Martineau looked at the sky directly ahead of the ship. The heavy clouds had gone and the light was hard and bright, like molten pewter. There was no sun, only a glare from horizon to horizon.
A pencil clattered from the chart space, and Findlay the leading signalman turned, his face contorted with anger. And he was an old hand, experienced. Kidd was wiping his binoculars; he had forgotten how many times. He wanted to stretch, to yawn out loud, but knew it was dangerous. Men yawned when they were apprehensive. Afraid. He tried to push it aside, but recalled what she had said to him. Is it bad, Roger? What it’s done to you?
He had never allowed himself to consider it before. You put up with it. You survived. You drank too much afterwards. Afterwards.
Perhaps that was it. He had not weighed the chances, because there was no one in his life to worry about. To love.
He thought of Fairfax, down there in the T/S, the ship’s nerve centre which could, if necessary, control the guns and torpedoes and just about everything else. Fairfax was a good friend and an experienced officer. He would be ready to take over command if the bridge was destroyed. He could remember how they had discussed the advantages and the folly of becoming involved with someone, let alone getting married. We all agreed. He glanced at Martineau by the gyro compass. Like his predecessor. Too chancy in wartime. Kidd had heard rumours about him since he had died here, and he had seen the hurt on Fairfax’s open features.
He looked at the Captain again. His wife had left him. He stifled the yawn angrily. Better to end it before it got serious.
He turned away. It already was serious.
“Radar—Bridge!”
What everyone expected, but it was still a shock.
“Bridge. Captain speaking.”
“Aircraft. Bearing three-two-zero. Range two-double-oh. Closing.” The voice was very calm and unhurried, as if addressing a mathematics class.
“Start tracking.” Martineau raised his glasses and adjusted them with care. The glare was almost painful. Twenty thousand yards: ten miles. Before radar it would have been far beyond the limits of a man’s eyesight.
Hakka was on the port bow of the formation. The aircraft had probably circled round to make a careful approach.
He heard the rattle of orders, and saw the muzzles of the guns below the bridge swing to port, lifting in unison as if to sniff at the danger. Maybe it was Coastal Command. In his heart he knew otherwise. Four destroyers, with the great liner steering between them, even bigger now in the metallic glare. The U-boat, and now an aircraft, when there was little time or space left to make a wide alteration of course.
“Signal the group to keep close station at all times. ” Unnecessary, when they were all professionals? He bit on the stem of his pipe. No chances.
“All guns follow Director.” That was Driscoll. He sounded wide awake.
“Aircraft! Red four-five! Angle of sight three-oh! Closing!”
Martineau held his breath and steadied his glasses while he waited for the ship to lift over a long, unbroken roller.
Then he saw it, and held it in the lenses as the ranges and bearings chattered all around him. A big aircraft. One of their long-range Focke-Wulf reconnaissance bombers which had proved so effective in locating and shadowing convoys while they wirelessed information for the U-boat packs. Usually they kept out of range, and flew around a convoy until support arrived. This crew had probably enjoyed a hot breakfast in France while Hakka had been reeling about trying to keep station on her charge. He watched the glistening shape shorten suddenly, and heard the nearest bridge lookout call, “Approach angle zero!”
Kidd said, “What the hell does he hope to do?”
The gunnery speaker intoned, “A, B, X, Y, load, load, load!”
Martineau stared over the screen and aft along the deserted deck. Only the slender muzzles of the anti-aircraft weapons moved, and further still he saw the other guns of the main armament following their instructions. The Tribals were different from other destroyers in that they had mounted extra guns at the expense of one set of torpedo tubes. Martineau had not seen the sense of it when he had first studied the details of this class of ship. But like others in the “trade,” he had too often watched torpedoes being used on their own ships to prevent their capture after they had been rendered useless in an attack.
Once, he had picked up survivors of such a destroyer off the Norwegian coast. The other ship’s Captain had been one of them. Martineau had seen his face when he had ordered the torpedo to be fired. It could have been his own.
“Still closing, sir!”
Martineau said, “Signal Ocean Monarch. I am taking station ahead of you. ” He ignored the clatter of the light and added, “Warn the Chief. Full ahead, then tell Kinsale to assume our station immediately.” He looked around, picturing the four destroyers and their arc of fire. Ocean Monarch could supply some flak, but not enough.
He felt the bridge jerk violently as the revolutions mounted, with the sea boiling away astern in a dirty yellow furrow.
He looked again. The aircraft had turned very slightly, and he could see the light glinting on its perspex and fittings.
Too big. It was not built for this sort of thing.
The pilot would know. As I did. No alternative. Hit the target. Others will finish the job.
He gripped the back of his chair; it was shaking.
“Open fire!”
“Barrage! Commence, commence, commence!”
The four-point-seven guns recoiled immediately, the smoke swept away even as the next shells were slammed into their breeches.
And it was still coming. Martineau wanted to wipe his glasses but dared not lower them. The four shining arcs of the bomber’s props; it had turned very slightly. He saw smoke spurting past it, then long snaking lines of bright green tracer. Other shells too, bursting like stars, drawing together, closer and closer, but the bomber seemed unstoppable. It was planing down in a steep descent, the bay doors open, a machine-gun firing from somewhere, its tracer apparently unaimed.
“Got the bastard!”
Martineau saw pieces of the aircraft peel back from the nose, fragments spinning away as more shells bracketed and held on to the range and bearing. He saw the bombs falling like chips of ice while the Focke-Wulf continued its approach, heard the scream of engines, and imagined he could feel the great shadow as it tore over the ship, pursued by cannon shell with even the pom-poms joining in.
Then came the explosion, muffled and solid, like a depth charge exploding prematurely.
He gripped the screen and shouted, “Did they hit her?”
But the bomber had already ploughed into the sea, a mile clear of Java ’s starboard quarter. Kidd said thickly, “It’s Kinsale, sir!”
Martineau stared as the destroyer began to heel over, smoke and flames suddenly erupting from her deck, when seconds earlier she had been speeding to take her position on Ocean Monarch ’s port bow. Where Hakka had been before the German pilot had made his suicidal attack.
Suicide? Or were more aircraft already heading to this position?
“Resume station, Pilot.” He raised his glasses and watched the Ocean Monarch ’s huge bow wave surge away from the stem, washing against and over the listing hull of the Kinsale. He moved the glasses again and saw a mass of khaki figures crowding the liner’s guardrails, some turning to look up at the boat deck as a solitary figure in kilt and bonnet started to play the bagpipes. It was something they had seen every day, even in foul weather: the lone piper, the soldiers waving, the sailors making jokes about it.
Leading Signalman Findlay, who came from Edinburgh, said quietly, “A lament. And rightly so.” Then, surprisingly, he saluted.
Midshipman Seton gasped, “My God, that was terrible!”
Kidd seized his arm and held out his own binoculars. “Take a good look, Mister Seton, and don’t forget it. They’re not just people back there! They’re me and you, see?”
When he looked back once more, Martineau saw nothi
ng to mark what had happened. No smoke, no wreckage, although at this speed there would have been little enough. A destroyer, newer and slightly smaller than Hakka, had vanished. How many of her one hundred and eighty men had lived long enough to see their only hope holding formation at full speed? The bombs had been meant for the liner; one hit would not have crippled her, but it might have slowed her down, or left her drifting helplessly like the big tanker, until the wolves had come for her. But one bomb was more than enough for Kinsale. Moving and turning at speed to obey the last order, she must have been torn apart by the explosion. Ready-use ammunition, fuel, a magazine, it could have been anything.
They could not stop to search for survivors; it would put them all at risk. It was not a matter of conscience or even duty, it was a total responsibility.
Tell them that.
And the German pilot would never know how close he had been to achieving the impossible with such a large aircraft. He had probably been dead before he had smashed into the sea.
Martineau said, “My compliments to the first lieutenant. Tell him to stand down action stations, but to keep the hands at quarters. Have the galley send some tea and sandwiches around the ship.” He heard a boatswain’s mate passing his orders, probably wondering how anybody could so callously discuss routine when some of their own had just died.
He climbed on to his chair and stared at the bright expanse of water across the port bow where he had first seen the bomber. By so doing he could exclude Jester, and the great bulk of the Ocean Monarch. It was like having the sea to yourself. Empty. Clean. He felt for the pipe in his pocket but his fingers scraped on the broken pieces. Clean? It would never be that.
An hour later more aircraft were reported, but they soon proved to be friendly, a giant Sunderland and two Catalinas of Coastal Command.
The soldiers lining the Ocean Monarch ’s rails waved and cheered, the sound blurred by the roar of fans. On Hakka ’s deck there was only silence.
Fairfax arrived on the bridge and stared up as one of the awkward-looking flying boats roared over the ships.
“We felt it down there, sir. Thought they’d hit the trooper.” He watched Martineau. “I’ve learned a lot since . . . well, ever since you took command.”
Martineau dragged his thoughts back into order.
“Don’t worry, Jamie, you’ll get a ship of your own. You can do it, all right.” He touched his arm and saw the baby-faced signalman Slade pause in folding a flag. “One thing never changes. It’s still a lot easier to do a risky job yourself than to order someone else to do it.”
He thought of Kinsale ’s commanding officer: the same year at Dartmouth, the same flotilla when the Germans had marched into Poland. He had even got married around the same time as well.
At noon they sighted Malin Head, the most northerly point on the rugged Irish coast. A blur in a bank of haze, it might have been anywhere. More aircraft and two destroyers accompanied them as they headed into the North Channel, and then south into the Irish Sea, and the Mersey.
Martineau stood on the gratings and watched the towering grey hull slide past, tugs and pilot boat fussing around as if theirs was the only part which really counted. Outgoing corvettes and a fleet minesweeper were hooting wildly, and signals flashed back and forth as if it were a regatta.
Set against the loss of one destroyer, it was worth it. It had to be.
Onslow was standing beside him. “Signal, sir.”
“Read it, Yeo.” He raised his glasses again. How many times, he wondered. How many more?
Onslow said, “From Ocean Monarch to Hakka. ” He hesitated. “ God bless you, sir. Ends.”
Martineau raised his hand to the great ship. It had to be worth it.
He said, “Take her in, Number One.” He could not face him. “Put one of the subbies on the fo’c’sle for a change. Do him good.”
“Hands fall in for entering harbour! All men out of the rig of the day off the upper deck!”
Fairfax smiled and touched the salt-smeared glass. “We did it!”
Kidd wanted to share it. But all he could think of was the lone piper, and the ship which had died in Hakka’s place.
Commodore Dudley Raikes sat with his buttocks perched on the edge of his desk, arms folded as he watched Martineau read the signal he had just taken from his file.
“The Admiral is extremely pleased, Graham, and so are their lordships. It proves a point in our favour, and that can’t be bad, eh?”
Martineau looked at him, aware of the stillness in the room. Raikes seemed very relaxed, the broad gold band on his sleeve shining in the overhead lights, never a neat hair out of place.
He said, “But we lost Kinsale, sir.”
The slightest frown. Raikes said, “But you saved six thousand young soldiers. That’s worth remembering!”
Martineau had only just found time to snatch a hot shower and put on a clean shirt after he had received instructions to report here. His entire body ached from strain and lack of sleep, although he knew he would be on the move again as soon as he returned to the ship.
They would get over it. They always had. There was no other way.
Raikes said, “Good news for your first lieutenant.” He snapped his fingers. “What’s his name again? Fairfax?” He nodded. “That’s the chap.”
Martineau doubted if Raikes ever forgot anyone’s name. Especially one in his own command.
“His D.S.C. has been confirmed. The Admiral will make the presentation here, rather than have your Number One gallivanting off to London. Sounds like a useful man. Can’t have too many of those. He should have got it earlier, after the North African affair, when he had to take over command. I believe you had a hand in it?” He made a gesture. “Don’t want to know! Best not to!”
He was not jovial, but as close to it as he would ever be. He stared hard at the wall, as if he could see through and beyond it to one of his huge maps. “The threat’s still there, of course. The enemy is building more U-boats than we can sink, and too many of our destroyers are tied up for other emergencies. Tirpitz is still a major problem. While she lies in that damned Norwegian fjord she is a constant menace. The Home Fleet has to keep half of our battle fleet rusting at their buoys at Scapa Flow just on the off chance that she might break out into the Atlantic and decimate the convoys. Her sister ship Bismarck did it, and it took half the Home Fleet to catch her and finish the job.” He looked away, as if remembering something, or somebody. “But not before she had sunk Hood.”
Martineau eased his back. The scar was hurting him, maybe because of that steel chair on Hakka’s bridge.
He looked up, suddenly alert as Raikes said, “There was something else I wanted to ask you. A favour, actually.”
Here it comes. He glanced at a calendar. In three days’ time it would be another year. How was that possible?
Raikes said, “I would like you to hold a reception in Hakka. The public relations gnomes have been snapping at my heels. It would be a good scheme to let them know about your chap’s gong.” He frowned again, his eyes almost disappearing. “Your rating is getting something too. Nice touch. Levels it out a bit.” The mood passed just as quickly. “I’ll bring some of my people, the Chief of Staff is very keen. I’m not too sure about the Admiral. Very much his own man.”
So it had all been arranged, as soon as it was reported that Hakka had returned in one piece. Martineau felt his taut muscles relaxing, giving way. Perhaps it was a good idea. It would at least make Hakka ’s company feel they were not left out. Raikes’s term, “levels it out a bit,” added to the sense of unreality.
Raikes seemed to have taken his silence for opposition.
“And don’t worry about the mess bills, Graham. We can help share the load, this time!” Then he said briskly, “Time to go. I’ll get Nobby. The Admiral asked to see you as soon as you were alongside.”
He paused at the door. “Won’t be a second. One thing, though. My new staff officer—Anna Roche, remember? She won’t be com
ing. Her brother was killed a few days back. Bloody accident in Cornwall. You know what the army’s like.”
The door slammed shut.
Martineau moved to the desk and back. It was out of character for Raikes to show such consideration, openly at least. Was it that he wanted her at the press affair, needed her for his own presentation, part of the team? Or was it important for her, something which might otherwise fire into a threat to her future?
He had not known she had a brother, but they had only exchanged a few words, in the club, beside a car, and in this same bombproof headquarters.
He remembered the mass of cheering khaki figures on Ocean Monarch ’s decks. Canadians, like her.
He picked up his cap and saw the card wedged inside it, where he had written her telephone number, all those sea miles ago. He would call her, say something. Maybe write a short letter. He heard doors slamming, the jangle of telephones. It would only make it worse.
The other door opened and there she was, a signal pad in one hand. She stared at him as if uncertain. In a moment she would make an excuse and leave.
She said, “I knew you were in . . . we’ve all been watching things. So glad you got back safely.”
He saw the strain, the shadows beneath her eyes. A strand of her hair had come unfastened and fallen across her cheek.
He walked over to her and took her hands in his, and the signal pad fell to the floor. She looked at the hands on hers and then at his face, as if she were unable to move.
He said, “I heard about your brother just now.” He felt her hands begin to pull away but held them more firmly. “I wanted to tell you. Tell you myself. How sorry I am. For you.” The words came out as if someone else was forming them; he was conscious only of the need to make her understand. “Maybe . . . one day . . . you’ll want someone to talk with, to share it.” He thought of Fairfax. I’m a good listener.
She withdrew her hands very gently and stooped to recover the pad. Without looking at him, she said, “He told you about the press people?”
“Yes.”
For Valour Page 15
