Rendezvous-South Atlantic

by Douglas Reeman

  The ice turned slowly as the ship surged against it, making a kind of clumsy pirouette with pieces breaking adrift and sliding haphazardly into the dwindling bow wave.

  `Stop engines!'

  Lindsay ran to the port door and tugged it open. As he hurried to the unprotected wing he felt the wind across his face like a whip, and under his gloved hands the rail was like polished glass. He watched the ice moving away while the ship idled forward sluggishly, the deck under his feet very still, as if the ship herself was holding her breath, feeling her hurt.

  There was more ice nearby but just small fragments as before. It was a piece of bad luck which had brought that one heavy slab across their path without anybody sighting it.

  Stannard called, `First lieutenant's on the phone, sir.'

  Lindsay strode into the bridge again, feeling the heated air enclosing him like a damp towel.

  Goss was very brief. `Flooding in Number Two hold, sir. I've got the pumps working on it, and I'm waiting for a report from the boiler room. Their main bulkhead is right against that hold.' He paused and then said thickly, `I knew something like this would happen.'

  `Any casualties?'

  `I don't know yet,' The question seemed to catch Goss off guard.

  `Well, get on with it and let me know.' He replaced the handset very slowly.

  He knew what Goss was thinking. What most of the others were probably thinking, too. That their captain was still unfit for command. Even this one. Especially this one: He felt the pain and despair crowding his brain like blood and he had to turn away from the others, even though they could not see his face.

  Jolliffe said, `We're drifting, sir. Ship's head is now three-three-zero.'

  Stannard said quickly, `Very well, Cox'n.'

  A messenger called, `Engine room reports no damage, sir.' He gulped. `To the bulkhead, I mean, sir.'

  Stannard remarked softly, `Once saw a great berg down off South Georgia. Big as Sydney bridge it was, and all covered with little penguins.'

  Lindsay said flatly, `Penguins?' He did not even know he had spoken.

  `Yes. There were these small killer whales about, you see, and the penguins would push one of their cobbers off the berg every so often as a safety measure. -If the little chap survived they all dived in. If he was eaten they'd just wait there like a lot of unemployed waiters and stand around a while longer before they pushed another one over the edge.'

  Nobody laughed.

  Lindsay thought suddenly of Aikman, and was about to tell Stannard to call up the doctor when Ritchie snapped, `Listen! I 'eard a ship's siren!'

  Once more Lindsay was out in the freezing air, as with Ritchie and Stannard he blundered through the opposite - door and on to the starboard wing.

  `And there's another!' Ritchie was peering over the wing like a terrier at a rabbit hole.

  Stannard- said quickly, `Same ship.' He too was bending his head and listening intently. `When I saw those penguins I was doing a spell as third officer in a whale factory ship.. Some masters used their sirens to estimate the closeness of heavy ice. Bounce back the echoes, so to speak.'

  . Lindsay heard it again. Mournful and incredibly loud in the crisp air." The echo threw back its reply some ten seconds later.

  Dancy joined them by the screen. `I-I'm sorry about that helm order, sir. I lost my head.'

  Lindsay did not take his eyes from the bearing of the siren. `You were quite alone at that moment, Sub.' He heard Dancy's breathing, knew how he was suffering. `And if we had not stopped the engines we would have drowned out that siren.'

  `Damage control says the pumps are holding the intake, sir. No apparent danger to boiler room bulkhead.' The seaman waited, gasping in the cold air. `And only one casualty. Man on A deck broke his wrist.'

  Lindsay nodded. `Good.' He tried to-rub the ice from the gyro repeater below the screen but it was thick like a Christmas cake. `We'll try and close on that siren, Pilot. Warn control in case of tricks. And we'll have some extra lookouts on the boat deck.'

  Stannard was listening to his voice when his face suddenly lit up in-a violent red flash. The savage crash of gunfire echoed across the water, lighting up the scattered patches of ice, painting them with scarlet and yellow as again, and again the guns tore into the darkness, blasting it aside in short, violent cameos.

  Lindsay dashed through the open door, his glasses banging against his chest as he shouted, `Half ahead together!' Around him men were slamming the new steel shutters, and he added, `Leave the centre one!' As he cranked it open he felt the air clawing his face and lips, heard the sudden surge of power from the engines as once more the ship began to push. forward.

  `Steer for the flashes, Cox'n!'

  He tensed as a ball of fire exploded and then fanned out to reveal the outline and angle of a ship. She was less than two miles away, her upper deck and superstructure' burning fiercely in a dozen places. There was ice all around her, small fragments and heavier, more jagged prongs which seemed to be enclosing her like a trap. Another ripple of flashes came from her opposite beam, and Lindsay saw the telltale waterspouts shooting skywards and one more bright explosion below her bridge.

  The siren was bellowing continuously now, with probably a dead man's hand dragging on the lanyard, but as the Benbecula gathered way Lindsay thought it sounded like a beast dying in agony.

  Crisp and detached above the din he heard a metallic voice intone, `Control to all guns. Semi-armour-piercing, load, load, load.'

  More thuds and clicks below the bridge, and somewhere a voice yelling orders, shrill. and momentarily out of control.

  `Target bears Green two-oh. Range oh-five-oh.'

  Lindsay raised his glasses as Maxwell's voice continued to pass his information over the speaker. Five thousand yards. Maxwell's spotters had done well to estimate the range on the flashes alone.

  `Port ten.' He watched the ticking gyro. 'Midships. Steady.'

  Jolliffe replied heavily, `Steady, sir. Three-one-zero.'

  Almost to himself Lindsay murmured, `That'll give the marines a chance to get on target, too.'

  More flashes blasted the darkness aside and joined with those already blazing on the helpless ship. He could see her twin funnels, the great pieces of wreckage falling into the fires and throwing fountains of sparks towards the clouds. Not long now.

  To Dancy he snapped, `Pass the word to prepare that signal for transmission.'

  Stannard said thickly, `Aikman's got the code books, sir.'

  Lindsay kept his glasses trained on the other ship. Was it a trick from the reflected fires, or was she starting to settle down?

  He said harshly, `Tell the W/T office to send it plain language. What the hell does it matter now?'

  Stannard nodded and handed his pad to a messenger.

  `Give this position to the P.O. Tel. He knows what to do.'

  Maxwell's voice again. `Starboard battery stand by.'

  Lindsay lowered his glasses. `Open fire.'

  Maxwell waited until the hidden raider fired again and then pressed his button. The bells at each mounting had not rung for more than a split second before all three starboard guns roared out together, their long tongues flashing above the wash alongside.

  Lindsay held his breath and counted. He shut out the bellowed commands, the click of breech blocks and the chorus of voices on the intercom. Someone at the Admiralty would be listening to all this, he thought vaguely. They would be plotting Stannard's position and rousing out some senior officers from their camp beds in the cellars. From Benbecula to Admiralty. Have sighted enemy raider. Am engaging.

  Not much of an epitaph. But it might be remembered.

  `Up five hundred. Shoot!'

  Again the guns belched fire and smoke, the bridge jerking violently as the shock made the steel quake as if from hitting another berg.

  `The other ship's going down, sir!' Dancy was shouting, his voice very loud after; the crash of gunfire.

  `Yes.'

  Lindsay watched rigidly as
the stricken ship began to tilt over towards him. She must have been hit badly, deep inside the hull, and the fires which he had imagined to have begun on her superstructure had in fact surged right up• through several decks. He could see the gaping holes, angry red, the criss-cross of broken frames and fallen masts, and found himself praying there was nobody left to die in such horror.

  More distant flashes, and this time he heard the shells pass overhead almost gently, the high trajectory making them whisper like birds on the wing.

  Maxwell's bells tinkledd again, and seconds later Lindsay heard him shout, `One hit!'

  A fire glowed beyond the sinking ship, just long enough for Maxwell's guns to get off another round each.

  Then it died, and Lindsay guessed the enemy had turned end on, either to close with this impudent attacker or to run, as before.

  He would have picked up the short signal and would probably be wondering what sort of ship he was tackling. Benbecula's name was not on the general list, as far as he knew, and it might take the German time to realise what was happening.

  `Enemy has ceased fire, sir.' Maxwell seemed out of breath.

  `Very well.' Lindsay watched the dark line of the other ship's hull getting closer and closer to the sea. `Tell Number One to prepare rafts for lowering.' Dancy asked, `Will we stop, sir?'

  Lindsay rubbed his eyes and then raised the glasses again. `Not yet.'

  A sullen explosion threw more wreckage over the other ship's side, and he imagined he could see a flashlight moving aft by her poop. One lonely survivor, he thought dully.

  `Slow ahead together.' He heard men pounding along the boat deck. `Starboard fifteen.' He watched the steam, rising like a curtain, and knew the sea was exploring the damage, quenching the fires too late.

  As if from a great distance he heard Stannard say, `We can't stop yet, Sub. We'd be sitting ducks if that bastard is still about.'

  `Yes, I understand.' But from his tone it was obvious Dancy did not. Like the others, he was probably thinking of the people who were trying to escape the flames only to face being frozen to death in minutes.

  Lindsay climbed on to his chair and stared through the slit in the steel shutter. The slit was glowing red from the other ship's fires, like a peephole in a furnace door. Like a fragment of hell.

  He looked at the gyro repeater again. 'Midships.' They had almost crossed the ship's stern when with a great roar of inrushing water she turned over and dived, the fire vanishing and plunging the sea once more into darkness.

  Lindsay looked at his watch. Seven fifteen.

  `Prepare both motor boats for lowering, Pilot. Each will tow a raft. Number One will know what to do.'

  `I can see some red lights on the starboard beam, sir.' Ritchie lowered his telescope. `Might be in time for 'em.'

  'Yes.'

  Lindsay heard the rumble of power-operated davits, the protesting squeaks from the falls as the two motor boats jerked down the ship's side. If their motors would start under these conditions it would be a miracle. `Ready, sir.'

  `Stop engines.'

  Another set of sounds as the boats were slipped and took the released rafts in tow. Both motors were working, and Lindsay thanked God for an engineer like Fraser who kept an eye on such details.

  `Sky's a bit brighter, sir.' Stannard looked at Lindsay's unmoving outline against the shutter.

  The enemy had gone. Lindsay did not know how he could be sure, but he was. Slipped away again. Just like that last time. Leaving death in his wake. Blood on the water.

  He stood up suddenly. `Yeoman, use the big searchlight. Tell the gunnery officer to expect an attack, but we'll risk it.'

  He walked to the door and then out on to the open wing. The searchlight's glacier blue beam licked out from the upper bridge like something solid, and as it fanned down across the heaving water where the two boats and their tows stood out like bright toys, he saw the endless litter of flotsam and charred wreckage. Chairs and broken crates, empty liferafts and pieces of canvas. Here - and there a body floated, either spreadeagled face down in the water or bobbing in a lifejacket, its eyes like small stones as the beam swept low overhead.

  There was a stench of oil and burned paint, and as the boats moved apart to begin a closer search Lindsay stood and waited, his body almost frozen with cold, but unable to move.

  Stannard strode on to the gratings and said, `The first lieutenant has reported that Aikman has tried to kill himself. Cut his wrists with some scissors. But he's still alive, sir.' He stared past Lindsay as a boat stopped to pull someone aboard.

  Lindsay nodded. `He couldn't even do that properly, could he?'

  He too was watching the motor boat as it gathered way again towards another dark clump in the water. The other personnel ship was probably further to the northwest, waiting for some light before attempting to brave the ice and the possibility of a new attack. She would have seen the gunfire, and may have thought it was a second enemy ship making the assault.

  A torch stabbed across the water and Ritchie said, `One boat 'as got eleven survivors, sir.' He turned as the second boat's light winked over the lazy swell. `She's got eighteen, though Gawd knows 'ow she's managed to cram 'em in.'

  Lindsay wanted to ask him to call up the boats, to ask what was uppermost in his mind. But he was afraid. Afraid that by showing his fear he might make it happen. She could be in the other ship. Frightened but safe. Safe.

  The search continued for a full hour. Round and round, in and out of the, great oil stain and its attendant corpses and fragments.

  `Recall the boats.' Lindsay wiped the ice rime from his eyebrows, felt-the pain of cramp in his legs and hands. `Tell the sickbay to be ready.'

  Entry ports in the hull clanged open and ready hands were waiting to sway the first survivors inboard. Goss came' to the bridge and said, `Boats secured, sir. I've had to abandon the two rafts. They're thick with ice.

  I'd never get them hoisted.' He watched Lindsay and then added, `There are five women amongst 'em. I don't know if they'll survive after this.'

  Lindsay gripped the screen. So the Atlantic had cheated him after all. He said, `Take over the con and get under way. I'm going below.'

  By the time he reached the sickbay he was almost running, and as he stumbled past huddled figures cloaked in blankets, the busy sickberth attendants, he saw a young girl. sitting on a chair, hair black with oil, her uniform scorched as if by a hot iron, her face a mass of burns.

  Boase looked across her head and said tersely, `We'll do our best, sir.'

  Lindsay ignored him, his face frozen like a mask as he stared around at the scene of pain and survival. One body lay by the door covered inn a blanket. One bare foot was ;thrust into the harsh light, and with something like madness Lindsay pulled the covering from the girl's face. She was very young, her features pinched tight with cold, captured at the moment of death. The sea water had frozen around her mouth and eyes so that she seemed to be crying even now. He covered her face, and after a small hesitation pulled the blanket over the protruding foot. As his fingers touched it he felt the contact like ice itself.

  Without another word he turned and began the long climb to the bridge. The engines were pounding again, leaving the fragments floating and bobbing astern in their wake. She was with them. Back there in the Atlantic. Alone.

  Take care, she had said. Will see you in Eden.

  He reached the bridge and said, `Fall out action stations and secure.' He looked at Stannard. `We will steer northeast for an hour and see what happens.'

  Stannard asked quietly, `What about Aikman, sir?'

  Lindsay did not hear him. `Take over, Number One. I'm going below for half an hour.' He left without another word.

  Goss grunted and walked to the empty chair. Stannard sighed and turned towards his chart room.

  Only Ritchie knew what was wrong with the captain. Jupp had explained. Not that it helped to know about it, Ritchie thought.

  10

  Christmas leave


  Lindsay removed his cap and tucked it beneath his arm as he stepped into Boase's sickbay. A week had passed since the survivors had been pulled aboard, and in that time the doctor and his staff had done wonders. Three of the survivors had died of their injuries and two more were still dangerously ill, but under the circumstances it was a miracle any had endured the fires and the freezing cold.

  Boase was washing his hands, and hurried across when he saw Lindsay. He looked very tired: but managed to smile and say, `Nice of you to look in, sir.' He eyed Lindsay's strained features and added, `Wouldn't do you any harm to rest for a bit.'

  Lindsay looked around the long sickbay. The neat white cots, an air of sterile efficiency which he had always hated. The five girls had survived, and that was the biggest surprise of all. Maybe they were tougher than men after all, he thought wearily. Four of them were sitting in chairs, watching him now, dressed in a colourful collection of clothing which the ship's company had gathered. The fifth Wren was in a cot, her burned face hidden in bandages, her hands outstretched to the sides of the blankets as if to steady herself. She had nice hands, small and well shaped. Boase had told him she cried a lot when the others were asleep, fearful of what her face would be like when the bandages came off.

  All told there were only thirty survivors. From what he had gleaned Lindsay had discovered the ship had carried a company of one hundred and fifty as well as some forty Wrens en route for Canada.

  He cleared his throat. 'As you know, we have been ordered to proceed direct to Liverpool, where you will be landed and my ship can receive repairs.'

  Lindsay looked slowly around the watching faces. The Wrens, their eyes just a bit too bright. Holding back the shock which would grow and sharpen as thankfulness for survival gave way to bitter memories for those who had died. The men, young and old alike, some offwhom had probably been bombed or torpedoed already in the war, watching him, recalling their own moments, like the ones when a motor boat had come out of the searchlight's great beam to snatch them to safety.

  He continued, `I have just received another signal from the Admiralty. The Japanese have invaded Malaya, and yesterday morning carried out an air attack on Pearl Harbour in the Pacific.' He tried to smile as they stared at each other. `So the Americans are in the war with us. We're not alone any more.'