Sunset (38 page)

She reached with her free hand but lost the strength to feel her side.

Calvert clung to her. ‘I'm here, darling!
Don't leave me!
'

Then she smiled at him, but even as he tried to hope, the smile became fixed and unmoving.

He felt her fall against him and for the first time saw the blood.

How long he flew or on what course he did not know.

He was calling her name. Telling her things, remembering their love.

Then, through a sea-mist, he saw
Serpent.
Moving slowly on a converging course. The sea all round was pale green, shallow, exactly where the Skipper would choose to be if he was going to fight.

They would see the plane. The guns would be tracking them, but the Skipper would know. He always did.

Calvert began to descend, feeling the wind in his face as he slid open a window. Then he reached over and closed her eyes so that she seemed to be lying against him, asleep.

He tried to speak to her. ‘Just got something to do, darling Sue.' He could barely see through the blur of pain and emotion. ‘Then I'm taking you home!'

As he flashed over the narrow hull he saw all the faces peering up at him, knew who they were.

He saw, too, the unfamiliar battle ensigns flying from the old destroyer's gaff and yard.

He picked up the girl's hat with its blue badge. There was even blood on that.

‘Just so they'll know, Sue.
Nothing can part us!
'

The hat was plucked from his fingers, then he shut the window.

The port engine was coughing badly, but they would make it.

There were more anchored ships and burned-out hulks now, and he dived steeply to weave amongst them as tracer lifted past him, bright green, deadly.

Then he saw the ships, two of them, destroyers, in line ahead as they headed for the open sea. After the kill. But first they would have to deal with the little
Serpent
.

‘And us, you bastards!'

He clutched her small hand on his leg. It was warm, as if she was still alive.

The first bullets hit the seaplane, and Calvert knew he had been badly wounded although he could feel nothing.

Then there
was
nothing.

‘Char, sir.'

Brooke straightened up in his chair and reached out for the mug in the darkness. He felt stiff and cold. Empty.

As his senses returned he glanced around the bridge. The ship had been at Defence Stations since leaving Aberdeen but with all the short-range weapons closed up.

Like Trafalgar, he thought dully, food and clean clothes before the battle.

Serpent
had left harbour soon after
Islip.
He had dared not risk remaining at anchor once the reports of possible landings had first been received and later confirmed.

It had been a sad moment when the
Islip
had finally cast off. They had all been shocked to see the damage she had received from enemy bombers when she had stopped to try and pick up survivors from the torpedoed
Dumbarton.
There had been very few. Stallybrass had not been one of them.

One bomb had exploded right alongside the
Islip
; another had hit the forecastle. The explosions and the hail of splinters had put both forward guns out of action and had killed twenty men and wounded others. Her captain, the ebullient Ralph Tufnell, had been killed outright and his first lieutenant had taken over.

But her engine room was undamaged and she still had her radar and anti-aircraft weapons intact.

Brooke had been aboard just once to wish them luck and to
give them some charts. Many of theirs had been destroyed in the attack.

He had seen Lian only once more. With other women she had been with sailors who were issuing life-jackets and steel helmets. She had watched him through a clamped scuttle, and had placed her palm flat against the thick glass until he covered it with his own. Then she had been moved away, and a seaman had slammed down the steel deadlight even as orders were given to get under way.

Islip
had soon been lost in darkness. Granville had assured him that an escort would be ready to see the ship to safety for the last part of the journey. South, all the way to Batavia in Java, two thousand two hundred miles.
Islip
could do it in three days, and would be with the Australian escorts before that.

But there had been a signal too. Enemy destroyers were reported to be moving from the east. Two in number, the intelligence report had stated. One was said to be a big
Asasio
Class, the other one much smaller. There might as well have been a whole fleet. The
Asasio
Class carried six five-inch guns and eight torpedo tubes. If
Serpent
could not delay them,
Islip
's small lead would prove useless.

He thought of Calvert and wondered what he would do. He had been stunned when he had been told about Sue Yorke refusing to sail with
Islip. Our Wren
.

Brooke glanced at the hooded chart table, remembering Calvert and his girl. They were going to be married, he had said.

He had told his men what they might expect. Earlier they had all seen the old destroyer
Thracian,
very similar to their own ship but cut down and less well armed, leave Aberdeen under power. She had been severely damaged when chasing junks packed with Japanese troops who had been attempting an early landing. She had destroyed the junks, but had smashed her hull by striking some rocks. Stripped of her weapons and stores she had sailed out of Aberdeen and had been run aground on a small island and abandoned. It had been a sad sight, and a bitter moment for her company. Her fate seemed to have made
Serpent
's people even more determined. Perhaps resigned.

The one light moment had been when Kipling and the Sub had
appeared on the dockside, filthy but managing to grin and wave before climbing aboard. Within seconds their Royal Enfield motor-bike had vanished, taken by somebody who still nursed some hope of escape.

Before leaving
Serpent
Granville had told Brooke that Sir Mark Young, the governor of Hong Kong, had made another plea for help to London, explaining that they could not hope to continue resistance once the enemy had landed on the island. Churchill's reply had been adamant: resistance would be maintained,
so that the enemy should be compelled to expend the utmost life and equipment
.

With the Japanese on North Point, they could bombard the naval dockyard from the high ground and join the battery at Kowloon in a murderous crossfire.

Kerr came up from the chart table and took a mug of hot tea. He was a good watchkeeping officer, but it seemed wrong not to see Calvert there.

‘Be getting light soon, sir.'

‘Yes.' Brooke could picture his little ship as if he was a sea bird on the wing. She was steering very slowly to the north-west of Lamma Island. The sea seemed black and vast but in an hour they would sight Hong Kong island again, even Aberdeen, which they had left in the half-light. It was all he could do. It was shallow, not deep enough for a big destroyer to act stupidly. Once within range of the enemy they would attack with torpedoes. They would fire all four of them – the Gunner (T)'s big moment, and he had gathered all his crew of torpedomen for a last instruction. The torpedo tubes had no protection. It would have to be fast. The Chief knew. They all knew what to expect.

They had two extra hands for Damage Control if nothing else, Royal Marine bandsmen, one injured in the leg by a bomb splinter. They had been trying to reach
Islip
before she sailed. Exhausted and almost delirious when they had seen the White Ensign above
Serpent
's deck, they had described the scenes of horror when they had slipped past Jap patrols to reach Aberdeen.

Corpses lay everywhere and much of the city was ablaze. The Japanese were in a frenzy, the corporal had said, shooting, bayoneting and beheading soldiers and civilians alike. Even if
Serpent
was sunk in this coming fight Brooke knew the two marines wanted to be here with faces and voices they trusted.

Kerr said, ‘All depth charges were set to safe and jettisoned.' He forced a smile. ‘The Cox'n says the loss of weight makes the old girl as light as a feather!'

Better to lose the charges than to have the stern blown off by an enemy shell.

Brooke looked at his shadow against the pale paintwork. Was it lighter already? He took his time to think.
Am I afraid of what will happen?

He felt in his pocket and touched Calvert's Victoria Cross, which Bert Kingsmill had discovered in a drawer when he had been securing the cabins.

‘Didn't seem right to leave it there, sir!' He had been very concerned. Brooke found he was relaxing slowly. It would not be much safer here, he thought.

‘Number One, you know what to do if anything goes wrong up here?'

He heard Kerr swallow hard. ‘Yes, sir. Fight the ship.'

He touched his arm. ‘Remember the motto.
Deadly to Foes
.'

He saw a glint of water. The moment before dawn. What would the light reveal?

Kerr held his watch to his face. ‘Time, sir.'

‘Thanks, Dick.' He felt Kerr staring at him. ‘Go round the ship. Action Stations by word of mouth. This is a time for preparation, not panic. Let them see you about.'

Voicepipes began to mutter as the hands went to their proper stations. A few last watertight doors thudded shut, and Brooke heard the squeak of the big rangefinder as Barrington-Purvis prepared himself and his spotters for the inevitable.

We have all changed
. From what Kipling had told him, the haughty sub-lieutenant had changed most of all.

‘Cox'n on the wheel, sir. Course zero-two-zero, both engines at seven-zero.'

Brooke stood up and gripped the back of his chair. He could feel the vibrations coursing through it, up his arms, into his body. They were as one.

‘Ship at Action Stations, sir.' Kipling sounded calm. Then he said, ‘I hope Toby's all right.'

Onslow was speaking softly to his signalmen, and looked over as Brooke said, ‘Battle Ensigns – what d'you think, Yeo?'

‘Hear that, lads. Off you go, chop-chop!' To Brooke he said, ‘Make a picture, she will!'

Brooke thought of his father. Now he would never hear about it.

It was much brighter and he could smell smoke drifting on the breeze. Soon they would sight land.

‘Ship, sir! Port bow!'

Brooke lowered his powerful glasses. It was a tall, stately junk moving purposefully under its strange bat-like sails. Standing away. Leaving their homes behind. Like
Serpent
's own company, a ship was life itself. The land was the enemy this time.

There was gunfire again, a merciless bombardment on people who could not hit back. There were fires too, spurts of flame and glowing sparks as shells fell somewhere in the centre of the island. Men fighting house to house, room to room, grenade, rifle and bayonet, until there was nothing left to fight with.

The smoke tasted bitter, foul. An empty hull drifted abeam – abandoned, its crew killed, who could tell?

Here was the sea. He watched it reaching out from the ship as the daylight forced its way through the pall of smoke.

Kerr was back again, his eyes everywhere. ‘There's land, sir. Lamma Island, starboard bow. Not long now.' There was neither hope nor dread in his voice.

The sun was coming up at last. Red and orange, like the flames below it. The forecastle and four-inch gun with its crouching crew, like monks in their anti-flash gear, the breech already loaded, a seaman gunner waiting with the next shell in his gloved hands.

Brooke picked up the red telephone and heard the Chief's instant acknowledgement.

‘Approaching the channel, Chief. One hand for the King, eh?'

He could picture him smiling at the old naval joke, then repeating it to his stokers and artificers. Lip-reading was all that counted down there.

Brooke opened his shirt and knew Kipling was watching him as he felt the gold medallion between his fingers.

He stared again. Daylight. A curtain going up. He raised his glasses again and studied the littered vessels that lay outside Aberdeen some three miles away. The smoke was terrible in its depth and intensity, covering the heights and rising unhurriedly towards the sky.

‘
Aircraft,
sir!'

‘Stand by all guns!' That was Barrington-Purvis, clipped and precise.

Brooke listened to the distorted growl of engines. It was there somewhere. Out to starboard, perhaps from Repulse Bay.

Kerr exclaimed, ‘That's no fighter, sir!' He looked wildly at the others. ‘D'you think it's him? Toby?'

‘Aircraft at Green eight-zero, sir!' The look-out sounded dazed. ‘No angle of sight. She's almost in the drink!'

Brooke steadied his glasses and felt a lump in his throat as the dark seaplane darted past an abandoned freighter and then turned towards him.

Kerr shouted, ‘Tell the Buffer to prepare a net!' He waved his cap above his head. ‘
He made it!
I'll bet he's got our Wren with him!'

Brooke snapped, ‘Belay that order!' He moved his glasses with great care while the ship lifted and dipped gently beneath him.

It was all suddenly stark and clear. The holes, silver bright, punched along the side and through one wing. There was smoke too from one of the engines.

Men were cheering and waving as the seaplane lifted over the ship where the battle ensigns looked so clean against the sky. Just as quickly the cheers died while men peered at the damage, the fact that only one face showed in the cockpit. Brooke saw Calvert's arm, the light glinting on the unfamiliar sight of his best uniform while he waved to the ship.
To me
.

Something flew from his hand and, once clear of the slipstream, began to float down to the sea.

Her hat.
She was with him. Now he had nothing to live for.