‘Phyllis?’ I queried, trying desperately to think.
‘The gun. Sir. We call it Phyllis… after my old woman.’
I tilted my cap back, feeling the sun’s rays starting to beat down on my shoulder blades. One or two of the sailors were clustered inquisitively round the top of the ladder but, when they saw me glancing towards them, they quickly disappeared in case I remembered day-work men turned to at four bells and it was now well past that. I didn’t bother right then, though — I had another problem to solve before I concentrated on the domestic running of the ship.
I gazed suspiciously at the little bombardier. It didn’t make sense. No one else aboard would want to play around with the gun on their own, and certainly not in what was damned near the middle of the night, and in pitch darkness.
Allen went over to the after end of the 4.7 and pulled a lever. The shining brass cartridge case slid out through a puff curl of spent smoke and fell with a clang on to the freshly caulked wooden deck sheathing. An acrid whiff of burnt powder caught my throat as we bent forward to inspect the softly gleaming shell case.
‘Check the ready-use locker, Ewing,’ said the bombardier, with surprising authority in his voice. He nodded at the spent case and looked up at me. ‘Fixed H.E., Sir. Looks like our usual ammo.’
One of the big gunners turned from the locker where the immediate supply of ammunition for the gun was kept. ‘One round missing, Bomb.’
Allen seemed to have regained his confidence now, and shrugged as he caught my eye. ‘That’s it then, Sir. Some bastard’s been interferin’ with Phyllis, and it weren’t none of my blokes. I’d swear to it.’
The way he said it gave me the impression that he wouldn’t have been half so upset if the Phyllis in question had been the real one and not the mechanical monster sitting so oddly out of place on our stern. I started to get a tight feeling in my belly as I got up and walked slowly aft to the taffrail, stopping under the big Red Ensign that stirred restlessly above me. Leaning on the rail, I stared moodily into the boiling tumult of white foam under our counter, trying desperately to figure out who could possibly have wanted to commit such a bloody stupid act in the first place, and that raised yet another frightening thought. If it wasn’t the army crew — then it must have been one of the ship’s complement!
A tinny, rattling sound made me look down and I realised that the metal band of my watch strap was vibrating against the metal of the rail. I became aware of the tremendous shudder caused by the threshing of the twin screws underneath me as they twisted against the water pressure at what was, for us, excessively high revolutions. We were still on emergency speed and running away… but from what? The whole voyage was turning out to be a succession of nightmare mysteries, of effects without apparent causes, of ships sinking so quickly that they didn’t have time to get off more than an indication of their positions, and of Brock’s benefit displays in the middle of the night in an area where even a cigarette glowing in the dark could invite, a sudden, choking death. And now… our gun.
A bloody silly gun called Phyllis.
I swung to meet the little bombardier’s eyes fixed defiantly on me as the other two soldiers hovered almost protectively behind him, and I knew Allen was telling the truth. Whoever had fired that gun hadn’t come from the D.E.M.S. crowd. The Old Man wasn’t even going to have that slender crumb of comfort to sustain him.
‘It wasn’t us,’ the bombardier repeated earnestly.
I nodded and saw the look of relief in his eyes. ‘I know, Bombardier. But I’m damned if I know who else would want to play silly buggers up here in the middle of the night.’
He glanced at me strangely. ‘How d’you know they was… well — playin’, Sir?’
I stared back, feeling the knot in my belly tighten even more. ‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged again and the I.D. discs clinked faintly. ‘I dunno that I mean anything, Sir. But these guns ain’t easy to fire by accident. The drill’s pretty complicated, if you see what I’m gettin’ at?’
‘You’re suggesting that the gun was loaded and fired intentionally?’
He swallowed nervously. ‘I know it was, Sir. But I can’t see no reason for anyone to do it, mind.’
Neither could I. But if… if… the shot had been fired deliberately, then the second question was obvious — had it been fired AT Athenian, or…?
I jerked my chin at the long barrel. ‘How accurate is it, Bombardier?’
‘Theoretical range, ’bout ten thousand yards, Sir. But I wouldn’t like to bet on hittin’ anythin’ at much over half that.’
I glanced over at Athenian, noting at the same time that the smoke had almost completely ceased to issue from her wounds. The hoses still snaked over her decks like long white tapeworms, but her crowd were now busy rolling them up and stowing them away. Several figures seemed to be moving into the burnt-out wireless room. I was glad I wasn’t one of them. Mentally I estimated the distance between us… still about five cables — roughly one thousand yards. She was so near in sea room terms, we could have damaged her with spit.
I pointed. ‘How close could you place a shell on Athenian, Bombardier? Could you be fairly sure of hitting, say, an area the size of her wheelhouse with reasonable accuracy?’
He spat contemptuously to windward, then brushed the khaki vest vigorously as he found there was more to seamanship than a vague knowledge of how to tie knots.
‘At this range, Sir? An’ without the boat goin’ up an’ down…? I could put a shot through one of them little round windows on one side, then out the other without scratchin’ the paint.’
I nodded. It was a reassuring thought, if it were true, for when we ever met a U-boat but, at the same time, it told me something else. Demolishing Athenian’s radio room hadn’t been a pure mischance. I thought back to the big, black silhouette steaming close abeam of us during the night, every detail picked out against the stars behind: the acute angle of the after end of her centrecastle standing out as stark and clear cut as any naval gunnery target, and less than one-fifth of the distance away. Always assuming the unknown marksman knew how to fire the gun, of course.
The docking telephone secured to the rail behind me buzzed angrily like a captive wasp. Conway quickly opened the door of its protective cabinet and answered. I could hear the Donald Duck bellow even from where I stood. The cadet went a bit whiter and, standing back, pushed the receiver anxiously at me.
‘The Captain, Sir,’ he said, unnecessarily.
I lifted the phone gingerly. ‘Chief Officer, Sir.’
The chipped metal receiver spat back at me immediately. ‘Have you got the bloody madman that did it yet, Mister? I’ve just had a signal from Mallard and another one from Bert Samson over there. Now you just bring the murderin’ bugger up to the bridge this minute, d'you hear? Right away, Mister Kent!’
I winced. ‘I’ll come right up, Sir.’
As I hung the phone back inside its box I caught a glimpse of young Conway watching me with a comical, almost understanding expression on his face. Maybe, now, he was beginning to find that bucko mates weren’t the only antisocial bullies aboard ship.
It took quite a time to convince Evans that the R.A. gunners weren’t the people responsible for what had happened. Finally, he quietened down enough to listen to me and looked pretty disappointed and shaken about it too. I read the signals he handed me with an even sicker knot expanding in my belly. The first was from Athenian… BOTH RADIO OFFICERS ALSO CADET SIMPSON D KILLED TWO RATINGS SERIOUSLY WOUNDED ALL WT EQUIP DESTROYED… WHAT HAPPENED QUERY SIGNED SAMSON END.