Sunset (36 page)

It was the Senior Operations Officer, Commander Ian Gould. He was just about running the dockyard single-handed while the sailors were strengthening the defences and digging shelters.

Brooke glanced across at Kowloon. It was eerie not to see the
thousands of glittering lights. When it was really quiet you could sometimes hear the music from all the bars and dives around the docks there. Now it was like a grave, and there was no gunfire at the moment either.

He greeted the Operations Officer at the bridge gate.

‘Sorry about not meeting you at the brow, sir.' He looked over the glass screen, and down to the crouching outlines of the high-angled anti-aircraft guns. ‘I need to be here until we're out at the buoy again.'

Commander Gould was a plump and usually jolly man, and had always been helpful after
Serpent
's arrival.

He said shortly, ‘Bad news, Esmond.
Bloody
bad news, I'm afraid. Just heard from Singapore. Admiral Phillips sailed with his Force Z to support the army. He had no air cover – it seems that an airfield was evacuated by accident or something. It was a brave gesture, I suppose . . .'

Brooke asked, ‘Did they engage the enemy, sir?'

Gould barely heard. ‘Just dive-bombers, no heavy units at all.
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
were both sunk.' It was as if he still dare not believe it. ‘Within the space of an hour! Both gone, all those men, those fine ships!'

Brooke pulled out his pipe. ‘D'you mind this, sir?'

So that was it. He filled his pipe, while the others watched him and waited to read their own fate.

In the space of an hour, Gould had said. It went far deeper than that. In the space of
two days
, at Pearl Harbour and off the coast of Malaya, the whole balance of naval power had been turned upside down.

Force Z was gone. There would be no support for Singapore or for them in Hong Kong.

The pipe smoke floated up past the gunnery control position, a tiny moment of peace. Like a flower surviving in Flanders in his father's war.

Brooke asked quietly, ‘What does Captain Granville say?'

‘He is consulting with the Governor. The Japanese have demanded that we surrender. The B.B.C. has already broadcast that we will do no such thing.
Fight them on the beaches
all over again.'

Brooke looked at the dying light on the water. ‘No white cliffs of Dover this time, sir.'

Gould seemed to shake himself. ‘Tell your people, Esmond. We shall begin evacuation of Kowloon tomorrow night. After that . . .' He did not finish it.

‘After that, this dockyard will be under fire. What then, sir?'

‘All in hand, old chap.' Gould turned towards the dark landmass. ‘I retired out here. They recalled me when the balloon went up.' Only Brooke could see the tears in his eyes in the strange, hot glow. ‘Love the old place. Can't believe it's happening.'

They watched him leave, then Kerr said harshly, ‘Well, he'd better start believing it and bloody soon!'

Brooke reached for the handset which would connect him to all of his men throughout the ship. Working the loading tackles, stripping the guns again in case they were attacked at first light. In the crowded, stuffy messdecks with their naked pin-ups and letters home. In the boiler and engine rooms and the W/T office.
His men.
Kerr's sudden outburst had spoken for all of them. When their time came they must not be snared by all the folly and incompetence which had allowed this disaster to happen. Men had died for much less, but they had given so much already.

He snapped down the button. ‘This is the Captain speaking . . .'

It was all he could do.

Esmond Brooke walked slowly along the
Serpent
's darkened iron-deck, seeing the three funnels and upperworks lit up by the bright flashes of gunfire from across the harbour.

Beneath his shoes he could feel the nervous tremble of machinery, as if the ship could sense the danger like an animal catching the scent of blood.

There was little noise from the harbour itself although Brooke knew there were hundreds of small craft going back and forth, picking their way through the cemetery of wrecks, any one of which could tear out a boat's keel and spew its human cargo into the fast-moving water.

But his seamen could still joke about it, even in the face of disaster.

You couldn't drown in this harbour, you'd die of poisoning first!
he had heard one wag say.

The evacuation of the last mainland troops was under way. Separated from their units, some without supervision or proper leadership, they had flooded down to the Kowloon docks in fear and in desperation.

Brooke had heard how some of the soldiers had lurched from bar to bar, beyond caring for discipline or purpose. Dunkirk had been an orderly disaster. This was a rout.

‘We goin' to be all right, sir?'

Brooke paused and looked at some men by the motor-boat's davits. They would not need the skimming-dish now –
Serpent
was linked to the buoy, the land, only by her slip-wire.
Raring to go
, as the Chief had said.

‘We'll do our best, lads.' He had explained it to them as well as he could. Why they must leave the harbour and head around to the south-west, to the other dockyard at Aberdeen. In all this confusion it was hard to know if it sank in.

The finality of it had been marked by the old wooden depotship H.M.S.
Tamar
. Lying at her buoy, she had been stripped of her equipment and confidential files and prepared for scuttling. The Ark, so familiar to servicemen and civilians alike. It would seem like part of a betrayal.

Before dusk he had been to see Captain Granville again, this time in a damp, airless cellar that stank of the harbour just yards beyond the walls. Occasionally the building had quaked to bombs in the city, and dust and plaster had filtered over Granville's maps and signals.

He had told Brooke that the destroyer
Islip
would be arriving at Aberdeen in a day or so. She was using her radar to make a more secretive approach and avoid enemy patrols. All those who were to be evacuated would be put aboard her. Eventually they would leave in the dark, again using the incredible eyes of
Islip
's radar.

Lian was already at Aberdeen with several officers' wives. Brooke would make certain she left with the others. It was her only chance.

When he had seen her at the hotel her determination to be brave in front of the other women had moved him deeply. Now, as he climbed to the bridge, he paused to touch the little gold dragon medallion which she had put around his neck. ‘
It is mine, my dearest love. I will take it off you when we are together again. It will keep you safe
.'

He glanced into the darkened wheelhouse where Pike and his telegraphsmen and a boatswain's mate were standing together, waiting for the order to move.

‘All right, Swain?'

Pike nodded his massive head. ‘Good as gold, sir.'

His eyes flashed in a burst of firing from across the water. The
boats were still going back and forth, feeling their way. Exhausted soldiers, and many wounded – what would become of them?

Pike looked at him. ‘Don't worry, sir.' He touched the motionless wheel. ‘She won't let us down!'

Up and on to the open bridge. After the cellar and between decks, it felt surprisingly clean and cool.

Kerr was careful to stay in the forepart of the bridge, away from Kipling and Barrington-Purvis. The latter was in white shirt and shorts whilst Kipling had changed into his shabby khaki. A mixed pair. Brooke had hated having to ask them. But there was nobody else.

‘I can't order you two to stay behind.' He looked at their faces as they lit up in the distant gunfire. ‘You will rejoin the ship at Aberdeen when you have finished here, right?'

Kipling said, ‘Won't take long, sir. I knew those bastards would be here sooner than we were told.'

There was no need to contradict him. They had been assured that the army would be able to hold a line of sorts for a week, maybe two. The Japanese would be over there tomorrow, three days after invading the New Territories. It was incredible.

Barrington-Purvis said, ‘I'm to take charge of the base party who will assist us, sir?' Like a new pupil repeating a lesson. Very calm, perhaps dangerously so, but equally determined.

Kipling must have been smiling under the sudden curtain of darkness.

‘Tell you one thing, sir, old
Tamar
won't sink. The demolition boys haven't taken those extra deck-houses into account. They'll keep her afloat like buoyancy bags!' He held up his luminous watch. ‘Never mind. I've got a bit of gear that'll do the trick.'

Surprisingly, he held out his hand. ‘In case we don't make it, sir. Been nice knowing you.'

Barrington-Purvis said quietly, ‘I'm
glad
I stayed in the ship, sir.'

Voices murmured after them as they went to the side where a pilot boat was waiting to carry them ashore. Another pilot was floating nearby, ready to lead them out.

Calvert remarked, ‘In some funny way they're good for each other.'

Brooke glanced at him. Calvert would be doing just the opposite. He would be leaving the ship at Aberdeen. If possible he was to make certain that the seaplane was ready to fly as soon as the pilot arrived, and take Charles Yeung out of it. Or so Captain Granville had said.

Brooke had asked angrily, ‘Have you told Lieutenant Calvert?'

‘That is your job!'

It had been then, and only then, that Brooke had realised that the urbane captain was losing his nerve, and he wondered if Commander Gould realised it too.

Now, as he climbed on to the gratings beside his tall chair, it felt like every other time. It had to be. Gladstone Dock in Liverpool, St John's in Newfoundland, or Malta in the middle of an air attack.

‘Ring down stand-by.'

Kerr joined him. ‘Good luck, sir.' He had his big torch in one hand so that he could watch the slip-wire once it was fixed to whip back through the buoy-ring.

‘Skill will come in handy too!'

Always the joke. Smile, damn you! But it was never a game. If you thought it was, you were dead.

Calvert was bending over his chart, hidden by the table's hood. Thinking of his girl. Worried about her safety,
as I am for Lian
's.

He heard the telegraph jangle faintly below his feet, and imagined the lounging figures he had seen and spoken with at their stations, probably glad to be doing something.

If they did not leave,
Serpent
would become a sitting target.

Kerr had reached the forecastle and was standing in the eyes of the ship and although he could not see him, he knew that Bill Doggett, the leading hand, and the rest of his party were ready to run aft with the wire as it snaked dangerously inboard.

‘Standing by, sir.' That was Podger Barlow the Gunner (T), doing his bit on the bridge now that two officers were missing.

‘Pilot boat's on port bow, sir!' Onslow, the Yeoman of Signals, a man who had accepted his loss. For the moment.

Lian would know they were leaving. She always did. Thank God she was getting out of it. Their beautiful house would not avoid bombardment much longer. Her sister was still in her
hospital as she had firmly declared she would be. Brooke didn't know about her husband Harry. With America in the war, like it or not, he might have wanted to be back in his own country rather than in
a British Colony,
as he had called it.

‘Midnight, sir.'

‘Very well.' He touched the medallion beneath his shirt. Part of her.
Midnight.
Thirteen days to Christmas. It was better not to think about it.

He stared at the shaded blue light on the pilot boat's stern. ‘Slow ahead together!' He pictured the Chief with his throttles. They had discussed this many times. Each trusting the other.

He shouted, ‘
Slip
!'

He heard Kerr repeat the order and the metallic click of a slip being released. Then men running, the wire rattling over the deck and past A-gun.

‘
All clear forrard, sir!
'

‘Wheelhouse!' Brooke leaned over the voicepipe's bell mouth.

‘Cox'n, sir.'

‘Can you see the pilot's light?'

‘Yessir. I've got younger eyes than mine keeping a look out, too!'

They were moving, the dark water hissing down either flank, while the knife-like stem remained lined up on the blue light.

Occasionally wreckage jagged into the side. It would move up and down with the current for weeks. Bitter reminders.

Brooke thought of the shabby dignity of the Man Mo temple. How she had found him there, knowing it was where he would be.

He heard Kerr come to the bridge, his brief exchange with Calvert.

Hong Kong.
Magical city,
as she had called it. Would they ever come back? Together?

Calvert said, ‘No course to steer until we drop the pilot boat, sir.'

‘Thank you, Pilot.' But he was staring at the island, in total darkness but for some flickering fires which still had not been extinguished from the last raid. After tomorrow it would be pointless to sound air-raid warnings any more. The Japs would be
using Kai Tak, which was only three and a half miles from the dockyard.

When he looked again, the little naval base had been swallowed up.

He wondered if Kipling and Barrington-Purvis were still there. Watching them leave. In the same breath, he knew that they were.

Sub-Lieutenant Nigel Barrington-Purvis watched wearily while his companion busied himself with a knife and some fresh bread. Kipling's hands were none too clean but the sight of the bread and the thick slices of corned beef with enough butter for a whole loaf made him realise how hungry he was.

It was five days since they had stood together and yet apart, each with his own thoughts, and watched the destroyer's pale shape working clear of the buoy, hearing the sudden turbulence of her screws, those so familiar sounds of fans and telegraphs until, it had seemed in seconds, she had gone.