by Alan Evans
Smith side-stepped the question. “That seems the obvious course.”
*
Thunder sailed.
Every man aboard her knew that she had come to this port at the urgent request of Cherry and they had seen them talking. They knew something was afoot. But Smith conned his ship and was silent.
As Thunder slid past the signalling station at Punta Negro and lifted to the sea, Garrick ventured, “The wardroom would be pleased if Miss Benson and yourself would join us for dinner this evening, sir.”
Smith’s lips twitched. He was sure the invitation was aimed at Sarah Benson and courtesy demanded it be extended to himself. But maybe he was being unfair. “I’d be delighted and I’m sure Miss Benson will be. Will the gunroom be present?”
“Yes, sir. We rather thought that, as this will be your first visit as Captain, it would be suitable.”
So he had been unfair. “It will suit very well. I have one or two things to say.”
He turned to leave the bridge but glanced at the log and read the entry ‘weighed and proceeded’. He laid his finger against the figure of coal remaining and did the sum in his head: sufficient for seven days at an economical ten knots.
Garrick said, “We’ll complete with coal from the Mary Ellen, sir?” The Mary Ellen was their collier.
Smith said absently, “I hope so.”
Garrick blinked. Coaling was a chore as vital as it was filthy, a labour of hours in choking dust that took place almost weekly, vital because the ship moved by burning coal. A Captain coaled his ship or she lay a helpless hulk. Now Smith said he “hoped” they would coal. Hoped?
Then Smith added, “I’ve arranged for her to come down here.” He left the bridge.
Garrick watched him go, relieved, but only partly so. He knew that with the rest of the crew he had been wary of Smith from the moment he stepped aboard and was uncomfortably aware that Smith knew it and had kept himself remote. They knew him only by reputation and rumour. Garrick could never guess at the thoughts behind that impassive face but he suspected they were a deal quicker than his own.
*
Smith shifted restlessly around his cabin and rubbed at his face that had become a stiff, expressionless mask. He had to make a decision. No, that was not right. He had already made the decision but it appalled him and he was seeking an alternative. He had a cold knowledge inside himself that the cruisers were racing for these waters, and why.
The Atlantic trade routes might be an attractive hunting ground for a pair of cruisers but the Navy had a cruiser squadron off the States and another in the West Indies and reaction from both would be swift. But on the Pacific seaboard the defence of Britain’s trade, and there was more than a hundred thousand tons of British shipping on this coast, rested on one ship: Thunder. The cruisers could sweep British trade from this coast and their marauding would draw ships from the Atlantic, maybe as many as fifty ships that were already desperately needed to blockade the High Seas Fleet and fight the growing submarine menace. And fifty ships would be none too many to find and destroy the cruisers. Hunting them in the vast Pacific wastes would be a heartbreaking business, a thousand times worse than seeking a needle in a haystack.
But that would be later. Thunder would come first. They would know about Thunder; she was under observation. She offered them a victory that would resound around the world. They could annihilate him or bottle him up in some port so that Thunder was interned, humiliated.
He would not have to search for these cruisers.
They would hunt him down like the wolf-pack they were.
There was a tap at the door and Horsfall entered. “Sir. Wondered if you’d like a —”
Smith snarled at him, “Get out!”
Horsfall got out. As he passed the marine sentry he spoke from the side of his mouth. “Watch it! Skippers lookin’ murder!”
*
It was a pleasant evening. For the second time since they had sailed from Esquimalt the gunroom were present en masse and Wakely brought his gramophone. The Captain’s death, if not forgotten, was behind them. Sarah Benson was here and now. She wore a simple dress that was shattering in its effect on the wardroom. Smith thought with surprise that he supposed she was a very pretty girl, but that medallion that swung and drew the eyes to the top of the low dress — She flirted outrageously with the midshipmen, subtly with the tongue-tied Garrick, and halfway through dinner the First Lieutenant was joking with her.
Benks, the steward, leapt nimbly, arms loaded with plates. He was a God-fearing little man and a frequent but brief convert to temperance. Daddy Horsfall, pressed into service for the occasion, creaked around in stiff best boots and a pained expression with bottle and napkin. He spent a lot of time close to Sarah who persisted in talking to him and including him in the general conversation with solemn devilment. Garrick wasn’t sure about that but he saw his Captain smiling broadly.
Smith had been in good humour all evening, smiling, joking. Aitkyne thought it was a textbook demonstration in total relaxation when duties were ended. Several others had thoughts of a similar nature.
Smith’s mouth was dry but he drank only one glass of water. The food almost choked him.
They drank the loyal toast, Sarah Benson caught Smith’s eye and stifled a feigned yawn. “Well, me for me haybag.” There were exaggerated groans but sincere disappointment, because the last light had barely gone, dusk still rolling down across the sea. But she went. Smith had seen her before dinner and been polite but explicit on that and she had, as stiffly, agreed.
Benks and Horsfall withdrew to the pantry.
“Now then, gentlemen.” It was said quietly but it cut through the buzz of conversation and the voices were stilled. Daddy Horsfall found, without any surprise, that the bottle he held was half-full. He and Benks saw it away while they listened to Smith beyond the pantry hatch, Daddy at first only thinking that soon he could nip away and get those damn boots off.
He listened and left, walked forward to the mess-decks and the first crowded mess he came to was that of Nobby Clark, Leading Seaman and Captain of a six-inch gun. Nobby stared at Daddy’s white jacket and said, “Stone me! Here’s a feller just joined us from the P.S.N. (Pacific Steam Navigation Company). Siddown you old bugger afore you fall down.” He indicated the wardroom aft with a jerk of his head. “Is she still in there? What’s going on back there?”
Daddy did not sit down. He sniffed. “I dunno what’s goin’ on, but I know what’s coming off.”
“Eh?”
Daddy told them, and as he did so Thunder heeled as she turned so they had to grab for a handhold as they stared at him, and still she turned.
IV
There was a brooding hush about the night, black, close. Thunder lay once more off Punta Negro, the hill and its signalling station marked by a pin-point of light while Guaya was a glow against the sky far inland. Bullock, the Coxswain, muttered ominously that it was a weather breeder and Aitkyne gave cautious endorsement from the glass. The Coxswain shifted his quid from one cheek to the other. “Dunno about the barometer, sir. I’m going off Daddy Horsfall’s feet.”
Thunder swayed gently in a long, slow swell, without a light save the occasional dim blink from a shaded lamp. Smith walked aft and found his party forming up in that black dark as the pinnace and whaler were hoisted out, men swarming to tail onto the falls because he had forbidden the use of a clamouring winch to shatter that still darkness; they could sense the loom of the land, see the shore marked by a line of phosphorescence.
They all wore navy boiler-suits and blackened canvas shoes, their heads were wrapped in balaclava helmets and their faces smeared with soot until only the eyes showed. There was always plenty of soot to be got on Thunder. They were lost in anonymity, sinister in the dark. And they were, of course self-conscious, a little sheepish. It all seemed unreal.
To Garrick it was a bad dream.
Every man was armed with a revolver; a rifle made no sense in this operation. One chamber of ea
ch was unloaded and the hammer lay over that with the safety catch on. There would be no careless, accidental shot.
Someone guffawed, the laugh cut short as Smith stood before him. “What’s the joke?” The question came softly.
The man grinned uneasily. “Just seemed a bit funny, sir.”
The man was Rattray. Smith knew him as a hard case with a reputation as a brawler. He sniffed and caught the whiff of rum. A man like this could imperil them all. Smith rasped, “Hand over your pistol.” And as he took it: “You’re a bloody fool! Master at arms!”
“Sir!”
“This man’s been hoarding his tots. Take him to the boilerroom. He can spend the night there and work the grog out with a shovel.”
Rattray was hustled away. Smith glanced around and saw young Gibb in one of the parties manning the falls of the boats and thrust the pistol at him. “Get some soot on your face and fall in.”
Smith went on with his inspection and wound up with Gibb as he returned and fell in, breathless from running and the excitement that gripped them all. Smith checked every pistol again himself and his attention to details impressed them as it was meant to do, to bring their concentration to bear. He spoke to them. The man in the wardroom had gone and his voice was harsh and urgent, sending a shiver through them. “I want no noise at all! No shooting except in direct defence of your lives!”
They stared at him, serious now. When a man licked his lips it was like a pink wound in his face.
They went down into the boats.
Somers was in the whaler with a dozen seamen. Lieutenant Kennedy, a Reserve officer re-called from the mercantile marine and a man with knowledge of explosives, was in the pinnace with Manton and Wakely, ten seamen and ten marines under Sergeant Burton. The tow was passed from pinnace to whaler. Smith, standing by Manton who had the helm, stared up and saw Garrick on the deck above him, Aitkyne on the wing of the bridge, both of them peering down at him. He could not make out faces but he did not need to, the stances and attitudes of his officer were familiar now. He did not have to see Garrick’s face to know he was a very worried man. Smith’s cold assessment of the situation and his flat statement of his intentions had taken the wardroom’s breath away. Most of them thought his assessment might be right, only — cruisers. It seemed so unreal. The war had been so far away. And what Smith intended! Garrick was shocked. Later, privately, he had pointed out the dangers and the probable, in his eyes certain, penalties. Smith was unmoved. Quite simply, Smith believed he was right while Garrick and the others were far from sure. It was too big a gamble for them. For him it was a risk he had to take.
He was taking as few officers and men as possible. If something went badly wrong, and it easily could, Thunder must still be able to function. He lifted one hand, saw Garrick’s acknowledgment and said quietly, “Carry on, Mr. Manton.”
The screw of the pinnace turned, bit and she eased away, towing the whaler. The ship fell away behind them, changing to a humping shapeless mass, to nothing. He had not seen Sarah Benson where she shivered in the shadows below the bridge.
He stood by the compass but it was not needed. Manton steered for the signalling station at Punta Negro, its lights pricking the dark. Beyond it the lights of Guaya, though hidden by the bend in the river and five miles of forest and swamp, cast a pale glow against the sky. Smith leaned with his arms on the coaming, relaxed, as if this was just one more item in the day’s work. When they were a mile from the mouth of the river he said laconically, “Steer a point or two to starboard.” Manton, like all of them, had been well briefed and was expecting the order. The bow of the pinnace moved away from the light and laid on the right bank of the estuary, so when they entered it they were tucked right in under that bank, invisible to the men in the signalling station if they watched, though there was no reason why they should.
They passed Stillwater Cove, keeping to the shallows and the greatest darkness by the shore, avoiding the deep water channel. The pinnace made an easy three knots despite the drag of the tow because the tide was flowing now and urging them on. They rode smoothly through the night with only the slow, dull churn of the picket-boat’s engine, the muffled scrape and clink of Jenner’s shovel in the tiny engine room and the clump of the closing furnace door. Here there was no one to see or hear them. Smith ordered an increase in speed and as the shovel clanged like a bell below: “Quinn.”
The signalman started. “Sir?”
Smith’s tone was mild but had an edge to it. “Tell Jenner that if he does that again his shovel goes over the side.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And him with it.”
He maintained the attitude of calm throughout the long haul up the estuary. He found himself continually stifling yawns, but far from being drowsy he was strung to a tight pitch. This was an awful gamble. Success could ruin him while failure would be an ignominious disaster. He thrust the thoughts aside. His decision had been taken and he believed it right. And now he was committed.
They rounded the bend and entered the pool with an odd mixture of relief and heightened tension. The waiting was over but now the action would begin. The men shifted and wiped sweaty hands for the hundredth but the last time. The pool was open before them, picked out by scattered lights along the shore and more lights marked the ships that lay there. U.S.S. Kansas, the battleship, was a floating mountain far across the pool. The collier Gerda was a squat shadow, barely lit but seen against the lighted backdrop of the shore. And something else showed against that backdrop. Smith called softly, “Stop engines.” They closed the collier, slowing as the way came off the pinnace, stopped. They drifted in silence but for the burble of water under the bow.
Smith stared, and saw it again, was sure now. A boat was rowing around Gerda. It was halfway along the port side and creeping towards the stem, hardly moving at all, the deliberate pacing of a sentry. He watched until the boat worked around the stern of the collier and disappeared from view. It was odd behaviour for a neutral vessel in a neutral port.
Kennedy said, “A guard-boat. That does it.”
“That does it.” Kennedy had spoken his thoughts aloud: the operation was off. Kennedy could not dissemble. He was a sea-officer not a diplomat and he had patently disbelieved in the cruisers heading for these waters. He was not alone. Smith knew that most of the officers sided with him, including Garrick, and regarded this operation as an act of madness. He had not called for volunteers. He knew the men he wanted and named them. Kennedy was here reluctantly but because he was needed. He disliked his orders but he was obeying them.
Smith turned to look at Kennedy and met his gaze that was both expectant and relieved. Smith saw the twitch of surprise when he said, “Not by a long shot, Mr. Kennedy. Bring up the whaler.”
Wakely answered, “Already coming, sir.”
The whaler sprouted oars like a man waking from sleep, arms stretching. The oars came in again as it ran alongside the pinnace. Smith gave Kennedy his orders then stepped over to sit in the stern by Somers. He paused, then called, “Sergeant Burton! Come with me.” Burton’s square bulk rose from the block of marines and he picked his way lightly them to swing over into the whaler. Smith ordered, “Give way.”
The whaler headed across the pool, giving Gerda a wide berth, keeping out in the sheltering dark, passing her. So for another half-minute then the whaler turned and pointed back downstream, heading for the collier. Now Smith could see there was a light on her deck, aft of the bridge on the starboard side, and he could make out a dangling ladder on that side. The light was on the superstructure amidships but he could not see a man there. But there would be a lookout, somewhere. He could see the guard-boat creeping again up the port side of the collier towards the stem. He gauged the relative distances and speeds as the whaler slid down on the ship and saw that they would meet the guard-boat under Gerda’s stern and was content.
He spoke in a hoarse whisper but his voice carried down the length of the whaler: “No shooting except in self-def
ence, and at this moment no shooting at all. Mr. Somers, you will need four men.” Somers picked them. They were closing the stern of Gerda now. The guard-boat had seen them, Smith could tell that from the accelerated beat of its oars and the swing of the bow towards them, before the voice lifted, the words incomprehensible but the tone enquiring, suspicious.
Smith replied nasally, “Kansas!” The man nearest him, bent over the oar, face only inches from Smith, gasped, “Blimey.”
Smith continued his drawling, “Have you fellers seen anything of a swimmer? The son-of-a-bitch went over the side because his furlough was stopped and when I get my hands on him—“
The whaler came from the direction of Kansas. There were two men in the guard-boat and they waited, listening to Smith’s impersonation, a poor impersonation but good enough to get him alongside. At the last moment one of the men yelped as the whaler swept down on him and Smith snapped, “Oars! Somers!”
The oars came in, the whaler thumped against the boat and Somers and his four men leapt over the side like frogs to smother the men in the boat.
“Shove off! Give way!” Smith left Somers to drift away down the port side while he took the whaler skimming down the starboard side of the Gerda to the dangling ladder. The oars came in again and he snatched at the ladder and started climbing. He heard a voice on the deck above him but right aft, a voice that called, puzzled. He was aware of Burton at his heels and that he had started climbing without taking his pistol from its holster. His head lifted above the rail and he swung one leg over then the other, took a pace forward and saw the man hurrying from the stern towards him. The man halted a couple of yards away, just in the pool of light that flooded over Smith. He gaped and the hand at his side lifted. It held a pistol.
Smith snapped testily, “Put that away. I am a British officer.” For an instant the man hesitated, the pistol still pointed at the deck and Smith took a long stride and grabbed it with one hand, the man’s throat with the other. Panic twisted the man’s face and he jerked back. Thick-set and strong, he hauled Smith with him and his free hand came up to claw at Smith’s face. At the instant that Smith realised he was out-matched in weight and strength, Burton appeared. In one smooth movement he plucked the man away from Smith and threw him face-down on the deck, Burton’s hand at his throat, Burton’s knee in his back.