Pride and the Anguish (42 page)

Together they climbed up to the bridge and pulled on the thick, damp oilskins. The humidity brought Trewin into an immediate sweat, but without an oilskin he knew he would be unable to think, for the rain was heavier than he had expected and without relief.

Corbett looked around the open bridge, nodding to Masters and the signalmen. “Ring down stand by.”

Trewin felt a tightness in his throat and suddenly longed for a drink. He heard the telegraph's remorseless reply and the sudden increase in vibration around him.

Corbett said, “I want every spare man either on ammunition parties or damage control.” He looked at Masters. “You can send one of the signalmen.”

Phelps spoke up nervously, “I'll stay here, Yeo.”

Masters gestured to the other signalman and replied with a grin, “Suit yerself, fire-eater! I 'ope you've got yer Jap sword with you!”

Trewin gripped the voice-pipes hard and listened to the clank of incoming cable, steady and final above the roar of falling rain. Then faintly, “Anchor's aweigh, sir!”

Corbett said, “Slow ahead port, half astern starboard!”

Beside the voice-pipes Trewin saw the rain-soaked cliff begin to swing away as the ship turned slowly in her own length. When he looked towards the entrance to the inlet he could no longer see the open sea or the waiting horizon. The rain hung across the gap like a steel fence or the inside of a giant waterfall.

“Stop together!” Corbett looked up at the sky. “Slow ahead together!”

A tremble ran through the deck plating, and somewhere far below there was a dull thud as some last watertight door was clipped home.

Corbett lifted himself on to his chair and reached for the bridge handset. The ship was moving very slowly with the stream, the channel widening almost imperceptibly as they slipped towards the entrance. He cleared his throat and pressed the button.

“This is the captain speaking.” His voice echoed around the upperdeck where the men already at their action stations crouched to avoid the rain, their faces now turned towards the bridge. “We are putting to sea in order to draw the enemy away
from the
Prawn
's departure point.”

Trewin heard a hatch grate open, and when he looked over the screen he saw Nimmo staring up from his private world of noise and machinery, his eyes squinting in the downpour as he listened to Corbett's steady voice.

“There are three hours to darkness. Within that time we must endeavour to draw the enemy to the east, so that the
Prawn
may have the chance she so richly deserves.” He paused, and Trewin saw his face moving with emotion.

“I know that you all hoped we might escape without further danger. You deserved to attain that, as you have all done more than any captain could have wished. I know you will do your best.” He was about to replace the handset. Then he added, “God bless you.”

Trewin watched him, feeling the men around him and the ship around them.

Corbett said suddenly, “Hoist battle ensigns!”

He gestured towards the land, and Trewin saw a small group of motionless natives watching as they moved past.

“Not much of an audience, eh?” Corbett tugged the cap down over his forehead and turned as first one then another of the big ensigns crept up to each masthead.

Phelps made fast the halyard and muttered, “Gawd, they're big!” His eyes followed the great ensign above his head. It looked very bright and clear against the dull clouds.

Above the rear of the bridge the rangefinder turned slightly behind its steel plating, and Trewin saw Tweedie standing to get a better look at the streaming flags. Poor Tweedie, he thought vaguely. Bungalow and retirement had been his final goals in life. If he lived after today nothing would ever be the same. He had spoken out against the authority he had served and helped to fashion. He was now standing to watch a small, tired river gunboat sail to face an enemy whose power they could only guess at.

“Port ten! Midships!” Corbett twisted in the chair, the rain
bouncing from his shoulders and making the oilskin shine like glass. “As soon as we break cover I shall turn hard to port and keep close inshore amongst the shallows.” He looked hard at Mallory. “You'll earn your keep today, Pilot. For the next three hours it will be up to you to guide us from one piece of shelter to the next, right?”

Mallory met his eyes calmly. “The next group of offshore islets are twenty miles along the coast, sir.”

“Good.” Corbett nodded. “They will do for a start!”

Trewin swallowed hard. Do for a start! In three hours it might all be over.

When he raised his head he saw that the channel had widened right out on either beam, with the low swell from the open sea already sweeping lazily to greet them.

Every glass was trained above the screen as the
Porcupine
's bows lifted contemptuously above the disturbed backwash of tide and river, but in the torrential rain it was impossible to see more than a cable's length in any direction.

“Port fifteen! Steady!” Corbett craned slightly forward and rested his binoculars against the screen.

Unwin's voice echoed up the brass tube. “Steady, sir. Course oh nine oh.”

Several men glanced astern as the ship's small wash boiled away in a wide curve and the inlet faded into the rain. They were probably thinking of the
Prawn
and that every swing of the screws was taking them further to the east. Away from safety. Away from hope.

Then, as if the sea and sky had been waiting for just this moment, the rain faltered, and as the last of its downpour trickled noisily through the bridge scuppers the sun began to break through. It was a strange sunlight, which painted the sea like bronze and followed the departing rain until it touched the distant cliffs, so that the haze looked like steam rising from some subterranean fire.

Tweedie's voice shattered the sudden silence. “Warship, sir!
Bearing green one three oh! Range one double oh!”

Trewin ran across the gratings, his glasses pressed to his eyes, his mind empty as he stared back across the swaying screen. Then he saw it. The same low hull, the twin funnels almost overlapping as the destroyer completed a shallow turn and headed towards the shore.

Corbett snapped his fingers. “Recognition manual! Lively there!”

Masters said thickly, “
Akikaze
Class, sir. Four four-point-sevens. Thirty-four knots.” He closed the book with a snap. There was nothing else which needed to be said.

“Full ahead together! Inform the chief that we have sighted the enemy!” Corbett swivelled round in his chair and peered back at the other ship. “She'll be within accurate range in a few minutes.”

Tweedie's voice moved around the bridge like a threat. “Target's course is now oh four five! Speed twenty plus!”

Corbett said, “Four guns to our two. We must get him to draw nearer.”

Phelps jumped. “He's opened fire, sir!”

The muffled explosion reached the
Porcupine
almost simultaneously with the sharp whine of a shell overhead. The waterspout rose ahead of the gunboat, between her and the shore.

“Port ten!” Corbett swayed slightly as the ship tilted to the rudders. “We must keep him astern if we can. He can only bring one gun to bear then.”

Another bang and another waterspout, some eighty feet from the port bow.

Tweedie sounded tense. “Target's range is oh nine two!”

Corbett picked up the handset. “Open fire with ‘X' gun!”

Trewin craned round the funnel as the aft gun lurched back on its mounting, a long orange flash darting from the muzzle like a tongue. He saw the gunners ducking and grappling with the next shell and heard the shout, “Ready, sir!” The gun cracked again, and he felt the pain probing at his ears as the shell ripped
back at the overtaking destroyer which now seemed almost in line astern.

A giant column of water burst above the bridge and cascaded down over the screen, blinding and choking, and as Trewin staggered against the chart table he heard the ring and clash of splinters, the sharp cries from the deck below.

Tweedie sounded very calm. “Up two hundred! Shoot!”

“Starboard ten!” Corbett did not look round.

Trewin felt the broken glass beneath his shoes and realised that the starboard screen had been shattered to fragments. There were some bright-edged holes in the funnel, but when he leaned over the wing he saw Hammond beside “A” gun giving him a thumbs up.

“New course for the islets is oh seven five, sir!” Mallory stared at a drop of blood on the back of his hand and then dabbed his forehead with his fingers. “Bloody hell!”

Corbett sounded detached. “I'm going to turn to starboard. We must bring ‘A' gun to bear.” He snatched the handset. “Now listen, Guns, I want…” He waited as the aft gun cracked out again, the shock wave searing across the bridge like a hot wind. “I want you to get a straddle if you can. We must hold him off until we can find some shelter.”

He did not wait for an answer. “Starboard fifteen!”

With the screws at full speed the gunboat seemed to sway right over, and for a stark moment Trewin saw his own reflection staring back from the sea alongside before the boiling wave from the stem surged over it, cutting it aside in a bank of flying spray.

Both guns fired together, the recoil shaking at the bridge foundations, the twin explosions making men cry out and clasp their ears while the cordite smoke drifted around them, acrid and blinding.

Tweedie's voice was magnified and distorted with excitement. “A hit! Jesus, a
hit
!”

Trewin tried to hold his glasses still and saw the destroyer leap wildly into focus, her towering bow-wave making a white
moustache beneath her stem as she charged in pursuit. But at one side of her bridge, just below the wheelhouse, was a bright orange light, and as the deck swung beneath his feet he caught sight of the smoke drifting back to join that from her twin funnels, the final evidence of a direct hit.

Corbett shouted, “Hard aport!” He sounded stiff with concentration as he brought his ship swinging back drunkenly to her original course.

But for those few, jubilant moments she had exposed herself to the enemy gunners. Not just a smoke-shrouded, end-on picture in their rangefinder, but her whole length.

Trewin felt the shell explode, but heard nothing. One minute he was clinging to the voice-pipes and the next he had his face pressed to the gratings, with someone else struggling across his spine. Water was falling around him, stifling him with salt and the foul taste of burned cordite. He could feel the ship still turning, the power of her racing propellers transmitting through the water and steel to strike against his chest like frantic heartbeats.

Pressing his hands on the warm plating he forced himself upright, and as his hearing slowly returned he heard the uninterrupted bark of gunfire and distant shouts which seemed to come from far away.

Mallory thrust his face close against his and yelled, “Direct hit below the bridge!”

Corbett had apparently fallen from his chair, but as Trewin moved to reach him he staggered to his feet and snapped, “Tell the chief to make smoke!” He shook his head sharply from side to side and then said, “Get below, Number One. See what has to be done.”

Trewin nodded dumbly and clawed his way towards the ladder. For a moment he thought his legs would give way and he stood clinging to the rail, his eyes smarting in the gun smoke as he peered down at the men who were running along the exposed sidedeck. He saw Dancy carrying a long axe and others with red fire extinguishers. Savagely he thrust himself down the ladder,
and all but fell to the deck as he realised that the steel rungs had been severed as if by giant shears. The enemy shell had ploughed straight through the chartroom and across to the opposite side before exploding inside the radio room.

As he pushed past the crouching men he could see the sunlight through wide patterns of splinter holes, and beyond the buckled bulkhead of the radio room there was a steady glow of fire.

He shouted, “Get those extinguishers up there, Buffer!” He stood aside as more men staggered by to seize the door, only to fall back cursing as they laid their hands on the hot metal clips.

Trewin tried to think, but his mind seemed too crowded with noise and confusion. Men were shouting and swearing, and from above he heard Tweedie's voice again, flat and impersonal. “Range oh seven oh!”

The hull gave another great lurch, and the confined passageway filled with blown smoke and the stench of burning paintwork. Above the din someone was screaming. It went on and on, in the same terrible note, so that some of the men appeared too shocked and sickened to move.

Dancy snarled, “Get back!” He swung the axe against the clips, and as the door burst open he waded forward, his sturdy figure soaked instantly by the extinguishers as he stood framed in the rectangle of leaping flames.

Leading Telegraphist Laird was rolling and kicking below the remains of the smashed transmitter. He had no hands, and his blackened face was contorted in a mask of agony as he fought to escape the spreading fires. He saw Dancy and screamed, “Me mate! 'E's back there!” He screamed again, and Trewin saw his blood spurt across Dancy's legs in a bright fountain.

Dancy shut his ears to Laird's cries and protests and hauled him bodily into the passageway. He gasped, “Get those fires out, lads!” To Trewin he added thickly, “Telegraphist Mears is done for. He's plastered across the bloody bulkhead like jam!” He retched and said fiercely, “Where's the sickbay attendant,
for God's sake?”

Trewin found his voice again. “Let these men carry on here. They seem to be holding it now.” He pulled Dancy towards the ladder. “We'll get aft!”

Like two drunks they swayed and staggered down the ladder and on to the other sidedeck. Nimmo's engineers were certainly complying with Corbett's order, and the sky was completely hidden beyond the dense smoke which poured back from the funnel and spread across the sea astern in an unmoving, choking fog. “X” gun had fallen silent, and Trewin heard the gunners coughing behind their blinded sights, and someone else yelling, “Stretcher party down aft!”