All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3

by Alexander Fullerton

  “Petty Officer Wiley.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Nothing either side. Steer as if you were on a tightrope.”

  “Do me best, sir.”

  “Depth, pilot?”

  “Eight and a half fathoms, sir.”

  When they stopped, Defiant would have her forefoot on one of those dotted lines which, on the chart, enclosed foul ground.

  He thought, I’m mad, and Chevening was right …

  He saw it, quite suddenly, as his navigator must have seen it—as an attempt at the impossible. The evidence, the words printed in the Sailing Directions and the patterns and symbols on the chart, all declared it. They didn’t suggest it, they declared it unequivocally. Only an idiot could have embarked on this—could even have considered it … An idiot, or a desperate man, a man at his wits’ end for a way out. He’d clutched at the straw and now he had it in his hand and there was nothing he could do except carry on, attempting the impossible but no longer believing it to be anything else … Again, it was like looking back on the workings of a mind that was not your own. He thought he must have seen the risks and subconsciously decided to ignore them, push on as if they didn’t exist. But they did. They were here. And having come this far he had to go on with it, acting as if he’d assessed the risks and accepted them, expected to come through it …

  If he bungled it, and got her stuck here, the Japs would bomb her into scrap.

  Chevening called sharply, “Five fathoms, sir!”

  According to the chart there should have been eight, all the way through!

  “Stop both engines.”

  “Stop both, sir!”

  The whalers’ crews were going to have to pull farther than they’d expected. He was sweating. Before he spoke he paused, getting hold of his nerves, ensuring that his voice was steady.

  “Bob. Pass the word to Ormrod and Brown that I’m slipping them a mile farther out than we’d intended. Man and lower both whalers, please.”

  Each boat would have a leadsman taking soundings. Lieutenant Brown’s boat would be Defiant’s guide, immediately ahead of her, while Ormrod’s ranged farther ahead and from side to side across the bows to locate the channel and lead Brown to it. Each twenty-seven-foot whaler had five oars and a coxswain, so there’d be eight men in each,

  and the officers in charge of them had blue-shaded signal lamps for communication. Defiant was going to have to follow at no greater speed than the boats could be rowed, and she’d certainly be late in getting to her hiding-place. It would be a race with the sunrise, now, but it would be just a little less dangerous than it would have been to have gone ahead without having the boats down. The echo-sounder wouldn’t be much use from here on. You needed to know what was ahead of the ship, not what was already under her.

  She was slowing, and Gant reported that the two whalers were manned and lowered, ready to slip. There was no need to stop her this time. You could drop a seaboat from the disengaging gear even when you had quite a lot of way on. He’d only slowed her now because she’d be moving like a snail from here onwards in any case, and to start with the boats had to be allowed to get up ahead of her. He told Gant, “Slip both whalers,” heard the two crashes as they hit the water, and moved to the front of the bridge, beside Chevening, to see them both pull ahead. Like black water-beetles down there … It was Gant who’d picked Ormrod and Brown for the boat-work. Nick had told him he needed level-headed, steady characters who were experienced seamen and who’d use their initiative and find ways round problems when they came up against them. His own brain here would be operating through theirs—extensions of his own, well out ahead.

  Brown had positioned his boat dead ahead of the cruiser: his orders were to keep about thirty to fifty yards ahead. Ormrod’s whaler was pushing on, five oarblades swirling the dead-flat water at each stroke. He was to keep about fifty yards ahead of Brown, and to range over a channel-width of a hundred feet, marking it when it was narrower than that and reporting and marking hazards. He had a dozen white-painted spar-buoys under his boat’s thwarts, and Brown had more in case he needed them.

  Nick told Wiley, “I’ll be using one screw only now, with an occasional touch ahead and then stopping. We’ll be following our own boats through foul water.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  It might have made things easier if they’d had normal conning, with the wheelhouse in action and the quartermaster able to look ahead through his small window and see where he was going. From this upper bridge, Wiley and his assistants were six decks down.

  “Slow ahead starboard.”

  “Slow ahead starboard, sir …”

  “Steer one degree to port.”

  Down there, they’d still follow courses on the compass card, but Nick would only be keeping her stem pointing at Brown’s whaler. “Cutter’s inshore, out of sight, sir.”

  “Good.” Gant had been at the back end of the bridge, watching the cutter through binoculars. Nick said into the telephone, “Stop starboard.”

  “Stop starboard, sir … Starboard telegraph to stop, sir.”

  “If you think you’re losing steerage way, let me know at once.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Creeping in. A touch ahead, then stop, drifting forward until the boats had increased their distance again. Then another shove, to push her along behind them. He wondered what he’d do if they came up against a solid barrier of coral, if the channel came to an end. It was quite possible that it would. Anchor, hope for the best, send the boats inshore for camouflaging materials? It would be a very awkward hole to be in, and even more awkward to get out of. Turning her, for instance, in this narrow channel would be quite a problem. Defiant’s waterline length was four hundred and sixty-five feet. He realized he’d probably have to take her out astern. God Almighty … But then, if you got stuck to that extent, you’d be lucky if you got as far as facing that particular extra problem, the one of getting out … Sweating again. From ahead, faintly across the water, he heard Brown’s leadsman call, “And a quarter five!”

  Five and one-quarter fathoms, they had there. The mark on the leadline at five fathoms was a piece of white bunting. There was no mark at six, and such unmarked depths were called “deeps.” In-between soundings were reported as references to the five mark, or to the seven which had red bunting. At four there was no mark on the line; at three, there were three strips of leather. How, or how long ago the peculiar system had become established, would be a question for historians in the National Maritime Museum; but Drake in his voyage of circumnavigation probably had leadlines marked like these. “A quarter less five!”

  The report was to Brown in the sternsheets of the whaler, not to Nick back here. But it was reassuring to hear it, even though they’d lost three feet of water between the last two soundings. There was still a depth of twenty-seven feet there, and Defiant only needed sixteen to float in.

  Gant slapped his own neck, and cursed quietly. “The bloody things …”

  “A half less five!”

  “Slow ahead starboard.”

  Creeping in. So far so good, but you might be stopped at any moment. Land-smell foetid, thoroughly unpleasant. Mosquitoes were getting to be a nuisance, and all the repellent stuff they had on board had been issued to the marines. Defiant trembled as one screw churned, pushing her up closer to the boats. Fine on the bow, Ormrod’s blue lamp flashed dot-dash-dot, “R” for rock. He’d put a marker over it, then prospect for a wide enough, deepwater passage round it, if there was one … Nick wondered again what Gant would have done, if he’d been the man to decide it. Whatever he’d said when Nick had asked him, you could be fairly sure he wouldn’t have tried this way out. On the face of it, he’d have had more sense; but even if he’d considered it, wouldn’t Chevening’s quiet hysterics have persuaded him to drop it? Then Defiant wouldn’t have been in this knife-edge situation. But where would she have been?

  Spending a day at sea, the first idea he’d had? That would be much more dange
rous. And as for the idea of going west to Sunda—

  “Stop starboard.”

  “Stop starboard, sir!”

  Stop thinking … It was something foreign to him, this doubting introspection. It was also pointless and potentially destructive. The result of that bang on the head, and high time he got over it. He thought, one hand up feeling the bandaging around his head, You’re in it, just get on with it … Beyond that rock, which he’d buoyed, Ormrod was leading round to starboard. Making the buoy a starboard-hand mark, as it were. If this was the point for the turn in towards the creek, or inlet, there wasn’t such a vast distance to be covered now. About—perhaps three thousand yards; something like that. But even three thousand yards at rowing pace, in boats that were also sounding as they went, would take some time to cover, and meanwhile a faint radiance eastward and overhead was a warning.

  He checked the ship’s head: it was on a hundred and forty-six degrees. Then the bearing of Brown’s whaler. The course, he reckoned, would be about due south, and she’d need more steerage-way to make the turn, even if it brought him up a bit close behind the boats.

  “Slow ahead port.”

  “Slow ahead port, sir. Port telegraph slow ahead, sir.”

  “Starboard five.”

  “Starboard five, sir … Five degrees of starboard wheel on, sir.”

  You felt the gentle push from that screw. And then the cruiser was bringing her bow around slowly to follow in the whaler’s path.

  “Midships.”

  “Midships, sir. Wheel’s amidships, sir.”

  It was very quiet in the bridge. Chevening, Nick thought, was probably holding his breath. Not a bad idea, in this hothouse stink. He sighted across the compass again, on Brown’s boat, and told Wiley to steer one-seven-eight. There was no absolute guarantee of safety in having boats out ahead, all this creepy-crawly stuff. There could well be a rock pinnacle which neither leadsman would pick up, and it wouldn’t be their fault if they didn’t: no one’s fault, everyone’s disaster. Sepanjang rose darkly ahead, blotting out a section of the lightening sky. To port,

  where the land was lower, the brightening was more evident. It was the first showing of the dawn, and they were running neck and neck with it. Running like a tortoise runs when it isn’t in a hurry; and it was anyone’s guess how long the berthing process would take. Gant murmured, “Another rock ahead, sir.”

  Ormrod flashing “R” again. Right ahead. So the channel leading inshore had a hazard smack in the middle of it. It could even be a reef, a barrier right across it which the chart didn’t show.

  “Stop port.”

  Defiant was very close behind Brown’s whaler, since he’d had to keep a screw going all through the turn. He said into the telephone, cutting across Wiley’s acknowledgement, “Steer one degree to starboard.”

  If he couldn’t find a way past that rock, Ormrod would flash “S” for “stop.” Or, until he was sure of it, “W” for “wait.” Nick focused his glasses on that more distant boat. He could see the spar-buoy in the water, and the whaler was under oars again, pulling away to the right. He could see the leadsman’s upright figure in its bow.

  Gant murmured, “Getting lighter, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  Did Gant imagine he was blind?

  Ormrod’s boat was still moving to the right, oars sweeping slowly. Stopping, holding water …

  The blue lamp flashed “R.”

  Another rock. It would be thirty, forty yards from the first one. Thirty yards was ninety feet, and Defiant’s beam was just on fifty. He muttered in his mind, Check the depths between them and beyond … He’d seen the second marker buoy go over the whaler’s stern; the port-side oars were backing water, to turn her back across the channel. He said to Gant, “Glad I don’t have to pull an oar in this fug.”

  Silence: the silence of surprise, he hoped. He’d wanted to show Gant that he was relaxed and confident. Brown’s boat was edging across to starboard.

  “Slow ahead port.” He added to Gant, “God knows how we’ll breathe when the sun gets up.” Ormrod’s whaler was crossing the gap between the two spar-buoys, sounding as it went. The leadsmen weren’t actually heaving their leads, only dabbing them up and down, feeling the bottom as they went along. A boat’s lead weighed seven pounds and was shaped like a thin leg of mutton. It had a cavity in its end into which you could put tallow wax so as to bring up a sample of the ground and know whether it was sand or mud or what. That was important, so as to know whether or not it was good holding ground for an anchor. There was a lot to know about leadlines: that you measured them, for instance, when they were wet, and stretched a new line by towing it astern of a ship. Drake had probably done those things too, in his time: but he wouldn’t have tried to get in behind Sepanjang in a ship drawing sixteen feet. Well, he might have.

  “Stop port. Steer three degrees to starboard.”

  Ormrod’s boat had found the channel clear between the markers; it was moving on between them towards the shore. There was a veining of light overhead and a gleam of treetops, palms, along a high slope leading upwards towards blackness. Brown’s boat was under way again, pulling after Ormrod’s and aiming to pass exactly in the middle between the two spar-buoys. Nick heard the leadsman’s hail: “And a half, three!” Twenty-one feet. At that point, forty yards ahead, the ship would have five feet of water between her keel and the mud. Ormrod’s whaler was almost impossible to see against the land’s shadow; it was easy enough with binoculars, though. They were close in now, really very close. The picture of this bit of the chart which he had in his visual memory was of a line of reef indented like a funnel leading to the inlet, and Defiant would be entering it now, or soon, moving slowly towards its narrowing inshore neck. Out here the edges of the funnel were banks of coral, but right inside where he wanted to hide her—if he could get her in that far—they’d merge into mudbanks and the mangroves. From right ahead, a blue light flashed “W,” meaning “wait.”

  She was virtually stopped already. Forty yards ahead Brown’s whaler was taking soundings. The signal to wait might mean that Ormrod had come up against some obstruction, or it could mean he’d found the inlet and was investigating it. There’d be some exploration to be done. You needed the depth of water to get in there, and the length of navigable water from the mouth inwards so as to berth her right inside, and at the inner, bow end they’d have to land and find a tree stout enough to take a cable from the foc’sl. The hemp cable would be passed out through the bullring, and when it had been secured ashore the inboard end would be brought to the capstan, to warp her in.

  “Boat coming up astern, sir!”

  Number three lookout on the starboard side had reported it. Gant went back to take a look, but it could only be the cutter. It had made good time, but it had had the spar-buoys to follow. It would lie off now, close astern, until it was called for.

  The sky in the east was turning pink and silver, and fissures of colour were like cracks spreading into the darkness overhead. This part of the island was still shadowed, four-fifths dark.

  Ormrod’s light flashed “A.” A dot and a dash. “A” stood for “accessible.”

  Incredible. You had to make yourself believe you’d seen it. If it was true, there should have been trumpets, a fanfare of triumph, celebration. There wasn’t so much as a whisper until Nick said into the telephone, “Slow ahead port.” You had to believe it, because it was happening. As well to postpone self-congratulation or thanks to the Almighty, or any told-you-so to Chevening, until you’d dealt with the dozen-odd problems that would be cropping up during the next half hour … Brown’s whaler was pulling hard, heading inshore to catch up with Ormrod’s. Defiant could now move in and wait where Brown’s had been. And meanwhile, at the risk of spoiling one’s luck by counting unhatched chickens, there were arrangements to be put in hand.

  “Bob. Go aft now, please. Check that Greenleaf’s ready with the stream anchor. I want it ready for letting go, and the quarterdeck telephon
e manned, now. Hail the cutter and tell Wainwright to keep clear of the wire. When you’re satisfied with Greenleaf’s arrangements, go for’ard and see Rowley’s making sense on the foc’sl. I’d like you to gravitate between the two. All right?”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Flynn?”

  Flynn answered from the back of the bridge: “Sir?”

  “Stand by the depth charge telephone, Flynn, and don’t leave it.”

  That was the communication line to the quarterdeck. The stream anchor—the stern one—would by now have a steel-wire rope shackled to its short swivel-length of cable; it would be let go more than a ship’s length outside the inlet, and the wire would be paid out as she nosed in. When they were ready to sneak away tonight it would be brought to the after capstan and the ship would be eased out sternfirst.

  “Stop together … Pilot, how much water?”

  “Two feet under the keel, sir.”

  In that inlet, he guessed, she’d crease the mud. He told Chevening to stand by the foc’sl telephone. He had no other work for him now, and in this operation co-ordinating the actions on the foc’sl with those on the quarterdeck, getting the right orders and information to and fro, was vital. He said into the quartermaster’s telephone, “Slow astern together.” To take the way off her, hold her where she lay now. The cutter would wait astern until the ship was in and secured, and then it would be used for landing the other sections of Royal Marines. Brown’s whaler would be coming out to the ship in a minute, paying out a light line to measure the right distance for letting go the stream anchor; they’d only need to measure the distance to her stem. The same line would be passed inboard, up to the foc’sl and in through the bullring, and it would then be used to haul a heavier line from ship to shore. On the end of that one the mooring cable would be dragged over.