J. E. MacDonnell - 139

by Death Of A Destroyer(lit)

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Why didn't you mention the surgeon's absence from the wardroom meeting?"

  "Sorry, sir, my fault entirely."

  "I know that. Number One. I'm asking why."

  "Well, sir," Caswell answered truthfully, "I was a bit worried, or thought you might be, about Chiefs attitude. I clean forgot the Doc was ashore."

  Sainsbury nodded his acceptance. "We had an interesting discussion on Service nomenclature. Hairy..." he murmured, "not a kind name, James. But, unlike you nickname, one strictly related to the situation."

  "I thought you said you'd forget about that."

  "So I did, Splinter, so I did. Well now, perhaps we can have a look over the ship."

  "Certainly, sir. Have you... ah..."

  "Yes, James?" (This name, for some reason which quite escapes me, is not a nickname, but the generic term applied to all first lieutenants; along with Number One, Jimmy the One, One, The Bloke and other unprintables.)

  "Well, I was wondering if you're familiar with destroyers?"

  "To some degree, yes," answered this old destroyerman, and pushed his chair back.

  That was as far as he got in the inspection of his new ship. The knock was short and sharp. "Come."

  The man who came in carried a cap in his hand and a badge on his arm. The badge comprised a pair of crossed flags, with one star above their junction and two below it; the mark of a yeoman of signals. His other hand held a piece of paper.

  "Yeoman Dean, sir," Caswell introduced.

  "Yeoman," Sainsbury nodded, and took the signal. The first four words gave him the salient fact. "Being in all respects ready for sea,Spindrift is to proceed at 1400 and patrol..."

  The position could be charted later. Sainsbury looked at his watch then at Caswell. "We're secured?"

  "Yes, sir, all but the motor-cutter."

  "Have it hoisted at once. We sail in half an hour."

  Chapter Three

  "Fourteen hundred, sir," Pilot called from the binnacle.

  "Very well," Sainsbury said, "heave in."

  He took a final look at the chart and the course lines Pilot had pencilled on it. Spindrift was to proceed through Jomard Passage, round the south-eastern toe of New Guinea, and then patrol up and down on a north-south course between Trobriand Island and the coast of New Britain, each leg being about 150 miles long. The object of the exercise was to report any Jap aircraft heading towards Moresby; and, of course, to deal with any submarines she might contact. Fifty miles south of Trobriand she was to rendezvous with an American destroyer named, oddly enough, Mack. But then U.S. destroyers are named after officers and enlisted men of the Navy and Marine Corps, Secretaries of the Navy, Members of Congress, and inventors. Sainsbury wondered just who Mr Mack was - probably some enlisted man who had performed a spunky deed and was now immortalised in the pages of the identification book. Anyhow, the Mack he was interested in was something like Spindrift in appearance, with her two funnels and four guns. But Sainsbury remembered she mounted twelve torpedo tubes; the most he had known in a destroyer.

  But Mack was a long way away, while he had a job right on hand. He stepped on to the grating round the binnacle and took the ship. Everything looked normal on the foc's'le - the iron anchor cable grinding in through its hawsepipe, men with hoses and long-handled scrubbers urging the mud off it before the cable flaked itself down in the locker below - that dark glutinous stuff, especially in the tropics, could stink worse than a Chinese prawning boat - and the cable officer, Rowley the sub, leaning over the guard-rail watching the cable. A normal scene; until his glance happened to fall on B-mounting just below the bridge. He coughed, that rather high, barking sound they would get to know as part of the man, like his pursed mouth. Caswell turned casually, then became alert as he saw the captain looking at him.

  "Sir?"

  "A small detail, Number One. Here I am taking the ship to sea, and I do not know her armament. Those are 4.7-inch guns, by the look of them?"

  "Yes, sir," Caswell smiled. Odd how you got used to that pedantic but precise phrasing. "Good ones, too. Mark Twelve's, power-rammed, muzzle velocity three thousand feet per second."

  "Hmmm." Sainsbury had a more relevant interest. "And their rate of fire?"

  Caswell noted the salient query with an inward smile. "Fifteen rounds a minute. B-gun got up to seventeen once, but conditions were ideal."

  "I see. B-gun, then, would be the starshell mounting?"

  You've been around, Caswell thought, and said, "Yes, sir."

  Sainsbury nodded and the sub called "Cable's up and down, sir," then a moment later, "Anchor's aweigh." And now, for Caswell and all of them, came what they'd been waiting for.

  The tone was quiet but crisp. "Starb'd thirty. Half-ahead port engine, slow-astern starb'd."

  Her two propellers were outward-turning, normally; that is, in opposite directions. Now the port screw spun to the left, normally, but the starb'd one also turned that way, and the result was that both screws clawed her stern to the left, and, of course, her bow to the right. She swung slow at first, then smooth and quick, with almost no forward movement. It was a neat economical manoeuvre, though nothing to boast about for an experienced destroyer driver. Then Sainsbury put his starboard engine half-ahead as well, gave another wheel order, and Spindrift's sharp snout was aimed for the gap in the reef.

  "I think you've done this before," Caswell said.

  There were several answers to that, in varying tones of jibing, or pleasure, or mock modesty. Sainsbury said, "Thank you, Number One," as if he'd been handed a cup of tea. "Please have the ship closed-up for action when clear of the reef."

  * * *

  He was favourably, though not greatly, impressed with the short time they took to man their action stations. Wise as wolves, the sailors would have stacked on a turn for this first time for their new captain. He would be impressed, or otherwise, only after seeing them handling their weapons, against an enemy. Now his object was to see his ship, and be seen by her men.

  It was like a Royal progress; the bosun's mate leading, then the captain, followed by the first lieutenant, with the chief bosun's mate, ready to answer any queries on boats or life-saving rafts or other upper-deck equipment, bringing up the rear. Hooky Walker was not asked a question, though this did not surprise him. The captain asked plenty.

  At A-gun on the foc's'le: "Your name?"

  "Beckett, sir," answered the gun trainer.

  "Why have you got your life-jacket half blown up?"

  "Well... to be ready, sir, just in case."

  "You jump over the side with air in your jacket like that and your neck is ready to be snapped by the jacket being forced up under your chin by the water. Not theory, Able-seaman Beckett, I've seen it happen."

  "Yes, sir," said Beckett, fiddling with his life-jacket, while Caswell thought: So you've been sunk, or seen a sinking. As Sainsbury, the actor, knew he would.

  On B-gun deck, to the gun captain: "Petty-Officer...?"

  "Logan, sir." Tall and hard-bodied, back as straight as a gun barrel, obviously gunnery to the core.

  "Are all these shells armour-piercing?" Sainsbury asked, walking along the steel ready-use racks near the guard-rails.

  "No, sir. Armour-piercing here, semi-armour-piercing on the starb'd side."

  "Starshell?"

  "In that left-hand locker there, sir. I keep them under cover."

  "Because of spray and rain on the fuses," Sainsbury nodded. "Why, yes, sir." Captains weren't supposed to be aware of such small local details at the guns.

  "You must have been in the Atlantic, Petty-Officer Logan?"

  "No, sir." And then, because he was a senior man, a captain of one of the tops, or parts of ship, and this new bloke seemed a bit odd-looking, but no ogre: "Thank God," Logan added.

  "You may as well thank God," Sainsbury nodded agreement. "In the Atlantic, especially in winter, even B-gun here would be more awash than not." While Caswell and Logan were registering this indire
ct revelation on their captain's experience, he said: "Why is that man wearing sandshoes?"

  Caswell started to speak but Sainsbury said, "Logan?"

  "Well, sir, we're in a destroyer. Most of the time we wear sandals. It's, well, not like a cruiser, strict..."

  "Quite. And I have no intention of turning Spindrift into another Bounty, if you follow me?" Logan nodded, wondering what the hell was coming next. "However, in this destroyer we are at action stations. This man should be in heavy boots, like these fellows."

  "Yes, sir. But..."

  "Well, Petty-Officer Logan? My name is Sainsbury, not Bligh."

  "Fair enough, sir. Spencer here is the phone-number and fuse-setter. He's not a loading number like these others."

  "As I can see. And what if we go into action and one or two, or even four of your nicely-booted loading numbers get killed or wounded? You have not drilled the crew in changing round, in having each man know at least something of his mates' duties?"

  "Of course I have, sir. That's just normal..." Logan woke up.

  "Of course," Sainsbury's lips stretched. "In the event I have mentioned, your fuse-setter would take over loading number, and not being fully practiced in that art he might drop one of those fifty-pound shells or a brass cordite cylinder on one of his sandshoes, and then he would have one very crushed foot, and what would happen then to your seventeen rounds a minute rate of fire?"

  "Seventeen? How the...Yes, sir, you're quite right."

  "Thank you, Petty-Officer Logan. See to it, please."

  As they went down the ladder and aft they heard Logan seeing to it.

  "Spencer, if you ever wear those bloody sandshoes up here again I'll have your guts for garters! Right?"

  "But Chief, you never bothered..."

  "Silence!"

  "A traditional and fascinating aspect of the Service, Number One," Sainsbury murmured.

  "Sir?"

  "The passing of the buck - ever downwards."

  "Oh. Yes, sir." Caswell loosed a large grin, and suddenly realised that it didn't matter if the captain saw it. It was about this time, also, that he started to stop thinking about the new captain's appearance... "The multiple pom-pom's next, sir."

  And so it went on, with each question at each mounting designed not to gain information, but to subtly proffer it - about himself. Buster Crewe would have been proud of him.

  There was only one weapon in which Sainsbury was genuinely interested; having seen all the others before. This was a three-inch anti-aircraft quick-firing gun sited between the tubes and X-mounting, aft. Here, his questions were many and to the point, while to Caswell it didn't seem to bother him at all that he was obviously betraying his lack of familiarity with this type of weapon. Then Sainsbury asked the rate of fire, and raised his eyebrows at the answer; for the 3inch's ammunition was fixed, like a rifle bullet, not separate like that on the bigger guns, and she could get them off very quickly indeed.

  "Barrage," Sainsbury said suddenly, with decision. "Aircraft coming in, preferably one in particular, say a fighter or dive bomber. The 4.7s get off only two or three salvoes in barrage firing, but this fellow can do much better than that. What do you think?"

  "Seems sound enough, sir." Caswell almost said "obvious", which it was - now.

  "From now on when closing-up for drill have this 3-inch concentrate on barrage firing. It just might work, against the right target."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  "That will do for now. The magazine crews and suchlike will have to hang on the slack for the pleasure of sighting me. Thank you, Number One. It seems you run a tight ship. Secure action stations."

  They returned to the bridge, with Hooky diving into the chief's mess for coffee. As the crew fell out, most of them were talking about the new bloke, and the consensus of opinion was, "Well, I'm buggered..." This was somewhat indecisive, even dubious, but the crystallising of their opinion would have to wait; on the Jap.

  It never occurred to them that the captain was similarly waiting for the same opinion of them.

  Chapter Four

  Sainsbury's opinion, at least about one member of his company, was to be decided shortly.

  From Moresby, south-east to Jomard Passage, is about 300 miles. Spindrift had been steaming easily, at an economical twenty knots, for almost four hours, so that plenty of light still lingered in the cobalt sky. A lot of men were on deck, yarning and smoking and dhobying. The sea when Leading-Stoker Graham went overboard was so calm, and so many people saw him go, that Leading-Seaman Carella, layer of the pom-pom and a third generation Aussie, guffawed, and said with heavy-handed humour:

  "Trust a bloody black-ganger. Shouldn't be allowed up on deck without a rein on him."

  From which it may be construed that the stoker was in no danger. He had been doing something mysterious to the circular plug which sealed a fuelling inlet on the foc's'le deck immediately below the bridge - stokers are always doing mysterious things on that foreign field, the upper-deck.

  He had a two-pronged steel wrench, with which he was either tightening or loosening the plug. You were never worried to find out precisely what stokers were doing - just cursed them pleasantly and told them not to spill any of their blasted black oil on your clean decks.

  Whatever it was Leading-Stoker Graham was doing, he had to put considerable pressure on his tool. The wrench slipped from the sockets in the plug and slithered quickly across the deck, which was only about six feet wide at that restricted point. It was prevented from dropping overboard by two inches of sharp-edged steel, which was the distance the ship's side plates rose above deck-level.

  Graham was a big man, tending to obesity, brought about mainly by his craving for cups of thick hot cocoa, or kai, of which a watch of stokers will drink gallons. So, instead of bending down and retrieving his wrench from under the lowest guard-rail, he saved his stomach and his breath by leaning over the top rail and stretching his arm down, outside the rails.

  Unknown to the stoker - how could he be expected to know the mysterious workings of upper-deck swabs? - two seaman of the foc's'le division had been wire-scrubbing and greasing the pins which, inserted at the base of each guard-rail stanchion, allowed them to be dropped flat with the deck when the ship went into action. And the two seamen, their main attention focused on a discussion of their new captain, had failed to replace two pins as they finished with them.

  So that the guard-rails, at a certain point, afforded about as much protection as three lines of spider web.

  Graham stretched himself upward to draw in his stomach, leaned forward, grunted, and laid his large belly full on the top rail at the same time as he reached outwards and downwards.

  To his understandable surprise he kept on going outwards and downwards - for a length of about twenty feet the stanchions and the rails laid themselves flat under his weight. He fell, arms whirling, too shocked to shout, and his left leg, just below the knee, hit the sharp-edged steel of the deck edge, with the full weight of his sixteen stone upon it.

  Just for a moment the leg was squashed against the ridge of steel, and then Graham was in the water.

  Leading-Seaman Carella, though not yet proved on his pom-pom, was no slouch when it came to seamanship. He saw the stoker go, and before he'd hit the water Carella's gunnery-trained bellow had reached the bridge.

  "Man overboard! Port side!"

  Several things happened at once. Sainsbury, enjoying the cool of the bridge before going down for an early dinner, reacted automatically and with instant certainty.

  "Hard-a-port! Stop both engines! Away lifeboat's crew!"

  Further aft, on the raised deck around X-mounting, the lifebuoy sentry blew a vehement blast on his whistle, grabbed a lifebuoy from its hook on the guardrail, rushed to the port side and heaved it over.

  A group of men nearest the whaler hurried to man it.

  The bridge orders took Spindrift's propellered stern clear of the involuntary swimmer, at the same time as they ensured that the screws, if th
ey did meet him, would not mince him into small pieces.

  It was then, as he clambered into the lifeboat, that Leading-Seaman Carella made his unepic remark on the stupidity of unchaperoned stokers loose on the upper-deck. As there seemed to be no danger they could see Graham clearly, waving his arm energetically a few hundred yards astern - the sailors who had rushed for the whaler went to work with a will, enjoying this break from routine. Under Hooky Walker's supervision the lifeboat was in the water in one-one-two, as the saying goes, and under Carella's practised steering and urging, leapt to the rescue.

  Carella manoeuvred his boat easily enough in the calm sea, so that Graham had only to reach his big paw out, grab the gunnel and heave himself inboard: they couldn't understand why he didn't.