Squire took Boase’s wrist and pushed him towards the grim-faced stretcher bearers. ‘Get him away, chum.’ He turned his face to the screen as Boase allowed himself to be pulled from the door. A long thread of spittle was hanging from his chin.
A bosun’s mate said, ‘First lieutenant on the phone, sir.’
Lindsay took it. ‘Captain.’
Goss sounded. far away. ‘Forrard bulkhead is badly cracked. If it’s not properly shored the whole thing will go.’ He coughed harshly and added, ‘There’s a bad fire here, too. No room for any bloody thing.’
Lindsay forced his brain to react to Goss’s brief summary. It must be bad to have got him out of damage control in person..
‘You want me to reduce speed?’
Goss waited a few seconds. ‘Yes. At full revs she’ll go straight to the bottom if this lot caves in.’ Another pause. ‘We’ll need fifteen minutes. No more just yet.’
Fifteen minutes.. He could as easily have asked for a week.
Dancy was watching him, another telephone in: his fist. ‘It’s the chief„sir. Two pumps out of action. Engine room is flooding.’
Lindsay jumped as a shell exploded somewhere aft. He heard heavy equipment falling between decks, the tearing scrape of splinters ricocheting from the ravaged hull.
‘Yes, Chief.’
Fraser seemed very calm. ‘I can still give you full speed, sir. But I’m warning you that things could get dicey down here.’
‘Yes.’ Even the one word seemed an effort. ‘Get all your spare hands’ out right away and put them in damage control. It may not be long now.”
‘Aye.’ Fraser shouted something to his assistant and then added, ‘She’s not doing so badly though.’ The line went dead.
Lindsay stared at the handset and then said, ‘Ring down for half speed.’
Dancy swung the telegraphs and stood looking at Hunter’s blood on his fingers.
‘They’ll have us cold now, sir.’
Another shell ploughed into the forecastle, the splinters bursting out across the well deck even as the mast and derricks began to stagger drunkenly over the side. Rigging, spars and one complete winch vanished through the broken plating, smearing the remains of Cordeaux and his gun crew as they passed.
Lindsay felt someone tying a dressing around his forearm and realised he. had been hit by a small splinter. Maybe when Stannard had been killed. He could not remember. There was no real pain. Just a numbness which seemed to begin behind his brain and probed right through his aching limbs like a fever.
‘Enemy’s ceased fire, sir.’ The remaining bosun’s mate leaned against the screen as if about to collapse.
Lindsay moved automatically to the port door and knocked off the clips. When he wrenched it open he found he was looking straight down at the deck below through a tangle of blackened, twisted steel and wood. The port wing had received a direct hit. The shell which had killed Stannard, Jolliffe and the others in the bridge had carved the wing away like so much cardboard. How he and Dancy had survived was a miracle.
He felt the salt air driving the smoke from his lungs and tried to steady his glasses on the enemy. The ship was so slow now, and he could feel the deck under his feet moving ponderously and in time with each trough. She must be filling badly, he thought. Heavy in the water. Nearly finished. his glasses trained on the enemy. The cruiser had all but stopped too, less than four miles away. He could see the scarlet flag at her gaff, the haze of gunsmoke above her turrets.
Behind him he heard Goss mutter, ‘The bastard’s picking up his seaplane, sir.’
Lindsay saw the little aircraft bobbing on its floats as it manoeuvred delicately towards the ship’s massive grey hull. A derrick had already been unlimbered by the mainmast and was swinging outboard in readiness for the pick-up.
Perhaps the sight of these calm, practised movements did more to break Lindsay’s reserves than any act of expected violence. The cruiser was confident of the victory. She could afford to ignore the blazing, shell-pitted ship without masts or ensigns, and would soon be off again after the convoy. Because of Benbecula’s challenge many of those ships would survive. But some would not, and with sudden.anger Lindsay shouted, ‘Stop the starboard engine!’
Goss stood aside as he hurried into the wheelhouse.
‘Stand by to abandon ship. Get the wounded on deck and cut loose the rafts.’ They were all staring at him. ‘Jump to it!’
The telegraph clanged, and with a brief shudder the starboard screw spun to a halt..
Dancy called, ‘The enemy are training their tubes on us, sir!’
Lindsay ran to the shutters. Even without the glasses he could see the gap in the cruiser’s silhouette where one set of torpedo tubes had been swung out across the side.
The cruiser’s captain was not even going to allow them time to clear the ship of wounded. Maybe he knew that help was already on its way, perhaps just below the’ horizon, and time was more important than a handful of madmen who had tried to prevent his conquest. Or then again he might want to do it. To wipe out the insult of this delay to a set plan.
Goss muttered, ‘There’s no time to get the lads off, sir.’
He watched the bows labouring very slowly to starboard as the port screw continued to forge ahead. He had guessed Lindsay’s indsay’s intention almost as soon as he had seen his face. Knew what he would do even in the face of death.. He was surprised to find he could understand and meet the inevitable. Just as he had accepted the ruin of his cabin. He had been chasing after his damage control’ parties, plugging holes, dragging the sobbing wounded out of mangled steel, repairing obsolete pumps and trying to stay alive in a prison of screaming splinters and echoing explosions. The cabin had been torn apart by splinters, his pictures and relics just so much rubbish. Anger, despair, resentment; for those few moments he had known them all. It was like seeing his life lying there amidst the wreckage. Carefully he had unpinned the company flag from the bulkhead, and with it across one arm had crunched out of the cabin. His foot had trodden on the picture of himself and the old company chairman.
Aloud he had murmured, ‘Chief was right. You were a mean old bastard!’ Then without looking back he had got on with his work.
Goss had seen the commodore crouching on a broken locker pleading with a young S.B.A. to treat his wound. The S.B.A. had been more than occupied with other injured men and had retorted shrilly, ‘You’re not wounded! For God’s sake leave me alone!’
No wonder the midshipman was the way he was. With a father like that it was a marvel he was still sane.
And now the noise and din were all but over. Already the sky was showing through the drifting pall of smoke, and the water between the ships was no longer churned by the racing screws. In fact, Goss decided, it looked very cool and inviting. With narrowed eyes he watched the little seaplane etched against the cruiser’s side, imagining some officer giving the orders to hoist it inboard, maybe under the eyes of the captain. Like Lindsay.
Goss shook his head angrily. No, not like him.
Then he heard himself say, ‘I’m ready to have a go if you are.’
Lindsay met his gaze and said quietly, ‘It’s only a faint chance.’
‘Better’n sitting here waiting to be chopped.’ Goss walked aft. ‘I’ll tell de Chair. Maxwell, too, if he’s still in one piece.’
Lindsay touched the screen. It was warm. From sun or fires it was impossible to say.
‘Stop port.’
Before the last clang of the telegraph he had the telephone against his ear.
‘Chief? Listen.’ Through the open shutter he saw the seaplane rising up against the grey steel. A toy.