Lindsay ran to the port door and tugged it open. As he hurried to the unprotected wing he felt the wind across his face like a whip, and under his gloved hands the rail was like polished glass. He watched the ice moving away while the ship idled forward sluggishly, the deck under his feet very still, as if the ship herself was holding her breath, feeling her hurt.
There was more ice nearby but just small fragments as before. It was a piece of bad luck which had brought that one heavy slab across their path without anybody sighting it.
Stannard called, ‘First lieutenant’s on the phone, sir.’
Lindsay strode into the bridge again, feeling the heated air enclosing him like a damp towel.
Goss was very brief. ‘Flooding in Number Two hold, sir. I’ve got the pumps working on it, and I’m waiting for a report from the boiler room. Their main bulkhead is right against that hold.’ He paused and then said thickly, ‘I knew something like this would happen.’
‘Any casualties?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ The question seemed to catch Goss off guard.
‘Well, get on with it and let me know.’ He replaced the handset very slowly.
He knew what Goss was thinking. What most of the others were probably thinking, too. That their captain was still unfit for command. Even this one. Especially this one: He felt the pain and despair crowding his brain like blood and he had to turn away from the others, even though they could not see his face.
Jolliffe said, ‘We’re drifting, sir. Ship’s head is now three-three-zero.’
Stannard said quickly, ‘Very well, Cox’n.’
A messenger called, ‘Engine room reports no damage, sir.’ He gulped. ‘To the bulkhead, I mean, sir.’
Stannard remarked softly, ‘Once saw a great berg down off South Georgia. Big as Sydney bridge it was, and all covered with little penguins.’
Lindsay said flatly, ‘Penguins?’ He did not even know he had spoken.
‘Yes. There were these small killer whales about, you see, and the penguins would push one of their cobbers off the berg every so often as a safety measure. -If the little chap survived they all dived in. If he was eaten they’d just wait there like a lot of unemployed waiters and stand around a while longer before they pushed another one over the edge.’
Nobody laughed.
Lindsay thought suddenly of Aikman, and was about to tell Stannard to call up the doctor when Ritchie snapped, ‘Listen! I ‘eard a ship’s siren!’
Once more Lindsay was out in the freezing air, as with Ritchie and Stannard he blundered through the opposite — door and on to the starboard wing.
‘And there’s another!’ Ritchie was peering over the wing like a terrier at a rabbit hole.
Stannard- said quickly, ‘Same ship.’ He too was bending his head and listening intently. ‘When I saw those penguins I was doing a spell as third officer in a whale factory ship.. Some masters used their sirens to estimate the closeness of heavy ice. Bounce back the echoes, so to speak.’
Lindsay heard it again. Mournful and incredibly loud in the crisp air.” The echo threw back its reply some ten seconds later.
Dancy joined them by the screen. ‘I–I’m sorry about that helm order, sir. I lost my head.’
Lindsay did not take his eyes from the bearing of the siren. ‘You were quite alone at that moment, Sub.’ He heard Dancy’s breathing, knew how he was suffering. ‘And if we had not stopped the engines we would have drowned out that siren.’
‘Damage control says the pumps are holding the intake, sir. No apparent danger to boiler room bulkhead.’ The seaman waited, gasping in the cold air. ‘And only one casualty. Man on A deck broke his wrist.’
Lindsay nodded. ‘Good.’ He tried to-rub the ice from the gyro repeater below the screen but it was thick like a Christmas cake. ‘We’ll try and close on that siren, Pilot. Warn control in case of tricks. And we’ll have some extra lookouts on the boat deck.’
Stannard was listening to his voice when his face suddenly lit up in-a violent red flash. The savage crash of gunfire echoed across the water, lighting up the scattered patches of ice, painting them with scarlet and yellow as again, and again the guns tore into the darkness, blasting it aside in short, violent cameos.
Lindsay dashed through the open door, his glasses banging against his chest as he shouted, ‘Half ahead together!’ Around him men were slamming the new steel shutters, and he added, ‘Leave the centre one!’ As he cranked it open he felt the air clawing his face and lips, heard the sudden surge of power from the engines as once more the ship began to push. forward.
‘Steer for the flashes, Cox’n!’
He tensed as a ball of fire exploded and then fanned out to reveal the outline and angle of a ship. She was less than two miles away, her upper deck and superstructure’ burning fiercely in a dozen places. There was ice all around her, small fragments and heavier, more jagged prongs which seemed to be enclosing her like a trap. Another ripple of flashes came from her opposite beam, and Lindsay saw the telltale waterspouts shooting skywards and one more bright explosion below her bridge.
The siren was bellowing continuously now, with probably a dead man’s hand dragging on the lanyard, but as the Benbecula gathered way Lindsay thought it sounded like a beast dying in agony.
Crisp and detached above the din he heard a metallic voice intone, ‘Control to all guns. Semi-armour-piercing, load, load, load.’
More thuds and clicks below the bridge, and somewhere a voice yelling orders, shrill. and momentarily out of control.
‘Target bears Green two-oh. Range oh-five-oh.’
Lindsay raised his glasses as Maxwell’s voice continued to pass his information over the speaker. Five thousand yards. Maxwell’s spotters had done well to estimate the range on the flashes alone.
‘Port ten.’ He watched the ticking gyro. ‘Midships. Steady.’
Jolliffe replied heavily, ‘Steady, sir. Three-one-zero.’
Almost to himself Lindsay murmured, ‘That’ll give the marines a chance to get on target, too.’
More flashes blasted the darkness aside and joined with those already blazing on the helpless ship. He could see her twin funnels, the great pieces of wreckage falling into the fires and throwing fountains of sparks towards the clouds. Not long now.
To Dancy he snapped, ‘Pass the word to prepare that signal for transmission.’
Stannard said thickly, ‘Aikman’s got the code books, sir.’
Lindsay kept his glasses trained on the other ship. Was it a trick from the reflected fires, or was she starting to settle down?
He said harshly, ‘Tell the W/T office to send it plain language. What the hell does it matter now?’
Stannard nodded and handed his pad to a messenger.
‘Give this position to the P.O. Tel. He knows what to do.’
Maxwell’s voice again. ‘Starboard battery stand by.’
Lindsay lowered his glasses. ‘Open fire.’
Maxwell waited until the hidden raider fired again and then pressed his button. The bells at each mounting had not rung for more than a split second before all three starboard guns roared out together, their long tongues flashing above the wash alongside.
Lindsay held his breath and counted. He shut out the bellowed commands, the click of breech blocks and the chorus of voices on the intercom. Someone at the Admiralty would be listening to all this, he thought vaguely. They would be plotting Stannard’s position and rousing out some senior officers from their camp beds in the cellars. From Benbecula to Admiralty. Have sighted enemy raider. Am engaging.
Not much of an epitaph. But it might be remembered.
‘Up five hundred. Shoot!’
Again the guns belched fire and smoke, the bridge jerking violently as the shock made the steel quake as if from hitting another berg.