Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

Mackay’s voice shattered his dream and made him stare around the bridge like a stranger.

The leading signalman’s mouth moved in time to the diamond-bright signal lamp across the heaving swell.

’Wreckage in the water at one-six-zero degrees, sir.’

Sherwood nodded. ‘Better tell the captain.’

‘I’m here.’ Ransome strode from the ladder and climbed into his chair to reach for his binoculars. ‘What was that bearing?’

Mackay called, ‘From Dryaden, sir. Shall I investigate ‘Negative.’ Ransome ignored the clatter of the Aldis lamp. ‘Alter course to close. Inform Ranger.’

‘What’s up?’ Moncrieff lurched heavily across the bridge. He looked as if he had just woken up.

‘Wreckage, sir.’ Ransome looked at him as if expecting an argument. Dryaden was better suited for these tasks. The point of her being here at all.

But Moncrieff merely said, ‘Right-oh.’

Boyes dodged aside as Sherwood crouched over the gyro repeater.

‘Port ten. Steady. Steer one-six-five!’

Up the voicepipe came Beckett’s harsh acknowledgement. ‘Course one-six-five, sir.’ He had taken the wheel without being called.

Boyes made himself small in case anyone ordered him from the bridge. Another drama. And he was part of it.

Ransome said, ‘Full revolutions.’

Boyes saw Sherwood glance at the captain’s back, the slightest rise of one eyebrow. But that was all.

As the revolutions mounted the ship headed slightly away from her consorts so that Boyes was able to see them from a different angle. Third in line, Fawn’s sister-ship Firebrand, an old Smokey Joe, was puffing out black clouds against the clear sky. It had caused quite a lot of friction with the convoy’s escort commander, until Moncrieff had seized the loud hailer and had told him to mind his bloody manners.

Hargrave had appeared on the bridge now, and raised his glasses to peer over the screen at the drifting spread of flotsam. Remnants from another convoy perhaps?

Ransome tried to lean back in the chair and relax his mind and body. Why had he taken Rob Roy from the formation when the trawler could have managed? Moncrieff would have been justified to question his decision.

It was a distraction. Anything better than the brooding, the regrets, the pain. He knew it was getting into him more deeply, had noticed how careful the others had been to make themselves scarce or busy when he was near. It wasn’t their fault, as he had tried to tell the first lieutenant. But it still didn’t help. He felt himself leaning forward again, the old dryness at the back of his throat.

‘Half ahead together.’ Would anyone ever be able to sum up the cost of the war at sea? Ships and men, material and hopes, the very balance of fate for friend and enemy alike.

Hargrave asked, ‘What do you think, sir?’

Ransome raised his powerful glasses again. It was all too familiar. Drifting timbers and odd fragments of canvas, packing-crates, an upended lifeboat, the whole sea littered with it. He trained his glasses on the capsized boat. He could just make out the port registry, Liverpool, painted on the hull. There was a lot of scum around the planking. It had been wandering with the aimless currents for a long time, probably weeks, the last reminder of a ship, perhaps a whole convoy which had fallen foul of a U-boat pack.

He heard a look-out remark, ‘Not much left in that lot!’

He snapped, ‘Well, keep looking! Any clue might be useful later on!’

He turned away, sick inside, angry with his inability to stay calm.

Sherwood said, ‘There’s a raft, sir. Red four-five.’

Ransome found it, his glasses taking in the scene as if he had actually been there. The roar of a torpedo, perhaps more, the sudden confusion, a shock of despair as the ship went over. This vessel may have been carrying explosives, and had been blown apart before the boats could be got away. Just the one raft. Low in the water, barely rising up to challenge each roller or trough. There were three figures on board. Spreadeagled across it, tied there like some grisly warning to those who risked the Western Ocean.

‘Slow ahead together.’ Ransome slipped from the chair and stood on the gently vibrating gratings. ‘Send the sea-boat away, Number One.’ Their eyes met. ‘Tell the doctor to go too.’

‘What is it, sir?’

Ransome wiped his glasses with a piece of tissue. ‘Nothing. You go across with the boat, will you?’

Hargrave walked away and soon the tannoy barked, ‘Away seaboat’s crew!’ Then, ‘Slip the gripes, stand by for lowering!’

Ransome turned back to watch the little raft. Must have been quite a big ship to carry some naval personnel. He held the glasses fixed on the sprawled shape of the officer whose outthrust arm splashed in the sea alongside. Strained and sodden, but the single gold wavy stripe on the sleeve told its own story. The other two were seamen; one had lost a leg, and appeared to have been lashed to the raft by his companions.

’Out pins! Slip!’ The whaler dropped smartly on to Rob Roy’s falling bow wave and veered away from the side on the boatrope. As it was cast free, the oars dipped and sliced into the water, and Ransome saw Hargrave standing upright in the swaying sternsheets while Surgeon Lieutenant Cusack crouched beside the coxswain, the sunlight touching the scarlet cloth between his stripes like blood.

It would not be a pretty sight. Ransome glanced around at the others and saw the new sub, Tritton, fingering his own sleeve, as if he had seen himself lying there. Leading Signalman Mackay too, his expression a mixture of pity and hate. He had served in the Atlantic and knew the score well enough. Sherwood, eyes partly hidden by his pale lashes, his jaw very rigid as he watched the compass. And the youngster Boyes, who had been staring at the flotsam until he felt his eyes on him. Ransome nodded to him. It was all he could offer. And yet Boyes seemed to symbolise everything as clearly as a bursting starshell. They all expected him, their captain, no matter bow young and unprepared, to hold every answer.

Moncrieff said thickly, ‘Not a nice job at any time.’

Ransome watched the whaler’s oars still, the bowman reaching out warily with his boathook as the raft lifted sluggishly, then surged against the hull. They would hold their breath, pretend it wasn’t really happening, while someone reached over and cut away the identity discs from those poor, broken corpses who had once been like Mackay and Tritton. Like me.

Someone, somewhere would have received a telegram, Missing, presumed killed. The three discs would wipe away any last hope for those who still believed in such things.

He said angrily, ‘Signal the whaler to tow the raft alongside!’ He knew he was speaking harshly, but could not contain it. ‘At least we can remember them properly, for God’s sake!’

And so it was to be.

It was the first time Ransome had been off the bridge for days. It felt like an eternity as he climbed down the two ladders, past the new Oerlikon mounting and grim-faced look-outs, and then along the side-deck past the whaler, now hoisted snugly in the davits again, the wetness of its recent excursion already dried in the sunshine. How different it all looked from down here, he thought. The men off-watch, clinging to stanchions and life-rafts similar to the one they had cast adrift to remain with all the other flotsam of war. Faces watched him, some sad, some stony, all familiar to him like his own family.

It was the same as all the other times, and yet not the same at all. The three shapes by the break in the guardrails, no longer without privacy or dignity, but safe under the clean flags. He heard a snapping sound and saw Cusack pulling off some rubber gloves. Leading Seaman Hoggan was standing with the burial party, the snake tattoo very obvious around one thick wrist as he whistled silently to himself. Two faces by the engine-room hatch, Campbell the Chief, and Nobby Clarke, his petty officer, who knew all about losing a ship. Sub-Lieutenant Fallows, his mouth a thin line as he took charge of the party. He never wore his woolly rabbit any more, Ransome had observed. He was like a different person who was trying to find himself.