The Destroyers Read online

  THE DESTROYERS

  Douglas Reeman

  1974

  Contents

  Author’sNote

  1 The Destroyer

  2 Scrapyard Flotilla

  3 Wondering

  4 Bait

  5 A Great Find

  6 Not What They Were

  7 During the Night

  8 Missing Persons

  9 A Slight Setback

  10 Touch and Go

  11 Side by Side

  12 In Deadly Earnest

  13 That Bloody Hell

  14 A Spot of `Leaf’

  15 Time for Thought

  16 Old Friends

  17 Smash-Hit

  18 Reunion

  Author’s Note

  As I gather material and do research for each new book I am quite frequently asked how I continue to unearth themes for the next manuscript, and the one after that.

  In fact, the breadth of sea history, both ancient and contemporary, the many experiences of ships and sailors, never fail to awe me. Far from being denied plots for future stories, I sometimes seem unable to keep pace with those which I discover in my endless search.

  Small but incredible acts of courage and endurance seem to rise up from the grander records of campaigns and barely remembered wars. When I was writing this book it was hard to accept that such deeds were in fact carried out by British warships in the Second World War, not least by the old destroyer Cambeltown at St. Nazaire.

  My story, like the title, is double-edged. It is about a flotilla of out-of-date warships, destroyers, which because of the war’s incessant demands and greed were pushed against terrible odds, almost without regard to losses. But it also concerns the men who controlled their destinies. Men driven to the edge of endurance who in turn became the destroyers. Forced by various reasons to face each hazard, they still retained their more personal standards. Duty, fear, the need to destroy the enemy, each other if so ordered, these men were a part of history. Of war itself.

  D.R.

  1

  The Destroyer

  LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER KEITH DRUMMOND kept his head lowered as he walked around the deep puddles left by overnight rain. It was nearly dawn and the air had a bite like mid-winter. He hesitated and looked up at the departing clouds, the dull greyness of which matched the worn dockyard buildings and the looming shapes of vessels which still lay quietly at crowded jetties or protruded above nearby wharves and basins.

  But it was early June, and the year 1943.

  He stretched his arms and yawned, tasting the dampness, the smells of salt and oil, of wet metal and discarded waste. The untidy sprawl of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Chatham seemed almost peaceful in the gloom, he thought. In a short while all would be different again. The resting ships would come alive to the din of rivet guns and screeching saws, while above the open basins the tall gantries would sway and then plunge down like gaunt herons searching for food as the work of building and repairing, boiler cleaning and restoring got under way.

  Two shadowy figures detached themselves from a wall, and a voice asked irritably, “Who’s this, then?” They were dockyard policemen.

  Drummond stepped over some railway lines and approached them.

  The first policeman said, ” Oh, it’s you, sir. ” He touched his cap. “Surprised to see someone about so early.”

  Drummond nodded. It was unusual to see dockyard policemen so far from their cubby-holes and fires, for that matter.

  The other one said importantly, “The tugs brought a destroyer in last night, sir.” He gestured to the dry dock at his back. “Too dark to do much. We’re just here to make sure that….”

  He looked at his companion and added awkwardly, “Well, you know how it is, sir. She hit a mine in the estuary. Most of her engine-room blokes were killed. They’re still inside. Can’t get ‘em out till daylight.”

  Drummond walked to the side of the dock and peered down at the long, narrow hull. Even in the poor light he could see the damage. Could even see it happening, as if she had been his own ship. The bridge superstructure smashed half over the side, as if pounded by some giant hammer. Buckled guardrails, and one funnel laid out on deck like a huge coffin.

  He said coldly, “Yes, I know exactly how it is.”

  A destroyer had been mined and towed into another dockyard nearby. She, too, had had dead sailors trapped below deck, left to wait for the water to be pumped clear, for the men with cutters to hack their way through. But when daylight had found them the dead had been robbed. Money and watches gone. No wonder these policemen sounded embarrassed.

  Everyone had been most insistent that somebody else had been responsible. Just one of those things.

  He added, “Might be a fine day.”

  He nodded and strode on towards the next line of basins, knowing they were staring after him, thinking he was bitter towards them or just one more hard case.

  Drummond glanced towards the east where a moored barrage balloon showed itself through a gap in the low cloud. Beyond it and Sheppy Island lay the Thames Estuary and the North Sea. Despite everything which had happened, or because of it, he was glad to be going back.

  His own ship had been in the dockyard for a month, and not a moment too soon. She had needed every hour of every one of those days, and he found he was walking faster, as if some doubt which had been in his mind was departing with the night.

  He reached the basin and stood quite still on the edge, the chill air exploring his legs and whipping the oily dock water into nervous movement below him.

  She was moored in the centre of the basin, and unlike his last visit three days ago, she was afloat again, a living ship. A destroyer.

  He walked very slowly along the wet stonework, his eyes never leaving her lithe, familiar shape. Against the filthy water and dark dock sides her new coat of dazzle paint made her shine eerily, and her pendant number, 1.97, stand out as if she were brand new. But daylight would show the lie, he thought. The paint would not hide the many dents along her three hundred and twelve feet of narrow hull. Nor could it disguise her outdated and quaint silhouette which had made her and the rest of her class so familiar throughout their long service. Unlike her more modern consorts, and especially the hastily constructed vessels which had been designed and built since the outbreak of war, she had an appearance which betrayed all of her twenty-five years. Behind her sturdy, open bridge her two funnels were unmatched in height or breadth. The foremost was tall and thin, the after one short and squat. Her main armament of four four-inch guns had open shields which left their crews unprotected from behind. Once, at the peak of her fame, she had carried two triple mounts of torpedo tubes, now she had only one set, the other removed to make room for more short-range weapons to fight off attacking aircraft.

  Drummond smiled, despite his uneasiness. As Frank Cowley, his first lieutenant, had once remarked, she was like an old Chatham prostitute. Past her best, but, with a new paint-job and a wealth of experience behind her, carried a sort of jaunty arrogance which appealed far more than younger competitors.

  He looked at the water below the steep wall. Except that Frank was no longer first lieutenant. He was over in Canterbury, being watched by some grave-faced nurse in the naval hospital.

  Drummond had spent the night, or part of it, in a Canterbury hotel. Helen, Frank’s wife, had asked him to stay at her house near the hospital. But her eyes had told him the opposite. Just as they had asked, “Why Frank, and not you?”

  Drummond had tried to break the stillness between them. But it always seemed to return to the ship. But then, it was ‘all he

  knew. They would be off to sea again soon. That had been

  wrong. He had seen the pain in her eyes. He had tried to tell her about the difficulti
es of getting a ship back to normal after a month’s refit and repairs. There would be new faces to replace those who had gone elsewhere. For courses or promotion. For special leave or, like Frank, to a living death.

  He could remember when Frank had got married. The party in the wardroom while the ship had been at Harwich between convoys. She had asked him why he had not got married. He had replied, “Not in wartime. ” Now she was probably remembering that, too. Hating him for being whole when there was no one to care. While Frank had no legs.

  He walked down the steep brow and stepped on to the destroyer’s deck, feeling its stillness, its watchfulness. He saw the bell hanging from its newly painted bracket, the night’s rain misting it like steam. He touched it with his finger. The inscription was almost worn away. Years of polishing. All those men. All those years. H.M.S. Warlock 1918.

  A figure clumped from the lobby below X-gun. It was Leading Seaman Rumsey, the chief quartermaster, a great bear of a man, always cheerful, with a sleepy grin which could overcome even the roughest reprimand. Drummond was glad he at least was still aboard.

  Rumsey said thickly, ” ‘Mornin,’ sir. Wasn’t expectin’ you just yet. ” He banged his gloved fists together. “I was just goin’ to call the ‘ands. ” He grinned. “Start another day like.”

  Strangely sad on the damp air, a bugle echoed amongst the sheds and sleeping ships, to be joined instantly by others from the barracks nearby and the heavier ships of war which carried such luxuries.

  Wakey, wakey, .lash up an’ stow! Rise an’ shine, the sun’s scorching your bleeding eyeballs out! The age-old joke at half past five of a spring morning.

  Drummond stepped into the lobby and glanced at the board by the quartermaster’s little desk. All the officers were ashore except the engineer and the torpedo gunner.

  He swung round, suddenly and without warning on edge.

  “Where’s the new first lieutenant?”

  Rumsey paused with one finger. at the tannoy switch, his silver call resting on his lower lip.

  He said carefully, “Ain’t ‘ere yet, sir. We got a call to say ‘e was detained. Train ‘eld up by a derailment outside London. ” He hesitated. “Or somethin’.”

  Drummond clattered down the ladder and heard Rumsey bellow into the microphone, “Wakey, wakey! Rise an’ shine!” In a moment he would rouse the duty petty officer and go to the messdecks and haul any malingerer out of his hammock, bedding and all. There was little pity from those who had the night watches.

  Drummond groped his way into the deserted wardroom. He knew every step blindfolded. Even the patch on the worn carpet was familiar as he stepped into the wardroom and switched on some lights. New paint everywhere, but the furniture was the same. Dark red leather which would be carefully covered when the ship was at sea again. When officers, chilled from an open bridge and dog-weary from watchkeeping, would slump down and probably fall asleep until they were needed. Like that last time. The clamour of alarm bells the sudden crash and shriek of cannon shells. Frank falling against the side of the bridge, unable to cry out or even draw breath in his terrible agony.

  One side of the wardroom contained the dining space. The well-polished table, the sideboard, and a pantry hatch through which the stewards listened to all the gossip before, trading it forward to the messdecks.

  Drummond let his eyes move to the other side. The battered armchairs, a picture of the King, the letter-rack and the cabinet which held a set of revolvers. The ship’s crest above the oldfashioned fire, the staring warlock, and the motto which when translated read, Who touches me dies.

  He walked out of the wardroom and past the pantry door. It opened slightly, and he saw Petty Officer Owles, the senior steward, watching him with surprise.

  ” ‘Morning, Owles. Any coffee going?”

  He bobbed his head.

  “I’ll open your cabin, sir.” He tugged a great bunch of keys from his pocket. “Got to lock everything or screw it down in this place, sir. ” He continued brightly, “Have a nice leaf, sir?”

  Owles always asked the same question. Just as he always called it “leaf” and never expected or listened to an answer.

  Drummond did not reply, and Owles said cheerfully, “That’s the ticket, sir. Glad to know that.”

  He unlocked the last door in the passageway, the one marked Captain, and switched on the lights.

  “Coffee in a jiff, sir.”

  Drummond closed the door behind him and leaned against it. He was back.

  Lieutenant David Sheridan, R.N. V.R., returned the salute from a party of seamen who were marching through the dockyard on some mission or other and then continued on his way. He was tall and broad-shouldered like an athlete, and below the rim of his cap his hair was dark, almost black, as it curled rebelliously above his ears. As he turned to watch some dockyard workers meandering along the littered deck of a refitting cruiser he felt his chin rasp against his greatcoat collar. That bloody train, he thought savagely. Sitting in a cramped, unheated compartment with some moaning civilians and an army subaltern who had looked as if he were just recovering from a terrible binge. He grinned, despite his irritation, the change pushing the lines from his mouth. Making him look his age, which was twenty-six. He had done a fair bit of moaning himself during the long, unexplained wait in that cheerless train. A bad air-raid, a derailment, nobody really knew. Or cared, it seemed.

  His uncomfortable night made the air seem colder, and the sky was clouding over already. More rain. Funny how it always seemed to be raining whenever he was in Chatham.

  He strode past another basin. This time there was a destroyer, and he hesitated to look down at her. She was old, a veteran from World War One, one of a design of nearly seventy ships known as V and W class destroyers. Like the one he was about to join as first lieutenant. The difference was that this one, already partly gutted by flaming torches and screaming saws, was part of his life, or had been. Now she was being cut down to receive larger fuel tanks, to become something else. A longrange escort. Not a real destroyer any more. He watched the growing pile of jagged metal on the docksides. Pipes and strips of newly cut steel. Wire and gun-mountings, a whole tangle which had once been part of a living ship. Part of him, too. But in time the wires and cables which now snaked ashore in every direction would grow fewer, the poor, hard-worked hull would get a coat of paint. A fresh company would arrive. A captain to command and carry ship and men from one call to the next. Convoy escort. Dreary and vital. Wearing and deadly. He felt

  the same old bitterness welling up inside him. He had been ht-t-, first lieutenant for nearly a year. Learning the job and then teaching others. Drawing their confined, dangerous world together, handing it to his captain as a going concern.

  The captain had called him to his day cabin to explain. It had sounded more like an apology.

  “I had hoped to get a command of my own, sir.” Sheridan could almost hear himself saying it. Pleading. It was so damned unfair. A slap in the face. Several of his opposite numbers in other ships had already got commands, temporary officers or not. He, it seemed, was to be givenn another run at the same old job, under some other captain. Lieutenant-Commander Keith Drummond, Distinguished Service Cross, Royal Navy. Sheridan had seen him once at a convoy conference and had remembered him despite all that had happened since. He recalled his grave, calm manner of speaking, the way he could hold a mixed gathering of merchant service captains, most of whom had been old enough to be his father.

  Drummond was about twenty-eight or nine, but had the experience of a veteran, which indeed he was. When Sheridan had mentioned his name to some of the others, one of them had remarked, “Drummond, you say? He’s a bit of a goer, I believe. Runs a good ship, but he’s a regular, David, so watch yourself.” They still spoke like that, after nearly four years of war, when the hostilities-only and ex-merchant navy men outnumbered the regulars by an overwhelming degree.

  Sheridan had seen it in his own ship. The regulars had been sent to other vessels, promot
ed ahead of their proper time in a desperate effort to train the inflow of newcomers. To make a navy out of amateurs while day by day the losses to bomb and torpedo mounted and the convoys faced the ravages of sea and enemy alike.

  The worst of it was H. M.S. Warlock had just completed a refit. That meant many more new hands. No captain would be eager to recommend his first lieutenant for promotion at this stage.

  Sheridan quickened his pace again. Before the war he had been hopeless at holding down any sort of work for long. He had wanted to go to university, perhaps to study law eventually, but he had been the family breadwinner. His father had been crippled in that other war, it had been the least he could do for him. Now all that seemed like history. He had taken to the Navy like a duck to water. Nothing else seemed ahead of him. It could go on forever. Except that 1943 had offered some small sparks of success. T “he North African campaign was at last ended, and the remains of the battered Afrika Korps had quit the desert just a month ago. After years of reverses and retreats, “strategic withdrawals,” as the journalists called them, the Army was getting a chance to hit back. There was talk of an invasion of occupied Europe. There was even a demand for it, especially from those who did not have to wear a uniform.

  Through it all Sheridan had seen the Navy carrying on, from one disaster to the next. Norway and Dunkirk. Crete and Singapore. Great ships gone in the twinkling of an eye. Names which had been household words in those far-off days of peace. Hood and Royal Oak, Repulse and Courageous. Even the newer ones, like Prince of Wales and Ark Royal, had not been spared in the savage fight to keep the sea lanes open, to keep supplies and men moving.

  It would have been something to get a ship of his own. To finish the war with a command to show for it, he thought. Anything would have done for a start. A stubby corvette, a trawler even. Or one of those weird paddle-steamers which had once taken passengers on day trips to Southend and were now classed as minesweepers. Anything.