Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

Ransome looked first to seaward where Dryaden , which oddly enough had the most modern Asdic in the group, ploughed around them protectively, the sunlight flashing on levelled glasses on her superstructure. Then he glanced up to Rob Roy’s bridge and saw Hargrave craning over the side to watch him, silhouetted against the sky.

Ransome removed his cap and opened the little book. It was so creased and worn he wondered why he had not obtained a new one. The three identity discs seemed to stare up at him.

That was why it was different. They were some of their own. Probably part of a naval gun-crew carried aboard a big merchantman. This was for all of them. For us. He made himself face it. For Tony. As he read the familiar prayer he glanced up occasionally as if to test his own strength, his own resolve.

He saw Able Seaman Nunn who had lost everyone in his family gripping the lines by the open guardrail, his face expressionless. Only his eyes told it all. Young Boyes sent down from the bridge with an extra flag, his face screwed up while he held on to the new knife which hung from his belt; beside him the tough seaman Jardine with an arm around the boy’s shoulder.

No, he could not let any one of them down. Especially not now.

He glanced up at the bridge and instantly the last tremble of power began to die away.

Ransome read the last part from memory.

‘We commend unto thy hands of mercy, most merciful Father, the souls of these our brothers departed, and we commit their bodies to the deep…’

The rest was blurred, wiped away. As he replaced his cap he saw that the deck was cleared, the flags being folded again. There was the clang of telegraphs, and as if emerging from a brief rest, Rob Roy’s screws beat the sea into an impatient froth once more.

While Ransome made his way forward to the bridge ladder he pictured the three little bundles sinking slowly into eternal darkness. The sea was two and a half thousand fathoms hereabouts. Undisturbed.

When he reached the upper bridge he walked to the chart-table and saw that Hargrave had marked the burial for future reference.

Moncrieff was slouched in his chair. He watched him thoughtfully.

‘Feel better now, Ian?’

Ransome faced him. ‘Much.’

He was the captain again.

Ian Ransome gripped the rim of the motorboat’s canvas dodger as the little hull bucked wildly over another craft’s wash. The spray across his face was surprisingly cold despite the full, hazy sunshine, and it helped to drive away the strain of marshalling the minesweeping flotilla to their various buoys.

The whole anchorage appeared to be filled with ships, moored, anchored, or tied alongside one another at the mole, so that it gave the impression they might never be able to move again. Above it all, the towering bulk of Gibraltar made even the capital ships appear almost insignificant.

Ransome glanced at the ships as the boat tore between them. Famous names, battleships and cruisers he had read about as a boy, some he had even served aboard in the peacetime RNVR days during his annual training. He thought it unlikely that there had been such a gathering of naval force before. The troopships and ungainly landing-craft too, all bedecked with lines of khaki washing hung out to dry like drab bunting.

This was naval power, the machinery it took to sustain an invasion.

A long barge crossed the motorboat’s bows and he heard Able Seaman Suggit, the skimming-dish’s coxswain, swear between his teeth. The launch bore the markings of a rear-admiral. Nothing must stand in his path. No wonder leaders who held the real authority could not afford to consider men as individuals. Ashore they were flags on a map. At sea just a marker with your ship’s name on it. To show that you were at least still afloat.

Like sweeping mines, he thought. You never knew what effect you were having on the whole panorama of war. You worked at it, you mourned when a friend blew up and men burned before your eyes. And yet in the front line you could still afford pity.

The coxswain said, ‘There she is, sir!’

Ransome saw the anchored destroyer immediately. HMS Bedworth, one of the small, speedy Hunt Class destroyers which had been created at the outbreak of war to fill the gaps left by peacetime neglect and reductions. They carried no torpedoes and were used mainly for escort and patrol work. For their size they were heavily armed with four-inch and multi-barrelled weapons, and the Bedworth even mounted a single pom-pom right in the eyes of the ship, a bow-chaser which could singe the whiskers of even the fastest E-boat. The little Hunts had an impressive speed of thirty-two knots. She would run rings around her brood of minesweepers, he thought, but then who didn’t?

’Bows!’

The bowman raised his boathook and held it above his head as the Rob Roy’s only motor boat scudded round and headed towards an Accommodation ladder.

He wondered if Moncrieff was still aboard, or, as in Plymouth, if he had already left without a word.

A flight of Hurricanes roared low overhead and Ransome imagined the Spaniards across the water in Algeciras watching every movement, using a one-sided neutrality to keep their German friends fully informed.

Gib in peacetime had been a favourite calling-place for the fleet. A sailors’ port then, today it would seem like Aladdin’s Cave to the youngsters who made up most of the ships’ companies that came here.

Ransome thought of his own company. Hardly any of them had been out of home waters before. Gibraltar never changed, with its blazing lights and garish cafes, its tiny shops and stalls filled as always with junk. To these young sailors it would seem like the treasures of the Orient.

It would be packed with servicemen now more than ever before. Like the Great War when the troopships had assembled here before the bloody carnage of Gallipoli. The Rock. Who held it, commanded the gateway to the Mediterranean.

The motor boat’s engine coughed and went astern as the hook swept down on to the accommodation ladder to bring them together.

Ransome ran lightly up the side, feeling sweaty and out of place when he was confronted by the white-clad side-party, the O.O.D. in shorts that looked as if they had just been washed and ironed.

The lieutenant saluted. ‘Welcome aboard, sir. We watched you enter harbour. Yours is a job I’d prefer to see from a distance.’

Ransome followed him to the quartermaster’s lobby. Just a small hard-worked destroyer, some forty feet longer than Rob Roy. And yet in a strange way she felt twice as big.

He heard Moncrieff’s voice before they even reached the door marked Captain.

‘I don’t give a bloody toss what they say, whoever they are, I think it’s a damn stupid—’ The rest was cut off as the lieutenant tapped on the door.

Another voice spoke. ‘ Come!’

The lieutenant grimaced at Ransome. ‘Good luck, sir.’

Ransome knew a fair amount about the new S.N.O. A bit of a goer , everyone said, an officer who had seen most of his service in destroyers, and latterly working with Combined Operations right here in the Med.

Ransome adjusted his expression and stepped into the cabin.

Commander Peregrine Bliss, DSO, Royal Navy, was young for his rank. He had a square, eager face and dark curly hair which with his deeply tanned skin made his eyes stand out like chips of blue glass. He thrust out his hand, his eyes crinkling as he gave a wide grin. ‘At last, Ransome. Been dying to meet up with you. Take a pew.’

He glanced at Moncrieff. ‘ We’ve been having a discussion.’ Like the man, his speech was lively, like a sea breeze. Ransome could picture him without any difficulty at all, conning his destroyer through some hazard or other, his men hanging on his every word.