To Risks Unknown Read online

It was useless to think about it. Perhaps that was the real reason for keeping Scarlett aboard, just as Wemyss had suggested. To hold him here, if only to witness what he had caused.

  He snapped, ‘Full ahead! Course two-five-five!’

  To Griffin he said, ‘Signal the M.L.s to drop smoke-floats. It will help give them some cover.’

  He wondered briefly what Scarlett was thinking down in the sealed cabin. Perhaps something inside him was even thankful it was all over, that the pretence and deceit was no longer necessary. As he had left the bridge he had looked as if he only half understood what was happening, as if the enormity of events had finally unhinged him so that he felt nothing any more.

  Crespin walked to the front of the bridge again, feeling the breeze across his neck. Smooth and clean. Like her touch. Like the big flags which made a twisting shadow above the bridge.

  Porteous spoke again. ‘Any orders for me, sir?’

  Crespin lifted the glasses and scanned the channel carefully. It was made misty blue by the nearest island and seemed so peaceful that it was almost impossible to believe this was all happening.

  ‘Tell the Buffer to check the boats, Sub. We will drop them when we make our turn. A few shots should sink them and let the depth-charges blow up on their own.’ He sounded tired. ‘It might give the Nashorn something to think about.’ Then he said, ‘You can come back here after that.’ He waited until Porteous had gone. ‘You take his place aft, Number One. If I’m bumped off I want you in one piece to get the ship out of this.’ He smiled. ‘If you can.’

  Wemyss licked his lips. ‘You can rely on me.’

  Crespin turned again to study the channel as the ship’s speed continued to mount. It saved him from seeing the other boats and their slow progress towards safety. Perhaps they were all watching the Thistle, he thought. Soskic and Coutts, Ross and Preston, and all the others he could not put names to.

  It would be a sight to remember. David and Goliath. The little corvette and the armoured giant.

  They had at last caught up with the future, and it felt as if all the other things had just been part of a build-up for this one particular episode.

  He was about to climb on to the chair and changed his mind. He wanted to remain standing, to keep the feel of the gallant little ship beneath him.

  Apart from the racing engine and the sluice of water against the hull there was a great silence, and he found time to think of all the men around and beneath him who had been brought to this moment of time to share it as best they could. His officers. The mate of a merchant ship, a shop assistant, a barrister, and whatever Defries had once been. And the rest. Magot, who should have been living out his years with his grandchildren. Joicey, who had waited to see his enemy suffer but had found only understanding. Griffin, standing calmly and without fear, watched by his signalmen who were little more than boys.

  Expendable they probably were, but Thistle could have wished for no better company, he thought.

  The next shell came without warning, screaming overhead like something unleashed from hell. It exploded far astern, lost in the drifting smoke.

  Crespin wiped some spray from his glasses and lifted them once more. The waiting was over.

  17. The Name of Action

  LIEUTENANT MARK SHANNON walked round the gunshield and then stood with his back against its rough steel staring straight across the bows. It was a strange, exhilarating sensation, as if he was being carried quite alone by the ship which lifted and ploughed so eagerly beneath him. His crew were hidden by the shield, and there was not a living soul between him and the invisible enemy.

  He heard the shell scream overhead, and after a moment’s hesitation walked slowly back around the shield. As he glanced up he saw Crespin’s face to one side of the bridge, set and impassive, and other heads, motionless like statuary, parts of the ship’s structure.

  He turned his back and looked searchingly at his small crew. ‘Don’t forget, this is to be a close action. The enemy has two big guns, but if we can keep her end on she can only use one at a time, right?’

  Leading Seaman Kidd, the gun captain, rubbed a gloved fist over the breach lever and grimaced. ‘Won’t do much with this pop-gun, sir.’

  Shannon glared at him. ‘It’s all we’ve got!’ He grew impatient. ‘When that gong goes we open fire and keep on firing!’ He raised his voice so that the other gunners turned to watch him. ‘Nothing else bloody well matters, see?’

  He saw the layer and trainer exchange quick glances across the breech but decided to ignore them. They were good enough hands, but as unimaginative as the rest.

  He thought suddenly of his shells slamming home. One target after another. The first tension which he had suspected might be some sort of fear had been nothing of the kind. It had been only the fear of failure, and the success of his gunnery had wiped that away as if it had never been.

  Like a mist clearing from his mind, he thought. All the other hopes and doubts had been quite pointless. You could only depend on yourself. He thought, too, of Scarlett. A case in point. To think he had lowered himself to the extent of expecting a man like Scarlett to help him. He was no better than those patronizing bastards he had been forced to serve over a shop counter so long ago.

  He looked around the shield and watched the blue mist floating above the channel. Everything was blue. It was like being in space.

  As he thrust his hands into his reefer pocket he felt the hard outline of the jewelled crucifix. He had almost forgotten about it and the touch brought a sudden smile to his lips. He was not religious in any way, but the cross was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It was also worth a great deal of money.

  But its value went even deeper than that. During the ship’s first week at Brindisi he had met Carla. Her husband was a major in an Italian artillery regiment, but she did not know if she was a widow or not, for he was one of the unlucky ones, caught beyond the Allied line and forced to hold his allegiance with the Germans.

  She had a small house on the outskirts of the town, and after their first meeting in a restaurant Shannon had become a regular visitor. It was not just a case of going to bed with her. Her need of him, her desperate desire to do anything and everything to please him had made him realize his new power. She was ten years older than he and hardly spoke any English at all, yet she seemed to understand him better than he did himself.

  Only when he had made her wear the crucifix around her neck while he had made love to her had she shown any sort of protest. For that reason he had made her suffer, to teach her a lesson. He had placed the cross between her heavy breasts and knelt astride her, watching it, seeing the shame in her eyes, yet knowing her passion was returning in spite of it.

  Now she was back there in Brindisi, probably still waiting for his return. He would never see her again, no matter what happened. She had served her purpose, and for the first time in his life he felt complete. The crucifix would always be there to remind him of the past. But now, the future was the only thing which counted.

  A thunderous explosion rocked the hull, and as he clung to the ammunition hoist he saw a great column of water shooting skyward barely a hundred feet from the port bow. The deck and fittings shook in protest, and as water began to fall hissing alongside he realized that Bullen, the gunlayer, was sprawled at his feet, his eyes wide with astonishment and a gaping hole dead in the centre of his chest.

  The others were all staring, stunned by the suddenness of death in their own crew, and he felt the same gripping excitement sweeping through him like ice water.

  He dragged the man’s body clear and jumped forward into the seat. ‘Stand by!’ He looked at Kidd. ‘It’ll be any second now!’

  Leading Seaman Kidd glanced at the staring corpse by the rail. He had been his friend, and in a matter of a split second he had become something without personality or meaning. Then he looked across at the lieutenant, seeing his insane grin, the quick, deft movements of his fingers on the sights. Between them they seemed to symb
olize his own fate, and as he stood clear of the breech Kidd knew that he, too, was going to die.

  From his position in one corner of the bridge Crespin saw the gunlayer fall, but his mind barely recorded it as the thrown spray cascaded over the port bow in a solid sheet.

  The speaker behind him intoned, ‘Enemy in sight! Bearing green two-oh! Range oh-six-oh!’

  The last of the spray drifted clear, and as he steadied his glasses once more he saw the Nashorn. It was strange how they had managed to draw so near to each other without becoming visible, he thought. She seemed to detach herself from the side of the island on the starboard side of the channel, materialize out of the blue mist even as he watched, her ugliness making it all the more unreal.

  Three miles away, yet already he could see the massive hump of her armoured bridge, the two funnels streaming smoke as evidence of her captain’s efforts to reach his base. There was another long flash, and seconds later a tall waterspout burst directly in the Thistle’s wake.

  ‘Starboard ten!’ Crespin gripped the screen tightly. ‘Midships!’

  Another scream and crash, the whirlpool of the falling shell appearing dangerously close to the last one.

  But perhaps it was too close, he thought. Any one of those shells could destroy an M.L. or schooner without even having to obtain a direct hit. The corvette must be a more difficult target.

  He shouted, ‘Hard aport!’

  Clinging to the screen he pulled himself along the tilting deck to watch as another shell exploded in direct line with the others. Good shooting, provided the target remained on a set course, or was too small to withstand a near miss.

  He looked at Wemyss. ‘Midships!’ He added, ‘We must close the range! If we can give Shannon a chance we might be able to do some damage.’

  A bosun’s mate looked up from a voice-pipe. ‘Four-inch requests permission to open fire, sir!’

  Crespin nodded and pressed the button. The crash of the gun drowned the gong, and he guessed that Shannon had been itching to fire, although at this range and in the hazy visibility any hit would be pure luck.

  When he peered astern he saw that the land had vanished behind a low wall of brown smoke. It was a screen put up by the floats and momentarily effective. The German gunners would be more inclined to concentrate on the Thistle.

  The breech clicked home and he heard Shannon rasp, ‘Repeat that deflection, you fool!’ Then, ‘Shoot!’ Another armour-piercing shell tore away from the gun, and seconds later the speaker intoned, ‘Short! Up five hundred!’

  Crespin said, ‘We will close the range and then turn away.’ He saw Porteous nodding, his face pale beneath its tan. ‘I will make smoke and then drop both boats with the depth-charges. When the enemy enters the smoke I am hoping the charges will explode close to her. While her captain is making up his mind about the cause, I’ll go about and have another crack at him!’ He grinned to try to reassure Porteous. ‘Just so long as we can stop him from turning away. If he does that he can bring both guns to bear on us. A straddle would buckle this little hull like a soup tin!’

  There was another slamming crash and a column of water towered above the bridge like a solid thing, gleaming in the sunlight, hanging there as if it would never fall.

  Crespin felt the jarring clatter of splinters against the side, the demoniac scream of others as they whipped overhead.

  ‘Starboard fifteen!’ He felt the spray across his neck as he groped for the compass. It tasted of lyddite. ‘Midships!’ He had to keep zigzagging if he was to avoid one of those massive shells. But the turns must be as haphazard as possible. Any sort of mean pattern would soon transmit itself to the German gunnery officer.

  ‘A hit!’ Shannon was yelling like a maniac. ‘Jesus, we hit the bastard!’

  Crespin steadied his glasses, feeling the ship canting in response to the helm He was just in time to see the brief red glow below the Nashorn’s boat deck. Then it was gone.

  ‘Range oh-five-oh!’

  Griffin muttered, ‘We’ll be close enough to board the bugger soon!’ It brought a smile to one of his signalmen and he was satisfied.

  Crespin said, ‘We will close to three thousand yards and then turn …’ He looked round for Porteous and then flinched as the next shell exploded right alongside. For the smallest part of a second he had felt it coming. Like a change of hearing, a brief shadow, it was all and none of these things.

  When it burst the bridge was plunged into shadow and the world was confined to a crushing onslaught of falling water, of screaming metal and the overall feeling of helplessness.

  Crespin felt himself slipping and falling, his feet knocked from under him, his hands and knees scraping against steel as the deck tilted violently and then staggered upright.

  For an instant he thought he was the only one left alive.

  Then, as Griffin and Porteous scrambled to their feet and another man tried to claw his way from beneath an upended flag locker, he looked up and saw the jagged remains of the radar cabinet, the gaping holes in the funnel, and tried to gauge what the damage would be like below, nearer to the explosion.

  When he attempted to stand he felt a pain lance through his side, sharp and agonizing, and he looked down, expecting to see blood, to know that he had been hit. There was nothing.

  Porteous gasped, ‘Are you all right, sir?’ He looked dazed.

  Crespin nodded, biting back on the pain. ‘I think it’s a rib.’ He pointed at the ladder. ‘Get down and see what has to be done.’ He ducked as another explosion shook the hull and more spray soaked down across them, shocking them into movement and thought again.

  He saw Porteous dragging himself to the ladder and then walked back to the gratings. One of the young signalmen lay face down beside the chart table, his fair hair moving in the following breeze. Griffin was on his knees beside him. Then he took Crespin’s discarded oilskin and covered him.

  Griffin returned to his position at the rear of the bridge. He said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes.

  ‘Port twenty!’ Crespin waited, holding his breath, then he heard Joicey’s voice, ‘Twenty of port wheel on, sir!’ Thank God the wheelhouse had been spared. ‘Midships!’

  ‘She’s turning, sir!’ A lookout was pointing wildly, his forehead covered with blood.

  Crespin craned over the screen. ‘We are going about!’ He saw Shannon and the gun captain staring up at him. ‘We can’t allow him to pull over and use the other gun!’ He noticed Shannon was grinning, his teeth white in his grimed face. He swung round as Porteous reappeared on the bridge. ‘Well?’

  Porteous said, ‘Starboard side, right on the waterline, sir. But mostly superficial, except for some splinters.’ He gestured above the bridge. ‘Radar gone.’ He shuddered. ‘Willis and his mate, well, there’s nothing left of them.’

  ‘What other casualties?’

  ‘Two stokers from damage control, sir.’ Porteous held up his hand as if to shield his face as a shell screamed above the bridge, pressing them down with its shockwave and cutting away some signal halyards as cleanly as a knife.

  It exploded, and Crespin saw the waterspout far away on the port beam. He wiped his glasses and trained them over the screen as the Nashorn fired again. But it was her after-gun, and he saw her ugly outline lengthening still further as she completed her turn and headed for the opposite side of the channel. It was now or never.

  ‘Hard astarboard!’ He ran from the voice-pipe and dragged Porteous towards the ladder. ‘Tell Number One to lower the boats and get ready to slip them!’ He hurried back to the side and snatched up the red handset.

  ‘Chief? Captain speaking. I want you to make smoke … now!’ He slammed the handset on its rack and clung to the compass as the ship continued to swing round in a wild turn.

  Order and timing seemed out of place now. The corvette strained round, her deck almost awash as the sea sluiced up over the side. It was a world gone mad. Made worse by the billowing fog of oily smoke which gushed from the funnel and a
dozen splinter holes as well, it was like a new nightmare. At regular intervals the shells arrived. Tall white columns of water, they appeared to be all round the ship; this side and that side, until it was almost too hard to count the seconds between each one.

  ‘Midships!’ The hull bucked hard beneath him, and more jagged splinters hammered the side. ‘Steady!’

  The smoke came down in a choking cloud, blotting out the sun, while the Thistle plunged into her own screen. Then she was through it, and as the drifting fog mounted astern she pushed back into the sun, her screw still racing at full speed.

  Crespin wiped his streaming eyes. ‘Slow ahead!’ He could imagine Margot’s surprise, but there was no time to delay now. He must get rid of those depth-charges. Another shell burst somewhere astern. He waited, biting his lip, feeling the pain in his rib, as if his ship’s own agony had reached out for him also.

  He said tightly, ‘Just one shot! She’s turned again and is after us!’ It had worked. He clung to the top of the ladder and peered down at the litter of punctured plating and the snaking patterns of fire-hoses.

  Both boats were swinging on their falls barely a foot above the dying bow wave. Wemyss and the damage control party were staring up at him, and he saw Defries right aft by the pom-pom tying a bandage on a seaman’s wrist as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  Crespin cupped his hands. ‘Slip the boats, Number One! One at a time. You’ll have to cut the falls, so get a move on! I don’t want to hang about!’

  He saw Wemyss wave and then felt himself being hurled backwards on to the bridge. He had heard nothing. One minute he had been watching Wemyss, the next he was falling, hearing his own voice cry out in agony as his ribs crashed against an unyielding piece of steel, seeing the sunlight through the smoke, his reeling mind registering, as if in a dream, that the foremast was falling, the battle ensign suddenly near and very white as it was dragged down and out of sight below the bridge.

  He had reached the plating below the compass and could even see the neat rivets beside his mouth, but he still seemed to be falling. With the falling came the darkness, the sunlight drawing away. Like dropping down a well, he thought vaguely. Then it was completely dark, and the noise and pain ceased abruptly.