Thunder at Dawn (22 page)

“Ease her a point to port.” His voice was husky but there was a new note in it that brought a quick, curious glance from Smith. The whine was gone and the authority lost for fifteen years was back. He was the pilot and this ship was his charge. “Steady.”

“And a half, five!” The hail came back, the voice disembodied, its owner unseen in the bow. Phizackerly nodded. That was right.

Thunder
crept on through the channel that seemed narrow in any event between the cliffs of forest, was in fact desperately narrow where the deep water lay, where it counted. She seemed suspended, unmoving, in a small world of darkness and mist where even the clock was slowed to tick leadenly away the seconds of the night. The night went on for ever. Fractional changes of course, minute adjustments, with the bridge sparsely staffed by rock-still figures and the only sounds the slow-turning screws and the regular muted hail from forward, “By the mark, five!” … “And a half, five!” … “A quarter less five!”

They touched, the barest tremor rubbing gently at the skin of the ship beneath them and away. Touched again. And again. But always
Thunder
slid on.

They passed a village on the bank, the pin-point dull red glow of a fire’s embers there and a dog that howled and barked, startling the hand in the bow so his call came: “By the mark —
Bloody
hell
! — by the mark, five!”

And Smith said, “By the bark, five.” Nobody laughed. They grinned nervously in response to his tight grin, teeth white momentarily against pale blurs of faces. Garrick wondered how he could find a joke, however weak, at this moment, because Garrick, like all of them, was aware of the risk that Smith ran.

As also was Smith. If he failed in this then at best he would somehow have to try to take
Thunder
astern into the main channel and to the fate that awaited her there. At worst
Thunder
could be stranded and interned, probably to lie for ever in this swamp to rot.

But they were better than halfway through and with time in hand. He had taken one more calculated risk and it was going right. In three hours or less it would be dawn but by then —

“
And
a
half
,
four
!” There was an urgency about that hail and the figures were sufficient to invest it with that urgency.
Thunder
was running into shoal water.

Phizackerly said, “’Ere!” And: “
Stop
her
!”

Smith snapped, “Call back the picket-boat!” And to Phizackerly: “Silted?”

Phizackerly scowled. “Sounds like it. Should be deeper than that.”

The screws were still,
Thunder
drifted with the little way on her, stopped. The pinnace slid alongside and Smith called down, “You’re certain about that last sounding?”

Buckley’s voice came up, “Dead sure, sir. Straight up an’ down. And we got another after: four an’ a half fathoms.”

The tide was at the full, slack water. Soon it would start to ebb and
Thunder’s
chance of running the channel would drain away with that ebbing.

Phizackerly said heavily, “She’s silted. Never did afore, though it was always a chance, like, cause the channel forks here. Straight ahead there — see that light?” And as Smith nodded, “Another village on the right hand bank where the channel goes on, that’s what that light is, but the true channel turns to port near ninety degrees and she’s silted out from that
left
hand bank. So there just ain’t the
room
to make that turn. Aw, hell! Of all the bleeding luck —”

Smith cut him off. “We’ll take a look at it.”

They went down into the pinnace and Manton took it creeping away from
Thunder’s
inert bulk to sound the channel. Phizackerly’s forecast was proved depressingly correct. Over the years a bar had built up, maybe it had been building in Phizackerly’s day, grain upon grain, running out from the left hand bank and cutting into the channel. The deep water was still there, just. If
Thunder’s
length had been less by fifty feet she might, just, have worked around that tight turn. As it was, she could not. They explored the channel where it ran straight ahead, the false channel, and proved it to be just that. The water was deep for about forty yards but then shelved rapidly. Phizackerly thought exploring it was a waste of time anyway. “It peters out. Another three, four hundred yards and you can walk across.”

The village on the bank had its dog. It barked, howled, paced restlessly on the bank opposite them, barked again.

Smith said, “Back to the ship, Mr. Manton.”

It meant feverish activity, furious work. Smith’s carefully hoarded time was being eaten away by this check, even if this check did not prove final and fatal, as it boded.

They cast off the boats that they had towed thus far and
Thunder
ran slowly ahead into the blind channel. So slowly. Her progress before had been creeping; now she barely moved. As she approached, lights blinked on in the village, and as she nosed into the channel, eased inching forward with barely a ripple at her bow, the population of the village stood on the bank, shrouded in blankets. They clustered together, eyes wide, fists to their teeth as
Thunder
grew on them out of the mist, first heralded by the distant, muffled slow drum-beat of her engines that came to them more as vibration than sound, felt rather than heard. Then a looming but unsubstantial spectral shape that became finally too real, black and huge, towering over them. Miles in the bow stared down at them and wondered what they made of it. Even the dog crouched, silent now, kicked into silence.

Thunder
ran gently aground. Labouring they took a heavy cable aboard the pinnace, dragged its sagging unwieldy length to the right bank of the true channel and made it fast to a rock outcrop.
Thunder
went astern on both engines till she slid her bow off the oozing bottom, then slow astern on the starboard engine and dead slow ahead on the port while the capstan aft hauled in on the cable. It tautened, straightened and as
Thunder
came out of the blind channel her stern started to edge around towards the true channel.

Smith gave all his orders from the port wing of the bridge where he could see the channel and the slow-swinging stern and the pinnace anchored at the point of the spit that ran out from the far bank. The ship was still in darkness because any inordinate display of light might still be reflected and seen from Punta Negro, but he could see the water of the channel, slack water still — or was it ebbing now, pushing gently at the pinnace? He could see all he needed and they watched him. He saw the critical point and ordered, “Stop engines!”

Thunder
was not clear of the blind channel. She still drifted astern with the way on her, still turning and with the cable dragging her around in an even tighter arc than before. Yet the stern edged across the channel until it hung over the pinnace and Manton broke out his anchor and shifted from under with Buckley sweating and swearing. The stern touched, dragged with that shiver through the ship and as the stern swung so did the bow as the capstan hauled her around and now the bow stroked sand, and stopped. The stern hesitated in its arc and the Chief at the capstan chewed his lip and Phizackerly’s lips moved. The cable was bar-taut and the rock groaning out of the earth.
Thunder
was aground fore and aft across the channel.

The stern shivered again, moved, moved on as the cable groaned, coming around. The rock tore out of the bank like a tooth and the cable sagged and the capstan stopped. But
Thunder’s
stern pointed towards the sea and she floated.

Phizackerly breathed, “Gawd amighty!” He voiced the sentiments of many and one of them Garrick. Phizackerly thought there would be many a tale told about this lot. He would tell a few himself and he wouldn’t need to lie.

A party in the whaler recovered the cable and the boats were taken in tow again. The pinnace took station ahead and
Thunder
headed once more towards the open sea- stern first.

The channel ran straight. Only once she struck, hesitated for a second on a bar right under her until the engines went full astern and dragged her, grating, over into deep water beyond. Smith thought he could see the faintest wash of phosphorescence where the sea broke at the mouth of the channel and Phizackerly leaned wearily on the rail. “There she is, then. She’s yours, Mister.” He felt washed out, limp, drained by nervous tension. He thought that Smith and his men had laboured like madmen for the privilege of having their heads blown off.

The dinghy was hauled alongside. Smith scribbled in his notebook, ripped out the page and tucked it in the pocket of Phizackerly’s jacket. “A note for Mr. Cherry to say that you’ve done us all an enormous service tonight. Thank you.” He held out his hand and Phizackerly shook it. “The dinghy is yours. Away you go.”

‘“Thank you, sir.” Phizackerly sniffed and cleared his throat. “God bless you, sir. Good luck to all of yez.” He was properly embarrassed so that it came out in an awkward mumble as he headed for the ladder but they heard it and his sincerity. He was their last tie with the land. He went down into the dinghy and the seaman holding it there thrust it clear and climbed the ladder as the dinghy and Phizackerly bobbed away astern of them and was gone.

The boats came alongside and the men poured aboard and went straight to their action stations. Smith snarled at Kennedy, “Get ’em aboard! Quick as you can!
Quicker!
” Kennedy ran and Smith shouted after him, “And cast off the boats!” Garrick’s head jerked around although he knew the order would come. Smith knew Garrick believed they would need those boats, and he was right, but they could not waste a second now let alone the time needed to recover the boats.

The pinnace they towed.

In the fore-turret the 9.2 was cleared away. Farmer and Chalky White shipped the circuits for lighting the layers and trainers telescopes and Gibb the circuit for lighting the dials. Communications were tested.

Gibb’s heart thumped but he was watching the others and seeing the tension in their faces. Farmer turned his head and winked. Gibb licked his lips and grinned, feeling the muscles move stiffly. But they accepted him. He was back and one of the team; they needed him. Farmer had said, “Just do your job and hold on like the rest of us.”

He would.

*

A minute later they were clear of the widening channel. For minutes more
Thunder
steamed out to sea as they strained their eyes against the darkness, but there was no challenge, no sudden salvo smashed out of the dark.

There was a gradual stretching, an easing as the tension ran out of them, so that for the first time they were aware of the chill of the night, of weariness, thick mouths and gummy eyes. There was no sense of achievement, only disbelief that they had done it, that they had forced the channel. Only slowly did it come to them that they had slipped through the net.

Thunder
was free.

XIV

Cherry was shot on the stroke of midnight. The German consulate was only minutes away but Muller was long abed, preparing to be out at Punta Negro when the dawn came. It was nearly an hour before his staff, after hearing of the shooting and then dithering, finally woke him. When they did he smelt a rat but his cautious, surreptitious enquiries took time and when he found out the police held Kaufmann he could not believe it. That fool was under orders to watch
Thunder
!

So it was three in the morning when he went hurrying through the dark alleys down to Kaufmann’s boat and got the story from the yawning engineer. Despite Muller’s efforts the British had found a diver and dragged up from the Gerda — what? He did not know. He could make a guess but it did not matter. They had been satisfied with what they had found and gone running with it to their Consul. That was enough. The British would demand more time for
Thunder
and would probably get it, though he would fight them. But he was in a bad position now.

One thing was clear: the cruisers must be informed.

Kaufmann’s boat cast off, surged away from the quay and headed for the channel. Muller was gratefully aware that he was leaving a hornets’ nest behind him; the Chileans would be hammering on his door soon and demanding explanations from him. He was grimly aware that he must return sometime and face them, but he had time. He needed time to think.

When they sighted the signalling station at Punta Negro they also sighted the lights that marked
Thunder
where she lay in Stillwater Cove and as they came abreast of the cove Muller glared in, then stared.

XV

Thunder
was free, the Pacific open before her.

Free? It was an illusion. Smith said, “One man from each gun or department to the galley to draw. At the double!” And as the pipes squealed, “Slow ahead both.”

He left the bridge to Garrick and went down to give Manton his orders. The boy looked tired, strained, as also did Wakely who was now on duty on the bridge. Both had worked continuously through a long night. It was still night but the day was not far off and Smith thought it would not be a long one. He gave Manton the orders for the pinnace. “You’ll be running north along the coast, full speed ahead and you must not attempt to conceal it. No stoking restrictions now. You will maintain course and speed until you are recalled. Is that understood? Repeat the orders.”

Manton repeated them, stumbling on a word but correctly. Smith asked, “Any questions?” And when Manton hesitated, Smith told him why.

A messenger trotted up with a paper-wrapped, greasy bundle of sandwiches in one hand, a kettle of tea in the other and lowered them down to the pinnace. The two cooks had prepared a mountain of bacon sandwiches as
Thunder
had crept through the channel. A low cheer came up from the pinnace.

Smith held out his hand to Manton. “Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir. And to you, sir.”

Smith watched him climb down into the pinnace. He was sending Manton away with only Buckley and Quinn, the signalman, Rudkin the engineer and Jenner the stoker. He heard Manton give the course, saw the pinnace sheer off and heard Buckley’s pained, outraged protest: “Bloody ’
ell
! We’ll be seen for
miles
!”

Smith smiled bleakly and returned to the bridge. He stooped over the chart with Aitkyne and then ordered, “Steer three-four-oh.” He went to the voice-pipe and spoke to Davies in the engine room. “Chief, I’m going to want full speed ahead in a hurry.”

“Not now?” Davies knew they were clear of the channel, had slipped through the net.

“No. Revolutions for eight knots.” Smith turned away and far below in the clanging, roaring cavern of the stokehold the black gang spat on their hands and hefted their shovels.

He stood on the starboard wing of the bridge as
Thunder
headed out into the Pacific. Davies had thought they would be running full pelt for the north and safety but it was too soon for that. They had forced the channel and slipped the cruisers, but got clean away? That was too much to dare to hope for.

Smith swept the sea astern of
Thunder
once more with his glasses then lowered them and rubbed at his eyes. There was light astern but it was the glow against the cloud base that came from the lights of Guaya. And to starboard? He stared at the light between
Thunder
and the coast and Kennedy said, “That’s Manton, sir.”

Smith knew it. The pinnace was invisible at that distance but through his glasses Smith saw the light as a trail of sparks and a recurrent whiff of flame that pointed to her funnel and her position as plain as any pointing finger. It was a sign of appalling, careless stoking. Or a craft sacrificing any attempt at concealment for speed in flight.

Kennedy said involuntarily, “A bleating lamb.” And bit his lip.

Smith only said quietly, “Yes.” It was true enough. He had staked out the lamb. He would have to live with that decision. If any of them lived.

He ordered, “Starboard two points. Steer three-five-oh.”

Thunder
came around until she was running north at eight knots, parallel to the coast and to the course that Manton steered; he could still see the pinnace, just, a pricking, blinking red light.

Smith asked, “Bearing and range to the pinnace?”

Kennedy reported, “Bearing green one-five!”

“Range eight-four-double oh!” came down from the rangetaker.

The figures coincided with Smith’s rough estimate. That estimate would have been good enough but the confirmation was useful and anyway, it did the rangetaker good to get his eye in. Smith worked out a little triangular problem in his head and got another rough answer: Manton led them by about eight thousand yards on a parallel course two thousand yards from that of
Thunder
. As Smith wanted him, and wanted
Thunder
.

He turned aft once more.

The ship was quiet now, closed up at action stations. Garrick had gone to the fore-top, and Smith held the bridge with Aitkyne, Kennedy, Knight and Wakely. Action stations. He was coldly aware once again that this ship, preparing to fight for her life, had not been intended to fight any such action. So her complement had been reduced. Now the eight guns on the main-deck were manned by scratch crews of off-watch stokers and others, though they had fired under Garrick, exercised under Smith. And the effective range of the six-inch guns was only six thousand yards.

He snapped irritably at Aitkyne, “Keep a good look-out astern!” And hid behind the glasses. Searching. Searching.

*

Was there a first faint lightening of the sky in the east? The sun rising now but still hidden behind the mountains of this mountainous coast?

They had been running for nearly fifty minutes.

Smith stood still, waiting, outwardly calm. Inwardly he was cherishing a wild hope, now. He had planned for one eventuality but now another, too ambitious to hope for, seemed a bare possibility: they might have got clean away. He still could not believe it. The chances of the decoy lights remaining undiscovered in Stillwater Cove dwindled as the night wore away and it was incredible they should not be discovered.
Thunder
was only matching the eight knots of the pinnace, she could run faster than this if she was going to run and now it looked as if the chance was there.

He had coal, just enough, to steam hard for a port in Peru to the north. There was a chance to escape annihilation, to coal and wait for the Japanese battle-cruiser,
Kunashiri
, and then sail south again with her …

*

It was time to commit himself but he still waited though no longer able to contain that familiar restlessness of his, forced to pace out along the bridge and return, sensing the tension that prickled between Kennedy and Wakely, Aitkyne, that seemed to still all life on the ship.

The voice cracked urgent from the masthead: “Smoke bearing green one-six-oh!”

The still figures on the bridge jerked to life. Smith croaked, nerves slurring his voice, “Full speed ahead!” His glasses swept an arc on the approximate bearing and found first the faintest blink of funnel flame that marked the smoke that climbed black against the glow of Guaya.

Aitkyne quietly reported, “Smoke bears green one-five-nine. Range six thousand.”

The smoke lay five-and-a-half thousand yards astern of
Thunder
, was on the same course as the pinnace and maybe thirteen thousand yards astern of
her
. He was sure the ship, whoever she was, would not see the pinnace — yet. He swept the glasses from right to left, from the smoke astern through a blur of darkness to settle on the funnel flame of the pinnace, fine on the starboard bow. He stared at her then lowered the glasses.

His voice sounded harsh to himself as he ordered, “Get that man down from the masthead!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

The minutes ticked away and the softly called bearings and ranges marked the minutes like the hand of a clock as the bearing ticked around the compass as the cruisers made up on the pinnace and crept up more slowly on the accelerating
Thunder
and edged out to sea towards her.

“Bearing green one-five-five … Green one-five-oh … Green one-four-five, range three-thousand.”

Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty. All the time
Thunder
was working up to her full speed so the cruisers came up more slowly, and all the time he watched their smoke. His eyes were not playing tricks now. There was a lightening in the sky to the east so that the mountains now stood vague but black against the background of the coming dawn.

It would be a fine day.

He caught the flickering white of broken water that was bow-wave and wash below the pall of funnel smoke and the ships came up.

They were there. Two of them.
Leopard
, with less than half the cruisers’ speed, would be trailing far behind. He could make out their silhouettes, or rather one long, blurred silhouette because they were in line abreast, the farther a fraction astern of the closer, seaward vessel. So that both of them could see the chase ahead and both could fire. They
had
to see the pinnace now; they were about five thousand yards astern of her —

They fired! The long tongues of flame ripped the night and Smith snapped his eyes shut against that glare. “Starboard ten!” He opened his eyes and the flames had died and out of the dark came the slamming bellow of the cruisers’ guns.
Thunder
was heeling under him as he strained his eyes, peering for the cruisers and saw them take shape again off the starboard beam.

“Midships!”

Thunder
was near her full speed and driving down on a course that would intersect that of the cruisers and take her across their bows, if held.

“Bearing green seven-oh! Range two thousand!”

The cruisers fired again, lighting up the dying night and this time he saw them lit in that split-second of brilliance, surging along at full speed, swift, powerful, deadly. They were still astern of
Thunder
but edging up to draw level with her. Unaware of her; intent on the target ahead. They could not see that target to identify it but were firing at the distant funnel flame, banking on the million-to-one chance that it could be no ship other than
Thunder
, a certainty.

The target. Smith remembered the target was the boy Manton and his little crew in their tiny cockleshell. A nearmiss from one of those massive shells would swamp them and sink them, a hit would leave only splinters for flotsam. And another ghost to haunt him.

Wakely reported, “Picket-boat’s still in sight, sir.”

“Thank you.” Of course Wakely would be watching out for the pinnace, for Manton. But that last salvo had not landed yet and if they survived it they would have to survive another.

“Range one-seven-double-oh!’’

“Port ten! … Midships!”

“Midships, sir!”

Thunder
heeled then straightened and Smith swayed to it, eyes fixed on the shadows of the cruisers. Close!
Thunder
ran dead straight, paralleling the cruisers’ course but leading them, on their port bow. It seemed they
must
see
Thunder
, but while they stood against that first faint light
Thunder
was out in the black void, and they were not looking for her there, eyes locked on the prey ahead.

“Bearing green one-three-oh! … Range one-five-double oh!”

The cruisers fired and now the crash of discharge followed only a blink after the flash. They were that close.

Through the shadows Wakely’s voice came clear, edgy, “Picket-boat still in sight, sir.”

So they had survived the second salvo but there was still the third, hurtling towards them now.

He could,
must
forget them.

This was the time.

“
Open
fire!”

There was an instant when he checked his breathing as if he was physically firing a rifle, then
Thunder
heaved as she fired her broadside. Simultaneously the searchlights crackled as their carbons struck arc to create the point of intense white light that was reflected by the big dished mirrors in the searchlights, beams flooding across the thousand yards of dark sea to swallow the dying flames of the guns and bathe the nearer cruiser in light — as the broadside struck her.

This was ‘Smith’s game’, that they had played so many times with the pinnace and they had learnt the rules by heart.

The broadside could not fail to hit, fired at point-blank range, the trajectory virtually nil and the time of flight of the shells less than two seconds. Their impact was seen as the echoes of the guns’ firing hung and their smoke still whipped on the wind.

It was
Wolf
. The ships were twins but Smith was certain that it was
Wolf
that took the broadside from the two turrets and the six starboard six-inch guns that fired as one seemed to take them all with leaping orange flash of burst, spurting grey smoke and explosion of impact that came rolling back across the black water.

He shouted, “
Douse
/” The searchlights expired and the darkness rushed in to smother
Thunder
but he could still see
Wolf
. She was afire in three places, one aft and two amidships. Flame painted her black and yellow and shivering but very clear, very close. She would be closer yet.