Sunset (13 page)

‘
Islip
's alongside, sir!'

Onslow missed nothing; he had seen the Jack break out on the big destroyer's stem.

‘Starboard fifteen – midships – steady as you go.' Brooke peered at the other ship's bridge while
Serpent
moved slowly towards her. ‘Port ten – slow astern port!'

He felt the gentle vibration and could picture the surge of foam from the screw even though his eyes were fixed on the narrowing gap, and the men hurrying along
Islip
's iron-deck with big rope fenders.

Wires scraped over the forecastle deck and he saw the sack-like shape of Leading Seaman Doggett already poised with a heaving-line. Aft it would be the same, waiting for the first contact, the execution of which was the tell-tale mark of a good destroyer captain. Or otherwise.

Brooke leaned over the side.
Too fast. Too fast
.

‘Stop port. Increase to fifteen.'

The arrowhead of choppy water was contained and he found time to notice the garbage and filth penned between them.

He saw the heaving-line fly over the other ship's forecastle to be seized and manhandled through a fairlead with
Serpent
's wire already bent on.

‘Already fast forrard, sir!'

A rating at a telephone called, ‘All fast aft, sir!'

‘Stop engines, wheel amidships!'

He peered at the darkening strip of water.
Going, going, gone
. There was a muffled cheer from the other ship and some wag called, ‘Give a hand to the poor relations!'

Calvert murmured, ‘I couldn't do that in a hundred years.'

Brooke let the tension flow out of him. ‘But you will, Pilot. I'll see to that!' He had almost said,
And I couldn't fly a Stringbag
.

‘All secure, sir!'

‘Ring off main engines.'

Brooke glanced along his command, from the clean new Jack in the bows to an equally fresh ensign right aft. He could feel the
heat and dusty humidity closing over him. Without the breeze over the moving ship it made him very aware of all the miles they had steamed.

Kerr clattered on to the bridge, his tanned face unusually relaxed.

‘Fall out, sir?'

‘Yes, please. No leave until I know what's happening.'

Kerr glanced at the land, the press of small houses and the larger, more important ones further inland. ‘Different world, sir.' He hesitated. ‘I – I thought there'd be more of our ships on this station. I have a friend out here in submarines, a classmate of mine. I wonder if I'll see him?'

He turned as Onslow triggered his lamp busily.

‘From
Dumbarton
, sir.
Captain repair on board
.'

Brooke said, ‘That was fast.' He had been thinking pleasantly of a warm bath, and a tall glass of something. ‘Acknowledge, Yeo.' He waited as the lamp clattered away, then asked, ‘
Islip
too?'

Onslow watched critically as one of his youthful bunting-tossers folded up the worn, sea-going ensign. ‘No, sir. Only you.'

Brooke glanced at their faces. ‘Probably just wants to know if we're winning!'

Kerr was getting to know him, well enough to see through the casual comment and sense the sudden resentment underneath.

Brooke looked around at the bridge party, who were waiting to be dismissed.

‘Well done, lads.'

The coxswain had just reached the top of the ladder, searching for the first lieutenant as usual. But he remained on the ladder, not wanting to interrupt. It was like seeing and hearing the skipper's father. As if he'd come back.

Some of the others pulled his leg about it in the mess, but he didn't care. He was loyal enough, but not so loyal that he could not recognise a man's honesty or otherwise. He had watched too many defaulters and requestmen over Jimmy the One's little table to be fooled any more.

Pike thought of the last captain. Greenwood had smiled, but not with his mind or his heart.

He grimaced. Old Greenwood wouldn't recognise honesty if it came up the gangway nailed to a cross!

He watched the captain descend the opposite ladder and raised his clipboard. ‘First Lieutenant,
sir!
'

While
Serpent
's ‘skimming-dish' tore across the water towards the light cruiser, Brooke remained standing in the cockpit and gripped the canopy with both hands.

Captain repair on board
was a signal open to interpretation. It usually allowed for a commanding officer to change into a clean shirt at the very least, and sometimes the appointment if less pressing could be arranged by hand-lamp or telephone.

This curt brusqueness had irritated him, and he was angry with himself for having allowed it. Perhaps Hong Kong, like other far-flung outposts of the Empire, had retained the old ideals of instant, unquestioning obedience. He thought of the Western Ocean and felt a smile on his lips. You were lucky to
own
a clean shirt out there in the Atlantic.

He studied the
Dumbarton
with professional interest. A
Danaë
class cruiser, one of several similar types, she had been born in the same period as
Serpent.
There, any similarity ended. Too late for any useful duty in the Great War, her class of ship had found few roles in the thirties other than showing the flag, and acting as miniature flagships for destroyers and other small groups.

Most of the survivors had already been converted into anti-aircraft cruisers, useful for convoy work or covering military operations where no carriers were available, which to date had been most of them. What his father had scornfully described as
the usual horse and stable door strategy.

She was certainly in immaculate condition. Gleaming, glossy paint, booms rigged for her boats and one for a green launch which he guessed belonged to the commodore. Commodore Second Class was usually an uncomfortable appointment, a temporary promotion for a senior captain which could quite easily end and send the person concerned out of the service and into oblivion. Some were lucky. Commodore Harwood, who had been in command of the American and West Indian squadron at the outbreak of war, had probably seen no further than that. The war
had been only three months old when his tiny force had met up with the
Graf Spee
in the South Atlantic in what was now known as the Battle of the River Plate. Like terriers, his ships had harried the pocket-battleship until in desperation her captain had run into harbour and scuttled his ship. Harwood's position and future had been assured.

Brooke turned and glanced along the motor-boat's frothing wake. It got dark early here. Already the Peak and the town were covered with a million lights, while overhead some early stars seemed close enough to touch.

He looked again at the
Dumbarton
. He had once done a cruise in a sister-ship when he had been a cadet. It would be interesting to see how this one had become accustomed to the war.

Macaskie, the boat's coxswain, swung the lively hull towards the cruiser's gangway, where Brooke could see a white-clad side party waiting for him. In his shabby sea-going uniform he felt somehow unclean.

The bowman hooked on and Brooke reached out for the ladder. As his head rose above the side, calls shrilled and he felt vaguely startled. He was not yet used to being piped aboard.

Quick impressions flashed through his mind. The marine bugler was as before, but he noticed that he was standing on a small rope mat, presumably so that his boots would not mark or damage the gleaming, beautifully laid deck. Every plank and seam was perfect, a shipbuilder's pride even in that other war. Brooke saw one of the ship's main armaments, which he knew consisted of six six-inch guns, mounted separately along the centre line. Breech-loaded by hand and unprotected but for their shields, they were very like the ones he had first been trained on at Dartmouth.

An officer with the shoulder straps of a commander stepped forward and returned his salute.

‘Brooke? I'm Larkin. We've been expecting you.' It sounded like
we've been waiting for you
.

Brooke glanced across the surging water and saw his own ship, small against the
Islip
, her hull surprisingly vulnerable with brightly lit scuttles and other lighting around her quarterdeck. After her,
Dumbarton
seemed vast. Down an accommodation
ladder, through a passageway with such smooth paintwork that he could see their reflections as Commander Larkin led the way to the aftermost cabin, with a Royal Marine standing stiffly outside. There was a quick conversation, and then Larkin said, ‘Please come in.'

More impressions. The big day cabin: it must have been forty feet across. Good furniture, chintz curtains across each polished scuttle, and, surprisingly, a portrait of the late King, George V. Brooke could feel no movement even in this busy harbour, and shipboard noises like the occasional pipe on the tannoy seemed far away, part of something else.

‘Ah,
here
you are, Brooke!'

Commodore Cedric Stallybrass M.B.E. strode into the cabin from an adjoining one.

Tall, heavily-built; Brooke guessed he was well overweight but his perfectly-fitting white drill uniform disguised it. He had very little hair, and what remained was ginger-coloured and cut short around his head and ears like a victor's laurels. He had the sort of skin which defied even the hottest sun, and his face, like his bald pate, was lobster-coloured, unmarked by any sort of burn.

‘Saw you come in, Brooke. Take a seat. I know you've a lot to do, must have. I've not forgotten what it was like.'

A steward appeared and produced some fine malt whisky. Stallybrass beamed at him, and it changed his face yet again. His eyes seemed to vanish into a criss-cross of wrinkles, like buttons in a leather chair-back.

‘Good to have you under my command.'

Brooke realised that the commander had left.

Stallybrass was saying. ‘Smart little ships. Knew how to build 'em then, what? But as I always say it's not the age, it's the
standards
that count. Out here people watch everything like fortune-tellers, merchants of gloom. So standards count all the more with the war and everything.'

Brooke saw a white arm shoot out to refill his glass. Was the commodore testing his ability to hold his drink, or was it always like this
out here
?

Stallybrass became serious. ‘Entering harbour, for instance. I like . . .' a quick grin again. ‘No, I
insist
that all my ships'
companies are properly turned out, entering and leaving harbour, on the streets, everywhere.'

Brooke answered evenly, ‘My people have had no time, sir. We came directly from Scapa Flow. Before that . . .'

He held up an admonitory finger. ‘I know all that. In war we occasionally relax the normal rules of discipline and behaviour. But not out here. The Royal Navy commands respect. It has to, if only to show the world what we stand for. I've made arrangements with the Senior Supply Officer. Your people can be fitted out tomorrow. One thing about this place, eh – no shortage of native tailors.'

He made it sound like the African bush, Brooke thought.

‘Now, any questions, old chap.' He was the genial host again.

Brooke asked, ‘My first lieutenant was asking about the Fourth Submarine Flotilla. He has a friend in one of the boats.'

‘Has he?' He leaned heavily over some papers on a small table. ‘Lieutenant Kerr, yes?'

‘Good officer.'

‘If you say so.' He sounded off-balance. ‘The flotilla left a long time ago. Depot ship too. We used to have some damned fine parties aboard her when the last Captain (S) was here.' He seemed to recall the question. ‘They all went to the Mediterranean. Done sterling service to all accounts. Quite a few of them gone west, I'm afraid.' He added gravely, ‘Tragic, really.'

A bugle blared out overhead and Brooke imagined the marine standing on his little rope mat.

Stallybrass said, ‘Most of the bigger ships have moved to Singapore, of course. Better facilities. Entire regrouping. But we have the West River and Yangtze flotillas here, and some other useful vessels.'

Brooke looked at his empty glass. It had to be that, or else he had misheard. The
Tamar
base had once been the most powerful on the China Station. Now the commodore was talking about the old river patrols, flat-bottomed gunboats which had maintained law and order in the sheltered waters of the mainland and had been used to protect British merchant shipping and trade settlements. In the face of Japanese military ambitions their continued presence was almost insane.

‘I see doubt in your eyes, old chap!' Stallybrass chuckled throatily. ‘No need for it. We old China hands are not just pretty faces, you know. We are prepared, ready for anything.' The smile faded. ‘That is why I stress the value of
standards
!'

‘I shall bear it in mind.' Brooke thought he had gone too far but Stallybrass seemed well pleased with his assurance.

The commodore said in an almost matter-of-fact tone, ‘I had the pleasure of meeting your brother recently. Doing very well. He'll make captain before too long, I shouldn't wonder. He'll be in touch with you himself, I expect.' He sounded less sure of himself. ‘Yes, should do well.'

Uncertainty, jealousy too perhaps. The arrival of one of the Admiralty's up-and-coming staff officers might be seen as a threat to his own little kingdom.

There was a tap at the door even as Stallybrass glanced at his watch. An arranged signal perhaps?

A lieutenant, his face so tanned against his white uniform that he looked like a
native
, said, ‘The Governor's launch will be arriving in fifteen minutes, sir.' He avoided any eye contact with Brooke.

‘Very well.' As the door closed silently Stallybrass winked. ‘Good officer. Squash and tennis – he's unbeatable!'