Fogarty Fegen still stood on what shattered remnants were left of his wrecked and blazing bridge. In the first few minutes Fegen, like his ship, was wounded to death, but like his ship incredibly he survived and kept on closing with the enemy long after death should have claimed him.
He was terribly wounded. An exploding shell had blown his left arm off just below the shoulder, and the arterial blood was pumping out with every heartbeat: the agony must have been indescribable but Fegen ignored it. He still issued his orders calmly, concisely and with the courtesy that had always been his wont as he drove the JERVIS BAY ever closer to the enemy, as he directed the firing of those ancient and pathetic guns whose useless shells fell into the sea miles short of the ADMIRAL SCHEER.
Another exploding shell, and the main steering controls were severed. At once Captain Fegen ordered the quartermaster back to the emergency steering position — whatever happened they must retain steering control, move in ever closer on the German battle cruiser. The bridge, burning more furiously than ever and beginning to buckle under the captain's feet, became completely untenable. Steadying himself with his one good arm, Fegen descended the twisted steel ladder and staggered aft, along the promenade deck, through the choking smoke and eddying flames, to the emergency bridge, every foot of his progress marked by a smeared trail of blood on the charred and blackened decks.
Arriving aft, Captain Fegen, his face now chalk-white and bloodless and wracked by that murderous pain to which he never once gave expression, found himself too weak to climb up to the control position: but he was still the captain, still in command, with no purpose left in life but to shorten the distance between himself and the ADMIRAL SCHEER, to give the convoy every life-giving moment of grace he could so that they might make good their escape into the swiftly gathering dusk.
And thinking ever of the convoy, he ordered more smoke-floats to be dropped, to hide HX 84 from the SCHEER. He ordered burning cordite charges to be thrown overboard, fresh crews to man the few guns still firing, in place of those men who lay dead around them. But even yet, those worn and useless guns could not reach the enemy.
Another 11-inch shell, another and another, and now the engine room was destroyed, the engines smashed and drowned under hundreds of tons of water. Fogarty Fegen no longer cared. A 14,000 ton ship travelling at maximum speed has tremendous way on her, and he knew that the JERVIS BAY had more than enough way in reserve to keep her closing on the ADMIRAL SCHEER in the brief span of life that was left to both himself and his ship.
A deafening roar, a flash of searing flame and the after control position above Fegen's head vanished in the concussive blast of yet another detonating shell. Undaunted, this incredible man, blood still pouring from his shattered shoulder and head-wounds, lurched his dying way back through the smoke and the flames, intent on reaching the blazing bridge he had so lately abandoned, to continue the fight — if this ghastly massacre could be called a fight — from there.
But he never reached that shattered bridge again. Somewhere in the flames he was struck down by a bursting shell, and death must have been instantaneous for, by any medical standards, he was dead on his feet before that shell finally sheared the slender thread of life to which he had clung with such unbelievable courage and tenacity.
In the one brief hour of a November dusk, Fogarty Fegen won for himself the posthumous Victoria Cross and a name which will always be remembered, with that of Sir Phillip Sydney, as a symbol of defiance and an almost inhuman gallantry in the face of fearful odds. The Victoria Cross and an assured immortality — but probably Captain Fegen would have cared for neither. He had done his job. He had stolen from Kapitan Krancke of the ADMIRAL SCHEER those vital moments that were never to be regained, and thereby saved the greater part of the convoy.
Fegen was dead, but the victory was his. But not only Fegen's. Every man under his command had fought, till the guns had fallen silent and fighting was no longer possible, with the same gallantry as their captain. For most of them, the price of their magnificent defiance had been the same. Of the 260 of the crew, almost two hundred were already dead or terribly wounded and about to die.
Listing, sinking deeply by the stern and now all but stopped in the water, the JERVIS BAY, still with shells crashing through the smoke and the flame that now consumed almost her entire length, was obviously about to go at any moment. Those who were left — and they were not many — abandoned the dying ship just minutes before she slid stern-first under the waves, taking with her all those in the sea too near or too weakened by wounds to resist the tremendous suction.
It is unlikely that any of the others who escaped would have survived for long — the ADMIRAL SCHEER made no attempt to pick them up — had not Captain Sven Olander, master of the Swedish vessel STUREHOLM, conscious of the great debt they owed to the survivors of the ship that had saved the convoy, ignored all orders and turned back in the darkness of the night to search for the men of the JERVIS BAY. It was an act of the utmost courage, for all night long the ADMIRAL SCHEER, robbed of her prey, was prowling around the area, firing off star shells as she hunted for the now far scattered members of HX 84. But the great risk Olander took was justified over and over again: they found and rescued from the freezing night waters of the Atlantic no fewer than sixty-five survivors.
A hopeless sacrifice, many people later called the loss of the JERVIS BAY. Sheer senseless destruction to send in a cockleshell like the JERVIS BAY against the might of a pocket battleship, a folly and a bravado, that amounted to nothing less than madness. No doubt such people are right. No doubt it was madness, but one feels that Fegen and his men would have been proud to be numbered among the madmen of this world.
And one feels, too, that it would be unwise, to say the least, to express such harsh sentiments in the hearing of any of the members of the crews of the ships of Convoy HX 84 that came safely home again because Fogarty Fegen and the men of the JERVIS BAY had moved out into the path of the ADMIRAL SCHEER and died so that they might live.
Alistair MacLean on the 'Rewards and Responsibilities of Success'
Some time in 1954 the GLASGOW HERALD ran a short story competition. I had no writing aspirations — I won't say literary aspirations, for there are a considerable number of people who stoutly maintain that I never had and still don't have any literary aspirations — and no hope.
However the hundred pounds first prize was a very considerable lure for a person who had no money at all. I went ahead and entered anyway, with a West Highland sea story carrying the title THE 'DILEAS'. I won and was approached by Ian Chapman, the present chairman of Collins, the publishers, who asked me if I would write a novel. To everybody's surprise, Collins remain my publishers still. After twenty-seven years.
During those twenty-seven years I have written twenty-seven books, fourteen screenplays, and numerous magazine and newspaper articles. It has been, and remains, a fair enough way of earning a living. I have been called a success, but 'success', in its most common usage, is a relative term which has to be applied with great caution, especially in writing.
Quantification is far from being all. Some of the most 'successful' books, magazines, and newspapers in publishing history have beggared description when one tries to describe the depths to which they have descended. Enlightenment may not be my forte but, then, neither is depravity.
It is difficult to say what effect one's books have had, what degree of success or failure they have achieved. Consider, for instance, the reactions of those who had the debatable privilege of being on the GLASGOW HERALD'S editorial board at the time when those short stories of long ago were under consideration.
Some may feel, or have felt, a mild degree of satisfaction that they had the foresight or acumen to pick on someone who was not to prove a total dud: all too many writers produce one story and then are heard of no more. Others on the board may have felt a profound indifference. Still others, gnashing their figurative teeth, may have rued the day they launched on his way, a writer who
se style, they felt or feel, in no way matched the high standard set itself by Scotland's premier newspaper. I shall never know.
The effect on the reading public is equally hard to gauge. I did write a couple of books which I thought might be judged as being meaningful or significant but from readers' reactions I was left in no doubt that the only person who shared this opinion was myself. I should have listened to Sam Goldwyn's dictum that messages are for Western Union.
I have since then concentrated on what I regarded as pure entertainment although I have discovered a considerable gulf may he between what I regard as entertainment and others' ideas on the subject.
I receive a fairly large mail and most of it is more than kindly in tone. I am aware that this does not necessarily reflect an overall consensus of approval: I am essentially a non-controversial writer and people who habitually sign themselves 'Indignant' or 'Disgusted' of Walthamstow or wherever, don't read my books in the first place, or if they do, don't find the contents worthy of disparaging comment.
The effects of writing on myself, of course, I know fairly well although I'm aware that, even here, there may be room for blind misappraisal. The main benefits of being a full-time writer are that they confer on one a marked degree of independence and freedom, but that freedom must never be misinterpreted as irresponsibility.
I don't have to start work at nine a.m., and I don't: I usually start between six and seven in the morning. But then, though I often work a seven-day week, I don't work a fifty-two week year.
Being in a position where there is not one person, anywhere, who can tell you what to do — and that's the position I'm in — is quite splendid. But no one is wholly independent, I have a responsibility towards my publishers.
Publishing houses are not, as has been claimed, a refuge for rogues, thieves, and intellectual criminals who depend for their existence on their expertise in battening on the skills and talents of the miserably rewarded few who can do what the publishers are totally incapable of — string together a few words in a meaningful fashion. Some publishing houses are run by people who are recognisably human. Mine is notably one of those.
I feel some responsibility, though not much, to book editors. Collins New English Dictionary defines an editor as one who revises, cuts, alters, and omits in preparation for publication. I feel moderately competent to attend to the revising, cutting, etc., before it reaches the editor. But they can be of help, to some more than others.
I feel no responsibility whatsoever towards book critics. The first criticism I ever read was of my first book, H.M.S. 'ULYSSES.' It got two whole pages to itself in a now defunct Scottish newspaper, with a drawing of the dust jacket wreathed in flames and the headline 'Burn this book.' I had paid the Royal Navy the greatest compliment of which I could conceive: this dolt thought it was an act of denigration.
That was the first so-called literary review I ever read: it was also the last. I'm afraid I class fiction book reviewers along with the pundits who run what it pleases them to term 'writing schools'. One must admire their courage in feeling free to advise, lecture, preach, and criticise something which they themselves are quite incapable of doing.
My greatest responsibility and debt are to those who buy my books, making it possible for me to lead the life I do. Moreover, while deriving a perfectly justifiable satisfaction in pointing out my frequent errors of fact, they never tell me how to write. I am grateful.
One great benefit arising from this freedom is the freedom to travel. I do not travel to broaden the mind or for the purposes of research. True, I have been to and written about the Arctic, the Aegean, Indonesia, Alaska, California, Yugoslavia, Holland, Brazil, and diverse other places, but I never thought of writing about these locales until I had been there: on the obverse side of the coin I have been to such disparate countries as Mexico and China, Peru and Kashmir and very much doubt whether I shall ever write about them.
About future writing I really don't know. From time to time, Mr Chapman has suggested, a trifle wistfully I always think, that some day I might get around to writing a good book. Well, it's not impossible for no doubt to the despair of all those book reviewers I never read, I wouldn't like to retire quite yet.
Alistair MacLean
His first book, HMS ULYSSES, published in 1955, was outstandingly successful. It led the way to a string of bestselling novels which have established Alistair MacLean as the most popular adventure writer of our time.
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE
HMS ULYSSES
SOUTH BY JAVA HEAD
NIGHT WITHOUT END
THE LAST FRONTIER
THE DARK CRUSADER
FEAR IS THE KEY
ICE STATION ZEBRA
THE GOLDEN RENDEZVOUS
THE SATAN BUG
WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL
WHERE EAGLES DARE
FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE
PUPPET ON A CHAIN
CARAVAN TO VACCARES
BEAR ISLAND
THE WAY TO DUSTY DEATH
BREAKHEART PASS
CIRCUS
THE GOLDEN GATE
SEA WITCH
GOODBYE CALIFORNIA
ATHABASCA
RIVER OF DEATH
PARTISANS
FLOODGATE
SAN ANDREAS
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The Lonely Sea: Collected Short Stories Page 18
