Wakely squeaked, “Engine-room reports no damage, sir!”
“Very good. What about the fore-turret?” And: “Messenger! Ask Mr. Miles for a report on the damage forward, and quick!”
Hit or no hit, Thunder was working up speed now that she was without the Elizabeth Bell. Smith swallowed sickly. Had he wished her sunk? That was nonsense. He knew it was and told himself so, impatiently, but he knew it was a doubt that would return to rack him. Now he thrust it away, turned to peer through the smoke astern and saw the cruisers grown larger, orange flashes prickling together, smoke puffing, shredding. “Hard aport!” … “Midships!”
From the wing of the bridge he could see Knight and his party and the survivors from the Elizabeth Bell. Sarah Benson was there, down on her knees on the deck, bent over someone lying there. Knight knelt beside her.
Smith bellowed, “Mister Knight!”
Knight jumped to his feet. “Sir?”
“What the hell are you doing there?”
“One of the survivors, sir. A splinter got him. I think he’s dead.”
“You won’t do anything for him laying on hands! The Doctor’s below. Get them all down to him and yourself up here.” Sarah Benson’s white face turned up to him, outraged. Smith bellowed, “This ship is in action, for God’s sake!”
To underline his words the after 9.2 out-bellowed him and another salvo howled down into the sea to starboard, close enough to hurl water in tons across Thunder’s deck, knocking the damage control party from their feet but helping to put out the fire they fought.
Smith swung back to the centre of the bridge. “Hard astarboard!”
Thunder turned on another leg of the zig-zag. Starboard, port, starboard … Vary the length of each leg, the angle of turn, now two points, now four. Study the ships astern, watch for their firing. Look forward for Ariadne and beyond her for the coast. They were all factors to be weighed and used.
The hit had sent them all flying in the fore-turret and left them stunned, groping feebly, disorientated and with ringing ears. Bates lost his placidity with the agonising smash on his funny-bone. He swore in black bad temper, climbed to his feet, dragged Chalky up by his collar and jammed him against the breech. He snarled at the rest of them: “Come on, you bloody idlers!” And to Lieutenant Fletcher who commanded in the turret: “Are you all right, sir?”
Fletcher’s face was bruised and bleeding, his lips cut and already swelling. He mumbled, “Never mind me. Check the piece.” He lurched forward to join Bates and a few seconds later he was able to report.
Gibb stood at his post, pale but trying to be still. Rattray grinned at him madly and looked right into his terrified soul and Gibb knew it.
Wakely said, “No damage to fore-turret, sir.”
“Very good. Hard aport!” It was good news. And now Thunder, despite her erratic, evasive course was steaming for her life and closing slowly on Ariadne, running for the coast and safety.
But Wolf and Kondor, running straight, were overhauling Thunder. He could see they had left the gunboat astern. He watched the cruisers and their firing and ordered the changes of course.
Knight returned to the bridge and Smith was aware of him without looking as a salvo fell to starboard and spray slashed across them. “Hard astarboard! Mr. Knight! What was young Somers doing over the side? He was ordered closed up at his station in action.”
“He says he knew there was no question of his gun firing because it was out of range and he reckoned Leading-Seaman McCann could manage without him, anyway.”
That was probably true. McCann was old enough to be Somers’s father and well capable of carrying out Somers’s duties as well as his own. He had been Leading-SeamanGunner, off and on as he drunkenly lost and painfully regained his character, for the past fifteen years.
Smith said grimly, “I’ll see him later.” And dress him down because it would be good for his soul, but it had been an act of deliberate bravery, a decision coolly taken and executed with speed and determination. He would mention Somers in his report.
If he made a report.
Aitkyne said, “I think that boy might do well.” Cautiously defending him, not looking at Smith.
Smith grunted. Aitkyne might be right.
He saw the cruisers fire and ordered the change of course as the after 9.2 fired. He had noted the fall of its shot the last three times it had fired and was certain it was within range of the cruisers now but off for line. He could guess at the gunners’ frustration — who were they? Hill — Corporal Hill and Private Bowker of the Marines. They had the same low, blinding sun that hurt Smith’s eyes and on top of that Thunder’s smoke, belching out now she was running at full speed and rolling down over the after turret and astern, blacking out the target. Add to that the continual sharp changes of course that meant big switches on the gun, continual relaying and training and an unstable platform. Conditions for gunnery were appalling. Another salvo burst frighteningly close and he hung on and shot desperate glances fore and aft but he knew they had not been hit. He would not need the evidence of his eyes for that. When they were hit they would know about it, that had been made clear to all of them.
Aitkyne said, “They’re shooting very well.”
“Yes, they are.” And they were alive to his tactics of evasion and trying to anticipate him.
He ordered no change of course. The Coxswain on the wheel waited for it, ready for it, shifted restlessly when it did not come.
Corporal Hill, muttering under his breath, expecting it, found instead that his target was in sight for all of ten seconds and the 9.2 got off a round.
The next salvo plunged into the sea a quarter-mile away and Aitkyne yelled, “Fooled ’em!” And seconds later: “Hit her!”
Smith had seen it, too. He lowered his glasses. “Hard aport!” And to Aitkyne and Wakely and the others, all of them agrin, “Not a hit.” The water-spout had been right on the bow of the leading cruiser but there had been no flash or smoke of impact. A very near miss. “But good shooting.” A little encouragement would be good for all of them.
The sun was almost down, slipping below the horizon. The coast was close now but not close enough. Ariadne was a deal closer and her lead being cut every second; Thunder was making all of her top speed of nineteen knots so Chief Davies had proved his claim albeit under duress. Smith estimated Ariadne would not enter neutral waters for at least fifteen minutes and more. Before that they would be up with her and the cruisers might well allot her a share of their fire. At the moment they were concentrating on Thunder, their prime target. He had another decision to make, and soon.
The sea was moderating and the ship was making better speed. Down in the belly of the ship where that speed was created was a scene from hell where the black gang in the stokehold, stripped near-naked and oily with sweat that formed a glue with the coal dust, laboured like souls in torment to feed the roaring insatiable red maw of the furnaces. The life of the ship and the lives of all in her rested in the hands and strength of those men on the rack of continual physical exertion. There was no glory, only back-breaking labour in a killing temperature and the knowledge that at any moment a shell might rip into Thunder and turn the illusion of hell into reality.
There were places in the ship where that awareness was even more acute: in the magazines. Benks the steward worked in the magazine below the forward 9.2, his job to load the charge into the gun-loading cage beside the projectile fat with death, to be whisked up the hoist to the turret above. It was not heavy work and anyway, so far he had done nothing; the fore-turret had not fired. But it was claustrophobic. He sweated coldly.