Royce and the others stood in a self-conscious line, abreast of the dais, he with his heart in his mouth. He tried to focus his eyes ahead, on the slender mast of a distant frigate, but each time he found himself glancing furtively at the sea of seemingly unfamiliar faces around him, or at the single squad of Wrens, as if to gain their moral support.
Vice-Admiral Sir John Marsh, as Flag Officer, was representing the King for the purposes of the presentation, and he stood small and erect on the dais, his head thrust slightly forward, the pale eyes darting piercingly and searchingly over the faces before him. He was in the process of winding up a brief but carefully worded speech.
“And so,” he barked, his voice echoing round the iron girders of the roof, “we have come to the bitterest part of the struggle, when all, each and every one of us, has to make the all-important decision.” He paused, allowing his words to sink in. Across the harbour came the clank of a winch, and somewhere overhead an aeroplane droned lazily. “We must decide, here and now, to work harder, longer, and if necessary, to give the last drop of blood to the common end. Many of us have fallen, and will fall on the way, but that is the way to victory.” He stopped, and cleared his throat.
Royce’s eye fell on Benjy, standing at the head of his crew, a tight-lipped, grim-faced Benjy, looking old before his time.
The Admiral turned to his Staff Captain, who held a sheaf of papers in a leather folder. Royce steeled himself. This was the moment. The other two Lieutenants who were with him were first, they were both Motor Gunboat Captains. Royce found himself listening with awe, as the Admiral read the citations. Surely these two youthful figures could not have achieved so much. He saw the Flag Lieutenant step forward and hand the little box to the Admiral. There was a great hush, as if the world was holding its breath, and then he pinned the small silver cross on the first officer’s jacket, and shook him by the hand. Royce chilled as the second man stepped up. One side of his face was like a wax mask, smooth and dead. The one remaining eye stared steadily ahead, as the cross was pinned to his chest, but as the Admiral began to speak to him in a low voice, the lieutenant lowered his head, and his body shook violently with a paroxysm of violent sobs. Royce turned his face away, as the two sick-bay attendants led the officer gently from the building. Such was the price.
“Lieutenant Clive Royce,” the sharp voice broke into his thoughts, and clenching his teeth he marched quickly to confront the Admiral. The pale eyes regarded him coldly, as the Staff Captain read loudly from his papers, but Royce was only dimly aware of the context. He was still thinking of that other Lieutenant. It might have been him. “Did, in the face of extreme danger, under the aforementioned circumstances, and without regard for his personal safety, carry out the destruction of the enemy, in a manner over and above the line of duty.” The voice had stopped, and he felt, rather than saw, the Admiral affix the decoration.
“Well, my boy, I said we should meet again, eh?” The eyes were now smiling, the lined face relaxed. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir.”
It was all a dream. He saluted and marched to the side, where, with real pleasure, he watched as Raikes received his hard-earned D.S.M.
The base padre said a few words. The Marine band struck up “Hearts of Oak,” and with an almost eager haste the blue ranks wheeled round and marched out into the salt air. Back to the war.
Royce and Raikes walked slowly along the main jetty, towards the landing-stage, each immersed in his own thoughts.
“Didn’t take long, did it?” said Royce at length.
Raikes thought for a bit, his eyes dreamily watching the gulls dancing over the water, swooping and screaming at the flotsam. “I dunno, sir. I aged about ten years in there!”
Royce slapped him across the shoulder, brought back to reality by Raikes’s simple forthrightness, which had done so much to draw them together. “Bit of luck the Admiral doesn’t know about our Christmas escapade,” he laughed. “I don’t suppose he’d approve of Wrens in M.T.B.s!”
Raikes whistled shrilly and waved in the direction of the idling motor dory. “I shouldn’t bank on him not knowing!” he answered wryly. “That’s ’ow you become an Admiral, knowing them things!”
“Starboard twenty.”
“Starboard twenty, sir. Twenty of starboard wheel on.”
“Steady.”
“Steady, sir, course south thirty east.”
“Steer south forty east.”
There is a pause, and the steering chain rasps and rattles, as the Quartermaster, his eyes straining to watch the dancing compass card, floating under its feeble lamp, eases the wheel over spoke by spoke. When he speaks, his teeth are clenched because of the cold, and because the dawn is still a whole night away.
“Course south forty east, sir.” The whisker of the lubber’s line has halted opposite the required point.
“Very good.” Carver’s tone is one of strain. He levels his glasses ahead, searching the invisible horizon.
Jenkins, on the wheel, curses quietly, as a feather of white spray jumps the screen and plunges itself wetly beneath a gap in his muffler. He is thinking about his mother, and her fish shop in Brighton. They’ll just be closing now, and the air will be filled with vinegar and hot fat. He smiles secretly, and licks his lips.
“Watch your helm.” Carver is worried and angry. Somewhere ahead is the Motor Gunboat flotilla they have been sent to contact. Somewhere astern, Kirby will be fuming impatiently.
Paynton hums happily amid his flags and lamps, while Leach is invisible, save for his buttocks, as he pores over the chart. Thinking of his girl, thinks Carver, allowing his mouth to soften.
The bridge is like a small stage in a vast, empty, and darkened theatre, where the players are waiting for a final rehearsal. Except that here there is no time to rehearse.
Above the spiralling mast, the clouds are solid black things, slashed with silver valleys, as a baffled moon tries to show them the way. As it sheds its beams briefly, the sea too is revealed, a powerful, menacing desert of heaving jet dunes, with the occasional white crust torn free by the biting wind. This is the North Sea.
There is a sharp clink from the Bofors mounting, and a scuffle of feet. Someone laughs, and Denton’s throaty voice quells them with threats.
“Bridge?” A tinny voice floats questioningly up a voice-pipe.
“Bridge,” snaps Carver, wondering what it must be like, bouncing about in the engine room, between those thundering giants.
“Permission to send Stoker Barker to the mess-deck to bandage ’is ’ead, sir? ’E’s bumped it on number one pump.”
“I suppose that makes a difference from, say, number two pump?” Carver’s voice is heavy with sarcasm.
“Pardon, sir?”
“Skip it. Yes, send him up.”
God, I’m tired, he thinks. That girl’ll kill me. There is a soft snore from the chart table, and Carver kicks savagely at the Midshipman’s curved stern.
“Wake up, Colin! You lazy bastard!”
The watch is proceeding as normal.
Below in his cabin, Royce lay lazily and dreamily in his bunk, his mind and body unwilling to return to the ways of duty. He squinted down his fully-clothed body to his large sea-boots, which stuck into each corner of the bunk, to stop him rolling on to the deck. From a hook on the door, his dressing-gown hung out at an angle of 45 degrees, as if on a bracket, and then swung back eerily to another improbable position. Royce watched it idly for a while, and then returned to Julia’s letter, which he rested on his chest, to catch the light from his bunk lamp. He sighed contentedly, and started to read it again:
“. . . and so the transfer has been arranged. I shall be moving down to Harwich, almost at once, to attend an advanced signal course there. I don’t even mind that. Any excuse to be near you again.”
He smiled, and felt the strong stirring within him. He turned over the page, drinking in her round, neat writing.
“I shall come and see you as soon as I ca
n, to let you know the arrangements at Harwich. As I said before, we all saw your picture in the paper the other day, getting your medal. I was very proud, and cried a little bit. Must close now, as I am certainly not going to miss getting transport to the station, to come to you again.”
It was signed, simply, “with love, Julia.” Royce stretched contentedly. It was still like a miracle. He wanted to have some little thing of hers to touch and hold, just to prove he was not dreaming. He glanced round the disordered cabin. She was here in this place, just a week ago, he marvelled. He could still picture her, still sense her perfume, her nearness.
“Captain, sir?”
He swallowed hard, and rolled over to the voice-pipe.
“Yes?”
“Gunboats ahead. ’Bout half a mile.”
“Very good. Get the Cox’n on the wheel. I’m coming right up.”
He swung his legs to the deck, and slipped his glasses round his neck. At the door he paused. Her vision was still there and, smiling inwardly, he climbed the ladder to the main deck.
He nodded to the others, and followed his usual painstaking routine. Compass, chart, weather, speed. Right. He turned his attention to the dark shapes, revealed only by their creaming bow-waves, which were looming on the port bow.
“Made the challenge?”
“Yes, sir. Their Senior Officer is coming alongside to get the gen.”
Even as they waited, one of the gunboats swung out of line, and sidled alongside, her engines idling. Royce could see the white blobs on her bridge, and shining oilskins.
“Ahoy there! This is S.N.O. here. Give me the message, and we’ll get cracking!”
Royce raised his megaphone. The loud-hailer would be a bit too much, in the enemy’s back garden as it were.
“Lieutenant-Commander Kirby’s compliments, and he says for you to go straight in now, without waiting for any further confirmation. As you know, the story is that the two enemy transports are coming up the coast fast, with one escort ship. A Hans-Lody class destroyer.” He paused; the salt was making his throat like sandpaper.
“What about the bloody E-boats?” The booming voice was testy.
“Yes, they’ll be in a covering sweep, about five miles ahead of the convoy. You’re to go in, as if you were making a normal sweep, and draw the E-boats off. You’re to start the sweep at oh-one-oh-oh.”
There was a pause, while the water swished and slopped between the two boats.
“Okay! I hope the Intelligence reports are right for once! Good huntin’!”
The gunboats milled round their leader and then, after much gear-changing, they prowled off into the night, in a tight arrowhead formation.
To Carver’s ill-concealed relief, Royce took over the con, and when they eventually picked up Kirby’s cautious signal, he breathed a deep sigh of admiration. “Jolly good, Skipper. I don’t know how you manage to get the exact rendezvous like that.”
“It’s dead easy, Number One. He signalled, so we know it’s the S.O. If he’d fired, we’d have been at the wrong place, see?” said Royce drily.
They cruised steadily towards the hidden coastline, the engines throttled down, and grumbling throatily.
Raikes, who had been moodily studying the bobbing stern of Cameron’s boat, started suddenly. “Good ’eavens, I forgot!” he exploded.
The others peered at him uncertainly.
“A ’Appy New Year, gentlemen!” he said solemnly.
Carver laughed. “So it is. God bless us, every one!”
They reached round in the darkness and shook hands. Carver called out the news to Leach, who had gone aft to his Brownings, and there was a stifled cheer.
“The last year of war, perhaps,” said Royce thoughtfully. “Who knows?”
On the horizon there was a sharp crackle of automatic fire, and an impressive display of tracer shells. The gunboats were putting on their show.
“We’ve struck oil!” jerked Carver excitedly. “Now where is the—”
He was cut short by Kirby’s action lamps flashing urgently, and the quickening roar of engines.
“Full speed ahead! Stand by torpedoes!” barked Royce. “Okay, John, get forrard. And keep your head down!”
The convoy was completely taken by surprise, as the lean hulls tore down upon them. They had confidently watched the E-boats tear after the gun boats, and settled down thankfully behind the powerful bulk of the destroyer.
Kirby’s blackboard tactics swung smoothly into operation. The destroyer was to be first, and less than twenty seconds after the first gun had fired, two torpedoes burst in her engine room, and another reduced her fo’c’sle to a flaming hell.
Frantically she fired her secondary armament at the M.T.B.s as they flashed into the gleam of her own funeral pyre, and the night was ripped apart by the clatter of machine-guns and cannon. Yet another steel fish struck home, and with an eye-searing flash, she rolled on her beam-ends, the fires hissing and shooting out great geysers of scalding steam.
Royce saw the tracers rippling and bouncing along her upturned and streaming bilge keel, and then, with a frightful scream of rending metal, she vanished, leaving a small, glittering pool of burning oil.
The two transports were turning for the coast, but the leading vessel was hit twice by torpedoes before her rudder could be brought round. She listed heavily, and was shrouded in escaping steam.
Royce brought the boat slewing round, and fired his own sleek charges into the blackness. As he altered course, the engines racing, the night lit up with a thousand multi-coloured hues, as the ship broke in two and exploded.
The remaining ship was firing her guns frantically, and appeared to be out of control.
One M.T.B. was also in difficulties, with flames flickering out of her bridge.
Another great roar, and the last of the transports lifted her bows, and slid to the bottom.
In a welter of plunging wakes, the M.T.B.s tacked back into line, the sea dark again, but for the blazing M.T.B., now two miles astern.
Benjy’s boat went about, and his voice boomed across the water.
“Kirby’s bought it! Nip back and take off the blokes, will you? But don’t hang about, Clive!”
Royce waved, and watched grimly as Benjy took over command of the flotilla, and led them, roaring away, towards safety.
“Stand by on the fo’c’sle, Number One. I’m going alongside. Get ready to pull the wounded aboard. We won’t have a lot of time. The fire’s got a good hold!”
He swung to the aft rail. “First-aid party, Mister Leach! Lively now!”
Raikes sucked his teeth, his eyes fixed on the blazing boat, looming closer and closer.
“Gently does it,” breathed Royce. The stench of petrol, and the warm breath of fire on his cheek, made his throat contract.
The seamen lined the rails, and he saw Carver leap on to the other boat’s slanting deck as they scraped alongside.
The bridges of the two boats were side by side, and as the other one listed over, slowly and wearily, he saw the shambles clearly revealed by the growing flames.
Men were leaping wildly across the narrow gap to safety, while others were dragged ruthlessly over the rails, their injuries making them cry out pitifully.
He saw Kirby step stiffly from the wrecked bridge, his clothes in rags, his face a torn nightmare.
He seemed to see Royce looking down at him, and for a moment he stood there motionless. Then, he slowly bent forward, in a grotesque curtsy, his torn scalp gleaming dully, and pitched over the side between the two grinding hulls.
Royce retched.
“All off, sir,” yelled Carver, and with a quickening tremble they moved clear and, with bows lifting, speeded after the others.
Commander Wright strolled along the deserted jetty, sniffing appreciatively the crisp morning air.
In the harbour, a bugle sounded sadly, and one small harbour launch scudded across the anchorage, disturbing the nodding gulls perched on the buoys. He could taste the coffee o
n his tongue, and he hummed absently to himself as he scanned the clear, colourless sky. It had the makings of a fine day. When he reached the steps at the foot of the Signal Tower, he stared across to the heavy bulk of the Royston. Her moorings were still empty. He frowned, and consulted his watch, then looked out at the glittering line of the sea, towards which a dirty trawler puffed with slow, graceless rolls. They should be back now, he thought, and strolled into the signals office. The Yeoman was sitting back in a chair, his eyes puffy from too little sleep. Wright waved to him cheerily.
“Don’t get up, Yeo, I’m just going to wait in the office here for a bit. The ’T.B.s’ll be back soon. Any news?”
“As you know, sir, they got their objective all right. We had a signal from the gunboats two hours ago. I expect the M.T.B.s took a bit longer to find the destroyers that were going to escort ’em back.” The man yawned.
A Prayer for the Ship Page 25