J. E. MacDonnell - 114

by The Worst Enemy(lit)

  While he had been talking, Dalziel's eyes-they were palely grey, a disturbing contrast to his dark visage-alternated between the radar scope and the horizon. His night glasses were specifically designed, and very powerful.

  "I have them in visual," he said quietly, then lowered the glasses. "Number One, I want the guns laid on the base of the bridge structures. Their transmitters should be in there."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  None of Dalziel's listeners even thought to consider that guns could easily sink merchantmen without wasting expensive torpedoes. In daylight, with the sea plainly clear and time on their side, fine. But there could be other enemy ships out there in the dark, hull-down and with slender top-masts returning no radar echoes, but well within the range of shortwave radio transmissions. This was a job for swift, hull-splitting torpedoes.

  "Right," Dalziel said crisply. "Load all guns with semi-armour piercing shell. Quietly."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  Northam passed the word to the captain's messenger, now doing action-duty on the director phone. The control officer spoke to his guns; they were loaded without the normal explosions from gun-captains. Dalziel heard the faint thump of power rammers, and the slither of steel as the twin breech-blocks closed on B-mounting. The torpedo tubes were already loaded, their natural state with the ship at sea.

  With the plan of action formulated and the ship prepared to fight, Pilot was back at the binnacle and Torps over beside his pronged sight. Dalziel stood in the starboard forward corner of the bridge- the enemy would be engaged to starboard-and Northam walked over beside him. No other officer would have dared this, even if his action station had allowed him to.

  "The Japs must need supplies badly," Northam said, in a tone of a man discussing the quality of a cigarette. "Those ships took a pretty big risk. We're not all that far from Hollandia."

  Dalziel nodded. He felt no actual fear himself, though certainly apprehension as to the outcome of the action, but he wondered if Northam did; could that bluff, casual tone be a cover-up. If so, it was bloody well done.

  Then he forewent pointless speculation. He needed to be as much on the ball here as he'd been with the flotilla against those cruisers. Whelp was on her own-no four ships in company with Sainsbury's Tempest in the offing, no Leader to make the tactical decisions. Just to shoot angry questions...

  His mind veered away from that speculation, too, back to the present situation.

  It looked a sure thing, one modern Fleet destroyer, undetected, against merchantmen and a small escort. But war at sea was never certain. There was only the certainty that overconfidence or slackening of concentration could bring swift disaster. Whelp was more powerful than those ships, fast and heavily-gunned; but at sea, at war, you are certain at your peril.

  So Dalziel's mind was as taut as piano-wire as his ship closed the enemy three. In the plan he was following he was sure of only two equations-neither the Jap's speed nor course had altered. And then, with a jolt in his guts, another equation clanged for recognition by his mind.

  How did he know that escort was small? It was purely an assumption based on the size of the convoy. She could be newer, bigger than Whelp, coincidentally due for a return to base, taking the convoy with her. Its size might have nothing to do with hers.

  And the merchantmen themselves; armed raiders were not the sole prerogative of the German Navy. Those two "innocent" ships could mount five-inch guns, ten between them. Even torpedo tubes. The Sydney had gone like that.

  But there was one vital difference between these ships possibly luring him on, as Northam had mentioned, and what had happened to Sydney. If these three knew of his presence, then they knew he was enemy, and they would know that he knew. Sydney had steamed close to an allegedly Dutch ship. To him, those three ships were definitely Japanese; they knew he would come up with his guns trained and loaded, his tubes ready, and with one intent.

  Then, Dalziel worried, if they were armed raiders, if the escort were larger than she seemed, why were they steaming on regardless, allowing danger to approach so close without taking avoiding action?

  Was it because they realised they could not outrun a destroyer, but could easily outfight her once she got in close enough?

  Or was it because this worry nagging at him concerned Bentley more than it did the Japs? His reaction, not theirs? Probably those ships were exactly as they seemed to be, slipping hopefully back to base through the night.

  There was one other certainty in this soon-to-be violent scheme of things-shortly he would know.

  "Position?" he called sharply to Pilot.

  "Course and speed unchanged, sir. Range four miles."

  Surely they'd been sighted! No moon, but the sky was star-bright. Through his night glasses he could see them plainly, could see even the white wash of screws, and the gentle swaying of masts and funnels in the swell. Surely, if just one man glanced astern... Whelp's mast was lofty, her bridge structure and gunnery director lifted almost fifty feet above the sea.

  He could see their wash, and he was showing a thirty knot bow-wave...

  "Reduce to twenty knots."

  "Twenty knots, sir. Wheelhouse? One-eight-oh revolutions."

  Dalziel kept his glasses up, speaking from beneath them.

  "Tubes?"

  "All tubes standing-by, sir." That had been an unnecessary question, Dalziel realised. Where the hell did he think the tube crews were? Playing mahjong on the messdeck?

  He castigated himself so vehemently, knowing the reason for his nerviness, that his thoughts almost became vocal. Come on, come on! It's two merchantmen and a small escort. Nothing else, no tricks, no cunning. You've got in so close because they haven't seen you. That's all. Forget Bentley. Pull your bloody finger out. "Torpedo sight bearing," Torps called quietly. With the words, with the knowledge that action was imminent, Dalziel's worry dissolved. He returned to normal. His meshing thoughts became calm and cold and precise. Not turning his head, not for an instant taking his magnified sight from the white-washed shape so close on the starboard bow, he ordered: "Broadsides."

  Down at the guns gloved hands swept up beneath the electrical firing interceptors. Dalziel could not hear the six clicks of contact, but plainly he heard the reports from B-mounting a few feet below him. "Left gun ready." "Right gun ready." He knew Whelp was ready.

  But not yet. Not quite yet. A matter of seconds yet and the first target would be broadside-on. There was his bow surging level with the other stern, an ugly, bulking, practical stern, built for carrying, not racing. Now it was moving on past a deckhouse, approaching the funnel. God, hadn't they seen them yet!

  Easy, easy. Why the surprise? Wasn't this just how you'd planned it? The crew tired from unloading, the lookouts tired, unworried about water they'd already steamed over?

  But not so tired as all that!

  "Enemy altering course to starb'd!" Pilot shouted.

  "Open fire!"

  Six 4.7s-trained, loaded, laid almost horizontal-belched.

  The eyes of every officer on the bridge were magnetised to the target. But not Dalziel's. He was the captain, he had brought his ship into firing position, and now it was up to the specialists. The captain had other considerations.

  First he laid his glasses on the escort, his main contender. He heard the guns fire again, felt B-mounting's blast, but his attention was for the escort's wake. That would tell him everything.

  The escort's wake was still straight, an unbending arrow of dim white. Swiftly his glasses trained right and rested on the leading merchantman. She also was on her original course.

  Dalziel's mind exulted. Then it wasn't a trap. The Japs had been caught with their kimonos down. The officer of the watch of the last ship had sighted them and altered course on his own initiative, without informing his consorts.

  And you couldn't blame him, Dalziel thought with harsh satisfaction, seeing at last the vicious red gouts spewing from her bridge structure. Only a trained warship's officer, and a warship's bridg
e team, could have instantly carried out the many duties required upon sighting an enemy ship close by.

  Dalziel was shifting his attention back to the second ship in line when a cavernous boom slapped against his eardrums. He didn't bother to look; he knew he could forget his first target. Dalziel concentrated on the next.

  Even at twenty knots Whelp was overhauling at a superior twelve knots. The distance between targets was small. Before the dumbfounded Jap could get his rudder over, Torps' voice came, high and clear:

  "Fire two."

  And the director control officer, who had already ordered. "Shift target, next ship in line", said:

  "Shoot."

  The gunnery problem was elementary. She carried equipment which if operating normally could land her shells on a thirty-knot target ten miles off. The range here was a fraction of that. The barrels were almost level. The shells hit.

  The torpedo-firing was something different. It required a very nice calculation. Shells from a high-velocity naval gun travel at two thousand miles per hour; torpedoes at forty. The range was against Torps in two values. Because it was so close, the Whelp travelling faster than her target, the bearing was altering very quickly, and thus the deflection. As well, if the torpedo did not have the correct depth-setting on, it would run clear under the Jap, for at that range it could be past before regaining the right depth after its initial plunge into the sea.

  Torps calculated, and allowed for, these values precisely. He was the pupil of a tough master. The torpedo ran straight and the second ship took nearly half a ton of Torpex fair in her empty guts. She was savaged by a wound thirty feet long.

  Now Dalziel had no need to worry about reduced speed or deflection. The escort ship was of too shallow a draught, and too nippy, for torpedoes. The final engagement would be gunnery. "Fullahead together."

  Engine-room repeat bells were still clanging when the signal yeoman reported: "Escort altering course towards." That meant to port, to cross Whelp's bows. It was either a clever move, Dalziel reflected swiftly, or else the result of confusion. Clever if the Jap were turning to escape the fate of his charges, for thus he would make the destroyer also turn to port before she could fire torpedoes, and so gain time.

  But the Jap should realise he was too small to invite a torpedo. As it was, in turning to cross Whelp's bows he was opening the whole length of his ship to entry by shells. Confusion, Dalziel decided.

  The four forward guns bellowed.

  In the few seconds before the shells finished their run, Dalziel had identified the class and type of his broadside-on enemy. He was helped by the initial assumption that she would be small with such a convoy, but identification would have been almost instant anyway.

  In nearly all destroyers the break of the fo'c'sle, that part where the higher forward section cuts down to the lower after part, is abreast or a little abaft the bridge. But the ship in Dalziel's glasses had the break of her fo'c'sle quite noticeably ahead of the bridge. Between bridge and fo'c'sle was a well-deck, as in a merchant ship.

  There was only one type of Japanese destroyer with a silhouette like that.

  Kuri-class, he thought. Just under eight hundred tons, only three 4.7s, but thirty-one knots. She was shorter than Whelp, and with her power and much lighter weight would be able to turn more quickly.

  Then he realised that it didn't seem to matter if she could turn fast or slow.

  The director control officer had her. He held her and he punched broadside after broadside into her thin skin. The range was so helpful that almost every shell of those four-gun broadsides struck home. Bright sparkles of red glittered down her length, and then leaping flares of red licked at the night as her funnel split open. And so far she had not fired a shot in return for that cruel intake.

  Dalziel felt not the slightest shiver of pity. He felt a cold sort of excitement and considerable relief, but no pity. Now he was the dedicated killer, yet there was the other thing, which even in a kindly captain would have stifled pity.

  The Jap carried four tubes and three guns as large as his enemy's. It needed just one shell in Whelp's forward magazine.

  Dalziel thought of altering to port and bringing his after mounting into action. But that would open out his own length, and the two forward mountings were doing well enough.

  They were doing splendidly, he realised, though no man could have detected this feeling from the hard, almost vicious set of his face. The loading was smooth and as fast as he could remember; between them the four guns were firing sixty rounds a minute. Shouted orders, clang of loading trays, thud of breech-blocks, hoot of fire-buzzers, the multiple bellow of all guns firing precisely together, then the brassy ring as the empty cordite cylinders ejected onto the steel decks.

  To Dalziel it was all as beautiful as a designed orgasm-swords of yellow flame slashing the night, clouds of acrid smoke billowing back over the bridge, repeated roars that numbed the ears. For this, day after day and in night-time too, he had trained them. It was pandemonium-disciplined, ordered, controlled, and dreadfully effective. Then why was the Jap still there? Burning, smoking, alight in a dozen places, the destroyer was still there, still turning towards. What was holding her up? There must be scores of holes punched in her hull, that vicious flail must have lacerated the human content of her upper-deck. Unless, Dalziel thought, she's out of control. The Jap was not out of control. Even a Kuri-class rates more than 17,000 horsepower. That output requires considerable furnace heat. Being small, the base of her funnel where Whelp's shells had burst was only a short distance above the white-hot flames wreathing in her furnaces. For practical purposes the furnaces were discharging their fiery breath almost straight on to her upper-deck. The illumination outlined her with ghastly vividness.

  In the reflected glare Dalziel could see her forepart, which itself was framed whitely by the branching bow-waves. He saw that the stem had stopped swinging. Still at high speed, the stem was driving straight for Whelp.

  "He's going to ram!" Northam shouted. Pilot, too, had seen. God knows it was plain enough. He stood on the grating, crouched forward, one hand steadying on the compass ring and the other gripped round the throat of the wheelhouse voice pipe. His mouth was close to the pipe, but his eyes were fixed on Dalziel, waiting.

  Dalziel felt no relief now. It had evaporated under the heat of this sudden and unexpected threat. He might not have his ship simply damaged; he might well lose her.

  But all this concerned a small part of his mind, and briefly. Incisive, brittle, his orders came-not to the wheel, but to the engines. "Full power both engines."

  Obediently Pilot passed the order. The bells clanged. She was at thirty knots and she answered the call for maximum output swiftly. Her plates vibrated with the force of that enormous thrust, 40,000 superheated horsepower.

  Still crouched over, pilot snatched a look at the enemy. The Jap was less than half a mile off, belching fire and belting to hit. If both ships maintained their present courses the Jap would strike smack amidships on the port side, a vehement meeting which would drive her stem right into the engine-room.

  Then Pilot understood Dalziel's delay of the wheel order. As of now, the Jap could match Whelp's avoiding turn; he too could swing, and still hit. They had to wait till the last possible second- "Stand by for manoeuvring," Dalziel said. Pilot warned the coxswain, while he wondered at the icy levelness of the captain's tone; his own guts were cringing with fear. It never occurred to him that he, also, had spoken calmly. But that was through the force of example, and right then Pilot was singularly uninterested in analysis.

  Dalziel stood a few yards distant in the starboard forward corner of the bridge, the captain's corner. His hands gripped the windbreak and his pale eyes stared unblinkingly at his enemy.

  He had no need of the compass. There was no time for the usual checking of bearings on a collision course, for measurements to determine if the other ship were drawing aft or ahead. And no point to all that, for the other ship was intent on collision.r />
  This was all eye, and experience, and judgment. The eye judging distance and speed, and experience judging how quickly a ship could swing under full rudder at thirty-six knots.

  This was the moment. This was the supreme and final responsibility for which he had been trained, and had trained himself through the years. This was to be the justification of why he had been given his command of a ship and all its privileges; or else proof of his unfitness to command.

  At this climactic moment there was one man in Whelp. The responsibility for that final and single order was absolutely his. Her guns were firing and her screws were thrashing, performing their ordered jobs, but her life depended upon one man.

  Then Dalziel snapped, "Hard-a-starb'd!" and then there were two men.

  Never before in his life had this second man failed to repeat a wheel order. Until now.

  He had delivered the demand for full power, he had been warned to stand by for manoeuvring, which meant an emergency was jumping upon them, and a less experienced man than Whelp's coxswain would have known from these things that another ship was trying to ram. He understood, also, the reason for the captain's waiting. The order had to be given at the last moment, and it had to be executed with the utmost rapidity.