Brave Company (4 page)

‘What's happening?' Russell demanded, as he hauled himself up, close behind Noel. ‘Don't know!' gasped the young seaman. ‘Hope it's not the Chinese Navy!'

As they tumbled out on deck, rushing for their posts,
Taupo
's searchlight suddenly glared on, blinding them
for a second as it swept across the black water. Just as the beam stopped, Russell saw it: a boat, a bit bigger than the refugees' vessel, only fifty yards away. Men on it were scrambling and staring. One of them grabbed something, holding it up to point at the frigate. A rifle! They'd run into an enemy raiding party.

Then someone's voice shouted. ‘It's a fish! A bloody fish!' So it was, Russell realised. A long silver shape that the Korean man frantically kept waving so the warship could see. Others beside him lifted up more fish, yelling what must be the Korean for ‘Don't shoot!'

Laughter spread along
Taupo
's deck. ‘Wonder if the captain will put it in the log?' someone said. ‘Attacked by enemy with fins and tails.' The frigate sailed on. Its searchlight stayed trained on the fishing boat till it had dwindled to a darker patch on the dark waves. ‘That's war for you, Russ.' Kingi was still laughing as they returned below deck. ‘Just one weird thing after another.'

Mid-morning. Cloudy skies of light grey, with a darker band along the horizon. Russell kept yawning as he scraped paint from the rail he was working on. He pulled himself upright and saluted as Lieutenant Commander Merrill appeared beside him.

‘Well, Boy Seaman, there's Korea, finally.' The ship's doctor pointed at the band of darker grey.

He was right. Over the next hour, as
Taupo
zigzagged and zagzigged on its changing course, the band became wider and more solid. Hills took shape in some places. Other crew members stood watching. The lookouts' binoculars swept the sea all around.

‘
Rotoiti
thought it had sailed into a minefield last year.' Kingi was leaning on the rail a few yards along. ‘Then the mines turned out to be giant jellyfish. Dangerous critters they have in Korea.' He nodded at the paint scraper in Russell's hand. ‘Don't let me interrupt your work, pal. I can see you're enjoying it.'

‘Where do you think the battleship is?' asked Russell.

‘You won't see it, Russ. Those guns they carry can hit a target twenty miles away. Their shells weigh as much as a car. The battleship's way out to sea, over the horizon somewhere. That's why they need clever guys like us close in, to report exactly where things are landing.'

Russell remembered last night's talk in the mess about drop-shorts. He swallowed, and hoped that the battleship wouldn't be firing any of them.

An hour later, Blue Watch went on duty. Russell had been waiting for it: waiting for anything that would be a change from scraping paint. ‘Nothing happening,' said the White Watch lookout as he reached the deck from the crow's-nest. ‘Hills and more hills. There's some buildings in one place just below the ridgeline, to the north-east there. Could be a village or something.'

Russell saw the settlement as soon as he climbed up and peered through his binoculars. A dozen or twenty squarish shapes stood out in the sharp autumn light.
Taupo
was creeping along 500 yards or so from a rocky shoreline, from where fields began rising towards the low hills. Nothing moved, except for clouds edging
across the sky. We can't be anywhere near the enemy, Russell thought. It's far too quiet.

There were several officers on the bridge, all watching the shore as well. Everything on land was still. How long till we get near the battlefield? Russell wondered.

Commander Yates was calling up to him. ‘Lookout? Boy Seaman Purchas, is it?'

‘Sir.' Even in the crow's-nest, Russell stood to attention.

‘We'll be sailing a spotting pattern very soon. The battleship out to sea will be firing on reported enemy targets. Keep your eyes peeled and report any fall of shell.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Russell's heart beat harder.
Enemy
targets? Were they near a battlefield after all?

‘And, Boy Seaman – if you get an order to come down, you do it straight away. No staying up there being a hero.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Russell swallowed. His war was about to start.

It started with nothing happening. Nothing at all. The frigate crept on. The village slowly slid astern. The low hills lay silent in the bright sun. Russell stood, feet apart, as the deck thirty feet below him moved in a
gentle swell. The sun might be bright, but a cool wind blew past him. Winters in Korea were freezing, he'd heard.

Thunder muttered out to sea. No. Russell's breath caught as he realised. Not thunder. At the same instant, bells rang down in the engine room, and
Taupo
picked up speed, swinging into a curve. On the bridge, and up in the bows, more binoculars were aimed at the shore.

Russell gripped the railing of the crow's-nest as the frigate kept turning, scything through the waves till it was headed back the way it had just come. He trained his own binoculars on the low hills, trying to keep them in view as
Taupo
dipped across its own wake. He realised he was counting to himself: ten … twenty … thirty seconds since he'd heard the deep mutter from over the horizon. How far and how high were those car-sized shells travelling? Forty … forty-five …

The landscape seemed to shudder. The air flickered. Then smoke came pouring up from behind the hills, in line with the village. Eight – twelve columns of it, black and thick and rolling. The battleship had fired a full broadside.

Already Russell was shouting down to the bridge. Bearing, distance, number of explosions. He heard the other lookouts doing the same.

The noise reached him. A hollow
CRASH!
then a rumble. Had they hit the target? Were there Chinese or
North Korean soldiers there? The smoke columns had already merged into a black wall, bending and drifting away in the wind.
Taupo
heeled again, turning out to sea, then angling northwards once more. A second murmur of sound came from beyond the horizon. The next broadside was on its way.

Russell spun around, facing the shore again, binoculars lifted. The smoke had thinned; the hills were still and silent again. He heard another sound. He was panting, sucking in deep breaths of air. I'm not scared, he told himself. I'm not a coward and I'm not scared.

Thirty … thirty-five … forty. Shapes plunged down through the air over the distant land, hurtling black specks. Almost instantly, pillars of smoke rose again, exactly where they had before. The battleship's gunners had the range spot on.

Russell opened his mouth to shout bearing and range again. He halted. Something different was happening. One column of smoke rolled upwards in front of the others, on the near side of the hills. A drop-short: just what he'd heard O'Brien talking about.

He aimed his binoculars at the closest black tower as it kept rising. His fingers tightened as he saw flames licking at the base of the smoke. The crash and rumble of sound arrived. In the same second, the smoke thinned sideways to show square shapes in the red
glow. The village. The shell had hit the village, and houses were burning.

Without warning, Russell thought of his uncle. He'd died in a bombardment. Had it been like this for him – shells smashing down from the sky, the roar and explosion? Russell tried to push the thought from his mind.

He couldn't see any movement in the village. Maybe they'd already run away. Maybe they were in the boat that – no, that was too far-fetched.

Other voices were shouting. He heard the word ‘burning', and pulled his mind back to what was happening. Too late: Commander Yates was calling. ‘Lookout? Boy Seaman Purchas?'

‘Sir!' Russell rattled off bearing, distance, the shell that had dropped short. The officer's voice came back. ‘Keep your eyes peeled, Boy Seaman! Stay awake!'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Russell bit his lip. He hoped O'Brien, and the others who seemed to think he knew nothing, hadn't heard.

The bombardment lasted another twenty minutes. Russell counted twelve broadsides: nearly 150 massive shells thundering down on their target behind the hills. The smoke poured up continuously now. Something
was on fire over there as well. Russell wondered what it was. He felt both relieved and disappointed that he couldn't see.

The village kept burning. There had been no more drop-shorts, and there was still no sign of movement. The people must have fled earlier. Of course they had; they were in a war zone; they'd be stupid if they stayed.

Apart from the billowing smoke and flicker of flames, the landscape was quiet once more. So was the sea, except for the hiss as
Taupo
turned yet again and swept through her spreading wake. They were heading out to sea, Russell realised, moving faster so the cool wind cut through his jersey. The hills and smoke were behind them now, getting smaller with every second. His first experience of war was over.

‘What do you think they were firing at?' he asked in the mess, after Blue Watch was finally stood down. Kingi shook his head. ‘Could have been anything: railway lines, ammo dumps. Could have been nothing. They're cunning sods, those commies. Hide stuff all over the place.'

‘I heard they park trains in the tunnels during daytime,' Noel added. ‘Oh, and someone was saying how the Yanks' planes kept seeing these broken bits of
railway wagon all over the place. They thought it was stuff smashed up by their guns. Instead, turns out the North Koreans took the wagons apart every morning, so they looked wrecked, then put them back together and ran them on the lines at night. Clever, eh?'

‘How did the battleship know there was anything to fire at?' Russell asked.

O'Brien shrugged. ‘Aerial photos, son. Or some local told them – passing on info in return for getting his family moved somewhere safe. If there is anywhere safe around here.'

I'd never spy for anyone like that, Russell told himself. His face must have shown what he was thinking, because Kingi, who'd been mopping up the gravy from his plate with a crust of bread, suddenly said, ‘What would any of us do if we were in their shoes? There's artillery shells landing where you've lived all your life. People from your street being shot when they try to work in the fields, or just disappearing one night. Your kids are terrified, and they haven't had a proper meal for a week. I reckon we'd all pass on a few bits of info if it would get us out of a place like that.'

Nods and a few head-shakings along the table. Russell wasn't sure what to say. He heard himself go, ‘I thought it would last longer. The bombardment.'

O'Brien grunted. ‘Just be grateful it was all over fast, before the bad guys started shooting back. And hope
they don't send us there again, anytime soon. Not till the commies have forgotten us.'

Russell did feel grateful. Grateful that it hadn't gone on for much longer, but grateful most of all that he'd shown himself he could handle things, even if he had messed up his report to Commander Yates. He'd show others, too, and he'd do it again – and better.

O'Brien was right. They weren't sent back to do any more spotting in that area. They weren't sent back to do any spotting at all.

For the next seven days and nights, they were busy with something entirely different. ‘Told you so,' Kingi grumbled. ‘Just one weird thing after another, and nobody tells you why.'

During the daytime,
Taupo
kept well out to sea, moving slowly through choppy green waters, with no sign of land. Lookouts were posted. Gunnery crews carried out more training – though without any firing. They practised first aid drills, putting splints on imaginary broken arms and legs, and bandages on imaginary wounds. ‘Handy for any imaginary wars,' muttered Kingi.

And Russell spent a lot of time doing more polishing, scraping, scrubbing. ‘We're going to be the cleanest
target the Chinese ever shot at,' said Noel, as they chipped away at the ladder leading up to the bridge.

At night, things were different. Every light on the frigate was blacked out. Slowly, quietly, engines barely turning over, they crept in towards the coast, then turned to sail north for thirty minutes before another change of course sent them slowly sailing south again.

They were ordered not to talk on deck, and to close all doors carefully. Lookouts were told not to call out if they saw anything. Instead, each of them was accompanied by a messenger, whom they were supposed to send hurrying quietly to the bridge.

‘So what are we supposed to be doing here?' Russell whispered, the first night Blue Watch was on duty. He was acting as Able Seaman O'Brien's messenger, and he hadn't meant to ask anything in case the man came out with another remark about boy seamen who knew nothing. But he'd spoken before he realised it.