Pride and the Anguish (21 page)

He turned as Corbett climbed through the hatch, and noticed with surprise that the captain had managed to find the time to shave and change into a clean shirt.

Corbett said, “The show's still on, Trewin. We sail in three hours.” He pushed the cover from the chart table and continued calmly, “The enemy are well placed on those hills at Muar. When they bring up their main artillery support they'll be able to command the whole road system and stop our people bringing reinforcements.”

Trewin was still on the gratings, the cup gripped in one hand as he stared at Corbett, unable to conceal the dismay and horror which his words had aroused. “But, sir, that's ridiculous! We were supposed to have a whole brigade, or at least a thousand men to support this operation!” He waved the mug violently across the screen. “My God, we can't expect to do anything with these poor bastards!”

Corbett was still examining the chart. “The cruiser is sending additional support, Trewin. Fifty marines, to be exact.”

Trewin closed his eyes against the sun. “Now I've heard everything! My Christ, that's
perfect
!” He felt Corbett watching him coldly but he could no longer control the flood of bitter anger. “One hundred and twenty men to be thrown away because some bloody fool behind a desk can't see further than the Aldershot Tattoo!”

Corbett snapped, “You don't know what you're saying!”

“Oh yes I do, sir!” Trewin swayed, feeling the sun across his neck like hot metal. “I've seen it before, remember? Dunkirk and Crete were enough for
me
!”

Masters said in a hushed tone, “Signal from
Canopus,
sir. Marines are bein' embarked now.” He stepped back, pushing the open-mouthed Phelps out of earshot.

Corbett said irritably, “Well, those are the orders. It's settled!”

Trewin stepped down beside him and said quietly, “Look, sir, if you made a signal, if you explained that it was hopeless…” His voice trailed away as he saw Corbett's eyes settle again on the chart.

“It's not my decision, Trewin. We have to land these men as close to the hills as possible. There's no time for a big regrouping of forces. This may be decisive, even critical.” He looked up sharply, examining Trewin's features. “What I may think personally about all this is quite irrelevant.” He folded his arms and stared up at the masthead pendant. “And whatever you consider is more practical is equally unhelpful.” He walked back towards the hatch adding curtly, “Orders are not made to be discussed! They are to be obeyed!”

Trewin walked out on to the bridge wing and looked towards the lush green coastline, hating it, and dreading what had to be done. Then, as he glanced down he saw the young infantry lieutenant crossing the forecastle, his helmet swinging in his hand, his pipe still jutting from his mouth. There was little trace of the beaten, dazed soldier Trewin had seen climb aboard with the last of his troops. He had shaved, and his step was almost springy as he walked amongst his men, his voice low but confident as he spoke to each soldier in turn. He must know exactly what lay ahead, just as every one of his men did. Neither he nor they gave any sign of despair or anger. It was as if they all knew that their reprieve from death had been merely temporary.

Once the lieutenant looked up at the bridge, perhaps feeling Trewin's eyes following his improvised inspection, and threw
him a mock salute. Across the heads of the
Porcupine
's gunners and the resting soldiers they shared a small moment of understanding. Then, as the young lieutenant turned back towards his men, the moment was past.

T
HEY STARTED THE ATTACK
at the end of the afternoon. For half an hour the cruiser and her two destroyers maintained a steady bombardment from the sea, the air torn apart by their shells as they ripped overhead with the sounds of tearing silk. It was easy to see them exploding along the ridge of hills as the earth and trees erupted in bright flashes and the pale sky became smeared with brown cordite and woodsmoke.

An elderly flying boat droned lazily back and forth across the water, reporting the fall of shot and dodging the occasional retaliatory bursts of enemy gunfire. But otherwise the ships had the scene to themselves. In line abreast the four gunboats headed for the great spread of sandy beach with its ever-present backcloth of jungle, their forward guns high angled as they joined in the raking barrage as fast as their sweating crews could reload the demanding breeches.

The
Porcupine
steamed on the left of the line, while the others were spaced out at regular intervals with less than a cable's length between them. Next abeam was the
Grayling,
and Trewin could see some of the cruiser's marines crowded aft on her quarterdeck, the sunlight glinting on their fixed bayonets. He knew without looking that it was the same picture on his own ship, the weight of men very necessary to hold the bows as high as possible in readiness for grounding. For here the beach shelves steeply and suddenly, and with luck the gunboats would be able to unload their human cargoes on to the land with hardly more than their feet wet.

Mallory stood beside the compass, his glasses levelled straight ahead. He said to the bridge at large, “The coast road is down behind that first section of jungle. Our lads have got to cross the beach and get through that before they can join up
with the rest of the troops.” He licked his lips as a tall waterspout rose steeply abeam and threw a pattern of spray over the gunboat's hull. “Close!”

Corbett said coolly, “A dud! Probably a six-inch from the cruiser.”

Mallory looked at the back of Corbett's head and muttered beneath his breath. Then after a quick fix from the compass he said loudly, “We are running in now, sir! About half a cable to go!”

Corbett nodded. “Slow ahead together!” He turned sharply as a shell clipped through the trees on the left of the beach and exploded deep inside the shadows with a sharp crack. “Pass the word to the soldiers.”

Masters remarked hoarsely, “Well, at least the Jap artillery has been took care of. The bastards are only gettin' off one shot to our ten.” His assessment did not mean much, but it helped to ease the tension.

Corbett swung his glasses towards the other ships. All were moving very slowly as if tensing for the impact. He said, “Tell the chief to prepare to go astern immediately we unload.” He might have been discussing an unwanted deck cargo.

Trewin saw the patches of weed swimming up to meet the gunboat's stem and heard Corbett snap, “Stop engines!”

The cease fire gong rang beside the forward gun, and Trewin saw the seamen holding on to the shield as the
Porcupine
glided soundlessly above her shadow towards the empty beach. He held on to the screen, but when the impact came it was hardly more than a dignified shudder. A whistle shrilled, and the decks came alive with thudding boots as the soldiers tore along either side and hurled themselves over the bows. The water was deeper than it appeared, and more than one man fell cursing and kicking before he could scramble up on to the firm sand.

When Trewin tore his eyes from the running soldiers he saw that the men from the other gunboats were already scrambling ashore, urged on by hoarse cries from N.C.O.s and a tall major of marines.

From individual faces and torn, battle-stained uniforms the
Porcupine
's soldiers were transformed into a trotting khaki line. Then as the other men from the gunboats fanned out to meet them the whole line began to move steadily towards the green wall of jungle.

Then as Trewin lowered his glasses the beach seemed to burst skyward with short, ear-splitting explosions. There was no whine of shellfire, and for one terrible moment Trewin imagined that the soldiers had run into a minefield. The line of men faltered, and others lay bleeding beside their rifles and the blackened patches of sand.

He heard Tweedie's voice, magnified over the bridge tannoy. “Mortars! They're using mortars!”

Mallory shouted, “The Japs must be in the jungle too, for God's sake!” He sounded frantic. “They'll never make it!”

But the line began to move forward again. The marine major was waving his revolver, and in the lenses of Trewin's glasses his face looked defiant and angry.

The mortar shells continued to fall, throwing up small fountains of sand and cutting down the running men in a tide of splinters. Far out on the left flank a heavy machine-gun added to the horror, and Trewin saw soldiers and marines crouching and firing their rifles as they ran, ignoring the clutching hands of their fallen companions, their ears and minds deaf to all but revenge.

He saw too the young army lieutenant, his helmet gone, using one hand to drag a wounded man behind him towards the trees. But the man fell, and as the lieutenant turned to look at him Trewin saw his body jerk violently like a rag doll as the machine-gun whipped the beach into yellow feathers around him. When the murderous bullets passed on the lieutenant lay face down in the sand, his shooting stick standing upright beside him like a memorial.

Trewin looked at Corbett. He was standing quite motionless by the voice-pipes, his face set like a mask.

He shouted, “Call them back, sir! For God's sake get them
back
!”

Corbett gripped the voice-pipes as if the ship was moving. Then he said quietly, “Slow astern together.” He did not even flinch as a mortar shell exploded near water's edge and splinters clanged against the hull and ricocheted screaming over the sea.

The screws began to beat the water into froth beneath the counter, and one by one the gunboats started to move astern. When Trewin looked again at the beach the running figures had vanished into the trees. He could hear the rattle of small-arms and the dull thuds of grenades, but the jungle hid the final scene and betrayed nothing of the fighting and the dying. On the beach the corpses lay like discarded bundles, while here and there a wounded man crawled aimlessly or lay crying for help which would never come.

Corbett's voice scraped his mind like a saw. “Hard a-starboard. Full ahead together!” To Masters he rapped, “Signal the group to take up station astern!”

Then as the four gunboats curved away on a bright arc of white wash he looked at Trewin and said simply, “They had their orders, too.”

Masters said thickly, “Signal from
Canopus,
sir. Operation completed. Return to patrol area forthwith.”

In one corner of the bridge Phelps was standing with both hands digging into his signal flags, his face pale, his eyes blinded with emotion.

Trewin saw the gunners leaning around their shield as they stared astern at the rising pall of smoke and the deep footprints in the sand which were already fading in the rising tide.

When he looked again at Corbett he saw that he was back in the chair his head sunk in his shoulders as he stared fixedly at the horizon.

Trewin remembered the signal. “Operation completed.” It sounded like an epitaph.

T
HE
P
ORCUPINE
'S PRESENCE
on the southwest coast was mercifully short. Within two days of the Japanese breakout from the Malacca pocket there was virtually no part of the Strait safe enough to patrol. Day by day and hour by hour the enemy intensified his air attacks, and as the gunboats zigzagged in and out of the shallows, their guns hardly having time to cool, it became obvious that the Army's retreat was turning into a rout. On the fifth day the signal came to release the little ships from their torment, and with ammunition lockers almost empty, their hulls grimed with smoke and scarred with splinters, they headed southeast for Singapore.

Apart from a few minor injuries they had escaped the fate of many others. They had seen a destroyer blasted into two halves by a stick of bombs, the swimming survivors machine-gunned from the air with methodical savagery. An ammunition lighter had gone up like a bomb within yards of the shore, and so swift and terrible had been her end that no one knew the cause of the disaster. The blast from the explosion had fired and flattened the trees for miles inland, and had whipped the topmast from the
Beaver
like a straw in a strong wind.

But the gunboats had survived, and had even managed to hit back. They had shot down one fighter, and the
Porcupine
's own gunners had sent a solitary Zero limping back over the land, a trail of smoke pouring behind it and growing with each second to show the sure certainty of a kill.

Once in harbour they had gone on immediately with the tasks of refuelling and taking on more shells and supplies. Everybody was either too tired or too shocked to care about the nearby city or the air raids which came and went with the regularity of time itself.

Just one day at anchor, and then in the middle of a sudden
rainstorm the four ships had weighed and headed through the Singapore Strait and up towards the old familiar area. Only then did Corbett seem to regain some of his original self-control. Maybe he was reassured by the unchanging coastline, by the very feel of the sea and wind about him.

But his calm was only skin deep, and at dusk on the first day out of harbour, when the
Prawn
signalled plaintively that she had an engine failure, he seemed beside himself with anger. The lights blinked back and forth, and even Masters, the imperturbable yeoman, felt the edge of the captain's abrasive tongue when he was slow to comprehend one of
Prawn
's signals. But no ship as old as
Prawn
could take such usage without something giving way, and in spite of all Corbett's persuasions and threats he had to give her permission to withdraw back to harbour.
Beaver
took her in tow, and as the rain lashed the
Porcupine
's upper bridge like steel needles the two gunboats moved guiltily into the darkness and vanished from sight.

Trewin pushed himself tighter into one corner of the bridge and readjusted the soggy towel around his neck. He could feel the rain battering his oilskin and splashing up from the gratings to soak his legs and feet. There was a lot of cloud, and he knew that the rain was here for some time.