Rendezvous-South Atlantic

by Douglas Reeman

  Kemp's face seemed to crumple. `He was helping my father and that surgeon to ruin you, sir. Was giving a bad report so that you'd be finished.' Some of the fury came back to his face as he yelled at the stricken doctor, `You rotten, cowardly bastard! You're like my father, so why don't you run down and hide with him?'

  Squire took Boase's wrist and pushed him towards the grim-faced stretcher bearers. `Get him away, chum.' He turned his face to the screen as Boase allowed himself to be pulled from the door. A long thread of spittle was hanging from his chin.

  A bosun's mate said, `First lieutenant on the phone, sir.'

  Lindsay took it. `Captain.'

  Goss sounded. far away. `Forrard bulkhead is badly cracked. If it's not properly shored the whole thing will go.' He coughed harshly and added, `There's a bad fire here, too. No room for any bloody thing.'

  Lindsay forced his brain to react to Goss's brief summary. It must be bad to have got him out of damage control in person..

  `You want me to reduce speed?'

  Goss waited a few seconds. `Yes. At full revs she'll go straight to the bottom if this lot caves in.' Another pause. `We'll need fifteen minutes. No more just yet.'

  Fifteen minutes.. He could as easily have asked for a week.

  Dancy was watching him, another telephone in: his fist. `It's the chief„ sir. Two pumps out of action. Engine room is flooding.'

  Lindsay jumped as a shell exploded somewhere aft. He heard heavy equipment falling between decks, the tearing scrape of splinters ricocheting from the ravaged hull.

  `Yes, Chief.'

  Fraser seemed very calm. `I can still give you full speed, sir. But I'm warning you that things could get dicey down here.'

  `Yes.' Even the one word seemed an effort. `Get all your spare hands' out right away and put them in damage control. It may not be long now."

  `Aye.' Fraser shouted something to his assistant and then added, `She's not doing so badly though.' The line went dead.

  Lindsay stared at the handset and then said, `Ring down for half speed.'

  Dancy swung the telegraphs and stood looking at Hunter's blood on his fingers.

  `They'll have us cold now, sir.'

  Another shell ploughed into the forecastle, the splinters bursting out across the well deck even as the mast and derricks began to stagger drunkenly over the side. Rigging, spars and one complete winch vanished through the broken plating, smearing the remains of Cordeaux and his gun crew as they passed.

  Lindsay felt someone tying a dressing around his forearm and realised he. had been hit by a small splinter. Maybe when Stannard had been killed. He could not remember. There was no real pain. Just a numbness which seemed to begin behind his brain and probed right through his aching limbs like a fever.

  `Enemy's ceased fire, sir.' The remaining bosun's mate leaned against the screen as if about to collapse.

  Lindsay moved automatically to the port door and knocked off the clips. When he wrenched it open he found he was looking straight down at the deck below through a tangle of blackened, twisted steel and wood. The port wing had received a direct hit. The shell which had killed Stannard, Jolliffe and the others in the bridge had carved the wing away like so much cardboard. How he and Dancy had survived was a miracle.

  He felt the salt air driving the smoke from his lungs and tried to steady his glasses on the enemy. The ship was so slow now, and he could feel the deck under his feet moving ponderously and in time with each trough. She must be filling badly, he thought. Heavy in the water. Nearly finished. his glasses trained on the enemy. The cruiser had all but stopped too, less than four miles away. He could see the scarlet flag at her gaff, the haze of gunsmoke above her turrets.

  Behind him he heard Goss mutter, `The bastard's picking up his seaplane, sir.'

  Lindsay saw the little aircraft bobbing on its floats as it manoeuvred delicately towards the ship's massive grey hull. A derrick had already been unlimbered by the mainmast and was swinging outboard in readiness for the pick-up.

  Perhaps the sight of these calm, practised movements did more to break Lindsay's reserves than any act of expected violence. The cruiser was confident of the victory. She could afford to ignore the blazing, shell-pitted ship without masts or ensigns, and would soon be off again after the convoy. Because of Benbecula's challenge many of those ships would survive. But some would not, and with sudden.anger Lindsay shouted, `Stop the starboard engine!'

  Goss stood aside as he hurried into the wheelhouse.

  `Stand by to abandon ship. Get the wounded on deck and cut loose the rafts.' They were all staring at him. `Jump to it!'

  The telegraph clanged, and with a brief shudder the starboard screw spun to a halt..

  Dancy called, `The enemy are training their tubes on us, sir!'

  Lindsay ran to the shutters. Even without the glasses he could see the gap in the cruiser's silhouette where one set of torpedo tubes had been swung out across the side.

  The cruiser's captain was not even going to allow them time to clear the ship of wounded. Maybe he knew that help was already on its way, perhaps just below the' horizon, and time was more important than a handful of madmen who had tried to prevent his conquest. Or then again he might want to do it. To wipe out the insult of this delay to a set plan.

  Goss muttered, `There's no time to get the lads off, sir.'

  He watched the bows labouring very slowly to starboard as the port screw continued to forge ahead. He had guessed Lindsay's indsay's intention almost as soon as he had seen his face. Knew what he would do even in the face of death.. He was surprised to find he could understand and meet the inevitable. Just as he had accepted the ruin of his cabin. He had been chasing after his damage control' parties, plugging holes, dragging the sobbing wounded out of mangled steel, repairing obsolete pumps and trying to stay alive in a prison of screaming splinters and echoing explosions. The cabin had been torn apart by splinters, his pictures and relics just so much rubbish. Anger, despair, resentment; for those few moments he had known them all. It was like seeing his life lying there amidst the wreckage. Carefully he had unpinned the company flag from the bulkhead, and with it across one arm had crunched out of the cabin. His foot had trodden on the picture of himself and the old company chairman.

  Aloud he had murmured, 'Chief was right. You were a mean old bastard!' Then without looking back he had got on with his work.

  Goss had seen the commodore crouching on a broken locker pleading with a young S.B.A. to treat his wound. The S.B.A. had been more than occupied with other injured men and had retorted shrilly, `You're not wounded! For God's sake leave me alone!'

  No wonder the midshipman was the way he was. With a father like that it was a marvel he was still sane.

  And now the noise and din were all but over. Already the sky was showing through the drifting pall of smoke, and the water between the ships was no longer churned by the racing screws. In fact, Goss decided, it looked very cool and inviting. With narrowed eyes he watched the little seaplane etched against the cruiser's side, imagining some officer giving the orders to hoist it inboard, maybe under the eyes of the captain. Like Lindsay.

  Goss shook his head angrily. No, not like him.

  Then he heard himself say, `I'm ready to have a go if you are.'

  Lindsay met his gaze and said quietly, `It's only a faint chance.'

  'Better'n sitting here waiting to be chopped.' Goss walked aft. `I'll tell de Chair. Maxwell, too, if he's still in one piece.'

  Lindsay touched the screen. It was warm. From sun or fires it was impossible to say.

  `Stop port.'

  Before the last clang of the telegraph he had the telephone against his ear.

  `Chief? Listen.' Through the open shutter he saw the seaplane rising up against the grey steel. A toy.

  Dancy stood by the voicepipes listening to Lindsay's even voice. Knowing he should understand as Goss had done. But the quiet, the painful heaviness of the ship beneath him, the stifling smell of death seemed to be
muffling his mind like some great sodden blanket.

  Lindsay joined him by the voicepipes and groped for his pipe. But it was broken, and he said, `Disregard the telegraphs. Hold this phone, and when I give you the signal just tell the chief to let her rip.'

  Before Dancy could speak he added to Ritchie, `Just keep her head towards the enemy's quarter. I'm going to give the after guns a chance. Only one of them will bear. But if we miss I'm going to turn and try again.' He smiled

  grimly. There'll be no second go. By that time we'll be heading straight down.

  Somewhere below a man cried out in agony and feet crashed through the wreckage to search for him.

  Aft on the well deck Goss found Maxwell squatting on the side of a gun mounting, his cap over his eyes as he stared at the glittering water. Between the two guns the

  wounded lay in ragged lines, moaning or drugged in silence. A few exhausted stokers and seamen waited in little groups, and some marines were looking down at de Chair in the shadow of a shattered winch. His face was enveloped in dressings, through which the blood was already making its mark.

  His hands moved slightly as Goss said, `You are to engage with Number Six gun. Captain's orders.'

  Two men carried a corpse and laid it by the rail. It was Jupp. Even with his face covered Goss would have known him anywhere. He sighed.

  The marine sergeant said, `Right, sir.'

  But as he made to move Maxwell bounded over the coaming and threw himself against the big six-inch gun.

  `No!' He thrust the gunlayer aside and crouched in his seat as he added petulantly, `Check your sights!'.

  A young marine bugler at Goss's side said shakily, 'Anythin' I can do, sir?'

  Goss tore his eyes from Maxwell's frenzied movements, his hands as they darted across his sighting wheels. Gone off his head. `Yes. Why not.' Carefully he unfolded the company flag and added, `Bend this on to that radio antenna. We've no ensigns and no bloody, masts.' He forced a grin. `I guess the old Becky would rather end her days under her right colours anyway!'

  Another marine had found a telephone which was still connected with the bridge and stood outlined against the sky like an old military memorial. Only his eyes moved as he watched the little bugler clamber up to the boat-deck and seconds later the big flag billow out from its improvised staff.

  The. sergeant rubbed his chin. `The Jerries'll think we've gone nuts!'

  Goss eyed him impassively. `It's what I think that counts.' Then he strode forward towards the bridge.

  He found Lindsay just as he had left him. `Ready, sir.'

  Lindsay nodded. `Chief says the engine room is flooding faster. Without those two pumps.' He broke off and stiffened as the seaplane rose out of the cruiser's shadow and swung high above the rail.

  He turned and looked at Squire. `When I drop my hand.'

  Squire swallowed hard and glanced quickly at Kemp. 'All right sir?'

  The boy stared at him, his stained face like a mask. But he jerked his head violently and replied, `Fine. Thank you. Fine.'

  Lindsay concentrated on the distant warship. He saw some of the Benbecula's rafts drifting haphazardly in the current. They might help. The German captain would probably imagine that some of the survivors were trying to escape.

  Gently. Gently. How slowly the seaplane was moving on its hoist.

  He held his breath and then brought his hand down in a sharp chop.

  Squire gasped, `Now!'

  Along the remaining telephone wire and into the ear of the motionless marine. Across the littered deck and pitiful wounded, past Jupp's still body and the blinded.. marine lieutenant to where Maxwell was poised over his sight like an athlete awaiting the starter's pistol.

  Just one more agonising split second while the cruiser's upper deck swam in the crosswires like something seen through a rain-washed window. Maxwell had to drag his mind from the others around the gun, the trainer on the opposite side, the men waiting with the next shell and the one to follow it. This was the moment. His moment.

  `Shoot!'

  He felt the sight-pad crash against his eye, the staggering lurch of the gun recoiling inboard, and was almost deafened by the explosion. He had forgotten his ear .plugs, but ignored the stabbing pain as he watched the shell explode directly on target.

  There was one blinding flash, and where the seaplane had been hanging above its mounting there was a swirling plume of brown smoke. It was followed instantly by another, darker glare, the flames spreading and dancing even as the breech was jerked open and the next shell rammed home.

  On the bridge Lindsay had to hold down the sudden surge of excitement. The seaplane had been blasted to fragments and the whole section below it was ablaze with aero fuel.

  He shouted, `Now, Sub!'

  The gun crashed out again and drowned Dancy's voice, but far below them Fraser had heard, and as he threw himself on his throttles the screws came alive, churning the sea into a great welter of spray, pushing the old ship forward again, shaking her until it seemed she would come apart.

  The sudden fire on the cruiser's deck had done its work. The torpedo crews were being driven back while their comrades with hoses and extinguishers rushed into the attack.

  Maxwell's next shell was short, the explosion hurling the spray high above the enemy's side, the flames dancing through the glittering curtain like bright gems.

  Lindsay pounded the screen with his fist. The revolutions were speeding up, and already the cruiser had dropped away on the port bow. But not fast enough, and already he could see her forward turret turning in a violent angle to try and find the hulk which had returned to life.

  On his steel seat beside the one remaining gun which would bear, Maxwell took a deep breath. He ignored the bright flashes as the enemy fired, did not even see where the shells went as he concentrated on the column of smoke just forward of the cruiser's mainmast. Just the one set of tubes would do. Six torpedoes in a neat row, all set and ready to deal Benbecula a death blow. Except that now they were unmanned, abandoned because of his first shot. In spite of the tension he could feel the grin spreading right across his face. If Decia could see, him now. If only....

  `Shoot!'

  The two ships fired almost together, the shockwaves rolling and intermingling until the noise was beyond endurance.

  Maxwell did not see what happened next. His gun, the crew and most of the marines at the opposite mounting were blasted to oblivion by the explosion. In seconds the well deck and poop were ablaze from end to end, the scorching heat starting other outbreaks below and as high as the lifeboats.

  Lindsay felt the shock like a blow to his own body, knew that the ship had done her best and could fight no more. So great was the onslaught of metal that he was totally unprepared for the wall of fire which shot skywards above the billowing smoke. Then as a down-eddy parted the huge pall he saw the cruiser's raked stem moving steadily into the sunlight, the forward turret still trained towards him, her grey side reflecting the bright wash of her bow wave.

  The first cries of despair gave way to a lingering sigh as the cruiser emerged fully from the smoke. Her bow wave was already dropping, and as the smoke swept clear of the upper deck Lindsay saw that her stern was awash.. The torpedoes must have blasted her wide open with greater effect than if they had been fired into the hull. It was impossible.

  Lindsay felt Dancy gripping his shoulders and Ritchie croaking in either joy or disbelief. Throughout the battered hull men were cheering and embracing each other, and even some of the wounded shouted up at the sky, crazed by the din but aware that despite all they had. endured they were still alive.

  The cruiser was slewing round, her bilge rising to blot out the chaos and torment on her decks as she started to roll over. More explosions echoed across the water, and even at such a distance Lindsay heard heavy machinery and weapons tearing adrift to add to the horror below decks.

  There was no hope of saving any lives. Benbecula was devoid of boats, and most of her rafts were either lost or de
stroyed in the savage battle.

  Steam rose high above the cruiser's bows as very slowly they lifted from the water, a black arrowhead against the' horizon and clear sky.. Then she dived, the turbulence and spreading oil-slick marking her last moment of life.

  Dancy asked thickly, `Shall I get our people off, sir?' He seemed stunned. `We could build rafts.'

  Fraser, without orders, had already cut the speed to dead slow, and Lindsay' guessed that many of his men would have thought their end had come when Maxwell's gun had been smashed, to say nothing of the German's violent ending.

  `Yes.' He touched his arm. `And thank you.'

  But Dancy did not move. He looked as if he was doubting his own reason. `Sir! Listen!'

  Feebly at first. Little more than a murmur above the hiss of flames, the occasional crackle of bursting ammunition, Lindsay heard the sounds of Fraser's pumps.

  He took the handset. `Chief?'

  Fraser was chuckling. `The old cow! I told you, didn't I?' He sounded near to tears. `Bloody old cow judged it right to the last bloody moment- ' His voice broke completely.

  Lindsay said quietly, `If we can get these fires out and hold the intake we might keep her afloat.' He lowered the handset very gently.

  Then he walked out on to the remaining wing and gripped the screen with both hands. Slowly he looked down and along his command. The death and the terrible damage, even the leaping fires on the well deck could not disguise the old ship's familiar outline. Hoses which had been lying smouldering came to life again, and more men emerged like rats from their holes to control them. He saw a stoker, his head bandaged, carrying the ship's cat and standing it down by a cup full of water. Then he stood back to watch the cat's reactions, as if witnessing the greatest miracle in the world.

  Three hours later, as the ship struggled forward at a dead slow speed, her hull cloaked in smoke and escaping steam, a lookout reported another vessel on the horizon. It was the Canopus, hurrying back in the vain hope of saving some of the convoy.

  The sight of the riddled, fire-blackened ship with some unfamiliar flag still flapping jauntily above the destruction made her captain believe the worst had happened.