The Destroyers

by Douglas Reeman

  He heard voices below the bridge on the port wing, and recognised one to be that of Miles Salter, Beaumont’s companion for the operation. It was still not quite clear what Salter was here for. To report if the job went well, or merely to collect material for the Ministry of Information? Or perhaps he was merely interested in Beaumont’s role? The latter would certainly explain Beaumont’s eagerness to put his ships through their paces. Drummond had been unable to control his own excitement, his pleasure at seeing the four destroyers charging through the Atlantic swell, much as they had been designed to do for the old Grand Fleet.

  But all that was over, and Warlock moved like one discarded by the rest of the living world. And how different was the sea’s face now. Not even a cat’s-paw to break the unending procession of long, even swells. Warlock would lean irritably on to one beam, hang there for what seemed like minutes, before sliding her pitted flanks up and over to await the next challenge, her lower hull shaking violently as first one and then the second screw came close to the surface. It was even worse than the North Sea “corkscrew.” Drummond had seen more than one luckless seaman dash from below decks to vomit over the guardrail s.

  “All right to come up, Captain?”

  Drummond nodded without turning his head. “Help yourself. “

  Miles Salter was short and overweight, his shape made stubbier by a windcheater, beneath which he always wore a lifejacket. He could be any age from thirty to forty, and had a way of screwing up his eyes when he was talking, so that you could never really see what he was thinking.

  Salter climbed up on to the gratings and gripped some voice-pipes as the hull leaned over once more.

  “God, I don’t fancy eating much tonight!”

  Drummond heard Sheridan, who had the watch, speaking to Hillier, but kept his eyes towards where the horizon should be. The sky was hidden in pale cloud and low-lying mist, so that the array of rollers seemed to be marching straight out of the filtered sunlight.

  Salter said, “I just wondered how things were coming along?”

  Drummond turned slightly in the chair. He had deliberately kept silent. Leaving it to Salter. If this was just one of his usual aimless visits to the bridge he would have been pestering Sheridan or Hillier by now.

  Salter added quickly, “Captain Beaumont has put me in the picture, of course.”

  Of course.

  Drummond replied, “We are now steering almost due south.” He raised one hand above the salt-dappled screen. “Over there, about one hundred and seventy miles off the port bow, is Cape Finisterre, the tip of Spain. All the rest is the Bay of Biscay.”

  Salter said vaguely, “I thought it was always rough in the Bay?”

  “Like the song, you mean?”

  He tried to relax, to pass the time with Salter until dusk, or whenever he chose to leave. But this expanse of sea, this silence, seemed to make a mockery of plans and secret arrangements hatched in high places.

  Hour by hour they had kept a more than usually careful listening watch. Distress calls, sighting reports, coded signals from friend and enemy alike had kept the W/T staff going without respite. A west-bound convoy had been attacked three days out from Liverpool. Elsewhere, a freighter had collided with an escort while trying to pass wounded men across for medical aid. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Beaumont had called the bridge from his quarters aft with ever-growing impatience, as if even he was beginning to think somebody had slipped up.

  He relented and said, “We are still waiting for a confirming signal from the Admiralty. If it comes before dawn, then it will be time to get moving. If not, well, we’ll just have to try again, or forget the whole idea.”

  Salter said nothing, so he continued, “A decoy ship has been detached from a Gibraltar convoy, acting as if she is in trouble. She should be somewhere ahead of us right now. “

  Or lying on the bottom, he thought grimly.

  “A deep-sea tug has been despatched from Gib to give her assistance, take her in tow.”

  “I see.” Salter’s eyes had vanished into a mass of crow’sfeet. “So it’s up to the enemy.”

  “Something like that.” He turned in his chair. “Sub, check with radar again.”

  Hillier said, “I just did, sir.”

  “Do it again. ” He was irritated at the sharpness in his voice, at the way his mood was being noted by Salter. “The tug will have been careful to make a bit of a show. There’s no shortage of spies around the Rock. I’ll bet the enemy have guessed what’s happening by now.”

  “But won’t they be a bit suspicious, Captain? I mean, the decoy having no escort.”

  Drummond watched him gravely. Where have you been all these months and years?

  “It was a fast convoy. We just don’t have enough escorts to allow them to hang around. You either abandon a straggler, or you take off her people and put her down yourself. It’s a sort of two-way trust we share between Navy and merchantman. It’s all we’ve got, most of the time.”

  Salter’s lips curled slightly. “You sound bitter.”

  “I’ve a right to that. ” He looked abeam. “I’ve seen too many good ships go under because we simply couldn’t protect them. In peacetime, people aren’t interested. In war, they expect a bloody miracle. ” He saw Hillier’s shadow against the steel and asked, “Anything?”

  “No, sir. “

  Sheridan called, “Bosun’s mate! Pipe the port watch to defence stations!”

  Drummond said, “Strange to think that out there in Spain and Portugal there are lights in the streets. No worries if you’re going to wake up in the morning.”

  Salter said in a solemn tone, “Ah, Spain. I was there, you know. In the Civil War. Terrible tragedy.” “Yes. I was there, too.”

  Several people shuffled to attention as Beaumont strode into the bridge, his oak-leaned cap tilted rakishly over his eyes. He had a pure silk scarf around his neck, and against the weary watchkeepers looked as if he was about to take over a major role in an action film.

  He nodded to Drummond. “Don’t get up, Keith. We’ll need all your energy later, eh?” He smiled at Salter. “What it is to be young! “

  Drummond watched them both curiously. The use of his first name. Was it really Beaumont’s intention to dispense with the

  usual formality, or merely to impress Salter, and anyone else who might be listening?

  Hillier’s eyes were like saucers. He was probably already planning another letter to Dunedin. Today Captain Beaumont told us how it was done.

  Salter leaned forward to watch as the crew on B gun was relieved in seconds. When the other crew had vanished below for their evening meal it was impossible to tell that there had been any change at all.

  He said, “The C.O. doesn’t seem to have much faith in this operation. “

  Beaumont looked at Drummond and shot him a ready grin. “Really? Cold feet?”

  Drummond removed his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. It felt matted with salt.

  “Not my words, sir. ” He glanced at Salter’s back. “Ask me about the way it’ll be reported. That’s something else again.”

  The grin broadened. “Touche, Miles! You shouldn’t play with this one, you know!”

  Feet clattered on a ladder and Midshipman Keyes appeared breathless below Drummond’s chair.

  “Signal from Admiralty, sir. I’ve been helping with the decoding.” He saw Beaumont for the first time and flushed. “I-I’m sorry, sir.”

  Drummond snapped, “Read it.”

  “It says, sir, that the Spanish ship, S.S. Aragon, was reported as leaving Bilbao yesterday. Heading west.” He sounded mystified.

  Beaumont clapped him on the shoulder but kept his eyes on Drummond.

  “See? The bastards have taken the bait! Provided our decoy gets here on time, I think we’re in business.”

  Drummond smiled. “She must be a communications ship of some sort. If we can pick up one transmission, to show she’s aiding the enemy, we’ll take her.
”

  Salter laughed. “Sounds exciting!” He looked uneasy.

  Beaumont eyed him fiercely. “It’s time for a bit of hitting back, Miles! Good for the country, and good for your programmes, eh?” It seemed to amuse him.

  Sheridan saluted. “Port watch closed up at defence stations, sir. I’ll hang on until Pilot comes up from the W/T office.”

  There was a question in his eyes, and Drummond said, “All right, Number One, you can pass the word round now. Tell everyone what we’re doing, or hope to do. Then go round the ship yourself and check that nothing has been overlooked. ” He glanced at his watch. “Action stations from midnight, I’m afraid, but see ‘that there’s a regular supply of cocoa and sandwiches for gun crews and watchkeepers.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Sheridan touched the midshipman’s arm and said quietly, “Don’t stare, laddy, it’s rude.”

  Keyes grinned and followed him towards the hatch.

  Drummond thrust his hands into his pockets and frowned. Another letter home. Today I carried the signal which came from London. I decoded it and gave it to Captain Beaumont. Drummond glanced at Beaumont’s profile. He certainly seemed to be enjoying it.

  “Radar-Bridge!”

  Sheridan snatched up the handset. “Forebridge.” “Getting a strong echo at Red oh-three-five. Range twelve thousand yards.”

  Drummond was out of his chair and across to the small radar repeater which had appeared on the bridge during a boiler-clean in Chatham.

  It took time, as it always did. After hours of sitting and staring at the sea it was hard to adjust to the dim picture in the small, enclosed screen. Echoes and writhing outlines moved with the radar’s probing eye like weed on the sea-bed. And then he saw it, a bright, solid blip. A ship, with another, smaller drip of green light close against it.

  To confirm his thoughts he heard Sheridan say, “Radar reports a second echo, sir. Must be the tug. Nothing else around. “

  Beaumont rubbed his hands. “Soon will be!”

  Drummond straightened his back and returned to the chair, his mind calculating and discarding.

  “Take a look, Number One.” He saw Wingate’s head rising over the hatch coaming. “Check with radar, Pilot. Then lay off a course to intercept. Get the chief for me. I’ll want maximum revolutions in a moment.”

  He knew Salter was staring at him, memorising every detail,

  like someone watching a piece of hoarded machinery coming alive again.

  “Chief, sir.”

  He snatched the handset.

  “Chief? This is the captain. Decoy in radar contact. Standby for full revs.”

  Galbraith sounded very calm. “Aye, sir. Expecting trouble, are we?”

  “God knows.” He saw Wingate at the table, his dividers busy. “Well?”

  “Course to steer is one-three-zero, sir,”

  “Good. Bring her round.” To Beaumont he said, “Decoy will be in sight well before sunset, sir. Would be now but for this mist. “

  Wingate glanced at Sheridan and winked. “Tally bloodyho!”

  Then he said into the voice-pipe, “Port fifteen.”

  “Fifteen of port wheel on.” Even through the pipe it was obvious that the helmsman had his mouth full of sandwich or chocolate.

  “Midships. Steady. Steer one-three-zero. “

  Drummond looked up at the tallest funnel, the sudden strengthening of vapour above its stained lip.

  “Full ahead together.”

  As if she, too, had been waiting and gathering her energy for this moment, Warlockdug her stem into the swell and cut across it like a ploughshare. With every mounting revolution the bow wave grew higher, higher, until the creaming water rose level with the iron deck as she thrust her way through the water. Below, and throughout the ship, every plate and rivet seemed to be vibrating in protest or approval, and in the crowded messdecks the relieved watchkeepers braced themselves against the tables and tried to stomach their evening meal. Few spoke or even looked at each other. A glance could be a question. And the answer might be too grim to contemplate.

  Sheridan, on his way aft to the wardroom, clung to a stanchion and paused to watch the great surge of sea and spray alongside. He was still thinking of Drummond, seeing him come alive, the doubt and anxiety slipping from his face like an unwanted mask. And he had thought he had begun to know him.

  He had looked like a stranger. A fighter.

  He saw Mangin and the chief stoker standing below the pompom mounting contemplating the listening bow wave with grave interest.

  “Suit you, ‘Swain?”

  Mangin shrugged. “Poor old cow ‘11 shake ‘ erself apart one o’ these days!” He grinned. “Sir.”

  They all looked up at the tall bridge as a signal lamp clattered shortly.

  Mangin remarked, “Sighted ‘er then.”

  Sheridan watched the signalman’s black silhouette as he shuttered off another brief acknowledgement. No need to pass the word. Everyone knew they were going to have a crack at something. The rights and wrongs of it were nobody’s concern but the skipper’s, apparently.

  As if to confirm Mangin’s words, the great bow wave began to sigh away, falling and smoothing until Warlock’s speed had dropped to even less than her original one. Only the great, seething white wake, spreading and intermingling with the swell like a pale arrowhead, gave a hint of her momentary return to her true glory.

  Sheridan continued aft. Now, all they had to do was hold the other ship on the radar, listen for some hint of a sighting signal from the Spaniard, and then, as Wingate had wryly remarked, it would be tally bloody-ho indeed.

  At the rear of the bridge Drummond saw Sheridan walking towards the quarterdeck, but his mind was elsewhere. That momentary contact with the other ship had been like a trust. The brief stab of signal lights from the elderly destroyer and from that murky outline of the decoy meant that time for supposition and doubt was almost over.

  It would probably be a solitary U-boat to which any sort of sighting signal would be made. The Germans were unlikely to deploy more than one boat for possible stragglers, no matter how desperately they needed information about convoys and their contents. The other three destroyers would be close by to catch the submarine when the time came. It would be up to Warlock to corner the spy-ship.

  But to those unknown men aboard the decoy one thing was certain. They were a deliberate target, and that quick exchange of signals was their only hope of survival.

  Beaumont said, “Seems quiet enough. No wind to speak of. Easy swell.” He nodded, apparently satisfied. “Think I’ll take some supper.”

  He left the bridge, and Salter said fervently, “God, what a man, eh? No wonder people look up to him.”

  Drummond moved from his chair again. It was hopeless trying to think with Salter chattering all the time. He probably meant well, and in any case he was quite likely feeling a bit apprehensive now that there was some likelihood of trouble.

  But Drummond needed to be alone. To think, to try and discover what was troubling him. Everything was going like a clock, just as Beaumont had predicted and planned. And yet there was something. Some flaw, like a false echo on a radar screen, or on an incomplete painting.

  He said, “I’ll be in my sea cabin, Pilot. Have a sandwich or something sent up, will you?”

  As he left the bridge Salter said, “I suppose he has to try and copy Captain Beaumont’s coolness.” He shook his head. “Must be a bit of a challenge to have a public hero- as your boss. “

  Wingate studied him gravely. “We must all try and live up to it. “

  Salter glared at him as the lieutenant started to chuckle. “I’m going below!” He was still muttering angrily as he clambered off the bridge.

  Wingate wiped his night glasses with a piece of tissue before peering along the bearing where the decoy ship would be, if only she was visible again. Pompous bastard, he thought cheerfully. He felt the deck begin to roll in another series of uncomfortable troughs. Salter would get a shock when
he reached the wardroom, or rather his guts would. Greasy sausages and overcooked potatoes. Just the job for the likes of him.

  He saw Keyes hovering by the voice-pipes and said, “Now, Mid, I’ll tell you how it was when I joined, how about that?”

  Keyes came out of his trance. He had been thinking of the signal, of Beaumont’s hand on his shoulder. Friendly. Like an equal. He liked the navigating officer, even if he was a bit crude at times. But it was wrong to make fun of Salter in front of the other watchkeepers. It was like hitting at. Beaumont.

  He sighed and said, “You’ve already told me.” Wingate shook his head. “Bother.”

  “Object in the water! Green four-five!” The lookout was crouching against the darkening sky like a carving on a church tower.

  Wingate pushed past him, his glasses already trained above the screen.

  Keyes called excitedly, “I can see it!” Then he added, “Oh, it’s only a piece of wood.”

  Wingate walked deliberately along the gratings at the side of the bridge, his eyes never leaving the small, bobbing fragment until it was overturned and lost in Warlock’s wake. Part of a boat’s keel.

  He swung round and said harshly, “Only a piece of wood, was it?” He saw Keyes recoil, surprised and hurt. “Well, it was a bloody lifeboat once!”

  The other watchkeepers shifted uneasily and kept their eyes trained outboard. Only Parvin, the leading signalman, who had been in the ship when Wingate had first joined her, understood and felt something like pity for him.

  He said quietly, “I’d call down to the wardroom, if I was you, Mr. Keyes, and check up with Owles about the skipper’s sandwiches. Just in case the old bugger shuts up the pantry for the night.” He saw Keyes nodding, still confused at Wingate’s anger.

  Parvin returned to his thoughts. There was no point in trying to explain to Keyes. He would learn soon enough. Or go under, like the last Number One had done.

  He knew quite a bit about Wingate. Gossip soon got round in small ships. He had been navigating officer in a sloop in Western Approaches. The ship had been torpedoed in a snow-squall, four hundred miles out in the Atlantic. Most of the survivors were picked up by another escort, but somehow they missed Wingate’s little boat. When a destroyer had found them four days later there were only half of the original ten men still alive. One had been frozen bodily against Wingate’s oilskin. It was said that it had been his best friend and had died soon after rescue.