J. E. MacDonnell - 114

by The Worst Enemy(lit)

  "Right," he said, the tone snapping their grins off. "Newton happens to be dead on-target. Ilwaki holds oil tanks, recently installed. They will fuel the Jap force for its final fast run across to New Guinea. We have to destroy those tanks. The Japs will have to steam all the way back to Sourabaya for fuel. The delay will give MacArthur time to organise a suitable naval force to handle `em. But time is the thing, and there's precious little of it. We've got to get to those tanks before the Japs. If we don't... The Flotilla sails in thirty minutes. Good day, gentlemen."

  They shouldered through the door. Dalziel lingered.

  "Right on the knocker, eh?"

  "An educated guess," Bentley demurred.

  "Hmmm. What did the staff office say when you told him of our little discussion?"

  "I didn't."

  "What?"

  "Remember Newton? There's a time to talk, and a time to keep your lip buttoned. Anyway, he wouldn't have believed me."

  "I suppose not. Well, I'm off."

  "Don't let me delay you."

  The distance to be run was more than a thousand miles. The speed ordered was thirty knots, only six under the maximum. This could be risky, Bentley knew only too well, but the objective justified any risk, and if a ship broke down, even two, he could still manage a cluster of oil tanks with eighteen 4.7s; with his own six, if it came to that. It shouldn't, for Intelligence believed there were no sizeable enemy forces near Wetar Island-yet. This was reasonable; the Japs must consider their secret unviolated. If they didn't...

  But there were some things it was better not to think about. Bentley occupied himself with sending the gunnery control team to bombardment drill, even climbing into the director to watch Lasenby at work, and then down to the transmitting-station where Saunders the gunner's mate held sway.

  The flotilla had not carried out a shore bombardment for some time. This one had to be hard and quick and thoroughly effective. He'd been dead serious about the time factor; there would be no second chance.

  There were no breakdowns, either. No miracle or happy chance was involved here, but meticulous adherence to a rigid maintenance schedule; and all five ships were modern.

  Bentley was in his cabin, having slipped down for a bite of dinner and a smoke, when the voice pipe burred. He jumped to it. Radar, Pilot told him, was in clear contact with the eastern end of Wetar Island.

  "Close-up for action," Bentley ordered. "Pass that to the flotilla."

  No need to designate how; nothing would be used here except Ferris' shaded Aldis lamp, with each ship passing the message down the line.

  Bentley came back on to the bridge. He looked about him and wondered at their luck. Not the navigation-that was expectedly precise, with all the electronic aids to it-but the weather. There was no moon. Clouds which had sailed southward from the Banda Sea that afternoon still covered the sky. Rain would be even better, but you couldn't have everything. As it was, he could just pick out Whelp's bow-waves astern, and required night glasses to spot her superstructure.

  Bow-waves, five sets of them...

  "Distance to Ilwaki?"

  "Twenty miles, sir."

  "Come down ten knots."

  "Down ten knots, sir." Into the voice pipe Pilot said: "One-eightoh revolutions."

  Randall said: "Ship closed-up for action, sir."

  "Very well. That was quick."

  Randall smiled, too, just as nervily. "Could be they want to get this thing over and done with. It's damn lonely over here."

  "No argument. Bombardment ammunition ready?" Bentley asked, knowing.

  "All provided. Just give me the target and I'll rip her apart."

  "Me? You find it your bloody self. Unless you left the starshell behind?"

  They talked like that, amicably insulting, while navigational radar outlined the cliffy coast and the flotilla pushed on at twenty knots. But as the promontory of Ilwaki drew nearer and nearer, their conversation dwindled; stomachs tightening, both men listening to the soft whirr of the search radar aerial and the bell-toned ping of asdic, dreading to hear this sound pitch up to the sharper peep of contact.

  It was pure assumption that the Japs believed their new fuelling point to be unreported; or so it seemed to Bentley now, so close. They could have surface ships guarding the promontory, and submarines waiting. Just then, coming from nowhere to penetrate his tautness of mind, a thought struck him. He had wanted-bollicks, he had longed and yearned-to get back up here, to this.

  "Man wants his stupid bloody head read," he said, involuntarily.

  "Repeat?" Randall said sharply. But Pilot saved Bentley the trouble of explaining.

  "Ilwaki coming on the beam, sir."

  Bentley stepped to the radar scanner. There it was, all right, clear-cut as a triangular piece of cheese, with the cliffs running back from the point on either side.

  "Look at that," Pilot said.

  "What d'you mean?"

  "Those cliffs, steep-to as any I've seen. A fleet could hide up against `em masked from radar."

  Bentley knew he was talking for the sake of it; his voice was too calm.

  "Yes," he answered, straightening from the scanner, "but not for us. This will do fine out here. Number One, you remember the position of the oil tanks I told you?"

  "On top of the cliff. I'd hardly forget that."

  "Then light the bloody things up," Bentley snarled. "Yeoman, make to the flotilla... `Standby to bombard.'"

  CHAPTER NINE

  AS ALREADY planned, B-mountings of Wind Rode and Whelp were used to fire starshell. This left twenty-six 4.7s for the real work.

  Bentley felt the first shock of discharge like a punch in the guts. Never mind the Japs' secrecy; now theirs was violated, in the clearest, most emphatic manner. The gun flashes were momentary, yet he felt as though the largest searchlight in the world was glaring upon him.

  Then, high above the cliffs, four bright stars were suddenly born in the night. Swaying, they dropped slowly, their light showing the smoke above the parachutes like twisted threads of grey wool. Just as the soft thump of the shell's explosion reached Wind Rode's bridge, four more stars burst into light.

  Every pair of glasses on the bridge was up, yet only one man was really required to see. He had to see.

  He saw.

  "Director target," Lasenby reported to the bridge.

  "Open fire!" Bentley roared, and managed to pull his voice down to half a gale for the next order: "Rapid broadsides."

  The flotilla belched.

  They were modern destroyers. Not so modern as some-there is always one type just a bit ahead of you-but they all had special gunnery radar sets, and these were patched-in to the control system, which by itself allowed for enough variables to make an Army gunner weep with frustrated envy, and they were supposed to be able to hit with damn near every shell.

  In theory, that is. There are always some imponderables where human manipulation is concerned. But here the size and total immobility of the targets neutralised any human faults, which anyway by training had been reduced to the smallest possible degree.

  The very first broadside burst smack amongst the close cluster of tanks.

  They saw it plainly; vivid gouts sparkling red against the flares' white glare, against the steely sheen of the tanks.

  "You little beauty," Randall exulted, in a low tight hiss through his teeth. "We've found the range, sir."

  "Yes."

  The next broadside found its target, flashing back to them the same evidence.

  But that was the only evidence.

  The first twist of worry started to worm in Bentley. Those shells should be blasting the tanks wide open. The heat generated in each explosive burst was tremendous. God knows he had proof enough of that. Then why wasn't the oil burning?

  Bentley jumped to a phone and revved the handle.

  "Engineer, at the rush!"

  McGuire was standing-by his throttles; he came at once. "Yessir?"

  "We've got a problem..." A multiple
blast made his pause. "At what temperature does fuel oil explode?"

  "It doesn't. It ignites. You've got to bring it to such a heat that the vapour rises, say about 175 degrees Fahrenheit."

  "Shells should do that? Our shells?"

  "Christ, yes. Under heat like that the oil will vaporise instantly."

  "In a big tank?"

  "In anything. Look, would you like me to come up and..."

  "Hold it!" Bentley said sharply, for Randall had called. "Repeat, Number One."

  Randall's arm jabbed out. "There she blows! Any second now and the lot'll... There's another one!"

  Bentley had been crouched below the windbreak to escape some of the gun blast. Now he stared over it, seeing the flames leap, playing redly on the black smoke. Relief swamped through him.

  "Belay all that, Chief. You were right, they're starting to burn. Not to worry. Standby for full speed."

  "You don't have to worry about that," said McGuire, and the phone went dead.

  Bentley came back to the binnacle. He looked shoreward, still feeling that sense of relief, and then he frowned, though only slightly; curious instead of concerned.

  "That's a lot of oil up there," he said generally. "It doesn't seem to be making much of a fire."

  "Funny," said Pilot; he was the sober one, of necessity, and more thoughtful than the others, all of whom wore exultant smiles. "I was thinking that myself. Remember the bombed oil tank in Moresby?

  The flames rose damn near a hundred feet."

  "Oh, bollicks," Randall chuckled; a few more broadsides and it would be all over-full speed for home and most of the night ahead. "In Moresby you were looking straight at the tank, right down near the pier. Here there's the angle of sight to consider. Those cliffs are bloody high, hiding most of the bonfire. You jump up there and you'd see flames, all right. Most of the oil's burning on the ground, remember. It's the angle of sight," he repeated.

  The argument sounded logical. Bentley was almost convinced. He said:

  "What do you think, Pilot?"

  "Sorry, sir, but I have to admit Number One could be right."

  "That'll cost you a beer," Randall growled.

  Bentley raised his glasses, feeling but ignoring the gun blast. There seemed to be at least three fires, though he couldn't be sure. They were fairly close in to the cliffs. Then, damn it all, he thought; they'd found the tanks, they'd fired hundreds of shells at them, and the tanks were burning. What more was needed? Except the need to get to hell out of it before daybreak...

  He made his decision. "Cease firing. Yeoman. `Alter course in succession ninety degrees to port, speed thirty knots.' Got that, Pilot? We'll run straight south for a bit, just in case they have anything coming round the eastern end of the island."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  Quiet again, stinking of cordite, Wind Rode swung left to head directly away from Wetar Island. One after the other, as they reached the turning point, each ship turned to follow. Presently the column was complete, line-astern from the Leader. In this formation it offered the smallest target to radar, even in the unlikely event that the Japs on such a small island had any.

  Bentley let his flotilla run fast for several minutes, with radar searching back over the quarters to east and west, the dangerous directions. Nothing showed, at least moving on the sea; nothing but the cliffs dead astern.

  He would never know what made him raise his glasses astern; they had just come from there, it was empty water. Maybe he responded to an automatic reflex to check the flotilla. What he saw stiffened him.

  Or didn't see. "Pilot!"

  "Sir?"

  "I know this, but I want confirmation." Pilot frowned; what the devil..." We've moved some distance away from the cliffs," Bentley went on, his voice tight, "Therefore the angle of sight is less acute. Correct?"

  "Yes, sir, of course."

  "Then why can't I see more of the flames? Why, in fact, can't I see any flames at all?"

  Pilot swivelled to stare astern. He had no need of glasses, they hadn't come that far. Like the water behind them, the cliff tops were bare; no flames, no red-lit smoke, not even a glow.

  "Christ," he muttered.

  "Exactly. Well, Number One?"

  "I just... can't understand..." Randall trailed off, shaking his head.

  Bentley's mind was a whirl of galvanised thought, catching at every item that had concerned him back there and shaking it into an ugly pattern.

  "Then try this for size," he said to Randall, but really for all of them. "It took some time for the first fire to show, when it should have showed at once. Oil burns or it doesn't, it's not a bloody slow-match. And the fires were small, much smaller than expected, angle of sight regardless. Two of us thought that. Now there are no fires at all. Even petrol couldn't burn that fast. And here's the clincher... Why," Bentley said, his eyes grabbing at them in turn, "would the Japs, in what's supposed to be an undetected fuelling point, place their oil tanks smack on top of a cliff where they're visible for miles?"

  There was dead silence-broken by the sharp slap of Bentley's hand against his forehead.

  "God, I should have thought of that!" He stared at them. "We've been tricked, don't you see? Taken for suckers. The Japs must have some sort of arrangement, maybe oil pipes with their nozzles poking above the ground, that they can fire or turn off at will. Whatever it is, we fell for it. Or I did," he ended bitterly.

  "It wasn't your fault," Randall defended him. "The show they put on would've fooled anyone."

  "Yes," Bentley nodded, "and it did."

  Pilot coughed; more than any of them, he appreciated the basic fact of command, which was that no matter what happened to a ship, the captain took the blame. Loyal and devoted as he was, it affected him to hear Bentley castigating himself in public, and for something which was not really his fault. It was bad enough when a captain was blameworthy.

  At his cough Bentley turned. "Yes, Pilot? A bright idea-I hope?"

  "Sorry, sir, I was just thinking of what we know. We did clobber those tanks, but they didn't burn, therefore they held no oil, or maybe just enough to make us think they did."

  "Which brings us," Bentley said, in a tone which Pilot was glad to hear held more thoughtfulness than bitterness, "to the jackpot question: if the oil's not in the tanks, where the hell is the bloody stuff?"

  He got no answer. Predictable and expected at first, the silence grew until it threatened to become embarrassing. Pilot wasn't the only one devoted and loyal. His voice unconsciously harsh with feeling, Randall said:

  "What happens now, sir? It seems to me we've done all we can, carried out our orders."

  "Yes, Bob, but without result. If I'm right, and you all know I am, then the oil's still there, and the Jap squadron can complete its mission."

  "But what can we do, for God's sake?" Randall said desperately.

  "We can turn around."

  "You mean go back?"

  "We have to go back," Bentley said, almost to himself, and they knew, knowing him, how his mind was racing. "There's the time factor, you see? That Jap squadron could arrive..." His voice changed, sharpening decisively. "Yeoman. Signal the flotilla to follow me round in a 180 degree turn."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  It was one of the luckiest decisions Bentley had ever made, that turn away from his present course. No one who heard him order it was feeling lucky, least of all Randall. The big fellow could fight like a typhoon-against something he could see, an enemy he knew. But here...

  "What's the point?" he asked worriedly, leaning with all of them to Wind Rode's lean. "We'll only waste ammunition."

  "Maybe, maybe not, It all depends. A fleet could get in close against those cliffs, eh Pilot? Well then, so can we-and masked by the cliff echoes from enemy radar."

  Somebody drew his breath in; a quick sharp hiss. Bentley looked round, identifying the youngest of them.

  "Don't worry, Torps, we won't be tackling a cruiser squadron."

  "No, sir," said Torps, tryin
g to speak naturally.

  "Then just what the hell will we be doing?" asked Randall.

  In clipped sentences Bentley told them.

  No one spoke when he'd finished. The plan was horribly dangerous, but they were used to danger. It was the foreignness of the thing, so alien to their natural element, that kept them silent.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE seaboat was a whaler twenty-seven feet long. Used as a life-boat, it was designed to carry twenty-seven men. Now, on the dark, still sea, it held eight men-five on the oars, Hooky Walker at the tiller, and Bentley and Petty-Officer Gellatly in the stern-sheets directly below his big feet.