Send a Gunboat (1960) (37 page)

Rolfe, at the wing of the bridge, heard the sudden commotion and saw the pointing arms and frantic gestures. He felt dead inside, as Herridge dived cleanly over the broken rail and started to swim after Laker’s bobbing lifejacket. We were never meant to escape. I doomed them to this, before I even left Hong Kong.

“Stop engine!”

He stared calmly at Vincent’s twisted face, shutting out the torrent of words from his tired brain.

“You can’t stop for him! You can’t go back for that useless swine!” Vincent jerked his hands helplessly. “Why are you doing it?” He broke down into a spasm of sobs.

Rolfe listened to the fading engine. There was no time to explain anything to Vincent. No time even to think. He watched the girl standing in the doorway. He blinked away the film which threatened to cover his eyes and saw Fallow’s arm across her slim shoulders. Chao was supporting Fallow’s body from the other side and between them he glared wildly from side to side, like a vanquished prize-fighter.

“We’ve stopped?” Her mouth framed the question. “Justin, is this the end?”

Fallow tore himself free and staggered drunkenly across the broken glass and splintered woodwork.

“End? End? Course it ain’t! By God, I’ll kill the first man wot steps aboard!” He stared blankly from Rolfe to the girl, as if unable to understand how he had got there. “Tell ’em, sir! Show ’em what we can do! The old
Wagtail
can ’andle any bloody Chink!” He fell against the helmsman, muttering vaguely.

Rolfe walked past him and on to the open wing of the bridge. He saw Laker’s head, wet and shining, close to the quarterdeck, and watched Herridge treading water, getting ready to assist him aboard. He lifted his eyes dimly to the destroyer. He had often watched sharks circling their prey, and it was no surprise to see the long grey shape of the destroyer curving sharply inwards, closing the range to finish the unequal battle once and for all.

He glanced around at the remains of his last command. There seemed very little of the ship which had neither been destroyed completely nor badly mauled.

One ensign, smoke-blackened and torn, still flapped defiantly, and the gun still remained pointing straight at the enemy.

He watched the warship growing larger and larger. She was heading directly for the hidden reef barrier now. In a few seconds she would turn and deliver the final broadside, with every gun she possessed.

Unless—he felt himself twitching uncontrollably—unless she went straight on the rocks! He ran breathlessly up the ladder, ignoring Chase and his dull-faced gunners. It might be just possible, he thought wildly. The Chinese captain would not be seeing the
Wagtail
as any menace now. She was outwardly a wreck, stopped and helpless, and with lifejacketed people already thronging the rails.

“Chase!” His voice was hard and cold. “Can you still fire?”

“Yessir. But, but what for, sir? It’ll only make ’em kill us all off!” He sounded tired and deflated.

“One shell, Chief. When I tell you. And I want it right in the middle of her wheelhouse! Aiming mark, just below the upper bridge!” He glared at Chase’s red face. “Can you do it?”

Chase rubbed his fat palms on his rumpled trousers, his piggy eyes already gleaming. “Move over, Clinton!” he growled. “I’ll show you a bit of fancy shootin’!” He slid into the gunlayer’s seat and rested his eye against the telescopic sight.

Rolfe clenched his hands until the nails bit into his flesh. His nerves screamed, and although he had lost his cap and the sun was strong across his neck, he felt as cold as death.

Vincent burst into view beneath him. “Herridge is back, sir! He saved that—” He stopped, feeling the acute tension around him. Slowly he turned to face the other ship.

On the battered rim of the engine-room hatch Louch perched tense and watchful, his eyes following their enemy. Around him, and throughout the ship, everyone was waiting and watching. Not knowing why, or for what, but aware that something else, something even more terrible, was about to happen.

Laker, sodden and limp, lay across his wife’s lap, moaning miserably. He, at least, was missing the final act.

Herridge gripped Ursula’s arm and pulled her unresisting body closer. He stared bleakly up at the bridge, watching the lonely figure silhouetted against the clear sky. Poor bastard, he thought.

The destroyer moved nearer, slackening speed. Rolfe could visualize, without effort, the calm scene on her bridge, the tell-tale squeak of the echo-sounder and the Asdic. The captain getting ready to alter course.

The glass screen along the top of her bridge flashed in the sun like a signal. She’s starting to turn, he breathed.

“Fire!”

He was deafened by the whiplash bang of the gun and the spot on the front of the distant bridge, the place which he had mentally marked, erupted flame and smoke.

The ship faltered and then plunged forward. Seconds later, she began to turn again, a new helmsman at his post. But it was too late. With a metallic groan she struck, and for a brief moment hung against her hidden adversary, the powerful screws still beating the water into a frenzy. Then her decks canted, and she slid off into deeper water, heavy and lifeless.

Rolfe found that his limbs were trembling uncontrollably. He clenched his teeth.

“Full ahead!”

The
Wagtail
swung slowly away, making for the island. A few sporadic shots whistled overhead, but even those died away, as the destroyer turned to the first task, of self-survival.

Soon she was lost from sight, blotted out by the calm green of the island.

Rolfe had been standing motionless by the rail, his eyes unseeing. Chase saw the hard features soften slightly, as a messenger reported, “Both engines working, sir! Full ahead together!”

Beyond the island the open sea lay ready to welcome them.

As the shiny staff car, with his miniature flag fluttering from the bonnet, lurched and bumped over the dockyard’s cobbled road, the Admiral had to restrain himself from leaning over the driver’s shoulder and control the rising excitement which had mounted steadily from the moment he had watched the battered
Wagtail
steaming slowly past his flagship.

The two destroyers, which he had despatched, without much hope, to look for her, followed at a respectful distance, their clean grey hulls contrasting starkly with the listing, shell-scarred gunboat, which was half-hidden by the black smoke from her riddled funnel, and so low in the water, that it was difficult to imagine what was keeping her afloat.

A great, hushed silence had fallen over the anchorage, and the silent crews of the fleet had lined their rails to watch and wonder. Absent were the jeers and cynical comments which had followed. her from this harbour such a short time before, and as her battered shadow had crept past the first line of moored ships, the silence broke with the force and suddenness of a typhoon.

The Admiral had felt a sting in his pale eyes, as he followed the little ship’s progress, and listened to the wave of cheering which rippled wildly along the ships.

His ships, and his men. Cruiser, or outmoded gunboat, what difference?

Yelling for his Chief of Staff, he had sped for the shore, conscious of the Commander’s worried stare, but more excited than he had cared to admit for a long time.

The car nosed between a line of marine police, which wavered and swayed against a cheerful and curious mob of dockyard workers, coolies, and anyone else who could get near enough.

The car halted near the dry-dock. The same one from which
Wagtail
had left on her strange mission to Santu

The Admiral stood blinking in the sun and staring at the growing pile of suitcases and crates on the dock wall, and at the ambulances and waiting repair gangs.

He brushed past the gaping workers and saluting seamen, and stood on the edge of the dock.

He thought afterwards that it was like standing by on the side of a grave to say good-bye to an old friend.

As the water seethed and roared from the dock, the gunboat seemed to sag, and then, as her worn keel rested on the blocks, she slowly settled down, the last life draining from her, as the receding water laid bare her cruel wounds.

“What a mess, sir!” Commander Pearce muttered.

The Admiral shook his head slowly, watching the procession of gaunt men and women being guided up the sloping brow to the reception party. “But not a waste,” he murmured. “People at home don’t realize that such things as this can happen in peacetime. But this is war in reality of a different kind! I think the
Wagtail
would have liked to end her life in this way, rather than go submissively to the scrapyard!” He smiled softly, as he saw a Chinese seaman painstakingly adjusting the tattered ensign. “She has made her gesture, small though it may be, and it will give faith to others!”

He straightened his trim figure as the tall Lieutenant Commander strode towards him and saluted.

He studied the tired, calm face, and noticed the difference. “Welcome back, Rolfe! You’ve worked wonders!”

Rolfe smiled briefly and handed a sheaf of papers to the Operations Officer. “It’s all there, sir. From beginning to end!”

“I have read and re-read your signal, which the destroyers sent to me, a dozen times, and I’m more than satisfied.” The Admiral gave one of his rare laughs. “You’ll be disappointed to learn that the world press are not giving you much prominence! The Communists are saying that they fired on a British ‘invader’ of their waters, and our people are saying much the same about them!” He rubbed his hands, “But dealing with a destroyer the way you did, well! I think a new command is indicated for you right away, eh?”

Rolfe’s smile faded, as from the corner of his eye he saw Laker, in company with some officials from Government House, approaching them along the wall.

He stepped back as Laker was introduced, and waited while they conversed in low tones.

He watched as Laker stepped into a waiting car and drove away. He did not once look back.

Rolfe tightened his lips, some of the old bitterness welling up in his tired mind.

“Is the offer of a new command still open, sir?” The words were out before he could stop them. “I expect Mr. Laker has had a few words to say about me?”

The Admiral cocked his neat head on one side. “He told me some things I didn’t know, yes. That you risked the ship to save his life, for instance! And that I should be proud of you!” He waited, and amused smile on his lips. “You’ve changed him, Rolfe.”

Rolfe stood looking at the silent gunboat, his face expressionless. “We’ve all changed, sir.” His voice was soft, as if he was speaking to himself, or to the
Wagtail
. “Mostly for the better, I should think.” So Laker’s nerve had finally failed him, he thought.

He watched Vincent walking unseeingly through the excited groups, his eyes on some invisible objective. “And some are still changing!”

Then his frown vanished, and he beckoned boyishly to the slim figure who stood apart from the others.

“I should like to introduce someone to you, sir!”

The Admiral looked into Judith’s wide, candid eyes and grave smile, and wondered.

“I think you’d better accept a shore appointment for a bit, Rolfe.” He saw him grip the girl’s hand, unconscious of their stares. “In case you want to make any other arrangements, eh?”

They walked slowly away from the wall, the Admiral already planning his retirement and letting routine reassemble his life.

Rolfe and Judith paused at the top of the ramp and looked back to the shadowed dock.

“She did well,” he said slowly.

“We all did,” Judith answered, and together they walked contentedly away from the harbour.

* * * * *

The high sides of the luxury liner, homeward bound for
England, were thronged with passengers and tourists taking their last glimpse at Hong Kong.

As the great ship glided steadily towards the wide approach, several people were pointing to the thin funnel and splintered upperworks which showed above the distant dry-dock.

One of them turned, as Fallow, his bandaged shoulder stiff and cumbersome beneath his uniform, leaned heavily on the rail beside him.

“Say, what sort of a ship is that, then?” He watched as Fallow stared emptily across the widening gap.

“That’s the old
Wagtail
.” He smiled sadly. “I used to be First Lieutenant in ’er!”

I wish to express my thanks to Mr. M. Ellis (Department of the Chief of Naval Information, Admiralty) for his help and co-operation in making available to me, plans and details of the ‘Sandpiper’ Class of River Gunboats.