Sixty Minutes for St George
Page 13
Grabbing for support, as she rolled… And now she was digging her bow deep into the sea and wriggling, shaking like an up-ended duck. One thought of those flooded compartments, of the way the sea would surge through them, the pressures… Nick moved up the side-rail of the bridge until he was level with Wyatt at the binnacle.
‘Captain, sir. Grant’s here, if you need him. He says all’s well below, but I’d like to go down and take a look.’
Wyatt had his glasses up. He didn’t lower them; he yelled, ‘Go on, then!’
‘I thought I’d go aft, too, and see how McAllister’s managing.’
‘Very good… We must be losing the devil of a lot of oil there, Number One.’
He hurried, falling over himself to get down there quickly, rushing past Gladwish and down to the lower level. Prior seemed surprised by the urgency with which he put the question.
‘Still dry, sir. I ’ad the pump runnin’ not five minutes ago, and there’s not a spoonful in there. I reckon she’ll ’old up now, sir.’
The sense of relief was enormous; but it didn’t last. There was a decision to be made now: to open up the magazine and try to shore it with such bits and pieces as were left to them, or keep the hatch shut tight and trust to providence.
Did one have any right to trust to anything except what one knew should be done? He asked Prior, ‘If we got all the shells and cordite out and ditched it, could you make the timber of the racks into shores?’
‘No, sir, I don’t think so.’ Prior shook his head. In the last couple of hours his stubble had developed into what was almost a beard; and while the first sprouting had seemed black, it had now turned out to be grey, to match his head. He said, ‘All short sections, ain’t it. An’ too light, sir, any road. If you was askin’ me, sir, I’d say leave well alone.’
The trouble was that with a fuel tank abaft it – No. 2 – if you didn’t shore the magazine you couldn’t shore at all. Nick felt the right way to go about this, the thorough way, would be to get down inside there and shore it up solid. Against that, however, was the fact they hadn’t any materials; they’d lined and strutted two whole bulkheads and there was hardly a stick of timber or a mess-stool left.
‘All right. We’ll leave it.’
‘I’ll watch ’er, sir.’
Fat lot of good watching it would do.
‘Don’t run the pump more than you have to.’ One wanted pressure in there, not a vacuum. He didn’t feel at all easy about it, as he went up the ladder to the killicks’ mess. Trew said cheerfully, ‘Feels better, sir. Weather easing, is it?’
Nick shook his head. ‘Just that we’re riding stern-to, for the moment.’ Men were sprawled about on the deck dozing, propped against bulkheads chatting, playing card-games. Unshaven, dirty-looking, a crowd of thugs… He felt his own jaw, heavily stubbled too, and he knew there was caked blood on his face from that collision he’d had, heaven knew how many hours ago, with the torpedo sight. He realized he must look as rough as any of them. Gladwish’s eyes were red-rimmed, probably from his long ordeal on the searchlight platform; he had the look of a mad dog, Nick thought. He said, ‘I sent three ’ands to the galley to knock up bully sandwiches an’ tea. We’ll let you ’ave some on the bridge, if you’re p’lite to us.’
‘How about aft, the wounded?’
‘Well, they got the wardroom galley!’
‘Not much in it for all that crowd.’ Nick shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t think so. I’ll let you know, anyway.’
He hoped they might be self-sufficient aft there, because it wouldn’t be easy to get food and drink to them, carrying it over a deck that was behaving as Mackerel’s was now, rising and falling thirty feet at a time and pitching, rolling while seas broke on it and over it, and only lifelines to hold on to. If your hands were full of mess-traps, what did you hang on with? With nerve – and the balance of a trapeze artiste, a tightrope walker. It was something to face even now, this trip aft; it was time someone visited the wounded, and the only way to get to them was over the top, running the gauntlet of the seas right aft as far as the superstructure where iron deck met quarterdeck. There was no way through the ship, since the two boiler-rooms and the engine-room were three individually watertight com-partments, divided by solid bulkheads without doors in them. For damage-control reasons, it had to be so; the compartments were so large, potential flooding area so great – from a torpedo hit, for instance, or ramming… From the screen-door by the galley Nick peered out into noisy, spray-lashed darkness. Holed, shot-battered funnels glistening to his left; the whaler’s davits empty and the paint charred away. His eye marked the positions of the ventilators, charting a clear route aft: clear if you could call it clear, over that sliding, tilting, heaving deck that was constantly being washed-down by breaking seas. But the sea helped, in one way: the phosphorescent effect of foam racing alongside and leaping and sliding along the whole cavorting length of her did to an extent outline the limits of the area through which one would have to pass. And by swirling round the obstructions it showed them up. The second funnel, he saw as he passed it, was almost untouched; the third, in steel tatters, made up for that, and a loose flap of it banging to and fro as the ship rolled rang like a great dinner-gong. He passed the tubes, which were trained fore-and-aft and seemed to be intact; a wave landed aft, crashing down around the mine-winch and the release gear, and water rushed for’ard knee-deep, but he was ready for it, in against the searchlight platform and holding tight to the rail that ran around it. The further aft one got, the greater was the pitch, the rise and fall, the dizzy roller-coaster swing of it. He stayed where he was until a new one poured down on her stern and spread in sheets and cataracts of foam: then he moved quickly, bent double against the wind and with the object of lowering his centre of gravity, crabbing his way across the space where the after tubes were normally, and heading for the lee of the quarterdeck superstructure. Just as he reached it, Mackerel’s stern was going down and on either side of her the sea was heaving, piling upwards: astern, too, it was hunching itself up menacingly as her bow angled skyward, and at any second now these piled tons of water would collapse across her afterpart, boil across her as much as six or ten feet deep. He finished a long, desperate slide down the wet slope of deck by crashing into the superstructure’s vertical steel side; then he was around its corner and into the screen-door like a rabbit going to ground. He heard it happening out there: like big guns at close quarters, and the steel structure shuddering, booming from the water’s impact: might this be the moment for the tin chicken-house to be flattened, flung overboard? A rush of invading sea burst through the screen-door just as he forced it shut. Knee-high: well, his boots had been full already, he’d have to empty them before he began the trip back for’ard. Full seaboots seemed to weigh half a ton. They’d shut the hatch-lid above the wardroom ladder, and secured it with one clip. The clips were operable from either side, of course; and he was glad they were having the sense to take precautions… He got down far enough on the ladder to reach up and pull it shut again above him. Then, at the bottom of the ladder, he found himself confronted by Warburton, the captain’s steward.
Warburton grinned at him.
‘Come for a spot o’ breakfast, sir?’
* * *
McAllister had transformed the wardroom precincts into a sickbay and operating theatre. One that swung, rocked, slanted, soared and swooped, while the sea’s crashing hammer-blows boomed and pounded at it. But the conscious wounded seemed in surprisingly good spirits, and McAllister seemed to be on top of things and to have their confidence. They had everything they needed. Nick had drunk a mug of cocoa while he chatted to them, and now he was back on the bridge, reporting to Wyatt.
‘Nineteen seriously wounded, sir. Three have died since the action – Nye, Woolland, Keightley. The GM’s a doubtful case, but McAllister’s happy about all the others.’
Pym, back on the bridge now, asked how was Bellamy, the coxswain.
‘He’ll be all right.’
‘Then I’ll be puttin’ in for a draft chit too, sir.’
Nick, looking down at the stubbly, weather-beaten face, shook his head. ‘Better you stayed, cox’n. We can’t all leave her at once. I’d hang on, if I were you.’
There would have, in any case, to be a ship to leave: she had to be kept afloat, and got home. It really did seem premature, trivial, to natter about draft chits. The magazine and shell-room was like a needle in his brain, a ticking bomb under all their feet, a bomb he could have de-fused and hadn’t. He heard Wyatt call to Pym, ‘I believe it’s getting lighter, pilot!’
Wyatt was sweeping the sea ahead with his binoculars; and Nick thought he was right. In the east, on Mackerel’s starboard bow, there was a suggestion of greyness, a faint gleam like polish on the surface of the sea. The sea itself might be down a little, too… No. Studying it, he realized it was only that there was less broken water now. And working it out – from a year’s experience as a navigator in the Patrol – well, about ten o’clock last night when they’d laid their mines it had been near enough low water; so for the last five or six hours there’d have been a south-running stream: and a southerly tide competing with a wind out of the south-west was a combination that invariably kicked up a breaking sea. Now, it would be roughly high water, so the tide would be north-running – for about four hours.
It made things look quieter, that was all. It didn’t reduce the wind’s strength or the size of the seas or Mackerel’s motion in them.
They’d had Mr Gladwish’s tea and sandwiches up here. It had made everyone feel less exhausted, for the moment… Grant squawked suddenly, excitedly, ‘Ship forty degrees on the starboard bow, sir!’
‘Porter!’
Porter didn’t answer. Only wind, sea, ship-noises… Porter couldn’t have answered; not unless he was in those sounds. Porter had died, here on this bridge, last night. Nick prompted,
‘Reeves—’
‘Signalman!’
Wyatt had realized his blunder. But Reeves was already doing his job, and the signal-lamp was stuttering, piercing the gloom and illuminating the wrecked bridge with its staccato burst of flashes. It was the challenge he was sending, aiming his lamp out on the bearing Grant had named; Wyatt shouted, ‘What should the reply be?’
‘Baker Charlie, sir!’
That was what came back to them: by searchlight probing from the eastward.
‘Ship’s friendly, sir!’
Just as well, Nick thought. Mackerel was hardly in a state to cope with anything unfriendly. Reeves was flashing her identity to the newcomer: and he’d got an answer from her… ‘It’s Moloch, sir!’ The searchlight began to call again: he gave it the go-ahead with his lamp, and then called the message out word by word, although everyone on the bridge read it at the same time for themselves: Good morning. Happy Christmas. Shall we wait for daylight before we pass the tow?
Chapter 8
A final volley of rifle-fire crackled into the grey sky roofing Dover. Nick, standing to attention with half the ship’s company behind him and the rest facing him behind Wyatt, was aware that the last of the coffins, draped in its Union flag, was being lowered into the chalky soil, and that Wyatt was staring at it – stern, granite-faced. Enjoying, Nick wondered, this parade? Would he feel gratified by the big turnout of townspeople who’d watched the slow march through the streets and then trailed along behind?
The Last Post’s bitter-sweet, lonely wailing had begun. Its notes soared, floated in cold December air, and Nick, looking up at the castle with its flag fluttering at half-mast, thought of Cockcroft, and of Swan; of Swan particularly, who’d been sacrificed to nothing but one man’s obstinacy.
One should try, perhaps, not to entertain such thoughts? Shouldn’t one simply grieve and glory over the passing of brave men? Accept the praise, honour, acclamation?
There’d been a lot of it. Cheers, to start with; then signals, telegrams and headlines. After the recent enemy successes in the straits it had come as a timely victory. Out of four Ger-man raiders, two had been sunk and one sent home badly damaged. This time, there’d been no German broadcast. And Wyatt, of course, was the nation’s hero.
A crowd many yards deep encircled the naval funeral party. Children craned their necks for a better view. Women wept: men stood with bowed heads, with black arm-bands on their sleeves. Nick stared at his commanding officer across the damp strip of turf: he saw him looking down his pistol’s sights, chuckling with delight; offering him, Nick, the pistol… Urging him to take it: ‘I’ve had my fun!’ Grant stuttered, ‘CPO Swan, sir, he’s—’
Swan was still inside the flooded bow, unless the sea had extricated him. Mackerel would be going in tow to the London dockyards for repairs. Tomorrow, probably: there was a need of calm weather for the tow, and the forecast was hopeful.
They’d buried twenty men. The twentieth, Clover the gunner’s mate, had died of his stomach wound during the transfer from Mackerel to the hospital yacht.
Nick had an appointment ashore, this afternoon, and before that he had to see Wyatt. He dreaded it: routine contact with him was irksome enough, and the idea of a tête-à-tête was anathema. Formal correctness was one thing: to show personal politeness very much another: and knowing one had to hold one’s tongue… He’d felt like an accessory, at first, and when the German prisoners had been marched ashore – a crowd of men on the jetty staring at them in frigid, hostile silence – he’d taken care to be out of the way, not to have to meet any of their eyes. Facing them, he’d have felt like Wyatt, as if he were a form of Wyatt: and he’d have seen it in their eyes, the dark figures struggling up against the flames of their own ship burning, spurts of small-arms fire and a rush of cutlass-swinging sailors, while Wyatt roared ‘Shoot ’em! Drive ’em back where they belong!’
Into the sea, or the flames, he’d meant.
That German with his hands up: and the bark of Wyatt’s gun… But had he had his hands up, in the sense of surrendering?
When you thought too hard about a thing, you confused the recollection of it. Then you found yourself faced with a question you couldn’t answer positively, and suddenly what had been clear-cut wasn’t so any longer. Last night in Arrogant, the old depot ship, drinking whisky round a table with Tim Rogerson, Harry Underhill and Wally Bell, he’d put it to them as a theoretical problem, a sort of ‘what-would-you-do-if’ exercise; but that hadn’t fooled them. They’d glanced at each other quickly, understanding why he’d been quiet and thoughtful, gloomy, when he’d been supposed to be the guest of honour and chief celebrant. Bell, the former Law student, tried to change Nick’s perspective of the incident.
‘There’s no accepted method of surrender for a ship other than by hauling down her ensign. And at night that’s no use anyway, since no one sees it… But the Huns never actually did surrender their ship, did they?’
‘Oh, she was done for!’
‘Did they, though?’
‘No.’ And even ‘done for’, one or more Huns had still been shooting from their bridge or somewhere with a rifle.
Bell pontificated, ‘Nobody’s ever accepted the idea of individuals surrendering, at sea. If a ship sinks, or strikes her colours, you have survivors or prisoners – and that’s clear, beyond argument. But suppose at Jutland when Jellicoe was lambasting some German dreadnought, if a couple of Huns on its signal-bridge had semaphored ‘Kamerad!’? D’you think the Grand Fleet would’ve ceased fire?’
Nick interrupted the other two’s amusement. ‘I’m talking about a man with his hands up and another with a pistol; not Jutland, or —’
‘Sure he had his hands up?’
‘Yes, of course I’m sure!’
‘Like this?’ Wall
y Bell had raised his hands in the ‘Kamerad’ position: ‘or like this?’ Hands forward: hauling himself aboard, or warding off attack, or reaching at someone… Wally added, ‘You were looking down at an angle, so – ’
‘He was scared stiff. He had his mouth wide open, screaming or —’
‘Or shouting ‘Charge!’… Which way were his hands out, did you say?’ He only gave Nick a moment to find an answer; then he banged the table, making empty glasses jump, ‘Can’t be certain, can you. And that’s hardly surprising – considering the distance from bridge-rail to stem-head, and the angle, and flames and smoke and the fact you weren’t ever exactly an admirer of the man we’re talking about – or – ’ he glanced round, lowering his voice – ‘or not talking about… Tim, Harry, what d’you say?’
Rogerson shook his head. ‘You couldn’t tell. And you’re right – in a mix-up like that, a few men shouting ‘I give in’ doesn’t stop the action.’
‘Harry?’
Bell was asking Underhill for comment. The CMB man turned his deepset eyes on Nick. He growled, ‘They shouldn’t ’ve been there in the first place… Raiding – raiding the drifters on the minefield? A drifter’s almost helpless – well, it is, it’s a sitting duck to a destroyer, less use even than that clumsy thing Wally drives… Well – what’d those Huns ’ve done if they’d got through to the drifter patrols? Filled the lads’ Christmas stockings? If a drifter skipper shouted ‘I surrender’ and waved both hands at ’em – not that you could imagine any such thing – what d’you think, a Hun destroyer captain ’d cease fire?’
It was puzzling, and confusing. They were talking a certain kind of sense, and they were honest, decent men, his friends. Bell told him, while Tim Rogerson was calling to the steward for another round of drinks, ‘We’re on your side, Nick. Telling you not to be a mug!’
Admiral Bacon had issued a Press announcement about some action a year or so ago, and he’d included in it a statement that ‘fortunately’ many German sailors’ lives had been saved. That word ‘fortunately’ had let him in for a barrage of newspaper criticism, and his mail for days afterwards had been full of vituperative letters from the public. The Germans were ‘baby-killers’ – because bombardments of East Coast towns, and Zeppelin bombs, had killed some children; and they’d sunk the Lusitania, torpedoed hospital ships. It was true, they had; hospital ships sailed unmarked now, for their own safety. And yet not long ago a German aeroplane had swooped low over the RNAS aerodrome at Dunkirk and dropped a parcel; it had contained the personal effects of a naval pilot whom they’d shot down, and a piece of ribbon from the German wreath on his grave, and a photograph of the guard of honour firing a salute over it at the military funeral they’d given him.