A Mighty Endeavor (31 page)

Alleyne ceased fire as the flying boat slashed over the diving submarine.
F-Freddie
lurched as the four depth charges dropped clear.

“Way to bloody go! Perfect straddle. Boss! Score one for the
Hobartl
”

The cheer from the midships lookouts was all Alleyne needed to know. He was already curving around, bringing the submarine into his field of vision. Two depth charges had landed just short of the boat. The other pair had landed just over her. They exploded under the submarine, throwing her upwards and breaking her back. By the time Alleyne could see her properly, she was already sinking; her bows and stem raised in the air and her midships section under water.

“Strafe it?”

“Don’t be bloody. Leave her. She’s done for. Radio base and see if anybody can pick up the survivors. If there are anyway.” Alleyne guessed the submarine had been closed up for diving. The chance of anybody getting out, given the catastrophic damage inflicted by the four depth charges, were slight. Still, if there was a chance, it was worth getting the word out. He completed the turn and cruised over the sinking wreckage beneath. The submarine had almost gone; only the point of her bows stuck out of the boiling white stains on the sea surface.

“I hope some of you took pickies of that?” Alleyne had forgotten to order the photography in the rush of the attack, but the evidence was needed if they were to be credited with a confirmed sinking instead of a probable. The sea surface was littered with scattered wreckage, but there were no swimmers that he could see.

“Yeah, I got it. No heads down there I can see.”

“Me neither. Poor drongos. Any idea who they were?”

F-Freddie
circled the scene of the sinking. Her crew searched the floating wreckage with high-powered binoculars for any sign of survivors. Eventually, it was Chris White who gave the doleful epitaph.

“Nobody got out. All I can see floatin’ down there is a few bits of debris and a stuffed animal.”

HMAS
Australia,
Scapa Flow, Scotland

“Will ye no’ come back again?
Will ye no’ come back again?
Better lo’ed ye canna be
Will ye no’ come back again?”

The haunting echoes of the ballad echoed backwards and forwards from the ships anchored across Scapa Flow as the heavy cruiser started her slow progress out to sea. Captain Robert R Stewart surreptitiously wiped an eye at the words and the meaning behind them. This was the worst way to end an assignment he could think of. Betrayed.

There was no other word for it. He, his ship and his crew had been betrayed by the government they had come half way around the world to help. The rest of the fleet knew it. The sad dirge was their comment on the way the cruiser had been treated.

“It was originally written about Bonnie Prince Charlie, you know.” Lieutenant Colonel Beaumont spoke softly. “The Andrew always had a talent for knowing the right music.”

Stewart nodded sadly. “This is such a damned shame. We didn’t want ta go home like this. Not with our tails between our legs.”

“Not your fault. At least you were around to give us a lift home. The lads would have paid for the tickets on a liner home themselves rather than stay any longer. After volunteering to help the old country out, being described as ‘useless mouths’ was more than they could stomach.”

“At least we didn’t have ta swallow that.” Stewart veered away from the subject, watching the pilot take HMAS
Australia
through the boom and down the Hoy Sound. “Just being booted out was bad enough. Ronald, you’d better get your men together for training soon. We’re still at war with Germany and they might reckon of putting a couple of torpedoes into us. Your men better know what ta do if that happens.”

“Aye, I’ll do that. We were half expecting to be bombed in Aldershot but it never happened.” Beaumont looked out across the sound. Two British destroyers were paralleling the Australian cruiser’s course. They weren’t escorting her; they just happened to be close by and going the same way. Under the circumstances, keeping a close ASW watch out was only a reasonable precaution, wasn’t it?

The thought of
Australia
being torpedoed was a nightmare. The ship was packed tight with men; her own crew, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Battalion and some ‘passengers’ that nobody was talking about. She had men sleeping in every open space of the ship. Simply feeding everybody was straining the ship’s facilities to the utmost. Beaumont had his own cooks in the galleys helping out where they could, but with almost I,600 men on board even that was little more than a gesture. It was going to be a cold, hungry crossing. The mood of his men was such that they preferred that to staying in a country that was suddenly unwelcoming.

They were being unfair and Beaumont knew it. The evidence was literally all around them. The number of men on board wasn’t the only reason why
Australia
was crowded. The ship was packed with cargo; every square foot appeared to sprout crates, covered and lashed down. Even the gun turrets had packages and parcels stowed in them.
Australia
was in no condition to fight even a minor warship. When the ship had been stored for her transit across the Atlantic, the Royal Navy had filled her to capacity and beyond.

“You might still be. One of the things I want your men ta do is get every machine gun they can lashed ta the railings in the superstructure. God knows, they’ve got enough of them.” Beaumont snorted; the British Army had equipped his battalion for its return to Canada on the apparent assumption that every Canadian soldier carried both a Bren gun and a Vickers gun in addition to his rifle, pistols and a terrifying number of hand grenades. He’d been quite
amazed to discover that his battalion headquarters now included a six-pounder
anti-tank gun. Beaumont would have been prepared to swear that the weapon only existed as a prototype, but one such gun was lashed to the deck amidships and a case of blueprints was stowed in A Turret magazine.

Stewart grinned understandingly. “It’s all right for you; your people just have ta clean them. I’ve got ta worry about carrying them. This poor old girl is loaded so deep, her plimsoll line is completely submerged. We’ve got every round of ammunition we can fit in on board. But we might need those machine guns though. We can outrun submarines, even loaded the way we are; a Condor is a different matter. If they show up, we’ll need that flak.”

“You going home after you drop us off?” Beaumont watched Graemsay Island passing behind them. He felt the shudder as the engines picked up power. He was no seaman, but he could feel the ship was sluggish with the load she was carrying.

“We are, by way of Jamaica. We’re taking some top brass down there for a conference, then heading through the Panama Canal for home. What we do there is anybody’s guess. The rumor mill says patrol duty in the Indian Ocean ta replace
Hobart.
Who knows? We might get another one of those damned raiders. The boys would like ta get some payback in.”

Cabinet Room, Government House, Calcutta, India

“Is everything ready?” Lord Linlithgow looked around the room.

“It is.” Sir Eric Haohoa confirmed the fact. “We have had some preliminary discussions with the other Commonwealth representatives and the ground rules have been agreed. The Middle East is our primary area of strategic importance and it is there that our defense investments will be concentrated, in the short term at least. The Hawk 81s will be sent there. The rest of us will have to make do with the Hawk 75s. The same applies to the bombers and the patrol aircraft. We will send whatever equipment is needed to the Middle East and then divide up the rest.”

“And payment for all this equipment?” Nehru had an inbred dislike for spending money on military equipment, no matter how pressing the need appeared to be.

“The ex-British equipment needs not be paid for. The monies for it are held in the United States and we, the Commonwealth countries, inherit it. The ex-French equipment is more difficult. I understand the Americans have refunded the purchase price of that equipment to the French but then impounded the monies. They ‘offered’ to invest the money for the French against the time when the funds would be released, an offer the French couldn’t refuse. The Americans are now ‘investing’ that money by loaning it to us so we can purchase the ex-French aircraft.”

“That’s generous of them.” HH sounded more than slightly sarcastic.

“I suspect not.” Sir Martyn Sharpe had a shrewd idea about what the Americans had in mind. “They intend to ensure that we are dependent on
American equipment for our defense and industrial sectors. Already, there are
moves by their robber barons to put money into our industrial development programs. A Mister Essington Lewis of Broken Hill Proprietory wants to establish joint ventures for steel production and there are rumors that American capitalists are behind him. It is a clear objective of American government policy to oppose colonialism and break up the great empires. I would say they have seen a major opportunity for them to do just that.”

Sir Eric nodded in agreement. The position of Cabinet Secretary included supervision of the intelligence and security services. One of the things he was doing at the moment was reorganizing both to meet India’s needs. “We believe that is exactly the case. The Americans are playing a deep game here and we’re just pawns. Their primary target is Germany, but dismantling the colonial empires is still something they view with favor.”

“And Halifax opened the door for them.” The Marquess of Linlithgow sounded almost personally aggrieved. “He always disliked the Americans and was prejudiced against them. I cannot help but think that weighed in his calculations when he decided to set upon the course he has chosen. It would be ironic if it was his acts that gave them the opening they seek. It adds all the more emphasis to the importance of the Commonwealth meeting in Jamaica. We must stand together and we must resist American efforts to break us asunder. If we are to go our separate ways, it must be at a time of our own choosing and for our own reasons. How are we going to get to Jamaica?”

“The delegation will fly there, Your Excellency. We will be using the
Golden Hind,
one of the three Short flying boats that arrived recently. We will be going by way of Cape Town where we will pick up the delegation from South Africa. The Canadians will be arriving by cruiser; the Australians flying in.”

“Very good.” Lord Linlithgow nodded enthusiastically. “That will reflect well on our delegation. Modern image, and all that. Pandit, as a lifelong socialist, you will of course want to ride steerage class on the
Golden Hindi
As a gesture against privilege and class distinctions?”

Nehru’s jaw dropped with a combination of shock and outrage. He had been smiling happily at the thought of sampling the fabled luxuries of one of the great flying boats that dominated long-range air transportation. Now, the thought of sitting in the cramped steerage compartment for days on end faced him. It was only when he looked around and saw the grins on the face of the other members of the meeting that he realized his leg was being pulled. “But, of course. In fact, I will insist on it. And I will expect you all to join me there.”

There was a ripple of laughter and appreciative applause at the rejoinder. Sir Eric answered gravely, “I am sorry, Pandit, but we will have to refuse your request. There is no steerage class on an S-26. You’ll have to travel first class like the rest of us.”

Nehru shook his head in simulated grief. “Well, in that case, I suppose I will have to sacrifice my principles for the common good. Just this once, you understand. It is a dirty job, but somebody will have to do it.”

Wollaton Park, Nottingham University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

“Look, Rachael; deer.” David Newton pointed at the small group of deer that were in the trees off to the left of the gravel road. “I’m surprised they’re still here.”

Rachael watched as one of the deer heard the sound and spotted the movement. The herd of deer in the park were tame. Normally, they felt comfortable in the presence of humans, but that had started to change. Some of the herd had mysteriously vanished; that had left the rest nervous. Rachael saw the stag looking at the humans carefully and she could almost read his mind.
They didn’t seem a threat, but who knows?
She guessed that another unexpected movement would send the stag and his hinds bounding into the shelter of the trees.

“Do you think they are being hunted, David?”

“Poached, rather than hunted.” Newton thought carefully. “They’re mostly eating the grass, so they aren’t eating food that we could use. Not yet anyway. But I guess the local black marketers see a market for venison developing.”

“Not yet.” Rachael weighed the words carefully, not liking the sound of them. “You think rationing is going to get worse?”

Newton sighed. The truth was that he really didn’t like the way things were going. He was a lot more widely read than most of the students and, as a group, they were more aware of the world than most people. But this was the first time that he and Rachael had gone walking out together and he didn’t want to sound depressing. He desperately wanted this afternoon to go well and had been doing his best to make that happen.