He felt the lieutenant duck from under the hood. He was alone with the stained chart, the small glowing lamp above it.
Fairfax could not possibly have sighted anything at that time. His situation would be like
Andromeda
’s. Desperate the Germans might be, but to risk seizing an oiler in pitch darkness was inviting failure. He thought of Masters. Rietz must have launched an aircraft. An Arado was bigger and far more powerful than Masters’ Seafox. The German pilots would be the best available, professionals well-used to tracking surface vessels under all conditions. So they were there. More to the point, the lure of fuel had pushed caution aside.
Blake stood up, waiting for his eyes to get accustomed to the darkness again. What would he do in Rietz’s place, with the only chance of survival a tempting cargo of fuel with the means to bunker at sea? He did not need to answer his own question.
He felt the bridge shaking more insistently as the revolutions mounted.
‘Course two-one-zero, sir. Revolutions for twenty-five knots.’
Blake walked past a petty officer who was holding his handset like a talisman.
‘Tell the engineroom I need more revs right now.’
Palliser came from the shadows, his collar turned up as more spray burst over the bridge in a solid sheet.
‘Up she rises!’
But nobody laughed.
Palliser glanced at Blair, who was sharing his watch.
‘Bloody hell. I feel like a leper all of a sudden!’
The Australian grinned. ‘Nothing new, Guns.’
Blake moved restlessly across the slippery gratings, listening to the various reports from radar, from the W/T office, even from the sick-bay. The last one was to announce that a steward had broken his wrist after being hurled down a ladder when the ship had made an impressive plunge.
Scovell appeared to tell Blake he had been right round the ship as instructed. There had been no point in rousing the whole ship’s company just for that. There might be long delays, with the tension building up in each man until he would be unable to see or think clearly.
Scovell said, ‘All checked, sir.’
He sounded out of breath. Lack of exercise or fear, it was hard to tell.
‘Good, Number One. Pity we don’t know where the enemy is, or from which bearing she’ll put in an appearance.’
He thought of Villar’s neat calculations, tide and current, the wind’s direction and drift. Rietz was probably shadowing the oiler from the south-west. Keeping well back until he was ready. The captain of any fully loaded tanker would not risk a clash. Fairfax would have to tread warily. To act otherwise would make the enemy suspicious and invite disaster.
Scovell peered at the watchkeepers as if to sniff out a man dozing on his feet.
‘Rain’s getting heavier. Lull soon. Then
wham
.’
Blake turned away. Scovell’s pessimism did not help. A storm and a battle did not go hand in hand or leave room for manoeuvre.
Blake listened to the screws’ steady beat, felt the ship’s violent motion as she hurled herself into the weather as if she hated it and what they were all doing to her.
He said, ‘Call the hands half an hour earlier, Number One. I want them fed and ready to go to action stations as soon as we’ve got some daylight.’ He added, ‘Tell Paymaster Commander Gross to get his department on top line. Sandwiches and tea to all the gun positions. Chocolate, too, if he can spare it. Then make sure the commodore’s been roused.’
Blake heard Scovell’s boots clattering down a ladder. Probably thinks it’s unnecessary. A waste of time. Sentiment, when all they needed was a firm hand.
He saw Digby creeping round the after part of the bridge gathering up empty mugs. Scovell should try to see it like Digby. A helpless feeling made worse by the darkness, the empty desert which had already taken care of the
Devonport
and a few others besides. You needed more than cold armour-plate at times like these.
In the sick-bay Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander Bruce scrubbed his hands and tried not to look at his assistant’s green face. The motion was terrible down here, with every jar and bottle clattering on shelves and in cupboards like dancing skeletons. Bruce glanced at the sick-berth attendants in the
adjoining flat, laying out the instruments, checking the stretchers. He sighed. He was getting too old for it. Past it.
The ship’s company was wide awake now, and there were many who had been unable to sleep anyway. Plates were left untouched by some, others ate with a kind of desperation, as if it was the last meal on earth.
Cooks and stewards piled small mountains of sandwiches op trays, while stokers of the damage control party went round the ship looking at life-rafts and Carley floats, timber for shoring up bulkheads, all the odds and ends of survival.
Both the boiler rooms and the engineroom were fully manned, with overalled figures scrambling through the steamy haze while they tried to stay on their feet. Weir watched from his catwalk, his face set in a grim mask. Steele was moving towards him, his mouth speaking silent words to the chief stoker while the din roared and rattled around them.
On the thick watertight doors the clips were greased and ready to be slammed shut. In action men would pause to look at these doors. Safety for some, death by fire or drowning for others.
On the long messdeck in
Andromeda
’s forecastle Leading Seaman Musgrave ran his eye quickly over the bare neatness. The messdeck, like the others below his feet or aft from where he was standing, was prepared for battle. The clutter of half-written letters, repair-jobs on uniforms, ship-modelling and the like were stowed away. Only here and there were signs of habitation, the garish pin-ups displaying their teeth and their breasts. A pair of sea-boot stockings hung to dry on a deckhead pipe. But otherwise it was empty, the long, scrubbed tables and benches adding to a sense of loneliness.
Musgrave rapped the nearest table with his torch. ‘All done ’ere, sir.’ He looked at the officer who had been sent to check the messdecks with him. To get him from puking up his guts most likely, he thought.
Midshipman Steven Thorne nodded stiffly. He was so frightened that his eyes felt too big for their sockets. He wanted to say something, to assert himself, to discover the kind of strength which the leading seaman seemed to take for granted.
He asked huskily, ‘You were aboard when you fought the three cruisers, Musgrave?’
‘’S’right.’ Musgrave felt both sorry and irritated by Thorne’s misery. If he got through this lot, Thorne would probably be throwing his bloody weight about in no time. You never knew how they would turn out. He added, ‘Any reason for askin’?’ He dropped the sir. It was Musgrave’s special way of finding out how far he could go.
Thorne seized a fire-hose as the ship swayed noisily over a solid bank of water.
‘I – I just wondered what it was like.’
He sounded so wretched that even Musgrave felt a twinge of pity. He looked along the broad messdeck, remembering the savage gashes in the side, the sea streaming past as
Andromeda
pressed on with her attack. A lot of good blokes had bought it that day, and before. He could see them now. On or off watch, up in front of the jaunty or Jimmy the One. Runs ashore in Alex and Gib, booze-ups and fights with the police and the civvies. Now they were gone.
He said, ‘It was rough. But this one will be a piece of cake. I think the skipper’s ’ad just about a gutful of the Jerry. I wouldn’t give much for ’
is
chances!’
There was a metallic squeak and Musgrave saw the young midshipman jump with alarm. He followed his gaze to the great circular steel trunk which passed through the mess from the deck below and the one beneath that. It supported the crushing weight of A turret on the forecastle, whilst through it passed the ammunition hoists between the magazines and the breeches of the guns.
Thorne said in a whisper, ‘Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘’Ere, grab this fire-bucket.’
Musgrave pushed the youth over until the sand was within a foot of his face.
Poor little sod. Don’t even shave yet
.
But Thorne was not sick. He stammered, ‘Thanks, Musgrave. Close thing.’
Above the door to the messdeck was a red-painted gong.
Musgrave said quietly, ‘Listen. In a moment or two that bloody thing is goin’ to sound off like the clappers.’
Thorne said, ‘I know. Action stations.’
Musgrave swung the door behind them. ‘More to it than that. We’re goin’ to
fight
today. I feels it. When that ’appens you can forget all that swill they teaches you at the officer’s school.’
‘I – I don’t understand?’
‘You will.’ Musgrave stuck out his beard. ‘There’s blokes up top ’o’ll be lookin’ to you, God ’elp them. ‘Cause you’re an officer. The fact that you’re just off your mother’s apron strings an’ ’ave never been in a scrap like this one’ll be never comes into it. So when the shit starts to fly,
sir
, just remember not to let ’em down.’
Thorne nodded, his fists clenched to his sides. ‘Yes, I see.’
Musgrave looked up. The rain was easing off a bit and so was the motion.
Thorne said, ‘Thank you.’ He straightened his cap. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’
Musgrave grinned. I’ll bet nobody’s spoken to him like that since he was caught pinching apples.
It was at that precise moment the alarm began its insane clamour.
‘
Action stations! Action stations!
’
Musgrave glanced at the midshipman and started to run for the nearest ladder. Just before he scrambled through the hatch to the deck above, Musgrave paused and looked back. It was then that it struck him. Like a fist. He was never going to see that messdeck again.
Scovell saluted. ‘Ship at action stations, sir.’
Blake peered at the sky. The cloud was breaking up, with patches of steely blue showing occasionally to light up the set faces around him and give substance to the sea.
He half listened to the chatter of reports and checks as each department went through the drill. A and B turrets were moving, their paired barrels glistening in the dull light where the salt had formed a crusty surface.
He had to know what was happening.
Had to
.
‘What do you think, Pilot?’
Villar came back instantly. ‘Another six hours, sir. It’s my guess that the Germans will have stopped the
Empire Prince
by now and are probably taking on fuel. Commander Fairfax’s last signal to base might have made them jumpy, but I doubt it.’
Blake peered at his watch. Six hours. It was too long. He looked at the sky again, hating it, dreading what might happen to Fairfax and his men.
He glanced round as Sub-Lieutenant Walker said, ‘Here comes more rain!’
Rain . . . it looked more like a solid wall as it advanced towards the cruiser’s surging bow wave. Then it hit the ship, driving out thought and understanding with its drenching intensity.
A seaman thrust a telephone towards Blake and shouted, ‘Engineroom, sir!’
Blake jammed it to his ear. ‘
Captain!
’
Weir called, ‘I can give you another two knots now, sir.’
Blake stared at the telephone while the rain roared through the bridge, battering his cap and oilskin like a flail. Yet through it all he heard Weir’s quiet confidence, the prop he needed more than Weir would ever know.
‘Everyone seems good and busy, Captain.’
Commodore Stagg’s rich voice tore his mind from the complex equation of speed, time and distance.
Stagg walked to the bridge chair, oblivious to the downpour. ‘Got bored aft.’ He shot Blake a questioning glance as he joined him by the screen. ‘Something bothering you?’
Blake could smell bacon and eggs on his breath, fresh coffee, too. Stagg’s massive confidence helped to settle his mind.
He replied, ‘It’s going to take longer than planned.’
Stagg growled, ‘Rietz will need a whole lot longer to get his fuel across in this swell, damn him.’ He rubbed his wet hands. ‘He’s lost his safety margin.
Andromeda
will have him by the guts long before that. He’ll know he can’t outpace us.’
Blake pulled his pipe from his pocket and put it between his teeth. There was nothing more he could do. If they were closer he could get the Seafox airborne, if only to give Fairfax confidence, to show him help was near.
Stagg had to shout above the drumming downpour. ‘You worry too much! Don’t you see? We’ve got him cold!’
They both turned as the gunnery speaker barked, ‘Ship, bearing Green two-oh, range one-four-oh!’
Stagg stared at Villar accusingly and shouted, ‘You said six hours!’ Then, surprisingly, he grinned and said to Blake, ‘So Rietz was suspicious after all, damn his bloody eyes! Fairfax must have got the wind up! But it doesn’t matter now!’ He gripped Blake’s wrist. ‘D’you hear?
Go get him!
’
The speaker’s metallic tones pierced the rain like a lance. ‘Two ships, repeat
two
ships at Green two-oh, range one-four-oh.’
Blake lowered his glasses, the misty picture fixed in his mind. The rain passing on and over, the sea riding in long, undulating rollers to meet them, and then, just off the starboard bow, two blurred, oncoming shapes.
He shouted, ‘I was right! There
are
two of them!’
Stagg stared back at him, his jaw hanging open.
Blake turned away, barely trusting himself to speak.
‘Ships altering course. Now steering zero-four-zero. Rate two hundred, closing.’
Blake looked at the men around him, his eyes settling on Villar.
‘Tell W/T to make the signal.
In contact with two German raiders. Am engaging!
’ He watched Villar move swiftly to a voice-pipe. ‘Fast as you like, Pilot.’
Scovell asked, ‘Shall I stay here or go aft to damage control, sir?’
‘Carry on, Number One. Tell Masters to be ready to fly-off immediately and to make sure his plane is fully armed. He’ll understand.’
Scovell hesitated, his eyes moving from Blake to Stagg and back again. ‘Good luck, sir.’
Blake nodded and then looked at the Toby Jug. ‘Very well, Yeo. Hoist battle ensigns.’