Benelli was still engineer, but there was a new doctor, Surgeon-Lieutenant Kalb, and a new midshipman, an eager young man named Finley, who Lew thought would train on into a good officer, and with repaired boilers and tightened seams Carlton steamed out of Norfolk for Halifax; this was to be an ordinary convoy. It was February, bitterly cold, and exceedingly rough; within two hours Finley was incapacitated by sea sickness, to Hallstrom’s disgust. But Hashimoto offered to take a watch and the captain was mollified.
Lew just felt gloriously happy to be again at sea. It had never occurred to him that one could be frustrated in loving, that the emotion would ever be anything less than the sheerest joy — but the week in Annapolis had been pure purgatory, with Brenda there to be squired and enjoyed, and each of them knowing the other’s thoughts whenever they looked at each other: would she have gone through with it but for her father’s interruption, and more important, would it have been all they both wanted from it or a total disaster? Time and again he had felt that she was working herself up to attempt to turn the clock back to that first night, and handle it differently. But he would not encourage her, because he was not sure he was going through with the marriage, and he did not want to take her virginity until he was sure of that.
So he was, on top of everything else, being deceitful. But he needed the time to think, to decide whether or not marriage to Brenda Grant would indeed be a disaster. Certainly it would if she kept remembering May. He wished he had not been so confiding. But when he had done that he had not anticipated marriage — to Brenda.
The sea air, the cold, the concentration, drove thoughts like that into a remote background. This was what he had been born to do. He began to regret that he had ever been introduced to the facts of life; Brenda was certainly right about his being too young.
*
Midshipman Finley had just recovered by the time they made Halifax, where the convoy was almost fully assembled. But by then Hallstrom and Lew and Benelli had problems; the newly repaired boilers were again giving trouble. ‘We should go back to Norfolk and give those bastards a shellacking,’ Benelli said.
‘Well, you can forget that, mister,’ Hallstrom told him. ‘We are taking this ship across the Atlantic if we have to row.’
Obviously he felt that if he now reported the ship unfit for service it would be another negative addition to his record, Lew realised, and sympathised with him, however little he relished the idea of a breakdown in mid-Atlantic. Which was exactly what happened on the fifth day out, after a two day running battle with what seemed to be several U-boats. They lost two ships from the convoy without being sure they had accounted for any of the enemy, for all the depths charges they dropped. But the attack was finally beaten off, and they calculated they were virtually within sight of Ireland when alarm bells sounded while clouds of steam issued from the funnels, and the engine room staff hurried on deck.
‘What the fucking hell is going on?’ Lieutenant Hallstrom raged from his bridge wing, watching the convoy slowly moving past, while his own ship lost way.
‘We’ve a burst pipe,’ Benelli reported, coming up the ladder. ‘That place is full of scalding steam. I’ve sent three men to sick bay. Damned lucky no one was killed.’
‘Mister, are you trying to tell me this ship is crippled?’
‘No, sir, only temporarily disabled. I can repair the pipe, but not until that steam clears. Even then, though, we’ll have to steam real slow, or it may go again.’
‘But you can fix it so we’ll make Ireland.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So get to work. Gimme the flagship,’ he snapped at the radio operator. A few minutes later he was talking to the commodore, who agreed that they should drop out and make repairs, then find their own way to an English dockyard, or failing that to an Irish port. ‘Don’t linger,’ the commodore told him. ‘There’s weather about.’
‘You heard the man,’ Hallstrom growled at Benelli.
‘I would say he’s right,’ Lew remarked, joining Hashimoto on the bridge wing. For February the sky was clear and the sea was remarkably calm, but there was a big swell and wisps of clouds, mares’ tails the seamen called them, starting to drift across the sky; those had been torn away from larger bodies by upper altitude winds.
‘It also occurs to me that we are a sitting duck for any submarine,’ Hashimoto observed.
‘Yeah,’ Lew growled, and stared into the mist. Ireland was just over there. Farther off than it had been from the Lusitania — they couldn’t see it yet — but still, a fateful piece of water for him.
‘What is it like, to be torpedoed?’ Hashimoto asked.
‘God damn awful,’ Lew told him, and went off to have the lookouts doubled. Not that seeing the white streak was going to help much if they couldn’t take evasive action. But it made him feel better, and made the crew feel better too, he could tell. By dusk Benelli was able to get his men back into the engine room and the clanging of hammers reverberated throughout the ship, while Hallstrom marched to and fro on the bridge cursing and swearing, and doing it even more when Benelli reported that the damage was far worse than he had anticipated and it would be the next morning before he could make steam.
‘Christ, we were better off in sailing ships,’ Hallstrom exploded. ‘You sure you know what you’re doing, mister?’
‘I know I am doing the best I can, captain,’ Benelli retorted.
‘Well, move it,’ the captain snapped.
Lew thought it was the longest night of his life. The convoy had by now long disappeared over the eastern horizon, and if the wind was still fitful and the sea calm, there was a fierce shower of rain just before dawn, which put him in mind of the old sailing dictum ‘when the wind comes before the rain, soon you shall make sail again, but when the rain comes before the wind, then your sheets and halliards mind.’ While even in relatively calm conditions, the narrow-gutted, shallow-drafted ship rolled to and fro like a pendulum. And out there in the darkness was lurking danger.
At first fight he went below to see how things were getting on, found an almost despairing Benelli. ‘Every goddamned crack we find and seal, there’s another. This whole shitting mess could blow apart if we ever had to hurry.’
‘We don’t,’ Lew reminded him. ‘We just want to be able to move.’
‘Yeah, I’ll fix it, Lew. Just give me another couple of hours, and...’
The entire ship shook to a booming explosion.
‘Christ, we’ve been hit,’ Benelli shouted.
‘Get your men up,’ Lew snapped, although he felt sure that hadn’t been a torpedo; the ship had trembled, but not to the extent she would have had her belly been tom apart. He scrambled up the ladder, to gaze in consternation at the scene which met his eyes. Carlton had certainly been hit, by a perfectly aimed four-inch shell which had burst on her foredeck, tearing it open, dismounting the gun, sending several sailors sprawled in bloody messes across the deck; flames were licking at the woodwork. He looked up at the bridge, which had also been torn into by the exploding fragments. Then he looked across the heaving grey sea, at the submarine which had surfaced not half a mile away.
The sheer effrontery of it took his breath away. The U-boat must have had them under observation for some time, slowly realising that the destroyer was crippled, at least temporarily, and had determined to sink or take her, from the surface!
‘Gun crews!’ he bellowed. ‘Where the hell is that alarm?’ He leapt up the ladder to the bridge, again paused in horror. The flying splinters had struck down three men, among them both Hashimoto and Finley. The midshipman was dead, but the Japanese was already getting up, blood pouring from his arm. The radio operator was unharmed, and so was Hallstrom, who had backed against the bulkhead, and was staring at the submarine.
‘Signal action stations, sir,’ Lew snapped.
‘We’re done,’ Hallstrom gasped. ‘Finished. She has the range...’ even as he spoke there was another flash and a huge plume of water scattered across the stricken d
estroyer, causing her to roll violently. ‘You’ll strike the flag, mister.’
By now men were hurrying on deck, shouting at each other, some calling for medics, some just staring at the damage and the dead bodies, one or two making aft for the other gun. Lieutenant Kalb came up the ladder. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘There are men dying down there...’ He looked at Hashimoto, and then at Finley, his jaw slack.
Lew also looked at Hashimoto, who had taken off his jacket and was using it to staunch the flow of blood from his gashed arm; he raised his head to stare back.
‘You mean to surrender this ship?’ Lew asked Hallstrom.
‘I sure don’t mean to have her shot from under me. I gave you an order, mister.’
Lew took a long breath, looked down at the dead midshipman, at the blood creeping across the bridge deck, and then at Hashimoto again. Then he looked at the captain. ‘And I am disobeying that order, Lieutenant Hallstrom. I am placing you under arrest for cowardice in the face of an enemy.’
‘You are what? Fucking hell, you whipper-snapper, I am going to have you courtmartialled right out of this Goddamned navy.’
‘You do that,’ Lew told him. ‘After we make port. Right now I am fighting this ship, and if you try to stop me, Hallstrom, I am going to lock you up. You with me, Mr Kalb?’ The doctor swallowed. ‘I don’t think you can do this, Ensign McGann. This is mutiny. You could be shot.’
‘Consider yourself under arrest, Mr Kalb,’ Lew told him. ‘But I would be obliged if you’d tend the wounded. Hash?’
‘I am with you, Mr McGann,’ Hashimoto said, although he was considerably the senior of the pair of them.
‘You bastards,’ Hallstrom shouted, and was checked by another roar and another plume of exploding water. They hadn’t been hit again; that first shot had been a lucky one. But, confident that there was going to be no reply, the U-boat was creeping nearer.
Benelli stood at the top of the ladder; he had heard the exchange. ‘Can you give me steam, Benny?’ Lew asked. ‘Even a knot would do.’
‘Aye-aye,’ Benelli said. ‘You’ll get steam.’ He slid down the ladder and began rounding up his staff.
‘Hash, until Benny makes it, can you organise a bucket brigade and see what you can do about that fire.’
‘Aye-aye,’ Hashimoto agreed, and followed Benelli.
‘Signal the commodore and inform him we are engaged with an enemy submarine,’ Lew told the radio operator. ‘Further inform him that I have taken temporary command of the ship owing to the incapacity of Lieutenant Hallstrom. Understood?’
The seaman looked at his captain.
‘You touch that set...God!’ Hallstrom screamed, as the ship was struck again, once more forward. He fell to his knees in terror. Lew ignored him and went down the ladder.
‘Gun crew!’ he bellowed. ‘Gun crew!’
The sailors had been hiding behind the superstructure and in doorways, lacking direction from their officers although Benelli had managed to get his engine room team together, and Hashimoto had bullied half a dozen men on to the foredeck, which was now holed and on fire in two places. But the after gun was undamaged, together with the torpedo tubes and depth-charges, and now several men led by Petty Officer Shaw followed Lew. ‘They’ve got us cold, Mr McGann,’ the petty officer panted.
‘Maybe, but we’ll take him with us,’ Lew snapped. He himself manned the wheel and began to swing the gun; there was no turret as such for the four-inch, just a shield. He watched the U-boat, so close now he could see the men clustered on her foredeck, and the others on her conning tower. Clearly she could hardly believe her luck at finding a crippled American destroyer just waiting to be blown out of the sea.
Infuriatingly, he could not swing the gun far enough to bear. He would have to wait until Benelli gave him power. ‘Stay with it, Shaw,’ he said. ‘Open fire the moment she bears. Got me?’
‘Aye-aye, Mr McGann.’
Lew went forward, keeping to the leeward deck so as not to be seen from the submarine. She had ceased firing for the moment; she could see the damage she had done and her captain must be wondering if it was worthwhile using any more shells, Lew supposed. But Hashimoto and his men had got the fire under control, and now there was a sudden rumble from beneath him.
Lew looked up, saw a wisp of smoke emerging from the forward funnel. The Germans would soon see that too. He leapt up the bridge ladder, seized the helm. Hallstrom still stood by the bulkhead, staring at the enemy; he did not seem to notice Lew’s reappearance.
‘I sent the message, sir,’ the radio operator said.
‘That’s my boy.’ The ship was starting to move, very slowly. Lew leaned through the shattered window. ‘Take command up here, Hash,’ he shouted.
Hashimoto came up the ladder.
‘I need to bring the aft gun to bear,’ Lew told him.
Hashimoto nodded, grasped the wheel. Lew slid down the ladder again and listened to an explosion from aft, while the ship shook again. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ he muttered.
The U-boat had regained its accuracy, and hit them once more, and this shot had landed on the after turret, knocking that out as well. Again he stared at dead men and pouring blood and twisted metal, and scorching flames; at that they had been fortunate in that the shell had landed further forward than the torpedoes.
The torpedoes! he thought. Carlton was now slowly gathering way and beginning her turn away from the enemy, black smoke belching from her funnels. And there were more men hurrying aft to join him, with hoses now that they had steam power. While the German was barely five hundred yards away, hardly moving as her men trained their gun for another shot, totally confident now they had destroyed both the warship’s guns.
‘Prepare to fire torpedoes!’ Lew shouted. The first huge, twenty-one-inch tube was loaded and a rating manned the wheel to swing it towards the enemy. Lew took only the most hasty calculation, before pressing the firing button. He had to get rid of the torpedo anyway before they were hit again, but it was also the only weapon he had left, although he was determined to ram if he had to.
The cigar shaped silver monster struck the water with a splash, and he gazed at the white streak. Only now he was using it, instead of fearing it. And Carlton was gathering speed with every second, and turning, as Hashimoto brought her round. The sudden movement had momentarily upset the German’s aim, and the next shell was well wide, and now the watchers on the conning tower saw the streak of death racing at them. Lew almost thought he could hear them shouting as the orders were given for full speed ahead. But their reaction was a little slow, and the torpedo had been aimed amidships. The U-boat had just started to move when it struck, aft of the conning tower. There was a huge explosion, a high plume of water and metal, while from Carlton there came a great cheer.
The U-boat went down like a stone. Carlton had no boats left, so Lew put down boarding nets and cautiously manoeuvred his ship up to the survivors, those on deck or in the conning tower who had been thrown overboard by the explosion or had jumped. They came up, grey-faced and shivering from their immersion in the icy sea. Amongst diem was the captain. ‘A sudden reversal of fortune,’ he said, saluting. ‘Oberleutnant Rente.’
Lew stared at him. This was the man, or someone like him, who had sunk the Lusitania, and against whom he had felt so much hatred for three years. Just a man, like himself. And a fighting seaman, like himself. ‘Why didn’t you torpedo us?’ he asked.
The German’s face twisted. ‘I expended all my torpedoes in that attack on your convoy, and then I had engine trouble. When I saw you drop out I thought it was some kind of a trap. But...’ he smiled. ‘I could not resist the temptation. Was it a trap?’
Lew shook his head. ‘We had engine trouble too. You’d better get out of those wet clothes, sir, before you catch pneumonia. Then I’m afraid we are all going to have to get to work, or we aren’t going to make England.’
*
For the wind was starting to whine, and the sea to rise. Carlton had seventeen men
killed and thirty-two wounded. ‘Will you take the service, sir?’ Lew asked Hallstrom.
Hallstrom stared at him for several seconds. Then he said, ‘Take it yourself,’ and went down to his cabin.
‘There isn’t a man on this ship won’t testify in your favour, Lew,’ Hashimoto said.
‘Yeah,’ Lew said. ‘Let’s get her home first, Hash.’
He committed the dead to the sea, got the work parties stretching canvas over the holed deck to keep out some of the coming waves, visited the wounded and the Germans, and summoned the fittest of them on deck to help. Captain Rente was as willing to work as anyone.
But that they were in for a hard time could not be doubted. Lew went down to the engine room and found Benelli and his men surrounded by clouds of steam from leaking pipes, but still working. ‘We’ll take it slow,’ Lew told them. ‘But we have got to maintain steam.’
‘We’ll maintain steam,’ Benelli promised.
Lew clapped him on the shoulder and returned on deck. The galley was in action and there was hot food and coffee, and Hashimoto was still on the helm. ‘I’m steering zero eight zero,’ he said.
‘I’ll plot it,’ Lew agreed. ‘Any word from Hallstrom?’
‘Not a sound.’
Lew nodded, sat at the chart table with his slide rule and dividers. Their stopped position had been entered, and laying a course was a simple matter. Whether they would be able to maintain it was another question. The wind was now blowing about twenty-five knots, the sea was a mass of whitecaps, and the entire western sky was a mass of black. ‘Zero eight five,’ he said. ‘Will take us south of the Scillies. Then we can alter course for Plymouth. That’s our best bet.’ He laid off the distance, calculated that even at dead slow they would make Plymouth in three days.
To face a court martial.
Chapter Seven
London, 1918
‘The admiral will see you now, Ensign McGann,’ said the secretary.
Raging Sea, Searing Sky Page 16
