He tried to speak to her. ‘Just got something to do, darling Sue.’ He could barely see through the blur of pain and emotion. ‘Then I’m taking you home!’
As he flashed over the narrow hull he saw all the faces peering up at him, knew who they were.
He saw, too, the unfamiliar battle ensigns flying from the old destroyer’s gaff and yard.
He picked up the girl’s hat with its blue badge. There was even blood on that.
‘Just so they’ll know, Sue. Nothing can part us!’
The hat was plucked from his fingers, then he shut the window.
The port engine was coughing badly, but they would make it.
There were more anchored ships and burned-out hulks now, and he dived steeply to weave amongst them as tracer lifted past him, bright green, deadly.
Then he saw the ships, two of them, destroyers, in line ahead as they headed for the open sea. After the kill. But first they would have to deal with the little Serpent.
‘And us, you bastards!’
He clutched her small hand on his leg. It was warm, as if she was still alive.
The first bullets hit the seaplane, and Calvert knew he had been badly wounded although he could feel nothing.
Then there was nothing.
‘Char, sir.’
Brooke straightened up in his chair and reached out for the mug in the darkness. He felt stiff and cold. Empty.
As his senses returned he glanced around the bridge. The ship had been at Defence Stations since leaving Aberdeen but with all the short-range weapons closed up.
Like Trafalgar, he thought dully, food and clean clothes before the battle.
Serpent had left harbour soon after Islip. He had dared not risk remaining at anchor once the reports of possible landings had first been received and later confirmed.
It had been a sad moment when the Islip had finally cast off. They had all been shocked to see the damage she had received from enemy bombers when she had stopped to try and pick up survivors from the torpedoed Dumbarton. There had been very few. Stallybrass had not been one of them.
One bomb had exploded right alongside the Islip; another had hit the forecastle. The explosions and the hail of splinters had put both forward guns out of action and had killed twenty men and wounded others. Her captain, the ebullient Ralph Tufnell, had been killed outright and his first lieutenant had taken over.
But her engine room was undamaged and she still had her radar and anti-aircraft weapons intact.
Brooke had been aboard just once to wish them luck and to give them some charts. Many of theirs had been destroyed in the attack.
He had seen Lian only once more. With other women she had been with sailors who were issuing life-jackets and steel helmets. She had watched him through a clamped scuttle, and had placed her palm flat against the thick glass until he covered it with his own. Then she had been moved away, and a seaman had slammed down the steel deadlight even as orders were given to get under way.
Islip had soon been lost in darkness. Granville had assured him that an escort would be ready to see the ship to safety for the last part of the journey. South, all the way to Batavia in Java, two thousand two hundred miles. Islip could do it in three days, and would be with the Australian escorts before that.
But there had been a signal too. Enemy destroyers were reported to be moving from the east. Two in number, the intelligence report had stated. One was said to be a big Asasio Class, the other one much smaller. There might as well have been a whole fleet. The Asasio Class carried six five-inch guns and eight torpedo tubes. If Serpent could not delay them, Islip’s small lead would prove useless.
He thought of Calvert and wondered what he would do. He had been stunned when he had been told about Sue Yorke refusing to sail with Islip. Our Wren.
Brooke glanced at the hooded chart table, remembering Calvert and his girl. They were going to be married, he had said.
He had told his men what they might expect. Earlier they had all seen the old destroyer Thracian, very similar to their own ship but cut down and less well armed, leave Aberdeen under power. She had been severely damaged when chasing junks packed with Japanese troops who had been attempting an early landing. She had destroyed the junks, but had smashed her hull by striking some rocks. Stripped of her weapons and stores she had sailed out of Aberdeen and had been run aground on a small island and abandoned. It had been a sad sight, and a bitter moment for her company. Her fate seemed to have made Serpent’s people even more determined. Perhaps resigned.
The one light moment had been when Kipling and the Sub had appeared on the dockside, filthy but managing to grin and wave before climbing aboard. Within seconds their Royal Enfield motor-bike had vanished, taken by somebody who still nursed some hope of escape.
Before leaving Serpent Granville had told Brooke that Sir Mark Young, the governor of Hong Kong, had made another plea for help to London, explaining that they could not hope to continue resistance once the enemy had landed on the island. Churchill’s reply had been adamant: resistance would be maintained, so that the enemy should be compelled to expend the utmost life and equipment.
With the Japanese on North Point, they could bombard the naval dockyard from the high ground and join the battery at Kowloon in a murderous crossfire.
Kerr came up from the chart table and took a mug of hot tea. He was a good watchkeeping officer, but it seemed wrong not to see Calvert there.
‘Be getting light soon, sir.’
‘Yes.’ Brooke could picture his little ship as if he was a sea bird on the wing. She was steering very slowly to the north-west of Lamma Island. The sea seemed black and vast but in an hour they would sight Hong Kong island again, even Aberdeen, which they had left in the half-light. It was all he could do. It was shallow, not deep enough for a big destroyer to act stupidly. Once within range of the enemy they would attack with torpedoes. They would fire all four of them – the Gunner (T)’s big moment, and he had gathered all his crew of torpedomen for a last instruction. The torpedo tubes had no protection. It would have to be fast. The Chief knew. They all knew what to expect.
They had two extra hands for Damage Control if nothing else, Royal Marine bandsmen, one injured in the leg by a bomb splinter. They had been trying to reach Islip before she sailed. Exhausted and almost delirious when they had seen the White Ensign above Serpent’s deck, they had described the scenes of horror when they had slipped past Jap patrols to reach Aberdeen.
Corpses lay everywhere and much of the city was ablaze. The Japanese were in a frenzy, the corporal had said, shooting, bayoneting and beheading soldiers and civilians alike. Even if Serpent was sunk in this coming fight Brooke knew the two marines wanted to be here with faces and voices they trusted.
Kerr said, ‘All depth charges were set to safe and jettisoned.’ He forced a smile. ‘The Cox’n says the loss of weight makes the old girl as light as a feather!’
Better to lose the charges than to have the stern blown off by an enemy shell.
Brooke looked at his shadow against the pale paintwork. Was it lighter already? He took his time to think. Am I afraid of what will happen?
He felt in his pocket and touched Calvert’s Victoria Cross, which Bert Kingsmill had discovered in a drawer when he had been securing the cabins.
‘Didn’t seem right to leave it there, sir!’ He had been very concerned. Brooke found he was relaxing slowly. It would not be much safer here, he thought.
‘Number One, you know what to do if anything goes wrong up here?’
He heard Kerr swallow hard. ‘Yes, sir. Fight the ship.’
He touched his arm. ‘Remember the motto. Deadly to Foes.’
He saw a glint of water. The moment before dawn. What would the light reveal?
Kerr held his watch to his face. ‘Time, sir.’
‘Thanks, Dick.’ He felt Kerr staring at him. ‘Go round the ship. Action Stations by word of mouth. This is a time for preparation, not panic. Let them see you about.’
We have all changed. From what Kipling had told him, the haughty sub-lieutenant had changed most of all.
‘Cox’n on the wheel, sir. Course zero-two-zero, both engines at seven-zero.’
Brooke stood up and gripped the back of his chair. He could feel the vibrations coursing through it, up his arms, into his body. They were as one.
‘Ship at Action Stations, sir.’ Kipling sounded calm. Then he said, ‘I hope Toby’s all right.’
Onslow was speaking softly to his signalmen, and looked over as Brooke said, ‘Battle Ensigns – what d’you think, Yeo?’
‘Hear that, lads. Off you go, chop-chop!’ To Brooke he said, ‘Make a picture, she will!’
Brooke thought of his father. Now he would never hear about it.
It was much brighter and he could smell smoke drifting on the breeze. Soon they would sight land.
‘Ship, sir! Port bow!’
Brooke lowered his powerful glasses. It was a tall, stately junk moving purposefully under its strange bat-like sails. Standing away. Leaving their homes behind. Like Serpent’s own company, a ship was life itself. The land was the enemy this time.
There was gunfire again, a merciless bombardment on people who could not hit back. There were fires too, spurts of flame and glowing sparks as shells fell somewhere in the centre of the island. Men fighting house to house, room to room, grenade, rifle and bayonet, until there was nothing left to fight with.
The smoke tasted bitter, foul. An empty hull drifted abeam – abandoned, its crew killed, who could tell?
Here was the sea. He watched it reaching out from the ship as the daylight forced its way through the pall of smoke.
Kerr was back again, his eyes everywhere. ‘There’s land, sir. Lamma Island, starboard bow. Not long now.’ There was neither hope nor dread in his voice.
The sun was coming up at last. Red and orange, like the flames below it. The forecastle and four-inch gun with its crouching crew, like monks in their anti-flash gear, the breech already loaded, a seaman gunner waiting with the next shell in his gloved hands.
Brooke picked up the red telephone and heard the Chief’s instant acknowledgement.
‘Approaching the channel, Chief. One hand for the King, eh?’
He could picture him smiling at the old naval joke, then repeating it to his stokers and artificers. Lip-reading was all that counted down there.
Brooke opened his shirt and knew Kipling was watching him as he felt the gold medallion between his fingers.
He stared again. Daylight. A curtain going up. He raised his glasses again and studied the littered vessels that lay outside Aberdeen some three miles away. The smoke was terrible in its depth and intensity, covering the heights and rising unhurriedly towards the sky.
‘Aircraft, sir!’
‘Stand by all guns!’ That was Barrington-Purvis, clipped and precise.
Brooke listened to the distorted growl of engines. It was there somewhere. Out to starboard, perhaps from Repulse Bay.
Kerr exclaimed, ‘That’s no fighter, sir!’ He looked wildly at the others. ‘D’you think it’s him? Toby?’
‘Aircraft at Green eight-zero, sir!’ The look-out sounded dazed. ‘No angle of sight. She’s almost in the drink!’
Brooke steadied his glasses and felt a lump in his throat as the dark seaplane darted past an abandoned freighter and then turned towards him.
Kerr shouted, ‘Tell the Buffer to prepare a net!’ He waved his cap above his head. ‘He made it! I’ll bet he’s got our Wren with him!’
Brooke snapped, ‘Belay that order!’ He moved his glasses with great care while the ship lifted and dipped gently beneath him.
It was all suddenly stark and clear. The holes, silver bright, punched along the side and through one wing. There was smoke too from one of the engines.
Men were cheering and waving as the seaplane lifted over the ship where the battle ensigns looked so clean against the sky. Just as quickly the cheers died while men peered at the damage, the fact that only one face showed in the cockpit. Brooke saw Calvert’s arm, the light glinting on the unfamiliar sight of his best uniform while he waved to the ship. To me.
Something flew from his hand and, once clear of the slipstream, began to float down to the sea.
Her hat. She was with him. Now he had nothing to live for.
The seaplane reeled away again and ten seconds later the gunnery speaker barked, ‘Ship! Bearing Green one-three-oh! Range four thousand yards!’
Brooke climbed into his chair. Serpent’s three guns, puny compared with the enemy, were already swinging on to the bearing. A-Gun, directly below the bridge, was trained round as far as it would bear.
He said, ‘Full ahead!’ He thought of Podger Barlow with his beloved torpedoes. If a shell landed before he could fire them the ship would be torn apart.
He felt the pressure of the chair in his back, the rising bank of surging crests spreading away from either bow.
They will think we’re running to take cover from the land. They must.
He saw the blink of gunfire and heard the shriek of a shell overhead.
‘Starboard ten – Steady! Steer zero-six-zero.’ It would be murder for the torpedomen. Until Serpent made her turn at speed, they had their backs to the enemy.
Two more shells exploded in the sea, one of them throwing up a tall column like a spear of ice. Splinters cracked into the hull.
Kerr shouted, ‘The small destroyer is leading, sir!’
Brooke tried to lick his lips. They were like dust.
A gong rang tinnily and from his control position Barrington-Purvis snapped, ‘Open fire!’
The deck shook to the three sharp explosions, but there was so much smoke in the channel that they could have fallen anywhere.
‘Aircraft, sir!’ It was almost a scream, then the look-out fell silent as the seaplane came round the side of an anchored freighter. It was so low it seemed to be skating on the water. Brooke stared with disbelief, but the understanding hit him like a fist as he yelled, ‘Hard a-starboard! Engage with torpedoes!’
He did not wait to see them fire but staggered up the deck as the wheel went hard over and Serpent pirouetted round to drag the leading destroyer across Podger Barlow’s sights. Brooke’s eyes were fixed on the dark seaplane. He knew it was being hit again and again as it dived, then clawed upwards, then, at the apex of the last climb, he saw smoke streaming from beneath the cockpit and one of the floats spinning away.
He heard himself say brokenly, ‘You damned, idiotic, brave fool, Toby!’
The destroyer was swinging round, presenting her whole length as the plunging seaplane exploded like a bomb on her open bridge. Flames were bursting from everywhere, tiny figures stampeding from what they probably thought was a loaded bomber.
The leading destroyer was turning as well. Three of Barlow’s torpedoes missed, one exploding nearby against some rocks. The remaining torpedo hit the small destroyer on the port side, and a column of water shot from the explosion although there was barely any noise. A pall of steam hung above the stricken ship, and she had already begun to heel over.
The Chief would hear it, feel it. It was the enemy’s engine or boiler-room where the torpedo had burst in on them.
Brooke heard Barrington-Purvis calling through his speaker, ‘I hope they fry, the bastards!’ It sounded as if he was sobbing.
Brooke clung to his chair and stared with surprise at a deep cut on his wrist.
He managed to gasp, ‘Report damage and casualties, Dick!’ Someone was bandaging his injury: another yelled wildly, ‘The big feller’s aground!’ Men who had expected to die and had accepted it whooped and clasped one another like lunatics.
Even Kipling was staring at him with such emotion that he only got
out a brief answer. ‘You are our only casualty, sir!’
They helped Brooke back into the chair. He said, ‘Bring her round, Number One.’ His voice was flat, formal. ‘We’re going after Islip.’
Kerr wiped his face and eyes with his cuff but could not look away from his captain, as he reached into his pocket and took out the prized medal. For Valour.
Then Brooke stood up and clung to the screen as the screws brought the ship charging round on to her new course.
He did not salute, but removed his cap while he watched the writhing pall of smoke pouring from the grounded destroyer.
‘Thanks, Pilot. For Valour. They don’t know the bloody half of it.’
By sunset they had still not been attacked from the sea or from the air. But Serpent kept her ensigns flying. She was old, but she was still a destroyer, and would be ready to fight again, torpedoes or not.
Two days later, watching and waiting while they headed south stripped of Barlow’s tin fish and all their depth charges, Brooke called his officers to the bridge. They were tired and unshaven, at their stations day and night. Tea, rum and tinned sausages; but as the miles mounted astern there were no moans from even the biggest grouser.
‘All present, sir.’ Kerr could not help it, as his eyes moved to the chart table, ‘Except one.’
Brooke stared at him. Not now. Not now, for God’s sake! That’s all it needs.
He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve had a signal.’ He saw their eyes move from his face to the flimsy in his hand and was grateful. ‘H.M.S. Islip will enter harbour with her escorts later today. There were no incidents.’
They should be cheering. They had done it. She was safe. But they knew there was more to come.
He looked at their tired, strained faces. After this they might be separated. Sent to other ships as was the navy’s way. He knew that they would not want to leave despite all that had been said. There could never be another Serpent, as his father had told him.
He cleared his throat. ‘I have to tell you that Hong Kong has surrendered. The Admiralty has stated that all transmissions from Hong Kong Radio have ceased.’
He looked away at the wake streaming astern in a white, rulerstraight line.
Sunset Page 29