It looked like the beach at Sandport, but somehow it wasn’t. But one thing was for sure — the guy in the motor cruiser was shooting at him. He’d best be careful, or he’ll hit me. Guess I must get out of this. Swim over to that girl on the diving float. He tried to swim but couldn’t, his legs were tied together, wouldn’t move. The girl in the red costume was waving like crazy. What did she want? She was standing up on the float. Didn’t look in any trouble. But they did that sometimes. He was wondering about her when the water splashed in his face.
He came to with a start. Where the hell? What’s going on? The rope-bin had listed over to one side so that the water was lapping his face, his head and shoulders against the submerged staves. He felt around him, touched the staves on the high side, threw his weight that way and corrected the list. Now he was sitting upright again. So it had been a dream. Pity. The girl looked cute.
The illuminated dial of his watch showed thirty minutes after four. The moon was low in the sky, but still giving light up-moon. Not that there was anything to see there. Four-thirty. He’d been in the water for more than seven hours. How much longer? Could be days, he supposed. Maybe for ever. Better to have been machine-gunned perhaps? For Chrissake, why had he ended up in a ship like old Fort Nebraska? Without an escort you never had a chance going it alone against a submarine. He’d joined the naval reserve to get into a fighting ship, not a Liberty ship. ‘You take what we give you, buddy,’ the Chief Gunner’s Mate at the training base had retorted when he complained. He wondered if he’d ever see Sandport again? What was Mary Lou doing right now? With some other guy perhaps? And Dad and Mom? What would the time be now in Massachusetts? Five hours west of Greenwich, UK, wasn’t it? But what’s the longitude around here? Must be well east of Greenwich. So what. I don’t know. There’s worse problems, anyway. Goddam thirst. Surrounded by water and thirsty. That’s plain stupid. Why can’t the rain come like it did before? This stinking fuel oil. Burns my skin. Smarts my eyes. Must have a pee. No problem. No point in opening the flies. Just pee — like that. Yeh, that way feels kinda good. I needed that.
The sound of splashing water? Goddam sharks still at it. Can’t see them, they’re way down-moon. It’s dark there. Guess they won’t trouble me so long as there’s enough dead guys to eat.
Jesus! What’s that noise? Coming from the dark side? That high-pitched hissing. Hurts the eardrums. Not too far away. Jesus! It’s a ship. It’s a goddam ship.
He began to wave his arms and shout. ‘Hey, ship ahoy, ship ahoy! Hey you guys, I’m here.’
When he realized there was no way he could be heard above the noise of escaping steam he stopped shouting. But he didn’t stop waving.
Barratt looked aft from the wing of the bridge, saw the man climb the scrambling net on to the iron deck. Splattered with fuel oil and without a lifejacket he ignored the hands which reached down to help him inboard though he must have been in the water since nine o’clock of the previous night. Powerful looking chap, pretty tough customer, decided Barratt. He went to the wheelhouse voice-pipe. ‘Revolutions for five knots, port ten,’ he ordered. Turning to the Yeoman he said, ‘Standby the starboard ten-inch. We’d better take a close look at what’s left in the water.’ He went to the starboard wing of the bridge, called out, ‘Expose now.’ A powerful beam leapt from the signal lamp, the long finger of light probing the sea to starboard. It settled on one corpse, moved at Barratt’s request to another, and another, and another. There was little left to see: tatters of mutilated flesh, torn lifejackets and broken white bones. In all about a score of corpses were examined. Feeling physically sick, Barratt said, ‘That’ll do, Yeoman.’
The rapid clatter of feet on the rungs of the bridge ladder told of someone coming up in a hurry. It was the First Lieutenant. ‘We’ve got him on board, sir. His name’s Corrigan. He says he’s the sole survivor. One of the stern-gun’s crew. He’s a US naval reservist. Haven’t had time to interrogate him properly.’ He took a deep, noisy breath. ‘He says it was a Jap submarine, not a German U-boat. Claims that his gun scored a direct hit at the foot of the Jap’s conning-tower. The submarine then rammed the two lifeboats and machine-gunned the survivors. It apparently made several runs after that, using a searchlight and machine-gunning the wreckage and anything else showing in the water. It did this for about ten minutes.’
‘My God, how typical.’ Barratt’s voice rose in sudden anger. ‘How did this chap get away with it?’
‘Haven’t got round to that yet, sir. He’s in the sick-bay, they’re cleaning him. Getting rid of the fuel oil. The doctor wants to examine him.’
‘He looked pretty fit to me as he came over the side. Did he say what the submarine did after the machine-gunning?’ ‘Yes, sir. He saw it heading away down-moon, running on the surface. It was soon lost to sight. He thinks it can’t dive.’
Barratt was silent, thinking. ‘Down-moon at say 2130 last night,’ he said. ‘Down-moon at that time would have been west. Towards the coast. Funny.’
‘That might have been the submarine’s initial course, sir. It could have altered later. For all that Corrigan says, it may have dived.’
Barratt shrugged, lost himself in another silence. At last he said, ‘I’m going to the chartroom, Number One. I’ll make a signal to Captain (D). In the meantime steer 010°. Revolutions for sixteen knots.’ With a final, ‘Over to you,’ he left the bridge.
Ten
In the operations room at Kilindini the third officer Wren on duty in the morning watch wrote on the signal pad with one hand while holding the phone in the other. When the voice at the far end announced, ‘Message ends’ she replied with, ‘I’ll read it back.’ She did so, got an ‘Okay love’ from the Petty Officer in the Fleet W/T Office, tore the sheet from the pad and took it through to Cookson, the RNVR Lieutenant in charge of the watch.
‘From Restless,’ she said. ‘They’ve picked up the Fort N survivor.’
He threw his head back, an eyebrow raised in mock alarm. ‘The survivor. Sounds odd.’ He took the signal, read it aloud, looked at the Wren in surprise. ‘So it wasn’t a German U-boat,’ he said. ‘Haven’t been any reports of Jap submarines in the Mozambique Channel for at least six months. That last attack — the southbound convoy — was attributed to Gruppe Eisbdr.’
She frowned, wrinkled her nose. ‘Aren’t the Japanese dreadful. Killing survivors like that. It’s unspeakably brutal.’
‘Yes, they’re a bloody lot,’ he agreed. ‘But marvellous that Fort N scored a direct hit. I expect that’s why the poor sods were massacred.’
‘You shouldn’t call them sods.’ Her tone was censorious. ‘They’re dead.’ Since her relationship with Donald Cookson was a good deal closer than their respective ranks she had few inhibitions about his seniority.
‘You know what I mean, Jane,’ he protested. ‘Where’s Hutch? He should see this.’
‘Gone to the loo. In the meantime Restless says she proposes to remain in the area. Requests orders. Shouldn’t you do something?’
Cookson patted the front of his mouth to hide a yawn. ‘Have a heart. I’ve only had the signal for about forty-five seconds.’ He reached for the phone. ‘SOO will have to deal with this. It’s addressed to Captain (D).’
He glanced at the clock over the wall-chart. It showed 0449.
The Staff Officer Operations lived with a number of other officers in the big white house down the path from Navy House. When Cookson read him the signal he said, ‘Acknowledge it, repeated Deputy C-in-C and RAFHQ. Instruct Restless to remain in the area until further orders. That’s all. I’ll inform Captain (D).’