To Risks Unknown (41 page)

From his position in one corner of the bridge Crespin saw the gunlayer fall, but his mind barely recorded it as the thrown spray cascaded over the port bow in a solid sheet.

The speaker behind him intoned, ‘Enemy in sight! Bearing green two-oh! Range oh-six-oh!'

The last of the spray drifted clear, and as he steadied his glasses once more he saw the
Nashorn.
It was strange how they had managed to draw so near to each other without becoming visible, he thought. She seemed to detach herself from the side of the island on the starboard side of the channel, materialize out of the blue mist even as he watched, her ugliness making it all the more unreal.

Three miles away, yet already he could see the massive hump of her armoured bridge, the two funnels streaming smoke as evidence of her captain's efforts to reach his base. There was another long flash, and seconds later a tall waterspout burst directly in the
Thistle's
wake.

‘Starboard ten!' Crespin gripped the screen tightly. ‘Midships!'

Another scream and crash, the whirlpool of the falling shell appearing dangerously close to the last one.

But perhaps it was too close, he thought. Any one of those shells could destroy an M.L. or schooner without even having to obtain a direct hit. The corvette must be a more difficult target.

He shouted, ‘Hard aport!'

Clinging to the screen he pulled himself along the tilting deck to watch as another shell exploded in direct line with the others. Good shooting, provided the target remained on a set course, or was too small to withstand a near miss.

He looked at Wemyss. ‘Midships!' He added, ‘We must close the range! If we can give Shannon a chance we might be able to do some damage.'

A bosun's mate looked up from a voice-pipe. ‘Four-inch requests permission to open fire, sir!'

Crespin nodded and pressed the button. The crash of the gun drowned the gong, and he guessed that Shannon had been itching to fire, although at this range and in the hazy visibility any hit would be pure luck.

When he peered astern he saw that the land had vanished behind a low wall of brown smoke. It was a screen put up by the floats and momentarily effective. The German gunners would be more inclined to concentrate on the
Thistle.

The breech clicked home and he heard Shannon rasp, ‘Repeat that deflection, you fool!' Then, ‘Shoot!' Another armour-piercing shell tore away from the gun, and seconds later the speaker intoned, ‘Short! Up five hundred!'

Crespin said, ‘We will close the range and then turn away.' He saw Porteous nodding, his face pale beneath its tan. ‘I will make smoke and then drop both boats with the depth-charges. When the enemy enters the smoke I am hoping the charges will explode close to her. While her captain is making up his mind about the cause, I'll go about and have another crack at him!' He grinned to try to reassure Porteous. ‘Just so long as we can stop him from turning away. If he does that he can bring both guns to bear on us. A straddle would buckle this little hull like a soup tin!'

There was another slamming crash and a column of water towered above the bridge like a solid thing, gleaming in the sunlight, hanging there as if it would never fall.

Crespin felt the jarring clatter of splinters against the side, the demoniac scream of others as they whipped overhead.

‘Starboard fifteen!' He felt the spray across his neck as he groped for the compass. It tasted of lyddite.
‘Midships!'
He had to keep zigzagging if he was to avoid one of those massive shells. But the turns must be as haphazard as possible. Any sort of mean pattern would soon transmit itself to the German gunnery officer.

‘A
hit!
' Shannon was yelling like a maniac. ‘Jesus, we hit the bastard!'

Crespin steadied his glasses, feeling the ship canting in response to the helm He was just in time to see the brief red glow below the
Nashorn
's boat deck. Then it was gone.

‘Range oh-five-oh!'

Griffin muttered, ‘We'll be close enough to board the bugger soon!' It brought a smile to one of his signalmen and he was satisfied.

Crespin said, ‘We will close to three thousand yards and then turn …' He looked round for Porteous and then flinched as the next shell exploded right alongside. For the smallest part of a second he had felt it coming. Like a change of hearing, a brief shadow, it was all and none of these things.

When it burst the bridge was plunged into shadow and the world was confined to a crushing onslaught of falling water, of screaming metal and the overall feeling of helplessness.

Crespin felt himself slipping and falling, his feet knocked from under him, his hands and knees scraping against steel as the deck tilted violently and then staggered upright.

For an instant he thought he was the only one left alive.

Then, as Griffin and Porteous scrambled to their feet and another man tried to claw his way from beneath an upended flag locker, he looked up and saw the jagged remains of the radar cabinet, the gaping holes in the funnel, and tried to gauge what the damage would be like below, nearer to the explosion.

When he attempted to stand he felt a pain lance through his side, sharp and agonizing, and he looked down, expecting to see blood, to know that he had been hit. There was nothing.

Porteous gasped, ‘Are you all right, sir?' He looked dazed.

Crespin nodded, biting back on the pain. ‘I think it's a rib.' He pointed at the ladder. ‘Get down and see what has to be done.' He ducked as another explosion shook the hull and more spray soaked down across them, shocking them into movement and thought again.

He saw Porteous dragging himself to the ladder and then walked back to the gratings. One of the young signalmen lay face down beside the chart table, his fair hair moving in the following breeze. Griffin was on his knees beside him. Then he took Crespin's discarded oilskin and covered him.

Griffin returned to his position at the rear of the bridge. He said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes.

‘Port twenty!' Crespin waited, holding his breath, then he heard Joicey's voice, ‘Twenty of port wheel on, sir!' Thank God the wheelhouse had been spared. ‘Midships!'

‘She's turning, sir!' A lookout was pointing wildly, his forehead covered with blood.

Crespin craned over the screen. ‘We are going about!' He saw Shannon and the gun captain staring up at him. ‘We can't allow him to pull over and use the other gun!' He noticed Shannon was grinning, his teeth white in his grimed face. He swung round as Porteous reappeared on the bridge. ‘Well?'

Porteous said, ‘Starboard side, right on the waterline, sir. But mostly superficial, except for some splinters.' He gestured above the bridge. ‘Radar gone.' He shuddered. ‘Willis and his mate, well, there's nothing left of them.'

‘What other casualties?'

‘Two stokers from damage control, sir.' Porteous held up his hand as if to shield his face as a shell screamed above the bridge, pressing them down with its shockwave and cutting away some signal halyards as cleanly as a knife.

It exploded, and Crespin saw the waterspout far away on the port beam. He wiped his glasses and trained them over the screen as the
Nashorn
fired again. But it was her after-gun, and he saw her ugly outline lengthening still further as she completed her turn and headed for the opposite side of the channel. It was now or never.

‘Hard astarboard!' He ran from the voice-pipe and dragged Porteous towards the ladder. ‘Tell Number One to lower the boats and get ready to slip them!' He hurried back to the side and snatched up the red handset.

‘Chief? Captain speaking. I want you to make smoke …
now!
' He slammed the handset on its rack and clung to the compass as the ship continued to swing round in a wild turn.

Order and timing seemed out of place now. The corvette strained round, her deck almost awash as the sea sluiced up over the side. It was a world gone mad. Made worse by the billowing fog of oily smoke which gushed from the funnel and a dozen splinter holes as well, it was like a new nightmare. At regular intervals the shells arrived. Tall white columns of water, they appeared to be all round the ship; this side and that side, until it was almost too hard to count the seconds between each one.

‘Midships!' The hull bucked hard beneath him, and more jagged splinters hammered the side. ‘Steady!'

The smoke came down in a choking cloud, blotting out the sun, while the
Thistle
plunged into her own screen. Then she was through it, and as the drifting fog mounted astern she pushed back into the sun, her screw still racing at full speed.

Crespin wiped his streaming eyes. ‘Slow ahead!' He could imagine Margot's surprise, but there was no time to delay now. He must get rid of those depth-charges. Another shell burst somewhere astern. He waited, biting his lip, feeling the pain in his rib, as if his ship's own agony had reached out for him also.

He said tightly, ‘Just one shot! She's turned again and is after us!' It had worked. He clung to the top of the ladder and peered down at the litter of punctured plating and the snaking patterns of fire-hoses.

Both boats were swinging on their falls barely a foot above the dying bow wave. Wemyss and the damage control party were staring up at him, and he saw Defries right aft by the pom-pom tying a bandage on a seaman's wrist as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Crespin cupped his hands. ‘Slip the boats, Number One! One at a time. You'll have to cut the falls, so get a move on! I don't want to hang about!'

He saw Wemyss wave and then felt himself being hurled backwards on to the bridge. He had heard nothing. One minute he had been watching Wemyss, the next he was falling, hearing his own voice cry out in agony as his ribs crashed against an unyielding piece of steel, seeing the sunlight through the smoke, his reeling mind registering, as if in a dream, that the foremast was falling, the battle ensign suddenly near and very white as it was dragged down and out of sight below the bridge.

He had reached the plating below the compass and could even see the neat rivets beside his mouth, but he still seemed to be falling. With the falling came the darkness, the sunlight drawing away. Like dropping down a well, he thought vaguely. Then it was completely dark, and the noise and pain ceased abruptly.

The
Nashorn
's shell exploded halfway down the port side, less than ten feet from the hull. The men working by the davits were killed instantly, and the boat itself, splintered in a dozen places, sagged to the full extent of the remaining falls so that it scooped water over the bows, while the two depth-charges rolled and banged unchecked from their severed lashings.

Sub-Lieutenant James Porteous had just left Wemyss and his lowering party at the starboard boat when it happened. But for the shelter afforded by the superstructure abaft the bridge he, too, would have died, and as he seized a stanchion to stop himself from being hurled overboard he felt the blast from the explosion ripping at his body with the force of a pressure hose. He must have been momentarily deafened, but as his hearing returned he heard the crash of breaking metal, and through the smoke he could hear someone screaming.

He groped his way back to the davits and saw Wemyss crouched on one knee, his thumbs pressing into his leg, as he tried to stop the bleeding. Two seamen lay beside him, and another, unmarked but quite dead, sat propped against the guardrail, his eyes fixed on the others with something like hatred.

Porteous shouted, ‘I'll get the S.B.A.!'

Wemyss shook his head, gritting his teeth against the pain. ‘Get to the bridge! Never mind these damn boats!'

It was then that Porteous remembered seeing the captain fall. Up to that moment it had been shut from his mind by shock. Totally excluded, like a page ripped from a book.

He nodded and began to pull himself up the bridge ladder. Another shell exploded somewhere, but he hardly noticed it as he concentrated all his strength on getting up the ladder. It seemed to take an age. Every steel rung stood out with stark clarity, while other things below and around him stayed hidden in a mist.

When he passed the wheelhouse he saw more bright-edged splinter-holes and spurting jets of smoke from the opposite side.

As his face lifted above the bridge coaming he almost dropped back to the deck below. His eyes were level with something which moved its arms and legs like a living person, even though its face had been wiped away.

Sobbing, Porteous heaved himself on to the bridge, his shoes crunching across broken glass and woodwork and other hideous fragments which made his mouth choke with vomit.

Griffin was squatting by the voice-pipes, his head on his hands. He looked up suddenly and tried to grin. Then he croaked, ‘Skipper's down 'ere, sir!'

Porteous dropped beside Crespin's sprawled figure below the compass. His face was very pale, and when he tried to move him he felt blood on his fingers.

Griffin crawled across the deck and gasped, ‘Take over, sir! For Gawd's sake,
do
somethin'!'

Porteous suddenly realized the significance of Griffin's words. For the first time he became aware of the voice-pipes, the cries and curses which seemed to be aimed at him, the crash of explosions beyond the bridge plating, and above all the fact that he was entirely alone. Crespin seemed to be dead, and Wemyss too badly wounded to get here and help him. God alone knew what Shannon was doing. He felt his mind giving way to sudden terror and he knew that in a few more seconds he would be quite unable to move. It was then that he looked down and saw that Crespin had opened his eyes.

Griffin struggled round, heedless of the broken glass, and lifted Crespin's shoulders across his knees.

Porteous asked thickly, ‘Are you all right, sir?' It was a stupid question and he knew it. But just listening to his own voice again helped to steady him.