Killing Ground (33 page)

Fernie said thickly, “Looks that way, mate.”

The man said, “If that murdering bastard comes back we'd be done for.” He rubbed his smoke-reddened eyes as
Gladiator
's pale shape glided through the smoke and then vanished again. “But your skipper'll be listening for those buggers, eh?”

Treherne glanced at the doctor. There was no point in telling him about the Asdic. There could be fifty U-Boats out there for all they knew.

“Lead the way. We'll have to get a move on.” They followed him to a great empty store which must have been the boatswain's place for stacking all the spare timber and cordage. That had
been used for shoring up those bulkheads closest to the explosions. The second torpedo had flooded the first hold, and the weight of water had helped to steady the hull as well as covering the crates of explosives before the fires could reach them.

Treherne found the survivors huddled with their wounded, the only light below coming from holes in the deck overhead.

He made a quick count, fifteen in all, one of whom he realised was the ship's master. He lay propped against some rope fenders, breathing heavily while a youth held his hand and watched over him.

Moffatt said, “Move along, Sonny. Let me have a look.”

The slight figure turned and stared at him. It was a Chinese girl, her fine features starkly beautiful in this terrible place.

The master said hoarsely, “My wife, Anna.” He stared at the doctor's hands as he opened his bag and cut away the dirty bandage. “A bullet, or piece of one.” He groaned as Moffatt probed around his bruised flesh. “Just cruised past us and strafed the boats as he went, the bastard. He killed both the mates. Christ knows what happened to the rest. I thought he was going to stop and give us our position, a course for land or the shipping lanes. But he just stood there watching while his guns raked the lifeboats.” He had a Welsh lilt to his voice, very like the Chief's.

Treherne asked quietly, “Has that happened before?”

The ship's master peered at the faded lace on Treherne's sleeve. “One of our mob, eh?” He frowned, trying to remember the question. “I've been tin-fished twice before. The first submarine commander handed down smokes and some brandy before he shoved off.” He gasped with pain and added between his teeth, “But that was in the early days. You know …”

“Yes, I know.”

Fernie called, “This one's done for, sir.”

The master turned his head to listen. He said, “Bulkhead's holding. We did get a pump going for a bit until it packed up. Now there's no power on anything. Just a matter of time.” He flopped back as Moffatt removed the needle from his arm.

“You can start moving him, Number One.” Moffatt, usually so gentle and curious about everything, was suddenly in charge. “I'm afraid about this other chap.” He watched as Bully Bishop used his razor sharp pusser's dirk to slit open the man's bloodied trousers. He looked grimly at Treherne. “It's got to come off. May be too late anyway.” He glanced around at the smoke-stains and the crouching, frightened figures. “It's not exactly Harley Street, is it?”

The young Chinese woman was still beside him. “It's all right, my dear, your husband will be well again when we can get him to the ship.”

She shook her head, her black hair shining in the smoky air. “I stay with you. I help. I nurse in Hong Kong.”

Treherne looked at her. There was a story in her, he thought. Perhaps the captain, who must be well over twice her age, had got her away before the Japs had marched in.

Fernie held the badly injured man and caught his breath as the doctor pulled on his gloves and opened what the SBA called Moffatt's tool kit. He tried to imagine what Bizley would have done if he had been in charge. He realised the man was staring at him, his eyes flickering as the drug moved through him.

“Not me
leg!
For God's sake,
not that!”

The girl dabbed his forehead, her eyes impassive as Moffatt made his first incision.

Treherne watched the big bearded leading hand. Like a gentle bear unless he was roused. Which was why Treherne knew Bizley had lied; just as he understood why the matter had been dropped.

He said, “The first time I see you with crossed hooks on your sleeve, Fernie, I'll set up the pints until you're awash!”

Fernie saw the girl wrap the amputated leg in some canvas and carry it away. He murmured, “A girl like that'd never let you down.”

He spoke so vehemently that Treherne guessed there had been someone special in Fernie's life too.
Had been.

He thought of Joyce and knew he must see her again, even though he had been quite certain he was going to be killed.

Now he stared around, seeing the deck's steep angle, hearing the slosh of the sea between decks. A ship which refused to die, waiting perhaps to take others with her.

Wally Patch called, “Just the wounded now, sir!”

Treherne touched Fernie's shoulder. “Can you manage?”

The big man got to his feet, his eyes troubled. “Yeah, I can manage, sir.” He spread his gloved hands. “I'll be as quick as I can.”

“Don't worry. The Old Man will come closer when he sees the whaler.”

Fernie walked carefully up the tilting deck. “Be seeing you.” He grinned. “Sir.”

It was suddenly very quiet in the dismal place. Just the painful, regular coughing of one of the men who had swallowed too much fuel when he had dived to escape the machine-guns.

Moffatt looked at the girl, “Go now. And thanks.”

She smiled briefly and went with Fernie.

Moffatt exclaimed, “No use, can't stop the bleeding. His pulse is going.” Then he lowered his face and said brokenly, “What a bloody awful way to die!”

One of the other injured men croaked, “Never you mind, Doc, you done yer best. 'Is number was on it this time, that's all!” He fell back, exhausted.

Moffatt blew his nose. “How do they stand it? Again and again?”

“I've often wondered.”

It seemed an age before the whaler returned and Fernie explained that the dangling ladder was almost out of reach. That meant that the ship had gone over still further, and might even capsize.

“It's going to be a rough ride.” Treherne watched Fernie and Patch tying bowlines around the helpless survivors. “It's better than dying …” He broke off, startled, as a loud cracking sound
seemed to come straight through the soles of his sea-boots.

Moffatt gasped, “What was
that?”

“Bulkhead.” He pushed him with the wounded towards the opening. “Fast as you like, lads! The old girl's trying to take us with her!”

A man screamed in agony as he sprawled across the whaler's gunwale before being dragged to safety. More smoke exploded into the air, pressurised like steam from within so that Treherne was vaguely reminded of the geysers he had seen in Iceland.

He twisted his head and saw the destroyer swinging round, the sunlight flashing across the bridge screen where Howard would be watching, conning his ship to complete the impossible.

Treherne took a last glance behind him, the two corpses, the bloody parcel beside them.
So this is what it feels like.

The deck gave a violent lurch and he heard the sudden roar of water, loud cracks as steel plates parted like plywood to the tremendous pressure.

When he climbed down the ladder he had to drop the last few feet into the sea. He clung to the whaler's gunwale as the oarsmen backed water away from the sinking ship. Treherne could see the hull rising over him and wondered if he had left it too late after all; overhead there was a glint of bronze from a motionless screw, which would never come alive again to the clang of the bridge telegraph.

Fernie waited for a seaman to put a bowline around the first lieutenant's shoulders and bellowed, “Give way, starboard! Back water, port!” He glanced at the towering mass of burned metal as it started to dip deeper by the bows. There the inner fires had been so hot that the hull was black and shimmering from some isolated blaze.

Miracles did happen sometimes. Oil tankers which did not catch fire when torpedoed or bombed; or old veterans like the
Ohio Star
which had spared a few of her people, perhaps to tell
the tale of her lonely fight with the Atlantic. An American name, a Welsh master and his lovely Chinese wife.

Treherne felt the bowman dragging at his arm but did not want to miss the moment, to leave without sharing it. “There she goes!”

One of the less badly wounded clambered to the side and stared as the old ship suddenly lifted her stern and dived.

Treherne turned his head and saw that the unknown seaman was weeping, as if he had lost a friend. Perhaps he had.

The whaler rocked and plunged in the whirlpool that surged around the place where the ship had gone down—Treherne felt it pulling at his legs like something evil, trying to suck him away to follow the ship down and down, so many hundreds of fathoms where there was lasting peace.

He remembered very little after that except for the push and scramble of getting aboard
Gladiator,
with scrambling nets, by brute force, anything.

Faces, wild-eyed, stared at him, while others manned the falls and ran the whaler up to the davit-heads, the boat's usually neat interior slopping with water and bloody dressings.

The bells rang from the bridge, and
Gladiator
's screws began to thrash the water into a mounting froth as she gathered speed. Men peered at one another, grinned or puffed out their cheeks with relief. The old girl was moving again. Hands reached out to touch Treherne's sodden jacket as he climbed heavily to the bridge.

He saw Howard standing away from the voicepipes as he finished putting his ship on course. He also saw Vallance with a mug in his hand. He had almost never seen the PO steward on the bridge before—Vallance was full of surprises these days.

Howard said quietly, “It's rum, Number One. I know you don't usually go in for it, but it's the best I can manage at short notice.” He waited while Treherne took a great swallow. “I'm damned glad to have you back!”

Treherne took another great swallow. “The Doc did very
well.”

“So did you.” He tried to make light of it. “We even saved their lordships the price of a torpedo.”

Treherne said, “In all this bloody war, I think that was one of the most worthwhile things we've done together.”

Then he fell silent again, thinking of the master who had now been sunk three times, and who would go back when there was a ship for him. And the girl who would be with him. That was the real difference.

He said, “I'll go and freshen up, sir.”

Howard handed him his own duffle coat. “Put this on. Please.” He had seen the sudden exhaustion, emotional and physical; it had been like that for him when Treherne had helped him when he had needed it most. “It'll be OK.”

But Treherne hadn't moved. He was staring at the sea, and seemed to be grappling for something. Eventually he said, “All these years, and this is the first time I've known what it's like to have a ship go down under you.” He looked at him, his eyes bleak. “It's like death.”

T
HE
headquarters of Western Approaches was situated in a massive bomb- and gas-proof citadel beneath the rambling building called Derby House in the city of Liverpool. Concrete and armour plate had changed it from a big basement complex to the Navy's own command-post for the Atlantic battle, and had been its nerve-centre since completion in 1941.

No longer were the various sections scattered along the coast or in other ports; each part contained everything and was readily accessible to the boss, in this case Admiral Max Horton. Minesweeping, convoy plots, enemy activities and RAF Coastal Command; all could be contacted without delay by lifting a telephone, the secret information immediately sifted through a scrambler line. If not, the C-in-C would want to know why, and who was responsible. Its core was of course the operations room, one complete wall of which was covered by a giant chart of the battleground, in some places three times as high as the Wrens and operations team who controlled it. They climbed on sliding ladders to move the many coloured markers representing convoys, escort groups, known information about U-Boat packs and the tell-tale recordings of ship losses. There was another large map on an adjoining wall for the Irish Sea and local coastal convoys. It was fully staffed around the clock, so that what happened in the city above and around it ceased to have any meaning or reality. Only the great ocean and the ceaseless battle for supremacy between enemy and ally made any sense.

A youthful lieutenant regarded Captain Ernle Vickers with due deference. “Captain Naish can see you now, sir.”

He held open a door labelled
Assistant to Chief of Staff,
and stood slightly to one side as if to hint that the interview would be a short one. But the tall captain who got up from his desk to shake
Vickers's hand gave a broad grin. He and Vickers had been midshipmen together and were of about the same seniority.

“Good to see you, Ernle!” He glanced at the hovering lieutenant and added, “No calls.” The lieutenant fled.

Naish seated his friend and produced a decanter and some glasses from a filing cabinet marked
Pending,
and poured two generous measures. He chuckled, “I know you're not putting to sea, so you can enjoy some decent Scotch for a change. You can't see the boss—he's playing golf, can you believe? Like Drake and his bowls. This evening the Prime Minister is coming up specially to see him.”

Vickers tasted the Scotch, but refrained from asking his friend where he had obtained it. Naish would tell him in his own good time, if he wanted to. He watched Naish's hand moving a signal clip to examine some files underneath.

“I've just finished reading the report about
Gladiator
's effort with the
Ohio Star.
Bloody good show, I think.”