H.M.S Saracen (1965)
Page 35
He thought distantly of Royston-Jones’ small monkey face. His grave, unwavering pride in the ship. ‘With courage and integrity, press on!’
Bouverie called. ‘Fire gaining hold aft, sir! They want to flood the compartment!’
Chesnaye answered wearily, ‘Very well.’
The monitor was already sluggish and hardly answering his constant wheel orders. As soon as the battleship had recovered its wits the other big turret would be brought to bear again. There would be no mercy now.
Chesnaye turned his back on the enemy and looked back at his ship. The tripod mast was only supported by its stays, the whole structure sagging against the rear of the bridge. The funnel leaked smoke from hundreds of splinter holes, and through the fog of battle Chesnaye caught glimpses of the upper deck. It was pitted with massive craters, some of which glittered with black water. The ship was slowly being torn apart. Dead and dying men lay everywhere. Even his own uniform was spattered with blood from a cut across his scalp.
Yet the old girl was hanging on. With a schoolmaster, half crazy with terror, gauging each shot and guiding the monitor’s guns on to their target. A barrister at the compass, white-faced, but strangely determined as his legs still straddled Fox’s crumpled body.
And what of me? He ran his eye across the smashed and torn ship. I brought them all to this.
The bridge shook, and a signalman screamed as a splinter tore away his arm. Chesnaye heard Wickersley’s voice through the bedlam, and watched as the first-aid party clambered over the buckled metal to get at the victims.
The cruisers were on either beam, but Norris still obeyed Chesnaye’s last order. Keep firing at the battleship. Keep hitting her no matter what else happens.
A seaman was staggering down the port waist carrying a limp, spread-eagled figure. Chesnaye watched the man’s groping foot-steps with chilled fascination. He was carrying Danebury, the small midshipman. The man passed into safety behind the bridge, and Chesnaye had to shake himself to clear away the nightmare. The dead midshipman. Back across the years. It was like an additional, cruel taunt.
Bouverie was sobbing: ‘Sir! Sir!’
Chesnaye turned slowly, afraid of what he might see.
Bouverie half fell as he groped his way towards him. He held Chesnaye’s hands, all else forgotten but what he had just seen.
‘Sir! They’re pulling away! They’ve had enough!’
Dazed, Chesnaye lifted his glasses for the hundredth time. The battleship’s shape looked quite different. She was end on, a mounting froth at her stem. Like unwilling hounds the cruisers fired their last shots and then closed protectively around their leader. They too would have a difficult passage home now.
He nodded vaguely and touched Bouverie’s arm. He could find no words. They were all round him. Wickersley, quiet and concerned, Bouverie, grinning like a schoolboy, Even Fox looked as if he was smiling.
Below he could hear cheering. Faint at first, then stronger, unquenchable, like the old ship herself.
Chesnaye saw Erskine too. He looked older. Changed. He felt his hand in his and heard him say, ‘I’m sorry, sir!’
Sorry? For what? For Ann perhaps. For the poor, battered ship, or for himself? It did not matter which any more.
‘Signal from destroyer escort, sir!’ Laidlaw’s beard was singed but still jaunty. ‘Request instructions?’
Chesnaye felt his way to the front of the bridge. Through the mist across his eyes he could still see the fast-disappearing shapes of the enemy ships. He felt the heat-blistered steel. We did it.
The Yeoman added excitedly, ‘Escort reports return of our cruiser squadron, sir!’ The lights still stammered. ‘They request instructions?’
Chesnaye said in a tired voice, ‘Tell the Senior Officer!’
Laidlaw said thickly, ‘You are the Senior Officer now, sir!’
Chesnaye nodded. ‘Very well.’ They were all looking at him.
Laidlaw unconsciously left the most important item till last. ‘Tug Goliath reports all survivors of Cape Cod safe on board.’ He sounded puzzled. ‘They keep repeating, sir. All survivors safe?’
Chesnaye turned away from them, and Erskine said, ‘Thank you, Yeoman.’ Then in a loud, clear voice he continued: ‘Make this signal. To Commander-in-Chief, repeated Inshore Squadron.’ He paused, his eyes fixed on Chesnaye’s bowed shoulders. Then he looked across at Wickersley, and together they stood behind him.
The Captain was resting his head on the screen, as if he was speaking with the ship.
Erskine continued, ‘His Majesty’s Ship Saracen and convoy will enter harbour as ordered.’
Epilogue
Dr. Robert Wickersley walked slowly from the club dining room and crossed to the library. It was cool in the club after the exhaust-filled streets, and the London traffic was entirely cut off by the stout old walls and ancient furniture.
The library was fortunately empty, but for one of the brass-buttoned servants who immediately crossed to a corner chair and pulled a small table beside it.
‘Good evenin’, sir. Your usual?’
‘Yes, thank you, Arthur.’ Wickersley sank down in the chair and reached again for the evening paper. He no longer felt the weariness of a long day in his surgery, nor the irritation of delving into the case histories of people who had too much time and too much money to know the meaning of real illness.
With something like shock he noticed that his hand was shaking as he opened the paper at the middle page where his efficient secretary had ringed a small item near the bottom.
He had read it several times already, even in the heavy traffic as Matthews had guided the powerful Bentley skilfully towards the club. All through dinner he had thought of nothing else, yet he had been afraid to allow his mind to explore its full impact, as a surgeon falters before the moment to begin an operation.
Now he was alone. He read the item of news very slowly.
The death was reported last night of Captain Richard Chesnaye, Victoria Cross, Royal Navy(Retired), who died at his Hampshire home of a heart attack whilst watching television. Captain Chesnaye won his V.C. during the last war when defending a convoy to Malta against superior enemy forces. He leaves a widow and one son.
Wickersley folded the paper across his lap and stared unseeingly at the glass which had quietly appeared at his elbow. Twenty-three years ago. Yet in the cool silence of the library it seemed like yesterday. Like now.
Were we really like that? One figure remained fixed in his drifting thoughts. He could see Chesnaye’s face outlined against the smoke and flames, and seemed to hear his voice.
Suddenly Wickersley was on his feet and groping through the neatly laid lines of papers and magazines. He found the Radio Times and thumbed back to the previous night’s programmes. His heart was thumping painfully, but he knew somehow that he would find the answer there.
There it was, another small item near the bottom of the page.
Tonight viewers will see a short film from the Pacific of Britain’s latest air-to-surface nuclear missile. The film, presented with the co-operation of the United States Navy, will show the missile being homed on to a moored target ship. The vessel used was an old British hulk, once named Saracen.
Wickersley sat down in his chair and stared emptily at the shadows.
So, even at the end, they had been together.
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Epub ISBN: 9781407010359
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Published by Arrow Books in 1985
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Copyright © Douglas Reeman 1965
First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson in 1965
Arrow Books
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ISBN 9780099062608