Below the shelter of Banka Island the motion was certainly easier, but like Trewin the look-outs and gunners were now too tired and bruised by their vigil to notice or draw comfort from the change. Far out on the opposite beam it was possible to see what might be the mainland of Sumatra. Or it could have been part of the wavering sea mist which mingled with the flying spray to make a long, unbroken curtain below the skudding clouds.
Trewin’s eyes felt red-raw and his tongue seemed to have swollen to twice its size. He heard Mallory remark bleakly, “Looks like a drop of rain about. That’s all we need now!”
Corbett stretched his legs and readjusted his collar. “Could do worse. Now give me a course for those islands. They must be about five miles away surely?”
Trewin looked over the rear of the bridge and felt his heart sink. The Prawn was farther astern and her black funnel-smoke hung close to her wake, as if the strength had gone out of her.
Corbett said vaguely, “She’s holding up quite well. Good show.”
“New course is one four zero, sir.”
Corbett turned his head, and Trewin heard his stubbled chin rasp against the upturned collar. “Good, bring her round, Trewin. In thirty minutes we should be in very shallow water. It shoals to less than two fathoms between the islands. No ship is going to come sniffing after us in there, eh?”
Trewin gave his helm orders and then leaned heavily on the table as Mallory folded away the oilskin hood. The islands were just some more useless humps of land, like small pieces which had broken away from the main mass of Banka far back in time, when the world was still changing. Who could ever have believed they would be put to use like this?
Corbett watched the ship’s wake turn away in a shallow curve. Then he said, “Reduce speed again, Trewin. We will let the Prawn go in first.” He saw Trewin watching him and added quietly, “They’ll be feeling low enough as it is, without seeing us vanish amongst these islets without them.”
As the small cluster of islands separated from the dark mainland behind them the Prawn drew alongside, and after what seemed like an age, began to force ahead. In the misty daylight she showed all the scars of her battle with the sea, and as she lifted and plunged across each cruising wave the men on the Porcupine saw the great patches of bare rust where the pounding water had stripped away the paint like skin. She had lost both her boats and the guardrails were buckled in several places and hanging dejectedly overboard.
Trewin moved his glasses down her length, feeling her pain as if it was his own. He saw Adair in the forepart of his bridge, staring ahead, his shoulders hunched behind the glass screen like a man too dulled and exhausted to move even his head.
But her ensign still made a patch of jaunty colour from the gaff, and as the ship moved slowly into the lead Trewin saw one of the gunners waving back at them.
Corbett said absently, “Now there is a ship. Not worth her weight in scrap to some people, but I’ll stake my life that Adair would say differently.”
The islets opened up on either side of the other gunboat, and as she turned to swing around the first green hump it seemed from the Porcupine’s bridge as if she was being swallowed up by the land itself.
Hammond appeared at the hatch ladder, his eyes seeking the captain. “Permission to send the hands to breakfast, sir?”
Corbett eyed him sadly. “Breakfast or dinner, Sub. Call it what you like. Just get them fed, eh?”
They all froze as a look-out yelled, “Aircraft, sir! Bearing green nine oh!”
Trewin leapt for the voice-pipes but Corbett snapped, “Stay where you are! Any increase of speed now might attract attention!”
Every glass and gun-muzzle lifted and settled on the slow-moving shape, and only those down amidst the thundering engines were unaware of that steady, hateful sound as it crossed the turbulent water like a taunt.
“Another flyin’ boat, sir!” It was Tweedie’s voice over the bridge speaker. A pause, then, “It’s flyin’ due south towards Sumatra.” They heard him curse. “He’s turnin’ slightly now.”
Trewin watched the distant aircraft swinging on to a new course as if it was controlled by invisible wires. Now it was flying parallel with the ship about five miles clear.
His eyes throbbed with the effort of staring at that small black outline. He must see us! What the hell is he playing at?
Tweedie again. “He’s turnin’, sir!” Even over the speaker his relief was obvious. “Headin’ south again!”
Corbett snapped, “Full ahead together!”
Trewin heard Masters groan, “Gawd! Look at our bloody oil slick! Any fool will see it!”
Corbett remarked, “He may have missed us this time. Or he might just be trying to put us off while he calls up assistance.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, we shall soon know, one way or the other!” Then he said, “Take the con, Trewin. I’m going to have a wash and shave before we drop anchor.”
He walked across the bridge, but as he passed the chart table he cannoned into the voice-pipes and almost fell. He hurried down the hatch ladder without a word, nor did he look back.
Trewin climbed on to the gratings as Mallory murmured, “Hell, you’d think he was bloody well blind!”
Trewin watched the narrow gap between the islets and imagined Corbett locking himself in his cabin alone with his dreadful secret. What a time and a place for it to happen to him. To us.
He saw the anchor party mustering by the four-inch gun and tried to close his mind completely, as Corbett had done. “Slow ahead together. Stand by to rig camouflage.”
He tilted his cap to shade his eyes from the glare as the ship glided slowly above a carpet of white sand. After all, he thought, the pursuer had always been able to call every move. The man on the run had no choice at all but to keep running and hold on to his hope for survival.
17 | The Man Who Was Afraid
ALL THROUGH THE DAY until late in the afternoon the two ships lay in their cramped hiding place between the small cluster of islets, the Porcupine at her anchors, and Prawn lashed snugly alongside. The threat of rain seemed to have departed, and by midday the sky was clear. Both ships were pinned down by the sun again, so that in the confines of their anchorage the relentless heat seemed to come from all angles, smashing them down with its power.
All the Porcupine’s engineering staff had gone aboard the Prawn within minutes of mooring, and in spite of the heat and the primitive conditions had worked without a break to help repair the little gunboat’s storm damage. The passengers meantime were transferred to the Porcupine, where instead of taking advantage of rest and shelter, they worked beside the men whenever and wherever possible.
It was hard to see them, particularly the women, as the ones who had surged aboard at Singapore while enemy bombers had painted the skies red above the burning city at their backs. All pretence and normal individuality had been stripped away in their common fight for survival. The smart dresses had been replaced with oddments of sailors’ clothing or improvised from scraps they had managed to salvage from the storm. Their nearness to disaster had given them a strange strength, and there were no longer any tears or bitter recriminations.
Trewin had seen Adair sitting on his bridge dictating orders and instructions to his petty officers while a tall girl dressed in a seaman’s jersey and little else lathered and shaved him, her tanned features set in grim concentration. Adair had seen Trewin staring up at him and had lifted his splinted arm in salute. “It pays to be wounded!” was all he had said.
Although look-outs had been posted on the nearby hills, there had been no further reports of enemy aircraft. Only once, halfway through the afternoon, had there been any sign of danger. A fast-moving warship, probably a destroyer, was sighted far out across the Strait heading south towards the narrows, her low shape almost lost in the great wash from her raked bows. The repair work had not even been halted for that.
Maybe Corbett had realised the uselessness of calling the men to their action stations, Trewin de
cided. Most of the seamen were completely spent. Even the anti-aircraft gunners slumped or lay at their stations, too weary to drag themselves from the glaring sunlight which shone through the camouflage netting and threw strange, hard shadows across the decks, as if both ships were entrapped inside one huge mesh.
Trewin stopped on the battery deck and leaned wearily against the guardrail. Below him the other ship was still alive with scurrying figures, stokers carrying lengths of metal, and army engineers with freshly cut timber for shoring up a sagging bulkhead. But the pace was slower. It moved in time with the sun, as if both measured the minutes of decision.
He saw Corbett conferring with Adair on the Prawn’s quarterdeck, his neat figure dwarfed by the other’s gangling shoulders. Corbett looked serious but very calm, with little outward sign of what he must be thinking.
Trewin thought back to that morning. He had been aboard the other ship helping to shepherd the dazed passengers across the narrow gap to the comparative spaciousness of the Porcupine’s upperdeck. He had seen Clare assisting an elderly woman over the swaying crevasse between the hulls and had waved to her. They had held each other’s eyes for just a few seconds, but in that time Trewin had felt the same sense of peace and belonging, which for such a small moment held everything else from his mind. Then he had climbed down to the Prawn’s wardroom to make sure there were none of the refugees left aboard. Before he had been able to stop himself he had seen Corbett standing amidst the litter of sea-stained furniture, his body picked out in stars of sunlight which filtered through the countless splinter holes on both sides of the wardroom. He had had his back to the door, and opposite him, her face upturned as she crouched on an empty ammunition case, was his wife.
Mildred Corbett had changed almost beyond recognition. Her fair hair was uncombed and disordered and her dress, which was torn in several places, barely covered her shoulders.
Trewin could recall the emptiness of her voice, the alien dullness of her eyes.
“I did not want to see you, Greville.” She had tried to shrug, but even that had seemed too much of an effort. “But I’ve had so much time to think and remember. Too much time. At first I wanted the ship to sink, but as things went on I felt I had to see you again. Just to tell you.” She had dropped her head, and Trewin had seen tears splash on her oil-stained arms. He had seen too the change which had come over Corbett. Although his back was to the door, Trewin had been able to see the slow clenching and unclenching of his hands, as if he was holding himself still by physical effort.
She had continued dully, “All my life I’ve tried to hurt you, Greville. The more you tried to make things work out for both of us, the worse I behaved.” She had looked up, her eyes suddenly alive and desperate. “But I never meant Martin to die!”
Corbett had spoken very quietly. “I know.”
“You loved him so much, didn’t you?”
Corbett had thrust his hands in his pockets. “I always loved him. Just as much as if he had been my own son.”
Trewin had wanted to get away, but Corbett’s words had held him motionless by the door.
“You knew?” Her eyes had been streaming with tears. “All this time, and you never said anything?”
“There was nothing to say.”
She had spread her hands. “And I’ve done nothing but hurt you! When you left the Navy because of my brother I should have stood by you, shared your pain, too.” Again the gesture of hopelessness. “Now we’ve lost everything, and all because of me!”
Corbett had laid his cap on the ammunition case and had seated himself beside her. “That is where you are wrong, my dear.” Corbett had reached out to touch her face, the gesture nervous but gentle. “I need you now.” As she had flung herself against his chest Corbett had added very quietly, “Perhaps more than you will ever know.”
Now, as Trewin watched him from the upperdeck he could see none of the pain and the happiness he had witnessed in those few minutes by the open door.
As if realising that Trewin was looking at him, Corbett nodded briskly to Adair and then strode towards the gangway. When he arrived on the battery deck his features were strangely determined.
He said, “Officers’ conference, Trewin. Go and get them at once.” He sniffed the air. “I still think the rain will come. It might be of some use.”
It did not take more than a few minutes to gather the officers in Corbett’s cabin. They had been sitting or lying in the wardroom, too weary to speak or eat.
Corbett seated himself at his desk and touched his fingertips together. “I’ve been over the Prawn, gentlemen. She is ready to sail when we are. I think she can get her six knots again, so we won’t waste any more time, eh?” He glanced around their lined faces. “In ten minutes you can start moving the passengers back aboard Prawn.”
Hammond asked quickly, “Wouldn’t it be better if we kept them all with us, sir?” He swallowed hard under Corbett’s flat stare. “We can manage more than twice Prawn’s speed, and I’m sure we could squeeze them in easily enough.” At his side Tweedie nodded ponderously.
“I’m afraid not, Sub. If we were attacked we could not expect to fight with all those people aboard. It would be slaughter. No, this way we have one good ship instead of two cripples, eh?” He laughed shortly. “Adair tells me he is ready to try for the last leg of the voyage. And I’m sure you’ve seen enough of the local scenery?”
Trewin watched him with cold amazement. Corbett seemed actually cheerful. And his eyes, apart from a noticeable redness, looked strangely clear and bright.
Corbett looked round. “Right then. I intend to sail in two hours. We can’t wait for complete darkness. We must clear the Strait before dawn at the latest. That destroyer was no doubt searching for us. It probably never occurred to the enemy that we might still be hanging around here. We wouldn’t have either, but for Prawn.” He smiled. “So it’s an ill wind, eh?”
They all rose from their chairs but Corbett held up his hand. “Remember this, gentlemen. Just in case we are called upon to face the enemy in battle.” He walked slowly round his desk and stared thoughtfully at the leather-bound books by the scuttle. “In the life of every ship, perhaps only once in that lifetime, there is a moment of decision which must overshadow all else which has ever happened to her. To justify the years, the past mistakes, and the genuine beliefs of all those men who have served her, that decision must be taken without hesitation, with no considerations of personal gain or even survival.” His pale eyes moved slowly across their faces. “If we are called, it will be very soon now. I am sure I shall not have to ask for your best, for as captain I must take it as a right, and not a privilege of rank.”
He became brisk once more. “Now call the hands and carry out my instructions.” He watched them file out of his cabin and then said to Trewin, “I must inform the admiral of my intentions, eh?”
“Is that wise, sir?” Trewin saw Corbett slip the magnifying glass into his pocket. “He might wish to overrule you.”
Corbett patted his pockets and stared at his empty desk. “I will tell him my intentions, Trewin.” He smiled shortly. “Not my method!”
IN ACCORDANCE WITH Corbett’s instructions both ships left their hiding place, and hugging the Banka coastline headed for the final challenge of the Strait. As the sun moved towards the distant mountains of Sumatra and the nearby hills changed from dark green to a darker purple, the first anxiety of sailing gave way to relief.
Every hour put another six miles behind them, each turn of the screws carried them nearer and nearer to safety.
Trewin rested his elbows on the port screen and trained his glasses on the undulating hills. The sky was clear and filled with small, bright stars, and in the strange, private world of the powerful lenses the hills looked like part of an untroubled desert.
He thought momentarily of the actual time of sailing from those last islets. Just as every man had been occupied in stripping away the camouflage and letting go the mooring wires a narrow native fishin
g boat had coasted towards them, quite unseen by the look-outs until the last moment.
Corbett had rapped, “Cover that boat! Shoot if they try and escape!” Then as the machine-guns had swung threateningly towards the upturned faces of the fishermen he had added, “Tell Hammond to go and speak with them. They may be of some help.”
They had all watched Hammond climb aboard the boat, which had seemed little more than a hollow log and two crude outriggers. The surprise and caution on the native faces had soon given way to grins and loud laughter as Hammond had stumbled to question and translate with his limited vocabulary. The natives had offered him a sack of fresh coconuts and some smoked fish wrapped in leaves, but Corbett had shouted down to him, “Give them money, Sub! All that you’ve got available!” To the bridge at large he had added, “We can’t rely on loyalty and love too much at this point. Singapore dollars might make ’em think twice about reporting our comings and goings, eh?”
Hammond had climbed back aboard, red-faced, but quite pleased with himself. “They say the Japs are already on Banka. But as far as I can make out they are on the other side of the island. We’ll be safe enough to stay inshore on this side, sir.”
Corbett had nodded. “Good. So even if our brown friends want to sell our whereabouts to higher bidders, they’ll have a long way to go.”
Trewin felt the edge of the screen grate painfully against his chin and realised that his head had fallen forward in a doze. He shook himself roughly and wished there was a cold wind or another fall of rain to keep him awake. He turned and peered down into the bridge, seeing the shadowy figures with a sudden sense of alarm.
He snapped, “Come on then! Move your feet! Wake yourselves, you idle lot!” He heard someone cursing him and grinned in spite of his strained nerves. The idea of the ship steaming straight into some hidden enemy with all her watch-keepers asleep was enough to make anyone sweat.
He heard Corbett mutter, “Must you make such a damn row, Number One?”
“I thought you were asleep, sir.” He saw Corbett’s face pale against the black water beyond the screen.
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