A Prayer for the Ship (5 page)

“No answer, sir.”

An hour later they were reinforced by a strong flotilla of Motor Gunboats from Harwich, the “pocket battleships” of Coastal Forces. Their purpose was to cover the withdrawal after the attack had been pressed home. Signals flashed, and the boats jockeyed to and fro, until the M.T.B.s had formed into two parallel lines ahead, with the M.G.B.s three miles astern, then silence enveloped the flotilla, and no more signals were made or required, as each captain knew what was expected; it was all just a matter of time. The mighty engines purred obediently as they were throttled down to a minimum speed, and the tiny ships crept stealthily forward, searching, probing. Royce swung his night-glasses in a wide arc, and decided it was time to call the Captain, and seconds later Harston climbed up beside him, fresh and apparently unworried. He took in the situation at a glance. His boat led the starboard column, and Paskins in the Leader led the port column at a distance of about a thousand yards.

“Action Stations,” he said quietly, and Royce pressed the button that had called sailors from their rest, and to their deaths, the world over.

Even before the bells stopped ringing, the last man heaved himself into his allotted space, which, for the next few hours at least, would probably decide the fate of the whole boat. The slim barrels of the Oerlikons, and the menacing muzzles of the pom-poms swung back and forth through their maximum arcs, as the crews tested them, and reported automatically to the bridge. The steel hatches clanged shut over the engine room, imprisoning the mechanics in what was at best a shaking, roaring helter-skelter of noise and fumes, and at worst a blazing hell from which there could be little chance of escape.

“If we can pull this off all right tonight, Number One, I think we can get that refit you want so badly, plus a bit of leave, of course.”

“That'd be really something, sir,” replied Royce feelingly, for he knew that the boat's maintenance was becoming a little bit out of hand. A good slipway in the dockyard was what she required now.

At the prospect of leave, they lowered their glasses and grinned at each other like schoolboys. Royce had long ago decided that Harston should have a rest from active service for a bit.

“Enemy coast ahead!” sang out the bridge lookouts together, and as they peered across the dark, oily water, they could make out only vaguely the black finger of land which was the start of the low-lying mudflats which abounded in these waters.

For another half-hour the boats felt their way forward, but no convoy steamed out to greet them, no targets loomed before the gaping torpedo tubes, and the tension on the decks could be felt. Here a man rubbed his eyes savagely, and stared again into the sombre blackness, and there another cursed his mate softly as their bodies touched on the gently rolling gun-platform.

Royce was not the least affected, and he felt a childish rage consuming him, causing him to rebuke the signalman for lowering his glasses for a few seconds.

“Those damned airmen have made a mistake,” he muttered. “There's no convoy, and if there was, they slipped out this morning, blast them!”

“That'll do, Number One!” The voice was mild, almost disinterested.

Royce swore again under his breath, and peered over towards the Leader's blurred shape on the port beam, and then he saw a shaded signal lamp blinking astern: he must be worried too, to use a lamp so close to the enemy coast.

“Leader's signalled supportin' gunboats to sweep to the south-east, and to report if there's anything at that end of the coast,” reported Collins. His voice sounded doubtful.

Still Harston seemed unsurprised and apparently preoccupied with his own thoughts. Royce could faintly make out his outline in the front of the bridge, leaning across the screen on his folded arms, an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth, which suddenly gleamed white in the gloom as he smiled.

“Number One,” he spoke softly so that the lookouts and signalman should not hear. “Don't let this sort of thing get you down; this war's like a great, stupid puzzle. If we work like hell, and have lots of actions, the boats crack up, and we need boats, more and more of them. If we don't get a shot at anything, and have month in and month out of peaceful but damned monotonous patrols, then it's the crews who go round the bend. You just can't please anybody.”

He paused and studied his First Lieutenant's gloved hand as it pounded the rail, softly yet viciously, in a steady rhythm.

“It's not that I'm a crack-brained, death-or-glory character, or that I don't realize that ninety-nine per cent of finding and knocking seven bells out of Jerry is just plain luck,” explained Royce, the words tumbling out of him. “It's just this constant waiting, and not knowing.” His voice trailed away, and he shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

Harston moved swiftly across the bridge, with his quick, cat-like step, and gripped his sleeve urgently, pulling him close to his pale face. When he spoke again, his tone was strange, quite unlike anything Royce had heard from him before, almost fanatical.

“Never, never feel that you're wasting your time. Everything we do helps to tie them down, even when we're not killing them! That's why I rode you hard when you were sent to me. War is a hard business. Now you've made the grade, our grade, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this.” Here he paused and waved his arm towards the hidden coast, and when he continued, he spoke slowly as if spelling out the words: “But I hate those bastards more than any other crawling creature on this earth. I've seen what they can do, have done, and'll keep on doing until we—”

He broke away with a jerk, as a dull boom and blue flash lit the slowly cruising clouds. Immediately the R-T speaker crackled into life: “Leader calling: the M.G.B.s have struck oil, maximum speed!”

The night split open as the engines roared into life, and Royce saw their own bow lift before him, as all boats raced off in perfect twin lines, throwing up the great, curving streams, their stems slicing through the water. He flung himself down the ladder to the gun-platform, with a brief impression of Harston hanging over the bucking torpedo sighting mechanism. He seemed to be laughing.

Now the sky was criss-crossed with tracers, and a small fire blossomed into a full, orange glow, showing a small ship burning and listing on to her side. As they closed the battle, they saw the M.G.B.s circling four trawlers, firing rapidly, and even as they watched, another of them burst into flames, throwing up a fountain of sparks.

Harston leaned over the screen, beckoning urgently, and as Royce climbed up, he shook his fists wildly. “For Christ's sake, what are those fools doing? Look at them! They've broken formation, and for what?” His voice rose almost to a scream. “Four bloody trawlers! There's your convoy, Number One! Are you satisfied? No? Well
they
apparently are!”

Royce was dumbfounded. “But I don't see—”

“Do you want me to spell it for you? They are a decoy! A decoy, and our so-called escorts fell for it, and now we're in the trap!”

Royce's heart went cold as he realized the implication of this new menace, and tried to force his mind to function, but he seemed numb, until Harston seized his arm roughly.

“Get aft and stand by to jettison smoke floats, and get ready for some fancy shooting.”

Paskins, too, fully realized their position, and unless he acted promptly, there was nothing to prevent the hunters becoming the hunted. Frantically, he signalled the jubilant gunboats to reform and cease fire, and then formed the torpedo boats into one line, his own boat leading, and Harston's now fifth, with Emberson following in the rear. There was only one thing to do now, get out into the open sea as soon as possible.

It was at the very moment of decision, even as the boats began to move off, that the trap was sprung.

There was a sullen detonation astern of the flotillas, and many thought that it was a trawler blowing up, but doubts were short, as a star shell burst with savage brilliance in the sky at their backs. In a split second the night became day, as they were silhouetted and sharply defined to anything that lay ahead. Blinded, the gunners hugged their weapons. A lifetime passed, in fact four more seconds, then the black wall ahead of them flamed into life, a mad, whirling cone of red and white tracer shells, that screamed overhead and hissed into the churning waters around them, with such a crescendo of noise that they were stunned. Two seconds later, Paskins's boat reached the maelstrom, and was ablaze from stem to stern, sharp little flames licking out of the bridge superstructure joining those which were eagerly consuming the upper deck. There were two sickening explosions which shattered the craft into a hundred sections, and sent flaming wreckage whirling skywards, and she was gone! Before they could recover from this awful spectacle, they were all in it, twisting and turning to avoid the probing, searching avalanche of fire which flew about their ears! Royce sent the smoke floats thudding into the sea, and soon a pall of smoke would be forming to provide cover or confusion for friend and foe alike. He scrambled to the gun-platform, as the twin pom-poms groped blindly for a target, his head splitting with the crash and rattle of the enemy salvoes. Then, for the first time, they all saw their hunters, for the sea seemed full of them. E-boats, their long, dark hulls gleaming with spray as they tore down towards them, and astern of them were half a dozen armed trawlers, not in the accepted sense, but floating gun batteries, protected by steel plates and huge blocks of concrete, behind which the German gunners fired and reloaded as fast as a combination of training and hatred would allow.

“Open fire, first trawler!” yelled Royce, and the pompoms joined in the tattoo with a steady bang-bang-bang, their twin tracers lifting and dropping towards the hunched, menacing shape of the trawler. The range closed rapidly, five hundred yards, two hundred, one hundred, until they saw their shells rippling along her sides. The Oerlikons and machine-guns added their ear-shattering rattle, as if in desperation, but still the trawler came on, her decks a mass of spitting muzzles.

Royce felt the boat lurch beneath him as white-hot metal tore into her sides, and something clanged against the gun-shield and screamed away into the night. Another violent flash illuminated the boat, and he saw the mast and aerials stagger and pitch across the bridge. Simultaneously a deafening explosion came from aft, the shock sending him spinning to the deck. He scrambled to his feet, dimly aware that the pom-poms had ceased fire. Leading Seaman Parker sat moaning softly by the ready-use ammunition locker, his face a bloody mask. The other gunners were twisted together in a distorted embrace by the guns. With horror he saw a white hand on the already darkening decks, like a discarded glove.

Of the trawler there was no sign, although her gunfire roared and whined through the steep bank of smoke forming astern, which was tinged with pink and orange hues, making it look a real and solid thing.

He realized too that they were maintaining their speed, but turning in a wide circle. Forcing his way behind the port Oerlikon gunner, who fired steadily into the smoke, he pushed his way into the shuttered wheelhouse. Even as the door opened, he smelt the cordite fumes, and above the rattle of the guns, he could hear a persistent, shrill screaming.

As his eyes became adjusted to the feeble light, he realized that the interior of the wheelhouse was a complete shambles. Pieces of equipment were scattered about the deck, and he could see the flashes from the starboard Oerlikon's intermittent bursts through a six-foot gash in the plating. Petty Officer Raikes was on his knees by the wheel, hard at work; with a screwdriver, which he was using like a jemmy, as he used all his strength to free the steering gear, which was jammed tight by a corner of a steel plate, bent over like wet cardboard. Royce noticed that his unruly hair was speckled with little pieces of paint which had been torn from the deckhead. Lying pinned under the twisted metal of the gash in the bridge side was the wretched creature whose spine-chilling screams made Raikes fumble and curse, and turn an imploring eye to Royce.

“Carn you stop 'im, sir?” he gasped. “God knows what's keepin' 'im alive!”

Indeed, there seemed little resemblance to a man in the twisting bundle of rags which caused Royce to step back with horror. Able Seaman Lund, already wounded, had been dragged to the bridge for safety, only to be pounded into human wreckage by the last salvo of cannon shells, which had raked the boat from stem to stern. With a final jerk, the Coxswain freed the wheel, and clambered to his feet, spinning the spokes deftly in his scratched and bleeding fingers, and as if that was the awaited signal, the awful cries ceased, for ever.

“I'm on course, now,” shouted Raikes, “but if you can get me a relief, I'll give you a hand on deck.” He sounded cool and confident.

Royce nodded dumbly, and went outside into the cold air, to pull his aching body on to the bridge. With despair he saw the tangle of wires and halyards wrapped round the mast, which pointed over the side like a broken limb, and under it, the shattered chart table, wood splinters, and the upended signal locker spewing out its cargo of coloured bunting. Harston knelt in the pose of a runner waiting for the starting pistol, moaning softly, and trying to pull himself to the voice-pipe, each movement causing him to clench his teeth and close his eyes with pain. In two strides, Royce reached him, and eased the weakly protesting body back against the screen.