‘Well that’s sufficient for the moment. Pump all the remaining fuel in the damaged tank overboard immediately.’
O’Brien hesitated. It was not in his nature to question orders, but he wondered whether the skipper realized the consequences of what he had just said. ‘But if we do that, sir,’ he pointed out, ‘we won’t have enough fuel left to go anywhere. I can plug the leak inside an hour or so. It’s better than losing ten tons by opening the taps.’
‘And until you do, Chief,’ Hamilton said coldly, ‘Rapier is leaving a trail of oil on the surface that’ll bring the entire Japanese Navy upon us in about the same time! It’s sunrise in thirty minutes. If we’re not at least five miles clear of that slick by dawn we won’t live long enough to see another. Pump the bunker clear as ordered, Mister O’Brien.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Hamilton returned to the chart table, pulled open a small drawer, and took out a slip of paper on which was written the latitude and longitude of a rendezvous point. He passed it to Scott.
‘I want to be at that position by noon, pilot. You’ll have to deduct an hour while we heave-to so that O’Brien can plug the leak. Can you do it?’
Scott glanced at the position shown on the slip of paper, gauged the distance on the chart, and nodded.
‘I think so, sir. Although it will mean running at least half the distance on the surface at maximum speed.’ The navigator frowned down at the chart. ‘There’s only one thing, sir. That fix you gave me is in the middle of the China Sea◦– there’s no land within two hundred miles. What the hell are we going to find when we get there?’ Hamilton smiled enigmatically. ‘Wait and see, Pilot. Wait and see. Just lay on a course◦– I’ll produce the rabbit out of the hat.’
NINE
The big trading junk looked innocent enough to the casual observer. The large rush-matting sails rippled in the breeze like blinds fluttering behind an open window and she was making barely two knots. The Chinese characters daubed on her flat stern indicated she was from Macao, but she carried no other mark or figures of identification◦– a not unusual state of affairs with native sailing vessels. But there was something about her that puzzled Lieutenant Furutaka and, after a short period of indecisive hesitation, he took the bull by the horns and called the captain to the bridge.
Commander Aritsu’s expression boded trouble as he came up the companion way. He liked his junior officers to be self-reliant and made no attempt to conceal his annoyance as Furutaka pointed out the junk and explained his misgivings. Aritsu snarled impatiently, raised his binoculars, and examined the mysterious stranger for himself.
For the river people of China, their boat is their home. They have nowhere else to live and the larger sea-going junks often support two or three families extending, on occasions, to three generations, complete with all their worldly possessions and livestock. As the deeply laden vessels dip past with their leeside gunwales almost under water, it is often difficult to see what possible room could be left for commercial freight in the face of its superabundant human cargo. The men work the sails and steering, the women cook, wash clothes amidships, or idly gossip in the stern; chickens cluck importantly from bamboo coops strung from the rigging, and innumerable children of all ages play in whatever free deck space is left.
And, as Aritsu’s experienced eyes quickly detected, that was the oddity which had puzzled his officer-of-the-watch. The junk moving slowly across Suma’s bows only had three people on deck!
‘Lower away the sea boat, Lieutenant. And send over a boarding party to check her papers.’
Suma’s cutter was already swung out and ready◦– a normal precaution when a warship is operating under combat conditions in a designated war zone◦– and the boarding party of six armed seamen under the command of a young Korean sub-lieutenant climbed down into it, as the deckhands lowered it into the water and released the falls.
Responding to the signal flag fluttering from the destroyer’s halyards◦– the square of yellow and blue bunting -indicating the letter K◦– the junk had come to an untidy stop and was waiting dead in the water as the cutter approached. The flag letter K in the International Code meant Stop Immediately and Aritsu showed little surprise at the junk’s prompt obedience. The native seamen plying their trade along the Chinese coast knew nothing of such matters as signal codes and international conventions, but experience had taught them that any warship flying the yellow and blue flag intended them to stop. And failure to obey could mean a shot across the bows or a brutal shelling, depending on the mood of the naval commander◦– and his nationality.
The crew of the junk made no attempt to resist as the cutter came alongside and disgorged the boarding party. They stood in the stern neither helping nor hindering, seemingly unconcerned by the unceremonious visitation. Aritsu watched through his binoculars for signs of hostility, but the three Chinese seamen accepted the invasion with disinterested docility.
Sub-Lieutenant Mihoro looked quickly to right and left as he swung over the low side of the junk, but he could detect no obvious signs of concealed weapons and, raising his arms imperiously, he sent the boarding party for’ard to search the bows, while he and the petty officer went aft to question the crew.
The junk’s cargo, carefully protected from the weather under heavy tarpaulins, covered every available inch of the deck space and Petty Officer Kino swore sharply as he stubbed his bare toe against something hard. Lifting the edge of the tarpaulin, he bent down to examined what was underneath and let out a soft but expressive hiss of surprise.
‘Over here, sir!’ he called to Mihoro.
Ordering the two armed guards to come aft and cover the Chinese crew, the sub-lieutenant joined Kino amidships. The petty officer’s bayonet sawed through the securing ropes and, throwing back the tarpaulin, he showed the officer the cargo of black steel barrels hidden beneath the covers.
Oil!
Mihoro thought quickly. Unlike the petty officer he could understand English, and his eyes narrowed as he read the stenciled white letters on the side of each barrel◦– Diesel Oil. De Gama Oil & Wharfage Company, Macao. Well, the junk was outward bound from Macao right enough. But where to? Chinese sailors were notoriously wary of deep-sea voyages and were normally only happy when hugging the coast. Yet this particular junk was steering a course that was taking it out to the middle of an empty sea, the nearest land to the south, Borneo, was over a thousand miles away.
Getting to his feet, Mihoro glanced suspiciously at the three Chinese seamen standing meekly in the stern under the guns of the guards and spoke rapidly to Kino. The petty officer nodded and called Teishu down from the bows where he was checking another group of similar barrels. The seaman saluted as Kino gave him his instructions and, climbing on to the gunwale, he began semaphoring to the destroyer with his arms.
Seitaka, Suma’s Yeoman of Signals, raised his telescope and read off the message. He passed it on verbally to Aritsu who was waiting impatiently at his side.
‘Sub-Lieutenant Mihoro requests you go aboard the junk, sir. He says he has found a large number of oil barrels – diesel oil.’
The impatience vanished from Aritsu’s face. He was suddenly alert. Diesel oil◦– fuel for warships. Enemy warships. What a stroke of luck. He could not only destroy the enemy’s supplies but, if he was able to establish the rendezvous position for the refuelling operation, he could also lay an ambush and sink the warship for which it was intended. The normally taciturn commander was actually smiling as he ordered the bosun to lower away Suma’s motorboat.