by Alan Evans
Smith saw Ackroyd standing behind Maitland and shaking his head. Smith said, “You did very well. I’ll send you back to Blackbird and you’re to get some sleep. That’s an order.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” And: “How is Rogers, sir?” Smith hesitated and Maitland turned and saw Ackroyd’s face and said miserably, “I see.” He went down to the boat that waited to take him back to Blackbird.
Ackroyd said, “The surgeon can’t understand how Rogers got the damned thing down. A signal from Pearce says it’s shot to bits and he can’t tell yet when it will be ready to fly again.” He added bitterly, “But no matter what, it seems Delilah herself always gets back.” Then he caught Smith’s cold eye on him and looked away.
*
The wounded were hurriedly taken aboard Dauntless and Blackbird and Ackroyd reported that Adeline Brett was below assisting Merryweather. The two ships then patrolled around Morning Star and the lighters as the tramp finished embarking the men of the battalion. When she finally signalled that she was ready to proceed the weather had worsened with the rain driven on a wind gusting out of the north. The coast was still visible but clouds hung inland and their weeping was a grey curtain hiding the Hills of Judaea.
Smith went to his sea-cabin at the back of the bridge as the convoy got under way, leaving the bridge to Ackroyd. Now he could and should sleep, sat on the edge of the bunk, then saw his only good suit of white drill lying where he had thrown it when they sailed from Deir el Belah. Braddock had given him a letter and said he was heir to an estate and a name but that the inheritance would be contested. That meant in court like a trial, didn’t it?
He had not consciously thought of this sudden revelation nor of its full implications all through the planning and execution of the raid on Lydda, but it must have been at the back of his mind. He was sure of that because now he knew for certain that he would not defend the will in court, would not have the whole story pawed over and his dead mother the target of gossip. Let her lie in peace. Whoever wanted the inheritance could have it. As David Cochrane Smith he had made his way and so he would go on.
He reached out to his tunic for the letter but froze as boots pounded on the ladder to the bridge, was on his feet as the door burst open. Cherrett, breathless from his run from the wireless office aft, thrust out the signal and panted, “Walküre’s done it again! She’s out!”
Smith snatched the signal, saw it was from Braddock and started to read, unaware that he was shouldering past Cherrett. “A reconnaissance plane from Cyprus ...”
Walküre and the freighter Friedrichsburg were gone from the Gulf of Alexandretta. There was no sign of the battleship Maroc nor the U.S. Submarine-Chaser No. 101 except for some unidentifiable floating wreckage. Unidentifiable? Yes — if the reconnaissance aircraft was not a seaplane or the weather was bad they would only examine the wreckage from the air.
He read on: Dauntless and Blackbird were ordered north-westward to take up a position between the Gulf and Port Said. The French battleship Ocean and the cruiser Attack, both only hours from Alexandretta now, would swing south-westward once they cleared Cyprus.
Blindly he climbed the ladder to the bridge. He rubbed at his face and stared at the signal. He could not believe it. Four ships, two inside the Gulf and two outside had simply disappeared. How? When?
Clearly Braddock was sending Smith’s force to act as a first line of defence for Port Said and the shipping lanes out of it. So it wasn’t over. No Cairo, no leave, no Adeline. Not yet. Braddock was concerned with convoys, so vulnerable with only anti-submarine escorts of elderly destroyers and armed yachts. Attack and the French battleship were more than a match for Walküre but first they had to find her and she had too long a start on them. Even though she had the freighter with her and that ship’s best speed was no more than fifteen knots. Why was the Friedrichsburg in company? She was not acting as a tender because she would slow down the big cruiser, so — was Walküre in fact an escort for the freighter?
Smith stared unseeingly past Ackroyd. During the raid on Lydda he had had the suspicion that he was overlooking something and it had eluded him, but now he had it. The Germans and Turks had difficulty in supplying their army, hauling everything down that long railway line from Constantinople. Smith had told Finlayson that the Germans might foresee a bottleneck in the supply line and find a way around it. And so they had. Load a big, fast freighter with all the stores and ammunition that would need fifty trains and weeks to move by rail, and send that ship on one swift passage to deliver her cargo to a port near the front-line troops in less than twenty-four hours. To Haifa where there was a rail link to the main line, or — on the flight south Kirby pointed out the surf-boats the Turks had gathered at Jaffa. Friedrichsburg could lie off the port while the boats unloaded her under the protection of Walküre’s guns. The railway would take her cargo to Lydda and thence to Beersheba and Gaza. The Afrika Legion would be re-supplied and many more besides, Turkish resistance would be strengthened and the campaign drawn out.
But Walküre had not broken out of the Dardanelles only to run the blockade with one ship’s cargo. She would have another task ...
He realised Ackroyd and Henderson waited before him and he was out on the bridge and did not remember leaving his cabin. Young Bright the midshipman stood further back, hands clasped behind him and watching Smith covertly out of the corner of his eye. Smith said, “Make to Morning Star and the lighters: ‘Proceed to Deir el Belah independently.’” And as the signal lamp flickered: “Pilot! A course for Alexandretta!”
Henderson blinked then strode quickly to the chartroom. He had seen the signal, had laid off the course for the position ordered, had it scribbled ready on a scrap of paper — but now Smith wanted a course for Alexandretta. Why?
Ackroyd was asking himself that same question, uneasy.
But Smith ordered, “Starboard ten! Steer nor’-nor’-east. Revolutions for twenty knots. Pass that to Blackbird.” Dauntless came around onto the new heading, marginally altered as Henderson came out of the chartroom with the exact course for Alexandretta — that was also the reciprocal of Walküre’s course if she was bound for Jaffa. Smith told the signal yeoman, “Signal to Rear-Admiral Braddock: ‘Submit ...’”
He had to word it carefully because if you are only a commander suggesting to an admiral that you disagree with his orders then you must be tactful. If you are already acting in contravention of those orders on your own initiative then you must be very tactful and realise you are asking for trouble. Smith was only glad that the signal was to Braddock, who he thought would understand.
He waited for an answer, shifting about the bridge, as restless as his mind.
Braddock’s reply only said, “Affirmative.” Ackroyd looked relieved but not overjoyed. Smith had to prove himself right or take the consequences. Smith knew that, too, read the signal without change of expression, then returned to prowling about the bridge with his collar turned up against the rain and hands jammed in his pockets, trying to think ahead, forming some conclusions and not liking them.
He asked Blackbird when a seaplane would be ready to fly and was told repairs to Delilah, the sole remaining aircraft, would take a minimum of eight hours. He thought about that and then signalled curtly, “Complete in six hours.”
The lamp aboard Blackbird flickered and the yeoman read, “Blackbird acknowledges, sir.” Smith grunted. The riggers and fitters aboard the carrier would be working like beavers now. Smith glanced at his watch. Six hours would be just good enough. If he had guessed correctly then in six hours he might have found Walküre unaided but that was wildly optimistic. It was a large ocean and Dauntless could only see a narrow track of it. In six hours they would need the Short to search.
For half that time he lay in his sea-cabin staring red-eyed at the deckhead, until he could stand it no longer, went out to the bridge and sat in his high chair. He woke later to find Bright watching him and Smith thought that the boy would put his dozing down to imperturbable coolness when in
fact he was just dog-tired. He found wry humour in that and laughed at himself. He was still smiling when he drifted into sleep again.
The commotion on the bridge woke him, jerking upright in the chair as Ackroyd said at his elbow, “‘Top reports a ship right ahead of us, sir!”
Smith climbed down from the chair and leaned against the screen, looked at his watch — he had slept three hours — and growled, “Why did you let me sleep?”
“We’ve sighted nothing till now, sir.” Ackroyd was undisturbed by Smith’s censure and added frankly, “I thought you were due for some rest.”
Smith grunted reluctant agreement; he felt better for his uneasy dozing in the chair.
Ackroyd muttered, “She’s not making any smoke, sir.”
Smith made no comment, Ackroyd’s inference clear. Walküre was a coal-burning ship and would make smoke and plenty of it so the vessel ahead was not she. The first lieutenant was worried that Smith might have guessed wrongly and Walküre had eluded them. Both had glasses to their eyes now, could see the dot on the horizon that was the ship but no more than that. Then the report came down from the fore-top: “She’s bows-on but she could be that Yankee sub-chaser!”
No one spoke but a ripple of excitement ran through all of them on the bridge. Smith said, “Make the challenge.”
The shutter on the searchlight clattered, then an answering light flickered on the horizon. The signal yeoman, telescope to his eye, called, “She’s S.C. 101, sir!”
Smith took a breath. Now for it. “Ask: ‘Where is the enemy?’”
Again the light flickered and the signal yeoman read: “Enemy-bears —” The signalman stood at his elbow and wrote it down.
Ackroyd was grinning broadly, relieved “Good man, Petersen!” His grin slipped away as he saw his captain carefully expressionless, not showing his own relief as he reached out for the signal.
Smith read it, translating the terse sentences into a mental picture of the ships ahead of him. Petersen said Walküre lay ten miles astern of him and a point or two off the chaser’s port quarter, her speed fourteen knots. That the freighter Friedrichsburg was keeping station astern of Walküre and smoke still indicated two ships.
Smith said, “Tell the Sparks: Wireless silence.” And to the yeoman, “Make: ‘Where is Maroc?’”
He was thinking quickly. Walküre would be leading Friedrichsburg because the Turks would have wirelessed that Dauntless was off Jaffa that morning. Walküre’s captain would therefore be expecting any trouble to come from ahead, would be ready to head it off from the freighter. He was not aware of the chaser because if he had been, he would not have tolerated her surveillance, would have caught and sunk her. The chaser was petrol-engined, not making any smoke to give her away and the look-outs in Dauntless could only see her now because she was close. The same applied to the look-outs in Walküre. A man in the crow’s-nest at the chaser’s masthead, however, had a bigger ship to look for in Walküre and her smoke to lead his eye.
Ackroyd said, “Sparks acknowledges wireless silence, sir.”
Walküre was twenty miles away from Dauntless over the rim of the world, could not see her, nor would hear her as long as Dauntless’s wireless was silent.
The yeoman was spelling out the chaser’s answers: “Maroc — torpedoed — by U-boat — and — blew — up. U-boat — sunk —” There was a growl of appreciation on the bridge. “Submit —” Petersen submitted his opinion that Walküre had called up the U-boat and been ready with the freighter in the mouth of the Gulf, waiting for the submarine to clear the way.
Smith agreed.
“Make: ‘Maintain observation of enemy but avoid action. Well done. Thank you.’” That was meagre payment for the chaser’s part in this. She had somehow led the big cruiser and kept her in sight all through the day, despite a maximum speed of only seventeen knots so at best she’d had only a couple of knots in hand between her and annihilation. And Petersen’s cooperation had been, strictly speaking, a breach of neutrality; his country was not at war with Turkey and Walküre was technically a Turkish warship because of the flag she flew. So Smith’s curt ‘Thank you’ was the only official acknowledgment Petersen would ever get.
Smith went into the charthouse and peered at the crosses Henderson had pencilled neatly on the chart marking the positions of Dauntless, S.C. 101, Walküre and Friedrichsburg. He dared not meet Walküre head-on because that would be suicide and would accomplish nothing. But she must be stopped. Friedrichsburg was a part of the German plan to break Allenby’s attack. The Afrika Legion was stopped but the supplies crammed into the freighter’s holds could be crucial to Turkish resistance as the campaign went on. These thoughts raced through his mind, and finally that the only cards he held were Dauntless’s advantage in speed, and surprise. That was little enough. It had saved him last time, but only just.
He pushed away from the chart and stepped out on to the bridge. Ackroyd looked grimly expectant, young Bright was nervous and excited, Smith saw him swallow that nervousness as he swallowed his own, seeing them all waiting for him. He said, “Make to Blackbird ...”
It was a long signal and he had to be careful in his phrasing of it. There must be no mistake. But he had recovered his faith in Pearce — and Chris knew Edwards was dead, could forget vengeance. The lamp flashed out to the carrier astern and from Blackbird’s bridge came a flicker of acknowledgment, then her stern swung to port as she turned and headed out to sea on a course almost due west. The chaser followed her.
Smith ordered, “Starboard ten! Steer Oh-four-oh! Full ahead!” And added: “General quarters!”
Ackroyd, expecting it, punched the button and the klaxons blared through the ship, calling her crew to their action stations. Then he left the bridge to take command of damage control.
Dauntless turned to starboard and settled on the new course that would take her to the coast, working up to her full speed now as Blackbird rapidly disappeared into the distance off the port quarter. In minutes the coast lifted higher, the mountains of Lebanon looming vague behind the curtain of rain but Dauntless held on until Smith ordered, “Port ten!”
He watched the ticking round of the compass needle as the ship’s head swung. “Meet her! Steer three-five-oh.” Dauntless ran northward close along the coast with the mountains standing to starboard while to port the horizon was blurred also with rain. Smith shivered, cold in the battle-stained light drill uniform. In the course of a day the summer had gone, the air was chill and the rain whipped in on the wind of the ship’s passage and dripped from the signal halyards, dripped from the peaks of their caps on the bridge. All of them looked out on the port bow and beam now, glasses and telescopes trained out to sea. As were the loaded guns.
The report came down from the control-top. “Smoke Red three-oh!” The glasses and telescopes jerked around to seek on the bearing.
Jameson muttered, “I can just see something.”
Smith grunted. There was a darker streak lying like a shiart pencil stroke along the grey line of the seaward horizon. From the height of the control-top the look-outs would see it better. Dauntless held on. She and the other ships out there were on opposite and parallel courses with the wide, grey sea between. As the distance between them shrank, as they came almost opposite each other the control-top reported: “Warship hull-down! Red eight-oh! Can just make out the topsides of her! But it’s Walküre, sure enough!”
Henderson growled irritably, “What else? The chaser’s had her in sight all day!”
The control-top was still reporting: “... smoke astern of her, a mile or more ... It’s that big freighter, Friedrichsburg, all right! Seen nothing else like her this side of Port Said!”
The lowering sun was hidden behind leaden clouds, what dirty light there was came from beyond the seaward horizon and the ships on that horizon stood against it, so from the control-top they could make out their silhouettes. From the bridge Smith could see only their smoke. From Walküre and Friedrichsburg they would see grey ocean and grey
mountains and there was no light behind Dauntless. They might see her smoke but even that would be difficult against that background and in this visibility.
Now was the time. He ordered, “Port ten! ... Steer two-four-oh!” There was a shifting on the bridge now, a scraping of feet and a clearing of throats, an easing and then a settling-down again as the ship’s head came around to point at the smoke on the seaward horizon. Now they were committed. Dauntless was making twenty-nine knots and she was headed towards the enemy. Smith cocked an ear to the ranges continually repeated from the rangetaker: “... Eleven thousand ...” They were ranging on to Walküre.
He said, “We’ll engage Friedrichsburg.”
Before that could be relayed to the gunnery officer in the control-top he was himself reporting; “Range to Walküre is opening! She’s hauled out of line and she’s headed out to sea, course about south-west!”
Smith heard his order to engage the freighter passed and acknowledged from the control-top and Jameson said, “Blackbird, sir?”
Smith nodded. It should be Blackbird that Walküre was going after, over the horizon and fifteen miles to the south-west and towards the sinking sun. Blackbird and the tiny submarine-chaser.
Jameson muttered, “I hope Pearce is ready to run.” Because if Walküre could see Blackbird even in this visibility she would not challenge. Why should she when she knew every ship in these waters was an enemy and she was expecting Dauntless? Once within range she would fire on any ship.
“... Nine-five-oh-oh ...”
The range to Friedrichsburg was below five miles now, and as Dauntless raced out to sea the big freighter steamed on, maintaining her course, passing distantly across the bow from starboard to port. Even from the bridge she was hull-up now, ten thousand tons of her and deep-laden, they could see her big derricks and the single funnel belching out smoke.