Pride and the Anguish (23 page)

Trewin lurched to his feet and watched the other hull rolling and yawing in a great pattern of exploding air bubbles. He could smell the stench of oil fuel, the harsher odours of fire and charred paintwork.

He tore his eyes away and ran after Dancy. Through screen doors and down half-lit ladders, his mind only barely recording his urgent journey. He saw the deserted messdeck and garish
pin-ups on the lockers. Freshly laundered clothing hanging across deckhead pipes, and a half-eaten sandwich forgotten beside the mess radio.

Right forward, beyond the collision bulkhead, he stopped, and with Dancy listened to the surging roar of inrushing water. He stared at the small, spurting jets around the edges of the massive watertight door and stood back as Dancy began to hammer the clips hard home.

Torches were flashing through the half-light, and he heard Hammond call, “The lower store is flooding, Number One! I've got the men sealing it off right now.”

Trewin turned wearily. “The cable locker is flooded, too. She feels heavier in the bows already.” He swore savagely. “The
Grayling
never got to the Inlet. She could not have turned over in the shallows beyond the channel.”

He was half shocked and ashamed by the sense of relief which had replaced his first horror. For one terrible moment he had pictured the
Grayling
's hull packed with helpless refugees as she turned over. Deep down he knew that he did not even care about them. Just one. And she was still in Talang.

His voice sounded calm as he said, “Carry on here, Sub. I'll send you some men from the engine room to help with shoring up.”

Hammond said hoarsely, “She was capsized! I couldn't believe it!”

A seaman skidded to a halt and said, “Beg pardon, sir, but the cap'n wants you on the bridge at once.”

Trewin nodded and then said to Hammond, “It might have been us if we had gone in first.” He rested his hand on his shoulder. “It doesn't help those poor devils, but it's still a thought to carry around.”

The seaman was still there. “The cap'n sounded as if he wanted you urgently, sir!”

Surprisingly, Corbett seemed almost cool as Trewin made his report. In the growing light his eyes were watching the bows
and the sluggish lap of water around the dripping anchors. He said, “
Grayling
must have hit a mine. As she drifted clear I saw a great gash on her port bow. She always was top-heavy.” He sighed. “But she was a good ship.” Then he continued more briskly, “We seem to have escaped with little more than a buckled frame and one hole just abaft the stem. The storeroom below the forrard messdeck is flooded, but we can pump it out as soon as Nimmo has finished checking for other damage. The pumps should be able to control it. But the cable locker is another matter. That'll have to be dealt with at base.” He looked hard at Trewin. “
Porcupine
is a lucky ship, Trewin. But we can't rely on damn miracles every day.”

Trewin looked across at the waiting headland, grey tipped in the reluctant dawn. “Do we go in, sir?”

“Immediately.” Corbett turned slightly as Mallory called, “Chief reports no damage aft. He is ready to proceed.”

Corbett grunted. “Good. Tell him to start the pumps and try and lift the bows by draining off his forrard fuel tanks. We shall still have enough for our present task.”

He waited until Mallory had passed his message and then snapped, “Slow ahead together.”

As the
Porcupine
pushed slowly and painfully between the treacherous sandbars towards the Inlet the sky suddenly blossomed into a fiery red glow. Then, while the men on the bridge shaded their eyes, the explosion split the air apart, cowing them, beating them down with the power of its detonation. It went on and on, echoing around the hills and dulling every other shot and sound, as if they too were crushed into submission by its passing.

Trewin shouted, “The fuel dump and magazine! The Army must have blown them up!” He watched the rising bank of black smoke and saw the underbellies of the low clouds flickering with red and orange reflections.

Corbett said, “They must be falling back.” He sounded distant. “We will have to get a move on. You and Mallory will take
twenty men as soon as we reach the settlement and get ashore as quickly as you can. I want the whole settlement cleared in thirty minutes. Nurses, engineers,
everybody,
do you understand?”

Their eyes met. “And if anyone refuses, sir?”

Corbett turned away. “Bring them anyway. By force if necessary.”

The trees above the headland were tinged with reddish gold, and Trewin imagined that somehow the explosion had even reached this far. But he heard Masters mutter, “'Ere comes the sun. I was beginnin' to wonder if I'd see another one!”

“It'll be the last one for you if you don't keep your mind on your work!” Corbett glared at him. “Now get aft and hoist another ensign, the biggest you've got!”

The yeoman stared. “Sir?”

Corbett looked at Trewin. “When we steam upriver it may be the last visit for a very long time. I want this ship to look as if she means business, see?”

The shadow of the headland crept out to greet them, and Corbett said suddenly, “I'm going round the ship myself to check the damage, Trewin. Take her upriver and keep away from the south bank.” His eyes glinted as a second ensign broke out from aft. “That's more like it, eh? Give 'em something to remember at Talang.”

Mallory watched him go and asked, “Do you think we'll
ever
come back here?”

Trewin watched the Inlet opening up across the sagging bows. He had not heard Mallory's question. He was still thinking of the slime-covered keel and the mocking red light from the entangled corpse.

He said quietly, “Three down and three to go!”

A
S THE WATERY SUNLIGHT
finally broke through the drifting smoke and thinning patches of cloud the
Porcupine
rounded the last bend into the widest part of the river below the settlement. At first glance it was hard to recognise it as the same place. Only
half the pier remained intact, the outward end having been reduced to a tangle of broken beams which jutted from the fast-moving stream like decayed teeth. The air was thick with smoke and noise and a drifting curtain of ashes and black smuts from the burning dumps further inland. At regular intervals the ground shook to the onslaught of bursting shells, most of which were hitting the ridge of hills beyond the settlement. But some cleared the high ground completely, and as the gunboat nudged cautiously into the remains of the pier the shells screamed overhead to plough deep amongst the jungle on the south bank before exploding and adding to the fires which were already there.

Quickly and nervously the landing party clambered across the pier and waited for Trewin and Mallory to join them. As the shells whimpered through the smoke and the air vibrated to their explosions the men crowded together as if for mutual support, their eyes on the shattered houses and the great craters along the dirt road.

Trewin said harshly, “You know what to do! Two parties up the road on the double and get every available person here right away!” He pushed his holster across one hip and added to Mallory, “They've had a few air raids too by the look of it.”

Mallory pointed at the remains of the stilted clubhouse. It was little more than a ruin, but miraculously the zinc bar still hung in position, a broken bottle at one end. “Never did like the bloody place!” He grinned, but his eyes were dark with strain.

Trewin watched Petty Officer Kane trotting up the road with his men at his back. The sailors looked clean and alien against the chaos and charred houses, and he saw several of them glancing back at the ship as if to reassure themselves of safety.

As he followed them towards the road Trewin also looked back. The
Porcupine
was swinging gently at her mooring lines, and he could see the livid gash on her waterline by the stem, a smear like blood where
Grayling
's red lead had broken the final embrace.

Then as the two officers quickened their pace they saw the
soldiers. They were coming down the road towards the river. They came in groups or singly, running, or just dragging themselves along at the last stages of exhaustion. Hardly any of them were carrying arms, and some of them had thrown away everything but their boots and shorts in their eagerness to get away.

An officer was standing in the centre of the road, a revolver in his hand as he shouted hoarsely, “Get back there! I'll shoot the first man to pass this point!”

But the soldiers hurried by, not even sparing the officer a glance, some even brushing against his revolver, their eyes glazed and empty as they pushed on down the road.

The officer, he was a young major, lowered his revolver, and as individual soldiers thrust their way past he called out, “You, Jackson! Tell them to stop and dig in! We can still hold the line!” To another, “Here, Bill! Let's show 'em what we can do!”

Mallory said thickly, “Christ, they're Aussies!”

The major saw them and called in a pleading voice, “For God's sake, what can I do? They won't listen!”

Mallory asked, “Are there any more behind you?” He seized the major's arm. “Well,
are
there?”

The major stared at him vacantly. “No ammunition left. No food. No goddam anything!” He shook his revolver at the jungle. “Jesus bloody Christ, what did they expect us to do?”

Mallory said, “Easy, mate! There's nothing you
can
do now!”

The soldiers had reached the river and were throwing themselves into the current and striking out for the opposite bank. Even those who could obviously not swim were following the blind stampede, heedless of everything but the need to escape the holocaust behind them. Not a single man made for the moored gunboat. It was as if she represented authority more than safety. Something to be avoided to the last.

Trewin saw several bobbing heads being swept downstream and heard the feeble cries above the din around him. He said grimly, “We must get on with the job, Pilot. There's less time than ever now.”

Mallory was still staring at the last of the soldiers, his face creased with despair. “I never thought I'd live to be ashamed of being an Aussie!” He turned to watch the major who was already striding back up the road towards the jungle. He was shouting out orders to the few remaining stragglers, his voice cracked and inhuman. Mallory added, “What about him, for God's sake?”

Trewin said, “He'd not thank you for helping him now.”

At that moment Kane appeared around the bend of the road, his eyes searching for his officers. He yelled, “We're bringin' out the nurses now, sir!” He clucked as a shell ripped overhead and exploded against a tall tree in a blast of splinters. “The 'ospital's been 'it, sir. A raid last night, they tell me.”

Trewin broke into a run. He ignored the little groups of figures, the sailors carrying improvised stretchers and a civilian engineer who was holding a caged bird and a bottle of gin. His eyes were fixed on a separate pall of smoke, and his mind was ringing with Kane's words. The hospital had been hit. Massey's red cross, his efforts to stay apart from the war, had been in vain.

In the clearing by the hospital he saw the lines of covered corpses, splattered with drying mud from the night's rain, the broken furniture and great fragments of charred timber from what must have been a direct hit.

He shouted wildly, “Get these people out of it, Kane!” He saw the nurses, smoke-stained and dazed as they stood amongst the wreckage. They did not resist as the sailors pushed them towards the road. They were like children. Mindless children, Trewin thought.

He put his shoulder against a door at the side of the building and ducked as a sheet of corrugated iron scythed down from the remains of the roof. But for the splintered bookcase he would not have recognised it as the same room.

Massey lay on a sofa, his eyes open and staring at the sky overhead, his teeth bared in agony as he clutched a bloody bandage against his stomach. The girl was on her knees beside him, her black hair speckled with ashes. There was blood on her
hands and her shirt was almost torn from her shoulders.

Trewin dropped beside her. “We got here, Clare! For God's sake what happened?”

She did not look at him. “It hit the centre ward. There were fifty people there. It was ablaze from end to end before we could get to them!” Her shoulders began to shake, but as Trewin put his arm around her she said fiercely, “Please help him! I—I can't do anything for him!”

Massey seemed to see Trewin for the first time. His lips opened and closed, and even that effort appeared to be tearing him apart. He gasped, “Get her away, Lieutenant!” His eyes blinked. “Oh, it's you!” He tried to smile. “So Greville got here after all!” He clamped his teeth together, and Trewin saw the sweat breaking across his forehead and running down his beard. “Just
get her out
!”

Mallory stepped through the door, his feet crunching on broken glass and splinters. He said harshly, “I've sent most of them down.” He saw Massey and added, “How is he?”

The girl turned and stared up at him. “He can't be moved! I'm not leaving without him!” Her voice quivered and there were tears cutting through the grime on her face.

Trewin lifted his head. The gunfire had stopped, and he was conscious of the small sounds outside the shattered room. The hiss of charred wood, the distant cry of a wounded animal, or man.

He said, “You must go now, Clare.”

She stared at him, her eyes wild. “
No!
I won't go!” To her father she said brokenly, “Please!
Tell him!
”

Petty Officer Kane shouted from the clearing, “Come on, sir! I can hear the bastards on the hill!” As if to back the urgency of his words Trewin heard the
Porcupine
's siren. It was eerie and somehow frightening.