That was what he thought of when he thought of Exeter. That, and the fact that she was somewhere in the Java Sea now, with Japanese forces closing in from all directions and the only exit that twelve-mile-wide Sunda Strait … He’d eaten all he could. He put the plate aside, and reached for a cigarette.
“I want a third funnel, Bob.”
Gant looked at him oddly. Speculatively. The doubt, suspicion in that glance was irritating. Nick said tersely, “We have two funnels, don’t we? You said the for’ard one’s under repair?”
Gant had coloured. “We’re patching the top of it, yes, sir.”
“Right. And now I want a third funnel. It’ll have to go on number four gundeck.” He pointed: “If you’d bring over that copy of Jane’s, I’ll show you what I want us to look like.”
The shipwrights had their hands full already, of course. Gant would probably remind him of it in a minute. But this wouldn’t be an intricate or delicate job of work … Gant brought the book, Jane’s Fighting Ships, and Nick opened it at the page where he’d left a marker, earlier this morning.
“There. You’d better let Raikes have a sight of this, so he’ll know what he’s doing.” Raikes was the chief shipwright. “Timber and canvas, hinged so it can be hauled up into place when we want it. It’ll need to be done after dark and without showing any light, so the rigging must be as simple as it can be.”
He’d been thinking about it, in between periods of dozing, during as much as had been left of the night. Dozing, and struggling to think instead of dream, most of the time ending up with a cross between the two … But adding a third funnel would change the ship’s profile from that of a Dauntless-class cruiser to a fair likeness of one of the Japanese Natori class.
Last evening he’d gone through a period which, looking back on it, he could only have described as hellish. A waking nightmare …
When he’d finished yesterday afternoon’s conference with Gant he’d gone back to his bunk, slept heavily, and woken with the doubt already in his mind—an instinctive feeling that things weren’t going to work out. It was as if it had been in his mind all the time and he’d just seen it, recognized it. He’d sent Harkness to collect a chart and some instruments and reference books from Chevening. The navigator had brought them along himself, but he’d sent him away again because he’d needed to look into this alone.
That instinct had been right. Speeds, times and distances combined to confirm the unpleasant truth that Defiant was locked in.
Sandilands had agreed, under protest, that he’d provide engine revs for twenty-five knots. So that was the speed you could count on, and the first basic element in this calculation. (It would have been pointless to have demanded more than twenty-five knots, because even before the recent action damage their best speed had been twenty-seven.)
The second basic was that he couldn’t take her out of Surabaya before dusk. If he tried to move her in daylight and she was spotted, they’d know which way she was going and they’d be in or near the Strait, waiting for her. In effect, this meant she couldn’t get under way earlier than 9 PM.
Point three was that whichever of the straits you picked on, you’d need to have passed through it and got far enough south of it by first light to have some chance of not being found and attacked at sunrise. A ship caught on her own wouldn’t have a hope of surviving, because the enemy had numerous aircraft and the Allies had none.
(Well, they did. They had two, based at Bandoeng and used for reconnaissance. He thought they were Beauforts.)
Now: you had to relate those three basic points to the distances from Surabaya to the various exits. The nearest was the Bali Strait, through which the Americans were hoping to pass: and those four destroyers would get to it by the short route through the Madura Channel, the eastern way out of Surabaya, south of Madura Island. This channel was impassable to Defiant, because she drew fifteen feet of water. At the top of the tide she might just about have made it, but the time of high tide would have to fit in with a dusk departure, and the tide tables showed clearly that in the next few days it would not. So Defiant’s only way east would be around the north side of Madura; and the distances involved were such that at twenty-five knots she’d be right in the Bali Strait, or still this side of the islands if he picked on the Lombok or Alas Straits, at sunrise.
Then ship and ship’s company would live—what, half an hour?
Sloan, Jim Jordan’s destroyer, drew only about ten feet of water, so she could use the Madura Channel. She’d be all right. For Defiant, it wasn’t easy to see any way out at all.
When he’d checked the distances and times again, he sat back and thought about it. He was sweating, and he could feel his pulse and heartbeat racing. The wounds in his head, face and arm pulsed too. The fear wasn’t personal, it was the nightmarish suspicion, rapidly hardening, that he wasn’t going to be able to get his ship out of the Java Sea.
He took some long, slow breaths, to slow the pulse-rate, and told himself to be calm and rational. There had to be a solution.
Think about going west, as Exeter was about to do?
She’d be sailing as soon as it was dark, in about two and a half hours’ time. It wasn’t a good prospect, he thought—not even for Exeter now, and certainly not for Defiant later. As time went on and the enemy built up naval and air strength down here it became less likely with every passing hour that an Allied ship could survive in daylight north of Java.
He murmured aloud, “However …”
Jordan’s philosophic acceptance gave no comfort now, though. And Jordan would be arriving on board soon. Nick wanted desperately to have some sort of answer to the problem before he found himself having to talk about it.
He was trying too hard, perhaps. Panicking. So relax, think it out logically and calmly …
Well, if you discarded the idea of using the longer, western route, the choice narrowed to one of the three eastern straits. It would have to be either the narrow Bali Strait, or the much wider one between Bali and Lombok, or the more distant, medium-sized one, the Alas Strait, between Lombok and Sumbawa. And whichever one you chose, Defiant’s track would have to be to the north of Madura.
Those were conclusions, facts, solid and unchangeable. You could save yourself the trouble of looking for alternatives to them, because there weren’t any. Another fact—the one that crushed you—was that Defiant would not be able to make the trip inside any period of darkness.
He shut his eyes. It could be, he thought, that his brain wasn’t working properly, that there was some oversight in his calculations.
There had to be!
He tried again. Checking the route on the chart first, looking for short cuts. No short cuts … Until now he’d assumed that the run along the north coast of Madura to the Bali Gap was within his reach. He didn’t know now why he’d made any such assumption. Trying to think back to any earlier state of mind was like thinking about another person, one whose mental processes he didn’t understand and—worse—had no faith in.
There were five hundred men in this ship—nearly five hundred—all getting on with their jobs and relying, as they were entitled to do, on their captain’s competence to direct their efforts sensibly, professionally, in ways that gave reasonable chances of survival. How would they feel if they knew he was sitting here sweating with fear, seeing no way out?
Perhaps Gant’s doubts were well-founded, and he was unfit for the command now. If he couldn’t find a way out of this trap, he was unfit for it.
Give up? Hand over to Gant?
His head hurt, and he felt sick.
Sunda, after all? A hundred to one against making it, but the only chance there was?
No. Sunda was a locked door now. Even if it wasn’t yet—you had to allow yourself to hope that Exeter, Encounter and Pope would get through—it would be barred and bolted by this time tomorrow.
Lombok, then. Sail at dusk. No—a little before that. Let them see her heading west. Then turn north in the dark, and northeas
t, spend the following day out of sight of land and away from obvious routes, and hope to God not to run into anything or be spotted by aircraft. Then, the following evening when it got dark, turn southward, fast, through the Lombok Strait.
Well, what alternative was there?
He stared at the chart. It would be only about twice as risky as a game of Russian roulette. It depended entirely on the sheer luck of remaining undetected throughout one whole day at sea. The odds were very heavily against any such thing being possible: but long-odds bets had been won, before this. And it would be less foolhardy than trying to get away through Sunda … Ask Jordan to take Defiant’s wounded with him in Sloan? And others too: cut down to a skeleton crew, enough men to steam her and man her guns and tubes, while the rest took passage in the destroyer?
Five minutes later, still concentrating on this possible way out, he’d heard Sloan’s captain being piped aboard. No alternative had occurred to him, and the chances of remaining invisible for a whole day in an area that would probably be carrying a lot of enemy traffic, seaborne and airborne, were so slim that it was going to be embarrassing to spell out the plan. Another consideration was that with several thousand miles to go, Jordan wouldn’t want to be cluttered up with passengers. He might take the wounded, and perhaps Sibbold or an SBA to look after them …
Nick gave him a pink gin. A proper one, made with iced water, no lumps of ice in it to melt and turn it into dishwater. “All set for tomorrow night, Jim?”
“Well.” Jordan rubbed his wide jaw. “I guess we will be.”
“Bali Strait?”
The close-cropped, ginger head nodded. “If our guys get through it tonight, that seems the obvious way to go.” He frowned. “Only thing is—”
“I’d say you’re right. Flat out through the Madura Channel, sharp right past Bali, and you’re home for breakfast.”
“Almost.” The American smiled, briefly. “But how about you, sir?”
“I can’t get over those shallows, unfortunately.”
“That’s what I thought. I’ve been trying to work out what you might do, and frankly I don’t seem to get very far.”
“Well, let’s deal with your intentions first. Incidentally, Bob Gant’s joining us for dinner, and afterwards my navigating officer will be available if we want him. I thought we could have half an hour’s private chat first, though.”
“Sure … It’s a—er—peculiar drink, this.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“Oh, I like it—”
“An acquired taste, I suppose. But the malt whisky comes later.”
“Did you see me wondering about that?”
They both laughed. Nick thanked him for having sent enquiries about his state of health when he’d been lying unconscious in the sickbay. Then he came back to the subject.
“I take it you’ll sail at sunset, via Madura to the Bali Strait, at—did someone say twenty-five knots?”
“Right.” Jordan flicked a light to his Chesterfield. “Only thing is—well, okay, we have to get the hell out, first chance we have. I know it. I just wish I had another twenty-four hours.”
“What for?”
“So my ship could be near as good as new.” He blew smoke at the deckhead: the draught of the fan caught it, sent it swirling … “Twenty-eight, maybe thirty knots I’d have. There’s some engine spares we need, coming up from Tjilatjap by railroad, due here tomorrow afternoon. If I had the time to get some bits and pieces fitted—well, listen, sir. Twenty-five knots, the way I am now, if I sail at 2100 hours by sunup I’m out of the Bali Strait, sure, but I’m only forty miles south of that airstrip. Okay, that’s the best there is, I’ll do it. But if I waited, had another five knots out of her, I’d be seventy or eighty miles south!”
“How did you happen to have spares at Tjilatjap?”
“Another Selfridge-class ship there. Or was, yesterday. She had ’em. We swapped a couple of signals, and I struck lucky.”
Nick was nodding at him, but he’d barely heard that explanation. An idea—the germ of the possibility of an idea—had just stirred into being.
“Excuse me, Jim. I want to take a quick look at the chart.” He pushed himself up, one-handed. Jordan asked him, “Are you all right, to be moving around this soon?” “Better every minute, thanks.”
He was standing, looking down at the chart, with one eye shut to cut out the double vision. And, incredibly, hope stirring. It was Jordan’s idea of taking an extra day that had triggered it. It wasn’t totally different, in general principle, from his earlier idea, but it was a hell of a lot sounder. He was checking now, with the dividers—one-handed, of course. You only needed one, though, except in rough weather … If this was a valid, pursuable plan, he’d been blind and daft during the last half-hour. Double-checking, now … Then he dropped the brass dividers on the chart, and went back to his chair. He picked up his glass. He knew he couldn’t possibly be showing the degree of relief that he was feeling.
Not that it was going to be easy—or anything approaching easy. He raised the glass. “Bless you, Jim. You’ve saved my bacon.”
“I have?”
“And I think you’d do well to wait for those spares. After all, if the Dutch can put up barrages like we’ve seen today and yesterday, we don’t have to worry much, about air attack in here.”
“No, we don’t. But—well, only thing is, if they start their invasion. Paratroops ashore here—maybe surface ships outside—we could find ourselves in a real jam.”
“If you want your extra day, taking that risk’s the price of it.”
“I guess I’ll take it. But how does it help you?”
“I don’t think it necessarily makes much odds to me, Jim. But just to clear your side of it first—obviously your plans will depend on what we hear of your people in the Bali Strait tonight. If they get through—fine, no problem. But if it goes wrong—well, I suppose with thirty knots you might just make it via Lombok.”
“Maybe. Cutting margins so fine I’d get the shivers. But for now, I’m assuming—”
“Yes. Assuming the Bali Strait looks good, that’s your choice. I believe mine is the Alas Strait.”
“But that’s a hell of a long way!”
Nick nodded. “From here, it is. But Surabaya won’t be my startingpoint. It can’t be, can it?”
“I—don’t quite follow—”
“You’d seen the snags for yourself, before you came over. I can’t do more than twenty-five knots, I can’t alter the distances or extend the hours of darkness. On the other hand I have got to get this ship out through one of those holes. The only variable factor, therefore, is where I start from.”
“You plan to hole-up some place?”
“Exactly.” He nodded towards the chart. “In the Kangeans. Just off the cuff, I like the look of an island called Sepanjang. We’ll check all that later, in the Sailing Directions, but it looks like deep water—give or take a few rocks … But you see—I’ll sail tomorrow, as intended, at sun-down. I’ll have the ship hidden—tucked away, anyhow—before daylight, somewhere among those islands. I hope the Japs won’t be looking for us: and we’ll be a damn sight less visible than we would be out at sea. Then we—and you—Push off the night after. You from here at thirty knots, and me from the Kangeans at twenty-five. You go through Bali, I’ll take Alas.”
“Might you not as easily make it to the Bali Strait, rendezvous there with me?”
“I don’t think so. Which gap one chooses is a toss-up; but making a rendezvous that close to the enemy on Bali, one of us perhaps having to hang around and wait for the other—and I’d slow you down … No, that doesn’t appeal to me much. Lombok I don’t like, either. It’s too obvious, the one they’d expect us to pick on. Don’t you think?”
Jordan nodded. “But your scheme may not be as easy as you make it sound. With respect—”
“I’m not suggesting it’s going to be easy, Jim.”
“No … Would we rendezvous down south, after we bo
th get through?”
“I’d like to, yes. We’ll make for Perth, I should think. It’s a long way, and two’s company. It’s not impossible that in the early stages there could be air attacks—remember Doorman had information about carrier groups moving to the other side of Java?” The American nodded. Nick suggested, “We might work out some details after we’ve eaten. My navigator can do the work—it’s what he’s paid for. He isn’t seeing double, either.”
“You are, sir?”
“It’s only temporary. But the rendezvous—I’d imagine we’ll naturally converge about two hundred miles south, some time around noon. Then we could afford to slow down a little—we’ll need to conserve fuel.”
“It’ll be a great moment, making that rendezvous.”
“Yes … But listen. I hope to God we’ll have good news early tomorrow about your four Bali Strait ships. But if it is not good, then you’d better forget about the spares and sail with me tomorrow evening. Otherwise you’ll be in the trap I could’ve been in.”
He was tired, now. But he was also excited. Nobody would ever know, and he himself would be glad to forget, the state of mind he’d been in only an hour earlier.
Gant was taking another look at the photograph of a Japanese Natori-class light cruiser. He’d been out and told the chief shipwright what was wanted; now he was back again, in Nick’s day cabin. He said, “It’s quite startling, sir. Add that funnel and we’ll look very much like this. Except for the seaplane catapult on her stern.”
The disguise wouldn’t have to stand up to close inspection anyway. The main thing was that when Defiant sailed tonight he wanted any enemy, or enemy agent ashore, to think he was steering west; and when he turned her the other way after dark it would help the illusion if she looked like a different ship. It could be useful later on, as well. The deeper the water, the more readily you clutched at straws.
“How are the repairs going, Bob?”
“The bridge is finished, sir. Some parts are planked—timber bolted to the steel beams—but otherwise it’s near-enough normal. Telephones and voicepipes have all been refitted, and gunnery circuits will be fixed by this afternoon. By sailing time anyway. You agreed we wouldn’t try to refit the wheelhouse.”
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 19
