The Destroyers Read online

  Parvin heard him exclaim bitterly, “Don’t talk to me about heroes. I’ve seen too many of them.”

  When Drummond returned to the bridge just before midnight the sea felt calmer, flatter, and through a high bank of fleecy clouds he caught occasional glimpses of the moon. He shivered slightly. A good night for it.

  “Ready when you are, sir.

  He glanced at Wingate, noting the dullness in his voice. Equally the lingering tension around the bridge. An argument. Assertion of discipline. Keyes making a mess of something.

  He dismissed it from his thoughts. It did not matter now.

  “Yes. Sound action stations, please.”

  5

  A Great Find

  DRUMMOND rested his elbows against the bridge screen and trained his powerful glasses beyond the port bow. It took steady concentration with the ship moving so sluggishly, and after a slow examination of the faint horizon he returned to his place beside the chart table.

  Beaumont had taken over the bridge chair, and appeared to be sitting very erect, listening. In fact, the whole ship was like that.

  It was nearly four in the morning, with the moon still playing tricks between the thin clouds and touching the crests of the long swells with silver, so that the troughs seemed far deeper than they actually were. The motion was sickening, for with her engines stopped, her fans almost stilled, Warlock idled and swayed over each low swell with all the intensity of a quartersea.

  An hour earlier the lookouts had sighted a light, far away on the eastern horizon. It had moved slowly and then vanished. Radar had reported it as a ship, and it had seemed likely that the light had been the illuminated hull of a neutral. The Aragon, Beaumont had insisted forcefully. Now nobody was certain of anything, except that their own ship was drifting uneasily in moonlight which could make her a fine target,

  Drummond asked, “How is the decoy?”

  More murmurings, a clink of metal as a lookout’s belt scraped against a locker. In the silence it sounded like the crash of an oven door.

  “In position, sir. Now almost dead ahead. Range six thousand yards.”

  “Damn °” Beaumont wriggled round in the chair, his face square against the sky. “We can’t crack on any speed or we’ll be up to her in no time.” He was calculating aloud. “That other bugger is probably listening or watching from somewhere. Waiting to see if the decoy stops or retraces his course. “

  Drummond said nothing. If there was a spy-ship out there, her captain was cunning all right. Warlock could do little but wait. In the morning they would be too close to Spanish waters to take decisive action. And the trap might be sprung against them.

  “Check with the W/T office.”

  Drummond heard Hillier muttering into the voice-pipe at the rear of the bridge.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  Drummond groped for his pipe and put it between his teeth. He could see Wingate lolling against the chart table, the portly outline of Tucker, the yeoman of signals, at his elbow. Lookouts and bosun’s mates, and Sheridan on the opposite side of the bridge. In action he would be elsewhere with the damage control parties, but in this peculiar situation he might be required right here.

  Wingate asked, “I wonder where the other destroyers are?”

  Beaumont snapped, “Laughing their bloody heads off, I expect!”

  Miles Salter edged around the compass platform, his hands groping before him like a blind man.

  “Maybe they’ll try again later?”

  Beaumont looked down at him. “Perhaps. But we will have to close with the decoy and get her out of it. She’s got a list, which her crew created by flooding. She looks the part, but it could be difficult to put her to rights for the next leg to Gib.”

  He swung round in the chair. “Who has the nearest patrol area?”

  “Ventnor, sir.” Wingate did not consult his notes. “Her captain is Lieutenant-Commander Selkirk.”

  “I see.” Beaumont peered down, searching for Drummond. “Remember him at the conference? Bloody troublemaker, if I ever saw one.”

  Salter asked mildly, “A reservist, I believe?” Beaumont looked away. “Yes.”

  “Radar-Bridge.”

  Sheridan was there. “Forebridge.”

  “Firm echo at Red four-five, sir. Range seven thousand yards. “

  “Ask him why the bloody hell he didn’t get it earlier!” Beaumont sounded savage.

  The radar operator must have heard him and said, “Been having a lot of back-echoes, sir. Or it may have been some kind of jamming. Can’t tell under these conditions.”

  “Light on the port bow, sir.”

  Drummond stepped quickly on to the gratings behind the chair. He saw the blurred glow as before, a touch of red, like a painted emblem.

  The lookout added, “Moving away, sir.”

  “Must have smelt a rat.” Salter sounded vaguely relieved. “Off like a shot!”

  The explosion when it reached the ship was like a thunderclap. But seconds before, a great scalding tower of flame shot skyward with such fierce intensity Drummond could imagine the heat against his face. Then came the bang, rattling the bridge and making several of the men cry out with alarm.

  “Christ! The decoy has been torpedoed!”

  Beaumont stood and seized the screen with both hands, his head and shoulders clearly outlined by the distant fire.

  “Full ahead together!” Drummond ignored the shouts and questions on every side. “Stand by B gun with star-shell!”

  Telegraphs clanged, and with an urgent roar of screws and fans Warlock lunged ahead towards the blazing ship.

  Drummond stood up beside Beaumont, his glasses quivering to the increasing beat of machinery.

  “It’s the tug, not the decoy, sir.” He waited for Beaumont’s mind to clear. “Look, you can see her broaching-to!” He turned slightly. “Tell Guns to put a star-shell at Green four-five. There must be a U-boat on the surface.”

  “Asdic have had no contact, sir. ” Sheridan kept his voice steady.

  Beaumont shouted, “I don’t give a bugger about that! That fool Selkirk must have let the Jerry slip right under his nose!”

  He winced as B gun exploded below the bridge.

  Drummond waited, counting seconds, feeling his ship tearing through the water beneath him, the clatter of a shell-case as the gun crew opened their breech.

  The star-shell burst far abeam of the two ships, lighting up the sea in a pitiless white glare which made the moon and even the spurting flames seem dull.

  Nothing.

  Drummond shifted his glasses, trying not to look at the dying tug, the way the fires were spreading now across the water and engulfing the listing decoy. Nothing. No U-boat on radar, or detected submerged by Asdic. Yet a ship had just been blown up before their eyes, and out there men were burning and dying.

  He snapped, “Pass the word. Collision mats forrard, starboard side.” He touched his cheek as if to confirm the direction of the breeze. “Tell the doctor to get up there. There’ll not be much time.”

  Beaumont staggered across the gratings and said sharply, “Get after that bloody Spaniard!”

  “There are men dying. We may save a few. ” He thought he saw the conflict on Beaumont’s face, his eyes shining like stones in the drifting flare. “If we grapple with a neutral, with no evidence she was acting unlawfully, we will have wasted time and lives for nothing.”

  He turned away. “Number One, -get down to the fo’c’sle. Fire parties and damage control sections, too.” His voice checked him as he ran for the ladder. “I’ll drop the motor boat as we make our run-in, so make sure she has a good crew.”

  A dull explosion rattled the glass screen and threw a ragged smoke-stain across the moon. Some of the fire disappeared, and Drummond guessed the tug had plunged under. She would be big, with a sizeable crew.

  Faintly above the din of fans and surging water alongside he heard the cry, “Away motor boat’s crew! Lowering party at the doable!”

  He
could imagine the startled confusion aboard the other destroyers waiting out there beyond the flare and the glittering reflections of a dying ship. They would come rushing to give assistance, no doubt blaming Warlock for failing to detect the U-boat, even now after the savage attack.

  Feet hammered along the iron deck, and on the forecastle he saw the chief bosun’s mate and a dozen hands working feverishly to lash fenders and collision mats, hammocks and anything else which might cushion the impact as they swept alongside.

  Salter was saying, “God Almighty. God, look at her burn.” Over and over again.

  More explosions echoed across the swell, the surface of which shone with red and orange, for as the flare died away Warlock’s company found they were staring into the very heart of an inferno.

  Beaumont said tightly, “You’re taking a chance.”

  “I know, sir.” He leaned sideways above the voice-pipe. “Slow ahead together. Stand by the motorboat. ” To Beaumont he added, “No choice.”

  “Ready to drop the boat, sir.”

  “Very well. Stop both engines.” He felt Warlock sighing ahead on her fading bow wave, the shout from below the bridge, “Out pins! Slip!” The rattling splutter as the motor boat veered away like a mad thing before coming under the command of its own engine.

  “Half ahead together.” He heard Mangin’s acknowledgement. Stiff, every fibre concentrated on the ball of fire directly ahead. “Starboard side to, Cox’n. Easy as you can.”

  Mangin replied, “I’ll try not to score the paint, sir.”

  Drummond peered down at the deck again. The figures touched with cruel reflections now, the air around them tinged with smoke and ash. He saw the doctor in his white coat, Frond, his effeminate S. B.A., close behind him, a satchel bouncing on one hip. All available hands. Extra stokers, cooks and stewards, the supply assistant, and anyone else who was not employed on the guns. And what a target they would present to any stalking submarine. Slowing down, black against the flames, a perfect shot.

  Drummond bit so hard on the unlit pipe he almost broke it. There was no U-boat! So how the hell had it happened?

  He turned to Hillier, “Warn depth-charge crews to stand by. Shallow pattern.”

  He swung back to the screen. Just in case.

  The decoy ship was looming high above the starboard bow

  now, less than a cable clear. She had been one of the hastily built Liberty ships but had broken her back in a storm off Miami the previous year. Repaired with no particular use in mind, she was now dying as bravely as any ship could be expected to do.

  “Slow ahead.”

  He could feel the heat, taste the stench of burning paint and woodwork, as well as the seeping oil which was trickling in an angry flood away from the sinking ship, like lava from a volcano.

  He saw men, too, very small against the fires, creeping or darting from one place to another, their shouts lost in the pandemonium of leaping flames and escaping steam.

  Something heavy grated through a bulkhead, and a wild column of sparks burst out of the after well-deck, hurling several tiny figures over the side.

  When he glanced abeam he saw the Warlock’s small motor boat chugging steadily towards the flames, her crew standing like bronze statues in the reflected glare.

  “Stop together.”

  He tried not to drag himself up to the top of the screen to watch. He could almost feel the other ship’s hull getting closer, his stomach muscles contracting as if they and not Warlock’s bow were going to take the collision.

  Someone jumped outward and down, and Drummond heard Hillier retching helplessly as Warlock pushed firmly under the decoy’s quarter. The wretched sailor must have been pulped between the hulls like fruit.

  “Slow astern together!”

  He gritted his teeth, imagining Galbraith in his private world of noise, watching the dials, with nothing between him and his men but thin steel plates. And his trust in those on the bridge.

  The screws beat the sea into another frenzy even as the flared forecastle lurched drunkenly against the other vessel, ropes, fenders and makeshift mats all splitting and flying like live things as steel carved through them, bringing the,hulls together with one resounding boom.

  “Slow ahead port. Stop starboard.”

  Drummond squinted against the fierce glare, feeling the heat on his face and mouth, sensing that the other ship’s foremast and derricks had already gone smashing over the side. She was burning fiercely within, but would not sink just yet because of her extra buoyancy of packed timber. Better if she plunged down right now after the tug. It would at least spare some of those trapped between decks.

  Faint cries floated up from the forecastle, and heaving lines lifted or fell across the fires like crazy serpents. Some of Warlock’s men were retreating from the heat now. Others lay like corpses, overcome by the roaring inferno alongside.

  Beaumont shouted hoarsely, “Not many of them left!”

  Drummond wiped his streaming face. A mere handful, and some of those had probably dropped between the two hulls.

  Sheridan was signalling with his torch from the top of A gun. “Cast off forrard.”

  Drummond stood with his chest against the screen, making himself watch the last agonies. Then he saw two figures, isolated from the decoy’s poop by some fifty feet of solid fire. How they had survived this long he could not explain. Or accept. It was suddenly important that they should be saved. That they should not see Warlock sliding away in those last agonising minutes.

  “Fire parties!” He gestured over the screen. “Get some hoses on those men!”

  He watched narrowly as more flames darted through the fractured poop, some licking eagerly towards the Warlock’s forecastle and making the men scatter like skittles. But one hose found and held on to the two staggering survivors. Even in all this bedlam it was possible to see the steam rising from their clothing as they fought their way aft. There was Vickery, the chief bosun’s mate, and a cook still wearing his apron, clinging to the bucking hose as they guided them to safety.

  Hillier yelled, “They’re inboard!” He sounded close to sobbing.

  “Slow astern together!” Drummond thrust his hands into his pockets. Every limb was convulsing as if he had a terrible fever. “Hard a-port!”

  Sheridan came to the bridge, coughing and gasping. “Fifteen survivors, sir. Some may be from the tug, of course. “

  He leaned on the chart table, and Wingate said quietly, “Well done, old son.”

  Drummond walked to the port side again, watching the spreading lake of fire, dark red like blood against the paling sky.

  “Stop together. Wheel amidships. Can anyone see the motor boat?”

  He heard himself ask flatly, “Those last two. Are they all right?”

  Sheridan stared at him. “One might make it, sir. ” He looked away. “The other has lost most of his face.”

  “Motor boat on starboard beam, sir. ” A pause. “Her cox’n is semaphoring. Six picked up.”

  “Recall the boat.” He threw his cap on the chart table and took several deep breaths. “Twenty-one all told.”

  Salter said thickly, “I’d never have thought it possible. Bloody marvellous.”

  Beaumont turned on him. “Bloody disastrous, you mean!” He spoke in a fierce whisper. “We’ve gained nothing! And lost two bloody ships!”

  Hillier was dabbing his eyes and peering down at the motor boat as it moved very slowly towards the ship. In the paling light and the angry glow from the distant decoy it was easy to see the oil-sodden figures, the way they coughed and wheezed against their rescuers. He stood very still, quite unable to move. He knew Beaumont and Salter were arguing about something, that Drummond alone seemed to be in command of the ship and all about it. The rest were like parts of an intricate machine. Momentarily disturbed, but now returned to order and purpose.

  Still he stood quite rigid. Frozen as he watched something drifting away into the shadows.

  Drummond was also watching th
e motor boat when Hillier exclaimed in a shaky voice, “Down there, sir. In the sea.”

  He strode quickly to his side and gripped his arm. Through the duffel coat and reefer he could feel Hillier’s body shaking violently.

  “What is it, Sub?” He leaned over the rough metal, keeping his hold on Hillier’s arm.

  Hillier said huskily, “Gone, sir. But I-I was almost sure … ” He turned, his face like that of an old man. “Like a torpedo, sir.”

  Drummond retained his grip, his voice very even as he said, “Signal the boat. Pass the word to guns and depth-charge parties. “

  Hillier shook his head, oblivious to the sudden rush of feet all around him. “I was mistaken. It was just floating. Must have been-“

  “Sir!” The yeoman was waving his fist towards the sea. “The boat’s sighted something!”

  Beaumont said quickly, “I’d get going, if I were you, Keith. ” He was very cool. Detached.

  Drummond replied, “It would have attacked by now, sir. “

  He watched fixedly as the motor boat lifted and dipped over a long, easy swell. A torch was being trained carefully into the water. Something black, like a dead dolphin, swam into the brief beam of yellow light.

  Hillier murmured, “It was there.”

  The yeoman said, “Bloody hell!”

  Another voice, sane, almost matter-of-fact after what they had just seen and done, said, “Radar report, lost contact with Spaniard, sir. “

  Salter said to the bridge at large, “God, the Spaniards will make capital of this!”

  Drummond was still watching the thing in the water.

  “They won’t, you know. Not after we get this back to base. ” He released his hold on Hillier’s arm. “You did well. Now go aft and tell the gunner (T) to rig one of his depth-charge hoists. We’ll get that thing aboard if it’s safe.”

  Salter jumped with alarm. “It might explode, surely?”