Jolliffe on the wheel, wiping condensation off the gyro repeater with his sleeve. Quartermasters and messen 'gers, signalmen, with Ritchie gripping a flag locker while he adjusted his night glasses. Stannard and young Dancy, and Lieutenant Aikman, listed as boarding officer, ready to fight, die, go mad, anything.
He turned back to the whirring screen. Goss was in damage control. All spare stokers and extra hands with him ready to shore up bulkheads, put out fires, hold the ship together with bare hands if necessary. And Goss was far enough from'the bridge to survive and assume command. should Lindsay fall dead or wounded. It was practical not to put all your eggs in one basket. Practical, but hardly comforting.
He thought of the marine lieutenant, de Chair, down aft with his two six-inch guns and the feeble twelve pounder. If he was inwardly resentful at being quarters officer of an ancient battery in an A.M.C. he gave no hint of it. Elegant, deceptively casual, he would be more use leading his marines in open combat, bethought.
Stannard replaced a handset. `Nothing from masthead, sir.'
`Thank you.' Another glance at his watch. `Reduce to half speed.'
No .sense now in shaking the machinery to pieces. He felt the chair quiver with something like relief as the telegraphs clanged their reply.
The Swedish ship might be sunk, or in the confusion had given the wrong position. The enemy could have realised his mistake and ceased fire and already be many miles away, steaming for home like a guilty assassin.
And there had been no signal from Loch Glendhu either. But up here in the Denmark Strait you could never rely on anything. Only eyes, ears and bloody instinct, as someone had once told him.
The screen was squeaking more loudly, and he realised the glass was being scattered with larger, paler blobs than mere spray.
Stannard muttered, `Bloody snow. That's just about all we need!'
It was more sleet than snow, but it could get worse, and if it froze the gun crews would be hard put to do anything.
The wavecrests were less violent, the troughs wider spaced, and he guessed the snow would be coming very soon now. He shuddered inwardly and wondered if the German, invasion of Russia was facing this kind of weather. In spite of everything he was suddenly thankful to be here, enclosed by the ship, and not slogging through frozen mud, waist-deep in slush. A ship was a home as much as a weapon. A soldier fought often without knowing where he was, or if he was alone and already considered expendable by the master-minds of war.
The telephone made him flinch in his seat.
Stannard snapped, `Very well. Good. Keep reporting." Then to Lindsay, `Masthead reports a red glow, sir. Fine on the port bow.'
Before he could reply the speaker at the rear of the bridge intoned, `Control ...'Bridge.' It was Maxwell's voice, unhurried and toneless. `Red two-oh. Range onedouble-oh. A ship on fire.'
Lindsay swung his glasses to the screen. Nothing. Maxwell's spotters had done well to see it in such bad visibility. He slid from the chair and lowered his eye to the glowing gyro repeater.
`Port ten.'
`Port ten, sir. Ten of port wheel on, sir.' Jolliffe's voice was heavy. Like the man.
'Midships. Steady. Steer three-four-zero.' To Stannard he added, `I hope your people know their stuff. I'm going to need a good plotting team when we clear this lot.'
He picked up another telephone and heard Maxwell's voice right in his ear.
'Guns, this is the captain. I'll not take chances. A diagonal approach so that you can get all-the starboard battery to bear, right?'
Maxwell understood. `Starshell on One, sir?'
`Yes.'
He heard the distant voices of the control team already rapping out ranges and bearings to the crews below.
`And you did well to find her. Loch Glendhu must have misread the. signal, or buzzed off in pursuit.'
He replaced the telephone.
Dancy reported, `Number One has loaded with starshell, sir.'
The gunnery speaker again. `All guns load, load, load, semi-armour-piercing!'
Lindsay had taken out his pipe without realising it and gripped it in his teeth so hard that the pain helped to steady him.
`Now, Pilot. Bring her round to three-two-five.'
Even as the wheel went over the speaker said, `Range now oh-eight-oh.'
Four miles. But in this driving sleet it could have been a hundred. Lindsay concentrated his mind on the voices which muttered and squeaked on every line and speaking tube. He recalled the brand-new sub-lieutenants, down there acting as quarters officers on the forward armament. The seasoned gunlayers and trainers knew what to do if anyone did, and the young officers were there to learn rather than do much more.
But Lindsay knew from bitter experience that time was not always kind. In the Vengeur he had seen one of thefour-inch guns manned by a midshipman, two stokers and a cook when its real crew had been ripped to bloody remnants under an air attack. You could never rely on time.
`There it is!' Stannard craned forward. `Starboard bow, sir!'
Lindsay held up his glasses and saw the flickering glow for the first time. It was reflected more in the low clouds than on the water, and the thickening sleet made even that difficult.
Stannard added grimly, `The starshell'll scare the hell out of the poor bastards.'
`Better that than make a bad approach. If the.snow comes down we might lose her altogether.'
Maxwell's voice sounded muffled as he spoke into his array of handsets. `Number One gun. Range oh-sevenfive.' One of the sub-lieutenants must have interrupted him for he rasped savagely, 'Listen, for God's sake. Bearing is still Green oh-five, now get on with it!'
The crash came almost before the speaker had gone dead again, the sound of the shot coming inboard on the wind like a double explosion. When the shell burst it was momentarily like some strange electric storm. Lindsay realised that the gunlayer had applied too much elevation so the flare had burst in or above the clouds. Their, bellies shone through the sleet like silver, and then as the,, flare drifted into view the sea was bathed with the hard, searing glare of a glacier.
The ship was already well down in the water, her tilting hull shining in the harsh glare, the smoke from her blazing interior pouring downwind in one solid plume, black and impenetrable. The fires were very low now, although here and there along the hull fresh outbursts shot skyward, hurling sparks and glowing embers' across the water like tracers.
The flare was almost gone. `Another!' Lindsay could not take his eyes from the dying ship. Knowing he was right. Willing otherwise. Sweating.
A door banged open and Mr. Tobey, the boatswain, entered the wheelhouse, the icy air following him as he sought out Lindsay's figure.
`Beg pardon, sir. I was just wonderin'. If those poor devils which is still alive can't understand our lingo, 'ow will we make 'em understand what we're Join'?' He did not see Lindsay's frozen expression. `I got my people ready at the rafts and lines.'
Stannard said quietly, `The midshipr..an on my plotting team can speak Swedish, I believe, sir.'
Lindsay let the glasses fall on to his chest. He had to draw several deep breaths before he could find his voice again.
They, will understand, Mr. Tobey.' He walked to the open door. `She's Loch Glendhu.' He seized the frame to steady himself. `I've met her before. I know her.'
Stannard said softly, `Oh, my God.'
Tobey was staring past Lindsay at the flickering pattern of flames. `Sea's quietened a bit, sir. The whalers could be lowered.'
Lindsay did not turn. `Starboard ten.' He waited, his nerves screaming soundlessly. 'Midships. Steady. Slow ahead together.' Then he looked at Tobey's shocked face. `Yes. Whalers and rafts. Call for volunteers.'
He swung round as a sharp explosion threw an arrowhead of fire high into the sky. A magazine perhaps. Not long now.
Ritchie stepped aside as Tobey ran past. `Shall I call 'er up, sir?'
Lindsay said flatly, 'Just tell her to hold on.' He heard Ritchie jerking the lamp shu
tter, but as he had expected, there was no reply. He said, `Keep trying. There'll be some left alive. They'll-need all the hope they can get in the next minutes.'
Another face emerged in the gloom. It was Boase, the doctor. He said to Stannard, `How many left, d'you think?'
It was too much for Lindsay's reeling mind. `Where the hell do you imagine you are?' He was shouting but could not hold it back. Boase was like those other doctors. Ignore it. Forget it. Don't worry. The stupid, heartless bastards!
Boase fell back. 'I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean
Lindsay shouted, `You never bloody well do mean anything! This isn't some teaching hospital put here for your benefit! Not a Saturday night punch-up with a few revellers at your out-patients department while you play God!' He swung round and gestured towards the sea. Framed in the door, with the sleet glittering redly in the flames, it looked as if the sky was raining blood. `Take a good look! There are men dying out there. Cursing the blind, ignorant fools who let them go to war in ships like that one. Like our own!'
A bosun's mate said hoarsely, `Boats ready for lowering, sir.'
Stannard spoke first. `Very well. Tell them to watch out for burning oil-'
Lindsay said, `Stop engines.'
He.wiped his forehead with his hand. The skin was hot, burning, despite the cold air from the door. It was not the doctor's fault. It was unfair to take it out of him in front of the others. Unfair, and cruelly revealing about his failing strength and self-control.
The deck swayed very slowly as the ship idled forward, her screws stopped for the first time since leaving the Flow.
More sounds rumbled in the darkness, like a ship breaking up. Crying out in her own way against the fools who had let it be so. All the fires had, gone but for one darting tongue which appeared to be burning right through the other ship's bilge plates as she started to roll on her side, the sea around her misty with steam and whipped spray.
Small lights glittered in a deep trough, and he saw one of the whalers pulling strongly towards the sinking ship. He gritted his teeth as another crash from the forward gun hurled a starshell high over the scene of misery and pain.
Along the Benbecula's side the boatswain had lowered some of the rafts, to act as staging posts for the survivors before they were hauled bodily up her tall hull. He saw white jackets in the cold and wet, and hoped Boase was there too with his stretcher parties.
When he looked up at the funnel with its low plume of dark smoke he realised that one side of it was shining like ice in the glare. The snow had started. There was not much time left. In the whalers the volunteers would even now be watching the snow, fearing more perhaps for their own survival than those they had gone to save.
He thought too of the corvette's small quarterdeck on that morning. The line of corpses awaiting burial, like those aboard the listing cruiser at Scapa. And the two small ones at the end of the line. Like little parcels under the flag as they had gone over the rail. Look after them. Well, they had gone where there was no more hurt. No persecution.
Stannard said loudly, `She's going!'
More frothing -water, and the last flame extinguished with the suddenness of death. Then nothing.
It seemed like an age before Stannard reported, `Boats returning, sir.'
He walked to the extent of the starboard wing and peered down through the snow flurries. The boats were crammed with bodies. Shining with oil. A familiar enough sight in the Atlantic. Others clung around the sides of the boats, treading water, their gasps audible even on the wing. Here and there a red lifelight shone on the water, others floated away unheeded, tiny scarlet pinpricks, each marking a corpse.
He tried to tear his eyes from the struggling figures, below him. There was so much to do. A signal to be coded and despatched, to inform those who were concerned with what had happened. Start the wheels turning. The Secretary of the Admiralty regrets to announce the loss of H.M.S. Loch Glendhu. Stop it.
Lindsay thrust himself bodily from the wet steel and turned-to see Lieutenant Aikman staring at him.
`Go and make sure that everything's all right! If they need more hands, take them from aft. I want those boats hoisted and secured without delay.' He watched the officer scurrying for the ladder. One more victim of his own despair and blind anger.
Dancy said hoarsely, `If I have to die, I hope it's like that, sir.'
Lindsay looked at him for several seconds, feeling his anger giving way to a kind of madness, with wild,,
uncontrollable laughter almost ready to burst out. Then he reached out to pat Dancy's arm.
`Then we shall have to see what we can do. But before you decide anything definite, go and visit the survivors in the sickbay. Then tell me again.'
Stannard called, `Ready to get under way, sir.'
Lindsay saw his own reflection in the glass screen, as if he was indeed -outside himself, assessing his resources.
. `Very well. Slow ahead together. Bring her round on course again.'
He saw Ritchie thumbing through a manual then holding his torch steady above one page.
He asked, `How many, Yeo?'
Ritchie replied quietly, `She 'ad a company of three 'undred, sir.
Goss appeared through the rear door and said thickly, `We've picked up thirty, sir.'
Lindsay seated himself carefully in the tall chair. Strange how light his limbs felt. As in the dream.
Goss seemed to think he had not heard. `Only thirty, sir!'
`Thank you, Number One. We will remain at action stations for another hour at least. Pass the word for a good lookout while visibility holds.'
Not that they'll need telling now, he thought dully.,
'He heard Goss slamming out of the wheelhouse. Probably cursing me. The iron, cold captain that no pain, no sentiment can reach. God, if he only knew.
One hour later the snow came down, and within no time at all the ship was thrusting her way through a swirling, white world, enclosed and excluded .from all else.
As the men left their action stations and ran or staggered below to warmth and an illusion of safety, Lindsay heard a sailor laughing, the sound strangely sad in the steady blizzard.
Horror from what they had witnessed was giving way to relief at being spared. Later it would be different, but now it was good to hear that someone could laugh, he thought.
Goss clumped into the wheelhouse, shaking snow from his oilskin and stamping it from his heavy sea boots. The bristles on his chin were'.grey, almost white, so that in the hard reflected glare he looked even older.
`Ready, sir.' He watched as Lindsay slid from his chair and walked towards the starboard door.
The motion was steadier, and overnight the sea. had lost much of its anger, as if smoothed and eased by the growing power of the snow. Yet there was some wind, and every so often the snow would twist into strange patterns, swirling around the bridge superstructure, or driving like a desert storm, parallel with the deck.
Lindsay rested one hand on the clip. Apart from a few short snatches in his chair, he had not slept, and as he stood by the door he could feel the chill in his bones, the inability to think clearly.
Goss's eyes, red-rimmed with salt and fatigue, followed him as he tugged open the door and stepped on to the open wing. Watching him. Searching for something perhaps.
The snow squeaked under his leather sea boots, but there was no ice as yet. He felt it touching his face, pattering across his oilskin as he moved slowly to the extremity of the wing. There was hardly any visibility, and when he peered down he saw the sluggish bow wave sliding past as the only sign that the ship was still thrusting ahead.
He raised his head and, stared fixedly abeam, the snow melting on his lashes, running down his cheeks like the tears on Ritchie's face that day at Scapa. The yeoman was here now, his features like stone.
In spite of the snow and dirty slush there were many
others from the watch below. Dark clusters of men against the glittering, descending backcloth.
; He heard himself say, `I'll be about ten minutes, Number One.'
Is that all it took? He did not wait for Goss's reply but turned and clattered down the ladder, his boots slipping on the slush, his hands cold on the rungs, for he,had forgotten his gloves. Down more ladders to the promenade deck. As he strode aft, his legs straddled against the steady motion, he saw flecks of rust showing already through the new grey paint. He paused and looked abeam. Out there, some one hundred and fifty miles away, was the western extreme,of Iceland. The nearest land. Up here, the only land.
He quickened his pace, and when he reached the after well deck he had to steel himself again before he could climb down the last ladder where Maxwell and Stannard were waiting to assist with the burials.
There were only eight' of them. Five of those who had been picked up alive. The others had been-hauled aboard the whalers by accident. Only eight, yet the line seemed endless, so that in his mind's eye Lindsay could picture all the others which Benbecula had left in her wake. There had been three hundred in Loch Glendhu's company, Ritchie had said.
He strode to the side and returned Maxwell's salute. Beyond the gunnery officer he saw more watching figures and Lieutenant de Chair with some of his marines.
God, how could he do it? Just ten minutes, he had told Goss, but he was already cracking. He could feel his reserve stripping itself away like a protective skin. Leaving him naked to their serious faces.
He cleared his .throat. `Let's get on with it.'
As he pulled the little book from his pocket he looked up, caught off guard as de Chair said quietly, `Very well, Sarn't. Off coats.'
He stared, almost dazed, as the marines obediently stripped off their shining oilskins and formed into a tight, swaying line behind the canvas-covered bodies. He realised they were all in their best blue uniforms, that somehow they were shaved. In spite of everything. Oh God,. what are they doing to me?
Blindly he thumbed open the book, the print dancing before him, the snow falling softly on his hands. 'Now.'
He removed his cap and squinted up directly into the snow. It was so thick that he could not see if the ensign was at half-mast or not. What the hell did it matter to these dead men?
Rendezvous-South Atlantic Page 7
