‘Rubbish, man! Just watch what you’re doing!’
‘Aye aye, sir!’
Then the bulkhead went.
Chapter 7
It went with a thump, heavy like a big gun firing, and a jolt that shuddered through the fabric of the ship. For about a second as he cannoned into Wyatt, Nick thought Mackerel had struck a sandbank. Then he realized.
Wyatt had been flung against the binnacle. He’d recovered and he was yelling hoarsely into the voicepipe, ‘Stop both engines!’
Nick had a vision of the bursting bulkhead as he threw himself down the port-side ladder and a sea broke on him, round him – it was thunderous, shoulder-deep… He had to stop, cling to the side rails of the ladder, wondering if they’d hold and if his arms would; he couldn’t feel his hands, and the sea was over his head for a moment then dragging at him, like a live creature sucking at his body with its mouth, clawing tentacles of ice. Then the ship rolled hard to starboard, the sea let go of him and he was down, diving for the head of the next ladder, clambering down it, blind from cold and the sting of salt and the wind’s black cutting edge, but the impulse to get down there making all of this trivial and inconsequential. He found the screen-door and blundered in, slipping on wet, slimy corticene, hurrying for’ard while Mackerel flung herself sideways and shot up, up… Tilting, now, bow-down: a crowd of men surged round him.
‘We goin’ to stay afloat, sir?’
‘Of course. And by daylight there’ll be other ships standing by us.’ The words, the reassurance, came almost without thought as he pushed for’ard and the men let him through: he heard a cheer. Through the chiefs’ and petty officers’ messes, and the leading seamen’s: the bulkhead door ahead of him was shut and in the process of being shored, all the other shores were in place and wedges were being driven in to brace them harder. Mid-shipman Grant said desperately, ‘CPO Swan, sir – he’s – he took over in there and—’
Mackerel plunged, digging her stricken forepart into the sea and at the same time sliding to port, a sideways slither with a rapid accompanying roll to starboard. Doing circus tricks, now; the men on the shores were having to stop work, cling to anything nearby and solid for support: one was vomiting. Grant had stopped whatever he’d been saying because he’d been hurled sideways and lost his footing: an OD, Jarvie, was hauling him up again.
‘Chief Buffer was up the fore end, sir.’ Trew, Able Seaman, layer of the stern four-inch, jerked a thumb towards the bulkhead. Little Grant’s face was the colour of watered milk, it had that faintly blueish look; he gabbled, ‘He’d just come along and said I’d – “done my spell”, he said, he’d take a turn at it… I’d just got back here, literally just—’
‘All right, Mid, all right.’ Swan’s death was a tragedy in ordinary human terms; in more practical ones the loss of a highly experienced and able seaman and NCO was as great a blow. Swan was – had been – a linch-pin in the ship’s strength and capability; to cope now, without him, would be just that much more difficult. Nick was studying the shoring. ‘Looks solid enough here, Trew.’
‘So did the other, sir.’
Nick scowled at him. Mackerel was climbing up another sea-mountain. He said, ‘We’re hove-to, now. There’ll be much less pressure. Just keep your eyes on it; and if anything shifts or looks like shifting – well—’
Dropping: tilting over and rolling to starboard, like a barrel in a mill-race, and the thunder of big seas smashing down overhead. Trew nodded: ‘Aye aye, sir.’ He was a good hand, but unimaginative. Nick dropped down the ladder to the stokers’ deck. It was the same scene here: door shut and being shored, the other shores being strengthened. Stoker Petty Officer Prior was in charge.
‘You all right, Prior?’
‘Not like up top, sir. It begun there, so we got warnin’. I was up for’ard, in the store there, I ’eard ’er goin’ an’ I run like ’ell.’
‘Well done… Sure it is flooded, though, at this level?’
Prior rubbed his jaw. ‘Care to go in an’ see, sir?’
Men chuckled. Nick said, ‘You mean it is.’
‘It bloody chased me, sir!’ More laughter; he added, ‘She split right down.’
‘Magazine?’
Prior glanced down at the hatch, right at their feet with its clamps screwed down tight. He shook his head. ‘Don’t like to open up, sir, not really. But there’s the oil for’ard; I reckon that might sort of cushion it, sir, I mean the bulkhead, ’old it firm d’you think?’
‘Have you tried pumping?’
‘On the – magazine…’ Prior banged his forehead with a fist. ‘I’m goin’ stupid…’ Glancing round: ‘O’Leary! Where’s that Irish—’
‘Here, Spo…’
Nick left them to it, and went up again. To say he was glad he’d decided to shore this second bulkhead would have been to put it mildly. If he hadn’t, Mackerel would be on the seabed now, and most of these men would be dead. Perhaps they all would; not only because she’d have gone instantaneously as the sea burst through her, but because in water close to freezing point you couldn’t hope to stay alive for longer than a quick Lord’s Prayer.
He saw Grant, and considered sending him up to Wyatt with a report on the situation. But Wyatt might try to go ahead again, once he knew the flooding had been contained. Only a lunatic would try it; but Wyatt had, Nick thought, been showing signs of lunacy. He was obstinate, and basically – incredibly, for a comparatively young and well-thought-of destroyer captain – basically stupid. He’d want to prove his point: or something… And little Grant couldn’t argue with him. Besides which he, Nick, couldn’t stay down here, out of touch with what was going on; and it was as well that an officer of sorts should be here… He wondered what Gladwish was doing: he couldn’t surely be on the tubes still, with the upper deck almost continuously under water.
Prior heaved himself up the ladder, hung on to the top of it through a savage roll…
‘She’s dry, sir. The magazine and shellroom – dry as a bone!’
‘Thank God for small mercies… But now keep the hatch shut tight, eh?’
To have shifted the ammunition aft would make so little difference, now, in comparison with the hundreds of tons of water in the forepart of the ship, that it wouldn’t be worth the work involved. Whereas keeping that space battened-down would maintain it as a pocket of air-pressure against any thrust from the oil-fuel tank for’ard of it. And it had the support, aft, of the second fuel tank, the after end of which was the for’ard bulkhead of No. 1 boiler-room. You couldn’t shore that one, first because there was such a huge area of it and virtually no shoring materials left to work with, second because the for’ard pair of boilers were only about eighteen inches clear of it. There’d be no room either for shoring or for men to work there.
In other words, this bulkhead had to hold. If it didn’t Mackerel would go to the bottom.
Trew said, ‘Never knew a ship could roll so. Never…’ He was flattened against the destroyer’s port side, the curved steel of her hull, which for the moment had swapped places with the deck. Now she was whipping back the other way… Nick wondered whether it would be possible, by going slow astern on both screws, to hold her stern to the sea. It might be, he thought, if the rudder could hold her, if the force of the sea didn’t constantly drive her off. But the waves would break right on her, they’d pile clear over her low stern and crash down on to the quarterdeck and iron deck, and they’d leave nothing there, everything would be swept away or flattened: but the hell with that, if it kept her afloat, at least until some other ship was standing by… He was thinking, he realized, as if he was Mackerel’s captain rather than her first lieutenant. The decisions weren’t his to make. And it was high time now to be getting back up there and telling her real captain what had been happening down here.
‘Grant – I’m going up to the bridge. I’ll be back later, I expect.’
‘Right, sir.’
He looked round. Mackerel was standing on her stern end, wallowing
for a moment before the weight of the bow took charge and brought it crashing down like a great hammer… He told them, as that motion checked and she began to sway to port and rise again, ‘We’ll be all right now. We’ll have our Christmas in a day or two. We’ll have a devil of a good one to make up for all this, right?’
They cheered him, or the thought of Christmas. He was staring at the bulkhead. Swan was somewhere on the other side of it. Drowned. Washing to and fro.
* * *
Wyatt shouted, clutching the bridge rail with Nick beside him, ‘When did you shore the second bulkhead?’
‘Soon after the first, sir.’
After you’d said something about ‘making our best speed’…
He waited, but Wyatt had no further questions or comments, apparently. He’d already concurred with the proposal to try her stern-on to the sea with engines slow astern, or as slow astern as might do the trick; they were waiting for Mr Gladwish and his torpedo gunner’s mate to reach the bridge.
Wyatt leant sideways, to the wireless office voicepipe. Nick moved, to give him elbow room, but he made sure of not letting go. One slip, and a man could be over the rail and nobody’d even see him go: this bridge was something like a soaped saddle on a crazy horse. Wyatt shouted, ‘Pilot!’
‘Sir?’
‘Take down a signal—’
He’d lifted his head from the tube as Mackerel wallowed over almost on her beam-end: she was hanging there as if she hadn’t quite made up her mind whether to finish the whole thing off, go right over and be done with it. It was almost a surprise when she recovered and started to roll back. Wyatt dictated to Pym,
‘To Moloch, repeated usual authorities: I am hove-to and unable to proceed owing to extensive flooding forward. Request assistance at first light. Have twenty men wounded and both boats were destroyed earlier. Send that off, right away.’
‘Aye aye, sir!’
So now they’d know, Nick thought. It was as if Wyatt had only just begun to appreciate their predicament! Well, better late than never, and at the price of one life, Swan’s… He saw Gladwish arriving in the bridge, with the lanky shape of CPO Hobson behind him. They’d been on the searchlight platform all this time; so far as Gladwish was concerned, the ship was at action stations, and nobody had told him until now to leave his.
Wyatt shouted, ‘Hobson, you’re acting cox’n.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ A tall man, slow-moving and heavy-jawed, Hobson clawed his way in a bent position across the wet, gyrating bridge to take over the steering from McKechnie. At the moment, with the ship lying stopped, there was no steering to be done. Nick told McKechnie, ‘And you’re acting buffer. If anyone’s kind enough to offer us a tow, at daylight, you’ll have your work cut out.’
‘Aye, sir.’ The Glaswegian laughed as he fetched-up against the rail and clung to it. ‘Be a lark, getting’ a line out in this!’
He was right, Nick thought, it would be. But you could only deal with one situation at a time; and in any case someone would have to find them first – find them still afloat… He heard Wyatt calling down to the engine-room, ‘Is that you, Mr Watson?’
‘Aye, sir!’
‘I’m going to try her slow astern on both engines, Chief, and see if we can hold her stern to the weather.’
‘Ready when you are, sir!’
‘All right, then. Slow astern together!’
Leaning across Hobson, peering at the compass card… ‘Port fifteen, TI.’
‘Port fifteen, sir.’ The voicepipe squawked, ‘Both engines going slow astern, sir!’ Hobson said, ‘Fifteen o’ port wheel on, sir.’
It meant the rudder was angled fifteen degrees to starboard of the centre-line. As the ship had stern-way on, or would have at any moment, her bow should swing to port. Wyatt and Hobson both craned over the binnacle, watching the card and the lubber’s line.
‘She’s not answering, sir.’ The TIs voice was deep, gravelly, rather like Skipper Barrie’s. Wyatt called down the pipe to the engine-room, ‘Half astern port!’
‘Half astern port, sir!’
You could hear it now, the hum of the turbines through the louder but irregular buffeting of wind, the crash of seas… ‘Port engine half astern, sir, starboard slow astern!’
McKechnie, staggering sideways as the ship rolled, crashed into Reeves, the signalman… ‘Sorry, Bunts!’
‘She’s coming round, sir.’ Relief in Hobson’s tone. Mackerel wasn’t only turning, though, she was climbing, pointing her broken snout at the sky, Nick asked Reeves, ‘Still got your lamp?’ He had. Wyatt shouted at the TI, ‘I want her steadied on north-east, so her stern’s into the south-wester. Understand?’ Hobson checked the compass, and acknowledged, ‘Aye aye, sir, steady on north-east, sir…’ She was level-keeled for one long moment, balanced along a crest of white: then her bow was falling as she went into a long headlong rush ending in the fast, hard roll to starboard. She was halfway round now, with wind and sea driving at her starboard quarter; Wyatt told the engine-room, ‘Slow astern both engines!’
‘Slow astern both, sir!’
Hobson was still holding all the helm on, though… Nick proposed to Gladwish, ‘Like to pay them a visit down below, at the shared bulkhead?’ A sea came hurtling from astern, rose mountainous, black with white edging, white feathers streaming from it: it loomed higher as it caught the ship up, gathered size and weight, threatening anything that floated, anything in its way, then it crashed down, the size of a house, exploded where the stern gun would have been. Mackerel was floundering with her stern buried in black sea and leaping foam, and Nick was thinking of the men aft, the wounded in McAllister’s care in the wardroom and his own cabin and the captain’s; it wouldn’t take many seas like that one to smash the after superstructure and sweep it overboard, and then there’d be only the hatchway with its lid of not-so-heavy steel covering the top of the wardroom ladderway.
And if that went…
Gladwish yelled, ‘Won’t long be dry aft!’
It wasn’t dryness or wetness, mere discomfort, that Nick was thinking of. It was flooding, swamping. If Mackerel was going to get pooped like that every other minute – or several times a minute—
‘Say you want me down for’ard?’
Nick nodded, put his mouth closer to the gunner’s ear. ‘And you might send young Grant up for a breather. Tell him I want to hear from him how it’s going.’
‘Aye aye—’
‘Mind how you go!’
Gladwish growled as he moved to the ladder, scuttling crab-like across the tilting bridge, ‘Teach y’ grannie…’
It would help that both screws were at slow astern now. If she could be held like this, with the lowest possible revs, just enough so she’d answer her helm and lie stern-on… Wyatt was of the same mind, Nick realised thankfully; he’d just called down, as Hobson was easing his helm, ‘Stop starboard!’ The less resistance the ship offered to the sea, the less thrust of her own, the easier she’d ride, the fewer missiles like that last one would smash down on her stern… He heard CPO Hobson report, ‘Course north-east, sir!’
It would be surprising if just one screw would hold her. And thinking ahead – if they were taken in tow eventually, it would have to be stern-first: and then there’d be some seas pounding over that low counter.
He was thinking ahead too far, perhaps. The weather might have eased, by then… Nick delved through layers of wet protective clothing, found a handkerchief and used it to clean the lenses of his binoculars. Hobson was being hard-worked at the wheel, fighting hard with rudder first one way and then the other to hold her as she lay; the fact that she was down by the bows meant that her stern rode higher, was more exposed to wind and waves trying to push her round. Wyatt was watching the compass, his wet face glistening bluish as he leant over in its pale light. Now he was moving to the voicepipe.
‘Slow astern both engines!’
Nick began to study the bow through his binoculars. There was no visible change… Except that th
e water seemed calmer ahead. There was less of it breaking, less white showing than elsewhere; the calmer area seemed to be spreading out ahead of the ship, a broadening ‘V’ leading from her bow and fading outside the range of visibility.
The reason for it struck him suddenly. Oil – from the for’ard tank.
‘Looks as if we’re leaking oil, sir.’ He pointed. Wyatt put his glasses on it. Now he’d gone back to the engine-room voicepipe.
‘Chief – No. 1 fuel tank’s leaking to the sea. You’d better shut it off.’
Nick heard Watson tell him it was shut off, that he’d done it as a precaution some time ago. His tone wasn’t complacent, only reporting fact.
‘Very good, Chief.’
But it wasn’t good at all… It meant that, whether oil was leaking directly outboard or through the other flooded compartments in the bow, sea-pressure, wave-pressure, would be acting on the oil still inside the tank. So the bulkhead’s lower section, to the magazine and shellroom which it had not seemed possible – or necessary – to shore, had the same force on it now from for’ard as the higher, shored part had. Nick felt a sudden tightening in his gut as this truth hit him and he realised there was a weak point in the defences he’d established, a back door left unguarded. The ammunition space had been dry when they’d put the pump to work, and he’d thought no more about it; now it might be flooded, or even if it wasn’t it could become so at any moment – and it was on the wrong side of the shared bulkhead. The next break could be upwards into the stokers’ accommodation space – where not one but twenty men would be trapped – or aft to No. 2 oil-fuel and the boiler-room…
‘Number One, sir?’
Grant’s pale face peered up at him.
‘All right, Mid?’
‘Yessir. Shores are all holding, and there don’t seem to be any problems.’
‘Has Petty Officer Prior been watching the magazine?’
‘Not particularly that I know of—’
Sixty Minutes for St George Page 12
