Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

He found he was staring at Garrick and that the First Lieutenant was grinning like an overgrown schoolboy. Aitkyne smiled broadly. And Knight. All his officers seemed delighted, and then he realised it was for him, because he had been right. Wolf and Kondor . He caught a glimpse of young Wakely, flushed with excitement and laughing. The elder officers were hardly more serious. Garrick said, “God knows who they’re chasing in the Indian Ocean.” He guffawed. There were few hours of daylight left but Smith thought they could all be dead by sunset.

He turned from them and climbed slowly, steadily to the fore-top, the big glasses bumping on his chest. There was no hurry. The cruisers would not go away. He stood in the fore-top holding on against the wild sweep of the mast as it swung like an erratic metronome. He lifted the glasses, aware of Garrick behind him.

He saw them coming up under the smoke, a great deal of smoke, they were steaming for all they were worth. Bows on and superimposed as they were he could not distinguish their silhouettes, but he knew them. He lowered the glasses fractionally until the bucketing gunboat lurched into focus. Only nine hundred tons and with barely ten knots of speed, Leopard only carried a pair of four-inch guns. Except for them, with her flush deck she might be taken for a rich man’s yacht. Yet she had sighted them, had pointed the finger. Without her he might have got away.

He let the glasses fall against his chest. Garrick held the silhouette book. He frowned at it. “I’ll lay odds they are Wolf and Kondor .”

“I know.” Smith started down. He had seen more than enough. He was pursued by an enormously superior force but Thunder plodded on at a leaden eight knots while the pursuit roared down on her at more than twice that speed. The reason, of course, was the Elizabeth Bell , rusty and dirty and shabby. She hung around his neck like an albatross. In half-an-hour or less …

He could abandon the Elizabeth Bell .

Looked at coldly and logically it was the obvious course but he knew he could not do it. The sun was going down, it was already in his eyes as he turned aft again to stare at his fate rushing down on him, his nightmare come to appalling life. The sun was going down but it would not set soon enough to save them.

Very well, then. “Number One!”

“Sir?” The reply was jerked out of Garrick. The jubilation on the bridge had turned to a façade that could not hide the tension that was a palpable thing and Garrick was not immune.

Only Smith felt cold. “I will want steam for full speed, and I want every man fed. There’s time for a quick bite, say twenty minutes.”

Garrick ran from the bridge and Smith started to follow him but paused by Aitkyne to say casually, “I’ll be in my cabin, pilot. If there is any change in the situation no doubt you will let me know.” He took the silhouette book from Aitkyne and made his way to his cabin in leisurely fashion.

Boat-deck and upper-deck were crowded by the watch below, the eyes of all of them astern. One or two of them saw him stroll by and nudged each other, grinned. He was a cool one! But once in his cabin, alone, he opened the silhouette book and stared at it. That was not necessary. Now he could have drawn the silhouette faithfully from memory.

They were faster and each of them carried eight 8.2-inch guns that were equal to Thunder’s 9.2-inch and she had only two of them. Sixteen to two. In a broadside fight they could fire twelve to two, even in a stern chase like this they would bring eight to bear against one. Between them they carried twelve 5.9-inch that out-ranged Thunder’s elderly six-inch guns.

Sarah Benson had said: ‘You can’t fight them.’

She was in the Elizabeth Bell .

There was a tap at the door and Horsfall entered with a tray. “That there Benks, he’s made sandwiches for all the gentlemen, bully beef an’ a bit o’ pickle an’ I thought you might fancy a bottle o’ pale ale.” He set the tray on the table and touched the glass lovingly, making sure it was safe. It was only half-full so that Thunder’s rolling would not slop the golden, white-collared contents.

Smith said, “You may as well have the rest of the bottle.”

“Thank you, sir.” Smith was prepared to bet the rest of the bottle had already gone. He was right. Horsfall said, “Looks as if we’ll be busy later on. Anything particular you want while I’m here?”

Smith shook his head. “No, thank you.” Except another ten knots, or that battle-cruiser.

“Well. Might see you later on, sir.”

Might. Smith looked up at Daddy’s long horse-face. Daddy was under no illusions. Smith tapped the book. “Know this class of ship?”

Horsfall breathed over Smith’s shoulder, then said simply, “Too bloody true, sir.”

“Good luck, Horsfall.”

“And the same to you, sir.”

Smith drank the beer thirstily but he could not face the sandwiches.

When ‘Cooks to the galley’ was sounded, Gibb queued up with the others and drew the meal for his mess: more bully beef and bread, scalding hot tea. Some wanted to eat, some did not. Some started voraciously then sickened. Nobody stayed on the mess-deck. They all crowded up aft, heavy sea or no heavy sea. The spray turned the hunks of bread to soggy lumps in their hands and diluted the tea while the wind cooled it, but they all got something inside them, if it was only tepid tea.

Gibb found Rattray alongside him champing hungrily and sucking at tea. Gibb ate nothing, drained his cup and was still thirsty. Gibb ventured, trying to be nonchalant, “Looks like we’ll have a scrap, hey?”

Rattray did not answer for a while, then he showed his teeth. “And we’ll see what you’re bloody made of, you and Smith together.”

Smith returned to the bridge and moved out to the wing, staring aft. The two big cruisers had overhauled the gunboat now. Ten miles away, maybe a little more. They were eating up the distance, racing down in line abreast so both could fire with all guns that would bear forward, which would be three each at least and four if he lay dead ahead of them. Dead ahead. Unfortunate choice of phrase. He grimaced and swung around, eyes seeking the coast. It looked no nearer and the sun seemed suspended, refusing to move down the sky. Neither sanctuary nor night to save them.

He ordered, “Sound ‘General quarters’.”

Thunder’s crew boiled into life and ran to their action stations. The reports began to come in as the guns’ crews closed up, magazines were manned and all the hundred and one posts necessary to Thunder’s functioning as a fighting ship were filled.

Garrick went to the fore-top. Thunder’s fire control like everything else about her was outdated. She did not have director firing, that is all guns being laid and trained from one central director high above the deck. She had a rangefinder and a device to calculate deflection and that was all. The guns received range and deflection through navy phones and from then on it was up to the layers and trainers to lay and train the gun. Garrick in the fore-top watched for the fall of shot and issued orders to correct it if it was over or short.

Smith stayed on the bridge. In the conning-tower below the bridge they would have the protection of that eleveninch-thick armour plate but Smith wanted to see as much as he could, had to see. But exposed as they were on the bridge, a hit on the ship might send scything splinters to wipe out Smith and everyone else up there, while a direct hit on the bridge — It was one more risk he had to take. If he could neither run nor fight with any hope then he would have to seek an alternative. He thought this was the place to seek it.