Читать книгу Kerrell - Henry Taprell Dorling - Страница 10

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IT was past 3 a.m., the darkest and chilliest hour of the morning. For the third time since reaching the patrol line five hours before, the Libyan, having arrived at its southern end, had again turned to the north-eastward in the wake of the ship ahead. She was third in the long line of eight destroyers.

Though the night was dark and the sky heavily overcast, the visibility was good. There was a slight haze or sea-fret hanging over the low-lying Dutch coast to the eastward, but lights could be seen at their full distance. Throughout the patrol the regular winking of the Maas Lightship had been clearly discernible to the north. From the south-west came the blink of the light-vessel marking the Schouwen Bank, from the south the flash of a shore lighthouse.

The sea was calm and the night intensely still. Moving at fifteen knots the ship slipped along without much fuss or commotion—merely the rhythmic plop and gurgle of the bow-wave, and the hiss of parted waters alongside, mingled with the regular humming throb of the fans in the stokehold uptakes.

Every now and then snatches of conversation from the crew of the forecastle’s 4-inch gun, sitting on deck beside their weapon, came to the ears of those on the bridge. Someone on deck occasionally whistled a monotonous little tune, while another man had tried to enliven the monotony and banish his sleepiness by starting to sing a lugubrious ditty beginning with the words, ‘She was only a fireman’s daughter, but her heart was a heart of gold.’ His effort, by no means tuneful, had instantly been nipped in the bud by a chorus of groans and catcalls and cries of “Cheese it, Birdie! For Gawd’s sake, cheese it!”

And even Hendry the austere had been forced to smile when a loud and plaintive voice, the voice of the cook’s mate, was heard to demand: “’Oo’s pinched me purple boots? Carn’t even leave me muckin’ boots in the galley but some perishin’ son o’ sin of a sailor must bleedin’ well nick ’em!”—“’Oo in ’ell wants yer ruddy boots, you blistered water-spoiler?” another voice chimed in. “You give me that blazin’ cocoa wot you promised an’ look sharp about it!”—“You don’t get no muckin’ cocoa till I finds me boots!” the cook’s mate was heard to retort. “I carn’t even take the blinkin’ things ’orf for a drop o’ shut-eye but one o’ you lop-eared bleeders must—— Blimey! Sorry, mate. ’Ere they are, all the time! Strike me blinkin’ well crimson if I ’avn’t bin usin’ ’em for a pillow an’ forgot all abart it!” More apologies. Then silence.

The night was still, but above the sounds of the ship there came an insistent rumble like the growling of distant thunder, now swelling almost to a dull roar, now dying away to a muffled throbbing like the beating of far-away drums. It was the everlasting clamour of guns, the guns massed on the Western Front, which, eighty miles away to the southward, came down to the sea close by the little Belgian village of La Panne.

“Poor devils!” Hendry murmured, thinking of the troops in their trenches. “They never get a rest.”

Being in the navy had its advantages. One had a pretty ghastly time occasionally, and little sleep, especially in a destroyer in bad weather. There were few of the usual amenities of life when actually at sea, while at any moment of the day or night the ship might find herself in action. But anything was better than wallowing waist-deep in the mud and filth of the trenches under constant shell and rifle fire. Moreover, in a ship, however small, one carried one’s home with one, and in harbour it was possible to have a bath and a change into dry clothing.

The captain had not left his bridge since the patrol started. With a pipe between his teeth, he stumped nervously up and down, to and fro, with his hands in the pockets of his duffle coat. He paused every few moments to sweep the dark horizon with his glasses, to look at the compass, or to peer at the chart on the dimly lit chart-table.

Throughout the night Toby and Pardoe had taken alternate two-hour spells of duty on the bridge, and three o’clock in the morning found the sub actually on watch beside the captain. The first-lieutenant could legitimately have been asleep in his cabin if he had wished to be, and he was deadly tired. But he had not the heart to sleep when the guns and torpedo-tubes were fully manned, and their crews awake and watchful. It was up to him to set an example. Moreover, weary as he was, he was in no real mood for slumber. The ceaseless muttering of those distant guns was disquieting. The air seemed charged with ominous foreboding, and he had a strong presentiment that something might happen, and happen quickly. He had no wish to find himself below when it did, to scramble hurriedly on deck with his eyes unaccustomed to the darkness.

Instead, he prowled about the upper deck, visiting the men at their guns, stopping sometimes to talk to Mutters, who, wrapped in an oilskin and many mufflers, dozed on the warm casing beside the hatch of the engine-room, or to Mr. Huxtable, who, fair weather or foul, could never be persuaded really to leave his beloved torpedo-tubes when they were cleared away at night and ready for action. If those torpedoes were fired, they would be fired suddenly, and the responsibility for their straight running and correct depth-keeping rested with the gunner (T) and his torpedo-men. Torpedoes were nervy, erratic things, almost human in their perversity and personal idiosyncrasies. If he were there to see them leave their tubes, they might behave themselves as all good torpedoes should. If he were not, they would most assuredly retaliate by playing him false, either by wandering in a curve due to a gyroscope failure, or by diving deeper than the six feet for which they were set. The ‘mouldies’ were Mr. Huxtable’s children. His was the hand that petted and coaxed them, his the brain that diagnosed their interior ailments—and they wanted some diagnosing.

Mr. Midshipman Foley, however, had no such qualms about remaining awake, nor had the young doctor. Descending to the hermetically sealed and stuffy wardroom to brew himself a cup of cocoa and to nibble a ship’s biscuit, Kerrell found them both fully dressed and fast asleep on the settees on either side of the mess under the rows of scuttles. Hartopp lay with his head on the brown canvas haversack marked with the red cross which contained his bandages and lint and dressings, while a pocket instrument case lay on the table beside him. The snotty reclined on his back with his mouth wide open, and Kaiser, the wardroom black kitten, coiled up asleep in the crook of his arm. Kerrell hadn’t the heart to disturb them. They were both young. If anything were sighted and the ship went into action, the alarm gongs would give them sufficient warning.

Returning on deck and dodging under both pairs of torpedo-tubes, which were trained out on either beam and whose lips extended almost to the ship’s side, Kerrell wandered forward, to halt for a moment at the foot of the ladder leading to the forecastle. He was on the upper deck, his eye at a height of about fourteen feet above the water, and looking out on the starboard bow he almost immediately noticed that to the east-north-east and east there was no longer any rigid line of demarcation between sea and sky. The horizon had become indistinct, blurred and nebulous, which could only mean one thing. The low-lying haze over the land must gradually be thickening and moving seaward.

His binoculars, a pair of 12-power Goertz’s with wide object glasses, were slung round his neck on their strap, and instinctively, without stopping to think, he raised them to his eyes. The mist, which was still some distance away, was not really thick. It seemed to be lying in thin wisps and streamers and patches a few feet over the surface of the sea, and in places he could see well through it. The wreathing eddies of vapour might unite later to form fog, but now, at any rate, the visibility was still fairly good.

He was swinging his glasses forward for the last time preparatory to putting them down, when he suddenly held them rigid. Fine on the starboard bow their powerful magnification had shown him a long horizontal layer of inky black cloud over the low-lying bank of haze. It seemed rather unnatural and out of keeping with the pervading greyness of the sky. Was it cloud? Was it something else—smoke?

It was indistinct, probably invisible to the naked eye, and hardly daring to breathe lest he should lose it, he kept the glasses to his eyes. And as he watched the dark smear seemed gradually to be lengthening out to the right and becoming more and more distinct.

By God! It was smoke—smoke, and there, faintly visible as darker shadows in the mist itself, were the ships who were making it!

There were several of them, in close formation. They carried no lights, and in a second or two, trembling with excitement, Toby could even see the whitened blur of their bow-waves. They were at a distance of between three and four miles, steaming fast on a course approximately opposite and parallel to the Libyan’s.

As yet there were no signs that the strange ships had been seen from the bridge—no sudden clanging of the engine-room telegraphs to show that the ship had increased speed, no clamour of alarm gongs to warn everybody that action was imminent. Toby did not wait. Darting up the two steep ladders he arrived breathless at Hendry’s side.

“Captain, sir!” he exclaimed, seizing him by the elbow. “There are ships fine on the starboard bow coming the opposite way!”

“Where?” Hendry demanded.

“Roughly two points on the starboard bow!” Toby said, pointing and levelling his binoculars. “I saw them from the upper deck!”

“Are you dead certain?” Hendry growled, after a few moments’ unsuccessful scrutiny. “I can’t see anything.”

His voice was full of doubt, almost as though he imagined Toby were suffering from hallucinations.

“I saw them a moment or two ago from the upper deck, sir,” the younger officer replied, still peering. “But—but I can’t see them now.”

Hendry laughed, rather unpleasantly.

From the upper deck, low down over the water, the strange ships had been clearly visible through Kerrell’s powerful glasses. Now, from perhaps twenty feet higher, they seemed to have been completely swallowed up in the haze. But their smoke still persisted. It was smoke. He was certain of it.

“Do you see that long dark patch, sir, low over that bank of mist?” he asked, beside himself with anxiety lest his information should be disbelieved and an opportunity lost.

“Yes.”

“If you follow it to the right you’ll see it’s gradually lengthening out, sir. And——”

“I’ve got ’em!” the captain suddenly broke in, his voice thrilling with excitement. “Pardoe!” he added over his shoulder, without moving the glasses from his eyes.

“Sir?”

“Alarm gongs, quick!”

A deafening metallic clangour resounded throughout the ship as the sub-lieutenant pressed a bell-push on the bridge. Before it had even died away men could be heard rushing to their action stations and closing up round their guns.

“I can see ’em plainly now!” Hendry murmured. “It was damned good work on your part to spot ’em, first-lieutenant! Jolly good!”

Toby felt an inward glow of satisfaction. It was the first real compliment the captain had ever paid him.

“Shall I get the guns on them, sir?” he asked eagerly.

“Yes! Yes!” the lieutenant-commander hurriedly exclaimed, the glasses still to his eyes.

Toby moved to the centre of the bridge and spoke down a voice-pipe to someone in the transmitting station in the chart-house beneath.

“Gun’s crews, close up!—On loading lights! Range—five five double oh! Deflection—two oh right!—Repeat, man, repeat, can’t you?—Yes, that’s it.... Bearing, sir?”

“Green three five approximately,” Hendry told him.

“Bearing—green three five,” Toby continued. “Enemy destroyers!”

“Don’t load yet!” the captain said. “Wait for orders.—What’s our leader doing?”

Toby looked up and peered ahead.

“Nothing,” he answered. “She’s still steering the same course and hasn’t increased speed.”

“Then she hasn’t seen them!” Hendry exclaimed. “Lord! They’re as plain as a pikestaff!—Signalman?”

“Sir?”

“Whistle up the—no, run down to the wireless office and tell them to make ‘Enemy destroyers steering sou’-west.’ Quick, man, quick! Get a wriggle on!”

The signalman tumbled down the ladder. He needed no encouragement.

The shapes of the approaching vessels could now be seen with the naked eye. Their range was dropping fast.

“Damn it!” the lieutenant-commander grumbled, stamping on the deck with impatience. “I can’t stand this! Those fellows ahead are doing nothing! They’re all ruddy well blind!—What d’you say, Kerrell? Shall I haul out of the line and go for ’em bald-headed?”

“I would, sir,” Toby replied, his nerves tingling. “If they’re Germans we can’t do wrong to engage.”

“Of course they’re Germans!” Hendry muttered to himself. “Port ten, coxswain! Full speed both!”

“Port ten it is, sir!”

The coxswain moved his wheel. The Libyan’s bows swung to starboard, and as the engine-room reply gongs clanged, the ship seemed to leap ahead through the water. The telegraphs to ‘full speed’ was an emergency signal to the engine-room, and Mutters, forewarned by the sounding of the alarm gongs that something unusual was happening, was giving the turbines every ounce of steam he could.

“Midships!” Hendry ordered. “Meet her starboard.—Steady so!”

The ship was heading for the centre of the enemy flotilla.

“Enemy right ahead!” Toby ordered to the man who had now come to the voice-pipe. “Range four thousand! Deflection—two oh right!”

The orders were repeated.

“Shall I load, sir?”

“Carry on,” said the captain. “But don’t open fire till I tell you.”

“All guns—load!”

They heard the hollow thump as the projectile was rammed home into the breech of the forecastle 4-inch. Then the metallic sound of the brass cartridge, followed by the clang of the breech-block closing behind it.

“Ready!” a man shouted.

“Range—three five double oh!” Toby passed down, and then, after a pause—“Three thousand!”

“Is our next astern following?” Hendry suddenly asked, his eyes still on the enemy.

“Yes, sir,” the leading signalman answered. “They’re all comin’ round after us.”

“Thank heaven for that! We shan’t be alone. First-lieutenant?”

“Sir?”

“If I have an opportunity of ramming, I shall take it. Otherwise we shall engage on parallel courses with guns to port. I shall run in to point-blank range.—Have both sets of tubes trained to port!—Tell the gunner to fire if he gets a decent chance!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Toby, with a coolness that he did not feel. His mouth felt dry. His heart was pounding with suppressed excitement, pounding in a manner that he had never known it throb before.

“Range—two five double oh!”

The suspense was becoming almost unbearable.

The two groups of destroyers, steaming at full speed, were approaching each other at the rate of about sixty knots, the speed of a fast railway train—2,000 yards a minute, 100 yards a second. The enemy seemed to be drawing slightly across the Libyan’s bows.

From 2,500 yards the distance dropped rapidly to 2,000, and from 2,000 to a bare 1,500. The enemy were now plainly to be seen with the naked eye—a line of rushing black shapes with plumes of white water curling up from their sharp bows, and huge white wakes astern. A pall of dense smoke trailed in the sky behind them. Two of them were flaming redly at the funnels.

Gazing at them through glasses, Toby could see five or six ships in the nearest column, and others beyond. They each had a couple of widely spaced, upstanding funnels and two tall masts—German, without any possible vestige of doubt. It was unnecessary to make the ‘Challenge.’

“Our leader’s altering course this way, sir!” someone shouted.

“Damn the leader!” Hendry muttered. “It’s too late now!”

Toby heard an order given to the coxswain, who grunted in reply and put the helm over. The Libyan heeled over under full helm with the water nearly washing over her deck as she started to turn to get on a parallel course to the enemy and slightly on his starboard bow.

“All guns!” Toby shouted. “Range two thousand!—No deflection!—Point of aim, bridge of leading enemy destroyer.”

It was a breathless moment.

Hardly had he spoken when a series of brilliant reddish-golden flashes rippled down the side of the enemy’s leading ship. Almost simultaneously, his second and third ships also opened fire.

With the crashing thud of the salvos, there came an eerie whistling and whining overhead as the shell drove through the air. Where they pitched Kerrell had no time to see, for the next instant, when the ship had been steadied on a slightly converging course with the hostile leader slightly abaft the beam, Hendry gave the order to open fire.

“All guns!” Toby howled. “Independent—commence!”

With a crash and a dazzling burst of flame, which for the moment blinded everyone on the bridge, the Libyan’s guns fell to work as fast as the men could ram home projectiles and cartridges.

The range was a thousand yards, and still closing.