Wyatt said suddenly, ‘There he goes.’ He meant Moloch, turning hard a-starboard. Grant squawked in the copper tube, ‘Should turn now, sir!’
The leading French destroyer was under helm. And now the second one… Just after 9.50: a few minutes ahead of schedule. Wyatt ordered, ‘Port fifteen. Stand by to lay mines.’
‘Port fifteen, sir!’
'Stand by aft!’
‘Stand by!’ Gladwish in one shout acknowledged the order and passed it to his minions. Even more faintly up the voicepipe came CPO Hobson’s ‘Ready, sir!’ to Gladwish.
‘Midships.’
Musician had steadied on the laying course, due west. The flotilla was now less than three miles off a coast bristling with Germans and heavy guns.
‘Meet her!’
‘Meet her, sir!’ Wheel flying round… Wyatt shouted, ‘Steady! Start laying!’
‘Go!’
A bellow from Gladwish: a clanking sound echoing in the voicepipe: then Gladwish counted the first one as it went off the chute: ‘One!’
Craning out over the bridge rail, looking aft, Nick saw the splash expanding in a white circle from the wake, and then the mine itself bobbing astern like some great toy before the sinker took charge of it, dragged it down to its set depth, which would allow for the rise and fall of tide. It was just about low water now: it had been half-tide when they’d groped their way past Dunkirk. Each time a mine dropped off the chutes Mr Gladwish called its number: ‘Five… six… seven…’
Bellamy said, ‘Steady, sir, course west.’
Gladwish’s voice up the tube: ‘Eleven… twelve… thirteen…’ Lucky number: time for one of the rollers to jam in the rails, or the winch to break down, a wire to snap… ‘eighteen… nineteen… twenty, sir!’
‘Port fifteen!’
Bellamy’s growl acknowledged it as he flung the wheel around. Gladwish’s team continued sending mines over as the destroyer began her turn to starboard. ‘Twenty-one…’
‘Midships!’
‘Midships, sir.’ And from that after voicepipe, ‘Twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…’
‘Meet her, cox’n, and steer north-west.’
‘Steer north-west, sir!’
‘Twenty-eight…’
‘Course nor’-west, sir.’
‘Very good. Wyatt was staring aft through his glasses, seeing the mines bob and sway away and vanish into the grim cover of the sea. Leading Signalman Porter, with the signal lamp resting in the crook of his left arm, was using binoculars one-handed to keep track of Musician, so he could aim his lamp accurately when the moment came. Wyatt asked gruffly, ‘Ready, Porter?’
‘Ready, sir’. Gladwish shouted, ‘Thirty-two!’ Eight to go. Less than a minute’s work Then what? Nick asked himself what he’d do, in Wyatt’s shoes. Chase that enemy flotilla? Or obey the orders, go to No.8 buoy and wait for the other four to rendezvous there when they’d finished turning this strip of sea into a new death trap… He knew what he’d have done, all right. Now Gladwish’s final yell was triumphant: ‘Forty!’ Porter’s lamp clicked, emitting its bright-blue wink: Musician would have seen it and by this time her first mine would be trundling off its chute. Wyatt roared into the engine-room voicepipe, ‘Seven-five-oh revolutions! I want all we’ve got now, Chief, full power!’
Full power…
Going hunting!
* * *
Racing north-westward, wind and sea on her port bow, Mackerel plunged and rolled and shook, the high whine of her turbines and the throaty roar of ventilators competing with the sounds of weather. On the bridge you had to scream if you wanted to be heard, pitching the voice high to cut across the cacophony of steel and sea and engines and the howl of wind, wind mostly of the ship’s own making as she tore into it through the dark. Seas burst crashing against her bow, flinging spray that lashed like hail across the forefront of the bridge, ringing on the thin steel plating and drumming on the canvas splinter-mattresses; the spray streamed overhead, slashed at icy, numbed hands and faces, more like chips of ice than wind-driven water. Wyatt yelled into the funnel-shaped opening of the engine-room voicepipe, ‘Seven hundred revolutions!’ Reckoning that if they were going to cut off those Germans at all they’d be within a few miles of them by now, and that glowing funnel-tops wouldn’t help Mackerel to get in close: even Germans as blind as that lot must have eyes for flames coming at them out of the night. Wyatt had shouted, a minute ago, ‘They can’t see, so perhaps they can’t fight, either!’ Guns’ and tubes’ crews were standing by: there was a chance, no more than that, and if it came they weren’t going to miss it. Not a bad chance, more than the usual needle in a haystack; the enemy ships had been steering a northerly course and it was virtually certain they’d turn westward at some point, that by now they would have turned; and they’d been doing roughly fifteen knots. Mackerel was thundering north-westward at twice that speed, cutting the corner; if it had been daylight she could have expected to run into them, she’d have had a lookout up on the searchlight platform to expand her range of vision and she’d have quite likely had them in sight by now: by now, Nick thought, knowing they could at this moment be a mile away, no more than a couple of thousand yards and still invisible. There wasn’t time to think about the odds of four to one, or of having only two guns and one pair of tubes. If it did cross one’s mind one could also think of the four other ships, two British and two French, just a few miles to the south’ard there; if Mackerel managed to bring the enemy to action, gunflashes would very soon bring up reinforcements. But that was something to consider later, if at all: one thing mattered, one thing was to be prayed for, and that was to find those four—
They found Mackerel…
An explosion of light: a searchlight: its beam burst in their faces. A great bayonet of light, bomb-like in its suddenness, blinding, mind-stabbing. Guns firing ahead, scarlet spurts in an arc across the bow, funnelling-in on the blinded ship as she rushed towards them.
‘Hit that bloody light!’
Wyatt’s bellow: men blinded, shielding their eyes. Nick was already telling Clover over the navyphone, ‘Target that searchlight, rapid independent, commence!’ It must have been three, four seconds since the light had first stabbed at them and transfixed them. Wyatt roared, ‘Open fire, Number One!’ The foc’sl gun fired before he’d finished the sentence, and Mackerel was already being hit repeatedly by the broadsides of the four Germans as they raced westward across her bow. All she could do for the moment was take punishment and use her one gun that could bear. Shellbursts flamed: the reek of cordite swept over and away in the wind: there was a shoot of livid flame on the port side for’ard and a clang as another hit skipped off the foc’sl and ricocheted away without exploding, You could hear shrapnel tearing into the splinter mattresses, battering the superstructure: another crash for’ard, and Nick saw the great spray of the explosion, orange and yellow with expanding points like shooting stars – that one had burst near the capstan, on the centreline. Wyatt was shouting above the din of gunfire and bursting shells and the roar of wind and sea, ‘Tubes stand by starboard – I’m turning to port, Number One!’
‘Aye aye, sir!’ He got on the line to the torpedo gunner. ‘We’re altering to port. Train tubes starboard and stand by!’
Shells scrunched overhead: Mackerel bow-on was a small target, and more were missing than hitting. Then a section of one funnel flared orange, burnt crackling for a moment until the paint had scorched off it, died to a glow of red-hot, wind-fanned metal. Nick had Cockcroft on the gun-control navyphone; he told him, ‘We’ll be turning to port now and your gun will bear. Rapid independent and pick your own targets, right?’ He heard the foc’sl four-inch bang off about its eighth or ninth shot, and at the same moment a tearing crash just below the bridge to port told of another hit. Stink of burning: the back of the bridge seemed to be all flames. Racket tremendous, deafening, shots and explosions and other noise merging into one continuous roar of sound; on the port bow, flames sprang up, da
nced long enough to silhouette black figures of German sailors rushing aft along a destroyer’s deck. Glover’s gun was scoring, then. Nick yelled even louder into the navyphone, ‘Sub, are you there, d’you understand?’ Cockcroft said yes, he was and he did; he didn’t sound as if he was shouting, just chatting rather more loudly than usual; Nick heard cheering, and that torturing light went out, as abruptly as if someone had pulled a fuse. The for’ard gun had hit the searchlight: he found himself waiting for another to take its place. Cockcroft added, ‘Couple of chaps ’ve been hit by splinters, here.’ Nick heard Wyatt shout to Bellamy, ‘Hard a-starboard, cox’n!’ He told Cockcroft, ‘Helm’s going over now.’ He banged the ’phone down on its hook and half slid across an already tilting deck to the starboard torpedo sight. The searchlight beam and most of the gunfire had been coming from clear out on the port bow in the last – oh, minutes, seconds, you couldn’t reckon time once all this started – so it would probably be the tail-end ships they’d fire their fish at. He lined his binoculars up with the pointers of the sight as Mackerel tightened her turn to port; the night was all flying, whistling, scrunching shells and blossoms of flame, thuds and crashes as shells burst and the sharper snapping crashes of Mackerel’s own guns firing: Cockcroft’s was in it now, and getting hits. Nick had the torpedo sight set – giving the enemy twenty knots and a course of west. It was a matter of waiting for the turn, for the ship to get round through ninety degrees and the aiming pointers to come on their target, and the hope was that the torpedo would streak out and find a meeting-point with the enemy destroyer. The third in the line of four, he was going for. All she’d have to do, to meet the torpedo which he’d be sending out ahead of her, was continue at her present course and speed. And now most conveniently one of Mackerel’s guns scored a hit on that German’s stern and started a blaze going… But they were pumping shells over this way fast as Mackerel swung and exposed her length to them; there’d been a number of hits aft and there was at least one fire burning. Nick shut his mind to it: all that mattered was to get the torpedo on its way. You had to ignore distractions, concentrate on the fighting and cope later with the damage. There’d be plenty, he knew. An explosion just behind and above him threw him forward against the sight, and he thought he’d cut his face open: no time for any-thing but Mackerel swinging and not far to go now, no need for binoculars with the target lit up by her fires: the first one had taken hold and spread. He watched her along the pointers of the torpedo sight while Mackerel leaned hard over under helm and the sea crashed against her bow: both guns firing rapidly, using the enemy’s blazing stern as an aiming point. Mackerel herself still being punished. Men would be dying back there where the Germans’ shells were bursting, and more would be killed and maimed before they got that fish away and turned back out of this storm of high explosive. He was pleading through clenched teeth, Come on, come on! He heard Wyatt’s shout to the cox’n, ‘Midships!’ and crouched intently behind the sight, narrowing his eyes against the gun- and shell-flashes; he knew that the after end of the bridge was wrecked and that there’d be frightful damage as well as loss of life and more surgical work than McAllister would be competent to handle; but both guns still fired and the sight came up passing the rearmost enemy: range what, three cables? – and touching now the stern of the target ship, moving on tip – flames almost covering her, now – where Mackerel’s shells were driving in and bursting. He called Gladwish with the navyphone in his left hand, ‘Stand by!’ Then the sight touched the German’s for’ard funnel, which was part of the black mass of his bridge; in the second after he’d yelled ‘Fire!’ he realized that she was slowing and that the fourth ship was closing up on her quite fast. So the torpedo would miss: he’d had the sight set for an enemy speed of twenty, and she wasn’t doing twelve now. A shell burst in the side of the bridge just below him: a white sheet of flame shot up vertically, with a thrust and roar of heat that pushed him back and scorched the skin of his face, momentarily blinding him. There was a smell like shoeing horses, and it was his own hair or eyebrows singeing off, but he was at the sight again hearing Wyatt ordering ‘Port fifteen!’ Somewhere in very recent memory Gladwish had reported ‘Torpedo fired…’ Mackerel was swinging back northwards again; it had all been for nothing, for one torpedo that would run out its range and then sink. Another hit close by sent the same whitish-yellow flashing upwards, scorching heat and blast. Slightly aft, to his right; he glanced that way half expecting to see Wyatt dead, the steering gone; but Wyatt was there, rock-like, silhouetted against the fires in the ship’s waist and afterpart, and Bellamy sang out in his calm but strident, noise-beating tone, ‘Fifteen o’ port wheel on, sir…’
Turning for what, Nick wondered – to reduce their size as a target for the Hun gunners, or to pass under the last German’s stern? There’d been two hits for’ard and now three enemy ships were on the port bow as Mackerel swung her stern past them; they were continuing westward while their guns still fired on the after bearing, over their port quarters. The other, the fourth of the line – no, the third, those two had changed places – the destroyer that was on fire was almost right ahead, just fine on the starboard bow; Wyatt yelled at Bellamy, ‘Midships, and meet her!’ Nick saw it suddenly: he was going to ram… The foc’sl four-inch was still banging away fast at the already hard-hit enemy, while Cockcroft’s gun amidships was lobbing shells after the other three; Nick, wondering if they were getting any hits, had just raised his glasses for a look when the nearest of them – the ship that had originally been number four – blew up in a great gush of flame.
Mackerel’s torpedo had missed one, hit another. Wyatt shouted, ‘Every shot a coconut! Well done, Number One!’ Guns’ crews were cheering. Orange flame edged and patterned with black, oily smoke lit the night: the German had been struck abaft the bridge and almost certainly in a fuel tank. She was a torch – no, two torches, two burning halves drifting apart. A roaring sound ripped across the sea: then the sound died with the flames as both halves sank and the water snuffed out everything except oil floating on its surface. Wyatt bawled, ‘Stand by to ram!’
The for’ard gun was still banging away and hitting the burning enemy ahead, but it wasn’t deterring him from shooting back. But Mackerel had some advantage: she was a narrow, bow-on shape, and the German was broadside-on and already much worse hit. One cable’s length away now, or even less. Nick leant over the front of the bridge and shouted to the gun’s crew, ‘Stand by to ram! Lie flat and hold on!’ A shellburst drove him back, and at that moment he thought he’d seen Clover, the GM fall. Mackerel was lurching, plunging forward, Bellamy handling the wheel with strength as well as skill, holding her against the thrust of wind and sea, grinning slit-eyed into the wind, his weight to the left to keep weather helm on her and Wyatt shouting in his ear, ‘Make sure of it, now, cox’n!’ Nick called Cockcroft – the after gun had ceased fire, lacking any target it could bear on – and told him, ‘Stand by to ram – pass the word to hold on!’ It was the last thing Cockcroft would ever hear from him. The German destroyer lay right ahead, lit by her own fires and with men running for’ard along her upper deck and two guns still firing. She was trying to turn away to starboard but she’d begun the attempt too late: Mackerel was rushing at her – a black, battered, flaming missile tearing across broken sea. Just before she struck she seemed to launch herself upward – as if the ship knew what she was doing and wanted to do the job as effectively as possible; then her stern with its underwater ram smashed like an axe-head into the German’s side.
* * *
As if the world had been jolted off its bearings and stopped dead, and the sky had fallen in, blackness smothering, crushing, and light then springing through the wreckage, yellow leaping light of flames from the burning German with the British ship embedded in her. Some time had passed: moments, or a minute? Moments, probably. He heard, as he scrambled up, Wyatt shouting down to them to stop both engines. Shouts, screaming, and shots – small-arms – and suddenly the crash of the foc’sl
four-inch: it had fired at maximum depression but its shell had passed over the German without touching him: he was ridden-down, still going over, under Mackerel’s forefoot. Rifle or revolver shots, and something whirred past very close. Looking for its source, Nick saw the flash of another shot, from the German’s bridge: then Wyatt had lurched up against him at the front rail, and he was shouting to the gun’s crew below them, ‘Cutlasses! Cutlasses and bayonets, you men down there! Repel boarders, damn you, don’t stand and watch ’em!’ He’d swung round: ‘Bosun’s Mate!’ The German destroyer was right over, practically on her beam ends and nearly cut in two; men were trying to scramble from her port side to Mackerel’s foc’sl. Boarders? Nick looked back over his shoulder for the bosun’s mate, Biddulph; but there was no back to the bridge, only a tangle of twisted steel, torn plating, the mainmast’s paint smouldering and the foremost funnel riddled, shot through like a colander, hardly enough of it left to hold up; in the remains of the bridge’s afterpart Nick saw a foot in a boot with some shinbone sticking out of it, and what might have been the same man’s (or another’s) shoulder, and a pulpy mess in a Balaclava helmet dangling from something impaled on ribbons of black metal. Biddulph wouldn’t be piping ‘Hands to repel boarders‘, or anything else. And Porter, the leading signalman: he’d been at the rear of the bridge, and so must Hatcher have been: they too must be part of that horror-fantasy. Wyatt, leaning over the front of the bridge, was shouting ‘Stop them! Stop them!’ He was sighting down the barrel of a pistol. Nick saw the coxswain, Bellamy, with his right hand on the wheel still but his left round Pym’s shoulders; his face was all blood and you could see the bone of his skull. Pym looked dazed. Wyatt roared. ‘At them! Shoot ’em! Drive ’em back where they belong!’ Nick looked down there, saw a group of Germans and some of Mackerel’s men rushing at them, and another German sailor coming over the side, climbing over laboriously with his mouth wide open, either screaming something continuously or his face distorted like that by fear: he was right up now, beside the clump cathead, with his hands up; Wyatt took aim, and shot him. Nick saw the man collapse and fall backwards into his own ship’s flames. Wyatt was chuckling as he pointed the revolver at some other German, and bellowing encouragement to the men down there to clear the ship of boarders. Nick heard him shout, ‘That’s the way, young Grant! At ’em, seek ’em out, go at ’em!’ Grant, that kid? Wyatt had fired again; he shouted, ‘You would, would you, you damned Hun!’ He turned to Nick, grinning happily: ‘Here, Number One, want a shot?’ Offering him the revolver. Nick didn’t want it: Wyatt insisted, ‘Here, take it, I’ve had my fun!’ Nick, looking down at the mêlée on the foc’sl, saw that the bow seemed to have been forced upwards, out of line: there’d be plates strained and buckled and quite likely underwater damage. He opened his hand, let the revolver drop, turned to see Pym easing Bellamy down on to the deck with his back against the binnacle; Wyatt shouted, ‘Pilot, get the Leading Tel up here, and a position from young Grant.’ Then he remembered that Grant wasn’t in the chartroom, and corrected, ‘No – go down and work out a position, and have Wolstenholme send this:
Sixty Minutes for St George Page 9
