Path of the Storm Read online

  All ready. All waiting.

  Gunnar knew too that a fat tug was hovering somewhere out in the harbour, just in case anything went wrong. He had seen its navigation lights momentarily reflected against the shining sides of an anchored British cruiser, and he guessed it was waiting to rush to his aid if he misjudged his manœuvres. Well, it was a British harbour. They could afford to be worried.

  ‘All lines singled up, Captain!’ Maddox’s voice sounded thick.

  ‘Very well. Stand by all engines.’ Gunnar found that his throat was dry.

  The telegraphs jangled noisily, and almost at once the deck and bridge fittings began to vibrate with steady persistence.

  The wheelhouse was directly below the bridge, and all wheel orders were passed down a brass voice-pipe. Gunnar got another small picture in his mind of the helmsman leaning forward against the well-worn spokes, his ear cocked to the bell-mouthed pipe, his telegraphsmen beside him, their faces aglow in the compass light. It was always a tense moment.

  There was a faint step on the deck, and Gunnar looked round to see the shape of Connell, the doctor. He was wearing a pea jacket, his eyes dark in his face as he looked uncertainly at the captain. ‘Is it okay if I stay up here?’ He had a soft, gentle voice, but Gunnar did not wish to start up a conversation at this moment. Not with him.

  Doctors, doctors. Gunnar nodded briefly at Connell and walked to the port wing. He could remember so clearly the bloodied fingers of that doctor in Viet Nam. Stitch, stitch, stitch! God ... he ground his teeth together to control his tumbling thoughts.

  He peered down at the fo’c’sle. The white hats of the sailors floated like moths along the dark steel, and he could see Chief Tasker testing a mooring wire with his foot.

  ‘Let go aft!’ Gunnar had spoken almost unconsciously. He heard the talker repeating his order and the brief splash from the fantail as the wires were slipped and then whipped aboard.

  ‘All gone aft, sir.’

  ‘Good. Slack away bow lines!’ Gunnar gripped the cool steel with all his might as his order was relayed and the figures on the fo’c’sle moved with such painful slowness.

  Caught by the offshore breeze and freed by her aft lines the Hibiscus’s stern began to swing away from the jetty. Very slowly, and then gathering momentum, her three hundred and eighty tons opened up a widening angle of black water.

  Gunnar heard Regan shout hoarsely, ‘Watch those fenders!’ Men scampered to lower the big rope fenders between the jetty and the overhanging bow as it swung slowly above the stonework. He added: ‘Dabruzzi, you’re as much use as a snowball in hell, you useless bastard! Now jump to it!’

  Gunnar closed his ears to all of them. He peered through his binoculars towards the stern and the harbour beyond. It was now or never

  ‘Let go bow lines!’

  He mentally counted the seconds. ‘All engines back one-third!’

  With sudden gaiety the twin screws beat the water into a madly dancing froth below the low counter, and very gently the ship began to move astern.

  Like a pale grey shadow the ship glided back between the big cruiser and a pair of moored destroyers. Here and there a figure waved or saluted. Gunnar noticed vaguely that there were women in long gowns and officers in mess dress on the quarterdeck of the British cruiser, and several paused at the rail to watch the small submarine chaser back past.

  Gunnar found that his glasses hovered on the small, colourful group, and he felt the surge of old bitterness as he remembered Janet and her pale arms and red mouth.

  Maddox said quietly, ‘The carrier’s getting close, Captain.’

  Gunnar felt the sweat like ice on his neck. Christ, the carrier! He had lost himself in his thoughts for those vital seconds.

  ‘All engines stop!’ the throbbing faded and the ship rocked gently on her wash. Gunnar moved quickly to the forepart of the bridge and stood high on the gratings. Astern, the towering side of the carrier seemed to mock him. What a god-almighty start that would have been. Slap into the flagship!

  Gunnar found that he was grinning stupidly to himself. ‘All ahead one-third!’ Sharpness edged his voice as if to cover his discomfort.

  The ship began to move forward for the first time. ‘Right standard rudder!’

  A white crescent of foam marked the ship’s course as it swung clear of the cranes and the dark tangle of dockyard buildings.

  Gunnar’s voice was stiff and controlled as he passed one helm order after another, and he checked each impulse to watch the departing shore as it glided into the dusk.

  Past the cheerful glow of the Yacht Club and the unlit bulk of the Supreme Court building, and with quickening power into the first wide stretch of water. A bobbing police boat without lights curtsied in their wake as its occupants waited patiently to search the next junk or coaster suspected of carrying refugees or opium, and two cormorants rose flapping soundlessly from a weed-encrusted buoy as Hibiscus dug her stem into the growing power of the open sea. Past Green Island with the lights of Kennedy Town beyond, and then south-west into West Lamma Channel.

  Gunnar said flatly, ‘Bring her left to one-nine-zero.’ He wondered if somewhere over there on the great sprawling mass of dark and pinpointed lights the ship’s absence had already been reported, her course followed and mapped. They probably knew his destination as well as he did, he thought bitterly.

  He half turned to Inglis. ‘Take the con. Bring her on to the new course as soon as you pass the outer buoy.’

  Gunnar heard the young lieutenant stammer his assent and knew that he was confused by the sudden order. In a more friendly tone he added: ‘I’ll be here. But you might as well get the feel of her inshore.’

  He stepped from the gratings and walked to the starboard wing, deliberately turning his back on the lights of Hong Kong, the lights of the land.

  The first deep-water roller moved lazily out of the gloom and passed hissing beneath the ship’s keel. With the contempt of an old sailor Hibiscus lifted her raked bow and then cocked her stern with disdain as the water broke in twin white breakers along either beam.

  Gunnar said, ‘Check the wires, Mister Maddox, and dismiss the hands.’ As the big exec turned to climb down the ladder Gunnar added, ‘And thanks!’

  Maddox stared at him with surprise. ‘A pleasure, Captain.’

  Gunnar leaned against the steel and stared hard at the water. His hands were still shaking, and he was glad that it was dark in the bridge’s private world.

  But it was too late now. They were committed. Him most of all.

  The ship’s low hull blended with the sea as the darkness crept down to meet her, so that soon only her bright, unmatched eyes were visible to those who still watched from the shore.

  Within half an hour even they had been swallowed up, and the two cormorants returned to the buoy, and the night.

  2

  Memories

  THE PUBLIC ADDRESS squeaked and then purred into life. ‘Now hear this! General drills will recommence at 1400!’ Some of the men around the bulletin board between decks swore and shook their fists at the speaker. Others, still clasping coffee mugs and knives and forks, merely swore obscenely.

  Pirelli, a tall, darkly tanned seaman, groaned. ‘Jesus Christ! It’s like bein’ back in a battle-wagon!’

  Grout, one of the Hibiscus’s sonarmen, blinked his small eyes at the board and then pushed after the others towards their mess. ‘Hell yes! It’s bad enough goin’ on some crappy survey assignment without all this drill stuff!’

  In the main crew space the low deckhead held down the mingled aroma of the midday meal coupled for good measure with that of fresh paint and insecticide. Most of the crew off watch were already straddled around the hard-topped mess tables, their feet automatically braced, although the ship was completely steady. On either side of the eating and complaining men the ports were open on to a bright blue sky. Each port was divided in two by the dazzling horizon line which shone like a continuous diamond necklace above a pattern of deeper blue
.

  Pirelli slumped in his seat and sniffed loudly. A gunner by trade, he was a tough, professional seaman, and he was already feeling sick of the influx of new faces around his particular table. Of the ten men who sat hunched over their greasy plates, only he and his friend Grout were of the original crew. He peered darkly at the man directly opposite him. A good-looking Italian boy of about twenty with black, restless eyes and a soft, rather petulant mouth.

  Pirelli said slowly, ‘Excuse the chow, it’s not up to your usual standards.’

  Several men laughed, but Bella, the one addressed, only stared down at his plate with obvious nausea. Bella’s thoughts were elsewhere. Like many of the other new crew members, he had been switched from another ship at the last moment to complete the correct numbers. He was in fact from the carrier which Hibiscus had so nearly rammed. Throughout the fleet, many officers had rubbed their hands at the prospect so suddenly dropped in their laps to get rid of deadbeats, troublemakers and men like Bella, who simply were better off out of their environment.

  Bella moved his fork broodingly around the pile of beans and bacon which lay soggily on the plate. He came of a poor longshoreman’s family in San Francisco, the youngest of eight kids. In the crisp, busy life of the navy it was hard to remember his third-floor apartment, and the fact that his father hardly ever spoke in any language but that of the old country. Bella had tried to forget them all, if only so that he should not despise them with their labour rallies, interspersed with bouts of religion and drunkenness. The trouble with his father’s sort was that they did not want to lose their old identity. They hated change. They would never dream of leaving America, yet they never seemed to become part of it.

  Pirelli tapped the table, two bright beans running from one corner of his mouth. ‘I’m talkin’ to you, Wop!’

  Bella jerked from his brooding, his eyes suddenly alive with fury. On top of everything else the old ‘thing’ had happened. He stood up. ‘Wop your goddamned self!’

  Knives and forks clattered into stillness, and many expectant eyes turned towards the slim, wild-eyed boy. This was more like it. After two days at sea under the new skipper most of the crew were ready for anything. Drills and exercises every day in spite of the blazing heat which pinned the ship down to the lazy sea like a crippled dragonfly.

  Pirelli grinned lazily. As his big mouth twisted sideways the tightening skin of his right cheek revealed a deep white scar. He was a fighter, and knew all the signs. Under other circumstances he would have ignored Bella’s quick return, for, like most professional lower-deck brawlers, Pirelli was no bully. However … He stood up, almost a head taller than the other man.

  ‘Me? A Wop?’ He roared with laughter, revealing his strong if uneven teeth. ‘If anything I come from Ireland originally!’ He looked round the mess space. ‘’Course that was a long time ago!’ He became serious. ‘But these here Eyetalians are different. Now when I was in the Sixth Fleet we went ashore in Messina, and there were all these little greaseballs, stuffin’ themselves with yellow worms!’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Horrible it was!’

  It was then that Bella hit him. Although classed as a seaman, Bella was rated yeoman because of his obvious sharpness and eagerness to learn. Hours of work over books and publications in one of the carrier’s offices had robbed his slight frame of most of its muscle, and with dismay he saw Pirelli’s grin return even as the shock ran up his arm.

  The big gunner dabbed the red patch at the corner of his mouth and then lashed out. Bella’s legs trapped him against the mess stool, and with a sob he cannoned backwards on to the deck. His head thumped the unyielding metal and a thousand stars danced across the grinning faces which swam above him. With a choking gasp Bella staggered to his feet and lunged to the attack, his arms flailing. A fallen dish of beans skidded under his shoe, and this only added to his wretched fury which had been brought to a head by Pirelli’s casual insult.

  All the agony of the last weeks roared through his brain, the girl’s tear-stained face, and the grim features of the carrier’s captain when he had told him for the last time that no permission was forthcoming for Bella to marry a Chinese girl. They were both under age; time would heal; opportunities would occur … all the unfeeling, senseless phrases surged across his mind as he reeled blindly against someone who stood between him and the now silent Pirelli. With one final effort Bella punched forward, but a grip of steel encircled his wrist and the blow halted in midair.

  Bella went limp and stared up into the bleak, hollow-cheeked face of Chief Tasker, who had been in the process of conducting one of his prowling inspections of the crew’s quarters.

  There was complete silence.

  Tasker released the boy’s wrist from his hard, cold hand and stepped back to stare at him. ‘Well, speak up!’ His thin mouth opened and shut like a rifle-bolt.

  Bella hung his head. It was all happening. What was the point of trying to do anything?

  Pirelli said lazily: ‘Hell, Chief, we was only sparrin’. I was just showin’ the lad how I took a Lascar in the Primrose bar at Gib!’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Honest, Chief!’

  Tasker grunted. ‘I know what I saw!’ He blinked rapidly, so that his hooded eyes made him look like death itself. ‘Just watch it in future, Bella! Otherwise it’ll be “mast” for you, got it? I don’t like troublemakers in my ship!’

  He turned on his heel and clattered up the steel ladder.

  The tension eased, and Pirelli patted his bench. ‘Come and squat, you mad bastard!’

  Grout saw the boy’s miserable reluctance. ‘That’s an order, lad!’ He grinned across at Pirelli as the young seaman slid on to the seat. ‘Welcome to the club!’

  Pirelli peered sideways at his new companion. ‘Okay, Bella? What’s yer name?’

  ‘Mike.’ One word, small and still wary.

  ‘Well, Mike, on this scow you’ve got to hit something.’ He bellowed again. ‘It might as well be me!’

  Bella’s mouth crinkled into a slow smile, but if Pirelli had seen the dull light in his eyes he would not have been so confident of his conquest.

  * * *

  In the wardroom, too, the midday meal was progressing through its final course. Slattery, the white-coated senior steward, watched his two messboys like a mistrustful eagle as the ice-cream and tinned peaches were ladled into the waiting dishes. The open ports, crisp tablecloth and well-worn silver gave the wardroom an almost holiday atmosphere. Even the Seventh Fleet crest above the mahogany sideboard, with its much quoted motto, ‘Ready Power for Peace’, gleamed with new paint, and the dazzling reflections from the passing bow-wave helped to hide the cracked leather on some of the chairs and the numerous dents and scratches on the scanty furniture. The room was spacious compared with the rest of the ship, and ran the full width of the vessel. The port side contained the dining table, around which the off-duty officers sat in silent contemplation of their peaches, and the starboard side comprised the space allotted easy chairs, bulletin board, sideboard and pistol rack. Piles of Esquire magazines, weeks-old newspapers, unfinished airmail letters completed the normal small ship litter.

  Gunnar sat at the head of the table, his hands hidden beneath the cloth. Occasionally he glanced around at the others, taking mental notes, withdrawing reservations, installing others.

  Maddox was at the opposite end, his strong face set in a frown of concentration as he spooned in his second serving of ice-cream. Gunnar noticed the way Maddox’s unruly hair always managed to stay in the same state of disorder yet seemed set that way. He had a kind of animal toughness about him, Gunnar thought, one minute relaxed, the next alert and semi-belligerent, like a gundog.

  On Gunnar’s left sat Kroner, the communications officer, and Malinski, whose sallow face still showed one small streak of oil as if to defy the closeness of his open-air colleagues. Kroner had bored them through most of the meal with a long dissertation on registered publications and the weaknesses of Hibiscus’s sonar equipment. Both topics were dull enough, but from K
roner’s languid lips they were sheer misery.

  Eventually Connell, the doctor, who sat on Gunnar’s right, had remarked, ‘Seems a lot for a jg to know?’ It was a small, seemingly innocent remark, and the doctor’s bright blue eyes were almost grave, yet Regan, the first lieutenant, who sat at his side, threw back his bullet head and roared, so that one of the messboys at the pantry hatch rolled his eyes with uneasy expectancy.

  ‘A mere jg! By God I like that, Doc!’

  The tiny web of wrinkles around Connell’s eyes drew together in a secret smile. ‘I had a feeling you might.’

  The dishes vanished and the smell of fresh coffee, never far away, floated across the table.

  Gunnar interlaced his fingers tightly below the cloth and tried to relax his taut muscles. Every movement of the deck beneath his feet, each sudden shudder of the props, made him stiffen, hold his breath and listen. He had purposely left the bridge to young Inglis for the quiet routine watchkeeping of a clear empty sea, and this was the first meal he had completed with the bulk of his officers. Deep down he was aware that he also wanted to break their clublike barrier, to feel his way into their code and find out what they were thinking.

  About me? He stared at the sloping surface of his coffee and was caught off guard as the doctor asked, ‘Do you expect a long assignment in Payenhau, Captain?’

  Gunnar collected his scattered thoughts and felt his mouth obediently turn into a smile. The doctor’s opaque eyes and quiet diffident manner could be unnerving. ‘Hard to say. I have to contact the U.S. military adviser first. He’s been there for some time. He should be able to put us in the picture.’

  It was maddening the way small remarks continually laid bare the things which were uppermost in Gunnar’s thoughts. The military adviser for instance. The orders stated in all but actual words that Gunnar and the ship would be under his orders and at his constant call until the operation was completed.

  One side of Gunnar told him to get the job finished and then the hell out of it to Taiwan. The other, stronger, urge insisted that he stayed with the unwanted command as long as possible. For after Hibiscus, what then? This military adviser, like the many in Viet Nam, a Major Lloyd Jago, U.S.M.C., would probably be more awkward because of the complete isolation of his field of operations. What the hell was he doing in a penal settlement anyway?