“D’you know what that topmast was made of, PO Tel?”
“Would it be Norway fir, sir?”
“It would.” Nick pointed. “And that’s Norway.”
But this conversation had taken place several hours later. At the start, with the ship stopped and on fire and no report yet of her machinery state or count of dead and wounded, there’d been no time for anything but coping with such emergencies as one knew about and getting ready for such new ones as might be expected. Like the weather clearing suddenly and the cruiser opening fire again. There’d be nothing to do except to shoot back—for as long as the ship floated.
Tommy Trench had gone aft to take charge of damage-control and fire-fighting. The snow still hid them, hid everything from them. Mr Opie, the torpedo gunner, was still standing by his out-turned tubes, and Nick had sent down for Cox, the RNR midshipman, to come up to the torpedo sights, in case visibility did lift suddenly and reveal their enemy. If that happened and one was quick enough … Well, he knew the cruiser wouldn’t be lying stopped as Intent was; in fact the probability was that she’d be a long way off by this time. But she might be picking up survivors from poor Gauntlet?
Thinking of the possibility of Gauntlet survivors, he wondered about sending a boat to search in the direction where they’d last seen her. Both ships had been immobilised, so if there were any that was where they’d be. There’d be none alive in the water, but there might be a Carley float, something or other … Risk sending away the whaler in this sea? Throw sound lives after doubtful ones?
Ten or fifteen minutes after the shell had hit them Sub-Lieutenant Lyte hauled himself into the bridge with a report from Tommy Trench.
“Engine-room’s a shambles, sir. Chief Stoker’s trying to sort things out—says it’s not as hopeless as it looks. There’s a lot of electrical damage, but the LTOs are coping. Only the auxiliary generator’s operable— or will be, Beamish says. And we’re losing a lot of oil-fuel aft, so he’s shut off those tanks. Other damage is comparatively minor—except for the hole in the engine-room casing—first lieutenant’s getting that covered with timber and tarpaulins. But everything’s in hand, sir, really.” Lyte was panting: he’d paused, getting his breathing under control. “The four men who were killed are in the officers’ bathroom for the moment, sir, and the two wounded—ERA Dobbs and Stoker Hewitt—are in the sickbay.”
“Are they going to be all right?”
“No, sir.” Lyte clung to the binnacle as the ship was lifted and flung on to her port side. “Doc says not a hope.”
“On your way down, tell him I want a report as soon as possible.”
“Aye aye, sir.” He hadn’t quite finished his report yet. “Most upper deck gear’s smashed or burnt, sir. The only boat we have left intact is the dinghy. Whaler and motor-cutter are just charcoal. Even the Carley floats have had it. And—Mr Opie asked me to tell you he had to ditch several depthcharges, when everything was burning.”
That seemed to be the lot.
“All right, Sub. Thank you.”
No boat for Gauntlet survivors, then; that problem had solved itself. No boat for anyone else either. Lyte told him, “Chief Buffer’s clearing away the wreckage of the topmast, shrouds, and stuff, in the waist port-side, sir, and he’s got all the wire inboard now.”
“Good.” Metcalf’s first thought would have been for trailing steel-wire rope that might get wrapped round the screws. If the screws were to start turning again.
“Sub, I want to know from Beamish, one, how long he’s going to be, two, what revs he thinks he’ll be able to give me?”
Visibility was lifting. The snow was changing to sleet and thinning. A minute ago you couldn’t see more than ten yards but he could see the ship’s stem now—about a hundred feet away. And the sea beyond it, too …
“Lookouts!”
Gilbey on the port side and Willis on the other. He told them, “Keep your eyes peeled now. Weather’s thinning. I want to know if anything’s there before it sees us … Mid!”
Midshipman Cox faced round. “Yessir?”
“Ask Lieutenant Brocklehurst if he can see anything.”
Cox had picked up the phone. He was short, sturdy, with a nose like a lump of putty and skin scarred by acne. He’d been a Merchant Navy cadet until 3 September 1939, and he was now just eighteen. His action station was in the plot, below the bridge, and most of the time he was employed as “tanky,” assistant to the navigating officer.
He’d shoved the phone back on its bracket. “Director tower reports nothing in sight, sir.”
“Keep a smart lookout yourself now, Mid.”
Young Cox was a problem. Chandler wanted to get rid of him. But for the moment, the foreseeable future, there were more pressing problems … Visibility had stretched to about half a mile, and there was still nothing to be seen. Only the sea heaving green and angry and the clouds pressing low as if they were trying to smother it, and here and there the flurry of a passing squall. Intent, soaring and dropping, swinging whichever way the waves and wind pushed her, felt inert and lifeless, with no will of her own.
Some time later, Tommy Trench’s mountainous form had dragged itself off the ladderway and slithered across the bridge to join him. Pete Chandler had come up behind the first lieutenant; he was carrying a rolled chart which he took to the small chart table in the front of the bridge. It was a sort of alcove, like a dormer window’s recess, with a grey-painted canvas shield that could be let down to keep the weather out and, at night, the light in.
To the left of it, in the port fore corner of the bridge, steps led down to the tiny Asdic compartment.
Trench reported, “I’ve got the hole in the engine-room casing adequately covered for the time being, sir. Timber and tarpaulins with a wire lashing to hold it down. The work’ll go more easily down below now; Beamish reckons another hour and then slow speed, revs for 3 or 4 knots.”
“I see.” He’d been hoping for better things than that. He asked Trench, “Is it going to be a permanent repair—at that reduced speed—one we can rely on?”
“Afraid not, sir. To make a job of it he says he’d need several days with the ship on an even keel and—well, he’s not up to it, sir.”
“No.”
It wasn’t any of CPO Beamish’s fault that he wasn’t. He was a stoker, not an artificer.
“I doubt if it was an eight-inch shell that hit us, sir. But in any case it didn’t get far in before it burst. Hence the size of the hole.”
It could have been a shell from the cruiser’s secondary armament, a four-inch. It had already occurred to him that a direct hit from an eight-inch would almost certainly have sunk them. The engine-room was the biggest compartment in the ship: if it was flooded, she’d go down, to where poor Gauntlet was.
The thought of Gauntlet was a weight inside him. He thought that in the same circumstances he’d have made the same decisions, but he knew it was arguable and that there’d be plenty of postmortem experts who’d take a different view.
“How far to the Shetlands, Pilot?”
“Roughly—” Chandler hesitated—”five hundred miles, sir. D’you want a more accurate—”
“No.” It would be about five hundred. And it might as well have been five thousand. He looked at Trench. “Five hundred miles at 3 knots—no, not as much, revs for 3 knots but beam-on to this gale—and with a chance of the engine packing up on us altogether …” He shook his head. “Hardly.”
“Might whistle up a tow, sir?”
Nick asked Chandler, “How far are we from Trondheim?”
“We could just about drift there, sir.”
“Let’s have a look at it. Take over, will you, Number One.”
You could see a couple of miles now: see nothing over a radius of about that. Thank God, he thought, for vast mercies. Despite Gauntlet. And don’t count on getting many more, not even small ones. Luck, even if one thought of it as intervention by the Almighty, was always a rationed commodity. When you’d had a f
airly large issue of it you’d be stupid not to expect some of the other sort thereafter. But for the moment there was still no enemy about. The lookouts and the snotty were all hard at it with binoculars at their eyes, and overhead the director tower was slowly, constantly, traversing around.
So far—Gauntlet apart—things might have been a lot worse than they were, he thought. He was staring up at the swaying director tower. Trench glanced up at it too: the motion up there as the ship rolled was terrific. Trench observed, “If Brocklehurst was a churn of milk he’d be cheese by now.” Best not to dwell on the Gauntlet business. Nick knew that Intent’s present problems demanded all his concentration. Later, Gauntlet’s fate and his own part in the action would be examined through a dozen microscopes, some of them with bureaucratically hostile eyes behind them. If one got through as far as “later” …
Chandler was waiting for him at the chart table.
“DR’s here, sir, and here’s Trondheim.”
He’d already taken the major decision—to seek shelter and repairs in Norway rather than risk losing the ship and all her company in attempting the very long, rough passage homeward in this unseaworthy condition. With enemy units known to be at sea, and probably a lot more of them than were known to be, to stagger off into the gale hoping to find assistance—a tow—wasn’t a justifiable gamble. At best, if it worked, it would take other Royal Navy ships from their operational functions, add to the burden of other men’s responsibilities. He hunched over the chart: the decision to be made now was which bit of Norway to aim for.
Trondheim was close at hand. It was a major port with full repair and fuelling facilities, and at first sight it seemed the obvious choice.
His eye ran up the jagged coastline, the mass of offshore islands and indentations, the long reaching arms of sea called fjords—narrow, twisting, deep-water channels. He reached to the back of the table for dividers.
Namsos, he was looking at. At the head of Namsenfjord. The approach to it—from Foldfjorden—was about seventy miles north of the approach to Trondheim. He checked the distances to both places from Intent’s present DR position. Nothing in it: they were as close to one as to the other. The only significant difference was that the course to Namsenfjord—he ran the parallel ruler across and saw it would be about 130 degrees—would be exactly down-wind.
Passing a hand around his jaw, he was reminded that he hadn’t shaved since yesterday morning.
“Namsos might be our best bet.”
“Wouldn’t repairs be easier at Trondheim, sir? And more likely oil-fuel?”
“Let’s see what the pilot says. Send Cox down for it.”
Now—think this out …
If the Germans were invading—which you could bet on—they’d make landings at four, five, possibly six strategic points. Oslo obviously. Trondheim was probably the next most obvious target. Stavanger for its airfield. And—Kristiansand, Bergen, Narvik. If they had ships and men enough that would be the bones of it. And it made a powerful argument against taking Intent into Trondheim. Wherever one went, admittedly there’d be some risk of getting stuck; Namsos might be occupied and presumably would be eventually—its strategic position in relation to Trondheim meant it couldn’t be left alone for long—but for openers the Hun couldn’t spread his forces too thinly, he’d have to concentrate on the more important places.
So if repairs could be made in just a few days there’d be a better chance of getting them done in Namsos and getting away again than there would be at Trondheim.
“Right. Thank you.” Chandler took the Norway Pilot Vol. III from Cox, and looked up Namsos in its index. Then he was riffling over the pages. “Here we are …”
“The crucial requirements are repairs and fuel.”
“Yes, here it is … ‘Small repairs can be executed.’” His finger moved on, stopped at another paragraph. “‘Fuel oil is available.’ Seems we could do worse, sir.”
“Is that a fairly recent issue?”
“Looks new enough.” The navigator turned to the front and checked the publication date. “Yes. 1939.”
“Namsos it is, then.” Nick touched the wooden surface of the chart table, “If our chief stoker can get us that far.”
Nylandskjaer was well astern now. One bit of bad news since Beamish had got her going had been the discovery that oil was leaking from some of the for’ard tanks as well as the after ones. Problems of that nature could only be cured in dry dock: even if there was a dock in Namsos and engineers who could take on such a job he wasn’t going to risk his ship being high and dry when the Nazis might arrive at any moment. So however good a job Beamish might do eventually in the engine-room, with or without shore assistance, Intent’s range was going to be reduced by almost half. And she’d only have that if the harbour authorities in Namsos came up to scratch with a couple of hundred tons of oil.
Sufficient unto the day, he told himself. For the moment she was, at least, afloat.
Trench, lumbering up, caught hold of the binnacle on Nick’s left. “Burial party is standing by, sir.”
“Right. Thank you.” He called to Chandler, who was at the chart table. “Pilot, come and take over.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The navigator’s long, bony frame began to back out of the alcove, letting the canvas down across it to make sure his precious charts stayed dry. He’d got the larger-scale inshore chart of Namsenfjord and surroundings up here now. Midshipman Cox was still at the front of the bridge keeping a lookout, and the watchkeeping lookouts had been doubled up so that there were two each side. The only food anyone had had throughout the day had been corned-beef sandwiches, mugs of soup, and kye. “Kye” meaning cocoa. Nick stared round, seeing the low encircling rock-grey coasts white-blotched and hung with spray in a continual mist.
Intent had her stern up, foc’sl buried deep in sea … The navigator, joining Nick, wiped spray from his long, pale face. Chandler was a cricketer; it was a burning interest which he shared with Tommy Trench. “With your permission, sir, I’d like to come two degrees to starboard now.”
“All right.” He turned away. “She’s all yours.”
“Then it’s six and a half miles to Namsenfjord, sir.”
An hour and a half, he thought. “How far up the fjord for shelter?”
“Bit less than twenty miles, sir.” Then he re-heard the question, and shook his head. “Sorry. That’s the distance up to Namsos itself. There are sheltered anchorages long before that.”
If they were lucky they’d be met by a pilot boat or some kind of patrol craft who’d lead them in. A pilot was essential, by normal standards, but it might be unwise to count on getting one. For one thing, the ordinary way of getting him would be to radio the nearest pilotstation; and even if the W/T was working he’d no intention of using it. But also, if the Norwegians were expecting to be invaded they’d be chasing their tails a bit—and might not relish being seen playing host to the White Ensign. In fact going on recent form they’d scream blue murder at the sight of it. So—if no pilot was available, as the distance to Namsos was twenty miles and Intent’s speed say 5 knots, they’d be in that narrow fjord when the dark period hit them. Therefore, he’d have to reckon on anchoring before the light failed: and as the fjords were deep—the chart revealed that most of Namsenfjord had more than two hundred fathoms in it—an anchorage would have to be selected in advance.
Well, there’d be time to do so. Now, there were five men to be buried. Five because Stoker Hewitt had died, as the doctor had said he would. Dobbs, the ERA, was surprising him by holding on, and Probationary Surgeon Lieutenant Bywater was staying at Dobbs’s bunkside and practically counting every heartbeat. Six months ago Don Bywater had been a student at Bart’s.
Nick told Chandler, “I’m going aft. When it’s over I expect I’ll visit the engine-room and then the sickbay.”
A small crowd of men had assembled near the for’ard set of torpedo tubes. Mr Opie was there—spidery-thin, grey-stubbled, touching his cap to Nick and then immed
iately resuming the massage of that long, thin nose. Lyte too—looking soberer, less boyish than Nick had seen him before. This morning’s engagement, he realised, must for the majority of officers and men have been a first experience of action … Had he been changed, he wondered, by his own rather dramatic blooding at Jutland? In career terms, certainly, because at Jutland he’d won himself—by accident, pure chance, he still felt that was all it had amounted to—a future, which he’d not had before. But personally?
He didn’t think so. Success, approbation, had given him some confidence. That was about all … He was looking round at Trench’s dispositions for this funeral: at four bodies sewn in canvas and lying under the shelter of the tubes, a fifth on the launching-plank which had been rigged athwartships with its outboard end protruding over the ship’s side. Spray flew from mounting curves of green sea, higher than the ship’s side: Nick told PO Metcalf, “Mind you drop ‘em in the troughs. Otherwise they might get dumped straight back aboard.”
The gunner’s mate, PO Jolly, reported, “Firing party ready, sir.”
Four sailors with rifles. The body lying on the plank was shrouded in a Union flag, and the same flag would cover each of the other four as their turns came. Men in gleaming oilskins clung to whatever was solid and in their reach; mostly to the tubes and the gear around them and to the ladder and other projections on the searchlight island. The searchlight itself was kaput, non-existent, and the platform it stood on was blackened and twisted out of shape. Nick took up a position under the platform’s overhang. One hand for himself, the other for the prayer-book. He was going to have to shout the prayers, to be heard over all the surrounding noise.
I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die … We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
The language was fine but its value here and now was less obvious to him. It wasn’t a matter of not believing; more one of believing and caring too much for these ritual mouthings to carry the weight of regret which he felt himself and sensed from the men around him. He looked up from the book: he wanted to say something more personal and more apposite, something these sailors could identify with in their own hearts. Defeated in that, he looked down again… In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins are justly displeased? Familiar verbiage: reminding one of other such occasions. A Dover scene, for instance: Christmas of 1917, destroyer men in ranks under a grey drizzly sky, and the flag on the castle at half-mast while a bugler sounded the Last Post. Here there was no bugler, only PO Metcalf and his bosun’s call. Metcalf had the little silvery instrument ready pressed between fingertips and palm, and he kept wetting his lips as if he was worried that the prayers might stop suddenly and find him unprepared, lips dried by the wind. Nick paused, to make sure the side-party were ready; then he looked down again and read, Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the souls of our dear brothers here departed: we therefore commit their bodies to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead …
Storm Force to Narvik: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 1 Page 7