J. E. MacDonnell - 070
Page 5
Dutchy's immediate answer to that threatening injunction must remain unprinted. He jumped to the radio-telephone, and as he spoke vehemently a spatulate finger at the end of an indignant arm jabbed at the ensign on the gaff, heedless of the aircraft's position now well ahead.
"What the bloody hell do you think I am? A... Chinese sampan? That's a White Ensign... Mac! You buzz me again like that and I'll crease your silly bloody... with hot lead!"
Swift and graceful, and deadly, the Corsair banked. It speared for them in a growing snarl of supercharged sound.
"Japs can make a White Ensign," Dutchy was informed. "What ship? Quick with it, Mac. You want I should turn nasty?"
"Oh Jesus," Dutchy groaned. He aimed an exasperated face at the aircraft. "We've identified you as friendly," he said into the telephone. "What the hell's up with your I.F.F. gear?"
There was a pause, while the Corsair thundered by and banked with-its wings vertical. Then:
"Guess you're okay. My I.F.Fs got you tagged."
"Oh sure," Dutchy said to his grinning bridge. "The newt's just started to operate it."
The Corsair was turning back.
"Sorry, Limey, but you should have answered quicker. I might have hurt you a little there."
Dutchy was silent for a moment, shaking his head at the deck, while Matheson, looking at his face, was shaking his stomach with laughter. Then Dutchy, with great forbearance not mentioning how early they had identified the fighter, said:
"We're not Limey. This is Jackal, R.A.N., on independent mission."
"You look British to me, Buster."
Dutchy breathed in.
"You," he said, gently, "are a misbegotten son of a boiler-room yak. You," he said, rising a little, "should not be allowed in a machine like that. You should be up at the Cross, hogging all the bloody taxis, bringing bunches of flowers to Mum so's you can get your legs in under the table with her daughter. There," Dutchy said, "you can get only the girl into trouble. Now shove off to hell out of here."
Pause. Thin and distorted through the speaker, but still a chuckle.
"Reckon you're an Aussie after all. Say, Mac, you wouldn't have an address up the Cross? Looks like we might be headin' down that way."
"God help the old town," Dutchy said, and hung up.
Matheson smoothed out his face.
"He seemed satisfied with that independent mission bit," jerking his head at the dwindling aircraft.
"He had to be," Dutchy growled. "Tell him what we're up to and he'd entertain every tramp in William Street with the story. Yanks! The idiot damn near took our top mast with him."
"He was only doing his job," Matheson said, solemnly.
"His job! If the nit had any idea of..." Dutchy woke up. "How about you doing your bloody job, Number One? Come the dawn, the dawn's gone. Why are the men still closed-up at action?"
"Because you haven't fallen them out, Mac."
"Then fall them... What?"
"Sir..."
"Don't you ever call me that again."
Slowly, Matheson's smile faded. He wasn't quite sure if the old devil wasn't serious. He took the wiser course.
"Sorry, sir, of course not." He swung. "Bosun's mate," he said crisply, "pipe `Secure action-stations, hands to breakfast.'"
"Aye aye, sir."
Dutchy rolled to his stool in the corner, and only the empty foc's'le saw his leathery grin.
Their next sighting was different.
No escape here, no talking themselves out of enquiries. The flotilla approached from ahead, fast, and fanned out to encompass them and impede their progress. A hard, competent look about those closing destroyers. Peremptory, a light flashed.
"Challenge, sir," the yeoman called.
Dutchy had no thoughts of King's Cross or boiler-room yaks. He had only one thought.
"Reply," he snapped, "and make it fast."
The yeoman's hand quivered. Dots and dashes merged almost into a stream of light. No need to repeat words, not with that signalman on the receiving end. His forbears had made signals at Trafalgar.
There was a pause, while the fanning ships swung back again into their former line. Then:
"What ship, where bound?"
"H.M.A.S. Jackal," Dutchy ordered, "Lieutenant-Commander Holland, detached duty."
The pause was a little longer this time. Matheson could imagine the flotilla leader, who would be a four-ringed captain, digesting this surprising information. To be detached, in the direction in which Jackal was heading, could hardly be healthy.
"Heave-to. Commanding-officer repair on board."
"Hell," Dutchy growled, and involuntarily looked down his body. Here, he had his oldest khakis on, and a pair of salt-whitened sandals completed his uniform. But there was no gain saying that sharp order. The British and Australian navies were more than allies; they were brothers, interdependent, interchangeable, in effect one service.
"Stop both," he ordered. "Take over, Number One. Keep the asdic on their toes."
He turned for his cabin, and even as he moved Samson and the unknown British captain were conjoined incongruously in his thoughts. Be damned to both of them, he decided with sudden belligerence. His best khakis were not much better than these, and he would not have Samson, in this emergency, noting the fact. And probably he would never see the British officer again.
"Away seaboat's crew," he ordered on his way to the ladder.
But if not uniforms, there was something else he wanted from his cabin. The thought occurred to him that Truman may have foreseen a situation like this, hence the provision of those sealed orders. No officer, allies regardless, would dare question them.
Dutchy grabbed up the manila envelope, made a concession by putting on the better of his two caps, and hurried down to the seaboat. It was waiting for him level with the gunnel. As he made to climb the guardrail he glanced about him.
The Leader, a modern brute of a destroyer, was hove-to close alongside. But round both stopped ships the remaining four were circling. Their asdic made a sonic barrier against the intentions of any interested submarine. Satisfied, impressed by the Britisher's efficiency, Dutchy dropped into the boat. A few minutes later he was walking along a spotless iron-deck.
She was Battle-class, he noted. One of the very latest, only a few months old, well over two-thousand tons. Her crew, curious with the visitor, were correctly dressed. They'd need to be, Dutchy thought with a return of defensive belligerence-as protection against sunburn. Not like his ragged reprobates...
Then he was climbing a ladder to the bridge, and a salute greeted him, and a voice:
"Morning, Holland. My cabin, if you please."
You have at some time, perhaps, had the experience of speaking to a stranger on a telephone? His voice is abrupt, curt almost. Like an order. And when you meet him personally you find that his natural voice is not like that at all; that he is in fact quite a charming fellow.
Thus it was here.
The words in themselves were curt, yet they were delivered pleasantly, nothing like he'd imagined from that "Repair on board." And the smile behind them was friendly.
"My name is Trelawney," smiled this tall thin officer with the gold on his shoulders. "I'll lead, shall I?"
"Please do," Dutchy smiled back, and had to grin inwardly at his own unwonted diction.
He stepped into a large sunlit cabin and Trelawney closed the door behind them. "Please sit down. I'm afraid I can't offer you any hard stuff."
Dutchy sat. "Fair enough," he said, this time in his usual growl; he wasn't going to be intimidated, or even affected, by this British courtliness.
"You must forgive my calling you on board," the captain smiled, and crossed his thin, immaculately stockinged legs; the shoes gleamed glossily. Should've brought Baxter, Dutchy thought irrelevantly.
"But you must admit I was somewhat surprised to find an Australian ship-any ship, for that matter-in this area hurrying along on your course. Or perhaps," Trelawney smiled, his eyes s
hrewd, "you are an advance scout for a larger force?"
"No, sir, we're on our lonesome."
Dutchy was watching carefully, but not only did Trelawney not look down at his uniform, he gave the impression that faded khakis were furthest from his thoughts.
"Might I ask why?"
Dutchy was not fooled. The smile, the tone, were silky-like the silkiness of steel being drawn from a scabbard.
"I'm under sealed orders, sir."
Eyebrows rose a fraction. "Oh? Surely that's rather odd, these days? And surely..." Trelawney produced a platinum cigarette case, offered it. "... by now you would have opened your sealed orders?"
Dutchy grinned, openly. No bloody Yank pilot, this charming devil.
"That's right," he said. "Now we know all about it."
With long thin fingers Trelawney lit Dutchy's cigarette. Dutchy breathed in gratefully, and then with surprise. He just managed to stop himself from looking at the cigarette. Though hardly used to them, he judged he was smoking Turkish tobacco.
Trelawney leaned back in his chair. "All about what?" he suggested. He smiled. A tiger must smile like that, Dutchy thought. "You must understand, my dear fellow, I'm somewhat curious. There is also..." Trelawney coughed politely, "the matter of my duty. I think you will agree it is-ah-unusual to come across a single ship in your position?"
"You think we might be defecting to the Japs?" Dutchy said.
"My dear fellow..." And the eyes said, those suddenly glacial eyes in the thin aristocratic and smiling face, said: Enough. What are you up to?
"Yes, sir," Dutchy answered verbally the eyes. This'll put you in the picture."
Trelawney opened the envelope and read quickly. When he looked up the eyes were no longer glacial: they were gleaming.
"By Jove," he said, "you might have something here. Who thought of this? One of your chaps? Mmmm, I'm not surprised. Always believed Australians to be original blokes. Met some of your Army fellows in the Middle East... By Jove," he said again, "back to the old bad days, eh? Strike, and out. The Japs won't be expecting anything so fool... so original. Jolly good luck to you."
"You were right the first time," Dutchy grinned. "But we might pull it off. That's if," he suggested with the subtlety of a trip-hammer, "we get on with the job..."
Suddenly it seemed as if Trelawney was not listening to him. He was looking at Dutchy's walnut face but his fingers were rubbing gently at his lower lip and his eyes held a distant expression.
"Holland," he said, and again, thoughtfully, "Holland. I wonder if you ever met a colleague of mine named Masters?"
Mildly surprised at the change of tack, Dutchy pushed out his lips in thought. "Masters?" he said, and shook his bullet head. "I don't think so. Wait a minute," he said abruptly. "R.N. Captain, flotilla-leader?"
"That is the gentleman." Trelawney smiled, his eyes curious on Dutchy. "And you must be the gentleman he picked up-after you'd rammed your ship into a Japanese destroyer carrying an Army general?"
"I seem to remember something like that. You might give him my regards if you strike him again."
Trelawney seemed unshocked by this suggestion in regard to an officer remotely Dutchy's superior.
"I shall indeed," he murmured. "And may I say it is a pleasure to meet you, Holland? Masters has told me of that action. Perhaps you would dine with me if ever we are in port together?"
"Pleasure, sir," Dutchy grunted, hiding his own pleasure. So the story of the old girl's one and only fight was known... "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get moving again. Bloke feels a bit creepy," he explained, needlessly, "sitting in these parts stopped."
"Of course." Trelawney stood up, handing back the envelope. He held out his hand. "Good luck, Holland, and good hunting."
"Same to you, sir. So long."
The seaboat swept in under the falls and was hooked on. As it rose to the davit head Dutchy noticed that the destroyers were still circling, now joined by Trelawney's ship, and he knew that they would remain in that protective position until Jackal got under way again.
The Yanks would have probably done the same thing, he thought; but so quietly, without fuss... ? He was smiling to himself when he made the bridge.
"Half-ahead together, revolutions for fifteen knots, resume original course."
Jackal moved ahead, quivering until the strain of shifting her immobile tonnage eased. Quietly and without further signals the British flotilla formed line-ahead and sliced past her, and shortly they were hull-down to the southeast.
"Number One," Dutchy said, casually. "We carry a British Navy List?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let me have it, please."
Matheson's stare was understandable. Normally the reply to his affirmative statement would have been something like, "Then why the bloody hell isn't it on the bridge where a man can get at it?"
But, "Aye, aye, sir," the youngster returned, and spoke to the bosun's mate.
Dutchy flipped through the pages of the thick book with his head inside the chart-table. Then a hornyfinger followed the lines of print, and then he backed his stern out. He strolled over to Matheson.
"I suppose," he started, and nodded his rock of a face thoughtfully. "Yes, one imagines one would dress for an invitation like that." Matheson frowned at him; at the diction as much as the words. "I should think it would be drills." Dutchy nodded again. "Certainly drills. Luckily one has an almost unused set of drills."
Matheson found his voice. "What the blazes," he enquired, "are you talking about?"
"Mmmm? Oh, yes, I see. An invitation, my dear boy. But one, I'm afraid, to which you could never aspire."
"Gawd," said Matheson. What did he give you aboard there?"
Dutchy gazed reflectively at the sky. "Just an invitation."
"So I gathered. An invitation to what? Visit him in the psychiatric ward?"
"My dear fellows... An invitation to dinner when next in port."
"Is that all? Even I've dined with captains before. It's part of the drill."
Very carelessly, Dutchy said:
"You've dined with a viscount before?"
"Eh?" Matheson stared, then he gestured vaguely over the port side to where the Leader had waited. "You mean... over there?"
Dutchy dipped his head slowly and solemnly.
"Viscount the Right Honourable Percival Trelawney, D.S.O. and Bar, captain, Royal Navy. Now, how the devil does one address a viscount?" And now Matheson was grinning.
" `Sir's' good enough for the King of England."
"Mmmm," said his captain. "But one does not meet the King of England socially, does one? Not tete-a-tete..."
"I still think he might settle for `sir.' But how come?"
"I beg your pardon?"
Matheson was still patient. "I repeat-how come? One somehow does not see you," he mocked, "as buddy-buddy pals with a belted earl. How come you're invited to dinner with same?"
"It would seem he has heard of a ship named Utmost."
"A British captain? Well I'm damned."
Dutchy returned to normalcy.
"That rocked you, eh, you cocky young nit."
"But that bloke's name wasn't Trelawney, it was Masters."
"A colleague of my dinner companion."
"That's one thing you won't have to worry your drills about."
"Eh?"
"Dinner with the viscount. That flotilla's probably working with the American Seventh Fleet. We're not You won't see him again."
Dutchy's grin was wide and sudden. "Guess you're right. But she was nice while it lasted." The grin twisted into a sneer. "It's nice to mix with a gentleman now and again."
"Yes, M'lord."
"I'm going below," Dutchy growled. At the head of the ladder he turned, and returned completely to normal. "From 1600 today the masthead is to be manned at all times in daylight hours. And warn those bludgers to keep their fingers out."
CHAPTER FIVE
At four o'clock Dutchy was back on the bridge. Matheson had jus
t taken over the first dogwatch. Together they examined the sky. There is nothing, especially in equatorial waters, so consistent as change; the friendly blue sky of the morning had altered to sullen grey. But the clouds held promise of rain more than wind. And this, seeing they were almost a hundred miles closer to Mindanao than when Dutchy had met his viscount, promised to help more than hinder them. Rain would cover them, whereas big seas could hinder their flight from nastiness.