Kemp’s shadow filled the doorway. ‘I-did not order that!’ He was tugging at his collar. ‘I demand to be informed!’
‘Then I am informing you now, sir. Do you have any objections?’
Kemp dropped his eyes. ‘I suppose some will getaway. There’s nothing we can do.’
Lindsay eyed him calmly. Christ, how could he feel so remote?
He said, ‘As you told me when you came aboard, sir. This is my ship. When the convoy scatters, your control will be at an end.’
Kemp stared at him, his eyes watering with fixed concentration. ‘There’s still the American destroyer!’
For once Lindsay did not bother to hide his contempt. ‘You’d send her, would you?’ He turned his back. ‘She’ll be needed anyway, to shadow the enemy when it’s all over.’
As if to mark the finality of his words, the tannoy speaker intoned, ‘Control to bridge. Enemy in sight!’
T he burning freighter had dropped a mile astern of the convoy when the port column of ships wheeled away in response to Lindsay’s signal, their rising wash giving evidence of increasing speed.
‘From John P. Ashton, sir.’ Ritchie steadied his telescope. ‘Request permission to engage the enemy.’
The bridge shivered as another salvo came screaming — out of the sky. The shells exploded in an overlapping line of spray and dirty smoke, a mere cable from the leading troopship.
‘Negative.’ A near miss from one of those shells would sink the elderly destroyer. ‘Make to the second column to scatter now.’
Stannardmuttered fiercely, ‘They can’t get far. Christ, those bastards are shooting well.’
Another sullen roar enveloped the bridge and he saw the shells explode where the big liner might have been but for the change of course.
Lindsay slid open a shutter.on the starboard’ side and raised his glasses. At first he saw only haze and the clear blue sea below the horizon. Behind him he heard Hunter’s voice on the speaker.
‘Green three-oh. Range one-eight-oh.’
Then quite suddenly he saw the enemy ship. She was a darker blur in the horizon haze, but as he watched he saw the ripple of orange flashes which momentarily laid bare her superstructure in the powerful lenses. He tried not to swallow, although his throat was like a kiln. He knew those nearby were watching him. Trying to gauge his reactions.
19
‘They made it safe.’
A cruiser at least. He heard the screaming whine of shells as they tore down over the scattering ships, the tell-tale shiver as they exploded harmlessly in open water.
‘Make the signal to our column. Tell them to be as quick as possible.’
The enemy fired again, and the rearmost ship in the column was straddled by three shells. As she steamed stubbornly through the falling torrents of spray he saw she had been badly mauled. Her boat deck looked as if it had been crushed by an avalanche of rock.
‘All acknowledged, sir.’ Ritchie scribbled automatically on his pad. Not much point. Nobody would ever read it.
There was a sudden silence in the wheelhouse as Lindsay said, ‘Give me the mike.’ He took it from Dancy, seeing in his mind the men throughout his command.
‘This is the captain speaking. We are under attack by a heavy enemy warship which is now about nine miles off our starboard bow. She is big and therefore fast. With bad visibility or darkness the convoy might have been saved by scattering.’
He paused as the sea erupted far away on the port quarter, smothering another ship with those deadly waterspouts. Across the distance he heard the jolting metallic cracks, like a woodsman using an axe on a clear day. The sounds of jagged splinters biting into her hull.
He continued, ‘To have even a hope of escaping, these ships must be given time.’
Lindsay snapped down the button and looked at Ritchie. ‘Very well, Yeoman. Hoist battle ensigns.’
The commodore, who had been staring at the freighter with the smashed boat deck, swung round and shouted, Stop? I order you to….’
Lindsay interrupted harshly, ‘I intend to give the convoy as much of a chance as possible. With or without your help, sir.’
Ritchie pushed between them and grasped the wrist of a young signalman. ‘Come on, boy! Somethin’ to tell yer kids!’
Lindsay stooped over the gyro. ‘Starboard ten. Midships. Steady.’
‘Steady, sir. Course three-four-zero.’
‘Full ahead both engines.’
Stannard listened to the urgent telegraphs. ‘Shall I call up the chief, sir?’
‘No. He knows what’s happening up here.’ Lindsay felt the gratings shaking and rattling under his feet. ‘He knows all right.’
As the ship heeled slightly on to, her new course Lindsay saw a dark shadow fall briefly across the screen. He looked up at the great ensign climbing the foremast and at some of the gun crews turning to watch it.
He heard Ritchie remark, ‘Funny, really. Bin in the Andrew all these years an’ Never seen ‘em’oisted before.’
When he turned again Lindsay saw that the sea astern seemed full of ships moving away on differing bearings and angles. Once more the air cringed to the ripping passage of shells, and again they exploded close to a careering tanker.
‘Aircraft, sir. Dead ahead.’
He watched the sliver of silver above the horizon as it moved calmly in the sunlight. The enemy’s eye, unreachable and deadly. Reporting each fall of shot. Standing by to pursue and guide the cruiser like a pilot fish with a shark.
Too fast for Maxwell’s ponderous guns. Out of range for the automatic weapons.
But as yet nobody aboard the enemy ship appeared to have noticed the Benbecula’s challenge. Maybe they imagined she was out of control or trying to escape in the wrong direction.
Stannard said tightly, ‘Maxwell’s guns will never even mark the bastard at this range.’
Lindsay did not look at him. He picked up a handset, feeling it shaking violently as the bridge structure hummed and vibrated to Fraser’s engines.
‘Guns? Captain. Commence firing with the starboard battery.’ He waited, shutting out Maxwell’s protest. ‘I know the marines can’t get their guns to bear. But we must draw the enemy’s fire from those ships. I will try to close the range as quickly as possible.’
He replaced the handset and heard the fire gong’s tinny call, the immediate crash of guns as One and Three lurched inboard together.
‘Short.’
He lifted his glasses in time to see the thin feathers of spray falling in direct line with the enemy’s hazy outline. But she was much clearer now. Bridge upon bridge, her turrets already swinging as if to seek out this sudden impudence.
Dancy watched transfixed as the sea writhed like surf across a reef before bursting skyward on the starboard beam. He — imagined he could feel the heat, taste the foul stench of those great shells.
He realised that Stannard’s fingers were around his wrist, his voice intense as he whispered, ‘Take this letter. Keep it for me.’ He looked him in the eyes. ‘Just in case, eh, chum?’
Dancy made to reply and then felt himself falling as the whole bridge shook to one terrible explosion. He felt Stannard and a signalman entangled around his legs, and even when the deafening explosion had stopped it seemed to linger in his ears like pressure under water.
He saw shocked faces, mouths calling silent orders, and the starboard door pitted with bright stars of sunlight. He pulled himself upright as his hearing returned and saw that the stars were splinter holes, and then almost vomited as he stared aghast at ‘the bloody shape beneath them.
Lieutenant Paget had been sent to assist on the bridge and had been almost cut in half by the explosion. Yet as his hands worked like claws across his torn body his screams grew louder and louder, like those of some tortured woman.