An hour later he was no longer in doubt.
He sat on his tall chair, an empty tea mug still grasped in his fingers, his eyes on the sun-dappled shape of the Cape Cod. Ann was somewhere within that overloaded hull. Sleeping perhaps after the fury of the air attack, or even watching him from some vantage point above the decks.
The big freighter was leading the starboard column now, and seemed desperately far away.
`Signal, sir.’ Fox was there again. `Priority.’ `Well, spit it out !’
Fox said evenly : `Four heavy enemy units fifty miles to north-east of convoy. Appear to be shadowing.’
Chesnaye sat upright in his chair, his tiredness forgotten.
`Waiting for night, more likely!’ .
Fox stood by the chart, his hands almost gentle as he spanned the pencilled lines with his dividers.
Chesnaye looked across the port quarter, noticing as he did so the small, silver-edged splinter hole in the funnel. It must have been hit during the attack. He frowned and concentrated on the new threat. Four units. Cruisers most likely. He strained his aching mind and felt vaguely uneasy. There was something wrong, but he could not sort his ideas into order. He crossed to the chart and stared at Fox’s calculations.
`Fifty miles, eh?’ He rubbed his chin and felt the stubble against his palm.
`That’s what it says, sir. But you know these Intelligence reports !’
‘Hmm.’ Chesnaye looked up as a signal lamp began to clatter on the flag deck. `What’s happening now?’
Fox shrugged as if unconcerned. `I expect the Admiral has some ideas about all this.’
Chesnaye waited impatiently as the signalman finished his writing. He re-read the brief message twice before he understood what he had missed in his first summing-up. Beaushears intended to call up his own four cruisers which were screening the convoy and smash into the enemy ships without delay. He read the signal aloud and heard Fox say `Best bloody thing for them ! They won’t be expecting it!’
Chesnaye paced to the chart again. There was something wrong. What could it be? Beaushears was taking the correct action. And yet … `Get me the first signals about that Italian force which was reported yesterday.’ As Fox hurried into the charthouse Chesnaye said to Laidlaw : `Make a signal to Flag, Yeoman ! Reference yesterday’s signal .–2 He broke off as Laidlaw’s eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. `I’ve not time to find the damned time of origin!’
He lifted his gaze to the distant flagship as he continued slowly, `Enemy surface units may be different from those earlier reported.’
Fox was breathing heavily at his side, `I don’t quite understand, sir?’
Chesnaye made sure that Laidlaw was sending the signal and then walked back to the chart table. `Yesterday’s signal referred to a major enemy group one hundred and fifty miles east of Syracuse.’ He tapped the chart in time to his words. `Now we get a signal that they are fifty miles to the north-east of us.’
Fox sounded puzzled. `They could do it, sir. Allowing for these positions being correct, and the fact that the Eye-tie ships can steam pretty fast. They could just do it.’
`Unlikely. The convoy had made umpteen alterations of course since leaving Alex. Tomorrow would be the earliest hope of making contact.’
`Well, what do you think, sir?’ Fox stared at him. `One of the signals is wrong?’
`No. I think there are two enemy groups, Pilot!’ Chesnaye’s voice was cold. `And if the Admiral detaches the cruiser screen, the way will be open!’
Fox was still staring at him as the Yeoman called : ‘Signal from Flag, sir. Disregard previous Intelligence sighting report. Inshore squadron will proceed immediately and engage!’ The Yeoman cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. `… and, sir, the signal adds : “Don’t be frightened. Aureus will stay in company.” End of signal, sir.’
Chesnaye clenched his fists as a wave of fury swept through him. Of all the bloody stupid fools !
`Quite a sense of humour, I don’t think !’ Fox sounded indignant.
Laidlaw was still standing unhappily on the gratings. He seemed to feel the Admiral’s insulting signal as if it had been addressed to him. `Any reply, sir?’
`No, Yeoman. Nothing.’ Chesnaye had difficulty in keeping the anger from his voice. How Beaushears must be grinning on his bridge, and probably sharing the joke with Captain Colquhoun and the others. Practically every ship in the convoy must have read the signal.
Chesnaye forced himself to stand still for several minutes until his mind cleared. It was easy to see Beaushears’ point of view, of course, but then again how was it possible to question a senior officer’s judgement without appearing to show insubordination?
Chesnaye stared round the convoy with despair. Even without seeing the shadowing cruisers of Beaushears’ squadron it had been a comfort to know they were there. He banged his fists together. How typical of Beaushears to send them tearing away at the first hint of a prize. All he thought about was his own prestige. With the enemy ships driven off or sunk there would be no limit to his reward.
The worst of it was he was probably right in his assumption about the Intelligence reports. Nevertheless, his first duty was to the convoy. Nothing else mattered.
He stared half-blinded at the sun. Still eight hours before night hid the slow-moving ships. Even then it was never safe.
The afternoon dragged by, and as the sun moved with such painful slowness towards the horizon the next blow fell.
The first hint of danger was the shriek of a destroyer’s siren on the starboard wing, followed by that ship’s rapid alteration of course away from the convoy.
`Torpedoes running to starboard!’ There could be no exact bearing from the tired lookouts, for the torpedoes, some seven or eight of them, swept across the line of advance in a widespread, many-fingered fan.
No doubt a U-boat had fired the salvo, all her bow tubes at once, after taking up a carefully planned position slightly ahead of the advancing ships.
Like tired troops the ships swung to starboard in response to the Admiral’s urgent signal, and pointed their ragged lines at the glittering white tracks which sliced amongst them with breathtaking speed. Two torpedoes struck home, the rest passed between the ships and flashed harmlessly to the open waters beyond.
One old freighter was loaded with steel frames and building materials for the Malta defences. She received the death blow deep in the boiler room, and lifted only slightly with a muffled bellow of pain. She broke in two and sank out of sight almost before her consorts had completed the
turn. Only a few pieces of flotsam littered the spreading oil-slick, but not a single survivor.
The second victim was luckier. The torpedo exploded twenty feet from her stem and sheared off the bows like a butcher carving meat. She too was well-laden, but before the forward bulkhead collapsed her master had time to stop engines and call away the boats. But even she went to the bottom in only seven minutes.
The three destroyers dropped depth-charges and searched the placid water without result. They did not even make a contact with their probing Asdics, and after an hour the Admiral called them back and re-formed the convoy..
Goliath signalled briefly, `Have twenty survivors aboard’ and then fell silent.
As darkness mercifully closed over the ten remaining merchantmen and their depleted escort, the crews no longer felt like rest. Like Chesnaye they seemed to sense that their ordeal had only been a beginning, a casual probe by an enemy who was prepared to wait.
Chesnaye watched the bosun’s mates going their rounds of the guns with their massive fannys of cocoa and enamel mugs. Corned-beef sandwiches of stale bread, and meat which had been tinned many years ago.
The cruel injustice seemed the more bitter when Chesnaye compared the convoy’s planning and management with that other war of so long ago. Then the generals had used their infantry just as today’s strategists used these ships. No one even expected half of the convoy to survive. They might have allowed for only two s
hips to reach Malta. The others were the justifiable odds, the expendable fodder of war.
Chesnaye recalled with sickening clarity the soldiers at Gallipoli, their shoulders hunched beneath packs and equipment, walking, some just staggering, into the wire and the stammering machine-guns. Far away from such madness the planners moved their coloured flags and markers, and played soldiers with reality and blood.
jHis head suddenly touched the vibrating screen, and he erked himself awake with almost vicious determination. `What time is sun-up?’ His question fell across the bridge like a rebuke.
Fox answered slowly, `Well, with this visibility it’ll be light at eight bells, sir.’
`Very well.’ Chesnaye settled himself more comfortably in the chair. We’ll see who’s right when daylight comes. He stared ahead at the cruiser’s graceful upperwcrks. Sud. denly he found himself dreading the dawn, and all that it might hold.
9
Make this Signal
Lieutenant Fox bent over the bridge chart table and carefully blew some funnel soot from his pencilled calculations. When he straightened his back he looked again at the blood-red curve of the sun as it lifted slowly above the horizon astern. The forward part of the monitor was still in black shadow, but like the other ships in convoy and the surrounding water itself, the Saracen’s superstructure and guns were shining like dull and unused bronze.
I’ve rarely seen a dawn like this, he thought. Fiery, menacing. Aloud he said casually, `Looks like another scorcher today!’
A messenger paused in his task of gathering the night’s enamel mugs and battered plates to stare with open amazement at his captain. Chesnaye was standing just outside the charthouse, stripped to the waist, apparently wholly intent on shaving. He was using a tiny mirror and was busily scraping away several days of stubble as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The messenger caught the eye of a bosun’s mate, who merely shrugged. It seemed to sum up the complete uncertainty of officers in general.
Sub-Lieutenant Bouverie stepped down from the compass and said flatly, `All ships on station, sir.’
Fox watched the young officer with narrowed eyes. It was quite obvious that Bouverie had still not recovered from yesterday’s impartial slaughter. He looked and sounded completely exhausted.
Whereas the ship’s company were relieved in batches from their posts, the officers remained at their Action Stations. The lucky ones snatched an odd hour’s rest from time to time, others used every ounce of cunning and willpower to restrain their drooping eyelids and sagging bodies.
Fox wondered how long they could all stand it. Another hot day ahead. And probably it was all for nothing. He had sensed the mood of resentment which had passed through the ship when at sunset they had all heard the distant bugle from the flagship. Aureus’s men were even now still at Defence Stations. Half the men on watch, the others sleeping like dead men. While we … he shook his head angrily, shutting out his dulled thoughts.
Instead he looked at Chesnaye. In the bold red-gold light his lean, hard body looked youthful and alert. Perhaps that was why he was taking the trouble to shave instead of sleeping in his chair? He must be dead on his feet. Held together with sheer determination.
Erskine walked across the bridge carrying his cap. He glanced first at the chart and then at the compass. To no one in particular he remarked, `We might get a clear run today.’
Nobody answered. Fox felt almost sorry for Erskine. It was amazing the way he had changed. Perhaps we all have?
High above the monitor’s outmoded superstructure Lieutenant Norris tried to ease the cramp which repeatedly returned to his legs. The confined shell of the Control Top was filled with the strange glare, and being the highest vantage point in the ship, and for that matter throughout the convoy, Norris had been aware of the dawn for some time. Close at his side but on a slightly higher stool sat McGowan in his position as Control Officer. His neat, plain features were completely relaxed in sleep, and his fingers were laced together in his lap.
At regular intervals the small tower revolved, first on one beam and then in a full one hundred and eighty degrees to the other, as the rating at the training controls rotated their little eyrie to allow the giant telescopes and range-finder to peer to and beyond the horizon. Of course, the sea was empty. It was just as Norris had expected, and the constant image of his comfortable bunk reawakened the irritation in him like a bad tooth.
The training mechanism squeaked and began to move again. The slight motion and the smell of sweat and oil all around made Norris swallow hard. Even with all the observation shutters pinned back it was a foul place, he thought. His stool was now pointing across the starboard beam, and through an open slit he could feel the hint of warmth on his right cheek. God ! Another day in here. The fans were useless, and soon it would be like an oven.
He leaned his elbows on the telephone rest and peered down at the nearest merchantman. She seemed far below, her decks still deserted. Lucky bastards, he thought savagely. Once when he had first joined the ship, watchkeeping had been almost enjoyable. With Fox to cover his mistakes he had been able to lose himself in his imagination. He often saw himself as in a film, and thought of what those dowdy creatures in the school staff room would think if they had been lucky enough to see him too.
`Ship, sir!’ He realised with a start that the Control Top was motionless and the rating at the big telescope by his knees was stiff in his stool like a gun-dog.
Norris released the catch on his own spotting telescope and pressed his eyes to the sight. High above the monitor’s decks, in the centre of the quiet convoy, Norris and the seamen watched the tiny black flaw on the gleaming horizon line.
He felt a sharp movement at his side, and McGowan was as wide awake as he had been fast asleep a second before. He too crouched to look, his fingers moving deftly on his sighting controls.
Norris knew what McGowan was doing without pausing to look at him. As the light hardened across his lenses he stared with fixed concentration at the far off ship. He heard McGowan say sharply : `Two more ships. One on either side of the first.’ Then in a more normal tone. `Disregard those. Concentrate on the centre one.’
How typical of McGowan’s sort, thought Norris. He could see the second pair of ships as indistinct smudges in the morning haze, but they could very likely be cruisers. The centre vessel was much smaller. Surely he was wasting valuable time? Querulously he said, `She’s a small cruiser, Guns, or even just a destroyer, don’t you think?’
There was a faint smudge of smoke, too, which seemed to link the three strangers together in a flimsy canopy made golden in the sunlight.
McGowan ignored him and snatched the handset. `Director… Forebridge !’ Then a second later, `Call the Captain to the phone !’Over his shoulder he said with a faint grin : `Keep watching, my friend. Just watch your destroyer grow!’
Norris flushed, aware of the stiff backs of the ratings sit* ting below his legs. Damn McGowan !
He peered again through his sights, and then as he watched felt his heart falter, as if it would stop altogether. McGowan was speaking in terse, short sentences, but in Norris’s curdled brain the words meant nothing.
The centre ship, at first so small and delicate in the lenses, had indeed grown. Even as he stared it seemed to heighten with every passing second. What he had taken for a destroyer’s bridge was merely an armoured fire-control position, and as the ships moved to meet the convoy more and more of the central warship crawled up and over the horizon, as if it was rising out of the sea itself. Bridge upon bridge, and even the massive triple turrets could not be masked by distance. Norris bit back a gasp of terror. It was a battleship !
He had seen battleships before. Usually in harbour, or at naval reviews. They always appeared so safe, so impressively permanent like the legend of the Royal Navy and all it stood for. But they had never seemed as warlike or as real as other ships, and now … He dashed the sweat from his eyes as McGowan’s voice broke into his jumbled thoughts.
>
`Yes, sir. Battleship and two cruisers.’ He broke off as a rating said abruptly, `Two more ships astern of the cruisers, sir.’ McGowan nodded and continued evenly : `Two more cruisers, sir. The whole squadron is on the same bearing of Green eight-five. Still at extreme distance of thirty thousand yards. I’ll start reading the ranges in five minutes.’ He slammed down the handset and reached for his headphones and mouthpiece. Catching Norris’s wide-eyed stare he said, `I think the Captain was expecting visitors!’
Surgeon-Lieutenant Wickersley rubbed his eyes and stared at the nearest freighter. It looked as if it was covered in a skin of fine gold, he thought, and in the dawn light the old merchantman took on a kind of majesty. Wickersley swallowed hard to clear the stale taste from his throat. He
had been asleep in the Sick Bay but had decided to get up and take a breath of fresh air. His sick-berth attendants were still snoring. They were like himself in that their lack of duties made them the most envied men aboard. Apart from the Captain’s steward that is. He was answerable to nobody but the Captain, and was known to drink heavily from anything which took his fancy.
Wickersley climbed the cool steel ladders to the upper bridge and felt some of the night’s muzziness clearing from his dull brain. He was almost ashamed of the amount of gin he had consumed in the privacy of his quarters. It was odd to think of the advice and warnings he had given to others, the sad contempt he had felt for them. Because of that letter he had almost joined their ranks. Almost. He reached the bridge and was instantly aware of its alien and tense atmosphere.
Chesnaye was standing by the voice-pipes and speaking rapidly into a handset. Fox was watching the flagship through his glasses, arid Bouverie leant across the chart, watched by Erskine.
Chesnaye dropped the handset and saw Wickersley for the first time. His drill-jacket was open to the waist and his hair was dishevelled. By contrast his smooth cheeks and cold, alert eyes seemed to belong to someone else. `Hello, Doe. Come to referee?’
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