Path of the Storm

by Douglas Reeman

  Burgess called out, ‘Where is the Hibiscus?’

  Rickover shrugged. ‘Shot her way out just now after knocking off a coupla mortar teams on the headland! You shoulda seen her!’ In a more serious tone: ‘The captain’s off to intercept some Red ship or other. All we can do is sit tight and pray for the cavalry to arrive before the Injuns!’

  Burgess called weakly: ‘Pirelli, come here! Come here!’

  There was such a rasp in his voice that Pirelli imagined he was wandering again. He gestured forward. ‘Yi-Fang’s down there, Sergeant. Take him up to the fort. I’ll bring the ole commander here.’

  Rickover gave a silent whistle. ‘Yi-Fang! Jesus H. Christ, my colonel’ll sure be glad to see him!’ He yanked the groaning officer to his feet and threw him across his broad shoulders. ‘Right, come as soon as you can. It’s a bit dangerous around here!’

  Pirelli spat, ‘It ain’t exactly bin a picnic for us!’

  The marine laughed and took a quick look across the roadway towards the low bank of hills. ‘Well, here goes!’ He called to the girl, ‘Just keep on my right and you’ll be okay!’

  She hung back. ‘I’ll come with my father.’

  Rickover shifted his unwilling load, then broke into a shambling run, each step bringing a cry of agony from the helpless Yi-Fang.

  Pirelli dropped beside Burgess and said quietly, ‘Is it bad, skipper?’

  Burgess shook his head. ‘Must speak to Lea. Must, Urgent!’

  So he’s giving in at last, Pirelli thought. ‘Here, miss!’ She climbed down beside them, and Pirelli tried not to stare at her face as she knelt down on the rough decking.

  Burgess opened his eyes as if to devour every part of her. ‘You’re a good girl. I can never forgive myself for what I said to you, for what I did. There is still time to make amends, perhaps, with luck.’ He coughed harshly. ‘I wanted to keep you clear of all this——’

  Pirelli bit his lip. Burgess had not seen his daughter naked and alone on that beach like a tethered goat for a man-eater. He stiffened as Burgess added: ‘Please go with Pirelli. I want to stay here!’

  ‘I’ll not leave you, Father. Not now.’ There was no tremor, just a faint hoarseness in her voice which made Pirelli want to take her away.

  Burgess struggled up into a sitting position. ‘Go now!’ With a touch of anger, ‘That’s an order!’

  There was a clatter of falling stones and Rickover peered down at them. ‘For God’s sake, are you still chirruping down there?’ He sounded anxious. Pirelli helped her up on to the fallen piles and watched Rickover’s hand fasten on her wrist.

  Once more he bent over Burgess and then stiffened as the dying man began to speak directly into his ear.

  Rickover unslung his carbine and peered round the broken woodwork, his eyes moving very slowly across the silent hills. ‘It’s too open here. We should get going!’

  She was about to reply when the L.C.I.’s engines roared into sudden and violent life, so that the pier all but collapsed in the savage backwash from the racing propellers.

  ‘What th’ hell!’ Rickover dragged her clear as Pirelli’s face appeared beside the controls.

  Pirelli cupped his hands. ‘I’ve gotta go with him! He’d never make it on his own!’

  Rickover yelled, ‘Come back, you goddamn fool!’ He tugged the girl behind him as a single shot whimpered overhead. ‘The mad, crazy bastard!’

  The girl struggled to reach the pier but Rickover held her pressed inside his arm. ‘It’s no use,’ he said heavily, ‘they’re clear.’

  The boat swung in a tight arc and began to gather speed. Once Pirelli looked back and cursed himself. He could see the tall marine with the girl in her soldier’s jacket close at his side. He had wanted to say a lot of things, to try to explain, but it was too late now.

  He felt Burgess’s fingers tugging at his leg and looked down with a sad grin. ‘Come on then, ole fire-eater! Let me prop you at the wheel while I get the Browning rigged up.’

  The L.C.I. entered the main channel, so close to the high rock walls that it was almost invulnerable.

  Pirelli propped the dead Chinese soldier beside Burgess and slapped a cap on his lolling skull. ‘Might throw them a bit!’ He reached for his whisky bottle. ‘Well, come on, skipper! What about one last snort?’ He drank long and deeply, his eyes watering as he held back his head and allowed the spirit to soak down his chin.

  Burgess sat slumped behind the wheel, his eyes fixed on some invisible point over the bows, his face set in a mask of fanatical determination.

  Pirelli peered astern, but the side of the cliff had blotted out the pier and the anchorage. He felt suddenly lost and afraid, but as the neat spirit ground harshly across his empty stomach he threw back his head and laughed again and again.

  Long after the boat’s wash had smoothed from the channel’s twisting surface, his laugh hung behind like an epitaph.

  19

  ‘It will be an Honour’

  ‘STOP ENGINE!’ GUNNAR stepped from the forward grating and allowed the heavy glasses to fall against his chest. The slow westerly breeze had almost dropped away, so that the ship glided with her own momentum on an unbroken sea, the surface of which shone like undulating green glass. The wraith of stack smoke hovered around the signal halyards, and throughout the whole ship there seemed to be an unnatural silence.

  Across the slowly swaying stern Gunnar could see the brown smear of Payenhau, a casual brush stroke against the two prominent colours of sea and sky, made more indistinct by the hovering mist which broke the fineness of the horizon lines like fallen cloud.

  Gunnar found time to marvel at the way his ship had managed to get this far on half power, with the quartermaster fighting screw and rudder every foot of the way. He realised dazedly that he had hardly moved more than a step or so in either direction since Hibiscus had made that last push through the channel, had deluged the waiting mortars with such a savage curtain of fire that within minutes they had been blasted to fragments. At one point the ship’s maddened gunners had brought down a whole section of cliff, complete with a machine gun and some half a dozen Chinese guerrillas.

  The first tense moments were past, lost with all the other terrible memories until some future time. The milky sea seemed at peace, with only their small vessel to mar its unbroken waste and disturb its vigilance. Was it the same sea? The typhoon’s fury, the aftermath of destruction and misery, where were they?

  He wiped his face as Maddox stepped on to the bridge, his face grim and heavy. ‘They’re ready, Captain.’

  They were all waiting again. Even the ship seemed to be cocking her ears as he stepped down on to the ladder and climbed slowly to the gently swaying maindeck. The men at the guns watched him pass. Some nodded companionably, like greeting a casual friend, others studied his face as if to read their own fate.

  On the small fantail the bodies were lined neatly along the lowered rail. In the cramped space the shock of seeing them made Gunnar falter, there seemed to be so many of them. Pathetic and without familiarity, dressed in quickly sewn canvas, they were already part of something lost. Two seamen held the only remaining spare flag across the centre of the line like a canopy, their grimy faces like masks as they stared at each other without recognition. Other men crowded around in an untidy semicircle, heads craned, hair ruffling in the small breeze. Here and there a hand moved, or a man touched his own face with uncertainty and tightly held grief.

  He saw Malinski, white-faced and strained from his constant battle with the engines, standing close beside his giant chief, Duggan. There were firemen and seamen, an aproned cook and Slattery, the steward. Ensign Maddox, stiff-backed beside Kroner, his young face lined with determination, but his eyes bright with the hidden lie.

  Maddox handed Gunnar the scribbled list and removed his cap. Gunnar looked slowly down the list of names, and as he did so the dull, inert shapes seemed to come alive again for those few passing seconds.

  Chief Anders. Bella, seaman ye
oman. Carkosi, radioman. Norris, quartermaster. Dabruzzi, seaman. Chavasse, seaman. Jackson, signalman. Laker, sonarman. Shafer, machinist’s mate. Carmody, fireman. He found that he was reading their names aloud, speaking to them. There were so many. Too many. And this was not even the end. The rest of them might not even get time for a burial.

  He opened the well-thumbed Book and began to read. From the corner of his eye he saw Chief Tasker bend down and brush a piece of loose thread from his friend’s shroud and then return to his position of rigid attention.

  Gunnar’s words hung in the air: ‘We commend unto Thy hands of mercy most Merciful Father, the souls of these our brothers departed …’ How much more could he stand? He gritted his teeth as the first splash came alongside. One by one, and he felt the sting of salt against his cheek as the last man went overboard.

  He looked over the Book, searching his men’s faces. There should have been more for them, so much more. But there was only his own voice. Somewhere in the press of figures he heard someone sobbing quietly, without shame, and another had his arm around a friend’s shoulder.

  Gunnar thought back to what he had just read, the words’ real meaning only just reaching him. ‘The days of man are but as grass; for he flourisheth as a flower of the field. For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone: and the place thereof shall know it no more.’

  He looked up, his eyes dull and empty. The deck was bare again, and the two seamen were folding the flag in silence.

  Chief Tasker faced him. ‘Thank you, sir. He’d have liked that.’ Then without waiting for the dismissal he turned on his heel and strode away.

  Maddox saluted. ‘Fall out, sir?’

  Gunnar nodded. He wanted to add something. He could not make it right, but it would break the dreadful silence.

  He returned the salute. ‘Very well, Mister Maddox. Carry on.’ He pushed blindly through the watching men and made his way back to the bridge, where Regan waited beside the compass, his cap beneath his arm.

  ‘Tell the engine room to continue with revs for seven knots. Mister Regan.’

  The telegraphs answered below his feet, the screw began to thrash at the lapping water. He had a brief but stark picture of the canvas-shrouded figures as they glided deeper and deeper into permanent darkness. The little ship began to move forward again with nearly two thousand fathoms beneath her slender keel. It was a long journey to the bottom, Gunnar thought.

  He swung his glasses slowly across the hazy horizon, blotting out the faces and memories behind him.

  Regan said flatly: ‘We can’t rely on the radar, sir. It took quite a few slugs as we came through the gap.’

  Gunnar nodded. It hardly seemed to matter now.

  ‘Would you like me to take the con, sir?’ This time it was the exec’s voice, concerned and husky.

  ‘Thank you, Bob, no.’ If Maddox had been angry or defiant it might have been better.

  Maddox leaned on the screen, his eyes closed against the sun. ‘While you were reading, sir, I was thinking.’

  Gunnar tightened his jaw. Don’t say any more, for God’s sake. Don’t you know how close I came to breaking back there?

  Maddox said: ‘I kept thinking of a musical I went to see when I was just a kid. It was Oklahoma, and I remember how I balled when they sang “Poor Jud is dead——”.’ He glanced at Gunnar’s grave face. ‘Is that stupid?’

  Gunnar said quickly, ‘What are you going to do if you get out of this?’ He had to force Maddox out of it. He could not stand much more of his compassion.

  ‘Me?’ Maddox scratched his chest. ‘I guess that as soon as we hit the dock I’ll send a wire. Not just a goddamn letter.’ He tapped his breast pocket. ‘No sir, a real urgent wire.’ He grinned in spite of his obvious tenseness. ‘Why should Pip get married before me, eh?’

  Gunnar nodded and turned towards Regan. ‘Tell the lookouts to keep their eyes skinned. Any ship will be hard to spot in this haze!’

  Maddox said: ‘Do you really expect trouble out here, sir? I mean, they’re cutting it rather fine.’

  Gunnar shrugged. ‘It’s only been a matter of hours, even if it seems a lifetime. They’ll be here all right, and whether they expect us or not, they’ll be all out for a quick victory!’

  Maddox eyed the captain’s profile with growing anxiety. Every second of strain and danger had left its mark on Gunnar’s pale features. He saw too the way Gunnar moved his hands with quick, nervous movements, as if he were only half aware what he was doing.

  It’s the girl, Maddox thought. He keeps thinking of her instead of himself. On one hand there’s the ship, a broken, limping wreck which at any moment he will be expected to take right down the enemy’s teeth with neither hesitation nor question. On the other there’s Lea Burgess. If she was dead Gunnar might be satisfied. But to have her and then lose her to a fate he could only guess at was tearing him apart.

  There was an excited shout behind the bridge, and for one instant Maddox imagined that a ship had indeed been sighted. But Kroner galloped on to the gratings, his film star’s face alight with surprise. ‘Sir! I’ve got radio touch with the island!’ He stood aside as two of his men gently lowered a chipped khaki radio set on to the deck at his feet. ‘It’s the one we were using during the survey. It’s one of Colonel Jago’s close-link sets of the type used the day Inglis was caught in the ambush.’

  Kroner knelt beside the battered case, his hands moving carefully across the controls. ‘It’s stretching it a bit, but I’ll have a go.’ They all stood and watched as Kroner tried each dial in turn. ‘Hello, Dodger, hello, Dodger, do you read me?’ Kroner sensed the tension at his back. ‘I’m doing my best, but it’s asking a lot of this set.’ He tried again: ‘This is Spartan, come in, Dodger. Hello, Dodger, do you read me?’

  Then it came, faint and uneven, the voice distorted like a man calling through a waterfall. ‘This is Dodger. Come in, Spartan——’ There was a loud interruption and they all stared at the set as if it were some sort of talisman.

  The voice was Rickover’s, there was no doubt about that.

  The set squawked again, ‘We are holding the citadel.’ A pause and more rushing sounds. ‘We can see you from the tower, but only just. Very bad visibility.’

  Regan said in a surprised voice: ‘See us? How in hell can they?’

  Gunnar waved him down. The little tower was high above the citadel, which was itself at the top of the island’s main range of hills. Yes, they could quite likely see the little ship afloat in the haze even if objects closer inshore were invisible.

  He listened intently as Kroner spoke back across the glittering water. It was not much help, but it was a small link. It seemed to make all the difference to know that someone, somewhere, knew what was happening, and cared.

  In a tight voice he said, ‘Ask him how many are safe in the citadel.’

  Kroner blinked up from his toy. ‘Yes, sir.’ He repeated Gunnar’s enquiry almost word for word, and then gave a yelp of indignation as Maddox shoved him aside and seized the handset. ‘This is Spartan. Is the girl, Lea Burgess, alive?’ His words seemed to crash into the silent bridge like grenades, but Maddox did not look at the others.

  Rickover sounded as if he was laughing. ‘Alive an’ well. She’s right here beside me, she sends her——’ There was a rush of static and Maddox handed back the set to Kroner. ‘Sorry, Don. But you take a helluva long time to get to the point!’

  ‘I don’t see——’ Kroner caught Maddox’s eye and grinned sheepishly. ‘Oh, I see!’

  Maddox felt Gunnar grip his shoulder, but when he turned the captain had walked to the front of the bridge, his face hidden from all of them. There, thought Maddox breathlessly. Just hold on to that one bit of good news, you poor bastard!

  The set whistled and banged, and then Rickover said urgently: ‘In two minutes you will have crossed into a dead patch. The hills will kill what little reach we have.’ Another pause, and they were all looking at the scarred speaker. All except Gunnar, who sti
ll stood with his face to the sea.

  ‘This is Dodger. Now hear this. There is smoke to the northwest of you. At a guess I would put it at fifteen miles.’ His tone was urgent. ‘Yes, it is smoke.’ The voice was fading, curtained away with a final roar of static: ‘Good luck. Good luck. Good luck.’ Then the speaker went completely dead.

  Gunnar turned slowly and leaned on his elbows against the screen. He looked at their faces and suddenly smiled. ‘Well, at least we don’t have to rely on the radar now!’

  Regan said sharply: ‘The enemy’ll be up to us very shortly, sir. What’s the plan?’ He spread hands. ‘We’ve not got a lot to offer!’

  Gunnar nodded. It seemed to sum up their entire position. One screw, and such scanty gunpower that it was almost out of the question to consider a head-on clash.

  ‘A bit of bluff, and a bit more guts,’ Gunnar said at length. How trite the words sounded, yet he was conscious of a feeling of unbelievable peace within him. The little contact with Rickover had seemed to sweep away the uncertainty and the bitter despair. Whatever happened, they were no longer alone. Perhaps they never had been. But she was safe, that compensated for so much. Bolod was not important now. If he died, there would always be others like him.

  ‘Send the men to battle stations.’ He listened to the harsh clamour of alarm bells. ‘And hoist that other ensign. It’ll show we mean business.’ It’ll also serve as a shroud for us, the inner voice added.

  Regan turned to leave. ‘I guess it’ll be up to my little three-inch, sir?’

  Gunnar eyed him with sudden affection. Whatever his other shortcomings, Regan was completely reliable in this sort of situation. Perhaps because he was unimaginative. Perhaps because he knew it was pointless to be any other way now.