He didn’t want to light up the whole afterpart of the ship, which would draw attention to at least one obvious difference between Defiant and a Japanese Natori-class cruiser.
Gant came back. “That’s organized, sir.” He added in a flatter, quieter tone, “And we’re flying the Rising Sun.”
“Not for a minute longer than we have to.”
“Course one-two-five, sir!”
“Very good.”
“If you feel like a rest, sir, I could take over.”
“Kind of you, Bob. But we’ll let Chevening have her. Pilot?”
Chevening took over at the binnacle. Nick went to his new high seat, and struggled up on to it. Not too easy, with only one arm in use. Binoculars weren’t easy one-handed either, for any length of time. Another source of irritation was that the wound in his face was sensitive, like a bad bruise, and he had to take care not to let the lens on that side bang against it; with one-handed clumsiness it did happen, and it hurt.
Gant moved up to the front of the bridge near him, and raised his glasses to look out ahead.
Stars, and their reflection in the water, and the phosphorescence in the ship’s bow-wave and wake, were all that relieved the darkness. The ship’s engines rumbled steadily, a constant thrumming that you felt as well as heard. From below this bridge, in the space that had been a wheelhouse and a plot, rattles seemed to be getting louder.
This first hour was the period when they were least likely to run into an enemy. Southbound ships steering for Lombok from east of the Kangeans wouldn’t be likely to cross Defiant’s track until she’d covered the first thirty miles of it, on account of the wide spread of reefs up north of the islands. If there was any safe time at all, or near-safe time, this was as good as they were likely to get for quite a while.
“Bob. I’d like you to make a tour of the upper deck. Check they’re all on their toes and understand our situation.”
“Right, sir. I’ll go round now.”
“Good man. Ormrod there?”
“Here, sir.” Lieutenant Ormrod had taken over the torpedo officer’s job. Swanson’s. Nick asked him, “Tubes on a hair trigger, are they?”
“Pretty well, sir.” He added, “And Mr North’s all-about, down there.”
“You did a first-class job in the whaler, Ormrod … Who’s that?”
“Me, sir. Bentley. Brought you a cup of coffee, sir.”
“You must be psychic, Bentley.”
Sandilands, the engineer commander, had protested about the twenty-five knots that Nick was again insisting on. He’d had his men working in the boiler room all day, while Defiant had been in the mangroves, and as usual he’d been working with them.
“Two-six-oh revs is putting an awful strain on our temporary repairs, sir. It really is a lot to ask for, after such a—”
“I know it is, chief. But tonight and all tomorrow, the only speed that’s acceptable is flat out. If flat out’s two-six-oh revs, two-six-oh’s what I want. After dark tomorrow—if we live that long, and we won’t, chief, if you fail to produce those revs—we’ll ease down a bit. Twenty knots, perhaps.”
“Make it fifteen, sir?”
“This isn’t an Egyptian market, chief.”
Sandilands blinked at him tiredly. He said, “It’s a very old, cranky ship, sir, and she’s been knocked about pretty badly. If we can’t slow down, the odds are we’ll stop.”
He’d nodded. “A lot will depend on Sloan. She’ll need to conserve oil even more than we will. Let’s talk about it tomorrow evening, chief. Meanwhile, I’d like you and your men to know that I appreciate you’ve been doing a bloody marvellous job.”
Engine breakdown would be fatal, now. It was one of several things which, if any of them happened, would wipe you off the board.
It was 10:40. They were out of the partial-safety zone and the island of Lombok was about forty miles due south, on the starboard bow. And Sloan, he guessed, would be something like halfway to China Point.
Sloan’s refugees were on his conscience. Partly because he couldn’t put Jim Jordan’s prospects any higher than his own now, and partly because he hadn’t thought of asking whether there might be a Mrs Williams among them. He should have. Even if it was a thousand-to-one chance, when you’d been sending enquiries to places as far away as Colombo you ought surely to look at what was right under your nose.
He’d ask Sloan about her—he crossed mental fingers—when they joined up tomorrow. What a fluke it would be if the answer should come as affirmative. What a marvellous fluke, for Williams!
He should have asked about the girl. But his mind had been full—the Kangean plan, doubts whether his brain was working properly, engine repairs, the trouble with Jordan over the refugees themselves. That was what had really obscured the Williams problem …
Williams was mending well, anyway. All but two of the wounded, Sibbold had reported, would be back to duty before long. The other two would survive, but would need to be landed to hospital in Australia.
If …
To some hospital with Kate in it?
Kate: her eyes smiling at him. Eyes very much like Ingrid Bergman’s. But they were better than that, they were Kate’s eyes. She did have the Bergman look, though.
There was a change in himself—one, anyway—that he’d taken note of. He thought about Kate now, and hardly at all about Fiona Gascoyne. He’d wondered about this during the day, when he’d been half-sleeping in that oven of a cabin. It might be explained—unflatteringly—by the fact that the ambition now was to get to Australia: even to Perth, which was vaguely in the direction of Kate’s home. Perth—Fremantle—same thing … So the mind—if this was the explanation—fastened pragmatically on what was—might be—within reach. Another possibility, less unattractive, was that when survival appeared uncertain your thoughts went to the things or people that mattered most to you. He was committed to Fiona—he was, he knew it and so did she—but if he was unlikely to live to do anything about it, then he could forget it because it didn’t matter, he could let his thoughts loose to wander where they felt happiest.
He had one foot up on a projection in the front of the bridge, and his right elbow rested on the raised knee as a support to the hand holding the binoculars. Gant, Ormrod, Chevening, the yeoman and signalman of the watch, three lookouts in the bays on each side, the PO of the watch and a messenger and a bosun’s mate, were all looking out, straining their eyes into the dark. Above all their heads were Greenleaf in the DCT and Haskins in the ADP, and their assistants. It added to a fair number of eyes.
Haskins had done a good job ashore on Sepanjang. No trouble, no casualties. Haskins was one of several officers and men who’d merited commendation in any report of proceedings that might come to be written. In the personnel area, the only problem was Bob Gant. In all respects except one, he was a very competent second-in-command. Because of that one deficiency, though, Nick had come to the conclusion that he’d be more suitably employed ashore. His damaged spine would serve as a good reason for recommending it, but—
“Ship, green one-oh!”
Gant’s voice—low, urgent. And the DCT telephone buzzed. Nick had it at his ear and Greenleaf reported, “Cruiser green oh-eight steering north, sir!”
“Stop together. All quarters alert.”
He couldn’t use his glasses now because he needed the hand for the telephone link with the tower. Chevening had called down to stop engines: vibration ceased abruptly. Defiant still slid ahead, still showed bow-wave …
“Stand by all port-side tubes.”
He heard Ormrod, at the torpedo control panel, pass that order down to Mr North, the gunner (T). Down on that side of the upper deck they’d be turning out the two triple mountings. If he had to engage, Nick intended to swing the ship to starboard and fire on the turn.
“Keep her stem pointing right at him, pilot.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The Jap cruiser was crossing the bow from starboard to port. As it crossed, Cheveni
ng would have to apply port wheel, the object of doing so being to present a small, end-on view of Defiant for the Jap lookouts to continue not to see. It was contradictory and inconvenient that if he had to engage he’d need to reverse the direction of the turn, but it couldn’t be helped because that was the way he’d want to be pointing after he’d fired.
“Tell them on the searchlight platform to be ready with the Aldis, but not, repeat not, to switch on without my order.”
Ormrod reported, “Tubes turned out and ready, sir.”
“Enemy is right ahead, course north, speed sixteen, range oh-three-eight.” Three thousand eight hundred yards. Less than two sea miles. Greenleaf added, “I think he’s Kako-class, sir.”
Eight-inch guns, twelve tubes, about thirty knots.
“Pilot. At the first sign he’s seen us, I’ll want port screw full ahead and wheel hard a-starboard. If I shout ‘Go!’ that’s what I want. Ormrod,
you’ll fire six fish on the turn, spread from half a length ahead to half a length astern.”
As we turn, we’ll be showing him his own flag …
“Yeoman, have the port-side ten-inch manned.”
“Leading Signalman Tromsett’s on it, sir.”
To give a delaying, gibberish-type reply to any challenge that might come flashing. The first spark of a light would be the signal to engage: as Defiant swung to loose-off her torpedoes there’d be a Rising Sun lit-up aft and something like Knees Up Mother Brown rippling out in fast morse from that lamp. Every second’s bewilderment of the enemy would increase one’s chances of hitting and escaping.
Chevening said quietly into the steering-position telephone, “Port five.” To keep her bow pointing at the enemy. Greenleaf muttered through the DCT phone, “No indication he could have seen us, sir.”
Not yet. But he might, at any moment … Nick thought, I’ll have to be damn quick on that turn. Get the fish on their way, then hell for leather out of it …
No. You wouldn’t get out of it. Not far out, anyway.
One-handed, he’d got his glasses on the enemy cruiser. Long, low, two raked funnels. He thought, I could have blown him out of the water, by this time.
Turn now, and fire?
No chance of getting away with it, of course. You’d never get through the straits. Or if you did, they’d nail you at first light.
Still—a seven-thousand-ton Jap cruiser for a five-thousand-ton British one?
But there’d be no certainty of hitting with torpedoes. Hit or miss Defiant would pay for it with her life and with the five hundred lives in her. No strategic balance would be changed, no tactical advantage gained. And the orders were to get Defiant out of the Java Sea.
Chevening had increased the rudder-angle to ten degrees, because the ship had lost way and was less responsive to her helm now. The enemy cruiser was hard to see, even with binoculars. It was still dead ahead but almost stern-on to them now as it continued northward and the darkness swallowed it.
Half an hour after midnight, he turned her south. By that time they’d passed across the northern approach to the Alas Strait, and at a steady twenty-five knots it would be one hour’s run down to the islands that lay off Sumbawa.
At 0115 hours he moved to the binnacle and took over the conning of the ship.
“Stay here, pilot. I’ll need your eyes. Can’t manage glasses and the telephone at once.”
They hadn’t considered the complication of his being one-armed, when they’d decided to forgo the refitting of a voicepipe.
Navigation was likely to be slightly hit-or-miss, this next bit. He had to find and identify two islands, Pandjang and Seringgit, and pass through the half-mile gap between them. Both islands, according to their descriptions in the Sailing Directions, were low, without hills or other distinguishing features. Pandjang was all mangroves, Seringgit scrub-covered; and a number of other islands to the east of them were equally featureless. Depths were said to be less than those shown on the charts, and in the middle of the passage between the two islands there was a nineteen-foot shallow patch.
“According to this, it could be less than nineteen feet. So let’s keep closer to Seringgit than to Pandjang. Not too close, mind you.”
Because Seringgit’s encircling reef extended a third of a mile from its southwest corner.
“Bob. Chevening and I will be concentrating on pilotage. Looking out for Japanese is your pigeon now.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Chevening suggested, “Run the echo-sounder, sir?”
“Might as well. Ormrod—you look after the sounder and the log.”
At 0120 he cut the revs to a hundred and forty, ten knots. A minute after that, Chevening had land in his glasses, on the port bow. And then ahead, too; and to starboard. It was all low, unidentifiable: a rotten place to have to make a landfall in the dark.
Chevening said, “I think we should come round to starboard, sir. If my guess is right, we’re too far east.”
And if it was wrong, they’d now head out towards the top of the strait, where the guardship was thought to be … He brought her round, leaving all the land on her port bow. Chevening had his glasses on it, muttering to himself as he tried to sort it out, spot gaps and match the sizes of different islands to the chart-picture in his memory.
It was now 0126. Meeting the Jap cruiser had put them ten minutes behind schedule. Schedule being simply the need to get through as fast as possible, as far south as possible before day-break. Now they were losing more time.
Sloan would be just about approaching the entrance to the Bali Strait. Jim Jordan would tear straight in at his full thirty knots, Nick guessed. The Strait was too narrow for any possibility of getting through craftily, unobserved. He’d take it head-on, and ready for a fight.
“On red two-oh, sir—must be it, I think! The gap’s about the right size, and on the other side the land seems to go on for ever, flat as a pancake, so—”
“Pandjang.” He said it flatly, to counter the navigator’s excited tone. He must have been getting worried, he realized. He was sighting across the dimly illuminated compass: “We should come round to two-one-oh, sir.”
“Port ten.”
“Port ten, sir. Ten of port wheel on, sir.”
“Steer two-one-oh.”
“Then we’ll have to turn due south to get through it, sir. Say half a mile after we cross the hundred-fathom line.”
“You’d better check that.”
Chevening went to the covered bridge chart table, and confirmed it, and Ormrod at the echo-sounder reported crossing the hundred-fathom line at 0141. Land to port, on the beam, was visible to the naked eye by this time, and after the next half-mile it was also in sight on the starboard bow. Nick brought her round to south, to put her through the gap. This was another half-mile run, and by the end of it the coastline to port, Seringgit’s, looked dangerously close. But if you turned too soon you’d run into trouble presently with the reef that extended south from Pandjang’s eastern end.
Chevening came back from another refresher at the chart.
“Time to alter to two-three-oh, sir. For seven and a half miles.”
“Starboard ten.”
“Starboard ten, sir … Ten of starboard—”
“Gets easier now, doesn’t it?”
“Should do, sir.” Defiant was swinging to her new course, which would take her down to Kalong Island. Chevening added quietly, “Please God.”
“Amen.” He said into the telephone, “Two-six-oh revolutions.”
An end to dawdling. And they were only a few minutes astern of where he’d expected to be, so it wasn’t too bad, so far. It was likely to be easier down there because there were some prominent hills to fix on, on the islands of Kalong, Namo and Kenawa. Defiant would be passing inside all three of them in the process of rounding Labu Beru Point, which was Sumbawa’s northwest cape, and thus entering the Alas Strait proper. If there was a Jap destroyer anchored where he’d guessed it would be, there’d be seven or eight
miles of open water between them as she rounded the point.
He’d slow down again, for that stretch. The bow-wave of a ship moving at speed was the real give-away, in the dark.
Sloan would be right in her strait, now. In the top of it where it was only three thousand yards or less from shore to shore.
“One-two-oh revolutions.”
Eight knots seemed about the optimum speed. Minimal bow-wave but acceptable progress, less than twenty minutes in the open. If there was an enemy there to see them … He glanced over towards the hunched figure that was Bob Gant: “Bob, ask Greenleaf whether he can see anything like a Jap destroyer at anchor on bearing—what bearing would it be, pilot?”
“About three-three-five, sir.”
He raised his voice: “Nobody else need waste time looking for it. Could be a patrol anywhere, from here on.”
The echo-sounder was switched off now. Pilotage was easy. They’d had the hills on those islands, and there was another right on Labu Beru, like a big pimple on a nose. Also, off the north end of Belang Island, which was flat, was a two-hundred-foot rock pinnacle called Songi. All the way down the Sumbawan west coast, which Defiant would be keeping close to, the chart showed hills and headlands; and a bonus was a southward-running two-knot tide.
It was time, he thought, for some bad luck. So be ready for it …
For a signal, perhaps. An enemy report, from Sloan. He and Jordan had agreed that if either of them ran into trouble, they’d let out a squawk, to let the other know. Then the survivor, if there was one, wouldn’t waste time tomorrow looking for a partner who wouldn’t be capable of keeping any rendezvous.
The DCT telephone had buzzed, and Gant had answered it. He said, “PCO reports two ships at anchor on that bearing, sir. They do look like destroyers.”
Two, now. How many might there be elsewhere by this time? Patrolling, or waiting at the southern end. He hoped those destroyers had the same standard of watchfulness as the Kako cruiser had demonstrated … He said to Chevening, “You guessed right, pilot.”
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 30