Winged Escort

by Douglas Reeman

  ‘Nice legs,’ he said absently. Then, ‘No, it’s mine. I knew about this new group ages ago. I asked for you to be appointed.’

  Buchan stared at him, his one prop already falling away.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Correct. I don’t like amateurs. I also dislike yes-men. I think you are neither. Remember, you have served under me before, I know a lot about you.’ He turned, his eyes hidden in shadow. ‘Do your job, and we’ll get along fine.’ A telephone buzzed in the outer office. ‘That will be Commander Jolly, I expect. I told him to put calls through to you here.’

  Buchan felt the deck quivering gently, and pictured Laird, the Commander (E), far below his feet in his shining, roaring domain of pumps and machinery, and his one great propeller shaft. The ship was almost ready to cut her ties with the land, and yet Chadwick seemed to hold him like a trap.

  He was being manipulated, just like the last time. The reliable subordinate when things went well. The scapegoat if they did not.

  Chadwick urged gently, ‘Forget the past. I have. It can serve neither of us. Our responsibility is to the ship and the group. It is a weapon, not a way of life. Results are more important than ideals. In war you get no thanks for being a brave loser.’

  ‘Is that all, sir?’ Buchan barely recognised his own voice.

  ‘I think so. I will come up once we are clear of the Bar lightship. Let me know when our escort are on station.’

  When Buchan had left he returned to the scuttle, but the Wren officer had disappeared.

  The hull was shaking more urgently now, and he could hear the rasp of orders across the tannoy, the bustle of a ship about to leave harbour.

  A small steam engine was puffing down a dockside railway line, and cloth-capped workers were already moving towards the bollards and sagging mooring wires in response to an important-looking man in a bowler hat.

  Dundas, his personal chief steward, slid into the cabin and replaced the decanter in its cabinet.

  ‘Going to the bridge, sir?’

  He was a severe-faced man, like an old-time executioner, Chadwick thought. But he was an excellent servant, and after the war he would try and hold on to him. Ford, the butler at Chadwick’s country house, was old and almost past it. Dundas might make a good replacement.

  ‘I think so.’

  Dundas handed him a gleaming white scarf which he wrapped negligently around his throat. Then he put two tablets and a glass of water on the table. The scarf would present the right effect. The tablets would take away the smell of whisky.

  Chadwick smiled. Oh yes, Dundas knew his requirements very well indeed.

  Rowan climbed the last few steps to the upper bridge and paused to get his breath. He wished now he had done more walking and less brooding on his leave.

  In the hours it had taken for Growler to work free of the port area and then head purposefully out to sea the weather had changed considerably. There was a lot of low cloud, and he could tell without consulting the met. officer that the wind was getting up, too. He stared up at the bright new flag which streamed from Growler’s steel lattice mast. Red cross on white ground, with a red ball in top and bottom cantons. It must be an impressive feeling to be an admiral, he thought.

  He always liked visiting the bridge. Like the rest of the ship it lacked grace. A rectangular tower which contained the chart-house, the helmsmen, the signal platform. Above it, apart from the stubby mast, was the radar lantern, a searchlight, and little else. Growler had no funnel like her big consorts, but a large vent on either side of the hull which did the work just as well, if less artistically.

  He saw Commander (Flying) at his station on one wing of the bridge, shoulders hunched, his cap pulled hard down over his eyes.

  The captain was sitting on his high steel chair, which was welded to the deck where he could keep an eye on everyone.

  Rowan peered over the glass screen and down at the flight deck. It looked huge, like a great planked field. But at four hundred and a few odd feet long it was half the size of a big carrier. From the air it was minute. As Ellis had once commented when they had started, it’s like trying to land a bedstead on a postage stamp!

  He saw the Deck Landing Control Officer in his bright orange smock talking with some of his men. ‘Bats’, as he was called, would be doubly vital today with the new aircraft arriving.

  The walkways were filled with the handling parties, the fire-fighting teams, and he could see Minchin, the senior doctor, watching with the others. Just in case.

  How grey the Irish Sea looked, with endless thousands of tiny white horses stretching out and away towards the horizon. Ahead, and on either quarter, an escort of three sloops were keeping their allotted stations. All veterans of Western Approaches, their low hulls were streaked with rust as evidence of long months on convoy duty.

  Far astern there was the fatter silhouette of the rescue tug. They had thought of everything.

  Villiers turned and looked at him. ‘Ah, there you are, Tim.’

  Villiers always liked a pilot with him whenever possible. Anyone who was not on stand-by was expected to put in an appearance, to observe the other side of the coin. As an understudy perhaps.

  The tannoy squeaked and intoned, ‘Hands to flying stations! Stand by to receive aircraft!’

  The captain turned in his chair. He was muffled in a duffle coat, a thick scarf round his neck. He looked like a rock.

  Villiers nodded. ‘Ready, sir.’

  Buchan gave what might have been a smile. ‘Make the signal to escort commander.’ He ignored the bustle on the platform, the bright bundles of bunting breaking out stiffly to the wind.

  ‘Starboard fifteen.’

  Through the voicepipe came the coxswain’s acknowledgement. ‘Starboard fifteen, sir. Fifteen of starboard wheel on.’

  Rowan watched fascinated as the forward end of the flight deck started to swing very slowly into the wind. The escorting sloops were turning in unison, as if held to the carrier by invisible strings.

  ‘Midships.’ Buchan was off his chair as lightly as a cat, his eyes to a gyro repeater. ‘Steady. Steer two-eight-zero.’

  He was taking no chances this time, Rowan thought. He could tell from the expression on the navigating officer’s face that he had been expecting to complete the alteration of course as usual.

  The coxswain’s voice again. ‘Course two-eight-zero, sir. One-one-zero revolutions.’

  ‘Aircraft, starboard quarter, sir!’

  A dozen pairs of binoculars rose as one, and from the sponsons along either side of the hull beneath the flight deck Growler’s batteries of Oerlikons and Bofors cannon swivelled towards the sky, as if to sniff out any danger.

  ‘Six Swordfish torpedo bombers!’ The officer of the watch gave a grin. ‘Poor old Stringbags. All over the place in this wind.’

  Rowan looked at his back, hating him, yet knowing that the comment was natural enough.

  He stared astern, his eyes watering as he tried to follow the little black dots against the racing clouds.

  A lamp clattered busily from the signal platform, and from the bridge superstructure a Very light rose lazily to port and burst like a bright green pear.

  ‘How does it look, eh?’

  Rowan turned and then stiffened. It was Rear Admiral Chadwick.

  ‘I can see the first of them, sir.’ It angered him that he was almost tongue-tied.

  Chadwick handed him his own powerful glasses. ‘Use these, then tell me what’s happening.’ He was smiling. Very relaxed.

  Rowan raised the glasses and found the leading Swordfish. The first three were already wheeling into a wide arc, losing height, making their run-in. He could feel the sweat on his spine like ice water. As if he were up there instead of here on this great island of metal.

  Arrester wires up across the flight deck. Crash barriers in place. The handling parties were no longer lounging and bored, but along the walkways like athletes waiting for the gun.

  Easy, easy. The first Swordfish h
ad grown larger in those few seconds. He saw her racing propeller, her straddled wheels, strangely wide without the familiar torpedo slung in between.

  Chadwick asked, ‘Is he doing it well, d’you think?’ He could have been discussing a bowler at some local cricket match.

  Rowan felt his stomach muscles bunch as the Swordfish roared throatily down across the aft end of the flight deck and skidded on the wet planking, the arrester wire jerking out beneath it, taking the strain, controlling and braking it. Bats stood alone and windswept giving the signal to cut the engine as the men swarmed from the walkways to wheel the aircraft to a safe area beyond the crash barriers.

  Rowan exclaimed, ‘Bloody good.’ He flushed. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  Chadwick was studying him. ‘Rowan, isn’t it? Seafire pilot. Home in Surrey, right?’

  Rowan stared. ‘Well, yes, sir.’

  ‘Good.’ Chadwick added, ‘Keep the glasses for the moment. Drop them in on my steward whenever you like.’ He strode towards the bridge officers.

  ‘Nice day for it, eh?’

  Rowan watched the other Swordfish landing on with dignified precision. Soon the helmeted heads and goggles would emerge as people. Friends, some of them.

  ‘Hello, Foxtrot, Hello, Foxtrot, this is Eagle Five. Request emergency landing!’ The sudden interruption from the R/T repeater at the rear of the bridge broke the earlier calm like an explosion.

  Villiers snatched up his handset as Buchan snapped, ‘Tell him affirmative. All other aircraft to keep clear until this one’s down.’

  Rowan felt the admiral at his side again but did not turn or speak. He was watching the Swordfish which had just called Growler’s code name. It was already side-slipping away from those still circling, and even above the roar of fans and the wind around the ‘island’ he could hear the fractured, intermittent roar of the plane’s engine.

  The pilot was levelling off, almost in direct line with the carrier’s deck, and losing height fast.

  Without taking his eyes from it. Rowan could sense the deck parties moving towards the stern, the crimson fire appliances already jutting from either beam.

  Oh God. Oh God. He’s not going to make it.

  Rowan watched the plane’s prop feather and suddenly stop. The Swordfish dipped steeply and almost reached the flight deck. But a freak wave lifted Growler’s hull just a few extra feet, so that the aircraft’s wheels hit the curved round-down of the deck’s overhang. It slewed violently from side to side, a lower wing tearing adrift before it toppled like a broken bird and disappeared over the side.

  The tannoy rasped, ‘Release float!’

  But Growler was moving at fifteen knots, and as the raft splashed over the side Rowan saw that the broken aircraft was already well astern and half submerged.

  Captain Buchan called harshly. ‘Signal the escort. We will alter course to –’

  They all turned as Chadwick said flatly, ‘Belay, that. Signal the tug to retrieve survivors. I want the remaining Swordfish flown-on without any more delay.’

  Buchan clenched his fists. ‘But, sir, the tug will take twenty minutes or more.’

  Chadwick shaded his eyes to look for the other aircraft which were circling above one of the escorts.

  ‘Think about it, Captain.’ He did not raise his voice. ‘Imagine yourself as a brand-new pilot, sitting up there, waiting to land on this Woolworth carrier. You’ve just seen a friend ditch, maybe die. It won’t help you to be kept waiting while we all play at being bloody Nurse Cavell, will it?’ The last words came out like a whip.

  The captain looked at the navigating officer and said heavily, ‘Carry on.’ To Villiers he added, ‘Fly-on remaining aircraft.’

  The other Swordfish landed without mishap.

  Then Buchan said, ‘Signal escort to resume course and speed to rendezvous with Hustler.’

  Villiers saluted. ‘Fall out flying stations, sir?’ He looked ashen.

  ‘Signal from tug Cornelian, sir.’ The chief yeoman watched his officers warily. ‘One survivor. Pilot and air gunner went down with plane.’

  Buchan nodded. ‘Acknowledge.’

  Villiers muttered brokenly. ‘Thank God one of them is safe.’

  Chadwick brushed past him on his way to the ladder. ‘But we have lost a complete aircraft. When we get that survivor aboard I’ll expect a full report. I want combatant crews, not survivors!’ He left the bridge.

  Villiers was still staring at the empty ladder. ‘Oh, you bastard! You bloody bastard!’

  Buchan rapped sharply, ‘That will do. Go and greet the new squadron commander. I’ll see him as soon as we’re on course again.’ He studied Villiers’ face. ‘I know. But keep it bottled up.’

  Rowan made his way down a series of ladders, past lookouts and gun crews, signalmen and messengers, his mind grappling with what had happened. Two men had just died. In a flash. Every time you scrambled an aircraft you expected to be killed. But not like that. He felt the deck tilt as Growler leaned heavily on her new course, more flags breaking out from her yards. As far as the ship was concerned, those two unknown men did not even count.

  Ellis was shaking hands with a Swordfish pilot but broke away when he saw Rowan.

  ‘All right, Tim?’

  ‘I just discovered something.’ He looked astern at the long curving wake, the tug’s smudge of smoke. ‘When you ditch from now on, you’re on your own.’ He walked away, hands in pockets.

  He had reached the gallery deck before he realised he was still carrying the admiral’s glasses. He stood and looked at them. Remembering Chadwick’s composure.

  The tannoy boomed, ‘Starboard watch to Defence Stations. Able Seaman Robinson report to the Master-at-Arms at the double.’

  It never stopped, no matter what.

  He heard Ellis behind him. He was worried for him.

  Ellis asked casually, ‘Okay, Tim?’

  He met his gaze and smiled. ‘Why not? Nothing lasts forever.’

  3

  The Old Enemy

  FROM MID-JULY AND for three backbreaking weeks Rear Admiral Chadwick kept his newly-formed group working-up and going through every manoeuvre he could invent. From the Irish Sea to the Outer Hebrides, close together or spread across the sea like a line of armoured knights, the group learned the behaviour of each other’s ships and abilities, and, after a few near-collisions when steaming full speed at night, their faults and failings as well.

  They fuelled at sea, they flew-off and landed-on aircraft almost round the clock. Fire drill, abandon-ship exercises, officers and key ratings changing jobs without more than a minute’s notice, it was, as Growler’s coxswain remarked, ‘Like living in a bleeding madhouse!’

  For Rowan the sudden and unexpected pressures of training a new team all over again had proved to be a benefit. In his heart he had been dreading the strain of facing it. The last seconds before take-off, the aching stomach muscles as the plane gathered speed, the world compressed into a single shaft of engine and power, until with something like surprise you realised you were off and away, the carrier losing personality and size, a painted model on the sea, her escorts like a child’s toys fussing around her.

  In the Irish Sea the R.A.F. had loaned Chadwick a couple of fat-bellied Wellington bombers to act as marauding Focke-Wulf Condors. Chadwick, it seemed, could charm or drag favours from anyone.

  But as Kitto had mentioned after one such exercise, ‘Just so long as the new lads don’t think a Jerry Condor is going to be so obliging when they meet one!’

  For Rowan it had summed it all up. It was not flying which had troubled him. Despite all the dreams, the memories and the doubts, it had really been the thought of fighting again. Of seeing an enemy, right there in the sights, or you in his.

  The group, now consisting of the twin escort carriers, six sloops and an ocean-going rescue tug, returned to Liverpool to replenish stores and make good any last minute flaws. An additional Swordfish was found from somewhere, and a new pilot and air gunner posted aboard. The
observer of the one which had crashed, a pale-faced midshipman, had been kept busy after the accident. He had said very little to anyone, and fortunately Villiers had had him running errands on his flying bridge.

  Beyond the tight world of Growler’s hull the war followed its own course. Sicily had been completely taken by the Allies, and the Italians were doing all they could to surrender and turn their backs on their German partners. On the Russian Front the German armies were fighting hard to hold on to old positions against tremendous pressure. Daily, thousands were killed or crippled, and the war of supply and demand became even more important. U-boats preyed in packs on the Atlantic convoys, M.T.Bs and German E-boats fought it out nightly in the Channel and North Sea across the smaller but no less vital supply routes.

  The Americans were locked with the Japanese in the Pacific, and throughout Europe and the Balkans the partisans and Resistance watched the skies and the lonely beaches for their own weapons and the resources sent at no small risk to strike at the occupying power where it would do the most damage.

  No home leave was granted to the group when it returned to Liverpool. Something was brewing, said the latest buzz. There was a good chance of the Pacific. Of the Mediterranean. Of India. Anywhere.

  Apart from a few anxious officers and ratings allowed ashore on compassionate grounds, homes bombed, next of kin killed or badly injured, the ships’ companies waited and stirred the speculation.

  The newly arrived Swordfish crews contained the usual mixture of seasoned and very amateur members. There were two Dutch pilots, which made a nice change, and one New Zealander. There was an observer who knew all about growing orchids. ‘A very useful asset,’ Bats had observed dryly. And there was a pilot who had been an actor of sorts.

  Chadwick had gone to London, according to his steward. Several people had murmured, ‘Let’s hope he stays there!’

  A few days later Chadwick returned aboard, looking strangely human in a tweed suit, and the following morning the group put to sea.

  Then, and only then, was the news released. None of the buzzes was right. They listened to the captain’s unemotional voice over the various speakers throughout the ship. On the hangar deck, strangely hushed as fitters and riggers paused by their aircraft to hear his words. In the canteen and throughout the offices and stores, the parachute packing room and sickbay, wardroom and messdeck alike.