To Risks Unknown (10 page)

Crespin replied calmly, ‘Could be two ships alongside each other.'

Willis's tinny voice broke in excitedly, ‘That must be it, sir! One vessel a bit larger than the other, and both stopped!'

Crespin peered at his watch. It would take all of thirty minutes to find Barnaby, even supposing he had managed to get clear. By that time the unidentified ships, whatever they were, would realize what was happening, and pinned against the reefs with the island behind her
Thistle
would be a sitting target.

‘So much for your bloody radar!' Scarlett was showing his anger.

And so much for your damned intelligence reports! Aloud Crespin said, ‘We will have to engage them, sir.'

Scarlett peered over the screen as two small explosions blossomed briefly against the black wall of cliff. ‘Grenades,' he said. Then he looked towards Crespin and added, ‘In your opinion we should attack them before we go in for Barnaby?'

It was surprising how calm Crespin felt. His limbs were completely relaxed and his breathing seemed quite normal. It was a kind of latent madness, biding its time, waiting until… he stopped his mind from going further and snapped, ‘It
is
my considered opinion!'

Scarlett seemed more composed again. ‘Very well. But if you're wrong we may have to leave Barnaby to swim home.'

And if we're sunk trying to pick up the soldiers, what then? Crespin replied, ‘I don't see any alternative, sir.'

‘Maybe.' Scarlett climbed on to the chair. ‘It's your responsibility.'

Crespin smiled at Scarlett's back. There was never much doubt about that.

He shut the possibility of failure and recriminations from his thoughts. ‘All engine orders will be passed by voice-pipe, Number One. The telegraph can be heard for miles at night.' It was an exaggeration, but probably necessary. ‘And pass the word to all positions to be ready to open fire instantly.'

Wemyss was standing very still, his body rising and falling easily with the deck.

Crespin added, ‘Then tell Porteous to prepare for a depth-charge attack. Minimum settings, right?'

Wemyss faltered. ‘It's risky, sir. Might blow the stern off.'

‘Have you never dropped a charge at minimum depth setting before?'

Wemyss seemed to shrug. ‘Once, sir. That was an accident.'

‘And the stern is still attached.' Crespin turned away as more dull explosions echoed across the water.

He had committed himself and the ship. It was final. He felt his breathing getting faster. That was better. It was dangerous to be too relaxed and cocksure.

‘Slow ahead.' There was an answering flurry of foam from aft. ‘Hard aport!'

Joicey's answer seemed very close. ‘Engine slow ahead, sir. Thirty-five of port wheel on!'

Crespin had his face inches from the ticking gyro. Round and further round, until it looked as if the bows were already touching that black wall of cliffs. How deceptive it was, but a quick glance at the radar repeater told him that the reefs were not so distant, and when she completed her turn the ship would be less than a cable clear. But turning towards the open sea would be too dangerous. If either of the strange ships carried effective radar they would see the corvette instantly. This way ensured that the back-echoes from the land would help the labouring
Thistle
, as they had once deceived her.

Willis again. ‘Radar … bridge. Both echoes still in position, sir. No change.'

Crespin felt the sweat running beneath his cap and splashing across the back of his hand.

‘Midships! Steady!' Between his teeth he added, ‘Tell Shannon that the target is dead ahead and to stand by to fire star-shell.'

Joicey sounded completely engrossed. ‘Steady, sir. Course one-nine-zero.'

Wemyss appeared at his side. ‘I've told Shannon, sir.'

There was a clank of steel from the forecastle and Wemyss swore savagely. ‘Jesus, what the hell is he doing?'

Crespin ignored him as he stared now at the radar repeater. The jagged shape had turned slightly, perhaps caught in the same offshore current. But suppose it was a false echo? Every swing of the
Thistle
's screw was taking her further and further away from the pick-up point, and even now Barnaby might be coughing out his lifeblood, as his own men had once done while they waited to be saved.

‘Six thousand yards, sir.'

‘Very good.' Crespin licked his lips. They felt like dust. He could not wait any longer. At any second he might be seen, and there was still so much to do.

He heard himself say, ‘Full ahead!'

Magot must have been waiting like a runner under the starting pistol, for the ship seemed to bound alive as the shaft quivered and sent the screw whirling and seething like a millrace.

Crespin dragged his shirtsleeve across his eyes, counting seconds, feeling the ship shaking around him as the revolutions mounted and the bow wave fanned out on either beam in a giant, creaming arrowhead.

‘Fire star-shell!'

The four inch lurched back on its mounting, the bang of the explosion sending a sharp shockwave over the bridge like a wind. Seconds later the shell burst with eye-searing brilliance, so that the whole of the seascape changed from sullen blackness to the stark unreality of a film negative. The headland and outflung rocks shone like ice, and the sea which parted in a hissing bank of foam across the corvette's bows gleamed from a million reflecting mirrors in the eerie light of the drifting flare. And there, directly in the path of the glare, lay the two vessels.

Crespin jammed his elbows on the screen and tried to steady his glasses against the ship's violent vibrations. The nearest ship seemed to be some sort of trawler, short and sturdy, with a black funnel and a tiny wheelhouse, but beyond her, and overlapping at either end, was a lower hull, the sleek bows of which shone in the drifting flare like burnished pewter.

He yelled, ‘Open fire! The furthest ship is an E-boat!'

Through the quivering lenses he could see the tiny figures which seconds earlier had been standing like stricken waxworks running across the decks, tearing at mooring lines which held both craft together.

Vaguely he heard Shannon yelling, ‘With semi-armour piercing! Load, load, load!' His voice was high-pitched and excited. There was the clang of a breechblock and almost instantly the earsplitting crack as the gun opened fire in deadly earnest.

Crespin snapped, ‘Port ten!' He must give the other guns a chance. ‘Midships!' There was a dull explosion and somebody cursed on one of the voice-pipes.

Shannon shouted, ‘Over! Down two hundred!' Another pause. ‘Shoot!'

Crespin felt his stomach muscles tighten. Here it came. The lazy, cruising balls of tracer which lifted over the trawler, so deceptively slow until they reached the apex of their climb. Then they seemed to come whipping down with the speed of light, tearing the mind apart with the screech and clang of bursting cannon shells and the wild shriek of ricochets.

Now came the answering fire from the starboard pair of Oerlikons, sharper and faster, the red tracers licking across the dancing water, intermingling with those of the enemy before tearing into the unmoving craft with the force and speed of a giant bandsaw. The steady thud, thud, thud of the pom-pom, and then another Oerlikon, until the whole night was torn in shreds by noise and violent flashes.

Faces stood out around the bridge, crude and alien in the shifting glare, and from every direction voices seemed to be calling and cursing in a mad chorus.

Crespin heard the enemy's shots hammering against the bridge plating, and ducked as something shattered a glass screen and whipped past his neck like a heated iron.

The enemy was still motionless, but firing with increased vigour now with at least three sets of guns. Maybe the men had died before they could cast off, or perhaps … Crespin swung round as a man screamed behind him. In the flare's dying light he saw one of the bridge lookouts staggering against the chart table, tearing at his chest, his hands like claws. In the strange glare his chest seemed to be covered with molten black glass, which spread even as he watched and ran down across the gratings between the man's kicking feet.

Griffin caught the man as he fell and some of the blood splashed across his own face as he yelled, ‘Dead, sir! Got the poor bugger right in the throat!'

Crespin turned away. ‘Pass the word aft! Stand by starboard side depth-charge!'

Scarlett twisted on the chair as if it was restricting him like a cage. ‘Look at that crafty bastard! No wonder he didn't cast off!'

Crespin did not answer. As the
Thistle
surged down on the two rocking vessels he could see quite easily what had happened. The E-boat was using the other craft as a shield, and as the bursting tracers ripped and exploded against wood and metal he saw that the shield was no more than a fishing boat. There was no time to wonder at her presence here, or what the E-boat had seen fit to investigate. In the stabbing gunflashes he could see the handful of figures crouched along the sagging bulwark and several inert shapes scattered around a crater where the wheelhouse had stood before one of Shannon's shells had found its mark.

Wemyss yelled, ‘Those poor devils will be cut to bits!'

Crespin flinched as splinters clanged against the steel plates beneath his elbows and screamed away into the returning darkness. The E-boat's commander was no fool. He had been taken completely by surprise by the
Thistle
's sudden onslaught, but provided the corvette maintained her course and furious speed he was better off to stay where he was.

The flare was almost gone, and to fire another Shannon would have to stop using his gun for its true purpose. By the time he reopened fire
Thistle
would be past and she would cross directly over the E-boat's bows and her waiting torpedoes.

Wemyss could stand the hammering of gun-fire and the merciless business of killing, but he was no torpedo-boat officer. Crespin knew far better than he what would happen if the E-boat was allowed to unleash her salvo against the
Thistle
's unprotected flank.

A bell jangled and a man called hoarsely, ‘Depth-charge ready, sir!'

The flare vanished, but the intermingling tracers were more than enough to pick out the scene. Somewhere aft a gun had jammed and from below the bridge a man was sobbing, ‘Oh, God, help me!
Help me!
'

Crespin gripped the screen, feeling the sweat running in his eyes and across his spine. He saw a man on the fishing boat holding up a shirt like a white flag, and another, it looked like a boy, leaping overboard in a pathetic effort to save himself.

Wemyss murmured, ‘God forgive me!'

Crespin dropped his hand. ‘Fire!'

There was a brief thud, and some of the watching men saw the depth-charge hurtle from its thrower before splashing almost gently within yards of the fishing boat and the madly thrashing figure alongside.

The depth-charge sank to a distance of fifty feet only before exploding.

Crespin had carried out such attacks against small surface craft several times, but at thirty knots he had been well clear before the explosion came. This time it seemed to be almost alongside. It was more of a feeling than a sound, and Crespin found himself falling against the voice-pipes as the deck gave a convulsive leap and then swayed right over away from the blast. But even then it was possible to see the towering column of water which appeared to rise higher and higher until it hung over the ship like a towering iceberg. Then with a hissing roar it subsided, while the reeling bridge became a blind, coughing wilderness of struggling men and a cascade of water which seemed to taste of charred wood.

Crespin hauled himself back to the screen. There were several small islands of fire swirling around in a great maelstrom of seething water, and what appeared to be the bows of the fishing boat. There were faint patches of white joining in the grotesque dance, which looked like dead fish, but Crespin knew they were fragments of men.

Shocked and dazed the gunners scrambled back to their weapons and the tracers reached out astern, further tormenting the grisly remains and lighting up the bridge and funnel so that they looked red hot.

Crespin shouted, ‘Cease firing!
Cease firing!
'

But the guns continued to fire, and he heard his men yelling and calling to each other like maniacs.

As he threw himself on the bellpush below the screen he saw Scarlett's face shining in the flashes. He was laughing, or shouting, Crespin could not tell in the din around him. But as he found the button he felt Scarlett's fingers on his wrist like steel and heard him yell, ‘Let them shoot if they want to! It'll do 'em good!'

Crespin tore his hand away and pressed the button hard. As the cease-fire gong rang tinnily around the ship first one, and then reluctantly, the rest of the guns fell silent.

Crespin hardly trusted himself to speak. He walked to the voice-pipes and felt his shoes slipping in the dead seaman's blood. It was thick, like paint.

‘Port twenty!' He was sick and near to collapse and could not understand the empty calm of his own voice. ‘Midships. Steady.'

Joicey was breathing heavily. His face must be right against the mouth of the voice-pipe so that he should not miss an order in the noise and roar of battle.

‘Steer zero-one-zero.' The compass dial was swimming in a mist. ‘Half ahead.' He made himself look round. ‘Report damage and casualties.'

He saw Griffin looking over the broken screen as the ship plunged back along her original course, brushing aside the smouldering flotsam and leaving the rest hidden in merciful darkness.

Petty Officer Dunbar clattered up the bridge ladder and stared around as if surprised to find the bridge still standing. ‘Three men wounded, sir. One badly. 'E was aft on the quarterdeck and got a splinter in 'is thigh. Oh an' a stoker broke 'is collarbone when 'e fell off a ladder in the boiler room.' He saw the dead man beside the chart table and sucked his breath noisily. ‘Then there's this one o' course, sir.' He sounded different. Relieved, exalted, sickened, it was impossible to say.