A Ship Must Die (1981)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Blake felt the sun, hot already, through his shirt. He put on his sun-glasses as he ran up the next ladder, conscious of the men watching him, the faces he knew so well, many he did not know at all . . . yet.

  He had learned several years back that if he was worried about a ship’s company it was certain they were more worried about the man who commanded them.

  He reached the upper bridge and glanced around at the figures who filled it. Villar, the navigating officer, standing high on the compass platform taking a test fix on some object in the dockyard. Boatswain’s mates, messengers, a newcomer too, Lieutenant Trevett of the Royal Australian Navy, who was assisting Villar for the moment. Harry Buck, the chief yeoman of signals, portly and red like a toby jug, a marine bugler, two signalmen, each man an essential part, fitting in or feeling his way.

  The harbour pilot touched his cap. ‘Fine day, Cap’n.’ He gestured towards a tug. ‘There’s another waiting downstream.’ He grinned hugely. ‘Not do at all to see a Pom cruiser on the mud, eh?’

  Fairfax gritted his teeth. ‘Hell, another comedian.’

  A seaman at a voice-pipe called, ‘Brow’s ashore, sir.’

  Blake climbed up on to the fore-gratings and glanced briefly at the scrubbed wooden chair which was bolted there. How many days and nights had he sat there, trying to sleep, trying to stay awake? Out here, in the sunlight, it seemed like a dream. A nightmare.

  ‘Single up to headrope and backspring.’

  He ignored the repeated order and the sudden movement on the quarterdeck. To onlookers on the shore and elsewhere it would seem like a shambles. Men cutting away whippings and fighting with coils of greasy, treacherous mooring wire. On the forecastle, the first lieutenant, characteristically hands on hips, stood right in the bows, in the eyes of the ship. Near him a signalman waited to haul down the jack the moment the ship got under way.

  ‘All gone aft, sir.’

  Blake crossed the bridge and leaned over the warm screen. The tug was ready to pull the stern out. There was no wind to help.

  ‘Stand by.’

  He heard the shrill clamour of telegraphs and pictured Couzins, the coxswain, in the dark cool of the wheelhouse with his quartermasters. Unyielding, like the armour-plate which protected the helm, as he had been during every such moment and in action more times than Blake could remember.

  A boatswain’s mate called nervously, ‘Beg pardon, sir, but the W/T office has an urgent signal.’

  He was speaking to Fairfax but Blake snapped, ‘Read it out, man!’

  ‘Slow ahead starboard.’ The bridge quivered and then almost imperceptibly Andromeda nudged forward, Scovell’s forecastle party hurrying to slacken off the big spring as it took the strain. ‘Stop starboard.’

  The harbour pilot was waving a small flag at the tug master. Froth surged at the tug’s counter and a wire hawser appeared dripping between the two ships as she gently but firmly pulled the cruiser’s elegant stern away from the piles.

  Through it all the boatswain’s mate’s voice intruded like a bandsaw.

  ‘Signal intercepted from ss Argyll Clansman, sir. Position latitude 41 degrees south, longitude 38 east. Am being attacked by German raider.’

  Blake watched the shadowed arrowhead of water expanding steadily between the ship’s side and the berth’s stout piles, the sunlight flooding down to fill it.

  ‘Let go forrard.’

  His mind was like ice. Frozen. So that he could see and do all these things and still hang on to the seaman’s words.

  The man said huskily, ‘No further transmission, sir.’

  ‘All clear forrard, sir!’

  Fairfax said quickly, ‘Tell the W/T office to let me know if anything else comes.’

  He turned and looked up to where Blake stood high on the gratings, his cap tilted over his dark glasses to hold back the fierce glare.

  The ship, lean and beautiful, stood out at forty-five degrees from the berth and the line of bowing gantrys. Perfect.

  If Blake felt any emotion or surprise at the signal he had not allowed it to interfere with his ship-handling. Even the harbour pilot was watching him with something like awe.

  ‘Slow astern together. Wheel amidships.’

  Blake looked at the funnel with its growing plume of pale smoke. Then down towards the decks again, the white caps of the seamen flowing along either side as if independent of their owners as they hurried to secure the wires and fenders, the strops and lashings, until the next time.

  Somewhere a ship had been killed. That last pathetic signal still hung over the bridge like an epitaph.

  ‘Stop together. Cast off from the tug, if you please. Tell her “thank you”, Yeoman.’

  Villar was crouching over his gyro-compass, his eyes slitted in the sunlight.

  Blake said, ‘Starboard twenty, slow ahead port.’

  He waited for the bows to swing again, saw the land sliding away as if it and not the ship were moving.

  ‘Midships. Slow ahead together.’ He glanced impassively at the harbour pilot. ‘All yours.’

  Blake realized he was staring at the Australian lieutenant and that the man was obviously expecting a reprimand or worse.

  Blake asked, ‘Trevett, isn’t it? Well, I’d like you to help the navigating officer to maintain a special chart from now on. Positions, possible sightings, distances, anything which might help us to get the feel of the raider’s movements.’

  He swung round and added sharply, ‘Tell the engineroom, less revs at present.’ He saw the harbour pilot’s shoulders relax slightly and added, ‘She may be a cruiser, but she reacts like a destroyer.’

  The man grinned thankfully. ‘You can say that again, Cap’n. She’s quite a handful.’

  Blake raised his glasses and trained them on the shore. On the last jetty he saw a parked car. In the back he recognized the shape of Captain Quintin, but beside it he saw the Wren officer, leaning against the door, her arms folded as she watched the cruiser turning slowly clear of the other shipping and towards the Bay.

  Fairfax asked, ‘Shall I fall out harbour stations, sir?’

  ‘Yes. We will exercise action stations the moment we have dropped the pilot.’ He saw the surprise on Fairfax’s tanned features. ‘Everything. I want the new hands especially to get their confidence, their bearings.’ He gave a sad smile and touched Fairfax’s arm. ‘We’re back in the war, as of now.’

  Blake felt a hand on his shoulder and in seconds was awake. For a moment longer he looked around the small sea cabin, getting his bearings, putting his mind in order once again. How different from those other times, he thought wearily, and it was still impossible to accept the vastness of this ocean, the emptiness.

  In the Mediterranean there had rarely been an hour, let alone a day, without an aircraft sighting, a bombing attack, a rescue attempt for some poor, battered merchantman.

  He turned and looked at Moon’s face, pale in the small light above the bunk. A cup of tea vibrated gently in his hand.

  Moon said, ‘Dawn comin’ up, sir. Very quiet. As per usual, as they say, sir.’

  The door closed silently behind him, but not before Blake heard the shipboard sounds which were part of his life. Shoes shuffling on deck and at gun sponsons, lookouts feeling the morning chill and their own frailty after hours of watchkeeping.

  Blake put his feet on the scrap of carpet and felt Andromeda’s heartbeat pulsing up through each deck and flat, magazine and cabin. She was making nearly twenty knots, which after her short refit was asking a lot. If Weir was worried he was careful not to show it. He knew what was required and would speak out if he thought necessary.

  Ten days out of Williamstown. He sipped the scalding tea and thought about it. Just three days after the Argyll Clansman made her frantic call for help there had been another. An old Greek freighter named Kios, which but for the needs of war would have been in the breaker’s yard long since. She had lost her screw and had forgotten all the rules about security. She had been alone, stopped and
helpless. There was not much her skipper could have done but fill the air with his calls for aid.

  Then the signal had changed. Blake had been in the W/T office with Fairfax while Lougher, the Australian chief petty officer telegraphist, had tried to hold the feeble contact to the end. It was much like the last one, Blake thought. The Kios’s position, she was being attacked, then nothing. He tried not to think about the old freighter’s final moments, the terrible realization that the oncoming ship was not help but an assassin. He concentrated instead on the bare facts. That the Greek’s position was nine hundred miles east of the Argyll Clansman’s. Nine hundred miles in three days. That would put the raider’s speed at some fourteen knots. But what was the point of it? The German had no way of knowing if assistance was already on its way to the Greek, so why the uneconomical dash, the waste and wear which would be alien to any commerce raider?

  He put down the cup and stood up, immediately aware of the ship’s regular rise and plunge as she maintained her course and speed. He could even picture her like the old photograph in his cabin down aft. Seven thousand tons, evenly proportioned. Her four twin turrets pointing ahead and astern, the other, smaller guns positioned around her superstructure like guardians. The big, stream-lined funnel above a central boiler room, the bridge, everything which made a ship, a cruiser. And her people, all five hundred and fifty of them, officers, seamen, stokers, marines, scattered throughout Andromeda’s hull, some, like himself, just being awakened, although very few would be greeted with a cup of tea.

  What were they thinking about? he wondered. Of distant homes, loved ones, lost ones. Some longed to return to their wives and their girlfriends, others dreaded the prospect.

  He put on his cap, slung his glasses around his neck and stepped out of the cabin.

  Vague figures loomed past him or stood respectfully aside as if to become invisible.

  The morning watch had settled down, the keen air over the bridge soon took care of sleep, dreams of bunks or snug hammocks.

  Scovell had the watch and was lounging in one corner of the bridge, while his young assistant, Sub-Lieutenant Walker, a New Zealander, stood apart by the ready-use chart table.

  ‘Morning, Number One.’ Blake crossed to his chair and climbed into it. The smooth wooden arms felt cold. In a matter of hours they would be like furnace bars.

  Scovell moved towards him, his hair ruffling in the air which hissed over the forward screen.

  Blake peered ahead, then down at A and B turrets, the six-inch guns overlapping in pairs. It was still very dark beyond the slender barrels, but he could see the white painted anchor cables on the forecastle, the blob of a seaman walking aft with a bucket.

  Scovell said, ‘Nothing to report, sir.’

  Blake nodded and put his unlit pipe between his teeth. By nothing to report, the first lieutenant meant there was nothing which he could not handle. Scovell was excellent at his job but difficult to work with. Intolerant over carelessness and even small breaches of discipline, and yet willing to spend hours with a junior watchkeeper until he was satisfied with his performance. The perfect first lieutenant. On paper, that is.

  ‘How are they all settling down together, Number One?’

  Scovell levelled his glasses above the screen and then let them fall to his chest again.

  ‘All right, sir. I’ve a few defaulters, but the commander will deal with them.’ He sounded bored with it. ‘A fight or two, some disagreements over messing, the usual hard-cases finding out they’re not so tough as they imagined.’

  A voice said quietly, ‘Radar wants permission to shut down, sir.’

  Scovell swung on the man. ‘What the hell? Again?’

  To Blake he added in a controlled tone, ‘May I go and see the senior operator, sir? He’s reliable.’ He gave a rare smile. ‘Which is more than can be said for the equipment!’

  Blake replied, ‘Carry on. I’ll be here until we exercise action at six bells.’

  He could almost feel the resentment behind him. But he had kept it up every day since leaving harbour. Action stations, fire drill, damage control, man overboard, the whole book. They could moan as much as they liked, but he knew that they were no way near ready to meet an enemy on level footing yet.

  He leaned back in the chair, feeling the gentle pressure of one arm against his ribs and then the other as the ship swayed slightly from side to side. He saw spray flying like spindrift from the sharp stem and imagined the water parting across her bows as she sliced forward.

  A good ship, everyone said. And a lucky one. So, resentment or not, he would see that where possible luck would continue.

  He heard the sub-lieutenant’s shoes moving on the gratings and said, ‘Come here, Sub.’

  Walker moved up beside him. A slim, dark-haired youth of nineteen, he would be a good example for the unruly midshipmen under his care, Blake thought.

  Walker came from Wellington, the “windy city”, he called it.

  ‘Well, Sub, what do you make of all this?’

  Walker shifted his feet. It was the first time he had ever been alone with the captain.

  He said quietly, ‘I think we’ll catch the raider, sir. Trouble is. . . .’ He fell silent as Blake turned to look at him.

  Blake said, ‘No, go on. Tell me.’

  ‘I think we need a carrier, sir. It’s too big an area for us and Fremantle. The German might be anywhere, go anywhere.’

  Blake nodded. ‘True. But to have any success a raider has to cross and re-cross our main trade routes. In the past, the raiders have cut the sea into a grid, each square a rendezvous for meeting a supply vessel or for marking down a convoy for shadowing or attack. The grid is used by their people in Berlin too, rather like pushing model ships about a big chart in the War Room.’

  Rather like us, he thought with sudden bitterness. Moved and used.

  ‘Anyway, Sub, every carrier is pure gold at the moment. Cruisers are the best bet, with the range and the hitting power. What we need now is a bit of real luck. Then we shall see.’

  Walker, who had been in the ship for seven months, and had survived the last battle without a scratch, said, ‘I’d not want to leave this ship. If she were mine.’

  Blake looked at him, moved by his sincerity. ‘I know. I was of two minds in Williamstown. If you must leave a special ship it’s best to break quickly and cleanly. But when my chance came to stay with her I didn’t hesitate.’ He knew Walker was staring at him but added simply, ‘When you get a command, you’ll know. You may serve in a dozen ships, but there’s always one which stands out.’ He reached out and touched the quivering steel.

  ‘Able Seaman Evans requests permission to be relieved on the wheel, sir.’

  ‘Very well.’ Walker did not want to break the spell while the watch continued around them.

  He said, ‘My dad was in the last war, sir. At Gallipoli. He often talks about it, puts on his medals on Anzac Day.’ He smiled affectionately. ‘I’ll bet he’d like to be here right now.’

  Blake looked away, thinking of his own father. His mother had died shortly after that same war, in the terrible influenza epidemic which had swept the country like a plague. A nation worn down by sacrifice, bad food and despair.

  He could see his father as he had once been. A quiet, grave-eyed man. A fine seaman, as Quintin had described him. Now he was just a husk, a mindless being for most of the time, nodding in his chair or pottering in a garden he no longer recognized. There were worse ways of dying than in a fighting ship, Blake thought. His father had been dying for years.

  Scovell came back into the bridge muttering to himself.

  Blake faced the sea again, excluding the watch, keeping within himself.

  He heard Scovell say, ‘God Almighty, you’re a degree off course, Sub! Wandering all over the ocean like a drunken duck! What did they teach you in your Maori encampment or wherever you come from, eh?’

  Walker replied brightly, ‘Lots of things, sir! How to do a war-dance. . . .’

&n
bsp; ‘All right, Sub,’ Scovell interupted heavily, ‘I can manage without the humour at this hour, thank you!’

  Blake smiled. Walker would do all right. More to the point, Scovell was man enough to know it.

  As sunlight spilled over the horizon and brought life and colour to the ship and the sea around her, the gongs jangled like mad things and the tannoy bellowed, ‘Hands to exercise action!’

  The bridge shook with feet stampeding up ladders and through doors. Hatches clanged shut, clips rammed home, while voice-pipes and telephones kept up their insane chorus.

  ‘A and B turrets closed up, sir!’

  ‘Damage control parties closed up, sir!’

  ‘Short-range weapons closed up, sir!’

  From end to end, from range-finder to the depths of the deepest magazine, until Fairfax reported smartly, ‘Ship at action stations, sir.’

  Blake glanced at his watch. Better. A little better anyway.

  ‘Very well. Fall out. Port watch to defence stations. But pass the word to all lookouts. The radar’s playing up again, so no slacking on reports.’

  Eagerly the watch below scurried from their action stations, and with his usual dignity the marine bugler stepped up to his microphone, puffed out his cheeks and blew.

  Hands to breakfast and clean.

  Blake slid from his chair. Another day.

  Walker stood up sharply from a voice-pipe. ‘Sir! Masthead reports wreckage in the water, dead ahead!’

  Blake jumped back to his chair and stabbed his thumb on the red button below the screen. Action stations shrilled through his command once again, and startled or bewildered, men cannoned into each other in confusion. Some climbing down ladders to get their breakfast were met head on by others rushing to obey the call.

  Blake raised his glasses and watched the dark, bobbing fragments spreading out to meet the onrushing cruiser.

  Then he said, ‘Slow ahead both engines.’

  He heard Fairfax breathing deeply beside him, like a man who has been running.

  Scovell said, ‘Both engines slow ahead, sir. Seven-zero revolutions.’