Rendezvous-South Atlantic

by Douglas Reeman

Goss said, `You'd have let those ferries drown, sir?' Lindsay looked at him, trying to control his aching mind. `I think I would.'

  Goss watched the motor boat as it started back for the Benbecula's tall side. `Not many of 'em left anyway.' He turned towards Lindsay. `The bastards!'

  Ritchie asked quietly, `Any reply for the ammo ship, sir?'

  Goss said, `Could we stand by her till morning, sir?' `Yes.' Lindsay replaced his cap. `It would be safer than

  trying to transfer her crew in the dark.'

  `I wasn't thinking of that.' Goss sounded strangely calm. `We could take her in tow.'

  Lindsay stared at him. `Do you mean that?'

  'I know we're not rigged for it. The old Becky was built for better things.' He spoke very quickly, as if he had made up his mind despite doubts and inner arguments. `But with some good hands I could work all night an' lay out a towing cable. There's not much aft to help secure it, but I thought-'

  `The twelve-pounder gun?'

  'Yessir. It'll probably never fire again, but it'd make a damn fine towing bollard.'

  Lindsay turned his face away. `As far as I know it never has fired.'

  There was so much to do. Plans to make and the damage to be inspected and contained. The wounded, too. And the men who had died.

  But all he could think of now was Goss's voice and his obvious conviction. It was even more than that. It was the first time since he had taken command that Goss had openly shared their mutual responsibility.

  He nodded. `Then we'll do it. At least we'll have a damn good try.' He beckoned to Stannard. `Tell Demodocus we will standby until first light. Explain what we are going toattempt.' He checked him. `No, tell them what we are going to do!'

  Goss shrugged his shoulders inside his heavy watchcoat. `There may be fresh escorts coming for us tomorrow. But I expect they'll be sent from Freetown. Probably never find us anyway.' He tugged down the peak of his cap and stared at the promenade deck. `Now I'll go and see what C.P.O. bloody Archer really knows about seamanship!'

  Lindsay stood on the gratings to watch the motor boat, riding on the swell against the ship's rough plates.

  `Number One.'

  `Sir?' Goss paused, his foot in mid-air.

  `Tell doc to make some arrangements for the German survivors. His sickbay must be getting rather crowded.'

  `I'll lay it on.' He waited, knowing Lindsay had something more to say.

  `And thanks, Number One.'

  Goss swivelled around on the top of the ladder, squinting at Lindsay's silhouette dark against the sky. Then without another word he clattered down the ladder and vanished into the gathering darkness.

  Lindsay took out his pipe and tapped it against the damp steel. Goss had his pride. It was unshakable, like his faith in this old ship. Just for a few seconds he had almost overcome it. But not quite.

  He sighed and walked into the wheelhouse. `Slow ahead both engines. Take the con, Pilot, until we can work out the drift. We don't want to ram the poor old Demodocus after getting this far.'

  Stannard smiled gravely and walked to the compass.

  He had heard most that had been said on the scorched starboard wing. He knew what it had cost Goss to make his suggestion about towing. He could have remained silent, and Lindsay would have abandoned the other ship. God knows, he's done enough for all of us, he thought, without that.

  But Goss loved this ship more than life itself, and if he had to tow that bloody hulk with his bare hands to prove what his Becky could do, then Stannard had no doubt he would attempt that, too. .

  A telephone buzzed and the -bosun's mate said, 'Sickbay, sir. The doctor says there's one Jerry lieutenant amongst the survivors. `E sends 'is thanks for us pickin' 'im up.' He waited. `Any reply, sir?'

  Stannard looked at Lindsay. `Sir?',

  `Just tell doc to do what he can for them.' He walked towards the chart room. `But keep that bastard lieutenant off my bridge, understood?

  As the seaman spoke rapidly into the telephone Lindsay added from the doorway, `What do they expect? A handshake? All pals again now that it's over for them?' His voice was quiet but in the sudden stillness it was like a whip. `Well, not for me, Pilot. But if you happen to bump into this polite little German lieutenant on your rounds, you may tell him from me that I only picked them up for one reason. And that was to see what they looked like.'

  `And now, sir?'

  `Now?' He laughed bitterly. `Now, I don't care. I don't give a damn.'

  He seemed to realise they were all staring at him and added curtly, `We will remain at action stations, but make sure the watchkeepers and lookouts are relieved as often as possible. Gun crews can sleep at their stations. And see what you can do about some hot food and have it sent around. There could be another U-boat about, although I doubt it.'

  Stannard replied quietly, `I'll do that, sir.' He watched Lindsay stagger against the open door, feeling for him, imagining what the strain was doing to him. He hesitated, `And congratulations, sir. That was a bloody fine piece of work!'

  Lindsay remained in the doorway, his face in shadow. `You did well, Pilot.' He looked slowly around the darkened bridge. `You all did.'- Then he was gone.

  Dancy moved to Stannard's side and said softly, `I thought we'd had it.'

  Stannard watched the pale arrowhead of foam riding back from the bows. `Me, too. Now that we're still alive I don't really know if I'm on my arse or my elbow!'

  Dancy nodded and ran his fingers along the smooth teak rail beside Lindsay's chair. It was impossible to understand. To grasp. In convoy he had been hard put to keep his fear from showing itself. Every minute had been an eternity. When on one occasion the ship's company had stood down from action stations he had been unable to go to his cabin, when moments earlier it had seemed the most important, the most vital goal in his existence. Sheer terror had prevented his going. He had found himself thinking of the- brief Admiralty signals. Instead of six U-boats in the convoy's vicinity he had begun to think of the men inside them.` Six submarines. That meant a total of some four hundred men. Four hundred Germans somewhere out there in the pitiless ocean, waiting, preparing to kill. To kill him. Even as he had crouched, sweating and wideawake below the bridge, he had imagined a torpedo already on its way. Silent and invisible, like those four hundred Germans.

  The sudden action with the surfaced U-boat had, changed all that, although he could not explain why or how. It was as if he had been pushed beyond some old protective barrier into another world. A no-man's-land. What was it the captain had called it? A killing ground. Sense, hope and reason were unimportant out here. Just the men near you. The ship around all of them. Nothing else counted.

  Stannard said, `Go and check around the messdecks,

  Sub. Make sure we're not showing any lights.'

  Dancy replied, `I could send someone.'

  Stannard shook his head. `You go. Walkabout for a bit. It'll do more good than standing up here thinking. You can think too much.'

  Jupp came into the wheelhouse. `I've brought some sandwiches for the cap'n, sir.'

  Stannard strode to the chart room and pulled open the door. Lindsay was sprawled across one of the lockers, one hand still reaching for a folio, his cap lying where it had fallen on the deck. He closed the door gently.

  `Leave them, Jupp. I'll see he gets them later.'

  Jupp nodded. 'Yessir.' Like Dancy, he did not seem to want to go.

  Stannard said, `Let him rest while he can. Christ knows, he's earned it.'

  Steel scraped on steel and he heard Goss's resonant voice "roaring along the promenade deck. He was at it already. Wires and strops, cable and jacks, it was something Goss had been doing all his life.

  Stannard walked unsteadily across the gratings, massaging the ache in his limbs.. He must have been standing as stiffly and rigid as one of de Chair's marines, he thought vaguely. You did well, Pilot. The words seemed to linger in his mind. Yet he could hardly-remember moving throughout the action, giving an order, anything. Once he h
ad thought of the girl in London, had tried to see her face.

  He sighed. There was still a long, long way to go before they reached Trincomalee in Ceylon. And after that, where?

  A signalman said, `Ammo ship on the starboard bow, sir.'

  Stannard shook his weariness away and hurried to the screen. Time enough to worry about a future when this lot was finished.

  `Port ten.' He rubbed his eyes. 'Midships.'

  The watch continued, and in the dimly lit chart room Lindsay slept undisturbed either by dreams or memory, his outflung arm moving regularly to the motion of his

  ship.

  At first light the next day the business of passing a towline was started. It took all morning and most of the forenoon, with motor boats plying back and forth between the ships to keep an eye on the proceedings. It took hours of backbreaking work and endless patience, and while Lindsay conned his ship as close as he dared to the drifting Demodocus, Goss strode about the poop yelling instructions until his voice was almost a whisper. Twice the tow parted even as Benbecula's engines began to take the strain, and each time the whole affair had to be started from scratch.

  - The after well deck and poop were scarred and littered by wires and heavy cable, and the twelve-pounder gun mounting soon took on the appearance of something which had been squeezed in a giant vice.

  But the third time it worked.

  Ritchie said, `Signal, sir. Tow secured.' He sounded doubtful.

  `Slow ahead together.'

  Once more the increasing vibration while very slowly the great length of towing cable accepted the strain.

  Lindsay watched the other ship's massive bulk through his glasses, his eyes on an officer in her bows who was holding the bright flag above his head. Seconds, then minutes passed, with the Demodocus still apparently immobile in the shallow troughs, as if gauging the exact moment to break free again.

  Quite suddenly her angle began to alter, and Lindsay saw the bright flag start to move above the officer's head in a small circle. Reluctantly the other vessel swung ponderously into the Benbecula's small wake, her siren giving a loud toot as a mark of approval.

  The tow did not part again, and when two destroyers found them on the following day both ships were still on course, the cable intact.

  The senior destroyer made:°a complete. circle around the two ships and then cruised closer to use a loud-hailer.

  `Jolly glad we found you! It looks as if you've had a bad time!'

  Lindsay raised his megaphone. `Have you a tug on way?'

  `Yes!' The other captain brought his ship even closer, and Lindsay saw the seamen lining her guardrails to look at the jagged splinter holes along Benbecula's side. He added, `You're damn lucky to be afloat! There was a report of a surfaced U-boat shadowing the convoy. But we'll take care of the bugger if she comes this way!'

  Lindsay said quietly, `Bring them on deck, Sub.'

  He did not speak again until the German seamen and their lieutenant had been hurried on to the forecastle and lined up in the bright sunlight. He waited just a few more seconds and then called, `We met up with her.' He saw their heads turn to stare at the small group on the forecastle. `But thanks for the offer.'

  Another day passed before a salvage tug appeared to take the crippled Demodocus in tow. They had made use of the time by ferrying ten badly wounded men to one of the destroyers. In Freetown they could get better attention, although it seemed to Lindsay as he watched them being lowered into the boats alongside that those who were conscious did not want to leave.

  And when the tow was released he had that same feeling. He had still not met the ammunition ship's master and probably never would. But as she wallowed slowly abeam while the tug's massive hawser brought her under control Lindsay saw him standing on his bridge, his hand raised in salute. Along the upper deck his men waved and cheered or just watched the strange ship with a list to starboard and her dazzle paint pitted with splinter holes until she was lost in a`sea haze.

  Goss came on. to the bridge, his hands filthy, his uniform covered in oil and rust. He shaded his eyes to watch the little procession as it turned eastward and then said gruffly, `Well, that showed 'em.'

  Stannard and' Dancy were beside Lindsay, while the new lieutenant, Paget, was hovering nervously some feet away. But they all saw it. Even Jolliffe, who had been on the wheel with hardly a break, feeling the strain, nursing his helm against the tremendous weight of the tow.

  Goss turned to face Lindsay and said, 'I don't reckon you could have done better, even if you'd been. in the company.' Then he held out his hand. `If you wouldn't mind, sir.'

  Lindsay took it. He 'could see the faces around him, blurred and out of focus, just as he could feel the power of Goss's big fist. But he could not speak. Try as he might, nothing would come.

  Goss added slowly, `We've had differences, I'll not deny it. She should have been my ship by rights.' He stared up at the masthead pendant. `But that was in peace. Now I reckon the old girl needs both of us.'

  Lindsay looked away. `Thank you for. that.' He cleared

  .his throat. `Thank you very much.' Then he strode into the wheelhouse and they heard his feet on the ladder to his cabin below.

  Goss was looking at his grimy fist, and then saw Paget staring at him with something like awe.

  `What the bloody hell are you gaping at, Mr Paget?' He bustled towards the ladder muttering, `Amateurs. No damn use the whole lot of 'em!'

  Stannard looked at Dancy and then said quietly, `They always said there was something about this ship, in the company.' He glanced around him as if seeing her for the first time. 'Well, now I believe it. By God, I believe it!'

  Then he looked forward and added, `Now get those bloody Jerries below decks. I'd forgotten all about them!'

  As Dancy hurried away he heard Stannard murmur, `A will of her own, they used to say. And by God, I've just seen her use it!'

  15

  The dinner party

  L indsay stood on the gratings of the starboard bridge's wing and watched .the seething activity along the jetty below him. There seemed to be hundreds of coloured dockyard workers running in every direction at once, although from his high position Lindsay could see the purpose as well as the apparent chaos.

  Heaving lines snaked ashore, seized by a dozen brown hands, all apparently indifferent to the hoarse cries from Benbecula's petty officers, as very slowly the hull touched against the massive piles which protected it from the uneven stonework.

  ,The lines were followed by heavy mooring wires, the eyes of which were cheerfully dropped on to huge bollards along the jetty, with no small relief from the officers on the forecastle. and poop, as with tired dignity Benbecula nudged a few more feet before tautening springs halted her progress altogether.

  A-messenger called, `Back spring secured, sir.' He was staring at the shimmering white building beyond the jetty and harbour sheds, handset pressed against his ear. `Head spring secure, sir.'

  Lindsay saw Goss waving from the forecastle, his bulk even more ungainly in white shirt and shorts.

  `All secure fore an' aft, sir.'

  `Very Well.'

  Lindsay leaned still further over the screen, feeling the sun across his neck as he watched the mooring wires slackening and tautening in the gentle swell.

  `Out breast ropes. Then tell the buffer to rig the brow.' He could see other white uniforms on the jetty amidst the busy workers, faces raised to watch as. Benbecula handed over her safety to the land once again. `Ring off main engines.'

  He heard the telegraphs clang, the dials below swinging to Finished with Engines, where no doubt Fraser and his men would give a combined sigh of relief.

  It had been a slow passage to the jetty. The whole of Trincomalee seemed to be packed with shipping of every description, so that even the two tugs which had been sent to assist had not found the last few cables very easy. Warships and supply vessels. Troopers, their rigging adorned with soldiers' washing like .uneven khaki bunting, harbour craft an
d lighters, as well' as an overwhelming mass of local vessels of every kind. Dhows and sampans, schooners and ancient coasters. which looked as if they had been born in the first days of steam.

  The gratings gave one last quiver and then lay still beneath him.

  Ritchie said, `One of the troopers is the Cambrian, sir.' `Yes.'

  Lindsay did not turn. Perhaps, like himself, the yeoman wass thinking back to those first days out from Liverpool, with, the commodore's ship leading the starboard line. Remembering the explosions and fires flickering across the dark water. The wasted effort, and the cost.

  He heard Stannard speaking into a voicepipe and tried to imagine what he was thinking.

  And at one time it had at last seemed that everything was going to be all right. A change of luck, if you could, call it that.

  After leaving the ammunition ship they had continued into a kinder climate, with something like a holiday atmosphere pervading the ship for the first time. Eighteen days out of Liverpool they had crossed the Equator and all work had stopped for the usual boisterous ceremony of Crossing the Line. He could see it now. Jolliffe as Neptune in a cardboard crown and carrying a deadlylooking trident, his heavy jowls hidden in a realistic beard made of spunyarn. His queen had been one of Boase's S.B.A.'s, a girlish-looking youth whose sex, it had often been said, was very much in doubt anyway.

  Sunshine and blue skies, bodies already showing a growing tan, and an extra tot of rum to complete the ceremony. It had seemed a sure sign for the better.

  They had paused in Simonstown to replenish the fuel bunkers, and the ship's company had swarmed ashore to see the sights and gather all the usual clutter of souvenirs which would eventually find their way to mantelpieces and shelves the length and breadth of Britain.

  Barker had arranged for buses to take libertymen on to Cape Town in a manner born. For just that one day he had not been the supply officer to an armed merchant cruiser. He was a ship's purser, and took as many pains to make the short trips and tours successful as if every man had been a first class passenger.

  Then they were at sea again, and Lindsay could recall exactly the moment Stannard had come to his cabin. Benbecula had rounded the Cape and was steaming north-east into the Indian Ocean for the last long haul of her voyage.