J. E. MacDonnell - 025

by The Blind Eye(lit)

  He could see no scrambling-nets, but several ropes, down which female figures were lowering. He thanked God that they were nurses and Wrens, disciplined women. Then he saw a man jump, and he knew that there was not too much discrepancy of height between poop and foc's'le.

  He tried to judge how many people had been brought aboard Antelope, but the captain was wisely hurrying them off the foc's'le as soon as they arrived. His desire was to increase speed and get his own nose in on the opposite side, thus doubling the rate of rescue, but his instinct and experience kept him on his circling sweep: the Jap could just a well be astern as out on either beam.

  A few minutes later and Wind Rode was right round, dead astern. Bentley shaped her up for the run in.

  She came in slowly and smoothly, the engine-room, warned, and now they could feel the heat from the blazing forepart beating against their faces. The stricken vessel was lying with her head to the north, where it had been when the torpedo struck, and luckily the wind was from the east, so that the area of rescue was clear of smoke.

  Bentley did not like that smoke. It poured out from a thousand crevices, and it lifted to the sky in a thick-based tombstone of blackness, visible for miles. A beacon like that would tell its story plainly-a story of defeat, and possible rescue by healthy ships. If that first submarine was one of a pack.

  Bentley concentrated on conning her in. It was not a difficult manoeuvre, yet it would be easy to damage his thin sides or stem; and he had to make it the first time.

  He had already given his orders regarding securing her. One wire only was to be used, and a man was to stand by its turns round the bollards, ready to cast off instantly. The danger lay in not only a submarine-Bentley had no knowledge of the extent of the merchantman's damage, and it was conceivable that she could roll over, or sink, at any moment. He did not want to be held fast during either occurrence.

  "Half astern together," he ordered, and the big screws thrashed astern and she quivered to a stop.

  "Thank God you've come!" an unknown voice spoke above him, and the first nurse jumped straight down on to the hammocks.

  There was not much daylight left, but the rescue proceeded swiftly and smoothly. Some swung awkwardly down ropes, others risked the jump. Ready hands grabbed them and then waited for the next.

  A man in greasy overalls-he looked like a stoker-took hold of a rope and started his descent. He was unused to ropework, and yet he did not have the unfamiliar caution of the women. He slid down too fast and his hands burned and he let go.

  There was a single sharp cry of fright, and he dropped from sight between both ships. Wind Rode, riding easily on her single bowline, leaned inwards her 2,000 tons as the wave came rolling down and met her starb'd flares.

  The cry this time was a shriek of terror, cut off in mid-pitch. Hooky Walker on the foc's'le jerked round to face the bridge, his hands cupped round his mouth. Before he could shout Bentley roared:

  "No! Get on with it!"

  Understanding, Hooky turned back. A human body is not designed to be a fender, and the stoker's would now be crushed to pulp.

  Bentley had little difficulty in forcing his mind away from the vision of what lay between the ships: sympathy and regret were feelings he could not afford. He had ordered the asdic to continue sweeping 180 degrees on the starb'd, seaward, side, and while his eyes watched the smooth proceedings of the rescue his ears were constantly attuned to the sound-pulses.

  This was the time, the crucial time, when a submarine would unload everything in her tubes at two such juicy targets. Both destroyers were stopped, and she could come up from astern, so that both ships' lengths would be open to her attack.

  This was the worst time for a commander. Of necessity he had nothing to do, nothing with which to occupy himself, so that his mind could wander freely round all the ghastly possibilities. Bentley could not even shout adjurations, for the foc's'le team under Hooky Walker were working faultlessly-grabbing, steadying, saving, and then hustling the rescued clear, all with a disciplined economy of movement and time.

  There can't be many more, he thought, his eyes on three Wrens about to step over the guard-rail of the poop. His mind roved again over what should have been done, and he knew he had covered everything-the engine-room warned for full power if it were needed, one single wire holding him, a man tending it, plenty of life-saving ropes provided, hammocks on which to jump, asdic searching on his open side, Antelope's probing the other; two of his gun-mountings closed-up, Lasenby alert in his director, the depth-charge crews on the quarterdeck, throwers and rails fully loaded.

  No, it was all done. Everything depended on the light, the speed of rescue, the absence of a watching submarine...

  He saw the three Wrens, capless, dragged inboard over the guardrails and his eyes went to the poop and he heard a voice shout:

  "Ahoy there, captain! I'm the last."

  This man was also capless, but Bentley saw plainly the four gold rings on the shoulders of his shirt. This was the captain, the traditional last to leave. Bentley wanted to shout his urge to hurry, to stop that staring at the ship he was about to leave for the last time. He said, his voice controlled:

  "Glad to see you, sir. Please come aboard."

  The captain swung his legs over the rail and bent down for the rope, calling something as he came. Bentley never heard the words. The shout reached him from the crow's nest without benefit of the voice-pipe:

  "Bridge! Torpedo track approaching starb'd beam!"

  For the past half-hour Bentley's mind had been attuned to hearing a report like that. He forgot the captain. He acted without the fraction of an instant's hesitation, and his first order was the most important one:

  "Full astern both engines!" And then, raising his head from the voice-pipe, he bellowed at the foc's'le:

  "Cast off bow-line!"

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the captain crouch and jump for the hammocks. But he was looking at Antelope, seeing her already sliding astern, opening a widening patch of water between her bow and the merchantman's stern. Only then did he swing his head back and stare out across the sea on his starb'd beam.

  He felt the initial quiver of the deck plates under his feet grow to a violent shuddering, From the bridge he heard plainly the gripping thrash of the screws. He sighted the spear-headed track of the racing missile, aimed for his guts. Feeling, hearing, sight. Three faculties which registered their meaning in his brain, automatically. But the most important faculty, though, was telling him that the submarine had fired from long range, outside the range of asdic, that her captain was probably inexperienced, but that she was so far off she stood a very good chance of getting away.

  That was the measure of the man, that was the reason why he was the captain, the leader, the superior of those 200 in his crew. He had done everything which had to be done to avoid that rushing death, and now his brain had passed on and was forecasting future possibilities and actions; while every other man on the upper-deck and bridge was staring with fixed and fearful concentration at the tell-tale wake of their fate.

  She was moving astern now, gathering speed with every second as McGuire far below them gave her turbines the full strength of the super-heated steam in her great boilers.

  The torpedo had been fired from long range, but its targets had been easy ones. And if Bentley had delayed a few seconds in passing the most important order it would have found its target.

  Antelope was well clear, having cast-off before her sister. It was now Wind Rode alone in the arena, and she was fighting for her life not with guns or depth-charges, but with her captain's quickness of thought and decision and her engineer's training.

  A modern torpedo in a calm sea travels 23 yards in one second. The torpedo's course was at right-angles to her own, but Wind Rode had the priceless advantage of having sighted her enemy's track a few seconds before it was due to end its run against her belly.

  If the crow's-nest lookout had been idly watching the rescue, if he had not bee
n concentrated on searching where he had been told to; if McGuire had allowed his engine-room artificers to wander away from the throttle wheels; if Bentley had wasted time looking for the torpedo's track, if he had first ordered the line cast-off, and so deprived the turbines of those few vital seconds; if the seaman on the foc's'le had fumbled with the wire, and so delayed her backwards movement-if any of these "ifs" had eventuated she would have had her guts blown wide open.

  But none of those faults occurred, and the sole reason for their absence was the meticulousness of the captain's training.

  Through the captain's example the engineer-officer was just that fraction more thorough than his own character demanded; through it Randall had trained his petty-officers, and through them the seamen of the ship had similarity benefited.

  As it was, it could hardly have been closer.

  The wake of a torpedo reaches the surface some 40 feet behind the twin propellers. The torpedo is thus that distance ahead of its visible indication. Wind Rode was almost 300 feet long, so that as the smooth wake speared out ahead of her receding bow they could judge by how very little the war-headed nose had missed them.

  Voices jubilant and relieved broke the silence on the bridge. Bentley's order shut them off:

  "Stop both! Full ahead port, half astern starb'd! Starb'd thirty!"

  They realised then what they had forgotten in the enormity of their relief-that their enemy was still out there, that they were still almost certainly lined-up in his periscope sight, and that they had to get moving ahead fast if they were to slip his next messengers.

  Bentley snatched a look astern. Antelope's bow was already creaming, and her stern was dragged down as she headed at speed straight into the approaching night from the east.

  A destroyer is built to swing fast, and to gain headway swiftly. In a few moments Wind Rode was chasing after her eager sister. Bentley decided to leave his asdic dome down-it was the hoisting and lowering at high speed that could tear it off. And he knew it would be some minutes before he could hope to be in position to contact his enemy.

  Both destroyers surged on, each ship fanning out to open the width of their search area. Bentley had ordered the asdic set switched off, for it was useless at this tearing speed. So that, with nothing for his ears to concentrate on, he heard clearly the step on the bridge behind him.

  "Good evening, captain," a deep voice greeted him, "name's Turnbull."

  Bentley turned. He could have wished the new arrival to blazes, but he answered courteously:

  "Very glad to have you on board, captain. My name is Bentley, destroyer Wind Rode."

  "I never saw a prettier sight," Turnbull smiled, and held out his hand. "I mean that tin-fish scooting past ahead of your stem."

  "It was close."

  "You're after the bastard now?"

  "That's right."

  Bentley's tone was friendly, but the brevity of his answers penetrated into the merchant skipper's intelligence. "Sorry," he said,

  his voice a deep grunt. "I'll clear out."

  "Not at all," Bentley forced a smile, and looked at Randall.

  The first-lieutenant touched the skipper on the arm.

  "Would you mind, sir? You can see everything from this corner."

  Turnbull looked into a young, hard, friendly face, and Randall saw a weather-beaten visage that might have made a satisfactory patch in a teak desk.

  "All right, young feller. I don't want to be in the way. But I'd like to see that Jap mongrel get what's coming..."

  The deep voice receded and Bentley forgot him. He snapped an order to Ferris and a guarded blue light flicked out at Antelope and in a moment she straightened from her opening course. Both ships drove on in line abreast, half a mile apart.

  The sun had lowered itself out of sight. Before they reached the estimated position of the submarine the night had come on in a sable flood from the east. But the asdic, searching in lightless depths, needed no light, and it was unlikely that their enemy would surface. And to maintain their station both ships had their radar.

  "Reduce to 15 knots," Bentley ordered, and Rennie's team worked their telegraphs and Ferris's light blinked. Radio-telephony was out of the question, but it was unlikely that the submarine would sight that guarded light. She would almost certainly be dived, for her sensitive hydrophone would have picked up the sound of their thumping approach.

  It was about five minutes later whenWind Rode's asdic set picked up its target.

  The returning peep was unmistakable. It took only a few seconds for Peacock's voice to report: "Target! classified submarine."

  Randall had come back.

  "We'll get this boy," he said, his voice quietly exulting.

  Bentley had more to do than indulge in unstable forecasts.

  "Any contact from Antelope?" he asked Ferris.

  "No, sir."

  Bentley spoke again, and the light flickered out its information- submarine contact bearing Green 20, range 1,800 yards.

  Antelope should have been in contact, Bentley thought. The bearing of the contact put the enemy squarely ahead and between them. Then he remembered that the range was almost at the set's limit, and Antelope would not have a Reserve officer like Peacock on board.

  But he had no time to worry about that. He was in contact, and he proceeded to do something about it.

  Wind Rode moved on, music coming from her asdic speaker, point and counterpoint of transmitted ping and echoing peep. Gradually as she moved in closer the time interval between the two sounds decreased; then they became almost simultaneous, and Bentley rapped his orders.

  The quarterdeck sprang to life and the charges went over, some flinging from the throwers and others dropping to complete the pattern from her stern rails.

  The ship moved on. Beneath her the charges dropped, while the water seeped in and built up pressure on the striker needles. This was the doubtful factor-depth. They had the bearing, they had the range, but the asdic set had not yet been developed to that desirable state of efficiency which would give them an accurate depth. The depth set on the charges was a combination of calculation and estimation, an assessment which could be thrown completely out by the target's alteration of course to port or starb'd, or by its sudden dropping in its three-dimensional element.

  They would soon know.

  The ship shuddered. Astern of her, disrupting her wake, the ocean flattened, then heaved itself up in a huge dome that retained its beautiful proportions for a fraction of time and then flung itself apart in streamers of sky-reaching spray, white against the darkness.

  The sound of the multiple explosions was deep and thunderous, and it reached out to the ship, pressed around their ears, then beat away to silence in the quiet of the night.

  On the quarterdeck men bustled round the throwers, for they had not much time before the ship would turn and come in again for the second run-if it were needed. The asdic speaker offered again its double message and the bridge team knew there would be a second run.

  Bentley was disappointed, but not surprised, at the first attack's failure. Depth-charging a hidden and elusive enemy, who can move up and down as well as sideways, had nothing about it of the pinpoint accuracy of surface gunfire. The submarine was smaller than the destroyers, and she could turn much more quickly, because the whole of her body was encased in frictional water, and the extent of her line of advance on a turn was thus restricted.

  He gave his orders and Wind Rode listed on the turn.

  "Antelope in contact, sir," Ferris reported.

  Bentley nodded invisibly in the darkness. They should get this Jap. Single destroyer against submarine found the odds heavily in favour of the submersible. But there were two boats hunting here, and while Wind Rode made her attacking run Antelope was out there, in contact, ready to signal any alterations of course of the target.

  They should get him... And they almost certainly would if they could have judged the depth precisely. Now there were two factors opposing their success. Firs
t, the charges might be incorrectly set for depth, and could explode above or below the target, with the submarine clear of the lethal area. Second, a skilfully-handled submarine could throw even the cleverest depth-settings out by flooding her emergency tank and dropping like a stone.

  It was experience now, added to a sizable helping of luck: experience placing the target inside an enclosing pattern of exploding charges, luck keeping it there.

  Experience was plentiful. Luck, having offered its portion when the torpedo flashed past a few feet ahead of Wind Rode's stem, now sank deep down and rested unshakably inside the Japanese control-room.

  They took it in turn, each ship spawning disruption from her stern, while the other remained in contact. The ocean convulsed itself and the night shuddered under the quadruple blasts. Antelope lost the contact and half an hour later picked it up again. The chase led them northward, then south, but always it bore towards the east. And it became obvious to the strained men on Wind Rode's bridge that that torpedo had not been fired by a comparative amateur, but by a master who had been confident in his long-range accuracy.