J. E. MacDonnell - 114

by The Worst Enemy(lit)

  So that instead of wasting even a second in shouting the repeat of his order at the voice pipe, the coxswain bent his body far to the right and jerked his right hand down towards the deck.

  The wheel spun.

  Whelp weighed almost two thousand tons. To angle her rudder across a torrent of water rushing against it at forty miles per hour, great force was required. No man could have done this unaided. She had power-steering.

  Clever, cunning, the coxswain's hand caught the spokes again before they had stopped moving under his initial thrust, and thrust down. He did this again and again, very quickly, his hand like a striking snake. The wheel did not stop spinning until it jerked against the stops, and the brass pointer on the helm indicator was jammed against the figure 35.

  Now Whelp's rudder was angled at thirty-five degrees from the fore-and-aft line, as far as it would go. A larger angle would not have increased her rate of turn, but would have hampered her speed.

  It was a big rudder; like the screws, for her size it was huge. Its strong, steely face met the rush of water steadily, not giving an inch to that massive pressure, held fixed by the steering engine. Something had to give. The stern slewed to port, the stem sliced round to starboard.

  She leaned, not only under the inertia of the turn but in obedience to the tremendous thrust against the rudder. She leaned, then she tilted, and then she reeled; far over until the sea rushed in like a cataract over her low iron-deck amidships. Each guardrail stanchion down there magically had its own bow-wave, and rope reels fronted the onrush with white faces.

  On X-mouting aft, the layer and trainer were held securely in their seats. At this target they had not fired a shot. The rest of the gun crew held on to whatever they could grab hold of. The gun-captain was behind his loaded charges, high up on the weather side, his hands behind him gripping the top guardrail and his body bent forward like a bow.

  The gun-captain was a seaman petty officer. In normal times he was captain of the quarterdeck, responsible for a third of the ship's working efficiency and its cleanliness. But in a destroyer in the Pacific times were not often normal, and Petty Officer Rainer spent almost as much time at his guns as he did down on the deck. He knew them backwards, and he knew precisely what he had to do now.

  Northam and the gunner's mate had trained him, with the overriding example of Dalziel's fetish for efficiency always close in the background. Yet Rainer was himself a quick-thinking man; one reason why he was now behind his guns, in charge, instead of hanging on with a shell under one arm.

  He was a thin, loose-limbed man with a normally pleasant face whose expression, its owner being gunnery, could change in an instant. He had been given no orders. In giving him command of the twin after guns it had been assumed that in a moment like this he would need no orders. The assumption was justified. In a strident, carrying bellow, Petty Officer Rainer gave voice to his snap decision.

  "Local control! Point of aim waterline below the funnel! Rapid broadsides. Fire!"

  That order to fire was more permissive than executive. The target was rushing past a few yards away, thus altering the bearing rapidly, and the trainer had to give the hydraulic pump full belt so as to swing the tonnage of mounting round in time.

  But the mountings were fitted with dual-purpose guns, designed to engage aircraft as well as ships, and so designed to swing quickly. In a swift arc the two barrels trained, and then, momentarily, steadied. Both oily snouts were aimed at the frothing white below the flaming funnel; past that white, past the thin side, were the destroyer's boiler-rooms.

  On the bridge after he gave the order Dalziel worried if he had left it just that second too late, the delay which would allow the Jap's stem to crush in against his screws and rudder.

  He had felt like this before, and he would again. There was always doubt; for although he felt confident in the handling of his own ship, there was in this case that other imponderable about which he could do nothing-the intentions of the enemy captain.

  Dalziel's mind, when he had made the decision and given the orders, had been glacially calm. This state had been induced as much by training as by natural aptitude. For years as a subordinate he'd had instilled in him the need for calmness when ordering a fast destroyer about, and as a commander he had practised it.

  But now, with the ship swinging, with the Jap rushing on, and with nothing more he could do but wait, Dalziel saw that spuming stem driving for his stern and he felt a glacial cold, not in his brain but in his guts.

  At just that instant Bentley was not in his thoughts, concerned as they were with more intimate and harsher dangers. Fires and hurts regardless, the Jap must be doing close to thirty knots. Eight hundred tons of steel striking at thirty knots could carve the stern off her.

  Even if she did not sink, Whelp would be left as useless and immobile as if she were stranded on a reef.

  At this instant in the progression of his thoughts, Dalziel suddenly had the flotilla-leader forcibly in mind.

  The forward guns had ceased firing, their loading cycle broken by the acuteness of her heel. Before they could reload the target would be past. Close, one careering round, the other thrusting forward, and the two ships fought their battle in silence.

  Dalziel had decided that the Jap would just manage to catch his stern when the silence was broken.

  The sound was brief and deep, from that distance more of a roar than an ear-punching slam. X-mounting was much further from the bridge than the forward guns. The ships were so close that, staring at the Jap, Dalziel caught the flash of guns in the corner of his eye. Automatically he waited for the flash of arrival against the target, but he saw nothing.

  Surely they could not have missed, at that range... And then, quite definitely, he saw the enemy ship had slowed her speed.

  The gunlayer of X-mounting had heard plainly enough Rainer's orders. But he, too, was savagely trained by experience, and he waited till the vertical wire in the end of his telescopic sight, sweeping round under the strain of the hydraulic pump, reached the flame-spouting funnel.

  He depressed his barrels a little until his horizontal wire was on the waterline, then he squeezed the brass trigger of the local-firing mechanism. It was this small movement which broke the silence.

  Nor could Rainer see any evidence of his shells arrival. Not at first.

  The projectiles weighed fifty pounds apiece. They were semiarmour piercing. The casings were quite strong to withstand the shock of discharge, but the noses were capped with specially hardened steel. If they had struck at long range, arriving on the target with a good deal of their initial high velocity expended, they would probably have burst on the upper-deck or against the superstructure.

  But here, against this close target, they arrived at a velocity of two thousand miles per hour. Both shells bored easily in through the quarter-inch steel of the destroyer's side. Both fuses were jolted into

  action.

  The fuses were designed to delay the explosions for only the briefest fraction of time, just sufficient for the shells to get in through the side before doing their job. And so neither captain nor gun-captain saw any evidence of their arrival. Not at first.

  The pipes delivering superheated steam to a destroyer's turbines are large. They are encased in a white-painted insulating material which keeps heat in, but which is of small use for keeping jagged steel slivers out.

  The shell from the right gun of X-mounting exploded a short distance from the steam pipe supplying power to the starboard engine.

  The compartment was filled abruptly with a white mist: steam gains its propulsive properties from its expanding qualities. Men looked up towards the sound of the shrieking ejection, saw the whiteness, breathed in once, and died. Their bronchial tubes and lungs were shrivelled instantly to uselessness by that scalding intake; the steam was at 600 degrees F.

  The explosion of the shell from the left gun was not, at first, nearly so spectacular. It burst between the ship's side and the side of the port boiler. />
  The boiler was thick-sided and strong. Normally, perhaps, an explosion even so close might not have ruptured that steel. But inside the boiler there waited an eager ally of the T. N. T. That steel was already withstanding a high-speed pressure of almost four hundred pounds per square inch.

  The side of the boiler split, but not right through. For a moment, it held.

  On his bridge Dalziel naturally knew nothing of these inner forces at work. He could see only that the speed had slowed, and that the Jap would miss his stern. This was more than enough to occupy him, and to replace the coldness in his guts with elation.

  Whelp was nearly round now, racing at right-angles away from her enemy's course, opening the range swiftly. The distance was further enlarged by the Jap ship, still moving on to the south.

  No guns were firing, for on the leaning deck the crew of X-mounting were slow to reload, and the forward guns could not bear. All lay quiet under the star-glittering sky.

  Then the sky thundered.

  Luckily for Dalziel and his bridge team the sides of the compass platform and the base of the director barred the full force of that gargantuan breath. But the men of X-mounting and those at the tubes could not hear properly for hours afterwards; which was bad luck for the torpedomen, but poetic justice for the gun crew.

  The thunder rolled away to silence across the sea. When they stared back astern there were no flames from the funnel; there seemed, in night glasses, to be nothing of anything.

  "Boilers," rumbled Northam, and nodded with a fat satisfaction.

  Dalziel was more widely perceptive.

  "X-gun," he said. "One salvo, and it hit the waterline." He almost added, "Thank the Lord", but it does not do to imply even the possibility of disaster on one's own bridge, and anyway his nature precluded such a thankful admission.

  "Of course," Northam agreed, nodding again, and then: "Survivors? There's sure to be some from the merchantmen."

  Having come through the valley of the shadow of death, Dalziel had no intention of lingering near it, but it was satisfying to have the reason for his denying decision made so opportunely public. A buzzer sounded from the wireless-office voice pipe. Pilot answered it. He listened, then hurried over to Dalziel.

  "Chief telegraphist picked up a radio transmission, sir. It was short and quick, but he thinks from the strength that it could have come from that destroyer."

  "I'm sure it did," Dalziel replied grimly. "Let's get out of here. Resume course for base."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  The violent evasive action had swung Whelp round towards the position of the merchantmen. By the time Pilot had got the wheel off and straightened her they were close.

  "One's gone," Northam muttered, "but the other's afloat. A couple of broadsides?"

  Dalziel was not so much concerned by the fact of the radio signal as by the reason behind it. The Jap might have simply sent a conventional S.O.S., but he might also have known of heavy friends in the vicinity. Dalziel had no wish to prove the latter possibility.

  "No, she's well listed. She should go before morning."

  "Survivors off the port bow," reported the signal yeoman.

  Dalziel strode to that side of the bridge and looked down. Battle had been joined, and concluded; his killer instinct satisfied. He had no inclination for men, alive or dead, to be mixed up with his screws. His dedication stopped short of brutality.

  But the survivors were clear to port. In the starlight he could pick out the black blobs of heads, and the occasional lighter patch of an upturned face staring at its destroyer, with here and there the small red light burning on a life-jacket. An arm waved, whether cursing or in supplication he could not tell.

  He was tempted to stop; activated by the magnanimity of his own relief. The ocean would seem incredibly vast and lonely and hostile to those men so close to it. They would be shocked with the suddenness and savagery of their fate. Before, enemies, now they looked simply pitiful, bobbing helplessly on the dark face of the sea.

  Yet if he stopped there could be a malignant eye, in no degree helpless, examining his fool behaviour through a periscopic lens. Or half a dozen bow-waves hurrying from over the horizon. Dalziel easily overcame his momentary temptation.

  "They will have boats and rafts," he growled, impelled in the presence of less harsh natures to justify himself even through the validity of his reasoning. "And plenty of flotsam."

  "And maybe plenty of friends soon," added Pilot, remembering the conviction in the chief telegraphist's voice.

  But to Dalziel this smacked of connivance in his own conniving; he could do without a junior's collaboration. His tone had a rasp in it.

  "We're on-course yet?"

  "Ah..." Pilot peered at the compass. "Yes, sir, just coming on now."

  "Then report it in future."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  At this time, with violence so recently behind them, the navigator was not analytically inclined. In any case, he had been a trifle remiss with the course, and to his mind this was sufficient justification for the captain's attitude. He took no offence at it.

  Dalziel could not have cared less. There was another consideration claiming his attention. For some time his ship had been cavorting over the sea, altering courses and speeds, and this was hardly conducive to accurate navigation. He had a navigating officer, but the ultimate responsibility was the captain's.

  For the next few minutes Dalziel was busy at the chart.

  When, finally, he turned the ship over to Torps, officer of the first watch, he said:

  "Yeoman, take the signal."

  Dalziel talked deliberately, outlining all relevant details of the action, while the yeoman scribbled busily. It was a short report, but an experienced reader could readily fill in the gaps.

  "Have that transmitted when the ship is fifty miles from Hollandia," he finished.

  "Aye aye, sir. Usual address?"

  "Yes." Dalziel hesitated, then he did a brave thing. "Repeated Wind Rode," he said.

  "Aye aye, sir."

  The Yeoman's was the only comment. Nobody else but its originator appreciated the significance of having that signal repeated to the flotilla-leader. Just then their whole appreciation lay in the fact of their being still alive, and able to steam back to safety.

  "Sea-cabin, Torps."

  "Sea-cabin, aye aye, sir."

  Dalziel went below. Taylor the steward was not put out when his lord said:

  "Just coffee and a sandwich, please."

  Taylor went about caring for Dalziel's reduced appetite with a neutral expression, and then he turned down the sheets on his bunk, and when the captain had finished showering and was in his pyjamas, Taylor in his little pantry ate thoughtfully and without expression the chops, the mashed potatoes and the hardly-gained fresh cabbage.

  Ignorant of this, his appetite for loneliness more than satisfied, Dalziel turned in.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "I'M GLAD you've come in just now, Doctor," the ward sister said. Her expression was not worried, but sober.

  Bentley knew that expression, usually worn by Pilot when the captain had strolled on to the bridge. So-and-so Reefs ahead of us, sir, and that nimbus might confuse the navigational radar. No real trouble, yet...

  "This is Captain Bentley: Sister Clifford."

  "How d'you do, sir?"

  "Good evening, Sister."

  "Mrs. Nelson?" Merrie asked.

  "Yes."

  "Symptoms?" Merrie's tone was crisp. To some degree Bentley was seeing her as she had him with the soldier; this was a different Merrie.

  "Temperature's spiky and she's been vomiting," answered Sister Clifford. "Diarrhoea too, but no rigours yet. I've just taken her pulse-one hundred and ten, her systolic close to a hundred."

  The words were almost staccato-a few experienced sentences indicating the identifiable danger signs of the disordered metabolism which was circulating toxic poisons through Mrs. Nelson's body. Her baby was almost at full term, and Merrie k
new her trouble was nephritic toxemia; she knew also that if the pregnancy were not removed there would be no improvement in the mother's condition. Those insidious poisons circulating through her blood-stream would eventually result in an epileptiform seizure, the dreaded convulsions of eclampsia.

  But Merrie had to be clinchingly sure; this was one of the reasons for her rounds tonight.

  "Put her up in lithotomy, Sister. I want to do another vag. examination. While I'm at it, check the operating list for tomorrow morning. We might need a theatre, setup for Caesarian section. There's someone with Mrs. Nelson?"