All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3

by Alexander Fullerton

  Houston had extricated herself from the scrum: she’d opened fire again. Sloan, Jim Jordan’s ship, was one of those laying smoke.

  “Steady!”

  “Steady, sir … Two-six-five, sir.”

  “Steer that.”

  It would be suffocating in the wheelhouse. The heat came out of the voicepipe in a stream you could have smoked a herring in. Flagship going round to port …

  “Destroyers attacking from ahead, sir!”

  Chevening had that report from Greenleaf in the tower. It might account for the flagship’s sharp swing away: Doorman would be turning so as to bring his guns to bear. There were ships all over the place: Houston still firing steadily but Exeter right out of it, away off on the quarter and wreathed in smoke, destroyers standing by her. He stooped to the voicepipe: “Port fifteen.” It was necessary to cut the revs too, so as to drop back and let Houston get in astern of de Ruyter. Enemy shells fell in a clump to starboard; Houston was shooting over her port quarter as she came up into the re-forming line. Chevening put a hand over the mouthpiece of the DCT telephone: “PCO requests permission to engage destroyers on bearing 330, sir!”

  A glance checked that bearing. “Open fire.” Into the voicepipe: “Midships.”

  “Midships, sir … Wheel’s amidships, sir!”

  Defiant’s guns let rip, over her quarter. Perth edging in astern of the American. Exeter was under way again, steering southeast with a Dutch destroyer making smoke astern of her. Nick called down for increased revs, to maintain station now on Perth: the Australian had opened fire, joining Defiant in discouraging the Jap destroyer attack. Java was in action too. Chevening reported, “Enemy destroyers have turned away, sir.” They were still being shot at, anyway, but if they’d turned away you could bet they’d have fired their torpedoes on the swing. He was thinking that, and looking round at the positions of other ships, when he saw a torpedo hit a Dutch destroyer out on Defiant’s beam. A column of dirty water shot up over her, then smoke rose in a cloud to hide her. He heard the boom of it, and when the smoke dissipated he saw she’d gone. A Jap salvo fell short of Houston: the course was northeast now, Doorman leading his surviving cruisers across the line of Exeter’s retreat. Destroyers were still laying smoke, but only Houston was firing. Chevening told Nick, “PCO reports destroyer targets obscured, sir.” And CPO Howell reported from the W/T office telephone, “The admiral’s ordered our three destroyers to attack with torpedoes, sir.”

  The three British destroyers were Encounter, Electra and Jupiter. But they were widely dispersed: one a long way off on the beam, one moving over to look for survivors from the torpedoed Dutchman, and one close astern. All three were turning now, bow-waves lifting and foam piling under their sterns as they built up speed to obey Doorman’s order. Widely spaced as they were, though, the attack would amount to three individual charges, which was not at all a realistic destroyer tactic. Doorman should have given them time to concentrate and make a coordinated attack. Nick thought, knowing precisely as a destroyer man himself how it would be for them, He’s throwing them away …

  Exeter was well clear now, retiring at half speed on a course that would take her to Surabaya, with one Dutch destroyer to keep her company. With her departure the odds had worsened: in the long-range fight it was now one—Houston—against two.

  The Jap commander seemed no keener to get to grips than Doorman was. He’d be thinking about his convoy of troop transports, of course: his job first and foremost was to protect them, get them to the Java coast and see they got their troops ashore. If he lost his cruisers he’d lose the convoy too: so his plan would be to hold Doorman off, damage him if possible but only at minimal risk to his own ships. While Doorman’s thoughts would also be concentrated on the need to destroy that convoy; and he could only achieve it by remaining afloat and intact, so he wasn’t keen to take risks either. On the other hand this so-called Striking Force didn’t have the speed to get round the enemy and find the convoy: the speed advantage was on the Japs’ side, not Doorman’s.

  Doorman should have split his force, and gone for bust. He’d had no luck for the simple reason that he’d taken no chances. On the other hand, it would be starting to get dark, before long: in the dark, if he got lucky and really chanced his arm, it might just be possible to slip past these Japs, find the transports.

  “Pilot. Ask—”

  An explosion, some distance astern. Nick’s first thought was for Java, but it was farther away than that. Chevening had the DCT telephone at his ear: nose like a marline spike under the tin hat’s rim as he looked downwards, listening. Now he’d pushed the telephone back on to its hook. He told Nick, “Electra’s sunk, sir. The other two are rejoining.”

  And Doorman was turning to starboard: leading them southward, maintaining his distance from the enemy. Nick thought, Turn towards the bastards, not away. Go in and support those poor bloody destroyers. He thought it during one slow blink. With his eyes open again and no emotion showing in his face he told Chevening, “You’d better check on how the plot’s going, pilot. Put on a good DR while you’re about it.” He looked at Gant. “Keep an ear open to the tower meanwhile, Bob?”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  CPO Howell reported, “Admiral’s ordered the American destroyers to attack, sir!”

  Houston ripped out a broadside, thunderous over her quarter and some of the blast-effect coming back along the line of cruisers. She’d been in action for the best part of two hours now and her ammunition was likely to be getting low. A messenger standing near the W/T telephone jumped to it as it buzzed. He answered “Bridge!” Listening, he glanced round as the chief yeoman moved towards him asking, “What’s it about, then?” The messenger said into the telephone, “Aye aye.” He reported, “Orders to the American destroyers cancelled, sir. They’ve been told to lay smoke instead.”

  Now it was dark and they’d lost contact with the enemy. The cruisers were following their Dutch admiral northwestward. Doorman had turned east under cover of the smoke-screen, and after about five miles he’d led them round to port, back up towards where the enemy had been—but almost certainly would not be now.

  Hoping to slip past them, probably, and find the important target, the troop convoy.

  At seven Nick handed over the conning of the ship to Chevening; he checked the plot and the latest signals, and then settled down on his high seat. Doorman, he thought, could only be looking for the troopers now: but the same thing would be equally obvious to the Jap admiral. The convoy wouldn’t be in easy reach and it wouldn’t be unprotected either.

  Houston had reported that she had very little ammunition left.

  Gladwill asked him, “Tea, sir? Coffee? Kye?”

  “Coffee, please.” Gladwill made excellent coffee. Bob Gant came back. You could smell him—or rather his pipe—before you saw or heard him. Nick called after Gladwill, “And a cup for the commander, too.”

  “Much obliged, sir … Any idea what we’re up to now?”

  “Looking for the invasion convoy, I imagine. Trusting to luck.”

  “We might be about due for some, at that.”

  They’d certainly achieved nothing yet, beyond delaying the assault on eastern Java. It could only be a temporary delay, with a weak force trying to impede a strong one, which was the situation here. Before long Java would be attacked and occupied. Any Allied ships still afloat by that time would have no base or fuelling facility, or much prospect of escape. The Java Sea would have become a Japanese lake entirely surrounded by Jap bases in Jap-occupied territory.

  “Flagship’s going round to starboard, sir!”

  The report came from Swanson, the torpedo officer. He’d settled himself in the starboard for’ard corner of the bridge, as an extra lookout.

  “Your coffee, sir.”

  “Put it down there, would you?” He had his glasses on the ships ahead. He called over his shoulder to Chevening, “Follow round, pilot.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  No d
ifficulty in following, in the phosphorescent wakes. Doorman brought them round to a course just south of east, reckoning, Nick supposed, that he’d come far enough north to have by-passed the enemy cruisers and that a cast to the east might bring him up against the convoy which could have been disposed a few miles astern of them.

  Could have. Could have been any damn place at all. Could have been on the Java coast by now. You could be sorry for Doorman. In Doorman’s boots you might well be sorry for yourself.

  An hour felt like two hours, dragging by.

  “Captain, sir?”

  Schooly, up from the plot with a decoded signal. Nick heard the voice of Leading Seaman Williams reporting up the voicepipe to Chevening that the ship was steady on the course he’d ordered. Williams would have been giving the chief quartermaster frequent spells on the wheel down there: at least that little oven of a wheelhouse would be cooling off by this time … He told Hobbs, “Read it to us, will you?”

  To himself and Gant, he meant. He didn’t want to spoil his night vision by going to the chart table with it. Hobbs said quietly, “It’s a Most Immediate, sir, to the effect that the enemy has reinforced his eastern assault force. Cruiser and destroyer reinforcements, it says, but no details other than that.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  The Japanese eastern assault force was the group this force had been sparring with. Nothing was getting any better.

  Darkness like warm velvet. The ship’s rattles, her engines’ thrumming, the rush of sea along her sides and wind-noise in stays and shrouds, voices night-quiet at the back of the bridge where lookouts were being changed. It was a familiar backing to one’s thoughts, to the hours of waiting and expectancy and the tension that ran through them, in your nerves and brain. It had always been like this but tonight there was more, there was a feeling of being trapped, an instinct that if the night lasted long enough to end as all the other nights had done—with daylight—then the bars of the trap would be plain to see, whichever way you looked … He caught a whiff of pipe-smoke: Gant was still near him, propped against the side of the bridge with binoculars at his eyes. Nick asked him, “If you were in Doorman’s place, Bob, what would you be doing?”

  “The answer’s rather vulgar, sir.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Well.” Gant moved closer, and answered in a murmur that only Nick could have heard. He said, “I’d make a dash for Surabaya, fill up with oil, then go flat-out for the Sunda Strait. Hoping to get through before they block it. Sunda or Lombok.”

  It was a programme that might be hard to fault, Nick thought. But it was also, for the time being, impractical; while at any later time—as Gant had rightly pointed out—it would be impossible. He said, “Doorman can’t do it, unfortunately. He’s a Dutchman, and the Dutch have said they’ll defend Java to the last man.”

  “Just our luck, sir, isn’t it?”

  “Aircraft over us, sir!”

  He’d heard it too, that throbbing engine sound. Then a flare broke overhead, a sudden glimmer that expanded to flood the sea and the ships on it with blindingly white light.

  He had the DCT telephone in his hand and he was asking Greenleaf whether he could see anything from up there. The thought in his mind being that the ships from which the flare-dropper was operating might be close at hand.

  “Horizon’s clear, sir.”

  The engine drone faded. But the pilot would be using his radio, triumphantly telling his master, the Jap admiral, what he’d found and where. Nick wished to God he had RDF in Defiant. Even destroyers were getting sets now. Defiant was well overdue for refit: if her docking hadn’t been delayed she’d have been fitted with one by this time. All new-building and refitting ships were getting it. The Americans called it “Radar.”

  Moonrise would be in about an hour. Well—an hour and a half … But if that flyer could keep them marked with occasional flares till then, they’d be tracked right through the night.

  Perth, ahead, ploughed on, floodlit. Houston, gleaming as if she had snow on her decks but with a slant of black shadow across her afterpart as the flare drifted lower on the bow and silhouetted her, blocked any sight of the flagship beyond her. Java’s bow-on shape, astern, was low and solid-looking. He could see two of the American destroyers: there were two on each quarter and one right astern, and the two surviving British ones were out ahead.

  The flare dwindled like fading candle-light as it approached the sea; then it was out and you were blind, night vision lost. You could as well have had your head in a bucket.

  “Can’t hear it now. Can you, Bob?”

  Gant was back from the after end of the bridge, where he’d been exhorting the lookouts to greater efforts. He paused, listening … Then he nodded. “I’m afraid I can, sir.”

  Nothing anyone could do about it. That was the worst, the sense of impotence. Having located them, it was possible that the Jap airman would be able to see the ships’ phosphorescent wakes and have no need of more flares. In any case he’d have counted and classified the ships, reported their course and speed. It was like being blindfolded in a room full of clear-sighted enemies.

  “Can’t hear it now, sir.”

  “Flagship’s altering to starboard!”

  Chevening had seen it, from the far side of the bridge, and he was telling Rowley, the first lieutenant, who’d taken over from him at the binnacle. Chevening had been down in the plot for the last half-hour. Nick put his glasses up again, watched de Ruyter’s black profile growing as she swung out.

  “How far have we run east, pilot?”

  “Ten miles, sir.”

  Doorman might be hoping to get lost again, while the Jap airman wasn’t looking. Houston turning now: the flagship had steadied on a southerly course. Nick asked Chevening, “How far are we now from the Surabaya Strait?”

  “Forty miles, sir.”

  Two hours’ run, say. But they were about to steer south, and the course for Surabaya would be more like southeast. The enemy troop convoy and the augmented cruiser force covering it could be north, south, east or west by this time: but the Jap admiral knew precisely where this squadron was. He could keep his transports well out of the way, and send his cruisers hunting—probably in more than one pack, now he had more of them. Nick thought again that he didn’t envy Rear-Admiral Doorman his job.

  Perth was in her turn, and Rowley would be putting Defiant’s helm over in a minute. The two American destroyers on the port quarter would be increasing speed, and the pair to starboard slowing, in order to maintain station through the turn. Doorman would have passed an alter-course signal by light, probably, to Jupiter and Encounter ahead of him.

  Behind him, Nick heard Rowley’s low-voiced order, “Starboard fifteen.” And then, sickeningly, the drone of an aircraft engine. Defiant was heeling to her rudder when the flare broke, high up and ahead.

  Bob Gant said, “Suppose our best hope’s for the bugger to run out of petrol.”

  But if he did, Nick thought, there’d be another to take his place. And for that matter, what about these destroyers running out of fuel?

  Cat and mouse: a seedy mouse, and a cat that knew exactly what it was doing.

  At 9 PM, five miles off the Java coast, Doorman led them round to starboard: westward. At the same time he detached the American destroyers with orders to put in to Surabaya. Sloan had reported engine defects from a near-miss, and they were all dangerously short of oil. The Combined Striking Force now had only two destroyers, the British pair.

  There’d been no flares dropped, and no sound of aircraft, since about 8:30. With any luck that snooper had been forced to go home and refuel, and it was just possible he’d have thought they were retiring to Surabaya. Doorman, Nick guessed, would be hoping for just that.

  “Kye, sir?”

  Petty Officer Ruddle, yeoman of signals, was offering him a mug of cocoa. “Compliments of the communications department, sir.”

  “Thank you, yeoman.”

  It was thick, strong,
sweet and hot. Thick enough to make one suspect there’d been a little custard powder mixed into the paste of cocoa, condensed milk and sugar. It was an old sailor’s trick, aimed at producing a mug in which a spoon would stand vertically without support. The matelot’s ideal “kye” would also be laced with rum: this brew was non-alcoholic, but in all other respects distinctly Cordon Bleu.

  “You wouldn’t get kye like this at the Savoy, yeoman.”

  “Ah—thank you, sir!”

  This very night there’d be people dining and dancing at the Savoy. It was a peculiar thought, from here in the Java Sea and at this moment. He found a picture suddenly in his mind of Fiona, Fiona dancing in the arms of—he asked himself, angered by the quick flare of jealousy which was quite irrational, Why shouldn’t she dance with anyone she pleases?

  She always had gone out with anyone she wanted to go out with. She’d never made any bones about it; since her rich and much older husband had died and thus released her from a marriage in which she’d felt trapped and miserable, she hadn’t wanted or pretended to be a one-man girl. It had suited him well enough, for a time. Then, about a year ago, or a bit more than that, both his and her feelings had begun to change: hers had changed, for instance, to the extent that dancing and dining was about all she would do, with other men. At least, this was what she’d implied, what he thought she’d implied … But in black and white, he’d committed himself, and she hadn’t—not as unequivocally as he had. There’d been one letter which as he remembered it could have been taken for commitment. But it could have been interpreted less positively too—knowing Fiona, and not having the letter now to look at again and reassess. He didn’t have it because it had gone down in his destroyer Tuareg, halfway between Malta and Alexandria.