"My word!" Peacock murmured.
Randall heard the almost effeminate tone, and he thought briefly that there was quite a deal of hidden talent about that boxing arena- remembering what the soulful-eyed asdic expert had done to certain submarines of unregretted memory.
Then he glanced at his watch, guiltily, and saw that the last round had already gone four minutes.
"Time!" he called, and Bentley looked over his shoulder at him.
"And about time!" he growled. "I'd hate to have you in my corner."
The chuckles were not dutiful.
"That will do for this afternoon," Bentley decided, and Gellatly nodded thankfully "When we've got our wind you can have a few shots with that left at my glove. Later on this afternoon we'll have a bag for you."
Both fighters moved around the small space of deck. They were clad in boxing boots and shorts, and Peacock, who had more observation than soul in his soulful eyes, noted that most eyes were on the captain's sloping and muscled shoulders.
No wonder they're behind him to a man, he thought with honest envy; the piratical, burned face, the obvious strength and vigour of the man-he was born to lead a bunch of modern-age buccaneers like this.
"Excuse me, sir."
The deep voice spoke behind Peacock. He looked round, and up, into the giant's face.
"Yes, Buffer?"
Hooky Walker stepped forward, his right "hand" hooked into a set of cords.
"Where the devil did you scrounge that?" Bentley asked, and his eyes squinted in belated recognition of the fact that this was too public a place to ask a leading question like that.
"Ah-I know one of the physical-training instructors in a cruiser, sir. He likes lambs'-wool rugs-just like the Yanks I happened to have one."
"Did you now?" Bentley kept his face solemn "I imagine the punching-bag will be returned?"
"It'll go back, sir."
Bentley nodded, thinking the permanent-stores officer of that cruiser would be happy to know it-if ever he did learn of the "transaction."
"Nice work, Buffer. There you are, Gellatly-no excuses now. We'll have to rig it up somewhere."
Four men jumped down from the tubes, and Randall remembered, his first-lieutenant's heart glad, what a scruffy lot of slackers these men had been when Bentley had taken over the old Wind Rode, The atmosphere now could hardly be sweeter. It was nice to see.
"Near the spud-locker," Hooky suggested, "I'll run a spar out and secure it from there."
But this novel break in routine was not to be prolonged. The harsher realities of their lives forced through the throng in the person of Nutty Ferris, the signal-yeoman.
"From the Flag, sir," he reported briefly, and handed the message sheet to Bentley.
Bentley read no further than the first few words: "Being in all respects ready for sea..." He glanced up at Randall and ordered curtly:
"Secure ship for sea."
Randall showed neither surprise nor disappointment.Wind Rode's captain was among the most junior in this seasoned fighting Fleet, and they were used to being shot off to sea at a moment's notice.
"Aye, aye, sir!" he answered crisply, and then, "Chief bosun's mate..."
Neither were the crew, as they bustled about their work, disappointed. There was little to do ashore, and they might as well be at sea as lying in this landlocked harbour, where the tropic nights were muggy in the calm provided by the surrounding hills. The only advantage harbour-time offered them was all night in their hammocks, but after years of war at sea, they were so used to waking up for their night watches that the advantage was minor.
Bentley had a quick shower, then dressed hurriedly. He had sent for the Pilot, and the navigating-officer came into his cabin while he was pulling on his shorts. Bentley wasted no time.
"Trouble," he said. "A merchantman carrying about fifty nurses and Wrens has been torpedoed 200 miles almost due north. She's burning as well. We go out with Antelope."
"She's junior, sir," Pilot told him. Bentley nodded.
"Lay off a course and give me a time of arrival at 30 knots."
"Yes, sir. Time of departure?"
"Fifteen minutes from now."
Pilot nodded and left the cabin quickly. He thought nothing about the forethought which had refuelled the ship immediately on her return to base yesterday, nor the efficiency which could prepare a 2,000-ton destroyer tor sea in twenty minutes. He was refreshing his memory of the courses to take the ship from her destroyer-trot out through the boom, and estimating that 200 miles due north would put them somewhere a little to the south, and east, of the port of Pondicherry. He was also thinking that that was pretty close to home waters for an enemy submarine.
Bentley came on to the bridge as Pilot pulled out from the chart-table. From below the bridge came the steady clanking of the anchor cable heaving in, and from further aft the sounds of men turning-in the motorboat on the iron-deck.
"It's a clear run, sir," Pilot said; "estimated time of arrival 1850."
"M'mm." Bentley pulled at his nose. Ten minutes to seven was too close to darkness for his liking. It could be nasty, with the rescuing ships nicety oat-lined against the flames for a lingering submarine. It was definitely nasty, his thoughts ran on, for the people aboard that burning ship...
"All right, Pilot," he said briskly, "course for leaving harbour?''
"Oh-four-eight, sir."
A voice hailed from the foc's'le:
"Anchor's aweigh, sir. Clear anchor!"
"Slow ahead starb'd, half astern port,'' Bentley ordered down the wheelhouse voice-pipe.
She came quickly and smoothly up to the boom-gate. Ahead of her a harbour-defence launch was busily steaming back and forth across the entrance, dropping 25-pound depth-charges to deter any subsurface visitor who might be thinking of slipping in while the two destroyers were coming out.
They passed through, their wash rocking the boom-defence vessel in charge of the gate; then they were clear, and the gate was drawn shut behind them. Across the harbour mouth the protective netting was now complete, with the Fleet berthed safety behind it.
Bentley searched the horizon with his glasses. Automatically he noted the pressure of wind against his face, and the quiet movement of the ship in the moderate sea. Weather would be important for what he had to do.
He glanced astern at Antelope, noting that her slicing bow was moving through Wind Rode's wake.
"Revolutions for 30 knots," he said to Pilot, and as the navigator spoke down the voice-pipe the signal-yeoman hoisted his flags.
CHAPTER THREE
HOUR AFTER HOUR THE two fast destroyers drove on northward. Bentley had thought of altering the formation to line-abreast, which would give him an asdic-swept path four miles wide- it was always possible that the victorious Jap captain might try his hand at bigger game further south. But, although his asdic dome would possibly have resisted the fractional pressure at that high speed, the sounds of the ship's fast passage would have prevented any sort of efficient detection.
So they swept on in line-astern from the leader, their spuming bows aimed due north, the glowing ball of the sun lowering itself towards the watery edge on their left.
At four o'clock Randall came on deck to take over the dog watches. He shot the sun and put the ship on the chart. Then he crossed to where Bentley was sitting in his high-legged stool.
They were isolated in their starb'd forrard corner, but they were still on the bridge, and the first-lieutenant's voice was formal.
"Any ideas about tonight's job, sir?"
"None-yet," Bentley answered. He had been staring through his glasses at the horizon ahead, for smoke can be sighted a long distance at sea. "Well just have to tackle things as they arise. I don't want to lower boats if I can help it. On the other hand, if she's burning too fiercely we can't poke our nose in."
"They could jump into the water," Randall suggested.
"No. We won't have much daylight left and I don't relish the idea of groping about in d
arkness looking for swimmers. But..." shifting his weight in the comfortless chair, "we should be able to get in against her somewhere."
"No further signals from her?"
"No. But that's understandable. If the Jap shelled her, as he did according to her first message, he'd certainly aim for the bridge and wireless office."
"You're right," Randall nodded. "What the hell was she doing on her own up there?"
"She's a fast ship, or was. And submarines haven't been sighted so far west before."
"Like their shore-based aircraft?"
"Eh?"
"Those birds who dropped in on us yesterday," Randall enlarged. "I'll swear they were shore-based."
"I thought the same thing-at first. But obviously there must be a carrier out there somewhere. The distance is much too great from the Nicobars or Sabang. We were attacked only 300 miles east of base."
"All right, then. Just the same, I bet the admiral's worried about `em. So am I. If we had a couple of carriers ourselves, no worry. But a Fleet's not meant to operate completely without air-cover-not against those yellow-balled birds."
"I imagine the admiral's got a hell of a lot to worry him," Bentley said, remembering that paper-cluttered desk.
"But then he gets paid for it," Randall grinned.
Bentley glanced down at him.
"But then he earns it," he grunted. His voice changed. "We're all set? Lines, scrambling-nets, all the gubbins?"
"The Buffer's working on it now, sir. The Doc's been warned."
Bentley stared thoughtfully at the deserted foc's'le.
"You'd better get a stack of hammocks up on thefoc's'le. They'll probably have to jump, and that's hard iron down there."
"Good idea," Randall nodded, and turned. "Bosun's mate."
The two ships surged on, quiet, prepared, all the fuss at their bows and churning sterns. Even in the leader's engine-room it was quiet, apart from the high-pitched scream of the whirling turbines. Mr. McGuire, the engineer, had been too long in destroyers' engine-rooms to be fazed by a simple highspeed run like this. He knew his engines and he knew his men, and now they went about their tasks with the same phlegmatic thoroughness as characterised their chief.
It was not her radar, balked by the curve of the earth, which made the first contact, but a pair of sharp eyes far up in the crow's nest. The leaning pillar of smoke was too diaphanous for electronic particles to reflect from, but it showed clearly enough in the twin lenses of the lookout's binoculars.
His report went down and Randall raised his glasses. Bentley's reaction was to glance at the sun. With a fractional flash of memory he recalled, helped possibly by the admiral's mentioning of it a few hours before, that not so long ago he had prayed for that sun to drop more swiftly from sight below the horizon. Now the success of the rescue operation could well depend directly on how long it took for the flaring yellow orb to remain in sight.
Bentley forgot his time limits. He had other things to do than worry about irrevocable natural phenomena.
"Twenty knots," he ordered, "make to Antelope: Take station my port beam. Commence asdic sweep.'"
With the order the bridge team were reminded forcibly of something which sight of their objective had made them forget-it was quite likely that the victorious submarine might be still in the vicinity, either waiting for its victim to sink, or for something to come and rescue it.
If a brace of Fleet destroyers could do anything about it-and it was a bit more than possible that they could-then the Jap submarine might live to regret his dalliance.
The smoke plume grew quickly larger in their light, and then the funnel and masts of a ship, and from the speaker on the bridge there pitched the first resonant pinging of the asdic set.
Bentley was watching Antelope creaming up to take station a mile on his port beam. Once in position abreast him she would drop back to 20 knots. Randall said from under his glasses:
"She seems to be burning near the bridge, and forrard. The after part looks fairly clear."
Bentley nodded. He guessed the engine-room bulkheads halted the spread of the fire aft. He glanced at his watch, anxious to know how much time he had left of daylight. His mouth twisted in a brief acknowledgment-Pilot had given the E.T.A. as ten minutes to seven. The time now was 12 minutes to that hour.
Bentley looked at Ferris and the yeoman stepped over. Bentley said to Randall:
"She seems to be down by the bow. That's where she caught it. But she looks level enough. We'll put our bows in on either side of her stern. She's a bit high-out there, but they'll have to risk it."
He looked at Randall. The first-lieutenant had been made a partner in the captain's strategy, and he offered, without deference:
"Don't you think that will make us a rather attractive target? We'll have most of our length nicely stuck out clear."
"I see that," Bentley agreed. The yeoman, listening, found nothing odd about this open difference of opinion-what he would have thought odd would have been Bentley's refusal to listen to other advice.
"But if there is anything hanging around," Bentley went on, "I want to be in position to get clear of that cripple fast. Stuck alongside her further forrard we'll be hampered."
Randall's agreement was in his silence. Bentley spoke to Ferris and the yeoman moved off to make the signal. The captain's voice halted him.
"Tell Antelope," he added, "that I'll make an asdic sweep round the ship before coming in. She is to start rescue operations at once."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Bentley gave another order and Wind Rode, now under control of Rennie, the coxswain, veered off to starb'd to begin her searching circuit. There were a lot of things Bentley wanted to know from that ship's captain-extent of the fire, if he carried scrambling-nets he could lower down, how many persons left alive-but he knew he could safely leave those details to Antelope's captain.
He took his ship well clear of the burning merchantman's starb'd side and he forgot her and her plight. Now he was the trained sub-hunter, and the business of finding and destroying a lurking enemy would require his undivided attention.
The ship moved on at reduced speed and the ping of the set lowered his thoughts down to Peacock, the Reserve officer in the asdic control room; from there his mind went on to that other Reserve officer the admiral had told him he would soon have on board. He should have that tube-fired thing with him now!
The thought was brief, and cynical. With what be might be up against you could not afford playing with untried back-room experiments. He had a quarter-deck stacked with depth-charges, well-tried canisters, and he was quite content to go along with those.
She was circling round the merchantman's bow now, and Bentley judged that the torpedo had hit there, and blown open her compartments for the full width of the ship, for although the bow was well down, it had settled on a level keel.
That circumstance would help him a lot. It would be awkward, if not impossible, for the survivors to Jump from a side which was canted high in the air.
He gave his wheel orders to Rennie and Wind Rode continued her wide circle, but although his eyes were continually searching the calm sea Bentley's main attention was in his hearing. The sound pulse of the asdic transmission was loud and crisp, but at any second it could be supplemented by the shorter, higher-pitched peep of an echo.
He had no need to plan his actions if that happened. The ship's submarine-attack routine was well-established and well-learned.
As always, when there was time to think, he put himself in the enemy commander's place. And he knew that he would be lucky to make a contact in this position. Any submariner with any experience would have sighted the two approaching destroyers long before their asdic fingers could reach out and touch him. He would know their object. Therefore he would sail his own vessel clear of the range of the British asdic, guessing that one destroyer at least would make a preliminary searching sweep: and guessing that that searcher would not move out too far from the stricken ship, for the main obj
ect of the exercise was to get those survivors off, not to search for a submarine that might not be there.
Bentley was not surprised therefore when he had almost completed the circle and no answering peep had come from the speaker.
They were moving down the port side of the torpedoed ship, and Ferris reported:
"Antelope's alongside port quarter, air. Taking `em aboard."
Bentley raised his closed fist and laid it on the lower edge of the sun. His five knuckles fitted almost exactly between sun and horizon. Five degrees of altitude remaining. Then be turned and laid his glasses on the rescue operation.
J. E. MacDonnell - 025 Page 3
