Battlecruiser (1997)

by Reeman, Douglas

  It had been a long night; maybe Evershed was feeling the strain.

  We all are.

  Several things had become clear. Minden was out of her anchorage, and the Admiralty signals had hinted that she might be heading west. Their information had probably been received from agents in Norway, people who daily risked their lives and those of their families and friends to, send off vital information as quickly as possible before the German military police could fix an exact radio bearing on their transmission. The rest was too terrible to contemplate: doors being smashed in, men and women being dragged away to face the interrogation and torture of the Gestapo. No wonder these members of the Resistance were hated and feared by many of their countrymen. The margin between terrorist and freedom-fighter was a narrow one, and anything that might rouse the fury of the occupying forces should, some would suggest, be avoided.

  Other signals had been even more guarded. The main part of the troop convoy had been rerouted around Scotland, and would eventually be escorted into the Firth of Forth, where Sherbrooke had taken command less than a month ago. He was beginning to feel that he had been aboard for years.

  Stagg had received each report without comment, leaving Howe, his hard-worked flag lieutenant, to carry the messages back and forth like a trainee midshipman. Howe had even been provided with a rickety camp bed, which was placed in the small lobby adjoining Stagg’s quarters so he could be on call.

  With the radar out of action, they must return to port. By maintaining radio silence, Reliant was a law unto herself, but their lordships, roused from their beds by Minden’s reappearance and the rerouting of the big troopships, would soon call Stagg to account and order him to break off his search. Without radar, and in this dense fog, there was no sensible alternative.

  Sherbrooke considered the elusive Minden again. Next to Prinz Eugen, she was reported to be the best gunnery ship in the German navy: she had proved that when she had destroyed his command. He was almost surprised that he could contemplate it so calmly; but what had he really expected? This was what he was, what he had been trained for, year after year, from schoolboy to Reliant’s captain. Should he feel hatred, a desire for revenge, a blessing on whatever action he should decide to take from those men who had died with Pyrrhus?

  Circumstances, not strategy, turned maybes to brutal reality. The troopships were former liners, fast, and well able to outpace the U-Boat packs, provided their destroyer escorts could keep the enemy submerged. The cargo they carried was men, from Australia and New Zealand, and from Canada, like the new Walrus pilot who had brought his banjo with him.

  Like most serving officers, Sherbrooke was suspicious of too much optimism and confidence. But things were changing, and for the first time the German Afrika Corps was falling back, and on the defensive. The R.A.F. and the American squadrons based in England were hitting the enemy hard, and at his own back door. Factories, U-Boat pens and shipyards were bombed day and night, something which would have been impossible a short while ago.

  So the next step had to be invasion, the long haul back. They would need more men than ever before, and the deployment of such numbers of troops was not something that could be kept a complete secret.

  It was unlikely to be sheer coincidence. The German High Command would consider Minden’s risk totally justified, like Scharnhorst slipping through the English Channel under the noses of the Royal Navy, and the mighty Bismarck breaking out of her lair to head for a more strategic base in occupied France. The Home Fleet had caught her, and had eventually put her down, but not before the German gunners had sent Hood to the bottom with one devastating shot.

  A voice said, ‘The admiral’s here, sir.’

  The door slammed back and Stagg strode into the dim glow of shaded lights and winking repeaters.

  Sherbrooke slid from the chair. ‘I’m waiting for the mechanic’s report, sir.’ He thought it strange to see Stagg so untidy, wearing a crumpled duffle coat which must have been the first thing he snatched up for the long walk along the upper deck necessary to avoid the sealed watertight doors.

  Stagg made a contemptuous sound.

  ‘Fat lot of use that’ll be! Just a potmess of technical jargon that nobody else understands!’ He stared round at the others. ‘I’ll skin those bloody radar people alive when we get back to base!’ He strode to the chart room and waited for Sherbrooke to close the door; in the chart lights he looked unusually strained, and his cheeks were unshaven.

  Sherbrooke paused while he examined the chart and the neat calculations beside the log, then he said, ‘Captain Cavendish was unhappy with the last refit, sir. Too much of a hurry . . .’

  Stagg stared at him. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘It was in his own log, sir. I read it, when I was going through the ship’s books and signals.’

  ‘I see.’ He swung away angrily. ‘Well, he’s not bloody well here now, is he? It’s the first I’ve heard about it – I can’t do everything.’

  Sherbrooke said, ‘I still think this is too much of a coincidence, sir.’

  Stagg seemed to drag his mind back with an effort. ‘Minden, you mean.’

  ‘If she gets amongst those troopers, they won’t stand a chance.’

  Stagg muttered, ‘If it hadn’t been for that bloody fishing boat we’d have our own carrier with us!’

  Sherbrooke let it pass. The admiral was tired and short-tempered, but he was not a fool. Even he could not believe that any carrier could fly off aircraft in this weather; the planes would eventually run out of fuel, and then ditch. There was no air-sea rescue in these bleak waters between Norway and the Shetland Islands. Their crews would not last more than a few minutes.

  The telephone buzzed and Sherbrooke picked it up. Obviously, no one wanted to risk disturbing Stagg by opening the door.

  ‘Captain.’

  It was Rhodes. ‘In contact with Captain (D) Mulgrave, sir. They have full radar contact.’

  Sherbrooke repeated the message aloud. Stagg was leaning over the chart again.

  ‘Blind leading the blind. I’m going to lose that bastard, Guy.’ He sighed. ‘We’d better code up a signal for Admiralty.’ He saw Sherbrooke’s face as he moved closer to the lights. ‘What?’

  ‘I think we should go for the convoy, sir. Fog or no fog.’

  Stagg opened his mouth as if to object, but said only, ‘Go on.’

  ‘Mulgrave can lead, showing a stern light. It might be enough, but we can rig a telephone line to the eyes of the ship and put an experienced officer there to make sure we don’t run down the leader.’

  Stagg rubbed his chin, his hand rasping on bristles. Sherbrooke sensed his doubt.

  ‘Iceland will have put the Admiralty in the picture about us, sir.’ He heard the fittings and navigating instruments rattling, an unusual sound in this ship. At reduced speed, she was rolling very slightly, and every turn of those screws was taking them further south.

  He said, ‘I think Minden has passed us already, sir. She has the advantage, and her intelligence is probably more accurate and more current than ours.’

  Stagg watched him, his eyes without expression, cold.

  ‘It’s my responsibility, Guy. I don’t have to do anything . . .’

  The telephone in Sherbrooke’s hand murmured, ‘Are you still there, sir?’

  Stagg reached out impulsively. ‘Let me.’

  He said, ‘Dust off your Operations folio, Pilot, and estimate a course to rendezvous with the special convoy. Captain Sherbrooke will tell you what’s needed.’ He put down the telephone, and stared at it for several seconds.

  He said, ‘I hope to God you’re right, that’s all.’

  Sherbrooke walked out to join the others. A glance told him that the radar was still out of action.

  ‘This is what I want done right away. Send for Commander Frazier.’

  One of the shadows moved. ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘We shall follow Mulgrave on the new course. I want to make a signal to Captain (D). Now.’ />
  The yeoman of signals held his pad close to one of the shaded lights, and wrote carefully as Sherbrooke explained what was required of him and of the other escorts once they had turned on to their new course. As the yeoman made to leave, Sherbrooke called, ‘Wait, Donovan. Add, good luck.’

  The chief petty officer looked at him impassively. ‘All done, sir.’ He hesitated. ‘My name is Yorke, sir.’

  Sherbrooke reached out and touched his sleeve. ‘Of course. I’m sorry.’

  He did not have to explain. If the navy was a family, then the signals branch was its mainstay. They would all know that Donovan had been Pyrrhus’s yeoman when she had gone down.

  Stagg strode out among them. ‘You can fall out action stations, I think. Get some hot food and drink sent round defence stations. Jack always works better on a full belly!’ He glanced across at Sherbrooke, excluding all the others. ‘So do I, as a matter of fact!’ He sought out the exhausted figure of his flag lieutenant. ‘Come on, laddie, jump about! Lot to do!’

  Some of the men were grinning surreptitiously at one another. Pleased, or perhaps proud to be a part of it.

  Sherbrooke walked to the chair, setting his thoughts in order before he shared them.

  He had recently read a highly-coloured article about Stagg in one of the popular newspapers. The reporter had described the rear-admiral’s charisma, his ability to inspire the men he commanded. He had just seen it in action.

  It was like watching a film being reversed, images of those years when they had been lieutenants together in this same ship, learning and training for the inevitable, from escorting royal tours of the Empire to the misery of the Spanish Civil War, and at naval reviews when they had met and enjoyed the company of many German officers. Minden’s captain had probably been one of them.

  He heard the voice in his mind, with startling clarity: the old vice-admiral at the funeral, who had been their captain in those bright, unreal days.

  It had been here, in this bridge, the causes lost in time, but the words suddenly clear, vivid.

  ‘You might try to bluff others, Mr Stagg, but you don’t deceive me!’

  Surprisingly, it seemed to calm him. He looked at their expectant faces. Rhodes handed him his small pad, waiting, his eyes filled with questions.

  Sherbrooke said, ‘Allowing for the weather and our speed, which will depend on it, by noon tomorrow and according to the writings of Pilot . . .’ Their glances held again. Like a firm handshake. ‘. . . we shall know if we have lost the enemy, or sunk him!’

  He turned away, unable to watch their faces. There were too many others which should not be here, like the yeoman Donovan, and Cavendish, and so many more. Ghosts.

  He said abruptly, ‘Let’s get started.’

  It is what I am. He was ready.

  Lieutenant Dick Rayner, Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, pulled up the zip of his fleece-lined flying jacket. It was early morning, and when he had last looked out, the sea had been pitch-black. It was bloody cold, he thought, even by Canadian standards. Apart from the sluice of water along the hull and the occasional movement from one of the gun positions, the ship was very quiet. Just another boring day, or was this really a time for action? Nobody seemed certain: if the admiral and the skipper knew something, they were keeping damn quiet about it.

  There had been very little fuss. The hands off watch had been called, then the duty watch had been relieved, and tea had arrived, with corned beef sandwiches you could barely get your teeth around. An early breakfast; probably their last, some wag had said.

  Rayner glanced around ‘the readiness room’, as it was called. It reminded him of a large, cheerless biscuit tin, full of files, photos and details of enemy ships and aircraft, one box for last-minute letters home, another for first-aid gear. At the solitary table his companion and observer, Sub-Lieutenant Buck, a New Zealander from Wellington, was sitting exactly as before, his pen poised over an empty sheet of paper. Rayner was twenty-six years old, and in the company of some of Reliant’s junior officers, he felt ancient. Buck, Eddy to his friends, was nineteen and looked about twelve, likeable, thoughtless, untroubled by anything more than the various girls to whom he wrote. There seemed to be quite a few of them.

  Rayner thought of his own family in Toronto. It would be freezing there, too, right now, the wind off the lake like a knife. There were three boys and a girl. His father was doing well, and they lived in an old and spacious house. He had often wondered how his father had managed when the depression had knocked Canada sideways in the thirties, after the stock market collapse: he had owned a small trucking company then, and had somehow scraped through, investing in two small, bankrupt factories. War had brought him prosperity. The factories made weapons now, and his trucking company was known from coast to coast. It had been hard for him to understand when two of his sons had volunteered for the navy, and harder still for Rayner’s mother.

  Rayner’s older brother, Larry, had also been selected for the Fleet Air Arm, although he had claimed it was the only way he could escape from endless training ashore. He had been shot down while defending a convoy on its way to embattled Malta. His younger brother, Bob, had gone up to Kingston and volunteered for the R.C.A.F. Just a kid, like Eddy there. He knew his father would have asked the same question. Why did they volunteer? And his mother would have looked at him, loving the man who had given everything for her and his family, and answered, Why did you, in the last war?

  He heard the mechanics chatting together beyond the closed steel door. They were bored, too, but not for the same reasons. They did not fly. They all worked closely together, with only the slightest formality evident. But they did not fly. That was the real divide.

  He thought of the large, ungainly Walrus amphibian perched out there on its catapult. Few people understood how a brilliant designer like Reginald Mitchell, who had created the Spitfire, probably the most beautiful aircraft in the war, could have conceived the awkward, lumbering Shagbat.

  Fired by his brother’s example and the reports about the Battle of Britain, Rayner had seen himself as a fighter pilot from the very beginning. He had put up with the endless drills and inspections, learning naval terms and even struggling with the mysteries of bends and hitches, with his eventual goal acting like a beacon. Even when he had finally transferred to the Fleet Air Arm for training as a pilot, with the solitary wavy stripe on his sleeve, he had still believed it was what he wanted.

  Until he had let it slip that he was already a qualified pilot, and had flown two kinds of float plane on Canada’s west coast. The senior instructor would have been astonished if he had told him he had been flying one of those little float planes while he was still under age.

  ‘So you are used to landing on water?’

  That had settled it. They had sent him to Halifax and then across to England, and the Fleet Air Arm station at Yeovilton. To Scotland and to Scapa Flow, flying the real thing, where the training was hard and relentless. Join the navy and see the world. Join the Fleet Air Arm and see the next. Then he had been ordered to a big, old-fashioned County class cruiser, with three spindly funnels. It had been like going in at the deep end. If the navy had taught him to be a pilot, then the old cruiser had taught him how to fly.

  Everywhere she had gone, the fighting had been bad; at best, they were always on the defensive. She had acted as heavy escort for convoys to and from Canada and the United States, to Gibraltar, and the deceptively kind blue waters of the Indian Ocean, but mostly it had been the bitter Atlantic. Ships sunk, left to die alone because no one was allowed to stop for them. He could not now believe how many times he had been flown off in his battered Walrus, scouting for surfaced U-Boats, one of which, on one occasion, they might have even sunk with their depth charges. But the cruiser’s wild-eyed captain had snapped, ‘No evidence! No claim!’

  The British sense of fair play, he supposed. He would get used to it. Maybe. It had almost lost them the war. It still could.

  And yet, in his hea
rt, he did not believe that. On leave in London, and in Plymouth near the naval air station, where the bombing had been heavy and merciless, he had sensed the shabby determination about which his brother had written before he had bought it.

  That was something else he had learned. The callous dismissal, the cover-up, when one of their number went missing. You didn’t brood over it, or you were likely to be the next.

  Sometimes they had landed on the water to rescue dazed and barely conscious survivors. When the dead and the living wore naval uniform, it was like seeing a reflection of yourself, gasping and sobbing, past gratitude, and beyond hope.

  He recalled his uncertainty when the cruiser had been ordered into dock after several near misses in Western Approaches, and he had been sent on a brief and unwanted leave, before joining the battlecruiser Reliant. It had been an unexpected wrench to leave the old, long-funnelled cruiser. He had just managed to get to know everybody in her company; even the captain had wished him well, and had told him that his promotion to lieutenant had been confirmed.

  He had said, ‘Reliant’s a fine ship. But she’s big, so take it a step at a time.’ It was the closest Rayner had ever been emotionally to his captain.

  And now he was learning all over again. Names and faces; where they all fitted in the ship’s geography.

  And he still had the awkward Shagbat, for which he felt a grudging affection. He had been deeply touched when he had seen that one of his fitters had painted a bright red maple leaf on the outside of the cockpit. Nobody had mentioned it; it had not been done openly to impress, or to gain favour. He had learned that at least, in the old cruiser.

  He felt a grin on his face at the old dream of himself as a fighter pilot. Now, he couldn’t imagine flying anything else!

  He saw Eddy Buck jump as the solitary telephone buzzed noisily.

  He said, ‘You take it, Eddy. I’m going out to the plane.’

  The slightly-built subbie from Wellington spoke briefly, and then covered the handset.

  ‘It’s for you.’ He grinned. ‘I could hardly say you were out!’