H.M.S Saracen (1965)

by Reeman, Douglas

  The whole convoy was now covered with drifting smoke, and all around men were coughing in the acrid fumes of burned paint and cordite.

  Bouverie pointed over the screen as something surged sluggishly in the monitor’s bow wave and grated along her fat reinforced bulge. ‘Who bagged that?’ It was a half-submerged bomber, its fire-blackened body already sinking out of sight. Pinned like some sort of insect, the pilot was still moving his arms and staring up at them as the hull thrust him down and back into the racing screws.

  ‘The freighter’s got the fire under control, sir!’

  Chesnaye nodded and looked carefully down the line of ships. In the thick smoke it was hard to see anything, let alone the circling bombers.

  There was a sullen roar from far astern, and moments later Fox said thickly: ‘One of the escorts, sir. The sloop Gorgon has turned turtle. Direct hit.’

  Another warship gone, and two hundred miles to go. Chesnaye mopped his face. His cheek muscles felt numb and his head ached from the constant gunfire.

  The bombers had had a sharp reception. Four were shot down in twenty minutes, and the final flight of aircraft were apparently unwilling to press home their attack. Instead they climbed rapidly towards the sun and released their bombs at random.

  The cunning and bravery of the other pilots were unrewarded but for the sinking of one poorly protected sloop. The bombs which fell from five thousand feet, with their bomb-aimers not even bothering to take note of the results, straddled the port column and cut deep into the heart of the leading freighter. Like some hideous steel flower the whole ship heaved and opened outwards, the sea and sky suddenly filled with flying wreckage. Chesnaye felt the hot breath of the explosions across his streaming face, and stared in horror as the big freighter began to career across the tightly bunched ships.

  More inner explosions began to tear the ship apart, and derricks and bridge sagged together into the burning crater which had once been the foredeck.

  ‘She’s out of control, sir!’ Fox sounded taut. ‘She’ll be up to us in a moment!’

  Chesnaye watched, holding his breath as the burning ship floundered pathetically towards the ammunition ship. The gap narrowed, until it was almost hidden by the eagerly licking tongues of flame.

  ‘Missed her!’ Fox changed his tone. ‘Now it’s our turn!’

  Chesnaye watched the ship, feeling the sweat pouring down his neck and chest. The smoke stung his eyes, and he could no longer see the other leading ships.

  ‘Starboard fifteen!’ He tried to see some movement against the freighter’s waterline, but smoke and fire hid it from view. It was not possible even to gauge her speed through the churned water. ‘Midships!’ Steady now, let her get nearer. God, she’s almost on top of us!

  Behind him he could hear someone whimpering like a child. Too much swing on her. ‘Port ten!’ The monitor’s hull quivered and swung very slightly towards the other ship, to allow her room to brush past.

  Faintly through the fog of smoke he could hear Erskine’s strident voice, ‘Stand by, fire parties!’

  The men on the upper bridge fell back as the wall of fire drifted down the monitor’s side, and there was a hurried clatter of metal while the Oerlikon gunners ripped off their loaded magazines and pulled them clear of the searing heat.

  The freighter was an old three-island type with high poop and fo’c’sle. Her rusted bows and heavy anchors almost brushed the Saracen’s bridge as she moved past, but Chesnaye’s eyes were fixed on the tiny group of figures which was poised directly on the fo’c’sle head. Four men, one already crumpled in the heat but held out of reach of the flames by his comrades, men without hope on a burning island. Already the ship was beginning to fall away, and Chesnaye could see the sea exploring the buckled remains of her afterdeck.

  One of the stranded seamen reached out as if to touch the monitor’s bulk, his face suddenly clear and stark to every watching man.

  Bouverie cried: ‘Can’t we help, sir? Lower a boat?’

  But Chesnaye did not answer. What was the use of words?

  There was a tiny cry, and when Chesnaye looked again there were only three figures on the fo’c’sle head. One must have jumped. Chesnaye willed the others to follow suit. The Goliath might find them, even in this.

  The two who were still standing seemed about to jump when one of them looked down at the man who lay helpless on the deck. As the Saracen pulled clear they were still standing like statues outlined against the advancing fire, and then they were lost, and mercifully hidden in the smoke.

  Bouverie was biting his knuckles. ‘Oh my God! Did you see that?’

  ‘No damage, sir!’ Erskine was on the bridge again, his eyes white in his smoke-blackened face. He seemed to notice Bouverie’s attitude of misery and despair as a man will recognise some sort of enemy. ‘Get a grip on yourself, Sub!’

  Chesnaye watched Fox bringing the ship back on course. ‘He’s been doing well, Number One!’ he said quietly.

  ‘But it’s bad for the men, sir,’ Erskine persisted, as if repeating an old lesson. ‘Some of these reservists are sent to sea with nothing more than a brief idea of what’s happening.’

  Chesnaye dabbed his eyes and stared at him coldly. ‘You must learn not to measure a man’s worth by the amount of lace on his sleeve!’

  The cease-fire gongs sounded cheerfully through the smoke, and he added, ‘Go round the guns and tell them “Well done”.’

  He forgot Erskine as a stronger breeze pushed the smoke bank back across the convoy. Two merchantmen gone, and the escort depleted by an equal number. The enemy’s wounds were unimportant. You could only gauge your loss against their successes.

  When the smoke had rolled far astern the sky was again empty. There was even a slight breeze to fan the sweating faces of the men throughout the convoy. But the prowling Focke-Wulf was still nearby, and Chesnaye wondered what fresh hell lay in store across the deceptive horizon.

  An hour later he was no longer in doubt.

  He sat on his tall chair, an empty tea mug still grasped in his fingers, his eyes on the sun-dappled shape of the Cape Cod. Ann was somewhere within that overloaded hull. Sleeping perhaps after the fury of the air attack, or even watching him from some vantage point above the decks. The big freighter was leading the starboard column now, and seemed desperately far away.

  ‘Signal, sir.’ Fox was there again. ‘Priority.’

  ‘Well, spit it out!’

  Fox said evenly: ‘Four heavy enemy units fifty miles to north-east of convoy. Appear to be shadowing.’

  Chesnaye sat upright in his chair, his tiredness forgotten. ‘Waiting for night, more likely!’

  Fox stood by the chart, his hands almost gentle as he spanned the pencilled lines with his dividers.

  Chesnaye looked across the port quarter, noticing as he did so the small, silver-edged splinter hole in the funnel. It must have been hit during the attack. He frowned and concentrated on the new threat. Four units. Cruisers most likely. He strained his aching mind and felt vaguely uneasy. There was something wrong, but he could not sort his ideas into order. He crossed to the chart and stared at Fox’s calculations.

  ‘Fifty miles, eh?’ He rubbed his chin and felt the stubble against his palm.

  ‘That’s what it says, sir. But you know these Intelligence reports!’

  ‘Hmm.’ Chesnaye looked up as a signal lamp began to clatter on the flag deck. ‘What’s happening now?’

  Fox shrugged as if unconcerned. ‘I expect the Admiral has some ideas about all this.’

  Chesnaye waited impatiently as the signalman finished his writing. He re-read the brief message twice before he understood what he had missed in his first summing-up. Beaushears intended to call up his own four cruisers which were screening the convoy and smash into the enemy ships without delay. He read the signal aloud and heard Fox say: ‘Best bloody thing for them! They won’t be expecting it!’

  Chesnaye paced to the chart again. There was something wrong. What could
it be? Beaushears was taking the correct action. And yet . . . ‘Get me the first signals about that Italian force which was reported yesterday.’ As Fox hurried into the charthouse Chesnaye said to Laidlaw: ‘Make a signal to Flag, Yeoman! Reference yesterday’s signal——’ He broke off as Laidlaw’s eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. ‘I’ve not time to find the damned time of origin!’ He lifted his gaze to the distant flagship as he continued slowly, ‘Enemy surface units may be different from those earlier reported.’

  Fox was breathing heavily at his side, ‘I don’t quite understand, sir?’

  Chesnaye made sure that Laidlaw was sending the signal and then walked back to the chart table. ‘Yesterday’s signal referred to a major enemy group one hundred and fifty miles east of Syracuse.’ He tapped the chart in time to his words. ‘Now we get a signal that they are fifty miles to the north-east of us.’

  Fox sounded puzzled. ‘They could do it, sir. Allowing for these positions being correct, and the fact that the Eye-tie ships can steam pretty fast. They could just do it.’

  ‘Unlikely. The convoy had made umpteen alterations of course since leaving Alex. Tomorrow would be the earliest hope of making contact.’

  ‘Well, what do you think, sir?’ Fox stared at him. ‘One of the signals is wrong?’

  ‘No. I think there are two enemy groups, Pilot!’ Chesnaye’s voice was cold. ‘And if the Admiral detaches the cruiser screen, the way will be open!’

  Fox was still staring at him as the Yeoman called: ‘Signal from Flag, sir. Disregard previous Intelligence sighting report. Inshore squadron will proceed immediately and engage!’ The Yeoman cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. ‘. . . and, sir, the signal adds: “Don’t be frightened. Aureus will stay in company.” End of signal, sir.’

  Chesnaye clenched his fists as a wave of fury swept through him. Of all the bloody stupid fools!

  ‘Quite a sense of humour, I don’t think!’ Fox sounded indignant.

  Laidlaw was still standing unhappily on the gratings. He seemed to feel the Admiral’s insulting signal as if it had been addressed to him. ‘Any reply, sir?’

  ‘No, Yeoman. Nothing.’ Chesnaye had difficulty in keeping the anger from his voice. How Beaushears must be grinning on his bridge, and probably sharing the joke with Captain Colquhoun and the others. Practically every ship in the convoy must have read the signal.

  Chesnaye forced himself to stand still for several minutes until his mind cleared. It was easy to see Beaushears’ point of view, of course, but then again how was it possible to question a senior officer’s judgement without appearing to show insubordination?

  Chesnaye stared round the convoy with despair. Even without seeing the shadowing cruisers of Beaushears’ squadron it had been a comfort to know they were there. He banged his fists together. How typical of Beaushears to send them tearing away at the first hint of a prize. All he thought about was his own prestige. With the enemy ships driven off or sunk there would be no limit to his reward.

  The worst of it was he was probably right in his assumption about the Intelligence reports. Nevertheless, his first duty was to the convoy. Nothing else mattered.

  He stared half-blinded at the sun. Still eight hours before night hid the slow-moving ships. Even then it was never safe.

  The afternoon dragged by, and as the sun moved with such painful slowness towards the horizon the next blow fell.

  The first hint of danger was the shriek of a destroyer’s siren on the starboard wing, followed by that ship’s rapid alteration of course away from the convoy.

  ‘Torpedoes running to starboard!’ There could be no exact bearing from the tired lookouts, for the torpedoes, some seven or eight of them, swept across the line of advance in a widespread, many-fingered fan.

  No doubt a U-boat had fired the salvo, all her bow tubes at once, after taking up a carefully planned position slightly ahead of the advancing ships.

  Like tired troops the ships swung to starboard in response to the Admiral’s urgent signal, and pointed their ragged lines at the glittering white tracks which sliced amongst them with breathtaking speed. Two torpedoes struck home, the rest passed between the ships and flashed harmlessly to the open waters beyond.

  One old freighter was loaded with steel frames and building materials for the Malta defences. She received the death blow deep in the boiler room, and lifted only slightly with a muffled bellow of pain. She broke in two and sank out of sight almost before her consorts had completed the turn. Only a few pieces of flotsam littered the spreading oil-slick, but not a single survivor.

  The second victim was luckier. The torpedo exploded twenty feet from her stem and sheared off the bows like a butcher carving meat. She too was well-laden, but before the forward bulkhead collapsed her master had time to stop engines and call away the boats. But even she went to the bottom in only seven minutes.

  The three destroyers dropped depth-charges and searched the placid water without result. They did not even make a contact with their probing Asdics, and after an hour the Admiral called them back and re-formed the convoy.

  Goliath signalled briefly, ‘Have twenty survivors aboard’ and then fell silent.

  As darkness mercifully closed over the ten remaining merchantmen and their depleted escort, the crews no longer felt like rest. Like Chesnaye they seemed to sense that their ordeal had only been a beginning, a casual probe by an enemy who was prepared to wait.

  Chesnaye watched the bosun’s mates going their rounds of the guns with their massive fannys of cocoa and enamel mugs. Corned-beef sandwiches of stale bread, and meat which had been tinned many years ago.

  The cruel injustice seemed the more bitter when Chesnaye compared the convoy’s planning and management with that other war of so long ago. Then the generals had used their infantry just as today’s strategists used these ships. No one even expected half of the convoy to survive. They might have allowed for only two ships to reach Malta. The others were the justifiable odds, the expendable fodder of war.

  Chesnaye recalled with sickening clarity the soldiers at Gallipoli, their shoulders hunched beneath packs and equipment, walking, some just staggering, into the wire and the stammering machine-guns. Far away from such madness the planners moved their coloured flags and markers, and played soldiers with reality and blood.

  His head suddenly touched the vibrating screen, and he jerked himself awake with almost vicious determination. ‘What time is sun-up?’ His question fell across the bridge like a rebuke.

  Fox answered slowly, ‘Well, with this visibility it’ll be light at eight bells, sir.’

  ‘Very well.’ Chesnaye settled himself more comfortably in the chair. We’ll see who’s right when daylight comes. He stared ahead at the cruiser’s graceful upperworks. Suddenly he found himself dreading the dawn, and all that it might hold.

  9

  Make This Signal

  Lieutenant Fox bent over the bridge chart table and carefully blew some funnel soot from his pencilled calculations. When he straightened his back he looked again at the blood-red curve of the sun as it lifted slowly above the horizon astern. The forward part of the monitor was still in black shadow, but like the other ships in convoy and the surrounding water itself, the Saracen’s superstructure and guns were shining like dull and unused bronze.

  I’ve rarely seen a dawn like this, he thought. Fiery, menacing. Aloud he said casually, ‘Looks like another scorcher today!’

  A messenger paused in his task of gathering the night’s enamel mugs and battered plates to stare with open amazement at his captain. Chesnaye was standing just outside the charthouse, stripped to the waist, apparently wholly intent on shaving. He was using a tiny mirror and was busily scraping away several days of stubble as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The messenger caught the eye of a bosun’s mate, who merely shrugged. It seemed to sum up the complete uncertainty of officers in general.

  Sub-Lieutenant Bouverie stepped down from the compass and said flatly, ‘All s
hips on station, sir.’

  Fox watched the young officer with narrowed eyes. It was quite obvious that Bouverie had still not recovered from yesterday’s impartial slaughter. He looked and sounded completely exhausted.

  Whereas the ship’s company were relieved in batches from their posts, the officers remained at their Action Stations. The lucky ones snatched an odd hour’s rest from time to time, others used every ounce of cunning and willpower to restrain their drooping eyelids and sagging bodies.

  Fox wondered how long they could all stand it. Another hot day ahead. And probably it was all for nothing. He had sensed the mood of resentment which had passed through the ship when at sunset they had all heard the distant bugle from the flagship. Aureus’s men were even now still at Defence Stations. Half the men on watch, the others sleeping like dead men. While we . . . he shook his head angrily, shutting out his dulled thoughts.

  Instead he looked at Chesnaye. In the bold red-gold light his lean, hard body looked youthful and alert. Perhaps that was why he was taking the trouble to shave instead of sleeping in his chair? He must be dead on his feet. Held together with sheer determination.

  Erskine walked across the bridge carrying his cap. He glanced first at the chart and then at the compass. To no one in particular he remarked, ‘We might get a clear run today.’

  Nobody answered. Fox felt almost sorry for Erskine. It was amazing the way he had changed. Perhaps we all have?

  High above the monitor’s outmoded superstructure Lieutenant Norris tried to ease the cramp which repeatedly returned to his legs. The confined shell of the Control Top was filled with the strange glare, and being the highest vantage point in the ship, and for that matter throughout the convoy, Norris had been aware of the dawn for some time. Close at his side but on a slightly higher stool sat McGowan in his position as Control Officer. His neat, plain features were completely relaxed in sleep, and his fingers were laced together in his lap.