J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  He stiffened his big body and saluted, for though the executive officer was a commander with three rings, Sainsbury was a captain with four.

  "Good evening, sir."

  "Hello, Armstrong. Peter. In case I'm incapable later-Happy New Year."

  They smiled dutifully. Aunty Sainsbury would have starved a gag-writer, but he had four rings... He spoke again to the commander, and Bentley glanced round the big quarter-deck. He noticed several of the other destroyer captains looking their way, and suddenly he knew why Sainsbury, the flotilla-leader, had come across to speak to him. They would all have seen Wind Rode's boat collect the gangway, and Bentley was too sensible not to feel glad that his chief had plainly shown the incident was insignificant.

  Someone said, "The admiral," and automatically they all faced aft and stiffened to attention. He came slowly towards them, walking with the cruiser's captain and followed by his flag lieutenant. Bentley looked at him with covert interest. Palesy had not improved with his long spell of shore-time, and he had not been long enough at sea for the wind and sun and salt air to have had any visible effect. His pear-shaped body looked almost gross beside the spartan leanness of the cruiser captain, and Bentley thought that only a shortage of senior officers, spread thinly because of the Navy's world-wide commitments, could have placed this caricature of a Fleet commander in his present position of power and responsibility.

  He was almost up to the group of them now, and Bentley could see that the lower lids of his eyes hung down, and that they were red, like a bloodhound's. His pale blue eyes flicked over his captains. Their stare rested a moment on Bentley, then without apparent recognition it passed on to Sainsbury beside him. The admiral nodded generally and stepped over the coaming of the quarter-deck hatch. The cruiser captain murmured, "Come below, please, gentlemen," and followed his chief.

  As he walked with the others to the hatch Bentley thought how differently Collins or Farncomb, the other rear-admirals, would have handled it. Collins would have been in among them like a schoolboy at a party, and Farncomb was known throughout the Fleet, even by midshipmen, as the ideal host. Ah, well, different ships, different cap-tallies, he grinned to himself, and hoped he would be placed at the end of the table furthest from this host.

  He was, but the placing did not please him. The admiral's dinner table was long and rectangular, so that Bentley found himself directly facing his host. Sainsbury, as befitted his seniority and command of the flotilla, was at Palesy's right hand. He felt sorry for Sainsbury, until he remembered that the vinegary old fellow was more than capable of looking after himself.

  The dinner was no feast for an epicure, as was to be expected under the circumstances. It began with tinned tomato soup, served gratifyingly cold, with ice-cubes floating in it. It could have been a brilliant affair-the scene was inductive enough. The long table was of richly polished mahogany, its gleaming face reflecting the white uniforms of the diners and the silverware and cut-glass. The indirect lighting on the white ship's side glowed softly and picked out the gold shoulder rings of rank. Behind the table the white-coated stewards moved with trained smoothness.

  There was not a man at that table whose experiences would not have filled a book-they were destroyermen, and destroyers are of all the breed the ones most partial to scrapping. As well, they were coming together in this huge cabin for the first time since the flotilla had been formed-their continuous activities had precluded an earlier get-together. They had everything in common, and enough to talk about to last them a week of such dinners.

  Yet, with all this, the talk about the table was constrained. It was quiet and polite, and the tenor of it was not caused by the august company in which they found themselves. These officers were not merely commanders and lieutenant-commanders-they were, every man of them, commanding-officers, arbiters almost of the life and death in their own commands, men used to respect and instant obedience. So they were not awed by Rear-Admiral Palesy's official position among them-he did merely, in a wider degree, what for years they had been used to doing. It was not Palesy's position which constrained them-it was their knowledge of what the man was.

  Thinking all this, and coming to this conclusion, Bentley lifted his eyes from his soup to look at the object of his thoughts. Palesy was looking at him, the bloodhound eyes ironical, and Bentley knew with complete certainty that Palesy recognised him and remembered.

  "Ha-hmm!" The admiral cleared his throat, and the talk fell down to silence-it had not far to fall. Eight faces turned to him along the edges of the table. He leaned his bulk back in his chair and laid his hands, the fingers spread out, on the table before him. Bentley could see the black hairs on the backs of his fingers.

  "This will not be a speech, gentlemen," Palesy said. "I called you over here to enjoy yourselves." He waited, and one or two of his audience got as far as smiles. "However, I think the occasion should be utilised to welcome amongst us our newest commanding-officer and our newest destroyer. I refer, of course, to Lieutenant-Commander Bentley."

  It was natural that their heads should turn to him-politeness required that recognition, if nothing else. And though Bentley would have derided this if anyone had broached it to him, there was no doubt that the successful actions he had fought with the old Wind Rode had made his name almost a byword in the Fleet. He grinned embarrassedly at their looks, and, understanding, they turned their heads back to Palesy.

  "We are fortunate in having-shall I say-this modern Hornblower among us," Palesy said, and though there was nothing in his tone to which exception could be taken, Bentley thought he recognised what was behind the praise-the sneer, and the memory of those earlier clashes he had had with this young destroyer captain.

  When he saw Sainsbury flick his eyes towards him in brief warning he knew he was right.

  All right, you pompous b---, he thought, keeping his face polite and interested, you try and belittle me and all you'll do is put your own flat feet into the trap. The camaraderie of the boats is firm, Bentley reassured himself.

  "I would like to hear the personal story of your doings, Bentley," the admiral went on-by implication stating his belief that Bentley was the sort of man who would be glad to talk about them. "Unfortunately, the rigidity of naval hierarchy has put you at the bottom of the table." One or two officers near Bentley looked at him quickly-this was getting a bit close to the bone of indelicacy. He felt their glances, but he kept his eyes on Palesy.

  "Perhaps we should get you promoted," the rasping voice told him, coming out from behind a false smile. "Yes," he addled, rippling his thick fingers on the table, "that might be an excellent idea. The extra pay might help in getting my gangway repaired."

  Afterwards, Bentley was to remember with a gratification that helped ease his anger, the sense of shock around that table. It would have been indelicate for any of his fellow-captains to mention the gangway incident; for their host to talk of it was a crass violation of all the rules of good conduct. But for the admiral to sneer about it- and his voice had uncontrollably tightened to a sneer-was monstrous. He could with justification send for the offending captain and tear a strip off him in his cabin, berating him for the incompetence of his coxswain, even though such a course would be unusual. But to talk as he had in front of Bentley's fellow-captains was something quite beyond even their disciplined experience.

  Bentley stared back into the red-rimmed eyes and he thought: Sainsbury was right. The mongrel hates my guts because I've been in and out of more action than he has; because I've been given command of the latest destroyer in his Fleet. In his anger he did not consciously think these things in any coherent sequence-the belief flashed through his mind, more a subconscious acknowledgment that Sainsbury was right in his diagnosis than a deliberate assessment of Palesy's reasons.

  Somewhere in his raging mind a voice was calling, easy, take it easy, you can't win here: he was conscious of this, as he was aware of Sainsbury's stare, open and deliberate and warning. He ignored the voice and the stare, but h
is own voice was icy calm when he said:

  "Thank you very much for your offer of promotion, sir. I won't pretend that I don't welcome it. I suppose you could call it a sort of promotion in the field, Army type. As such I'm at a loss as to how to go about it. Should I forward my request for my commander's ring through your staff, sir?"

  Sainsbury had to admit, even through the worry in his mind at the edge on that voice, that it was well done. If the admiral chose to take him seriously, the only charge against Bentley would be one of insufficient penetration to see a joke; and if he were charged with insolence, Bentley could return to the attack with the protestation that, of course, he was only continuing the line of the admiral's own joke. He glanced down the line of faces, and all he saw there was grim appreciation.

  Sainsbury looked in a quick flick of his eyes at the admiral. Palesy's lower lip was thrust upward so that the line of his heavy mouth was a downward curve of anger. He rasped:

  "You can put in your request, Bentley, and there's no doubt what I'll do with it!"

  His pale eyes flared down the line of faces, now cautious because with his words the gloves had been taken off. Then he waved his hand peremptorily to the steward.

  "Serve dinner!" he growled.

  Bentley could not remember a more horrible hour in all his life. Because of what he had said, because he had thrown Palesy's own sneer right back in his fleshy face, he could not face the admiral's eyes again unless he were directly spoken to. He could not look at him with interest- that would be hypocrisy. Nor could he give him back look for look- that would be insolence. He did not know either captain on his right and left, but he strove to keep conversation going between them. Though there wasn't a man not on Bentley's side, they were still actuated by that most powerful of all instincts, self-preservation. This prevented them, under the baleful eye of the admiral, from appearing too friendly with an officer who was so blatantly the object of his displeasure.

  Sainsbury did his best to engage the admiral in conversation, and his thin voice penetrated down the table. Palesy answered him in gruff monosyllables. The dinner was more than a failure-it was an obvious failure. And Bentley, waiting for an outright explosion, knew that Palesy was under no illusions as to the cause of it.

  His relief when the admiral pushed his chair back from the table was so great it was almost weakening-he was faced here with something he did not dare fight against further, and he felt as weak, in consequence, as if he were actually fighting a man while injured.

  They rose with Palesy, and the steward pulled their chairs back. The admiral said:

  "Thank you for your company, gentlemen. Now if you will excuse me, I have work to do. The commander will take you to the wardroom."

  He gestured with his head to his flag-lieutenant, and after a final comprehensive nod stepped through the door in the end of the room into his private cabin. Now that the ordeal was at last over, Bentley's irrelevant reaction was to think of what a hell of a job that flag-lieutenant had!

  Of course his fellow-diners made no comment about his brush with Palesy when they had their drinks in the spacious wardroom. To do so would be to admit that they thought he was due for the axe the first time he stepped out of line. But one tall, lean commander with a nose like an eagle and a jutting jaw stopped for a moment on his way to meet a friend among the cruiser's officers. Bentley recognised his face-he had been in the boat Wind Rode's coxswain had crashed into, and therefore he was Sainsbury's second-incommand.

  "My brother," the lean officer said in a pleasant voice, "manages an insurance company. Let me know if you're thinking about doubling your policies." Then his hand came out and Bentley felt the sinewy grip of his fingers on his biceps. "Nice to have you with us," he smiled, and then walked across the room.

  "That was Jarvis," Sainsbury's voice said quietly beside him. Bentley turned. His smile was rueful.

  "Nice bloke," he said.

  "A very nice bloke," Sainsbury agreed. "He'll get the flotilla when I go."

  "When you go!" Bentley took a glass from a steward's tray. "The only time you'll leave your blessed boats is when they carry you ashore on a stretcher." He grinned affectionately at his senior.

  "Perhaps," Sainsbury said primly, and sipped at his beer. "A destroyer is a young man's weapon, my boy. I won't be sorry to pick out my chair in Navy Office, sending impossible signals to you bluewater fellows."

  Bentley laughed. "I wish I was as sure about getting back to Sydney as I am that you'll still be in Scimitar when I do."

  "M'mmm,'' said Sainsbury. The subject was purely an academic one. "Speaking of Scimitar... I don't think I should be missed in what promises to be a riotous gathering."

  Bentley jumped instantly and eagerly at the hope of escape. "I'm damned certain they wouldn't miss us," he grinned, and emptied his glass in one long swallow.

  "Us?"

  "Why, of course, sir! The flotilla-leader couldn't possibly leave the flagship unescorted."

  "The flotilla-leader is still capable of climbing up and down ladders by himself."

  "Of course he is! But I'm thinking of the prestige. No, you can't possibly leave alone, sir."

  "You're thinking of my prestige, are you? You're thinking of a drunken New Year's Eve party in your own degenerate wardroom."

  "How did you guess?" Sainsbury found himself answering inwardly that wide grin on his young friend's face. Wind Rode's wardroom would certainly be different to the dining-room they had just left. "Now listen," Bentley went on, his face suddenly eager. "It mightn't be a bad idea if you joined us!"

  A destroyerman is used to snap decisions-and Captain Sainsbury was a very good destroyerman.

  "Let's go," he said, and Bentley tried to keep the pleasure he felt from making him grin like an idiot.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TO THE BUSHIDO FAITH of Captain Yamato, of His Imperial Majesty's Navy, the New Year's Eve festivities of the effete Western Powers meant less than nothing. Captain Yamato had in reality only one faith-in himself and his ability to destroy the enemies threatening the Sacred Islands. And his sole object on this bitter winter's night in Kure was to forge the implement of his faith into a seagoing weapon of enormous destruction as quickly as he possibly could.

  While the bulkhead lights in destroyer Wind Rode's wardroom shone upon a convivial scene of relaxation and pleasure, the shaded arc-lights aboard the battleship Satsuma glared down on scenes of urgent, almost desperate, toil. Yamato stood on his vast reach of quarterdeck and looked with humourless, speculative eyes along her decks.

  She was almost finished structurally now. All the giant guns were in and bedded down on their roller bearings; the magazines, in one of which a small destroyer could almost have fitted, were complete with their bins for the man-high shells and racks for the great bags of cordite; the machinery for hoisting these weights up through the turret trunks to the breeches of the guns was fitted and had been tested.

  Even now, as he looked, a radar aerial above the bridge was turning slowly as the technicians tested its training arc and the bearing indicators. Those radar sets, he knew, would fasten his teeth on to an enemy ship and hold them there until she was riven and sunk. The engines, because of the mass of material which had to be fitted above them on the upper-deck, had gone in as soon as she had slid down the slipways a year before and had been towed to this fitting-out wharf. Now they rested, quiet and huge and powerful, squatting in the vast, dim cavern of the engine-rooms, waiting for the energising thrust of superheated steam.

  Captain Yamato turned from his vision and walked slowly to the end of the quarter-deck. The dark mass of the water was twenty-five feet below him, but he did not look down-his eyes were on the bay, and the point where he knew the open sea began beyond Shikoku Island-where; further south, the battleships of the British and American Navies were flaunting their strength, hurling broadside after broadside on to the beaches and fox-holes of the Japanese-held islands, preparatory to signalling the waves of assault-craft in.

/>   He put his hands out slowly and gripped the cold wire of the top guardrail. Billions of yen and the driven toil of thousands of Japanese workmen had gone into the building of the colossus beneath his feet. She was the embodiment, and the actuality, of the homeland's challenge to those battle-fleets pressing further north, closer to the Sacred Islands. And with her he would smash them back! The German Bismarck had taken on three British battleships before they had driven her under; with him on her bridge. Satsuma would challenge a whole enemy Fleet. It would be the Navy which would hurl back these snapping dogs, and that would be in the correct order of things, because it was only by their Navy that the foreign pigs could hope to reach their ultimate objective.

  But they had to be met and crushed well south, clear of threat to the home islands. And to do that he had to get this monster to sea quickly, before the insidious advance of the enemy reached much further north. He had not the slightest doubt about what his new ship could do once let loose among the enemy fleets-his faith in her was based not merely on her gigantic size but on his years of fighting experience which told him that every detail of her, though enlarged beyond the normal, was structurally sound in theory and practice. He simply believed her to be invincible. There was reason enough for justification of his faith.