Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

Theoretically they could well have entered Guaya at Thunder’s heels and coaled there. That would have put the Chileans in a dilemma with their refusal to supply Smith. They had not done so because of the twenty-four hours rule. If the cruisers had entered Guaya, and then Thunder had sailed, they would have had to give her twenty-four hours start. That was international law.

So they waited outside, for Thunder , and an annihilating victory that would shake the world with the length of the German Navy’s arm, and its strength.

Manton said nervously, “Chilean destroyer’s signalling, sir.”

Smith realised he was glaring sightlessly out to sea and cracked his stiff face in a smile. “No doubt.” They were close to Tocopilla now and she was heading, still on that rigid line, to pass close across the bow of the pinnace. She was warning them to keep clear, that they were close to leaving the sanctuary of neutral waters.

Smith said, “Hard a’starboard. Copy her course, Mr. Manton. Half ahead.”

The pinnace slowed and came around to run parallel with Tocopilla . The officers looked down on them curiously from the bridge of the destroyer as she forged past then left them tossing in her wake. Smith lifted the glasses again as the destroyer’s smoke rolled away. He could see the nearer cruiser and the gunboat alongside her, clearly now. He watched for a minute then handed the glasses to Manton and took the wheel himself. “Take a look.” He waited until Manton lowered the glasses and then asked him, “Well?”

“It looked like ammunition they were loading on the Leopard , sir.”

Smith said, noncommitally, “Yes.” He had been quite certain of what he had seen but it had also been what he expected to see so he had wanted confirmation. Now he had it. It was one more point to be home in mind, that now the gunboat had teeth.

But she was no threat set beside the cruisers. He turned over the wheel to Manton and reclaimed the glasses. The further cruiser was too far away to be seen in detail, but the nearer — he thought the fore-turret looked very odd, one gun of the pair bent at an angle. He let Manton see. “As Mr. Aitkyne put it, we gave her a bloody nose.”

“By Jove, yes, sir!” Manton stared a long time and yielded the glasses only when Smith said, “We’ll return to the ship.”

They did not return directly. Having run in under the signalling station and its watchful glass, Smith said, “Steer four points to starboard. Slow ahead.” The engine of the pinnace slowed until she slipped through the water at a walking pace. They crept into Stillwater Cove and on Smith’s order Buckley took station in the bow with the boat lead. They took soundings for the length of the cove and proved deep water, or near as deep as the main channel. They chugged back to the centre of the cove and anchored and the engine expired in a sigh of steam. Smith stood over the compass, checking bearings. The pinnace scarcely moved where she lay, his bearings showed him that, despite the flowing tide that thrust at her, rippling around her bow. She did not swing at all.

Smith stared for a minute or two at the forest wall that climbed sheer from the water of the cove, then across the channel to where the signalling station was just visible around the right-turning curve of the main channel. As he was visible to them. They could not see this stretch of the channel but they could see the cove and himself. Just.

He cast one last look around at the cove, the forest, the channel, then smiled at Manton. “Home, James.”

They ran back up the channel.

As they opened up the pool his eyes went first, of course, to Thunder , appraising the work done and finding himself well content. She was grimy still but a sight cleaner than that morning. He would have to give some orders on trim. Terribly light with near empty bunkers, she rode high in the water. Then his eyes drifted across to Kansas , lying massive, ugly in her menace but lovely in the clean lines of her.

Manton said, “She’s enormous.”

Smith smiled thinly. The cruisers could set a steel trap across the mouth of the river and he could act out defiance here but the argument was between themselves. There was no argument as to where sea-power on this coast ultimately rested, whenever she chose to take it. Kansas seemed to doze in the late afternoon.

Five minutes later he faced Garrick and Bates. A look at Bates’s face was enough but he asked, “All well?”

“Took a lot longer getting back, sir, but all well.”

Garrick added, “In the cells.”

One look at Garrick’s unhappy face was also enough but Smith only said, “Very good.”

When Bates had gone Smith stood lost in thought, smiling faintly. That was one worry out of the way. As for the rest … He turned the smile on Garrick. “Now, about this bun-fight. Mr. Wakely will be in charge of the gramophone. All officers, except for watch-keepers, will be present and I want it understood that this is a party . Anyone who does not enjoy himself will answer to me.” He grinned. “And a word to the Paymaster. I have no doubt at all that the recent action will have destroyed some of his canteen stock, notably beer and probably of the order of two bottles per man, and I will expect to sign a certificate to that effect.” That he would do with a clear conscience. The canteen stock would be a total loss inside twenty-four hours.

As Garrick knew perfectly well, but he returned Smith’s grin; it was infectious.

They discussed the trim of the ship and Smith said what he wanted done. He told Garrick about the Leopard and how she had been armed by the cruiser. “ Kondor , I think.”

He said how she had been hit. He told him of the soundings in the cove and that he wanted steam for sunset. And then he gave one last order that startled Garrick, that would have to be passed to the Chiefs and Petty Officers and would mean more work for the men — after they had their beer.

He had half an hour to sluice himself down, change into clean clothes and then sit quietly in his cabin. Far below in the stokehold they would be starting already on the long job of trimming and getting up steam with the grate and clang of the shovels. They were busy. But most of the other hands were fallen out below, cooks piped to the galley for the evening meal and there would be beer as well. It was quiet.

He could hear the tick of the clock. It was a background to his thoughts as he re-examined his plans. He was not smiling now.

It might have seemed that he had at least a limited number of courses he could pursue. In fact he knew, as he had known from the beginning, that he would have to fight. They had hunted him down though he had gone half across the world and he could see them …

The rap at the door snapped his eyes open and the word from him in a savage bark: “ Yes?”

Vincent’s voice came nervously, “Boat putting off from Ariadne , sir.”

“Thank you.”

He thought that when there was only one course you could take it became terribly simple. He was smiling as he went to join his officers where they waited in a well-scrubbed, shining group, neat in their best dress.

The mess-decks were crowded. Mess-decks are always crowded, even on a ship as short-handed as Thunder , but this day it was made worse by the damage to the ship, some parts being too badly burned to be inhabited. They stank. So Thunder’s crew jammed in together in a grousing matiness, sweated, talked, and wondered.

Chalky White ate furiously, nervously, shovelling the food into his mouth. Through it he mumbled, “What can ’e do? What I ask yer! Too slow to run away. That’s been proved. They ’aven’t got better than a knot or two over us but that’s enough. Too much. Either one o’ them’s got twice the big guns we have. So what can he do ? I asks you!”