J. E. MacDonnell - 139

by Death Of A Destroyer(lit)

  "Twenty-five knots," Sainsbury said, then took out the radar phone. "Captain. You still have her?"

  "The biggest blip I've ever had, sir! Range is only six miles."

  Sainsbury's smile was a tight slitting of his lips. "I'll try not to decrease that." He replaced the phone. "Yeoman, take a signal. Carrier heading Guadalcanal. Spindrift.' That's all."

  Both the yeoman and Caswell stared at him. "You've forgotten the position, course and speed, sir," Caswell said.

  Even through his wire-taut tenseness Sainsburyenjoyed his brief moment: they didn't know he had formed this signal long ago, in the event of its having to be used. "The message has to be kept to an absolute minimum, Number One, so they can't get a fix on us. Agreed? Good. `Spindrift' will tell all. The Admiral knows where we are, and so of course will know where that carrier is. He will assume that she's not loitering, and an elementary exercise in navigation will give him her course to make Guadalcanal."

  "Well I'll be buggered," said Caswell.

  "Probably. In fact, Yeoman, you can delete that word `heading'. Just make `Carrier Guadalcanal. Spindrift.' Unless the Admiral is a complete moron, which I doubt, the very brevity of the message will carry its own implications. Yeoman?"

  "Sure thing, sir," nodded the yeoman, while he thought: You're the queerest skipper I've shipped with - and the bloody cleverest. "In code, sir?"

  "Most certainly. They'll intercept, if they do intercept, only a short jumble of letters. They might guess there's someone on to them. No point in telling them there is. Quick with it, man."

  "Aye aye, sir!"

  The chief petty-officer telegraphist had been in the Service twenty-two years. He knew that the recipient of his message, in an Admiral's battleship, would be hardly less experienced. His fingers moved on the transmitting key with a supple blur of swiftness. The electronic dots and dashes sped out at speed of 186,000 miles per hour; they had to travel two hundred miles.

  It took several minutes - due to the physical distance between the battleship's radio-room and its bridge - before the yeoman came up from the wireless-office voice piped and called across to Sainsbury:

  "Message received and understood, sir."

  "Thank God for that," Caswell said fervently, for all of them. Then he grinned widely at his captain. "In a following sea she'll take thirty-five knots!"

  But the yeoman had not finished. His next words were short and apparently innocuous, yet that lowered an icy chill upon the bridge.

  "More to follow, sir," said the yeoman.

  "Christ," muttered Caswell, again for all of them.

  Each man, as he waited, formed his own thoughts about what that cryptic message could mean. Congratulations? That was the bosun's mate, the least experienced. Continue tracking the bastard? This was the consensus amongst most of the officers. Sainsbury deliberately kept his mind blank, so that it would be instantly ready to absorb whatever might come; he also kept his glasses on the starboard beam, where the enemy was, and gained some satisfaction from his inability to see her through the curtain of rain. He tried not to think of how quickly that curtain could part.

  But not even he, even if he had been trying like the others to forecast the Admiral's signal, could have guessed within a mile what it turned out to be.

  "From the flagship, sir," said the yeoman in a voice that was too controlled. "Can you slow her down? Guadalcanal's airstrip presently unusable. Cruiser squadron heading to intercept at maximum speed, but will take at least seven hours to gain your present position. Act at your own discretion, but imperative that carrier's speed is reduced." The yeoman looked up from the signal sheet. "End of message, sir," he said huskily.

  "Holy Mother of God," whispered Mr. Meeking, who was a Catholic.

  None of the others spoke; they were stunned to silence. At those first words of the signal Sainsbury's spine had tightened; now rage boiled like lava inside him. Act at your own discretion. What sort of puling crap was that! A let-out for the apology of a man who had made it? A straight-out order to attack would have been preferable. Sainsbury felt his anger sliding out of control. He clamped a fierce rein upon it. He turned away from their faces, forced himself to think. It was the hardest thing he had tried in his life, but within a short minute training and discipline, and the iron in the man, came up with a rational conclusion.

  The Admiralty up there had a Jap task force, as well as the responsibility for the possible loss of Guadalcanal, on his plate. It was natural, elementary, that he should want the carrier slowed down. Was it so unnatural, then, that he should use the only weapon available to him for that purpose?

  Sainsbury's mind had cleared itself of the redness. As had so many captains of the Navy's small ships before him, he came to his decision.

  "Gentlemen," he said, his eyes patrolling round their waiting faces, "I forgot who wrote them, but the words remain clear in my memory. They are these: `Speed in attack is the only hope of success against odds.' We are up against tremendous odds, therefore we must act quickly." His voice burred up to a commanding rasp. "Pilot, bring her round to come up astern of the enemy. Torps, prepare all tubes for firing starb'd side. Number One, do not open fire until we're sighted. When you do, concentrate the whole main armament on her side midway between the flight-deck and water-level, using armourpiercing shell."

  Spindrift was already leaning on the turn towards. Caswell still felt shocked at what they were in for, but he had been given orders, and these jolted his professionalism into action.

  "The side, sir? What about taking her guns?"

  "She'll have at least four batteries along each side. You can't hope to take them all. In any case we'll be flashing past her, the bearing will be changing extremely fast, and we're a small target. They might not hit us, but we cannot miss hitting her side. If armourpiercing stuff gets in there amongst her planes and fuel, we'll have done our job. No more argument, please," Sainsbury said, and Caswell saw the fear and the huge weight of responsibility in the tightness of his face.

  "Right, sir," he said, `I'll clobber the bastard." And wished to God he'd said that in the first place.

  "We're almost astern of her," Pilot called from the viewing position above the radar plot. "Shall I come round now?"

  "Do that. Torps, how close in can I get without having your tin-fish running beneath her belly?"

  "Been thinking about that, sir," said Torps, almost brilliantly. It was mostly like that with the younger men, those with no responsibility other than their own weapon. "She'll have a draught of at least twenty feet. My fish don't dive much deeper than that anyway, and they regain their depth-setting quickly, so you could take her into, well, half a mile."

  There was a stretching moment of silence, while Torps was allowed to feel the unfunny idiocy of his remark. Sainsbury's mind worked with heightened clarity, as usually happened when he was fearing and tense. They were covertly watching him, fearing too, waiting for the dreaded orders. But when they came he surprised them.

  "Get Stoker Graham up on deck. Secure him on the deck port side abreast the bridge."

  Carella was already back on duty. My God, Caswell thought, he can think of a wounded man at a time like this! But he gave his orders quickly, and when he'd finished he heard the captain talking to Torps.

  "We'll be coming up on her port quarter. How's that for a firing angle?"

  "Not the best..." Torps started, and then, as if he had suddenly matured, "That'll be fine, sir. How many do you want fired?"

  The lot, Sainsbury's mind screamed. "Just one," he said. `With this muck it will be dark in an hour, and we'll need some for later. It would be nice if you could get her screws or rudder."

  "Been thinking about that, sir," Torps repeated himself, though not brightly. "But that means a much reduced target area. I could miss astern."

  Sainsbury nodded. "Do what you can, lad. Range, Pilot?"

  "Three miles, sir."

  "Her radar's not much," Caswell said, "if she's got any."

  "She's
got a thousand eyes... Bearing?"

  "Green two-five, sir."

  Twenty-five degrees off the starboard bow. He was coming up nicely. He just might bring it off, if the Japs weren't bothered about searching astern. But any minute now he must come into...

  "Enemy in sight!" the yeoman called, but lowly, as if he might be heard over three miles of sea.

  "Thirty-five knots," Sainsbury snapped. "Standby to engage."

  He raised his binoculars, along with a dozen others. Now that he could see her his mind, after its initial shock, was running as fast and smooth as a flywheel. There was no time for fear, time only to see and judge. Twenty-five knots is fast for a vessel of 30,000 tons: the carrier spawned a boil of white from her broad stern, and from her port bow, the one visible to him, a huge fan of arching water. There were still no planes on her flight-deck, thank God, and in this rain there seemed to be no men. But she would have lookouts closed-up, and surely some gun mountings. But he was overhauling her rapidly, and even now... The thought thrilled him, as if an electric current had shot along his nerves. Even now, if she sighted him, he was in position and range to get of his torpedo. And each few seconds of immunity increased the chances of a hit. Of a hit against him, too - but his mind, now nothing but a lightning calculating machine, easily blocked off that nastiness.

  She'll turn, he thought. As soon as she sees the torpedo... no, as soon as she sights the ship she'll swing away under hard-over rudder. Even a few degrees of turn will present her stem instead of her length. He should have warned Torps about that. But he was a torpedo-officer, he must be aware of all this.

  "Range?"

  "Just over a mile, sir."

  How long for a 40-knot torpedo to travel one mile? One and a half minutes. She could still get her wheel on and swing far enough...

  "Enemy's opened fire!" the yeoman shouted.

  As his head started to turn Sainsbury saw the eyes flickering at him; but small and fast - some close-range weapon. Then he had shouted "Torps!" and Torps said into his phone, "Fire one!"

  Sainsbury heard the whoosh of compressed air as the torpedo was spat out of its tube, then a multiple roar as Spindrift's four guns fired together.

  Haul off, his instinct urged him. He had engaged the giant, he had loosed a torpedo, he had performed his duty and salved his conscience. And, by God, he didn't want to lose her, not Spindrift. So haul her clear.

  But his guns had fired again. The first broadside had hit, bright red gouts from her looming side, and nothing big had come in return. Yet. He had maybe a minute before the Japs closed-up their main armament. Keep her here, on this steady course, give the guns time for another few broadsides. He might be able to do the job this time; just this once, instead of having to worry at the big bastard all night.

  The second broadside hit. He saw it, plain and bright. Then realisation rushed in on him. He saw those hits because the shells had failed to penetrate her side. She must be armoured. Of course she would be, outside her tanks holding thousands of gallons of high-octane fuel. Fool! He should have aimed at the bridge, maybe got the captain and a bunch of senior officers. But Christ, she hadn't started to turn yet!

  She started to fire. From three separate mountings just below the level of the flight-deck much bigger stabs of flame lashed at him, yellow and ugly. Not forty knots, but two thousand miles per hour, those shells. The air ripped open above his head and just beyond her straining body the sea gouted whitely. Now instinct and professionalism combined.

  "Hard-a-port!"

  At thirty-five knots she answered Smith's wheel like a racing car. The rushing sea met the angled rudder-face and shoved her stern round with rude force. Her slim bow swiped to the left and her body leaned far over to the right. In a moment she presented only her stern to the enemy, and into the wide white wake the Japs's next salvo spouted. Then, at almost the same instant, beyond that cluster of columns there leaped another - much wider and higher, just one, rising with swift upthrust force up level with the top of the carrier's bridge.

  "Got the bastard!" jerked Caswell, and hard on his voice came the drumming beat of thunder.

  Sainsbury felt no exultation, only a mixture of relief and worry.

  "Midships, starb'd twenty," he ordered automatically, to throw the Jap gunners off, then stared through his glasses. The lenses proved his fears. That wake at the stern still boiled, the bow-waves still arched high. One hit, against a length of almost a thousand feet, had slowed her little, if at all. He should have let his five torpedoes go. But he hadn't, so forget that.

  Shells spouted again, a full broadside of eight guns this time, but well clear to port. "Midships, steady as she goes." Spindrift ran straight away from her giant enemy, straight into a rain squall.

  Sainsbury walked quickly to the chart table and pulled out the identification book. God knows he'd seen her close and plain enough, and he had her in a moment. Thirty thousand tons, sixty aircraft, speed twenty eight knots; sixteen 5-inch guns, many 47 and 25 millimetre close-range weapons. He came back.

  "Good work, Torps. Yeoman, make this: `Hayataka class carrier. Hit with one torpedo but no apparent slowing effect. Present speed twenty-five knots. Visibility failing. Will track ail night and make periodic attacks with my remaining nine torpedoes. Expect to meet cruiser squadron shortly.' That's all. Make it in plain language."

  Still scribbling, the yeoman hurried off.

  "Nine torpedoes. You're a fibber." Caswell's grin was tight with nerviness.

  "They might not fall for the cruiser bit, but we're a Fleet destroyer and most of them mount ten tubes. He'll have to believe we do. In any case, they'll be kept awake all night. Pilots too, I shouldn't wonder, expecting to be blown open any time. Would you tuck yourself in, way down between decks?"

  "Not with a mad destroyer loose..."

  "War is mad, Splinter. But if we can keep them awake and nervy all night they won't be so hot in the morning."

  "Like us."

  "Quite. However, we don't have the responsibility of taking Guadalcanal out as an effective base, do we? Range, Pilot?"

  "Four miles, sir."

  "That will do nicely. Put the ship on a parallel course to the enemy." Sainsbury placed his skinny hands together before his chest, like a cardinal praying. His thoughts were somewhat harsher. "Now, Splinter, what do we do about this fellow tonight, eh?"

  "You've just said it. Keep `em awake with the threat of an attack."

  "Ah, yes, but that is hardly good enough. The Admiral wants her slowed down."

  "If I weren't an officer and a gentleman, in the presence of my captain, I'd say fuck the Admiral."

  "I have already thought along those lines, Splinter. Unfortunately we are, at least, officers. I saw a film once," Sainsbury said with apparent irrelevance.

  It was much easier out here, covered by the rain. "Did you now?" smiled Caswell, with heavy humour.

  "The film concerned a grizzly bear, trying to get at a she-wolf with her new-born cubs." Sainsbury paused, his forehead ridged in thought.

  "What happened?" Caswell asked dutifully.

  "The she-wolfs mate, the father of the cubs, did something about it. He went for the bear, snapping and snarling, time and time again. He had no hope of killing the big fellow, of course, but he certainly occupied him; turned him away from his intended course, as it were."

  "Ah..." said Caswell, soberly now.

  "Yes. After some time at this, darting in and snapping and springing out again, the she-wolf managed to get well clear with her cubs. Are you with me, Splinter?"

  "I think so. For bear and wolf and she-wolf, read carrier, us and, hopefully, Guadalcanal."

  "Bright, bright. There's more than one way of killing a cat, or slowing a carrier. If we get ahead of him, then come in fast and fine on his bow, in a position where all his 5-inch guns can't bear, then he simply must turn away, even if we don't actually fire torpedoes. He cannot afford not to."

  Caswell rubbed his hands together. "Of course! And he
'd have to turn away, not just a few degrees - a full torpedo-avoiding turn. Then he'd have to swing back. And in we come again. We'd be like a... a... bloody cattle dog, shepherding cows!"

  "Your metaphor is somewhat mixed, but, yes, that is the idea."

  "But not till darkness, for God's sake?"

  "Not till darkness, Splinter. Now I think we and the ship's company should get something to eat. It looks like being a long long night."

  Chapter Eleven

  At seven o'clock, with full darkness and with his men fed, Sainsbury took Spindrift well up ahead of his huge enemy, swung her, steadied her, and drove her in on the first of her white-knuckled dashes to hell.

  Nothing had changed; except that the Jap was fifty miles closer to his objective. The sagging clouds still wept, the wind and sea were at the same strength, and on this northerly course made her pitch and screw like a thing demented.