Now, at reduced speed, Rob Roy, followed by the vague blur of Ranger’s silhouette with the Arctic trawler Dryaden somewhere astern, continued their patrol in the area known as Able-Yoke, a huge triangle off the North Foreland which commanded the approaches to both of the major rivers, Thames and Medway.
The eastbound convoy’s escort commander had reported one straggler, an elderly collier in ballast. He could not spare anything to watch over her, so she must make her own way into the Medway once she was round the corner, if she could not complete her repairs in time to rejoin the convoy.
There was a faint blink of light from the shaded chart-table and Ransome heard Sub-Lieutenant Morgan explaining something to the new replacement, Ordinary Seaman Boyes. He was irwhis division, and Morgan obviously thought he would be better employed at action stations helping with charts than fumbling around an unfamiliar ammunition hoist. Boyes was obviously keen and intelligent, and even though his chance of a temporary commission had been dashed by the bald comment, Lacks confidence. Unlikely to make a suitable candidate, he might have something to offer on the bridge.
Lieutenant Sherwood was officer-of-the-watch, although Ransome liked them to change round regularly so that they knew each other’s work. Just in case. It did not do to dwell on it.
Sherwood was speaking into the voicepipe now.
‘Watch your head. Steer one-nine-oh.’ Then there was Beckett’s harsh reply.
Sherwood was a strange man. He shied away from close relationships. Poor David was the only one who had got along with him, and then not too close. He was a loner in more ways than one. His parents and sisters had been killed in the first months of the war during an air raid. Although he never mentioned it, Ransome guessed it was his reason for his dedication to his work, and why he had volunteered for the most dangerous assignment of all in the first place.
Midshipman Davenport’s voice echoed up another pipe from the automatic pilot in its tiny compartment within the wheelhouse.
‘Plot-Bridge?’
Sherwood grunted. ‘Bridge.’
‘C-7 buoy abeam to starboard, one mile, sir.’
‘Very well.’ Sherwood peered round for Morgan. ‘Get that?’
All as usual. Ransome wanted to walk about and restore the circulation and warmth to his limbs. But any movement might break their concentration. And yet if he stayed in the chair he might nod off. It had happened before.
A feeble light winked abeam, one of the buoys still marking the channel. Many were extinguished for the duration, and even the helpless lightships had been strafed by enemy fighters so that most of them were withdrawn from station. Those which remained were a godsend, and were presumably left alone because they also aided the enemy.
It felt as if the ship was without purpose and direction as she moved slowly into the darkness, an occasional burst of spray her only sign of movement. There were destroyer patrols, old V &c W’s like the poor Viper. Sloops and others from years back, even peacetime paddle-steamers which had carried carefree pas sengers from Brighton and Margate were employed in the grim work of minesweeping and inshore patrols.
Why were they never prepared?
‘Radar – Bridge!’ Surprisingly it was Hargrave’s voice.
Ransome picked up the handset. ‘Captain.’
‘I think we’ve picked up the straggler, sir. Green four-five, two miles.’
Ransome said, ‘Keep me posted, Number One.’
They should have spotted the straggler earlier; doubtless in one of the new destroyers they would have done. But here in the channel, with shadows and static bouncing off the land, they were lucky to see anything.
So Hargrave was using his time to familiarise himself with tin-ship’s defences. It was a start.
Ransome said, ‘Prepare recognition signal, Bunts. Warn ‘A’ Gun.’
He heard Fallows’s sharp voice acknowledging the order from the bridge and pictured him near the gun in his ridiculous balaclava.
The other convoy would be beading along the Suffolk coast about now. Full hulls destined for other ports to be offloaded into heavier ships for the next part of the obstacle race. The Atlantic, the killing-ground as the sailors called it, or deeper to the south – the Indian Ocean, anywhere.
The convoy might wait for a night-time dash through the narrow seas, or if they were fast enough might risk the daylight, aircraft, Cap Gris Nez guns and all.
Ransome slid from the chair and moved to the opposite side of the bridge. Shafts of pain shot through his legs with every step and he swore silently while he waited for the cramp to go away. He stood on the steel locker which held the spare signal flares so that he was able to train his glasses above the smeared screen. He felt the wind across his cheek, the rasp of the towel, now sodden with spray, against his neck.
No sign of the straggler yet. And yet the moon was up there, glinting around some of the clouds, making an occasional silver line on the horizon.
Above the bridge, Hargrave crouched over the senior radar operator’s shoulder and stared at the revolving, misty shaft of light until his eyes throbbed. Like a badly developed film shot underwater, he thought. Little blips and smudges abounded, but he had already taught himself to recognise the unchanging outline of the coast, unchanging except that it quivered in the strange light as if about to disintegrate.
Booker, the operator, said, ‘With the new sets, you can pick out individual buoys no matter what back-echo you get.’ His voice was gentle, a New Zealander from Wellington. How had he found his way here, Hargrave wondered?
Booker added, ‘Watch the ship, sir.’ He gestured with a pencil. ‘She’s almost up to that buoy now. Better tell the Old -1 mean the captain.’
Hargrave hesitated. ‘The buoy looks too big.’
Booker chuckled. ‘It’s marking a wreck, sir. Upperworks of the tanker Maidstone.’ He glanced at his clipboard of wrecks and unusual marks in the channel, so that his eyes shone green in the twisting phosphorescent glow. ‘Why, sometimes at low water—’
He broke off as Hargrave snatched up the handset. ‘Radar – Bridge!’
It seemed to take an age for Ransome to answer.
‘Sir, the wreck buoy at Green four-five. We’ve picked up the upperworks…’
Ransome sounded calm. ‘Impossible, Number One, it’s high water now—’
Then Hargrave heard him shout, ‘Starshell! Green four-five! Range four thousand yards!’
Booker stared at the set, then he exclaimed, ‘Jesus, sir! It’s moving!’
The E-boat must have been idling near the wreck buoy, taking its time after the convoy had passed, neither wishing to be seen nor to engage. The unexpected arrival of the lonely straggler must have taken the E-boat completely by surprise, as with a crashing roar of power it surged away from the buoy, ripping the night apart with its Daimler Benz engines.
Ransome pounded the rail with his fist. ‘Open fire!’
The gun below the bridge recoiled violently and seconds later, with the echo of the explosion still rolling across the water, the starshell cast its blinding light across the scene, making night into day. It was all there, the rising jagged wash of the E-boat as it increased speed away from the land, twin splashes when two torpedoes hit the water and tore towards the helpless collier.
‘All guns open fire!’
The air cringed to the rattle of Oerlikons and machine-guns, the vivid balls of tracer lifting away from the ship and then from Ranger astern to plunge down on the fast-moving E-boat.