J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  "Starb'd twenty," Bentley ordered, "stand-by to pick up the first-lieutenant."

  The order, spoken in a voice which even its owner would not have recognised, a dozen banal, ordinary words, signalled the end of the mission.

  The destroyer crept back down the shore until she was sheltered from the red glare in the entrance, and there she waited, men lining her side with ropes and eager hands. They had no trouble in detecting the absentee this time-he came towards them in a driving overarm stroke, the water fluttering up behind his feet. They hauled him gasping on to the deck and they heard the hum of the engine-room blowers rise swiftly to a high-pitched whine.

  Before Randall had staggered on to the bridge Wind Rode was working, as she should have done earlier under superior orders, up to her utmost power.

  The British Fleet made a fine picture, steaming proudly and unchallenged, across the breathing expanse of blue.

  Wind Rode came up astern of them, like a naughty puppy who has found, through experience, that the maternal wing is safest after all. But the "mother" (to malign a beautiful word) of this brood was feeling anything but maternal at the return of this truant. Wind Rode was no sooner in sight than the signals started flashing.

  "I don't have to read that to know what it is,"-Randall grinned. There was a slight undertone of worry beneath the words.

  "Nor I," agreed Bentley, and he did not smile. He was dressed in his best khakis and his best cap; his shoes shone and his face gleamed, freshly-shaven. He waited for the yeoman to finish receiving, and he wondered again if he had done right in omitting to break wireless silence and inform the admiral of his success. What he had done to the Satsuma would be his sole defence, and there was no point, he had decided, in wasting his scanty ammunition. He took the signal.

  "Flag to Wind Rode." he read. "Come alongside. Commanding-officer repair on board."

  That was all, but it was enough.

  "All right. Bob-nip down and get your little offering."

  Randall grinned, widely this time, and slipped below. He was after something he had handed to Bentley on the bridge as soon as he had returned from his swim. To the captain's query as to how he came by it, Randall had explained:

  "I bumped into him while I was swimming. Pulled me up with a round turn. The poor beggar must have been blown right out of the ship. I thought you'd like this as a souvenir."

  It would be more than a souvenir, Bentley thought grimly as he waited. It might be the thing to save his neck.

  Now that his showdown with Palesy was imminent, he felt no qualms or tension. He knew that his jinx had been blown sky-high. His three waves had come at him, and he was still afloat. He brought her in beautifully, and handed over to Randall. For the second time in a few days he found himself chair borne, though this time he was headed for a somewhat more unpleasant interview.

  An officer met him on the cruiser's fo'c'sle. Bentley tried to read something into the expression on his face, but the lieutenant-commander's expression was coldly polite. We don't mix with the condemned, Bentley thought wryly, and followed him along the wooden deck.

  It was to be a full session, he saw as soon as he stepped into the admiral's cabin. The big room was filled with gold braid. This was a killing he had been waiting for, and the admiral was making sure the example he intended to make would be widely known.

  Palesy was seated at a desk brought into the centre of the cabin. His officers stood behind him and at his side. As Bentley stepped in, some of them looked at him with curiosity, some with sympathy, and others showed their prejudging of him by staring at the deck. Palesy put out a fat finger and Bentley halted at its command, a few paces in front of the desk, still standing. "Lieutenant-Commander Bentley," Palesy said, and his voice was raspy. "This is an informal inquiry. I am holding it aboard the flagship because I consider it my duty to ascertain at once the degree of loyalty I command among my captains. Your normal court-martial will come later. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, sir," answered Bentley calmly. One or two of the officers gazed curiously at the brown paper bag he held under his right arm, but most of them were watching his face.

  Palesy leaned back a little in his chair. Both his hands were laid on the desk, the spatulate fingers spread out in a fan.

  "Lieutenant-Commander Bentley, I sent you two signals, both of which ordered you to proceed with despatch to the assistance of a Liberty ship. You were ordered on that mission because your ship was placed in the most advantageous position to go to that vessel's assistance." He paused. "Did you receive and understand those two signals?"

  "Yes, sir." There was a slight shuffling in the ranks of officers.

  "Very well, then. Did you make any attempt to obey the orders in those signals?"

  "No, sir."

  Palesy cleared his throat. There was no other sound in the cabin. Now would come the question they all wanted to hear answered- why? But Rear-Admiral Palesy had not nearly finished his role of prosecutor and jury and judge.

  "I will tell you what happened because of your failure to obey my orders, Lieutenant-Commander Bentley. The Liberty ship Jacksonville has sunk. Your action-or lack of it-left one hundred and eighty men afloat in hostile waters for four hours before a second destroyer I had to despatch reached them. It is probable that if that ship had not got there in time many of those American seamen would have perished. Most of them were held up only by life-jackets. You appreciate the seriousness of your offence? Apart, that is, from the even more serious fact that you deliberately failed to obey my orders?"

  The reply came instantly, clearly, and calmly.

  "Yes, sir."

  The calmness, the complete absence of contrition in that voice, stung Palesy more than outright defiance could have done. He lifted his pear-shaped head and his reddened bloodhound eyes glared full on Bentley.

  The chiselled leanness of cheekbone and jaw of the young commander faced him unwaveringly, and yet with all its hardness there was an almost piratical impression of cynical humour about his face.

  The look of him standing there infuriated Palesy. He slammed his open palm down on the desk with the sudden shock of a thunderclap.

  "Damn you, man! Do you understand what you've done? How dare you stand before me and answer `Yes, sir,' `No, sir!' Hey? How dare you? Command one of my destroyers? You're not fit to command a Chinese scow! You've lost a ship, understand? A fully operative, valuable merchant ship. You've lost a ship!" he repeated, and his voice had degenerated to a snarl.

  It was enough, Bentley decided. The fool had had his pleasure. He had deliberately postponed hearing his explanations. He had asked for it. Now he would get it.

  A crisp, commanding voice cut into Palesy's eardrums.

  "Yes, sir," it said, "I have lost a merchant ship. And you have gained a battleship!"

  He pulled the contents from his paper bag and threw it on the desk.

  Palesy had drawn back a little under the lash in Bentley's voice. He sat there rigidly in his chair, his fingers now on the edge of the desk, staring at what Bentley had thrown down before him. The officers, careless of discipline and courtesy, strained forward and stared with him. They were looking at a salt-stained navel seaman's cap. Its band was still in place, and on it, turning green, but still perfectly legible, were the Japanese characters.

  "Translated, sir, it's Satsuma" Bentley said.

  There percolated into Palesy's sluggish brain some sense of drama, some prescience of irrefutable justification in that wrinkled sailor's cap lying mutely on his desk. His eyes lifted slowly up Bentley's length to his face. He said, his teeth close together, "Satsuma? What ship is that?"

  It was then Bentley knew he had won. His action in throwing the cap down like that would normally have resulted in instant condemnation-from a normal officer.

  "Satsuma" he said, and now every eye was riveted on his face, "is the name of Japan's newest battleship. She is-or was-the giant ship mentioned by the fishermen brought aboard this ship. I would estimate her at bein
g something close to sixty-thousand tons. That estimate will be verified by my first-lieutenant, who got a close look at her from the edge of the harbour. She was, as predicted, in the harbour of Coffin Island, and I presume she was there undergoing trials."

  He stopped. A voice came from behind Palesy's chair. It was the lean-faced cruiser captain.

  "She was in Coffin Harbour? You mean... you sank her?"

  Bentley waited a brief moment. Palesy did not speak, only kept his eyes on Bentley-waiting, like the others, for his reply.

  "Yes, sir," Bentley answered, and he addressed the captain. "It was due largely to my first-lieutenant, who exploded a couple of spare warheads under her bow as she came out. Then I fired my full salvo of torpedoes. I think they all hit. After that a lucky shell, aimed through the hole, exploded her forrard magazine."

  The room was still silent when he ended. But he could feel the questions quivering on their lips for expression. What in heaven was the first-lieutenant of a destroyer doing ashore on the edge of the harbour? How did he explode warheads beneath her bow? How could a destroyer hit with a full salvo?

  But Bentley had had enough. He had been sustained for two days now solely on the strength of his nervous will power. Suddenly he felt enormously tired. He leaned forward and took up the cap.

  "Do you mind, sir? Memento. I am sorry I had to disobey your orders, sir. I acted on the assumption that a battleship was more important than a Liberty ship."

  Palesy looked at him. "Why," he said, and his voice was a deep thwarted growl in his throat, "didn't you reveal this before?"

  Bentley's face was respectful. You could push anything too far...

  "If you mean, sir, why didn't I make my report as soon as the action had occurred, I thought it best not to break wireless silence. I was still in an enemy zone." The cruiser captain allowed his face to twitch a little. "If you mean why didn't I reveal it earlier in this cabin, sir, I would not presume to interrupt the course of your investigation."

  He finished, and stuffed the cap back in the bag. The crackle of the paper was loud in the silence. It was broken by a voice.

  "With your permission, sir," the cruiser captain said, and his voice was clear and hard, "I think Lieutenant-Commander Bentley could return to his ship. He looks a little strained, and he will have a full report to prepare."

  Bentley thanked him with his eyes. Then he looked at the admiral. Palesy drummed with his fingers on the desk. He did not look up.

  "Very well. You may go, Bentley. And-er-well done."

  Bentley had his cap off. He brought his heels to attention, looking down into Palesy's unresponsive face. It was the last he was to see of him. Three weeks later Rear-Admiral Coulter returned to his command of the Fleet.

  "Thank you, sir," Bentley murmured, and turned and walked from the room.

  It was two days afterwards that the Fleet came to anchor in Manus harbour. Bentley expected, and at once accepted, the invitation to dine that evening aboard the flotilla-leader. He found Sainsbury waiting for him at the gangway, and he found himself hard put to keep up with the old man as he hurried forward to his sea-cabin. Sainsbury barely waited until his guest was seated with a whisky and cigarette before he burst out:

  "You've still got your ship?"

  Bentley looked at him, a smile on his straight lips. He thought of dangling his host along a little, but the old chap's concern was too deep for that. Bentley's smile widened, and he said:

  "Yes, sir, there'll be no trouble. I put the Nelsonian telescope on the Nelsonian eye, and it came off. But never again!"

  Sainsbury leaned back in a slow expiration of breath. He had had no chance, except through a signal which could have been read by the Fleet, of finding out what had happened.

  "All right," he said, "let's have it." It did not take long in the telling, for Sainsbury's experience could fill in the gaps readily, and vividly, enough.

  "So you gave a practical demonstration of my lecture," he said when Bentley had finished. "Do you think your officers benefited by the experience?"

  "And how!" Bentley exclaimed, and grinned at his own vehemence. "They'll shy away from torpedo attacks as long as they live!"

  Sainsbury allowed himself a quarter smile. That was something. He said slowly, over the tips of his joined fingers:

  "Coffin Island? It would be interesting to know how the island came by such a macabre name."

  "I don't know who named it first," Bentley said, "but it's certainly Coffin Island now! And that's something I'll never forget."

  He shook his head in a gesture that was almost a shudder. Then he held up his whisky glass.

  "Have you run out of this stuff?" he grinned, and look suggestively at the steward's buzzer.

  The End