The Weak Link Page 2

  “Precisely,” Bentley agreed crisply. “All right, Buffer, look after the boat.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Hooky answered formally, and clumped back and down the ladder.

  Bentley turned to the waiting Hanson. The officer’s face was white, and his mouth was a straight line. His idle ‘exercise’ had mistimed—he would be the laughing stock of the ship’s company. Bentley realised this. His voice was controlled and even, more explanatory than admonitory.

  “Remember that, Sub. A lifeboat is never piped away for exercise. Exercise the sea boat as often as you like. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” The voice was just edging on anger. “But I told the bosun’s mate to pipe it for exercise, sir. I’ll see him when he gets back.”

  “The bosun’s mate assumed it was the real thing,” Bentley said sharply. “In any case it was your duty to give the correct order, not the bosun’s mate to interpret your intentions!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right, then.” The incident was finished as far as the captain was concerned. “We’ll alter course ten degrees to the westward at three o’clock.”

  “Ten degrees to the westward. Aye, aye, sir.”

  Bentley went below to his sea-cabin. The boat was hoisted and snugged in with the gripes. The ship returned to normalcy.

  Leading-Seaman Billson was noted mainly for his size. The size of his body. This was in inverse proportion to the cranial capacity of his skull, which organ, though certainly thick enough to resist the most hardened assaults upon it in a merry bar room, precluded that cerebral development which might have lifted him up from the lowest ranks of promotion.

  It is doubtful if he would ever have reached even the rank of leading-seaman had it not been for two facts—his size ensured that his slightest order was obeyed instantly and without thought of argument: and, secondly, he was a wizard at splicing even the toughest wire-rope, even mine-sweeping wire, and was a natural seaman. So long as Leading-Seaman Billson’s mental powers were not called upon to play any part in an operation, he could be described as a taut hand.

  So that when he received the message to report to Sub-Lieutenant Hanson’s cabin after four o’clock tea that afternoon, the limited ramifications of his cerebral matter could conceive of no other reason for the summons other than that he was to be complimented on his prompt manning of the lifeboat.

  He rolled along the deck and lumbered down the wardroom ladder, jumping on to the deck from the second-last step with something of the reverberating effect of a dropped 44-gallon drum of oil. He saw Hooky about to knock on the cabin door, and his big homely face cracked its leathery covering in a wide grin.

  “Hyah, Chief. We was pretty nifty with the boat, eh?”

  “Yeah,” Hooky growled, “and now comes the payoff.” He tapped with his steel hand on the wood.

  “Come in,” snapped a young voice from inside.

  Chief Petty-Officer Walker, the man responsible for Wind Rode’s seamanship efficiency, and one-time shipmate of Sub-Lieutenant Bentley, had been many years at sea. He had also, it follows, served with many types of officer, and he knew perfectly well why he had been sent for now by a sub-lieutenant.

  Hooky had been at sea when Hanson was still in triangular trousers, and he had no intention of being bawled out for something which was neither fault nor concern of his. He had decided what his plan of campaign would be—it did not, of course, envisage a complaint to the captain of unfair treatment. Hanson was not significant enough for that.

  “Yes, sir?” Hooky said respectfully and efficiently, and stood just inside the door, which he had closed after them.

  Hanson did not look up. He was writing on the top sheet of a pile of papers, and he kept on doing that, his brow corrugated as if the next operation of the Commander-in-Chief depended on his sifting of these top-secret documents.

  Hooky stood there, waiting. He did not mind. He knew that Hanson was working on a list of wardroom stores, for Hanson was the mess secretary, keeping the accounts. Hooky knew why the officer kept on working, and he consoled himself with the thought that he had been kept waiting by better men than this. So long as he was awake up to Hanson’s intention, it could not ruffle him. It merely made him feel slightly sorry for the gangly youth.

  Beside him Billson shuffled his big feet and twisted the cap in his hand. He, at least, was impressed by the importance of work from which the officer could hardly spare a moment to congratulate them.

  Then Hanson pushed away the sheet he had been working on, abruptly pulled it back again for further scrutiny, and then finally discarded it. He turned his head slightly and looked up at them.

  “You took your time getting here,” he snapped as an opener.

  “The message I received was to report to you at four o’clock, sir,” Hooky answered calmly. “It is now two minutes past four, sir. We have been in your cabin for that time.”

  Hanson glowered fiercely at him.

  “You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, Walker!”

  “Yes, sir,” Hooky said in his earlier tone. “My name is Chief Petty-Officer Walker, sir. Especially in front of junior ratings, sir.”

  Hanson’s mouth opened. His eyes caught Hooky’s, level and steady. He shut his mouth and contented himself with looking fierce. Then he swung and transferred his attack to the more amenable Billson.

  “You!” he rasped, omitting Billson’s name because he knew he would have to address him as “leading-seaman,” and thus admit that he had been in the wrong earlier with Hooky. “What the devil d’you mean by having the lifeboat lowered?”

  Billson’s generous mouth dropped until it formed a fairly round and very large O. He had not expected this. It called for thought, even quick thought, and to Billson’s big and minutely-filled head the call went in vain. He swallowed.

  “I ordered the boat lowered, sir,” Hooky answered for him, keeping his voice calm and respectful, keeping to his plan of campaign.

  “I wasn’t speaking to you,” the waspish voice told him.

  “No, sir. Just the same, I ordered the boat lowered.”

  “Oh, you did, eh? Why? D’you think you run the upper-deck?”

  “No, sir. That is, I do, sir, under the first-lieutenant. As for lowering the boat, when I hear a lifeboat piped away I don’t have to wait for lowering orders, sir.”

  “The lifeboat wasn’t piped away!” Hanson heaved back his chair and rose to his lanky length before them. His mouth was a thin white gash in his angry face. “My orders were for exercise. That doesn’t mean the boat is lowered at all, let alone into the sea at twenty knots! Where the blazes did you learn your seamanship?”

  Hooky’s walnut-coloured face was still calm; inside a slow anger began to burn. He ignored the sneer at the end of Hanson’s speech.

  “When I was ready to slip the boat, sir, the engines had stopped. It would have been quite safe to drop her. And, as I said before, the boat was lowered because it was a lifeboat.” He paused for a fraction, and then added, prompted by the anger in his guts, “As I told the captain on the bridge, sir.”

  “Exactly!” Hanson snarled. “As you told the Captain. The bosun’s mate makes a cock of my order, and you jump in and help a hell of a lot with your big mouth!”

  “Sir!” The word rapped out, barked in a voice that had drilled a hundred gun-crews and out-shouted ocean gales. Hanson’s head jerked up as if Hooky had chucked him under his receding chin. He stared into a pair of eyes which bored back into his, with a light of cold appraisal that made him swallow and lower his head.

  “You will not speak to me like that, sir. At any time, let alone before a junior rating. And if you’d like the captain’s opinion on it, sir. I’ll be in that, too.”

  Hanson looked up at his face, then down again. Hooky felt suddenly angry—with himself. He had not intended to let himself go like that, not with a kid still wet behind the ears. Obviously he did not know how to handle the situation. Hooky’s left hand had started to come up in a vaguely placatory gesture when Hanson lifted his head.

  “Get out,” he snarled. “Get out—both of you.”

  They went. Hooky motioned Billson up the ladder ahead of him. He did not want to discuss the officer with anyone, certainly not the dumb-head leading-hand. He walked along the upper-deck slowly, and he was thinking whether this would blow over, or if it would breed and grow in Hanson’s immature breast.

  He pulled the lips of his mouth sideways in a sudden little gesture which corresponded to a shrug, and flipped his cigarette over the rail into the sea. It was only a trivial thing, after all, the exercising of the lifeboat.

  Chapter Two

  WIND RODE STEAMED on, and gradually the darkness drew in about her, until the blackness of the night reached wide and dense on all sides.

  A wind had come up with the departing of the sun’s heat. The sky was still cloudy, but now and then the moon shone through, and a long band of gold barred the black disc of the sea; or else a larger gap appeared above them, and the moon seemed to be rushing backwards with frightful speed over the sky, right into the wind’s eye.

  She slipped on, darkened, purposeful and alert, for this inland sea was no personal preserve of any one nation, and this was the time when other marauders could be expected to come prowling out on the hunt. They had gone to precautionary action stations at dusk, with the whole armament closed-up and communications tested through.

  Mr. Lasenby, the gunner in the director, was satisfied with his armament—that the guns’ receivers were lined-up with the director’s, the master-sight, and that the mountings had the correct ammunition for a night action handy in the lockers.

  Mr. Piggott, the engineer, had assured himself of his remaining fuel supp
ly and had reported this to Bentley. And he was satisfied that he could give Wind Rode whatever speed was required of her that night, and as quickly as she wanted it.

  He did not report this to the captain, for there are many things in a warship which must of necessity be left to the branch-officers concerned, and Bentley had a solid team of officers.

  With perhaps, the exception of Sub-Lieutenant Hanson.

  The torpedo-officer had tested his communications, he knew that each of the ten tubes were loaded with a grim steel shape fitted with a warhead on its nose holding some thousand pounds of high-explosive. The two banks of five tubes were trained outboard, ready, so that they stretched almost across the entire width of her narrow-gutted waist.

  The asdic-officer had inspected his depth-charges on the quarterdeck, some in their throwers, some on rails which could drop them over the stern right into the wake. The deadly grey canisters were now set to ‘Safe,’ because if Wind Rode should catch an opening torpedo and go down suddenly, with her charges set in the firing position, the lot would go up when she had sunk to a predetermined depth and effectively kill all men struggling in the water. But they could be brought to the firing state in a matter of seconds.

  Pilot, the navigator, knew precisely where they were, having taken two good sun sights in the dogwatches, and he knew on what courses and in what area they would patrol that night. He, too, knew what fuel she had remaining, and that both boilers were connected up, ready for full power if needs be.

  The surgeon had plenty of bandages ready, large bandages, for if he had to use them he could be assured of extensive wounds to cover. Also a sufficiency of ointments and oils for burns, the third-degree burns, resulting from the green-hot explosions of shells or torpedoes. Standing handy behind the door of the sick-bay were several stretchers which were more like strait-jackets, ready to transport broken-boned men below decks, down ladders and through narrow hatchways These stretchers were in addition to those already in position at several central points throughout the ship.

  And all these things, with the exception of the position in the engine-room, had been overally checked by Bob Randall, the big tough first-lieutenant and Bentley’s best friend.

  He had walked round the upper-deck, seeing that every opening through which a slit of light could shine betrayingly, had been closed or covered; had a word with the depth-charge team on watch on the quarterdeck; spoken with the surgeon and discussed his first-aid parties; climbed to the gun mountings and on one had them lower the guardrails, to make sure the pins weren’t stuck with rust, and on another, seen that the base-clips were off the ready-use ammunition. Then he had had a private word with Bentley.

  So that the captain had little to do after action stations had been fallen out, except lean on the fore windbreak and think. He would remain on the bridge for most of the night, and the thought of his long vigil, and how his preparatory sleep had been interrupted in the afternoon by Hanson’s stupid exercise, caused him a slight tinge of irritation. It also made him think of Hanson.

  Hanson, he remembered, had been officer of the day when Bentley had joined Wind Rode for the first time back in Brisbane. He recalled that he had not been impressed by the first meeting with the gangling, sloppily-dressed youth, but he had refrained from making any further assessment until he had had a chance to bring the ship to his way of running things.

  Now he had done that. And he had to admit that Hanson had not blossomed like the rest of the ship’s company, Though his dress had improved under Randall’s watchful eye, he was still unsure of himself. That was bad, for unsureness stemmed almost without exception from lack of knowledge in the job; and Hanson had had more than enough time to become proficient in the comparatively minor duties allotted to him.

  Now had come the incident of the lifeboat. That was very bad indeed, for by now the story would be around the ship—one of the destroyer’s officers was so lacking in experience that he could call away the lifeboat for exercise; a thing a well-trained ordinary-seaman would not do. The crew, in the way crews have of sheeting home blame, would decide that Bentley and Randall were at fault for their colleague’s lack of training. The crew would not consider the thousand and one little details of training which had made the lives of captain and first-lieutenant in the past four months, one long period of unremitting toil.

  They had omitted to cover this particular detail, a most important one if a man fell overboard, and Hanson was officer of the watch, could he hope for the maximum assistance from him and the ship he controlled?

  Bentley heaved his length upright and automatically felt for cigarettes, before be realised that he could not smoke at this time on the open bridge. He always felt his denial keenest at this hour, partly because the knowledge that he could not smoke naturally increased the desire to, and partly because he had not, so early, got used to going without.

  He turned his head and made out the bulky form of Randall standing behind the binnacle, waiting for his captain to complete his private mental soliloquy.

  “Bob?” he called quietly.

  Randall took a final look at the softly-glowing face of the gyro compass, then stepped down from the grating and crossed to stand beside Bentley. Both officers stared for a moment ahead of the bow without speaking, out past where the grey stanchions marched on ghostly legs to meet at the bull-ring right in the eyes of the ship; out into the black wall of the night, softly-enveloping, impenetrable, hiding they knew not what.

  Bentley turned his head slightly.

  “We’ll have to do something about Hanson,” he said in a low voice.

  Bentley was Randall’s friend, but he was also his captain, and this was a professional matter. He thought about what Bentley had just said before he answered, so that he might come up with some workable solution, and so the sound reached them before he could speak.

  It was a pleasant sound, heard in the smothering effect of the warm night—not sharp, but deep and round and full, vibrating at first and then muttering away in little waves to silence.

  Bentley had his night-glasses resting on the windbreak before him; Randall had his slung round his neck. Both men brought their powerful aids up to their eyes together, and both stared at the same point fine on the port bow, swinging the magnifying lenses slowly to right and left round that point. They saw nothing.

  Then Bentley said, still quietly, “Torpedo,” and Randall added, “About twenty miles off. There’s nothing of ours out there. Not naval, anyway.”

  “I heard we’re running fast merchantmen to Malta on their own—less chance of detection than in a big convoy.”

  “Could be,” Randall thought aloud, and he looked at Bentley. “Give it to her?”

  “Yes.” Bentley nodded, his eyes still on the port bow. “Thirty knots. And close-up for action.”

  There was no hurry, so Bentley allowed Randall to get the ship moving and then press the brass alarm-buzzer. The quiet of the ship was broken abruptly by the alarm’s strident, imperative clangour.

  “It could be a submarine, it could be E-boats,” Bentley said conversationally to his deputy, “but I think submarine. A bit too far east for torpedo-boats.”

  “Whatever it is,” Randall growled, “I hope the bastard’s around when we get there!”

  Nobody on the quivering ship thought about it—their main thoughts were concerned with possible rescue, possible retaliation, and definite self-preservation; Wind Rode’s company being normal men, not copy-book heroes. But had they spared a thought for it, they would have seen that this sudden call from across the dark sea was the perfect justification of whichever naval officer it was who many years before had decreed that ships of the Fleet would go to dusk action stations and test through.

  They had done this; and now their ship was ready in every respect to fight.

  She was close to thirty knots now, and the wind was a rising whine in the rigging, with the sea lifting itself into ridges under the wind’s compulsion. A brown haze flat at her funnel lip, she dipped her slicing bow and splintered each advancing comber into abrupt acres of white. Astern, the colours of the White Ensign snapped and stiffened at the gaff of the main mast.