“Steady, sir. Oh-six-oh, sir.”
“Steer that.” He was using this telephone, not a voicepipe, because the wheelhouse was out of action and there was no voicepipe now, only the telephone line, to the lower steering position on the platform deck. Down there the new acting chief quartermaster, Petty Officer Riley, was wearing a telephone headset. Nick asked Chevening, “Depth?”
“Eight fathoms, sir.” Chevening was in the front of the bridge, watching the echo-sounder. Nick asked him, “Two point two miles, on this leg?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me when we’ve done two.”
It would show up on the log, which was also under Chevening’s eye, another indicator glowing softly in the dark.
“Course oh-six-oh, sir.”
“Very good.”
Very quiet, too, although at this slow speed there was more vibration than there would have been at higher revs—as well as some extra rattles from the damaged area below the bridge. And very dark, because the moon was down. It had been shining when they’d been off the Madura coast, earlier in the night, and the chances were that watchers ashore would have seen a three-funnelled light cruiser steaming eastward. Earlier, a two-funnelled one had come out of the Surabaya Strait and turned west, and the Japs might well be looking for that one at dawn, on course for the Sunda Strait.
This was going to be a very, very tricky bit of pilotage. He had the islet called Sasul in sight to starboard, but against the darker background of Sepanjang itself you wouldn’t have seen it if you hadn’t known it was there and looked for it. It was only a mile, two thousand yards, to starboard, and during the next five minutes that distance would be lessening. There was a reef extending all along this side of it. Ten minutes ago, from a different angle and with sky and stars as background, he’d even been able to make out the shapes of coconut palms along its spine. He had to take Defiant right around Sasul: steering northeast now, then southeast, to the place where he’d stop to put the first of the boats into the water. Before that he’d have to take her clear of the rocks which abounded off the islet’s northern extremity, then guide her in between other rocks to starboard and a confusion of reef to port.
Reefs were self-perpetuating, self-extending. The chart showed him their positions and extent as they’d been when the last hydrographical survey had been made, but the coral could have grown out anywhere in recent years. Nobody came in here except fishermen—Kangean fishermen, at that.
The land-smell was a stench, and he guessed that before long mosquitoes were likely to become a problem.
Chevening called sharply, “Four fathoms, sir!”
The tone of alarm was irritating. Nick countered it by murmuring his acknowledgement, the traditional “Very good,” so gently that it might have come from someone half asleep. The sudden drop from eight to four fathoms was drastic, all right, but in fact it would have been more worrying if the sounder had produced any different reading. The figure matched chart data, and was what he’d expected. It would be fractionally less than four fathoms in a minute, and then it would increase again, and when they reached the turning-point they’d have about six fathoms showing. But Chevening didn’t think this was going to be tricky, he thought it was going to be impossible. Chevening, Nick thought, was a bit of an old woman, and being knocked about in that engagement had not improved him. He’d come to see Nick last evening, half an hour before sailing time, bringing with him the chart, the Sailing Directions, and a very nervous manner.
“There’s a point I seem to have overlooked, sir, about this place Sepanjang. In fact we all seem to have missed it … You want to get in here, on the north side: so we have to come past this off-lying bit—Pulau Sasul—then turn in here. But it says positively—here in the Pilot, but it’s in the next column and I hadn’t read that far—that the whole area between Sasul and Seridi Besar—that’s this bit—is foul.”
“Foul” in that context meant that it contained reefs, rocks or other underwater dangers that weren’t specifiable or predictable and were therefore to be given a wide berth.
Nick had looked carefully at the chart again. There was a contradiction between that statement and the soundings that were shown. He knew there’d be foul areas which he’d have to negotiate, but this entrance point had to be open. He wasn’t going to throw the whole plan away for the sake of three lines of small print and Chevening’s worried frown.
“Whoever wrote this was simply clearing his own yardarm. All right, in general terms the whole area’s rock-strewn. But look here—in here, steering clear of this lot, we’ve got six to eight fathoms. And right inside all this muck—reef—we’ve still got water enough to float in—right up to the bloody mangroves … All right?”
Chevening had licked sweat off his upper lip. He’d asked diffidently, “Do you think we’ll be able to follow that channel in the dark, sir? With no lights, and nothing to fix on?”
“What d’you mean, nothing to fix on?”
“The moon’ll be down—”
“So it will, thank God.”
The navigator cleared his throat. “You’re thinking of taking bearings on this high ground—Paliat? But that’s only one feature, and it’s at quite a distance, and on Sepanjang itself there are no heights marked, sir, no features as such, or—”
“Pilot, tell me this. Where would you like us to go instead?”
There wasn’t anywhere else that was suitable. They both knew it. The only other island they might have considered using would have been the big one, Kangean, but the one place there for Defiant to have berthed would have been in Ketapang Bay on its northwest coast. The objections to it were that if any Japanese were thinking of landing in the Kangeans, that was where they’d arrive. In the whole group of islands it was the anchorage and landing-place. Also, unlike Sepanjang’s north coast, it offered no cover. In fact the bay was visually open to ships passing southward en route to Bali or Lombok. Third, Kangean was more densely populated: the Pilot listed half a dozen villages. As Nick had pointed out, exaggerating somewhat, in an earlier discussion, it would be like tying up in Piccadilly Circus. And what it came down to was that they were extremely lucky that Sepanjang existed. Also—he’d mentioned this to Chevening—the fact that nobody would have expected anything bigger than a rowing-boat to have been able to get in through those various hazards was a distinct advantage, because the Japs were unlikely to be looking for them there.
“What about these bays, sir, on Kangean—Hekla or Gedeh?”
“Look at the Pilot. The land on that coast’s dead flat. Paddy-fields. Barely enough cover for a tapeworm.”
Remembering from his own earlier days how ridiculous senior officers’ tantrums had often seemed, he’d tried to stifle his annoyance. And Chevening was perfectly correct, anyway, in coming along and pointing out the dangers. It was his duty, as navigator, to ensure the navigational safety of the ship. Besides which he might yet find himself in a position to shout “I told you so!” Because the dangers were real, unquestionably so. It was only a matter of seeing the wood as well as the trees—the wood being the fact that this was the only way to get Defiant out of the Java Sea.
“Five fathoms!”
“Good.” He lifted the steering-position telephone again: “Nothing to starboard.”
“Nothing to starboard, sir!”
That meant, not one yard’s latitude to starboard of the ordered course. He had the chart photographed in his mind. Defiant’s pencilled track at this point was tangential to a dotted line surrounding Sasul’s fringe of rock, and the line meant “Keep out.” Sasul was eight hundred yards to starboard but most of that eight-hundred-yard gap was rock-strewn.
One mile to go, before the turn to starboard.
“Five and a half fathoms, sir.”
He checked the bearing of the high ground on Paliat, an island just this side of Kangean. That summit was marked as being four hundred and twenty feet high, and it was clearly distinguishable against the stars. Behind it by a d
istance of about five miles, and twice its height, was a peak in the spur of hills which ran along Kangean’s north coast. If while the ship was on this course Paliat should fall into line with the higher, less distinct summit, he’d know he’d come too far, that he was running into danger.
He was running into danger anyway. But there was another metaphor, after the woods and trees one, about omelettes and eggs … Perhaps he should have transferred the wounded to Sloan. He hadn’t, because Jim Jordan had made a proposal of his own which Nick had turned down, and after that it would have been difficult, to say the least, to have suggested it. Sloan’s spares had arrived, but by truck instead of by rail, and in the same convoy of Dutch army vehicles about forty refugees, who’d been on their way from Bandoeng to Tjilatjap for evacuation by sea, had turned up. Some railway junction had been bombed, so the Dutch had brought them to Surabaya instead. Jordan’s idea had been that Sloan and Defiant should each take half of them. He’d had them all, when he’d made the signal about it, because his ship was alongside a jetty and the Dutch had found it convenient to dump them at his gangway. They were all civilians, and they included women and children. Nick had declined to take any of them, mainly because it was obvious that Sloan’s chances of getting away were a lot better than Defiant’s. A year ago in the Aegean he’d seen ships being loaded with troops only to put to sea and be sunk. He thought that if Sloan couldn’t take them all, they’d be better left in Java. Besides, he had a day to spend lying-up in the Kangeans, and it was going to be tricky enough without having a load of women and children to complicate matters internally.
Jordan had thought Nick’s attitude was unreasonable. Defiant was twice the size of Sloan and had far more room for passengers than the destroyer had. When the American had come aboard for a final conference before Defiant sailed, his manner had made his feelings plain. It was a pity, because Nick liked him and they’d got on well. Nick thought it was only a matter of seeing the issue clearly and objectively, and that for some reason Jordan wasn’t able to. But at the last minute, everything changed. Jordan had made some remark about the passage down the Australian west coast to Perth being a hell of a long one, sixteen hundred miles, especially with overcrowded messdecks. Nick had suggested that when they were away and clear, say by the evening of the day after they cleared their respective straits, they might stop and transfer some of the refugees from Sloan to Defiant.
“In fact I’ll accept three-quarters of them.”
“Well, now. That sounds like a very fair solution, sir.”
“If we’re there to take them from you. If we aren’t, you’ll know I was right not to embark them.”
He and Jordan had parted on good terms. Sloan’s ship’s company had cheered the British cruiser on her way, and Defiant’s sailors had returned the compliment as she’d left the anchorage. Sloan’s men were going to blow up the destroyer that was in the graving dock, before they themselves left. The job was to be left to the last minute in order not to signal too clearly to the Japs that a naval evacuation was in progress. There’d been two enemy reconnaissance flights over Surabaya during the day, as well as one bombing raid.
“Two miles run, sir!”
“Depth?”
“Six fathoms, sir.”
He checked the bearing of the Paliat hill again. Three degrees to go. The course after this coming turn would be a hundred and thirty-five degrees. On these revs Defiant was making five knots, so one-fifth of a mile would be covered in two-point-four minutes. At the turning point there should still be six fathoms. He asked Chevening, “Log reading?”
“One cable’s length to go, sir.”
A cable’s length was a tenth of a mile. Just over one minute. If he turned too early he’d put her on the rocks, and if he left it too late he’d be on a reef. He sighted again on that hill, and the bearing was just about—
“Stand by, sir!”
“Stop starboard.”
“Stop starboard, sir … Starboard telegraph to stop, sir.” It would be hot, airless, really bloody awful, down in that lower steering position.
Chevening called, “Now!”
“Starboard fifteen.”
The bearing was exactly right. Wiley confirmed over the telephone that he had fifteen degrees of starboard rudder on her. This was to be a seventy-five-degree turn, but starting it with that screw stopped she’d fairly whistle round; which was what he wanted, as opposed to letting her drift outwards on the turn.
“Midships.”
“Midships, sir.”
“Slow ahead starboard … Pilot, one-point-five miles to the first stop, that right?”
Chevening confirmed it.
“Steer one-three-five. We’re in a narrow channel now, quartermaster.”
“Aye aye, sir. Steer one-three-five, sir. Starboard engine slow ahead.”
“Bob?” Gant moved up beside him. Nick told him, “Man the starboard cutter. They’ll be slipped in eighteen minutes’ time.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Gant went to the after end of the bridge, to shout down to Charles Rowley. Haskins was down there too, and the thirty-foot cutter on the starboard side, abreast the second funnel was already turned out in its davits and ready for lowering. One section of Royal Marines would be taken in it to land on the southeast corner of Sasul; when Nick stopped the ship, she’d be opposite the landing point. There was a village on Sasul for the marines to keep an eye on, and the northern end of it, which they were rounding now, commanded this channel; the section was landing with a Bren and the two-inch mortar, and with those they’d be able to sink anything that tried to get by. (Nobody in his right mind, Nick thought, would try to come through the channel in anything bigger than a canoe, anyway.)
The cutter was an oared boat, “double banked,” with six oars a side. Defiant did have two thirty-foot motorboats that might have been used, but oars were quieter and more reliable: also, this inshore water was, as Chevening had pointed out, foul, and a pulling-boat was less likely to rip her bottom out on a rock.
The cruiser was moving into the crescent-shaped hollow that was Sepanjang’s northern side. Land-smell, mangrove-smell increasing, enveloping. Sasul was easily visible to starboard, its palms starkly black against the sky. The only connection between it and the main part of the island was a reef enclosing both of them, rather as if the larger island had arms tightly enfolding the smaller one. There were several smaller islets in the lagoon between them, between those coral banks. In a hundred years, or perhaps much less, the whole thing would quite likely be filled in solidly, a coral extension to Sepanjang. Kangean itself, according to the Pilot, was made of coral—coral lime erupted by volcanic action.
One and a half miles at five knots meant eighteen minutes from the last turn to the point where he’d arranged with Haskins that he’d slip the cutter. After it had landed the RM section that boat would follow on inshore, to the place he’d picked for Defiant’s berth. At this next stopping-point, in just a few minutes now, Sasul’s southeast coast would be in a straight line to him so that it would look like one clear-cut edge of land, and there’d be a gap visibly open between it and the islands in the lagoon. From any other angle, they’d all overlap. The cutter had to make for that spot on Sasul because it was the one place with no reef to bar its approach. It was also the site of the village, and where the villagers would berth their praus. So landing the section here would kill several birds with one stone.
He settled his binoculars on it. There was no gap visible yet.
Chevening warned, “Two cables’ lengths, sir.”
He said into the telephone, “Stop both engines.”
“Stop both, sir!”
The ship’s momentum would carry her on into position. The quarter-hour had passed so quickly that he felt his thoughts might have been wandering. It was still a danger to watch out for. So far, he believed his mind had been working normally, responding normally to the stimulus of danger and tension. Anxiety, too. The knowledge that with one small act of carelessness,
or one piece of bad luck over which he’d have no control, he could put his ship on a rock or across a reef: the prospect was so shocking that the mind, fit or sick, rejected contemplation of it. But it was there, it existed …
He saw the gap, just as Chevening called to him that the ship was in position. “Slow astern together.” He said over his shoulder, “Away cutter.”
Gant shouted. And from down aft Nick heard Rowley’s order, “Lower away!”
“Stop together.” He’d taken the way off her. He could hear the squeaking of the blocks as the boat was lowered, with two dozen men in her, to the black water. At the next stop he’d be sending away both whalers, but that would be a quicker process because, being seaboats, the whalers had quick-release gear on their falls. The heavy cutter had to be lowered right into the water and the falls slacked off before they could be unhooked.
He checked the compass. The ship’s head was at rest, on course: there was no drift or wind in here, and Wiley had held her steady while the screws had been running astern. He heard the clatter as the falls were unhooked, and then the orders, low-voiced but reflected from the water’s surface: “Shove off for’ard … Oars down!” The thumps of the oars’ looms banging down on the boat’s gunwales. Then: “Starboard side oars, one stroke back-water …” And finally, “Give way together!”That was Wainwright, an RNR lieutenant: Gant had detailed an officer to take charge of each boat. There was also a leadsman in the cutter’s bow, to take soundings as it moved in towards the landing-place.
Gant murmured, returning, “Cutter’s well clear, sir.” “Slow ahead together.”
The screws churned, and dark water swirled away under her counter. A mile and a half again now. He’d have preferred to have sent the whalers away here and now, but time was limited, and if he was going to have her hidden before the light came he’d have to get closer inshore before he brought her down to the speed of oarsmen. In less than an hour the sun would be dragging itself up over the eastern extremity of the island, that long spar of land with a fishing village called Kiau on the end of it. By that time he wanted to have her tucked away, and there’d still be some camouflaging to be done. Also, he wouldn’t know until he got there whether the inlet he’d picked was as suitable as it looked on paper. It might be silted up, or too narrow, or someone might have felled the trees and destroyed the natural cover. It was pot luck, a gamble: and meanwhile you had also to accept this further period of risk navigationally. It was an exceptionally heavy risk, but here again he had no choice.
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 24