They bared their teeth. Astern, brief and regular gouts of red split the night, and the mutter of thunder chased them. But Jackal was slim and remained unwounded. And as Dutchy saw the ghostly white spouts erupt well astern he saw the evidence of what already he knew-the Jap radar was inferior to their own. In a destroyer, he reasoned, it would probably be a primitive set.
"Bloody fools," he growled to Matheson, "they should have crept right up on us before opening shutters."
Matheson nodded, happily. The range was almost eight miles. "You never know," he said, "the range is a bit long but it's not opening that much. We could be lucky."
Dutchy had his night glasses up. He watched a group of white stalks leap dimly up well astern and then he said:
"Take the left-hand ship. If you can't do better than that you should be knotted."
Matheson spoke into the director phone.
Jackal's radar, manned by her new specialists, was ranging accurately on the enemy. The director's set fixed on the left-hand target. Higher up the mast the search aerial ranged further afield, checking frequently on that right-hand ship. The two after barrels sniffed up, steadied, then belched. A high shearing noise dwindled to the north. They waited.
Jackal was shaking in every plate with the thrust of her forty thousand horsepower and thirty-four knots. No one felt it. A score of men were busy round X and Y mounting but every other man on the upper-deck was staring astern. In the quarter-minute of the first broadside's time of flight no one spoke.
The director officer had a monocular sight, and it was extremely powerful. Another broadside was on its way when on this side of that dark silhouette he sighted what looked like the tips of a pair of asparagus shoots growing from the sea. They glimmered briefly, and then were gone. The director officer gave his corrections.
At that range, with all ships at high speed, even with radar it was lucky shooting. But none of them, not even Dutchy, thought of luck. They saw instead of the asparagus tips a gout of distant red and they were fatly satisfied. As Bludger growled: "That'll give them monkey-faced bastards somethin' to chew on."
It did. There were no more hits, but the first was enough.
"Range increasing," came the report.
All ships would be at about the same speed, so they knew what that meant. The Japs were easing back out of range of those lucky guns, intent on maintaining radar contact while remaining safe. But, as Dutchy
"They'll be sending for help. They'll try and get us boxed in. We've got to get out of here."
There was no argument to that.
"Keep her south." Matheson nodded. "It's all clear water down there."
"Like hell I will," Dutchy surprised him. "That's what they'll expect."
"Eh? You don't think you can turn and slip past them to the north!"
"To the west," Dutchy said. "Here."
Matheson followed him to the chart. With the range increased the ship was silent.
"There," Dutchy said, tapping. "Tapaan Passage."
Matheson looked at the channel through the swarming islands of the Sulu Archipelago. It would take them into the Sulu Sea.
"She's wide enough," Dutchy said, "and far enough south to make them think we're continuing to the south. Once through we'll alter to the north up past Zamboanga and then turn east into the Mindanao Sea. How about that?"
"No argument at all." Matheson smiled nervily. "You're quite right. No Jap would dream we'd be such bloody idiots as to head up there..."
Dutchy backed out from the chart-table, his sweaty face grinning.
"You're serious," Matheson said, flatly. "You mean to tell me you're still going on with this raiding mission?"
"Why not? What'll I say to the admiral? Aborted the mission because we were sighted by a couple of destroyers? At long range?"
Two destroyers can have a lot of friends."
"So they can. But I can't see `em."
"But it's dangerous going through that passage at night!"
"So it is. It's a bit dangerous out here too." Dutchy's head turned. "Pilot? Over here."
The enemy was at the limit of their radar range when Dutchy swung her round to westward. Not due west, not at first, just a slight alteration to starb'd. In the unlikely event of the Japs being able to plot them at that range Dutchy hoped that they would believe their quarry was simply running down the full length of the Sulu Archipelago.
Half an hour later he turned her fully to the west. At full belt she bored across for the clutter of the island chain. By the time she slowed, with the hills of the Tapul Group contacted to starb'd, there was nothing else showing on radar.
Very carefully Dutchy conned her through the passage.
But they weren't out of the jungle yet. Facing them as they emerged from the passage was a short reach of water with depths of more than two hundred fathoms, and beyond that lay the reefs and snags of the Pangutarang Group.
Dutchy altered to the south and eased her down until he was below Pearl Bank; and then he let her have her head for the Sulu Sea, and as the blowers rose a miniature typhoon of released breath exploded on the bridge.
Pilot's was a phlegmatic nature; it fitted perfectly his feelings at that moment. He wiped at his forehead and simply, briefly, he said:
"I'm glad that's over."
Dawn action stations were somewhat different that morning. No man had slept during the night; they were tired but they were alert.
The ship was heading northward, up toward Zamboanga. A dozen binoculars and scores of eyes searched to the south and east. The sun rose hugely orange and they squinted into it with apprehension. But nothing followed them through Tapaan Passage.
Matheson dropped his binoculars until they hung by the strap and knuckled at his eyes. But his voice and grin weren't tired.
"Done it," he said. "Lost the bastards."
"Could be," Dutchy said carefully, exulting. "Could well be."
And then the masthead lookout said:
"Smoke on the port beam."
Binoculars swung.
They should have noticed it from the bridge. Dutchy thought. It proved how tensely tired they all were. The smoke also proved that its maker was no warship, unless she was criminally handled.
"What'll we do?" Matheson asked uneasily. "Have a go?"
Dutchy's answer was prompt. "Like hell. Today we hole up. Sufficient unto the day, Number One..."
No argument there, either. They altered a point to starb'd away from the smoke and in toward the Pangutarang Group-they were now on the group's other, western side.
"There," Dutchy decided, pointing at the chart. "Get leadsmen in the chains."
It was shortly after breakfast when they rounded Kulassein Island in the group and shaped-up for the indentation on its eastern side. There they would be invisible from the Sulu Sea, and to the eastward lay a veritable mess of reefs and shoals and banks.
"A good spot," Matheson agreed, looking at the hills which fell, steeply jungled, to the water's edge. Provided no one came round the point looking for them he might have added, but didn't.
The cable clattered out and Jackal came gently to rest.
"Keep steam on all boilers," Dutchy phoned the engineer.
"Yes, sir. That'll use fuel, remember."
"Your nine bloody lives might be used up if you don't."
"Yes, sir."
All that burning day she lay there. Men slept where they could find a patch of shade on the upper-deck. Apart from the messes being cleared up there was no thought given to the normal cleaning routine. The motor-cutter was lowered and sent away with the Buffer. His orders were to poke his nose round the northern point and sight those destroyers if they came north on the hunt Dutchy slept on the settee in his cabin-there was more air there than in his bunk.
Just before lunch time Samson came out of his pantry and moved towards him. Silent, he stood looking down; at the weathered face, harsh even in repose, the mouth open as Dutchy inhaled with short breaths in the hot air; the nose
big and aggressive, and the jut of his chin.
Not a handsome face, Samson thought, ugly even. But good-looks didn't bring you out of this safely back to port. There was toughness in that sleeping face, and the carved marks of a vast experience.
Quietly Samson returned to his pantry. He took out a reporter's notebook and in it he wrote down his impressions of the face on the settee, just as he had felt them. One day, when it was all over and done and these things could be written about, that face would reappear, in print.
Samson put away his notebook-there was nothing in it of their recent actions; that was indelibly in his mind-and took up a pair of khaki shorts. Quietly, the big fingers nimble, he started on repairing a tear above the hip pocket. With that done he busied himself with catching up the loose hem of one leg. His face as he worked was composed, not scornful.
That was the expression Dutchy noticed when fifteen minutes later he woke and padded to the pantry to see about his lunch. For a moment he stood in the doorway, unseen by the bent-over head, feeling the shame move in him.
"Well," he growled, with a roughness he did not intend. "Is that all you have to do?"
Samson looked up startled. "Sorry, sir. I thought I'd let you sleep."
"So you could get on with that bloody women's work? Heave those things over the side. They've had it long ago."
Even as he spoke Dutchy despised himself. His animosity was wholly against his own weakness. He knew damn well those shorts had to last him another three months.
"Over the side, sir?"
Samson was frowning. With all the intensity and experience of his gaze Dutchy could not tell whether the fellow was putting it on.
"That's a bit wasteful isn't it, sir? These shorts are quite good enough for shipboard wear."
Suddenly, with a complete clarity of conviction, Dutchy knew he had misjudged this man. He was a seasoned journalist, one of the least likely of men to be fooled by outward trappings. Very quietly, Dutchy said:
"You're quite right, Samson. I need those shorts."
Samson looked up and their eyes held, and between them understanding flowed.
"All right," Dutchy growled, and couldn't for the life of him help his grin. "Now I want my lunch."
"Salad coming up, sir!"
That night a high wind came up. But it blew from the west, and howled over their heads. Dutchy decided to stay where they were, even though fuel would be burned all night with no return. Here, protected from the wind, he did not dare shut down even one boiler. Jackal might well need all her strength, and need it in a hurry.
They slept soundly that night, and woke rested and refreshed. Yet there was one sombre face on the bridge at dawn the next day- above a pair of spotless overalls.
"No," Baxter admitted, shaking the sheet containing his fuel report "no real cause for worry. Just the same, I'd like to have milked that Jap."
"Now look here," Dutchy said. "Can I continue with this mission or can't I?"
"Well... Let's put it this way. If there's to be a prolonged high-speed chase, it bad better be to the southward."
"My job's to keep out of high-speed chases."
"Like the other night?"
"I slipped `em, didn't I?"
"Sure you did. Just keep on slipping `em, that's all."
Dutchy gestured at the fuel report.
"We're well above the minimum requirements to get us to Darwin?"
"Above, yes. I wouldn't say well above."
"You bloody black-gangers. You'd whinge if a man gave you four weeks leave. All right, Chief, you let me know when we're getting close to that minimum. In the meantime I'll try and get you another milch cow. That makes you happy?"
They were alone in the starb'd forrard corner. "I bet you'd be happy if all your main-armament bricks were gone," Baxter jeered.
"My bloody oath," Dutchy grinned. "I'd head straight for home at a rate of knots. But all my fuel's not gone, not by a long shot. We have enough for a day or two longer."
"More than that, actually. Providing..."
"Yes, yes, I know. I assure you I'll do my best to stay away from cruisers and destroyers. Now can I get this bucket to sea? You've got no idea what this raw morning air could be doing to your lungs."
Baxter gave an I've-warned-you shrug and departed to his own hot and oily paradise, where there were no decisions other than his own.
"D'you think he's really worried?" Matheson asked.
"Hell, no. He'll yelp if she gets anywhere near too low. Now let's get that anchor up."
"Aye aye, sir."
They steamed up the hooked appendage of Zamboanga Peninsula almost to the 40-mile-wide entrance to the Mindanao Sea and back again, and then back again. They did this all day and the following night, and they got nothing.
But they did get the morning they left the shelter of Kulassein Island-some devoted attention.
"How?" snapped Vice-admiral Samurati in his Manila office. "How did they fail to get him?"
Samurati was not looking distantly out through the window this time; his angered stare was directed at his chief of staff.
"Well?"
Sigure wanted to shrug-it was hardly his fault-but he dared not. Instead be held up the wirelessed report, like a placatory offering.
It seems they allowed the enemy to get out of radar range, Chusho."
"I know that! What I want to know is why the fools allowed such a thing."
You know as much as I do. Sigure thought. But he knew his master, and realised that Samurati was arguing more with himself. Sigure played along.
"One of them was hit. It was extreme range, and excellent shooting. They eased back to open the range. The next thing they knew..." this time Sigure shrugged. "... the enemy had vanished, still coursing to the southward. He will be well on his way home by now."
Samurati nodded, but with no agreement in the gesture.
"They know that, of course," he sneered. "The enemy wirelessed his intentions."
Here Sigure felt he was on sounder ground.
"He was heading southward, Chu-sho, at high speed. He has been sighted. Surely he knows the game is up."
"I see. You would run for home?"
Sigure frowned. "Under the circumstances, of course. Only a fool would remain in this area now he's been sighted."
"Or a brave man," Samurati said thoughtfully. "A clever man. One who believes we will think precisely as you think."
"But surely no man could be so..."
"Recognition book," Samurati snapped.
Sigure stepped quickly to a cabinet and returned with the volume. He laid it on a table and opened it at the section marked BRITISH DESTROYERS. Slowly Samurati turned the pages.
"One funnel," he said. "Ship after ship with one funnel. Until we come..." he opened the page and slapped his hand upon it. "To this. Two-funnel Tribal-class. New ships, Sigure, almost two thousand tons; forty-four thousand horsepower and more than thirty-six knots. That, of course, suggests something to you?"
"Well... Yes, of course this class of ship is well-fitted for operations against merchant ships."
"Nonsense. Any destroyer is well-fitted to handle an unarmed merchant ship. This is a modern ship. There must be a flotilla of them about, even a cruiser squadron. No admiral would risk sending a single new ship like this up here alone. You understand?"
Sigure nodded, conviction in his thin face.
"That would account for the numbers of ships sunk."
"Exactly." Samurati closed the recognition book and looked at the big chart on the wall. "There is a carrier in Leyte Gulf?"
"Yes, Chu-sho, the Hayataka is in San Pedro Bay."
"Get her through Surigao Strait at once."
Sigure looked less convinced.
"Into the Mindanao Sea? You still think they have come north instead of south?"
"I thought I made that plain," Samurati rasped. His finger tapped the Mindanao Sea, ran down the Zamboanga Peninsula. "I want this area scoured. When we find them, then we br
ing in our surface units. We'll have that flotilla trapped. Send the orders at once."
"At once, Chu-sho."
Sigure took up a telephone and spoke; and so Dutchy's new funnel brought him more than he'd bargained for.
CHAPTER NINE
Sixty miles south-west from the entrance to Surigao in the Mindanao Sea lies the island of Camiguin. Shaped like a balloon with a short thick neck, it is about ten miles long. From its centre rises a peak almost six thousand feet high. A smaller peak studs each end. Also studded about its environs are smaller islands and the inevitable reefs.
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