‘Touch and go, sir,’ Napper said, standing bandy-legged like a jockey. There was a stirring in his stomach: if you looked on the bright side, which in fact Napper never did, action was a good cure for constipation. But at the moment all he felt was fear. They could never bring it off, not within range of the Jerry’s heavy batteries, 8-inch probably, they’d just go up like a firework, and nowhere safe to hide from it. Kemp, he reckoned, must have gone clean round the bend, like Harpic...
Shaking like a jelly, Napper left the bridge and went round the gun positions, passing the orders in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own. Able Seaman Grove also seemed to find the tone a shade different, sort of high and squeaky like a eunuch, and remarked upon it, cheekily.
‘Something not dropped, PO?’ Grove, like Napper, believed they’d had it now and giving lip to a petty officer didn’t seem dangerous any more. ‘Or just dropped off, p’raps.’
‘Just shut it, Grove.’ Napper went away, all his spirit gone, not bothering to talk about charges of impertinence. He was wondering if he would actually feel anything in the split second during which life might linger after the explosion of the thousands of tons of HE below the hatches fore and aft — terrible agony as the soul parted from the cindered flesh and the powdered bone and wafted away on the upsurge, blown this way and that until it found anchorage on a bloody cloud somewhere. Or did you just snuff it, and pass into total oblivion, not even knowing you were dead or even that you’d ever lived at all? As a small boy Petty Officer Napper had been in the habit of lighting matches beneath garden spiders in their webs, and watching them crisp up and curl into dead husks — that came back very vividly indeed and he saw himself in a few minutes’ time like those spiders, and he offered up a prayer that he might be forgiven for what he’d done to them.
Then, as he came for’ard from the after-gun position above the engineers’ accommodation, the action started up around him.
IV
As soon as the seaboat came within range of the Oerlikons, Kemp fired the single revolver-shot. He had a moment in which to see, on the fringe of the searchlight beam, the boat’s crew check the rhythm of their oars as panic set in. Then the close-range weapons opened, spattering the water around the seaboat and colandering the crew. At the same time Portree opened with her main armament and Kemp saw the sudden flare of orange flame on the German’s superstructure as some of the shells took her, and the searchlight died.
‘Caught nicely with her pants down! If Portree’s on the ball with her tin fish —’ Kemp broke off. From the port side of the destroyer there had been a puff of smoke visible beneath the Northern Lights and then a series of splashes that raised enough spray to be seen in Kemp’s binoculars. The torpedoes were away and they hadn’t far to go. If the torpedo-gunner’s mate aboard the Portree knew his job those fish could hardly miss on their track towards a ship lying stopped without a hope of getting under way in time, and even if she did move, Portree could surely be relied upon to have given the torpedoes a nice spread, one ahead, one astern, two slap bang amidships — something like that. Just a single hit ought to be enough to slow her at the very least, give the Hard raw Falls time to make off at full speed and try to dodge the heavy gunfire.
Cutler came up beside the Commodore. ‘Looks good, sir.’
‘We won’t count any chickens, Cutler.’
‘No, sir, Commodore.’
Kemp noted the backsliding in the form of address but let it pass. By this time Theakston had his ship under way again, his engines coming up to full and the foam from the bow’s thrust already surging aft to join the curfuffle of the screw. Just as Kemp was wondering when the German was going to react, she opened in a thunderous roar with flashes of brilliant light along her decks. There was a whistling sound close overhead and the men on the bridge ducked instinctively. Standing again Kemp saw the destroyer moving fast, twisting and turning, but maintaining a mean course straight for the German cruiser, obviously in an attempt to draw the enemy fire away from the Commodore’s ship, all her for’ard guns firing. She steamed through a hail of shells, so far without damage: Kemp fancied the German gunners could have been thrown into confusion by the sudden shift of events.
Then there was a huge explosion: one at least of Portree’s torpedoes had hit. The cruiser listed heavily. Kemp saw a great sheet of flame and felt the heat wafting back on the wind, accompanied by a feeling of pressure, of concussion. In the flame he had seen fragmented metal flying up into the sky, and bodies too. Some of the guns were firing yet, pumping away at the destroyer, leaving the Hardraw Falls alone for the time being. More of the Portree’s shells were finding their marks, and through his binoculars Kemp saw the German’s after funnel looking like a sieve. Smoke streamed everywhere, thick and black, beginning to obscure the cruiser’s outline. Then the German gunners laid spot on to their target and in a terrible uprush of fire and fury Portree’s bridge vanished as though it had never been. Kemp watched in horror as the destroyer’s bows started to pay off to starboard: the wheelhouse would have gone up with the bridge, the ship was no longer under command. A fraction of a second later something took the fo’c’sle and both the for’ard guns joined the bridge in a tearing crescendo of sound and leaping flame. Kemp saw men running blindly along the decks, and then very suddenly the end came. There was a shattering explosion from inside the ship — most likely the fore magazine — and the fo’c’sle split away from just before the midship superstructure and vanished beneath the water, to be followed with amazing speed by the rest of the vessel, her stern lifting high until the sea entered her broken hull and took her down.
In a hoarse voice Cutler said, ‘There’s men in the water... ‘Yes, I know.’
‘You’re not going to pick them up?’
‘No,’ Kemp said. He wiped sweat from his face with the back of a gloved hand: it crackled as he did so, starting already to freeze as it left the pores of his skin. Anyone in the water would be dead from the cold already, surely. But Kemp saw Cutler’s face, a picture of blame and accusation and a kind of horrified disbelief. They had been into this before and Kemp found no words now to go over it again — the urgent need to keep the vital cargo intact for Russian use, to preserve a ship that would make a trip like this again and again if she were lucky, the need to keep von Hagen alive and out of German hands. To have stopped engines now would not have been merely to put all that at risk: it would have been a stupid act of recklessness. There was little point in trying to rescue men only to have them blown to strips of bloody flesh the moment the German landed a shell anywhere near the ammunition-filled holds of the Hardraw Falls.
Kemp turned away and went towards the wheelhouse. Theakston had the engine-room telegraph at full. Catching Kemp’s eye he said, ‘Getting the hell out?’
‘Right - we are! Put her on a zig-zag course, Captain. The German’s in difficulties, but she’ll still try to get us.’
‘Aye, no doubt she will.’
Abruptly Kemp said, ‘Those men — in the water. God damn this bloody war!’
‘Aye,’ Theakston said again. ‘But remember this — you had no alternative. Not unless you were a lunatic.’ He stared ahead through the wheelhouse screen, into the half-darkness beneath the Northern Lights still streaming across the sky. ‘We who go to sea —’ He broke off as once again the sound of gunfire cut through the night. ‘There she goes again, Commodore.’
‘Can you squeeze out any more speed?’
Theakston gave a harsh laugh. ‘My chief engineer knows what’s going on. He’ll need no prodding. He has what you might call a vested interest.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ Kemp moved out again into the bridge wing, into the bitter cold, the cold that entered the body like a knife-thrust. More wind had come up, a bitter east wind from Novaya Zemlya, and there was, Kemp believed, a hint of more snow to come. If it came on the wings of that bitter wind, it would be a real blizzard through which the ships would steam blind. Meanwhile the German was firing again but e
rratically: Kemp believed the gunnery control system had been thrown out, that the cruiser was in gunlayer’s firing. And Theakston’s zig-zag course was helping too.
Kemp looked astern at the cruiser. She was now stopped and there was a curious glow that seemed to be coming from behind her plates: she appeared to be on the point of blowing up. But then, as Kemp stared through his binoculars, the Hardraw Falls swung on the port leg of the zig-zag and a final shot from the doomed cruiser found its target. There was a blast from for’ard, hot air that swept up and back over the bridge, and the ship’s way checked suddenly, throwing men off balance. Kemp staggered, almost fell, and was caught by Cutler.
‘Hit on the bow, sir!’
Kemp heard Theakston’s voice, passing the orders to the chief officer to sound round, calling the engine-room on the voice-pipe. The Hardraw Falls moved on, a little down now by the head. Kemp prayed that the damage might be small; and gave thanks that the shell hadn’t struck near the cargo holds.
V
Petty Officer Napper had gone for a burton once again, skidding on his backside along the after well-deck, but this time suffering no damage. He had a furtive feel to assure himself of this, delving beneath his duffel coat and into his waistband. He had just finished doing this when, looking aft towards the Nazi cruiser, he had a full and perfect view of what happened next. The glow that Kemp had seen from the bridge increased suddenly to extreme brilliance, almost white heat, just for a moment, a split second, and then the cruiser blew up, just like that. The whole sky and the sea for miles around lit like day and an enormous volume of sound crashed across the water and she was gone in flying metal fragments and bits of bodies that could be seen while the flame lasted, arms spread like dolls flung into the air by some wilful child, then nothing but a pall of smoke to mark where the warship had been.
‘Bloody hell,’ Napper said aloud. He was badly shaken up: you didn’t see sights like that in Pompey barracks and in the last war Napper hadn’t seen any action either, joining only at the tail end. His legs felt like a blancmange, and he hung on to a lifeline for support. Poor sods...but of course they were only Jerries who had been trying to do something similar to himself. Napper steadied: serve the buggers right, it did. And the Hardraw Falls might be safe, anyway for now — so long as the damage from that shell hadn’t been too great, that was. Napper shook again and muttered to himself: if they had to abandon and drift about the Barents Sea in an open boat it could be just as fatal as being blown up - and a bloody sight more lingering. And — Napper strongly suspected — all because of that there Nazi agent.
TWELVE
I
Chief Officer Amory came to the bridge to report to the master. ‘Bows opened up, sir, bosun’s store and forepeak gone, but the collision bulkhead’s holding.’
‘You’re shoring up, I take it, Mr Amory?’
‘Yes, sir. As I said, the bulkhead’s holding but I can’t say for how long. It’ll be a question of speed and weather now.’
‘Aye.’ Theakston had already reduced speed to half; he and Kemp were both reluctant to reduce further but the collision bulkhead itself would have to be the deciding factor. ‘I’ll come down for’ard, Mr Amory, and take a look for myself. Are there any casualties?’
‘There are, I’m afraid, sir. Two men who went down to the messroom without orders.’ Amory gave the names. ‘The bodies were wedged behind a bulkhead that had curled itself around them. And the bosun...’
‘Tawney? Dead, d’you mean?’
Amory nodded. ‘He went down to look at the damage and missed his footing — the broken plates had iced up already. One of the hands saw him go, nothing he could have done about it.’ Amory saw the reaction in Theakston’s face: the Old Man and. Tawney had sailed together for many years, transferring together, at the request of each, to the various ships of the Bricker Dockett Line. Each had an enormous respect for the other and in the eyes of Captain Theakston, Tawney would have no replacement as bosun — this, Amory knew. And currently, with the ship in trouble, Jock Tawney and the two other seamen were going to be very badly missed. Amory said, ‘We shall be short-handed now, sir. I was wondering if the Navy could assist. The Po, Napper —’
‘To take Tawney’s place? That’ll be the day!’ Theakston had already summed Napper up, but he shrugged and approached Kemp with Amory’s request.
‘Of course,’ Kemp said. ‘The ship comes before the guns now.’ He turned to Cutler. ‘Sub, send down to Napper. He’s to give the chief officer any assistance needed — leave one gunnery rate to report to the bridge and man one of the Oerlikons until further orders. And the guard to remain on von Hagen’s quarters, of course.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Cutler turned away and went at the double down the starboard ladder. Kemp, hunched into his bridge coat and duffel coat, with the hood of the latter pulled over his uniform cap, stared down towards the shattered fo’c’sle. In the loom of light from the streamers in the sky he could pick out the jag of the lower bow plating, blown out at almost ninety degrees from the hull, although the deck plating of the fo’c’sle, together with the anchors and slips and the cables themselves, was intact. The collision bulkhead, set abaft the stem at the regulation five per cent of the ship’s length, would have a colossal weight of water to hold if much speed was maintained. That bulkhead had specially thickened plating to withstand free water, and extra-strong stiffeners, but the thrust of water from the ship’s headway into wind and sea was a different kettle of fish and Theakston, when he had made his inspection, might want to reduce still further. Kemp did sums in his head: there would be a considerable delay in his arrival at Archangel and now he would have no hope whatsoever of catching up the convoy. He must proceed alone and unescorted through the Barents Sea and chance the attention of the heavy German ships coming down from the north to run into the inadequate guns of the escort under Rear-Admiral Fellowes. In the meantime there was nothing that he, personally, could do. Such was the lot of the Commodore of any convoy for much of the time. Just wait and hope and curb an abounding impatience. Inaction chafed at Kemp: it always had. But it was one of the limitations and frustrations of command at sea and along with the loneliness had to be accepted without complaint. Always the Captain was the loneliest man in the ship: in the RN the Captain lived alone and entered the friendliness of the wardroom only by invitation. In cargo ships as opposed to the liners, the master normally took his meals at the head of the table in the officers’ saloon, but he was expected to leave them in peace afterwards and return to his own quarters and his own company. No one liked the master breathing down his neck.
Kemp brooded, his head sunk now on his arms crossed on the teak rail of the bridge. The loss of the Portree so suddenly had shaken him; the inability to pick up survivors was a sword-thrust. Neither event was Kemp’s first experience of war by a long chalk but somehow this had been more personal: he had made the decision to reject the German demands and however correct and inevitable that decision had been he couldn’t escape the knowledge that his order had led to the deaths of an entire ship’s company. Fathers, husbands, sons — around one hundred and sixty of them, gone down beneath the freezing cold of the Barents Sea, leaving grief and despair to strike hard in many parts of the British Isles. Kemp thought of his own two sons, both of them at sea with the RN...at any moment he too could be hit by bad news, he and Mary, the result of some other responsible senior officer’s decision.
Kemp turned as he heard a step on the ladder: Theakston was coming back to the bridge. ‘Well, Captain?’
‘Not so good. The bulkhead’s showing signs of strain. You know the principles, of course. The bulkheads bring total rigidity to their sections, making them unduly strong. The local excess must be distributed by the brackets to the stringers, shell plating and so on —’
‘And the collision bulkhead more so — yes.’
Theakston said, ‘My chief engineer and carpenter have had a look. They’re not happy. Something’s been set out of true by the impa
ct of the explosion, you see.’
‘The shoring beams’ll help?’
Theakston nodded. ‘Yes, to some extent. But not to be relied on if —’
‘You want to reduce speed, is that it?’
‘Yes. We have to, if we’re to have any real hope. There’s no alternative. Indeed I’d go further: in my opinion we should make sternway at least until Amory has the beams in position and chocked down. That way, we’ll take all the strain off.’
‘Damn slow progress!’
‘Aye, it will be. But there’s nowt else...and it’s better than foundering.’
Kemp lifted his hands and let them fall again. ‘Your ship, Captain. You have the right to save her.’
‘Aye, and the duty too. I shall proceed astern. I shall review the position when Mr Amory reports the beams in place.’ Theakston moved into the wheelhouse and gave his orders. The ship’s head swung as the quartermaster brought her round on to a reciprocal of her course, and she rolled heavily as she came across the waves, then steadied as the swing was met by opposite helm and the engine-room telegraph was put to half astern. Theakston moved out once again to the wing, looking aft to see the water swirl for’ard as the sternway came on.
Kemp said, ‘As I remarked — slow progress. How about put-ting her on full, Captain?’
‘There’ll be a deal of yaw.’
‘I know it’s not easy to keep on course astern. But there hap-pens to be a need now.’ Kemp’s voice was sharper than he had intended.
Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller) Page 13
