J. E. MacDonnell - 114

by The Worst Enemy(lit)

  She sank back. Her eyes were sparkling, with anger. Her voice was brittle with it.

  "He has no right to act like that. What's wrong with him? I can't stand much more of it."

  "You can, my dear," his mother said quietly, "and you will. Just so long as the war lasts."

  "What! I'm sorry, Mrs. Bentley, but we have men in the hospital from the war-men with no legs, men with practically no faces, and they don't carry on like..."

  She stopped, seeing the older woman gently shaking her head.

  "If it were something like that," Mrs. Bentley said, "he would take it, the same as those other men." She tapped her forehead. "His trouble is up here."

  Merrie looked unconvinced. "Overstrain? Battle fatigue? We have men suffering from that, too. Peter's not."

  "I know, my dear. Not your medical strain. But he is suffering- from worry, from responsibility and uncertainty."

  Merrie frowned at her. "About his ships, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "But there's an officer in charge of them, a senior officer. He told me so himself."

  "It's still Peter's flotilla, his responsibility."

  "But surely he can't be blamed if something happens to them?"

  "No, but then blame doesn't come into it. Those are his ships, his men. He loves them, you see. Let me put it this way. How would you feel if one of your patients, someone you loved and for whom you'd worked hard and long to keep alive, died when you were absent, when you couldn't be contacted in time? Wouldn't you think, always, that if you had been there, things just might have been different?"

  After a long moment, Merrie said: "Are you sure?"

  "I've lived with it long enough," Mrs. Bentley said distantly. She looked at Merrie and smiled. "Go out to him now. Just remember that he loves you. I'm sure about that, too. It will help you to put up with his brooding."

  Merrie went down the table. She kissed Mrs. Bentley on the cheek. "You're sweet," she smiled, then walked towards the wide double doors opening on to the verandah.

  "Well, Agnes," Mrs Bentley said, "it looks like we're stuck with clearing up, again. Keep that Pavlova. I don't think it will be wasted."

  Merrie walked up and stood beside her man. The night was warm, but she tugged his arm around her. "She shows up quite plainly," she said." The top part, anyway."

  "The upper-works," Bentley corrected, but a smile in his voice. "I'm sorry, about in there."

  "Not to worry, cobs. How's that?"

  "You're catching on fast."

  She snuggled against him, feeling the hard masculinity of his body. Together they stared across the river, Wind Rode showing greyly in the moonlight. She hesitated, then decided.

  "Peter, I understand now. About your ships, how you feel."

  There was a pause, then she was glad to feel the squeeze of his arm.

  "That mother of mine's been blabbing."

  "She's a darling. I wish you'd told me yourself, earlier."

  "God knows I wanted to. But it's something... well, you find a bit hard to talk about."

  "Never mind," she said bravely, "you'll be up there again with them before very long."

  "Yes," Bentley said and looked up at the star-pricked sky. "I wonder what they're doing now? Probably swilling beer in Morseby, while I worry myself stupid about `em."

  "They'll be all right, darling. Nothing's happened so far. Anyway, they might be glad the Boss is away." "You could be damned right about that." "So how about doing rounds with me tonight? At least..." She faltered, the earlier doubt returning. "Yes?"

  "At least we'll be together."

  "Then let's go!"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE flotilla-leader had sailed from Hollandia, on her own, at five o'clock that still-heated afternoon. She was the temporary leader, of course; her name was Whelp, and the name of her captain was Commander Philip Dalziel.

  There was whingeing amongst her men, naturally: a ship had sailed to sea. Water runs downhill, does it not, the sun rises in the east?

  Even in the variety of their whingeing they were conformist. A seaman complained because they'd got no mail in Hollandia, which is on the northern coast of New Guinea, and a torpedoman was irritated because he'd been able to post a wifely letter containing half his pay.

  A signalman moaned about the fine weather because he'd had to spend most of the afternoon airing flags, and a stoker whinged Where's them bloody clouds to shut out the flamin' sun? In harbour they'd complained because there was no breeze, at sea they cursed because the wind of Whelp's thrusting prevented card-playing on the upper deck.

  And all of them whinged because they were heading north instead of south.

  Yet they whinged with a laugh, without malice. When a man inadvertently kicked the bare toes of his sandall'd foot against a ringbolt on the deck there was always a friendly observer to chortle, "You won't shift it that way, Blubberguts."

  When a man heading for the bathroom with a dhobying bucket full of dirties was thrown an extra pair of shorts or overalls, he cursed luridly, but he washed them. He cursed the coldness of the hot water, or its too-high temperature, but he sang amiably as he made contact with khaki and soap.

  On the bridge and at the duty gun-mounting lookouts and gunners cursed the monotony of their existence, and hoped fervently that it would continue thus.

  All through the three hundred feet of speeding ship men washed, or wrote letters, or re-read old ones, or played cards, or just talked- and hoped; and waited, fearful but controlled, for the clangour of the alarm. She was an efficient ship. Thus, according to the saying, she should have been a happy ship. To a certain degree she was; but not quite like Benson's Witch or Bentley's Wind Rode, for Dalziel was nothing at all like those captains.

  Perhaps it would be truer to say that Whelp's men were content. They had for their captain a man of iron will, hard discipline, and no humour. But he knew his job. He had kept them safe so far, they could count on his doing his damnedest to keep them safe, and they settled for that. Few of his men liked him; their respect was total. Commander Dalziel was quite content to settle for that.

  He had come down from the bridge an hour after dusk action-stations had secured-at about the time Bentley wondered what his flotilla was doing-and now he was drinking with enjoyment a cup of coffee whitened with tinned milk. This enjoyment did not show; from his face he might have been drinking water. He had a dark thin blade of a face, and unless tightened with the alertness of danger, its expression was sardonic. You never quite knew where you stood with Dalziel; he was content about that, too. In his mind it kept men on their toes, efficient, and efficiency was his god. He would never make an Admiral, a great and successful leader of fleets and men, but what he did not know of driving a destroyer it was not much use asking the next man about.

  This was normally a pleasant time, with the dangers of daylight behind you, dinner and sleep ahead. Dalziel felt neither pleased nor relaxed; he felt guilty.

  Not too much, or he would never have done what he had, bringing the ship out on her own. And the flotilla was safe, back there at MacArthur's head-quarters. Dalziel's sense of guilt was directed solely at himself; he was alone out here because he had a longing to be alone: just a few hours away from the carping nag of worry and responsibility-expected and waited for, even if not actual.

  There was the sighting report from that American Catalina, of course, vague and indeterminate, but the real reason for his darting off on the hunt was this urge to be in control of and responsible for just one ship. He believed he would benefit from the break, a fair enough assumption. And after all-and this was the prime consideration-the flotilla was safe. It never occurred to him to worry that Whelp might not be. She was his ship, his weapon, tried and true. If it were too dangerous for her to fight, she could run, and there was nothing up here capable of out-pacing a modern fleet destroyer. Aircraft? Of course. But there was some element of risk always, everywhere. A man could miss his step on a ladder and break his neck...

&nbs
p; Thus, in his cabin, Dalziel mentally justified his action, and the sense of guilt dwindled.

  He finished the coffee and sat on the settee, rifling through a magazine four months old, and now his nose became titillated by the aroma from chops grilling under the competent care of Petty Officer Steward Taylor. He had already established the identity of the garnishing-mashed dehydrated potatoes, tinned peas, and fresh cabbage which Taylor had by some miracle of blandishment obtained from ashore that day.

  Yet, not really miraculous, even though the pantry refrigerator now held enough cabbage to last three or four days, some tomatoes, and even a couple of lettuce, flown in from Townsville by an American aircraft. But it would be stiff luck for the captain-and Taylor-if he happened to ask for that bottle of Scotch tucked away, for then he would find that half of its contents had miraculously evaporated.

  But Taylor was not unduly worried. The captain hardly ever drank at sea, and certainly nothing so alcoholically inclined as Scotch. Before the details of this peculiar but effective bartering could be discovered, the ship should be in a port where the bottle's deficiency could be made good. And anyway, Taylor would have justified himself if called upon to do so, tomatoes and lettuce were better for a man than whisky. The American quartermaster-sergeant in Hollandia might have disputed that contention, but that was no concern of Taylor's.

  Nor did Dalziel, being an experienced destroyer-driver, concern himself with the origin of those fresh greens; had it been a Pavlova, complete with fresh passionfruit and cream, he might seriously have wondered about the price-Admiral Nelson managed all right with one blind eye, but when it came to food-providing stewards, it were better to be blind, deaf and dumb. The eye does not see, so the heart does not grieve-nor the stomachs of destroyer captains.

  No lack of efficiency was involved; the contrary, in fact, with initiative added. Dalziel was content to smell, and anticipate his dinner. By no means a meal for a steak-denying gourmet, perhaps, though the sailors down below, fronting up to their tinned sausages laid upon with tinned tomatoes, might have judged otherwise. It was a simple meal, yet Taylor was garnishing it with the sauce of his own cunning skill, and Dalziel, out here at last on his own, was looking forward to it.

  It was unfortunate that the waiting diner never tasted his dinner.

  Dalziel was gazing at a coloured photograph of a girl whose strapless bodice was demonstrably defying the pull of gravity, and excusably thinking other than gastronomical thoughts, when a buzzer sounded sharply behind his head. His eyes, but not now his thoughts, still on the seductress, he reached up and pulled down the tube. "Captain."

  It was not yet eight o'clock. Northam the first-lieutenant had the last dogwatch.

  "Radar contact, sir, right ahead. Two, possibly three ships, range fourteen miles, course all-same ours. It's a bit difficult at this range, but they'd seem to be doing about eight knots."

  Like his Leader, Dalziel had also been trained by Sainsbury, and in the flotilla. But his mind was incisive anyway, and swiftly it interpreted Northam's facts. That was no heavy fighting squadron ahead, not at eight knots and returning indefinite radar echoes, nor were there friendly ships in the area. It was a convoy, it was lightly escorted, and it was Japanese. Chance had brought him up with what the Catalina had sighted.

  Chance... ? He was out here deliberately. How would he explain his presence to Bentley, if anything went wrong? The questions were harshly obvious: why hadn't he sent Benson or Cartwright on such a vague report, why had he left the flotilla?

  But he was here, so were the Japs, and Northam was waiting.

  "Go on ten knots and maintain course," Dalziel rasped. "Closeup for action."

  He grabbed up his steel helmet and strode out. He was not feeling hungry.

  Lieutenant Northam was one of the few who liked Dalziel, maybe because of the attraction of opposites. He had been in the ship only six months, which was more than long enough for him to appreciate Dalziel's calibre, but he was a slouch-shouldered, amiable bear of a man, an unflappable type against whom Dalziel's sardonic shafts were blunted. The result, of course, was that now they were rarely directed at him. They made a good team; the one saturnine, incisive, the other stoically calm.

  Dalziel stepped on to the bridge. Men tensed, but Northam spoke in his normal deep rumble.

  "Now and again we get the third ship," he said, his rotund face faintly limned by the radar scanner, "but she must be about a mile ahead of the other two. Escort, probably."

  Have you noticed how celluloid captains on their "bridges" continually raise and lower their binoculars like yo-yos? Here the range was fourteen miles, with no moon. This captain peered into the repeat radar scanner.

  "That escort could be a destroyer," he murmered. "Though I doubt if she's a large one with such a small convoy. Now where have they come from?"

  It was a general question. Carefully, the navigator answered:

  "Supplying Jap troops in Dutch New Guinea, sir? They've unloaded, and now they're heading back to the Moluccas-or any one of the clutch of islands to the east of them."

  "Clutch of islands? An appropriate term for a navigating officer. However, I think you could be right, Pilot."

  But it was the fact of the convoy's presence, more than its reason, which interested Dalziel. At thirty knots Whelp was overhauling swiftly. He examined the tiny glowing blips on the screen with care, then he said:

  "We will assume that ship in the van is the escort. The other two will be merchantmen, probably a couple of thousand tons apiece. Warships wouldn't dawdle like that around here."

  "Unless they're luring us in," Northern rumbled.

  "They were at that speed when we made contact," Dalziel decided after a moment's speculation. "Unless their radar is superior, which I doubt, then they haven't contacted us, and they're steaming at eight knots because they can't make any better."

  "That sounds reasonable," Northam agreed.

  "Thank you," Dalziel said drily. "The whole team is in agreement?" Silence. "Good. Now we have to do the dirty on those boys, and do it fast, especially the escort."

  The word "boys" was at harsh variance with his tone. Bentley had commented once that Dalziel turned into a well-oiled machine, like an automatic gun, when the enemy was sighted. Whelp's bridge team had not heard that assessment, though they would have agreed with it, and so they felt no surprise at the bristly menace in his tone. He was not only an efficient killer, but a dedicated one. In fact, Northam suspected he liked killing, and that his sardonic attitude was an attempt to cover this primeval urge.

  Uncaring just then of what anyone thought, Dalziel stared out into the moonless night, seeing nothing at that range, judging and deciding, feeling his heart quicken with the knowledge that three enemy ships were there. The bridge team waited.

  "Let's assume," Dalziel went on, "that the crews of the merchantmen are tired. If they've unloaded a full cargo then they'll have worked flat-out to finish by dark so they can have a full night's run to get clear. Coming up astern, we can reasonably expect that the lookouts' attention is mainly for ahead and on either bow."

  There was a lesson there, he realised, but none of these officers was in need of it.

  "So we stand a good chance of getting in close before they sight us. But God knows what else is around them. A sighting signal might be nasty for us. Our attack must be quick, and definite. Torpedoes, then." He paused suggestively. Pilot turned his head.

  "Torps!"

  A gangly youngster came from the side of the bridge. He was not much more than twenty, with innocuous eyes, but those eyes had aimed torpedoes at a Japanese heavy-cruiser squadron.

  "Yes, sir?"

  Dalziel outlined the enemy's positions quickly-the blips were larger now.

  "It looks as if we're still unsighted. We'll come up fast, then slow down for more accurate shooting. I want one torpedo each for the merchantmen, at close range. Can do?"

  "I think so, sir," answered Torps solemnly.

  Consideri
ng Dalziel's passion for efficiency, his question was as rhetorical as its answer. Another captain named Holland-his efficiency gained in a vastly different fashion-would have capped his orders with "Got it?" And Bentley, "Understood?" Different ships, different cap tallies, as the saying goes.

  "We'll handle the escort depending on his size and movements, probably with gunfire. But I want the merchantmen hit hard before they can start transmitting. They'll have big holds and they'll be empty. You should be able to cause quite a fuss with your tin-fish."

  His cynical tone said, You'd better.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Number One." It was always that-never One, or James, or even Northam. The use of his Christian name, which was Barry, would be unthinkable.

  "Sir?"