J. E. MacDonnell - 021

by The Coxswain(lit)

  "They're from Pelican," he stated, more to himself than Randall. "What are you doing about it?"

  "I've sent below to rout `em out," Randall answered.

  Bentley nodded and turned back to the binnacle. He thought of increasing speed, but that might serve to make their wake more plainly visible. He was listening to the radar reports coming in, and outwardly he was his normal, briskly competent self.

  But he was really thinking of the pom-pom, not even yet fully manned. If those fighters came in, and if they got through the barrage of the big guns, then the multiple-barrelled pom-pom was the ship's main protection. It fired a total of something like 500 explosive rounds a minute from its four barrels, but to maintain that rate of fire, especially when under menacing attack, it had to be completely manned with loading numbers.

  "Pom-pom crew closed-up, sir," Randall reported quietly.

  "Where were they?"

  "In their hammocks."

  "What!" The connotation of hammocks, sleeping, and the rest of the ship closed-up, with two enemy aircraft about to dive on her, shocked Bentley. His lips drew down at the corners and his face was tight.

  "See to it afterwards," he ordered Randall.

  "Aye, aye, sir!" the big lieutenant promised grimly.

  The director-phone buzzed and Mr. Lasenby reported:

  "They've sighted us. Peeling off now."

  "All right, Guns. Usual procedure." And to Rennie: "Full ahead both engines! I'll be swinging quite a lot, `Swain."

  He had his pom-pom. His voice was controlled, assured.

  "Standing-by, sir," Rennie answered confidently.

  Bentley had his pom-pom. But it might as well have been mounted down in the gunner's store.

  The two aircraft got safely through Lasenby's barrage, due partly to their speed and more to the dim target they presented in the bad light. Bentley swung the ship to throw them off and the pom-pom opened fire.

  The four lines of tracer reached out efficiently enough, and the shells elevated and were about to bite into the leading fighter when both aircraft rocketed overhead in a bellow of sound. That was all right. Next time the pom-pom layer should have them nicely.

  But the Jap pilots didn't play the same way twice. On the second run they came in low above the lightening sea. They were plainly visible now, but the big guns could not fire nearly as fast - their barrels were almost horizontal, and the breeches had to be brought down to the loading level after each broadside.

  Even so, Lasenby had his guns beautifully laid. They got through the long barrage, but the short-range wall of bursting shells took the leader. It was very quick. He was only a few feet above the sea, spearing in at better than 400 knots, and when the shells fired his engine his nose dipped and he went straight in. The second fighter came on.

  She had her oerlikons, but they were much lighter than the pompom and they were single-barrelled. Every man watching knew that it would be between the fighter's four cannon and the pom-pom armaments that were almost exactly equal in firepower.

  Aircraft and pom-pom exchanged fire and a lacework of tracer glowed between them. Both pilot and layer were, momentarily, aiming low. The ship's shells fled beneath the fighter and the cannons' messengers lashed the water off her side into abrupt white.

  The plane's nose came up a fraction and her shells followed. The pom-pom's tracer also elevated. Bentley watched, one part of his brain waiting to give the course-alteration order, the other fascinated by the intimate duel.

  He saw a single red explosion on the leading edge of one wing and he waited for the destruction to be completed. The pom-pom ceased firing.

  He noticed it at once because the hammering crash of the cannon-shells bursting on the upper-deck was a sound quite distinct from the pom-pom's rattling cough. "Hard-a-starb'd!" he roared, "get it on, man!" She was built to turn fast and her life depended on this turn. Her skin was thin to give her speed and behind that outer layer waited the boilers, straining to hold their contents of super-heated steam. They could hold it all right-provided there were no sharp-pointed explosive shells hammering to get in.

  On the quarterdeck, in the open, lay thirty depth-charges, each dark-grey cylinder packed with 300 lbs. of amatol.

  Fast as she was, it was the after oerlikon which saved them. Smaller than the pom-pom's the shells stitched out and needled into the fighter's fuselage behind the cockpit. The pilot felt their shaking arrival and swung his machine violently. With a supercharged snarl, red-balled wings canted, the plane skated past the careering stern and headed back towards the islands.

  On the bridge Bentley watched it go, his lips beneath the glasses a tight line. Before the machine dwindled too far he saw a ragged strip reaching back along the fuselage where the oerlikon had sheathed its claws.

  "I think he's had enough," he muttered to Randall.

  "He might have friends."

  "He might. We'll alter course to north. If they come out after us they should patrol to the east. Keep her at thirty knots."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  An hour later they had gained 30 miles and the sky was still guiltless of threat. The ship was still closed-up at action-stations. Randall came up the ladder from his visit to the pom-pom mounting. His face was hard.

  "Well?" Bentley looked at him.

  "Faulty loading," Randall growled. "That new man Pascoe."

  Bentley walked from the binnacle to his long-legged stool in the starb'd forrard corner. The lieutenant followed.

  "Why were they put on the pom-pom?" Bentley snapped.

  "Two reasons. The pom-pom crew was down two men, and the chief-gunner's mate tells me both Pascoe and Hawkins claimed they were on Pelican's pom-pom."

  "You've seen them? As defaulters?"

  "Not yet. The cox'n's still on the wheel. But I will!"

  Bentley looked out over the racing bow. It was a long time since he had felt so bitter. In their hammocks after the alarm had sounded, responsible for the pom-pom's misfiring

  "What was their excuse for being adrift on the gun?"

  "The old one. Didn't hear the pipe. When someone shook them they thought it was the normal closing-up for dawn action. Thought they had another five minutes before they had to get up there. Of course I asked them if in Pelican the bells were rung only for actual action, as they are here,"

  "And they knew that?" Bentley asked, very quietly.

  "Yes," Randall nodded, "they admitted that."

  Bentley did not hesitate. He was not thinking of clean punishment returns now.

  "I want them placed in my report," he ordered, "just as soon as we fallout action-stations."

  "That," said Randall, "had been my intention!"

  She ran on fast speed for another half-hour. Lookouts were doubled and every radar set she mounted was in constant searching operation. But the islands astern sent out nothing more to hinder her.

  Randall pulled out cigarettes and offered one to Bentley. He lit both cylinders and said through the smoke:

  "We're all alone, a juicy trophy. Yet they're not doing anything about it. If they were they would have been howling all around us by now. I can't understand it."

  "I think I can," Bentley answered grimly. Randall glanced at him, but the captain went on: "We'll fall out now. I'll see those two as soon as you put them through."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Randall acknowledged formally.

  Naval justice is prompt and definite. There are no legal lights on the lower-deck, and the only time a man is run in is when he's palpably committed an offence.

  Even so, Rennie had never attended a captain's session as brief, or as definite, as this one.

  Bentley had both men brought before him together - their offences were identical. The coxswain doubled them up to the table and ordered, "Off caps!"

  They stood there at the table, judge and offenders. Pascoe and Hawkins saw a tall and broad-shouldered officer, and gold on his shoulders and cap peak glittering in the hot sunlight, the face beneath the cap as uncompromising as
granite.

  Bentley, his fingertips resting on the table, saw a watchful, unlovely face, flanked by another whose heaviness of outline was overlaid by sullenness mixed with apprehension.

  "You admit the charges?" he asked formally.

  "Yes, sir," they mumbled together.

  He did not ask to hear their excuses. He knew they were absent from their gun in the face of enemy attack. A broken leg could be the only acceptable excuse for that.

  "I am not here," he went on, his voice and eyes arctic cold, "to discuss the failure of your drill on the pom-pom. That will be remedied." Pascoe swallowed at the utter finality of those four words. "What I'm concerned with is your failure to man the gun. I'm not interested in the routine aboard your last ship, nor how it was run. Aboard this ship you fly when you're piped to action or the bells ring." The tap of his fingers on the table emphasised the words. "Your actions could, and damn near did, lose the ship. Seven days' stoppage of leave."

  The coxswain's mouth opened to repeat the judgment and Bentley's raised hand closed it.

  "You'll think you've got off lightly," he rasped, "considering where we are. But remember this - that leave stoppage will be considered when you put in for privilege of leave out of watch in Brisbane or Sydney. And remember this, and don't forget it! - if you're adrift from your gun again I'll have you in cells!"

  For five seconds his stare probed into their eyes. Then he nodded to the coxswain.

  For some minutes Bentley sat on his stool on the bridge, his face set and thoughtful.

  It was not that he'd had to hand out punishment; what worried him was the offence. His ship could be likened to a racing car. A tractor would bullock its way along with fouled plugs and incorrect settings: a racer required a constant refinement of attention.

  His ship's efficiency had been finely-tuned; honed to a razored cutting-edge. Because of this quality, a fault which in a less-sensitive organisation might be without effect, here could blunt and clog the weapon he and Randall had gone to such trouble to forge.

  He remembered what Smales had said to him, on this very spot, about weak links in the chain. They had to be watched, the wizened coxswain had warned him. Now he had two more rotten apples. The rot could spread, fast.

  He thought of the famous crooner who had come on board for a drink after entertaining the troops on a shell-blasted island. It was a good party. Someone had asked how it felt to be at the top of the tree. The singer's face had momentarily lost its happy smile, "That's what worries me," he'd said, "when you're on the top there's only one direction you can go."

  It was the same with Wind Rode's efficiency. But that singer, judging by the radio, was still on top. He had staved off his fall. It could be done. It had to be done here.

  Another consideration slid into his worrying mind. Because the ship was so soundly trained she had come out of almost every action on top of her enemies. Weapons, whether aircraft cannon or submarine torpedo or destroyer guns, were aimed and fired by men. Wind Rode's men to date had proved superior in the handling of theirs.

  Now, a couple of hours back, the train of successes had been broken. They had six big guns and a multiplicity of smaller weapons; they should have got both those Jap aircraft. Definitely, no mistake about it, long before the fighters got within damaging range. As it was, only a lucky shot from the oerlikon saved them from possible damage.

  It was no matter for the chief gunner's mate or the Buffer - the men's seamanship was seasoned for sure, they could fire their guns with their eyes shut. It was, simply and nakedly, a problem of morale. For the coxswain.

  "Bosun's mate?"

  The young seaman came running.

  "Ask the cox'n to speak to me."

  "Cox'n. Aye, aye, sir."

  The coxswain was in his office, entering in permanent ink the captain's quickly pencilled judgment. He wrote shakily, because the ship was shuddering with her speed. Down here, where he was not much above the level of the engine-room, the movement was more pronounced than on the bridge.

  Rennie was not interested in his work. He laid his pen down and wiped his face with a sodden handkerchief. The action against the aircraft had not lasted long, and normally it would not have affected him. But now he felt drained, tired and despondent.

  He simply had no interest in his job, neither in this immediate task nor in his wider sphere of duties. And absence of interest in a seaman for long at sea in a small ship like a destroyer can be insidious poison.

  The coxswain, in short, was fed right up to the back teeth.

  Nevertheless, his mind, probably because of the inherent soundness of his training and nature, persisted in revolving around his problem.

  Hooky had told him, after the action had been broken off, of his suspicions about gambling on the foc's'le messdeck. The big Buffer's warning had not been needed - no man knew better than Rennie what that sort of thing could lead to.

  But Rennie's problem was not the suspicion of thieving and gambling, but whether he should tell the captain about it. If he did, he felt sure, the furore would start: the emphatic instructions to petty-officers, the fruitless searches, the upsetting of the whole damned ship.

  Even while the thoughts swirled in his mind he knew he was merely indulging his own dislike of the expected results of his revelations; he knew that there was no question about what he would have to do. If he kept silent the able-seaman who had lost the money would surely put in a formal complaint about his loss to the first-lieutenant. Then it would all come out, with the coxswain, already informed on the matter, on the nasty end of a very sticky stick.

  A knock sounded at the door and the bosun's mate poked his head in.

  "You sent for me, sir?"

  Bentley turned in his chair.

  "Yes, `Swain." His tone was crisp, not unpleasant. "I want to talk to you about this morning's business."

  "Sir?"

  "Go on."

  "I have something to tell you, sir. It might be better down below."

  Bentley looked shrewdly at the thin brown face. He said:

  "Is this personal?"

  "No, sir. Ship matter."

  "I see."

  Bentley slid from the high-legged stool and his eyes went to Randall, talking to the officer of the watch beside the binnacle.

  "Number One?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "My sea-cabin, please."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Go on down," Bentley said to Rennie, "I'll follow shortly."

  While the two men climbed down the ladder Bentley took his normal precautions. His was not the nature to worry about what the coxswain had to say - he would know in a few minutes. He checked with both asdic and radar offices, scanned the horizon himself with his binoculars, and warned the officer of the watch to keep asdic and radar sets on their toes.

  He had a look at the chart, and measured off their distance from the Louisiades. They were more than a hundred miles clear, and increasing that distance fast. A hundred miles of ocean was a large area for aircraft to sight a destroyer in.

  Satisfied, he hung his glasses on their strap round the binnacle and went below.

  They got to their feet when he stepped into the cabin and he waved them down again. He thought of his steward, and dismissed the thought. The man had been chosen for his reliability, and sending him off somewhere would have served only to rouse a curiosity which probably now was dormant. It was not at all unusual for a coxswain to be in his captain's cabin.

  "Well, `Swain," Bentley started, "what's the trouble?"

  A coxswain is used to giving concise reports; and this one was talking to his captain.

  "I think there's thieving and gambling on board, sir."

  Automatically the eyes of Bentley and Randall met. Both men's faces were grim.

  "You're sure?" Bentley asked. The shock of concern he felt made his voice curt.

  "Pretty sure, sir. A seaman reported the theft of three pounds. The Buffer thinks he's on to a gambling ring on the foc's'le messde
ck."

  Bentley took up a cigarette and lit it. He breathed the smoke out slowly.

  "All right," he said, "let's have all of it - names, times, everything."

  The coxswain gave it to him. He finished, and he looked into the hard burned face. Here it comes, he thought - stand-by for panic stations!

  He was disappointed. Or relieved. The captain of a ship is of necessity a man whose brain can encompass several problems of considerations at once. Bentley was a very competent captain. He was listening to Rennie's flat voice, judging the picture the words projected, at the same time as his mental vision was in a sea-cabin aboard an old destroyer in Moresby.