For Valour (4 page)

They were still waiting for a doctor. The previous one had quit the ship when she had returned to the Tyne for repairs.

Tonkyn stood in the doorway. “Anything else, sir? A drink, maybe?”

“No. I'll wait for the first lieutenant.”

Tonkyn adjusted an overhead air valve and said, “That should do it.” He peered around, his eyes lingering on the desk beneath the gleaming crest. “Bit stuffy in here.”

Tonkyn would have known his predecessor better than anyone. Except, perhaps, for the first lieutenant.

Martineau heard the door close and sat down abruptly in the desk chair. Where they had gone over the signals, and the relevant ship's books, before he had been taken to meet the officers.

He dragged open a drawer: it was empty but for a slim volume of Shakespeare's sonnets. It had been new, some of the pages still uncut. A gift, then? In it he had found a photograph. He took out the book and opened it again. The photo was of a girl, professionally taken in some studio, although it was neither inscribed nor dated.

She had long hair which hung down across bare shoulders. Calm, level eyes, unsmiling, as if she had just said something.

He had mentioned the book to Fairfax after he had discovered it pressed between two official volumes.

“He wasn't married, sir. Like me, he thought it was too dicey in wartime, being separated for so long . . .” He had attempted to cover his embarassment. “I—I'm sorry, sir. I only meant . . .” It had made it worse. So they knew about Alison. Probably the whole ship by now. Good or bad, what did you expect in destroyers?

He studied the picture again and wondered who she was. The ship was quivering around and beneath him. Machinery, perhaps one of the Chief's generators.

He thought of the unknown people who were now under his command. Some writing last-minute letters home.
Yes, the new Skipper came aboard today.
But nothing that might irritate the censor.

He heard footsteps outside and replaced the book in the drawer.

Fairfax came into the cabin and glanced around, as if making sure there were no loose ends, and that nothing had been overlooked.

“Drink, Number One?”

He saw the momentary hesitation, as if he were suspecting some sort of test. Then he grinned.

“Horse's Neck, if that's all right, sir. I'll ring for the steward.”

“No.” Martineau unbuttoned his jacket and threw it on to a chair. “Allow me.” He could feel the other man watching him, probably wondering how they were going to get along. He said over his shoulder, “You should have a command of your own, you know.”

He put the glasses down side by side. “You've earned it.”

Fairfax bit his lip and said, “Never given it much thought, sir.”

Martineau smiled. “I did, all the time, when I was a first lieutenant.” He raised his glass. “Selfishly, I'm glad you stayed with the ship. To us, then.” He thought of the photograph again. Perhaps Fairfax had known her. “Unless there is a last-minute change of orders we will leave harbour at noon tomorrow. Are you all buttoned up?”

Fairfax nodded, his eyes distant, as if he were seeing through each bulkhead and into every department.

“Yes, sir. Those two ratings are still adrift, and no news at all about Ordinary Seaman Abbott. He was fairly new, so I'm not that well clued-up as to his background.”

“That I can understand.” Sailing at noon. He had seen it in their faces when he had told them in the wardroom. Liverpool, Western Approaches. To join the new group. The Atlantic.

Hakka
had seen most of her service in the Mediterranean, a war of survival protecting and supplying the embattled army in North Africa. Six of the Tribals had gone down there alone, to gun, torpedo, mine. Others had ended their days elsewhere, and one, the
Punjabi,
had been sunk in a collision with the battleship
King George V,
the flagship of the Home Fleet.
Hakka
was a lucky ship, they said. Until that day when she had been raked by an undetected aircraft while men were watching their own kind being picked up, rescued from an earlier attack. It was human enough. And it only needed a few seconds to die.

A lot of the old hands were realistic about it.
You don't ask when, but how.
So you can be ready . . .

But
Hakka
's Captain should have known better, and men had died because of that lapse, act of humanity or not.

There were more voices and Fairfax half-rose to his feet as one of the stewards opened the other door a few inches. Beyond him Fairfax saw the pointed face of Rooke, the Petty Officer Telegraphist.

The P.O. said, “Sorry to trouble you, sir.” He looked at the new Captain, in his shirtsleeves, the jacket with its crimson ribbon tossed over a chair. “Just been sent over by the S.D.O., sir. Thought I should bring it meself.”

“Thank you.” Martineau took the folded signal and read Rooke's round handwriting beneath a desk light.

Rooke was backing away, the steward frowning with disapproval. Fairfax asked quietly, “Bad news, sir?”

Martineau looked at him, surprised that he could share it. With anyone.

“Lieutenant Mike Loring died in hospital. This afternoon.” So he had lost after all.
We all did.

“I'm sorry, sir. I read about him, of course . . .”

Martineau's shadow moved over him as he walked to the drinks cabinet. He would write to Alison. In the same breath, he knew he would not.

So often, over and over again, he had tried to relive the last hours before he had flung his ship against a vastly superior force. It was all destroyer men knew.
Seek out and destroy the enemy.
Seal your mind against everything else. Once an objective was realized there was no room for choice. Or had something else decided him on that terrible day?

Fairfax was staring at the Captain's table. He had eaten several meals there. Now it looked stark, alien.

When they had nursed the ship back to Gibraltar and then brought her all the way home to the Tyne, he had been ready, tested and prepared. Now, as he watched Martineau, and in some small way had shared the anguish with him, he knew in his heart that he was not ready for command. And he was shocked by his discovery.

He turned, afraid for a moment that he had said it aloud. But the Captain was looking past him, as if remembering something.

“She was a
fine ship,
Number One. You could not ask for better.”

Then he walked into the adjoining cabin and closed the door.

Fairfax picked up his cap and left the Captain's quarters.

Even though darkness had fallen over the crowded anchorage he could recognize the navigating officer's familiar outline. They fell into step, their feet avoiding ringbolts and other hazards without conscious effort.

Kidd asked, “How was it, Jamie?”

Fairfax heard one of the local boats chugging abeam, libertymen going ashore to forget their troubles if only for an hour or two. He was almost surprised by his own answer.

“He'll do me, Roger.” He touched the ice-cold guardrail. “Just what she needs!”

Lieutenant Roger Kidd climbed on to the gratings in the forepart of
Hakka
's open bridge and peered over the glass screen. Behind his broad back and below his feet the bridge was going through the usual orderly preparations for leaving harbour. He had been up here since the pipe, “Special sea dutymen to your stations!” Slow and methodical, leaving nothing to chance. He felt the keen breeze through his beard and patted his pockets, as usual. Several pencils, an extra notebook for unofficial calculations; he had already checked the chart table.

It was cold up here, but nobody would dream of wearing a duffle coat on a day like this one. He was even wearing a collar and tie. All eyes would be watching
Hakka
today. The Commodore, Captain (D), everybody. He glanced at his watch and wondered what clown had decided to get under way at noon. He had a large appetite, and his well-worn seagoing reefer confirmed it. It was much tighter than he had recalled it in the Med. The refit and repair work, and all those runs ashore. A little too much of everything.

The new yeoman of signals was watching some passing supply vessel through his big telescope. The ship had come alive again, and here on her bridge were the experts. Below him in the wheelhouse, Spicer the coxswain would have been at his station from the first pipe too. A big man, with hands like hams, and yet he seemed to handle the wheel delicately, as if to detect every reaction before it happened. His quartermasters manning the telegraphs, boatswain's mates at the ranks of voicepipes, and deep down in his world of machinery and heat the Chief would be waiting.

Kidd had been at sea almost all his life, beginning as a cadet and working his way up the ladder, step by step, ship by ship. His last ship, the
Port Stanley
of the Roberts Line, had worked out of Liverpool; it would be strange going back there in a crack destroyer. He had been first officer in the
Port Stanley,
and a naval reservist, as required by the company's owners. They had carried general cargo and a few passengers, and it had always been interesting. Suez, Port Said, the West African ports, or across to Montreal and New Orleans. Hard work, the Captain had never been known to turn his back on a few extra pennies, and often enjoyable too; a few of the women passengers had found his rough humour irresistible.

Six months after Kidd had changed uniforms, the
Port Stanley
had been torpedoed in mid-Atlantic. She had been carrying ammunition and there were no survivors. He was still unable to accept that he would never see the old ship again.

A boatswain's mate said, “Over there, lad!”

Kidd climbed down and faced him. The new assistant navigator's yeoman was slightly built and shivering in his Number Threes, and he looked nervous, unsure of the muttering voice-pipes and the occasional shouted orders from the forecastle where the hands were removing unwanted wires.

Kidd asked, “Know what to do, Whitehart?”

The youth nodded, and said, “
Wishart,
sir. To . . . to assist here and on the plot.” As if he had rehearsed it.

Kidd hid a grin. As green as grass. But willing enough, and he had come with a good report.

“Where are you from, er, Wishart?”

“
St Vincent,
sir.”

Kidd sighed. “No, your home, lad.”

“Surbiton, sir.” Almost a defiance there, and Kidd guessed he had been ribbed about it many times.

“Well, your place for both action and defence stations is here or on the plot. Next, to make sure that when you bring me something hot to drink, you don't make marks on the chart, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kidd knew that Wishart's part of ship was the quarterdeck, where Malt, the Gunner (T), ruled. Malt was known to hate and despise would-be officer candidates, perhaps goaded by the constant thought that they would outrank him once they had gained that little wavy stripe.

Somebody murmured, “Cap'n's comin' up, sir.”

Kidd had never gone out of his way to seek popularity. He had seen too many others fall apart when it came to the test. But here in
Hakka
they seemed to like him, and, more importantly, they trusted him.

He turned, saluting as the Captain walked through the gate and on to the gratings.

“Good day for it, Pilot.”

Kidd saw one of the subbies, Humphrey Cavaye, edging round so that the Captain might notice him.
Conceited little prat.
Maybe old Malt had a point after all.

Martineau felt the stares, the curiosity. He glanced at the tall chair which was bolted to the deck on the port side of the bridge. His place, when he chose. Where his predecessor had been cut down by cannon shells.

Fairfax had come to report to him just minutes ago. The ship was ready to proceed. Was he feeling it today? The first lieutenant checking everything for the last time before sailing. The slip-rope had been rigged through the ring of the forward buoy, the cable unshackled and rejoined to its anchor, the stern rope ready for letting go. He looked briefly at the compass and beyond it to the land, and the other ships.

He had done it so many times. In harbours he could scarcely remember, in others he would never forget.

He looked over the screen, the pattern already in position. Fairfax down there with a burly leading seaman, the Captain of the forecastle, and girded with a self-made belt of holsters, the tools of his trade. Hammer, marline spike, and a wicked-looking knife. Like the rest of the forecastle party he wore thick leather gloves. The slip-rope was not rope but wire, like all the other warps and springs, and one broken strand could carve a man's hand to the bone when it was hauled through the fair-leads with the weight of all his mates on the end of it.