“With some prompting, sir.”
Chevening had been doing rather well, Nick thought. Finding the gap between the islands an hour ago hadn’t been at all easy. Chevening had made a judgement, stuck his neck out, and he’d been proved right. He had the makings of something after all, it seemed. Nick called over to Gant, “Tell Greenleaf to keep an eye on the destroyers and report any sign of life.”
There was a small island called Paserang to the north of Belang, and they’d have that between them and the guardships before they got behind the bigger one. A few minutes’ less exposure … Songi, the tall rock, was abeam now, about one mile to starboard. Chevening suggested, “We could come round, sir.”
“To what?”
“Two-one-oh, sir. It would take us all the way down to that lower point—Belusan.”
He told Wiley, “Starboard five, steer two-one-oh.”
With the tide to help her, Defiant was making ten knots over the ground. In five minutes’ time, when she was behind Paserang, he’d increase to revs for twenty-five knots, and she’d make twenty-seven. There’d be no cover after they left Belang Island astern. He’d just hug the coast, holding his ship against its blackness. He asked Chevening, “Off that point we’re now heading for—”
“Belusan, sir.”
“There’s a small island to look out for, isn’t there?”
“Just south of it, sir. If we turn to one-six-three when Belusan’s abeam we’ll be all right.”
They reached that turning-point within a few minutes of 0300. Two minutes later the little island was abeam to starboard. In fact as they passed it it turned out to be twins. The course of a hundred and sixty-three degrees led them into a bay called Talliwang, which had a good hill just behind it to take bearings on. The turn was to starboard now, for a five-mile run to the next headland, Tanjung Benete.
Sloan would be in widening water now, the opening funnel-shape of the Bali Strait as she pounded southward. If she ran into opposition Jordan’s signal would be addressed to Bandoeng, but primarily for Defiant’s information. The same would apply the other way about. Codes could be broken, and you didn’t want to advertise the fact that another ship was on the run. “Course two-two-oh, sir.”
“Very good.” Nick told Gant, “It gets narrower ahead. Tell Greenleaf that if there’s a patrolling destroyer anywhere, this is where I’d expect it.”
It was probable that there would be. By a miracle, they’d escaped being sunk by that cruiser, and miracles were rationed. At any second, gunfire could split the darkness. You had to be on your toes, geared-up. A few seconds’ hesitation, when the moment came, could finish you … He was taut, tense with readiness: the wound on his face itched from the irritation of sweat running down inside the dressing.
Tanjung Benete was abeam before 3:30. Right opposite it, eight miles away, was the southeast corner of Lombok. And nine miles ahead, after he’d brought her round to a course of a hundred and ninety degrees, was the southwest corner of Sumbawa. At that point, in another nine miles, Defiant would emerge from the Alas Strait. In fact she’d be leaving the Pacific, entering the Indian Ocean.
Nine miles could look like ninety, when they lay ahead of you.
“Pilot. If you had the same job down at this end—to anchor as guardship—where would you do it?”
“It’s all deep water, sir.”
“No little bays inshore?”
“I’ll check it, sir.” He went to the chart. There was a canvas hood over it, and a light you could switch on inside when the hood was lowered behind you. New, stiff canvas now. Nick guessed that those destroyers would probably have been anchored to save fuel. The Japs had come a long way south in a very short time, and until they got their fuelling arrangements set up in places like Sumatra—where the installations had been wrecked and set on fire—they’d be wanting to conserve supplies. Chevening came back and told him that there were three suitable inshore anchorages, three bays in the strip of coastline that lay immediately ahead of them.
They’d all be within two miles of Defiant’s track down-coast, and only after she’d passed each headland would it be possible to see into the bay. Unless Greenleaf, with the tower’s extra height, might see over any of the promontories. Nick told Gant to warn Greenleaf about it.
To starboard, a sea-mist clung to the black surface. To port, the first of the headlands was already looming close. He ought to have considered this possibility before, he realized, been prepared for it. Not that there was much preparing that anyone could do. But he should still have seen it: seen those bays open to the strait, with clear views across it …
“DCT reports this bay’s empty, sir.”
Two to go.
“What’s that hill, pilot?”
“It’s called Maloh, sir. Same name for the headland.” It was the next one, on the bow. Chevening added, “The bay on the other side of it’s about the most likely one, sir. Good wide entrance.”
“Be ready with torpedoes either side, Ormrod.”
“Standing by, sir.”
Overdue bad luck didn’t have to be an ambush behind that headland. It could come from patrolling ships out to starboard. The straits were about nine miles wide at this end.
Maloh loomed black against the stars to port. It was about a thousand feet high, massive-looking on its steep-to, craggy headland. About half a mile away. Defiant’s wash, which was powerful at this speed, would be following in a rush of wave-action along those rocks. Passing the headland: the blackness of it abeam to port—now …
“Can’t see anything in there, sir.”
“Bay’s empty, sir!”
One more to go. The next headland was clear to see. As you passed one, there was always another. And beyond it was the third potential anchorage. The headland—Chevening said it was called Tanjung Amat—was coming up on the beam at 0342. Its rocky cliff-face was pale, yellowish-looking in the dark; and there was a group of hills behind it, a corrugation against the sky. To the south—opening to them suddenly as the light-coloured rocks drew aft and vanished in the dark—was the last of the three bays … Gant had his glasses trained into it. In the tower, Greenleaf’s much more powerful ones would be probing too.
Gant answered the telephone. He muttered, “Very good,” and told Nick, “This one’s clear too, sir.”
Incredible … But there, two miles on the bow, was the last headland, tall and stark against blue-black sky, the last landmark in this Alas Strait. Relief was tinged with a feeling of surprise amounting to suspicion: the feeling that there had to be some snag, something still in store … That point—it was called Mangkung—formed the southern arm of the wide bay, this third one in which he’d been expecting to find enemies. Who, evidently, must have their hands full elsewhere, he thought—probably on Java’s south coast … He said into the steering-position telephone, “Port five. Steer one-eight-oh.”
Due south. The course to the rendezvous with Sloan—of whom no news was good news …You had first to survive the dawn, and then to live through several hours of daylight that would be spent within a few minutes’ flying distance of the Bali airstrip. He’d foreseen this moment: the moment when it would occur to him that if he’d come down through Lombok he’d be twenty or thirty miles farther south by now.
Jim Jordan, by this time, ought to be right out of the Bali Strait. He’d be about a hundred and twenty miles away, steering southeast at thirty knots. The two ships’ courses were converging and they’d meet at about noon, two hundred miles south.
There’d been no signal. The American destroyer must have got through.
Dawn, now, would be the danger time. Sunrise, and then every minute after it until the damn thing went down again tonight. For Defiant and for Sloan too, it was going to be a nervy day.
“Course one-eight-oh, sir!”
“Very good. You can hand over the wheel now, Wiley.”
“Aye aye, thank you, sir!”
Chevening said quietly, diffidently, “I’d—like to congrat
ulate you, sir.”
He glanced, surprised, at the tall, angular silhouette of his navigator. Chevening was congratulating him, he realized, on having brought Defiant out through the strait. As if that was the end of it—or an end, on its own. It had seemed like the biggest hurdle, of course, the real gauntlet, when they’d been on the other side of it. He’d forgotten, because that stage was done with and one’s thinking moved on, ahead of whatever was happening at any given moment—let alone what had already happened … He told Chevening, “Could be a little premature, pilot. Say it again at sunset, will you?”
Forty miles farther south, he rested in his high chair and watched a faint paling in the eastern sky. The fingertips of dawn’s left hand. How did it go? “Awake, my little ones, and fill the cup …”
Splice the mainbrace tonight, if the good luck lasted?
But—he thought—if it held, if they were still afloat and plugging south when the sun went down again, would there be cause for celebration? For the fact that Defiant’s and Sloan’s names had not been added to the heartbreaking list of ships and ships’ companies who’d been lost—to no good purpose—in the Java Sea? Would that be a reason for self-congratulation?
It was a time for mourning, he thought. And for anger. The names of those ships ran through his mind. The destroyers whom he’d known well, shared actions with in the Mediterranean; and Perth and her captain, Waller, to whom the same applied; and Rooks of Houston … When he thought of Exeter it was like remembering someone who’d been very close, someone you’d loved who’d died.
Might that be why he’d dreamt of Paul being in her, that night?
Overhead, the director tower trained slowly round, watching the horizon as it became hard, definite. Nick had just put his own glasses up—resting that elbow on a raised knee, the only system that seemed to work—when Gant spoke quietly beside him.
“Stand-to at the guns, sir?”
Guns’ crews were still closed up, but they’d been relaxed to the second degree of readiness, allowed to sleep around their weapons with one man at each mounting keeping watch. Now—Nick glanced to his left again, at the threatening dawn—Gant was right, it was time to stir them up.
“Yes, please, Bob.”
Not that you’d be able to do much about it, if the Vals did come. Except make it a bit harder for them. He sat back in the tall chair, and watched the light grow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They came in low on the dark surface, and from the west so as to have their fat, slow target silhouetted against the first bright streaks of dawn. Savoias. Paul couldn’t see them, but the director tower’s crew could. There was shouting, down for’ard and back aft, as the wires securing Ainsty to the tanker were slackened and cast off, and Jouster, the fleet destroyer who’d turned up during the night, was wheeling, on her beam-ends in a froth of sea as she turned under full rudder and increasing power to get back there and meet the bombers.
“All gone for’ard!”
Banshee-like cry from the foc’sl. And a man at a telephone reported, “All gone aft, sir.” Ainsty had been secured alongside, towing as well as guiding, helping the Santa Eulalia with the tanker’s weight and adding a knot or two to the rate of progress. But she needed her freedom of movement now. Paul heard her captain order, “Two-seven-five revolutions!” He’d need to have her clear of the hulk before he could put his wheel over, for fear of swinging his stern into it.
The Hunt was surging ahead, diverging.
“Port ten!”
Astern, Jouster opened fire.
“Hard a-port! Full ahead together!”
Ainsty’s four-inch opened up while she was in the turn. But the tow would slow virtually to a standstill now. The Santa Eulalia couldn’t hold that stubby hulk to a straight course without assistance.
“Midships!”
Guns drowning other noise: voices, orders, were fragmented, sandwiched between their crashes. Pompoms were at work from Jouster, and Oerlikons’ tracer arcing back, slow-moving, streaking the gloom. Ainsty picking up speed, hurling her slim hull jolting across the sea. Paul hadn’t yet seen any of the attackers. He was trying to, using the tracer-streams as pointers.
Explosion: brilliant, dark-splitting, dark-into-daylight splitting. He thought—momentarily blinded by it—Jouster … And—still blind—Don’t count on seeing Malta …
He’d woken half an hour ago with the question in his mind: Malta, today? He’d probably been dreaming about it. No memory of the dream, though, as he woke. His first waking thought was a realization that the motion of the ship had been entirely different. What had roused him—he believed—had been gunfire, but there’d been no more of it as he slid off the bunk—the navigator’s, the same cabin he’d been allowed to use before—and groped around for boots and sweater. Thinking about the ship’s changed and peculiar motion—it was jerky and unnatural—he wondered if she’d been damaged while he’d been asleep, might be under tow. But her engines were going strong … Might she have taken over the tow from the American? Maybe the Santa Eulalia had come to grief?
Shivering cold … He might have dreamt that gunfire, too. There’d been quite a lot of it last night, bombing attacks continuing until well after dusk and then two separate assaults by torpedo aircraft, the last one around midnight. He’d gone below and turned in at about 1:00, four hours ago. He’d been out for the count, and he was still heavy-headed now … Ainsty had just lurched to port and come up hard, as if she’d crashed into something. She definitely was towing, he’d thought. He buttoned the borrowed oilskin on his way up to the bridge. Time, somehow, inverted and upside-down: through sleeplessness, long periods of action, uncertainty, total absence of routine, regular mealtimes and so on. Also, time was relative, if it existed at all. Time was the distance to Malta, how long since the last attack, how long before the next one.
Earlier, there’d been a moon, but he’d found that it was down now. And the reason for the strange motion became obvious as soon as he got up to bridge level and into the cold pre-dawn air: Ainsty had put herself alongside the hulk of the Caracas Moon, her starboard side against the tanker. From the place he’d occupied before, behind the starboard lookout bay, his downward view had been on to the flat tanktops: a short way aft, the tanker’s bridge was ten or twelve feet higher than the destroyer’s. At about this level, back there, was the deck he’d jumped from after Harry Willis had saved his life.
That was a truth. If Willis hadn’t pulled him off the ladder he’d have been either spread like jam across the bulkhead or tangled into its twisted steel. He wanted to know how Willis was. There’d been no news of him last night when he’d gone below to turn in.
It was the strain on the wires linking the destroyer and the tanker that had been producing the jerky, tugging effect. He stared aft at the black rectangle that was the Caracas Moon’s bridge, and imagined Humphrey Straight standing there beside the useless wheel, sucking at his pipe, thinking about whatever wordless men like Straight did think about. Gardening, or greyhounds, or something quite unlikely … There wouldn’t be much for Straight to do, except see the wires here and up for’ard were tended, and the four Oerlikons manned and ammunitioned, and he’d have Devenish to help him with that; but he was the only master of the Caracas Moon’s remains now, since her own captain had been transferred to Ainsty last night in a condition of total exhaustion. He was below, in Ainsty’s captain’s cabin.
“Kye, sir?”
“Why, thanks!”
Exactly what he’d needed. The sailor—it was a bridge messenger or a bosun’s mate—brought him an extremely hot enamel mug. “You’re the officer as was in the ’oggin, ain’t you?”
He nodded. Sipping, burning his lips. “Was there some action, short while ago?”
“Aircraft, sir. They was on the 279, then we could ’ear ’em, but never got a good look at ’em. When we opened up they buggered off like.” He’d added, ”Be dawn soon. We’ll ’ave ’em all back then, I reckon.”
They’d g
ot them back now …
But Jouster was all right. The explosion had been beyond her and it had been a bomber going up, or rather the torpedo in its rack under a bomber’s fuselage. The effect of a torpedo warhead exploding in the open was spectacular, and that plane’s pilot wouldn’t have known much about it. Paul’s eyes were only just back to normal. There was another aircraft in trouble, a shoot of flame along a tilted wing, heavy-looking body stalling, tracer flowing at it in smooth bright curves and a Savoia rising across Ainsty’s bow, turning away to port and straining for height—there’d be a torpedo in the sea, somewhere or other. Probably several. They wouldn’t do much good—or harm—from astern though; if the Savoias hadn’t been picked up by RDF, or seen from the director tower—whatever had happened, he hadn’t heard the start of it—they’d have turned out on to the quarters, he guessed, flown up and then turned in to launch their fish from somewhere near the beams. Perhaps, if they’d seen Jouster guarding this side, from the south. She was over on that quarter now, still in action. Ainsty, lacking any target, had ceased fire, and her captain was bringing her round to port.
“Two-four-oh revolutions. Midships.”
He’d have to catch up before he could take her back alongside and get the tow moving again. They’d been making something like four to five knots, Paul thought, when he’d come up, and depending on how much ground had been covered during the night there couldn’t, surely, be more than about twenty miles to go.
Jouster had ceased fire. So that was one more attack beaten off. But it wouldn’t be long before the light came.
“Slow together. Steer one-oh-two.”
Ainsty was sliding up into the black shadow of the tanker. Simpson came to the back of the bridge and leaned over to shout down, “Stand by, you down there!”
“Ready, sir!”
“What about the bloody fenders, then?” Turning, muttering angrily, he peered to see who Paul was. Then, recognizing him: “You all right?”
“Fine, sir, thank you. Do we have far to go now?”
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 31