Stannard nodded. ‘I guess so. But all these reports.’ He shook his head. ‘Surely to God the people in charge out there can see what’s happening?’
Ritchie said, ‘Merlin’s got’er black pennant’oisted, sir! She’s goin’ in for a kill!’
A messenger muttered, ‘We hojef
‘Starboard ten.’ Stannard’s mouth twitched as a pattern of depth-charges exploded somewhere on the port quarter. The Merlin was moving at full speed and swinging in a wide arc while the sea erupted in her curving wake like some. impossible waterspout.
‘Midships.’ Stannard twisted his head quickly to watch the straight black stem of the Demodocus following round. in obedience to the signal. More explosions, and a second escort came tearing back down the column, racing for the great spreading area of churned water where the last charges had exploded.
As she ploughed through the white froth Lindsay saw the charges fly lazily from either beam, while two more rolled from her quarterdeck rack into her own wash. He could picture them falling through the untroubled depths, ten feet a second, and then.’ … Even though he was expecting it he flinched as the charges detonated and hurled their fury skyward How long the columns of water seemed to hang there before subsiding into the growing area of foam and dead fish.
‘Madagascar’s signallin’, sir!’- The man’s voice was almost shrill. ‘Torpedoes approachin’ from starboard!’
Already the cruiser was turning her” grey bulk towards.the invisible torpedoes, while far away across the commodore’s bows, a destroyer was turning to race in to give additional cover.
‘Must be two of the bastards, sir!’ Stannard raised his glasses and added sharply, ‘Watch the ship ahead, Cox’n. Follow her like a bloody sheepdog, no matter what happens!’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Jolliffe eased the spokes and kept his eyes fixed on the oil-tanker.
‘Missed her anyway!’ Dancy swung round as a double explosion rattled the-bridge screen and brought down some flecks of paint on to his cap.
The freighter astern of the cruiser had been hit. The torpedoes must have passed between the two troopships’ in the starboard column, missed the cruiser, and struck the other vessel as she attempted to follow her leader in the turn.
She was already staggering to port, thick smoke billowing from her side, her bridge wing hanging towards the sea in a tangle of twisted metal and broken rigging.
A great flurry of froth rose around her counter and Stannard said, ‘She’s going astern. Her skipper. must be trying to get the way off her to save the bulkhead.’
Lindsay held the glasses jammed against his eyes while the gratings jerked and vibrated to the thunder of depthcharges. He saw tiny figures running along the freighter’s boat deck, while further aft there were others struggling to slip one of the heavy rafts over the side. There was a sudden internal explosion, so that the bridge superstructure appeared to lift and twist out of alignment, the funnel buckling and pitching into the smoke as if made of cardboard.
Whatever had caused- the explosion must have’ killed everyone on the bridge, Lindsay thought. Or else the controls had been shattered by the blast. Whatever it was, the ship was still churning astern, her engine room probably too dazed or desperate to know what had happened on deck.
The freighter which had been following the torpedoed ship had at last understood the danger and her captain was reducing speed, his bow-wave dropping while the distance between him and the runaway freighter continued to diminish.
One of the lifeboats had reached the water, only to be upended by the reversed thrust, hurling-its occupants, overboard to vanish instantly in the churned wash from the propellers.
The other seamen had at last succeeded in releasing the liferaft, but could only stand huddled by the guardrails as their ship continued to forge astern. She was heeling very slightly and certainly sinking, but as the convoy fought to maintain formation she was still a very real menace.
‘Commodore’s signalled Rios to take evasive action, sir!’
The Rios was the one astern of the torpedoed freighter, and with something like a prayer Lindsay watched her turn unsteadily and head diagonally from the broken column.
‘Torpedo to port, sir!’ Dancy had the masthead telephone gripped in his fist so tightly his knuckles were white. ‘Two cables!’
Lindsay lifted his — glasses and saw the flurry of excitement on the ammunition ship’s bridge. It must be running straight for her.
A man screamed, ‘If she goes up we’ll go with her!V ‘Silence on the bridge!’ Jolliffe’s voice was like a saw, but his eyes stayed, on the ship ahead.
It was more of a sensation than a sound. Lindsay saw the other ship stagger, her foremast and derricks falling in tangled confusion even as the tell-tale column of water shot violently above her fore deck.
In those few seconds nobody spoke or moved. Even breathing seemed to have stopped. As the Demodocus started to slow down and fall past Benbecula’s port beam, to those who were able to watch her it felt as if there were just seconds left to live. The sea and sky, the depthcharges and fast-moving destroyers, none of them counted for anything now.
The torpedoed freighter, her screws still dragging astern, ploughed, very slowly beneath the surface, her hull breaking up as she dived for the bottom. But it was doubtful if any man on Benbecula’s decks even saw her last moments or the few struggling figures caught in the last savage whirlpool above her grave.
Lindsay lowered his glasses and rubbed his eyes, the movement making Dancy jerk with alarm.
The old Demodocus was still there. There was plenty of smoke rising above the hidden wound, and as he held his breath he heard the discordant grinding of her port anchor cable running out. The explosion must have blasted away a capstan or sheered right, through the forepart of the lower hull.
‘They’re callin’ us up, sir.’ Ritchie cradled the Aldis on his arm and watched a small winking light from the other ship’s bridge.
‘Have fire in forrard hold.’ He took another breath. ‘Am — holed port side but pumps are coping.’ He, gasped and then shuttered an acknowledgement before saying thickly, ‘An’ ‘e says that there is a God after all!’
A telephone had been buzzing for some seconds. Or minutes. Nobody seemed to understand anything any more.
Then a messenger said, ‘W/T office reports that the escorts have sunk another U-boat, sir. Definite kill.’
Lindsay wiped his face with his hand. It was clammy.
‘That will keep them quiet for a bit.’ He felt unsteady on his feet. As if he was recovering from some terrible bout of fever.
‘From commodore, sir.’ Ritchie was very calm, “E’s callin”up the ammo ship.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Can’t never pronounce ‘er name, sir. ‘E’s enquirin’ about damage, sir.’
Lindsay walked out on to the port wing and looked at the other column. The cruiser, the Rios, which had narrowly avoided being rammed by the sinking freighter, and now, dropping still further astern, the ugly bulk of the ship whose name Ritchie could not pronounce.
Eleven left of the seventeen which had headed so bravely from Liverpool,
Ritchie said suddenly, ‘She’s tellin’ the commodore she can only manage five knots till they’ve carried out repairs, sir. But the fire’s almost under control. There: was no ammo in that ‘old, sir.’ He watched the slow winking light. ‘But the next ‘old is filled to the brim with T.N.T.’
Lindsay looked at Stannard. ‘Near-thing. She may still have to abandon. Tell Number One to warn the boat crews and lowerers.’
A destroyer was edging past the Demodocus’s hidden side, her raked masts and funnel making a striking contrast to the bulbous hull and outdated upperwor-ks of the ammunition ship. As she moved into full view Lindsay saw she was the Merlin.