A Ship Must Die (1981)

by Reeman, Douglas

  ‘What is it, Vic?’

  He shrugged. ‘I was thinking, Sarah, about tomorrow. Today, actually.’

  ‘Come to bed. It’ll be all right. We’ll manage.’

  Fairfax sat down on the bed and touched her bare shoulder, feeling his pain at leaving her, his need of her.

  She rested her cheek on his hand. ‘Who knows, you might be in Williamstown for months. New captain, new crew, it’ll all take time.’

  She reached out and ran her fingers lightly up his thigh, touching him, then holding him.

  ‘You need the sea, Vic, as much as I need you.’

  He climbed in beside her and without words they made love, slowly at first, and then with a mounting desperation which left them spent and breathless.

  He lay with her yellow hair across his shoulder, his hand firmly against her spine.

  She said huskily, ‘What do you know about Blake?’

  Fairfax smiled at the darkness. ‘A VC, a hero to all accounts. God, his last action reads like something from a film.’

  ‘That all you know?’

  ‘He’s young for his appointment. Bit of a loner, someone told me. He’s married, but it’s on the rocks.’

  She snuggled against him, her hand exploring his body again.

  ‘Well, watch your tongue, Vic. Don’t put up a blue by asking him about his love life!’

  ‘He’ll be off soon, I expect. Back to the real war.’

  ‘You said that as if you resented it.’

  ‘I do a bit. You’ve seen Sydney. Full of Yanks, all covered with medals, and they’ve not heard a gun fired yet. If we’re not careful we’ll be pushed into the side-lines. I joined the Navy for this day and the one to come. Not to end up in a barracks teaching a lot of damn recruits!’

  She said softly, ‘This Blake. He’s not another death-or-glory boy, is he?’ She hugged him tightly. ‘I don’t want to lose you now!’

  He grinned. ‘Down to earth as usual. You’re quite a girl, did anyone tell you that?’

  Fairfax held her until she had fallen asleep again. He had almost blurted out his real worry to her. It was so easy with Sarah. They were like one person.

  Captain Mark Sellars should have been taking over from Blake. He had seen it in orders. Sellars was a good skipper, probably the best man for the job when you considered that half the cruiser’s new company would be as green as grass.

  Now, Sellars had been appointed to another ship which was already serving in the Pacific. No new name had come out of the Navy Office’s hat as far as he had heard. So who was getting the command?

  He closed his eyes, but knew he would not relax until it was time to get up.

  It would be interesting to meet a real hero, he thought. He was still smiling as he fell asleep.

  It was a ten-mile drive from the dockyard to the Navy Office in Melbourne, and as he sat in a fast-moving staff car Blake tried to build up some enthusiasm for what he would have to do. Nobody stayed with any ship for ever. He had served in almost every sort of vessel in his service life, from being a humble and harassed midshipman in a battleship to a sloop, from her to a destroyer, and then on to a cruiser which had been commanded by an aristocrat who had spent more time with his polo ponies than with his responsibilities afloat.

  Blake had learned something from each of them, what to remember and what to discard. The Navy was his world, and with Diana gone there would be nothing else.

  The driver, an Australian seaman, said cheerfully, ‘Bit different from home, I expect, sir?’

  Blake nodded. ‘A bit.’

  The Australian Navy was built on the RN’s traditions and experience, but there it stopped. He could not imagine a British seaman chatting with a four-ringed captain at their first meeting. The man’s casual acceptance was both warming and worrying. The open-handed, outspoken Aussies would have to learn that war was not always that casual. If you knew and understood them it was fair enough. But in Malaya and Singapore the Japanese army had not understood and had won every battle.

  The car jerked to a halt in a patch of dusty shadow and the seaman said, ‘Here we are. First right, second left.’ He grinned. ‘Sir.’

  Blake walked into the shadowy interior and showed his identity card automatically to a man at a small desk. The man stared at him. ‘Go right in. You’re expected.’

  Blake nodded. There was not much security down-under, he thought. But perhaps he had become too used to it.

  He was shown into a cool office where two Wrens were typing busily and their officer was leafing through a folder on the opposite side of the room.

  She looked at him impassively. ‘Captain Blake.’ Her glance moved to his decoration. ‘This way, sir.’ She was tall when she stood up, her face and hands very tanned, as if she were more used to the open air than an office.

  A stoutly built captain, as old for his rank as Blake was youthful, ambled round a large desk and shook his hand.

  ‘Sit down and take it easy.’ He glanced at the impassive Wren officer. ‘Okay, Claire, you can organize some tea when you get a moment.’ The door closed.

  The captain said, ‘I’m Jack Quintin. I’m sorry to drag you here first, and I know you’ve an appointment with the First Naval Member of the Board in thirty minutes. However. . . .’ He perched himself on the edge of the desk. ‘My job is to liaise intelligence between the RAN and your people. I did most of my time with the RN, so I’m the obvious choice, I guess.’ He grinned. ‘I’d be on the beach with a pension otherwise!’ It seemed to amuse him.

  Blake said, ‘I sent my report about the ship’s present strength. There is a list of requirements for the dockyard manager, too. They only did a temporary job after the –’ The words seemed to stick in his throat.

  Captain Quintin eyed him gravely. ‘We all heard. It must have been a terrible fight.’ He pushed it from his mind and added, ‘Fact is, you will not be leaving Andromeda just yet.’

  Blake looked up quickly. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t really know. But a full refit will have to wait. Your ship is needed at sea. It’s as simple as that.’

  Simple? Blake stared at him. Over half the ship’s company gone, much of the machinery in need of overhaul, even replacement.

  He said, ‘I understood that HMAS Devonport will be ready for any emergency while Andromeda is fitting out?’

  Nothing he said seemed to make sense. He was staying in command, but why?

  Quintin said, ‘It’s all top secret of course, but Devonport’s gone.’

  Blake exclaimed, ‘How?’

  Quintin spread his hands. ‘She was on the long patrol, the Cape Town to Melbourne convoy route. Pretty quiet these days, and anyway Devonport can, or could, take care of herself.’

  Blake got a brief mental picture of the missing ship. A sizeable cruiser with the ability to patrol great areas of ocean without refuelling. Eight eight-inch guns, aircraft, a powerful force to be reckoned with.

  The older man said, ‘We received the usual signal, then nothing. We’ve mounted a full search, escorts from an incoming convoy, aircraft, the Americans, everybody.’ He banged one hand into the other. ‘Damn all. Not even an empty raft.’

  Blake wondered if he was thinking of another Australian cruiser, the famous Sydney. She had fought with a German raider in these very waters just over two years back and had sunk her. But Sydney had paid bitterly for her victory. The last that anybody had ever seen of her, including the many German survivors from the battle, she had been steaming away under a pall of smoke. Then she had vanished. Just a battered life-raft. It was as if she had never been. Oblivion.

  She had been a modified version of the Leander class, like Ajax and Achilles which had won their fame against the Graf Spee at the River Plate. Blake felt the uneasiness stir his insides. The same as Andromeda.

  ‘With the Americans building up pressure in the Pacific, and the war in your part of the world taking a turn for the better, we’ve been left very much alone. Bigger events elsewhere ha
ve tended to make us too smug maybe.’ Quintin offered Blake a cigarette but then said, ‘Of course, you’re a pipe man.’

  He became serious again. ‘Fact is, we’ve lost trace of several ships in the past few months. Merchantmen sailing independently for the most part. You know the sort of thing.’

  ‘You think the enemy’s got another raider in these waters, is that it?’

  ‘Could be.’ Quintin looked at a large wall chart of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. ‘The last operational raider which had any success out here was the Michel. She was sunk by a US sub about three months ago. But that was way up in Japanese waters.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘We’ve been in regular contact with the Admiralty in London and someone very high up made a signal to us just a few days after you berthed at Williamstown.’

  Blake considered it. Even with her experienced and seasoned hands to back up a new company, Andromeda was unfit for immediate service. But against that he could appreciate Quintin’s and the Australian Navy’s point of view.

  The next few months were very important for the Allies, even crucial. It was obvious an invasion would be launched against Occupied France while the armies continued to push up through Italy from the south.

  Every man, ship, tank and gun would be vital. There would be no second chance. It had to come off. If they missed it when the European weather improved they would have to wait another year. In Russia the German armies now on the defensive might regroup and push through yet again. In the snow and misery of the Russian front, despite the horrifying casualty lists, they had already achieved a brutal but significant record.

  And in two world wars the Germans had learned to make good use of commerce raiders. There was no better way of disrupting the supply routes and making convoys take longer diversions to avoid attack. Equally important, the fact that a raider was known to be at large necessitated the deployment of large numbers of warships to seek out and destroy her.

  If there was such a ship in these vast sea areas, the German command could not have picked a finer moment. Convoys round the Cape with men for the Pacific. Convoys from New Zealand and Australia with supplies for Britain. Hundreds of valuable ships, any one of which might be vital to some part of the war machine.

  Quintin was saying, ‘Anyway, the First Naval Member will put you in the picture. I thought you’d want me to soften the blow.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I knew your father. Liked him a lot. A fine seaman.’

  The door opened and the Wren officer said calmly, ‘Flags is here, sir. The admiral’s ready for Captain Blake.’

  Blake looked at her. ‘Thanks.’ To Quintin he said, ‘I imagine it’s going to be quite a day, one way or the other.’ He thought of Andromeda’s motto. Help from on High. They were all going to need it.

  As the door closed behind him the captain said, ‘Well, Claire, what did you make of him?’

  She brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. ‘I think they expect too much. He looks like a man who has been through hell and back.’ She grimaced. ‘He’s going to love our Commodore Stagg, I don’t think!’

  As she left him alone again, Captain Quintin gathered up his papers then let them fall on the desk unheeded.

  He had been serving in a British light cruiser in that other, almost forgotten war. That was where he had met Blake’s father. Christ, he thought, were we ever as young as that?

  As soon as he returned on board, Blake went to his day cabin and opened his new orders.

  Moon appeared and said, ‘Commander Fairfax ’as arrived, sir. ’E was down in the forrard magazine when you came off shore. Didn’t get a chance to greet you, so to speak.’

  Blake sat back in his chair, his mind still buzzing from his interview with the admiral in Melbourne.

  Two cruisers were to be used to track down the raider if there was one reported, and be at first-degree readiness to carry out a search in whatever area it was known to be. Simple. A needle in a haystack would be gigantic by comparison.

  To Moon he said, ‘Ask him to come aft, then send for Number One.’

  Lieutenant-Commander Francis Scovell was Andromeda’s first lieutenant. A tall, thin officer with a disdainful manner. Of all the cruiser’s wardroom, he had been the one to miss the last savage battle. His reasons for being away at the time were not of his making, as he had been sent to North Africa in command of a small blockade-runner which Andromeda had caught close inshore during the night.

  It just proved you could never be certain of anything. After she had convoyed the landing craft to Italy, Andromeda should have gone home for a refit anyway. Scovell was due a command, though God help anybody unfortunate enough to serve under him, Blake thought.

  The three cruisers had changed everything. Now the ship was in Australia. The lieutenant who had temporarily taken over Scovell’s duties had been killed, and the first lieutenant moved about the decks like a man with some unspeakable disease.

  The door opened a few inches. It was Stock, the chief writer.

  ‘Commander Fairfax is here, sir.’

  Blake liked what he saw. A neat, athletic man with dark hair and a pleasant smile. Crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes as evidence of prolonged sea-duty and bright sunlight.

  They shook hands and Fairfax sat down in the proffered chair.

  Blake eyed him gravely. In at the deep end.

  ‘Andromeda will remain in commission.’ He saw the man’s astonishment and added, ‘What’s your first name, by the way?’

  ‘Victor, sir.’

  ‘Well, Victor, in about two weeks we will proceed to sea to join company with one other cruiser. In that time we will take on the necessary complement of replacements, although thank God I still have most of the key ratings and the marines who man X and Y turrets in this ship. But the rest will have to be led, trained, driven, thumped if necessary into shape, all right?’ He smiled at Fairfax’s expression.

  Fairfax nodded. ‘If you say so, sir.’

  Blake said, ‘There will be a wardroom conference of course. Later, before dinner.’ He cocked his head to listen to the drumming sound of rivet guns and drills. ‘When this bloody row has piped down for another day!’

  ‘A question, sir. Will you speak with the officers, or shall I?’

  Blake smiled. ‘You will. You’re the commander. I’ve sent for Number One to put you in the general picture, although I gather you’ve been prowling round the ship already on your own. I like that.’

  Fairfax stood up, trying to conceal his mixed emotions.

  ‘I’ll get on it right away.’

  ‘Join me for a glass later, Victor. I’ve a ton of paper to go through. You’ve not asked me why there’s such a flap on?’

  ‘I can wait, sir.’

  ‘Well, they think there’s a raider hunting in this territory. We are going to find her. At least, that is the general idea.’ As Fairfax turned towards the door Blake asked, ‘What do you know of a commodore named Stagg?’

  Fairfax swallowed. ‘Very thorough, I believe, sir.’

  ‘You don’t like him?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, sir.’ Fairfax was caught off guard by Blake’s direct manner.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We will be under his command.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Carry on, Commander. There’s a lot to do.’

  Outside the door Fairfax felt as if he was walking on thin ice. Blake was no fool, nor would he tolerate one.

  He saw a thin lieutenant-commander hurrying to meet him. ‘Number One?’

  Scovell eyed him haughtily. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, I want you to go over the watch and quarter bills with me, then we’ll do a complete tour of all departments, right?’

  Scovell drew himself up another inch. ‘This is a pretty-well organized ship, sir.’ When Fairfax remained silent he continued, ‘We’ve seen a lot of action.’

  Fairfax eyed him wryly, knowing they would not get along.

  ‘Sure. But I understood that you missed the really big one, is that right?’

  Moon, who was
passing at the time, hid a grin. Poor old Jimmy the One had put his foot right in it. Serves the snotty bugger right, he thought.

  Blake heard Moon whistling as he bustled about in his little pantry.

  ‘It’s only a reprieve, Moon. Don’t get too excited.’

  Moon peered through the hatch at him. ‘We’ll just ’ave to see about that, won’t we, sir?’

  2

  The Return

  ALTHOUGH ANDROMEDA’S OPERATIONAL role remained a well-kept secret, the speed of her refit became something of a joke around the Williamstown dockyard.

  Dockyard workers, ordnance artificers, engineers and mechanics swarmed over and through her hull like beavers, and Blake could imagine what it was costing in overtime. Other captains complained to the dockyard manager and his staff on the basis of we were here first, but without avail.

  Ten days after Captain Quintin’s bombshell, Blake took a breather to consider the ship’s state. They had done well, and Fairfax’s part had been invaluable. A second-in-command wore two hats. He had to take charge of routine affairs, from manning to discipline, and at the same time had to present the ship to her captain as a going concern, a team, a weapon which Blake could use with confidence under any given condition.

  The new hands arrived and were soon sorted out, notwithstanding a few harsh words from the coxswain, Chief Petty Officer Couzins, to say nothing of Macallan, the dour master-at-arms, who referred to the Australian invasion as being like ‘a home match at Glasgow’.

  But the ship’s company of some five hundred and fifty officers and men were already a mixture long before Andromeda had made her Australian landfall. There was the usual backbone of regulars in both wardroom and messdeck, but the rest were as varied as you might expect in any ship after four years of conflict.

  The pilot and observer of the little seaplane were both temporary RNVR, while the taciturn navigating officer, Lieutenant Max Villar, was a South African who had served his time with the Union Castle Line before the war. Likewise, the paymaster commander, Nigel Cross, had been a chief purser with the old P & O, and Walker, the sub-lieutenant who ruled over the ship’s motley collection of midshipmen, was a New Zealander.