J. E. MacDonnell - 012

by Coffin Island(lit)

  But time was of the essence. He turned from his view of the distant cold sea and walked to the gangway.

  "Send the dockyard manager to me," he ordered the seaman on duty.

  New Year's Day was usually one of the hottest of the year in Port Moresby, and the weather saw no reason to change its thermal normalcy because of aching heads aboard a certain Fleet destroyer. Bentley awoke, and even so early felt the mugginess pressing upon him through the sun-heated wails of his cabin. He sat up in his bunk and the pain smashed him; his mouth tasted as if it were lined with postage stamps, and his eyes seemed to be glued over. He laboriously opened them and stumbled out of his bunk to the bathroom.

  It had been a humdinger of a party, and he had a humdinger of a hangover.

  He felt a little better when he came back into the cabin and saw his steward laying out a freshly-ironed pair of shorts and shirt on the bunk.

  "What do you think this is, Banks?" he asked, squinting at him. "The Waldorf Astoria? I'll use yesterday's shorts-they're clean."

  "Yes, sir," Banks answered him, and tried to keep the compassion out of his voice-Bentley looked ghastly. "But you should have a clean outfit on today, sir."

  "Should I now? And why the hell why?"

  "Because, sir," and Banks almost winced at what he was doing to his captain, "today we have an inspection by the admiral."

  "Oh, hell," Bentley groaned, and slumped down on the bed. Bentley was luckier than he deserved-his jinx seemed to have let up a little. The admiral came aboard with his retinue to inspect the new destroyer about which they'd heard so much, and almost his first words to the captain, drawn up stiffly to attention at the gangway to greet him, were:

  "I won't stay long, Bentley. We are sailing at noon." Both his voice and his walk forrard along the upper-deck were abrupt. Magically, Bentley's aching head seemed to ease with the disloyal thought that he would have to entertain his superior a fraction of the time he had allowed for-only Palesy's determination to see this new ship and, if possible, to find fault with it, could have induced him not to cancel the inspection to a more favourable time. With the Fleet sailing on what must be almost a crash run to sea, the admiral's inclinations would keep him on the flagship. And he would get back there as soon as he could.

  Smiling, Bentley quickened his pace a little and said: "These are the torpedo tubes, sir..."

  "I didn't think they were lifeboats," Palesy answered sourly.

  "No, sir, but they're handled by a new method of control. It makes a miss most unlikely if the correct settings are applied."

  "Really? Have they been proved in action?"

  "Er-no, sir. Not yet."

  Palesy walked on. He stopped in front of the ranks of iron-deckmen, whose job it was to look after the ship between the fo'c'sle and the quarterdeck. Some senior officers are big enough men to acknowledge that the dress and bearing of the men they are inspecting could be well-nigh perfect. These seamen were fresh from their leave in Sydney, their clothes were smart and newly ironed, their hair was cut and they looked what they were: first-class sailors, experienced in seamanship and in fighting.

  But Palesy found cause for complaint.

  "That man there," he said, using the peculiarly irritating form of impersonal address hated by self-respecting seamen. "Inform him that the bow of the cap-tally is to be worn over the left ear, not like a high school girl's bow over the left eye."

  "Aye, aye, sir!" said the officer of division smartly and dutifully, and he glared at the hapless sailor in question.

  Palesy saw the look. "The fault is yours," he corrected him acidly, and strode on. The action, Bentley thought, was typical of the man. He had antagonised the men, and he had belittled their officer in front of them. The seaman picked out expected, and knew the reason for, the glare he had received-he wouldn't expect his divisional officer to pat him on the back. It was all in the game-you copped a bottle yourself, and you passed it on to the next unfortunate below you. It was not so much that they resented Palesy's sharp remark to their officer-what they would bridle against was the revelation that this admiral didn't know the game, and the way it was played. He was, therefore, incompetent and humourless.

  "What compartment is this?" Palesy asked, and Bentley ceased his musings. He hid his surprise at the question-the admiral was obviously serious, even though it was just as obvious what the compartment was.

  "This is the laundry and drying-room, sir," Bentley said.

  "Good grief! In a destroyer?" He stared in thinly-veiled disgust at the washing-machine and steam-pipes for drying. "If the rest of the ship's anything like this they might as well have sent me a Chinese scow for all the use you'll be."

  Easy, boy, easy... Bentley said, respectfully: "It's no picnic in a destroyer, sir. I don't think the men will be any softer for a few amenities."

  "As I have noticed before, Bentley, our opinions differ." He had no dining-table audience holding him back now-there was only the necessarily sycophantic flag-lieutenant waiting outside the door. "The provision of a laundry in a fighting ship this size is a fatuous waste of space-a completely unnecessary coddling of seamen. I have seen some evidence of that coddling already."

  Bentley knew what he meant-his arrival ahead of time, the incident of the motorboat. He was about to ask if he should seal the laundry up-and was restrained by the knowledge that Palesy was quite capable of ordering just that.

  "Yes, sir," he contented himself with.

  They came to the transmitting-room, the nerve-centre of all Wind Rode's complicated gunnery and radar control. Here all the information from radar ranging was fed in and then conveyed in simple elements of elevation and training for the guns to hit their target, even though it were fourteen miles away at night or in thick fog.

  Randall had come in with them, being the ship's gunnery-officer, and he stood silent and waiting for any questions just inside the door. Not that Bentley couldn't handle that side of Palesy's inspection- he was qualified at gunnery himself. Then Randall's eyes closed a little in surprise-Bentley was proving it in answer to a question of the admiral's, but proving it in a strange way. Randall made as if to speak, and then he shut his mouth. Bentley should know what he was doing.

  Apparently he did, for Palesy made no comment on what he had told him in answer to a question about a new radar set. Instead, he looked importantly round the mass of equipment, with such a knowing look on his pear-face that very nearly had Randall grinning. There was no officer in Moresby apart from Wind Rode's who understood that transmitting-station. It would have meant no reflection on Palesy to claim ignorance.

  He looked over the bridge, pointed out an insignificant piece of metal with a junction-box numeral on it which had been accidentally painted over, then intimated that the inspection was finished. On the way down to the gangway Bentley realised how lucky he was to get away with it so lightly-only Palesy's shallowly-hid concern with the coming operation had prevented a thorough going-over.

  Bentley was in no case to refuse small mercies, and he respectfully and rigidly saluted his admiral as he stepped over the side and into his big boat. As soon as the shrilling pipes had died away and the boat was well on its way, Bentley turned to Randall and said crisply:

  "All right, Number One, prepare for sea. The cruisers sail at noon-we can expect to get under way before that."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Randall answered formally, and he walked a few paces along the deck with his captain. When they were clear, he said:

  "What the hell was the idea of all that guff you told him about the spotting radar-set? You weren't sharing a joke-with him? If it did all the things you said it could the Japs could fold their tents and crawl away. Eh?"

  Bentley rubbed his mouth, his fingers and thumb making a fork for his curved nose. When he took his hand away there was a slightly bitter smile on his lips.

  "I took a risk," he said, "and it came off. I wanted to see just what he knew-and I found out the coot hasn't even an elementary knowledge of gunnery-radar." />
  "I saw that, too." Randall's voice was still worried. "But what if he asks somebody over there who can put him right? He'll know then you fed him a lot of bull."

  "And if he does? He can't do anything about it without broadcasting that he knew damn-all. And that, friend Palesy will never do. Quick as you can with the securing. I can't afford to have a slip-up on the way out."

  "Anyway, his captain knows a thing or two," Randall solaced himself. "Any idea of what's doing?"

  "Not a clue. A big show, by the look of it. Send Lasenby to me."

  "Right." Randall walked quickly back aft and Bentley more slowly to his cabin. The first lieutenant, who was responsible for securing the ship for sea, sent the bosun's mate with messages to various chief petty-officers, each of whom had a definite and clearly defined part to play in preparing Wind Rode for what might lie ahead of her. The coxswain checked that every man was on board, reported this to Randall, and then checked on his special seadutymen. Smales, the coxswain, the senior man on the lower-deck, would take the wheel and steer her out; the rest of his team comprised the engine-room telegraphmen, and the two seamen who would man her chains either side of the fo'c'sle deck with their long, knotted lead-lines. Wind Rode had plenty of aids to ascertain the depth of any water under her hull, but when entering or leaving harbour, or any confined waters, you had seamen in the chains, electronic age regardless.

  The main job of readying her fell on Hooky Walker, chief bosun's mate and next to Smales in seniority. Through his captains of tops, petty-officers in charge of the three parts into which the upper-deck was divided, Hooky was responsible for a multitude of things, including hoisting and turning inboard of all boats, closing of watertight doors and scuttles, checking all guardrails were tight, all wires oiled and reeled-up, and finally the hoisting of the anchor.

  This operation was under the immediate supervision of the captain of the fo'c'sle, Petty-officer Gellaty, who cleared away ready for heaving-in. Then, with the appearance of the cable officer, the heavy anchor chain would be hauled in until the first shackle was on the waterline. It would then take only a few turns of the cable-holder to break anchor clear of the coral sand and Wind Rode would be under way.

  Almost identical procedure was being implemented in every ship of the Fleet-the eight destroyers and three cruisers. Only one of these last was Australian-the other two were British. Bentley was looking at them through his porthole, watching, with the familiar tensing in his guts, the big ships test their guns' training and elevation, the barrels weaving up and down, to right and left, and then shrugging to a stop in the fore and aft position. It looked like a big job. A knock sounded on the door.

  Bentley pulled away from the scuttle, and at once his steward came from the bathroom and swung the heavy glass shut. Bentley called "Come in," and was sitting at his desk when Mr. Lasenby, the commissioned-gunner, opened the door and stepped in and over the coaming. Lasenby was tall and lean and fair-headed, and, like most men who had pulled themselves up from the lower-deck, as keen as salt.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Sit down, Guns," Bentley smiled, and offered him a cigarette. This officer was up in the director when Wind Rode bared her claws, and on him more than any other man except the captain depended the safety of the ship. Lasenby controlled her main-armament firing.

  Bentley lit his cigarette from the gunner's lighter and leaned back, hitching one leg up to rest an arm on his knee.

  "It looks like something big, Guns." Bentley paused, then took a stab at it-a captain had always to be thinking of things like this: if he were wrong, it wouldn't matter much, but if he were proved right in his assumption his stocks would go up just that much towards building a figure in whom every man of the crew had implicit faith. "I want direct-action shell ready to be sent up-plenty of it."

  Lasenby was watching with interest.

  "Bombardment, sir?"

  Bentley barely hesitated. He had worked it out-if there were some action going on out there, and this Fleet's help was required, they would be scuttling out to sea as fast as their anchors would let them. But it was a job in which there was time to organise and yet a job big enough to require every ship available. And that, to him, meant a bombardment, softening-up an island for the assault forces.

  "Yes," he said. "There have been no signals yet, but I want the ship prepared for bombardment. Give the control team a quick run-through on the drill."

  He nodded, and the gunner stood up. He looked out through the glass of the porthole, to where the harbour was dancing and shimmering in the sun.

  "Looks like clouds over the Rising Sun," he muttered.

  "I hope so," Bentley grunted, and turned to his desk.

  The destroyer flotilla was outside, sniffing like hungry otters in a pool of fish for any sneaking subsurface hull which might be tempted by this juicy array. On the bridge Bentley looked back to the harbour. The big cruisers were coming out now, tall-masted, heavily gunned, speedy. Each ship mounted eight 8-inch guns, each gun capable of firing seven 256-lb. shells a minute-that meant something like 20 tons of steel and explosive flung at a beach every minute, with the three ships firing in controlled broadsides. And that estimate did not include the hefty tonnage the eight destroyers could put down with their 4.7-inch quick-firers.

  The cruisers came out slowly and majestically through the wave-washed gap in the reef. Thrown out well ahead in a spear-shaped V, the destroyers led the way, each ship's asdic beam arc just overlapping the one abeam. The formation was fast, compact and purposeful. Almost a dozen ships welded together into a disciplined fighting unit of proved efficiency.

  The day was beautiful and the sea smooth. The Fleet moved calmly and steadily on to the westward-some of them descendants of the ships that long ago defeated the Great Armada, some of them bearing the same names. Suddenly Bentley felt very much easier about the war. This mainly-British force had such a glorious tradition of victory. And it had dealt with much bigger and more experienced foes than this one snarling at it today.

  They steamed on, and still they did not know their destination. That was bad, Bentley knew-it was important that every man who was going to fight should know as soon as possible what he was attacking, and where. It killed rumour, and it crystallised his efforts.

  It was nearly two o'clock before the general signal flashed from the flagship. This was it! Bentley and Randall were on the bridge with Lasenby officer of the watch. They waited with concealed impatience while the yeoman read the fast-flashing signal. His face impassive as usual, he brought it over. Randall could not wait for his captain to finish-he read it beside him. The signal was a long one, and told them that they were to bombard one of the Aru Islands, about 500 miles off the west New Guinea coast in the Banda Sea. That was all right; the signal Was concise, terse. But then, at the end, it flowered.

  "Our job," Rear-Admiral Palesy informed this experienced Fleet, "is to kill, kill-kill the Jap!"

  Bentley flicked his eyes sideways to Randall, but he did not speak. Lasenby took the signal and read it quickly. Now how the hell did he know we were going to bombard? he thought, and he handed the signal back to Bentley with respect in his look. Bentley said to the yeoman:

  "Have this copied and put up on all notice-boards." He hesitated only a moment-the yeoman was a petty-officer, a staid hand. "Delete the bit about killing Japs," he ended.

  The yeoman said, "Aye, aye, sir," his face unchanged. But when he got to the chart-table, and was scoring out the fervid and unnecessary words, this man who could receive, without batting an eyelid, a signal that there was a shoal of torpedoes heading for them, allowed himself the briefest of smiles.

  "So it's the Arus," Randall mused. "I didn't even know the Nips had landed."

  "Don't you read the newspapers?" Bentley grinned. The advice of editorial experts on how the war should be handled was a standing joke among the men who were fighting it. He said, seriously:

  "I'd say the Arus are meant to be a stepping-off place for an attack on t
he Celebes, or the Halmaheras, further west. The Japs will know that, and they'll react accordingly."

  "It could be a hot old time, Randall grinned.

  "It could be." He turned to the gunner. "Pipe main-armament control parties to close-up," he ordered.

  America had recovered from the savage blow to her complacency and national pride at Pearl Harbour; Uncle Sam had girded his loins and flexed his industrial muscles, and now the results were pouring westward across the Pacific in growing streams-Liberty ships with supplies and ammunition, transports packed to the rails with men, assault craft to land them, warships like locusts and aircraft to sweep the skies above the invasion beaches clear.

  They came up with the invasion force shortly after dawn on the third day-long lines of transports marching over the curve of the sea, three abreast, shepherded by destroyers and cruisers, but all these wearing the stars and stripes of the U.S. Navy. The British Fleet dropped their guardrails down. This simple operation gave a peculiar look of speed, and efficiency, and readiness to the ships; that look of "cleared for action".