The carrier was fifteen hundred feet below them, turning full circle. A monstrous gash showed on her port quarter where one torpedo had struck. Further for’d below the side lift, the second torpedo had blown a hole the size of a London bus in her side. Flames and smoke were pouring from it and fire parties were crawling like ants about the flight deck, trailing their snaking hoses behind them.
Over to the west, the frigates were firing at the missiles, sea-skimmers streaking in low. Time and time again the missiles slewed clear at the last second, diverted by ECM. He saw the flash on Penelope’s bridge, the tell-tale orange smoke and the wads of black fumes and sparks spilling from her innards.
Below the cab, he saw the missile strike against the island, abaft Furious’ bridge.
He could watch no longer: Old Fury was like an ex-champ, stubborn, proud, refusing to go down. Her list seemed to be steadying at about twenty-five degrees. Goeben and Athabaskan were turning at speed, heeling outwards, firing with everything they had … and then, as the fuel tank indicator began flashing, Grog shouted, cracking Hob’s eardrums.
‘There she is! Zuiderkruis!’ Four miles away, perhaps: up sun. Hob kept her in manual and chopped her back. The Dutchman was ready for him, had steadied up and was butting into the force five that had got up.
‘Ready in the back, harnesses?’
‘Yeah — strapping in,’ Dunker called. ‘Well done, Hob.’
Minutes later her wheels touched. He cut the engines, slammed on the rotor brake, as the Dutch handlers began slithering beneath the slowly revolving blades …
Hob never knew what happened next. There was a shrieking, whistling sound, a blinding flash, the crack and heat of an explosion. The cab, still with its rotors revolving, crashed, the undercarriage crumpling, as the flames on the flight deck of the Dutchman began engulfing her. She slid, toppling sideways briefly before tumbling over the side. Her blades caught in the netting.
‘Brace, brace, brace!’ Hob yelled.
The world spun round the trapped helicopter crew; they heard the swish of beating propellers. ‘For rents of water were deluging upon Hob as he groped for his window. The cab was upside down.
Hob tugged at his harness, but could not free it. Grog was getting out. Dunker Davies was going too, but Hob could not free himself, his harness jammed in the patent lock. Now tearing frenziedly at his harness, he was fighting for breath as the sea began to claim him. He was choking, he could fight no more … he saw Allie distinctly for a moment… then he felt powerful hands beneath his armpits, glimpsed the gleam of a blade flashing at his harness.
He heard Osgood shout, felt himself being hauled upwards, being shoved through the window. The aircrewman was scrambling, half-swimming, kicking and threshing towards his own side door. The cruel, dark sea was all round Hob, smothering, roaring, drowning him. He could hold his breath no longer; then suddenly everything stopped. He heard the sound of breaking waves. An arm was about him; Grog was yanking at the inflating tag. Hob, feeling his consciousness going, made a desperate effort to retain his senses.
Grog slid him into the survival raft which they all carried on their backs. The second pilot lashed the two of them together and it slowly dawned on Hob that the sun was out. They were on their own — and alive.
Of the helicopter, there was no trace: nor of Dunker, nor of Osgood.
Chapter 26
The quietness, the utter loneliness was what they found the most unnerving. Grog had secured both the survival rafts together and, in his semi-consciousness, Hob heard him shouting above the breaking waves. His voice bore a forced cheerfulness which began to irritate Hob’s throbbing headache. That Bunker and Osgood had both disappeared was a shocking thing which Hob’s mind could still not accept.
‘For God’s sake!’ Hob yelled. And in the silence which followed he heard only the rhythmic chuckling of the breaking waves. He lay back more securely into his survival raft, checked that his homing beacon was still functioning.
‘You’ve not got your bleeper switched on?’ he shouted. ‘Not wasting its batteries.’
‘Yeah, Hob. Okay, mine’s off.’
Together, by their common cord, they floated with the swell, lurching to the crests for a glimpse of the endless horizon; swirling down to wallow in the troughs. And then, on an upward swoop, Hob saw the trail of low-down smoke, yellow and brown against the rose-tinted clouds of dusk.
That’s Old Fury,’ Grog said. ‘Bloody miracle — she’s still afloat.’
‘Old Chough’ll get her home,’ Hob said. ‘He won’t let the bastards have her.’
‘I thought I saw Zutderkruis,’ Grog said, ‘to the northward.’
They paddled their tiny survival rafts round to face the northern horizon. When they reached the crests, they saw her, smoke pouring from her.
‘She’s sinking,’ Grog said.
During the next half-hour they caught sight of the fast combat ship intermittently, until finally they saw her founder: her stubby bows reared skywards, her stem poking above the jagged horizon-line, like a shark’s fin … she was gone.
‘Well, Hob — we’d better settle for the night. They’re bound to hear us soon.
Mini-flares ready?’
But it was hard to keep up their spirits. As the crimson sun sank below the wavetops, the cold crept into them, numbing the very marrow of their bones. A Nimrod passed low on the horizon, flying eastwards, and Grog discharged a mini-flare. They followed the trajectory of the pathetic little red star; watched it falling, to vanish into the waves which were now getting up with the increasing wind.
‘She’s too far off.’
While twilight merged into night they started singing, repeating their repertoire of bawdy wardroom ditties and hymns and nursery rhymes. And when it was dark, the sparkling froth glistening down the wave-backs provided the light-giving phosphorescence which kept hope alive. Hob tried to recall the survival drill which had been knocked into him so often. The loss of heat would bring on the first symptoms of exposure they must be alert for the creeping miasma of exposure a sluggishness in the mind, drowsiness, an inclination to surrender — and they began singing again, desperately, their voices drowned by the mounting seas.
They decided to take it in turns to attempt sleep. The interminable night refused to pass: they broke up the endless hours by trying not to consult their wrist-watches; by nibbling at their emergency rations only after each four-hour spell had lapsed; and then Hob, half-asleep, heard Grog calling him: ‘Look, Hob, first light.’
They cheered feebly and lay back, spinning their rafts round towards the east: they watched the silver streak, barely perceptible at first, steal like a thief into the dawn. To the westward the night clouds rolled slowly back while twilight broke, until at 0320 they were convinced that night was turning into another day. They celebrated with a square of chocolate and by singing Old Fury’s marching-song ‘Devon, Devon by the sea’ which the volunteer band thumped out at colours on the flight deck during those far-off days of peace.
At 0730 they felt a glimmer of warmth when the sun shone balefully through the cirrus. Their spirits rose but the North Sea remained a cold, unfriendly place.
At 0830 they had a biscuit each for breakfast; while they brooded, hunger still gnawing at them, Grog suddenly sat upright in his raft.
‘Bloody hell, I’m seeing things.’
But on the next crest they both spotted the cross-trees of a small boat floundering in the seas.
‘Flare!’ yelled Grog.
Hob tore at his red pack, fumbled with the mini-flare, nipped it into the firing tube, snapped at the trigger. Grog was frenziedly following suit and together they watched the two red stars shooting to their summits, then curling downwards, falling, falling. They heard the chug-chug of diesels and yelled in unison until their lungs would burst; the craft came abeam, began drawing away; Hob blew frenziedly on his whistle. Grog loosed off another flare.