Farrant realized what had happened just as his mind recorded that the port gun was useless. Even if it could still fire, the risk of an internal explosion or a flash-back to the magazine outweighed any other value.
He also accepted that because of the damage the turret would have to be sealed by its lower hatches if or when the submarine ever managed to dive. Anyone left inside would be drowned when the turret was flooded.
And yet in some strange way all of these things seemed unimportant when compared with one overriding fact. That last shell had cleared the turret’s training mechanism. Maybe it had not been damaged by splinters as he had believed, but merely jammed by some metal blown from the casing.
He watched the destroyer move into his sights. It was perfect. Exact.
‘Shoot!’
This time there was no error. A mushrooming orange flame burst through the destroyer’s bridge, while funnels, boats and masts exploded in all directions around her.
Farrant sat back in his chair, almost relaxed as he began to train the turret towards the other destroyer. He felt satisfied, but strangely drowsy.
A gunlayer clambered up towards him, and after a brief glance at Southby’s slumped body exclaimed, ‘’Ere, sir! You’ve bin ‘it!’
Farrant regarded him glassily. ‘I know that, you fool!’ He steeled himself to look down at his legs. He was amazed he had lived this long, let alone feel no pain.
The gunlayer eyed him sadly. ‘I’ll stay an’ give you a ‘and, sir.’
And with the man holding him upright in his chair, Farrant continued to train the turret towards the enemy.
As the shadow of the two guns passed over the punctured casing, Halliday saw the buckled piece of metal fall away from the hydroplane and vanish into the submarine’s bow wave.
His remaining helpers, an artificer, took his arm, and like two drunks they lurched aft towards the conning tower. The others lay dead where they had fallen, except for Cottier, who had died even as his cutter had released the last of the obstruction and had pitched overboard.
Halliday was in great pain, for he, too, had taken a splinter in his back. And yet he had kept going, with a sort of wildness mixed with a sense of pride as he had endeavoured to complete the work. Shock and loss of blood made the last steps to the conning tower blurred and meaningless. Halliday remembered little until he opened his eyes and discovered he was being carried through the control room towards the sick-bay. Somehow he cocked his head as he had done a million times to gauge the beat of the engines, his engines.
Through the mist of pain he saw Lucas staring after him and shouted, ‘Can you take her, laddie? I’ll not be much help . . . .’
Lucas saw the needle going into Halliday’s arm and sighed. For an instant he had imagined Halliday was going to die, and he had realized just how much it meant to him that he should stay alive.
He looked at his men at the panel, the valves and dials which were the Soufrière’s means of life.
Halliday trusted him. And that was everything.
Quinton strode to the voice-pipe, his feet crunching on shattered glass and brushing against dazed and wounded men. There was even a stench of death down here, he thought.
‘First lieutenant speaking, sir. Fore-planes tested and correct.’ He could picture him above, gripping the bridge for support as the submarine maintained her charge towards the enemy. ‘Are you all right?’
Ainslie answered, ‘Yes. Thank you, John.’
He hesitated, and Quinton thought he had after all been hit.
Then he added slowly, ‘I’m just watching a miracle. The second destroyer is turning away from us. They’re all running, John. Probably think we’re after the troopers.’ He gave a short laugh which sounded like a sob. ‘With what, for God’s sake?’
Quinton looked at Ridgway. ‘Take over. I’m going up. Tell Hunt to clear the turret of anyone who is still alive.’ As he made for the ladder he called, ‘And then lay off a course to intercept the convoy.’
When he reached the bridge Quinton stood quite still for several seconds, scarcely able to believe that anyone could stay alive. Could all this have happened up here and there were some still able to see it, to speak of it?
Sprawled bodies, riddled plating, the fury of a battle.
Something touched his leg as he stepped carefully towards Ainslie, and when he looked down he saw Forster staring up at him. He was trying to grin, to show that he knew what was happening, what they had done together.
Quinton patted his shoulder then stood up to stare at the smoke on the water. A screen laid by the last warship or the damage from Farrant’s shells, he neither knew nor cared.
Ainslie wiped his face with his forearm and said quietly, ‘I used not to expect too much of miracles, John.’ He shook his head. ‘But after this, I don’t know.’
‘Any orders, sir? I’ve told Torps to lay off a course for the convoy. After that –’
Ainslie reached out and gripped his arm. Then he smiled, the shadows of battle dropping away completely as he said, ‘After that, we’re going home.’
Quinton understood and shared his feelings for what had happened. Against the fall of Malaya and Singapore their victory might not even register. But a convoy had survived and an impossible sacrifice had been made into a triumph, a symbol.
Soufrière had carried them all. Soon she would go to sea again, in other hands, and perhaps for different roles. But they would all remember her, and what they had achieved in one interlude of war.
A pale-faced lookout reported shakily, ‘Torpedoman Sawle requests permission to come to the bridge, sir. Something to drink.’
Quinton grinned. ‘Perfect timing.’
Moments later, with her two guns still pointing stiffly towards the horizon, Soufrière, the largest submarine in the world, altered course, leaving the smoke further and further astern.
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Epub ISBN: 9781448150779
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First published by Arrow Books in 1978
This edition published by Arrow Books in 2001
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Copyright © Bolitho Maritime Productions Ltd 1978
Douglas Reeman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters
are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in the United Kingdom in 1978 by Hutchinson
Arrow Books
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is available from the British Library
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