Convoy Homeward (John Mason Kemp Thriller Book 6)

by McCutchan,Philip

  It wouldn’t really help much; but it was all that could be done. And if the German did appear, then Kemp would scatter the convoy.

  The Stuttgart was sighted by the lookout at the foremasthead just before the sun, with a farewell blaze of colour, dipped below the horizon, sending a shaft of blinding golden brilliance across the water and silhouetting the ships against the backdrop.

  Kemp said, ‘Make the executive, Yeoman.’

  Yeoman Lambert doubled to the signal halliards and hoisted the ready bent-on flag signal for the convoy to scatter. A few moments later thick black smoke began rolling from the cruisers’ engine-room uptakes as the stokers in the boiler-rooms opened the taps to send a surge of oil fuel into the furnaces.

  Two minutes later, invisibly to the ships behind the smokescreen, there was a series of flashes as the German batteries opened.

  *

  Aboard the Aurelian Star and the other troopships, all hands except those required at their action stations — the naval guns’- crews, the ship’s officers and engineers and those needed to man the pumps and fire hoses and so on — had been assembled at their boat stations and the embarkation deck was filled with troops and the civilian families. Gregory Hench had been prised from his bar stool by the Chief Officer, the latter making his rounds of the ship before reporting to the Captain that all crew and passenger spaces had been cleared.

  Except, so far, for Hench.

  ‘Out on deck, Mr Hench.’

  ‘I’m all right here, thank you very much.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ Chief Officer Dartnell said. ‘The bar’s shut down, or have you not noticed?’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’ Hench waved an arm, indicating three glasses of whisky lined up. ‘Precautions.’ He gave a belch.

  Dartnell said, ‘Out. That’s an order.’

  ‘And I,’ Hench said indistinctly, ‘am a fare-paying passenger. All right?’

  ‘All wrong,’ Dartnell answered crisply. He laid hold of Hench’s shoulders and lifted him bodily from the stool. ‘Fare-paying passengers cease to exist as such in an emergency. And when I say out, I mean out. Out!’

  Hench made a disoriented swipe in the direction of the whisky glasses. ‘And you can leave those behind,’ the Chief Officer said.

  As, under propulsion, Hench went through the door to the open deck there came a distant whine, one that grew quickly louder as it made its approach, not more than a matter of feet above the Aurelian Star’s mastheads. On the bridge, the officers and ratings ducked instinctively. As a moment later Kemp straightened he heard an explosion, saw a gigantic burst of flame from a ship steaming away south on his port beam. Finnegan was at his side. ‘Buckfast Abbey,’ he said. ‘Dry cargo, foodstuffs mostly.’

  Kemp levelled his binoculars. ‘Fore part gone,’ he said tautly. ‘She won’t make it … looks as though the hit was aft of the collision bulkhead. I’ll give her three minutes. And God damn Hitler.’

  It was in fact a little over three minutes before the freighter began her plunge. The Master had signalled that the German shell had smashed away the collision bulkhead and his pumps were unable to cope. With her fore part shattered, the Buckfast Abbey went down bows first and then, as the waters spread aft throughout her length, she settled briefly. Kemp saw men trying desperately to launch a lifeboat, but before the boat could be got into the water the ship went lower very suddenly and the boat, still on the falls of the davit, went down with her. Kemp saw men struggling in the sea until there was a blast of steam from her engine spaces, followed by a dull internal explosion and then she had gone.

  In the meantime, the Stuttgart continued firing, the shells coming closer.

  *

  Hench was more than three parts drunk. He lurched about, bumping into the other passengers at his boat station. He seemed scarcely aware of the gunfire. He was by the after fall of his allotted lifeboat when the Aurelian Star was hit aft, a shell taking the after deck-house above the engineers’ cabin alleyway. The deckhouse crumpled and fire started. The after gun’s-crew were blown flat. Petty Officer Ramm was caught by a flying jag of red-hot metal that sliced through his neck. The head rolled grotesquely, fetching up against the ready-use ammunition locker. Stripey Sissons lay apparently lifeless, with both legs blown away and blood gushing from the stumps. As the rest of the gun’s-crew stirred, Leading Seaman Purkiss got groggily to his feet and looked around. He saw the PO’s head, and retched. Then, taking a grip, he said in a shaking voice, ‘Right. I’m in charge now. Back on the gun, those that can. You, Featherstonewhat’s it. Take over gunlayer.’

  ‘Me?’ Featherstonehaugh was dazed.

  ‘Yes, you. I don’t feel so good.’ Suddenly, Purkiss went down flat on the deck, groaning in agony. Featherstonehaugh got down beside him. There was a spreading patch of blood from the leading seaman’s stomach. The face was deathly white. Featherstonehaugh shouted at the top of his voice towards the embarkation deck, shouted for medical assistance, then went back to the gun. As a bright moon came out and beamed through the clearing smoke he could see the Stuttgart bearing down on the scattering ships of the convoy. She was still out of range of the troopship’s inadequate, out-dated armament. Not that it mattered; Featherstonehaugh saw for the first time that the barrel was twisted into a cat’s cradle and the whole mounting was tilted sideways.

  On the bridge the orders had gone down for the fire parties. As the medical orderlies provided by the Australians arrived aft with Neil Robinson stretchers, a party of seamen dragged the hoses to the burning remains of the deck-house and began playing on the flames. Featherstonehaugh, in the absence of any orders, doubled for’ard to back up the crew of the fore three-inch. And Gregory Hench, whose drunken clumsiness had pitched him over the guardrail when the German shell had hit, drifted helplessly astern to wallow in the South Atlantic until a fin, slicing through the water, found him and turned for the kill. His screaming end was seen from the decks. One of those who witnessed it was Gloria Northway, though at the time she didn’t know it was Hench. She gave a low, keening sound at the sheer moonlit horror of it and collapsed in a faint at the feet of Captain Mulvaney.

  *

  Kemp said, ‘The German’s making short work of the Barracudas, Finnegan. Four down.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. I —’ Finnegan broke off as another of the cargo vessels was seen to be hit aft, a tearing explosion that had almost certainly damaged her rudder and screw. As if in confirmation the freighter swung, and began turning in a circle until she slowed to a stop. A minute later Kemp saw a flash of flame and billowing smoke from the German: one of the cruisers had scored a hit just for’ard of her bridge.

  As the smoke cleared Kemp was able to see the damage: the shell had taken one of the heavy gun-turrets and the gun-barrels had drooped as if weary of action. That turret wouldn’t be firing again; and one of the searchlights on the German’s bridge seemed to have been put out of action in the blast.

  ‘One up to us, sir!’

  Kemp nodded. There was a glimmer of hope; if the cruisers could put more guns out of action … but where, in Heaven’s name, was the Duke of York? After the raider had been sighted, wireless silence on the part of the convoy and escort had no longer been relevant and the troopship’s wireless room had picked up the signals from the escort commander, indicating that the convoy was under attack. If the Duke of York was anywhere in the vicinity, she would surely be steaming towards them at maximum power. In theory at any rate she should show with her massive gun power at any moment.

  In theory …

  By now reports were coming in from aft: the fire was coming under control. There was no significant damage below decks. As yet there were no further hits on the convoy; the Stuttgart, with that one turret out of action, was being closely engaged by the escort. But, as Kemp was about to use the Tannoy to give what reassurance he could to the troops and civilians, two of the cruisers, Marazion and Lydford, were hit. Marazion’s bridge was taken fair and square, and the director on the foremas
t came down mast and all on the wreckage. Lydford was hit on the starboard side amidships. There was a burst of smoke and flame and she took an immediate list.

  Kemp felt drained of all emotion. First his son, then the possible — probable — loss of an entire convoy. And all he could do, with his popgun armament, was to stand by helplessly and watch it all happen. Or he could do the other thing, the heroic thing, and emulate Captain Fogarty Fegan of the armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay and close the enemy with his popguns barking — they couldn’t be said to roar — in selfless but doomed defence of his convoy. Should he?

  It was a hard decision but an inevitable one: no. Fogarty Fegan had had no troops embarked. No civilians, no women and children. Because of them, Kemp had to stand off and await the arrival of the Duke of York.

  *

  Old Colonel Holmes was doing his bit. He asked permission of Purser Scott, in charge of his boat station, to absent himself so that he could circulate and talk to the riflemen in whose regiment he had served for so long, and so long ago. He spoke Swahili and he had been a familiar figure, latterly as a guest, around the KEAR depot for longer than he cared to remember. So he walked, a little stiffly because of his age, among the assembled riflemen. He spoke to Sergeant Tapapa and the other NCOS, assuring them that help would arrive, that the German devils would not win and that they were in the safe and capable hands of men who knew the sea, who had sailed it all their working lives in peace and in war. He spoke to Regimental Sergeant-Major Nunn, asking if the native troops were likely to believe what he had said.

  ‘Sir! Yes, sir, I believe they will. You are a respected gentleman, Colonel Holmes, sir, what I might call a father figure to them lot. With respect, sir.’

  Holmes laughed gently. ‘Yes. I’d sooner be a brother, Mr Nunn, but of course we all grow old.’

  ‘Sir! That’s a fact, sir.’

  ‘I only hope I’m not letting them down. Giving them a false appreciation of the situation.’

  ‘I’d say, sir, it’s the only line you could have took. They want to be, well, fortified like, sir.’ Nunn was standing as if on parade, ramrod-straight, immaculately turned out, Sam Browne gleaming with spit-and-polish, inevitable pace-stick at the correct angle beneath his left arm. He was, Holmes thought, almost a caricature of himself, of any pre-war warrant officer. Nunn went on, after clearing his throat rather noisily, ‘Sir, if I may be so bold as to ask, sir, what do you think of the situation? Between ourselves like.’

  Homes pondered for a moment, then asked, ‘You don’t want any devil-talk, I take it?’

  ‘Me, sir? Oh no, sir, which is why I enquired like —’

  ‘Yes, quite. Well, Mr Nunn, I rather think you know the answer for yourself, without my underlining it. Don’t you?’

  ‘I think I do, sir, yes. May I take the opportunity, sir, of asking you to take my respects to Mrs Holmes, sir. And my respects to you of course, sir. It’s been a long association, sir.’

  ‘Yes, indeed it has, Sar’nt-Major,’ Holmes held out his hand knowing that this was the RSM’s way of saying goodbye in case there was no other opportunity. The RSM executed a difficult manoeuvre. Grasping his pace-stick even tighter, he slammed his right hand to a quivering salute, brought it down to shake that of Holmes, saluted again, then brought the hand down to the ‘attention’ position at his side, fingers clenched, thumb in line with the seam of his trousers.

  Holmes said rather sadly, ‘Don’t give up hope, Mr Nunn. And God be with you.’

  ‘Sir! And with us all, sir.’

  Holmes turned away before the RSM could see that his eyes were becoming moist.

  *

  All the while the distance between the scattering ships of the convoy was becoming greater, but still the raider seemed to be stalking the Commodore’s ship, one of the biggest prizes of the attack, probably unaware that the troopship carried German prisoners-of-war.

  Finnegan remarked on this. ‘If they don’t know, that’s surprising. Seem to know everything else about us.’ Having spoken, he wished he’d kept his big mouth shut: the Commodore would have got the reference. But all Kemp said was that they probably did know but were disregarding the facts.

  ‘War, Finnegan. I dare say we’d do the same. In war, you kill, because that’s what you’re there for. You can’t afford to be squeamish.’

  Finnegan didn’t respond. He knew he would hate to be killed by his own side. But of course the Old Man was right. You couldn’t afford to be choosy. Hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides had been and would continue to be killed in the air raids, another thing to be accepted as inevitable. It had become a dirty war.

  Kemp said, ‘Go below, Finnegan. Let me have a report on the prisoners.’

  Finnegan went down the ladders to B deck. All seemed well, and was reported so by Captain Mulvaney who was also checking on orders from OC Troops. ‘Well but restive,’ the Australian said. ‘Buggers cheered when we took that hit.’ His voice was savage but he said, ‘Reckon it’s natural really. Tell you one thing: I’d bust a gut laughing if a Nazi shell landed in the bloody lounge.’

  ‘Not for long you wouldn’t. If that happened, the shell’d be likely to plough right down through the ship’s innards. We haven’t got armoured decks.’

  ‘Too right, bloke, too right. Maybe I’ll send a negative on that thought, addressed God.’ Mulvaney frowned, dug into a nostril with a finger. ‘That old bloke. Know who I mean? Dug-out colonel —’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Weird old geezer, been gassing away to the troops, all about how safe we’re going to be. Like hell we are! I’d say we don’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell, that’s what I’d say. How about you, eh?’

  Finnegan said, ‘Fifty-fifty. We just have to stay afloat till the Duke of York turns up.’

  Mulvaney jeered at that. ‘Which she won’t. Not in time, anyway.’

  Finnegan went back to the bridge, giving the Commodore the report as ordered.

  *

  The attack was kept up throughout the night hours. The Stuttgart’s escorting destroyers had moved in quite early on, weaving at speed past the depleted British escorting force, coming in with their torpedo-tubes ready. Two more of the merchant ships had been sunk by those torpedoes, but the destroyers hadn’t had it all their own way. The DEMS gunnery crews aboard the merchantmen had scored a couple of hits on the bridges of destroyers that had closed the convoy unwisely, and some damage had been done, one of the enemy vessels turning in a wide circle as her bridge personnel were blown apart, and ending up slap across the rearing bows of the Commodore’s ship. The German had been sliced in half by those heavy bows, 24,000 tons of steel moving at full speed had been too much for the thin sides and she had gone down in two separate halves that for a brief time had banged their way down the Aurelian Star’s port and starboard sides. There had been further torpedo sorties by the Barracudas from the carrier, engaging the German ack-ack and helping to keep the raider at a distance from the scattered merchant vessels by blowing a hole in the stem just below the waterline, thus forcing the ship to reduce speed. But the end for the Barracudas came when a German shell smashed away the carrier’s bridge superstructure and another penetrated her starboard side and fractured her aviation spirit pipelines rigged ready for refuelling when the aircraft landed on. The Rameses went up with a deafening roar, an envelope of flame, and a shower of debris some of which spattered down on the decks of the Aurelian Star. The airborne torpedo-bombers were left without a base, left to fly around aimlessly until their fuel ran out and they were forced to ditch.

  Pessimism, as a fiery dawn came up, had gripped the bridge of the Aurelian Star. Though slowed, though harried by the British destroyers, the Stuttgart now looked set to obliterate the whole convoy. The fleeing ships could be picked off one by one. At intervals through the night shells had come close to the Commodore’s ship, close enough to send heavy spray flinging over the decks, drenching the guns’-crews and the troops at their boat stations. One hit had ta
ken the foremast fair and square, and the smashed remains had come down across the bridge, by some miracle injuring no-one but the lookout in the crow’s nest, smashing the woodwork of the wheelhouse and chart room. The ship’s carpenter and his mates were working to clear away the debris when an urgent shout came from the yeoman of signals.

  ‘Ship hull down, sir, bearing red one-oh. Looks like a battleship, though I can’t be sure yet, sir.’

  A miracle? Kemp ran for the vertical ladder from the bridge to monkey’s-island before realizing monkey’s-island was no longer there. He turned back to the yeoman of signals. He said, ‘The moment she’s within signalling distance, make the challenge without further orders.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Lambert went on watching, feeling the shake in his hands, the nervous tension building up: that battleship, if such it proved to be, could be the Duke of York. It could equally well be a German.

  *

  Cocky Bulstrode, in the evening of that same day, was in Portsmouth on business. He had a prospect, a chap he’d met quite casually in a pub in Southsea, the posh part of Portsmouth. The pub was the India Arms in Castle Road. He’d subsequently worked on this contact, getting his confidence by exchanging confidences of his own, possibly indiscreetly but then Southampton was quite a fair distance from Pompey. Cocky had discovered two things: one, that his contact was a man with tastes similar to his own, i.e., the man liked a little on the side and they’d had a quiet giggle over this, sort of comparing notes of conquests. Two, that his prospect — Alf Smith by name — was a civvy working as a technician in an Admiralty department, situated in Fort Southwick on Portsdown Hill just behind the town. This department was concerned with wireless telegraphy and the receipt of codes and cyphers together with non-secret messages. Neither Cocky nor Alf had ever discussed this, neither of them being spies nor having any interest whatsoever in information that was none of their business; but on the evening of Cocky’s visit to Alf’s home to sew up a life insurance policy, Alf came across with some information that was very relevant indeed.