J. E. MacDonnell - 139

by Death Of A Destroyer(lit)

  "Apart from codes and radio frequencies, only one."

  "Shoot."

  "Why were we selected for this possibly important, but certainly lonely, duty?"

  "That one's easy. The Admiral's had your report about Mack. He also knows that you remained on patrol there instead of hightailing it for home. He plumped for Spindrift. Having seen you front up to the Old Man, I agree with his choice."

  "You are too kind, Commander," said the visitor primly, and Jamieson's immediate thought was, You're putting me on. Then he took a closer look at the destroyer man's face, which he had barely seen in the captain's cabin, and he decided that this was for real; seeing more in that face and its eyes than primness.

  They talked some more, professional business, then Jamieson escorted him back to the gangway. Sainsbury was in his boat before he remembered that he hadn't asked the American how big the U.S. task force was, or its composition. But he did remember his intuitive feelings about the cruiser captain, and how uncannily they had been proved right. A superstitious man, Sainsbury, like most of his breed; he was mildly concerned at what seemed some sort of clairvoyance. But by the time his own gangway loomed close his analytical mind was laughing at itself: the truth was that he had simply, and naturally, felt a sense of inferiority at meeting a strange officer of such relative eminence, hence his worry before the meeting. As for the rest of it, Budensky was simply, and naturally, a bastard of a man. He might just as easily have been one of nature's gentlemen. Intuition? Nonsense!

  Just the same, he felt an odd relief that a few patters of rain met him as he made Spindrift's quarterdeck. The weather had been fine for too long, and sailors distrust that sort of benevolence. They would, he grinned to himself, whinge if a man was up `em. He said: "Libertymen, Number One?" "All aboard, sir. Ship ready in all respects for sea. Anchor at short stay." That meant the cable had been heaved in until it was up-and-down, with the anchor just holding the bottom, ready to be broken clear.

  "Intuition, Number One?" said Sainsbury, with his puckering smile. Caswell frowned slightly. "No, sir, just an educated guess." "Exactly!" said Sainsbury, at which Caswell's frown deepened, but his captain had neither the time nor inclination to enlighten him. "Hoist the boat. We sail at once."

  Chapter Ten

  As they ran down along the underside of New Guinea's long toe, retracing the course of Sainsbury's first mission in Spindrift, the patters increased to a light steady rain. Looking like an aged pixie in his sou'wester hat, Sainsbury asked:

  "Anything from the met. boys, Pilot?"

  "Plenty, sir. There's a front in from eastward of the Solomons. Looks like we'll be running into some really heavy stuff. If, of course," Pilot said casually, "we're heading anywhere near the Solomons."

  Intuition... "What makes you pick on the Solomons?"

  Pilot smiled. "Well, sir, there's obviously been a build-up of American forces. Just as obviously, considering your visit to that cruiser, we have something to do with it. But as it's unlikely that the Japs will be wasting their time to the southward, off the Queensland coast, and as the Yanks have landed in parts of the Solomons, my guess is we'll be heading that way, or else north up towards Rabaul."

  "Q.E.D., eh? Your first... Educated guess is right. Chart table, please."

  They bent in over the chart together. Sainsbury's thin forefinger whispered over the white parchment: not up through Jomard Passage, their earlier route, but down to and round Rossel Island, which is the last island of the Louisiade Archipelago, off the tip of New Guinea's toe, and then almost due eastward towards San Cristobal Island, which is the lowest of the Solomon Islands chain.

  His finger, having traced this route to possible violence, or death, or even boring monotony, circled an area to the east of Malaita, the next island above San Cristobal, and lying directly opposite Guadalcanal.

  "This is where we patrol. The American task force is looking for a Jap force, including at least one carrier, which they believe is coming down from the northward. However, it may circle out and come in at Guadalcanl from the east. If so, we will be there to spoil their little game. Simple, eh?"

  "Nothing to it, sir. Presuming that we just have to sight and report..."

  "Pilot," Sainsbury said, "there are several things in life I am after, but death and glory are not amongst them."

  "Delighted to hear it, sir."

  "Yes. Lay off the necessary courses, please."

  Sainsbury backed away from the chart table and took out the PA mike. Precisely and briefly he told the ship's company their job. "That's all," he ended.

  "That's all," echoed Hooky Walker in the chiefs' mess. "Just a sighting patrol. Like the last bastard?"

  "Not to worry," said Smith the coxswain, part of whose job was the maintaining of morale; not that it was needed in this seasoned mess. "The Yanks must have pretty sound Intelligence to think the Japs are coming down from up north, otherwise they'd have their fleet where we're going."

  "Spot on," nodded the gunner's mate. "You can't argue against that, Hooky."

  "I don't want to," Hooky smiled grimly. "There's only one little fly in the Swain's ointment: just how good is the Yank's Intelligence?"

  "Well now," said Smith, "that's beyond the scope of this tactical discussion. It's my bet we're headed for nothing but a boring patrol, with all the action miles away."

  He should not have said that, and he knew he shouldn't, even without the evidence of their accusing faces. For sailors are even more superstitious than captains: they believe that big troubles, like big waves, come in threes. First there was Mack; second there was the near-successful attack by those two Zeros; and third.?

  "Oh for God's sake!" growled Smith, "grow up, will you? Pass the canned cow."

  Silently the gunner's mate slid the tin of condensed milk along the table.

  On the bridge Pilot said, "Courses are laid, sir."

  "Very well." Sainsbury stepped across. It took his eye only a few seconds to check that Pilot's courses, representing a distance of hundreds of miles, ran through safe water. There was plenty of foul ground - reefs and banks and shoals - down to Rossel Island, but after that they had a fairly clear run across to San Cristobal. Sainsbury made to straighten up, then paused. His finger tapped the chart. Pilot looked, then frowned: the point in apparent question lay well south of San Cristobal, more than a hundred miles clear of their course.

  "Sir?"

  "Indispensable Reefs," Sainsbury read the chart musingly. His finger moved. "We have Torres Island and Banks Island, Mellish Reef and Bellona Reef. All right. But a reef called Indispensable? Of all things a seaman can dispense with... I wonder what's behind that name?"

  Pilot was smiling: it is not unknown, but certainly unpleasant, for a navigating officer to have his courses questioned. "Yes, I see what you mean. Maybe a group of seamen, shipwrecked somewhere else, managed to land on that reef. They'd find it indispensable."

  "Perhaps you're right. Let's hope we don't find it. All right, Pilot, sea-cabin."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  For several minutes after the captain had left Pilot stood frowning down at the chart. For months he had been using these charts, and he must have seen that odd name a score of times. But the Old Man had noticed it. And he was right. How could any bloody reef be called Indispensable? And why hadn't he noticed the oddity? Smiling slightly, Pilot returned to the binnacle. Just a little, Sainsbury's stature had grown in his mind.

  * * *

  The meteorological people had been right. For hour after hour Spindrift ran steadily on, and steadily the rain increased. It was nothing to seriously incommode her - she had more than enough visibility to avoid a collision - but these weather conditions hardly augured well for her scouting mission, which required all the visibility she could get. A few miles to port or starboard, a whole fleet could pass by her unseen. In a case like that she would have to rely on her search radar making contact with such a large steel mass. There was one consolation: if she did make contact with s
uch a group where she was headed, then there could be no doubt that the strange ships were enemy.

  Spindrift reached her assigned patrol area at a few minutes past noon of a weeping day. The sea had been logged as moderate, with a wind speed of 18 knots. A battleship would have snored through this; Spindrift bucked into the ascend of the seas, coming down at her from the northward. Invisibly far to her left lay the narrow-gutted island of Malaita, while beyond that again was Guadalcanal; on her right, to starboard, reached the grey immensity of the Pacific, empty for a thousand miles right out to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands - and they were only specks on the map.

  Up and down the distant length of Malaita she coursed, pitching on the northerly leg, rolling with the seas astern on the southerly, and for all she heard or saw she might have been the only ship left in the world.

  But the four copper aerials strung between her tail foremast and her stumpy mainmast aft - these heard, and told her that she was alone only here.

  The chief telegraphist himself came up to the bridge. Sainsbury listened with masked eagerness, then he took the signal and marked a position on a large-scale chart which included all the Solomon Islands and New Britain further north; and then he sent for Caswell.

  "Good news, sir?"

  "News, certainly, Number One, but whether good or bad it's too early to tell. The American task force has contacted and is engaging a sizeable Japanese force here." His finger indicated Choiseul Island, the second from the top of the Solomons chain. "That is two hundred miles north-west of our present position."

  "Thank God for that," Caswell grinned nervily.

  "Hmmm. Do I detect a lack of patriotic fervour, Number One?"

  "Good heavens no, sir! Nothing like that, at all. I wish we were up there."

  "Then your giving thanks to the Deity simply referred to the fact the American Admiral and his Intelligence were correct in their assumptions of the enemy's movements?"

  "Of course, sir. What else, sir?"

  "You lie like a cow in a bog, Number One."

  "Yes, sir. Can we go home now?"

  "I wish to hell we could," Sainsbury said, peering at the murk about them. "We're wasting our time here." He had spoken lowly, but now lifted his voice to normal. "However, we must remain on station until cancelling orders are received. There are staff officers in Moresby," pre-empting Caswell's objection, "who know where we are. They don't forget destroyers, Splinter, even one as lonely as us."

  "I suppose you're right, sir."

  "I think I am. Just the same, warn the wireless-office to keep a strict listening watch on Moresby's frequency."

  "Will do, sir," Caswell grinned. "I'll bet a bee to a bull's bum we're on our way back inside a couple of hours."

  Caswell lost his bet. They were on their way, in less time than that, but not back to Moresby.

  The time was almost exactly 4 p.m. - Sainsbury knew this because idly he had noted Mr. Meeking, the torpedo-gunner, mark their dead-reckoning position on the chart before being relieved of the afternoon watch by Caswell - when the phone howled and the voice spoke those dreaded words in his ear:

  "Radar office, sir. Surface contact right ahead."

  That was all. Sainsbury had not yet come to know his radar operators well, and so there was an edge of harshness to his demand:

  "Can't you give me more than that? Who is speaking?"

  "Petty-Officer Sanderson, sir. I'm sorry, but we have a fair bit of grass on the tube."

  Sainsbury was sorry too - a little. Sanderson must know his job.

  "Understood," he said. "But can't you make a stab at it? Big or small, just one contact?"

  "I... wanted to be more certain, sir."

  Sainsbury understood that, too. A possibly vital report to a new captain. He said:

  "Let your head go, Sanderson, give it a whirl." Caswell blinked at him. "You're the only man in the ship who can."

  That did it. "Yessir. I'd say she's a big ship - she must be to show up through this grass. Range, about ten miles. That's only approximate..."

  "I don't want it to the nearest inch. Ten miles is fine. Now take a stab at her course."

  "I'd say she's coming directly towards, sir."

  She would be, Sainsbury thought, his mind a mesh of calculations. They had been lucky to contact her right ahead; but now that she was, she would be on a course opposite to their own; rushing to get down the length of Malaita and then to alter round to the westward for Guadalcanal. But what was she? Cruiser, battleship, or - good God! - a carrier? Sanderson broke into his mind's whirl.

  "Got her on the plot now, sir. Definitely coming towards, speed twenty-five knots."

  "Good man. Try and pick up any escorts."

  Sainsbury pressed the phone back. Caswell was facing him, staring his questions.

  "Big ship coming towards," he told him. "Range ten miles, speed twenty-five knots."

  "Jesus. Cruiser or battleship!"

  "I don't think so. They'd have escorts, and Sanderson hasn't found any. But a carrier," Sainsbury said distantly, "carries her own escorts. Sixty or more of them."

  Caswell tried to make his tone normal; through the clenching in his guts. "But the Jap is up north. How come this big bastard's down here?"

  "The Jap's cunning," Sainsbury said, unconsciously echoing Commander Jamieson. "This fellow steamed well out to the eastward, then turned to come in here - which is precisely why we're here. While the main force is engaging the Americans off Choiseul, this bloke comes in for an unobstructed attack on Guadalcanal.

  Simple - like all brilliant plans."

  Caswell nodded, his face grim. "And the only thing in front of him is us."

  "Top of the class, Splinter. But thanks to this weather there are no aircraft up."

  "If she is a carrier."

  "Exactly. Pilot, take her out five miles then resume our present course. We must make visual contact."

  "Aye aye, sir. Speed?"

  Sainsbury did not hesitate, which Caswell was to remember. "What will she do in this, Splinter? Twenty-five? Maybe thirty?"

  "It'll be bloody rough, sir, but she might take thirty."

  "Revolutions for thirty knots," Sainsbury ordered crisply. "Warn all hands, and clear the foc's'le."

  A warm feeling moved in Caswell at this instant acceptance of his opinion, but it was short-lived. Already at twenty knots, Spindrift felt the increased thrust of her two great screws almost at once. She was a destroyer, all power and guts, with 34,000 superheated horses in her boilers. Light of body, lean of flank, she dug her sharp stem into the side of an advancing liquid hill, sprayed whiteness widely on both sides, lifted her forepart and then plunged down into the following trough. She shook from stem to stern. On the bridge they held on with both hands, so fierce and wild was her thrust; an unwary man flung back or forward would have a limb snapped like a rotten stick.

  Ten minutes of this beserk progress and the range was down to five miles. The port lookout was first with his report; held snugly in his seat he was the only man who could use his binoculars properly. His voice, young and scared, pitched shrilly across the bucking bridge.

  "Bridge! Bearing Red three-oh... aircraft carrier!"

  Sainsbury wedged his skinny hips between one of the soft-iron spheres and the binnacle. Red three-oh was thirty degrees off the port bow. He tensed his body, forcing it into the narrow gap, and raised his glasses. Given the bearing, he had the target at once. No question whatever - long line of flat deck, the bridge and funnel, or "island", rearing up from the far side amidships. And no planes on her deck. But plenty of time for that - Guadalcanal was almost two hundred miles away.

  A squall of rain swept the Jap from sight. And Spindrift... He had to get out of this visual range fast.

  "Stab'd fifteen. Come down to twenty knots."

  She had performed magnificently; there was no point in risking further strain on her rudder or screws with a high-speed, reeling turn. Even so, she lurched far over as Smith whirled the wheel on, takin
g the seas bodily inboard along her low iron-deck amidships. From everywhere on the messdecks there came the crash of crockery, and men hung on for their lives.

  Then she was round, and Smith slipped the fifteen degree angle off her rudder, and now with wind and seas astern she rolled instead of pitching into them; a regular roll that could be anticipated and countered by legs trained to do so.