For Valour

by Douglas Reeman

  Kidd could barely speak. “Java. She came to join anyway!”

  Men were cheering. Wild. Scarcely able to believe what had happened.

  “Starboard ten.”

  “Wheelhouse, sir.” It was Forward. “Helm’s answering again. Ten of starboard wheel on!”

  “What about the cox’n?”

  Forward was heard to cough. “Sorry, sir. The cox’n was wounded, sir. I’ve got young Wishart sitting on him to keep him still!”

  Martineau looked at the sea as it raced past. As it had been doing since his first order.

  “Half ahead together. Cease firing.” He raised his glasses to see the Java poking through the smoke: he watched her until his eyes smarted, and he had to look away. We will never give in.

  He looked at the dead signals officer, and knew he would have to discover how many Hakka had lost.

  There were no more shells from the enemy. The second destroyer had obviously thought it unwise to continue with the attack.

  Martineau crossed the bridge as a lookout called, “Lights in the water, starboard bow!”

  “Slow ahead together. Tell the first lieutenant to lower scrambling nets.”

  He leaned out over the screen to watch the dark shapes being swept past the ship, their little lifebelt lights marking both the living and those who had already given in.

  Kidd said harshly, “I’d leave the bastards right there!”

  Martineau touched his arm, and felt him jump. “Remember what you once said to young Seton, Pilot? Like looking at yourselves, wasn’t it?”

  A few responded, seizing the nets and heaving lines, unable yet to accept what was happening. Some held on, but only for a moment, their eyes already glassy as the cold killed their remaining strength.

  And some were able to climb up unaided, where they took blankets and cigarettes without a word being exchanged.

  Perhaps it was better never to see your enemy face to face. From the upper bridge, you really could not tell the difference.

  As the way fell off the ship the motion became more pronounced and the sounds of repair and recovery intruded even into the shuttered wheelhouse.

  The coxswain sat in one corner, his elbow propped on a locker as he tried to see and hear what was happening while Wishart finished fastening the bandage around his leg. A seaman lay on the opposite side, his face covered with a signal flag, his feet tapping to the movement of the deck, as if he was snatching a rest. The blood said otherwise.

  Others crept in through the trapped smoke, to peer at the bright punctures in the steel plating before taking over from the dead and injured. Hammers were banging everywhere, and the Buffer’s powerful voice could be heard above all of it, urging, threatening, encouraging. A seaman looked up and remarked, “Gawd, ’e’d survive the bloody flood, that one!”

  Bob Forward wiped his eyes with his sleeve, watching the compass, his whole body tensed like a spring. The crash of gunfire, the sound of water thundering inboard from the explosions had seemed endless. He looked at the wheelhouse clock. Less than half an hour. He had heard the cheering, even caught a brief glimpse of Java as she had shown herself through the murk and smoke, empty torpedo tubes still trained abeam. She had fired at extreme range, a full salvo. It had paid off.

  He found that he was grinning, and had to contain it. He would not be able to stop.

  He saw big Bill Spicer peering up at him, his teeth gritted against the pain. A small splinter of Krupp steel. Not fatal, but it must hurt like hell. And the ship was still answering well. When the steering had failed, he had thought it was all over. Steering from aft was no use in a battle. It took too long.

  He glanced around the wheelhouse; the fans were at last clearing away the smoke. It looked worse than it was. The dockyard mateys would soon cover the holes and hammer out the dents. Paint would do the rest.

  A seaman carrying a box marked with red crosses peered in, then stood stock-still when he saw the man with his face covered by a flag. The coxswain watched him, and said painfully, “No use, Fuller. He’s gone.”

  The seaman nodded. It said it all.

  Forward had known both of them; they belonged to the next mess. It was always rotten to lose a friend, someone who had shared everything or borrowed occasionally when things were a bit rough.

  He looked over at Wishart. He had done a good job with the bandage, learned it in the Boy Scouts, he had explained. And nobody had laughed at him. Some of them could learn a lot from him, he thought.

  Spicer said, “You’ve done your trick, Forward. Time to stand down.”

  Forward smiled. Not much wrong with him, either.

  Lieutenant Kidd had arrived now, with a dark smudge on his cheek and flecks of broken paint in his beard. He looked at Wishart and said, “Well done. I don’t need you just yet.” He nodded to the coxswain. “I’ll get you moved aft where the doc can fix you up.”

  “I’d rather stay here until . . .”

  But Kidd did not seem to hear him. It must have been as bad as it had sounded up on the bridge.

  A boatswain’s mate asked, “Where are we goin’, sir?”

  Kidd was looking at the dead seaman, his friend standing by the door, unable or unwilling to accept it.

  He said, “Back to Scapa. When we get the word. Java too.”

  But he was thinking of Arliss, the signals expert. Why did death have to be so ugly?

  It was dragging at his insides, his nerves, like claws. It was always the aftermath, and yet this seemed worse in some way.

  He thought of the little hotel, her arms wrapped around him. It had made everything so different, so vulnerable, when before they would just have lined up the pints and drowned the madness and the hate.

  He thought too of what Fairfax had said about getting a command. He reached out and touched the plot table. He could not help it. He did not know or care if the others were watching as he said quietly, “You’ll do me, my girl. That’s how it’s going to be.”

  With half the ship’s company once more at defence stations, the work of clearing up continued. But the guns were cleaned and the ready-use ammunition replenished. The dead were removed either from where they had been killed, or where they had lost the fight in the wardroom and sickbay. Eventually Fairfax, looking tired and strained, reported to the bridge. Nine men had been killed and thirteen wounded, three seriously. To the people who collected the statistics of the war at sea it might not sound too bad, out of a ship’s company of a hundred and ninety. But in the crowded and confined world of a fighting destroyer it was a loss which was hard to brush aside. They were too close, too interdependent for that.

  It affected every part of the ship, even the wardroom where Lieutenant Arliss had never really been accepted, nor had he appeared to want it.

  Martineau listened without interruption, seeing it, sharing it. It would mean a refit, during which time the promised Bofors guns would be mounted. New faces too, so that the ones like Wishart would suddenly become the “old hands.” For a time, anyway.

  Java, the ship which had suddenly changed from being the bait, or the target, had changed the odds with her torpedoes. Only one had found its mark, but the mark had been vital. The destroyer had exploded, and at full speed she had gone straight down. And ten German sailors had lived to tell of it.

  He said, “They did well, Jamie.” He touched his arm. “You especially.”

  “W/T have a signal, sir.” That was Onslow, composed, unchanged by the battle or so it seemed.

  “Haul it up.” Fairfax looked at his Captain again. “The dead, sir?”

  “We’ll take them home. It’s the least we can do.”

  The signal was curt and to the point. Decoded, it read, “ Hakka and Java will return to base. In company.”

  Martineau had taken out the pipe and was delving into his coat for some tobacco.

  Fairfax said, “I’ll pass the word, sir. Pilot can lay off the new course.”

  “I’ll speak to them, Jamie. Just give me a moment and the
n switch on for me.”

  Fairfax turned away and stared at Java’s blurred outline.

  He had seen the Captain filling the pipe he had given him. Like putting everything else behind him. And then he had realized that he was unable to do it; his hand, the one with the crooked scar on it, would not stop shaking. It had been like stealing a secret.

  “Fire away, Jamie!”

  Fairfax switched on the speaker, and saw men turning to peer up at the bridge. And it mattered.

  He looked at Martineau and was surprised to see the pipe clenched in his teeth while he moved to the handset.

  “This is the Captain.”

  A solitary gull swooped down and around the radar lantern, very white against the dark backdrop of mist and spray. The spirit of some old Jack, or so the story claimed.

  Martineau stared down, seeing the wounds, feeling them.

  But all he said was, “I am very proud of you!”

  He switched off the speaker, but as Hakka turned once more towards the south, his words still seemed to hang in the air.

  Like reaching out. Like trust.

  Commodore Dudley Raikes folded his arms and stared across the room at the floor-to-ceiling map and at the cluster of coloured markers which were being moved by a Wren with her long rake.

  Captain Tennant, the Chief of Staff, was with him, as well as the duty officer.

  Tennant said, “Sounds good. So far.”

  Raikes smiled briefly. “The convoy is right on schedule. Two air attacks, both driven off by Dancer ’s fighters—one shot down. One merchantman damaged, but still able to proceed.” He nodded his sleek head. “It’s working. I just hope the Russkies are grateful!”

  The duty officer said quietly, “Two escorts sunk. No more information as yet, sir.”

  Tennant watched the scene in the Operations Room, like a vast, complicated mime, silent beyond the glass window. He turned to Raikes, and tried not to feel envious of a man who could appear so neat and in control at three in the morning.

  But he said, “And Hakka ’s back in Scapa tomorrow. She’ll have to go for a dockyard job.”

  Raikes shook his head. “Not for long, I’ll see to that. A good time to have her new armament fitted.”

  “And what about Martineau? You can’t ignore the fact that he disobeyed Captain (D)’s order to rejoin the group.”

  “Well, the group was not required, was it? It might be for the return run from Russia, but that’s another story. He was in charge. He chose to stand by Java. She would have been sunk otherwise. And they bagged a big Jerry destroyer in the process. Martineau’ll get no knocks from me.” He added softly, “Or anyone else, I’d suggest.”

  “I shall tell the Boss.” He smiled. “If he’ll stop long enough to listen!”

  Raikes pressed his fingers together. “The support group system is working. We shall need more group commanders to make it improve still further.”

  “Like Martineau?” He watched the Commodore curiously. He knew that Raikes disliked Captain Lucky Bradshaw. Something from the past? Something personal? He had heard that Raikes had once served under Bradshaw, until his sudden departure from the navy. Memories were long in the Royal Navy, and Raikes had his eye on something better and higher than Commodore.

  Raikes said suddenly, “I’m going south shortly to meet some important people, from Admiralty. It won’t do us any harm at all, I would think.”

  Tennant could see his mind moving on, the time ticking away.

  Raikes said, “Second Officer Roche reported back to duty yesterday.”

  “But I thought she was still on sick leave, after that bombing—I mean, she got knocked about a bit.”

  Raikes gave a thin smile. “She insisted. She’s got what it takes.” He patted his stomach. “Guts.”

  “I see.”

  Raikes glanced at the telephones. He didn’t see at all. But that was the Admiral’s problem.

  He said, “I shall take her with me. Things will be quiet in the group until Bradshaw gets back. My staff will be busy working up the new flotilla.” He nodded, satisfied. “Going well.”

  Tennant had seen and spoken to the soft-voiced Canadian Wren officer several times. It was interesting. Raikes and a Wren? It had to be something else.

  A telephone buzzed and Raikes snatched it up. “Yes. Why the hell not? I shall tell them!” He slammed it down and said, “ Hakka will be in Scapa tomorrow morning. Then she’s returning here. A fleet tug is taking Java to the dockyard. There will have to be an inquiry. However . . .”

  The Chief of Staff departed with the duty officer. It was half past three.

  Raikes picked up another telephone and sat patiently, tapping one foot while he waited for an answer.

  “Ah, Crawfie. Sorry to get you up. Flap on? Certainly not. Everything’s in hand. Now, about Anna Roche . . .”

  He looked across at the great map and its coloured markers, and smiled. Like a game of chess, he thought. The right moves counted, nothing else.

  14 | The Only Way

  HMS Hakka ’s return to Liverpool was both dramatic and moving, and so different from her first arrival, when she had joined the Western Approaches Command. On this cold, clear forenoon while the destroyer manoeuvred slowly and carefully into her prescribed berth, even the old sweats and the hard men were affected by the stillness and the silence of the busy, overcrowded port.

  It was Sunday, although that meant little to Liverpool, which had become the main artery of the Atlantic lifeline, but gantries were still, and derricks aboard a newly arrived freighter were motionless.

  Here they were used to seeing battered ships, merchant-men and escorts alike, and yet in the eyes of the ship where Fairfax waited with the forecastle party, watching the narrowing arrowhead of choppy water which separated them from the land, he could sense the difference. He saw men leaving other ships as if to some invisible signal, ready to take Hakka ’s first lines when they snaked ashore. No waving, none of the usual banter, more as if they were sharing some privilege. And the same jetty was crowded with blue figures, like that first time, although most of them were officially off duty. They, too, were unmoving, except here and there where a sailor’s collar lifted to the cold breeze, or a white handkerchief was used to dab an eye, and not because of the keenness of the air.

  Fairfax knew what she had looked like, how she still must look after her brief sojourn alongside the destroyers’ depot ship Tyne at Scapa. The ambulances waiting on the ramp, the injured being carried ashore on stretchers, the coxswain still protesting, in spite of his splinter wound . . . The Captain had been down there to see them taken ashore. He had seen him reach out to take a man’s hand, or stoop to speak to another too weak to move, and had watched him smile and hold the coxswain’s clenched fist as if to assure him that Hakka would never return to active duty without him at the wheel.

  And before that, when Hakka had stopped engines for the first time, on her way to Scapa, for three men they would not be taking home.

  Fairfax had felt it then, perhaps more than ever. What it was costing Martineau. Take the weight, Number One. And he had left the bridge and had walked aft to where the makeshift burial party had been assembled.

  Three men. The young Oerlikon gunner who had been beheaded, a stoker who had died of his wounds, and one of the Germans who had been rescued only to die of shock and exposure shortly afterwards.

  Of the young seaman gunner Martineau had said, “His family will have enough anguish without discovering how he died.”

  Fairfax had noticed that he did not use a prayer book. Perhaps he had done it too many times. Three bodies, two of ours, one of theirs. For many the worst part had been the sudden stopping of engines. Like a missing heartbeat. Men on watch gripped their weapons more tightly, some peered out at the dark waters as if they expected to see periscopes on every hand. A few simply prayed.

  The others they had brought home. They were laid out now, stitched in canvas and covered by flags, the blackened splinter holes
and the broken remains of the whaler telling only a fragment of the story.

  Hakka would be going into dock, however briefly, and her promised Bofors guns would also be fitted. Men who had lost their clothing and other gear would have to be re-equipped by Naval Stores, new men fitted into the watch bill and daily routine. Fairfax got no sympathy there. It’s Jimmy-the-One’s job, anyway! But he was going to miss big Bill Spicer until he pulled some strings to get him back to his ship.

  He looked up at the bridge and saw Martineau silhouetted against an unusually clear sky. No bridge coat or duffle. The destroyer Captain.

  Fairfax said, “Now!” His leading hand reached back and then hurled the heaving line across the oily water, and he smiled grimly as three sailors reached out to catch it.

  The starboard screw was thrashing astern, and although he could not see it Fairfax imagined the other lines being flung from aft.

  Next, the wires, while more men dragged the rope fenders to absorb the first shock of contact.

  He felt the deck shudder, the screws motionless, and saw the shadow of the flag as it broke smartly from the jackstaff.

  It was Slade, the baby-faced bunting tosser. He had grown up quickly, he thought.

  The leading seaman muttered, “Company, sir.”

  He saw the cars moving slowly through the usual water-front clutter, big camouflaged Humbers, fortunately none of them displaying an admiral’s flag.

  “Fall out, fo’c’sle party! Secure!”

  He walked aft and was surprised at the sudden appearance of men wearing perfectly blancoed belts and gaiters. A miracle when you considered the state of their messdecks.

  Ossie Pike, the Buffer, tossed him a formal salute. “Escort for the prisoners.” He had seen the staff cars too. “Must do it proper!” But even he could not manage his usual sparkle.

  The Admiral at Scapa had insisted that the Germans be brought to Liverpool. The Boss would wish to take part in the interrogation; it was something he did with U-boat survivors, when there were any.

  He saw men lining the guardrails of the other ships, watching in silence. Some of them found jobs to do when they saw the gold lace spilling out of the leading car.