Geoffrey Jenkins - A bridge of Magpies

He said in the same quiet and compelling way he'd had when he told us about being Master of the Equinoxes'

'What I must do now I must do alone. This is hara-kiri. I must admit that the method of dropping a mine on a load of torpedoes is rather unique. Crude, but effective. The first ceremonial cut in the stomach is called seppuku.' The pain lunged at him and he caught his breath. 'There won't be time for the rest of the procedure.' He tried to smile. 'Traditionalists even have a warrior's meal of dry chestnuts and cold sake beforehand. How close is Sang A?'

'Out of range, but she's got a heavy machine-gun mounted for' ard..

'I know.'

Jutta and I also knew now that he was as sane as we were.

Only his eyes looked a little tired and his face was sallower and finer-drawn – from the blood he was losing-probably.

'I said-"the Girl goes to join the Lover". Now go.'

We didn't take it in for a few moments that he was giving us our lives. Then Jutta broke the spell. She went towards him-to kiss him I think-but he waved her back gently. `

Sorry, you mustn't touch a dead man, Miss Jutta. After seppuku I'm dead.'

She knelt on the rusty plating and he sat on the jumpstool with his right leg stretched out in front of him to ease the pain. He took the Taisho from his belt, slipped a shell out of it-scratched some words on the blade of the knife, and gave it to Jutta.

'Mei fa tzu – it is fate,' he quoted.

`What do you want me to do?' I asked hoarsely. `

First cut away the old mine cable.'

I put a match to the blowpipe. It was only a matter of seconds before the section of rusty cable snapped under the flame and thumped against the conning-tower. The new piece I' d fitted still held the mine suspended.

'Good,' he said. He handed me his pistol. 'Now I want you to take Gaok -have her afterwards for yourself-and fire four shots as a signal. When Sang A's close enough, do you understand?'

'I understand, Kaptein Denny.'

'I won't be able to get up and judge the range,' he went on. '

You'll be my eyes. I want the signal distinct because Sang A will be firing too. One-two. One-two. Then I'll know. Where's Sang A now?'

There was a burst of machine-gun fire from the black ship. I ducked involuntarily.

'Out of range. That'll be Kenryo trying his hand?

'That machine-gun of theirs can't train completely for'ard because of the whaleback,' he said. 'Sang A will have to sheer slightly to one side when she comes closer, to bring it to bear. She'll lose ground by doing so.'

I shot an anxious glance at the approaching ship. '

Anything more?

'No. You weren't a headman, of course?'

'No. Navy.'

'Give my regrets to your chief. do that.'

Jura. said in a strangled whisper-'Master of the Equinoxes!'

He said, `Kaptein Denny was a long, long act. It's good to be myself again. Now run for your seventh life!'

Jutta clung tight to me and I half-led-half-carried ha down the ladder off the bridge. There was another spatter of fire from Sang A when they saw us but they were still loo far away to do us any harm.

I slipped the rope cradle which held Gaok to U-160 and gunned the engine. Gaok pulled away from the U-boat. Sang A was pushing hard, and the water was white under her bows. She sheered to one side in order to brlng the heavy machine-gun to bear, as Kaptein Denny said she would have to, enabling Gaok to gain some valuable distance. There was a staccato ra-tat-tat but the volley fell short. Twenty yards short. Extreme range.

Sang A pulled back on to her coarse: Gaok was worklng up to full speed but the black ship wasn't interested in us – yet.

Then she veered again and the next burst spanged off the conning-tower. They're in range now. Judge it, I told myself, judge it and don't panic because a few yards will make all the difference between life and death when the moment comes. Gaok's life and death. Ours.

The machine-gun cut off abruptly. They'd got wise to that mine. Then came several isloated, lighter shots. Sniper. That's Kenryo's gun. He's trying to pick off Kaptein Denny. He'll be all right if he doesn't show himself from behind the protection of the conning-tower. I daren't wait any longer! Sang A's coming on like an express. Two or three other automatics joined in with Kenryo's.

Now.

I stepped out on deck with Jutta. I raised the Taisho and fired into the air.

One-two. One-two.

I crushed Jutta to me.

'There!' she whispered.

Above U-160's conning-tower the blue-while flame of the blow-torch was brighter than the daylight and there was a little cascade of sparks where Kaptein Denny attacked the wire at the point where it looped over the bridge coaming. Sang A was close to her, well within the explosion area, 216 and firing non-stop.

Then the sparks flared up.

I pulled Jutta to the deck with me.

Gaok's steel rail rolled up like fencing as the blast from the explosion hit her. She leapt and bottomed again with a keel-shaking crash. Water, bits of glass, metal, rope and planks rained on us. We lay there until they had stopped. Then we picked ourselves up-and I held her, and we looked. Her heart was hammering away against my chest. The sea was empty. There was no sign, through the yellow haze of the shock-wave, of either U-160 or Sang A. The surface of the water, where they had been such a short while before, was llttered with steaming-blackened fragments and unidentifiable pieces of ship, sizzling as they sank. Landwards the mushroom of the explosion towered above the Bridge of Magpies. It wasn't smoke. It was a million birds. We stood silent, trying to comprehend the swift totality of the catastrophe. The silence was as total as if our eardrums had burst. The only thing that stirred was the yellow haze over the water.

It was because I was watching the movement of those wisps, rising like a ghost from a body, that I spotted another movement out at sea, above the low promontory where Black Prince Cove was situated. It, too, was wraith-like – a tall lattice mast with radar scanner and aerials, swinging slightly with the roll of ship to which it belonged.

I stared at the disembodied thing above the point of land, as if I'd never been a Navy man and had never seen a frigate's top-hamper before.

`Jutta I The frigate! She's here!'

Like a film image growing out of the island's extremity, the bow of the frigate emerged, then the low lean midships section, and finally the stern with its boil of white thrown up by engines going full speed ahead.

Jutta said, Kaptein Denny must have got off your message after all.'

`No, Jutta. He assured me he had not. There's some other explanation.'

The sound of engine-room bells came across the water. The Fairest Cape went full astern when she sighted us, and altered course to avoid the stained patch of debris on the sea's surface. She skirted it and came slowly towards Gaok. 217

White-clad figures were at her rail and on her bridge, gawp. ing unashamedly. All you could say for Gaok was thal she was still afloat.

The frigate lost way and stopped. They threw us a line. '

Come on up,' said a voice from her deck. 'Have you any casualties?'

'No casualties.'

Jutta went first up the rope ladder and I followed. When I got level with the warship's rail there was a shrilling of bo' sun's pipes. For one impossible moment I thought they were for me. But no navy extends an ex-captain an admiral's honours. They were for the C-in-C. He came along the deck towards us and I found myself wanting to jump to attention at the sight of so much brass-until I remembered my stained, torn headman's rig.

The little admiral held out his hand to me. He barely spared Jutta a glance.

'Glad to see you, Struan. What was the big bang?' '

A mine and an old sub full of torpedoes.'