Thunder at Dawn (16 page)

Benks felt it in the magazine and quivered.

Thunder
steadied on her new course.

In the fore-top Garrick was a professionally exalted man. He had his problems; there was still some smoke and the way in which the entire ship vibrated to the pounding of her engines and the thumping discharge of her broadsides made use of the big, mounted spotting equipment a waste of time. The images shivered to that vibration. Instead he did his spotting shifting around the fore-top with a pair of binoculars.

The rangetaker muttered under his breath at the vibration. The rangefinder with its twin lenses gave him two images of the target and by twiddling the adjusting screw he could make the two coincide and at that point read the range. The vibration set the images dancing. “Bloody hell! He’s like to run them engines right through t’bottom. Wish they could come here and have a fist at it. Hold
still
yer daft cow!”

But he was reading ranges.

Garrick was a happy man. He had a good target at last and his guns were shooting well. He also noted with professional appreciation that the enemy cruisers were firing well. He could not judge the ‘overs’ that fell somewhere behind him but the ‘shorts’ were well together with little spread. It was good shooting, frighteningly good. He was aware also that
Thunder
was a broadside target and that the zone of the guns firing at him might be anything up to two hundred yards; that is, that a shell aimed incorrectly to fall short of
Thunder
by a hundred yards or more might still carry and hit her. Hit him.

In a momentary fleeting glance he saw Smith, hands in pockets, out on the wing of the bridge.

Broadside.

Smith lifted the glasses again to watch for its fall as the salvo dropped into the sea well astern.

Wakely said tentatively, “Their shooting’s going off a bit, sir.”

“No.” Smith’s eyes were clamped to the glasses. “He’s having trouble seeing us.” The glow behind the cruisers was dying but they were still clear against it while, to them,
Thunder
must be a ship lost in the darkness, only a black pall of smoke against the black background of the coast and the night sky. They were still shooting very well.

Wakely yelped, “A hit!”

“Yes!” Smith saw the flash on the leading cruiser that was not the flash of a gun, and a second later the thread of smoke that was not instantly shredded and blown away like the gunsmoke; this smoke trailed on.

But the salvo rippled again down the silhouette.

Thunder
fired.

Knight called, “Signal from
Ariadne
, sir. ‘Am in Chilean waters under escort.’ Looks like a Chilean destroyer lying off there, sir, lit up like a Christmas tree!”

Smith swung on his heel, staring. He could barely make out the bulk of
Ariadne
but the other ship was easy to see. Possibly she made it more difficult to see
Ariadne
because she herself was a blaze of light. A Chilean destroyer.

Aitkyne said, “She’s not taking any chances of somebody dropping one on her by mistake.”

And Wakely reported, “Enemy’s turning, sir.’’

Smith swung back. The black silhouettes were blurring now as the last of the light went but they had foreshortened, were again pointing at him, again in pursuit trying desperately to close the range. They, too, had seen the Chilean ship and knew what her presence signified. They fired.

As did
Thunder
.

Smith rubbed at his face.
Ariadne
was safe. He stared around him, at the wake creaming phosphorescent in the dusk, the dark ship. Black humping sea and black sky, tongues of orange flame, the ensign snapping a pale blur against the smoke that swirled down from the four funnels and rolled away downwind, mixing with the acrid grey-yellow of the gunsmoke. The last glow almost gone from the distant rim of the ocean, the cruisers almost lost.

One more broadside. These men of his had earned that.

He saw the cruisers’ winking fire and then
Thunder’s
broadside heeled her for the last time. As the echoes crashed away in a concussion of air, Smith ordered, “Starboard ten! Cease firing!” The cruisers were no longer a target, hardly seen. The only way they would see
Thunder
would be from the flashes of her guns. He would not give them that opportunity.

He watched for the fall of that last broadside.

The cruisers’ landed first. The familiar spouts rose off the port quarter but the shells that counted were the ones that hit them. There was a blinding burst of livid flame, and shock that sent him grabbing for handhold. He caught at his balance, recovered it and gaped aft. There was smoke but not a great deal, abaft the bridge but wisping away on the wind so he could see beyond the bite taken out of the port quarter, but no flames. The unmistakable long figure of Miles ran aft with huge strides, his filthy damage control party at his heels.

Smith thought he should have turned sooner and not hung on for that last broadside. He lifted the glasses, looking for it.

Aitkyne shouted, “Hit her, by God!”

Smith saw the winking yellow flash on the cruiser to port, right forward, the ship seen in that one camera-blink of light, then almost lost in the darkness as the night swept down over the sea. But flames flickered, tiny with distance, again. She had a fire.

Aitkyne crowed, “Gave ’em a bloody nose to remember us by! Ha!”

A seaman, soot-smeared and running with sweat, panted up the bridge ladder. “Mr. Miles, sir, says two hits, fire’s out, wireless office wrecked but no casualties.” A grin: “Sparks was away for a run-off when it ’it. An’ no serious damage aft.”

Smith took a deep breath and let it out. Thank God for that. He felt the tension running out of him, the excitement draining away and taking the nervous strength with it. They had been lucky. God! How lucky! He wondered if the rest of them really knew how lucky …

*

They came abreast of the Chilean destroyer lying in her pool of light and he saw her name:
Tocopilla
. There were plenty of men on her deck. One yell came across the gap, the words incomprehensible, then another voice, authoritative, cut it short. The first voice had been jeering.

Aitkyne asked, “What was that?”

Smith knew very well.
Thunder
was unpopular here and now she was being chased into hiding. He ignored the question. “Revolutions for five knots.”

Thunder’s
speed fell away. She was opening the channel now.
Ariadne
lay ahead of them, dawdling. Beyond her, to port were the lights of the signalling station.
Thunder
ran down on
Ariadne
whose rails were crowded with crew and passengers and as
Thunder
slid past, smoke-blackened, torn, filthy, they cheered her.

Thunder’s
decks were alive with men now, swarming like bees, wide-eyed and short of breath but they returned the cheers wildly and kept on cheering when
Ariadne
was left astern.

Their faces were turned up to the bridge.

Smith realised they were cheering him.

Garrick was down from the fore-top, grinning at Smith, who thought Garrick would have slapped his back if he dared. Aitkyne and Wakely and Knight, all of them on the bridge wore the same drunken grin. Smith thought that they had settled the colliers, brought
Ariadne
safe to port, rescued at least some of the people from the luckless
Elizabeth
Bell
and fought a long action against a faster and vastly superior force. They had survived to fight again, were legally entitled to shelter in this port for twenty-four hours and
Kunashiri
joined them on the morrow. They had a lot to be pleased about.

He felt sick and his hands were starting to shake as they always did at this time. He jammed them in his pockets. He wanted his voice to be casual but it came out harsh and abrupt. “I’m going below, Number One. Set the men to work on the damage.” At the head of the ladder he paused to say, “And well done.”

He saw Garrick’s expression had changed and that a messenger was with him. Garrick said, “Report of a casualty, sir.”

“Yes.”

“Not reported before because it wasn’t really at the point where we were hit, the second one I mean, aft.”

Garrick was rambling. Smith, desperate to be away, to find a few moments of solitude, of peace, snapped irritably, “Get to the point, man!”

“One of the loaders in the port after six-inch collapsed from fumes and they brought him out to take him down to the sick-bay. That was when we were hit. There were three of them, the man himself and two carrying him. This section of plate must have richocheted and passed them by inches and flew in the open door of the casemate.” Smith stared at Garrick as he fumbled for words. “A chance in a million, sir. Young Somers …” Then he put it brutally simply, finding no other words for it. “It cut him in half.”

*

“Signal from the shore station, sir.” Smith became slowly aware of Knight, speaking his piece, repeating it for the third time to an unheeding Smith. He realised he still stood, halfturned at the head of the ladder. Knight’s face was drawn like Garrick’s and he read the message to Smith: “
Kunashiri
in collision two hundred miles north. Entered dock for repairs, estimated two days.”

Smith said mechanically, “Very good. Acknowledge.”

He turned and descended the ladder.

Somers.

That last hit aft. If he had turned away before …

Two days for
Kunashiri’
s repairs and then she would still be near a day’s steaming away. She might as well be on the moon for any help she could be to
Thunder
. In twenty-four hours she would have to face the cruisers again, and alone.

They had cheered, those men of his because if they had not won at least they had not been beaten, they had survived.

Survived to be smashed to pieces.

It was as if he had climbed a mountain only to find he stood on the edge of an abyss.

There was a marine sentry at the door of his cabin who said, “Begging your pardon, sir —” And even lifted a hand.

Smith snarled, “Get out of my way.” He thrust past and burst into the cabin.

Sarah Benson was in there, though for a moment he did not recognise her. A heap of clothing lay on his table and a blanket on the deck. She was rubbing at her hair with a towel. She wore that barbaric medallion on the thin gold chain, it dangled, sparking light, in the valley between the taut-drawn breasts and that was all she wore.

X

Sarah Benson’s arms snapped down, spreading the towel before her, clutching it to her. Her hair hung stringy and tangled and the first sound she made as she moved was a squeak but then she shouted outrage and arrogance at Smith. “
What
are
you
doing
here
!”

Smith gaped at her, choked but finally grated out, “This is my cabin.” Then all the pent-up strains and tensions took brief and furious charge. “
Get
dressed
,
woman
,
and
get
off
my
ship
!”

He flung out of the cabin and charged away, oblivious of the wooden-faced sentry and unaware of the whistling blowout of that sentry’s breath: “Strewth!”

Smith strode the upper deck until he walked the rage away and they kept out of his way. He had blown off steam. He was sick at Somers’s death and bitter over the
Kunashiri
but these were facts to be faced. He had a duty.

He went to the sick-bay and Albrecht greeted him with, “Oh, sir. The girl we picked up from
Elizabeth
Bell
. Purkiss dug up some clothes for her, stuff that she left behind; she went over the side at Malaguay at short notice.” Purkiss was the sick-berth rating. Albrecht went on: “I put her in your cabin to get dressed. Hope you don’t mind, but there was nowhere else, a lot of the cabins are in a mess and I could hardly ask …”

Smith grunted.

Albrecht was relieved. He had heard of Smith’s baleful pacing and the reasons for it. He would not have been surprised to have his head chewed off. He said, “She’s in good shape, sir.”

Smith snapped a sharp look at him. What was behind that remark? But it was impossible that Albrecht should know — yet. But he would, because Smith could not, or would not, order that sentry to hold his tongue so it would be all over the ship in no time. Then the humour of it struck him and Albrecht saw his bleak-faced Captain suddenly break into a grin.

“Have I said something, funny, sir?”

“Wait and see, Doctor, wait and see.” Smith got down to business. “What have you got?”

“One crushed finger and two cases of mild concussion. That’s the crew. The crushed finger has returned to light duty and the concussion cases will be all right after a night’s sleep. There are five survivors if you include the girl. One deck officer and three deck-hands. Shock, all of them. Except that girl. She’s tough.”

A picture of her standing in the cabin rose in his mind. Tough? He came back to the matter in hand. He saw the cases of concussion and the survivors and spoke to them briefly. To his crew: “Well done.” To the survivors: condolences, awkward sympathy and a promise to get them ashore and into hospital as soon as possible. The officer was a tubby little man of fifty-odd, balding, with big hands that clasped and unclasped. “Poor old George. Our skipper, you know. Due for his pension, only stayed on because of the war. Bloody shame.” His plump cheeks sagged miserably. The hands would not stay still.

Smith said, “I am very sorry.”

“Not your fault, sir. Nobody could ha’ done more than you did. It was just bad luck.”

Thackeray, that twisted, bitter man was not among the survivors.

He paused for a final word with Albrecht. “Thanks, Doctor. It’s a funny sort of war for you.”

“
Funny
?
”

Smith corrected hastily. “I should say, strange. Being shot at by your former countrymen.”

“Ah!” Albrecht nodded and smiled thinly. “I suppose there is a certain ironic humour about it. And it is conceivable there might be a distant relative of mine out there now.” He paused, then added bitterly, “They’ll be gloating, I suppose.”

Smith shook his head. “Not them. Exhilarated, yes, like our chaps are, but for slightly different reasons. Their commander will be annoyed that he did not sink us. But not gloating. They are brave, determined men. They know that they can never get home, that at the end of the day they will be hunted down and destroyed. That makes them even more dangerous. There can be no turning back for them.”

“And us?”

“Nothing has changed, Doctor.”

Albrecht stared after his retreating back. Nothing changed? They were no longer discussing hypothetical situations:
if
the cruisers existed,
if
they appeared.

Thunder
was caught in Guaya like a rat in a trap.

*

Smith returned to the deck.
Thunder
cruised steadily up the deep-water channel past the little scatters of lights that marked villages. The ship was not darkened now. Garrick had lights rigged forward and aft and men milled in urgent, disciplined confusion. He encountered Wakely. “I want the fires lit in the pinnace, Mr. Wakely, ready to put her in the water as soon as we anchor.”

“Already seen to that, sir. Manton thought you might want the puncher.”

“Good.”

Both forward and aft the damage was at first sight horrendous, as it always was, as it might be expected from the blows of eight-inch projectiles of two-hundred-and-forty pounds apiece. Forward a hole gaped in the deck and below it the mess-deck was a devastated area, filthy with soot from the fire, dripping with water. Aft a huge bite had been taken out of deck and side. There was a great deal of work to be done, most of it ultimately dockyard work, but there was nothing that could not be patched by
Thunder’s
crew well enough to render her a fully effective unit, appearances not withstanding. He found the work well in hand, which he had a right to expect, but when he ran into Garrick he made a point of saying, clearly and loudly, with a score of men in earshot: “Very good, Number One. The ship’s company have behaved in very satisfactory fashion.” It sounded pompous to Smith as he said it but it could not be called back and Garrick seemed pleased, as did the men who listened.

He passed Somers’s gun, saw the door of the casemate hooked open and inside a section of the deck that had recently been washed down and sprinkled with sand.

Garrick said, “Chaps are in good spirits, sir.”

Smith nodded. He was keenly aware of it, had been watching them, catching at the tone of a voice, the quick reaction to orders, the general air of them. They were working hard and cheerfully. Joking. There was occasional laughter, some of it a little high-pitched, still excited, but laughter.

Then they rounded the turn in the channel and opened the port and the pool. Smith took his ship into port and to her anchorage, performing the evolution neatly with his usual insistence that a job be well done, but with only a part of his mind. He was preoccupied with the thought that his ship was not welcome here. A reminder was there in the way the masts of the
Gerda
poked out of the water at an angle where she had settled on her side on the bottom. They would be attacked, not with crude force but certainly in diplomatic terms.

He was not inclined to wait for that attack. So that as
Thunder
anchored, the telegraph rang ‘stop engines’, and the derrick yanked the pinnace up and over the side, he said, “I’m going ashore.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Garrick, then asked, “Do you think they’ll follow us in?”

Midshipman Vincent was on the bridge. Smith saw his startled glance and grinned. “Hadn’t thought of that? They have as much right to come in as we have.” He thought: And may well be more welcome. Then he said definitely, “But they won’t.” He did not explain.

Garrick followed him down to the entry port. “You’re going alone, sir? Do you want Knight as interpreter?”

“No.” Smith did not explain that, either, but the Port Captain would make his feelings clear enough without an interpreter and it would be unpleasant so he would go alone.

It was night, now. Darkness clothed and hid the hills but the town twinkled with a thousand yellow cats-eyes of lit windows. Half-a-dozen ships lay in the pool but
Kansas
loomed over them all. They were strung with lights, their decks crowded. The picket-boat, at Smith’s order headed for the quay above which lay the house of the Port Captain. The quay was lit by one big lamp and he could see a crowd there, too. He stood quiet, still, alongside Wakely who had the helm.

The cruisers waited for him outside and there would be no help from the battle-cruiser, no help from anyone. His choice was to fight them or be interned. Suicide or surrender.

He had coal for only twenty-four hours’ steaming.

They ran in on the quay. Two boats already lay there, tied-up clear of the steps. One belonged to the Chilean Admiral, the other to
Kansas
.
Thunder’s
pinnace slipped between them and Smith climbed the steps. At their head he found the crowd and in the forefront stood a little party. There were several women, all in evening dress, hair piled, bejewelled, gaudy as parakeets against the men. They were also in evening dress or full-dress uniform, black or navy-blue. The Chilean Admiral and the American, Donoghue. And Donoghue’s Flag-Captain and two young men who were obviously the respective Chilean and American FlagLieutenants. All of them glittered with decorations.

He saluted and smiled at them all. “Good evening. I seem to have interrupted a party. I’m sorry.” Like every other man in
Thunder
, soot streaked his face and his eyes were red-rimmed and stared. He presented a startling contrast to the group he faced.

Encalada, the Port Captain, fluent in English, almost choked at that opening remark. The Chilean Admiral had not understood a word but he scowled at Smith nevertheless. For a moment Encalada was bereft of speech and the American Flag-Lieutenant slipped into the gap. “If I may be permitted, sir, I have some knowledge of Spanish.”

His Spanish was excellent and he made the introductions. One of the party was Herr Doktor Muller, the German Consul, tall and stiff, bald and hook-nosed. The Flag-Lieutenant rolled off the titles in English and Spanish spectacularly: “Contra Almirante Gualcalda, the Navy of Chile, RearAdmiral Donoghue, United States Navy, Captain Encalada …”

Smith thought he had done his homework.

The Flag-Lieutenant came to the end of the titles and the ranks, the long, aristocratic-sounding names. Then he stumbled, “And Commander —” Only then he realised he did not know the name.

Smith supplied it for him, tersely. “Smith.”

And Donoghue remarked on that contrast, too, and grinned to himself. He said, “You didn’t exactly interrupt. We were having dinner when we heard the firing, but in the tradition of Drake we finished the meal. Then we came down to see what we could.” His eyes moved from Smith to
Thunder
lying in a circle of light out in the pool, aswarm with men. Through the hole torn in her side he could see the men labouring, tiny figures inside the smashed and mangled interior. His eyes moved back to Smith.

One more contrast. Donoghue was tall and broadshouldered, deep-chested, strongly handsome. An aristocrat. He could trace his family back three hundred years to a house in New England and before that to a castle in Ireland. It was a family that had always held rank, in the last hundred years it had enjoyed rank and privilege and wealth. It was now considerable wealth.

Smith had nothing but his pay. No family.

Donoghue saw a slight, young man, too thin, the face drawn. He cut a frail and lonely figure as he faced them all. And yet — there was something about the man, a restlessness, an energy that could be sensed even now when he stood unmoving.

They had a great deal in common and they eyed each other warily.

Donoghue said, “I see you brought your consort safe to port.”

“
Ariadne
? Yes. But we lost a merchantman, the
Elizabeth
Bell
. She was hit and sank in minutes. I’m glad I was able to take off some of her crew before she sank, but the others were lost.”

Donoghue thought about it. So did his Flag-Captain, Corrigan, lean and vinegar-faced, vinegar-tongued, puritan. Smith had been able to take some off before she sank? Both of them thought there was a deal left unsaid.

But that saw the end of the courtesies. Encalada asked, “What is your business here, Captain?” His face was set. He was angry, or rather still angry. Forty-eight hours before he had been outraged.

This was the attack Smith had come to meet. He met it coolly. “I escorted
Ariadne
to this port. As you know and can see, I have been inaction and I need to make repairs and coal —”

Encalada brushed that aside with a wave of his hand. “Your presence here is effrontery!”

“My presence here is of necessity, I assure you.”

“You have flagrantly violated the neutrality of this port!”

“This port had harboured a belligerent for —”

“That has
not
been proved.”

The Herr Doktor put in quickly, “I reiterate, neither my government nor myself accept responsibility for the collier, whose ever she was.”