Until. at the beginning of this month and just before the ship sailed, the three Brown Jobs had marched disconsolately aboard with orders stating that they were members of the Royal Artillery’s newest off-shoot, the Maritime A.A., and, as such, were to replace the ship’s own gallant Fighting Lads — the latter to be relegated to the status of common ammunition carriers and oddsbodies. Our frustrated potential Nelson of a master immediately blamed the poor bloody gunners personally for what he considered a slight on his ship and had refused to have anything further to do with what had suddenly become ‘that blasted spit tube', other than broadcasting gloomy prophecies of disaster to all and sundry.
And now it looked as though he'd been right.
I gathered a nervously returning Conway in my wake as I hurried aft along the boat deck. Mallard was now running close alongside Athenian and I could see the flat white caps on her bridge tilted back as her officers stared anxiously up at the looming cargo ship’s upperworks. I couldn’t remember having heard it, but someone must have pressed the tit on her attack alarm bell because her crew were all stood to at Action Stations. A steel-helmeted figure was moving among the depth-charge racks again, occasionally bending down to make adjustments, and I hoped like hell he knew what he was doing. Braid must have been fit to be tied right then and it was going to be an interesting and colourful conversation between him, Bert Samson — Athenian’s Master — and our own Old Man when they got round to discussing whose fault it had been.
Larabee was hanging over the rail outside the radio room when I arrived at the after end of the boat deck. He looked red-eyed and tired and I noticed his whites were badly in need of a dhobey. As we approached he turned, and the thin face looked inquisitively over at Athenian. ‘What happened, Mate?’ he said.
I looked closely at him. It was gratifying to note that even he seemed to be feeling the strain by now. A nervous flicker jumped in the wasted muscles of his cheek as he stared defiantly back. Had it been anyone else I’d have felt concern for them, but the sardonic Sparks was different. He’d asked for a load of extra tension anyway, after the way he’d flown off the handle about my offer of a replacement for old Foley. I glanced briefly over at our sister and was greatly relieved to see that the smoke had almost died away, though they were still playing hoses on to the blackened shell of the W.T. cabin and smoke-room. A macabrely appropriate description, now—smoke-room.
‘Dunno, Larabee,’ I grunted, trying to be as unhelpful as possible. ‘Someone put a shell into her, looks like.’
I didn’t stop but I could feel his eyes on the back of my head as I swung down the well deck ladder. He would never forgive, nor forget, what I’d done to him in the radio room the previous night. Larabee wasn’t the forgiving type. I shrugged inwardly — I should worry. Second wireless operators didn’t bat in the same league as chief officers, and Larabee wasn’t even a regular Company man, he’d only been provided by Marconi as a temporary replacement himself because our original Second had been seriously injured by a Liverpool Corporation tramcar, of all things, while weaving across the road from one pub to another. The chances were I’d never have to see the obnoxious little cynic again after this trip.
I met the Third Mate at the bottom of the after centrecastle ladder. He glanced almost guiltily at me as I frowned queryingly. He wasn’t due to relieve me from the bridge until 0800 and Curtis normally clung to his bunk right up to the last minute.
‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he mumbled, and judging by the white creases of strain flecking the sunburn round his mouth, I half guessed the reason why — his nerves were taking a beating. That made him a candidate to join the John Kent Coward’s Club too. He said he’d just run aft when he heard the bang so I pushed past him and didn’t think any more of it at the time.
It was a bit odd, though…
The long barrel of the 4.7 was still pointing forlornly to starboard as I reached the poop, with the three D.E.M.S. blokes gathered in a huddle behind the oildrum-shaped breech. The bombardier, Allen, came nervously to attention as I approached, and the two other soldiers shuffled uncomfortably. They looked an odd crowd as they stood there watching me with resigned anticipation, what with the two gunners being big and tall while the gun commander was a little, fat, dumpy character. They looked a lot stranger by virtue of the fact that they were all standing in their issue underwear. This made me even more bloody angry because, as I’ve already said, we were pretty careful about how we looked aboard Cyclops and I wasn’t prepared to allow any scruffy pongoes to come on board and act like a lot of casual layabouts.
I ground to a halt in front of the fat little bombardier. ‘Right, Soldier! Who did it..? Who bloody did it?’
His round, chubby face screwed up and I could see he was nearly in tears. I didn’t give a damn for their feelings, though. It only needed a glance at Athenian to know that men had died violently over there, and the tell-tale traverse of the gun confirmed what Brannigan had already said— that this was the weapon responsible. The bombardier started to shake and the identity discs round his neck clinked together over the khaki vest. He didn’t seem able to speak with the fear of retribution inside him, but I was in no mood to be sympathetic with a man whose mistake must have cost irreplaceable lives.
I smashed the flat of my hand down on the barrel of the gun and gritted, ‘Which one of you bastards is responsible for firing this?’
When the bombardier’s voice came it was only a cracked, almost indistinguishable, whisper. ‘None of us, Sir. There weren’t none of us up here when she fired.’
It was a day for surprises. I stared at him disbelievingly. ‘It must have been one of you… Allen, is it? Or are you trying to say the bloody gun just fired itself, with no one up here?’
He shook his head numbly. ‘No, Sir. No, it couldn’t fire off its own bat. Not without someone to load it for a start.’
His two mates just stared stolidly ahead with regimented, thousand-yard-stare eyes, offering no help to the floundering bombardier. I glanced at Conway, but he was frowning across at the other ships, watching as Mallard sheared away from Athenian and, with a sudden splurge of white water under her stern, pulled rapidly ahead of the formation. The ratings on her foredeck were trooping back aft and I supposed Braid had called them from Action Stations on the assumption that we had finished shooting at our opposite number for the time being.
I turned back to Allen in frustration. ‘Now, listen to me, Corporal…’
‘Bombardier, Sir,’ he muttered, sniffing.
I felt my jaw tightening. ‘Bombardier… I want to know who fired this gun a few minutes ago, and I want to know now! I want the man whose bloody criminal stupidity caused that…’ I waved my hand, ‘to happen aboard Athenian.’
The rounded cheeks quivered. ‘I dunno, Sir. We was all in our kips downstairs when it happened.’
I blinked. ‘You saying you were all below? None of you were up here on the poop?’
He shook his head positively. ‘None of us, Sir. Like I said, we was all sleeping when we heard the shot over our ’eads. We tumbled out pretty sharpish but, when we got up ’ere, Phyllis was pokin’ her nose at that ship there and there wasn’t a soul near her. Mind, it was pretty dark at that time, an’ all.’