J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  "No, sir," said Bentley dutifully, and he felt a stirring of interest in him. If the old boy's story was to cap what had happened against the raider, it must be a gem.

  "I mean it!" Sainsbury said. Then he shook his gaunt head slowly. "But you need to be my age before my lesson would hit home. Come on, then, where are they?"

  There was only one officer missing from the wardroom when they got down there, and he was Pilot, the officer of the watch. Even the surgeon and the engineer-officer were there. They rose at once as Sainsbury stepped in, and his eyes narrowed a little in surprise as he saw how many of them there were.

  "Who do they think I am?" he said in a low voice to Bentley, turning his head, "Laurence Olivier?"

  "Better," Bentley grinned, "you don't fight on celluloid."

  The mess seated themselves, and Bentley stood in front of them. His introduction was brief. Nothing else was needed for a man who wore among the ribbons on his thin chest the small, maroon rectangle of the Victoria Cross.

  "Captain Sainsbury has consented," he said, "to give us a talk on a torpedo-attack he carried out not far from here. It's not often a destroyer carries out this manoeuvre, and less often that we are privileged to hear about one. We should learn a lot."

  He smiled at the captain, and walked across and sat down in the armchair left for him. They looked at Sainsbury.

  The skinny figure leaned back against the table, half-resting his hip on it. They were grouped before him in a rough half-circle. Their faces were intent and expectant.

  "Captain Sainsbury has not consented to talk to you," he began, "he was dragooned into it. Mainly on the strength of old acquaintance."

  They smiled. But it was a shrewd opening. It would not hurt Bentley for the new members of his officer-team to know that he was an old shipmate of the flotilla-leader. Which proves that Old Aunty Sainsbury hadn't much to learn about the psychological handling of fighting men.

  "But you will learn something," he promised, "if it's only that the civilian gentleman who invented torpedoes should have experienced an attack with his brain-children before he let them loose in the Fleet. It is not a pleasant experience."

  He settled himself more comfortably, his hands resting quietly in his lap and his right leg swinging out gently an inch above the deck. They had lit their pipes and cigarettes, and now they were all his.

  "The attack of which I'm speaking took place not so far from here-in the Louisiade Archipelago. It was last January, I remember, a year all but a month from today. My ship was attached to the Fourth Flotilla..."

  The thin voice, quiet and penetrant, talked on. Bentley's eyes were fixed on his face, and gradually, as his imagination swung into gear with what he was listening to, the walls of the wardroom seemed to open out on to a wide blue sea and he was part of the imaginative picture. His experience of the officer talking filled in the gaps, and his intense interest produced the effect of watching a film unreeling on the screen of his mind.

  Sainsbury's destroyer cruised up and down outside the loading port, waiting for her convoy. Soon they came lumbering through, three large, fat merchantmen, their bellies dragged down by heavy loads of munitions and supplies. Sainsbury had come south for these ships, and half an hour with the Naval Officer in charge ashore had convinced him of the urgent need of their supplies back in the Louisiades. It was imperative they should arrive and be unloaded quickly and safely.

  From the bridge he looked down at B-gun's crew as they cleared away the twin guns, aft along both waists, noting the boats lashed with seamanlike thoroughness, then at the depth-charge throwers and rails, loaded, and turned to his torpedo-control officer, Lieutenant Murray.

  "What you have put into the ship in training, Murray, she will give again-no more, no less."

  Murray, a stolid young man. replied: "Yes, sir." His captain often mused aloud. Half the time he didn't understand him, but he was a damned good seaman, and that, to Lieutenant Murray, was all that concerned him.

  The trip north and across was uneventful. Steadily the merchantmen snored through towards the south-east tip of New Guinea, the destroyer steaming across ahead in her "zig-zag for convoys in waters where danger from submarines is presumed to exist."

  Dawn on the third day found the jungly coast rising above the far rim of blue, and soon the three ships were alongside improvised jetties, soldiers swarming around the open holds. Two miles away, just outside the harbour mouth, and across it, lay the destroyer.

  Extra lookouts were posted, radar and asdic sets were manned continuously. A short distance away to starb'd small, heavily-treed islands afforded the refuge to which the destroyer escorted her partially unloaded charges at nightfall. The enemy knew which island was occupied by Allied forces, and it was too risky to leave the merchantmen all night alongside the jetties.

  Tonight, against Sainsbury's better judgment, one ship was to carry on unloading, while the destroyer took the others out. They would be safe behind the uninhabited island. Sainsbury wanted all ships out; but military H.Q. ashore wanted those supplies, medical stuff mostly, urgently, and so that was that.

  Nightfall found two half-empty ships anchored close inshore, with the destroyer a low-lying blur to seaward. Sainsbury had ordered the cruising watch closed-up, which gave him half the armament and tubes manned. He himself was on the bridge, and would sleep there. He leaned both arms on the compass binnacle and stared out into the star-studded night.

  As usual, his mind was busy with a tactical problem. Assuming the asdic picked up a submarine, it would be safer to leave the ships stationary where they were. His cable was buoyed, ready for slipping, and in a matter of minutes he could jump the enemy.

  First thing to do was to let the Jap know he had an escort ship to deal with, which knowledge should extinguish all desire to investigate the possibilities of the harbour further. It was more important to get the supplies unloaded than to reduce the enemy Navy; a case of prevention superseding cure.

  He listened a moment to the talk floating up from B-gun. They were talking, as usual, about leave. Leave! He'd forgotten the meaning of the word.

  The port lookout's voice, tensed, brought him upright in one swift contraction. "Bearing green two-oh. Looks like a ship, sir. Coming towards."

  Sainsbury lifted his glasses. He searched the sharp line of horizon for a second, then suddenly there bulked into focus in the powerful lenses the dark shape of a big ship, travelling fast. At her bow a plume of white showed clearly against the black. Even without the unmistakable superstructure and trunked funnels he knew her for a Jap-a Mogami-class, probably: eight-inch guns and a secondary armament equal to his 4.7s.

  Before he reached the alarm buzzer his plan of action was formulated. If he opened fire at her now, she still had time to turn out to sea, stand off, burn her searchlight, and get in some good night practice at the two merchantmen and puny destroyer. She could leave the harbour till last.

  As it was now, the Jap was heading straight in through the reef, guns trained on that cluster of lights on the pier, and the ship alongside. He would realise how urgent must be the need for unloading if they burned lights at night-and would act accordingly.

  The cruiser was right ahead now, passing swiftly. Sainsbury thought of wirelessing H.Q. of the danger; he realised at once that he would succeed only in giving his own position away, with his two consorts. In any case, nothing could save the third merchantman now.

  He weighed anchor quietly, positioned his ship behind the island point past which the Jap cruiser had just slid, then swung her broadside on to his line of withdrawal.

  The ten torpedo tubes in her waist trained smoothly outboard, their mouths yawning hungrily over the black water.

  On the enemy ship's bridge the captain watched the bustle ashore through his glasses. He had plenty of room to manoeuvre in. Then he gave an order to the wheelhouse. The big ship heeled over on the turn, until her eight barrels pointed directly at the pier. The thick barrels elevated, hesitated, then steadied. The r
ange was about 4000 yards-point-blank. The Jap was quite safe; the lights blinded the soldiers from a view to seaward, and they were working too urgently to think about lookout duties.

  An officer in the director above the bridge spoke an order into his headphones. There came a roar and tongues of flame from the guns. The pier erupted into a mane of bursting flame and smoke. The next broadside caught the ship amidships. Sides gouged open, she listed heavily to port, streamers of fire licking along her entire length. There is tremendous heat in bursting high-explosive.

  Again and again the big guns roared, until the pier and ship and stacked supplies had resolved into burning rubble. Beneath the pall of dust and smoke, soldiers who had been unloading her lay writhing, or still, on the ground. The rest had fled with impotent curses into the jungle. Two anti-tank guns had opened fire, but their small projectiles barely scratched the cruiser's armoured sides. It had taken perhaps five minutes' rapid fire.

  More than satisfied, the Japanese captain headed his ship for the opening in the reef.

  All was quiet on the destroyer's bridge as she waited. They had heard clearly the booming broadsides, they could see in their mind's eye what was happening, and they knew that when the cannonading ceased he was coming out.

  Then the gunfire stopped.

  No one on the bridge had spoken a word while it was on-as though in impotent sympathy with the men in that hell ashore. Now orders were passed, quietly and efficiently. The destroyer eased closer into the point, the tubes training a little left as the bearing altered.

  Behind his pronged torpedo-sight Murray crouched, his back braced against the flag-locker, the centre prong dead on the point. There were ten pairs of binoculars also on that point-and six long grey barrels.

  Then Sainsbury said: "Here he is."

  The Jap sped out from behind the island at 25 knots, eager to regain the security of the open sea. Eight hundred yards away on his starb'd beam the destroyer leaped to meet him. Down in the engine-rooms the indicators were steadied on "Full ahead". The throttles were jammed hard against the stops; the crankshafts pounded at increasing speed till they were a single flash of spinning silver; and the engine-room was filled with the sound of a mighty whining roar.

  Sainsbury watched his bearings carefully. Without altering his crouch over the gyro-compass he snapped: "Stand-by to fire!" A faint echo came from the tube communication-number down in the waist.

  "Starb'd twenty!"

  He watched Murray as the ship careered round. The torpedo-officer watched the Jap's stern, then after-turret, then mainmast slide by his sight.

  "Swing faster, sir!" he shouted.

  Sainsbury bent, "Hard-a-starb'd!" Almost at once, so fast was she racing, the heel became more acute; her whole hull was shuddering with the pressure against the hard-over rudder. Round knifed the bow till both ships were travelling on parallel courses. The cruiser was now clearly visible to port, a bulking shape against the line of the sky.

  Murray shouted again: "Sights coming on, sir!" His sight traversed the funnel, then bridge. Now! His right hand flicked a row of switches, one after the other in swift succession. From her low waist came a great whoosh of compressed air; ten mouths flamed redly; then the torpedoes, propellers already spinning, hit the water in darts of spray and started their under water run to the target.

  At that instant the Jap saw the stabs of flame. Astern, the surface of the sea was transformed suddenly into a silvery fairyland, then the searchlight trained left and bore its staring eye full on the speeding destroyer. Half-blinded by the glare, revealed in a light as bright as day, they waited for the broadside which at this range would lift them from the water.

  It never came. Fiercer than the searchlight's glare, from the cruiser there leaped a solid sheet of flame. The light-beam shot abruptly into the sky, then went out; from her side a forest of water towered up, higher than her masts. Then came the roar.

  Sainsbury's face was grim as he walked back to the voice-pipe. Relief would come later.

  "Thank you, Murray," he said. "Ease to 090 revolution. Steer 240. We won't linger for survivors."

  The throbbing eased, the whine of the engine-room blowers died down to a muted hum, and the destroyer steadied on her new course.

  Captain Sainsbury eased his hips from the edge of the table. The wardroom stirred, and they lit cigarettes they had forgotten about during the recital. Sainsbury's eyes roved over them, picking them up one by one.

  "A ship will give you back what you have put into her in training," he ended. He stood on his feet, and then he felt how cramped he was. He realised with an inward deprecatory grin that he had himself been carried away by his memories.

  "I think I've earned a cup of tea, Peter," he smiled.

  In his sea-cabin Bentley pushed the sugar across and then sat back in his chair, resting his right ankle on his left knee.

  "That was a damned good story," he said, "you really had them all the way."

  "Filled their minds with thoughts of glory, no doubt," Sainsbury grunted, and sugared his tea. He sipped appreciatively. "What I didn't dwell on was what was going on in my guts while we waited for the Jap to open fire."

  Bentley was silent. He knew what his friend meant well enough. That was when fear seemed to melt your guts. Every man, unless he were a clod with no sensitivity whatever, would feel it. That was natural. It was how you came out of it that mattered: whether you gave in to it and gibbered uncontrollably or fought it down and carried on with your job.

  "Yes," he said at last-it was not quite a sigh. Then he added, with a vehemence he had not meant to escape him, "By hell, I'll be glad when this is over!"

  It was the older man's turn to understand. He was slightly surprised, and a little pleased, to learn that this young hulk of a fellow had had his gutful. He himself had lost his illusions on the glamour of war about a week after it started, when his ship had picked up the sun-blackened remains of men in a lifeboat from a merchant ship sunk by a raider in the Indian Ocean. He said:

  "We've all had enough, Peter. Don't imagine you're alone in that. The thing is not to let the troops realise it. There's a hell of a long road to Tokio ahead of us."

  Then-because of the futility of war, it was futile to discuss- they changed the subject.

  "I'll be seeing my old shipmate tomorrow." Bentley grinned. "I hope he doesn't remember me."

  Sainsbury laid down his cup on the low table and looked up at him. His vinegary face was serious.

  "I think he might, my lad."

  "Oh, no, I shouldn't think so," Bentley smiled. "It was a long time back."

  "Quite so," Sainsbury agreed. "But during that time you've made quite a name for yourself. The Jap cruiser in Sabang, taking on the Jap cruiser squadron off Java, your E-boat fracas in the Med., and the latest effort ramming that Nip submarine. You are rapidly laying claim to that odious title of an `ace' destroyer-driver." He smiled thinly.

  "God forbid!" Bentley grinned back at him. But because, though inherently modest, he was still sensible enough to see the force of Sainsbury's argument-that midget-submarine business had brought him wide and deliberate publicity-he realised at once that Rear-Admiral Palesy might remember him much more clearly than he would have wished. Sainsbury said quietly:

  "He's the sort of man who might resent your success, you know."

  The warning delivered, and as an indication that he did not wish to enlarge on his senior officer, Sainsbury got up and with a short nod walked out of the cabin. It was a warning, Bentley realised as he poured himself a fresh cup of tea. Normally, if he had not served with the admiral before, he would have dismissed him from his mind, retaining only the determination to keep his nose clean while in his sight. But Palesy he knew to be an incompetent, vindictive bully, the sort of fellow who would remember the young lieutenant if only because his dealings with him had constituted, to him, a perverted sort of pleasure. And now, as Sainsbury had sagely decided-the name of Lieutenant-Commander Bentley was more than well enough kn
own to an officer whose duty it was in any case to be familiar with the careers of the captains under his command.

  Bentley sipped his tea thoughtfully. Perhaps, with the increased responsibility of Fleet command, Palesy had changed. Sometimes command did that to a man.

  But Rear-Admiral Palesy had not changed. Bentley was to have clear indication if this the next day.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WIND RODE CAME IN through the reef-opening at ten o'clock of a morning made blustery by the fresh south-east Trades. From the bridge they could look down upon the gap in the binding coral and watch the white foam flashing amongst the amber of it, and all the blue, reef-piercing sea beyond laced across with trailing nets of spume. To the left of the big harbour there was the switchy sway of palms yielding in soft compliance to the suasion of the wind, but to their right the sun glinting iron roofs of the town crawled halfway up a bare brown hill, utilitarian and ugly.