J. E. MacDonnell - 030 Read online

  "We managed," Bentley said, and smiled.

  Sainsbury noted that smile, curiously. It was partly reminiscent, a little prideful - and it held some other quality. Not arrogance. Not as bad as that. Cockiness, perhaps. Could it be that this pupil of his had become... too sure of himself?

  Sainsbury rubbed his bony fingers across his chin, looking at the deck. He wanted to know more of what had happened to the nature and character of the young captain he loved like a son. His eyes came up, a quick, keen flick, and he said:

  "Tell me about it. The whole action."

  Slightly surprised, for the man in front of him had been in more actions than he'd had hot dinners, but unaware of the intention behind Sainsbury's request, Bentley began to talk. Sainsbury listened to every word, every nuance of the quiet voice. There was in the spoken tale a natural pride in his ship's performance, an appreciation of the risks he had run, and no boasting whatever. As he had expected. He had been wrong, then, Bentley had not fallen into the fatal error of cocksureness.

  Yet as he sipped his gin, his thin knees crossed, Sainsbury's acute perception was not fully satisfied. Consciously he analysed the feeling, and he knew it was that smile which was still bothering him. It was little enough to go on, he mused. But of one thing he was sure -before two months were out he would know precisely what changes, if any, had been brought about in Bentley's nature by his succession of brilliantly-fought actions. With that he had to be content, and characteristically he washed the faintly troubled thoughts from his consciousness.

  "You're looking forward to your leave?" he said, in a voice meant to be bright, and which sounded one degree less than pure vinegary. "That I am! I'll hop up to Queensland, of course."

  "A girl, of course?"

  "Of course!" Bentley's voice was sarcastic. "Now what ruddy hope have I had of mounting a full-scale love affair? Madagascar, Bombay, Suez, Malta, Gibraltar? No wonder the birth-rate's falling here!"

  "Ah well." Sainsbury sighed, "no doubt you'll find yourself something to last seven days, at any rate. There should be little trouble."

  He looked at the burned, handsome face opposite him with an envy which, suddenly, astonished him by its acuteness. The expression on his face was so odd that Bentley glanced at him curiously. Then Sainsbury lifted his glass and quickly emptied it. He stood up, and his face had returned to its normal mask of puritanical authority.

  "All right, my boy, enjoy your leave - you've damned well earned it. I shall look forward to your return. You must dine with me as soon as you get back."

  "Certainly, sir."

  They took up their caps, and the big, hard frame followed the spare one again through the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT IS HEREBY CLAIMED, with an absolute surety of conviction, and with no brooking of any argument, that there is no time since Time began which rushes past so swiftly as a sailor's leave on return from over-seas service. It seemed to every officer and man aboard Wind Rode that no sooner had they entered through Sydney Heads than they were exiting in the opposite direction.

  It was a bright, sunny morning, which made it worse. Good drinking weather, wonderful for the beach, just great for taking the kids to the Zoo, a day when all the floosies would be out in force down in the Mine-Swept Area between Bridge-street and the Fortune of Fights. Popsies in bright cotton dresses and slim legs in silk stockings. There would be Yanks too, of course, but they were pests you usually managed to slip in ahead of.

  And where were they? Back in the old routine, back to the old sweaty smell of messdecks, back on watch, back through the Heads, back right on the bottom of the list for refit and shore-leave. Unless the old girl took a tin-fish in her belly... But then your own belly might be involved. It was a cruel world.

  Disposed to starb'd, to seaward where a senior officer should be, steamed destroyer Scimitar, identical in every detail to their own vehicle. The coast lay rocky on their port hand, where they had expected it to lie. The direction, then, was north, into the Pacific fighting. Zeros instead of Messerschmitts, suicide-bombers instead of Stukas. But the result the same - constant danger, unremitting alertness, night after night at sea, healthy and stodgily - dull food, infrequent mail: no beer, no dances, no girls. Destroyers at war.

  They had been on their northerly course for little more than half-an-hour, with Avalon beach and Barrenjoey light on the port beam, when the signal came from the flotilla-leader. It told them that an aircraft would fly out from Richmond, towing a target drogue, and that both ships would carry out anti-aircraft firing practice in ten minutes' time.

  The guns closed-up and the voice came up to the bridge from B-gun directly below it.

  "We don't need this... rot! Where does he think we been? Down at the... south... pole?"

  Bentley's first and automatic reaction was to lean over and have that man up on the bridge. And for the first time that he could remember he held himself back. The signal had come as a surprise to him. The owner of the voice was right. For the past nine months, for almost every day of that time, and most nights, the guns had been in action against enemy aircraft or ships. The crew could man them and fire them accurately in their sleep.

  He felt Randall looking at him. He knew why. The voice had been quite audible. He said, curtly:

  "We'll use ten rounds a gun, Number One."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Randall answered formally, and Bentley knew that the first-lieutenant was in his secret, that he too felt as the owner of the voice did.

  And, deep in Bentley's consciousness, a faint warning bell chimed softly.

  Be damned! he thought, almost aloud.The crew's not stale, they're fresh from leave. There wouldn't be a more experienced bunch than his in the whole of the blasted Pacific, friend or enemy.

  And the bell chimed again, the bell of experience and judgment. And the yeoman's voice drowned the faint and warning impulse.

  "Aircraft bearing Red two-five, Beaufort, sir."

  The plane flew down past the destroyers, now in line-ahead, twice. On the second run the drogue was ripped, so that it towed along collapsed, with the wind of its passage beginning to shred it.

  "Cease firing," the signal flashed, and the two ships fell silent. In the sudden quiet the voice pitched sharply up to the bridge.

  Now maybe he's satisfied!"

  Randall's glance was quick and enquiring. This time Bentley nodded. The big lieutenant stepped to the wind-break. His voice was hard.

  "Captain of the gun?"

  "Sir?"

  "Take charge of your crew!"

  "Aye, aye, sir!"

  It was short, it was cryptic, but it was enough. The man could not be charged - he could easily claim that his remark was directed at anyone or anything except Captain Sainsbury's starchy meticulousness. Yet the gun-crew knew that the bridge had heard, and that the bridge would not tolerate any more of the same.

  The gun-captain's tones came up, low and vehement. Justice had been done.

  The run up north was fast, stopping only at Brisbane and Townsville for fuel and supplies, but Captain Sainsbury managed to get in many more drills, both gunnery and seamanship. No comments were passed now, or even thought - they were with a cranky old bastard who had to get his pleasure somehow; they had shipped with that sort before; they would just have to put up with it until he managed to get other ships under his starchy wing.

  But the old coot did not get other ships to sail under his management. They reached Manus and they joined the U.S. 7th Fleet, to find that the rest of the Ninth Flotilla was still scattered widely over the Pacific. Wind Rode and Scimitar, apart from a six-inch cruiser, were the only Australian craft in that starred and striped concourse of grey metal.

  They worked together.

  They escorted carriers and cruisers on patrolling sweeps, they screened battleships against submarines; they shepherded troop-transports, some full, some returning empty, they steamed north towards the Carolines, east towards the Gilberts, and sometimes west towards the Indies. Several time
s, Junior ship in a junior Navy, Wind Rode delivered hand-messages of apparent importance. But always both ships were together, and Bentley and his crew were under the Argus-eye of Captain Sainsbury, as well as that of the American admiral.

  And sometimes, thought not as frequently as in the confines of the Mediterranean, they were in action. Once it was a squadron of bombers from Jap-held Truk which caught the cruiser force. One American cruiser had her quarter-deck ripped open, and Wind Rode engaged two torpedo-bombers and shot both of them into the sea.

  They had been in Manus a month when Sainsbury sent for Bentley. The younger man had not seen his old teacher frequently, for the area was becoming increasingly busy, and both ships had been almost constantly at sea. Now as he crossed the wide harbour in the motorboat he was looking forward to his visit.

  Sainsbury met him at the gangway, and together they walked forward along the iron-deck, talking casually. Bentley did not look about this other ship - everything in her was identical with his own, and just as shipshape. This time he went in first through the cabin door. He sat down and his host said:

  "I'm afraid your Bols is finished, Peter. But I could do you a glass of Scotch."

  "You said Scotch?" Bentley said, surprised. "Scotch as from Scotland?"

  "That's right. And from Townsville. The Americans have an aircraft flying between here and there daily. It arrived yesterday."

  "And you have a friend ashore with the Yanks."

  "Quite so. He pilots the aircraft, in fact. I happened to pick him up from the sea about six months ago..."

  "It's who you know," Bentley grinned, and took the glass. "I'm going to enjoy this."

  He sipped, and he did. It was Scotch all right, made smoother by the knowledge that there would be very few men indeed in that Fleet this morning in a position to drink real Scotch.

  Sainsbury sipped appreciatively, a small intake. He put his glass down.

  "Don't imagine you're in for a binge," he said drily, "this has to last. In any case, you've got little more than an hour."

  "Oh? Something up?"

  "Could be. Early this morning an aircraft sighted four Japanese destroyers about two hundred miles due east. She was low on fuel, and had to return to base. But she was there long enough to be pretty sure that there was no large naval force in the area. The destroyers are probably just sniffing around for what they can find, or see. Anyhow, the admiral wants us to sniff around them. If we can find them. We sail in an hour."

  "Just the two of us?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, now. A special mission!"

  "You could call it that. At least it will mean independent command."

  At the words Bentley's memory flashed back over thousands of miles of sea to the Gulf of Guinea. He had been in "independent" command then, hamstrung by his senior officer's inexperience and caution. But now he felt none of that earlier frustration. This time he would be sailing under a master.

  "Just like old times," he grinned. He felt un-accountably excited, a feeling which the object of their mission did not fully merit. They would be lucky to sight four destroyers so far east. But he would be with Sainsbury.

  "Not at all," the vinegary voice checked him, "we will not be sailing into any neutral harbours." Bentley's grin did not retract.

  "They're all enemy out there, sir."

  "Nor enemy harbours. There are few Naval commanders in a position to waste ships, and certainly not this admiral. The main object of this mission is for us to return to base."

  "Yes, sir. But I suppose we have permission to fire a round if we sight those Japs?"

  "We might do that," Sainsbury returned soberly. He was looking at Bentley keenly, but the younger man placed no significance on that - the old master always looked like that. He said, putting his glass down:

  "Wonder why he picked on us two?"

  "You know why," Sainsbury answered drily.

  Bentley did. Hands across the sea and all that, but the two Australian ships were still foreigners. The admiral needed all his ships, and it was a natural decision to send off on this probably fruitless mission his two cock-sparrows from Down Under.

  "Yes," he smiled, and stood up. "I don't suppose..."

  His voice died in mid-breath. He had been about to say: "I don't suppose you'll send us to drill on the way over?" And he realised just how completely he agreed, in the privacy of his own judgment, with the remarks which had floated up from B-gun on the way north.

  "Yes?"

  "I don't suppose we'll catch up with those Japs?" Bentley finished.

  "I really haven't a notion," Sainsbury told him blandly. His eyes closed the slightest amount. "You really want to, don't you?"

  "Catch `em?" Bentley was genuinely surprised. "Why, of course!"

  He looked down at the thin officer, his expression half-smiling, half-puzzled. But Sainsbury's face was a mask.

  "Then you'd better leave my whisky bottle and get back to your ship," the captain told him. "We will proceed at thirty knots, course east."

  "There'll be a porpoise close behind you," Bentley grinned, and went out.

  Bentley's misquoted words had not been literally meant. The "porpoise" was disposed well clear on the leader's starb'd beam, as her captain knew she would be. This way, barely in sight of each other, the two destroyers were driving forward and searching a path almost fifty miles wide. And this way, of course, there could be no drill.

  As he stood on the bridge behind the binnacle, idly watching the bow slice through a sea as smooth as a lawn, Bentley thought of this. And his mind returned naturally and casually to the short scene in Sainsbury's cabin. That was a funny question to ask. You really want to sight those Japs, don't you? As with anything which puzzled him, even as slightly as those words did, he applied to them his analytical perception. And he very quickly decided that they meant as little as Sainsbury's reference to leaving his whisky bottle. He forgot the remark, deliberately and completely, when Randall said beside him:

  "What d'you think, Peter? Any chance?"

  "About as much as an ice-cube in hell. They know the Fleet's based in Manus. I'd say they're just scouting around in the hope of picking off a fast unescorted merchantman. Or else, seeing there aren't many of that species about here, they hope to sight the Fleet sailing and signal the fact back to the main monkey. But they would have seen the aircraft that spotted them. By now they're probably cruising back to base, enjoying the balmy air."

  Randall nodded. It was peaceful up here, with the ship going quietly about its duties. His opening remark had been idle, and he agreed with everything Bentley had said. Now he said, not idly:

  "Anyhow, in this position we're saved those ruddy drills." - J.E. Macdonnell: The Lesson Page 21

  Bentley heard the low words and even as he felt mild surprise at their appositeness to his own earlier thoughts he looked round the bridge. Pilot, the officer of the watch, had his stern poked out from the chart-table in the far port corner. The bosun's mate was absent on an errand. The signalman was behind Pilot, whistling soundlessly as he rubbed at a spot of rust on the ten-inch lamp with emery paper.

  Bentley's feeling for Sainsbury was a deep and masculine love and respect. Yet Randall was his close friend, as well as his second-in-command. They knew each other as well as they knew the mirrored reflections of their own burned faces. He said, also quietly: "I've been thinking about that."

  "About those drills?"

  "Yes. You know how I felt when we heard that jack-me-hearty give voice on B-gun. But I minds the time - and I remember it bloody well - when I went to drill at every opportunity."

  Neither man looked at the other. Their eyes were constantly roving over the smiling sea ahead of them, and on either bow. Their sight would have done that if they'd been drinking coffee, or eating. Randall said:

  "I remember it, too. But there comes a time when your commonsense and judgment tell you that you can have too much of drill, just the same as beer, or a woman. There's nothing these boys couldn't do
with their eyes shut, and you know it. Once - yes. But not now. Look at those two torpedo-bombers. Look at the sub. In my book an over-trained crew is worse than a crowd of green Rockies."

  For the first time he looked at his friend, curiously. "What's up, Peter? You think we're stale?"

  Bentley lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply. The smoke speared from his mouth bluely, and then the wind over the windbreak caught it and whipped it away to nothingness.

  "No," he said at last, "I don't think we're stale. I agree with you."

  Randall nodded slightly, and his eyes trained ahead again. Bentley thought: I'm right. The proofs in the eating - or the firing. It's taken a long time, but now she's a damned good ship. There's nothing to worry about, not as far as efficiency's concerned. A man should use his commonsense. They're top-line, every man jack of them, and a man would be a fool not to recognise that. Recognise it and be bloody thankful!