News from the other sea battle-grounds seemed bleak. In the Atlantic, the mounting fury of the U-boat assault was taking a terrible toll. In one month, over a quarter of a million tons of allied shipping had been sent to the bottom, and while British yards were building more and more sorely needed escort vessels, corvettes, frigates, and destroyers, so too the enemy pushed a stream of underwater killers across the sea routes. At night the Royal Air Force gamely endeavoured to bomb all sources of production, as well as the bases, but their efforts bore little fruit, for apart from the fact that all such places were strongly defended, the German war machine now had the choice of a vast coastline stretching from Norway in the north, to the Bay of Biscay. So, as usual, the brunt was falling on a handful of rust-streaked ships, held together by the determination of their crews, and driven by the fierceness of those who knew their backs were to the wall.
In the Mediterranean the story was the same, too few ships, too many of the enemy. And yet here, too, they were somehow holding their own. Fighting the convoys every mile of the way to beleaguered Malta, and covering and supplying the army in the desert, pausing only to pray, or die.
With increasing pressure by enemy heavy units in these spheres, it was obvious that it was just a matter of time before they tried a new method of attack in the restricted waters of the narrow seas. Intelligence reports had brought the disquietening news that many new E-boats and destroyers were being harboured in Ostend, Flushing, and Calais, possibly with a view to making the movement of coastal convoys impossible, and thereby pave the way for an invasion. Already, by day and night, heavy guns fired at regular intervals across the Channel, causing casualties and destruction in and around Dover, and occasionally destroying a slow-moving coaster.
Fortunately, these grave matters rarely caused much concern amongst the seamen, whose duty it now befell to face all these fresh dangers, and their intimate worries usually proved more absorbing.
The 113th Flotilla was no exception, and as the winter broadened into a grim reality, Lieutenant-Commander Kirby fussed and grumbled, until the main worry—of the sailors at least—became that of keeping their kit clean and properly marked and worn, regardless of what operation their boat might be engaged on, or the problems of drying damp clothing on the tiny, overcrowded mess-decks. As for the officers, they struggled on, bearing the main responsibility, and hoping that Kirby would drop dead.
On this cold autumn morning, the little wind-swept boats cruised bumpily over the steep, sand-flecked waves of the Belgian coast, although that unhappy country lay invisible just under the horizon. To make matters more uncomfortable, a fine, penetrating drizzle was blowing gustily in grey sheets, reducing the visibility to about two miles, and making watchkeeping a nightmare. As was his custom, Kirby refused to allow any man a break from his action station, with the result that everywhere Royce looked he saw his men crouched miserably by their guns, trying to take advantage of any scanty cover available.
His plight was probably the worst, for as he stood on the open bridge, bracing his legs against the boat’s uneasy motion, he was a free target for anything the weather could throw at him. He shuddered, as he felt the first icy trickle penetrate his left boot, and his thick sock, recently received from his mother, was soon a soggy mass. About his neck a tightly wound towel was heavy and cold with rain and spray, and his glowing cheeks stung with the drizzle, which pattered across him like needles.
Kirby was perched on the stool in the corner, the hood of his oilskin suit shrouding his face, like a brooding monk, his sharp eyes darting ahead, and then back at the other boats, as they weaved forward into the grey seas.
Royce gently patted his face with the back of a glove, and peered at his watch. Eight-thirty, and they had been at sea for about ten hours. He smiled miserably at the thought of the warm glare of the bar in the White Hart, a hot meal, and bed, and then winced again as a steely needle of water penetrated his collar, and between his shoulder blades.
“Could I dismiss one watch, sir?” he asked. “Could get some cocoa on the move and a bite to eat.”
The hunched figure appeared not to have heard, so he started again.
“Come over here, Number One. Look at that fool on the Port Oerlikon, what’s his name?”
Royce leaned over, resigned to no cocoa. “It’s Weeks, sir, only joined two days ago. He’s an Australian.”
“Yes, yes,” snapped Kirby testily, “I remember. Well he’s asleep!”
He bent over the voice-pipe.
“Cox’n, come to the bridge, and bring Weeks with you!”
The tinny voice rattled up the brass tube: “Is he ill, sir?”
“No, you fool, he’s bloody well asleep!”
There was a scraping of feet as the Coxswain handed over the wheel, and a minute later he appeared on the bridge, followed by Able Seaman Weeks. The latter was a tall, gangling individual, what the average person pictures as the typical Australian. His face, which now stared sulkily from beneath a woollen cap, was deep-lined and tanned, quite out of place in such a climate, and the wide grey eyes, which had once checked countless sheep on a Queensland farm, glowered rebelliously at the Captain.
Kirby didn’t waste any time.
“Weeks, you were asleep on watch. That makes you useless to me, and a potential danger to this ship!”
The tall figure stiffened. “That’s a damn lie!” he retorted hotly. “I was restin’ me head on the blessed magazine!”
His lazy drawl struck an unnatural note in the tense scene.
Kirby went white.
“Silence!” he shouted. “Don’t be so impertinent. I know your type too well: in and out of the detention barracks, and proud of it I suppose!”
Royce felt sick.
“Excuse me, sir,” he pleaded, but Kirby spun on him.
“Attend to your duties, sir! Don’t interrupt!”
Weeks took a step forward, and stuck out his craggy chin. “I come umpteen thousand miles to fight the Jerries, and I’ll damn well fight you an’ all if it comes to that,” he said slowly. “This is a crook ship, and fer your information, you are the worst god-damned Pommy bastard I’ve yet had the pleasure of meetin’!”
“That’s enough of that!” barked the Coxswain, and stepped smartly forward.
For a moment there was complete silence, but for the steady patter of rain across the chart table, and the signal-man’s sharp intake of breath. The main figures of the drama stood facing each other, like actors who have forgotten their lines: Kirby, white-faced and quivering with rage, and Weeks, now relaxed and defiant. Royce and the Coxswain stared helplessly at both of them.
Kirby shook himself, as if unable to believe his ears. “Get back to your station, Weeks.” His voice was almost inaudible. “Cox’n, I’ll see this man when we return to base—dismiss!” He shouted the last order almost wildly, and Royce prayed that Weeks wouldn’t start anything more.
Surprisingly, he saw the two figures shuffle from the bridge, Raikes in front, obviously shaken, and the Australian on his heels, his face expressionless.
Royce’s discomfort at the weather was quite forgotten, and he peered hastily through his glasses, but his mind was so much of a whirl that he saw nothing.
When he heard the voice again, it was flat and toneless. “In all my service, I’ve never seen such an insolent, mutinous lout. Just wait until I’ve had time to deal with him!”
And that was all. Royce gave an inward sigh of relief.
The boats turned in a half circle and continued the eye-aching search for prey, the wind and rain now beating over the starboard quarter, and causing them to roll and twist uncomfortably.
“By the way, Number One, you’ll be surprised to hear that your second stripe has been recommended,” remarked Kirby casually.
Royce jerked out of his reverie, startled. “Gosh, this is a surprise, sir,” he gasped. “Thank you very much.”
He hadn’t thought a great deal about promotion, but now that it was so close, he fou
nd himself grinning like a schoolboy.
Kirby permitted himself to smile thinly. “As flotilla leader, I think I should have a full lieutenant with me. Although I’m not saying you’ve earned it by any manner of means,” he added.
Even such a dampening remark was lost on Royce, and he hummed happily, waving to Watson’s boat astern for no apparent reason.
Kirby shrugged, and shook his head. “Really, Number One, perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.”
Royce smiled, “Sorry, sir,” and to himself he said, it’s taken you nearly a whole day to tell me anyway!
“Aircraft, dead astern!” yelled the signalman, and they saw the warning lights flickering along the line of boats.
The deck throbbed as they increased speed, and the slim muzzles swung round to cover the approach of the plane, which could be seen vaguely through the scudding clouds.
A voice piped up from the waist. “Sunderland, sir!”
And they relaxed, as the fat, friendly shape of the Coastal Command aircraft took on a sharper line through the driving rain. Having seen them and exchanged recognition signals, it began to circle, an Aldis lamp busy.
The signalman lowered his lamp.
“Three E-boats coming up astern fast,” he reported. “About eight miles.”
They waited, while Kirby quickly pored over the chart. “Hmm, they’re making for Flushing, I don’t doubt. Must have been in the Channel raiding our shipping. Hoist Flag Five. We’ll attack in two groups as planned.”
Jock Murray’s boat led three of the M.T.B.s away to the west, turning in line abreast in a flurry of foam, while the others worked up to full speed abreast of Kirby. On every boat the men tensed at the signal, Flag Five, Attack with guns, and for most it would be a new experience to get to grips with E-boats in broad daylight. Usually they were but fleeting grey shadows, spitting death through the darkness.
Royce clambered down to the pom-pom, where the well-greased shells lay inert and waiting. Leading Seaman Parker, back again from the hospital, his red face criss-crossed with small, white scars, grinned confidently.
“We’ll give ’em what-for nah!”
“I don’t expect they’ll be thinking of anything but bed,” shouted Royce excitedly. “Just as we do on our way home.”
Sure enough, three shapes could be seen approaching fast from the south-west, great bow-waves creaming away from the long, rakish bows, the silver-grey hulls low in the water, and hardly visible. The leading boat swung over to port, and a flat stream of green tracers cruised over the wave tops towards them. The other two boats took up station in line abreast of the leader and also opened fire.
Again and again the pom-pom at Royce’s side banged, and they saw the shells beat the sea into a savage froth around the second E-boat, while the machine-guns got into a steady, screaming rattle. Twice he felt the hull shudder beneath him, and a smoke float aft was cut to ribbons. But the Germans had fallen into the trap, as Murray’s quartet came roaring up from astern, every gun belching orange flames, and the E-boats were caught between a devastating cross-fire.
With a bang, the leading E-boat stopped dead and slowly capsized. The second one was ablaze from the bridge to the bow, and several tiny figures could be dimly seen through the sheets of rain, hurling themselves overboard.
For an instant the M.T.B.s slowed down to re-form, and seeing his chance, the remaining German captain dashed for the gap, his guns glazing fiercely. Royce saw that the torpedo tubes on the E-boat’s decks were empty. Some British sailors had died during the night.
Benjy’s loud-hailer boomed across the water, “Tally-ho!” and with a roar of throttle they streaked in pursuit, the tracers knitting a deadly pattern between them.
Kirby shouted down from the bridge.
“Three more E-boats ahead, Green four-five! Range about a thousand yards. Look to it, Number One!”
He was looking savage.
The newcomers were obviously from the same flotilla as the others, and had apparently taken another route home.
Now the battle became fierce, the Germans fighting a delaying action back to base, no doubt praying for help to arrive.
It was then that it happened. Royce found himself lying on the slippery deck, his head and ears roaring. Shakily he scrambled to his feet, and stared round. He had heard and felt nothing, yet the boat had received a direct hit on the port bow, a stream of shells exploding the full length of the fo’c’sle. Parker was cursing, and struggling with the gun. It had jammed solid, while the loading number knelt at his side, wheezing and retching painfully.
Already the boat had a definite list, and as Royce ran to the bridge he saw smoke pouring from the after hatch. The bridge was untouched, and Kirby was dancing up and down with impatience, while the signalman called up the nearest M.T.B.
“Get below, and deal with the damage, then come back here!”
Royce dashed aft past the tubes, and reached the choking smoke cloud, where Petty Officer Moore and his mechanic were hard at work with the extinguishers.
“Nothin’ bad, sir,” gasped Moore. “It’s the paint store. ’It with a tracer.”
Below it was a shambles, and as the lights flickered on, he saw jets of water pouring in through the shattered mahogany sides, the double skin of the sides bent inwards like brown teeth.
The Coxswain appeared on the scene with Weeks and two more hands, and with hammers and plugs they got to work, slipping and cursing in the icy water.
When he returned to the bridge he found the other M.T.B. coming alongside, Deith’s red face peering anxiously over the screen at them.
“I’m continuing the fight aboard her,” snapped Kirby. “I’ve got to bag those other Jerries before they get within range of the coast.”
Royce stood dazed and not understanding.
“You mean you’re leaving us?” he stammered.
“Of course I am. You make for home as best you can, we’ll catch you up.”
As he threw himself down towards the other boat, he turned, a smile on his face.
“See if you can earn that other stripe!”
With a roar, and a puzzled wave from Deith, the boat turned away in pursuit of the running battle, while Royce stood helplessly on the bridge, which suddenly became a lonely and terrible place.
For some moments he stood staring after the fast-moving boat, until its shape became obscure in the curtain of fine rain, still uncomprehending, and slightly shocked by the suddenness with which his boat had been reduced from a swift, living creature, to a heavy, listing hulk, in which he was now the captain.
His scattered thoughts were interrupted by the Coxswain, and Petty Officer Moore, who appeared at his shoulder.
“I’ve just finished me rounds,” announced Raikes calmly, “and I’ve got all the bad leaks patched up, except for those more’n a foot or so above the waterline. I’m afraid the automatic pump ’as been sheared right off by a splinter or something. That’ll be a dockyard job to put it right.”
“Yessir, but we’ve got the hand pumps goin’ like a fiddler’s elbow, so provided you can keep ’er down to about five or six knots, we might be all right,” added Moore.
Royce pulled himself together, and studied their competent faces with a feeling of new confidence, and inner warmth, but he knew that the responsibility, given to him by the thin wavy line on his sleeve, was his alone, and that they were waiting for his own deductions and orders. Unbe-known to them possibly, they had made his burden considerably lighter.
“The fact is,” he said with a rueful smile, “we have to get the hell out of here before it gets too hot for us, and fast as we can with safety. We’re very much alone, I’m afraid, and mustn’t depend too much on the rest of the boys finding us again.”
He led them to the chart, and they stood politely watching while he outlined their approximate position. When he had finished, Moore pushed back his greasy cap and scratched his thinning hair with an oily finger.
“I dunno much about navigation an’ a
ll that lark, sir, but I must say there seems to be an awful lot ’er North Sea between us an’ the old Royston! ”
They laughed, and each felt relieved that the situation still allowed them such licence.
Raikes, a professional seaman, craned forward, and tapped the stained chart with a pencil.
“If you don’t mind me saying so,” he said in his clipped and forthright manner, “it’d be better if we forgot all about the others, who as you say’ll probably miss us anyway, and took the plunge due west, straight across to Blighty, and hope to be picked up by a patrol.”
Royce saw the logic immediately. If they kept to their present course the enemy would probably pick them off as stragglers, whether they were with other M.T.B.s or not, whereas the lonely route would quite likely bring them into contact with a destroyer to cover their painful withdrawal.
So due west they went, slightly down by the head, and listing to port, the engines roaring and thudding as they pushed the hull along at a snail’s pace, the uneven trim making their task doubly difficult. From either side came the monotonous clank, clank of the heavy pumps, as half the hands toiled to keep the bilges free, and the engine room safe from the relentless waters, while the others, now fully alert, stood against the wind and rain, fingering their guns, and peering at each horizon.
Alone by the pom-pom, Parker laboured with his tools to get his clumsy charge unjammed and ready for firing again.
His assistant, who had been flung against the ammunition lockers by the force of the explosions, lay quietly behind the bridge, freed from the pain of his shattered ribs by the Coxswain’s morphia, and wrapped carefully in two lifejackets. He slept the sleep of one who has already departed from the fears of battle. Old Petroc, resting for a moment from the pumps, shook his head dolefully, as he jammed a rolled pair of overalls under the injured man’s head.
“’Ee’s a lucky un, ’ee is. Recon ’ee done it for the purpose. Loik ’ee as not knew the bloody pumps’d fold up!”
Then, spitting on his blistered hands, he turned back to his job.
A Prayer for the Ship Page 9