“What do you mean, P.O?”
“If you dump gear from one side of the boat, dump something of equal weight from the other, anchors for instance.”
“Got yer, what about the life rafts?”
Stone hesitated…No life rafts no means of getting off if she founders. “Chuck ‘em over, we will have to rely on our lifejackets. Anyway the ‘Nishga’ will be there for us if the worst comes to the worst, the ‘Nishga won’t be far off. I’m going below, if there’s gear you’re not sure about, I mean, gear you think we might need, stow it on the middle line and I’ll sort through it as soon as I get back.”
“Got yer.”
“Got yer, P.O.” reminded Stone.
He made his way aft, hanging on to the bulkhead handrail, for dear life, as he went. The Stoker PO, a bearded Scotsman by the name of ‘Jock’ Sterling, was waiting by the engine room door. At his feet two stokers struggled with a heavy portable pump. A black hose ran from it to a ventilator.
“There’s a foot of water in the engine room, she leaking like a bloody sieve from somewhere.”
Stone nodded, “ Leave Warren here to deal with the water in the engine room: The leading stoker crouched by the pump looked up in surprise, a seaman who knew his name.
“You come with me, Jock, we’ll take a shufty at the holds, see what state they’re in.”
The pump rattled into life with a cough and a flying cloud of oily black smoke.
Sterling bent low, to make himself heard, “Warren, lash that pump down securely and then get yourself below, take charge of that civy in the engine room. Leave Seymour to man the pump.” He turned back to Stone, “ Right, Rocky, ready when you are.”
* * *
The for’ard hold reeked of fish, Stone hung from a ladder rung and shone his powerful torch down into the gloom below. Only a few feet below him the rusty iron ladder disappeared into water, thick with oil. He looked for the light switch, found it and flicked it on with the corner of his torch, nothing.
“First job, get the ‘Lecky’ to rig up a portable light down here…” He paused as his words were drowned out by the crash and rattle of the anchor cable leaping its way up the hawse pipe from the cable locker. The Leading hand was hard at work dumping the heavy anchors and their cables.
He shone his light around the darkened hold, the water was deeper here than in the engine room…two, maybe three feet.
“Aye, this is where the water’s coming from alright.” called Sterling from somewhere above him. It was as if he was reading his thoughts.
“See that water-tight door, Jock.” Stone shone the beam onto a rusty steel door in a fore and aft bulkhead which divided the hold into two. “Get it closed right away it will reduce the width of the compartment, reduce the free surface area and hopefully this bloody loll. Then get the pump up here as soon as you’ve got the water down to a workable level in the engine room.”
“I’ve enough hose to reach both places at the same time. That way, if we have to, we can quickly shift back to the engine room without the bind of moving the pump and its hose.”
“Good, anything that will save time,” said Stone, climbing past the Stoker P.O. and out onto the deck. He leaned back over the open hatch and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Make sure you pump her out evenly, otherwise it’ll make matters worse.”
“Spare me, Rocky, I’m no yer grandma. Teach her to suck eggs if you’ve a mind.”
* * *
“The pump’s no holding its own,” called Sterling, above the noise of wind and pump. “The level in the engine room’s up six inches since we started pumping from the hold. It’s up there too, but not by as much.”
“All we can do is to keep pumping, Jock. I’ll see if Grey’s got any ideas.”
“I’ve already tried that. You’ll be wasting yer time there, man. He’s as pissed as a bodger’s handcart; again. I just come from the bridge.”
“Well he’s best kept out of it, then.”
“You’ve no need to worry there. The lucky bastard’s out like a light. You’ll have to report him. You know that don’t yer.”
“We’ll see,” Stone replied, turning towards the bridge.
Grey was asleep, he tried to nudge him awake with the toe of one boot. He sighed and sucked at his teeth. “Bunty! Make to ‘Nishga’, ‘Water level rising in hold and engine room, despite pumping, please advise’.”
* * *
The ‘Nishga’ was slowing, dropping back, yard by yard, easing herself closer and closer to the fishing boat. Stone could see Barr poised on the starboard wing of the bridge, cap pulled hard down over his eyes, loudhailer ready in his hand. He looked around for his own, the signalman read his thoughts and handed it across.
Barr’s voice drifted in and out buffeted by the freakish wind, “Has she sufficient steerage way for you to bring her alongside me.”
Stone nearly blind from the spray, raised his megaphone. “I think so, sir, but she’s very sluggish, handles like a pissed whale.”
“Is that you Petty Officer Stone. Where’s Lieutenant Grey?”
Stone momentary hesitation did not go unnoticed by Barr,
“He’s indisposed…ill, sir.” He saw Barr lower his hailer, a second later he raised it back up to his lips.
“Can you manage on your own, Petty Officer?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve Petty Officer Sterling to help. We’ll be right as rain”
“Very well, I’ll rig fenders and we’ll bouse you in close alongside, Secure to two sets of bollards, if you can, just in case one lot are carried away. I’m rigging hurricane hawsers fore and aft to take the weight and absorb the shock. We should be able to keep her afloat that way, but I want as many of the men off as possible, keep Petty Officer Sterling, a couple of A.B.s, a stoker and the wireman with you. We’ll need a half hour or so to lay out our gear.”
Stone waved in acknowledgement and the destroyer began to claw its way ahead once again.
* * *
Barr turned back into the bridge proper and handed his megaphone to the bridge messenger.
“Guns! I know this isn’t your part of ship, as it were, but the Bosun will know what’s what, and what’s where. Get him and Chippy to rig up two long baulks of timber as fenders; a couple of boat’s booms should serve. They’ll need to span at least three frames of the ship’s side to spread the load. I want hammocks, complete with their mattresses lashed to them. I want two hurricane hawsers rigged in addition to bow and stern lines. Get the Chief Engineer ready with extra pumps and tell Chippy he will need his ‘fishing boat repair kit’, he’s going aboard.”
* * *
Barr studied the M.F.V. through his binoculars; her rolling had eased again, now that the destroyer had resumed her old position to windward of her.
Directly below the bridge wing he could hear two seamen in a shouted conversation
“ ‘Ere that’s my bloody hammock, that is, look there’s me name!”
Barr peered over the wing. It was one of the Pom Poem’s gunners he couldn’t recall the man’s name. The two men were rigging the long boom fenders.
The captain of the Pom Pom had also overheard. “All right! All right! That’s enough of the dripping. Pipe down and get on with your work.”
“But that’s me ‘ammock, ‘ooky, wrapped around that fender. What am I supposed to kip in tonight?”
“You’ve got two, ain’t yer?”
“Yeah, but I scrubbed it this morning, it’s still wet.”
“Well, now… you got two wet ones, ain’t yer!”
The seaman fell silent until the Leading Hand had moved on.
“It’s all right for him, I bet his bloody ‘ammock ain’t down there getting soaked…”
* * *
When all the preparations had been made, the M.F.V. started her approach, wallowing along like a fat, drunken duck. Stone eased her slowly forward overhauling the barely moving ‘Nishga’. Soon the two were rolling together, yards apart, making just enough headway for steer
age purposes. Stone matched the destroyer’s speed, revolution for revolution, easing her in yard by yard, till the heaving lines snaked across between them. Larger ropes followed and were quickly brought to the destroyer’s capstans. The fishing boat was hauled in close, snug into the destroyer’s side until only the breadth of the makeshift fenders divided them.
* * *
Stone, busy below, could feel the sea worsening. The two vessels, held together in their tight watery embrace, had altered course through ninety degrees. The huge seas were now strutting in from astern. The pumps were holding their own, but below all was chaos. The decks were awash, in every compartment rafts of debris were sucked from for’ard to aft by the pitching. He could hear the waves crashing and booming against her wooden sides. The noise was terrifying, diabolical. It was if battering rams, wielded by the devil himself, were intent on breaking through and dragging them all to a watery grave.
In the midst of the storm and with so many things on his mind, he had completely forgotten about the Norwegians. He must get word to Barr. He would know what to do about the ‘Networks’ plight. He finished the extra lashing he was rigging and climbed the ladder to the upper deck. He hadn’t been up on deck for a half hour or so. Even in that short time the fearsome primordial power of the sea had been hard at work. Now, as he clawed his way out onto the heaving deck, the wind-whipped spray cut at his face like sand, while the howling wind wrapped his foul weather gear around his shivering body like a second skin.
Huge seas were lifting the two vessels as one, like two dancers cavorting together in perfect step, wrapped in each other’s arms in some nightmarish tango, they surged their way seaward.
On the destroyer, the helmsman was fighting hard to kept the two vessels within twenty-degrees of the course. Sometimes he failed, caught out by a freak wave or a heavier gust of wind. Then the bigger vessel’s stern would submerge, dragged down by the sheer weight of water. When she rose again she became a great scoop, sending a green curl of sea plunging over the bridge to land with awesome force on her dancing partner.
Through all this Stone climbed steadily, clinging to the wooden dowels of the Jacob ‘s ladder slung over the destroyer’s side. He held on tight when the ladder stayed plumb and the ‘Nishga’s’ side fell away leaving him hanging precariously out over the fishing boat’s bridge. On the opposite roll the destroyer’s side rushed in towards him like an express train, and he’d smack into the metal with sickening force, driving the breath from his body.
* * *
The light had gone long before night fell. All day they had sailed through perpetual twilight, the sea white with spray the sky black with foreboding. The two vessels, locked together in each other’s clasp, were also in the terrible embrace of the storm; a wild, mad embrace, that swept them relentless on to an unknown fate.
With the coming of evening, the darkness was total, there were no stars, no moon. For those Norwegians not use to the ways of the sea, the night was far worse than the day. In the twilight they had been able to see the power of the storm. In the dark, they had only their imaginations some possessed by them, lived a nightmare, spent the long night in fear, all hope gone, they sank into a seasick stupor. They didn’t expect to see another day and cared less whether they did or not.
The destroyer’s crew waited for the dawn to see what would be left of the two vessels. It was a long night for them too, sleepless, fearful, but above all exhausting. There were milestones to mark its slow passage. The time the life rafts were swept away, the time the thrashing anchor cables disintegrated into scrap metal, the time the Norwegian seaman was lost, swept away to windward wrapped in the awesome wave that was his only shroud.
A monstrous dawn finally appeared. Its first feeble light revealed the terrible seas marching in. Irresistible high, their roaring tops whipped off to leeward like long strands of ghostly white hair. The wind screamed its anger above the waves, lifting them over the two boats in great green and white sheets. Black clouds, piled high, moved across the sky like the smoke from hell’s fire.
Somehow they had survived the night, whether it was God’s will or man’s tenacity none knew.
* * *
Only a few hundred miles to the east, it was a different story, almost a different world. When the ‘Eddy’s’ crew fell out from their dawn action stations it was to a crisp cold morning, to such a day as never should have existed in war, one of light, of freshness and of colour, Turner-like in its luminosity. Men, at their stations stood in awe of its transient beauty, of its magnitude. The crimson glow of a still invisible sun flooded into distant clouds. On the horizon, the wispy remnants of ‘Nishga’s’ storm captured and held the colour as the sun’s light flowed across the sky, a crimson glaze, fresh from the divine artist’s palette. It touched the ship with pink, men glowed in its rosy overlay, its tint gently brushed the wave tops. All fear shrank from its cleansing light.
* * *
‘Eddy’
The mess deck’s hatch was open, letting the dry clean air into the freshly scrubbed compartment.
Ordinary Seaman Goddard, feet up on a bunk, stretched luxuriously and put down the American magazine he’d been reading while the deck dried. “Do you think the Yanks’ll come in on our side, Tug?”
Wilson straightened up from washing the last of the breakfast plates. “I bloody hope not, the war’s dangerous enough as it is.”
“Don’t yer think they be any use then, Tug?”
Wilson pulled a face and shrugged a shoulder. “About as much use as a spare arse in a dysentery ward.”
Wyatt, drying the last plate said, “They’ll wait until they’ve made enough money from it, like in the last do, then they’ll come in. You mark my words.”
“Better off without ‘em.” said Wilson, “I remember one time, on the ‘Nelson’, when we were in the Med. joint exercises they called ‘em…the cock ups they made! No idea, bloody dangerous to work with they were. We should try and persuade them to join the other side.”
“Too much bloody chat,” said Wyatt, “That’s their problem. Too busy giving it all that,” he added, opening and closing one hand in front of his generous mouth. “ ‘Alf the time they’re not concentrating on what they’re supposed to be doing. Bunch of posers, walking the walk, talking the talk should try doing the bleeding job. They’ll never make good seamen as long as their arses look downwards.”
Wilson smiled in agreement, “They’ve got more badges than a cow got udder. Badges and medals for everything, Medals for getting shot, medals for not getting shot, badges for coffee making, badges for making one of them there highball things. You name it, they got a medal for it. Give ‘em away like fag cards they do.”
“Goddard looked at his one badge, “They look good though, all them badges I mean, don’t they.”
“You oughta join ‘em if you like badges, Blur,” said Wilson, “you’d probably have a couple of Long Service stripes by now.”
“You’re taking the Mick, ain’t yer,” said Goddard, unsure whether his mentor was joking or not. “I ain’t been in a Dog’s Watch yet.”
“I ain’t joking. Right how long you been in?”
“Nearly a year, now.”
“There you go then, let me see,” Wilson raised his eyes to the deck head in contemplation, they get ‘em every three months, or so…so you’d be a three stripper, coming up for yer fourth.”
“Where do they have ‘em, on the same arm as your one?” asked Goddard pointing to Wilson’s four year’s good conduct stripe.”
Wilson though for a minute, “Nar, They have ‘em on the bottom of the sleeve, here, upside down.”
“Would I have any others do yer think,” asked Goddard with enthusiasm, “ If I was in the Yank Navy, I mean.”
“ ‘Course,” said Wilson, looking the youngster straight in the eye, “On the other arm you’d have one to show when yer had yer nappy changed last.”
Chapter 17
Doing the best they can
The i
cy wind snatched angrily at Corporal Bushel’s clothing, snow had built up around the top of the sleeping bag. With the flotilla gone they were guarding an empty Inlet. Sometimes it seemed a waste of time, but deep down he knew Barr was right. It wouldn’t do for the ‘Nishga’ or her consorts to arrive back to a German welcoming committee.
He carefully cleared snow away from the firing slot in the pine trunks.
So much for the ‘Met’ Boy’s long range weather forecast, no snow they’d been that certain. A knock on the tunnel hatch made him start, must be four at last, the watch change.
Stilson reached out to his side and opened the hatch, Blake emerged. Stilson slipped back down the tunnel without a word, no by you leave, no wave, nothing. Blake scrambled into the still warm sleeping bag and wiggled closer moving with the grace of a fat white grub.
It was bloody cold lying here, but things had improved; at least the mess deck in the gallery was warm now. He wished he were down there, instead of up here, eight hours to go, eight on, four off.
He pulled his hood farther over his head. Tactically things were much better since they had completed the latest addition to the defences. Now the position was as good as the three men could make it.
The planning had kept his mind occupied during the long hours on watch. Working through an attack as though he was leading it in and then doing what he could to counter it. It was a bit like playing chess on your own. There were even the set moves, the text book stuff and then there were the unexpected moves. He hoped he’d covered the both, but you could never be sure. Well, you could, if Jerry found them then he’d know. Suddenly a dry twig cracked. He hadn’t meant right now! He eased the safety forward on the Bren and nodded to Blake.
On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) Page 27