J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  Wind Rode regained her station in the screen. All through the tired Fleet empty cartridge cylinders were being cleared away and stacked below-they would be refilled at the ammunition factories. While this was in train the flagship made a signal. In obedience, the whole mass altered course and steamed back to the transports. Another hour and the invasion force, its mission completed, was under way, heading, not south as Wind Rode's men expected, but north-west.

  "Now what d'you make of that?" Randall queried when it was clear they were on a settled course. "Maybe we'll have a look in on the northern invasion," Pilot hazarded a guess.

  "I doubt it," Bentley said, and unslung his binoculars. The others followed suit. With dusk approaching, their danger from air attack was over. "These transports didn't come from Moresby, that we know. My guess is Manus-to restock for the next push."

  Half an hour later his prescience was proved correct. The signal from the Flag told them their destination was Manus, that they would fuel immediately on arrival and top-up with ammunition, and that there would be no leave given.

  "Which means," Randall said sourly as he read the signal, "we'll be at sea again pronto."

  "Genius,"' grinned Bentley, and nodded to the navigator. "Seacabin, Pilot."

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT TOOK ALMOST A week for the convoy to round the northern tip of New Guinea and beat down to Manus in the Admiralties. By which time the chief constructors of the battleship Satsuma were ready to present their reports to the driving Captain Yamato.

  In a British shipyard the naval captain of a vessel is, by intent, on good terms with the senior men constructing his vessel. Much in the way of amenities can be incorporated through gin-lubricated friendliness. But in this Japanese dockyard the supervisors worked because, with Yamato, they feared not to. They, like Tosa, knew how he stood with headquarters in Tokio. Now they stood as he entered the big cabin aft in the ship, and remained in that inferior posture until he had seated himself at the head of the table.

  "Begin," he ordered curtly.

  Yamato listened intently as each expert got to his feet and told his story. He knew already most of what was told him, and he was really interested only in the end of each man's report; and in each case it was the same-the giant ship was ready in all respects for her sea-trials.

  Tosa was last, as befitted his overall control. He rose, and licked his lips, fingering the sheaf of papers he had brought. He had thought of making some light-hearted comment on how the workmen had toiled, and how their toil was shortly to bear fruit. He looked into Yamato's steady, bleak eyes, and he said:

  "My report is brief, excellency. The ship is ready. She is yours." He sat down.

  Yamato did not rise. He did not even move from his attitude of alert interest. His voice was flat and raspy in the enclosed quiet of the cabin. "You have done well. My men and I will do honour to your work. I shall inform naval headquarters that the ship is ready to sail. That is all."

  He was still sitting there, unmoving, when they filed out through the fireproof door.

  The next morning Captain Yamato emerged from the guarded portals of naval headquarters in Tokio and stepped into the car which was waiting to take him to the airport. He sat back as the car moved off, and the only time he showed any interest in his surroundings was when the car passed a bombed building-one of those battered down by the bombs of American aircraft catapulted from a carrier two months before. Then his mouth drew down at the corners, so that a look of hatred seemed to be carved into his face.

  The car swept on, and Captain Yamato's face was again inscrutable. But inside there surged a feeling of exultation. He had got everything he had asked for at headquarters. The admirals had wished to give him a heavy escort down to the Bonin Islands, where he was taking the battleship for her trials and gunnery practices. Yamato had vetoed this suggestion, respectfully but with determination. In the first place, the ship was so impregnable, he could do without an escort of ships so badly needed elsewhere; secondly, a mass of ships could attract enemy air reconnaissance. His final point decided them-if the Satsuma needed to be escorted wherever she went, then they had succeeded in building only another battleship-instead of the mightiest vessel of war ever launched upon the seas.

  What was there to hurt her? Aircraft? No bombs carried by carrier-based aircraft would do more than scratch her hide. Battleships, cruisers? There would be none so far north, anywhere near the Bonins. Destroyers? The same argument applied there. And in any case, a whole flotilla of destroyers could not hope to harm her. They would be smashed to wreckage by the giant's nests of weapons before they could hope to get in close enough to deliver a torpedo attack. And even if they did, it would need a full broadside of ten torpedoes to open her sides-and, as the experienced gentlemen already knew, no destroyer had yet succeeded in having all her torpedoes hit the target.

  Yamato had his way. Satsuma would sail unescorted and carry out her working-up exercises off the Bonin Islands, returning to the reef-protected harbour there each night.

  The Jap captain was not being foolish or unduly optimistic in refusing an escort. He knew what this colossus of a ship could handle, and he wanted to be on his own while he hammered her crew into the shape he wanted: in his own way, and in his own quick time. The car pulled to a stop, and in a few minutes Captain Yamato was aboard the aircraft waiting for him. The course was south, towards Kure.

  Randall stood beside Bentley in the warm sunshine of after-breakfast and watched idly the stokers connecting Wind Rode's fuel-pipes to the tanker alongside. A greasy hand waved, pumps began to throb, and in a moment the destroyer was drinking thirstily. Randall pitched his cigarette over the side and said musingly.

  "You didn't get a thank-you signal from the admiral for saving his bacon, did you?"

  "I did not," Bentley answered definitely. "Nor did I expect one. We did what we were there for, didn't we?"

  "Yeah. Except that we overdid it. We warned him of the Japs. He was wrong, we were right. In the eyes of the whole shebang. I can imagine him thinking lovely thoughts of us."

  "M'mm," Bentley grunted. This was not the first time he had thought about Palesy and his probable feelings. It was an unpleasant subject. He changed it.

  "Things are certainly moving in these parts. The whole Fleet's oiling. I wonder where...?"

  Randall snorted. "You should know by now-anywhere from the Solomons up through the Marshalls to Iwo Jima. Anywhere but Sydney, that is." He stopped as a petty-officer came towards them. The approaching seaman was tall and muscled-he had once sparred four rounds with Bentley, and as Bentley was the Fleet's heavyweight title-holder, it followed that the petty-officer could use `em.

  "Yes, Gellatly?" Randall smiled-both officers liked the tall man. "What's the strife?"

  "No complaints, sir," Gellatly grinned back. He saluted smartly, as became a gunnery man, and went on: "The gunner's stuck down in the forrard magazine. He asked me to tell you that he's got his full outfit of ammunition on board now."

  Bentley remained silent. This was Randall's affair.

  "Good," the first-lieutenant nodded. "That was nice shooting with the pom-pom, by the way."

  "Thank you, sir."

  They liked that, too. Gellatly had accepted the just praise with no mock modesty, or false decrying of his shooting ability. Randall nodded again and the petty-officer walked off.

  "He'll make a good officer," Randall commented. "It's about time his recommend for the commission came through."

  "Yes," Bentley agreed. He turned at a voice behind him.

  "Signal from Flag, sir."

  "Thank you." Bentley read the message quickly. It required all ships of the British Fleet to report to the admiral as soon as they were ready in all respects for sea. The Fleet would sail at two o'clock that afternoon.

  "That's the ruddy Navy," Randall grumbled to Bentley at one side of the bridge. He looked over at the cruisers, steaming in their cruising position, in line astern and flanked by the destroyer screen. "O
ne hell of a panic to get to sea, and then this."

  The first-lieutenant was referring to Palesy's information order, just signalled. The Fleet was out on patrol-no definite objective, just trailing their mailed coat round to the westward of the Jap-held Carolines and Marianas, swooping round Ulithi and Guam and Saipan; names which were to become famous in naval history, but which at that time were garrisoned, but not strongly protected from the sea, the main body of the enemy being in the Solomons and west in the Philippines and Borneo.

  Bentley grinned. "You whinge when I take you into an air-attack and you whinge when I take you on a pleasant patrol. You'd whinge if someone..." He did not finish the classic Navy remark, but walked over to the chart-table. He pushed his wide shoulders in and leaned his elbow on the chart Pilot had provided as soon as they had known their patrol area.

  Bentley examined it with interest, but his prescience as he saw names like Eniwetok, Saipan, Iwo Jima could not tell him anything of the bloody battles which were to be fought for those specks of black on the chart. His eyes roved further north, right up to the southern tip of Japan itself. Idly he noted names like Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Kure, Kobe, names he remembered as a schoolboy- and now names fixed indelibly and inflexibly in the planning minds of MacArthur and his admirals. As he made to draw back from the chart, having automatically noted Pilot's course-lines, his eyes fell on a group of islands southeast of Japan, and not so far north of the limit of their patrol. He saw they were called the Bonin Islands, and that four of them had names ending in "Shima". Maybe the word was Japanese for "island", he thought idly. Then he saw that the southernmost island in the group was named Coffin Island. He wondered briefly what tragedy or mystery of the sea had given that name to the small peanut-shaped mark on the chart, and then he pulled out and crossed back to the binnacle. There was no chance of his even seeing Coffin Island, let alone solving its name's mystery.

  Which goes to show that Lieutenant-commander Bentley had, in his temporary surcease from trouble, forgotten that big waves come in threes...

  The fourth day out the Fleet was a little south of, and to the west, of Saipan. On all that hostile sea they had sighted absolutely nothing, except, that morning, a small fleet of Polynesian fishermen. The destroyers had cruised slowly round the flagship while she had lowered a boat and brought two or three of the fishermen on board.

  "What's old blood-and-guts up to now?" Randall had wondered, watching the natives climb nimbly up a rope-ladder. "Going to shoot the lot in case they own a high-power transmitter and blow the gaff about us in Tokio?"

  "He's probably after a bit of fresh fish for dinner tonight," Bentley answered equably-he had had no contact with Rear-Admiral Palesy for many days now, and was feeling tolerantly disposed towards him. He would have been more than surprised if he had known that he was at that moment the subject of the admiral's thoughts and conversation.

  Palesy stood to one side of the bridge, his feet straddled and his hands behind his back, and his fleshy face scowled thoughtfully at the three loin-clothed natives. The fisherman were not abashed-their whole interest was in the great ship about them. Palesy swung his head to include the cruiser captain in his stare.

  "It's probably a cock and bull story," he growled, "but I'll have to investigate. If only to encourage more information at a later date, perhaps." He paused, and looked over to the destroyer screen, moving slowly around the cruisers in a slow, alert circle. "I won't waste a good man on this job," Palesy muttered. "Who's the junior destroyer commander?"

  The cruiser captain was not in the least deceived at Palesy's apparent ignorance. More than once he had felt certain feelings about this new chief wished upon him, and he had crushed them instantly. He said, going along with the pretence, and quite aware of the reason behind it:

  "Bentley is junior, sir."

  Palesy rubbed his bulging jaw. "Yes, of course. He can go."

  "Very well, sir. Shall I signal him alongside? He'll need to be told personally."

  "I realise that. No," Palesy said, rather too hastily. "I can't hang around here stopped any longer. Get Sainsbury on the radio-telephone and tell him the story. Bentley can swing across to him in a bosun's chair. We've wasted enough time here as it is. See to it now, Jensen."

  "Aye, aye, sir," the captain said, and turned to the signal-yeoman.

  The natives had returned to their boats, and the Fleet had been under way five minutes, when a light began flashing from the flotilla-leader ahead.

  "Scimitar calling, sir," Wind Rode's yeoman reported, and flashed back that he was ready to receive. When he read the signal from Sainsbury, ordering him alongside so that he could repair aboard the flotilla-leader, Bentley thought quickly. He knew that he was being ordered to carry out some independent mission, that was obvious. And it did not take his quick mind more than a second or two to connect the mission with the fishermen lately on board the flagship; he also realised, with a return of his earlier bitterness, that he was being sent alongside Scimitar so that the admiral would not have to bear his presence on his own ship. It was an insult which might have deeply hurt a man less battle-matured than Bentley. But he knew perfectly well the reason for Palesy's reluctance to meet him, and his anger was directed at the admiral's insufficiency. Palesy's action reflected only on himself.

  "Increase to two-five-oh revolutions," Bentley ordered, "standby to go alongside the flotilla-leader."

  The manoeuvre was carried out without fault. With the two ships a few yards apart in the calm sea Bentley swung over in a bosun's chair and a minute later was with Sainsbury in his sea-cabin. The older man wasted no time.

  "It's almost certainly a wild-goose chase," he started, and lit the other's cigarette. "You saw those natives go aboard? They were not just picked up-they waved for the flagship to stop. That's the only thing which makes me give slight credence to the story-they knew well enough which was the important ship." He leaned forward and looked up at Bentley. He had been speaking quickly, and Bentley knew why-Sainsbury wanted to spare the younger man's feelings at this method of giving him his orders. He went on in the same quick voice.

  "A brother of one of those natives came down yesterday from the Bonin Islands.'' A faint memory, nothing decisive, stirred in Bentley's alert mind. "He came down," Sainsbury smiled his vinegary grin, "with a story of a giant Japanese battleship anchored in the harbour of Coffin Island."

  He stopped as he saw the look on his listener's face. Bentley's face was hard as agate when he said:

  "I'm to be sent up there on a report like that? My ship sent up alone on the say-so of an illiterate native? Has that fool lost his wits altogether?"

  "Take it easy," Sainsbury calmed him. "I don't believe it any more than you do-or he does. But there could be something in it. Not a giant battleship, of course. But a heavy cruiser would be thought `giant' by those fishermen. If there is a cruiser skulking in there, we could get him. Your job will be to raise the island at night and poke around. If there's nothing in the harbour, you've gained a pleasant trip. If there is, the Japs are down one cruiser. We don't know what those natives really told Palesy, you know. He might have additional information. In any case, he has to send one ship to investigate. Just in case there is something there worth getting on to." He raised his skinny length from the chair slowly, and his thin mouth twitched a little:

  "If you do find our super-battleship, the admiral's orders are that you do not attack it, but get out of it and report to us."

  "Considerate of him. That's one order of his with which I fully concur."

  "I imagine so, yes. By the way, nice work off the Arus. You realise your radar possibly saved the Fleet?"

  "Yes." Bentley tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. "This is the reward of its efficiency."

  Sainsbury did not answer him. He could not argue when he knew Bentley was right. He said:

  "You know the Fleet's movements. I'll see you in a few days."

  "Yes, sir." Under Sainsbury's calmness Bentley felt a little
like a disgruntled schoolboy. He smiled suddenly. "I'll bring you back one giant battleship."

  "Do that small thing," Sainsbury murmured, and shook his hand.

  Captain Yamato had had almost a fortnight at Coffin Island. Every day and every night he had drilled his three thousand men, until now they were red-eyed from sleepless nights and concentration on their duties. Yamato had insisted that every man sent to him should have come from a battleship-this helped enormously in his task of welding them into a compact team of automatic efficiency.

  Now he was satisfied. A shrewd commander, he knew that his hard-driven crew could not take much more drill and still absorb its benefit. The leisurely trip back to Kure would allow them to settle down, with a few boat-drills and fire-fighting exercises to keep them occupied. Then, after a week of putting right the few teething troubles the exercise period had revealed, he would be ready to take her south into the battle area.