Going to the docks, like the day she had seen them arrive to pick up Hakka’s dead.
And it happened nearly every day.
Up the steps and through the gloom, her shoes ringing on the bare floor. A torch to check her identity card, even though it was the same patrolman as yesterday, and the day before.
Someone always remarked on the weather; it seemed very British. Just as people always greeted each other with “good morning,” even if it was afternoon. And the way they queued. For everything. Cigarettes, pet food, soap, or simply to discover what was on the other end of the queue. It was as much a part of the war as those patient ambulances, the bombing, and the young midshipman who had killed himself, and had unknowingly destroyed their only chance of being together.
She braced herself for the harsh lights. Always the glare. Without a watch you would not know if it was day or night outside.
There were a lot of people around, even at this hour, and for the first time she felt the fear, running through her body like ice in the blood. Messengers hurried past her, not seeing her; telephones rang for mere seconds before being snatched up.
She slipped her hand inside her jacket, around her breast, to his carefully folded letter.
I am here, darling. We are together now.
Nobby was waiting in the main office, and she saw Raikes at his window, looking down at the great silent tank, so full of purpose and movement.
He turned and saw her, nodded, almost smiled.
“Good timing, Anna. Long day today, though there’s nothing we can do. Except pray.”
She made herself walk to the desk where she kept her files of top-secret signals, the measure of Raikes’s trust in her.
Raikes watched her, while Nobby signed something brought in by a messenger.
“Convoy’s been attacked. It’s all there on the table.” He saw her press one hand on the polished wood, each finger extended. Nice skin, which would brown very easily in any sort of sunshine.
“Just had reports from R.A.F. Intelligence. Two enemy cruisers have been reported at sea. On the move. Their lordships were convinced that Scharnhorst would make the first sortie. I think I was, too.”
A telephone buzzed impatiently but he ignored it.
“One of the cruisers is the Dortmund. We’ve had trouble with her before.”
She raised her eyes slowly. “I know, sir. And the other one is Lübeck.”
Nobby said, “How could you know that?”
But in her mind’s eye she saw the tall chair on its open bridge.
She answered softly, “He always knew.”
“Action stations! Action stations!”
The insane scream of alarm bells, the thud of watertight doors and hatches. Something you always expected, and yet were never prepared for. The men off watch, some trying to sleep and others afraid to, ran without conscious thought, snatching protective clothing, glancing around for a particular friend, or back at their empty messes as if for the last time. Ian Wishart was up each ladder as if he had always done it, fastening his duffle coat, his mind empty of all but the need to get there, no matter what.
He caught glimpses of other hurrying figures, strangers in their fur-lined coats, faces intent, each to his own station. Gun crews, and damage control parties, spare hands, cooks and stewards making their various ways aft to assist the medical section, and the doctor with his array of instruments.
And beyond them all, the sea, dark and menacing, broken here and there by pale fangs of leaping breakers, the aftermath of a gale which had risen the previous night and caused havoc amongst the convoy. No collisions, but three of the ships had lost contact with the main columns, in a maddening game of follow-my-leader which had taken the hard-worked escorts a whole day to round up.
One of the other fleet destroyers, the Levant, which had been with the carrier’s escort, had developed serious gyro compass failure, and the Commodore had reluctantly ordered her to make her own way back to Iceland. The fact that Levant was one of the navy’s latest and largest destroyers did nothing for morale.
Wishart hurried past the Oerlikon guns and pushed into the sealed wheelhouse. The steel shutters were clamped down, and the only lights came from the compass and plot table. They were all here, as if he was the only one who had been away. Big Bill Spicer on the wheel, feet slightly apart, hands loosely on the spokes, or so they appeared, the lower part of his face very red in the compass glow. A messenger, boatswain’s mate, telegraphsmen, and Bob Forward, who gave him a curt nod as he took his position by the table.
Spicer said across his broad shoulder, “Enemy ships reported to the east of us.” Matter-of-fact, like someone remarking on the weather.
Wishart listened to the steady beat of engines: about half-speed, everything quivering slightly, the ship now fully awake. It had been dark outside; apart from the wave crests there was nothing. And yet it was about eleven in the forenoon. He adjusted his mind automatically. Six bells.
He heard thuds overhead, the officers on the bridge, the signalmen and lookouts. He frowned with concentration. And the Captain. He had called Wishart over. He tried to think more clearly. That was yesterday, after a sharp alteration of course for some reason, and a rapid exchange of signals between Captain (D) and the cruiser Durham. Ships zigzagging, the Levant rolling in a heavy sea, her gyro and all that it entailed out of action, and yet the Captain had found time to speak to him. Like that moment in the sickbay, after his rescue from the sea.
“After this convoy, Wishart, you will be leaving Hakka. I expect you’re surprised. But the signal came through. You’ll be getting drafted to King Alfred. ” He had been called away to deal with another signal from Captain (D) in Zouave. Wishart had been stunned, and he still could not grasp it. All he had dared to hope for. What he had planned to write to his parents in Surbiton when, if, he was finally recommended for the officers’ training course. In the blink of an eye, and it had meant nothing. Nothing at all.
He glanced at the deckhead, dripping with condensation from the heated pipes, and the swaying bodies packed into this metal box. The Captain was up there now, waiting to act. Enemy ships. What did it mean? Again he tried to think. He knew from the charts that the route to Murmansk had been prepared long in advance. A cruiser squadron was on the move, and the convoy itself had a full escort and the carrier. One of Dancer ’s aircraft must have sighted the enemy. There were no reports from the radar.
And there was the group. Us. He looked around the wheel-house, watching Spicer’s hands moving the spokes this way and that, his big frame seeming to rise and fall with the ship while the rest of them remained motionless, like cut-outs.
In his heart he knew they would be called to fight. Not the group, not the escort carrier, but us.
Once, he had heard his father discussing his war with one of his friends, a neighbour, who had been with him at the Menin Gate. Wishart was not supposed to hear, but it had been after an Armistice service, and the two men were still wearing their medals and poppies.
His father had said, “We stopped asking how. We only asked when.”
Wishart looked at his companions, men he had come to know. Good, bad, tough, or “all for it,” as he had heard Forward say of some of the hotheads. Here they meant something, and he knew that they had helped to change him in some way. Not discipline or training, and loyalty did not even describe it.
“Wheelhouse?”
Spicer said something into the bell-mouthed tube and then jerked his head.
“Up on the bridge, Wishart! Pilot wants you, so chop, chop with it!”
Wishart felt the ice inside him. Like seeing Seton’s eyes watching him that day.
He made for the screened door, his fingers dragging at the clip.
Then he heard Forward’s voice, close, personal, casual. “Watch it, Wings. Keep your nut down. You still owe me that drink, remember?”
Wishart did not remember, but it made all the difference. With something like a sob he seized the ladder and was
up it before he realized what Forward had meant.
The light was stronger, the clouds ragged and low-lying, moving fast across the masthead and radar aerials, spray lifting occasionally over the maindeck and the crouching shapes of the torpedo tubes.
He saw the Captain with Cavaye and the new officer, Tyler; Kidd must be in the chart room. Lookouts and signalmen stood out more clearly against the dark sea, and it seemed strangely quiet up here, so that the rattling of signal halyards and bridge fittings intruded above the muted throb of engines.
And there was Durham, on the port beam again as if she had never moved. Powerful, like the ships in the photos in the magazines he had read at school. Invincible.
Cavaye snapped unnecessarily, “Wait here, Wishart. The navigating officer has a job for you.” Wishart did not see the Captain’s eyes, nor would he have recognized irritation for that brief second.
Instead he heard the chief yeoman say, “Now there’s a sight, Paul! I never thought I’d see that again in my service!”
The youngster, Slade, peered up at his chief and then at the Durham. She had hoisted her battle ensigns, huge and white against the drab backdrop, their crosses like blood. For an instant he had thought that the yeoman of signals had mistaken him for somebody else. He was not to know that Paul had been the name of his dead son.
The air quivered, like the time with the German destroyers, when they had been hit. But deeper, louder.
The Captain was on his feet, his scarf gone from his neck, one hand gripping the voicepipes as he watched the sea directly ahead.
It was then that Wishart realized there was no sign of the convoy. It had altered course, disappeared while he had been below, off watch. He had seen the chart, the rough plot, and knew from which bearing the enemy would appear. That, he knew. He had learned more than he would have believed possible since he had first stepped aboard Hakka.
No ship could move that fast. So it was reasonable to believe that there was nothing between the convoy and its escorts but the group, a cruiser and six destroyers. He licked his dry lips. Us.
They were altering course again, and he heard the Captain pass his orders, it seemed unhurriedly, down to the wheelhouse.
Huge flashes lit up the clouds, and what seemed an age later came the crash and roar of explosions.
Kidd was here now, breathing heavily, his eyes everywhere until he saw his yeoman.
“Keep with me, Wishart.” He turned sharply as more explosions shattered the air. He said, “Not us, then.”
Wishart heard the Captain say, “Yet.”
“Signal, sir. Increase speed as ordered.”
“Full ahead together.” A pause. “Yes, Swain. It is.”
A great flash reached down from where the horizon lay hidden in mist or haze, followed by a single explosion and then a rising ball of orange and scarlet flame. Solid, terrible; you could imagine you could feel the heat even from miles away.
Durham had increased speed, her bow wave rising like a huge frothing moustache as she ploughed into the choppy water, her four turrets all moving in unison, the guns at their various angles, seeking a target.
Onslow called, “From Leader, sir. Remain on station.”
Martineau strode across the bridge, dragging out his binoculars. Zouave was already signalling to her own little column.
He turned away, one gloved fist beating the cold steel until the pain steadied him. Too soon. Too soon. Think, man! He pictured Lucky Bradshaw, the old destroyer hand. This was his big chance.
The young signalman, Slade, asked, “What signal was that, Yeo?”
Onslow glanced down at him.
“Flag Four, boy.”
Attack with torpedoes.
“Radar—Bridge!”
Martineau waited, but could not prevent himself from turning again to watch as Zouave ’s raked bows cut across the cruiser’s wake and headed to re-form her brood.
“Three ships at zero-nine-zero.” The rest was drowned by the roar of gunfire.
No waiting this time, although everyone was consciously counting the seconds. A cliff of broken water was rising, as if every shell had plunged down to explode in a single line. You could feel it, like running aground, punching every plate and rivet.
Martineau looked at Cavaye. “Go forrard to A and B guns, will you? Tell Guns what I said.” He looked at the cruiser, sensing the moment. “Now!”
Durham ’s forward turrets were motionless, only two of the six guns still moving. The flashes were as one, the explosions loud and sharp enough to scrape at a man’s brain like a scalpel.
Martineau lowered his glasses and covered them with his coat. Two cruisers and possibly one smaller, a destroyer. Maybe the sister of the ship they had fought alongside Java.
Help would be on its way. But until then . . . He winced as more flashes tore the clouds apart.
And the convoy sailed on.
18 | Victors
Martineau listened to the ceaseless chatter of information, ranges and bearings, alterations of course, and the fall of shot from the enemy salvoes. Driscoll, never the most patient of officers, sounded strained to the limit, no doubt sharing the sense of helplessness, impotence, as Hakka and her two consorts, Jester and the old-timer Harlech maintained their common station on the cruiser. The two German ships were bows-on to Durham, at a range of about six miles. It enabled their gunnery officers to maintain a rapid fire with all their forward weapons, bracketing the zigzagging Durham again and again.
He made himself turn to watch Zouave leading the two other destroyers of the group. Despite the noise and the danger, the scream of shells and the stench of gunsmoke, he was moved, gripped by the sight of the two Tribals, Zouave and Inuit, with the big K Class, Kangaroo, going at full speed, their bow waves rolling away on either beam while they moved in echelon to begin their torpedo attack. It was all that might make the enemy alter course to avoid the possibility of a hit. And the moment they turned to present a smaller target, Durham would get her chance, and be able to bring her unused after turrets to bear.
He saw more shellbursts hurling waterspouts beyond and beside the cruiser. Even Durham was dwarfed by them. Martineau gritted his teeth. A straddle. Any second now . . . “Enemy ships turning, sir!”
Martineau did not even look towards Durham. Her Captain would be watching, waiting to hit back. His ship had already taken a lot of punishment, punctured plating, fires below the bridge only just being brought under control.
He watched the destroyers, Zouave hurling up spray as she swung towards the enemy. Martineau did the sum in his head. Kangaroo mounted ten torpedo tubes, the Tribals only four each. But only one hit would even the score.
He swung round as Kidd exclaimed, “ Durham ’s hit one of them!”
A flash, puncturing the rolling bank of smoke and wet haze, but the explosion was massive.
“Both cruisers are still turning, sir!”
Martineau gripped the side of his chair and felt the hull tilt over as more explosions thundered against the keel.
Two cruisers. What had gone wrong with the intelligence services? Someone should have known that such a convoy as this would rouse every trick in the game. Durham fired again, and more explosions echoed across the surging bow waves, and the wash from Zouave ’s racing screws.
The leader was turning again. Martineau paused to wipe the lenses of his binoculars, mere seconds, but it was long enough. Too long for Zouave. A salvo must have ploughed through and over her; he could see the shells exploding far abeam, splinters ripping from the sea like feathers.
Bradshaw was still trying to hold his ship on course, but Martineau knew by the falling wash that she had been badly damaged.
“She’s fired her tin fish!”
Martineau gripped the chair to steady himself, willing the other Captain to disengage and leave it to the others. Perhaps Lucky Bradshaw was already dead. Somehow he knew he was not. He watched, sickened, as a shell exploded just below Zouave ’s forward funnel, a sharp flash, l
ike a winking light as the armour-piercing shell smashed down into her lower deck and exploded. Zouave was stopping. No, she had stopped. But there were no more shells, and Martineau realized that the larger of the two enemy cruisers must have taken one of Zouave ’s torpedoes, the sound lost in the loud explosions nearby.
Durham had been hit again, and her B turret was jammed, the guns pointing at the clouds, smoke spouting from the deck below.
Inuit was pressing home her attack, but she was hit repeatedly before she could work past the drifting leader.
Martineau moved to the voicepipes, pain shooting through his legs as if they were fighting every action. He saw the faces nearest to him, and the others in memory, who would not stay hidden.
He said, “Make to Durham. I am engaging. Repeat to Jester and Harlech. ”
He wanted to swallow, to cling to something that would give him faith. There was nothing. He had lost a glove somewhere, and as he steadied himself once more against the motion, the rise and dip of Hakka ’s bows, he saw the scar on his hand. The place where she had touched, and had held him.
He said, “Repeat— Flag 4! ” He was surprised it was so easily done. “Stand by. Increase to full revolutions!” He stared at the gyro until his eyes throbbed with concentration.
“Starboard twenty!” He watched the stem and bull ring swinging across the sea’s angry face. Smoke everywhere, flotsam too. And something long and black, shapeless, with the sea rolling across it. It was Inuit ’s keel, held aloft a while longer by air still trapped in her shattered hull. She must have capsized at full speed; he saw a hole in her plates big enough to drive a bus through. There were men too. Not many, only a few, faces leaping into focus as his lenses passed over them. Some reaching out, others already dead from the cold, but a few still able to grasp that Hakka, one of their own, was hurtling towards them. Martineau allowed the glasses to fall to his chest.
“Ease to five! Midships!” He raised his glasses again, level with the compass, the dying ship and the men cut to pieces by Hakka ’s whirling screws mercifully hidden.
For Valour Page 30
