J. E. MacDonnell - 070

by Under Sealed Orders(lit)

  At eight o'clock of a dark rainy night, at the chart with Matheson, Dutchy Holland was thinking about Camiguin Island.

  "This isn't so hot," he was saying soberly. "Baxter is worried. So am I. Stooging round for twenty-four hours and nothing sighted. There's enough fuel to get us back, but not much to play with. Looks like our little game has had it."

  "Looks like to me," Matheson said, "as though they've clamped down on their sailings." His fingernail whispered across the chart. "Mindanao Sea, Leyte Gulf-this should be one of the busiest parts round here. And we're the only ones using it. Those two destroyers must've spoke nasty words about us. Maybe," he said, smiling but with his eyes blinking nervily, "we didn't fool `em after all?"

  "You could be right, Bertie," his captain admitted. "But now we're up here we might as well linger till morning."

  Matheson breathed in slow and deep-and, he thought, quietly. But the mouth in that leathery face twitched.

  "That means we head out of here in the morning?" the youngster asked.

  "Unless you suggest staying."

  "Like hell!"

  "That sort of attitude won't get you on in the service."

  "I just want to get home."

  Dutchy chuckled. "You've got a few friends. In the meantime, we'll anchor here." A spatulate thumb more than covered the representation of Camiguin Island. "Go in on the eastern side, protected by Jigdup Reef. Normal sea routine, with radar searching to the north and east, especially the east. Lord knows what they've got in Leyte Gulf."

  The good Lord grant we never find out, thought young Matheson, and went about preparing the ship to anchor.

  That night Dutchy did not remain on the bridge but went below to his sea-cabin. He believed Matheson's theory that the Japs had cancelled all merchantmen sailings until the position was clarified, yet he could not believe that they had woken up to his trick of coming further north instead of running south. Added to this solacing conviction, he was very tired. Since he had left Viscount Trelawney, it seemed years ago, there had been small chance for a full restful sleep; and only he knew how the continuous strain of danger in these waters had sapped him.

  He fell into his bunk fully clothed at half-past nine and almost instantly he was asleep. He was given ninety minutes.

  The voice-pipe buzzer sounded. So deeply asleep, he still heard it, but as though across a reaching distance. The training of the man heard it, and nature strove to overcome training and ignore it. Dutchy stirred. His eyelids flickered. Then they were still, and down again, deep down, he started to drift.

  The buzzer came again, longer this time, more urgent. Hearing its stridency for the second time, unanswered, Samson jumped out of his pantry. He shouted "Captain!" into the tiny sleeping compartment and then he was at the voice-pipe.

  "Captain's cabin, steward speaking."

  "Get the captain," Pilot ordered. "At once."

  "Yessir."

  Dutchy was out, coming for him bleary-eyed. Samson said, "Bridge, sir," and dived for his pantry. Dutchy listened, said "Right," and made for the door. Samson called, "In here, sir," and then nodded vehemently at Dutchy's impatient frown.

  Surprised into acquiescence, Dutchy entered the pantry. Samson pointed to the sink. It was half-full of water. "Good man," Dutchy said, and plunged his hands in and scooped water over his face. And then, "God!" he said, and spluttered. "That's bloody ice water."

  "Yessir." Samson handed him a towel.

  Dutchy's face was still tingling when he made the bridge, sleep shocked out of it. He barely felt the soft rain.

  "What's the range?"

  "Just over eleven miles, sir, still closing. They'reat fifteen knots. On this course they'll clear the island to the north by twenty miles."

  As Pilot was speaking Dutchy was striding to the radar scanning tube near the chart-table. Not like old Pelican, he thought grimly, and then his whole attention was on the greenly-glowing round face,

  There they were, sausage-shaped and plain, heading to pass Jackal's hideout. Two smaller ships, destroyers obviously, in the van, then the big one, and astern of him another destroyer in the usual position to handle a submarine which might have ideas about closing fast on the surface from behind.

  An idea began to glimmer in the forced alertness of the old fox's mind. Pilot had a totally different idea.

  "We're shielded in here, sir. The best radar in the world couldn't pick us out against that mountain back-drop. They won't see us either, not in this rain. I'd say we're sitting pretty."

  Dutchy hardly heard the obvious. The idea was growing, forming towards the crystallisation of decision. It was dangerous, hideously dangerous; but they had surprise, and the black night.

  "I'd say the big bloke was an aircraft carrier," he muttered.

  "Looks like it, sir."

  "He's after us," Dutchy nodded. "No doubt about it. He'll have recco aircraft off at first light. They're sure to search back over their wake. We won't be shielded then."

  "My God," Pilot said.

  Dutchy lifted his head and stared into the blackness. The idea was formed, rounded, complete, awaiting only decision. The fear and the caution were overlaid by the harsh dictates of necessity.

  "Sound action," he said. "Get the ship under way."

  There were men on the foc's'le ready for an emergency. The anchor was clear of the bottom when Matheson made the bridge and felt his way over to the dim figure in its corner. Dutchy wasted no time on preliminaries.

  "Carrier and three destroyer escorts," he said curtly. "We'll attack with torpedoes."

  Matheson was eloquently silent.

  "Two destroyers in the van, one astern," Dutchy said. Matheson got the impression he was talking more to himself. "If we slip in between the nearest destroyer in the van and the rearmost, the first might think we're the second out of station, and the second vice versa. Get it?"

  "My God," Matheson breathed. "What if they get it?"

  "Then we scoot to hell out of it. They won't leave the carrier, not if they think we have company, and if they've sent a force like this after us they can't think we're alone. They won't fly off in this muck, even if they did what could they see? They might detach one destroyer but I don't think they'll risk even that." Dutchy laughed harshly, nervily. "She's a big valuable property. Those destroyers will cling close. So we'll give it a go. Tell the ship's company, Bertie. And for the love of Mike," Dutchy grinned invisibly, "keep your voice steady."

  Through the speakers Matheson told the ship's company, keeping his voice steady. There were nocheers. Jackal slid out from her safe island, past Jigdup Reef and shaped-up for the southwesterly course of her huge enemy.

  As they went in through the rain and the black night, and finally sighted the Jap formation visually, and altered gently to a parallel course, every second seemed split. The whole ship was alive with tension and fear, but subdued beneath the magnitude of their presumption.

  Dutchy's voice broke the electric silence on the bridge.

  "Main armament will engage the destroyer ahead. Open fire as we turn in for the run. Stand-by all tubes There'll be only one run. I want the lot."

  Muted words of acknowledgement answered him. Dutchy did not hear them. He had his night glasses up, staring through the rain at the looming bulk of the carrier, less than a mile away on the starb'd beam. His guts cringed with tension. He wondered what was happening aboard the two destroyers this side of the carrier. They must have seen him. Officers of the watch would be debating whether a signal should be made, or the captains called, to correct the error in station keeping. From his position midway between both destroyers Dutchy could barely make them out; he was almost certain they could not see each other, and thus see that where before there had been two, now there were three.

  But one thing he was absolutely certain about; he had to act now. Hard and raspy his voice came.

  "Full ahead both engines. Hard-a-starb'd. Main armament open fire." And as the bells clanged, and Jackal tilted her lean flank
s and the forrard guns belched, splitting the night with flame and sound, Dutchy snarled at the yeoman:

  "Get that bloody Jap rag down. Hoist battle ensign!"

  And that was how the staggered carrier saw her-a midget, spitting, flinging white back over her bows, plunging in, and wearing, high at the truck of her foremast, board-hard in the fierce thrust of her passage, bright and proud in the searchlight's glare, the red white and blue of her belief.

  Shocked out of her shock by what the midget carried amidships the carrier began to spit back.

  Jackal was held firmly in the grip of that incandescent finger. The range was too close, the time too short, to zig-zag. But the range was also decreasing-so rapidly under the influence of her utmost speed that the Jap's shells screamed over her body.

  "Hit!" Matheson shouted, and again, "Hit!"

  Dutchy snatched the briefest glance to port. He saw redness flaring from the target destroyer, leaping tongues of red, and he knew that the way out was clear. The destroyer on the far side could not leave her station, could not leave her charge totally unguarded from the north. He did not know if the rearmost destroyer had opened fire, and in the total concentration of his faculties he did not care.

  "Hard-a-port," he shouted. "Fire when your sights come on!"

  They were close, the sights came on swiftly. The pronged instrument swept round until it was on the carrier's rearing bridge and the torpedo-officer spoke in a thin, tension-cracking voice: "Fire one, fire two, fire three..."

  One after the other in quick successionJackal emptied her tubes. Unseen, tracks invisible in the cloud-hung night, the deadly shoal fanned out and ran at forty knots. The carrier was very close, and she was more than seven hundred feet long.

  Momentarily, Dutchy was not interested in her.

  "Midships," he yelled, "steer two-two-five!"

  Below him Toddy Verril took the wheel off her then spun it the opposite way, checking her wild swing. When she was steady he laid her nose on southwest, gently, for at thirty-four knots she was as sensitive as a racehorse.

  His main task was done, whatever its result, Dutchy could look about him. He could not see if the carrier was turning, though he guessed her wheel would be desperately hard-over. But her bow was plain enough, and they were racing clear of it. Dutchy looked at the fiery destroyer to port-ready-use ammunition there, initiating other fires-and then he ordered:

  "Radar range on destroyer to starb'd. Main armament engage with rapid broadsides."

  The bridge team knew what he meant. The intention now was not so much to hit or destroy as to confuse the escort. Shortly they would be level with him, and while he could not leave his station there was nothing whatever to stop his guns from preventing their leaving.

  Radar reported it was in contact and ranging. The director swung, the four guns followed. Their blackened snouts lifted and then they fired.

  It was known that they fired only by the stabs of orange flame. No man heard their discharge. For as the director layer squeezed his electric trigger the shoal of torpedoes hit.

  The lot. It must be the lot, Dutchy exulted, staring back-that was solid white, hundreds of feet long; not individual spouts but a wall of white, marking the now-invisible carrier, marking her doom.

  "Got the bastard!" someone said, and Dutchy thought that must be the needless statement of the year, and then found that he was on the verge of giggling; and thus, as he quelled the urge, found how tight had been his tension. His ears were still tingling with the massive sound when he said, in a voice he had to make firm:

  "Cease firing. No need to give our position away. Keep radar on those two destroyers. Ask the engineer if he can give use another knot."

  The engineer could. She was strained, but she took it. Staring astern, seeing nothing but the waning glow from the wounded destroyer, Dutchy felt through his feet and his hands on the windbreak the strain of her speed, and he thought of what was happening to the fuel. He shook free of the thought. No matter what the possible consequences, they had to get clear, and fast.

  At the end of half an hour radar told its story, and Dutchy knew he had been wrong about those clinging destroyers. They were clinging all right, but not to the carrier. He came back from the radar screen to Matheson beside the binnacle.

  "They're after us, Bertie," he said soberly.

  "So I see," Matheson nodded. "You sank the reason for their staying."

  Dutchy was honestly surprised. "I didn't think of that."

  "Nor did I. But we'll shake `em. I presume," Matheson smiled, "we're homeward bound?"

  "Where else?"

  A phone howled.

  "Bridge?"

  "Captain!"

  Dutchy took the phone. "What is it, Chief?"

  "As if you didn't know. How long, for God's sake? She's gulping the stuff."

  "She'll have to. We've got a brace of destroyers on our tail. You can't go up another knot?"

  "I cannot! She's shaking her guts out."

  Dutchy smiled into the phone. There were two reasons behind the gesture. The first was something close to exaltation; the danger now was only normal, not hideous as it bad been-he could think about the fact that be had sunk a carrier; with one destroyer he had sunk a thirty thousand ton aircraft carrier. The second reason was experience. Engineers were always morose about their fuel. They were something like, Dutchy thought, the petrol gauge of a motor car-it showed empty, but there was always a gallon or so left in the tank. Not as bad as it looked, or sounded. So he smiled.

  And then Baxter wiped the smile. Very quietly, so that his voice barely reached above the high-powered whining.

  "Dutchy. I'm dead serious about this." That first word was the catalyst which changed Dutchy's attitude. He was perfectly aware of his nickname, but never in his life had it been used to him by a junior officer. He was not in the least offended now-he was simply aware that Baxter must be really troubled to allow the name to slip out.

  "Yes, Chief, I know you are. But there's nothing I can do about it. It's not only the destroyers. We have to put as much distance as possible between us and the place we sank that carrier before daylight."

  "There's only two. Can't you fight the bastards?"

  "That would use up just as much fuel. You can't fight a gun action against two ships at fifteen knots, you've got to have speed to slip his fall-of-shot."

  "All right. Then if you keep up this speed we're in trouble."

  Silence fell between them. Faintly up the wire came the mighty sound of the ship's effort. Dutchy stared sightlessly ahead into the murk, not feeling the rain. He had been in some taut spots, but there had always been luck, and your own guts and skill, and the favours of heaven; just so long as you still had speed. But nothing like this. Running out of ammunition was bad. Running out of fuel was... unimaginable.

  But he was the captain. He kept his tone crisp.

  "I'm not so sure, Chief. We might slip them. We've got a few hours yet."

  "At this speed?"

  There was no fooling a man like Baxter, no point to it.

  "I'm afraid so, yes."

  "Very well, sir," Baxter said unemotionally, "I'll let you know ten minutes before the engines stop."

  The frightful part about it, Dutchy thought as he replaced the phone, was that Baxter was not joking.

  "Where's the enemy?" he asked curtly.

  "Position unchanged, sir," Matheson said. "They're holding us. I've looked `em up in the recognition book. Assuming they're modern ships they rate a top speed of thirty-four knots. With five-inch guns," he added.

  "Helpful," Dutchy muttered. "They can't lose us. Their heads will roll if they do, after the last lot."

  "Not to mention the carrier they lost..."

  "Mmmmm." Dutchy rubbed at his bristly chin... "Bertie. Bring Pilot over to the corner. Let Torps take her."

  They came quickly, and stood on either side of him in the dark, straddling their feet as she swooped over the swells.

  "Radar," Dutchy said. "
They're holding us by radar-bloody electronics! That's the crux of our problem. Somehow we've got to confuse their radar. Well, I'm waiting."

  Both youngsters thought, and returned nothing.

  "Get the radar petty-officer up here," Dutchy said.

  He too came quickly-a gangling man named Robinson with his fair hair sticking out below the edge of his cap.