J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  Then, with an instant switch at the pit of his stomach, Bentley saw the long grey shape of a heavy cruiser anchored off the jetty; at the truck of her tall foremast whipped the white, red-crossed flag of the rear-admiral, its two red balls showing plainly near the halliard.

  They had barely begun to shape up for their mooring when a bright yellow eye started winking from the flagship's bridge. He's not wasting any time, Bentley thought morosely, believing that the admiral already had a job for him, and these were his orders. So that he waited impatiently for the signal-yeoman to read the message, while Pilot kept him informed of their position relative to the anchoring point.

  Then the yeoman came across to him and handed him a sheet of paper. His burned face was impassive. "From the Flag, sir," he said non-committally. Bentley took it and read. A shade of deep red infused itself slowly into the mahogany colour of his face.

  "Your time of arrival," the signal said tartly, "was signalled as ten-thirty. In the ships under my command signalled schedules will be strictly adhered to R.G. Palesy, flag-officer commanding." Bentley's immediate reaction was that he had read the message wrongly. A flash of reflection served to convince him otherwise- there was no ambiguity in its terse sentences. He stood there behind the binnacle, his binoculars slung round his neck, and the knuckles of his hand where he gripped the compass ring were showing whitely against the brown skin. He had signalled his time of arrival at ten-thirty, but nobody but an imbecile would expect him to hang around outside in hostile waters when a fortuitous current had set him half an hour ahead of schedule. Or, Bentley decided grimly, a man who chose this way of quickly asserting his superior authority over a new arrival.

  It was this last thought which set Bentley's mind swiftly forming the phrases of his reply. He would point out to the weak-minded idiot that he considered it more important to get his ship inside the reef than to loiter outside and risk a million-pounds worth of ship against a snap-fired torpedo. Then he felt a pair of quiet grey eyes watching him, and he half-turned his head to look at Sainsbury. Bentley took hold of his temper with both hands.

  "Make to the Flag," he ordered the waiting yeoman, "Yours of so-and-so acknowledged. Will adhere to schedules in future."

  "Aye, aye, sir," the signalman answered in the same flat voice, and went back to his flashing lamp.

  "Coming on the bearing, sir," Pilot called, and Bentley turned himself to the business of anchoring.

  Coming to anchor in a harbour the size of Port Moresby was a matter of elementary seamanship. Normally he would have swung her around so that she faced into the wind, and could thus come up into it, like an aircraft landing. But the admiral's signal had delayed his attention, and he was now almost on the anchor-bearing. He decided to let go, and then let the ship drift round on the end of her cable herself until she pointed into the wind.

  "On, sir," Pilot said, crouched over his bearing sight.

  Bentley nodded, and Randall called from the edge of the bridge: "Let go!"

  On the fo'c'sle a seaman bent, a hammer swung, the big cable-slip fell clear, and with a metallic roar the anchor slid its shank down through the hawse-pipe and dropped with a great splash into the blue water. The cable hammered after it with a din like trip-hammers.

  Bentley let her go ahead a little more to lay the cable out on the harbour bed-it was the friction of its heavy length in the mud, more than the anchor, which would hold her-then he took the way off her. Before Wind Rode had swung her sharp nose round and become wind-rode-riding into the wind instead of the tide-the expected signal came in dots and dashes from the flagship.

  "The b---'s watching us from the quarterdeck,"

  Bentley growled to Randall beside him. "See him there? I'd like to give him the old gesture with my thumb."

  "That would be delightful," grinned the first-lieutenant. "As it is-here comes his gesture."

  The yeoman passed the message sheet across.

  "It is customary," Palesy told him, "when conditions permit, that a ship shall be brought to her anchor head to wind. Conditions permit in this harbour. Ends."

  Bentley was thinking that he would like to see Palesy handling that brute of a cruiser-he didn't have to worry, the mongrel; he had a captain to do the dirty work for him. Aloud, he ordered briefly:

  "Acknowledge." Then he turned to Sainsbury, keeping his voice matter-of-fact: "Would you like a boat now, sir?"

  "Yes, please." His eyes drew Bentley to the ladder with him, and he walked down behind the captain. Sainsbury said in the privacy of the upper-deck.

  "You should feel flattered. You are well remembered, I see."

  "I'm feeling, all right, sir-but not flattered."

  "So I thought," the thin voice told him. "It is a feeling you cannot afford to indulge."

  "No, sir."

  "However," Sainsbury went on, his prim face serious, "as from now you come under my command in the flotilla. You can expect some relief from direct censure-all complaints will be diverted through me."

  "That relieves my mind, sir," Bentley said drily.

  Sainsbury halted. He had to look up into Bentley's face, but that fact did not in the least detract from the authority of the man-that was seasoned and sure; it was carved in lines into his face, and was in the steady stare of his grey eyes.

  "Now listen to me, Peter. You've come a long way in a short time. You would be one of the youngest of our destroyer captains. You have been given command of a ship which will be the envy of the flotilla."

  Bentley looked at him, surprised by the vehement sincerity in his friend's voice.

  "You can also be cast down at a word-a word from your admiral." Sainsbury plucked at the skin of his throat in the old worrying gesture Bentley knew so well. "Remember that, Peter. All you've worked for thrown away by a moment of anger. I think you know what I mean. Your intended answer to that first signal would have done it. If you are at fault at any time, I know you will accept your reprimand. If you are not at fault..." The old man hesitated. He was speaking of his own superior as well as Bentley's. His affection for the young commander before him won. "If you are not at fault," he continued slowly, "you must still keep your mouth shut. Unjust recriminations from a superior officer are deplorable. Insubordination from a junior is inexcusable."

  The thin voice stopped, but the eyes still held Bentley's from either side of the thin beak of a nose.

  "Yes, sir," Bentley said quietly. "I'll watch it."

  The splutter of the motorboat's engine came from below them. The boat curved in a white arc towards the gangway. Sainsbury moved off.

  "I wonder if my team will welcome me back," he said suddenly, and smiled until his teeth showed. With him that loosening of his lips corresponded to a guffaw in any other man.

  "I don't think you have anything to worry about there," Bentley grinned back, and meant it.

  "Perhaps so," Sainsbury murmured. He stopped at the gangway and turned his head slightly, so that only Bentley could hear him. "Perhaps men like Palesy have their uses, after all," he murmured. "A pattern not to follow."

  Then before Bentley could answer, his skinny legs were running down the gangway and he jumped into the boat.

  "Thanks for the ride," he called up, and then the boat took him away. The piercing cadence of the bosun's pipe followed it across the harbour. Bentley watched the boat for a moment, heading towards the long, low length of destroyer Scimitar, the leader of the flotilla. Then he turned forward towards his cabin, not relishing the thought of the paper work ahead of him there. He was quickly diverted, though not along more pleasant channels.

  He took the signal from the yeoman abreast the funnel, and his first thought was for the sender. It was the chief-of-staff. "The flagofficer-commanding," he was told, "will inspect H.M.A.S.Wind Rode at eleven hundred tomorrow morning, January first."

  Bentley stared at the signal. An admiral's inspection, on New Year's Day!

  "Ask the first-lieutenant to speak to me," he said to the signalman, and continued his
way to his cabin.

  "Bad news," Randall decided as he stepped into the cabin and looked at his captain's face.

  "Don't worry, friend, you're in it," Bentley told him morosely. "You may not have heard of an admiral's inspection in the fighting zone, but you have now." He handed him the signal.

  "I'll be... !" Randall said crudely. At moments of emotional stress his veneer of naval-officer training was cracked by his outback upbringing. "On New Year's Day!"

  "There's nothing to worry about," Bentley said, and drew the flame of his lighter to his cigarette end. "The ship's spotless-she damned well ought to be. He probably just wants to take a dekko at our new equipment."

  "Fat lot he'll learn!" said Randall disloyally and with certainty. "He'd still be on his fat sucker in the Navy Office only for Coulter copping one."

  "Maybe," Bentley grinned. "What we've got to worry about is that he'll be aboard us tomorrow. Get the hands on to it, Bob. Pass the word that we may be required to close-up for action at a moment's notice. Tell Lasenby to make sure his guns and equipment are on top line-for inspection and any questions.''

  "Right!"

  "In the circus, Bob, and while we've got a spare moment, I'd like to dine in the wardroom tonight."

  "Bring your own grog," Randall grinned.

  He shut the cabin door a fraction of time before a heavy volume of Tide Tables shut it for him. Lieutenant-Commander Bentley did not dine in his own wardroom that night. At four o'clock he received, to his disgust-and greater surprise-an invitation to dine with the admiral aboard the flagship. He put out cautious feelers, and discovered that he was not singly distinguished-it was New Year's Eve (the main reason for Bentley's decision to join his own officers), and the admiral had magnanimously decided to wine and dine the commanding-officers of his destroyer flotilla.

  Remembering Sainsbury's parting advice, and accepting the soundness of it, Bentley showered and dressed himself carefully. Full mess-dress had been waived for the duration, but Bentley looked distinctive enough in his white drills, the coat buttoning right up to the throat with gold buttons, his shoulder-straps gleaming golden against the white, and the variegated colours of his medals vivid on his wide chest.

  Bentley ran the comb through his brown hair and placed the comb on the wash-basin. He put his cap on carefully, patted the white cap-cover down at the back, eased a few showings of hair up inside the cap-band, picked up his cigarette case, and as he stowed it neatly inside his breast-pocket so that it would not bulge, took a final checking look.

  The mirror showed a lean, darkly brown face, which would have been austere in its hardness but for the relieving piratical impression about it-it needed only a dark forked beard to complete the likeness to a seaman, not of a modern destroyer, but of a four-masted galleon. The white uniform and cap, with its long, gold-badged peak, matched the hawk face well. Satisfied with his sartorial appearance, Wind Rode's commander stepped out into the passage.

  Randall, waiting at the gangway, murmured: "Pipe."

  The bosun's mate took a deep breath and his ship's respect for her captain shrilled out across the dusk-veiled harbour in a long piercing blast. Bentley saluted meticulously, as a gunnery man should, heard Randall's sotto "Have a sweet time," and ran down the wooden ladder into the waiting boat.

  "Flagship," he ordered briefly.

  "Aye, aye, sir," answered the coxswain briskly.

  This would be the most important trip of the day. They were not only carrying their captain, they were heading alongside the flagship, where eyes would be staring down at them. A ship is known by her boats... As well, surging from the other destroyers of the flotilla, came other boats, all on the same mission. The coxswain determined he would get his captain there first.

  "Bear off forrard!" he rapped. The boat pushed away from Wind Rode's grey side, then surged ahead as the coxswain blew two sharp blasts on the whistle dangling round his neck. He would have been surprised if he had known that his captain interpreted his intention- normally you gave four whistles, and eased the boat ahead before giving her the throttle. Bentley sat back on the cushioned seat, savouring his interpretation. It was a tiny thing, the coxswain's object-but it was little insignificant things like that which told a captain how he stood with his crew; and, perhaps even more important, how they felt about the prestige of their ship.

  Bentley smiled. The incident served to sweeten the sourness engendered by Palesy's invitation, which was in reality a command. His feeling of well-being was shortly spoiled.

  It was no great distance to the flagship. Because there would be at least half a dozen captains coming on board, the cruiser's quarterdeck was populated with curious officers. It was not often you had the chance of seeing at close quarters the men you fought with- usually they were indistinguishable figures on swaying bridges across a mile or more of sea. The destroyers' boats were converging towards the starb'd gangway, that one reserved for the cruiser's captain and visiting hierarchy. But there should be no danger-rules of the road at sea are rigidly observed. As ashore, you give way to the craft on your starb'd bow.

  Or should. Wind Rode's boat was a trifle behind another, identified by her number as being from the next senior ship in the flotilla to Sainsbury's. Wind Rode's boat was steered by a leading-seaman named Cocky Frew. Naval nicknames are usually apt, and Cocky was precisely like his name. He should have held back, if only because the officer in the other boat's sternsheets was senior to his own captain. Instead, he gave his craft an extra burst of speed and headed in a rush for the gangway. Bentley did not see these manoeuvres, for the other craft was slightly ahead of his line of vision. But he felt and heard the bump; and then a splintering crash as Wind Rode's heavy boat cannoned off her adversary and into the glittering, white-scrubbed gangway.

  When he staggered to his feet in the rocking boat he saw that she was stopped, and abreast the gangway platform-the collision had pulled her up more efficiently than her engines. He also saw the line of shocked faces staring down from the guard-rail above him. Bentley swung his head and saw the other boat a few yards away, her torn rope fender bearing witness to what had happened. He realised at once that his own boat had been in the wrong, and he correctly guessed why. It was that knowledge which made it difficult for him to snap:

  "Put yourself in the first-lieutenant's report when you get back!"

  "Yes, sir," the coxswain answered miserably. He was feeling the position acutely. "I'm sorry, sir. I just wanted..."

  "That's enough! Get back to the ship!"

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Bentley jumped on to the platform and climbed the ladder. He saluted the quarter-deck staff drawn up to receive him, and waited for the twittering pipes to die away. Then he ignored the curious stares and looked round for the cruiser's executive officer. He saw him standing beneath the barrels of Y-turret's big guns-a large, hefty man with a telescope gripped under his left armpit. Bentley crossed to him at once.

  "Good evening, sir. Bentley, Wind Rode." He shook the proffered hand. "I'm damned sorry about the gangway."

  "Your boat came off worst." The voice was deep, and the brown face hard. Then he turned his body so that his back was to the after end of the quarter-deck. His grin split his sternness into lines of humour.

  "It happens often," he explained. "Whenever a coxswain comes near the flagship he loses his nerve and judgment. Don't worry about it."

  "Thank you, sir. Though it was completely my chap's fault."

  "That's all right. I saw what happened." He paused, and looked into Bentley's face with a quizzical, sympathetic sort of smile. "Unfortunately, so did the admiral. He's standing at the end of the deck there."

  "Hell," said Bentley.

  "Exactly. But don't let it spoil your dinner. It won't be mentioned."

  He was right, Bentley knew. It was inconceivable for the admiral to reprimand him under these conditions, among his fellow-captains, and on board under invitation. He would not speak about it, but that wouldn't stop him thinking. A
ship is known by her boats...

  The pipes were shrilling almost continuously as the other commanding-officers came on board. Above their cadence the executive-officer said: "I've heard a lot about you, Bentley. Hogging things a bit, aren't you?"

  He was still smiling. There was no offence in his tone.

  "Too much," Bentley agreed at once, glad that the gangway fiasco had been taken so well. "I'll unload on to anyone, without charge. Shining a chair in Navy Office would suit me fine for the duration."

  "I bet," said the commander disbelievingly. "I'd like to have a yarn with you sometime." He was looking over Bentley's shoulder. "Here comes your boss."