“Did I?”
Gant gave him that suspicious look again.
“Yesterday afternoon, sir. I proposed that we should make do with the lower steering position, with telephone communication. Because of certain practical difficulties, and priorities elsewhere, and you concurred.”
“I don’t remember any such conversation.”
Gant said, after a pause, “The only other defect we can’t do anything about is the starboard searchlight.”
“We can manage without it.” He looked round, as Harkness knocked and entered. The PO steward said, “Yeoman of signals, sir.”
“Come in, Morris.”
“Signal from Exeter to Bandoeng, sir. Enemy report.”
The news they’d dreaded. Exeter’s only hope had been not to run into any enemies.
He took the log from Morris, and read the top signal in the clip. It was a report of sighting enemy cruisers. He handed it across the table to Gant. There was nothing to do but wait for the rest of it, for what you knew would be happening in the next few hours. Facing a superior enemy force, Exeter’s only hope of survival would lie in avoiding action. But she was already crippled, so she couldn’t make much of a run for it, and in any case the only way she could run was into the trap of the Sunda Strait.
He nodded. “Thank you, yeoman.”
“It’s good to see you so recovered, sir.” Morris was on his way to the door. Nick asked him, “Have we got a Japanese ensign on board, Morris? Rising Sun thing?”
“Yessir, we have.”
“Look it out, would you, and keep it handy.”
He wondered whether Exeter could have adopted a plan such as he had in mind now for Defiant. But yesterday, the escape route westward hadn’t looked so hopeless. And if the Japs hadn’t picked Banten Bay as their landing-place, right on the entrance to Sunda, the other two might have got away. Hindsight changed viewpoints: twenty-four hours ago, if it had been his own responsibility, he might have sent Exeter westbound. And if Defiant had been seaworthy then, she’d have been there now, with Exeter.
“Bob, tell me—if I’d remained comatose, and you had the command, how would you be getting us out of this place?”
Last night, Gant had been thoroughly alarmed at the thought of trying to hide in the Kangeans. Even when Chevening had checked in the local Sailing Directions and confirmed that there’d be water enough behind Sepanjang, he’d still looked scared of it. Nick had asked him, “Worried, are we?”
“I was only thinking, sir—it’s less than eighty miles from Bali, there’ll be aircraft about, and we don’t know until we see the place how much cover there’ll be or how—”
“Pilot.” Nick told Chevening, “Read out that description of Sepanjang.”
Chevening found the place, in the Indonesia Pilot Volume II. He read aloud, “… second largest island of the Kepulauan Kangean … wooded, and approximately two hundred feet high near its middle … the north coast consisting of mangroves with deep creeks forming islands—”
“That’s enough.” Nick looked at Gant. “The north coast’s our billet. Doesn’t it sound tailor-made?”
“Yes, on the face of it …”
“Do you have any alternative suggestions?”
He’d been questioning himself as much as Gant. How could you tell whether your brain was functioning as it should: how could you trust it, when it was the brain itself that told you it was trustworthy? The only thing that mattered was that Defiant should get away. It didn’t matter a damn who did the job. It was his own responsibility to do it if he was capable of it, but alternatively to see that it was done by someone else. By Gant, for instance. He thought that he, Nick Everard, was the best man to do it: but again, the belief came out of his own brain. He asked Gant, “Well, Bob?”
“I hope I’d have come eventually to the same conclusion you’ve arrived at, sir. I’m not sure, though. I might have opted for the Sunda Strait—taking a gamble on the situation having changed by the time we got there.”
“You’d have been wrong, if you had.”
“I agree, sir. Before, it wasn’t as plain.”
One aspect bothered Nick a little. In the Crete evacuation he’d solved a problem by capturing an island and holding it for a day. One long, hot, sleepy day. If his mind was cranky now, might a symptom be that it was throwing up an old answer to a new problem?
But in fact it wasn’t the same answer. The Milos operation had involved a deliberate penetration into enemy territory, whereas in this case they were in potentially enemy territory already and trying to get out of it. The Kangeans would be a halfway house on the way out. The similarity was that Sepanjang and Milos were both islands. Beyond that, it was a superficially similar solution to an entirely different situation.
He had to be sure. Because his mind had been playing tricks. And several hundred lives and this ship, possibly Jordan’s as well, depended on it functioning properly.
“Do you see any weakness? Something I haven’t thought of and nobody’s mentioned yet?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“You realize that if I drop dead you’ll have to see it through?”
Gant nodded. “Yes.”
“So you’re happy with it?”
“I was in the chartroom at six this morning, with Chevening, and we went over every possible alternative. There isn’t one that stands a hope.”
He nodded. Thinking, You can stop dithering, now… “While we’re at it, Bob, there’s another question I’ve been meaning to ask you. About the exchange of signals you had with Perth when she and Houston came back for you after the night action. When poor old Waller asked you what state we were in, why didn’t you let him know I’d been knocked out?”
“It was more instinctive than logical, sir. I was trying to put myself in your place—well, naturally, in the circumstances—and I’d say the reasoning was that if I’d reported you were out of action, Captain Waller would most likely have felt obliged to keep us with him. It would have slowed them down a lot. Also, Surabaya being so much closer seemed to me the place you’d have chosen to make for.”
“Has it occurred to you that your decision may have saved all our lives?”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“We’d have gone with them to Batavia. Then Sunda Strait. I don’t think anyone stands a dog’s chance through Sunda.” Exeter …
He was anxious for news of the American destroyers too. It was about time one heard something. There’d have to be a deadline, some time this afternoon, for Jim Jordan’s decision about which way he’d go. Nick lit a cigarette. “Is Leading Seaman Williams still in sickbay?”
“Yes. Out of concussion, but he’s immobilized by his leg wounds.”
“I’ll go along and see him, presently. And the others. D’you have a list of them, and their injuries?”
Williams said, “Can’t keep a good man down, sir; isn’t that what they say?”
Nick told him, “You can if you shoot him in the legs.” “I wasn’t shot, sir. Splinters. Commander Sibbold’s dug ’em all out.”
“Painful?”
“You wouldn’t do it for a lark, like.”
“But you’ll be on your feet again soon, now.”
Williams’s vague expression showed the drift of his thoughts. Nick thought, That’s how I’ve been looking … The killick asked, “No answer to the signal you sent, I suppose, sir?”
He’d signalled Colombo, a week or ten days ago, asking the welfare people whether a Mrs Williams was among refugees arriving there.
“They’ll be up to their eyes in refugees, you know. Not only from Singapore, either. It’s bound to take some time, to—”
“Take a lifetime.”
“What?”
The close-together eyes were calm. “I reckon she’s dead, sir.”
Sibbold had changed the dressings on Nick’s various injuries. Nick had also been talking to the other patients, and he was leaving now. Sibbold murmured, “You should be resting, sir. Really, i
t’s very important that—”
“All right, PMO, all right …”
Forbes, the chaplain, joined them. “Is he bullying you, sir?”
“Doesn’t like to see anyone getting out of his clutches. Probably a hangover from the days when his patients used to pay him.”
They both came outside with him. He asked them, “Is Williams as gloomy as that all the time?”
“I don’t believe he really is so gloomy, now,” Forbes said. “He’s convinced himself the girl’s dead. What was torturing him was the possibility of her being alive in Japanese hands. He wants her to be dead.”
“In his shoes, padre, one might feel the same.”
The chaplain sighed. Sibbold stared at Nick. “As I was saying, sir—about you—in all seriousness—”
“I know. I’ll turn in soon.”
After, he thought, some news arrived about the Bali Strait destroyers. He didn’t think he’d sleep until he knew what had happened to those Americans. He could shut his mind to Exeter. She was doomed. It was hideous and tragic but he knew that at this moment she’d be fighting her last action, and thinking about it wasn’t going to make the slightest difference to the outcome. But he did need rest: for this ship’s sake, which was what Sibbold, he guessed, had been talking about.
“Captain, sir.”
PO Morris, the yeoman of signals, saluted. A square, pale face with a short nose and a blunt chin. Pale blue eyes blinked once. He muttered, “Exeter, sir.”
Nick took the signal log from him. He’d come out from under the foc’sl break into the heat of the upper deck: the steel of the bridge superstructure was a hot grey wall on his right. The signal told him that four heavy cruisers and an unspecified number of destroyers were closing in on that fine old ship. It was now—he checked his wrist-watch—just on ten, and this signal’s time of origin was 0940.
She’d have been trying for the last two hours to get past them, and now they’d encircled her.
“Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll be in my cabin.”
Charles Rowley, the first lieutenant, was on number four gundeck with CPO Raikes, the chief shipwright; they were deciding how they’d rig the stays for the dummy funnel. Nick climbed up to the gundeck and joined in the discussion. As the funnel would have its base this high up, it needed to be only twenty-six feet tall for its top to be level with the others. But it was still a bulky object to accommodate in the space available, and the best idea seemed to be to stow it slantwise across the ship between that six-inch gun and the pompom mounting just abaft it.
Rowley pointed out that in either the raised or stowed position it was going to obstruct the six-inch, and when it was raised it was also going to blank off the pompoms from firing on any for’ard bearing. In addition, it seemed the wire stays supporting it would be in the way of both guns.
“It can’t be helped.” Nick explained, “The object will be to avoid action. If we have to open fire, the camouflage becomes pointless anyway.”
Raikes suggested, “So we want to be able to ditch it good and quick, if we’re going into action?”
“Yes. The gun’s crew could handle it.”
The last thing he wanted was a fight. One shot, and all hopes of escape would vanish. He wanted to be silent and invisible. If he was seen at all he wanted to be taken for a Jap.
In his imagination he could hear the thunder of big guns from five hundred miles away, the other end of Java and the Sunda Strait …
Chevening stopped him as he went on aft. “Have a word, sir?”
He’d been working out details for tonight and the night after and for the long run south to Australia after that. Nick had told him to have some notes of it on paper, a copy for Jim Jordan. Whichever way the Bali Strait cat jumped, Jordan would be coming aboard later for a final conference. Chevening had a rolled chart under his arm, and some queries and suggestions. They went into the cuddy—past the late AB Gladwill’s noisy canaries and through to the dining cabin, where the table had room for chart display.
Chevening murmured when they’d finished, “I’m afraid Exeter’s chances aren’t good, sir.”
“They’re non-existent.”
Chevening had improved, Nick thought. To start with he’d seemed a bit of a stuffed shirt. He asked him, “You’ve no ill effects, pilot, from that smash-up?”
“None except I’m a bit deaf, sir.”
“Have you reported it to the PMO?”
“I think it’ll just wear off, sir.”
“Go and see him. Tell him I sent you. But first get that signal off to Sloan.”
The signal was to check that the American destroyer had enough fuel for two thousand miles. It wasn’t quite that mileage to Perth, but they wouldn’t be taking an entirely direct route. Also, the first part of the trip would have to be made at maximum speed, which consumed oil faster. Nick wanted to start by putting as great a distance as possible between themselves and the Japanese, and it would mean steering due south and later making a dog-leg southwestward to get round North West Cape. If Jordan’s ship didn’t have the range to reach Perth, an alternative might be to make for Port Hedland, at about half the distance.
Perth was the obvious place, though. It was the nearest major port. The fact that Kate lived not very far from it was coincidental. “Not very far” meant, in any case, not far by Australian standards, and it was more than likely that even from Perth—if he got to Perth—she’d be as far out of his reach as she would have been on the moon. Besides which, when one thought about Kate Farquharson, Fiona’s image intruded … He told himself, pausing at a scuttle and looking across flat water at the heat-hazy shoreline, that it wasn’t really a very urgent problem. Very soon the soldiers on that waterfront and in those buildings would be Japanese. In two days? Three?
He sat back in an armchair, and shut his eyes. The plan was set: he was sure of it, in the sense that there was no other way to get out. If he’d had to quote odds on it, he’d have put its chances at about evens. There were quite a few imponderables, and it was going to depend on luck—at least, on an absence of bad luck—at all stages. Which was a lot to ask for.
He dozed, waking occasionally to the familiar noises of the ship’s routine. There were waking thoughts as well as snatches of dreams. One dream—it came back to him now with the shock of something horrible that he’d forgotten about and suddenly recalled—was that Paul was out there in Exeter. He shook it out of his mind, thankful that it had turned out not to be real. There was something he had to do, that he’d thought of earlier …
“Captain, sir?”
He focused on PO Harkness. Harkness told him, “Made you some more coffee, sir. Petty Officer Morris says there’s a signal you’d want to see.”
“Send him in.” He remembered what it was he’d been thinking about in that half-sleep: “Harkness—pass the word to the captain of marines that I’d like a word with him, will you? And let’s have another cup here for him.”
Morris had two signals to show him. The first was an answer from Sloan to his question about fuel for the long haul south. Jordan had replied, “Your 10:31, affirmative.”The other was from Exeter to Admiral Helfrich at Bandoeng. She was stopped and on fire and taking repeated hits. Time of origin 11:20.
Haskins clicked his heels. “Wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yes. Come in, soldier. Sit down, and don’t let’s be too bloody military.”
The marine grinned. “Sorry, sir.”
“Help yourself to coffee. Is your landing organization all geared-up?”
“Top line, sir. Do you mean—d’you want us to stay behind?”
Nick looked at him. He shook his head. “No. Even if any such thing had been suggested … No. The object is to get out of here, save our skins, not throw more of them away.”
He thought of Exeter, and of Perth, Houston, Electra, Jupiter, Encounter and Pope; and of de Ruyter, Java, and that Dutch destroyer, Kortenaar … All gone, in the space of a co
uple of days. He was appalled at the waste, the pointlessness, the sheer stupidity … What he had to think about now was how not to add to the list. He told Haskins, “As you know, we’ll be sailing at dusk. But before daylight we’ll be tucking ourselves into cover behind an island called Sepanjang, which is in a small group called the Kangeans about seventy-five miles north of the Lombok Strait.”
He described the plan to him, and the reasons for it.
“We’ll be there from before dawn until it’s dark enough to move. If you ask Chevening, he’ll show you a description of the island’s topography, in the Pilot. It mentions that there are two villages on Sepanjang, and local trade between it and the larger island, Kangean itself. We’ll be on the north coast, up some creek—I mean literally, for once, and let’s hope not figuratively as well. Mangroves and so on. The south coast has a sandy beach and that may be where the inhabitants keep their praus. Anyway, read what it says, and study it on the chart. I’d advise you to make notes, and a tracing of the island—the ship’s office could run off copies for your NCOs.”
Haskins nodded. Nick went on, “The object of putting you ashore will be to maintain security in the vicinity of the ship, and prevent any of the locals leaving the island while we’re there. So word doesn’t get to the Japs. Remind me now—how many men have you got?”
“Colour Sergeant Bruce, two sergeants, four corporals, forty-one marines, sir. And me, making total strength forty-nine.”
“Organized how, for landing?”
“Five sections of eight men each, plus Platoon HQ. Sections one, two and three form a rifle group, four and five are the Bren group. Platoon HQ includes a two-inch mortar section and one PIAT.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“Projector infantry anti tank, sir.”
“I think we can assume there won’t be any tanks on Sepanjang.”
“Quite. We could leave the mortar on board too, I should think … The marines carry P-14 rifles, and section leaders have Lanchester sub machine-guns.”
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 20
