To Risks Unknown Read online

  The Nashorn’s shell exploded halfway down the port side, less than ten feet from the hull. The men working by the davits were killed instantly, and the boat itself, splintered in a dozen places, sagged to the full extent of the remaining falls so that it scooped water over the bows, while the two depth-charges rolled and banged unchecked from their severed lashings.

  Sub-Lieutenant James Porteous had just left Wemyss and his lowering party at the starboard boat when it happened. But for the shelter afforded by the superstructure abaft the bridge he, too, would have died, and as he seized a stanchion to stop himself from being hurled overboard he felt the blast from the explosion ripping at his body with the force of a pressure hose. He must have been momentarily deafened, but as his hearing returned he heard the crash of breaking metal, and through the smoke he could hear someone screaming.

  He groped his way back to the davits and saw Wemyss crouched on one knee, his thumbs pressing into his leg, as he tried to stop the bleeding. Two seamen lay beside him, and another, unmarked but quite dead, sat propped against the guardrail, his eyes fixed on the others with something like hatred.

  Porteous shouted, ‘I’ll get the S.B.A.!’

  Wemyss shook his head, gritting his teeth against the pain. ‘Get to the bridge! Never mind these damn boats!’

  It was then that Porteous remembered seeing the captain fall. Up to that moment it had been shut from his mind by shock. Totally excluded, like a page ripped from a book.

  He nodded and began to pull himself up the bridge ladder. Another shell exploded somewhere, but he hardly noticed it as he concentrated all his strength on getting up the ladder. It seemed to take an age. Every steel rung stood out with stark clarity, while other things below and around him stayed hidden in a mist.

  When he passed the wheelhouse he saw more bright-edged splinter-holes and spurting jets of smoke from the opposite side.

  As his face lifted above the bridge coaming he almost dropped back to the deck below. His eyes were level with something which moved its arms and legs like a living person, even though its face had been wiped away.

  Sobbing, Porteous heaved himself on to the bridge, his shoes crunching across broken glass and woodwork and other hideous fragments which made his mouth choke with vomit.

  Griffin was squatting by the voice-pipes, his head on his hands. He looked up suddenly and tried to grin. Then he croaked, ‘Skipper’s down ’ere, sir!’

  Porteous dropped beside Crespin’s sprawled figure below the compass. His face was very pale, and when he tried to move him he felt blood on his fingers.

  Griffin crawled across the deck and gasped, ‘Take over, sir! For Gawd’s sake, do somethin’!’

  Porteous suddenly realized the significance of Griffin’s words. For the first time he became aware of the voice-pipes, the cries and curses which seemed to be aimed at him, the crash of explosions beyond the bridge plating, and above all the fact that he was entirely alone. Crespin seemed to be dead, and Wemyss too badly wounded to get here and help him. God alone knew what Shannon was doing. He felt his mind giving way to sudden terror and he knew that in a few more seconds he would be quite unable to move. It was then that he looked down and saw that Crespin had opened his eyes.

  Griffin struggled round, heedless of the broken glass, and lifted Crespin’s shoulders across his knees.

  Porteous asked thickly, ‘Are you all right, sir?’ It was a stupid question and he knew it. But just listening to his own voice again helped to steady him.

  Crespin said, ‘Cut those boats adrift!’ He winced as another shell roared close to the ship. ‘Then, and then …’ His head lolled and fell against Griffin’s chest.

  The leading signalman said fiercely, ‘You ’eard ’im, Mister Porteous!’

  Slipping and lurching through the smoke Porteous scrambled to the screen. A few seamen were coming down the port side, and he saw Wemyss hopping on one leg, his arm around a stoker’s shoulders as he made for the damaged boat. Porteous watched, knowing that if the boat slipped the two charges into the sea now the Thistle’s back would be broken instantly.

  An axe flashed in the filtered sunlight and the after-falls parted. Wemyss glanced up at the bridge and shouted something, his voice lost in yet another explosion. But the enemy’s shells were falling wild. The Nashorn must be steaming into the smoke now, shooting as fast as ever, and even though her gunners were blind they knew it was just a matter of time. The Thistle had nowhere to go but back to the end of the channel, and when once the smoke was clear the Nashorn would still be able to finish both her and the escaping boats.

  A man shouted, ‘There it goes!’

  Porteous saw the boat drop sluggishly into the trough of the bow wave and begin to scrape down the port side. But it was sinking too fast. It would never clear the hull in time. With a sob he ran across to the opposite side. If the motor boat was still hooked on it would be better to hoist it again. There was no time left.

  He stopped and stared incredulously. The motor boat was already in the water, the engine coughing and spluttering as it moved clear of the severed falls and idled astern into the smoke. It was impossible. Porteous could feel the hair rising on his neck. But there was a man actually at the helm!

  He pushed himself from the rail and almost fell on to the voice-pipe. ‘Full ahead!’ He paused, his nerves screaming. ‘Full ahead!’

  Joicey replied harshly, ‘Engine full ahead! I’ve only got one set of ’ands, for God’s sake!’

  It was so unlike the imperturbable coxswain that Porteous stared at the voice-pipe with disbelief.

  But then everything was crazy. He rubbed his forehead and looked around at the splinter holes. Nothing made sense any more. This little ship which had taken so much was still afloat. Even the engine was responding. The motor boat had gone, even though the lowering party lay dead or wounded, with some lunatic at the tiller.

  He swung round and gaped. And there was the captain, completing his madness. He was not dying as he should be, but actually on his feet, pulling himself along the screen, his eyes fixed on the smoke rising above the bridge.

  Crespin asked, ‘Boats gone?’ He had one hand pressed to his side and there was blood spreading down the front of his shirt.

  Porteous nodded dully. ‘I’ve rung down for full speed again.’

  Surprisingly, the captain grinned. ‘Good for you, Sub! We’ll give the boats time to drift astern and then head back into the smoke.’ He seemed to sense Porteous’s disbelief in spite of his pain. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The motor boat was manned, sir!’

  ‘The what?’ Crespin swayed and would have fallen but for Porteous’s arm as a great explosion boomed hollowly against the hull. Then as a towering wall of water burst through the smoke astern he gasped, ‘The charges! God, the charges have blown!’

  Porteous helped Crespin to the chair, and as he released his hold he was astounded to find he was no longer frightened. If it was possible to stay alive after today he knew he would never be the same again. A shell burst above the water far abeam with a bright orange flash, and he felt more splinters clanging against the hull. Yet he was able to watch and consider these things without flinching. Perhaps later … He shook his head and walked quickly to the voice-pipes.

  ‘Report damage!’ His voice sounded like someone else’s, crisp and confident. He grinned across at Griffin. ‘S.B.A. to the bridge on the double!’

  As the Thistle steamed back along her original course, her billowing smokescreen spreading protectively over either quarter, her company fought their own battles in their own way. Some, cut off by watertight doors and sealed deep in the trembling hull, clung to their voice-pipes and telephones, their only links with that other world above. Those at the guns crouched behind their shields, which as time wore on seemed to get smaller and thinner, while they waited for the ship to turn and fight back once more. The crews fought from their little steel islands isolated by smoke and the din of shellfire, calling to each other and shouting curses,
but never turning away from their guns when a man fell or some awful cry came back at them through the fog of battle.

  Some men did what they had always been trained to do, because as their minds cracked under the onslaught they worked more by instinct than with any sense of understanding.

  And a few did what they had sworn never to do. Sub-Lieutenant Jocelyn Defries was one of these.

  The boat with its depth-charges would have exploded right against the hull but for Porteous’s prompt action. If it had, the engine room would have burst wide open to the inrushing water, and Magot, who had stayed toothless and shouting from his footplate throughout every phase of the action, and all of his weary, deafened men would have been fried alive in the scalding steam.

  As it was, the boat capsized in the ship’s wake and sank like a stone, the shock of the twin explosions lifting the stern like a surfboard on an incoming roller and then dropping it again so that the sea roared hissing along both side decks, plucking at the corpses and whimpering wounded before sighing back again to wait its next chance.

  Defries was at his station by the pom-pom. The gun did not have the range for this sort of fight and he had been forced to stand with his men and watch the destruction like a helpless onlooker. He was better at it than most. Submarines had taught him that, if nothing else. In a stranded submarine lying on the sea-bed there was nothing to watch except the faces around you. Each face watched the other, gauging and measuring his own resistance in what he saw there.

  A seaman at the handset yelled, ‘Sir! Tiller flat’s floodin’!’

  Defries took the phone and spoke into it, his pale eyes fixed on the smoke astern. The ship was racing as if her heart would burst, yet because of the screen she seemed to be held motionless. He said, ‘Quarterdeck! What is it?’

  This time it was not Porteous but the captain. Defries smiled faintly. That was good. He had imagined Crespin killed or too badly wounded to help them any more. And he liked the captain. He was quiet and understanding, with the compassion of a man twice his age.

  The voice said, ‘The tiller flat’s been punctured, Sub. The Chief says the pumps can hold it, but I’d like you to take a look.’

  Defries nodded, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Crespin’s voice was fading as he prepared to drop the phone. ‘Easy now. No unnecessary risks.’ Then he was gone.

  The oval hatch which led to the small steel flat in the ship’s stern was right aft by the empty depth-charge racks. A seaman from the damage control party, hatless and soaked with spray, looked up at him, his eyes flooding with relief.

  ‘Wot’ll I do, sir?’

  Defries knelt down. ‘Is it bad?’

  The man nodded. ‘The Buffer’s down there. I was with ’im but ’e sent me back.’ He licked his lips. ‘The ’ole place is floodin’, sir.’

  Defries kept his face wooden. Petty Officer Dunbar had beaten him to it. The flat was flooding, there was nothing else to do but seal this hatch. In time the pumps would cope. If they stayed afloat long enough.

  He looked over the towing hook into the deep, clean furrow of the ship’s wake. No one would blame him. They might not even know. He ignored the warnings and stood up, his legs straddled to the swaying deck.

  ‘Open it!’ He made himself keep watching the frothing water leaping up from the racing screw. Then he lowered his eyes and stared at the oval hole with something like nausea.

  The trapped water was ebony black and he could see his own reflection in the one oval piece of sunlight. Then, apparently right aft, he saw a flashing light and knew it was a torch rolling back and forth across the deck below. There was no sign of Dunbar.

  He could feel the sweat running down his spine, and it took all his strength to hold back the growing fear.

  He snapped, ‘I’m going down. He might be holding on to an overhead pipe or something.’

  Without looking at the seaman he lowered himself on to the steel ladder, feeling the cold water dragging eagerly at his thighs as he ducked below deck level. The water was half way up the tiller flat, but it must be rising slowly, he thought.

  To the seaman he called, ‘Lower the hatch. I’ll knock with my torch when I’m ready to come up.’

  The man hesitated and then slammed down the weighted steel, shutting out the sunlight. The sound from the racing propeller, the shake and quiver of the shaft were all the more intensified, and Defries knew it was pointless to call Dunbar’s name. He clung to the ladder swinging his torch round, his mind reeling as some of the water sloshed over his head and shoulders. They had warned him that he would break down completely if he ever went back to submarines. One more incident like the last and he would go mad. He moved the yellow beam slowly and then laughed, the sound coming back at him from all sides.

  He was not going mad. He was all right.

  The torch jerked and he felt a shockwave hammer against the ship as a shell exploded in the sea nearby. But he was still chuckling as the light played round and then fastened on Petty Officer Dunbar. He was floating face down under water, his grim features shining in the beam of his own torch.

  Defries sighed and waded back to the ladder and began to climb. He banged sharply on the hatch, noting that the water had risen two rungs within the last few minutes.

  On the quarterdeck, huddled between the depth-charge racks, the seaman crouched above the hatch, his fingers still locked around the clips. He seemed to be listening, so intent was his expression. But he was dead. Killed by a splinter from that last haphazard shot.

  Defries hammered again, the chuckle held in his throat like a rattle.

  Then as the water surged around his neck he began to scream, the sound lost in the urgent thunder of the screw.

  Crespin sat back on the steel chair, breathing deeply and allowing the cold wind to play across his bare shoulders. Lennox, the Leading Sickberth Attendant, took another turn with his bandages around Crespin’s ribs and then muttered, ‘That should do it, sir.’ He had blood all over his arms, but his face was quite impassive, or shocked beyond any more feeling. ‘I’ll see to the cut now.’

  A piece of flying glass had cut Crespin’s right breast with the smoothness of a knifeblade. Lennox secured the dressing and shook his head. ‘Still, you ought to be taking it easy, sir!’

  They stared at each other and grinned. Then Crespin said, ‘Thanks, but I’m a bit busy!’

  Porteous called, ‘No sign of the motor boat, sir!’

  Crespin slipped his arms into his jacket. Even before Lennox had told him about the steward, he had known it must be Scarlett in the motor boat. Poor old Barker, the wardroom steward, had been lying dead outside the cabin. Above him was a line of splinter holes and a smudge of drying blood which told their own story. Scarlett would have seen him fall, or heard his last cry before he died. He had left the cabin, pausing only to take Barker’s revolver, the symbol of his last status as a sentry, and must have burst out on to the starboard side deck. It would take a man like Scarlett about two seconds to see the possibilities of the motor boat. Cutting the trailing falls had been easy, and in the death and confusion aboard the Thistle no one had seen him go until he was well clear.

  He was probably chasing after the M.L.s by now. While the Thistle turned to face certain destruction he would be back there, charming and explaining, rebuilding his own delusions so that more men might die because of them.

  Crespin looked around the bridge, past the covered corpses and the great bloodstains which appeared to be on every foot of space. Perhaps the depth-charges would have made no difference at all, but at least they might have given them a little more time.

  His eyes moved on, and he could feel them pricking with pain and despair as he saw what was happening to his ship, to the men who were still able to understand what he must do.

  A halyard squeaked and he saw Griffin clipping another ensign ready for hoisting to a makeshift staff behind the bridge.

  A lookout said, ‘Let one of yer buntin’ tossers do that! You look done in!�
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  Griffin carried on with his work. ‘They’re both dead.’ A tear splashed on the back of his hand and he added savagely, ‘Anyway, they could never do a proper splicin’ job!’

  Crespin looked away. ‘Warn all guns. Stand by to turn!’

  There was a crunch of glass and he saw Wemyss hopping clumsily across the bridge. He swept the mess from the chart table and squatted himself on it, his leg with its bloody bandage sticking out in front of him.

  He looked at Crespin and nodded. ‘A fine day for it, sir,’ was all he said.

  18. ‘Just as if she knew!’

  ‘PORT TWENTY!’ CRESPIN gripped the compass, feeling the deck cant steeply as the wheel went over. It was very quiet, and he could almost picture the enemy ship groping her way into the fringe of the drifting smoke. He heard Shannon calling more orders to his gun crew, while from aft a man cried out with sudden agony as he was dragged into some remaining piece of shelter. When he looked round the bridge he saw that fresh lookouts were already in position, facing outboard, their feet almost touching the bodies of those they had come to replace. One of the machine-guns had vanished, plucked away by the same savage blast which had flung him across the bridge, stunning him and knocking him senseless, but nevertheless saving him from the splinters which had cut the other exposed men to pieces. The remaining machine-gun was manned by a telegraphist and the assistant cook, their faces frozen into masks of tense concentration as the ship swung round and headed back towards the smoke.

  Crespin felt the sun moving across his neck as he looked down at the gyro repeater for the hundredth time. ‘Midships!’ By turning the opposite way they might at least hold on to a small piece of surprise. ‘Steady!’

  Joicey called, ‘Steady, sir! Course two-seven-zero!’

  The ship settled on her new course, and Crespin saw the smoke coming rapidly towards the bows. With the sun following from astern the smoke seemed to shine like something solid, so that as the stem bit into the first billowing layer he almost expected to feel some sort of impact.