J. E. MacDonnell - 021

by The Coxswain(lit)

  For a moment Bentley kept his eyes on the table, where they had been all the time Rennie was talking. Vivid in his boxer's mind was that scene on the mess-deck-easily he could fill in the details omitted in the coxswain's terse and official account. The savagery of the big man's attack, the guts it must have taken to withstand it-and the mental picture of Hooky bounding into the mess-deck...

  His head came up and for the first time he looked into Beuring's eyes.

  "You still have nothing to say?"

  "No, sir. Except that I wasn't runnin'. no board and the Buffer struck me."

  "Is that all?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Then Bentley started to speak. He leaned forward a little with his finger-tips resting on the table, his face a few feet from Beuring's and his eyes, cold with anger, fixed in a condemning stare.

  They would remember those words for a long time. And what did most to sear them in their memories was the odd impression that it was not the captain talking, but a man. A tall, wide-shouldered man, the boxing champion of the Fleet, telling what he thought of another man.

  There wasn't a man aboard that ship, and very few in the entire Navy, who did not know of Commander Bentley's heavyweight title. Things like that about a captain get about much more efficiently and comprehensively than stories about his professional competence.

  And now it was Bentley the boxer, his voice biting with contempt, assessing a charge and a subject on which he was expert.

  "Able-seaman Beuring," he said, and his quiet tone cut like a knife across the intent silence, "you are a thief and a gambler and a liar. You were struck by the chief bosun's mate in a legitimate attempt to prevent further injury to a senior rating. You attacked a man at least three stone lighter than yourself. You knew that man could not hope to fight against your size and strength. Able-seaman Beuring..."

  He paused, and Randall, watchful, saw the dull red mounting up Beuring's neck.

  "You are a mongrel and a coward," Bentley finished. "Remanded for court-martial!"

  The escort marched off their prisoner.

  "Cox'n."

  "Sir?"

  "I want Pascoe held in the cable-locker flat. Beuring is to go in the tiller-flat aft. The usual guards. We'll get rid of them in Moresby."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  The officers were still there. Bentley was still behind the table. The scene was still official.

  "I want to say this to you, cox'n. You've conducted yourself in a manner which brings the highest credit to your branch." A recent memory of other praise delivered slipped into his mind. He smiled.

  `'Damn it all, Rennie! You did a fine job. I'm glad and proud to have you in my ship!"

  They all smiled, Hooky with a creasing grin that threatened to disturb the anchorage of his ears. Rennie smiled, and behind the gesture was the thought that the pain in his mouth and the bruises on his chest were worth it.

  In a destroyer at sea at war there is little of interest to talk about. You know your messmate's pay, his ambitions, his prospects, his family, how many suits he owns, even how he handles his women.

  So that for the next twenty-four hours the ship buzzed. There were endless variations on the coxswain's staunchness, on Beuring and what the captain had said about him.

  The whole ship was familiar with Bentley's words-Hooky had deliberately passed them on. It was the captain's attitude which intrigued them most. Bentley had said practically nothing about the charges of gambling and stealing-he had dealt with Beuring as a man. That was something they could relish and appreciate completely.

  And there was another fascinating facet of that novel trial. The layer of the pom-pom put it succinctly at teatime that afternoon:

  "What tickles me," he grinned, "is that Beuring can't say the Old Man was pulling his rank. The bastard can't say what he'd do if Bentley took his rings off. Because if he did the skipper could take that slob with one hand tied behind his back!"

  The talk went on; interested, vehement talk. The whole ship was revitalised. But the most significant effect of Rennie's action was one of relief. They talked and joked and swore about what had happened, but underneath every man was glad that the cancer had been chopped out.

  Now you didn't have to skulk on the mess-deck, ready to bolt when the cockatoo whistled; now you could leave your locker open, pinch a packet of fags from your cobber's overcoat, be received when you were alone on the mess-deck with nothing but a "G'day, bloody hot, ain't it?"

  By the second day, shortly before the ship was due to make her island landfall, the excitement had eased. But the rejuvenation remained. They had been given a salving interest, something they could talk to men in other ships about. And they had been reminded that they had a captain who was all man, clean through.

  The night was clear, moonless and dark. The shape of the island was a merging black bulk ahead. Closed-up for action, Wind Rode slid slowly on, her radar and a score of binoculars searching.

  "I see no evil," Randall grinned under his glasses, "not that I'm complaining."

  "It looks quiet enough," Bentley agreed. "But I didn't expect any activity. Not so soon, anyway."

  "You'll take a look right round the island?"

  "Yes. Then we'll get to hell out of it. The memory of a certain night is tingling up the old backbone..."

  "Enough's enough," Randall nodded, "I'll take her round, shall I?"

  "Yes, please."

  The ship turned a little to port and headed for the southern end of the island, aiming for the side opposite the scene of their night-action. They had the tip of the island abeam when Pilot remarked casually:

  "You'll remember there's a harbour just round the corner, sir?"

  "Yes, Pilot. But you needn't worry about sending a berthing signal."

  "No, sir." Pilot smiled dutifully at his captain's humour.

  She crept on, a black shadow in the quietness of the night, her reduced speed keeping the telltale wake to a minimum of whiteness. There certainly would be Japs ashore, and they could have guns. But their main defence lay in the Admiral's psychology:

  "They won't expect you. Only a damn fool would go back so soon."

  He might be a fool, Bentley was thinking, but at least he was ready for any result his foolishness might precipitate. Ready with a full head of steam straining in his boilers. Apart from aircraft, which he did not fear here, the only thing which could catch him would be a motor-torpedo boat, and the Japs did not go in for that sort of animal.

  A minute later he knew with a jolt of alarm in his guts that he might have to use that steam, that he had a hell of a lot to fear.

  It was the signal-yeoman again, as it usually was:

  "Captain, sir! I can see ships in that harbour!"

  Bentley's sight was keen, but it was some seconds before he could verify what the yeoman's hawk eyes had picked out. The harbour entrance was narrow, and its inner end was backed by confusing jungle, but dimly he could distinguish against the dark background at least two objects of a lighter grey.

  He called, quietly:

  "What do you make of them?"

  "Cruisers, sir," Ferris answered at once, "I can see two, and what looks like the stern of a third."

  Through the tense alertness of Bentley's mind another recent memory came crowding. The Admiral had mentioned a cruiser force in the area, had said he expected a seaborne attack. Here it was, holed-up, probably refuelling from a tanker for the strike at Guadal Canal.

  The Japs had been cunning, too. Though the island was patently a handy fuelling stop for the attack on Guadal Canal, they could reasonably expect that no Allied ships would be sent to investigate it after the devastating attack of a few nights before. Nor would a ship have been sent; Wind Rode was there only because she was on her way back to Moresby.

  The harbour mouth slid slowly abeam and for an electrifying second the thought exercised Bentley's mind. But he tossed it aside at once. To do any good in there, to make sure his torpedoes took crippling effect, he would have
to get inside the harbour. Once inside he would be able to manoeuvre only at slow speed; those cruisers, once he was sighted, would blow him out of the water.

  And his attack would need to be wholly successful. If he succeeded only in giving the alarm, the cruisers would get clear in a hurry. Then they could either deliver their attack on Guadal Canal, or else be lost to the Admiral's bomber squadrons.

  His attack on the airfield had been a calculated risk. An attack now would be calculated suicide.

  "Port twenty," he ordered down the voice-pipe, and subconsciously kept his voice low. "Half ahead both engines. Pass that order by..."

  The clang of the engine-room bells rode over his voice. In the silence of the night they sounded like a fire-alarm. The telegraphsman, standing close to Rennie's voice-pipe, was efficient-too efficient.

  "Pass all orders by phone," Bentley snapped.

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  The shaking started and her bow began to swing. Now her life depended not on offensive action but on just how quietly and quickly she could get away from it.

  Her line of advance on the turn was taking her, as Bentley had known it would, past the harbour entrance. Her wake was higher, but he had to risk that. Those cruisers could fire just as easily from an anchorage as in the open sea, and he had to give her enough speed to manoeuvre to slip the salvoes.

  What worried him was the sound of the bells. They would carry clearly on a night like this. And they could not be expected to be mistaken for cow-bells...

  Two minutes later, with the ship past the entrance, out of sight of what was inside, and no slam of guns behind them, he knew that the bells had not been heard.

  "Full ahead both engines!" he ordered Rennie, "by phone, remember!"

  "By phone, sir," Rennie acknowledged, and the order went down.

  Mr. Fry must have guessed something was up in this unhealthy neighbourhood. He gave her her power quickly, and she shuddered and the wake piled up high under her squat counter.

  At 35 knots she surged away from the island into the friendly opacity of the night.

  Randall turned from staring astern and lowered his glasses.

  "I take it," he said drily, his voice a little throaty, "you don't intend to take on that cruiser squadron?"

  "You were never more right in your life," Bentley said fervently.

  "Thank God for that," his friend and deputy answered in the same tone. "Ah... might I ask why we've grown cautious-and sensible- all of a sudden?"

  "Surely." Bentley was smiling-his nerves had let go. "The Admiral gave me orders to clear out if I found a build-up of enemy activity."

  "And to send him a little note to that effect, no doubt."

  "No doubt at all. I'll stay at this speed for an hour, then get a coded signal off. His bombers should be over before dawn."

  "Thank Gawd for the Air Force!" Randall said, only half joking.

  "Yes," Bentley said musingly. He hung his glasses by their strap round the binnacle. "There's another reason why I didn't go in there, Bob."

  "Oh? Apart from the obvious one that we'd have been blown to hell?"

  "That's right. You see," the captain said gently, "I don't have to prove anything to anybody any more. Not now."

  He leaned to one side and his voice was brisk.

  "Cox'n? You can hand over the wheel now. Fall out special seadutymen."

  "Fall out special sea-dutymen. Aye, aye, sir!" the coxswain answered.

  His voice, too, was brisk.

  The End