Alan Evans - Thunder at Dawn

Farmer Bates said placidly, “Why don’t you shut up?” He had drawn Gibb’s beer besides his own; Gibb was in the cells.

“I just want to know .” Chalky tapped his chest. “I’m on this bleeder same as him. What happens to ’er ’appens ter me . I just want to know . Blimey, what beats me is what that Gibb came back for.” He stood up. “I’m going to draw me beer.”

At that moment Daddy Horsfall hobbled through in his best boots that were crippling him and a starched white mess-jacket that threatened to choke him, on his way aft to the wardroom.

Chalky seized on opportunity. “Hey! Daddy!”

Daddy glanced around, saw him.

Farmer Bates said, “Don’t ask him.”

Chalky whispered, “Not ask him? He’s the skipper’s servant, right alongside of him. If anybody knows —”

“Don’t ask him.”

Daddy called, “What d’yer want, Chalky? I’m supposed to be waiting on, man.”

Chalky asked, “What’s he goin’ to do? The skipper, I mean.”

“Do?”

“ Do! About — this! He’s got to have a plan, ain’t he?”

“Ah! Plan.” Daddy nodded, understanding now. “Well, that’s simple enough. He’s made no secret of it.”

“What?”

Daddy said, “Get them to drop one on us.”

Chalky gaped at him. “ What ?”

Daddy nodded. “An’ when the bloody great cloud of rust goes up we can sneak away through it like it was a smoke screen.” He hobbled away through the guffaws.

Farmer said, “I told you not to ask the old bastard.” But Chalky went off, muttering.

Burton squeezed in beside Farmer and glanced at the bottles of beer. “You’re not going to drink all that at your age?”

Farmer said amiably, “You’re a scrounging bastard.” He shoved along a bottle.

Burton took it. “Always was.”

They drank. Farmer said, “That was a bit of a lark ashore.” They grinned. Farmer asked, “What do you think?”

“Smith? Deep, that one. Dunno what he can do but he won’t back down.”

Farmer nodded agreement. “Just have to wait and see.”

They had talked to Rattray, who said indifferently, “All right, I’ll leave the little bleeder alone if they ever let him out. Don’t matter now, does it? Not with what’s coming off tomorrow.”

Farmer and Burton sat in companionable silence in the midst of the teeming life around them. The moments of comparative peace would not, could not, last much longer. They would not waste them.

No bugle nor pipe sounded but the crew of Thunder had finished their brief breathing space, and their beer, and now turned to under the Petty Officers and Chiefs. They swarmed below deck like a disturbed ants’ nest, destructive ants, and the din they created built on itself until it came in bedlam waves and went on and on.

In the wardroom the Chilean Admiral and Encalada were stiffly polite but their ladies openly excited. Neither officer mentioned Smith’s request for more time but Cherry sought him out and whispered, “They’ve agreed. You have until six tomorrow morning but not a minute longer.”

“Well done!”

“And here!” Cherry handed him a telegram.

It was a signal from Admiralty. Cherry was to inform the Thunder’s commander that a sighting of the cruisers had been reported in error, and if the cruisers arrived in the Pacific he was to avoid action until joined by a stronger force.

Cherry said bitterly, “They’re a little late.”

Smith shrugged. “Thank you, anyway.” He put the signal carefully away in his pocket.

Ballard was openly elated by Thunder’s performance and Smith’s handling of her but after Smith spoke briefly and quietly with him he became preoccupied.

Donoghue and Corrigan, his Flag-Captain, were easy and friendly looking frankly at the damage, appraising it and the work done but saying nothing. The ship was tolerably clean; for a coal-burning ship that had recently passed through heavy weather and hostile action she was remarkably clean. She still stank of burnt cordite and smoke.

The party was complete. It had an air of unreality as Smith had suspected when he issued the invitation but now he was glad that he had done so. It had been issued as an act of bravado, a gesture, but the party was useful for several reasons. For one thing his officers were readily obeying his orders, they were enjoying themselves. For another, Sarah Benson was here.

The white-jacketed stewards served tea, cake and wafer-thin sandwiches. Wakely’s gramophone rag-timed away, decorously muted by one of Wakely’s socks stuffed down its horn. Wakely himself scurried between his gramophone and the group of officers who surrounded Sarah Benson. She had come aboard with Jim Bradley, who was pale and bandaged and told Smith, “The Doc’s allowed me up for one hour. I wasn’t going to miss this!”

Sarah looked anything but a survivor now. During the day she had made demands of Mrs. Cherry and that lady had met them nobly so that Sarah’s hair was piled and shone and her dress was expensive and — well, fitted. She was polite and quiet with Smith when she came aboard but she had come alive in the wardroom. Bradley watched the officers clustered around her with tolerant amusement.

Smith thought Bradley could grin like a Cheshire cat because he would be taking the girl away.

Smith laboured at small talk. He was a poor hand at it and with the Chileans it was hard work. They all avoided mention of the war and Smith knew little of Chile. He talked a little of London but London was hard to recall.

Encalada finally noticed the racket below deck. “Your men are still working very hard.”

Smith nodded. “Yes.”

“Below? I understood you were hit fore and aft and your wireless destroyed — but not below.”

“That is correct.”

That stopped the conversation and Smith could have left it there but he said disarmingly, “It sounds as though someone’s trying to steal the engines! In fact we have a small engine repair, not connected with the action. And of course, we are trimming bunkers. But we will sail on time and shift our anchorage to Stillwater Cove tonight.”

Encalada nodded, but Ballard blurted out eagerly, “Captain, there’s a mist at dawn —” He bit his tongue.

Smith said quickly, “You came aboard in more comfortable style this evening, Miss Benson.”

“But no more eagerly.”

They all laughed at that.

Smith said wickedly, “It is a pleasure to open our doors to you.”

“Now.” And her lips twitched.

“Always.”

“Distance lending enchantment to the view?”

“I was — preoccupied at that time.”

“I know, and understand.”

He had apologised and she had accepted. He was pleased at that and he felt like a tight-rope walker, was enjoying it and tried his hand again. “Normally I would hope to see more of you but in the circumstances —”

“More? In the circumstances that would be difficult.” And she looked him straight in the eye and laughed.

When the party ended and the guests departed Ballard stood at the head of the ladder, his hand in Smith’s, and muttered, “Was that all right?”

“Perfect.”

Thunder was left to herself.

Donoghue found orders waiting for him aboard Kansas , orders for the Atlantic and he called for steam from midnight onwards.

Commander David Cochrane Smith paced the deck of his ship, his mind busy. Davies had raised steam and the smoke hung low on the still air. Soon, now.

He remembered Sarah Benson going down into the boat and thought that he had seen the last of her and, now that they had made some sort of peace, he would have liked to have seen her again. But the chance was gone.