J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  The British mass swept on beside, and then ahead, of the slower convoy. There was no point now in attempting to conceal this great Armada, even if they could have. The Japs would know soon enough what was coming for them. But to try and confuse the enemy the American full admiral in charge of the overall operation had decided to land part of his forces on the southern side of the island, using the British ships as escort, and then to strike with his full weight on the northern beaches.

  If the southern attack were not repulsed, those men could work north and join their comrades; if it were aborted, it would at least have the effect of draining off men and guns which could have been used against the main force. The plan was, like all sound ideas, simple. Its success called for accurate and saturation pounding of the enemy-held beaches before the assault groups waved in.

  The invasion force moved on, slow and ponderous and purposeful, while the sun arched across the cobalt sky and quenched its fire below the far rim of even blue. They would attack at dawn.

  It was a lovely night, that pre-invasion evening. There was little cloud in the sky, and above the mastheads the stars hung countless in a thin cloud of luminous dust. Wind Rode's blackout was complete, and not a vestige of light showed in the shadow of the quiet night that lay upon the ship.

  Everyone on board had been getting quietly ready for the coming dawn. They wore an odd assortment of clothes, from greys and long khaki trousers to clean overalls, but all covering arms and legs from the green-hot flashes from guns, shells and bombs. They steamed on.

  At 4.30 in the cool morning the ship closed quickly and quietly up at action stations. They stood there round their guns, waiting for the dawn. From the bridge Bentley could see the long barrels of oerlikons and pom-poms pointing at the sky, a shadow moving restlessly behind the armoured shields as the layers shifted position. Now and again the twin barrels of A and B guns below the bridge swept round with a whirr of machinery, as the trainers eased the strain on the hydraulic pumps.

  Then it was light, and the shapes of the consort ships gradually formed from the dimness of the sea; the rakish beauty of the destroyers and the harsh strength of the cruisers.

  Bentley saw the flagship racing in towards the yellow strip of beach, the opening-fire flag streaming stiff as a board from her foremast. Her two consorts maintained rigid distances behind her, and in perfect line. Station-keeping now would be almost as important as accurate gunnery-for it would be a concentration shoot, all ships the platforms for the guns, and all ships firing together at a wireless signal from the flag.

  They made a magnificent picture-grey hulls streaked with swift flashes of white as the bow-waves whipped past. But they were not in firing array yet, and Bentley took his eyes from them and quartered the lightening sky.

  It was possible, but not likely, that they had brought all these ships so close to the island without being sighted. The obvious answer to their threat was aircraft-and those men in the cruisers had had ample acquaintance with what the Jap could do from the air: they had seen the old flagship take a nasty one in her guts.

  "Looking for birds?" Randall asked beside him.

  "Yes. With red balls. What do you reckon?"

  Randall looked idly up at the swinging radar aerial before he answered. Then he said:

  "This new secret weapon they've got-the Kamikaze Kids. They could be nasty."

  "They could indeed," Bentley agreed, "though I doubt if they'll have any so far west."

  "They could be called up pretty quickly," his friend demurred. Then he asked: "What does it mean-Kamikaze? Queer name for suicide bombers."

  "Not when you know the answer,"' Bentley said grimly. "The Kamikaze was a divine wind-so-called-which came along just at the right moment hundreds of years ago and wiped out the whole Chinese fleet invading the Japanese islands from across the Sea of Japan. That's why they've given the same name to these modern saviours of the nation. The sailors have another name for `em- zombies. That's appropriate, too. They act like zombies-just do as they're told and nothing can alter their intention."

  "Then it wouldn't be much good trying to shoot the aircraft down," Randall said slowly, and he was not smiling now. "So long as she'll fly, she'll keep on coming."

  "That's right. The only chance you've got is to kill the pilot. Or try and swing the ship out from under him."

  "Flag signalling, sir," the yeoman said abruptly, and whipped his telescope to his eye.

  Their orders came in quick dots and dashes:

  "Wind Rode take position ten miles to westward and warn of approaching enemy forces."

  "That's us," Randall grinned wryly when they had read the message. "Ever the favourite. Now we won't see a bloody thing!"

  He was wrong. Bentley had hardly straightened from giving his engine-room orders to get them out on the seaward wing when Pilot called:

  "Cruisers altering to make their firing run, sir."

  Bentley swung his head. There they were, all right, the flagship leaning well over as she heeled under full rudder. As they watched, the two other ships altered course at the exact spot where the leader had turned, so that now they were racing along, still one astern of the other, but now broadside on to the beach for which, earlier, they had been aimed. From Wind Rode they could see the four big turrets on each cruiser swing, round further, until every gun was sniffing at the beach.

  "Hold on to your hat," Randall growled. His voice was gruff to hide the excitement the sight surged in him. The three bombarding ships were in such rigid line that the multiple wakes stretched out astern of the last ship as straight as a pencil line on the chart. They were doing thirty knots, and the three bow-waves spurted up from their knifing stems almost as high as the upper-deck, white spuming arcs vivid against the blue of the sea. At each mainmast the White Ensign snapped and whipped in the wind, indicating clearly the origin of what the Japs were about to receive.

  Then the cruisers' sides broke into flame and smoke.

  Before that opening broadside had landed, the big guns were loaded again; tiny electric sparks transformed the cordite behind the shells into gaseous giants that roared, and flung the projectiles at three thousand feet per second at the beach, and jerked the great breeches back three feet in recoil. The 24 shells of the second broadside were in the air when the first landed smack on the beach in gouts of flung sand and coral. The flying sand was still airborne when the second salvo plunged to earth and exploded. Across the blue sea to Wind Rode's ears there pulsed a vast drumming roar.

  For ten minutes it went on, the cruisers turning at the end of their run and speeding back on the opposite course-but always their hot muzzles laid on the riven beach, spitting long tongues of flame, recoiling, and spitting again. Before Wind Rode was anywhere near her ordered position the fire had been lifted, and they could see the twenty tons per minute exploding among the coconut palms and jungle mass. Now and then, from out of that smoky hell ashore, they could see a small, brief flash spitting back at the smoke-wreathed ships, indicating that the defence was armed only with small-calibre guns, and not many of them. It looked like a walkover, with the troops landing here and pushing quickly northwards to join their companions, who even now would be watching an even heavier pounding of their own selected beach.

  "We won't get a chance to fire a round." Randall grumbled. "It'll be all over by the time we're recalled."

  He stared back to where a brown smoke pall hung heavy over the sea from the cruisers' firing, to watch the destroyer flotilla edging in for their turn.

  "You big bronzed hero b---," Pilot grinned at him, "this'll do me fine out here."

  Bentley listened to the chaff without taking any part. He knew that this bombardment would have been a good chance to test, in action conditions, guns which so far had been fired only for exercise. He also knew that their distant position was due entirely to himself. He was the youngest captain in the flotilla, and thus the junior; but to that reason he was sure was added Palesy's dislike of him. It would please him to sh
oot Bentley and his ship miles off to seaward, too far even for him to get a clear view of what was going on.

  Bentley need not have worried-his guns were to get more than enough firing, so much that the paint would blister on their new barrels like tennis balls. He should have learned by now that in the Navy you are thankful for small mercies...

  He turned back from checking their distance on the cruiser line, which was still firing rapid broadsides, and a voice sprang from a voice-pipe on the far side of the bridge. Randall was over there in three leaps.

  "Bridge!" he answered, and bent so that they could hear nothing past the plug of his head. He straightened up, and there was a disbelieving frown on his face when he said to Bentley:

  "Radar office reports large formation of aircraft heading our way."

  "Range?" Bentley snapped.

  "Eighty-four miles," Randall answered, and his lips drew down at one corner to show what he thought of the report.

  "Eighty-four miles?" Bentley's voice was also incredulous. He walked quickly to the voice-pipe and called the operator.

  "Captain speaking. Are you sure of that range?"

  "Quite sure, sir." There was something in the radar man's voice which indicated that he had expected this unbelief, and was prepared to defend his and his set's integrity. "I know it's overlong, sir, but this is a damned good set, and temperature inversion could give us that range." That word "damned" to his captain was the key to his feelings, and it was that word which decided Bentley. To him it indicated that the operator had made absolutely sure before he had passed up this incredible report to the bridge.

  "Very well, Jackson," he said quietly, and came upright from the pipe. He walked to the other side of the bridge and looked back at the distant island, now little more than a green hump on the horizon. They might make contact with their 10-inch signalling lamp, but it was a long way, and he knew where most of those distant bridge teams would be looking-certainly not out towards the lone destroyer almost hull down on the horizon.

  There was wireless. But wireless messages suffered from the disadvantage that an enemy could receive them just as effectively as a friend-and could alter his plans of attack accordingly. There was only one thing to do-close in and signal by light.

  "Full ahead together," Bentley ordered crisply. "Starb'd twenty!"

  The clang of the engine-room bells had died away and she was heeling on the turn when Randall ventured:

  "You're going in? You believe that report?"

  Bentley nodded. "That's right."

  "Look, Peter..." Randall rubbed his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger. "That's a hell of a long way to pick-up aircraft. No one's ever ranged that far before."

  "No one's had our sets before," Bentley said, and took a bearing of the island. "Steer oh-eight-five," he ordered down the pipe.

  "All right, they're new and classy. It's still a hell of a long way. Palesy sent you out here. How d'you think he'll feel if our echo turns out a flock of seagulls or something and we've scooted off from our post?" A sudden memory came to Bentley. He grinned at his worried friend and remarked:

  "If I were a Hornblower I'd have you keelhauled for questioning my decision."

  "Eh?"

  "Skip it. Joke. Get the gunnery radar set on to that echo and see if they can reach it."

  "That's an idea!" Randall said quickly. He picked up the phone to Lasenby in the director above their heads.

  Randall was relieved to find himself wrong and Bentley right- half a minute after the director had swung round on to a stern bearing Lasenby reported:

  "Large formation aircraft coming in astern. Range eighty miles." And added: "I don't guarantee the range, sir. It's a long echo."

  "They're aircraft, all right," Randall told him. "Keep sweeping aft."

  He juggled the phone back into its clips.

  "Those boys are moving!"

  "They've got something to move for," Bentley replied grimly. "There'll be a massacre if they're suicide-bombers."

  "Hell, they can't be! The Moluccas must be a thousand miles to the west."

  "Ever heard of aircraft carriers?" Bentley said, and raised his binoculars. In the twin circles he could see the cruisers turning outwards from a firing run, and then saw the destroyer line under Sainsbury heading in. At least the cruisers would be disengaged when the bomber threat arrived. It would also arrive, if the headlong pace continued, just when the assault craft were making their run to the beach.

  Bentley swung round. The yeoman was waiting, standing on the signal-lamp platform.

  "Make to the Flag. `Large formation aircraft approaching from westward. Range seventy-repeat seventy-miles.'"

  "Aye, aye, sir!" The yeoman had his lamp burning. He worked the lever and the latticed cover flicked open and shut rapidly, clattering in the quiet of the tense bridge.

  He had been signalling some time before he reported, a touch of exasperation in his normally colourless voice:

  "Flag's not answering, sir."

  Pilot said: "Yes she is!" and pointed.

  "That's not the flagship," Bentley growled, his glasses up. "It's Scimitar." Mixed with annoyance at the flagship's failure to keep a competent lookout was pride in his old friend's ship-a craft which, while leading her eight consorts into a bombardment, was so well trained that she still had watchful eye for other things.

  "I might have known," Randall muttered, and summed up the bridge team's feelings. The yeoman had his eyes on Bentley. The captain nodded. The warning yellow eye opened at the flotilla-leader.

  Wind Rode was much closer now, pulsing through at more than thirty knots. Bentley saw clearly another lamp begin signalling from Scimitar's bridge-Sainsbury was passing on his message to the flagship even before he had fully received it. A tight smile grew under Bentley's glasses. It faded when Lasenby reported: "Range sixty miles."

  With his warning delivered Bentley eased her down, swung her around and prepared to fight. With luck he could break up the bomber formations before they reached the Fleet. He knew that Palesy should by now be despatching at least one more destroyer towards him to help in that aim-but he doubted if he would receive any help. He received instead a signal, terse and angry.

  "To Wind Rode from Flag. Impossible you should range on aircraft at seventy miles. Return to ordered position."

  Bentley laid hold of his anger with both hands. The Fleet should be hauling off from the beach now, making a gain to seaward for manoeuvring room, closing-up their anti-aircraft armament in preparation for the attack. The beach had been pulverised-the whole effort would be wasted if there were no transports and assault craft left to land their men on it. He ordered the yeoman, his voice reined in:

  "Make to Flag. Aircraft contact definitely made on search and gunnery sets. Range now 55 miles. Repeat, contact made."

  Then he disregarded the return to position order and weaved his ship slowly across the line of advance of the aircraft.

  They had not long to wait. The incoming bombers, small silver specks when they first sighted them visually, seemed to be climbing up the arc of the sky-remote and deadly. Then they heard the sound-fitfully at first with the vagaries of the wind, and then swelling into a deep, pulsing drone. In a few seconds it had grown to a massed thunder, a noise that set your blood on fire.

  Bentley had thought about this eventuality-whether the aircraft, who could certainly see the northern invasion force, would attack them or his own convoy. He had come to the conclusion that from that height their own force would look much the same size as the other, and, as the British ships were closer they would be privileged with the first vengeful attacks.

  He was right. Even without Lasenby's radar report, they could see the formation altering course slightly so as to come down upon them. Bentley picked up the director phone and said:

  "Open fire when in range." They waited, and throughout the entire ship there was hardly a word spoken. Most of her was gunnery, and this was no time for talking-it was a time for listening, for
that first order through the transmitting-station phones, "Commence, commence, commence!"

  On each of her four twin mountings the young phone-numbers crouched in their seats, their phones pressed against their ears, their whole attention concentrated on that next, decisive order. The ship's fuse-setting machines were automatic, and in front of each one, beside the waiting breeches, a loading number stood ready to jam his shell nose in and have the correct fuse set before he stepped to one side and laid it on the loading tray.

  Down by the tubes the torpedomen, useless in what was ahead of them, stared skyward, noting the formation grow from anonymous specks into recognisable aircraft-mainly twin-engined bombers. Bettys. Fast and heavily loaded.