Sink or Capture! (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  18

  When Cassandra struck Galloway and his party were running forward on the starboard side. They could see through the drifting smoke and tendrils of mist to the bulk of Brandenburg looming right ahead like a steel cliff. Galloway shouted, “Hold on!” He threw himself down and clasped a bollard.

  Jackman echoed his warning and added to himself, “Bloody hell!” He grabbed at a stanchion and clung to it. He was only feet away from a ragged hole in the deck that vomited smoke. The air above it quivered in the heat from the fire raging below. Then Cassandra, charging ahead at better than twenty knots, ran into that steel cliff. Jackman was jerked forward along with the rest of them but his stanchion had been weakened in the damage already wrought, now buckled and broke under his weight and he was hurled into the pit.

  He saw the hell he had spoken of beneath him, reaching up its red arms to claim him. Its hot breath seared his face and scorched his eyebrows into ash. But there he hung, just a foot below the deck because somebody had grabbed his ankle as he fell into the hole and was holding him up. Then there were other hands stretching down to seize him and haul him up from the flames, out of the pit and back onto the deck.

  He saw Dobson, sitting on the deck and gasping for breath, still gripping his ankle. Jackman asked, “You?”

  Dobson nodded and Jackman reached forward and slapped his back.

  But then Galloway was up and running again and they were all chasing after him. The deck listed to starboard beneath their feet and Cassandra was still grinding her way down the side of the big cruiser. One of Brandenburg’s guns fired, seemingly over their heads, deafening, the blast thrusting at them so they staggered. Then they were piling in through the screen door at the fo’c’sle break, finding the mess deck inches deep in water that had sluiced in through the deckhead, ruptured when “A” gun had taken the direct hit. It washed back and forth, a scum of rubbish on its surface, clothing, sandwiches, cigarette ends.

  Then they were dropping down ladders again, to the lower deck and moving forward to another mess deck, gingerly opening watertight doors and hatches, fearful for the spurt of water that would mean the next compartment was flooded. Seeing the bulkheads weeping, feeling they were in a tomb and fearing that if the bulkheads gave…

  When Cassandra struck Smith was thrown onto the voice-pipe. It drove the wind out of him and hurt like hell. He held on to the pipe, grimacing, as Cassandra cut her way down the side of Brandenburg, laying her open to the sea. As she rolled over to starboard so did Cassandra. He saw men on the deck of the enemy cruiser and her guns pointing at the sky as she was laid over on her side. One of them fired with a flash that hurt his eyes. It set his ears ringing and the blast threatened to tear him from his hold on the voice-pipe. Then Cassandra was easing away from the other ship and rocking back onto an even keel. She surged on with the way still on her, as did Brandenburg, a gap of churned sea opening between them.

  Smith croaked into the pipe, “Starboard twenty!” And heard that acknowledged by Taggart, saw his ship’s head start to come round. He let go of the pipe then and went to the starboard wing of the bridge to try to get a sight of Brandenburg.

  Moehle shouted, “Stop engines!” They were still driving her forward but also driving the sea into that yawning wound running for fifty yards or more, a quarter of her length, down her port side. That was a mortal wound. Moehle did not know that yet, had no reports, but in his heart he was sure. He could feel it in the motion of her. Her engines stopped and now her engine room flooded, she slowed and then lay still. Moehle listened to the reports that came to him then and gave his orders, quickly, calmly but hopelessly. She lurched over to port with the weight of the water she’d already taken aboard. And more was flooding in every second.

  Cassandra had pulled away in the opposite direction. The combined speeds of the two ships when they struck had totalled over fifty knots. After they parted that opened a gap between them before the way came off both vessels. Cassandra had her helm over to starboard, circling, so now she was a mile astern of Brandenburg and on the same course. Smith ordered, “Slow ahead.” He dared not order any faster speed than that until he knew the extent of the damage inflicted on the bow.

  Ben Kelso almost wailed, “My God! Will you look at it!” The bow had crumpled from the capstan forward, a length of twenty feet, and now pointed down at the sea. The wreckage of the foremast and director tower still lay on it. A party under Chivers was picking its way into that tangle to start to clear it — but cautiously because there were craters in the deck like hungry mouths with the red glow within them, and the tangle continuously shifted its huge weight, threatening to trap and crush the men working on it. That dead weight was pressing the bow still further into the sea so the fractured and gaping stem gulped in tons of sea water. Only the watertight bulkheads would stop the flood from washing right into the bowels of the ship and sinking her. Was one of them holding?

  Smith shouted to Appleby, “Go below and get a report on the bow from Mr Galloway!” Then he ordered, “Port ten!” To steer away from Brandenburg and also allow the two 6-inch guns aft to bear. Brandenburg was still firing. Not her main armament because now those big guns pointed at the sea with the list on her. But some of her anti-aircraft guns still hammered away rapidly, as did Cassandra’s. Those shells would not seriously damage the fabric of the ship but could cause fearful casualties among the men working on the exposed decks.

  The gun just abaft Cassandra’s bridge fired, then “Y” gun right aft, each of them laying and firing manually and independently now that the director was destroyed. They kept on firing, steadily, as Cassandra crept up on the listing cruiser ahead and to starboard, that gap to starboard gradually widening as Cassandra steered away.

  Appleby returned, panting: “Mr Galloway says the mess deck bulkhead is holding. He’s shoring it with mess tables and stools and some baulks of timber. He says he suggests that when he’s finished we should be able to make ten knots.”

  Smith answered, “Very good.” It was. He could rely on Galloway’s judgment. Besides, grim but valid reasoning, Galloway was down in that steel tomb with only the bulkhead between him and oblivion. He would not recommend a speed of ten knots if he thought the bulkhead would not stand it.

  Cassandra’s guns fired again, one cracking report running into the other, and he saw the shells burst on Brandenburg’s upperworks. Her list now seemed more pronounced, she had lurched even further to port. He wondered what it must be like in that ship now?

  When Cassandra struck Gerhard Fritsch was sitting in the cramped cabin they had given him below decks. Down there in the bowels of the ship he was insulated to some extent from the immediate horrors of the fighting. He saw no shell strike the ship nor any killed or wounded but he felt the shocks when shells burst inboard, shaking the fabric of the hull. He felt the different shudder and heard the thunder as Brandenburg fired her broadsides and the ship heeled over to them.

  He told himself that he only had to wait. Brandenburg would force her way out of the fjord because the other cruiser did not have the strength to stop her, then she would use her superior speed to escape. He was on his way back to Germany with his prisoner and she would buy him his promotion — whatever he had to do. So he sat on the bunk and planned his campaign, trying to shut out the noise of the battle.

  That worked until Cassandra struck. Then he was thrown across the bunk and onto the deck as the ship was forced over onto her beam ends. There was a din of screeching, rending, tearing metal that went on and on for several seconds while he lay on the deck, paralysed with terror. He did not know what was happening. Then the din stopped and Brandenburg sagged back, briefly, so the deck was level. He clawed at the side of the bunk to lift himself to his feet but she lurched and the deck tilted again. This time it was to port, so he half ran, half fell into the passage outside.

  He could no longer stay in that claustrophobic cabin, had to get up into the light of day. But as he turned towards the companion leading upwards
he saw instead the sea pouring into the passage where he stood. One second it swept in to wash across the deck and the next it filled the passage from the corticene underfoot to the deckhead.

  It swallowed him and his screams.

  ***

  When Brandenburg was hurled over onto her starboard side by the thrust of Cassandra, that sudden canting of the deck threw Sarah’s sentry into the curtain covering the doorway to her cabin. Wrapped in it and blinded by it, he tripped over the coaming and fell at her feet where she sat on the edge of the bunk.

  He scrambled up again, fighting free of the hampering folds of the curtain and clutching his rifle. Automatically she stooped and put out a hand to help him. Both of them stood, heads turned, listening to and deafened by the shipyard clamour as Cassandra drove down the side of Brandenburg. That noise had barely ceased after Cassandra had hauled away when Brandenburg rolled over to port and they were thrown the other way.

  They ended out in the passage and then the sentry saved Sarah’s life. He may have been driven by the instinct for self-preservation, but he gripped her arm and ran her along the passage to the foot of the ladder leading to the deck above. They were half-way up when the sea burst into the passage behind them. The sentry yelled something at Sarah then shoved her up through the hatch. He followed her and slammed the hatch-cover shut behind him as the sea foamed up the ladder to squirt out of the narrowing gap with the force of a high-pressure hose. Then he threw his weight on the cover to close it and twisted the clips around to lock it shut.

  They started up the next ladder, Sarah leading the way, the sentry urging her on, pointing to the bulkhead at the end of the passage on this flat and yelling, “It’s going!” She could see it, the steel incredibly bulging from the pressure of the water behind it. She scrambled up the ladder and was near the head of it when she heard the sentry shout wordlessly and heard a clatter behind her. She turned her head and saw he had fallen. He lay at the foot of the ladder and his head was bleeding. She started down again, feet fumbling for the rungs of the ladder, eyes on the straining bulkhead.

  ***

  Gustav Moehle faced the inevitable. His ship was sinking and nothing could save her. He stared out across the mile of sea churned into white foam by the fast manoeuvring of the two ships to where Cassandra was slowly limping up to come abreast of Brandenburg. He said, “She’s followed us like an albatross.” Paul Brunner, grimy and soaked to the skin from his duties with damage control, nodded weary agreement. Moehle took a breath and ordered, “Abandon ship.”

  Kurt Larsen went down to his station on the port side. Some of the boats and life rafts had been destroyed by gunfire. With the other officers he saw the remaining boats filled and lowered, the surviving life rafts launched. There was no panic; the crew maintained discipline. The wounded were brought up from below and sent away with the first of the boats. When all boats and rafts had gone the men that were left began to jump into the sea that was now almost lapping the deck on which they stood. Heads dotted the water as they swam away.

  Smith watched Brandenburg as Cassandra slowly hauled up level with her but with a mile of sea between. He saw that none of her guns were firing now and she was launching her boats and rafts. He ordered, “Cease fire!” He heard that broadcast through the tannoy by Appleby and then told him, “They may not have heard that aft. Go back there and pass the word.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Appleby ran.

  Ben Kelso said uneasily, “She hasn’t surrendered, sir.”

  Smith accepted that Brandenburg was not flying a white flag nor had she hauled down her ensign. But she had ceased fighting, presented no threat to his own ship or crew and he saw no point in slaughtering men who were now only trying to save their lives from the grasp of the sea. He said, “Prepare to pick up survivors, Ben.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Now, at last, his duty done, Kurt could look for the girl who had been in his mind since Moehle gave the order to abandon ship. He did not have to search far. Almost immediately he saw her coming up from below, stepping through a screen door onto the tilted deck and holding the arm of her sentry. He had lost his rifle, his face streamed blood and he seemed dazed. But he managed to stand to attention when Kurt spoke to them: “What happened?”

  Sarah explained, “He fell on the last ladder.” She said nothing of her scrambling descent of the ladder and then shoving the half-conscious and blundering man ahead of her up the ladder again. Or of finally slamming shut and clipping that last hatch herself. But Kurt Larsen guessed something of this.

  He said, “Thank you. I’m grateful.” And to the sentry, who wore a life-jacket. “You’ll have to swim for it. Good luck to you.” He saw the man away and then took off his own life-jacket and tried to fit it on the girl.

  Sarah resisted and objected. “What about you?”

  “I’m a very good swimmer.” He put her hands aside and fastened it on her. “The sea will be cold, but you will soon be in one of your boats.” He pointed and she saw the other cruiser had crept in close to Brandenburg and the sailors in the sea. Now she had stopped and was lowering boats. It occurred to her that this might be her father’s ship but she was not sure. There were another dozen cruisers like her and this could be one of them.

  Sarah looked up at Kurt. “Thank you.” She knew that was inadequate. This young man had risked his life more than once by standing up to Fritsch and the Gestapo on her behalf. He was saving her life now. But they were the only words she could find. Kurt gripped her shoulders. “For old times’ sake.”

  Brandenburg settled lower in the water. There were internal rumblings as bulkheads gave way then the sea washed in over the port side and swirled around their knees. Kurt said, “It’s time to go!” He spared a few seconds to tear off his shoes and outer clothing then he shoved Sarah and they fell forward into the sea. She gasped at the shock of it and struck out. Kurt kept pace with her and steered her to where he judged the rescue boats to be. Down in the troughs they could see little but the wave-tops in front of them with occasional glimpses of the cruiser’s upperworks.

  But he steered her aright and soon one of Cassandra’s boats lifted on the swell ahead. The rowers were resting on their oars as a pair of Brandenburg’s seamen were hauled in over the stern. Kurt pushed the girl towards it and shouted, “Boat ahoy!” Sarah gripped his hand for a moment, then struck out on her own. Kurt saw the rowers turn and look towards him, then wave. He watched, treading water, until he saw the girl clutching at the boat’s stern. Then he turned and swam away.

  He would not be taken prisoner. Somehow he would get to the shore and join General Dietl’s mountain troops in Narvik. He swam for a long time, circling to pass around Brandenburg. She seemed, at the last, to be fighting for her life. Although her upper deck was awash she did not sink.

  He had laboured around until he was between Brandenburg and the shore when he was picked up by one of her boats. Her crew dragged him into the sternsheets and the young Lieutenant-zur-See at the helm stripped off the bridge-coat he wore and gave it to Kurt. He huddled, shivering, into its warmth and looked round as one of the men pulling at the oars muttered, “There she goes.”

  Brandenburg rolled still further to port as if trying to hide the wound Cassandra had inflicted, but then there was more, deeper rumbling that may have been her engines breaking loose and she slid slowly down beneath the waves.

  Smith, standing on the wing of the bridge, saw her sink. He was sorry, as always, but there was also a sense of relief because he and Cassandra had won an unequal contest. He was lucky she was still afloat, lucky to be alive. He was very tired.

  Buckley said, “Cup o’ coffee, sir.” His voice was raised and he set the mug down on the shelf under the screen with a bang that slopped some of its brown contents. Smith realised Buckley had brought another mug some time ago and it had gone cold on the shelf. He sipped at this one. “Thank you.” Buckley was smoke-grimed as all of them were and there was blood on his face from some bump taken during the
action. He grunted now and retired to the back of the bridge.

  Ben Kelso said, “The boats are coming back, sir. There’s no sign of any more swimmers.”

  Smith nodded. And below him, on the fo’c’sle, Chivers and his party had pulled Sandy Faulknor and his party out of the wreckage of the director tower and they were able to walk aft on their way to see the surgeon. Sandy lifted a hand and waved; Smith returned it.

  Galloway came, the immaculate Executive Officer now filthier than any of them from his work below. “All secure, sir. She’s good for ten knots. The bulkheads are shored and I’ve organised a watch on them.”

  “Very good. Ben — show that signal to John.”

  Kelso’s teeth showed through his beard in a grin as he passed the open log to Galloway, who read that last signal received before Cassandra went into action. Then he looked up at Smith blank-faced and said, “They’re giving me a command, a destroyer —”

  “Congratulations.” After Smith had left hospital he had urged, pleaded and demanded of Admiralty that they give Galloway a command: “He’s a first-class officer, fitted to command, long overdue for it.” They had been annoyed with him but he was used to that and persisted. It had worked and justice had been done — or maybe it would have been done anyway.

  Galloway said, “Thank you, sir.” And meant it. Then he went back to his duties.

  Smith thought that if he sat in his chair he would fall asleep. He saw the boats had all been hoisted in and told Ben Kelso, “We’ll get under way.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Cassandra moved ahead, slowly working up to her ten knots, heading seaward. He thought she was a bedraggled as well as an ageing beauty now with her crumpled bow, but still proud. As he was proud of her and the men in her.

  He discarded his steel helmet and picked up his cap. “Sir!” That was Buckley bellowing his name. What the hell was wrong with him?