Fairfax replied, ‘I feel okay.’
‘Mebbee.’ Williams jammed the battered cap on his head and took out his pipe and pouch. ‘But you know I’m right, all the same.’ He glanced at the interwoven gold lace on his sleeve. ‘I understand ships, sir, but I’m not much of a man of action. I’m a survivor, if you like.’
Fairfax watched him as the blue tobacco smoke went jerkily upwards into the fans.
‘Why did you volunteer for this, then?’
Williams grinned. ‘Perhaps I misunderstood the question, sir.’
‘Well, I’m glad you are here.’ He peered aft towards the squat funnel and the remaining superstructure. Between it and the bridge the masts and derricks with their complicated array of rubber fuel hoses looked like some kind of obscene creeper. ‘I’m more used to being able to shoot back!’
Williams smiled. Fairfax seemed all right. Not one of those hell for leather madmen who were usually the first to crack wide open when they were most needed.
He said, ‘What d’you reckon our chances, sir?’
Fairfax walked to the chart table. ‘Andromeda will be about here.’ He tapped the pencilled lines. ‘Pity about Fremantle. We could do with a bit more muscle.’
Williams shrugged as if it was no concern of his at all. ‘Well, we have our orders. No heroics, no matter what. Surely a cruiser can cope with a bloody armed merchantman, sir?’
Fairfax looked at him grimly. What was the point in telling him what Blake had suggested, that there were two raiders, not one? They were committed, and any more anxiety was pointless. He saw the stubborn lines around Williams’ mouth. Any more than there was a point in Williams’ remark about no heroics. They both knew that if it came to the crunch they would have a go at the bastard.
He said, ‘I think Andromeda will cope.’ He looked at the camp-bed by the chart space. ‘I’ll do as you say. Call me if. . . .’
Williams nodded. ‘I know, sir, if.’
Fairfax lay down and turned on his side, his back to the wheelhouse. He listened to the muted beat of engines, the occasional flurry of blown spray across the windows.
Tomorrow. Nothing might happen at all. He thought of Sarah, could almost feel her pressed against him.
Fairfax had had quite a few girls before he had settled down with Sarah. Even after their marriage he had played around once or twice when his ship had been away from her home port. It had been a part of his life, something everyone treated as normal.
He closed his eyes tightly. Not any more. They both knew that now.
He slipped suddenly into a deep sleep, one arm out-thrust and moving in time with the ship’s motion.
Hours later, Lieutenant Williams was refilling his pipe and thinking of sending for his relief. The sea was calmer but some rain had begun to fall. It was drumming over the wheelhouse like busy fingers, insistent and somehow menacing.
Williams was unperturbed. He knew about the storm, and he had a good idea that the rain was in its path. If it was, it would get worse before long, and so would the sea. But the Empire Prince was a well-found ship. Pity they couldn’t be bothered to built them in peacetime, he thought.
The starboard door slammed back and an oilskinned figure lurched into the wheelhouse, streaming with rain and spray as if he had come from the sea itself.
A petty officer yelled, ‘Shut that door, you half-wit! You’ll light up the whole ruddy ocean!’
Williams regarded the intruder coldly. It was a lookout from the bridge wing.
‘Well? This had better be good!’
The seaman gulped air and wiped his reddened face. ‘I – I’m not sure, sir.’
Fairfax hurried across the bridge, his hair tangled over his forehead.
‘What’s happened?’
The seaman was beginning to regret his impulse. He said, ‘I thought I heard an aircraft, sir.’
Fairfax said sharply, ‘All lights out!’
The wheelhouse was suddenly pitch black, except for the luminous glow of the gyro-compass and the helmsman’s eyes, like two white marbles.
‘Open the door.’
Fairfax groped out on to the slippery plating, his ears useless against the roar and hiss of the sea, the jubilant sluice of water along the oiler’s fat flank.
Williams said dryly, ‘Aircraft, you say? We’re nowhere near any air cover and out of range of everything but the bloody birds!’
Fairfax gripped his arm. ‘Listen! Now!’
There it was. A faint, indistinct drone, lost almost at once in the ocean’s noises.
Williams stared at him in the darkness. ‘By God, they’ve found us.’
They strained their ears for a few more moments but there was nothing.
In silence they re-entered the wheelhouse and snapped on the lights.
Fairfax said slowly, ‘I think a drink all round is indicated, and one for the lookout.’
16
‘Am Engaging!’
LIEUTENANT JEREMY MASTERS groped his way cautiously across the upper bridge, each hand seeking a firm hold before letting go with the other. Water surged everywhere, gurgling noisily through the scuppers or splashing over the huddled Oerlikon gunners on either wing.
It was dawn, but when he peered over the screen all he could see was the foam boiling along the side or rising over the guard-rails as if to knock some unwary seaman from his feet. Beyond the tossing spray the sea was as black as a boot.
He saw Blake’s shape in the familiar bridge chair, shining faintly as the rain and spray bounced across his oilskin. Masters measured the distance, took a deep breath and hurled himself towards the forward gratings.
The Toby Jug, massively black and unusually cheerful, called, ‘That’s right, sir, one ‘and for the King but keep one for yerself!’
Blake half turned and said, ‘Look at it. You can’t fly in this.’
Masters sensed his anxiety, his frustration, as the ship plunged and reared over the dark water.
‘I could have a go, sir.’
‘No.’
What was the point in discussing it? The Seafox’s range of four hundred odd miles left no room for error. Masters and his observer could fly on and on into oblivion and discover nothing.
A small figure hovered by the chair, trying to guard a steaming jug from the mixture of salt and rain.
‘Cocoa, sir?’
Blake nodded. He felt stretched out like piano wire. Almost at breaking point. Damn the weather. Where was the change of luck they needed so desperately?
He noticed that the slightly-built seaman was Digby, the one who had discovered the grisly remains on the islet.
Blake sipped the cocoa, it was scalding, in spite of the long haul from the galley. It seemed to cling to his stomach lining like an extra skin.
He asked, ‘All right, Digby?’
The youth stared at him, astonished that anyone remembered his name, especially the captain, and at a time like this.
‘Y-yes, I mean, aye, aye, sir.’
He took a quick glance past the captain, knowing he would always remember the moment. When he had shared this high, unprotected place with Blake. Out there, beyond the streaming arrow-head of the forecastle, was the whole ocean. Unlike some of his tough and seasoned messmates, Digby knew there was no land within safe distance. The nearest was straight down, twelve thousand fathoms beneath Andromeda’s keel.
Masters was saying, ‘You’re certain it’ll be today, sir?’
Blake turned angrily. ‘I’m not bloody sure of anything!’ He touched the airman’s jacket impetuously. ‘Sorry. Unforgivable.’
Masters grinned. ‘We all take you for granted, sir. That’s the best of being a ‘temporary gentleman’!’ He ducked as more spray came inboard. ‘Nobody expects anything of me!’
Villar clawed his way across the bridge. ‘Signal, sir! From Naval Operations, immediate. Empire Prince has made her arranged signal. My team is plotting the position now, but as far as I can gather she’s about two hundred and seventy-five mi
les south-south-west of us.’
Masters said under his breath, ‘Just as well I didn’t fly-off.’
Blake thrust past him and lifted the hood above the chart table. Empire Prince in the original plan would have done well. But in this mounting sea things could change.
He said, ‘Alter course to intercept, Pilot. Warn the engineroom.’
He felt the lieutenant duck from under the hood. He was alone with the stained chart, the small glowing lamp above it.
Fairfax could not possibly have sighted anything at that time. His situation would be like Andromeda’s. Desperate the Germans might be, but to risk seizing an oiler in pitch darkness was inviting failure. He thought of Masters. Rietz must have launched an aircraft. An Arado was bigger and far more powerful than Masters’ Seafox. The German pilots would be the best available, professionals well-used to tracking surface vessels under all conditions. So they were there. More to the point, the lure of fuel had pushed caution aside.
Blake stood up, waiting for his eyes to get accustomed to the darkness again. What would he do in Rietz’s place, with the only chance of survival a tempting cargo of fuel with the means to bunker at sea? He did not need to answer his own question.
He felt the bridge shaking more insistently as the revolutions mounted.
‘Course two-one-zero, sir. Revolutions for twenty-five knots.’
Blake walked past a petty officer who was holding his handset like a talisman.
‘Tell the engineroom I need more revs right now.’
Palliser came from the shadows, his collar turned up as more spray burst over the bridge in a solid sheet.
‘Up she rises!’
But nobody laughed.
Palliser glanced at Blair, who was sharing his watch.
‘Bloody hell. I feel like a leper all of a sudden!’
The Australian grinned. ‘Nothing new, Guns.’
Blake moved restlessly across the slippery gratings, listening to the various reports from radar, from the W/T office, even from the sick-bay. The last one was to announce that a steward had broken his wrist after being hurled down a ladder when the ship had made an impressive plunge.
Scovell appeared to tell Blake he had been right round the ship as instructed. There had been no point in rousing the whole ship’s company just for that. There might be long delays, with the tension building up in each man until he would be unable to see or think clearly.
Scovell said, ‘All checked, sir.’
He sounded out of breath. Lack of exercise or fear, it was hard to tell.
‘Good, Number One. Pity we don’t know where the enemy is, or from which bearing she’ll put in an appearance.’
He thought of Villar’s neat calculations, tide and current, the wind’s direction and drift. Rietz was probably shadowing the oiler from the south-west. Keeping well back until he was ready. The captain of any fully loaded tanker would not risk a clash. Fairfax would have to tread warily. To act otherwise would make the enemy suspicious and invite disaster.
Scovell peered at the watchkeepers as if to sniff out a man dozing on his feet.
‘Rain’s getting heavier. Lull soon. Then wham.’
Blake turned away. Scovell’s pessimism did not help. A storm and a battle did not go hand in hand or leave room for manoeuvre.
Blake listened to the screws’ steady beat, felt the ship’s violent motion as she hurled herself into the weather as if she hated it and what they were all doing to her.
He said, ‘Call the hands half an hour earlier, Number One. I want them fed and ready to go to action stations as soon as we’ve got some daylight.’ He added, ‘Tell Paymaster Commander Gross to get his department on top line. Sandwiches and tea to all the gun positions. Chocolate, too, if he can spare it. Then make sure the commodore’s been roused.’
Blake heard Scovell’s boots clattering down a ladder. Probably thinks it’s unnecessary. A waste of time. Sentiment, when all they needed was a firm hand.
He saw Digby creeping round the after part of the bridge gathering up empty mugs. Scovell should try to see it like Digby. A helpless feeling made worse by the darkness, the empty desert which had already taken care of the Devonport and a few others besides. You needed more than cold armour-plate at times like these.
In the sick-bay Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander Bruce scrubbed his hands and tried not to look at his assistant’s green face. The motion was terrible down here, with every jar and bottle clattering on shelves and in cupboards like dancing skeletons. Bruce glanced at the sick-berth attendants in the adjoining flat, laying out the instruments, checking the stretchers. He sighed. He was getting too old for it. Past it.
The ship’s company was wide awake now, and there were many who had been unable to sleep anyway. Plates were left untouched by some, others ate with a kind of desperation, as if it was the last meal on earth.
Cooks and stewards piled small mountains of sandwiches op trays, while stokers of the damage control party went round the ship looking at life-rafts and Carley floats, timber for shoring up bulkheads, all the odds and ends of survival.
Both the boiler rooms and the engineroom were fully manned, with overalled figures scrambling through the steamy haze while they tried to stay on their feet. Weir watched from his catwalk, his face set in a grim mask. Steele was moving towards him, his mouth speaking silent words to the chief stoker while the din roared and rattled around them.
On the thick watertight doors the clips were greased and ready to be slammed shut. In action men would pause to look at these doors. Safety for some, death by fire or drowning for others.
On the long messdeck in Andromeda’s forecastle Leading Seaman Musgrave ran his eye quickly over the bare neatness. The messdeck, like the others below his feet or aft from where he was standing, was prepared for battle. The clutter of half-written letters, repair-jobs on uniforms, ship-modelling and the like were stowed away. Only here and there were signs of habitation, the garish pin-ups displaying their teeth and their breasts. A pair of sea-boot stockings hung to dry on a deckhead pipe. But otherwise it was empty, the long, scrubbed tables and benches adding to a sense of loneliness.
Musgrave rapped the nearest table with his torch. ‘All done ’ere, sir.’ He looked at the officer who had been sent to check the messdecks with him. To get him from puking up his guts most likely, he thought.
Midshipman Steven Thorne nodded stiffly. He was so frightened that his eyes felt too big for their sockets. He wanted to say something, to assert himself, to discover the kind of strength which the leading seaman seemed to take for granted.
He asked huskily, ‘You were aboard when you fought the three cruisers, Musgrave?’
‘’S’right.’ Musgrave felt both sorry and irritated by Thorne’s misery. If he got through this lot, Thorne would probably be throwing his bloody weight about in no time. You never knew how they would turn out. He added, ‘Any reason for askin’?’ He dropped the sir. It was Musgrave’s special way of finding out how far he could go.
Thorne seized a fire-hose as the ship swayed noisily over a solid bank of water.
‘I – I just wondered what it was like.’
He sounded so wretched that even Musgrave felt a twinge of pity. He looked along the broad messdeck, remembering the savage gashes in the side, the sea streaming past as Andromeda pressed on with her attack. A lot of good blokes had bought it that day, and before. He could see them now. On or off watch, up in front of the jaunty or Jimmy the One. Runs ashore in Alex and Gib, booze-ups and fights with the police and the civvies. Now they were gone.
He said, ‘It was rough. But this one will be a piece of cake. I think the skipper’s ’ad just about a gutful of the Jerry. I wouldn’t give much for ’is chances!’
There was a metallic squeak and Musgrave saw the young midshipman jump with alarm. He followed his gaze to the great circular steel trunk which passed through the mess from the deck below and the one beneath that. It supported the crushing weight of A turret on the forecastl
e, whilst through it passed the ammunition hoists between the magazines and the breeches of the guns.
Thorne said in a whisper, ‘Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘’Ere, grab this fire-bucket.’
Musgrave pushed the youth over until the sand was within a foot of his face. Poor little sod. Don’t even shave yet.
But Thorne was not sick. He stammered, ‘Thanks, Musgrave. Close thing.’
Above the door to the messdeck was a red-painted gong.
Musgrave said quietly, ‘Listen. In a moment or two that bloody thing is goin’ to sound off like the clappers.’
Thorne said, ‘I know. Action stations.’
Musgrave swung the door behind them. ‘More to it than that. We’re goin’ to fight today. I feels it. When that ’appens you can forget all that swill they teaches you at the officer’s school.’
‘I – I don’t understand?’
‘You will.’ Musgrave stuck out his beard. ‘There’s blokes up top ’o’ll be lookin’ to you, God ’elp them. ‘Cause you’re an officer. The fact that you’re just off your mother’s apron strings an’ ’ave never been in a scrap like this one’ll be never comes into it. So when the shit starts to fly, sir, just remember not to let ’em down.’
Thorne nodded, his fists clenched to his sides. ‘Yes, I see.’
Musgrave looked up. The rain was easing off a bit and so was the motion.
Thorne said, ‘Thank you.’ He straightened his cap. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’
Musgrave grinned. I’ll bet nobody’s spoken to him like that since he was caught pinching apples.
It was at that precise moment the alarm began its insane clamour.
‘Action stations! Action stations!’
Musgrave glanced at the midshipman and started to run for the nearest ladder. Just before he scrambled through the hatch to the deck above, Musgrave paused and looked back. It was then that it struck him. Like a fist. He was never going to see that messdeck again.
Scovell saluted. ‘Ship at action stations, sir.’
Blake peered at the sky. The cloud was breaking up, with patches of steely blue showing occasionally to light up the set faces around him and give substance to the sea.
A Ship Must Die (1981) Page 26