Thunder at Dawn (19 page)

It was like dropping a stone down a deep well. For seconds Phizackerly sat dumb, blank-faced, eyes slits. Then he reached out fingers like talons to claw at Olsen’s arm. “Sailor? From the cruiser?”

“He came last night. Over the wall at the back. He’s downstairs now.”

Phizackerly groaned. “Give us a hand.” Olsen helped him from the bed and he sat on its edge, pulling on his clothes, and whispered huskily, “A mender. Get us a mender.”

Olsen went downstairs. When he returned Phizackerly was dressed and splashing water on his face. He could not find a towel so pulled up the ample tail of his shirt and used that. Then he took the glass of rum from Olsen and sank it, gasped, coughed and chased it down with the black coffee. “Right.” He headed for the door, still moving stiffly but drawn on by the emergency that caused him to leave his teeth grinning in the cup.

*

The girl whispered, “Coffee.” And Gibb took the proffered cup and drank. It was stuffily warm in the room but he still sat huddled as a man in the grip of cold. The girl was afraid that her fear would show in her face but he never looked at her, only stared at the wall.

Phizackerly and Olsen entered. Phizackerly glared at Gibb with hatred and jerked his thumb at the trembling girl. “Out.” She fled.

There was no room for doubt. Gibb’s clothes lay on a chair. But to be absolutely certain: “You’re a deserter.”

Gibb did not answer.

Phizackerly yelled at him, with an old man’s shrillness, “You’re off the cruiser!”

Gibb muttered, “Yes.”

Phizackerly chewed it over and his toothless jaws moved in time with his thoughts. He had to get the bugger out of it. That was the first thought that formed, because if the law found him here there would be a hell of a row. They might even close the place. Then he thought it was more difficult than just throwing him out on the street. His capture then would be certain, he would be questioned and he would say he had spent the night at Fizzy’s Bar.

His head ached.

Thunder
lay out in the pool and the cruisers waited outside.

This was a personal matter between Englishmen.

He said to Olsen, “Fetch the rum.” And when it came, “Give us a half-hour. Keep that girl’s mouth shut an’ everybody else out of here.”

Phizackerly poured the rum, got Gibb to drink it and saw him shudder, nodded to himself as he refilled the glass. It was an investment. Gibb would not be the first man to be taken unwillingly or unwittingly and dumped on a ship that waited for him out in the pool. Phizackerly had done that before now to oblige a skipper and turn an extra penny. This was a different situation altogether, mind, but his back was against the wall. Sometimes you had to use force and Olsen carried a blackjack but Phizackerly judged that this time the rum would suffice, that and a good talking to.

He poured and he talked, about England, the Navy, duty, honour, comradeship and the rum gave him a marvellous sincerity. But his sharp little eyes watched Gibb keenly and saw despair give way to bewilderment and then stupor as the words flowed over him and the rum ran down to sink its teeth into his empty belly.

Olsen returned and together they got Gibb into his clothes. He moved slowly, dazedly, as he was told. Olsen brought a coat to hide Gibb’s working dress and Phizackerly muttered, “Right. He’s going back. I’ll see to him. You hold the fort here. Tell nobody nothing till I come back, only I’m out on business.”

Olsen said, “He is good boy after all.”

Phizackerly stared at him. “He’s a mug. You wouldn’t get me on that old bucket for all the tea in China! Now clear off!”

He heard the distant popping of musketry, a salute and the lonely call of the bugle and knew what it meant. He glanced furtively at Gibb as he worked the coat on to him but the young seaman had not noticed. The rum had him. It was going to be hard work getting him back to his ship. Phizackerly swore under his breath.

He turned as the window was thrust open and he saw a burly, grizzled man in overalls swinging a leg across the sill. Another half-dozen crowded behind him. Phizackerly said, startled, “’Ere! What’s all this?”

Farmer Bates said placidly, “All right, Fizzy, me old son. It’s the Navy claiming its own.” The others climbed in after him except one who stood on watch.

Phizackerly blew out his cheeks. “Cripes! I’m glad to see you.” And as Burton crossed to the door, opened it a crack and peered out, “Don’t worry. Nobody’ll bother us. You won’t have no trouble.”

Burton closed the door and grinned at him. “Good. We don’t want no trouble.”

Phizackerly knew a tough bunch when he saw them but he was a much relieved man. It was going to be all right.

*

When the pinnace reached
Thunder
Smith said, “Stay alongside, Mr. Manton. I’ll want the picket-boat in ten minutes.” He ran up the ladder, returned Garrick’s salute, went to his cabin and shifted out of his dress suit and into his shabby old uniform. He snatched his binoculars and as he stepped into the pinnace he asked Manton, “You’ve got the boat lead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Take her to sea, Mr. Manton. I’m curious to see our friends outside.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The pinnace swung away and headed out of the pool and downriver. Once more they ran down the broad deep-water channel with its steep, forest-clad walls, down to where Stillwater Cove opened up to port and opposite, to starboard, a bare quarter-mile beyond the old channel, stood the signalling station on its little hill. Smith saw light wink there as a telescope or binoculars was trained on them. They would be reported by telephone. He shrugged and lifted the glasses to his eyes. The cruisers were in sight.

One lay close outside Chilean waters and the gunboat was alongside her. The limit of Chilean waters was clearly defined because the Chilean destroyer
Tocopilla
was steaming slowly back and forth along a line outside the mouth of the river, marking that limit as if with a rule and chalk. That was a deadly monotonous business, patrolling that line like a sentry pacing his beat and they would be at it till morning. Smith thought the Chilean Captain probably consoled himself with the thought that he would have a grandstand seat when the morning came.

The pinnace plugged on out to sea against the flowing tide, lifting and falling now as it met that sea but the weather of recent days was only a bad memory. True, the sky was totally overcast but the sea was near calm and the pinnace rode it easily.

He picked out the other cruiser, standing a mile or two further out to sea, hove to. Saving her coal. She was running on a short rein that got shorter with every minute. Smith had seen to that when he sank the colliers.

He lowered the glasses and rubbed at his eyes. They were still a threat. They could still get coal after they had settled with
Thunder
. Some. They could coal in the port of a neutral country once in three months. Ringing the changes on the neutral countries that lined this coast, they might survive some little time. And they might, if they were very lucky, capture an Allied collier. But every time they put in for coal their position would be known. They had lost the element of surprise; Smith had wrested that from them, too, with the sinking of the colliers. Now there would be no quick, easy pickings and there would be almost immediate and increasing pursuit, starting with that battle-cruiser.

Theoretically they could well have entered Guaya at
Thunder’s
heels and coaled there. That would have put the Chileans in a dilemma with their refusal to supply Smith. They had not done so because of the twenty-four hours rule. If the cruisers had entered Guaya, and then
Thunder
had sailed, they would have had to give her twenty-four hours start. That was international law.

So they waited outside, for
Thunder
, and an annihilating victory that would shake the world with the length of the German Navy’s arm, and its strength.

Manton said nervously, “Chilean destroyer’s signalling, sir.”

Smith realised he was glaring sightlessly out to sea and cracked his stiff face in a smile. “No doubt.” They were close to
Tocopilla
now and she was heading, still on that rigid line, to pass close across the bow of the pinnace. She was warning them to keep clear, that they were close to leaving the sanctuary of neutral waters.

Smith said, “Hard a’starboard. Copy her course, Mr. Manton. Half ahead.”

The pinnace slowed and came around to run parallel with
Tocopilla
. The officers looked down on them curiously from the bridge of the destroyer as she forged past then left them tossing in her wake. Smith lifted the glasses again as the destroyer’s smoke rolled away. He could see the nearer cruiser and the gunboat alongside her, clearly now. He watched for a minute then handed the glasses to Manton and took the wheel himself. “Take a look.” He waited until Manton lowered the glasses and then asked him, “Well?”

“It looked like ammunition they were loading on the
Leopard
, sir.”

Smith said, noncommitally, “Yes.” He had been quite certain of what he had seen but it had also been what he expected to see so he had wanted confirmation. Now he had it. It was one more point to be home in mind, that now the gunboat had teeth.

But she was no threat set beside the cruisers. He turned over the wheel to Manton and reclaimed the glasses. The further cruiser was too far away to be seen in detail, but the nearer — he thought the fore-turret looked very odd, one gun of the pair bent at an angle. He let Manton see. “As Mr. Aitkyne put it, we gave her a bloody nose.”

“By Jove, yes, sir!” Manton stared a long time and yielded the glasses only when Smith said, “We’ll return to the ship.”

They did not return directly. Having run in under the signalling station and its watchful glass, Smith said, “Steer four points to starboard. Slow ahead.” The engine of the pinnace slowed until she slipped through the water at a walking pace. They crept into Stillwater Cove and on Smith’s order Buckley took station in the bow with the boat lead. They took soundings for the length of the cove and proved deep water, or near as deep as the main channel. They chugged back to the centre of the cove and anchored and the engine expired in a sigh of steam. Smith stood over the compass, checking bearings. The pinnace scarcely moved where she lay, his bearings showed him that, despite the flowing tide that thrust at her, rippling around her bow. She did not swing at all.

Smith stared for a minute or two at the forest wall that climbed sheer from the water of the cove, then across the channel to where the signalling station was just visible around the right-turning curve of the main channel. As he was visible to them. They could not see this stretch of the channel but they could see the cove and himself. Just.

He cast one last look around at the cove, the forest, the channel, then smiled at Manton. “Home, James.”

They ran back up the channel.

As they opened up the pool his eyes went first, of course, to
Thunder
, appraising the work done and finding himself well content. She was grimy still but a sight cleaner than that morning. He would have to give some orders on trim. Terribly light with near empty bunkers, she rode high in the water. Then his eyes drifted across to
Kansas
, lying massive, ugly in her menace but lovely in the clean lines of her.

Manton said, “She’s enormous.”

Smith smiled thinly. The cruisers could set a steel trap across the mouth of the river and he could act out defiance here but the argument was between themselves. There was no argument as to where sea-power on this coast ultimately rested, whenever she chose to take it.
Kansas
seemed to doze in the late afternoon.

Five minutes later he faced Garrick and Bates. A look at Bates’s face was enough but he asked, “All well?”

“Took a lot longer getting back, sir, but all well.”

Garrick added, “In the cells.”

One look at Garrick’s unhappy face was also enough but Smith only said, “Very good.”

When Bates had gone Smith stood lost in thought, smiling faintly. That was one worry out of the way. As for the rest … He turned the smile on Garrick. “Now, about this bun-fight. Mr. Wakely will be in charge of the gramophone. All officers, except for watch-keepers, will be present and I want it understood that this
is
a
party
. Anyone who does not enjoy himself will answer to me.” He grinned. “And a word to the Paymaster. I have no doubt at all that the recent action will have destroyed some of his canteen stock, notably beer and probably of the order of two bottles per man, and I will expect to sign a certificate to that effect.” That he would do with a clear conscience. The canteen stock would be a total loss inside twenty-four hours.

As Garrick knew perfectly well, but he returned Smith’s grin; it was infectious.

They discussed the trim of the ship and Smith said what he wanted done. He told Garrick about the
Leopard
and how she had been armed by the cruiser. “
Kondor
, I think.”

He said how she had been hit. He told him of the soundings in the cove and that he wanted steam for sunset. And then he gave one last order that startled Garrick, that would have to be passed to the Chiefs and Petty Officers and would mean more work for the men — after they had their beer.