HMS Saracen

by Douglas Reeman

  PART TWO

  1941

  1

  The Captain

  April in the Mediterranean, the month when Malta should have been at its best, with the night air cool and clear after the heat of the day. But this was April 1941, and the unusually low clouds which hung above the battered island and hid the stars were slashed and torn in a mad galaxy of colours as the nightly air raid got under way and mounted in steady force.

  Occasionally above the crash of anti-aircraft fire and the rumble of collapsing buildings could be heard the steady, unbroken beat of aircraft engines. Dozens or hundreds, it was difficult to assess. The sound was without break, without change. It was a constant threat, a mockery against the blind barrage which seemed to rip the night apart.

  From the naval anchorage the long streams of gay tracers crept away into the sky, whilst from inland the heavier guns hurled their shells to explode beyond the clouds so that their underbellies seemed to be alight.

  Streets which had been clear and busy during the sunlight had become narrow valleys between walls of rubble and scorched timber, beneath which men and women cowered and waited, whilst in the chaos around them the despairing troops and workers searched out the feeble cries and felt for the imprisoned hands.

  It was like a mad storm of forked lightning, every night a repetition, but for the fact that each one was just a little worse than the one which had preceded it.

  The Night Operations Officer in one of the many naval underground strongpoints gritted his teeth as a fresh, muffled rumble made the naked light bulb dance on its flex and brought down another layer of dust to join that which already covered filing cabinets, desks and occupants in a grey film. The tarnished lace on his jacket proclaimed him to be a lieutenant-commander, but his tired and strained face, which twisted with each distant explosion, seemed too old for his rank.

  Through a massive door he could hear the constant jingle of telephones and the clatter of a teleprinter. Signals, demands, orders and chaos. It never let up. His eye fell on a week-old paper from England. The headline referred proudly to Malta as `the gallant island fortress’. `The thorn in Italy’s soft underbelly!’ Another roar, and the lights flickered momentarily.

  A petty officer crunched through the dust and placed a chipped cup and saucer on the officer’s desk. `Char, sir.’ He glanced incuriously at the flaking walls and said, `Good

  thing we’re down here, sir?’

  The Operations Officer picked up the cup and watched the tea’s surface quivering in his hand. Bitterly he replied `Built by galley slaves hundreds of years ago. They at least had the right idea !’

  A rating poked his head round the door. `Stick of bombs across Parlatoria Wharf, sir.’

  The officer looked at the floor. `Again? I hope to God the destroyers there are all right.’ Almost viciously he added, `Let me know more as soon as you can.’

  The petty officer walked to the operations board which covered one of the walls and ran his finger down the pencilled list of ships’ names. `With raids day and night it’ll be hard for the ships to take on fuel, sir.’

  `Unless we get some help and some fighter planes there won’t be any damned fuel ! What the hell do they expect of us?’ He glared at the man’s worn features. `Do they want us to go and fight them with pikes or something?’ He broke off as the other door opened slightly. `What th’ hell d’you want?’

  The petty officer stiffened and cleared his throat noisily, his eyes taking in the shadowy shape of the newcomer with both experience and immediate caution. He had seen the feeble light from the corridor shine briefly on the four gold stripes, and he tried to cover his superior’s surprise by saying hastily, `Can I get you a cup of tea, sir?’

  Captain Richard Chesnaye limped into the centre of the room so that the naked bulb shone directly above his head and made his dark hair appear glossy and fresh, although in fact he had not slept for two days. He sat down in a vacant chair and looked calmly at the other officer’s dazed face. He said : `My name is Chesnaye. I believe I was expected yesterday, but the convoy was attacked.’ He saw the man jump as the floor quivered to another explosion. `So if possible I should like to join my ship at once.’

  The Operations Officer passed his hand across his face and turned wearily to his desk. He forced himself to leaf through a pile of papers while he reassembled his thoughts. A year ago, perhaps even a month, and he would have jumped with horror at the thought of being caught off guard by a full captain. Now it did not seem to matter. The whole world was falling around them. It was just a matter of time. The enmy bombers which were destroying Malta and preventing sleep, or even rest, were flying from a mere fifty miles away. How could an island right on the enemy’s door-step, with a mere handful of clapped-out fighters, expect to survive?

  He glanced quickly across his desk at the newcomer. He noticed that one of the gold stripes was brighter than the other three and that he was wearing several decorations which he could not recognise in the poor light. His mind began to recover. This captain was yet another sign of what was happening to the country and the Royal Navy.

  With Britain standing alone against the combined weight of Germany and Italy every experienced officer was seemingly being promoted overnight. At the other end of the scale even yachtsmen with brief weekend sailing their only background had been pitchforked into the battle as temporary Reserve Officers. There was no time for training now, and few with experience to pave the way. Yet from the look of this stranger’s newly added gold stripe he guessed he had only just been promoted, and that pointed clearly enough to the fact that he was yet another officer who had been `beached’ between the wars and so lost way in the struggle for advancement and promotion. He noticed, too, the small tense lines at the corners of the captain’s mouth. As if he was forcing himself to appear calm with constant effort. He had a grave, intelligent face, and his figure was slim, even youthful. And yet … he shook his head and tried to clear his starved mind. A month ago he would have had every appointment and fact at his fingertips. He groped through the pile of papers. `Which ship, sir?’

  Richard Chesnaye watched him without expression. He had seen that look on faces enough to know what the man was thinking. `I am taking command of Saracen,’ he said.

  The Operations Officer sat down heavily and felt his inner resentment change to something like pity. It was slowly coming back to him now. In his mind’s eye he could even see the signals which had referred to this man Chesnaye who was coming from England to assume command of the Saracen. He had seen the elderly monitor alongside the wharf only that forenoon. She must be over twenty-five years old, he thought. She was something of a joke at the Base, or had been until joking had gone out of fashion. She was an ugly, antiquated-looking ship, her disproportionate shape made even more peculiar by her garish dazzle paint which had been introduced to foil the prowling submarines. As a colleague had remarked at the time, `Like a poor old spinster in a party frock !’

  Her previous captain had just returned to England following a court martial. He had taken the old ship to the North African coast to lend support to the hard-pressed troops who, even now, were falling back across Libya, leaving positions and bases which they had won so bravely months before. The monitor had `fired short’, and several hundred British soldiers had been killed and wounded. On top of that the Saracen had run aground and had only been towed clear within minutes of the dive-bombers smelling her out. It might have been better if they had got to her first.

  Too lightly he said, `I expect you know all about her, sir?’

  `My first ship.’ He repeated the words in his mind. My first ship. What a lot they implied. But no one could understand what they meant to him at that moment.

  Chesnaye added half to himself, `Yes, I know a great deal about her.’

  He shifted in his chair as the ache in his thigh returned.

  A few more hours and he would be aboard. All the waiting” and the yearning were nearly over.

  What would she
be like now? Perhaps like himself. Un-i sure, even unwanted.

  Some of the old anger and defensive bitterness moved within him. Sharply he said, `I should like to get to her at once.’

  The Operations Officer nodded. `I’ll see what I can do. She’s out on a buoy at the moment.’ He smiled. `I’m sorry I can’t give you the full formality, sir. I expect you’re thinking it’s rather different from peacetime?’ He bit his lip as the words dropped out. That was a stupid thing to say. This captain was like so many others. He must have spent many of the peacetime years lost and miserable without the Service which so unexpectedly had been denied them. He had seen them at Fleet Reviews and Open Days at the dockyards. Eager, keen-eyed, yet so pathetically on the outside.

  He saw the shutters drop behind Chesnaye’s grey eyes. Hastily he muttered, `I’ll put through a call, provided the line’s still in place!’

  Chesnaye forced himself to sit back in the chair, to ignore nore the officer’s short, staccato words on the dusty telephone. The man was sorry for him, and confused too. It no longer mattered. It had hurt at first, but not any more. As if to reassure himself he touched the lace on his sleeve, and felt the excitement welling inside him.

  The other officer dropped the telephone and looked uneasy. `No boats running tonight, sir. Very heavy raid up top. It gets worse all the time.’ As if to make the unwanted conversation last he added : `They fly over in daylight and machine-gun the place too. St. Paul’s Bay, the outlying villages, everywhere!’

  `When can I get across, then?’ Unwittingly Chesnaye dropped his guard and leaned forward.

  `First light, sir.’ He glanced at the petty officer. `We could give you a bunk here if you’d prefer not to go over to the quarters? It’s not much, but’ll be on hand.’ He dropped his eyes as Chesnaye’s face flooded with obvious relief.

  `Thank you. I’d like that.’ Chesnaye stood up and grimaced.

  The petty officer held open the door and reached for a torch. `Hurt your leg, sir?’

  Chesnaye paused in the doorway and regarded him slowly. `A long time ago. But it helps to keep my memory intact!’

  The door closed behind him and the Operations Officer stretched his arms above his head.

  A rating called urgently, `Number Seven fuel tank ablaze, sir!’

  The officer shook himself. `Bloody hell P He reached for his telephone.

  Lieutenant-Commander John Erskine, the Saracen’s First Lieutenant, ran his fingers through his long fair hair and sat back in his swivel chair. His tiny office was lined with shelves loaded with ledgers and files, and the hanging deck covered with signals awaiting his attention. It was early morning, and the sun which filtered through the one thick scuttle was as yet without warmth. Erksine had breakfasted alone in the still deserted wardroom which smelled of drink and tobacco from the previous night. He had persuaded himself that he wanted an early start to allow himself time to clear the mounting pile of paperwork, although he knew well enough that the real reason was quite different.

  The other officers would be watching him, gauging his mood and reactions to the events which had so suddenly changed his small world. He was twenty-eight years old, with a clear-cut open face entirely devoid of pretension, but at this moment was filled with gloom. He had been in the old monitor for nine months, almost since the day Italy had cast caution to the wind and joined with Germany in a combined attack on Britain. During that time he had watched the change creep over the ships and men of the Mediterranean Fleet, once the most efficient and powerful force of its kind in the world, but now stretched to and beyond the limit even of safety. It had all been so clear cut at first. In peacetime they had exercised with extravagant enthusiasm under every condition conceived by an over confident Admiralty. Always with the knowledge that the, other great navy, the French, was ready to close any gaps, and make the Mediterranean the one sure buffer below Europe’s long coastline.

  Without apprehension they had watched the rebirth of Germany’s sea-power and skill, and with amusement the preparations with which the Italians had followed their partner’s every move. It was still hard to fathom what had gone wrong. The swift, lightning war in France, followed by Dunkirk and the complete collapse of England’s European allies. Only the Greeks tagged along the end of the line now, and even they were receiving the first probes from a confident Wehrmacht. In ‘the Mediterranean the Navy had managed to retain its old appearances of calm’ superiority, up to the last few months, that is. Ships of the’. Fleet had followed the Army’s triumphant advances along the North African coast, where one crushing defeat after’ another had scattered the Italian troops to the winds and filled the prison compounds to overflowing. Now the tide I was turning even there. With Europe safely under lockand-key and the remains of the British Expeditionary Force flung back across the English Channel, the German Army was able to look around, to estimate the extent of her enemy’s remaining positions. Apparently disgusted with Italy’s efforts, the Wehrmacht had joined the battle. In spite of the hard-pressed naval patrols, German troops were being ferried across to Africa, and aircraft of every kind were making their appearance in the clear and smiling skies.

  In the Saracen, too, the new strain had shown itself very clearly. From a new complement of officers the strength had shrunk and changed. New, untrained faces appeared each month. The straight lace of the regulars was replaced by the wavy lace of the R.N.V.R. and the intertwined braid of the R.N.R. Erskine had been irritated by his appointment to, such an ancient ship, although it was the rule rather tan the exception now. The Mediterranean Fleet, once filled with the cream of the destroyer flotillas and the proudest cruisers, was now supported and reinforced with the strangest collection of craft ever assembled. Ex-China river gunboats,, flat-bottomed and unsteady even in a slight breeze, cruised along the African coast and grimly exchanged shots with modern E-boats and screaming divebombers. Paddle steamers, once the joy of day-excursionists on their trips from Dover to Calais, swept mines, patrolled the boom-gates and tried to do the hundred and one tasks for which they had never been designed. So the old monitor was just another symbol of events.

  Erskine was a calm, capable officer, and despite his lack of outward emotion looked ‘forward to a command of his own. He knew his work in this worn-out old ship would serve him well when that time came. So too his contact with the new Navy, the reservists and the seamen who daily poured out from distant training barracks, would make him more confident when his chance came.

  The previous captain had been too old, too long in retirement, for the breathtaking savagery of the Mediterranean war. But what he had lacked in foresight and preparedness he had made up in Erskine’s estimation in his dignity and complete courage. He still remembered the look on the old man’s face after the court martial. It was the expression of a dead man. In wartime anything could happen. Men died as easily from caution as from eagerness and as quickly from over-confidence as from cowardice.

  The fact remained that the ship had disgraced herself, and not only the Captain would take the blame. Once it might have been different, but now with every ship and man stretched to the limit there were no acceptable excuses. Responsibility and personal liability grew as resources shrank, and in the cold, dispassionate arena of the courtmartial room who could see beyond the bare facts?

  There was a gentle tap at the door, and Erskine looked up to see Lieutenant McGowan, the Gunnery Officer, watching him with his sad, deepset eyes.

  `Good morning, sir.’ McGowan’s voice was formal, but he gave a quick smile as Erskine waved him to a chair. He peered round at the piles of paper. `What a war!’

  Erskine tapped his pencil against his teeth and waited. McGowan was the only other regular officer aboard, apart from a midshipman and a couple of grizzled warrant officers, but apart from that fact he was also a close friend.

  McGowan said slowly : `Bad raid last night. A destroyer over in Sliema copped it, I believe. And the ruddy tanker they escorted all the way from Alex!’

  Ers
kine watched the sun’s rays strengthening against the sombre grey paint. `We might get it again before we sail.’ He frowned. `When we’ve mustered the hands get the cable party to rig a slip wire to the buoy. If pushed we can break the cable and get away in a hurry.’

  McGowan showed his teeth in a mock grin. `Hurry?; What, this ship?’

  `Now look, James, let’s not get started on your pet moan This is our ship. We must do our best.’ He cocked his head to listen to the sluice of water and brooms across the upper deck. `It’ll be Colours in ten minutes, so get cracking!’ He forced a smile. `You are O.O.D., I presume?’

  McGowan stood up and reached for his cap. `I wouldn’t have stayed aboard otherwise, my friend ! A nice booze-up followed by the exotic charm of a dusky filly, is more the way my mind is going these nights!’ He suddenly became serious. `I just wanted you to know I think it’s a bloody shame about your getting saddled with this ship. First the bombardment going wrong, and then the old fool running her on the putty, that was all bad enough. I don’t see why you should have to stagnate here when you’re a natural for command of a destroyer!’

  Erskine dropped his eyes. `That will do, James.’ His voice was flat.

  McGowan snorted : `I suppose the new skipper’ll be even worse ! One bloody deadbeat after another. Even a good ship couldn’t be expected to survive this !’

  Erskine looked up his eyes flashing. `That will do ! You know damn’ well you shouldn’t talk like this, and I won’t have it!’ He watched the surprise on his friend’s face and added quietly : `I depend on your support. Any sort of talk like that and there’s no saying what might spread through the ship.’

  McGowan adjusted his cap and said stubbornly, `I still think it’s a shame, even if I’m not allowed to say it!’

  Erskine looked back at the signals as a bugle blared overhead. `Go to hell!’

  McGowan grinned wearily. `Aye, aye, sir P