Strike from the Sea (1978)

by Reeman, Douglas

  His face was dripping with sweat, and Ainslie could almost smell his fear. Up in the sky in some flimsy seaplane with his rough-and-ready pilot he would do anything. Down here was something different. Quinton had probably sent him to give him something to do, to keep his mind off it.

  ‘What depth?’

  Jones shook his head. ‘I forget, sir.’

  ‘Tell Number One I’m all right.’ His eyes focused on Hunt. ‘How many did we lose?’

  He shrugged. ‘Two killed.’ He did not look at the propped-up figure in the corner. ‘Another to go soon. And four injured, mostly by being thrown about.’

  Hunt crouched down as the drumming screws came towards them again. ‘Oh God,’ he whispered, ‘I can’t take much more!’

  Ainslie tensed, holding his breath. until his head swam, as the destroyer’s engines thundered louder and louder and then quite suddenly began to fade away.

  He looked at Hunt and was shocked to see the tears running down his face. He had bunched his hands together as he waited for the final pattern of depth-charges to split the submarine’s hull wide open.

  Ainslie wanted to comfort him, to thank him for all he had done for the wounded and the dying. But nothing would come out, and he felt his mind going away once more down the spiralling tunnel.

  Then Quinton was leaning over him, his forehead cut by flying glass, his face lined and weary with strain.

  Ainslie tried to speak lucidly. ‘I heard that last one, John. Has it gone?’

  Quinton smiled down at him. ‘That was two hours ago, Skipper. You dropped off again.’

  It was not possible. Perhaps he was dying and they were trying to make it easy for him. How could it be two hours? He looked over the cot and saw that the man had gone from the corner and a body lay covered by a sheet beside the door.

  Quinton said quietly, ‘We are out of it, Skipper. A bit battered here and there, but we made it. Thanks to you.’

  The tannoy said, ‘First lieutenant in the control room!’

  Quinton ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging paint flakes and grit. ‘I’ll be back, Skipper.’

  He darted a meaning glance at the SBA, and as Ainslie turned his head he saw another needle going into his arm.

  He tried to protest, but it was already too late.

  In the control room they stood around like dazed survivors, their feet amongst the litter of broken gauges and equipment blasted from their fittings by the endless bombardment.

  Some of the men were still looking at the deckhead, listening for the destroyers, the hunters after their kill. Others stared at nothing, eyes dulled by fatigue, spent to a point of collapse.

  Forster had his head in his hands, elbows propped on the vibrating plot table.

  Once more, he had survived.

  Halliday finished tying a bandage around a stoker’s arm and said gruffly. ‘We’d better get to it, lads. You never know. They might come after us again.’

  Lucas nodded, his mind still reeling from the noise, from the feeling of being crushed in a vice of pain and violence. All through it he had thought of Ainslie being brought down, bleeding, from the bridge. Of Halliday’s grim determination through each mind-bending crisis. Of Quinton, riding the boat, legs astride, shouting orders and abuse, encouragement and curses, holding them all together.

  Quinton said, ‘You’re right, Chief. We’ll get some food and drink laid on, too.’ He smiled painfully. ‘Skipper’s going to be all right.’

  As they began to put themselves together again, Gosling handed over the helm to Voysey, the second coxswain. When he stood up he felt his bones creak, his fingers sore from gripping the wheel.

  He looked at the yeoman of signals and winked. ‘Reckon you were right, Jock. After we get clear o’ this little lot, I’m putting in for a nice cushy billet ashore!’

  They both knew it was unlikely. But a few hours earlier so too had been their very survival.

  Ainslie remembered very little of the passage back to Singapore. Drugged into a state of half understanding what was happening, he lost count of time and distance completely.

  In moments of awareness, as the searing pain of his wound made him sweat and writhe in the cot, he heard many feet passing the sick-bay, the sounds of repairs being carried out seemingly everywhere.

  Only Quinton and Halliday ever visited him, and then rarely and for short periods. Ainslie guessed it was by careful agreement between them and Hunt to keep him quiet, to prevent his joining in the boat’s affairs as she headed very slowly back to harbour.

  Hunt took good care to see that when he left the submarine on a stretcher his journey to the hospital was as painless as possible.

  It was like being in a nightmare, or helplessly drunk. Ainslie dimly recalled the sunlight, the tall conning tower looming above him as he was carried towards the brow. Faces looking down at him as he passed, some smiling, others just watching, remembering perhaps how they had shared all of it with him.

  The events which followed his departure from Soufrière were equally confused. Gliding along an endless corridor, his drugged mind trying to count the lights as they passed overhead.

  Then cool stillness, more faces bobbing above him, scissors cutting away at the dressings, eyes without faces above their masks, giving nothing away.

  And then a bed somewhere, a small white room without windows which he guessed was underground.

  His wound, the great loss of blood, added to his fatigue, were enough to keep him unconscious for much of the time.

  Once or twice he awoke, struggling with his sheets as he heard distant explosions. But they were bombs falling, not depth-charges. As a patient nursing orderly explained to him, ‘It takes time, sir. You’ve got to realize that you’re out of it. For now, anyway.’

  Ainslie thought a lot about that. The Soufrière, and the Japanese carrier capsizing in flames. With the tired dignity that most ships seemed to show when they died. As the days passed and he felt his strength returning he was able to put his thoughts in order, to remember the sequence of that last terrible attack. It was not so easy as the nursing orderly imagined, to let go, to forget.

  Eventually Rear-Admiral Granger came to see him, a doctor close at hand to make sure Ainslie was not worn down by questions.

  Granger sat on the only chair in the room, his plump legs crossed, somehow incomplete without the pipe.

  He said, ‘I would have come earlier, but they thought it best this way.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Looking after you all right?’

  Ainslie tried to push himself up on one elbow, but it was hopeless. He fell back again and said between his teeth, ‘I’d like to know what’s happening, sir, if you don’t mind.’

  Granger nodded slowly. ‘Of course. Your exploits in Area Item Fox made tremendous reading. Your first lieutenant put in a good report, and with what I knew already it seems you did the impossible. If we’d known just how many Jap warships there were in the bay, I don’t think we’d have let you go at all. But it’s done, and the Sudsuya’s on the bottom for good.’

  Ainslie closed his eyes, feeling the prick of emotion, the nearness of collapse and shock.

  He said, ‘What about me, sir?’

  Granger replied cheerfully, ‘Oh, they’ll be getting you away from here, I expect. I’m like everyone else. Waiting for orders.’

  Ainslie opened his eyes and looked at him. It was no use. Granger had told him nothing.

  He asked, ‘Are we holding the enemy back, sir?’

  Granger came to a decision. ‘No. In my view, the Japs will be down to the Johore Strait in a couple of weeks. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. I could lie to you, but you’ve done too much, seen too much to deserve that kind of deceit. It’s bad, all the way. I’m organizing another convoy to evacuate some more of the women and dependants. It’s a race against time, nothing else.’

  Ainslie lay very still, aware of the steady throb beneath his bandages, the unnatural quiet of the underground room.

  ‘The T
orrances, sir? What happened?’

  Granger looked at his shoes. ‘Still here. Guy Torrance has been a bit difficult about the boats he was having built. We need them now, but he’s being bloody awkward, to put it mildly. Trouble is, and this is just between us, there are lots of people like him. Heard of a case the other day. The poor bloody Army wanted to dig slit trenches across the golf course, but the club secretary wouldn’t hear of it. Anywhere else, the Army would have kicked his backside out of it. But this is different.’ He added with sudden bitterness, ‘Good old Singers, it will never fall to a bunch of Japs!’

  Ainslie felt his strength dropping away in spite of his efforts. ‘I should like to return to my command as soon as I can, sir.’

  ‘No doubt you would.’ Granger saw the doctor frowning at him. ‘You’ll be moved from here pretty soon. Beyond that I can’t say.’ He stood up and gave a great sigh. ‘I wish to God I was at sea. That I do know.’

  Ainslie saw the door close and realized that the rest was missing. Granger and the white-coated doctor had vanished, like the dying seaman in the sick-bay.

  He felt something like terror sweep over him. He would never get a ship again if his mind had broken under the shock. Not even a clapped-out escort, never mind a submarine.

  He had to get back. Must. He felt tears running down his cheeks. Despair, self-pity, even anger at his inability to find the power to reason made him groan aloud.

  An orderly was at the bedside in seconds.

  Ainslie said weakly, ‘Keep your bloody needles away from me!’

  The man grinned down at him. ‘Not this time, sir. This time it’s a visitor.’

  Ainslie turned his head and stared at the door. She was standing just outside in the passageway, wearing a pale dress, her hair hanging loose as it had at Christmas.

  The orderly beamed. ‘When Rear-Admiral Granger came yesterday, sir, he said it was all right.’

  Ainslie swallowed hard. Yesterday? Was it possible?

  She crossed the room and sat on the chair, her mouth smiling but her eyes filled with concern and pity.

  She said softly, ‘They wouldn’t let me come sooner. Your Lieutenant Quinton came to the hotel and told me about it. I think he left a lot out, but the rest was awful enough.’

  Ainslie was almost afraid to speak in case he broke down again.

  He said, ‘You look lovely. God, I think that but for you I’d have gone under completely.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You meant that!’ She rested her fingers lightly on his bare shoulder. ‘Don’t excite yourself. I heard about your wound.’ Despite her care she was unable to prevent her lip from quivering or her fingers from gripping his skin. ‘But you’re back now. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘You should have gone. When I heard about the Bengal Princess being sunk I realized how dangerous it’s all become.’ Ainslie tried to move closer to her. ‘You must get away. I couldn’t bear it if you were still here when they –’

  She put her hand on his mouth. ‘Shhh. We’ll manage something. You’ll see.’

  Ainslie smiled. He could smell her skin, feel her softness. It was like another dress.

  She saw his sudden anxiety and said, ‘No. It’s real this time, Robert. I shouldn’t be here like this. You know it, and I know it.’ She withdrew her hand and pushed some hair from her forehead. ‘But I don’t want it to stop.’

  Somewhere, a hundred miles away, a bell rang, and she said, ‘Why is it that when you want to stay it’s time to go? When you hate something it lasts forever.’

  Ainslie watched her as she stood up and smoothed her dress.

  ‘When can I see you again?’

  ‘Soon.’ She watched him gravely, as if she wanted to remember everything, to share his pain. ‘Arnold Granger will try to help. He’s a dear.’

  The door opened and the orderly said, ‘Time’s up, sir.’

  She bent over the bed and kissed him slowly on the mouth, her hair falling across his shoulders like warm silk.

  He said, ‘Take care.’

  She moved to the door. ‘You, too.’ Then she was gone.

  The next visitor was Quinton, strangely alien in clean whites after his battle-torn appearance in the submarine.

  He said, ‘Soufrière’s almost back to rights again. We’ve done most of the welding and patching ourselves. The dockyard mateys are too scared to risk getting their heads blown off. But we’re fairly well protected, plenty of ack-ack and heavy flak around the harbour.’

  ‘I’ve not thanked you yet, John.’ Here it was again, the emotion, the inability to find the right words. ‘I don’t know how you did it, but thanks.’

  Quinton smiled. ‘You got us in and out. The rest was a case of thinking ahead of the Jap skippers up top. Fortunately, we’ve been at it a helluva lot longer than they have.’ He became serious. ‘Things look pretty ropey. I’ve heard that the line is falling right back to the island, double-quick. Then they’ll blow up the Causeway and dig in. Operations think the Japs will try another naval attack now that they’ve got Malaya in the bag. But I intend to make it my business to get you out, no matter what.’ He grinned. ‘I found the lady for you. Okay?’

  Ainslie reached out and gripped his wrist. ‘Okay.’ It was all he could say.

  Quinton looked at his watch. ‘Must get back. I’m restricting our lads to the harbour. Things are a bit ugly in town. Everyone’s so busy blaming somebody else they can’t see the danger coming smack at them!’ He was unwilling to break the contact. ‘Don’t worry, Skipper. I’ll take good care of the boat until you get back.’ He jammed on his cap. ‘So long.’

  Three more days of uncertainty were to pass before Ainslie was told that he was leaving the hospital.

  He had taken his first steps around the little room, aided by the same patient orderly, and had even been allowed to see the savage-looking scar on his shoulder where they had probed to make certain there were no more fragments of shell splinters.

  Feeling like a new boy at school, carefully dressed in a loose white shirt and shorts, the orderly following him with his cap, Ainslie was guided to a field ambulance.

  The doctor said cheerfully, ‘Take a few days to get the feel of things, old chap. After that, well, we shall see, eh?’

  Sitting propped in the slow-moving ambulance, Ainslie got his first glimpse of Singapore for over three weeks. Bombed buildings were everywhere, upturned carts and other vehicles had been dragged into side streets and abandoned like piled rubbish. The police were very much in evidence, and scores of soldiers roamed the streets like a lost army.

  The orderly remarked, ‘Now that the RAF has regrouped on the island we’re getting better air cover, sir. Bit too late if you ask me.’

  The ambulance jolted over some scattered bricks and turned into a familiar road.

  Raffles, apparently unscathed, passed the line of Ainslie’s vision, and he felt his heart beginning to thump wildly.

  What had she said? Granger will try to help.

  He struggled round in his seat and peered at the Royal Hotel. One wing had been sheered right off, leaving a blackened tangle of charred frames and fallen masonry. It was like a disfigurement to the old place. An insult.

  There were armed soldiers at the gates, and a corporal waved the ambulance inside with barely a glance.

  There was a large notice on the wall. Off Limits To All Personnel.

  The orderly made ready to help Ainslie to the ground. He said, ‘We took over part of the hotel for walking wounded, sir. There are still some civvies here, but not many now.’

  Ainslie looked at him. He did not know. It was like a precious secret.

  He saw the old Indian porter coming to meet him, and was shocked to see how he had aged. His coat was stained and patched, and there was a burn mark on his topee.

  ‘Greetings, Commander-sahib!’

  Ainslie smiled. ‘Thank you. It takes more than a few bombs to scare you, I see.’

  The old man dabbed his eyes and sniffed. ‘We will
show them, sahib.’ He shuffled away, his world already gone.

  A sergeant was sitting at the reception desk, and he jumped to attention as Ainslie walked stiffly into the cool shade.

  ‘’Mornin’, sir.’ He waved to some bearers. ‘I’ll have you taken up to your quarters. In the event of an air raid, we are supposed to go down to the cellars.’ He did not smile as he added in the same clipped voice, ‘Fact is, I’d as soon die in bed meself as go down there!’

  The orderly was giving some papers and Ainslie’s bag to the sergeant, while two Chinese servants waited for their instructions nearby. Ainslie examined the big room, feeling its shabby defiance all around him. A crack in the far wall, zigzagging and widening, some plaster hanging from the ceiling, the clock face broken, as were some of the pictures.

  But a few civilians were sitting at the little tables, neatly dressed, their faces giving nothing away.

  The orderly said, ‘Now, sir, if you’ll go with these chaps?’

  Ainslie turned stiffly and saw her coming down the stairs.’

  She said quietly, ‘I will show the commander his room.’ She was watching his face, linking them together with her eyes, excluding everyone else.

  ‘Very well, miss.’ The soldier winked at the sergeant behind the desk. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  The sergeant watched the girl’s legs up the stairs and saw her slip her hand through the commander’s arm. Her husband had been in the hotel yesterday, but would not be back for several days.

  The sergeant looked down at his desk. It’s all right for some.

  Ainslie opened his eyes and stared straight up at the ceiling while his mind grappled with the unfamiliar surroundings. It was very dark in the room, although through some slits in the shutters he saw moonlight.

  His mouth felt parched, like dust, and he groaned aloud with sudden anger. They must have given him something to put him under again. It was night-time and very quiet. He could vaguely recall getting undressed, taking some tea which another orderly had brought him. Then nothing, until now.

  Something like muffled thunder moved against the shutters. It was gunfire, artillery, and a long way off. Like a threat.