One of the look-outs touched his arm and said, “’Ere, Ginger, leave ’im. There’s nowt you can do for ’im.”
But Phelps stayed down beside Masters’ body, his eyes running with tears. “I couldn’t stop the bleeding! I tried, but it kept comin’!”
Trewin pulled Phelps to his feet as the look-out threw an oilskin across the dead yeoman. “Easy, boy! You did your best.”
Phelps said between sobs, “’E kept lookin’ at me. I know ’e wanted to tell me somethin’.” He dropped his head. “But I couldn’t do nothin’ for ’im.”
Corbett said quietly, “Masters was a good yeoman, Phelps. I expect he was trying to tell you that it’s your turn to take charge now.” He watched the boy’s tortured face. “So just remember what he taught you, eh?” He looked at Trewin across the signalman’s head. “This isn’t doing any good, is it?”
A shell ripped through the halyards and brought the last big ensign floating down towards the bridge like a shroud. As it touched the blood-spattered gratings Phelps seemed to come alive again. With sudden determination he picked up the flag, and without another glance at Masters, began to splice one of the broken halyards for it.
Trewin replied harshly, “The Jap doesn’t have to worry, does he? He just follows our oil slick and keeps firing into the smoke.” He looked astern, his eyes angry. “And our gunners can’t see a bloody thing!”
Corbett regarded him calmly. “I know. It also means that we will be useless as far as Prawn is concerned. We can’t survive for another hour, let alone until darkness.” He gripped the torn steel with both hands. “We just can’t run any more, Trewin. You know that now, don’t you?” His eyes were searching. “Well?”
Trewin did not even flinch as another shell exploded somewhere abeam. His body and mind seemed past care and beyond feeling. What are we saying? Why are we always pretending?
He looked around the scarred bridge, at the bodies covered with their oilskins. From beneath one he could see Mallory’s hand, stiff and pointing, like a condemnation. And aft, beyond the screen, past the dead Oerlikon gunner and riddled funnel, where was the ship Corbett loved so dearly? The battery deck was pitted with holes, and right aft, where the men by “X” gun still stared helplessly at the smoke, the stump of the mainmast seemed to mock him like a splintered lance.
He heard himself say wearily, “We’ll have to turn and face him.”
Corbett reached out and gripped his wrist. In the distorted light his face looked lined, but strangely peaceful. “It has to be your decision, too, Trewin. If it is to be done, it must be done perfectly.” For a moment a shaft of despair crossed his pale eyes. “Poor old girl. She doesn’t deserve this!”
He looked away and then said harshly, “Warn the guns. Prepare to fire at about red four five. Tell Tweedie yourself.” He gestured towards the tangled mess of severed wiring beside the two bodies. “Communications have all gone.” He climbed on to his chair and stared ahead towards the empty, inviting horizon. To port the long reach of Banka was still shrouded in mist and looked very remote.
Trewin tore his eyes away and climbed quickly up the short ladder to the spotting position abaft the bridge. He found Tweedie and his two ratings behind the steel shield and said, “We’re going to turn. You’ll have to lay both guns right on the bastard. There’ll be no second chance!” He saw that Tweedie’s arm was wrapped in a crude bandage and asked, “Are you all right? Shall I send for the first aid party?”
Tweedie swung slightly on his metal seat and scowled. “I can manage!” He touched the rangefinder. “God, I’ll smash a couple into the sod when I see ’im!” He picked up his handset, but as Trewin climbed down the ladder he added gruffly, “But thanks all the same! You done quite well for an amateur!” Surprisingly, he grinned. “If ever you gets to ’Ampshire you can come an’ stay with me an’ the old woman, if you like.” He turned his back and snapped, “Attention all guns!” He was lost again in his own world, which he shared with no one.
Trewin found Corbett crouching over the chart, his magnifying glass held inches above it. He said, “Shallows to port, Trewin. Barely two fathoms.” He rubbed his chin. “But it deepens out in the next half-mile.” He met Trewin’s questioning stare. “It’ll have to be now.”
Trewin looked up at the ensign. It must have been the last thing Mallory saw on this world, he thought.
Corbett moved to the voice-pipes. “Cox’n, this is the captain. In fifteen seconds I am going hard astarboard, right?” Unwin’s voice was lost in another sharp explosion. Some splinters clanged against the bridge, and from below a man cried out like a wounded animal. Corbett continued in the same flat tone. “Whatever you see or hear, I want you to hold the course and speed I give you.” His voice hardened. “No matter what!”
He turned and looked back at the writhing smoke. “He’s lying back there, just biding his time. He knows we can’t reach the islands. He’s just got to keep firing into the smoke beyond our trail of oil. Sooner or later he’ll hit the vital spot.” His lips curled bitterly. “If we give him the chance!”
He glanced again at Trewin. “I’ll not forget this.” He did not explain what he meant, but pulled himself forward against the remains of the screen.
Then he said firmly, “Hard astarboard! Stand by to engage!”
Broken woodwork and glass cascaded over the bridge deck as the ship responded immediately to the rudders and swung crazily across her own backwash. A freak down-draught plunged the bridge into semi-darkness, and the slipping, struggling men fell choking and coughing in the dense oily smoke, while their bodies angled further and still further against the madly tilting decks.
Corbett shouted, “Stop the starboard engine! Get her round!”
The bridge structure quivered from top to bottom as the starboard screw raced impotently in the air before falling silent in its protective tunnel, and all the time the ship was plunging round, her remaining mast reaching across the boiling bow-wave, her gunners clinging to any solid thing to stop themselves from being hurled to the mercy of the sea.
Corbett pulled himself towards the compass repeater and called, “Midships! Full ahead starboard!” He peered down at the spray-dappled glass, heedless of the din around him or the demoniac shriek of shells overhead. “Steady! Meet her, man!”
Unwin sounded as if he was knocked breathless. “Steady, sir! Course two four five!”
Corbett began to claw his way back to the screen. “Steer two six oh!” He did not wait for an acknowledgement, but held tightly to the teak rail below the splintered glass and watched intently while the ship swayed through another roll and then stayed upright.
Trewin stood by his side staring with smarting eyes at the writhing wall of smoke which parted across the bows and billowed back around the bridge. It was like tearing through a long tunnel, and apart from the razor-backed bow-wave which lifted almost as high as the gun mounting, the sea was hidden, as was the sky.
He yelled, “We’ll see her soon!”
Corbett licked his lips. “He’s still firing! Hear those shells!” He turned with a strange expression of defiance and excitement on his face. “He didn’t see us turn!”
Trewin peered forward and saw Hammond crouched beside his gun crew, a handkerchief tied across his nose and mouth. The smoke was streaming around the gunshield, so that it looked as if the mounting and gunners were standing in space.
A look-out shouted wildly, “Look, sir! Fine to port!” He was pointing, unable to find the right words any more.
At first Trewin could see nothing. Merely a slight thinning of smoke as the Porcupine raced to the final limit of her own screen.
Then the destroyer fired again, and he saw the brief orange flash above a darker patch in the swirling smoke. As the dying sunlight clipped to greet them and the gunboat’s forecastle pushed out above a patch of clear blue water, Trewin saw the other ship less than two cables away.
He was thrown back from the screen as Hammond’s gun recoiled, and when he looke
d again he saw the shell strike home almost on the destroyer’s waterline. The two ships tore towards each other, and Trewin judged that the enemy would pass down the port beam with not much room to spare.
Corbett was shouting, “Hit him! Shoot, lads!”
“X” gun fired at an extreme angle, so that its shell ripped past the Porcupine’s bridge wing, flinging back the machine-gunner with its shock wave before exploding with a blinding flash below the enemy’s forecastle.
From somewhere aft on the destroyer’s low hull a single gun fired in reply. It was probably the first shot from that gun, and for that reason its crew were the best prepared for the Porcupine’s sudden appearance. The shell slammed into the port side of the bridge structure, so that Trewin felt the explosion through his feet and legs, as if he had been kicked in the spine.
Corbett seized his arm, his face contorted through the smoke. “We can’t stop her now, Trewin!” He swung away as a voice shouted, “Wheel’s jammed, sir! No answer from helm!”
“Are you hit, Cox’n?” Corbett cupped his hands above the voice-pipe.
Unwin’s answer was clear even over the surge of water and the dogged explosions from both guns. “No, sir! But the wheel won’t answer!”
Corbett said brokenly, “We must steer from aft, Trewin!” But as he looked across the voice-pipes Trewin saw the misery and defeat on his face.
Above the screen he could see the destroyer’s topmast, the patch of colour from her battle flag. It would soon be over now. The last gesture of defiance had failed. Within the next few minutes the destroyer would swing away and pound them to scrap, without quarter, without pity.
Phelps almost fell across the gratings as he pulled at Trewin’s arm. “Sir! We’re turnin’!” His voice broke in a shriek. “Look! We’re headin’ for the destroyer!”
Trewin gripped the rail, his brain stunned by the sick madness of battle. For a moment longer he thought the other ship was already swinging inwards to smash into the gunboat’s punctured hull and roll her under with the impetus of her charge. But Phelps was right. The Porcupine was turning, and with her maximum speed still making the screws race, the rudders were wrenching her round, so that her blunt bows were already pointing directly at the destroyer’s high, raked stem.
A man screamed, “She’ll cut us in half!” But nobody heeded his words.
From the wheelhouse Trewin heard Unwin shout in despair, “I can’t shift it, sir! The rudders is hard over!”
Corbett stood upright against the screen, both hands firmly on the rail. He seemed suddenly to relax, so that Trewin watched him instead of facing the charging force of destruction across the bows.
Corbett said, “We failed her, Trewin. So she’s taking her own revenge!”
Trewin looked towards the enemy. She was so close that he could see the depth markings on her stem, the frantic figures running away from the forward gun, and the gesticulating officers on her high bridge.
The Porcupine was across those bows now, a diagonal barrier of solid steel, which would smash the destroyer’s stem to fragments before it sliced into her own vitals and drove her down for the last time.
Corbett said, “She’s got her helm down!” He sounded as if he no longer knew what to expect. “She’s trying to turn!”
Across the narrowing gap they could hear the scream of power as the destroyer’s thirty thousand horsepower roared against the rudder and threw her into a last, desperate turn.
Trewin tore his eyes away and swung on the shocked, mesmerised men behind him. “Open fire! Shoot, you bastards!” He pulled the seaman away from the starboard machine-gun and pressed his thumb down on the trigger.
The destroyer seemed above and around them, a swaying wall of grey steel with her deck slanting down towards them as she swung away like a mad thing. Away from the Porcupine’s maddened charge, away from that final embrace.
Trewin kept his thumb on the trigger, seeing nothing but the steel deck alive with flying sparks as his bullets raked across it, cutting through a group of running seamen and tossing them aside like bloody rags.
He saw a line of tracer lifting from the destroyer’s main-deck, watched it lift so very slowly before it plunged down to flay the Porcupine’s reeling hull like a steel whip. It was like fighting a duel with that last enemy gunner to keep his head when his own ship was swaying over like a beast gone mad. Trewin followed the ship across his jerking sights, ignoring the crash and whine of bullets around him, the sudden cries and the wild yells of the Porcupine’s gunners. He knew it was Phelps by his side, his hands guiding the long ammunition belt, but his mind held nothing but that line of tracer and the small stabbing spurts of flame.
As if in a nightmare he heard Unwin yell, “Helm’s answerin’, sir! Comin’ back on course now!”
Then he forgot even that miracle as the destroyer’s bows appeared to lift, shudder, slide forward and then plough into a great welter of bursting spray and sand.
Dimly he remembered Corbett saying about the shallows. In his desperation to avoid the Porcupine’s challenge, the other captain must have forgotten the nearness of danger below his racing keel. He saw the froth shooting helplessly from the destroyer’s screws and heard the grinding crash of metal being buckled and prised apart by the force of the grounding. The tracer had stopped, and the enemy’s decks were alive with running men, some of whom scattered and fell to another burst of automatic fire from aft. When Trewin looked over the rail he saw Sergeant Pitt striding along the battery deck, a Bren cradled on his hip as he fired continuously across the widening gap of churned, discoloured water.
Sweating, and bleeding from a cut across his cheek, Hammond ran up the bridge ladder and threw his arm around Trewin’s neck. “We did it!” He was weeping with delirious excitement. “We did it!”
They both turned as Phelps said, “The captain, sir! He’s been hit!”
With the gunboat already swinging back into her smokescreen, the stranded destroyer was lost within minutes, her menace gone.
Trewin knelt beside Corbett and lifted him against the side of the bridge. Corbett opened his eyes as Trewin unbuttoned the oilskin he had worn throughout the action. Then he looked past Trewin towards Hammond and the men of the bridge party who crowded round behind him.
Trewin stared at the blood on Corbett’s chest and at another clotted wound below his ribs. “Get Baker on the double!” He tried not to meet Corbett’s eyes. Then he said, “You were already wounded, sir.” He eased his arm behind Corbett’s shoulders, holding him away from the vibrating steel. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Corbett smiled. “We were all too busy, Trewin.”
Petty Officer Dancy pushed through the silent men, a wad of dressing in his hands. As he placed the pad across Corbett’s chest he said quietly, “The admiral’s been wounded, sir.” He tried to smile. “He really has this time.”
Corbett looked up at the flag and said wearily, “I’d forgotten about him.”
Trewin said, “The Prawn will be safe now. We pulled it off.” He felt his eyes smarting with despair and pride. “You were right about the Porcupine, sir. She’s a mind of her own.”
Corbett smiled. “Help me up, Trewin. Into my chair.”
Trewin saw Baker watching him. He gave a small shrug.
Very carefully, with Hammond and Phelps beside him, he lifted Corbett on to the same scarred and chipped chair. The move must have been a torment of pain, but Corbett said, “Thank you. I can see her better now.” Then in an almost normal tone he added, “Reduce speed. She’s taken enough for one day.” He grimaced and then said, “Alter course. Steer due south.” His fingers gripped the dressing into a bright red ball against his chest. “There’s nothing ahead of us now except Java. The end of the voyage!”
Tweedie had climbed down from the rangefinder, and Trewin saw Nimmo too in his filthy overalls, and Petty Officer Kane carrying a Bren beneath his arm.
They were all looking at their ship, the battered, listing but defiant gunboat which
had drawn them together and had held them so in the face of final disaster.
Corbett said suddenly, “This would have been the last one for me anyway.” He sounded very tired. “But the darkness is here at last, thank God.”
Trewin saw the men look away. The bridge was still bronzed in the strange sunlight, and the horizon stood out clear, and sharp below the last of the clouds.
Trewin said quietly, “Yes, sir. It’s dark now. You can rest.”
Unwin’s voice echoed amongst the silent, smoke-grimed figures. “Course one eight oh, sir! Steady as you go!”
Corbett’s hand dropped against the chair and his head lolled slightly in time with the ship’s easy movement.
Trewin stood back and removed his cap. It was over.
Dancy was the first to break the silence. “This is something none of us’ll forget. The mistakes and the failures.” He dropped his eyes. “And the shame.”
Trewin nodded. “There was shame, Buffer.” He let his eyes move along the splintered decks, the grotesque holes in the plating, and back over the straight, unbroken line of the Porcupine’s wake. “And there was glory, too…”
Author Bio
DOUGLAS REEMAN joined the Navy in 1941. He did convoy duty in the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the North Sea, and later served in motor torpedo boats.
As he says, “I am always asked to account for the perennial appeal of the sea story, and its enduring interest for the people of so many nationalities and cultures. It would seem that the eternal and sometimes elusive triangle of man, ship and ocean, particularly under the stress of war, produces the best qualities of courage and compassion, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of conflict…The sea has no understanding of righteous or unjust causes. It is the common enemy, respected by all who serve on it, ignored at their peril.”
Apart from the many novels he has written under his own name, he has also written more than two dozen historical novels featuring Richard Bolitho, under the pseudonym of Alexander Kent.
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