He swung round in the chair. “Who has the nearest patrol area?”
“Ventnor, sir.” Wingate did not consult his notes. “Her captain is Lieutenant-Commander Selkirk.”
“I see.” Beaumont peered down, searching for Drummond. “Remember him at the conference? Bloody troublemaker, if I ever saw one.”
Salter asked mildly, “A reservist, I believe?” Beaumont looked away. “Yes.”
“Radar-Bridge.”
Sheridan was there. “Forebridge.”
“Firm echo at Red four-five, sir. Range seven thousand yards.”
“Ask him why the bloody hell he didn’t get it earlier!” Beaumont sounded savage.
The radar operator must have heard him and said, “Been having a lot of back-echoes, sir. Or it may have been some kind of jamming. Can’t tell under these conditions.”
“Light on the port bow, sir.”
Drummond stepped quickly on to the gratings behind the chair. He saw the blurred glow as before, a touch of red, like a painted emblem.
The lookout added, “Moving away, sir.”
“Must have smelt a rat.” Salter sounded vaguely relieved. “Off like a shot!”
The explosion when it reached the ship was like a thunderclap. But seconds before, a great scalding tower of flame shot skyward with such fierce intensity Drummond could imagine the heat against his face. Then came the bang, rattling the bridge and making several of the men cry out with alarm.
“Christ! The decoy has been torpedoed!”
Beaumont stood and seized the screen with both hands, his head and shoulders clearly outlined by the distant fire.
“Full ahead together!” Drummond ignored the shouts and questions on every side. “Stand by B gun with star-shell!”
Telegraphs clanged, and with an urgent roar of screws and fans Warlock lunged ahead towards the blazing ship.
Drummond stood up beside Beaumont, his glasses quivering to the increasing beat of machinery.
“It’s the tug, not the decoy, sir.” He waited for Beaumont’s mind to clear. “Look, you can see her broaching-to!” He turned slightly. “Tell Guns to put a star-shell at Green four-five. There must be a U-boat on the surface.”
“Asdic have had no contact, sir. ” Sheridan kept his voice steady.
Beaumont shouted, “I don’t give a bugger about that! That fool Selkirk must have let the Jerry slip right under his nose!”
He winced as B gun exploded below the bridge.
Drummond waited, counting seconds, feeling his ship tearing through the water beneath him, the clatter of a shell-case as the gun crew opened their breech.
The star-shell burst far abeam of the two ships, lighting up the sea in a pitiless white glare which made the moon and even the spurting flames seem dull.
Nothing.
Drummond shifted his glasses, trying not to look at the dying tug, the way the fires were spreading now across the water and engulfing the listing decoy. Nothing. No U-boat on radar, or detected submerged by Asdic. Yet a ship had just been blown up before their eyes, and out there men were burning and dying.
He snapped, “Pass the word. Collision mats forrard, starboard side.” He touched his cheek as if to confirm the direction of the breeze. “Tell the doctor to get up there. There’ll not be much time.”
Beaumont staggered across the gratings and said sharply, “Get after that bloody Spaniard!”
“There are men dying. We may save a few. ” He thought he saw the conflict on Beaumont’s face, his eyes shining like stones in the drifting flare. “If we grapple with a neutral, with no evidence she was acting unlawfully, we will have wasted time and lives for nothing.”
He turned away. “Number One, — get down to the fo’c’sle. Fire parties and damage control sections, too.” His voice checked him as he ran for the ladder. “I’ll drop the motor boat as we make our run-in, so make sure she has a good crew.”
A dull explosion rattled the glass screen and threw a ragged smoke-stain across the moon. Some of the fire disappeared, and Drummond guessed the tug had plunged under. She would be big, with a sizeable crew.
Faintly above the din of fans and surging water alongside he heard the cry, “Away motor boat’s crew! Lowering party at the doable!”
He could imagine the startled confusion aboard the other destroyers waiting out there beyond the flare and the glittering reflections of a dying ship. They would come rushing to give assistance, no doubt blaming Warlock for failing to detect the U-boat, even now after the savage attack.
Feet hammered along the iron deck, and on the forecastle he saw the chief bosun’s mate and a dozen hands working feverishly to lash fenders and collision mats, hammocks and anything else which might cushion the impact as they swept alongside.
Salter was saying, “God Almighty. God, look at her burn.” Over and over again.
More explosions echoed across the swell, the surface of which shone with red and orange, for as the flare died away Warlock’s company found they were staring into the very heart of an inferno.
Beaumont said tightly, “You’re taking a chance.”
“I know, sir.” He leaned sideways above the voice-pipe. “Slow ahead together. Stand by the motorboat. ” To Beaumont he added, “No choice.”
“Ready to drop the boat, sir.”
“Very well. Stop both engines.” He felt Warlock sighing ahead on her fading bow wave, the shout from below the bridge, “Out pins! Slip!” The rattling splutter as the motor boat veered away like a mad thing before coming under the command of its own engine.
“Half ahead together.” He heard Mangin’s acknowledgement. Stiff, every fibre concentrated on the ball of fire directly ahead. “Starboard side to, Cox’n. Easy as you can.”
Mangin replied, “I’ll try not to score the paint, sir.”
Drummond peered down at the deck again. The figures touched with cruel reflections now, the air around them tinged with smoke and ash. He saw the doctor in his white coat, Frond, his effeminate S. B.A., close behind him, a satchel bouncing on one hip. All available hands. Extra stokers, cooks and stewards, the supply assistant, and anyone else who was not employed on the guns. And what a target they would present to any stalking submarine. Slowing down, black against the flames, a perfect shot.
Drummond bit so hard on the unlit pipe he almost broke it. There was no U-boat! So how the hell had it happened?
He turned to Hillier, “Warn depth-charge crews to stand by. Shallow pattern.”
He swung back to the screen. Just in case.
The decoy ship was looming high above the starboard bow now, less than a cable clear. She had been one of the hastily built Liberty ships but had broken her back in a storm off Miami the previous year. Repaired with no particular use in mind, she was now dying as bravely as any ship could be expected to do.
“Slow ahead.”
He could feel the heat, taste the stench of burning paint and woodwork, as well as the seeping oil which was trickling in an angry flood away from the sinking ship, like lava from a volcano.
He saw men, too, very small against the fires, creeping or darting from one place to another, their shouts lost in the pandemonium of leaping flames and escaping steam.
Something heavy grated through a bulkhead, and a wild column of sparks burst out of the after well-deck, hurling several tiny figures over the side.
When he glanced abeam he saw the Warlock’s small motor boat chugging steadily towards the flames, her crew standing like bronze statues in the reflected glare.
“Stop together.”
He tried not to drag himself up to the top of the screen to watch. He could almost feel the other ship’s hull getting closer, his stomach muscles contracting as if they and not Warlock’s bow were going to take the collision.