Battlecruiser (1997) (6 page)

The great bows swinging, as if the land and not the ship was gliding past, while the Jack was hauled down and the anchor appeared above the water like a giant pendulum. And so quiet. The coxswain and telegraphsmen far below the bridge, hidden behind armour plate, the officers on the lookout for unexpected harbour craft, the navigator, Lieutenant-Commander Rhodes, a great, bearded figure bending over his chart table, his big fingers supple and almost delicate as they worked busily with dividers and parallel rulers. In
Pyrrhus
, the pilot had been an R.N.R. officer, an ex-merchant navy man with a master’s ticket. During some of the long night watches Sherbrooke had found a form of escape in listening to him and his tales of another world, of cruise ships and long voyages, of money, and of the passengers, many of whom reappeared every year for one cruise or another.

In time he would get to know Rhodes, too. But even that memory opened the wound again.

There was a tap at the door. ‘Captain, sir?’

It was a bridge messenger, a mug of tea carefully balanced on a tray. Sherbrooke had been surprised, moved, when for the first two mornings at sea his own steward,
Petty Officer Long, had brought the tea himself, as if he did not trust anybody else, or perhaps for other reasons at which one could only guess. Either way, he had got out of a warm bunk to do it.

He sipped the tea, the typical navy mixture of sugar and tinned milk: stuck to your ribs, they said. It would be going round the upper deck positions now, the secondary armament, and the anti-aircraft gun crews. Even up here, they were manned. Not even a battlecruiser could afford to be careless.

He could picture the chart exactly in his mind, as if he had just examined it. They were three hundred miles south of the Icelandic coast, Seydisfjord to be exact, and some two hundred miles west of the Faroes. A wilderness, but a jungle, too, where hunter could so easily change roles with the hunted.

Their destroyer escort numbered six, some of the new M-class, probably the largest of their type yet built. Even so, they would be finding it hard going in these waters, keeping station on their giant consort, men trying to stay on their feet with the hulls bucking and plunging, attempting to cripple the unwary.

‘What’s it like out there?’

The seaman hesitated, surprised that the captain had spoken to him.

‘Bit rough, sir. She can take it, though.’

He looked away as Sherbrooke glanced at him, afraid, perhaps, that he had gone too far.

But Sherbrooke had caught the man’s sense of belonging, of pride. How old was he? Certainly not yet twenty, or old enough to draw his tot.

The seaman left quietly. And there were twelve hundred more like him crammed into this great hull. There had been a few absentees when
Reliant
had left the Firth of
Forth, a couple of men who had been sent on compassionate leave, their homes and families wiped out in air raids, and another who had gone south to see his wife. The welfare people had reported that she had been having an affair with somebody else. It was common enough in wartime, but no less heartbreaking for the one involved. Neighbours had heard screams, and the local police had discovered the woman more dead than alive, with a real chance that she might not recover. The naval patrols would be out looking, and the police would know all the likely hiding-places by now. That was one face he would rather not see across the defaulters’ table. A good seaman, to all accounts. Now he was a deserter, and far worse.

And there had been the usual ones who had overstayed their brief liberty. Too much to drink, a woman maybe: it would all drop in Commander Frazier’s lap. He smiled and reached for his cap.
The Bloke.

He slid open the door and glanced back at the small, businesslike bunk. Stagg would have slept down aft in his own lavish quarters. He closed the door. He probably had the right idea.

He turned and listened to the muted stammer of morse, the occasional rasp of static.
My ship.
It was still hard to accept, let alone take for granted.

They would know he was on his way. They always did.

The Old Man’s coming up. What’s he like today?

Roll on my bleedin’ twelve!

Sherbrooke stepped into the gloom of the upper bridge and waited to get his bearings, as the ship’s bows sank slowly into a bank of solid water. Icy spray dashed across the bridge windows like hail, and the clearview screens squeaked in protest.

He was slowly becoming accustomed to the breadth and size of this bridge, the place of command, the nerve-centre,
the eyes and brain of the ship. Dark figures stood around in their familiar positions, although to a layman they might appear casual, or unemployed. Messengers at the rank of polished voicepipes, a boatswain’s mate by the tannoy microphone, somebody gathering up empty mugs from the deck. The navigating officer had the morning watch: he always did. As the senior lieutenant-commander, he was always ready for the dawning of a new day, a time when fatigue and thoughts of breakfast, no matter how ordinary, could make a man careless, vulnerable. And it only took one man.

Rhodes’s assistant was a young lieutenant named Frost, very keen and eager, who had his leg pulled mercilessly because of the beard he was trying to grow, without much success. At the moment it looked more like something a child might stick to his face for a school pantomime.

Sherbrooke said, ‘Morning, Pilot. All quiet?’

Rhodes stood massively beside a clearview screen and gestured toward the rising bank of water. In the faint light, it was the colour of charcoal, but the troughs were like black glass. Higher and higher, so it appeared that the battlecruiser was sliding abeam down an unending slope, unable to resist.

Then the bows dipped once more and Sherbrooke watched the sea bursting over the forecastle deck and spurting through the hawse pipes, until, barely shaking, the ship raised herself again, the water boiling away over the side, or exploding against gun positions and other fixtures like froth. It looked almost yellow in the poor light.

‘We had a signal from
Montagu
, sir, but nothing really bad. One of her boats came adrift and she requested permission to go and search for it.’

‘You refused?’

Rhodes nodded. ‘They know the orders as well as we do, sir. No stopping.’

Sherbrooke gripped the tall chair which was bolted down on the port side of the bridge. Rhodes made light of it, but many officers in his position, orders or not, would have awakened the captain, if only to keep a clear yardarm. He would make a fine commanding officer when the chance came.

He glanced through the side windows, which opened onto the flag deck. More anonymous figures in oilskins ducked and pounced, as if taking part in some ritual dance. Occasionally a flag would be unfolded, the bunting very bright against the sombre backdrop before it was stowed away. The lights were ready for the first signal of the day.
All ships will exercise action stations.

It was hard for men who had just been on watch, as well as for those who had barely slept during the brief respite in their stuffy messdecks, to obey the urgent clamour of alarm bells, even though everyone knew it was an exercise.

Sherbrooke touched the arms of his chair and felt them press into his ribs as the great hull swayed upright again.
Reliant
had been described as a lucky ship. Compared with some, this must be true. It was said that when Günther Prien, one of Germany’s first U-Boat aces, had forced his audacious and seemingly impossible entry into Scapa Flow and torpedoed the battleship
Royal Oak
, with appalling loss of life, his sights had first been on
Reliant.
And at Jutland, when the battlecruiser squadron had come under direct and heavy fire, her steering had inexplicably jammed, the rudder helpless to prevent her from steering in a wide circle, away from the embattled squadron, and almost certain destruction.

Unfortunately, luck was not always enough.

There were more voices, low, contained, formal.

Because of me.

It was Frazier, his face reddened by the wind and icy spray.

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Morning, John.’ He waited. Frazier would have been right around the ship already: he never took anything for granted. But Sherbrooke felt no closer to him than at their first meeting.

‘Any special orders, sir?’ He did not even bother to hold onto anything, he was so used to the ship.

‘Damage control, John, but this time replace the officers and petty officers with more junior ones. Good training.’

He glanced at the radar repeater in the forepart of the bridge. The invisible eye. In the early days, it had been just a dream.

‘And let the Royal Marines exercise Y Turret with local control. We may not always be able to rely on miracles.’ He saw the young Lieutenant Frost peering at the bridge clock, the boatswain’s mate examining the tannoy. It was almost time.
To be cursed by every man aboard.
He smiled. It might even bring Stagg to the bridge.

A messenger lowered his face to a voicepipe. ‘Forebridge?’ He turned toward Sherbrooke. ‘From W/T, sir. Signal.’

‘Send it up.’ It was probably a ship in distress somewhere, a convoy under U-Boat attack, an R.A.F. plane down in the drink. Important, but outside their concern.

A figure appeared on the bridge: it was the chief telegraphist, Elphick, another man up and about early, making sure his department was on top line.

Sherbrooke opened the signal, feeling their eyes upon him, sensing a certain relief at the break in routine.

Afterwards, he tried to recall exactly how long he had
sat with the signal pad in his hands, the neat, firm printing meaning nothing, as if it were mocking him.

Eventually he said, ‘Immediate from Admiralty. Air Reconnaissance report that the German cruiser
Minden
is at sea.’ He was conscious of the coldness of his voice, the flatness. ‘Believed to have left Tromsø two days ago.’

Rhodes, the professional, was the first to speak. ‘It was reported to be foul weather at that time, sir.’

Frazier said, ‘She could be anywhere by now.’ He looked at the others. ‘Not here. Anywhere.’

Sherbrooke scarcely heard. He picked up the solitary handset opposite his chair, the one with the small red light on it, like a baleful eye.

Stagg answered immediately, as if he had been expecting it.

‘Bloody people! Don’t they know how important it is to watch every single move?’ Then there was a short pause. ‘
Minden
, eh? The one you met up with?’

Sherbrooke said, ‘Yes, sir. The one that sank my ship.’

He replaced the handset, and said, ‘Exercise Action Stations, if you please.’

Frazier hesitated. ‘I’m very sorry, sir.’

Just for those seconds, they were alone. Not captain and subordinate, but two men.

Sherbrooke laid one hand on his sleeve. ‘I hope to God it never happens to you. It’s something . . .’

The rest was lost in the screaming clamour of alarm bells and the slam of watertight doors.

Sherbrooke slid from the chair and walked to the chart table. It had been a damned close thing.

Rear-Admiral Vincent Stagg sat comfortably on a chart cabinet and crossed his legs. ‘Weather’s easing. Should be at Seydisfjord on time.’ He glanced sharply at the
navigating officer, the only other man present besides Sherbrooke. ‘
Right?
’

Rhodes picked up his notebook from the table. ‘1100 tomorrow.’

Stagg looked around the chart room, a quiet refuge after the bridge and the comings and goings of watchkeepers and working parties.

‘Good.’ He added, ‘You can carry on, Pilot. I expect you have a few things to do.’

The navigator smiled. ‘A few, sir.’

As the door closed behind him, Stagg remarked to Sherbrooke, ‘Useful chap. Don’t want to lose him, if I can help it.’ He unbuttoned his jacket and took out a leather cigar case. ‘You can stop worrying, Guy. There’s been no more news of
Minden.
It’s somebody else’s headache anyway, until she’s buggered off back to Tromsø or some other godforsaken place. Things are moving at last – and as I told them at the Admiralty, it’s not a moment too soon. We need smaller but more powerful units, like Force H, for instance. Our sister ship
Renown
, a carrier, and a strong set of escorts have worked wonders. We can do better. I just told them to get their fingers out!’ It amused him, and he lit a cigar, smiling reminiscently at some thought of London. ‘I can be tough when I like, you know, Guy. Nice as pie if I get treated with respect, but call me pig and I’m pig all the way through!’

He glanced up at the deckhead speaker as it squeaked into life.

‘Watchkeepers of the afternoon watch to dinner!’

He corrected gently, ‘
Lunch.
’

Sherbrooke, gazing at the chart table, barely heard him. Nearly six hours had passed since the signal had been brought to the bridge.
Minden
was out again. There had been three of them that day, when
Pyrrhus
had gone down.
And I still cannot remember.
One second on the bridge, the steel plating buckled inboard like wet cardboard, voicepipes calling and calling, unanswered by the men who lay dead or dying at their stations.
And then?
He stared at the chart lying uppermost on the table,
The approaches to Iceland
, but he did not see it. There must have been another massive explosion, and yet he could recall nothing more, only breaking the surface, gasping and shouting, crushed by the cold, the numbing pressure of icy water. And the ship had gone.
Nothing.
Only a handful of choking, floundering shapes. Men he had known.
Men who trusted me.

Stagg leaned forward, a lock of chestnut hair falling above one eye.

‘You’ve done well, Guy. Damn well. To take command at such short notice.’ His tone hardened. ‘But I wanted you as captain. I knew your record, your style of leadership – it still matters, you know.’ He was suddenly on his feet, the uncontrollable energy manifesting itself again. ‘In every war it takes
time
to get rid of the deadwood. Look at the last one, for God’s sake! Ideas that had scarcely changed since Trafalgar, rules that went out the window when the first U-Boats put to sea!
Winning
is what matters, what counts. Rules are for losers!’