Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

“Cease firing! Midships!”

“Midships, sir!”

Smith rubbed at his eyes and lifted his glasses again. “Stand by to pick up survivors.”

Thunder straightened on a course that took her down towards the wreckage and reduced speed until she rolled to the seas, barely making headway. There was flotsam: the wreckage of the life-boat, a few splintered planks, a cap. Maria would have carried a crew of twenty or so but there was not one survivor.

The guns’ crews had stood down and Thunder’s company braved the seas to line her rails, staring silently. There was no jubilation.

The crew of the forward 9.2 made a little group in the shelter below the bridge. Chalky White, the gun-trainer, muttered, “He’s gone off his rocker.”

Fanner Bates, Leading-Seaman and the gunlayer, snapped edgily, “Oh, shut it!”

“I mean it. Do you reckon he knows what he’s doing?”

Farmer was silent a moment. Both Benks and Horsfall talked to him and he knew the feeling in the wardroom. “I hope so.”

Gibb opened his mouth to speak but found Rattray’s hot eyes on him and stayed quiet. Rattray was making his life a misery. In any rare, brief moment that they were alone Rattray would crowd him, face shoved close. “Bright boy. Smith’s little pet. He thinks you’re a boy wonder but I’ll see what you’re made of one o’ these days.” The words changed slightly but the message was always the same. If they met on a crowded mess-deck or companion then Gibb got Rattray’s elbow in his ribs or Rattray’s foot crushing his own. And Gibb did not know why. He was afraid to tell anyone and so reveal his fear of the man because he was very young. It was wearing him down.

Rattray’s eyes slid away and up to the bridge. Smith. Shoving his neck in a noose. They would break the bastard and Rattray would laugh in his face and break Gibb.

Garrick did not look at Smith, nor did anyone else on the bridge. Then the messenger came running. “Wireless reports she’s stopped sending, sir.” Smith glared at him. Was this some macabre attempt at wit? The man flinched under that glare but carried on: “Reports another signal, sir. Distant and it’s stopped now, but they think it was Telefunken.”

Telefunken transmissions were distinctive. And they were German.

Smith took a breath. “Thank you.” Now they were all looking at him but he had had enough. “Pilot, a course for Malaguay. Revolutions for fifteen knots.”

He staggered to his cabin to stretch out on his bunk and pull a blanket around him. He was cold, cold, and his body ached with the constant strain of those hours on the bridge. There was a tap at the door and he groaned softly. What now? He called, “Come in!”

Albrecht entered, in one hand a glass that held three fingers of golden liquid. “I took the liberty of prescribing for you, sir.” He held out the glass. “Brandy.”

Smith jerked onto one elbow and rasped, “I don’t need Dutch courage, Doctor!”

Albrecht did not acknowledge the over-reaction, nor did he argue. “No, sir. You led a night attack only thirty-six hours ago, yesterday you smashed into the sea in an aeroplane and today you were more than six hours on the bridge and then —” He broke off, then finished, “It will warm you and help you to sleep.”

“I have nothing on my conscience, either.”

Albrecht did not answer but he did not look at Smith.

Smith sighed. “Doctor, I had to sink that ship. They were signalling and they got a reply. I had to.”

Albrecht said, “The surgeon’s knife.” And: “You’re still certain that these cruisers —”

He stopped. Smith’s weary grin stopped him. “If I say that they are after us, that they are sailing ten thousand miles to hunt us , you’ll think I’m mad.” He reached out and took the brandy and sipped at it and sighed. Albrecht saw in that weary smile a deal to frighten him but no madness at all. Smith said, “Because this ship can offer them a smashing victory, and then they can annihilate British shipping along this coast and that will draw forces to hunt them , not just from the West Indies but from the Atlantic and, Scapa Flow. It will take a lot of ships to track them down and ships of force to deal with them. At best they can lengthen the war and at worst they can, by weakening the Grand Fleet, win it. But first they sink this ship.” Smith drained the glass and handed it back to a staring Albrecht. “Goodnight, Doctor. And if you can’t sleep, try a drop of brandy. It’s all the thing.”

But left alone, Smith did not smile. The brandy had warmed him, burning down into his stomach. His body was exhausted but his mind was only too active. He closed his eyes and saw them coming up over the rim of the horizon, murderous.

‘Distant.’

The signals had been distant. That might mean a hundred miles or more or even, flukily, a thousand; but surely not so far in these conditions. No.

A ‘distant’ signal that the men on Thunder’s wireless thought might be Telefunken. It was still not evidence of the presence of a German ship, let alone two warships. Garrick and the rest did not believe in their existence while Albrecht? He — was uncertain now.

Smith was certain.

On the bridge, Aitkyne said quietly to Garrick, “What chance that our wild man may be right? After that wireless report? Thousand to one against?”

Garrick grimaced and shook his head. He muttered, “And if he’s wrong we’ve just been witnesses to murder. Or accessories to it. By God, after the things he’s done he’d better be right!”

Aitkyne’s brows lifted. “Better? Unfortunate choice of word, old cock. My will is with the family solicitor in Gloucester. If you haven’t made yours then I suggest you get on with it, just in case the thousand-odd to one shot comes off and he is right. Hedging your bets, old cock.”

Garrick swung on him sharply. He found Aitkyne smiling, but very serious.

They called Smith at dusk. Garrick’s voice came urgent down the voice-pipe: “Captain, sir! Ship in distress off the starboard bow! I’m altering course!”

“Very good!” Smith could feel the heel of her as she turned tightly onto the new heading. Still stumbling from legs asleep, he yanked his oilskin from its hook and dragged it on as he climbed the ladder, the folds of it streaming out behind and clapping as the wind tried to tear it from him. The rain ran down his face and he was wide awake when he stepped onto the bridge gratings.

Garrick pointed. “There she is, sir.”

Smith wrapped an arm around a stanchion to steady himself against Thunder’s pitching and rolling. Her engines still rammed her on at that punishing and coal-devouring fifteen knots because Smith was certain the cruisers were somewhere astern of him and Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell waited in Malaguay for Thunder’s protection. Such as it was.

He lifted his glasses, steadied them, focussed, swept and found. She was a black ship on a wild, dark ocean as the night came down on her, and close inshore. Thunder was racing down on her.

Garrick said, “We signalled her by searchlight and she answered, She’s only got a poor signalling lamp but we made it out. Her engines have broken down and she’s sprung plates all along her bottom. She’s sinking but she reckons she’ll go ashore first. She lost one anchor and the other’s dragging.”

Aitkyne butted in, “Damn all chance she has either way. I know this coast. She’ll break up in minutes when she goes ashore.”

“What ship is she?” Smith asked, absently surprised that Garrick had not told him already. He stared at the image that danced in the glasses, thinking of the men aboard her, of their thoughts at this moment with that awful sea waiting to swallow them. Whatever the cost he would take them off. He lowered the glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I asked ‘what ship?’”