Bentley had selected suitable men for this affair with great care. They were all seamen, of course, and gunnery, competent to handle any types of small-arms in the Service, from rifles down to submachineguns, Webley or Smith and Wesson pistols and hand grenades. Tonight they carried.45 calibre tommy-guns, and Bentley
a.45 Webley. Every man, sheathed in its scabbard on the webbing belt, had a bayonet.
But the men had not been picked for fighting qualities alone; in fact, Bentley wished to avoid fighting at all costs. His men were here in the boat with him mainly because of their steadiness; their proven ability under stress to obey orders swiftly and correctly, without the least hesitation. On this their lives depended.
"Feather your oar," Hooky hissed, leaning forward to glare at the stroke. "All that white..."
Leading-Seaman Billson made no reply, but he pulled more carefully. In their padded rowlocks, the oars made barely a sound, while the boat's progress caused only a soft swishing. Bentley had his night glasses up. He touched Hooky's leg.
"There's a pier. Starb'd a little. Steady."
Bentley kept the glasses up, training them with slow care along the pier. His forehead ridged in puzzlement. Though dim in the darkness, the pier was plainly a rickety structure, nowhere near strong enough to take a cruiser, nor even a corvette. There must be floating fuel lines, he thought, held up by buoys. The cruisers would anchor stern to the cliff, then ease themselves shorewards until they were in position to pick up a line and connect it to a fuelling valve on board.
It had to be that, if there was oil here. He could remember seeing a similar arrangement in at least two ports where entry was difficult for ships of deep draught. Nothing novel about it-but what the hell could he do about it? Casting off the buoys was impossible; they would be secured to the heavy fuel lines by chain, or at the least a binding of steel-wire rope. And shells were a waste of time. Nothing short of a direct hit would be effective-against targets he couldn't even see from here!
The only thing, he told himself, as he had before leaving the ship, was somehow to find the real oil tank; certainly camouflaged and probably down on some stretch of beach or level rock. And the only way to find them was to find a native who could be persuaded to tell him.
And if all natives had been cleared from the area... ? Bentley had considered that, too, and he forced the debilitating thought from his mind. His mission was forlorn and dangerous enough without worrying over it before he'd really started.
"Oars," he whispered suddenly.
They came out of the water. Hooky had the pier in sight now. He leaned against the tiller and the bow curved round.
"Way enough."
They let their oars go fore and aft, those men on the side nearest the pier lifting them into the boat, very quietly. She bumped, and the bowman grabbed hold of a pier leg. It was ebb tide; the pier reached a little above Bentley's head.
"You know what to do," he whispered and made sure: "Remain in the boat and keep absolutely silent. Not a word, you under..."
His voice bit off. The footsteps sounded slow and regular, and approaching. Bentley crouched down, with Hooky beside him in an instant. Boots, Bentley thought, sentry. He tensed his muscles for the leap upward. All their faces were blackened and they wore no caps, but the woodwork of the boat, so assiduously scrubbed, seemed in his mind to stand out like silver paper in moonlight. If the Jap looked down...
The footsteps stopped.
His eyes slitted, not daring to risk even their minute reflection, Bentley squinted up. It was a Jap, he was a sentry, and he was standing directly above the boat.
Then, to Bentley's astonishment, he spoke, turning his head a little in the act. Bentley heard no reply, didn't need to. There were two of the bastards. And now this one was turning his head back, while one of his hands fumbled, the other holding his rifle, and then a stream of liquid played into the boat.
Discipline... Not a man moved, nor uttered a sound. There was only one sound-of that repugnant stream splashing against wood, instead of into water.
Bentley saw the Jap bend over; heard him utter a grunt of astonishment; saw another face appear dimly behind the Jap's shoulder; and then he saw, as if in the harsh clarity of noonday, the rifle come up and steady on his chest.
A second for the trigger finger. There was no time to leap, or get his gun out.
The Jap leaped.
With his body bowed backward, so fierce was the thrust, he came out and down in a curve that ended in a sudden thump across the gunwale beside Hooky. Instant, swift, the dreadful "hand" buried its point in the Jap's neck. He gurgled horribly, then lay still.
"Hullo," said a voice above them. "You English?"
"Christ," breathed Hooky.
"Yes," said Bentley. "You pushed him?"
The head nodded. "I go now. My family in the village, bad trouble if I am caught."
"Wait!"
Under that sharp command the head swung back. Bentley saw a rifle, then recognised a fishing rod.
"You're a brave man, you saved our lives. Help us just once more. Where are the oil tanks?" he said, quickly before the native could go.
"Under the ground."
"Where?"
"No good, you cannot see. Your guns cannot reach."
Bentley felt the savage bitterness of defeat. All the flotilla's destructive power out there, useless...
"The pipes, over there."
"What?"
"Over there." He saw an arm pointing. "The pipes come down. Now I go."
"Wait!"
Not this time. Footsteps padded swiftly along the pier and faded into silence.
"That mongrel pissed all over..." Billson started.
"Silence! Get rid of him, the tide's ebbing." Hooky lowered the Jap overboard. "You saw where he pointed?"
"Yessir, at the cliffs. What'd he mean, pipes?"
"Let's get over there. Smack it about."
They pulled hard; not knowing what they were pulling towards, but thankful to get away from that pier. The sea was calm. Bentley stood in the stern-sheets, his glasses never leaving his eyes, training along the black loom of cliff, all the years of experience at sea straining his sight.
"Hold it," he said abruptly.
"Oars," snapped Hooky. The boat rocked gently, men panting with the effort of their pull.
"I can see whiteness," Bentley said. "Not much, not like waves against a cliff."
"Maybe a rock shelf?" Hooky suggested. "Water washing over it?"
"That's what I was thinking. Give way together."
The oars strained. They were all big men; picked for this, too. The boat made hissing bow-waves. A few minutes of rapid progress, then Bentley lowered his glasses.
"Way enough. Easy, Buffer. Watch her planks, for God's sake."
Hooky was watching it-the soft murmur, the lazy wash of whiteness that warned of boat-gutting rock. He took her in very gently. Ready hands pressed against the rock and held her clear.
"A ledge, all right," Bentley said. He peered to right and left. "Looks pretty long, Buffer, Gellatly, come with me. Watch the boat, Billson."
"Aye aye, sir," said Billson, a world of meaning in his tone; they couldn't walk home from here.
Bentley and his men walked quickly across the ledge. It was wet from the ebbing tide, but not too slippery. Above them the cliff reared darkly sinister, and in a minute they'd reached it.
And there they stood, almost directly in front of what they had come so far to find. It was not just chance, as they understood a short time later, for there were eight of them altogether, spaced at
regular distances apart.
"Valves, by God," said Bentley. "That's what he meant."
Hooky gestured upward. "There's the pipe, running straight up the cliff. You'd never spot it from seaward."
"Try the valve," Bentley said. "You," to Gellatly, "Nip along there. Anything you find, open it."
Gellatly hurried off-just in time.
"Christ, look out!" Ho
oky jerked.
The black stinking flood swamped over Bentley's boots. He couldn't have cared less. The stench in his nostrils was attar of roses- the perfume of success, of mission accomplished.
For a moment he watched the oil gush across the ledge, and smother with its blackness the whiteness of water, thinking that's a six-inch pipe at least, and then, his voice exulting:
"Come on. There must be others."
They found the eight of them, and turned the big wheels with the exuberance of children at a fire hydrant; slipping in the stuff, catching at each other with fouled hands, ruining their clothes and not giving a damn about that. Then Gellatly came back, hurrying slowly, now and again falling flat on his arse, for the ledge was a running slither of oil fifty yards wide. Yet there was little sound, because fuel oil is very thick, and from those eight big valves it poured out like treacle.
"Hell's bells," Gellatly panted, rubbing his backside. "What a mess!"
"How many?"
"Three, sir and all gushing."
"Well, well." Bentley's teeth gleamed faintly. "I think that should do it."
"What about the smell, sir," Hooky asked, "up there?"
"It's an offshore breeze, and the tide's ebbing."
"Huh," Hooky sniffed. "Next time you'll be telling us you planned it this way."
"Of course I did. Right. Dunno about you two stinkers, but I'm for the boat."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"IT was too easy," Hooky said, wiping his hand on the canvas boat's bag. "All that gunnery schemozzle, then one Jap and bingo! She's done."
"Easy for you, maybe," grunted Billson. "Try pullin' an oar in this lot. It's like bloody molasses."
Bentley smiled. He leaned down and took up the portable radio set, placing it on the bench beside him clear of the oily bottom-boards.
"How far would you say we've come, Buffer?"
"About two hundred yards, sir, near as I can tell."
Bentley nodded agreement. "And we're still in the middle of it. Lords knows how many tons that means."
"I know," said Billson.
"Didn't you say the breeze was offshore, sir?" Hooky asked. "Behind us?"
"That's right."
"Funny." Hooky sniffed. "I'd swear I was in the heads."
Billson maintained a dignified if eloquent silence, which took some effort; the heads is naval terminology for the toilet.
"Sorry, Billson," Bentley said, keeping his voice straight, "I'm afraid you're in for a bit of a roasting over this."
"Not with a bit of help I wouldn't be, sir."
"Like what?"
"Like me reportin' to you every smart-arsed coot who mentions it, and you makin' him scrub out the heads in the dog-watches. That'll fix `em."
"Consider it done. You heard that, Buffer. Any man..."
A burring crackle sprang into sudden life beside Bentley, cutting him off.
"Nipper, Nipper, Nipper," said a voice they recognised as Ferris'. "I say again, Nipper, Nipper, Nipper. Acknowledge."
Bentley grabbed up the mike. "Acknowledged. Out."
That was all, but it said plenty. Nipper was the code name he had decided on, being his nickname for Merrie, and short. Nipper meant enemy ships were approaching. One Nipper meant from the west, two from the east, and three from the south.
Bentley's first reaction, the briefest flash of insight, was how lucky he'd been with that turnabout of course; heading south would have taken the flotilla straight towards the Jap squadron.
His second thought was for the oil. Wind Rode would have made contact by radar, at extreme range. This could have been up to twenty miles, possibly more against heavy cruisers. With their plan of attack supposedly unknown to the enemy, the Japs would be at economical cruising speed, about fifteen knots. Then there was the turning round to seaward, the anchoring, the easing back: with any luck he could count on an hour and a half at least; ninety minutes for those eight big valves to gush out their precious liquid, added to the tons of it already wasted. For the Japs to have built a fuelling base here, they must have come a long way from the last one. Their bunkers would be almost empty. They'd get nowhere near enough from those draining tanks back there. So the mission was successful.
All this went through Bentley's mind with the velocity of galvanised thought. And brought him hard up against his next consideration. Mission completed... flotilla lost? With its leader stuck aboard a boat in a morass of oil? The Japs had only to get in close enough to the cliffs and the flotilla would no longer be masked: It would be on the squadron's beam, wide open to radar contact from God knows how many sets!
For the second time Hooky said, louder this time:
"Mind telling us what that message means, sir?"
It got through the moil of his mind. "No, Buffer. It means that Jap ships are approaching from the south. They'll be cruisers, and they're heading for those fuelling points. So bend those bloody oars!"
They tried to break them. The boat shook with their effort.
Those dragging minutes were amongst the hardest of Bentley's life. In close companionship with straining men, he was yet alone, beset by the worst enemy.
Not fear. He was used to that, used to overcoming it. To feel fear, you knew its cause, what you were up against, and to fight that you had your skill, and weapons, and men; all known quantities. But worry... This was the abstract, formless thing that bit like acid at a man's mind. You could not fight because there was nothing to fight.
Like in Brisbane; infinitely worse, like now.
"Christ!"
"Sir?"
Bentley was startled, unaware he had spoken aloud. "It's all right, Hooky. Can you see anything yet?"
"No, sir. Blacker than the inside of a bunker cat. Maybe with the glasses..."
Bentley whipped them up, savage with worry and what it was doing to him. Yet his self-rowelling had beneficial effects-it occupied his mind and keened his eyes. So that he saw...
Or thought he saw. He couldn't be sure. The glasses lowered a little and he closed his eyes. For ten seconds he rested them, before looking again; not straight at the object, but with the corners of his eyes. And then he said, quietly with the hugeness of his relief:
"Torch, Buffer."
Five minutes later Wind Rode was alongside.
Bentley-hit the deck first. Torps was waiting.
"Back to the bridge," Bentley snapped. "Come round to east, thirty-five knots!"
"Aye aye, sir! Are you hurt?"
"Move, damn you!"
Torps moved. Bentley leaned over the rail.
"Ditch the boat. Last man out pull the plug. Smack it about!"
And now Bentley moved forward; two paces before he slipped arse over head. Sitting on the deck he dragged off his oil-soaked boots. That gained him the tubes, and treated Hooky and co. to a selection of unrepeated oaths so fruity that they listened with admiring respect. On the deck again, he tugged off his oil-soaked socks. And now he moved somewhat faster than a crippled tortoise, until at last most of the oil was wiped off his feet on to Gellatly's spotless iron-deck and he gained the bridge in a stumbling run.
"Ah, there you are, sir," greeted Torps, greatly relieved.
"No, I'm down in the bloody cable locker!"
"Yes, sir."
"Where's the flotilla, what's that squadron doing? Suffering Christ in Heaven, do I have to put in a request to be told these things? Number Bloody One!"
"The flotilla, sir," Randall answered, daring to grin in the dark, "has almost completed the turn. We're on east, working up to thirty-five knots. The enemy squadron is fine on the starb'd quarter, distant twenty miles. From that position we're still masked against the island... sir."
"Twenty miles, now? You mean they're stopped?"
"No, sir. Enemy speed is fifteen knots. We have them nicely on the radar plot. Would you mind keeping to leeward, sir?"
"But how the hell did you pick them up so... They didn't make arrival signals, for God's sake?"
"That they di
d, sir, and the chief tel. got a beautiful R.D.F. fix. Hence our call to you."
"And all the time I was worrying my guts... What d'you mean, keep to leeward?"
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