Rendezvous-South Atlantic

by Douglas Reeman

  As the ship heeled slightly on to, her new course Lindsay saw a dark shadow fall briefly across the screen. He looked up at the great ensign climbing the foremast and at some of the gun crews turning to watch it.

  He heard Ritchie remark, `Funny, really. Bin in the Andrew all these years an' Never seen 'em'oisted before.'

  When he turned again Lindsay saw that the sea astern seemed full of ships moving away on differing bearings and angles. Once more the air cringed to the ripping passage of shells, and again they exploded close to a careering tanker.

  `Aircraft, sir. Dead ahead.'

  He watched the sliver of silver above the horizon as it moved calmly in the sunlight. The enemy's eye, unreachable and deadly. Reporting each fall of shot. Standing by to pursue and guide the cruiser like a pilot fish with a shark.

  Too fast for Maxwell's ponderous guns. Out of range for the automatic weapons.

  But as yet nobody aboard the enemy ship appeared to have noticed the Benbecula's challenge. Maybe they imagined she was out of control or trying to escape in the wrong direction.

  Stannard said tightly, `Maxwell's guns will never even mark the bastard at this range.'

  Lindsay did not look at him. He picked up a handset, feeling it shaking violently as the bridge structure hummed and vibrated to Fraser's engines.

  `Guns? Captain. Commence firing with the starboard battery.' He waited, shutting out Maxwell's protest. 'I know the marines can't get their guns to bear. But we must draw the enemy's fire from those ships. I will try to close the range as quickly as possible.'

  He replaced the handset and heard the fire gong's tinny call, the immediate crash of guns as One and Three lurched inboard together.

  `Short.'

  He lifted his glasses in time to see the thin feathers of spray falling in direct line with the enemy's hazy outline. But she was much clearer now. Bridge upon bridge, her turrets already swinging as if to seek out this sudden impudence.

  Dancy watched transfixed as the sea writhed like surf across a reef before bursting skyward on the starboard beam. He -imagined he could feel the heat, taste the foul stench of those great shells.

  He realised that Stannard's fingers were around his wrist, his voice intense as he whispered, `Take this letter. Keep it for me.' He looked him in the eyes. `Just in case, eh, chum?'

  Dancy made to reply and then felt himself falling as the whole bridge shook to one terrible explosion. He felt Stannard and a signalman entangled around his legs, and even when the deafening explosion had stopped it seemed to linger in his ears like pressure under water.

  He saw shocked faces, mouths calling silent orders, and the starboard door pitted with bright stars of sunlight. He pulled himself upright as his hearing returned and saw that the stars were splinter holes, and then almost vomited as he stared aghast at 'the bloody shape beneath them.

  Lieutenant Paget had been sent to assist on the bridge and had been almost cut in half by the explosion. Yet as his hands worked like claws across his torn body his screams grew louder and louder, like those of some tortured woman.

  `Starboard twenty!' Lindsay locked his arm around the voicepipes as the :ielm went over. `Stand by, the port battery!' He wiped paint dust from the gyro with his elbow.

  'Midships. Steady.'

  `Steady, sir. Course zero-three-zero.'

  Jolliffe had to grit his teeth as a signalman wrapped a bandage around his arm. A small splinter had laid it open after passing cleanly through the screaming lieutenant a few feet away.

  The port guns hurled themselves back on their springs, their muzzles angled towards the sky in their efforts to hit the enemy.

  . Lindsay made himself ignore the cries and screams until they became fainter and suddenly stopped. He knew that a stretcher party had entered the bridge but did not turn his head as he concentrated every fibre of his mind on the other ship.

  `Range now one-six-oh.'

  He moved his glasses carefully. Eight miles separated the armoured cruiser and the garishly painted ship with the list to starboard. The enemy had got the message now all right. She had turned towards Benbecula using her two forward turrets alternately. The six guns fired with regular precision so that her bridge seemed to dance in the flashes as if ablaze.

  When at last he glanced over his shoulder he saw that Paget's corpse had been removed. Just a brush-stroke of scarlet to show where he had been torn down.

  As the gunfire mounted Lindsay changed course at irregular intervals, their progress marked by the curves in their seething wake. Starboard battery and then port. Two by two against the German's six.

  Maxwell remarked over the speaker, `She's the Minden. Eight-inch guns, twelve torpedo tubes.' A brief sigh. `Estimated speed thirty-three knots.'

  Lindsay bit his lip to hide his despair. A miniature battle-cruiser as far as Benbecula was concerned.

  A telephone, buzzed, the sound muffled by explosions, the roar of fans.

  'W/T have received a signal about that other raider, sir!'

  Lindsay blinked as the sea beyond the bows vanished behind a towering wall of spray. He felt the hull buck to the shockwave as if she had been struck by a bomb. `Read it!'

  The man tore his eyes from an observation slit and crouched over his telephone.

  `Raider sunk. All available assistance on way to help you.' And a few seconds later. `Cruiser Canopus calling us, sir. What is your position?'

  Lindsay saw the sea erupt again. Much closer this time. `Tell her our position is grim!'

  Stannard touched the man's arm. `Here. I'll give it to W/T.'

  Lindsay called, `How are the ships, Sub?'

  Dancy ran aft and peered through the Benbecula's drooping plume of funnel smoke. In those seconds he saw it all. The scattered ships, so very small beneath the great ensign on the mainmast. The twisting white wake, the sea, everything...

  `Troopships out of range, sir. The, rest well scattered.' `Good.'

  `Range now one-five-oh.'

  All four guns were firing and reloading as fast as they could move, with Maxwell's spotters yelling down bearings and deflexions with each veering change of course.

  In the engine room Fraser clung to the jerking platform and watched his men swarming around the pounding machinery like filthy insects. In damage control Goss sat unmoving in his chair, facing the panel, hands folded across his stomach. Throughout the ship, above and below decks, behind watertight doors or on exposed gun platforms, every man waited for the inevitable. Meeting it in his own way.

  Far astern, and spread fanlike towards the horizon, the once proud convoy had long since lost its shape and formation. The first ship to be hit had sunk, but the others which had received near misses still managed to maintain their escape,, some leaving smoke-trails like scars across the sky.

  Aboard the second troopship the decks and emergency stations were crammed with silent figures, mis-shapen in lifejackets as they stood in swaying lines, as they had been since the attack had begun.

  A deck officer at his boat station said suddenly, `God, look at the old girl! I'd never have believed it!' In spite of the watching soldiers he took off his cap and waved it above his head. But his voice was just a whisper as he called, `Good luck, old lady!'

  The small party of Wrens packed at the after end of the boat deck huddled even closer as the distant ship was again straddled by waterspouts.

  The one named Marion slipped her arm around her friend's shoulders and said, `Don't cry, Eve.'

  She shook her head. `I know I'm crying.' She strained her eyes to try and see the ship with the stubborn list and outdated stern. `But I feel like cheering!'

  Something like a sigh transmitted itself through the watching soldiers.

  A voice called, `She's hit!'

  When the sound finally reached the scattered ships it was like a roll of thunder. Even the officers with binoculars could hardly distinguish one part of Benbecula from the next because of the dense smoke.

  Marion tightened her grip. `But they'
re still firing. How can, they do it?'

  The Wren called Eve did not answer. She was seeing the little villa, the table in candlelight. And him sitting on the bed. Looking at her. Holding her.

  Another set of explosions rumbled across the sea's face. More muffled now as the distance steadily mounted between them.

  A man said, `Direct hit that time. Must be.'

  `Would you like to go below?''Marion stared sadly at the great spreading smokestain "far astern. `It's safe now. They made it safe.'

  `No.' She shook her head. `He'll know I'm here. I'm sure of it.'

  `So am I.' Together they stayed by the rail in silence.

  'Shoot!'

  Maxwell was hoarse from yelling into his mouthpiece. The compartment seemed full of smoke and the din was unbearable as time and time again the ship rocked to the enemy's salvos. ,

  `Why can't we hit her?' Hunter shouted through the tendrils of smoke below Maxwell's chair. `We're, down to six miles range, for Christ's sake!'

  The starboard guns crashed out again and Maxwell cursed as his shells exploded into the haze. `Up two hundred!'

  He was still speaking when the next salvo straddled the ship in a vice of steel. He saw Hunter lurch in his chair to stare up at him, his expression one of horror even as the blood gushed from his mouth and his eyes lost their understanding forever.

  Two of the seamen were also down, and the third was crawling up the side of Maxwell's chair holding his hip and sobbing with agony.

  `First aid party to Control!' Maxwell, sighed. The line had gone dead. He stood up and hung his microphone on the chair, then giving the wounded seaman a vague pat on the head climbed out into the sunlight.

  Figures blundered past him in the smoke and a man yelled, `Up forrard! Starboard side!'

  Number, One, gun was still firing when Maxwell arrived, and he found Baldock, his elderly warrant officer, giving local orders to its crew. The other gun was in fragments, hurled inboard above a deep crater around which human remains lay scattered in bloody gruel.

  Baldock shouted, `Both quarters officers are done for on this side!'

  Maxwell nodded, feeling very detached. `You carry on here then.'

  He strode to the opposite side where he found the young sub-lieutenant in charge sitting on a shell locker, an arm across his face like a man in the sun.

  `All right, Cordeaux?'

  The officer stared at him. `Yes, sir.' Then he saw a spreadeagled corpse at the opposite gun. Headless, it still wore a jacket. Like his own, with a single wavy stripe.

  A shell whimpered close overhead but Maxwell did not flinch. `Luck of the draw, my boy.' He adjusted his cap. `I'm going aft to see the bootnecks. Keep at it, eh?'

  The youth watched him leave and then groped for his helmet. In front of him the gunlayer and` trainer, the gloved seamen who worked the breech were all waiting as before. They were going to die. All of them. Like his friend who now lay headless and without pain.

  The gunlayer said thickly, `We're turnin' again, sir!'

  Cordeaux heard himself say, `Stand by, Number Two.' Then with the others he watched the bows start to swing to starboard.

  'Midships!' Lindsay had to yell to make himself heard. The enemy gunners were shooting rapidly and he knew that Benbecula had been badly mauled. But the noise was too great, too vast to recognise or distinguish. Time no longer meant anything, and as he conned the vibrating ship, swinging her drunkenly from bow to bow, he was conscious only of the distance which still separated the ill-matched enemies.

  `Wheel's amidships, sir!' Jolliffe was clinging to the wheel, his face ashen from loss of blood.

  Ritchie climbed up beside him and said, `We'll go together, eh, mate?'

  The coxswain peered at him glassily. `Cheerful bastard!'

  Ritchie looked away. Christ Almighty. The poor old sod still thinks we're going to survive!

  Lindsay swung round as sunlight lanced through the smoke and he saw the spotter plane flashing down the starboard side less than half a mile distant. The little seaplane looked near and remote from the crash and scream of gunfire. Like a child's toy, her approach made soundless by the din. As it tilted slightly he saw the black cross on one stubby wing, and imagined he could see a helmeted head in the cockpit. Watching with the patient indifference of a cruising gull.

  Somewhere aft an Oerlikon came to life, the bright tracer licking out through the smoke, making the seaplane veer away, startled, disturbed. Too far away for good shooting, but Lindsay could understand the Oerlikon gunner's gesture. Strapped in his harness, vulnerable and helpless as the ship came apart around him.

  Stannard shouted in his ear, `The ships'll be safe now!' It was more like a question.

  Lindsay looked at him. `There's still too much daylight left.'

  He watched the seaplane turning for another run. But for the plane the ships would have been beyond reach by now. But once Benbecula had been destroyed the German captain would be in pursuit again. What had Maxwell said? It was hard to think. To remember. Thirty-two knots.

  The deck canted violently and a wall of flame shot skyward from the forecastle.

  Telephones buzzed and he heard men yelling over the remaining voicepipes.

  `Bad fire forrard,-sir! Number One gun knocked out. Mr Baldock has been killed.'

  Lindsay dragged himself across the littered gratings. `Who's still down there?'

  Stannard called, `Young Cordeaux, sir.'

  Lindsay wiped his face with his hand. Just a boy. And Baldock was gone. He should have been at home with his grandchildren.

  A ,savage explosion tore down the ship's side, filling the air with splinters and heavier fragments. Cabins and compartments, machinery and bulkheads felt it as the scything onslaught expended itself through the hull. The funnel was streaming tendrils of smoke and steam from countless holes, and Lindsay saw that the mainmast had gone completely.

  Not long now. Something splashed across the nearest telegraph which still pointed to Full Ahead, and glancing up he saw blood dripping through a split in the deckhead. Probably Hunter's, he thought wearily.

  When he dropped his eyes he saw that the chair was empty. For an instant he imagined the commodore had been cut down by a splinter.

  Stannard called harshly, `He ran below, sir! Puking like a bloody kid!'

  Lindsay shrugged. It did not seem important now.

  He raised his glasses again. There was so much smoke that it was hard to see beyond the bows. Smoke from guns and bursting shells. From the ship herself as she defied the efforts of hoses and inrushing water to quench the creeping fires.

  The range was less than six miles. It was impossible to know how many times they had managed to hit the enemy. If at all. The cruiser was still coming for them, moving diagonally across the bow, her turrets tracking Benbecula's approach with the cool efficiency of a hunter awaiting a wounded beast to be flushed from cover.

  A pencil rolled across the counter beneath the screen and for a brief second he stared at it. The list which had defied owners and shipyards for years had gone at last. Goss had probably flooded the magazines nearest the fires, the weight of waterbringing the old ship upright with kind of stubborn dignity. How would she appear to the enemy and the German gunnery officer? This battered, half-crippled ship, limping towards destruction but refusing to die. What would they feel? Admiration, or anger at being delayed?

  He clenched his jaw again as more explosions made the hull quake. Not delay. The German must be held off until help arrived.

  `Where's Canopus now?'.

  Stannard glanced at him. 'W/T office is badly hit, sir. Can't be sure of what's happening.'

  Lindsay opened his mouth to speak and then found himself face down on the gratings with someone kicking and struggling across his spine. There was smoke and dust everywhere. He could hardly breathe and felt as if the air was being sucked out of him. Near his face small things stood out with stark clarity. Rivets, and pieces of his watch which had been torn from his wrist to shatte
r against the steel plates. A man's fist, and when he turned his head he saw it belonged to Jolliffe. The coxswain had been blasted from the wheel and lay with his skull crushed against the binnacle.

  Lindsay lurched to his feet, spitting out dust and blown grit, searching for the remains of the bridge party. He saw Stannard on his back, blood running between his legs, and Dancy kneeling over him.

  Ritchie was already dragging himself to the wheel and managed to croak, `Got 'er, sir! Steady as she goes!' He grinned. `To 'ell!'

  Stannard opened his eyes and stared at Dancy. `Easy, mate. I'm all right. Christ, I can't feel much of anything!'

  Two more figures entered the smoke-filled compartment, slipping on blood and broken panels, groping for handholds. Midshipman Kemp and Squire, the navigator's yeoman.

  Lindsay said, `Man those voicepipes!'

  Kemp nodded wildly. `I've sent for the first aid party, sir!'

  Dancy crouched over the Australian, holding him as the deck jerked to another shellburst.

  `You'll be fine. You see. We can be in England together and....'

  Stannard looked past him at Lindsay and grimaced. `The letter. See she gets it, will you? Don't want her to think I've forgotten.....'

  His head lolled to one side. and Lindsay said, `Leave him, Sub. He's gone.'

  Dancy stood up, shaking badly. Then he said, `I'm okay, sir.' He tried not to look at his friend on the gratings. `Later on I'll.....' He did not finish it.

  The rear door rattled across the splintered gratings, and Boase with two stretcher bearers ran into the wheelhouse. Boase looked deathly pale, his steel helmet awry as he peered round at the chaos and death. A signalman had been pulped against the rear bulkhead, a messenger lay dead by his feet but totally unmarked.

  In an unexplained lull of gunfire Kemp shouted wildly, `Go on, Doc, show us what you can do!' He shook Squire's restraining hand from hisarm and continued in the same broken voice, `You're bloody good at offering advice to others!'

  Boase stood with his arms at his side, his helmet jerking to the relentless vibration.

  Lindsay snapped, `Get a grip on yourselves!'