Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

He had given Ariadne time.

Given? Nothing was free. Somebody would have to pay.

Thunder got off three broadsides and two salvoes fell in return, one short but close, briefly interfering with vision, one very short. They were laddering, of course, in Wolf and Kondor , one salvo below the rangefinder range, one at it, one over. The third would be over — or a hit. This clicked through his mind as that second salvo hurled water at the darkening sky and as Thunder’s broadside heeled her again and the flashes of the cruisers’ salvoes rippled with awful beauty along the black silhouettes.

“Hard aport! Turn sixteen points!” Thunder heeled again but this time turning in her tracks to plunge back along her course as the turrets hammered around and the crews of the two six-inch guns on the port side, not engaged thus far, hitched at their trousers and licked their lips as they held on against the sudden cant of the deck.

The salvo came down on the port quarter, where Thunder would have been but for the violent change of course, but one rogue shell burst so close that the hammer blow was felt through the hull. Corporal Hill felt it in the after-turret and swore, but just the continual cursing he had kept up since the action started, either angry or happy, now frustrated at the change of course when they had the bastards dead to rights for once …

Benks felt it in the magazine and quivered.

Thunder steadied on her new course.

In the fore-top Garrick was a professionally exalted man. He had his problems; there was still some smoke and the way in which the entire ship vibrated to the pounding of her engines and the thumping discharge of her broadsides made use of the big, mounted spotting equipment a waste of time. The images shivered to that vibration. Instead he did his spotting shifting around the fore-top with a pair of binoculars.

The rangetaker muttered under his breath at the vibration. The rangefinder with its twin lenses gave him two images of the target and by twiddling the adjusting screw he could make the two coincide and at that point read the range. The vibration set the images dancing. “Bloody hell! He’s like to run them engines right through t’bottom. Wish they could come here and have a fist at it. Hold still yer daft cow!”

But he was reading ranges.

Garrick was a happy man. He had a good target at last and his guns were shooting well. He also noted with professional appreciation that the enemy cruisers were firing well. He could not judge the ‘overs’ that fell somewhere behind him but the ‘shorts’ were well together with little spread. It was good shooting, frighteningly good. He was aware also that Thunder was a broadside target and that the zone of the guns firing at him might be anything up to two hundred yards; that is, that a shell aimed incorrectly to fall short of Thunder by a hundred yards or more might still carry and hit her. Hit him.

In a momentary fleeting glance he saw Smith, hands in pockets, out on the wing of the bridge.

Broadside.

Smith lifted the glasses again to watch for its fall as the salvo dropped into the sea well astern.

Wakely said tentatively, “Their shooting’s going off a bit, sir.”

“No.” Smith’s eyes were clamped to the glasses. “He’s having trouble seeing us.” The glow behind the cruisers was dying but they were still clear against it while, to them, Thunder must be a ship lost in the darkness, only a black pall of smoke against the black background of the coast and the night sky. They were still shooting very well.

Wakely yelped, “A hit!”

“Yes!” Smith saw the flash on the leading cruiser that was not the flash of a gun, and a second later the thread of smoke that was not instantly shredded and blown away like the gunsmoke; this smoke trailed on.

But the salvo rippled again down the silhouette.

Thunder fired.

Knight called, “Signal from Ariadne , sir. ‘Am in Chilean waters under escort.’ Looks like a Chilean destroyer lying off there, sir, lit up like a Christmas tree!”

Smith swung on his heel, staring. He could barely make out the bulk of Ariadne but the other ship was easy to see. Possibly she made it more difficult to see Ariadne because she herself was a blaze of light. A Chilean destroyer.

Aitkyne said, “She’s not taking any chances of somebody dropping one on her by mistake.”

And Wakely reported, “Enemy’s turning, sir.’’

Smith swung back. The black silhouettes were blurring now as the last of the light went but they had foreshortened, were again pointing at him, again in pursuit trying desperately to close the range. They, too, had seen the Chilean ship and knew what her presence signified. They fired.

As did Thunder .

Smith rubbed at his face. Ariadne was safe. He stared around him, at the wake creaming phosphorescent in the dusk, the dark ship. Black humping sea and black sky, tongues of orange flame, the ensign snapping a pale blur against the smoke that swirled down from the four funnels and rolled away downwind, mixing with the acrid grey-yellow of the gunsmoke. The last glow almost gone from the distant rim of the ocean, the cruisers almost lost.

One more broadside. These men of his had earned that.

He saw the cruisers’ winking fire and then Thunder’s broadside heeled her for the last time. As the echoes crashed away in a concussion of air, Smith ordered, “Starboard ten! Cease firing!” The cruisers were no longer a target, hardly seen. The only way they would see Thunder would be from the flashes of her guns. He would not give them that opportunity.

He watched for the fall of that last broadside.

The cruisers’ landed first. The familiar spouts rose off the port quarter but the shells that counted were the ones that hit them. There was a blinding burst of livid flame, and shock that sent him grabbing for handhold. He caught at his balance, recovered it and gaped aft. There was smoke but not a great deal, abaft the bridge but wisping away on the wind so he could see beyond the bite taken out of the port quarter, but no flames. The unmistakable long figure of Miles ran aft with huge strides, his filthy damage control party at his heels.

Smith thought he should have turned sooner and not hung on for that last broadside. He lifted the glasses, looking for it.

Aitkyne shouted, “Hit her, by God!”

Smith saw the winking yellow flash on the cruiser to port, right forward, the ship seen in that one camera-blink of light, then almost lost in the darkness as the night swept down over the sea. But flames flickered, tiny with distance, again. She had a fire.

Aitkyne crowed, “Gave ’em a bloody nose to remember us by! Ha!”

A seaman, soot-smeared and running with sweat, panted up the bridge ladder. “Mr. Miles, sir, says two hits, fire’s out, wireless office wrecked but no casualties.” A grin: “Sparks was away for a run-off when it ’it. An’ no serious damage aft.”

Smith took a deep breath and let it out. Thank God for that. He felt the tension running out of him, the excitement draining away and taking the nervous strength with it. They had been lucky. God! How lucky! He wondered if the rest of them really knew how lucky …

They came abreast of the Chilean destroyer lying in her pool of light and he saw her name: Tocopilla . There were plenty of men on her deck. One yell came across the gap, the words incomprehensible, then another voice, authoritative, cut it short. The first voice had been jeering.

Aitkyne asked, “What was that?”

Smith knew very well. Thunder was unpopular here and now she was being chased into hiding. He ignored the question. “Revolutions for five knots.”