Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

Smith nodded. Then Ariadne turned and finally Thunder and the three ships headed out to sea. Neither Ballard nor Graham would be pleased. This was not a course for Guaya. But they would draw the conclusion that Smith was taking a course far out of the normal trade route to evade pursuit.

Smith asked, “Well, Mr. Wakely?”

“She’s still there, sir. Wait a minute, though —”

They had been ten minutes on the changed course and whoever manned the launch would be having a rough passage in this sea.

Wakely called, “She’s turning! She’s dropping back!”

She was. Smith could just see the boat, broadside on and falling away astern. She came around further still, showed her stern and now he saw a faint, dim light in the well of her, possibly the compass. A moment later the darkness hid her.

He waited a further ten minutes and then ordered the return to their original course. He had one crumb of comfort for Ballard. “Make to Elizabeth Bell : ‘Proceed at best speed’.” Now he knew they were neither watched nor followed he would make the best speed he could. It would add another two or three knots. Ariadne was still far from stretching her legs but at least she would feel she was moving.

He left the bridge. Wakely stared at him as if he had second sight but he would not explain tonight. He would not explain that he had expected the Germans in Malaguay to watch his course and to suspect that once out of sight of the land he might change that course. So he expected the launch to be there. She would think she had caught him laying a false trail and that his course to Guaya lay well out to sea. But why had she trailed him if the cruisers were a world away?

He wanted to be alone.

He was on the bridge before dawn and Garrick came to stand beside him and together they drank hot coffee and watched the blackness over the tossing sea turn to grey. The navigation lights of Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell paled in that greyness as the ships took solid shape. Then it was full day and he could see his little convoy clearly, Ariadne heaving solidly, Elizabeth Bell plugging into the seas. Visibility was fair, no better than that, but it was enough.

Garrick hailed the masthead and the reply came back: “Nothing, sir, only Ariadne an’ Elizabeth Bell .”

Smith heard it poker-faced. That was all that was left of his calm pose. He could not converse casually because he did not want to face his officers. He did not want to see the embarrassment and the pity behind it. They were at last on his side but now he had to stand alone. He avoided them. He would not go below and they passed within inches of where he stood or paced the bridge but it was as if they moved in different worlds. The whole ship seemed to tip-toe around him. He passed the long hours of the morning in thought and at the end could remember none of it. Only at the end his thoughts turned to coal and his need of it.

He had sunk two colliers filled with prime Welsh coal. And men. My God, men !

But he still could not believe that his whole reasoning had been wrong.

It was long past noon and they would reach Guaya shortly after sunset. A sun that was bright but robbed of heat by the wind tightened his eyes. It seemed to smile on Thunder and on himself but it brought him no warmth nor comfort.

The call came down from the masthead: “ Smoke bearing green one - six - oh !”

The gale was blowing itself out. Thunder still rolled wildly with seas bursting over her rails and spray flailing across the bridge, and the wind still snapped that spray from the crests of the big, green seas, but the sky was clearing, seeming swept clean by that wind. There was little of the day left but what there was promised to be beautiful.

Visibility was good and on the bridge they could just see the ship now, a speck under the marking black banner of her smoke. The masthead look-out could see her better. “ She’s a gunboat !”

Garrick said, “She’s making up on us, but slowly.”

Knight ventured: “Maybe she isn’t the German.”

That was a possibility. She could be Chilean or any of a score of warships pursuing their lawful business in these waters. Smith did not believe it. He turned away and lowered his glasses. Everyone else who could reach a point of vantage was straining his eyes aft but he would not. He would know soon enough. Elizabeth Bell wallowed ahead of Thunder and rolled as badly. He wondered how Sarah Benson was managing aboard her and decided he did not give a damn. Whatever she got she’d asked for. Elizabeth Bell was barely making eight knots. If this sea fell flat calm she might make ten knots but as it was eight was her best. Astern of her and ahead of Thunder steamed Ariadne , riding the seas better than either of the others. She could make another four or five knots in this. Elizabeth Bell had a crew of twenty-two. Ariadne’s crew and passengers totalled a hundred and thirty.

Once more the hail from the masthead: “ She’s that German! Leopard !” The look-outs had all seen the gunboat more than once when she lay at Malaguay.

Smith said, “Mr. Knight. Make to Ariadne : ‘Proceed independently at best speed’.”

Knight was startled because Smith had not spoken a word that day. But Smith again caught the interchange of glances between Garrick and Aitkyne. There was only one gunboat, only just escaped from internment, unarmed. He could be sending Ariadne away in panic flight while the Germans laughed at the success of their bluff.

“ Ariadne acknowledges, sir.”

“Very good.”

“And Elizabeth Bell signals: ‘Am making best speed’.”

He was only too well aware of it. “Acknowledge.” Another man might have contrived a humorous reply but he did not feel humorous.

Ariadne’s smoke thickened and she swung out to starboard and surged past the tramp and on towards the distant coast.

“ Masthead! Smoke bearing red one - seven - oh! Astern of the gunboat !”

The hail was whipped away on the wind. Smith turned slowly to face aft. They waited, all of them on the bridge and he could see the rest of his officers grouped on the after bridge with glasses and telescopes.

“ Masthead! Looks like a four - funnel ship !”

Garrick bawled up, tight-nerved, outraged, “What the hell d’ye mean? Looks like ?”

“ She’s near bows - on, sir, an’ the smoke what she’s making —”

Garrick fumed.

Then the look-out bawled again, aggrievedly sure now, “She’s a four - funnel ship!”

There was the end of doubt. A four-funnel ship meant a warship was closing on the gunboat. No doubt at all now. Smith thought that somehow they had got the word from Malaguay of the course he had taken out to sea and they had spread out in a wide, sweeping line with the gunboat taking the inshore station. The other cruiser would be ten miles farther out over the horizon and would take time to come up, so it would be one-to-one for that length of time. One-to-one. But she had a broadside of six big guns to Thunders two and an edge in speed. Once he stopped to fight he would never escape.

“ Masthead ! Two four - funnel ships !”

His head jerked back to stare up at the look-out then his eyes came slowly down. The other cruiser must also have been closing on the gunboat, possibly the squadron concentrating for the night or to run into Guaya. Whatever the reason, Thunder faced impossible odds.