, but the sleek destroyer was turning faster, tucking herself in across the cruiser’s projected path, she was still in danger of taking that pointed bow full square in her vitals.

Barr
whirled the handle of the quarterdeck phone. “Jettison the aviation fuel drums.”

Aft
, the drums rolled eagerly from their stern ramps. Four depth charges sank in to the foaming wake at the same time.

At thirty knots the six-thousand tons of cruiser charged
headlong into the drums; the explosion spewed blazing fuel oil high over the cruiser’s fo’c’s’le.

The E-boat
’s torpedoes sped by missing their burning target, passing only feet from the ‘Nishga’s’ stern.

The
‘Ethel’ was now coming in from astern of the cruiser. The cruiser’s after eight-inch fell silent unable to bear on so close a target. Abruptly Hogg turned the ‘Ethel’ across her stern. Two depth charges dropped into the sea as the cruiser continued her turn, Hogg tried to follow her round, to keep close in, fearful of the cruiser’s burning bow section, he had left the turn a matter of seconds too late. The remaining forward eight inch was ready on the bearing as the E-boat emerged from the cruiser’s shadow. The huge shell hit the speeding boat amidships, her aluminium hull disintegrated completely and immediately. For several seconds, propelled by her own momentum, ‘Ethel’s’ blazing remains sped on at top speed, skipping across the waves, then slowed, her bow dropping back into the water. As the ‘Ethel’ died so her depth charges exploded in the wake of the already blazing ‘Nienburg’, lifting the vast bulk from the water, blowing off her rudder and screws. The mighty cruiser instantly lost way, smoke and flames pouring from her gaping wounds, she settled slowly back into the waves, like some huge factory she spewed clouds of black smoke. Then abruptly the after magazine exploded with unbelievable force, wrapping her in orange flame. She dropped back onto her shattered stern, her blazing bow swung skywards, men cascading from her like ants.

*     *     *

Chapter 20

The Miracle

HMS Nishga, off Dunkirk, France. Monday, 27
th
May 1940.

Dunkirk lay along a grey horizon, stretching away to pencil thickness wreathed in black smoke from the town’s burning storage tanks. To the east a cold red sun rose, flooding its rouged reflection into a pewter-coloured sea.

Between the battered
‘Nishga’ and the shore, a myriad of crowded small boats bobbed and tossed their way west. All were laden to the gunwales with the dispirited remnants of the expeditionary force which had landed on the shores of France, so gloriously, a few short months before.

The crew of the destroyer were
stood to at their action stations as she nosed her way carefully in towards the shore. It was thus, carefully, watchfully, excited and afraid that they entered, not only the harbour, but history, the way fighting men had entered it since time immemorial.

This was the second day of Dunkirk, but for the crew of the
‘Nishga’ it was the first. No one had experience anything like it before, a panorama filled with ships and boats of all shapes and sizes, horizon to horizon, and beyond. Thousands of men adrift, upon hundreds of boats; ferries, freighters, fishing boats, every conceivable craft had been enlisted for the vital job of saving the Army. Small overcrowded boats, mere dots on a vast canvas, passed alarmingly close to the destroyer, slipping by in her frothing wake. Their gunwales hung with doll-like khaki-clad and sea sick soldiers, French, British, the wounded and the exhausted.

Ashore long lines of men, like human breakwaters, stretched seaward from the long
beaches. In the harbour itself, a huge queue, snaked its way, three-deep for almost a mile around the rocky mole that protected it from the sea.

In the smoke flecked and shell torn sky a confusing array of aircraft, climbed and dived, twisted and turned in noiseless dog-fights.

The ‘Nishga’ entered through the breakwater astern of a rust streaked pleasure steamer, the two ships weaving in and out of the treacherous sandy shoals that littered the harbour approaches. Every shoal carried its wrecked ship, some still in flames, some still with men on board. From deeper water, funnels and the tops of shattered masts rose from the oil- slicks; broken tombstones in a bleak and desolate graveyard.

Suddenly every anti-aircraft gun, ashore and afloat, opened up as tiny bent-winged specks dived out of the sky. A terrible wailing-scream filled the air as the Stuka dive-bombers swooped onto the sitting ducks. Hemmed in by the mole and the treacherous sand banks, they could take no avoiding action, there wasn
’t enough sea room to swing a cat. The steamer ahead took two direct hits and staggered out of line like a wounded swan, smoke billowing from her gaping fo’c’s’le. Immediately she began to sink. With her fore-ends already under water her crew were desperately rigging pumps and hoses, frantic to keep her afloat long enough to ground her on the sandbanks. They made it; as she settled by the bow a shroud of bubbling water and steam rose from her flooded boilers.

All the while the sea around churned and leapt under the relentless onslaught from the Stuka
’s five hundred pound bombs. As the pleasure steamer moved aside to her last resting place they saw the next in line, an old paddle steamer burning like a torch, full to capacity with soldiers. A mass of flames, her captain had already run her aground.

The last of the bombers, dropped like a stone, straight
towards a now, barely moving ‘Nishga’. The after pom-pom caught it, blowing off one wing; it spiralled on, spinning madly, like a badly made child’s paper plane. While fragments of its port wing showered across the open bridge, the main body of the crippled Stuka, wailing like a banshee, hit the fo’c’s’le and disintegrated among the anchor cables, the wreckage burst into an orange-bright ball of flames. The bomb itself had exploded in the water alongside, drenching the men from ‘A’ turret as they ran forward to tackle the blaze.

The flight of Stukas took off to the west, chased by
the black flowers of exploding Ack Ack .

Mercifully a respite was in the offerin
g for the wind veered and the whole sky became black with the smoke from Dunkirk’s blazing oil tanks. Unable to see the beleaguered harbour, scores of enemy aircraft turned away, searching out other more visible targets.

“
Sir, they’re making our call sign from the beach. Message reads berth at the eastern breakwater. It’s from a Captain Tennant, sir, SNOD.”

“
Snod?” queried Barr, watching his men stowing away the hoses on the blackened fo’c’s’le.

“
Yes, sir, Senior Naval Officer Dunkirk.”

“
Tennant! said Barr, turning to Lieutenant Usbourne in sudden realisation, “That’ll be Bill Tennant, well at least we’re in the best possible hands. I served under him in my first ship… Acknowledge please, Yeo and add, ‘Congratulations on your new appointment, but the initials would have been more appropriate if you’d left the naval part out.’ ”

Even before they had
the first line across, the harbour came alive with small craft ferrying soldiers to the ‘Nishga’s’ waiting scrambling nets. Barr leant on the bridge screen watching the tired soldiers being dragged inboard by his sailors. He could only image the comments. He walked across the width of the open bridge. Low tide had the mole towering a good five feet above the ‘Nishga’s’ iron deck, but it was no impediment to the impatient soldiery who, even before the gangway, was out were crossing the yawning gap under their own steam.

Within the hour and
fully loaded, they were nosing their way back out through the treacherous shoals and the burning wrecks.

They took Route Y
that first time… the longest of the three routes. It took them a torturous three and a half hours, first north east along the French coast as far as Bray-Dunes, then west to the North Goodwin Light and finally south for Dover and home. They were not destined to help Lieutenant Grant, far to the north; indeed he had finished his assignment long before the ‘Nishga’ had finished hers.

The next day, Tuesday, saw the
‘Nishga’ entering harbour to the news that General Brook’s II Corp were trying hastily to plug the hole in the line left by the surrendering Belgian Army.

The congestion ashore and in the harbour had, if anything, become worse. As they entered harbour the old ferry,
‘Queen of the Channel’ came out through the mole, black smoke from her funnel swirling about her in a fitful breeze from the west, her decks alive with nearly a thousand men.

Suddenly the sky
seemed filled with German aircraft, the ‘Nishga’s’ guns opened up with a tremendous roar. Every gun on the shore, as well as on the gathered ships, joined in a furious barrage, sowing the sky around the aircraft with deadly white tracer and the blossoming black and brown flowers of exploding A.A.

The old ferry took the brunt of the attack as, laden to the gunwales, she chugged lady-like towards the harbour mouth. Time and time, again she disappeared behind the spray from the e
xploding bombs only to reappear on the other side, unharmed and seemingly unconcerned. Then she started to list over, a near miss must have damaged her below the waterline, she was taking on water through her sprung plates.

The yeoman of signals called from the bridge wing
, “She’s flying, ‘Need assistance’, sir.

“
Very good, make to her, repeated SNOD, ‘Going to assistance of foundering ship.’ “

“
Hard astarboard…Half astern starboard, half ahead port. Barely underway the ‘Nishga’ began to turn in her own length as her engines spun her round like a top, at the same time all her guns continued to blaze away.

Grey climbed the bridge ladder,
shouting “We going alongside, sir?”

“
Affirmative, Number One… Port side to.”

“
Aye, Aye, sir, shall I rig hoses?”

“
Yes…” said Barr, and then turned away yelling, “Bridge messenger! Inform the sickbay that they may be having some customers shortly… Bosun’s Mate! Ring down to the Engine Room tell them we will be stopping engines. Make sure they understand they are not to turn the screws without permission. There will be men in the water.”

Grey called down to the sea boat between the
crack and boom of the four-point -sevens, the rattle tat of the machine guns. “Bosun! Prepare to go alongside… port side to… rig fenders…scrambling nets over the starboard side… run hoses out ready in case of fire.”

The Bosun
’s gravel voice could be heard seemingly louder that four-point- sevens; but then their whole attention was focused on the ferry, as she swung into view on the starboard bow.

“
Midships! Stop engines…Slow ahead both engines. Port ten…Steady!” For’ard the ‘Nishga’s’ lowered jack staff centred on the ferry’s stern, like an unerring gun sight, as, in the wheelhouse, the coxswain countered the destroyer’s rapid swing.

His steady matter-of-fact voice repeating the orders, somehow extinguished all excitement like a damp blanket.

“Course south, sir, both engines repeated slow ahead.”

The willowy destroyer passed slowly down the starboard side of
the plump little ferry, all gun’s still firing madly at the swooping aircraft. There was a rising spiral of foam from her stern; a plate-rattling shudder ran through her as her twin turbines went astern. Abruptly the way came off her and she settled within feet of the listing ferry, rolling lazily.

Lines were passed, they were brought to the capstan forward and the winch aft and the two vessels were dragged together like reluctant lovers.

A well ordered evacuation of the doomed ferry began under the cover of the rapidly firing guns. Soldiers were soon leaping across the treacherous gaps, created by the difference in the shape of the hull.

*     *     *

That day the only workable jetty, the harbour breakwater, was judged too dangerous for merchant shipping. From then on it was used only by the warships.

The merchantmen waited off shore, out of range of German shore guns, their human cargo ferried to them by the hundreds of small craft, requisitioned by the Ministry of Shipping.

On the morning of Thursday the 30
th
they heard news of the casualties The ‘Wakeful’ had been torpedoed the day before by an E-boat and had sank in fifteen seconds, only a handful of the six-hundred crew had survived. The ‘Grafton’ had also gone, torpedoed by a U Boat. The ‘Grenade’ had burned, like a torch, after she had been attacked and there had been few survivors. In the close family that was the regular Navy, most of ‘Nishga’s’ crew knew someone who had been lost. Many had served on those very ships; all mourned the loss of not only the men, but their fine ships.

There was some good news; a thick fog had crept in, keeping the enemy aircraft away for most of the day.

The men fighting in Norway, were fairing no better than the men in France, the evacuations of the Bodo and Mo were both under way, Norway was being abandoned, along with France.

That day, also, the old paddle minesweeper
‘Waverley’ and the Anti aircraft ship ‘Crested Eagle’ were both sunk in the harbour.

On Friday the wind increased to force three from the sou
th-west; nothing to the ‘Nishga’, but the small boats found it hard going, several were swamped, troops were seen frantically bailing water out of the frail craft, using their battered helmets as balers.

A rising wind cleared the fog, and in came the Heinkels, the Junkers and the dreaded Stukas.

The surf, whipped up by the wind ran up the exposed beach making it impossible to land boats. Evacuation was now only possible from the sheltered harbour. Inevitably the orderly queues of men waiting to board lengthened, winding their way back through the smoking ruins of the dockyard.

The Germans continued around the clock to shell and to bomb. Ghastly gaping holes were blown in the queues and in the breakwater
they trod. The bodies of the wounded and the dead were removed and makeshift bridges constructed to get the men across to the waiting destroyers.