J. E. MacDonnell - 025

by The Blind Eye(lit)

  He would have preferred his sea-cabin for what he had to discuss, but a thousand yards to his right steamed a flagship, with its admiral. A raging rhino could not have dragged Wind Rode's captain an inch from his bridge.

  "Yes, sir?" said the slow voice.

  "Over in this corner, McQueen."

  The bridge was a metallic square of curiosity-it was also a disciplined area, and when the captain deliberately retired to his sacrosanct corner you kept your eyes and your curiosity elsewhere.

  "I know we went over this last night," Bentley started, hoisting himself up on to his stool, "but I'd like it again. It's ready to go?"

  "Everything's set. As I mentioned, the weapon is held in the outer end of the tube, and so it will require a larger charge to fire it than the normal torpedo. That charge is now in place."

  "The usual cordite? Compressed air?"

  "That is so. There is nothing now but to wait for the admiral's order."

  "And for the damned thing to go off!"

  "For it to go off, yes. sir. I imagine it will make an interesting spectacle."

  "I hope it does! You say this is the first firing in actual combat conditions?"

  "Yes, If I may say so-if the test is successful-your ship will have made history."

  "I'll be happy if we make it back to base! Tell me-the thing is really as powerful as you think? I mean, your calculations must be based on theory?"

  "On theory, yes-and the known capabilities of a ton of Torpex explosive."

  The voice was slow and quiet. Bentley was reminded of his own asdic-officer-the scientist who looked like a poet and handled his submarine-killing instrument like a Jack the Ripper.

  "You know, of course," McQueen was saying, "that water is incompressible. A ton of any known explosive bursting in the vicinity of a submarine would certainly destroy it. This is Torpex, considerably more powerful than amatol. When you add to its force the crushing strength of incompressible water surrounding a

  submarine, the effect will be quite enormous."

  Just like that... Bentley thought.

  "Which brings me to the main point," McQueen went on casually. "I cannot stress strongly enough that the ship must be travelling at no less than 30 knots when we fire. You appreciate that?"

  Bentley grinned. It was a humourless gesture.

  "What's wrong with 36 knots?"

  "If your ship can produce that speed-nothing at all."

  "I'll make damned sure she can produce it!" Bentley promised. He glanced across at the grey bulk of the flagship. "The admiral gave you no idea of the area for the test?"

  "No. I imagine he thought he was better fitted to decide that than me. All I have to do is to fire the weapon."

  Bentley smiled. These were unhealthy waters, and they became more so with every hour which took the Fleet eastward. The admiral would indeed decide just when and where Wind Rode's mucking about would begin.

  "You are, I believe," McQueen said irrelevantly and slowly, "a boxer of note?"

  "I've done a little, yes."

  "A science that has always fascinated me," said the scientist thoughtfully. "I envy you. I had ideas long ago, at the university, but mathematics intervened."

  Bentley glanced at him. His first impression of heavy solidity had altered somewhat.

  "You should do something," he advised with a grin, "or that brewer's goitre down there will run away with you."

  "Brewer's... goitre?"

  Bentley's hand patted his own flat belly. McQueen nodded, and for the first time Bentley saw him smile. Then he heard Ferris's voice.

  "From the flag, sir. "Take station three miles ahead and stand by to commence test.'"

  "Acknowledge," he ordered Ferris, and "Twenty-five knots," to Pilot. To McQueen he said: "Three miles. He must have a healthy respect for that gadget of yours."

  "Wisely, I hope," the scientist answered.

  "We'll see," the captain said, and jumped down from his stool. McQueen, who had been long enough in uniform to recognise dismissal when he saw it, moved over to the rear of the bridge.

  Wind Rode sliced her way up past the battle-line. Then she was in the open mouth of the V formed by the destroyer screen. As she moved on the destroyers, under orders, fanned out to give her clear passage. They stayed in that formation, and Bentley understood that the admiral was taking no chances with McQueen's baby.

  "In station, sir," Pilot reported, and Bentley looked at Ferris. In a moment the signal came back: "Report when ready for test." McQueen heard Ferris call out the words and he walked over beside Bentley. "I'm ready, sir."

  "Very well. Torps? Go down and check the firing yourself at the tubes."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Excuse me."

  Bentley looked at McQueen.

  "Yes?"

  "If you don't mind I'd like the normal torpedo-firing procedure to be carried out. From the bridge, as usual. Just as it would be done in an actual attack."

  "Fair enough," Bentley agreed at once. "Stand by your lever, Torps. And warn the tube crew."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Make to the flag," Bentley ordered Ferris, " `Ready in all respects for test.'"

  "Excuse me."

  "What is it now?" Bentley's voice was a little sharp.

  "I understand we're still at 25 knots, sir," the slow voice suggested,

  Bentley offered him a small smile.

  "Don't worry. That's one thing I haven't forgotten! You'll get your speed all right."

  Ferris, who had waited during this exchange, now rattled his signal-shutter. Bentley leaned forward and took up the engine-room phone.

  "Engineer speaking" came back McGuire's voice.

  "Captain, Chief. We'll be doing the deed shortly. Give me 35 knots, now. And keep it that way."

  "Leave that," answered the engineer, who had a profound love for his rudder and screws, "to me!"

  Smiling, Bentley replaced the phone. Pilot had already spoken to the wheelhouse, thus officially recording the order. The ship began to shudder. She was well ahead of the destroyer screen, behind which loomed the three battleships flanked by their cruisers. Bentley wondered again why, if the admiral wished to witness the test, he had not come out in Wind Rode; and came to the same conclusion- Granville had not won his command through playing bridge with the First Lord, and now that he had a Fleet he intended to exercise- and, if necessary-use it. He was an offensive leader, in the professional sense, one who didn't like keeping his ships idle in harbour.

  The time at sea for the test would not be wasted, Bentley reflected, while he waited for the executive signal. They could expect extensive exercises on the way back to base. This fitted in snugly enough with his own philosophy: the price of freedom in this savage war was not only eternal vigilance, but constant drill.

  He raised his glasses and scanned the destroyer lines astern of him. His own asdic dome was housed, but those score of sub-hunters would be searching to right and left for anything that might think of taking a bite at this attractive cherry.

  Then he rained his sight back on to the flagship, and he thought of the enormous power she represented-and the buzzer of the radar-office voice-pipe pitched sharply across the bridge.

  Randall was at the mouth of the pipe in two leaps. He listened, his face forming a plug, then his head swung and his eyes grabbed at Bentley.

  "Large formation aircraft contacted dead ahead-coming towards!"

  "Range?" Bentley snapped.

  "Forty miles. Identified enemy!"

  "Ferris!" Bentley ordered, and the yeoman jumped to his lamp. "McQueen?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Can that thing be set to safe?"'

  "Why, yes, I can set it to safe easily enough. There's a pin arrangement in the nose, on the underside a little behind the primer."

  Bentley listened impatiently to the slow voice. He said:

  "Then get down there at the double! Report from the tubes when it's set to safe."

  "But the test...? We were just
about to..."

  "You'll see all the test you want," Bentley broke in grimly. "Smack it about!"

  McQueen was unfamiliar with the Australian adjuration to fly, but he got the message plainly enough. He hurried down the bridge ladder and Bentley ordered:

  "Sound action!"

  The alarm bells pealed through the ship.

  Two minutes later the ship was quiet again. But now every gun she mounted was manned, the barrels weaving about the sky as the crews tested their mechanism. There had been no need for an order to cancel the test, nor was one sent. Wind Rode was back in her normal position as rear ship on the left-hand leg of the screening V, under orders of the flotilla-leader, and the cruisers had closed in on the battle-line, their multiple anti-aircraft guns cocked up skyward.

  The sea was calm, the ship was quiet, and with this experienced Fleet there was no confusion of signals flashing from the flagship's bridge. But it does not take long for 300-knot aircraft to travel 40 miles, and every man waiting aboard Wind Rode knew that never had there been a more definite justification of the adage that the calm precedes the storm.

  Randall stepped up on to the wooden grating beside Bentley.

  "This is becoming less of a novelty, and quickly," he growled. "Four big raids in a bit more than a month."

  Bentley nodded, his eyes on the sky.

  "They must have been airborne before we left base," he decided, "therefore this raid was initially directed at the base."

  "All the same to those mongrels," Randall grunted. "They find us there, they find us here... But why hasn't the old boy turned back?"

  "I'd say his reason's plain enough," Bentley told him. "He's maintaining his easterly course to draw `em away from the base docks and installations."

  "Uh, huh," the big lieutenant agreed, his eyes also skyward, "but I still can't fathom out why his carriers haven't been detected. We've got submarines patrolling well over east-why haven't they sighted them?"

  "Because there aren't any carriers," Bentley said flatly.

  "Oh, come on!" Randall grunted. "I thought we agreed they couldn't possibly fly this far from Sabang or Malaya."

  "We did" Bentley traversed his glasses across the smiling sky. "I've been thinking a good deal about this," he went on quietly, "We've knocked out one secret air-base, remember? Why couldn't the Japs have another? Or half a dozen others? The police have a word for it-modus operandi. If they established one secret base, they'd form others."

  "No argument," Randall agreed. "But where?"

  "Why don't you ask me something simple-like when the war will end?" Bentley growled. The radar-office buzzer gave tongue again.

  The raid developed swiftly and with expected savagery. The British Eastern Battle Fleet looked formidable enough, and so it was-against its designed targets. But it was still in the process of building-up: Granville had no carriers to help him ward off air-attack, nor had he R.A.F. fighters to cover him. The island's air strength was almost wholly devoted to protecting Colombo and its harbour.

  It was to the enemy's disadvantage that he had found the Fleet at sea-the ships would have been much less formidable firing from an anchorage. As it was the Fleet had miles of ocean space in which to manoeuvre; and the admiral could bring in his cruisers to add their quota to his own massed firepower.

  It was obvious that the battleships would be the main targets. They were more heavily-armoured than the other ships, they would be more difficult to sink-but one battleship critically damaged, or sunk, would be worth three cruisers in cost, in men, and in terms of depleted efficiency of the Fleet. And in that leading giant, flaunting its white flag with the red St. George's Cross, was the admiral.

  The enemy squadrons flew over on a checking run and on Wind Rode's bridge they could hear plainly the multiple thunder of engines.

  The noise beat down to them from the sounding vault of the sky and the cruisers and battleships opened fire and placed a garden of ugly black flowers high up in the blue,

  Unhurt, for they were very high, the Japanese planes flew on, and then turned.

  "Stand by to receive," Randall muttered, and a moment later the first bombs fell.

  Through their glasses the bridge team saw them plainly-black blobs tumbling in swift succession from the spawning bellies of the bombers; still tumbling, until the speed of their dropping allowed the tall vanes to bite into the air and steady the bodies so that they came plummeting down nose-first, a malignant hail of deadly darts.

  The bombs had dropped from a great height, and as they neared the water their speed was too great for the eye to follow. They disappeared from sight, and reappeared again a second later in the form of upthrusting gouts of dirty water.

  Discoloured water, white spray, black smoke-and no bright red of a hit. The battle-line came steaming massively through the spouts, the huge bulls still leaning on the admiral's avoiding turn, the sides of each of the three ships jetting orange flame at the sky. With them, turning as they did, maintaining precise formation, went the cruisers and destroyers.

  Each of those six cruisers mounted eight four-inch guns, and every gun was in controlled action. The destroyers were under the command of their flotilla-leader in matters of gunnery, and they had not yet opened fire-the targets were too high, the angle of sight was too great, for their 4.7-inch main armament.

  Low-level torpedo-bombers were their meat, and strafing fighters. These menaces the destroyers were well-equipped to handle. And, when the high-level bombers had done their worst, the destroyer-men knew they would have something to handle. Torpedo-bombers were especially effective against slow-turning battleships.

  The bombers flew on, turned, and made their second run. It was a vicious, and peculiarly intimate, battle. The Fleet was not compacted, nor was it loose-a nice judgment on the part of the admiral which allowed bombs to fall into the spaces between ships, and yet gave him the benefit of massed firepower. Yet on all that vast reach of blue sea the battle-area was small, and the attacking hawks hung above it-a localised, intimate, ferocious arena. Waiting, watching, Bentley knew he had little to fear at the moment. No aircraft would dive in while the sky was spawning its destruction, and though the torpedo-bombers were free to attack the destroyers, they would not waste their cargoes on such small game. There remained fighters, but they too, in accordance with the well-tried rules, would reserve their cannon-shells for the battleships, spearing in ahead of the torpedo-bombers to destroy or demoralise the close-range weapon crews and leave the targets wide open.

  The fighters should reserve their fire for the battleships, but in the next second Bentley realised what he already knew-that in war nothing is certain, no rules can be taken for granted.

  Wind Rode was the last ship of the left-hand leg, and Mr. Lasenby reported calmly from his controlling director:

  "Two fighters coming in on the port beam, angle of sight four-oh."

  The guns swung.

  Ever since be had first heard the radar report of an enemy force Bentley's mind had been running, as it always did through everything he had done, and should do. Now as he heard Lasenby's information and heard B-mounting below the bridge grind on to the bearing his mind flashed to the ship's deadliest close-range weapon-and thus on to something he had clean forgotten.

  When the ship had closed-up for action the reports had come in, as they always did, and there had been no discrepancies-Wind Rode was ready to fight. It was only now, with the fighters coming in and his mind on the pom-pom, that he thought of Petty-Officer Gellatly. For Gellatly was layer of the pompom's four quick-firing barrels, the finest shot in the ship. And as far as Bentley knew be was now in bed in the sickbay.

  His head swung round towards Randall and in the same movement he jerked it back again to the binnacle. There was no time now to check if any member of the pom-pom's crew were missing. The two fighters were close, and Wind Rode would need all her speed and manoeuvrability to slip them.

  "Open fire!" Bentley snapped, and a moment later the six 4.7's bel
ched.

  Lasenby was firing in barrage-the range was closing much too fast for the fire-control table and the fuse-setters to handle the changing rate. Wind Rode's shells, preset, burst 3,000 feet from her side. Both fighters flew on through the six black puffs.

  "Barrage short short short!" Lasenby ordered, and the next broadside exploded at 1,500 feet. The fighters came on. Bentley took a hand.

  "Hard-a-port!" he rapped.

  She was moving fast and almost at once the slim bow started to swing. Bentley knew his short-range gunners would be helped by a steady platform from which to fire, but he also knew that their guns could traverse quickly, and that he had to throw that twin roaring menace off.