J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  "Of course, sir. I'm just sweeping down the upper-deck after breakfast, then I'll..." Bentley broke off, realising that the routine he was about to outline had been learned under the very man he was explaining it to. "I'll let you know when the messdecks are ready, sir," he finished lamely.

  "Thank you." Captain Sainsbury turned his head and his eyes roved along the length of the horizon. He was still searching when he said, "I'll get my breakfast and get out of your way."

  Bentley nodded. He took no exception to that sweeping search, even though it was initiated from a bridge where, Sainsbury's senior rank notwithstanding, Bentley was undisputed master. He knew that a man of Sainsbury's experience would have been simply incapable of coming on to any bridge in wartime and not instantly and automatically searching the sea.

  The spare, gaunt figure walked slowly down the ladder. Randall had offered his cabin, but Sainsbury had declined it at once. "Any spare bunk will do me," he said. That was one reason why no officer objected to his presence on board, even if they hadn't held him in the most profound respect. He was a destroyerman-he knew. Randall would need all the sleep he could get, and he needed it in the comfort of his own familiar cabin. Sainsbury was a supercargo in this trip; he could sleep all day if he wanted to. So he bunked in a spare cabin down aft, though he ate with Bentley in the captain's sea-cabin under the bridge.

  They watched his sparsely-covered head drop below deck-level, and Randall growled:

  "I hope those coots down below aren't so sore at sailing that they won't put up any decoration at all."

  "Don't worry," Bentley smiled, "they'll do it if only to prove they don't give a damn for the Navy Board anyhow. Besides," he ended, himself looking round the empty horizon, "they couldn't pass it up today-it's Christmas Day, remember?"

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE DOCKYARD WORKERS IN Kure naval base might be toiling bee-like under the whips of compulsion and national pride, but aboard destroyer Wind Rode, a tithe of the size of the Satsuma, things were different. It was Christmas Day.

  On that one day each year, for twenty-four glorious hours, anything goes aboard the warships of the Fleet. After the solemnity of church on the quarterdeck the bosun's pipes shrill the "Secure" and things start to happen.

  Ronald Hopwood's fleet-known poem declares that:

  Now these are the laws of the Navy,

  Unwritten and varied they be,

  And he will do well to observe them,

  Going down in his ship to the sea.

  And it is an unwritten law, made rigid by hoary ages of tradition, that on Christmas Day the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

  Therefore, a standing practice is to have the captain up as a defaulter before the shortest man in the ship-a variation of how the mighty have fallen. There is no malice, of course, and "Shorty", dressed in the captain's voluminous uniform, complete with telescope under his arm, barks at the captain, rigged in bell-bottoms and a sailor's cap sitting on his head like a pimple on a bull's bilges:

  "Not smart enough! When I say double, I mean double! Turn about and double up to the table again!"

  Beside the perspiring defaulter stands a miserable-looking specimen-the master-at-arms, or ship's chief of police. The M.A.A. looks as though he has had a plateful of strawberry jam pushed in his face-probably because he has.

  The captain receives a verbal blistering, a faithful reproduction of his own style, and the M.A.A. is sentenced to one hour on cells for attending defaulters unwashed and for wearing his cap on straight.

  Far from bases in this wide-flung war, normal Christmas fare of turkey, ham, roast spuds, etc., was extremely scarce. So the trading in New Guinea of a young wild pig for a tin of bullamacow was considered by a certain corvette the acme of business acumen. That ship waged war all on her own against the blandishments, entreaties and intrigues of her flotilla mates.

  Displaying shrewd insight into human nature, every night they locked their precious pig in the four-inch magazine. Then, calamity! One rough day at sea the Christmas dinner was airing itself on the upper-deck. The ship rolled; the pig slipped; and as she gave another lurch the squealing porker shot with a great splash over the side.

  Imagine the scene. Seven corvettes which a moment before had been strung out in an exemplary line now wheeled and milled over the sea in frantic effort to avoid a motorboat whose crew, oblivious of the pandemonium, were dragging, gasping but triumphant, their Christmas dinner back from a watery grave.

  The captain and officers' mess shout each of the ship's company a bottle of beer each, and, with a crew of several hundreds, this is no small order. Then it is that ordinary-seamen, teetotal lads of 17, are discovered in possession of qualities which endear them strongly, if temporarily, to the old three-badgemen.

  On Christmas Day gold braid offers about the same degree of protection against jokers as paper would to a six-inch shell. One august captain was benignly watching his lads at play after dinner. Beside him stood his first-lieutenant.

  The object of their attention was a fuddled stoker petty-officer in his best suit, trying hopelessly to dodge a forcible jet from a fire hose. The first-lieutenant, noting certain signs, tapped his superior surreptitiously on the arm.

  "Don't you think, sir," he whispered, "you'd better come aft on to the quarter-deck?"

  The august officer guffawed loudly. "Good heavens, no, Number One! My men would never turn that thing on me!"

  Man proposes and stokers swing fire-hoses. An instant later a heavy splash and slather of spray swept past them as if a pailful of melted lead had been flung against the superstructure. The stream bore left and played full on the captain's resplendent figure. Forgetting himself, the first-lieutenant howled with laughter until the hose caught him in the face, when he howled with rage.

  But nothing could be done. It was Christmas Day...

  Wind Rode's Christmas escapades-luckily for her commanding-officer-were restricted somewhat. She was not in harbour, and enemy submarines were markedly unsympathetic towards carelessly operated asdic sets. But the messdecks were, as Bentley had prophesied, amply decorated. He collected Sainsbury, and leaving Randall in charge on the bridge made the rounds.

  The men by now had got over their grouch. They were at sea, they could do nothing about it, and-what was always a saving grace in the Navy-the skipper was in the same boat as they were. As Bentley walked slowly through the messdecks behind Sainsbury he noted the faces of his men. They were amused and respectful, anxious to see whether their efforts pleased: not here now was there any of the boiling hate and repression which had made them surge to the brink of mutiny with the relieving captain. (See "Mutiny!" in this series.)

  Deliberately, Bentley put the thought from his mind. That shameful episode was past now-he had to forget it, and judge these men by what he himself knew of them-loyal fighters, proven seamen who would follow wherever he led. He lifted his eyes and inspected their efforts.

  Each messdeck looked like nothing more than an Eastern bazaar-as in effect it was. The White Ensign hung draped beside a Siamese flag pinched from a hotel in Singapore, an exquisitely hand-carved brass rose bowl from India sported a crop of celery tops: bonbons, paper caps, Chinese lanterns, mementoes of hectic nights ashore in half the ports of the nine seas depended from the deck-head, side by side with a Papuan head-dress and a Hawaiian grass skirt.

  The stokers' messdeck, like a Bond Street store window, was decorated simply and effectively. The main motif strung in artistic loops from side to side, was toilet-paper: across the entrance to their living-quarters was hung a row of contraceptives. In the centre depended a large white piece of cardboard, and on it was printed the legend: BOOM DEFENCE.

  Captain Sainsbury lowered his skinny frame into a big armchair in the sea-cabin. He crossed one bony knee over the other and laid the extended fingers of his hands together, like a child's church steeple.

  "Trust the stokers to come up with something original," he smiled. His fingers twiddled a little
. "All clear up top, Peter. I shouldn't think a little spot would hurt us-considering the day?"

  "A good suggestion, sir," Bentley grinned, and pressed the buzzer.

  They sipped their whisky when it came, not talking, sitting there in perfect contentment. Sainsbury was glad he had come. Glad because he was freed from responsibility (a welcome change), and because he was with a man he had helped rise from lieutenant to his own command; a man he looked upon as a son, in whose successes he took a fierce and possessive pride-though he would cut his throat sooner than admit to it.

  Bentley was happy to have his old mentor with him for several reasons. Firstly, he was company. Though Randall was his best friend, Randall was also the first-lieutenant-he had work enough to do, and in any case he could hardly spend his time yarning in the captain's cabin; even with the closest of friends, the line of demarcation must be drawn when on board. Then, too, though Bentley could not look upon Sainsbury as a father-his own father was a captain with the British Home Fleet-he knew that if he were in trouble, immediate trouble, he would take his worries to the gaunt faced man opposite him without reservation. Finally, they had much to talk about.

  Bentley looked at his friend as he leaned sideways to get his tobacco pouch from his trouser pocket. He saw the pinched, lined face, carved by years of fighting and responsibility; he knew that Captain Sainsbury had no family whatever, that the only thing he knew and was known by was the sea; and he understood, with sudden and definite intuition, that the old man was lonely, and that was the real reason why he had elected to travel north in the ship commanded by the man he had tutored and guided.

  Bentley spoke, very quietly: "I'm glad you came with me."

  Sainsbury's eyes lifted and for a flash of time their glances locked. Then he lowered his eyes to the table, while he tugged at the recalcitrant pouch. His face was set in its lines, but his eyes, for a brief space, blinked rapidly. Then he said, as he pulled the pouch out and began to stuff his old pipe:

  "If you think I'm going to stand a watch on your precious ship you can think again, young feller."

  His voice was rough, and the moment of sweet intimacy was broken. But the moment had been there, warm and promising between them, and understood.

  "I wouldn't trust you with her," Bentley grinned. "We don't carry sails."

  Sainsbury developed his smoke screen to his satisfaction, then leaned back in aromatic satisfaction.

  "I'll wipe that grin from your face," he promised. "I suppose you know who the admiral is in charge of your area up there?"

  Bentley was not surprised that such an august officer was to be discussed. Sainsbury's reception of Randall's remarks on the bridge, and several earlier indications, had shown Bentley that the old relationship between them had subtly changed. Sainsbury was still senior, but now they were both commanding-officers, and his relaxed attitude was a measure of how far he knew Bentley had come along the way to experienced maturity.

  Bentley put down his glass and smiled.

  "I'd be a bit of a clot if I didn't know who he is. James Rupert Coulter-D.S.O. and Bar."

  "You're a clot, then, on your own admission," Sainsbury told him round the pipe-stem. "Coulter was burned badly by a suicide bomber which exploded on the bridge. Last week."

  Bentley leaned forward quickly.

  "I didn't know that. The ship?"

  "Nobody knows it down here, yet. The story hasn't been released. The ship's all right. She'll be repaired at Manus."

  "Hell," Bentley said slowly. "That's a blow." He meant it. Rear-admiral Coulter was a widely-liked leader-an old destroyerman who had fought in the Mediterranean, been elevated to flag-rank and a heavy cruiser, and then given command of the naval forces in a huge slice of the Pacific. Bentley looked shrewdly at his companion, who was looking back at him with his eyebrows raised.

  "There's only one name which could wipe the grin from my dial," he said. "The name's Palesy, nicknamed Bollardhead, and he's safely in Perth."

  Sainsbury tapped his pipe gently on the edge of the ashtray. Still leaning forward, he looked up at Bentley.

  "The name's Palesy, the nickname's Bollardhead, and he's safely in Port Moresby."

  "Hell!" Bentley said softly. "Now I am in strife. I've crossed swords with him before."

  "Haven't we all?" asked Sainsbury drily. "The whole flotilla's living on its nerves."

  "Bollardhead Palesy," Bentley repeated, and drew the tip of his cigarette red. He tapped it savagely in the ashtray. "What's up with the coot? The old story-insecure in his new job?"

  But there was a limit to senior-officer discussion beyond which the older man would not go.

  "Make sure you know your job," he advised. He looked at his watch. "I think we might risk one more, eh? Then I'd like to have a look at this new torpedo-control system of yours."

  Bentley climbed up to the bridge shortly before the ship was due to go to her precautionary night action-station. During this procedure all guns were tested, with communications, and the score of details necessary to ensure that the new destroyer's complicated fighting mechanism was ready for anything which might come upon them in the dark night.

  He stood beside his tall wooden-legged stool in the fore end of the bridge and looked about him. The sea lapped her low length in long, glistening swells, and to port the sun moved downwards towards the bare stone teeth of a range of mountains.

  It was a lovely evening, with nothing on the sea to worry them. The smear of smoke astern was from a convoy they had passed two hours before. Ahead lay Brisbane, and beyond that there should be nothing to unduly concern a large ship like Wind Rode-she was built to look after herself. Bentley should have been feeling lighthearted, especially as he would be in Brisbane tomorrow. Yet his face was troubled as he stared out over the swooping bow. Rear-admiral Palesy was a thousand miles away, yet his memory was so strong in Bentley's mind he might have been standing on the bridge beside him-a pear-shaped man of medium height, his face also with a pear-shaped aspect, compounded of broad jowls bracketing a congenially aggrieved mouth. A nasty face.

  Bentley remembered the first time he had fallen foul of him; before the war, Bentley a lieutenant, Palesy a commander.

  As officer of the watch, Bentley had failed to get the motorboat alongside at the precise moment Palesy had ordered it-the boat was fully half a minute late. Palesy had growled his displeasure, and though the incident had been trivial, it had served to bring the young lieutenant to his superior's notice.

  From then on the commander, essentially a bully, had supervised Bentley's officer of the watch duties with a sour and bellicose eye, so that towards the end of that commission the youngster had dreaded the heavy step shaking the bridge ladder.

  But that was years ago, he told himself.

  Palesy would have enough on his hands now without worrying about a junior he had once hounded.

  But that was just it, his worrying mind told him-Palesy, now given command of a fleet he could never have hoped to lead if Coulter had not been incapacitated, would indulge his bullying nature to the full. And here, coming to join him, was a brand-new destroyer, one whose every move would be watched with a waiting, eagle eye.

  "The bollard-headed oaf!" Bentley muttered to himself, "he'll find me a bit older now!" Then he dismissed Palesy from his thoughts. "Sound action stations," he ordered curtly.

  The run through the night had been uneventful. With an hour to go before she threaded through the convolutions of Moreton Bay passage, Randall stood beside his captain on the gently rolling bridge. Above them the morning sun's rays fell steeply from a cobalt sky, and the white tower of Moreton lighthouse stood like a bleached bone on the lip of the cliff to port.

  Randall filled his capacious chest with ozone and then slapped his open palms against it.

  "What time do we go ashore?" His suggestive grin compounded all a sailor's evils-drink, women, more drink.

  Bentley pulled at his chin with his fingers. He had been expecting this, and he did not want
to hurt his friend's feelings. Brisbane would be the first time they had gone ashore together since Bentley had left the hospital in Sydney.

  "I'm afraid I can't make it, Bob," he said, and scratched his head, as if the movement would take any sting of offence from the words.

  "I'll be tied up ashore today."

  Randall looked at him quickly, and his mouth opened in protest. Then he shut it, and that gesture told Bentley plainer than any words how his decision had affected him. They stared together out over the bow, then Randall said:

  "I didn't know you had ship's business ashore. I thought we might take the old boy off and get a few rums into him."