Douglas Reeman
The Destroyers
Author’s Note
As I gather material and do research for each new book I am quite frequently asked how I continue to unearth themes for the next manuscript, and the one after that.
In fact, the breadth of sea history, both ancient and contemporary, the many experiences of ships and sailors, never fail to awe me. Far from being denied plots for future stories, I sometimes seem unable to keep pace with those which I discover in my endless search.
Small but incredible acts of courage and endurance seem to rise up from the grander records of campaigns and barely remembered wars. When I was writing this book it was hard to accept that such deeds were in fact carried out by British warships in the Second World War, not least by the old destroyer Cambeltown at St. Nazaire.
My story, like the title, is double-edged. It is about a flotilla of out-of-date warships, destroyers, which because of the war’s incessant demands and greed were pushed against terrible odds, almost without regard to losses. But it also concerns the men who controlled their destinies. Men driven to the edge of endurance who in turn became the destroyers. Forced by various reasons to face each hazard, they still retained their more personal standards. Duty, fear, the need to destroy the enemy, each other if so ordered, these men were a part of history. Of war itself.
D.R.
1
The Destroyer
Lieutenant-Commander Keith Drummond kept his head lowered as he walked around the deep puddles left by overnight rain. It was nearly dawn and the air had a bite like mid-winter. He hesitated and looked up at the departing clouds, the dull greyness of which matched the worn dockyard buildings and the looming shapes of vessels which still lay quietly at crowded jetties or protruded above nearby wharves and basins.
But it was early June, and the year 1943.
He stretched his arms and yawned, tasting the dampness, the smells of salt and oil, of wet metal and discarded waste. The untidy sprawl of the Royal Naval Dockyard at Chatham seemed almost peaceful in the gloom, he thought. In a short while all would be different again. The resting ships would come alive to the din of rivet guns and screeching saws, while above the open basins the tall gantries would sway and then plunge down like gaunt herons searching for food as the work of building and repairing, boiler cleaning and restoring got under way.
Two shadowy figures detached themselves from a wall, and a voice asked irritably, “Who’s this, then?” They were dockyard policemen.
Drummond stepped over some railway lines and approached them.
The first policeman said, ” Oh, it’s you, sir. ” He touched his cap. “Surprised to see someone about so early.”
Drummond nodded. It was unusual to see dockyard policemen so far from their cubby-holes and fires, for that matter.
The other one said importantly, “The tugs brought a destroyer in last night, sir.” He gestured to the dry dock at his back. “Too dark to do much. We’re just here to make sure that….”
He looked at his companion and added awkwardly, “Well, you know how it is, sir. She hit a mine in the estuary. Most of her engine-room blokes were killed. They’re still inside. Can’t get ‘em out till daylight.”
Drummond walked to the side of the dock and peered down at the long, narrow hull. Even in the poor light he could see the damage. Could even see it happening, as if she had been his own ship. The bridge superstructure smashed half over the side, as if pounded by some giant hammer. Buckled guardrails, and one funnel laid out on deck like a huge coffin.
He said coldly, “Yes, I know exactly how it is.”
A destroyer had been mined and towed into another dockyard nearby. She, too, had had dead sailors trapped below deck, left to wait for the water to be pumped clear, for the men with cutters to hack their way through. But when daylight had found them the dead had been robbed. Money and watches gone. No wonder these policemen sounded embarrassed.
Everyone had been most insistent that somebody else had been responsible. Just one of those things.
He added, “Might be a fine day.”
He nodded and strode on towards the next line of basins, knowing they were staring after him, thinking he was bitter towards them or just one more hard case.
Drummond glanced towards the east where a moored barrage balloon showed itself through a gap in the low cloud. Beyond it and Sheppy Island lay the Thames Estuary and the North Sea. Despite everything which had happened, or because of it, he was glad to be going back.
His own ship had been in the dockyard for a month, and not a moment too soon. She had needed every hour of every one of those days, and he found he was walking faster, as if some doubt which had been in his mind was departing with the night.
He reached the basin and stood quite still on the edge, the chill air exploring his legs and whipping the oily dock water into nervous movement below him.
She was moored in the centre of the basin, and unlike his last visit three days ago, she was afloat again, a living ship. A destroyer.
He walked very slowly along the wet stonework, his eyes never leaving her lithe, familiar shape. Against the filthy water and dark dock sides her new coat of dazzle paint made her shine eerily, and her pendant number, 1.97, stand out as if she were brand new. But daylight would show the lie, he thought. The paint would not hide the many dents along her three hundred and twelve feet of narrow hull. Nor could it disguise her outdated and quaint silhouette which had made her and the rest of her class so familiar throughout their long service. Unlike her more modern consorts, and especially the hastily constructed vessels which had been designed and built since the outbreak of war, she had an appearance which betrayed all of her twenty-five years. Behind her sturdy, open bridge her two funnels were unmatched in height or breadth. The foremost was tall and thin, the after one short and squat. Her main armament of four four-inch guns had open shields which left their crews unprotected from behind. Once, at the peak of her fame, she had carried two triple mounts of torpedo tubes, now she had only one set, the other removed to make room for more short-range weapons to fight off attacking aircraft.
Drummond smiled, despite his uneasiness. As Frank Cowley, his first lieutenant, had once remarked, she was like an old Chatham prostitute. Past her best, but, with a new paint-job and a wealth of experience behind her, carried a sort of jaunty arrogance which appealed far more than younger competitors.
He looked at the water below the steep wall. Except that Frank was no longer first lieutenant. He was over in Canterbury, being watched by some grave-faced nurse in the naval hospital.
Drummond had spent the night, or part of it, in a Canterbury hotel. Helen, Frank’s wife, had asked him to stay at her house near the hospital. But her eyes had told him the opposite. Just as they had asked, “Why Frank, and not you?”
Drummond had tried to break the stillness between them. But it always seemed to return to the ship. But then, it was ‘all he knew. They would be off to sea again soon. That had been wrong. He had seen the pain in her eyes. He had tried to tell her about the difficulties of getting a ship back to normal after a month’s refit and repairs. There would be new faces to replace those who had gone elsewhere. For courses or promotion. For special leave or, like Frank, to a living death.
He could remember when Frank had got married. The party in the wardroom while the ship had been at Harwich between convoys. She had asked him why he had not got married. He had replied, “Not in wartime. ” Now she was probably remembering that, too. Hating him for being whole when there was no one to care. While Frank had no legs.
He walked down the steep brow and stepped on to the destroyer’s deck, feeling its stillness, its watchfulness. He saw the bell hanging from its newly painted bracket, the night’s rain misting it like steam. He touched it with his finger. The inscription was almost worn away. Years of polishing. All those men. All those years. H.M.S. Warlock 1918.