Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

Benks, the steward, leapt nimbly, arms loaded with plates. He was a God-fearing little man and a frequent but brief convert to temperance. Daddy Horsfall, pressed into service for the occasion, creaked around in stiff best boots and a pained expression with bottle and napkin. He spent a lot of time close to Sarah who persisted in talking to him and including him in the general conversation with solemn devilment. Garrick wasn’t sure about that but he saw his Captain smiling broadly.

Smith had been in good humour all evening, smiling, joking. Aitkyne thought it was a textbook demonstration in total relaxation when duties were ended. Several others had thoughts of a similar nature.

Smith’s mouth was dry but he drank only one glass of water. The food almost choked him.

They drank the loyal toast, Sarah Benson caught Smith’s eye and stifled a feigned yawn. “Well, me for me haybag.” There were exaggerated groans but sincere disappointment, because the last light had barely gone, dusk still rolling down across the sea. But she went. Smith had seen her before dinner and been polite but explicit on that and she had, as stiffly, agreed.

Benks and Horsfall withdrew to the pantry.

“Now then, gentlemen.” It was said quietly but it cut through the buzz of conversation and the voices were stilled. Daddy Horsfall found, without any surprise, that the bottle he held was half-full. He and Benks saw it away while they listened to Smith beyond the pantry hatch, Daddy at first only thinking that soon he could nip away and get those damn boots off.

He listened and left, walked forward to the mess-decks and the first crowded mess he came to was that of Nobby Clark, Leading Seaman and Captain of a six-inch gun. Nobby stared at Daddy’s white jacket and said, “Stone me! Here’s a feller just joined us from the P.S.N. (Pacific Steam Navigation Company). Siddown you old bugger afore you fall down.” He indicated the wardroom aft with a jerk of his head. “Is she still in there? What’s going on back there?”

Daddy did not sit down. He sniffed. “I dunno what’s goin’ on, but I know what’s coming off.”

“Eh?”

Daddy told them, and as he did so Thunder heeled as she turned so they had to grab for a handhold as they stared at him, and still she turned.

There was a brooding hush about the night, black, close. Thunder lay once more off Punta Negro, the hill and its signalling station marked by a pin-point of light while Guaya was a glow against the sky far inland. Bullock, the Coxswain, muttered ominously that it was a weather breeder and Aitkyne gave cautious endorsement from the glass. The Coxswain shifted his quid from one cheek to the other. “Dunno about the barometer, sir. I’m going off Daddy Horsfall’s feet.”

Thunder swayed gently in a long, slow swell, without a light save the occasional dim blink from a shaded lamp. Smith walked aft and found his party forming up in that black dark as the pinnace and whaler were hoisted out, men swarming to tail onto the falls because he had forbidden the use of a clamouring winch to shatter that still darkness; they could sense the loom of the land, see the shore marked by a line of phosphorescence.

They all wore navy boiler-suits and blackened canvas shoes, their heads were wrapped in balaclava helmets and their faces smeared with soot until only the eyes showed. There was always plenty of soot to be got on Thunder . They were lost in anonymity, sinister in the dark. And they were, of course self-conscious, a little sheepish. It all seemed unreal.

To Garrick it was a bad dream.

Every man was armed with a revolver; a rifle made no sense in this operation. One chamber of each was unloaded and the hammer lay over that with the safety catch on. There would be no careless, accidental shot.

Someone guffawed, the laugh cut short as Smith stood before him. “What’s the joke?” The question came softly.

The man grinned uneasily. “Just seemed a bit funny, sir.”

The man was Rattray. Smith knew him as a hard case with a reputation as a brawler. He sniffed and caught the whiff of rum. A man like this could imperil them all. Smith rasped, “Hand over your pistol.” And as he took it: “You’re a bloody fool! Master at arms!”

“Sir!”

“This man’s been hoarding his tots. Take him to the boilerroom. He can spend the night there and work the grog out with a shovel.”

Rattray was hustled away. Smith glanced around and saw young Gibb in one of the parties manning the falls of the boats and thrust the pistol at him. “Get some soot on your face and fall in.”

Smith went on with his inspection and wound up with Gibb as he returned and fell in, breathless from running and the excitement that gripped them all. Smith checked every pistol again himself and his attention to details impressed them as it was meant to do, to bring their concentration to bear. He spoke to them. The man in the wardroom had gone and his voice was harsh and urgent, sending a shiver through them. “I want no noise at all! No shooting except in direct defence of your lives!”

They stared at him, serious now. When a man licked his lips it was like a pink wound in his face.

They went down into the boats.

Somers was in the whaler with a dozen seamen. Lieutenant Kennedy, a Reserve officer re-called from the mercantile marine and a man with knowledge of explosives, was in the pinnace with Manton and Wakely, ten seamen and ten marines under Sergeant Burton. The tow was passed from pinnace to whaler. Smith, standing by Manton who had the helm, stared up and saw Garrick on the deck above him, Aitkyne on the wing of the bridge, both of them peering down at him. He could not make out faces but he did not need to, the stances and attitudes of his officer were familiar now. He did not have to see Garrick’s face to know he was a very worried man. Smith’s cold assessment of the situation and his flat statement of his intentions had taken the wardroom’s breath away. Most of them thought his assessment might be right, only — cruisers . It seemed so unreal. The war had been so far away. And what Smith intended! Garrick was shocked. Later, privately, he had pointed out the dangers and the probable, in his eyes certain, penalties. Smith was unmoved. Quite simply, Smith believed he was right while Garrick and the others were far from sure. It was too big a gamble for them. For him it was a risk he had to take.

He was taking as few officers and men as possible. If something went badly wrong, and it easily could, Thunder must still be able to function. He lifted one hand, saw Garrick’s acknowledgment and said quietly, “Carry on, Mr. Manton.”

The screw of the pinnace turned, bit and she eased away, towing the whaler. The ship fell away behind them, changing to a humping shapeless mass, to nothing. He had not seen Sarah Benson where she shivered in the shadows below the bridge.

He stood by the compass but it was not needed. Manton steered for the signalling station at Punta Negro, its lights pricking the dark. Beyond it the lights of Guaya, though hidden by the bend in the river and five miles of forest and swamp, cast a pale glow against the sky. Smith leaned with his arms on the coaming, relaxed, as if this was just one more item in the day’s work. When they were a mile from the mouth of the river he said laconically, “Steer a point or two to starboard.” Manton, like all of them, had been well briefed and was expecting the order. The bow of the pinnace moved away from the light and laid on the right bank of the estuary, so when they entered it they were tucked right in under that bank, invisible to the men in the signalling station if they watched, though there was no reason why they should.