Ship of Force

by Alan Evans

  “All secure, sir!” Sanders yelled it. Then he added, “An’ they picked up the airman, sir!”

  That may have been the man on the line. Smith thought the airman was lucky to be alive — and aboard, because Sparrow could not search for anyone now she was under fire. “Full ahead both! Port ten!” The sooner he got them all out of these waters the better, but first he had to claw out to seaward of Judy so Sparrow would no longer be silhouetted against the glow of the drifter for the gunners ashore. “Ease to five…Midships!…Steady! Steer that!”

  Sparrow ran past the drifter that could not last long, had lasted too long for Smith’s liking, passed down her port side then left her astern. “Port five. Half ahead both…Midships. Steady. Two-four-oh.”

  Gow answered, “Course two-four-oh, sir!”

  Sparrow headed back towards the West Deep and the Smal Bank. A minute or so later the drifter Judy sank. The glow of her was snuffed out like a candle as the sea claimed her. There were no more shells from the guns at Nieuport; they could not see a target.

  Dunbar clambered up to the bridge, his head wrapped around with a white bandage, his cap stuck atop of it on the back of his head. Smith looked at him closely, saw his face pale as the bandage and asked him. “Are you all right?”

  “Well enough, sir.” Dunbar put a hand to the bandage, tenderly. “I had a hell of a headache to start with. Being thrown off the bridge hasn’t helped it.” He glanced at Smith. “Good thing you were here, sir. After three years we finally sank a U-boat and I was down in my bunk with Brodie tying my head up.”

  Smith shrugged. “You started the attack, anyway. After that your lads just did it by the book.” He did not have to lift his voice for all of them on the bridge to hear him. “You’ve certainly worked them up well. They’ve probably called you all sorts of a slave-driving bastard in the last three years — but now all is forgiven.” He saw the look-out grinning and heard the killick of the twelve-pounder snort with laughter.

  “Glad we got her, anyway.” But Dunbar did not sound as though he cared very much. He looked around. “I’m the better for being up here where I can breathe. And it’s quieter. I looked in the wardroom and it’s crammed full o’ bodies. Brodie’s got his hands full although he’s got the cook to help him. I told Sanders to stay there.”

  Smith said, “They’re coping?” It was more statement than question and Dunbar nodded. Smith thought that was how it was when you served in ships that were wrong for the job they were set, or built for the war of a generation ago. You had to act the doctor with a first-aid manual and a prayer. You coped. You had to.

  Dunbar went on, “The drifter lost two men. When she caught alight her skipper went below to fetch up the engineer — she’d taken a hit in the engine-room. Neither of them came out. The airman seems all right, though I understand they had to bring him up on a line. He doesn’t know what happened to his observer but he must have gone down with the Harry Tate. One of Judy’s crew has a broken leg. Sanders set a sentry over the two Germans, though I can’t see them giving trouble. One of them is a seaman but the other is the boat’s captain.”

  Smith said, “Is he, by God!” It was not often that a U-boat captain was taken prisoner.

  “Aye.” Dunbar nodded his head, winced and put a hand to it. “Brodie reckons the German skipper hasn’t got long and I think he’s right. He keeps coughing up blood and ranting and raving at the top of his voice. Sanders knows a bit of German and he says its gibberish. The man’s delirious. I told Sanders to sit with him.”

  Smith nodded. “I’d better see that young airman. You’re fit to stand a watch?”

  “Aye. Better up here than laying down there, thinking —” Dunbar stopped, then went on shortly, “I’ll take her, sir.”

  Better on the bridge than lying below, thinking of his wife and child. He had not mentioned them but he did not need to. Smith never heard Dunbar mention them again. Smith said, “Course is two-four-oh. You’ve another seven minutes on this leg — Lorimer’s keeping the track. Nieuport on the port bow.” He thought a moment then added, “You’d better get a signal off to the Commodore and Dunkerque, saying we’re on our way to the rendezvous, we’ve got the pilot and sunk a U-boat. Tell Dunkerque to repeat it to the R.N.A.S. at St. Pol. They’ll want to know about the pilot.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. Well, they were shouting for anti-submarine action. You gave it to ’em quick enough.”

  Smith blinked. He had not thought of that. But he wanted to be away. He clambered down the ladder from the bridge to the iron deck and started aft, his legs loose and barely controlled. His hands had begun to tremble as they always did at this time, when the action was over. He thrust them in his pockets.

  Behind him on the bridge Dunbar took a deep breath and blew it out. Gow cocked an eye at him. “Reckon we’ve got a live one, sir.”

  “I won’t argue with you on that,” Dunbar answered grimly. “Not after tonight.”

  And in the darkness at the back of the bridge, Buckley grinned.

  * * *

  Smith passed the starboard side six-pounder, its crew still excited, joking and laughing. One of them saw him stride by quickly with his hands driven deep in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, his face a pale smudge in the darkness, and unsmiling. The man stared but then Smith became aware of him and forced a smile. The seaman returned it and as he watched Smith’s retreating back he wondered if he’d imagined that haunted look on the Commander’s face.

  Smith kept the grin on his face as he passed the after sixpounder, waved a hand at the torpedo-gunner and his party who were securing the depth-charges in the stern, and then dropped down the hatch, sliding down the ladder to the wardroom flat. He stood again at the foot of the ladder in the narrow empty space between the captain’s cabin and the wardroom, slumped there for a minute with his folded arms on the ladder, eyes closed. But he could still see the gun flashes and the burning drifter, could still hear the crackling and smell the smoke of her that mixed with the cordite’s tang. He could see again the twelvepounder recoiling, the holes punched in the skin of the U-boat and how she had gone down with most of her crew trapped inside her. He could imagine that, the sea falling in and filling the compartments.

  He stood with his eyes closed until he heard harsh shouting in the wardroom, the German captain’s raving that Smith could not understand. He thrust away from the ladder and pushed through the curtain.

  The wardroom was fifteen feet wide and twelve feet long. The couches down each side made beds for four. There were five of the drifter’s crew, the airman, and the two Germans. Four of Judy’s crew sat on the deck but the fifth, the one with the broken leg, and the two Germans and the airman, lay on beds. Brodie and the cook were at work on the man with the broken leg, Sanders crouched by the gasping, raving U-boat commander and a sentry armed with a Lee-Enfield rifle stood with his back to the bulkhead. The deadlights were tight-closed over the scuttles so what little light there was wouldn’t escape. The depth charges’ kick or the guns’ firing had put the circuits out of action and only a dim emergency lighting functioned. The atmosphere was thick with the smell of sweat and oil, smoke and salt, vomit and antiseptic. Smith gagged as he picked his way across the crowded deck to the airman who was wrapped in blankets and sitting up now with his legs stretched out. He was roundfaced, pale. He, or someone, had rubbed at his wet-black hair with a towel so it stuck up in spikes. Smith thought he was probably twenty. He looked about fifteen.

  “I am Commander Smith. How are you?” He sat on the edge of the couch.

  The young man shoved himself up so he sat straighter. “Lieutenant Morris, sir. Royal Naval Air Service. An’ I’m not too bad, sir, thank you. Starting to warm up a bit. Your Steward chappie gave me some cocoa. Said he’d put ‘a dram o’ the skipper’s malt in it’.”

  Smith smiled faintly. The boy was a good mimic. That was Brodie to the life.

  Morris said innocently, “Can’t tell in this cocoa but I suppose that would be Scotch.” He p
eered into the mug he clasped in both hands, and sniffed.

  Smith said, “I think it would.” In this ship it certainly would. He asked, “What happened?”

  Morris glanced across the wardroom as the German officer bellowed with an edge of panic and clawed up in the bunk with Sanders holding on to him. He subsided into muttering, let Sanders push him gently down.

  The man with the broken leg yelped and swore and Brodie said, “A’ right! Ye’ll dae fine! Easy now!”

  Morris looked back at Smith. “Happened? Oh —” He hesitated, looking into the mug again, then asked, “No sign of Bill — my observer, sir?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  Morris nodded. Briefly he looked a very old fifteen. He blinked up at Smith, his gaze empty. “Never saw him after we hit. I paddled around for a long time and shouted, but it was very dark. I never saw him.”

  Smith saw his mouth twitch. This wouldn’t do. If the boy broke down before the others he would be ashamed of himself afterwards. Though he should not. Smith knew something of that. He asked quickly, “What were you doing?”

  The boy blinked again but this time focusing on Smith, trying to think, remembering…“Fairly routine, run-of-the-mill stuff. Reconnaissance over Ostende and the coast north of it. Only thing is, we’ve been getting a bit of a pasting up there lately. Margaret was our fourth loss in ten days.”

  “Margaret?”

  “My RE8, sir.” A faint grin. “I called her after a girl I know.”

  Smith said, “I see. And you were the fourth?”

  “Fourth aircraft lost. Nobody at all came back from the others. Henry — er, Squadron Commander Dennis, that is — he’ll be glad I’m all right but he won’t be too pleased about Margaret. Because of the other three he wasn’t frightfully keen on my going but — orders is orders. Anyway. The other times they sent some cover, a flight of fighters, but that ended up in a dog-fight and more losses. So this time I thought: Why not try a bit of cunning? So we went without cover, flew off in the early evening, made a big circle out to sea and came in with the sun behind us.”

  He paused, sipped from the mug. Smith could smell the whisky, Brodie’s dram had been a hefty one. Morris went on, “It turned out there wasn’t much sun but the wheeze worked anyway, up to a point. We got in all right and I made a fast circle low over Ostende then ran inland and flew north. We ran right up to the north of De Haan, nearly up to Blankenberge and then we turned south along the coast.” He looked at Smith and explained. “You see, sir, they’ve been keeping a fighting patrol flying over De Haan permanently. There’s always one Albatros V-strutter in the air and they can whistle up a lot more in minutes.”

  Smith said, “Albatros what?”

  Morris explained, “Albatros V-strutter. Their lower wing is shorter and narrower than the upper so the struts come down to a point like a V. They’re hot stuff; two machine-guns. The Triplanes we’ve got at St. Pol can fight ’em because the ‘Tripe hound’ is more manoeuvrable an’ goes up like a rocket. But a Harry Tate hasn’t got much hope.”

  Smith nodded and Morris went on, “So the idea was to come at them from the north. See? Not from the direction of France. Anyway, all the way up Bill had the camera going like mad but he kept shaking his head and making ‘wash-out’ signs with his hands meaning he couldn’t see anything new. So then we turned south and ran back down the coast. Sneaking in like that we got away with it for a few minutes. The light was a bit dim by then; it had started to rain again. It’s been raining a lot. Bill and me, we’ve got a cricket side together in the squadron but we haven’t had a knock for days. Bloody weather…” Morris’s voice trailed off and he was silent for a few seconds. When he went on his voice was a little louder, a little clearer, more deliberately casual. “I’d taken her down as low as I dared and Bill was hanging over the side of the cockpit and I had my head poked out so what there was to see, we saw. And there was nothing. Nothing new, that is. Except when we were just south of De Haan. There’s a biggish wood runs inland from the coast and there were a lot of chaps on the beach there. They seemed to be bringing a boat up from the sea.”

  Smith broke in, “What kind of boat?”

  “Well, we were over and past in a second.” Morris screwed up his face, trying to remember, then shook his head. “Bill could have told you but I was trying to fly as well. Might have been a fishing-boat. Seemed sort of wide-ish, blunt-ish. A bit like a shoe-box, it was so square. No armament, though, that’s definite. I’d have noticed a gun. Bill was excited, seemed to think he could see something in the wood, had the camera going.”

  He took a swallow from the mug and Smith asked, “And that was all you saw?”

  Morris nodded. “After that, for one reason and another I thought we might as well go home.”

  “What reasons?”

  “The light was going bad on us, of course. On top of that we started to get a lot of Archie coming up from the wood.”

  Archie was anti-aircraft fire. Smith said quietly, “From the wood?”

  Morris nodded. “That was new. We didn’t know they had Archie hidden in the wood. It gave us a hell of a fright.”

  Smith could imagine it bursting around Morris and his observer, tossing their little aeroplane about the sky.

  He sat very still as Morris went on, speaking more quickly, nearly finished and wanting to get it over. “I turned out to sea and got right down on it and that got us out of the Archie. But then that damned permanent patrol of theirs came down behind us and chased us out to sea. Albatros V-strutters, like I said. Three of them. They gave us a pasting until they turned back after a bit, but by then they knew they’d got us. The engine was dicky, smoking and burning. Just as it was getting dark I had to put her down in the sea. And that was that. I hung on to a lump of the fuselage and then your chaps pulled me out.”

  Smith imagined Morris in the sea, paddling about looking for Bill. Darkness all around him, hiding him, and the cold reaching out fingers to clutch at his heart. While all the time the observer lay dead far beneath him.

  Smith said, “I think you did very well.”

  Morris shrugged, embarrassed, shuddered as he drained the mug. “Wish I could have saved the camera. I’m sure Bill got something at the end.”

  Smith felt a touch on his shoulder, looked around and saw Brodie. The steward said “Mr. Sanders would like a word sir. He says, would you go over, please.”

  Smith stood up and saw past Brodie’s shoulder the face of Sanders, looking at him anxiously. He said to Morris, “I’m sorry about your observer. I should try to get some sleep if were you.” He reached out and took the empty mug, passed it to Brodie and then asked Morris, “Anything you want?”

  He shook his head. “No, sir. Thank you.” The pilot huddled down into the blanket, pulled it over his head and rolled on to his side, turning his back on the wardroom, its sights, sounds and smells, turning his back on the world. Clearly he had taken all he could stand for that day.

  Smith paused a moment, looking down at him. If the war went on long enough or Morris lived long enough then one day he would have taken all he could ever stand of war, and then they would send the wreckage home. They might call it shellshock or flying sickness D but it meant you were finished.

  Smith swung away, sidled between two of Judy’s crew sprawled snoring on the deck and across to the couch where the U-boat commander lay. He looked to be a tall man. He lay on the couch with his head and shoulders propped up against the bulkhead. Brodie had set him up like that so he could still draw what breath was left to him. He was lean with a thin, hard-boned face that was pallid now and glistened oily with sweat in the dim yellow light. His eyes were closed but his mouth gaped as he fought for breath. He was naked under the blanket that was pulled up to his chest and that heaving chest was swathed in bandages. The rags of the uniform they had cut from him lay on the deck beside him. It was salt- and blood-stained and filthy with oil but the insignia was that of a Kapitänleutnant of the Imperial German Navy.

&
nbsp; Sanders crouched right up against the bulkhead and Smith knelt beside him so their faces were close to each other and that of the Kapitänleutnant. Sanders’s face was as pallid as the German’s. He was not yet familiar with the sight of death. He whispered, “Brodie says his chest’s stove in and he’s all cut up about the body and legs. It must have happened when we shelled them, sir.”

  Smith nodded. The Kapitänleutnant had survived that and they had saved him from the sea. But only briefly. Brodie said the man had not got long and Smith agreed. He was a long way from being a doctor but he had seen men die before. Too many.

  Sanders went on, but hesitantly, “I — think there is something you should hear, sir. He keeps repeating some odd phrases. Every now and again he starts shouting or talking and goes on till he collapses. Then after a bit he starts again, though he’s getting weaker all the time. If you could wait, sir…?”

  Smith nodded.

  They waited.

  Sanders said, “I talked to the other one. It seems she was a Flanders boat out of Ostende. I asked where she was bound but he just clammed up at that.”

  Smith asked, “Where did you learn German?”

  “My father is a doctor. He had an old friend in practice in Berlin. I spent quite a few holidays there when I was a boy, and one or two leaves from the Navy, I don’t speak German all that well but I can understand —” He broke off and lifted a warning hand.

  The Kapitänleutnant’s shallow breathing had quickened, the lips moved and the lids over the eyes twitched, lifted. He stared blankly. The flutter of breath between his lips was a whisper that grew into a mumble. The voice had some strength now, but still Smith could barely hear it though his head was bent close. He could feel the man’s fluttering breath on his cheek but he could only pick out odd words from his slurred whispering: “Vater…Ilse…”

  The mumbling went on, growing stronger. Sanders whispered, interpreting, “Talking about his father, his home…his girl, or his wife, I think…the boat. Now, maybe…”