The Destroyers

by Douglas Reeman

  “Follow me!”

  He pushed a man out of his path and peered down the oval

  hatch which led to the lower deck, the stokers’ mess which had been turned into a shambles of blackened tables, smouldering clothing and hammocks. He hurried down the ladder, aware that the rail was still hot from the explosion, that there was far more light than there ought to be.

  He paused, gripping the foot of the ladder, and stared at the gash in the side, the telltale splinter holes from some earlier damage. The white, frothy bow wave was streaming back from the stem and seemed only a foot or so below the gash in the hull. It made the familiar privacy of a messdeckfade, brought home to him the frailness of their daily protection.

  “God, what a bloody mess!” He heard Keyes beside him. “But the fire’s out for a while.”

  He knelt down and sniffed, catching the tang of oil fuel right beneath him. More punctures there, too. All around him there were other, more personal things scattered and burned, soaked in filth and foam. The large pin-up of a full-breasted girl in a sailor’s cap and nothing else. That belonged to Leading Stoker “Tosh” Harding. The picture had often called for a joke or a smutty remark when an officer did rounds in this cramped messdeck. There was a bundle of letters written in a shaky, untrained hand. A needle and thread still attached to a gold badge which someone had been sewing on a best uniform when the alarm bells had sounded. These sights, and others, made him suddenly bitter and angry, more even than those he had witnessed on the upper deck. It was an invasion of the men’s lives. God knows, they had precious little else.

  He looked up the ladder. “Tell the bridge the fire’s out. I’ll get the buffer’s party to do something about this gash right away. “

  Sheridan glanced at the midshipman. It was strange, he thought. That moment of unreasoning anger had helped to steady him. Yet it did not matter now. One more good battering and they would have to bale out.

  But to Keyes he said, “This will be a dockyard job.”

  One of the stokers in the damage control tearn stood staring emptily at his messdeck. But all he said was, “Good thing ole Badger went on a run ashore after all. ” He picked up a bundle of sodden letters and put them into a locker. “They won’t be read no more.”

  Sheridan hauled himself up the ladder and strode along the opposite side of the forecastle. The forward messdeck seemed untouched, and he found two seamen having their wounds dressed by the S.B.A., and another who lay covered by an oilskin, one clenched fist sticking out as if to express his last moments of hate for those who had destroyed him.

  He paused by the break in the forecastle, gulping in salt air, staring fixedly at the nearest strip of land, brown and green in the daylight, as it received the backwash of Warlock’s screws. He leaned over the rail below the whaler’s davits and saw Ventnor close astern, her battle ensigns white against the smoky sky, the big hole in her side very obvious even at this distance. There was a towering wall of black smoke around the nearest spit of land. Right up to the hill-tops and far beyond that. Thick, greasy, solid. It looked as if it would stay that way forever.

  Their visit would be long remembered, he thought dully. All that burning fuel. It would have reached Waxwing’s stranded hulk by now. A suitable pyre for those who had been left behind.

  A voice exclaimed, “Not me, sir!”

  He turned and saw two men carrying a seaman on a stretcher whose arm was heavily bandaged. The doctor was striding beside the stretcher, his face expressionless.

  The man tried to hold up his shattered arm. “You mustn’t, sir! Oh, dear God, why don’t they listen?” He fell unconscious, his head lolling across his cap which they had used as a pillow.

  Vaughan saw Sheridan and said flatly, “It’s got to come off. Now.”

  Sheridan looked at the man on the stretcher. A plain, homely face. One you would never notice at Divisions or when inspecting the libertymen. He found he was gripping his own arm. What would he do if it happened to him?

  He said to Keyes, “Better go up to the bridge. Seems to be a lull.” He saw Keyes’ face as he stared after the little forlorn group which followed Vaughan’s white coat towards the screen door. He said, “Don’t think about it, Mid. I expect it was like this at Jutland. Trafalgar, too, probably.”

  Sheridan found Drummond sitting in his chair, one leg thrust out stiffly and resting on a steel bracket.

  “Finished your inspection, Number One?” He sounded calm. Too calm.

  “Yes, sir. Six dead, fifteen wounded.” He thought of the

  man’s eyes as he had cried, “Oh, dear God, why don’t they listen?” Someone should. He looked round the stained bridge. “How many here?”

  “Four. Two wounded.”

  Wingate held up his arm which was wrapped in a crude sling. “They don’t call this a wound, apparently!” He grinned, the effort making his face even more strained.

  Hillier was sitting on the steel step below the compass platform, his head in his hands.

  Drummond added quietly, “Shock. He’ll be all right when he’s needed.”

  “I’ve got some matches, sir.” The signalman stepped over the yeoman’s body and struck one carefully.

  Drummond took it and held it to his new, shining pipe. It was amazing how steadily he could hold the little flame. Despite Warlock’s rise and plunge over the inshore current, the vibration from her engines, he could still do it. And yet he felt as if every fibre in his body was cringing and shaking, beyond control.

  He saw the match flame reflected in each of Sheridan’s eyes. Like someone looking out from another mask.

  He blew out a stream of smoke. It was strange. Cruelly unnerving. But he could not recall having enjoyed a pipe more.

  Lyngstad called, “Another ten minutes, Captain.” He gestured towards the starboard beam at the smudgy shape of an island. “The battery there will try to hit you as you clear the swept channel.”

  “Yes.” He tried to think. To stop enjoying the smoke. The firmness which the pipe seemed to give his whole body. “Tell the chief. We’ll need a thick screen. Good thing the wind’s in our favour, what there is of it.”

  The signalman said, ” Ventnor’s on the station, sir. ” He was trying not to look down at Tucker’s feet. They had done so much together. So many watches, so many signals.

  Rankin’s voice droned from an intercom. “All guns, load

  .. load … load.” A pause as around the ship the weary crews stirred into life again. “Short-range weapon crews prepare to repel aircraft. “

  Good thinking. It would keep them occupied.

  A bosun’s mate lowered a telephone. “Petty Officer Owles is callin’ from aft, sir. Says he can fix some tea. Enough for the ole ship’s company, if he can ‘ave a couple of extra men.”

  “See to it, Mid.” He watched the boy hurry away, looking neither right nor left. He was managing well, considering.

  To port the other strip of land was curving away, losing its firm outline in the haze of persistent smoke and some stubborn patches of mist. Beyond it the sea looked like a great pewter wilderness. He tried not to shiver.

  “Lomond in sight, sir!”

  A lookout who had dashed to the bridge to replace one of the wounded, added vehemently, “Took ‘er long enough!”

  Wingate snapped, “That’ll do! What are you, a bloody expert?”

  Drummond raised his glasses and watched the lean flotilla leader as she steamed from behind the landspit. How clean she looked in the dull light. There were the others following astern. Whiplash, Victor, and slightly further back the heavily laden Whirlpool. Their people would be watching, he thought bitterly. Studying the splinter holes, expecting Waxwing to appear at the end of the fjord.

  He said, “Make to Lomond. We are passing within range of battery to starboard. Suggest increased speed, and make smoke. “

  He heard the lamp clattering, and turned to see a man throw a

  bundle over the ship’s side and into the wash.

&nbs
p; Sheridan said dully, “A man’s arm. It had to come off.” Drummond turned to watch the other destroyers. A light was

  blinking back across the water.

  “To Warlock, sir. Operation well executed. Rio sign of major enemy unit. Discontinue the action.”

  Wingate said quietly, “Well, for Christ’s sake.” Drummond looked at him impassively. “What are you? A bloody expert?”

  The navigator leaned against the side, his arm smearing against some drying blood.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  There was a hollow boom, followed quickly by a bright flash on the starboard bow. Drummond watched the falling curtain of spray. Just to show us they mean business. But they had fired too soon. It gave Rankin time to adjust his defences. Galbraith’s would be more reliable in this case.

  “Tell the chief. Make smoke.”

  `Char, sir.’

  Owles was staring at him, holding out a great mug of tea. He stooped down and eased off Drummond’s sea boot. It was sodden with blood.

  “Can’t ‘ave this, sir.” He shook his head, oblivious to the repeated boom from the shore battery, the choking smoke from both funnels. “Won’t do at all, sir.”

  “From Lomond, sir. Increase to maximum speed.”

  Drummond massaged his forehead as another heavy shell exploded nearer to the starboard bow. High trajectory. Must be fired from the far side of the island. There was still hope. Not much, but …

  He pounded the teak rail with his fist, not seeing Owles’ anxiety as he bandaged the deep cut on his leg, nor Sheridan’s look of despair. Come on, old girl, come on! He heard Wingate’s voice, level and precise as he spoke to the engine room, the responding increase of jerks and rattles as the ship worked steadily up to her full revolutions.

  He trained his glasses abeam, wincing as the pain in his leg became a reality. There was Lomond, making a fine sight as she plunged through the spray and spindrift from her own bow wave. He thought of Waxwing, of Archer, the unknown intelligence man, the little Norwegian fishing boat which had tried to help. The Resistance men who had done their part with complete courage and self-sacrifice. Long before those fires abated, or the wrecked midget submarines were salvaged, there would be many people clinging together in their homes. Waiting in dread for the knock on the door. The black uniforms. The agony.

  And all the while Beaumont had stayed out of it.

  If he lived through the next few days, Drummond was determined of one thing. To discover the truth about Beaumont. Once and for all.

  “Both engines full ahead, sir. Course three-three-zero.”

  Hillier got to his feet and lurched slowly to the shattered screen. He said, “That was the best cup of tea I’ve ever had in my life.”

  The intercom intoned sharply, “Aircraft. Red one-one-oh. Angle of sight two-oh.”

  The guns were already swinging round, sniffing at the air.

  Drummond bit on his pipe, following the guns with his binoculars. There they were. Like little silver darts above the humps of land.

  “Barrage … commence!”

  The after guns fired first, joining with Ventnoras she opened fire at extreme range, the little brown puffs of smoke dispersing gently across the planes’ line of flight.

  Rankin said, “Six aircraft. 88’s by the look of ‘em.” He had left his switch down. “Well, here we go, my little ones! A doll for the pretty lady who hits the target!”

  Drummond looked down as Owles dragged his torn boot into place.

  “Thanks for the tea. Now go and get out of sight.”

  The rest was lost and forgotten as the other weapons rattled and cracked into life.

  Here they come.

  Drummond watched the leading aircraft, imagined the pilot between those twin gleaming arcs of his propellers. Like his companions, he would have been sleeping. Safe from the convoys, from the Russian front, from everything.

  Now he was up there, flying in deadly earnest.

  He thrust the pipe into his pocket and said, “So let’s see what you’re made of!”

  13

  That Bloody Hell

  WHEN they were level with the nearest line of hills, the aircraft swung in two separate arcs, three in each wing of the attack. Drummond watched them warily, noting the way that the leader of the nearest group was waggling his wings, gaining height, with the watery sunlight behind him.

  The barrage increased as Lomond and the rest joined. Crump … crump … crump. The sky was dirty with brown puffs of smoke. Rankin had been right. They were Junkers 88’s. Twinengined, and the largest of the German dive-bombers. He was picturing them in his mind as if studying the recognition diagram in the chart room. Two hundred and eighty-five miles an hour, and highly manoeuvrable.

  He held his breath as the leader he had been watching put his plane into a steep dive. Even above the roar of fans and the protests from the vibrating bridge structure he heard the rising whine of those engines. Only when the gunfire blotted out all other sound did the aircraft become less real, less hostile.

  He imagined the pilot, his whole being screwed in tight concentration on the destroyer which was leaping up into his sights.

  The Ventnor needed no additional warning, and was putting up everything she had, even light machine guns, which were making delicate threads of tracer across the German’s wafer outline.

  He saw the glint of metal as the bombs tumbled from the plane’s belly, shared the agonising wait until the waterspouts exploded in a ragged line, the end of which was almost alongside the heeling destroyer. He heard the last bang, the telltale clatter of steel as the splinters smashed through Ventnor’s hull plating.

  The bomber was already clawing out of her dive, pulling and circling away for her next attack. This time she would use her other bomb load beneath each wing. As it flashed across Warlock’s stern the dive-bomber opened fire with her machine guns. From its bulbous canopy to the extra gun which poked from its curved belly, the tracer rattled viciously, making dancing patterns across the water before clashing over the quarterdeck and beyond.

  Wingate yelled, “Here come our three!”

  The deck jerked violently as the other bombers screeched into the attack. Every gun was firing with barely a break, the empty shell cases clanging unheeded around the crews’ straddled legs, the automatic weapons cracking more sharply, scraping the inside of the mind as first one and then a second shadow swept right above the ship.

  “Hard a-starboard!”

  Drummond saw water rising to meet the onrushing ship, felt the body-blow of a bomb bursting close to the hull. More splinters, and somewhere a man screaming like an injured animal.

  “A hit! Got the sod!”

  The second bomber lifted on its tail, smoke funnelling out of its fuselage where it joined one of the wings. A flash, something black whirling into space, and then the plane fell apart, the pieces splashing in a diagonal trail and almost as far as Lomond.

  “Cease firing!”

  Drummond ignored the harsh shouts and concentrated on the pelorus sight above the gyro.

  “Starboard fifteen.”

  He heard the bombers’ engines growling in the distance. Gathering their strength. Licking wounds. “Midships. Steady.”

  He saw the gyro ticking into line again.

  “From Ventnor, sir. Still able to maintain full speed. ” A pause as the light blinked again through the smoke. “Your bird, I think. “

  Drummond smiled grimly as he turned to watch the progress of the smoke-screen. What with the great fog left by the blazing fuel tanks in the other fjord, and their own combined screen rolling away abeam, it was as if the destroyers were charging between two unfolding banks of black filth.

  He heard the shore battery firing from somewhere on the starboard quarter. He peered at his watch. Half an hour. It had seemed like seconds since they had increased speed to regain the open sea.

  “Two men wounded in the last attack, sir. ” Hillier looked haggard. “One badly.”

  Drummond
nodded, raising his glasses to seek out the bombers. What the hell would they do next? He thought of Hillier’s dull voice. The hurt. If he could remember correctly, it meant they had lost about ten killed, and nineteen wounded.

  He snapped, “Aircraft! Port bow!”

  This time the bombers were going to try a head-on attack on the other column of ships. More chance of being hit by shellfire from the heavily armed destroyers, but a better opportunity to straddle one, if riot more, of them.

  Lomond was already zigzagging violently, her after part hidden in a great white bank of spray and wash. Her guns made bright pin-pricks of light against the billowing smoke, and astern the rest of the ships were cutting the sky apart with closely knit tracer and shellbursts.

  The leading aircraft side-stepped, recovered slightly, and then flopped helplessly on to the sea in a welter of smoke and spray.

  The second fared little better, pressing on with its attack, until a shell exploded directly in its path, blasting the nose to fragments and hurling the blazing carcass down after the first one.

  Drummond thought he saw a man fall kicking from the wrecked bomber before he, too, was flung into the water with the other fragments.

  “Whiplash has caught one, sir!”

  Drummond shifted his glasses, drawing in his stomach muscles as he watched the ship astern of Beaumont’s veering out of line, smoke belching from her main deck even as the spray stopped falling from that last bomb. Cromwell, her captain, was doing his best to avoid a collision with Victor, which had been following close in his wake.

  The signalman shouted, “Lomond’s calling up Victorto take ‘er in tow!”

  The bomb must have put Whiplash’s engine room out of action. It did not matter how temporary it was. So close to the land, it would be fatal if they could not get a tow aboard her.