H.M.S Saracen (1965)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Colquhoun looked at the ship’s surgeon, who was still trying to support the Admiral’s shoulders as he struggled weakly on the littered bridge. The surgeon shook his head briefly, and the Captain guessed that nothing could be done.

  Around and below the bridge the air was filled with shouts and the clatter of running feet. Colquhoun wanted to dash out into the smoke and sunlight. His ship, his precious Aureus, was listing badly, and a thousand things were needed. He glanced unwillingly at the pulped corpse below the voice-pipes. Harmsworth was still grinning, his teeth white against the flayed skin.

  Beaushears said thickly, ‘What’s happening, Colquhoun?’

  The Captain listened to the steam and felt the wretched shuddering of the ship beneath him. ‘Direct hit, sir. Steering’s gone. I’m going to try to——’

  He broke off as an officer, his cheek torn apart in a long gash, staggered into the bridge and shouted: ‘Sir! The Saracen’s going past!’ He reeled against the torn plates as if shocked by his own words. ‘The old girl’s closing the enemy!’

  Colquhoun stood up and walked quickly to the screen. Flotsam from his own ship floated around in the calm water, and he could see the smoke from the Aureus’s wounds streaming astern towards the scattered convoy. But for a few moments longer he forgot his own duties and stared fixedly at the monitor.

  She was less than a quarter of a mile away, and seemed to be leaning forward as she thrust her blunt bows deep into the blue water, the plume of funnel smoke adding to the impression of desperate effort and urgency. He saw the great battle ensigns, and the two massive guns swinging slowly on their barbettes, their muzzles pointing protectively across his own stricken ship.

  Behind him he heard Beaushears croak: ‘What is it? What is that madman doing?’

  Colquhoun said: ‘It is the Saracen. She’s going to tackle the bastards alone!’

  Beaushears contracted his muscles against the pain. It was almost as if the shell splinters were gouging his chest wide open. ‘Tell me, Colquhoun! Describe it!’ Each word was agony.

  The Captain winced as three waterspouts rose alongside the monitor. ‘The enemy have found her!’ He banged the screen with mounting excitement. ‘By God, she’s going to open fire!’ As he spoke the two long guns belched fire and brown smoke, and the air seemed to shiver from the force of the twin detonations.

  Beaushears fell back, suddenly quiet. So Chesnaye had been right, after all. He had thought it all out, just as he did at the Dardanelles. He closed his eyes and saw with sudden clarity the boats crammed with marines and Major De L’Isle waving his walking stick. The Saracen’s spotting officer falling dead on the beach, and Chesnaye saying ‘I’ll go!’ Now he was steaming past. The pictures were becoming mixed and disjointed. He could see the trim, clean-painted monitor with ensigns streaming, but Royston-Jones was the officer in command. Faintly he muttered: ‘Chesnaye’ll do something today! He’s mad enough for anything!’ Then in a stronger voice he called. ‘Helen! For God’s sake!’

  The Doctor stood up. ‘He’s dead, sir.’

  ‘Come over here, Doc!’ Colquhoun seemed to have for gotten his admiral. ‘Take a good look. You’ll never see the like again in a lifetime!’

  The Doctor clung to the screen as the monitor’s guns lurched back once again. The flagship had swung slightly in the gentle swell, so that he could see the Saracen steaming away at right angles. Over and beyond her queer tripod mast he saw the battleship for the first time. It seemed to fill the horizon, flanked on either beam by two cruisers. Every gun on the battleship was firing, and the water ahead and on either side of the monitor was pitted with rising waterspouts or torn curtains of falling spray. The enemy cruisers were silent, and Colquhoun said: ‘They can’t reach the Saracen yet. The battleship is sharing the kill with nobody!’ Then, as if the strain was too much for him, he took off his cap and waved it wildly in the air. ‘What d’you think of that!’ When he tore himself away to tend to his own ship, the Doctor saw that the Captain’s eyes were streaming.

  * * * * *

  Lieutenant Norris drew his head into his shoulders as the monitor opened fire. He wanted to tear his eyes from his telescopic sight, but the sight of the battleship held him as if paralysed. He saw the two pinnacles of silver water leap across the great ship’s outline and had to lick his parched lips before he could speak. ‘Short! Up eight hundred!’ The lights flickered and a small bell rang in the fume-filled Control Top.

  McGowan sat hunched on his stool his eyes on his own sight, his lips moving as he spoke into his microphone. At the other end of the communicating wires, hidden within the swivelling turret, Lloyd, the Quarters Officer, and his crew of fifty men sweated and fed the smoking breeches.

  ‘Sights on!’

  ‘Shoot!’

  As the switches were made yet again the whole ship seemed to lurch with the recoil. The Control Top felt as if it would tear itself from the tripod mast and hurl itself into the sea.

  Norris gulped as his vision momentarily misted with spray. He felt the sudden shock-wave like a body blow and ducked away from the sights as a sheet of flame rose from the monitor’s bows.

  McGowan pushed his arm and snarled: ‘Keep watch Report the fall!’

  Shaking and sick, Norris pressed his forehead to the rubber pad. He was just in time to see the small white feathers rise beyond the other terrifying ship. He could hardly speak at all now. ‘Over! Down two hundred!’

  McGowan was shouting orders with wild excitement. He seemed completely absorbed, almost unaware of the danger and the fact that an enemy shell had exploded within feet of the Saracen’s stem. At last the old monitor had made herself felt. The next salvo might make an impression. Victory was impossible. But they would show the bastards.

  At that very instant the air was sucked from the Control Top, and Norris jack-knifed in a fit of coughing. He felt the shudder of a hit on the monitor’s hull, and with his eyes closed against the hot smoke he pushed open one of the steel shutters, retching and moaning as he sucked at the fresh air from that other world.

  The rating with the headset shouted wildly, his eyes red-rimmed with smoke, ‘Sight set, sir!’

  A bell rang urgently, but Norris could not stop himself from coughing.

  He half turned to see what had happened to McGowan’s control, but stared instead at the Gunnery Officer’s bent frame and the long, unending stream of blood which coursed down the back of his stool. His telescopic sight was fractured and must have deflected a flying splinter from the last shell. Sobbing hysterically, Norris reached over and seized McGowan’s jacket. ‘For Christ’s sake speak to me!’

  The bell rang again, and the rating said sharply, ‘He’s had it, sir!’ As if to emphasise the horror he gestured to the flecks of scarlet which had sprayed across the switches. ‘Straight through the guts!’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Norris rocked back on his stool as the ship quivered yet again. The mast vibrated to the fall of broken plating, and in the far distance he heard the crackle of flames.

  A telephone buzzed and the rating said urgently: ‘Sir! It’s the Captain!’

  Norris took the handset, his eyes still fixed on McGowan’s pale, piercing stare. It was over. He was alone. He felt as if he was already dead himself, instead of McGowan. All four of the seamen who completed the control-team had turned in their seats to watch him. Even McGowan was watching him.

  He felt an all-consuming madness hovering in the corner of his mind, so that the tiny steel space seemed to be closing in, crushing him.

  Suddenly, out of the horror and mounting insanity came a voice. Norris clutched the handset and stared at it, his face changing to an expression of pathetic submission. Almost gratefully he listened to Chesnaye’s calm, even caressing, voice. After a while he nodded, oblivious of the watching seamen, even of McGowan.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I shall do my best.’

  He dropped the handset and lowered his head to the sights. In a strange, robot-like tone he murmured: ‘Contin
ue tracking! Stand by!’

  * * * * *

  Lieutenant-Commander John Erskine stood loosely in the centre of the damage-control base, a small enclosed compartment below the aft shelter deck. On one bulkhead was a plan of the ship showing every watertight compartment, magazine, store-space and the thousand smaller corners which had been crammed into the monitor’s hull. Four ratings sat at the switchboard, their lips moving into chest-mouthpieces as they answered calls from other parts of the ship.

  Craig, the Chief Bosun’s Mate, said unhurriedly, ‘Fire in the starboard four-inch battery, sir!’

  Erskine forced his mind to concentrate on the plan, and tried to imagine his small parties of stokers and seamen who were already dealing with the first shell damage.

  Craig nodded to one of the telephonists. ‘Send Benson’s party at the double!’

  The deck bounced beneath their feet like a steel springboard. From the cracks around the sealed door came small wisps of smoke, like steam being forced from an overheated engine.

  ‘Direct hit aft, sir!’ The rating sounded hoarse. ‘Tiller flat flooded!’

  Erskine ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Very well. Report any other damage!’ He wanted to leave this enclosed prison, to help the damage-control parties, anything but stand here and supervise the ship’s funeral rites.

  Craig said, ‘Must be hell up top, sir?’

  How true, Erskine thought wildly. The monitor would be destroyed piecemeal. The great fifteen-inch shells from a modern, fast-moving battleship could gnaw away even the heaviest armoured ship in minutes once the range had been found. He staggered as the deck canted suddenly beneath him. The wheel was going over again. Chesnaye must be doing everything possible to avoid those terrible waterspouts. Erskine remembered the numbing shock he had endured when he had seen the flagship struck by just one shell. And every dragging minute brought the two antagonists closer together.

  Midshipman Gayler pushed open the door, a grubby rag pressed to his mouth. He was covered in dirt and his uniform was dripping with water. ‘Four-inch battery well alight, sir!’ He seemed calm enough, Erskine thought, but his youth probably saved him from the agony of experience. ‘Mister Joslin wants to flood the battery’s magazine!’ Gayler blinked rapidly as two more thunderous explosions shook the compartment and brought the paint flakes cascading over their heads.

  Erskine swallowed hard. Flood the magazine? It would take all of twenty minutes. But if they waited? He snatched up the bridge telephone.

  Far away, his voice punctuated by explosions and the tearing roar of passing shells, Fox answered his questions. ‘Range down to twelve thousand yards! Still closing!’

  Erskine said: ‘Permission to flood starboard magazine? We’ve a bad fire there!’

  A fit of coughing. ‘I can bloody well see it!’ A pause, complete silence as Fox covered the telephone with his hand, and then, ‘The Captain says flood!’ Click. Erskine stared at the dead handset, then nodded to Craig.

  ‘Have the valves opened. Watch the table and get ready to order a counter-flooding to port. We must keep her at correct trim. Guns will need that at least for his fire-control!’

  Gayler looked up from wiping his face. ‘Lieutenant McGowan’s dead, sir.’

  Erskine turned away. My God! Outside this prison friends and familiar faces were being wiped away as if from a slate. Tightly: ‘I’m going aft to supervise the quarterdeck party. Report any major damage to the bridge!’ Then he was through the door, blundering through the mad world of tearing noise and billowing, blinding smoke. Voices called all around him, and he could hear the ring of axes, the desperate voices of men working in semi-darkness. A man yelled, ‘Stretcher party here!’ And there was an inhuman sound of groaning and bubbling.

  Another voice: ‘Keep still, Fred! I’ll get help!’

  A great explosion almost alongside and a tidal wave of shredded water which tasted of cordite swept across the decks.

  A petty officer cannoned into Erskine and stared at him wild-eyed. ‘Lost three men, sir. There are seven more right aft. Smashed ter bits.’ He peered through the smoke. ‘It won’t be long now, sir!’

  Erskine pushed past him and felt his way further aft. There were several bodies scattered amongst the wreckage, their limbs and entrails mingling with the fire party’s hoses. In the middle of the carnage Wickersley was squatting beside a wounded seaman, his face grimy but intent as he forced morphia into the man’s arm. He glanced up. ‘Busy day!’

  Erskine felt suddenly ashamed. Even the Doctor seemed to have forgotten everything else but the immediate present. His own hopes for the future, a command, a fresh start, meant nothing now. He had misjudged everything, just as he had lost his real opportunity with Ann. She had died already without a doubt. Carried down in a blazing ship, as he would be too. He felt his limbs beginning to shake in sharp, uncontrollable spasms.

  Wickersley was on his feet, waving impatiently to two cowering stretcher bearers. ‘I wish I felt as cool as you look, Number One!’ Wickersley wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘No wonder you’re always carping about we reservists!’ He laughed and picked up his satchel. ‘Well, see you around!’ Then he was gone, swallowed up by the smoke.

  Erskine stared after him and wondered. The Doctor’s words seemed to steady him, to sober his wretched thoughts.

  A messenger skidded to a halt beside him. ‘Can you come, sir? Control report damage and casualties in the T/S!’

  He started to run, but Erskine said: ‘Walk, lad! We don’t want to start a panic.’

  The seaman saw his smile and felt reassured. There might still be hope.

  Together they walked towards the bank of smoke with its depraved scarlet centre.

  * * * * *

  Chesnaye ducked as the blasted water spattered over the bridge screen. Each shell-burst seemed to punch his body like a steel fist, and every direct hit drove him to a kind of inner frenzy. The water boiled and seethed on either beam, like devils’ whirlpools.

  That last salvo had been a perfect straddle. ‘Port twenty!’ He prayed that the armoured wheelhouse was still unscathed. He felt the ship beginning to swing, and saw the big turret turn slightly to compensate for the alteration of course. Thank God he had been able to calm Norris after that first hit. He watched narrowly as more shells whimpered overhead. Not so heavy this time?

  Fox said sharply, ‘The cruisers have opened fire, sir!’

  Chesnaye felt his heart plunge. They had to hit the battleship before the combined gunfire of the enemy blasted the Saracen bodily out of the water. They had to! Dazedly he ordered, ‘Midships!’

  The turret shivered as another two shells roared away into the smoke. He steadied his shaking body against the screen and tried to clear his thoughts. All around him men were shouting and passing orders. Occasionally a voice-pipe fell silent, only to be reopened by some different, frightened voice as a man stepped into the place left by killed and wounded. It could not last. Then the enemy would still destroy the convoy after all.

  Another salvo. More spray, and at least two thudding blows into the monitor’s battered hull. ‘Starboard ten!’

  At the back of his mind Chesnaye could still feel the agony he had endured when Laidlaw had reported: ‘Cape God’s gone, sir! She’s rolled over!’

  Even the overpowering menace of the battleship’s winking guns could not lessen that final anguish.

  There was a sharp crack behind him as more splinters whined over the bridge. As he turned he saw Fox stagger and fall beside the compass, his teeth bared in pain.

  Bouverie fell on his knees beside him, his eyes searching but helpless. Fox spoke between his teeth, his agonised gaze fixed on Bouverie’s face. ‘Get away from me, you maniac!’ He moved his hands across his waist where the scarlet stain was spreading with each painful breath. ‘Get up on that compass, you bloody lawyer! And try to remember what I’ve taught you!’

  He even grinned as Bouverie staggered to his feet and climbed on to the compass platf
orm. Then he looked up at Chesnaye who had knelt beside him. ‘He’ll do, sir! He won’t let you down!’ His hard, uncompromising features seemed to soften, and he lowered his forehead against Chesnaye’s shoulder. ‘Don’t reproach yourself, Skipper! You were right!’ Then his head lolled to one side.

  Chesnaye stood up, his face ashen. ‘Report damage!’

  They were all dying. And for what?

  He crossed to the bridge sight and pressed his head against the worn pad. The careering battleship leapt into life in the lenses, her three turrets smoking as the gunners reloaded. His feet tingled as another shell ploughed along the Saracen’s deck and exploded below an Oerlikon mounting, blasting the gunners to oblivion. The enemy cruisers were increasing speed, dashing in to complete the kill.

  Chesnaye stared with dull disbelief as the battleship’s forward turret opened skywards in one long orange flash.

  Chesnaye snatched the control handset, only to hear Norris screaming like a maniac: ‘A hit! Jesus Christ, a bloody hit!’

  One of the monitor’s shells, dropping with the speed of hundreds of feet a second, had found a target. The great, armour-piercing mass of screaming explosive had punctured the flat surface of the ship’s ‘A’ turret even as the gunners had been reloading. Three fifteen-inch shells had been about to enter three smoking breeches. The Italian gunnery officer had been confident that they would be the final death blow to the shell-blasted wreck which had been crawling and staggering towards the ship, and which had defied every explosion.

  The Saracen’s shell and the three Italian ones joined together in one mighty chorus, which was heard in the convoy and by the trapped and dying men in the Saracen’s hull. The battleship’s turret was lifted bodily from its barbette, and in going severely buckled the neighbouring ‘B’ turret, so that it too was rendered harmless.

  The cruisers continued to fire. The nearest one was already sweeping round in a tight arc to cut its way past the maddened Saracen.

  Chesnaye lowered his glasses and heard the puny cracks from the port four-inch battery. Pin-pricks against the cruiser. But whatever else happened now, his ship, his Saracen, had struck home.