A Ship Must Die (1981)

by Reeman, Douglas

Bump, bump, bump, it was like an MTB as it gathered way, the sea surging back, hardening and roaring along either side until it felt that it would shake itself apart.

  Then, with a shudder, they were off the surface, the engines’ sound smoothing and easing while the pilot took the Catalina in a shallow climb away from the lights on the shore.

  Blake felt the girl’s fingers gripping his wrist, but when he looked at her through the gloom she shook her head desperately.

  ‘Don’t talk, please.’

  Blake understood. In a few minutes she would either be sick or get over it. Until the next time.

  An American, festooned with straps and map cases, stumbled aft towards them. ‘Okay back there? Great! There’ll be coffee and some chow shortly when my buddy stirs himself!’ He clung to the plane and peered through one of the big perspex bubbles on the side. ‘Here we go, folks!’

  Blake smiled to himself. A young, unknown American. Flying above the Indian Ocean and thousands of miles from home. And enjoying every second of it.

  He felt the fingers relax slightly on his arm and was vaguely disappointed when she took her hand away.

  She said huskily, ‘That was close.’

  Opposite them, wedged amongst canvas bags and mysterious parcels, Quintin watched them thoughtfully. They looked just right together, he thought wearily. Pity it couldn’t work out.

  The engines droned and buzzed, until instead of an irritation they became a kind of balm. Robbing them of thought and objectivity. Nothing existed beyond the curved sides of the hull.

  Blake saw Quintin’s head droop as he dozed off. When he turned to speak with the girl she had leaned away from him, her pale hair pillowed on a rolled blanket.

  Blake sighed. It was no way to travel.

  Blake tried to stretch his arms. He peered at his watch, feeling every bone and muscle uniting in protest. Over ten hours they had been flying. A strange, unreal limbo of throbbing engines and pitching movement. Now, the light through the perspex was searing, and far below the ocean was deep, deep blue, broken here and there by tiny white cat’s paws. Blake guessed that each patch of foam was miles apart. It was like a great mill-pond.

  Quintin groaned. ‘Another three hours of this, god-dammit! I’m as stiff as a board!’

  The young American came aft again, the daylight had revealed him to be a sailor.

  ‘More coffee just a-comin’, folks!’ He looked maddeningly fresh and relaxed by comparison.

  Blake glanced at the girl. She was wiping her face with a small cloth and trying to comb her hair at the same time.

  Without turning she said, ‘What wouldn’t I give for a swim.’

  The sailor turned to reply but one of his companions shouted, “Nother plane up thar, Billy!’

  The sailor hung over one of the Catalina’s machine-guns. ‘Navy plane. Must be nearer than we thought.’ He slapped his friend’s back. ‘Nice cool Coke, eh? Then the sack for a coupl’a hours before –’

  The pilot’s voice cut through the intercom. ‘Jesus! It’s a kraut!’

  Blake was aware of several things at once. The young sailor staring at him with disbelief, Quintin reaching for his cap as if he was about to leave and the plane sliding to one side, the port wing tilting towards the blue water.

  Blake threw himself from his small seat and clung to some cargo straps as he peered through the glittering perspex. The Catalina twisted violently, and he heard the pilot shouting over the intercom which he had failed to switch off, ‘Christ Jesus! It’s too damn fast!’

  Then Blake heard it, the sound too familiar ever to be forgotten. Brrrrrrrrr! Brrrrrrrrr! Then the aircraft seemed to leap bodily from its course, reeling sickeningly to the sudden clatter of gunfire.

  The hull cracked and bucked, and Blake was almost blinded by smoky sunlight which suddenly probed through the dim interior like a great fork. Holes appeared everywhere and he could smell burning.

  Above it all he heard the pilot yelling, ‘I’m going down, for God’s sake! Mayday . . . Mayday . . . Mayday!’

  Blake saw the young sailor on his knees, trying to pull his companion from the machine-gun. But there was blood all round him, painted across the metal as if by a madman’s brush.

  More violent cracks and bangs, and Blake shouted, ‘We’ll ditch!’ He reached down and gripped the girl’s wrists. ‘Come on. Let me look at your life-jacket.’

  She stared at him, her lips parted, her eyes suddenly terrified.

  He added, ‘Keep hold of me!’

  He winced as more metal slammed through the Catalina, and he heard a man screaming like a tortured animal in a trap.

  A shadow blotted out the sunlight, and for an instant Blake imagined they were about to hit the water. Then he heard the roar of an engine and saw the brief flash of wings as the other aircraft rushed past.

  It all registered in his brain in a single, despairing second. The black cross on the wing, the spitting tongues of two powerful cannon, the twin floats beneath of a German seaplane. It could have come from nothing else but a ship. The raider.

  The sailor was yelling, ‘Keep calm, folks! Sit down and put your heads on your knees!’ He looked scared out of his wits and his determination to appear otherwise made him even more so. ‘Nobody move until we land!’

  Air swept through the Catalina and the engines were rising to a maniac scream as the pilot fought to level off and prepare to alight on the sea below.

  The girl gripped Blake’s arm with such strength that it was almost numbed.

  She whispered desperately, ‘Oh, God, I’m frightened!’ She sounded as if she were speaking to someone else.

  Brrrrrrrrr! Brrrrrrrrr!

  Someone yelled, ‘Leave us alone, you bastards! We’re ditching!’

  Blake put his arm around her shoulders to turn her face away. As the plane swayed over the dead machine-gunner had fallen backwards at their feet. His face and throat had been blasted away and his flying-suit was still smoking from the tracer.

  Then all at once the sea was there. The plane hit violently, lifted free and smashed down once more, swinging round with the port wing-tip dragging under the surface like a giant scoop. Water surged through the hull and burst over the crouching occupants like waves on a rock. A necklace of blue sparks danced and crackled over the smashed radio, and then the Catalina gave one more terrible jerk before it heeled over, the engines still labouring and roaring like maddened beasts.

  Blake gasped, ‘Now! We’re getting out!’

  The sailor reeled through the surging water towards him. ‘The skipper’s not given the order!’

  Blake eyed him grimly. ‘He’s most likely dead, my lad! He’d have cut the engines otherwise. So it’s up to us!’

  The youth nodded, glad of something to do. ‘I’ll get the rafts ready! You open the hatch!’

  More bangs and grinding noises, and Blake guessed the flying-boat was breaking up.

  He yelled, ‘Have you got a gun?’

  The youth nodded, staring at him.

  Blake snapped, ‘Bring it then.’

  Sunlight tipped through the hatch and then the sea was washing around them, throwing them about like sodden dolls as they fought towards the exit. Two or three other figures were struggling through the hull, one of whom had obviously been wounded in the legs.

  After being shut up in the small interior everything seemed larger and more violent than before. The great surging wash alongside, sweeping over the tilting wing, cruelly beautiful in the harsh sunlight. The insane roar of engines, the feeling of being unable to breathe or to think.

  A second dinghy-like raft bobbed into view on its lanyard and the sailor gasped, ‘Get in, miss!’ He reached to help the girl over the side and then cowered down as the enemy plane came back, its guns stammering as before, flashing across the water to tip the floundering Catalina like a steel saw.

  A man shrieked and fell headlong into the sea, the water frothing pink as he vanished beneath the surface.

  Quintin groaned, ‘The
bugger caught my leg!’

  Blake saw the blood running down Quintin’s thigh even as he rolled heavily into the rubber dinghy and lay staring wide-eyed at the sky.

  The sailor was shouting to his remaining companions and then with a cry cut the dinghy free.

  The Catalina seemed to veer away in seconds, and Blake saw the other Americans framed against the starboard wing, struggling with their dinghy even as the German seaplane roared overhead in a tight turn. Sickened, he watched the feathers of spray darting around the last survivors until the men had vanished and with something like a sigh the broken Catalina lifted its tail and began to sink.

  Blake gasped, ‘Down! Down, all of you!’

  He could feel the tiny boat falling and lifting beneath his spread-eagled body, the very power of the great ocean just an eighth of an inch from him. He was more aware of the girl, pressed against him, her face hidden in his shoulder, her breathing more like gasps of pain.

  The sailor whispered, ‘Here he comes!’ He made a last effort. ‘Bin nice knowing you folks!’

  Quintin groaned, ‘Murdering bastard!’

  The shadow moved swiftly overhead and Blake waited for the final, terrible impact.

  The seaplane’s engine buzzed on and on, and at last he made himself accept it. It was going away. The pilot was satisfied.

  Carefully, Blake lifted his head above the yellow side. He could barely focus his eyes through the glare. But there was no aircraft. Even the Catalina had completely disappeared.

  The sailor swallowed hard and said, ‘There’s someone swimming over there! That’ll be Nicko.’ He started to struggle out of his flying-suit. ‘He’s got a busted leg and lost a lot of blood!’

  Blake seized his wrist. ‘Get down!’ He spoke so fiercely that the youth stared at him in surprise. Blake said, ‘It’s too far.’

  The youth shrugged his hand away. ‘Nicko’s a pal. I’m not leaving him!’

  Blake raised his arm and pointed, hating what he was doing, wishing they had laid in the dinghy for a few more minutes.

  There were perhaps two sharks, but when they hit the wounded man it sounded like a dozen even at fifty yards. It seemed to go on and on, the sea bursting apart with spray and blue-grey shapes.

  The sailor sank down and vomited.

  Blake rested one hand on his shoulder and said quietly, ‘In a minute or two we’ll decide what to do.’

  He looked at the girl, her slim figure rising and falling against the blue water as she leaned on the wet rubber. She was watching his face, his eyes, his mouth, as if to find some comfort there, or perhaps to read her own fate.

  Blake said, ‘It’s the smallest command I’ve ever had, but I’ll do my best.’

  He recalled Fairfax’s remark and his own retort. You’ll do better.

  He looked past the girl and above Quintin’s limp figure and studied the empty sea. If the German had killed each one of them with a revolver he could have done no better.

  With a sigh he looked at the sailor. ‘What’s your name?’

  The youth was shaking badly. ‘They call me Billy,’ he hesitated, ‘sir.’

  Blake kept a firm grip on his shoulder. With Quintin wounded he was going to need his help very much.

  ‘Well, Billy, you help Miss Grenfell –’

  She seemed to come out of her despair and interrupted, ‘Claire. Call me Claire.’ She touched the sailor’s sleeve. ‘Give me a hand to make Captain Quintin comfortable, will you?’

  Blake turned away and began to search for an emergency ration pack.

  A tiny yellow dot on the ocean, that was what they had all become. The Catalina, with its pilot and all but one of its crew, was gone for ever. They had paid the price of overconfidence, had seen only what they had wanted to see.

  The German seaplane was miles away by now. Stowed in some secret hangar, its crew drinking coffee and schnapps while they described how they had shot down an enemy flying-boat.

  He heard Quintin groan and when he looked over he saw the girl’s hands, bloodied to her wrists, as she tried to clean the wound before covering it with a makeshift dressing.

  Quintin stared at her glassily. ‘God, Claire, lucky my wife can’t see us like this, eh?’ He gritted his teeth against the pain. ‘She’d never believe it!’

  The girl made to trail her hands in the sea alongside but Blake took them in his own and wiped them carefully with part of his shirt. He did not say anything, and he could tell from her sudden tension that she understood.

  Not far from the boat was a dorsal fin. It would remain there until the end.

  Blake clung to the dinghy’s life-line and knelt beside Quintin’s crumpled figure.

  ‘How does it feel?’

  Blake had to concentrate even on the way he spoke. The endless, sickening swoops of the little dinghy were unbearable. They must be a thousand times worse for Quintin.

  And this was the second day. It was unbelievable. That they had survived, and that nobody had found them. All the previous night, as they had huddled together and endeavoured to sleep, Blake had thought about their position. He had tried not to think of the dawn, to hope too much. He knew from experience that the sea had endless patience when it came to the torture of its victims.

  Quintin peered up at him, his eyes sunken with pain and fatigue.

  ‘Only hurts when I laugh.’ He opened his eyes wider, taking advantage of Blake’s body which was between him and the blazing sunlight. ‘Is our bush-ranger still with us?’

  Blake looked over the side and found the dorsal fin without difficulty. ‘Yes.’

  His back, naked to the glare, felt as if he was being flayed alive. But Quintin’s wound needed fresh dressings, and as the girl had said, ‘Wrens’ shirts make the best bandages.’

  He could see her now. Turning away from them in their tiny, pitching refuge while she had stripped off her shirt and handed it to the American, Billy.

  She was wearing Blake’s drill tunic now, Victoria Cross ribbon and all.

  Blake tightened his grip on the life-line to contain his anxiety, his bitterness. But for his insistence about a second German raider, Quintin and the girl would have waited for the usual air transport. It was that simple, brutally so. He had brought them to this. Billy had said there were eight in the Catalina’s crew altogether. It was too high a price to pay for his own stubbornness.

  Quintin wheezed, ‘Where the hell d’you reckon we are?’

  Blake made himself look at the sea. The horizon was blurred but the water glittered like sheet metal.

  ‘Can’t tell. Not less than two hundred miles south-east of Madagascar, I’d say.’

  It might as well be a million, he thought. If only they had some rations, a sail, anything to give some hope. But as Billy had explained, the Catalina had been due for overhaul and someone had got a bit slack with the life-saving gear. They had two cans of fresh water, some boiled sweets and what had been chocolate but had since melted into a thick paste.

  Quintin said, ‘What about our lad Billy?’ He tried to turn his head but the move was too painful.

  The American sailor knelt over him. ‘Right here, sir. I’ve got a line out. Might get a fish.’

  Quintin stared at him glassily. ‘Good boy. So long as you don’t haul that bloody shark inboard!’ He closed his eyes. ‘You’re all right, Billy. Like my own lad.’

  Blake heard the girl say, ‘He’s drowsed off again. Best thing for him.’

  He scrambled across to her side. Her hair was sticking to her forehead and there was dried blood on her hands from the last change of dressings.

  She looked away. ‘Don’t stare. I know I’m a mess.’

  Blake said, ‘I know it sounds crazy. I think you look lovely. Even in all this.’ He added vehemently, ‘If it hadn’t been for me. . . .’

  She faced him and he saw a new flush on her face where the sun had made its mark.

  ‘Don’t start that again. Please. It wasn’t your fault. How could it be?’ Her strength seemed to
ebb away. ‘Anyway, what’s the use? We’re going to die. I can accept it. It’s just that I don’t want to be the last. I couldn’t take it.’

  Blake lifted her hand and held it in his, the dinghy, the misery of pain and helplessness momentarily receding as he looked at it.

  Once, when he had been in a destroyer at the outbreak of war, he had seen a boatload of dead men. Drifting aimlessly in the Atlantic with all the time in the world. As the destroyer had manoeuvred carefully alongside and the sailors had lined the deck to watch the silent boatmen with sympathy or horror, Blake had found himself wondering about the last one of those human scarecrows to die. Watched by his sightless companions of how many voyages or how many runs ashore in unknown ports?

  He said, ‘I shall be here.’

  He reached out and shook the American’s shoulder. ‘Wake up, Billy. Save sleep for tonight. Talk, sing, do what you like, but don’t give in.’

  The youth turned and stared at him. ‘I don’t want to die, sir. Not here. Like this.’

  He looked so despairing that the reality of their danger seemed to close in even more.

  Blake tried to smile. His lips felt as if they were cracked and raw, and it was an effort to speak and make any sense.

  He said, ‘Time for the water ration, Billy.’

  The girl crawled past him and helped the youth to open the second container. It was lasting no time at all. Blake watched her as she dabbed some water along Quintin’s lips, the way the American was gazing at her, gaining strength from her example.

  Blake shaded his eyes and looked at the horizon. If only the night would come. It was not a release. Just a reprieve. Tomorrow would finish them. Their strength would give out, then their will to fight back. He could see it in his mind, stark and clear, as if he were there, as if it had already happened.

  She moved beside him again and held out the metal cup. He sipped it carefully but it was gone almost before he could feel it.

  She said, ‘Talk to me.’ Her hand shook as she replaced the water container and cup. ‘I can’t cope. Not any more.’

  He waited for her to lean against him. Even the sunburn on his shoulders did not seem so bad now.

  He replied, ‘You cope better than any of us.’