Maxwell shouted towards the bridge, and Lindsay heard the distant clang of telegraphs as the engines fell silent once more.
He stared hard at the open page and then, with sudden resolution, thrust the book back into his pocket. He did not need it any more. He had spoken the words too often. Heard them. more than enough to forget even if he wanted to.
`We commend unto Thy hands of mercy, most merciful Father, the souls of these our brothers departed, and we commit their bodies to the deep....'
He licked his lips as the marines edged forward, their faces like Ritchie's had been as they raised the neat bundles beneath the two large ensigns.
It was always a bad moment. When you did not know any of these quiet bundles. Strangers ... not even that. Only the uniforms had been the same.
One of them was Loch Glendhu's captain, who had died within thirty minutes of being carried aboard. By rights he should have died back there on his bridge. He had been hit by several shell splinters and had been savagely burned before an explosion had blasted him into the sea. Even then he had refused to die. Maybe he had seen Ritchie's signal lamp, or the whalers coming for his men.
Or perhaps he needed to stay alive just long enough to tell what he knew. To pass on his dying anger and hatred..
Lindsay had left the bridge for a moment to visit him in the sickbay; had watched the other captain's mouth through the bandages as he had gasped out his short, bitter story.
There had been no Swedish ship. No neutral under attack. Just the big German raider, lying there waiting for them like a tiger shark. True, she had looked Swedish, with- her painted flag and neutral colouring, but as Loch Glendhu had turned to offer help, the enemy's guns had opened fire from a dozen concealed positions, smashing through the hull, blasting men to pulp who seconds before had been preparing to lower boats, to give aid.
As Loch Glendhu had become a raging inferno and had begun to settle down, the raider had gathered way, pausing only to fire a few more shells and rake the shattered vessel with automatic fire.
The dying captain had said, `It was my fault. Should have been ready. Expecting it. But it was something different. New.' Then he had died:
Lindsay had been speaking the familiar words even though his mind had been reliving those last moments. When he looked again the flags. were being folded, the bodies gone.
He nodded to Maxwell, and within seconds the big screws had started to churn the sea into a busy froth. He replaced his cap, the rim cold around his forehead, like ice-rime.
The marines were struggling into their wet coats, Stannard was staring over the rail, his eyebrows white with snow.
It was done. Finished.
Again he returned Maxwell's salute and said, `Thank you, Guns.' He looked at the others. `All of you.'
Stannard fell into step beside him as they walked forward along the promenade deck.
Lindsay heard himself say, `I will make that signal now, Pilot. Can't tell them much.'
He shrugged, knowing Stannard was looking at him. Thinks I don't care, or that I am past caring. Or searching for some explanation when there's none to offer.
As they started up the last ladder Lindsay heard voices. Low voices made harsh with anger. He climbed on to the open wing and saw Goss hunched in one corner, his massive figure towering above Fraser, who was glaring up at him, his white overalls coarse against the swirling snow.
Lindsay snapped, `What the hell is going on?' Beyond the others he saw that the wheelhouse door was closed so that the anger would remain unheard.
Goss whirled round. `Nothing, sir!'
Fraser exploded, `Nothing, my bloody arse!' He hurried towards Lindsay. `I came on deck. Just to watch quietly when....'He glanced briefly aft. `But there were too many of the lads there, and I wanted to be on my own.' He held up a greasy hand as Goss made to interrupt. `I was forrard, by Number Two gun when the engines stopped.'
For an instant longer; Lindsay imagined that Fraser's keen ear had detected some flaw in the engines' familiar beat.
The little engineer added slowly, `I heard something sir.'
Goss said harshly, `You can't be sure, for God's sake!'
Fraser looked at Lindsay, his tone suddenly pleading. `I've been too long in my trade not to recognise a winch, sir.' He swung round and pointed into the driving snow. It was thicker and the forecastle only just. visible. Beyond the bows it was like a white wall. `There was a ship out there, sir. I know it!'
Lindsay stood stockstill, his mind filling with words, faces, sounds. The burial service. The marines in their blue. uniforms. The snow. Two dead children.
Goss said thickly, `Suppose you were mistaken, Chief?' When nobody answered he added in a louder voice, `Might have been anything!'
Stannard was still on top of the ladder, unable to get past Lindsay. He called, `But surely no bloody raider would still be here?'
Lindsay moved slowly towards the forepart of the screen. `Why not?' His voice was so quiet that the others drew closer. `He's done pretty well for himself so far. Sunk an A.M.C. without any fuss at all." How could he sound so calm? `He's probably sitting out the snow and preparing for Loch Glendhu's relief. Us, for instance.' .
Goss stared at him incredulously. `But we don't know, sir!'
Stannard said, `Could be. He'd listen for any signals. Just make sure there were no other ships around to spread the alarm.' He fell back as Lindsay thrust him aside and wrenched open the wheelhouse door.
As he tore off the dripping oilskin and dropped it unheeded to the deck he snapped, `Back to your engine room, Chief. I want dead slow, right?' He looked, at Stannard. `Pass the word quickly. I want the hands at action stations on the double. But no bells or pipes, not a bloody sound out of anyone.' He sounded wild. `Send them in their bare feet if necessary!'
Midshipman Kemp had emerged from the chart room and Lindsay seized his arm saying, `Get the gunnery officer yourself, lad, and be sharp about it!'
The boy hesitated, his face very pale. `Where is he, sir?'
`Down aft. He's just helped to bury some of our friends.' He looked coldly at Goss by the door. `Well, I intend to bury some of those bastards if I can!'
He ignored the startled glances and walked to the front of the bridge.
The deck was trembling very gently now. Fraser must have run like a madman to reach the engine room so quickly.
Five minutes later Stannard said, `Ship at action stations, sir.
Lindsay turned and ran his eye over the others. Jolliffe had certainly been fast enough. He was still wearing old felt slippers and there were crumbs on his portly stomach.
`I need three good hands up forrard.' It was like speaking his thoughts aloud. Describing a scene not yet enacted. `Right in the eyes of the ship. Yeo, send some of your bunting-tossers. They'll have keen ears and eyes. If,' he checked himself, `when we run this bastard to ground I want to see him first. So he'll know what it's like.'
Ritchie buttoned his oilskin collar. `I'll go meself, sir.' He beckoned to two of -his signalmen. `It'll be a pleasure.'
Like a towering ghost the Benbecula glided forward into the snow, her decks and superstructure already inches deep from the blizzard. .
Apart from the gentle beat of engines, the occasional creak of steel or the nervous movement of feet above the bridge, there was nothing to betray her.
Lindsay took out his pipe and put it between his teeth, his eyes on Ritchie's black figure as it hurried between the anchor cables: Perhaps Fraser had been wrong. There might be nothing out there in the snow.
He thought suddenly of the dying captain. Something different, he said, ashamed perhaps for not understanding the new rules.
He gripped the side of his chair and waited. At least we will have tried, he thought.
5
Learning
Petty Officer Ritchie tore off one glove with his teeth and fumbled with the clip on the-small telephone locker. He was as far forward in the bows as he could reach, and was conscious of the muffled stil
lness, as if the ship were abandoned in the steady snowfall. He wrenched the door open and clapped the handset to his ear. As he glanced aft he noticed the bridge was almost hidden by snow, with only the wheelhouse windows showing distinctly, like square black eyes.
`Bridge.' It was the captain's voice, and Ritchie could imagine him standing beside his chair as he had last seen him, peering down towards the forecastle.
`Yeoman, sir.' He turned his back on the bridge and stared over the steel bulwark. `In position now.'
'Good.' A pause. `I will keep this line open.'
Ritchie touched the snow which lined the bulwark like cotton wool. It felt stiffer. Maybe a hint of ice, he thought, as he moved his eyes slowly from side to side. Occasionally the wind became more evident as it twisted the snow into nervous, darting patterns, and he saw the sea moving slowly towards him, dark, like lead. Despite all his layers of clothing he shivered. He had heard the officers talking, and his own experience told him the rest. You could not serve on a dozen bridges over the same number of years without learning.
He held his breath as a shadow lifted through the snow, and then relaxed slightly. The wind had cut a path just long enough to reveal an open patch of water. A small, dismal patch which for a few seconds had become a ship. If there was a ship out there, he knew she could just as easily be listening and waiting for them.
The hunter once again. Right now those bloody Germans might be adjusting their sights, hands tightening on triggers and shells while Benbecula's outline nudged blindly into their crosswires. Even if the captain was right, and they got off the first salvos, both ships might pound one another to scrap, sink out here, one hundred and fifty miles from land.
To his left he heard Cummings, one of the young signalmen, sniffing in the cold air, and wondered. briefly what he made of it all. Six months ago he had been a baker's roundsman in Birmingham, and now he shook himself angrily. What the hell difference did it make? It was odd the way the snow made you drowsy, no matter how tensed up you were.
God, the deck was steady. Hardly an engine vibration reached him in the eyes of the ship, and in the handset earpiece he imagined he could hear Lindsay breathing. A good bloke, he thought. Not condescending like some of the arrogant bastards he had met. Genuine, maybe a bit too much so. Like someone nursing an old hurt. Something which was tearing him apart, so that when he heard of others' troubles he felt it all the more. Like the burial service, for instance. He started. Was that only moments ago?
He had seen it then as the captain had spoken the prayer over the corpses. The same expression he had witnessed in London at the mass burial. Almost the whole street. The whole bloody street. They had said the bombers had been making for the London docks, but they
4had hit his street just the same. The East End was never the most attractive of places. Terraced houses, every one the same as its neighbour, and each with its own backyard the size of a carpet. Madge had always insisted on calling it a garden. He felt his lips move in a small smile. A garden.
The burial had been worse because of the weather. Bright and sunny, as if, the world wanted to ignore their little drama. Red buses passing the end of the street in regular procession, making for Bethnal Green Underground station. A barrage balloon, fat and shining in the sunlight like a contented whale. A workman whistling in the ruins of a church which had been blitzed the week before.
But the faces had been the same. Frozen. Like Lindsay's. He wondered if anyone el3e had noticed. Not Maxwell, he was sure of that. Stupid parade-ground basher. Should have been a bloody Nazi himself.
He stiffened. There it was again. His head swivelled round as he heard the faint but distinct clang of metal.
`Green four-five, sir. As far as I can tell. I 'eard metal.'
A small shudder ran through his boots and he guessed that the helm had gone over.
Then Lindsay said, `Keep it up, Yeo.' Cool, unhurried, as if he was reporting on a cricket match.
Cummings whispered, `What d'you think, Yeo?'
Ritchie shrugged. `I dunno.'
He felt the sweater warm against his neck. Madge had made it for him from an old jumper she had unravelled to get the wool. He tried to control the sudden surge of emotion. He had to get used to it. Accept it. But how long would intake? Only yesterday he had heard Hussey, the PO telegraphist, describing his service in a China river gunboat before the war. He had said to himself, I'll tell the kids about that, next leave. It was small, unguarded moments like that which left him aching and lost.
The snow whipped against his cheek in a wet mould, as with sudden force the wind swept hard across the bulwark. He dashed it from his eyes, and when he looked again he saw the other ship.
It was incredible she could be so close, that she had been there all the while. She lay diagonally across Benbecula's line of advance, the stern towards him, her tall upperworks and poop gleaming like icing on a giant cake.
He said hoarsely, `Ship, sir! Fine on th' starboard bow! Range about two cables!'
As the endless seconds dragged past he kept his eyes fixed on the other vessel. She was big right enough, probably a liner, with two funnels and a large Swedish flag painted on her side. As he watched he saw part of her upper bridge move slightly., and realised it was being lifted bodily by one of her forward derricks. The chief had heard a winch. The Germans were changing their appearance already. Preparing for their next victim. There was a sudden flurry of foam beneath her high counter where seconds earlier the enemy's hull had rolled, drifting on the sluggish rollers.
He rasped, `Down, lads! She's seen us!' He grabbed' Cummings' sleeve and dragged him gasping to the deck. "Old yer 'eads down, and keep 'em there till I tells you different!'
Cummings lay beside him, his body only inches away, eyes filling his face as he gasped, `I-I'm going to be sick!'
Ritchie opened his mouth to say something but heard the sudden tinkle of bells at the nearest gun and changed his mind.
Like the yeoman, Lindsay had seen the other ship's blurred outline with something like disbelief. Perhaps the snow was passing over, but it gave the deceptive impression of leaving one opening, an arena just large enough to contain the two ships, while beyond and all around the downpour was as thick as before.
`Port fifteen! Full ahead both engines!'
The sharpness of his voice seemed -to break the shocked stillness in the wheelhouse, and the figures on either side of him started to move and react, as if propelled by invisible levers.
'Midships! Steady!'
Jolliffe muttered, `Steady, sir. Course three-five-five.'
Voicepipes and handsets crackled on every side, and he heard Maxwell shouting, `Commence, commence, commence!' And the instant reply from the fire gongs.
By turning slightly to port Lindsay had laid. the enemy on an almost parallel course some four hundred yards away. He watched the sudden flurry from her twin screws, saw her poop tilt slightly to their urgent thrust, and knew that in spite of everything his small advantage could soon be lost.
Then, with bare seconds between, the three starboard side guns opened fire. Number Three which was furthest aft fired first, and he guessed the marines had been quicker to translate the shouted instructions into action. The six-inch shell screamed past the bridge, the shockwave searing against the superstructure like an express train charging through a station. The other two guns followed almost together, the smoke pluming across the deck, the savage detonations shaking the gratings beneath Lindsay's feet- and bringing several gasps of alarm.
`She's turning away!' Lieutenant Aikman almost fell as Number Three gun hurled itself inboard on its recoil springs and sent another shell screaming across the grey water.
Tonelessly the voice of a control rating said, `Over. Down two hundred.'
The deck was quivering violently now as the revolutions .mounted, and the bow. wave ploughed away on either beam like a solid glass arrowhead.
`Starboard ten.' Lindsay dropped his eye to the gyro. 'Midships.' He saw droplets
of his sweat falling on the protective cover. `Steady.'
When he raised his head again the enemy was nearer, the bearing more acute.
A bosun's mate shouted, `Number Three gun 'as ceased ased firin', sir. Unable to-bear!'
Lindsay looked at Stannard. It could not be helped. If he hauled off again to give the marines a clear view of the enemy the other ship" would escape in the snow. She was big. About seventeen thousand tons. Big, modern and with all the power required to move her at speed.
The two forward guns, their view unimpeded by the superstructure, fired again. The long orange tongues leaping from their muzzles as the shells streaked away towards the enemy.
Through the snow, flurries Lindsay saw a brief flash, like a round red eye, and heard Maxwell yell, `A hit! We hit the bastard!'
She was pulling away with each second, her funnels already hidden by the snow.
Lindsay dashed his hand across his forehead and waited, counting seconds, until the guns fired once more. Longer intervals now. He pictured the shell hoists jerking up their shafts, cooks, stewards, writers and supply ratings cursing and struggling to feed the guns with those great, ungainly missiles while the hull shook around them. And in the engine and boiler rooms Fraser's men would be hearing the explosions above the din of their machinery, watching the tall sides and praying that no shell came their way. The inrush of water, the scalding steam. Oblivion.
The snow lifted and writhed above the enemy ship, and Lindsay saw the telltale orange flash. The other captain had at last got one of his after guns to bear.
The shell hit the Benbecula's side like a thunderclap, the shock hurling men and equipment about the bridge, while above the starboard bulwark the smoke came billowing inboard in a solid brown fog.
Lindsay gripped the voicepipes and heard splinters ripping and ricocheting through the hull, and tasted the lyddite on the cold air.
But the guns were still firing, and above the din he heard layers and trainers yelling like madmen, the rasp of steel, the clang of breech blocks before the cry, `Ready!'
Rendezvous-South Atlantic Page 8
