Back to Battle (34 page)

‘Ship red one-oh!’

‘Looks like a destroyer!’

The oncoming ship might well be one of Verschoyle’s ships, but she was in a perfect position to fire torpedoes and it was best to take no chances.

‘Steer towards.’

As they turned towards the enemy ship to comb torpedoes, the range-taker calling out the range, Chichester was doing over thirty knots. As they steadied on the other ship, Pardoe was straining his eyes ahead.

‘I don’t think she’s one of ours!’

‘Funnels are too far apart, sir,’ Rumbelo called out.

‘Ready to fire!’ the gunnery officer reported.

‘Make the challenge!’

As the lights were switched on, two white lights came on from the other ship.

‘Wrong answer,’ Pardoe snapped. ‘Open fire!’

The six guns of the forward turrets crashed out at point blank range.

‘You could almost ram the bugger, Henry,’ Kelly said.

Chichester was still swinging as the shells smashed into the destroyer. Fires broke out at once and several more explosions showed as the second and third salvoes struck.

‘I don’t think you’ll need to ram after all,’ Kelly observed flatly.

By the seventh salvo, the enemy ship was smothered in smoke and flame and was falling to pieces before their eyes. She was so close now that the four-inch AA guns opened up and as they heard the rhythmic pounding of the multiple pom-poms, the men running along the destroyer’s deck were swept away. She was down by the bows already and a mass of flames but as they swept past, the after-turrets continued to fire, every gun hitting her so that she was completely overwhelmed, unable to use either her guns or her torpedo tubes. As Sarawak thundered past, yellow, red and green rockets soared from the nest of flames and they saw the ship sinking lower and lower in the water.

There were still contacts on the radar screen to the south-west, but the threat of the German heavies seemed to have receded. They were far from being out of the wood, however, and the report of more contacts came almost immediately.

‘Ships red-nine-oh! Believed to be destroyers!’

‘They’re in a good position for a torpedo attack. Turn towards.’

The strange ships were steaming a parallel course but were they German or did they belong to Verschoyle?

‘Flashing light,’ the yeoman of signals called out. ‘It’s making “R”.’

‘Repeat it back.’

There was a long pause. The delay caused by the repetition was giving them a few more seconds to approach.

‘He’s making the letter “G” now, sir.’

‘Repeat that one, too,’ Kelly said. ‘And open fire.’

The flash of the guns blinded them.

‘Over! Well over!’

‘No, sir,’ Latimer said, his glasses to his eyes. ‘They’re firing at another ship beyond the destroyers. Gunnery control thinks we’ve seen it, too.’

It was impossible in the murk to tell exactly where the shells fell but then they saw columns of water rising ahead of them.

‘They’re not short!’ Kelly snapped. ‘And they’re not from ahead either. They’re from the port beam!’

As he swung, he could see himself entering a trap. There was a big ship ahead and another one, probably their original target, on the port beam, and in the darkness there were undoubtedly escorting destroyers with torpedoes like the one they’d sunk. As he concentrated, he was hardly aware of the shells bursting in the water around them. The fact that they were under fire seemed of secondary importance just then.

The shells were still falling close and he heard the clatter as splinters flew past and hit the upperworks. His nostrils were full of the smell of cordite as the guns crashed.

‘Turn away!’

The ship heeled as helm was applied. Any destroyers there were ought by now to be behind them.

‘Enemy ships also turning away, sir.’

‘We’ll maintain touch. Alter to westward. Let’s see if they really are legging it. Reduce speed to twenty-seven knots. If he turns back we’ll be in a good position to get between him and the convoy.’

As the ship crashed through the dark seas, eyes strained towards the blank horizon.

‘Radar reports contact lost, sir.’

Kelly frowned. ‘I think they’re going back into their holes, Henry,’ he said.

Soon afterwards, with the clouds breaking, the navigator managed at last to fix their position. They had shadowed the German ships, risking another attack by destroyers, until they’d made sure they were heading away from the convoy. By now, the homeward-bound convoy must have reached safety astern of them, while Verschoyle’s ships must be coming into their area.

‘Signal, sir. From Langdale to Lotus. “In view of holes in forecastle and deteriorating weather, consider it advisable to proceed to Kola forthwith. Captain (D) concurs.”’

So Verschoyle wasn’t dead! But it was clear he was out of action and his first lieutenant had taken over.

‘Make to Langdale that we’ll cover her.’

Suddenly Kelly realised he was cold, and was exhausted as much by the bitter air and tension as by the long hours on the bridge. It brought a feeling of depression and with it came the thought of Hugh.

‘Make to Parsifal requesting information of the pilot she flew off.’

Soon after midnight, they picked up another signal from Langdale. Lotus had taken over as senior ship of the escort and after the position and course that followed the message continued:

‘LANGDALE PROCEEDING INDEPENDENTLY TO KOLA INLET. ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL 0700, 17TH. APPARENT SITUATION ON LEAVING CONVOY: LINDSAY DAMAGED. WHEREABOUTS UNCERTAIN. REMAINDER OF ESCORT AND 30 MERCHANT SHIPS UNHARMED. TWO MERCHANT SHIPS AND TRAWLER THORN NOT IN COMPANY SINCE 14th.’

It was blowing half a gale now and, as he waited impatiently for Parsifal’s reply, Kelly tried to show no emotion. It was his job to appear unaffected and concerned only with his ships.

‘We’ll sweep to the limit of the Russian submarine area,’ he said. ‘What’s the fuel state?’

His mind was on his ships and the job in hand but, like everyone else he was suffering from the anti-climax that always followed a period of high tension and danger. In addition he couldn’t put aside the thought of Hugh’s frozen body lolling in his dinghy in the darkness and he wondered if anyone had informed Verschoyle.

‘Parsifal replies, sir.’ The signals officer appeared ‘“Pilot’s whereabouts unknown. Due to action German heavy units obliged to abandon.”’

Kelly sighed. So that was that. Hugh had taken a dangerous chance just once too often. He caught Latimer’s eyes on him and passed a hand over his face. His features felt stiff.

‘I’m going below, William,’ he said. ‘Pass the word for Rumbelo to see me, will you?’

As they entered the Kola Inlet the following morning, Russia looked depressing and cold, and Kelly wondered if they were right to ask young men like Hugh to suffer for such a bloody ungrateful ally.

His thoughts were particularly bitter when Latimer appeared alongside him, so sulphurous in fact he was surprised to see Latimer was smiling.

‘Sir: Signal from the trawler, Southern Star.’

He took the message, his mind still on his job, then the words leapt out at him.

‘SOUTHERN STAR TO CS ONE. REFERENCE YOUR 2040 TO PARSIFAL, HAVE PICKED UP MISSING PILOT. UNHARMED. RECOVERING.’

Kelly looked at Latimer. He couldn’t believe it. This was Hugh’s third escape and his second encounter in a dinghy with the waves and the weather. He must bear a charmed life to scrape through with such a thin thread of luck.

‘God’s good, William,’ he said. ‘Better than we probably deserve. I think we’d better let Rumbelo know.’

The battered Langdale was already alongside Varenga pier when Chichester dropped anchor. At once, Kelly called for his barge and headed towards her.

Her paintwork was scarred and scorched by flames and her funnel and bridge were riddled with splinter holes. Two hits forward had wiped out A and B guns with their crews and almost the whole of the forward part of the ship had been on fire. The hit on the funnel had sent a shower of debris into the engine room and blown open the boiler casing. Aerials had been brought down and the range finder smashed, and because the forward capstan wasn’t working, she couldn’t move from the pier and the crew had been offered billets ashore in an ugly stone building furnished with little else but pictures of Stalin. They had elected to stay on board.

The first lieutenant was a good-looking man who looked like a younger edition of Verschoyle himself and had probably been picked for that reason.

‘With their usual bloody-mindedness, sir,’ he reported, ‘the Russians refuse to believe we’ve been in action with anything bigger than a destroyer. I expect it’s political, because I’ve noticed here that only Russians can lick the Germans.’

The hospital was a stone building in which there seemed to be remarkably little heating and the electricity kept failing, but the naval surgeon ashore had rigged up secondary lighting with aldis lamps and a torch. Verschoyle was propped up in bed, his face smothered in bandages. A splinter had smashed his jaw and sliced up his cheek. He was under sedation but was conscious.

‘Hello, James,’ Kelly said.

‘Hello, Ginger. What about my missing ships?’

‘I’m afraid you lost Lutine and the trawler.’

‘Poor old Thorn. She wasn’t very big and she wouldn’t have had much chance.’ Verschoyle paused. ‘I’m damn sorry about Hugh, Kelly.’

Kelly put Southern Star’s signal in his hand.

‘I can’t see it. You’d better read it.’

Kelly did so and Verschoyle was silent for a long time.

‘I must be growing old,’ he said at last. ‘I feel I’d like to cry.’

Kelly smiled. ‘It was a bloody good show you put up,’ he said. ‘I’ve been talking to your captains and your first lieutenant. I’ll see you get a gong for this. The biggest I can dig out of ’em.’

‘Thanks.’ Verschoyle’s mouth curled under the bandages. ‘It’s nice when you become sufficiently senior to see that your friends get presents. We ought to operate on a you-kiss-mine-I’ll-kiss-yours basis. We could be the most decorated people in the Navy.’

‘How do you feel?’

‘Bloody terrible. The buggers have spoiled my manly beauty at last.’

‘Can you see?’

‘Not really. But they say my right eye’s all right.’ Verschoyle paused. ‘How about the ship?’

‘We’ll get her repaired at Rosta and send her home as soon as possible. You as well. We’ve arranged for you to be put aboard Lindsay and sent back with the next convoy. I’ll see if we can’t get Hugh aboard, too.’

There was a long silence, before Verschoyle spoke again. ‘Wonder how Maisie will take it. Suspect she married me because I looked presentable.’

‘I think she’s tougher than that. You’ll be on your feet in no time and after this you should be well in line for that broad stripe.’

There was a long silence. ‘But not at sea again.’ Verschoyle paused. ‘Still, I was always one for comfort, as you know, and a cushy job in some esoteric branch of the Admiralty would suit me fine. I’ll leave the battles to bloodthirsty buggers like you.’

Kelly arrived in England long after Lindsay. They had been ordered to Iceland to refuel then sent out into the Atlantic where a German raider had been reported near the Azores. Intelligence had it that, with the German heavies short of fuel and apparently despised by Hitler, the menace at sea in future was likely to be only from such raiders, because someone seemed to have found the answer to the U-boats at last, and they were being sunk in unexpected numbers and the Atlantic convoys were suddenly immune from attack.

There were American ships at Scapa when they returned and the picture had completely changed. The Germans had lost a whole army at Stalingrad, while in the Pacific the Japanese were also on the retreat. England was changing constantly, too. The Americans were arriving in force now, taking over the country, stealing all the girls and drinking all the whisky. There was some resentment but also a great deal of admiration because they’d learned quickly in North Africa. Off-duty American naval officers wore clothes that seemed to indicate a round of golf, but for the most part they were the product of a naval school as traditional and expert as Dartmouth, and the regulars knew their job, while the amateurs were enthusiastic and contained some unexpected faces. On one occasion, Kelly found himself drinking gin with a man he’d watched more than once on the screen at the cinema.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign was the numbers of landing craft being gathered in English ports for the invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe and, with the Eighth Army already ashore in the toe of Italy, Mussolini, defeated on every front, had been deposed.

Hugh was at Thakeham, white, shaken and ill, but slowly recovering and Paddy was on compassionate leave to look after him. She gave Kelly a curious glance that seemed more gratitude than anything, as if she considered him responsible for giving her husband back to her, but privately she confided to him that Hugh was determined to get back into the war somehow.

‘What is it that drives him like this?’ she said, her small face agonised with worry. ‘Hasn’t he already taken enough chances?’

Was it his youth, Kelly wondered. The fact that he’d been ignored for much of his childhood and early manhood by Christina? Her own tremendous vitality and zest for life even? Or was it that his father had been nothing but a cipher and he was anxious to prove that he wasn’t, too?

At the Admiralty, everybody seemed pleased by the skirmish off Bear Island, and it seemed clear that Verschoyle, despite his wound, was expected back in uniform by the autumn. Kelly found him at Haslar in excellent spirits, though his handsome face had been transformed. A livid scar ran across his jaw, leaving a deep groove right up to his cheekbone, his nose was wrenched out of shape and his right eye was milky and turned outwards.

‘One fixed, one flashing, like a wreck marker,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Maisie thinks I’m wonderful.’

Kelly produced a box of cigars and a pineapple. ‘Got ’em at Punta Delgada in the Azores,’ he said. ‘The ship was stacked with ’em. The lower deck must have made a fortune.’