Thunder at Dawn

by Alan Evans

  He was acting only on the evidence of one collier that had been suspect and another that seemed to fly at his approach. The seaplane could easily be a coincidence. He had no scrap of evidence that the cruisers were or would be in the Pacific. It was like assuming a murder without a body.

  If he was right there would be a murder and Thunder would be the victim.

  If he was wrong he faced professional ruin and worse. He would be the man who single-handed upset the pro-British feeling in South America at a time when Britain needed all her friends. There would be a clamour for his blood and no reason at all why that clamour should not be satisfied. If he was wrong.

  And again, if he was right? The cruisers loomed huge in his mind and he twisted in the bunk and put a hand to his eyes. He had to sleep.

  Bradley had done well. Do it again, would he? Guts. Bradley. Graham. Sarah Benson. He was rid of her now. He was grateful for her help, God knew! She had brought the word that the Germans were watching Thunder, spotted the oddity of the collier with wireless and but for her he would not have flown with Bradley. Because of her Thunder would not sail unprepared into an ambush.

  If ambush there was.

  Only Sarah Benson believed he was right.

  He threw an arm across his eyes. But she was a prickly, short-tempered — Her face when she killed that man. He would not sleep. Somers: ‘Follow you anywhere, sir.’ The boy meant it. Thackeray, Graham. The water closing over him.

  Sarah Benson …

  He slept.

  *

  Dawn came in a full gale and as Smith clung on the bridge the seas broke over the bows to sweep aft like a green glass wall and smash against the conning-tower. Visibility was maybe three miles. There was no ship in sight.

  He ate breakfast there, a sandwich of the inevitable, monotonous bully beef that tasted vile and was washed down by tea that was cold before he drained the cup. It was all gulped down, forced down, eaten one-handed as he held on with the other. The galley fires were out. There was no hot food nor would there be until this weather abated. The messdecks were in chaos and awash. Visibility was no better and the storm was even worse than in that heaving dawn. Thunder was reduced to ten knots and making hard work of that. In the stokehold men were thrown about as they fought to feed the fires and were bruised and burned.

  Garrick said, “Maria’ll be no better off, sir. She’ll be lucky to be making more than five knots in this sea.” His face was grey as the sky under the prickling black stubble and there were shadows around his eyes.

  Smith grunted in black bad temper, “I suggest you turn in, Number One.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” But Garrick hung on, reluctant, until Smith’s baleful glare caught him. He left the bridge.

  Kennedy had the watch. He took one look at his Captain and ventured no comments at all. Smith swayed to Thunder’s heave and roll and peered wearily out at the wild sea. They would be making better speed than the collier but that did not mean they would catch her. In an ocean of millions of square miles Smith could see only a tiny circle and beyond that was lost to him in rain and leaden cloud. It was like seeking a needle in a haystack, and he could well be searching the wrong haystack.

  He wailed it out.

  At mid-morning the visibility was scarcely improved, variable as the squalls swept in over the mountainous seas.

  For what seemed the hundredth time Kennedy hailed the look-out: “Masthead! Anything seen?”

  The answer came down from the man miserably wet and cold on his swaying, swooping, dizzying perch: “Nuffink, sir!”

  Smith opened his mouth but shut it again, biting back the irritable chiding that came to his tongue. He waited a moment then said in as normal a tone as the wind allowed, “He’s a good man, Mr. Kennedy?”

  “Picked, sir.”

  “Then I think we’d do well to leave him alone.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  He was trying to maintain an air of calm certainty but he knew they saw through it. He had been on the bridge for four hours. Waiting. Wait and see. But would they see? They could pass the Maria within a few miles and not see her in this weather. They should see her if Smith was totally, completely right, but if her course varied from his by only a degree that divergence would take him past her. He cursed the absence of a consort. If he had another ship with him, any ship, an armed merchant cruiser say, it would widen his search and be another pair of eyes.

  What if Maria’s rendezvous was not the Gulf of Peñas, if she was already lying snugly hidden in some sheltered inlet? Thunder could sail on for ever like the Flying Dutchman, chasing a similar phantom.

  No. At a point in time he would have to acknowledge that he had made a mistake and turn back. That time would be soon. They should have caught her by now but she would be running for all she was worth. He would have to set a time. He did a little sum in his head, involving the speed of Thunder and the probable maximum speed of Maria, and the relative times of sailing, and he arrived at an answer.

  Noon.

  If they had not sighted her by noon he must turn. He must return to Malaguay and give clearance to Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell. And make his report by cable.

  Then wait for the cable in reply that would relieve him, break him.

  Garrick, unable to sleep, came onto the bridge.

  Smith felt bleakly, briefly, sorry for him, for the mess he would inherit. Then he remembered again what his own state would be and grinned wryly at himself. Sorry for Garrick. That was almost funny.

  Garrick caught the grin and misconstrued it. “Sighted her, sir?”

  Smith shook his head and saw the worry that dragged Garrick’s mouth down at the corners and the glance he threw at Kennedy. Smith said, “There’s time yet, Number One.”

  There was neither hope nor resignation on Garrick’s face, just worry. He did not know whether they would come up with the collier nor how it could help if they did. She had happened to sail before they arrived at Malaguay and that was all. Smith was just jumping to conclusions.

  Garrick had said it all before and now Smith could read it on his face, and on the other faces. In a casual glance Smith covertly examined expressions on the bridge and decided they were not fools and had done their sums as he had. They knew that any chance of a sighting had slid into improbability and was sliding fast towards impossibility.

  At 11.30 the weather worsened in a belt of squalls, visibility fell to less than two miles and spray burst continually over the bridge.

  At 11.50 the bridge was ominously silent and they were all waiting as they had waited all through that long morning, but now they were waiting for the change of course. All of them were immobile as statues except that they rocked and swayed to Thunder’s rolling that now seemed as heavy and sullen as the atmosphere on the bridge. Smith was cold to the bone.

  At 11.55 the squalls swept by and visibility marginally lifted to possibly five miles.

  At 11.58 the masthead look-out howled: “Masthead! Ship bearing green two-oh!”

  Smith fumbled at the glasses hanging on his chest, swept the arc of sea over the starboard bow and thought he saw something through the rain and blown spray, a shadow, a shape, but could not be sure.

  “Masthead! I think she could be the Marigher!”

  Smith could make out a ship now but what ship he could not tell. She was ploughing into the seas, gamely but slow and they hid all but her superstructure. The man at the masthead had a better view from his perch high above the deck Smith lowered the glasses. “Steer two points to starboard.”

  Thunder edged around and started to close the ship ahead and to starboard. She slowly came up through the rain until she was within a mile and they could see her with the naked eye, but Garrick used his glasses. “It’s her, sir. The Maria.”

  If he expected Smith to be delighted and relieved then he was disappointed. If anything Smith looked grimmer. “Very good. Make: ‘Heave to’.”

  The signal was hoisted and on Smith’s orders a searchlight repeated
it in morse.

  Garrick said, “Of course, we have right of board and search, sir, but launching a boat in this sea —”

  “Yes.” A boat would not live a minute. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Garrick blinked and Knight said, “She’s flying ‘I am a neutral’, sir.”

  Maria maintained her course and speed.

  Smith said deliberately, “Make: ‘Heave to or I will sink you’.”

  Knight swallowed. “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The signal broke out, the flags laid flat as boards on the wind. The collier steamed on.

  Smith said, “Close up the starboard twelve-pounder battery.” And as the guns’ crews scrambled to the guns and the ‘Ready’ reports came in: “Put a shot across her bows, Number One.”

  A twelve-pounder cracked and sea spurted ahead of Maria. She sailed on.

  A messenger came staggering. “Wireless reports signalling, sir. Very close, they think it must be this ship an’ it seems to be in code.”

  “Very good.”

  So Maria was signalling furiously to someone out of his sight, quite possibly out of range of her wireless anyway because this weather would play the devil with wireless. Or whoever it was could be within a few miles. The eternal guessing game. The two ships ploughed heavily on through the breaking seas, the driving rain, lost in a little world of their own that was bounded by Smith’s vision. But there was a world outside this where diplomatic protests were flying concerning a naval officer who had flouted International Law and sunk a neutral vessel in a neutral port. Where two big, fast cruisers hunted. Somewhere.

  Smith’s thoughts crystallised, ending his hesitation. He had known what the end of this would be and that hesitation was only a faltering of nerve. He had been right in his reasoning from the start and he was right now. Or had been wrong, ‘A wolf sneaking into the fold to murder a lamb’.

  May as well be hung for a sheep.

  “Close up the upper deck six-inch batteries.” The maindeck guns were unusable in this sea. “And sink her.”

  “Sink her, sir?” Garricks’ voice rose on the word, the heads on the bridge jerked around.

  Aitkyne said, “Sir, if I might suggest, we could lay right alongside and hail her. I’ll take a party of volunteers —”

  Smith cut brutally across the protests. “They’re playing for time! First hours, and now for minutes! Sink her and quickly!” His voice was harsh and flat, denying argument or delay.

  The men waded and clawed their way across the deck through the seas that washed it and manned the six-inch casemates. They reported ready. Garrick exchanged an agonised glance with Aitkyne, Kennedy, Knight — and Smith saw those exchanges. Garrick tried once more: “Sir —”

  But Smith would not wait. “Open fire!”

  The two starboard six-inch guns bellowed bass to the tenor cracking of the twelve-pounders. At that range, the trajectory near flat, hitting was almost inevitable, a miss inexcusable. The six-inch bursts were clearly seen, one forward and one aft on the Maria, opening great holes in her on the waterline. She seemed to stop dead in her tracks and fall away before the sea. There were men forward and aft of the super structure, struggling waist-deep in the seas that swept her, attempting to lower boats.

  The messenger again: “‘Sparks’ reports she’s still sending, Sir.”

  “Very good.” One brave man sticking to his post in the egg-shell protection of a wireless-room in that exposed superstructure. One man calling down the pack on Thunder. “Concentrate fire on the superstructure!”

  Another exchange of glances on the bridge, sick. His own face showed nothing but — it had to be done!

  The salvo crashed out, a hammer to crack a nut, the guns recoiling with the tongues of flame licking long and orange over the sea, the smoke blossoming dirty yellow to shred and disperse on the wind. Smith did not see it, his eyes on the Maria so he saw the superstructure burst open under that concentration of fire, the funnel lean and fall. She was listing badly and Thunder was drawing ahead of her.

  “Starboard ten!”

  Thunder swung ponderously around to head across the bows of the sinking collier. There was a boat in the water, a dozen men in her and thrusting away from their ship. Then the third salvo hit her, the effect instantly seen and appalling at that range. She broke in half, bow and stern lifting as the coal in her belly dragged her down, and sank. A billow of smoke and steam and she was gone.

  “Cease firing! Midships!”

  “Midships, sir!”

  Smith rubbed at his eyes and lifted his glasses again. “Stand by to pick up survivors.”

  Thunder straightened on a course that took her down towards the wreckage and reduced speed until she rolled to the seas, barely making headway. There was flotsam: the wreckage of the life-boat, a few splintered planks, a cap. Maria would have carried a crew of twenty or so but there was not one survivor.

  *

  The guns’ crews had stood down and Thunder’s company braved the seas to line her rails, staring silently. There was no jubilation.

  The crew of the forward 9.2 made a little group in the shelter below the bridge. Chalky White, the gun-trainer, muttered, “He’s gone off his rocker.”

  Fanner Bates, Leading-Seaman and the gunlayer, snapped edgily, “Oh, shut it!”

  “I mean it. Do you reckon he knows what he’s doing?”

  Farmer was silent a moment. Both Benks and Horsfall talked to him and he knew the feeling in the wardroom. “I hope so.”

  Gibb opened his mouth to speak but found Rattray’s hot eyes on him and stayed quiet. Rattray was making his life a misery. In any rare, brief moment that they were alone Rattray would crowd him, face shoved close. “Bright boy. Smith’s little pet. He thinks you’re a boy wonder but I’ll see what you’re made of one o’ these days.” The words changed slightly but the message was always the same. If they met on a crowded mess-deck or companion then Gibb got Rattray’s elbow in his ribs or Rattray’s foot crushing his own. And Gibb did not know why. He was afraid to tell anyone and so reveal his fear of the man because he was very young. It was wearing him down.

  Rattray’s eyes slid away and up to the bridge. Smith. Shoving his neck in a noose. They would break the bastard and Rattray would laugh in his face and break Gibb.

  *

  Garrick did not look at Smith, nor did anyone else on the bridge. Then the messenger came running. “Wireless reports she’s stopped sending, sir.” Smith glared at him. Was this some macabre attempt at wit? The man flinched under that glare but carried on: “Reports another signal, sir. Distant and it’s stopped now, but they think it was Telefunken.”

  Telefunken transmissions were distinctive. And they were German.

  Smith took a breath. “Thank you.” Now they were all looking at him but he had had enough. “Pilot, a course for Malaguay. Revolutions for fifteen knots.”

  He staggered to his cabin to stretch out on his bunk and pull a blanket around him. He was cold, cold, and his body ached with the constant strain of those hours on the bridge. There was a tap at the door and he groaned softly. What now? He called, “Come in!”

  Albrecht entered, in one hand a glass that held three fingers of golden liquid. “I took the liberty of prescribing for you, sir.” He held out the glass. “Brandy.”

  Smith jerked onto one elbow and rasped, “I don’t need Dutch courage, Doctor!”

  Albrecht did not acknowledge the over-reaction, nor did he argue. “No, sir. You led a night attack only thirty-six hours ago, yesterday you smashed into the sea in an aeroplane and today you were more than six hours on the bridge and then —” He broke off, then finished, “It will warm you and help you to sleep.”

  “I have nothing on my conscience, either.”

  Albrecht did not answer but he did not look at Smith.

  Smith sighed. “Doctor, I had to sink that ship. They were signalling and they got a reply. I had to.”

  Albrecht said, “The surgeon’s knife.” And: “
You’re still certain that these cruisers —”

  He stopped. Smith’s weary grin stopped him. “If I say that they are after us, that they are sailing ten thousand miles to hunt us, you’ll think I’m mad.” He reached out and took the brandy and sipped at it and sighed. Albrecht saw in that weary smile a deal to frighten him but no madness at all. Smith said, “Because this ship can offer them a smashing victory, and then they can annihilate British shipping along this coast and that will draw forces to hunt them, not just from the West Indies but from the Atlantic and, Scapa Flow. It will take a lot of ships to track them down and ships of force to deal with them. At best they can lengthen the war and at worst they can, by weakening the Grand Fleet, win it. But first they sink this ship.” Smith drained the glass and handed it back to a staring Albrecht. “Goodnight, Doctor. And if you can’t sleep, try a drop of brandy. It’s all the thing.”

  But left alone, Smith did not smile. The brandy had warmed him, burning down into his stomach. His body was exhausted but his mind was only too active. He closed his eyes and saw them coming up over the rim of the horizon, murderous.

  ‘Distant.’

  The signals had been distant. That might mean a hundred miles or more or even, flukily, a thousand; but surely not so far in these conditions. No.

  A ‘distant’ signal that the men on Thunder’s wireless thought might be Telefunken. It was still not evidence of the presence of a German ship, let alone two warships. Garrick and the rest did not believe in their existence while Albrecht? He — was uncertain now.

  Smith was certain.

  *

  On the bridge, Aitkyne said quietly to Garrick, “What chance that our wild man may be right? After that wireless report? Thousand to one against?”

  Garrick grimaced and shook his head. He muttered, “And if he’s wrong we’ve just been witnesses to murder. Or accessories to it. By God, after the things he’s done he’d better be right!”

  Aitkyne’s brows lifted. “Better? Unfortunate choice of word, old cock. My will is with the family solicitor in Gloucester. If you haven’t made yours then I suggest you get on with it, just in case the thousand-odd to one shot comes off and he is right. Hedging your bets, old cock.”