The Destroyers

by Douglas Reeman

  The voice-pipe intoned, “Able Seaman Jevers on the wheel, sir. Course two-six-five. One-one-zero revolutions.”

  Drummond thought about the quartermaster, Jevers. He had been in the ship for six months. His wife had left him for an American G.I. Mangin had told him about it, and how Jevers scanned the mail like a desperate beggar whenever it came aboard. He seemed unable to accept she had gone for good.

  Sheridan crossed the bridge, his figure black against the grey paint.

  “Starboard watch closed up at defence stations, sir.”

  “Very good. ” He tugged out his pipe and jammed it between: his teeth. “Seems quiet enough now. Funny to think that. Brighton is abeam. Or should be if Pilot’s calculations are correct! In peacetime you’d have seen the lights on the piers and promenades from miles out to sea. Now, it could be the Black Hole of Calcutta. ” He watched as Sheridan checked the cornpass repeater. “And all the would-be Nelsons of the wartime Navy are over there, too, sleeping and worrying about getting their commissions.”

  Sheridan’s teeth shone in the gloom. “Young Keyes was telling me about it. He only left King Alfred a month or so ago. Apparently all the lads are sweating with the fear that the war’ll be over before they get their bits of gold lace.”

  “What do you think, Number One?”

  In the stillness he could almost hear Sheridan considering the question. Feet grated on steel, and from the open hatch he heard the regular, comforting ping of the Asdic.

  “Years yet, sir. I can’t really accept that peace will ever come. You, of course, will think that strange, I expect. Regular naval family. A better continuity for assessing this sort o thing. “

  Drummond shook his head. “No. I’m the first in the family, as far as I know. My father was a soldier.”

  Sheridan peered at him. “Really, sir? So was mine, although he was only in it for the Great War.” His voice hardened slightly. “He used to embarrass me sometimes. I was a bloody

  fool. Must have been, not to see what he was trying to show to others.”

  Drummond watched him. “Go on.”

  Sheridan rubbed his gloved hands along the screen.

  “Sounds silly now. We’re up here, and the war could explode right beside us. Any minute of the day.” He hesitated. “Every Armistice Day it was. Dead on eleven. All the buses and cars stopped at the first stroke of the town hall clock. Everyone standing quite still, faces like stone, for the two minutes’ silence. It used to thrill me as a boy. Make shivers run up and down my spine.”

  “Your father was. badly crippled, I believe?”

  “That’s right, sir. At the Menin Gate. Shrapnel through both legs and spine. Had to live in a sort of wicker chair on wheels. Died just a year ago. I think of him quite a bit now.”

  Sub-lieutenant Hillier, who was assistant O.O.W. under Sheridan, called anxiously, “B-7 buoy abeam to starboard one mile, sir.”

  “Thank you, Sub.” Sheridan rubbed his chin. “Every Armistice Day my old father would wheel himself out of the house in his chair and, well, he just kept going until the silence was over. A bus conductor threatened to overturn his chair once, he was that angry. ” He chuckled sadly. “When my mother used to go on at him about it he used to shout, `What the hell do they know about it, woman? Standing po-faced like a lot of bloody heroes! They should have seen the mud, the lice, and the bloody corpses! At the Menin Gate we couldn’t even bury ‘em, they were that thick!’ Funny thing was, of course, many of the people he was slamming were in the war like him. It was as if he felt more akin to the dead than the survivors.”

  “Probably. “

  Drummond peered at his watch. A couple of hours’ sleep in the hutch behind the wheelhouse. He needed it badly. The two days at Harwich had everybody dashing about like a maniac. Drills and exercises to settle the new men into one company before they sailed for Falmouth. The other destroyers were spaced ahead and astern of Warlock, each independent of the rest. He thought of the half-leader and smiled. Except Warden, of course. She had Beaumont to contend with.

  Yet sharing these small confidences with Sheridan had helped him in some way. He knew little or nothing of him, but already felt that he had known him for months. Perhaps Frank had not spoken of such personal things. Looking back, he wondered if he had really known Frank as much as he imagined.

  Sheridan asked quietly, “What about your father, sir? Is he still alive?”

  “No. “

  Drummond thought of his home at Arbroath outside Dundee. The battalion on parade each Sunday and other special occasions. Maybe it had been the Army which had made him insist on being given a chance for Dartmouth. His father had also been in France in the same war which had crippled Sheridan’s. And God alone knew how many others. Nobody had ever discovered what had happened. He had gone out with a night wiring party. Into that stark moonscape of drifting flares, shell-holes and barbed wire. Neither he nor any of his men were seen again. Drummond, of course, had never known him, and his mother rarely seemed ready to talk about him. He could not really blame her. She had remarried after the war. Another officer in the same regiment. Drummond had never been able to get on with him, although his stepfather had tried hard enough. A big, jolly man in khaki tunic and impeccable kilt. Perhaps he had been trying to see his real father behind all the laughter and offers of friendship.

  He added slowly, “He was killed in France.”

  He fell silent, and heard Sheridan move away to the other side of the bridge to consult with Hillier.

  Drummond often brooded about it. Maybe that was why he had told Helen he would never get married in wartime. Because of his own father. A grave-faced lieutenant in a browning photograph which he had discovered in his mother’s desk drawer.

  Across the water he heard the dismal clang of a bell-buoy. There was a wreck nearby. A destroyer which had hit a mine some months back. He hoped Hillier was taking full advantage of a quiet passage to learn all he could. He seemed very pleasant.

  He heard Sheridan say, “I’m just going to the Asdic compartment, Sub. Take over.”

  Hillier muttered something and then strode to the forepart of the bridge. Drummond turned slightly to watch him. The quick way he moved his head from bow to bow, as if expecting a sudden disaster.

  “How does it feel, Sub?”

  Hillier tried to relax. “Fine, sir.” He looked aft towards the little steel shack at the rear of the bridge. Above it the radar lantern swayed gently to the ship’s easy roll, and below it Sheridan had already been swallowed up by a steel door which led directly to the cramped Asdic compartment. He added, “Feels a bit dodgy, sir. ” He grinned. “But I guess I can ask you for help if I need it, sir?”

  Drummond smiled.. This New Zealander was quite unlike the other sub-lieutenant, Tyson. Originally he had thought Tyson’s manner was part of some inner grief over his missing brother. Now he was equally certain it was not. He was arrogant and unyielding to his subordinates, argumentative with his equals, and sullenly silent whenever he was choked off by the lieutenants.

  “I expect so. You’re from Dunedin, I’m told?”

  “That’s right, sir. My father’s a doctor there. I think he hoped I’d be one, too, given the time. But I like the sea, always have. When this lot’s over I think I’ll try and stay in the Navy. If not, I’ll go for the merchant service.” His voice broke in a quiet chuckle. “You know, sir, some big liner, with all the girls chasing the officers!”

  Sheridan came back and snapped, “Tell the quartermaster to watch his head, Sub! He’s wandering a degree or so all thetime!”

  Hillier hurried to the voice-pipe and almost fell on some unseen grating or bracket.

  Drummond said quietly, “My fault, Number One. Sorry about that.”

  Sheridan lifted his night glasses to study a large flurry of spray on the port beam. A leaping fish? Sea birds taking off? It was nothing.

  He said, “My old captain used to catch me out, sir. ” He lowered the glasses. “If I didn’t bottle m
y assistant, the captain’d say, `It’s your watch, Number One. Don’t mind me.’ ” He sighed. “I got on well with him.”

  Drummond bit hard on the unlit pipe. There it was again. He was still worrying about the captain who had killed himself after the enquiry into Conqueror’s loss.

  “Maybe he just didn’t know how to overcome the real challenge when it came, Number One. I think your father would have understood him. Probably more than most. It takes a man who has lived through hell to help another who is suffering one of his own.”

  A bosun’s mate was murmuring into a voice-pipe. Then he said, “From W/T office, sir. `All Clear’ over London now. No enemy aircraft being engaged. “

  “Thank you.”

  Drummond pictured the bombers heading out across the Channel and North Sea to bases in France, Holland or Germany. A lot of Warlock’s company came from the south-east. It was to be hoped that no signals would be waiting in Falmouth. Come

  home. Your family was bombed last night.

  Sheridan said suddenly, “This new role, sir. Do you think it’s anything to do with an invasion?”

  “Indirectly. I imagine so. We’ll probably invade through the Med first and then into northern Europe. ” He smiled wearily. “That’s what it said in the newspaper the other day. But where we, as opposed to the whole Allied invasion force, fit in, is beyond me as yet.”

  He slid from the chair and stretched his arms.

  “Call me if in any sort of doubt. I’m going to turn in.”

  He walked stiffly towards the hatchway, seeing Hillier’s pale face watching him as he passed. He groped his way beside a dim police light to the door of his sea cabin. From the wheelhouse he could hear the clatter of loose gear, someone humming quietly and the occasional stammer of morse from the W/T office on the deck below. The bridge was like a tight little steel hive, he thought. Connected up to the rest of the vessel by wires and pipes, which in return relayed information and observations to him. His brain.

  He closed the door and threw his cap on to the bookshelf. There was barely room to move, and with the deadlight screwed shut, the air which came through the deckhead vent tasted dirty and over-used. He laid down and closed his eyes. Thinking of Beaumont. Of Frank. Of the ship which trembled through the mattress on his bunk.

  The telephone above the reading light buzzed and he snatched it from its hook in one quick movement.

  “Captain?”

  “Number One speaking, sir. Time to alter course in two minutes.” He sounded surprised.

  Drummond peered at his watch and grimaced. He must have fallen asleep after all. And he felt like death.

  “I’ll come up.”

  “I can manage, sir, if-“

  “I’ll come up.”

  He dropped the telephone on its hook and rubbed his eyes violently. This was the part which wore you down. Really wore you down.

  He stared at the phone and stood up, adjusting automatically to the ship’s uneven motion. Sharper swell. That would be a throwback from Selsey Bill, his mind told him.

  But the telephone in the night. That, you never got used to. You woke up with your guts in knots. Your mind cringing. He remembered another captain from the past. He, too, had awakened in his cabin to the call of the bridge telephone. As he had seized it, the door had burst open and the sea had flooded the cabin. The ship had already been plunging to the bottom, yet he had heard nothing of the explosion. Only the telephone. It had taken minutes, but the whole nightmare had been compressed into one tiny fraction of time. He had survived. For six months anyway.

  He jammed on his cap and slung the glasses around his neck. As he stepped from the cabin he saw a bosun’s mate carrying a tin of milk towards the bridge ladder.

  The man froze and said quickly, ” ‘Mornin,’ sir. Bit fresh up top still.” He held the tin behind his back.

  Drummond smiled gravely. “Good morning, Toogood. Rustle up some cocoa, if you can.”

  He groped for the ladder to the upper bridge. It was funny when you thought about it. The bosun’s mate was taking milk for the ship’s cat, Badger. Everyone knew about the cat, but its presence was carefully never mentioned. The previous Captain (D) had had a thing about pets in his flotilla. Likewise, Badger carefully ignored most of the ship’s company. Except for the members of the stokers’ mess where he slept, and those entrusted to bring his milk.

  The air was still sharp, and he saw Sheridan waiting beside the gyro repeater.

  “Keeping quiet, Number One?”

  He eased his body into the chair. Its arms were damp and ice-cold.

  “Nothing much, sir. Report of a freighter sinking off Wold 11 Rock. Not quite clear why. Mine, I expect. We’re due to pass an

  east-bound coastal convoy before 0400, and there are some sweepers heading our way from Portland. Otherwise, pretty slack. “

  Feet scraped across the gratings and the bosun’s mate handed him a mug of steaming cocoa..

  “Kye up, sir.”

  Drummond watched him over the rim, cradling the hot mug between his hands.

  “Get rid of the milk all right?”

  The seaman grinned. “Yessir.”

  Sheridan was at the compass. “Port fifteen. ” He glanced down at Hillier. “Check with the plot, Sub. Can’t afford to be off course again.” He bent to the glowing compass repeater. “Midships. Steady. Steer two-three-five.”

  Far inland a fire glowed redly in the night, but there were no clouds to reflect or measure its distance and intensity.

  Sheridan said, “Bomb with a time fuse probably. The poor devils will be able to get to bed now.”

  “Radar-Bridge. “

  Sheridan snatched up a handset. “Bridge.”

  “Some faint echoes at Green oh-two-five, sir. Probably the sweepers coming round the Isle of Wight from Portland.”

  “Good, thank you, Yates. Carry on with the sweep. ” To the bridge lookouts he added, “You heard that. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  Drummond swallowed the thick, sickly cocoa, feeling it exploring his empty stomach. That was good. Sheridan had even got to know the leading radar operator by name. It helped confidence, broke down the uncertainty of strangers on a night watch. Doubt; fear of rebuke from a faceless voice-pipe or handset often took valuable seconds. It was sometimes fatal.

  A light blinked briefly across the heaving water, and a reply was shuttered back just as quickly by the waiting signalman.

  Drummond relaxed. It was going well. And the sooner they reached Falmouth, the better he would be pleased.

  Sheridan paused to peer at the chart table beneath its canvas

  hood, and when he looked again he saw that Drummond’s head was lolling in time with the ship’s motion. He smiled grimly. At least he trusts me, he thought. The smile faded as he looked slowly around the darkened bridge. I could have had one like this. Could be the one using his brain and mind, making decisions instead of taking orders.

  The bosun’s mate said, “The plot ‘as just called, sir. Says

  e’s ‘avin’ a bit of bother with the new chart.” He fell silent, I uninvolved, his duty done.

  Sheridan nodded. “Very well. Go down, Sub. Use some of that magic they taught you. Give the plot table a kick if all else fails.”

  At five minutes to four Wingate appeared on the bridge to take over the morning watch.

  Course, speed and weather. Any cocoa left in the wardroom?

  The relieved watchkeepers scrambled down to their cabins and messdecks, groping for somewhere to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep before another day was upon them. On mess tables and narrow benches, in overcrowded compartments where they shared their blankets with tinned food or ammunition. Hammocks were not supposed to be slung at sea, but many were, and the luckier men swung together like creatures in warm pods, their lifebelts and sea boots handy should the alarm bells tear at their hearts again.

  Hillier lay in a camp bed below a bunk where Lieutenant Rankin snored in regal splendour, and stared up at the dark
ness. Thinking of Dunedin and the girl who had promised to wait for him. He could hardly remember her face, which was very strange, as he had grown up with her.

  In his white-painted cot near the sick bay the doctor was also awake, his stomach queasy from the sluggish motion, the sealed stenches of oil and cabbage water, the sharper tangs of his own department. Outside his own little cabin he could hear his leading sickbay attendant, Froud, groaning in his sleep. Dreaming of a conquest somewhere, or a defeat. Surgeon Lieutenant Adrian Vaughan switched on his reading lamp and groped for his glasses. He would read for a bit. Take his mind off things.

  The S. B.A. turned over in his bunk as a shaft of light probed through the slit of the doctor’s door. Frond groaned and pulled his pyjamas more tightly about his body. He had been dreaming.

  Violently. The ship had been going down, and he had been trapped. But he had been about to be rescued, by a tall, handsome sailor. It would be, of course. Froud hated all women to a point of torment.

  But the dream had gone with the click of Vaughan’s reading lamp. Froud glared at the deckhead and swore savagely.

  In the brightly lit tunnel of the engine room the chief stoker, “Soapy” Hudson, was singing at the top of his voice as he moved slowly amidst the glittering machinery and vibrating catwalks. Only his lips gave any hint of sound, the words being lost in the din, the unending roar of the destroyer’s engines and fans. A few boiler-suited figures crouched or ducked around the gleaming confusion, speaking to each other by sign and touch. A good bunch, Hudson decided. Most of them had given him a tot on his birthday. The chief had even slipped him half a bottle of gin from the wardroom.

  He sighed and picked up his check board. Presents or not, old Galbraith would tear him off a strip if anything was wrong when he arrived for his pre-breakfast rounds.

  From the captain, dozing in his bridge chair, to Badger, the cat, who was deeply sleeping, nose in tail, in his own special hammock on the stokers’ messdeck, Warlock carried them all. Indifferent to their personal hopes and disappointments, needing them only as servants to her own particular skills.