The Coxswain
In every battle Wind Rode had come out on top.
Weapons, whether aircraft cannon or submarine torpedo or
destroyer guns, were aimed and fired by men. The destroyer's
men had proved superior in the handling of theirs.
Now the train of successes had been broken. They had six big
guns and a multiplicity of smaller weapons: they should have
got those Jap aircraft. As it was, only a lucky shot from the
Oerlikon saved them from disaster.
It was not seamanship or training: simply a problem of morale.
James Edmond Macdonnell is one of the most
prolific writers in Australia today, His books
have been translated into many languages,
selling in the millions throughout the world. And
he is still writing...
He served in the Navy before, during and after
the War, climbing up through the hawsepipe
from ordinary seaman to officer in the gunnery
branch. This experience of both lowerdeck and
wardroom provided invaluable insight into his
fictional characters.
He lives with his wife, two daughters and a son
in the shorebound Sydney suburb of St. Ives, ISBN 0 7255 1078 1
but his main interest, apart from sports cars, lies
in swapping stories, of varying degrees of
truthfulness, with old shipmates
THE COLLECTOR'S SERIES MAKES A COMPLETE NUM-
BERED PAPERBACK LIBRARY SET OF J.E. MACDONNELL'S
CLASSIC BEST SELLING NAVAL ADVENTURE NOVELS
Index
Chapter One ............................................................................................ 6
Chapter Two ..........................................................................................20
Chapter Three .......................................................................................35
Chapter Four .........................................................................................50
Chapter Five ..........................................................................................64
Chapter Six ............................................................................................86
Chapter Seven .....................................................................................109
Characters: ....202659
Words: ......42924
Sentences: ........3488
Paragraphs: ........1570
THE COXSWAIN
J.E. Macdonnell
HORWITZ PUBLICATIONS
THE COXSWAIN
Distributed by: Cap_One Productions © April 2002 (Ver 1.0)
Find me on Undernet in channels: Rockwarez, 0-day-warez, mp3ftp
Australia, Bringing Australian Autors to the world.
Programs Used: Adobe Pagemaker 7, Acrobat Writer, FineReader 5,
Adobe Photoshop 4, Windows Write.
This is a pre-release: the only checking has been by FineReader &
Pagemaker on any spelling errors, when I find time I will read the book
again and I will be checking it against the original
Copyright © 1960 by J.E. Macdonnell
Second Edition 1963
Classic edition 1971
Collectors edition 1981
National Library of Australia Card No.
and ISBN 0 7255 1078 1
Typeset by
Cap_One, Australia
Published in Australia by Adobe Pagemaker 7
Printed to Adobe Acrobat
*Recommended price only
(he deserves the money buy the book, it is worth it)
CHAPTER ONE
H.M.A.S. WIND RODE, FLEET destroyer, was at sea, at peace.
That last-named state, for a destroyer in a worldwide war, was,
admittedly, unusual. But Woodlark Island, a small and dangerous
speck in the wide blue of the Coral Sea, had been passed last night,
at high speed.
Now on this hot and cloud-piled morning Jomard Passage lay
ahead of her; its lighthouse doused in these unfriendly times but its
reef-bound exit known accurately to Commander Peter Bentley. Once
through she could turn to starb'd and run straight for Port Moresby.
There she would refuel.
Allied naval forces in the Pacific were stretched worryingly thin,
and Wind Rode had been patrolling on her own. This state was not
unusual. She was a destroyer, and what she couldn't handle with her
torpedoes she could run away from. Anything seaborne, that is ...
From outboard she made a graceful picture. She was clean grey
overall, and her gleaming paintwork made a colourful and matching
union with the clouded blue of the sea. The sea was almost flat-it is
never completely smooth-so that the white flashes of her bow waves
and wake made a solitary and vivid contrast against the vast reach of
blue.The ship was steaming at 20 knots, and her long low hull, the
armoured gun-mountings, the compact bridge and the squat funnel
imbued her with an impression of efficient and powerful purpose.
The impression was accurate. Commander Bentley had had close
on a year in which to train his ship's company. It may be an aphorism
to state that any weapon is only as good as the men who handle it.
Wind Rode was a beautiful weapon of offence-fast, powerful, heavily-
gunned; designed by the experience behind centuries of tradition
and sea-fighting. Bentley and his first-lieutenant had seen to it that
her capabilities had not been wasted.
Bentley was thinking, as he stood on the bridge, in terms related
to this. It had not been easy. . . . One book might succeed in outlining
the schemes and plans, the manoeuvres and drills, the sternness, the
cajoling, the psychological devices used by her captain over the past
year to weld his heterogeneous team of 200 officers and men into
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 6 -
the single-minded unit they now were.
But it had been done, Bentley mused, the coxswain's book opened
in his hand. It would not be anywhere near the truth to report that the
captain thought of the state of his crew only occasionally: their well-
being and efficiency and state of mind were in his mind constantly,
sometimes deliberately as now, at other times subconsciously.
Today was Thursday, the day of Captain's requestmen and
defaulters. Bentley could have waited another day or so, until they
were safely berthed in Moresby; the fact that he was holding his
court this Thursday morning at sea was simply a part of his unceasing
endeavour to maintain his ship in its present state of undoubted
competence. A typhoon or an enemy attack might disrupt the routine
he had laid down, but nothing else.
These thoughts threaded subconsciously through his mind as he
glanced down the morning's list while the coxswain waited beside
him. There is a saying that a ship is known by her boats-she is also
known by her quarterly punishment returns. For the past six months
Wind Rode's returns had been almost negligible. This morning's court
would not add to them.
There was three requests. Able-seaman McConnell wanted
compassionate leave, Able-seaman Ellis desired to increase his
allotment to his wife, and Leading-seaman Billson required official
and automatic seal on his entitlement to his third good-conduct badge.
And one defaulter. In any ship, and especially in this one, for a
man's offence to go before the officer of the watch, and then be
passed on to the first-lieutenant, and then be considered serious
enough to require the captain's decision, was bad. Obviously he had
committed one of the cardinal sins.
Able-seaman Nesbitt had done this. He had been caught asleep
on watch, at sea, in wartime.
Randall, the first-lieutenant, had had no option but to put him in
the captain's report. And had then immediately called on Bentley in
his sea-cabin. Bentley had not even
been angry-surprise, approaching astonishment, had been his
reaction, which speaks very decisively indeed for the opinion of
Nesbitt held by his officers.
Nesbitt was an educated, devoted and highly-sensitive seaman:
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 7 -
a man marked for promotion, the last man expected to let himself
and the ship down. But the officer of the watch himself had caught
him.It had been after a vicious dusk air-attack, three days earlier. For
an hour Wind Rode had battled desperately against the howling
demons which fell out of the sky upon her, twisting, firing with all
her gunnery armament until the friendly opacity of the night had
brought her surcease from the agony.
At a few minutes to nine o'clock that night the asdic-officer,
Lieutenant Peacock, strolling back and forth across the bridge, had
sighted a dark figure sprawled forward in the lookout's position, its
arms on the disregarded binoculars.
The crucial post of lookout ... a few feet from the bridge itself . .
. Nesbitt's keenness and dependability . . and careless sleep. None
of these equations fitted. But now Bentley had the report of Surgeon-
lieutenant Landis, delivered two hours after he had asked for it.
No blame at all, Landis had decided with professional firmness.
A sensitive nature, driven by natural devotion and the fierce strain
of years of war close to the point of exhaustion. The offence was
serious, the cause was medical. Nesbitt's mental and physical strength
was too finely-tempered for the savage hammering of war in a
destroyer. His very strength-his loyalty and keenness and
dependability- was his weakness. He had driven himself too hard,
he lacked the comparatively insensitive phlegm of his messmates.
He should be transferred, Landis had advised, either to a shore
base for a spell or to a bigger ship, one not almost constantly at sea
and in action like this one. Or else he would crack wide open, perhaps
at a dangerous time.
There had been a time when Bentley would have queried his
surgeon's present unequivocal opinion.* But now he accepted
Landis's judgment as definitely as his own.
He closed the big report-book and handed it over with a murmured
"Thanks, cox'n," and his eyes, squinted against the sea's glare, stared
thoughtfully out over the bow. Being a defaulter, Nesbitt would be
seen last, with no messmates to hear. Bentley would explain to him
the surgeon's diagnosis, and that he was to be transferred south from
Moresby. There were other things the captain would say, for with his
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 8 -
remissness common knowledge throughout the ship Nesbitt would
be going through hell, but those things Bentley did not have to
rehearse in his mind now. He had been in command of men a long,
violent tune, and what he would say would be spontaneous, sincere;
a few words of encouragement and understanding which could have
even more therapeutical value than medical attention in Sydney.
There was another man on whom the ship's present stats largely
depended, and he was standing beside and a little behind Bentley
now. Chief Petty-officer Herbert Smales, the coxswain; standing on
the bridge, waiting, respectful, his slight frame reaching not much
higher than his captain's broad shoulder, his leathery face composed,
his alert blue eyes flicking regularly to Bentley's face, waiting for
the word.
He had not the slightest conception of what his lord was thinking,
nor was he interested. His sole concern at this moment was time-
whether he would muster requestmen and defaulters at the normal
time of eleven o'clock, or whether-as he guessed-the captain would
wait till the ship was safely through Jomard Passage.
Chief Petty-officer Smales was, officially, the chief of police,
the keeper of discipline, the senior rating on the lower-deck. He was
also the man who took the wheel when the ship entered or left harbour,
or came within dangerous approach of land, as she shortly was to
do. And that was another reason why now he waited for the captain
to give him the time-for those few minutes of tricky steering and
navigation through the Passage Smales would hold Wind Rode's
safety literally in his small and practised hands.
But the coxswain was much more than these things. Officially he
was junior in ranking to a midshipman, who enjoyed officer status;
he was required by regulation to salute the greenest acting-
sublieutenant, and to address him as "Sir". Yet Smales, a most
experienced representative of his select branch, was Bentley's
confidant; in Wind Rode he was closer to the captain, knew more of
his trials and worries over the ship's working-up, than many a senior
lieutenant.
The asdic, radar, torpedo and gunnery officers were important to
the handling of the ship. But between Commander Bentley and the
200 men of his command, the main and incorruptible link, the
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 9 -
mouthpiece of their requests and troubles, the knowledge-packed
well of information and advice, was the small and weather-wizened
figure of Smales.
In a big ship like a cruiser or battleship or carrier his opposite-
number would be the Master-at-Arms, the only noncommissioned
officer in the Navy entitled to wear, at Sunday Divisions, a sword: in
the Army, he would correspond to a regimental sergeant-major, or
perhaps a provost-mar-shall. His authority might not be greater than
an R.S.M., and yet there was a subtle difference; here, aboard ship,
he was indefinably closer to his captain than the Army man to his
colonel.
A coxswain in a destroyer could make or mar a crew, his slackness
or indifference could negative the most assiduous efforts of the bridge
officers. But then it was a most precious position, and a candidate
was most carefully and shrewdly judged before he was promoted to
it; so that although there may have been unreliable or inefficient
coxswains in the British and Australian Navies, this chronicler has
never heard of them.
Now Wind Rode's coxswain judged that his master had been
allowed sufficient time for introspective thought. He did not reason
quite like that-rather, he was worried about sufficient time in which
to get his four cases out of their working rig into clean khaki shorts
and shirts to meet their judge. He coughed.
The small and respectful sound was as expressive as the imminent
narrowing of a lover's eyes, or the clang of a bus-conductor's bell.
Bentley's head swung, to see the brown face looking back at him
expectantly.
"Oh, `Swain," he said, half apologetically, "I'd forgotten you
were still there."
"Yes, sir," Smales answered truthfully. "Ah ... I was wonderin'
about the time for requestmen, sir . . ."
"I was thinking, `Swain," Bentley said, ignoring the suggestion
with a nod of his head at the book under the coxswain's arm, "we
seem to have the punishment returns licked. Looks like we have a
pretty taut bunch down there."
"So long as they're kept that way," Smales answered definitely.
"They ain't all angels, not by a long shot." He shook his head slightly.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 10 -
"There's a rogue or two amongst
em.
But I've got a bigger and better one, the captain thought with
satisfaction. He said, smiling:
"So long as they know that you know more wrinkles than they do
. . ."Smales did not look too sure about this dubious compliment. But
he said, dutifully:
"Yes, sir."
"Now," said Bentley, his tone crisp, "we'll be through Jomard in
half-an-hour. I'll see defaulters directly we're clear."
Smales's tone was also crisp.
"Aye, aye, sir," he said, saluted smartly, and left the bridge.
A small smile on his lips, Bentley turned and walked slowly
towards the binnacle. The officer of the watch, the radar-officer,
saw him coming and made to step down from the raised wooden
grating. Bentley made a slight negative gesture with his forefinger
and the officer stayed where he was. Bentley halted beside the grating.
His head and eyes turned up to the sullen sky.
The clouds were dark grey, almost black, and heavy. But he was
not much concerned with the weather threat. He said, his voice low
and casual:
"That stuff could be troublesome."
The radar-officer knew what he meant, and he was relieved that
the captain had noticed it. Thick clouds like that could cause
temperature inversion, and that could greatly decrease the efficiency
of their radar. He had been mildly worried about it since he had
come on watch two hours before. But every hour of steaming brought
them closer to Moresby, and once through the Passage they would
be on the last leg of the base course.
"Yes, sir," he answered, also looking skyward, and keeping his
voice down-there was no point in spreading unnecessary alarm. "We
have no contacts on the 291 .. ."
No, Bentley thought, but that means a hell of a lot of nothing
with that muck up there. On the other hand, there mightn't be a Jap
aircraft within a hundred miles . . .
The voice of the signal yeoman cut across his musing:
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 11 -
"Jomard light bearing Green oh-five."
"Very good," the radar-officer acknowledged, and both officers
lifted their glasses. No other comment was made- the light had
appeared almost dead ahead, where it should have, but plumb-on
landfalls were the norm in a warship.
While Bentley stared through the twin powerful lenses the officer
of the watch ordered the bosun's mate:
"Tell the navigating-officer we've raised Jomard Light."
The young seaman scuttled down the ladder.
Bentley was looking at the light, lifting up from its low island at
the southern limit of the passage like a white saltcellar, but he was
thinking of the significance of the radar-officer's order, and its
immediate result.
The lieutenant's thought of the navigator had been instant, and
his order had followed at once: the bosun's mate had doubled away
on his errand. Nothing out of the ordinary in that, perhaps-but he
had been on bridges where the captain would have had to send for
the navigator, and where the messenger would have walked to the
ladder. Little things
A good ship, Bentley mused, a taut ship. Like all deep-water
sailors, he was inclined to be superstitious but there was no doubt
whatever about this-she was a good ship, and nothing could alter
that proven fact.
At 20 knots the light was growing more identifiable every minute.
He could pick out the circle of protecting glass. The navigating-
officer stepped on to the bridge and at once checked the ship's
position. Obviously she was steaming on a safe course, but with
thousands of tons of moving metal you didn't rely on what your eye
told you-you got it down mathematically on the chart. Many times,
especially in these waters, the only obvious thing about a "safe"
course had been the shearing grind as her hull ran up on the hidden
reef.But Bentley, with his trained team working about him, was not
worried about navigation. The Passage was not wide, but with the
island on one edge and the visible reef on the other it presented in
this quiet sea no problem to a well found ship. Once she was
committed to a safe course through she had simply to hold that course.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 12 -
That was what was exercising his mind at the moment- the
committal of the ship to an un-deviating course, with disaster waiting
on either side if she swerved from it. That would be the time for a
waiting aircraft to drop upon her . . .
A clipped and competent voice came up the voice-pipe:
"Bridge? Cox'n on the wheel, sir."
"Very good."
Nice, Bentley thought briefly. No actual order had been passed
to Smales, but either he had been waiting for the light to come into
sight or else the bosun's mate had used his own initiative. The team
was working smoothly with him . . .
He turned to the radar-officer, and the order he gave was one
which could come only from him:
"Get the close-range weapons closed-up."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
That would give him the multiple pom-pom, the oerlikons and
the machine-guns ready for instant use. There was not sufficient
danger, nor indication of it, to warrant closing-up the big guns' crews.
"Five minutes to the turn, sir." the navigator reported quietly.
Bentley nodded. The radar-officer stepped from the grating and
the captain took his place, behind the binnacle and close to the open
mouth of the wheelhouse voice-pipe. By that simple gesture he had
tacitly taken control of the ship.
"Close-range weapons closed-up."
"Very good."
It was the deep voice of Bob Randall, the first-lieutenant, who
answered the report. He would have come to the bridge anyway with
the ship in confined waters, but he was the gunnery-officer as well,
and the call to the guns had ensured his presence on deck.
But Bentley was not concerned with the obvious movements of
his deputy. His eyes were on the light and the passage, and he kept
clear of the compass while Pilot took his bearings. Yet while the one
part of his brain was busy with seamanship requirements, another
was judging:
This is the time . . . we're too close to swing hard a starb'd or
port; either we go on through, or else we stop and back out into clear
water. From now on in we're sitting ducks.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 13 -
"On the bearing, sir," Pilot said. And:
"Starb'd fifteen," Bentley ordered.
She was built to swing fast, and her bow felt the effect of the
angled rudder-face almost at once. Bentley was not watching her
slim nose slide round-his eyes were on the lubber's line of the
compass, watching it approach the course he would have to steer on
his way through. This was the crucial straightening-up and not the
whole Japanese Air Force could have diverted his attention now.
"Midships."
"Midships, sir ... wheel's amidships."
It was the two of them now, the captain and the coxswain. One
judging, the other implementing. The R.S.M was never as close as
this . . .
"Steady!"
"Steady, sir! Course 225."
"Steer 225."
"Steer 225, sir."
It was done. To a civilian observer the manoeuvre would have
appeared ridiculously simple, a minor exercise in course-alteration.
Yet Bentley, ten feet above the ship's wheel, had by his judgment
stopped the swing of two thousand tons of advancing steel dead on
the course required. Aided by the quick and practised hands of the
coxswain, the practical extension of the captain's brain and
experience.
The light was sweeping past on their port hand now, and they
could see that its apparent pristine whiteness was marred by the grey
droppings of a myriad of sea-birds. The island behind the light rose
to a rounded peak, its rock sides scrubbed over with low bushes and
an occasional palm.
To the right the coral reef ran its jagged teeth up to the edge of
the chasm through which the ship was safely sailing; the green swell
broke lazily over this obstruction, and fell back, exposing the cruel
brown niggerheads, snags which could rip her thin sides open as
easily and efficiently as a can-opener,
"Lovely sight." said Randall beside Bentley, and the growl in his
voice belied the words.
Bentley nodded, shortly. His head was raised to the leaden skies,
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 14 -
and now he had no qualms about letting the whole bridge team know
the source of his worry. A destroyer's main defence against attacking
aircraft is her length and her manoeuvrability. Viewed from that angle,
Wind Rode might now as well have been held immobile in dry-dock.
Bentley's instinct was to give her her head, to release her waiting
strength and increase to 35 knots. His experience warned him that
he had to keep her in hand, that a set could move him to port or
starb'd, that he could not afford to gamble with the increased line of
advance a turn at high speed would ensure.
They were almost through. An enemy would have to strike shortly,
or lose a priceless advantage. Above his head the air-search radar
aerial circled smoothly, its radius of search blocked only by the bulk
of the island, which was now dropping astern on the port quarter.
Down to Bentley's ears came the sound of its operation, a soft
electronic whirring.
Slowly his taut nerves let go. His head lowered from the sky and
he automatically searched the empty sea ahead.
"Clear, sir," Pilot reported.
Thank God for that, Bentley felt. He said, casually:
"Put her on-course, Pilot," and then leaned to the voice-pipe:
"Cox'n? I'll see requestmen and defaulters as soon as you're
ready."
"Yes, sir. They're mustered now, sir."
"Very well, I'm coming now."
Bentley unslung his black binoculars and stepped down from the
grating. Pilot moved over behind the compass.
At sea, the captain held his court in the tiny flag-deck behind the
bridge. This position had several advantages-it was clear of curious
eyes, and it was handy to the bridge.
As he stepped towards the ladder Bentley idly noted that with
the ship's swinging on to her more northwesterly course, with the
quartermaster now on the wheel, the island and its light were almost
dead astern, though still quite close.
He knew it was deserted-the light was unwatched and his tension-
relieved mind mused briefly on the fact that men like Bully Hayes
and the old copra-traders would have taken their bearings on that
peak to beat up to and through the Passage. That island had seen
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 15 -
many ships come and go- and had received more than one luckless
hull on its hard coral edge. Now another ship had made its landfall
and was receding into the blue distance. The island and the reef,
uncaring, timeless, waited for the next.
Bentley stepped on to the flag-deck and he saw the pompom's
crew falling-out; the starb'd oerlikon was already deserted, the danger
past. Then he saw the coxswain and the supplicants lined-up, waiting,
but his eyes went to Nesbitt, standing a few paces clear of the
requestmen.
Bentley had possibly a little more than five seconds before he
reached the baize-covered table behind which he would deliver
judgment, yet in that time the expression of utter dejection on the
seaman's face seared into his consciousness. Nesbitt's normally alert
face was drawn and grey, tortured, pitiful in its evidence of what he
had been through in the past days, and Bentley knew with the utmost
clarity of conviction that it would be a long time, if ever, before the
seaman was of any use for anything.
As Landis had judged, his keenness and eagerness had been his
weakness; the reaction was complete and irrevocable.
The cowswain's waiting head jerked back and faced his line-up.
His voice, curt and impersonal, snapped out:
"Requestmen and defaulters . . ." The warning. Then:
"Requestmen and defaulters, atten . . ."
`'Requestmen and defaulters." "Requestmen and defaulters."
"Request . . ."
When the shells land and explode. When the grinning radiator
and the pounding wheels of the car loom above the fallen pedestrian.
When the heart can no longer pump, and the brain-cells are starved
for oxygen, and consciousness slides down into blackness, there
remain in the dying brain words or thoughts, or perhaps a remembered
face or scene, which linger on the photographic cells of memory
before death closes the shutter.
Bentley was not dead, but the coxswain's words and their broken
ending remained ringing in his consciousness for a second or two
after it had happened.
He was not sure which had come first, the powered snarl of the
aircraft or the softer, shearing noise of the bomb. It did not matter-
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 16 -
both sounds were blasted to insignificance by the intimate eruption
of the bomb.
The next thing he knew was that he was sprawled on the deck, a
body beneath him and a stinking rain of salt water pouring upon
him. The noise of the water was like the hissing of torrential rain, a
foreground accompaniment to the shrill background of the alarm
bells.
Then he was scrabbling to his feet, one hand shoving uncaringly
at the other prone body.
His eyes stung with the deluge of salt. Upright, he dug at them
with his handkerchief, and with his clearing vision he saw two definite
things amongst the shambles on the flag-deck. The bomb had
exploded close to the ship's side, abreast where they had been
standing. The splinters had laced upwards. The coxswain, on whom
he had fallen, was lying on his stomach, unmoving; Able-seaman
Nesbitt was beside him but Bentley could no longer see the tortured
expression of his face. Nesbitt now had no face.
These things Bentley saw, but they were extraneous, unimportant
impressions. Insistent in his brain was the need to get back to the
bridge. He flung the handkerchief aside and stumbled forward on
the drenched deck. He did not even halt to think if he were himself
wounded-subconsciously his unhindered movements told him he was
not. But his brain was racing-that Jap was a fool! He'd missed his
chance. Or was he? He had let them through the Passage, but he'd
cleverly come in behind the island. Nicely blanketed from their radar.
These thoughts were a flash of appreciation, formed and discarded
before he reached the bridge. Blinking from the salt, he saw Randall
at the wheelhouse voice-pipe, snapping orders with his mouth close
to the pipe and his head twisted so that he could look up at the sky.
He felt Bentley jump on to the grating and he jerked upright and
said at once:
"Fighter-bomber, bearing Green two-oh angle of sight seven-oh.
Climbing for another run!"
The rapped directions were just as quick as a pointing hand, and
more specific. Bentley picked up the aircraft at once, a bat-winged
shape dwindling ahead and above them. It was climbing steeply, and
as he stared the wings canted- in a moment he would be round, facing
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 17 -
them for the next run in.
The ship was heeling on the turn, and as Bentley tensed one leg
and relaxed the other to meet the cant the movement crystallised an
urgent memory prodding at his consciousness.
His eyes trained on to the bosun's mate.
"Get the Buffer on the wheel! First-aid party on the flag-deck!"
The seaman dived for the ladder and Randall asked:
"Cox'n?"
"Yes. Wounded at least."
All about him he heard voices and running feet as the gun-crews
closed-up. Directly below him B-gun's pump began to whine. His
eyes on the wheeling aircraft, he spoke to the wheelhouse:
"Who's on the wheel?"
"Leading-seaman Bennet, sir."
"Cox'n's been wounded, Bennet The Buffer will be up to take
over."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Bentley thought of adding some exhortation to the quartermaster
to be on his toes. But this was no time for needless speech. He watched
the aircraft, now circling at ten thousand feet, and he spoke to Randall:
"That pilot's a fool."
The big lieutenant nodded, definitely. He understood Bentley's
judgment. The pilot had caught them napping, with gun-crews fallen-
out. He had barely missed with his first bomb; he should have climbed
and come in again at once. Even if he had missed with his second
bomb he could have raked the scrambling men on the upper-deck
with cannon-fire.
Now, circling high up there, he was merely threatening them.
His threat was empty. They had been given precious minutes, and in
that time the decks had emptied, the men were posted behind their
guns, waiting, ready.
"He might be waiting for some cobbers," Randall suggested.
Bentley shook his head.
"I doubt it. If he had any he would have brought them down in a
bunch. I'd say he's patrolling from Woodlark and decided to have a
shot on his own. Now he's left it too late."
Randall pursed his lips, his face alert, thoughtful. Only just too
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 18 -
late, he was thinking-a few feet in to the right and that bomb would
have landed nicely . . . But he said nothing.
"Bridge? Buffer on the wheel."
That was Chief Petty-officer Hooky Walker, the giant chief
bosun's mate, next to Smales in seniority, a polished steel hook in
place of a hand, and an old shipmate of the captain.
"Very good," Bentley acknowledged.
As with Bennet, there was no need for amplification. He would
know by now Smales was wounded, and certainly he would need no
exhortation to remain alert.
A phone buzzed and Lasenby's voice came through from the
director:
"Main armament closed-up."
Now . . . Bentley thought grimly. He reached forward and juggled
the microphone from its brackets.
"This is the captain speaking. We've been attacked by a single
Japanese fighter-bomber. He's now at ten thousand feet ahead of us,
circling. Very nice of him . . . Now listen to this, gun-crews. That
pilot seems either a fool, or very green. You know why I say he
`seems' to be. We must assume he knows his business. Therefore
you will not open fire until ordered. He could come down in a power-
dive, draw your fire, haul off, and then come in for the real thing and
catch you with your guns empty. If he does that we'll be ready for
him. When ordered, main armament will open in long barrage,
shifting to short barrage if he gets through. Close-range weapons
will open in the normal hosing fire. The ship will be swinging quite
fast, so watch your aim-off."
He paused, the microphone cuddled in his big hand, his eyes on
the distant black speck. Throughout the length of the listening ship
there was no sound, nothing but the soft hissing of the water down
her sides and the muted beat of the engines.
"We'll get this fellow," Bentley said, "that's all."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 19 -
CHAPTER TWO
THE BRIDGE WAS QUIET.
There were four officers and several ratings posted there, and it
was a measure of their training and experience that of them all only
two men were watching the enemy aircraft.
The torpedo-officer was talking through a sound-powered phone
to his tubes aft in the waist. They would not be used, but the ship
was closed-up at action, and that meant every section of her had to
be on the ball.
Pilot had no eyes for the plane. He was stepping quickly from
compass bearing-ring to the chart-table, making sure she was on the
map accurately while the Passage light was still in sight. He was
doing more than this-each time he made a mark on the chart his eyes
roved far ahead over the white parchment, ensuring that in her coming
gyrations Wind Rode had no subsurface snags to contend with in
addition to the one now waiting above her.
Towards New Guinea? There was plenty of space there to
manoeuvre in, even at the 30 knots to which Randall had raised her
speed. A spiky patch which meant "shoal" lay on their port quarter,
and although the captain knew of that trap he must himself keep it in
his memory; Wind Rode would be twisting in all directions once it
started.
Nutty Ferns, the signal-yeoman, was not watching the aircraft.
There were no ships to signal to, but he had the keenest eyes in the
ship and they were not being wasted on a target everybody knew
about. His long telescope up, Ferris was scanning the sea ahead and
on both sides. That aircraft could be in contact with a submarine;
and in any case Wind Rode was not sailing on a close preserve. Ferris
had seen it happen before-all hands concentrated on the one airborne
target, while another came up eagerly and unnoticed from seaward.
The director phone-number, in normal times Bentley's messenger,
a smart able-seaman named Frost, had his back to the enemy. He
was standing against the fore wind-break, the phone to Lasenby to
his ear, and his eyes never left his captain's face. He was the vocal
link between bridge and gunnery control, and his orders, especially
against an aircraft, had to be passed fast. There was no idle gawking
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 20 -
on this bridge . . . Bentley and Randall had their glasses on the
target. Randall, big and hard, efficient and unimaginative, was
simply watching for the tilt of a wing or the foreshortening of the
fuselage-the warning.
Bentley was also watching for that, but his mind was exercised
by many other things. That pilot was either as gutsy as hell or else an
inexperienced greenhorn to take on a Fleet destroyer single-handed.
Whatever he was, if he attacked again he had to be shot into the sea.
Bentley felt no exultation at the prospect of battle. As the captain,
he could not afford such fictional extravagances of feeling. Wind
Rode was heavily-gunned, but she was also thin-skinned, and a bomb
in her boiler-rooms could rupture her wide open.
Bentley's mind was a tightly-meshing complex of considerations
and prophecy and forthcoming decisions. Like Pilot, he had the chart
in his mind's eye, and he was consciously aware of that shoal patch
astern. He was also thinking of relative bearings of ship and aircraft,
of what direction he could steer her to avoid the bomb, of what effect
such an alteration would have on the line of fire of his big guns, of
the minimum degree of rudder he could put on so as to swing her
without hopelessly throwing-off his pom-poms
and oerlikons.
Fuel. At this shaking speed she was gulping it up, but his daily
fuel-report had shown him he had more than enough to make
Moresby. Much more in reserve, in fact, than his
enemy up there.
What the hell was he waiting for? Screwing up his nerve, probably.
He didn't blame him. If the aircraft came in again, unless he was
lucky and dead accurate with his bomb against his slim twisting target,
he was finished. Kaput.
Those thoughts were idle, barren of product. Bentley crushed
them. Fuel. Engines. He leaned to the voice-pipe.
"Tell the engine-room we will be manoeuvring at high speed
shortly."
"Aye, aye, sir."
All right, damn you! Come in and get it over with! Bentley crushed
that spurt of irritation too. Maybe that's what the Jap was up to;
making them wait, tensed as they were, increasing their nervousness;
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 21 -
not the nerviness of fear-they were too battle-wise for that-but of
coiled-spring tension.
Perhaps he was an ace after all. He let them through the Passage
because he could not know their radar was partly inoperative through
temperature inversion; let them through and then had come spearing
in unseen behind the island. Maybe he was a very clever fellow
indeed, a psychologist . . .
"Aircraft's started its run," Randall reported flatly.
Bentley responded instantly.
"All guns follow director! Barrage long, long, long!"
Frost passed the word through.
The aircraft tilted on its streamlined nose towards them and the
six 4.7-inch guns elevated their grinning muzzles to greet it.
Because they would be firing at a set fuse-length the guns were
already loaded. And they did not have to wait, like the pom-pom
and oerlikons, for the enemy to finally commit himself. The
plummeting aircraft was in range of Wind Rode's main claws, and
now she bared her teeth.
The blast of the two forrard mountings opening fire crashed back
over the bridge in a face-smacking slap of sound. The spurting clouds
of brown cordite smoke whipped quickly astern and Bentley heard
the next rounds slamming metallically up into the breeches.
Now all eyes on the bridge were on the sky-there are limits even
to the strictest training. Magically, six black handfuls of smoke
appeared, a momentary flick of flame in the centre of each, squarely
in front of the aircraft's nose.
Right for line, right for elevation, Bentley automatically judged.
But short for range. If he came on he should fly smack into the next
broadside.
And in the next second, when the pilot took no avoiding action,
when he made no effort to swing away from what was already on its
way up to meet him, Bentley knew quite certainly that the Jap was
not an ace, nor clever, nor a psychologist. He was simply a brave
man, not well-trained, who had sighted an enemy below him and
had then screwed up his courage to attack.
Wind Rode's shells were sighted and flung by well-trained men
indeed; men whose drill and experience were aided by the
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 22 -
mathematical certainty of radar.
The six long yellow shells were fused to burst at long barrage
range, three thousand feet. Their bursting and the position of the
diving plane coincided nicely.
That aircraft was travelling fast, something close to 400 knots,
but a T.N.T.-packed shell spreads its steel splinters and disruptive
effect much faster than that. No sooner had the fuses fired and the
T.N.T. exploded than the six shell-casings broken into thousands of
pieces of jagged, white-hot steel, lashed the aircraft with hurricane
force.
The watchers on the bridge saw it fly into the black bursts,
momentarily lost it behind the smoke-screen, and then saw it plummet
out clear. But it was no longer an aircraft, an integrated machine of
beautiful and powerful purpose.
Part of the fuselage, heavy with the engine, came on down at
high speed; the rest of it followed more leisurely, drifting down from
the clouds like a handful of flung leaves, twisting, sliding, zig-
zagging.
"Cease firing," Bentley ordered.
His voice and his face were normal, no betrayers of the feelings
inside him. But still he felt no exultation at his quick victory. His
mind was exercised only by relief that once again he had taken his
ship and men into action and once again they had come out still
sailing.
"Pilot's baled out," Randall reported.
Bentley saw the desperate attempt. It was quite clear without
glasses. The dark body, then the streaming white of the parachute;
and the silk touching as it fell the flame-wreathed engine and itself
changing in an instant into a fiery cape.
Wind Rode's gunners, watched the macabre end. The flames of
engine and parachute were an ochreous yellow against the backdrop
of grey clouds. Only Bentley's mind was exercised by other
considerations than fascination and satisfaction. His captain's brain,
always watchful, always judging, was thinking that that engine would
strike very close.
But there was not enough time to swing the ship. And no need.
The heavy metal plunged into the sea a hundred yards astern. The
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 23 -
pilot, lighter, followed it in three seconds later. Their entry left two
small circles of froth on the face of the water.
"Port twenty," Bentley ordered, "stand-by seaboat's crew."
It was an automatic gesture. Neither Bentley nor anyone else
expected that the seaboat would be needed.
Swiftly the destroyer came round, until she was steaming at
reduced speed along the line of bearing Pilot had taken on the froth.
She slid slowly up to the point of entry, and the quiet surface of the
sea was empty.
Burned down to the harness, the parachute had been dragged
under by the pilot's heavily-clad body. The gases of his decomposing
body would bring him to the surface eventually, but Wind Rode had
neither the time nor the inclination to wait for that.
"Half ahead both engines," Bentley ordered, "two double-oh
revolutions, steer 310 degrees."
Three minutes later the ship was making 20 knots, back on her
interrupted course for base. She had won her battle- at, Bentley was
to find out shortly in his cabin, worrying cost.
Surgeon-lieutenant Landis came in first. This was a vastly
different surgeon from the one who had joined the ship some months
before. Then Landis had been professionally competent, but
complexedly unsure of himself in his completely novel surroundings.
But war is a forceful teacher, especially in a destroyer, and the officer
who I answered Bentley's "Come," had confidence and surety
stamped on his thin brown face.
"Sit down, Doc," Bentley invited, "cigarette?" "No thanks, sir,"
Landis shook his head, "I must be getting back."
Bentley lit a cigarette himself, his first since the action, and over
the flame of the match his eyes invited Landis to get on with it.
* "Three killed, four wounded, sir." the surgeon responded.
"Badly?"
Bentley's voice was practical, interested. He had seen
many more casualties than this, and in this matter he had
to be like the surgeon himself in an operating-theatre-he
had a corporate body to look after, and he could not afford the
luxury of compassion for the wounds of some of its parts. Not yet.
"They're out of action, but-no, not badly wounded. They'll have
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 24 -
to be transferred, of course. The worst one . . ." Landis paused, and
this brief hesitation was an indication of how familiar he had become
with the working of the ship. "The worst one is the cox'n."
Bentley had been waiting for this. It flashed through his mind
that he would sooner have lost one of his junior officers. But his
face and voice were composed.
"Go on."
"Shell splinters. Extensive laceration to the chest and
abdomen." "He's all right?"
After that diagnosis the captain's question seemed paradoxical.
But Landis knew what he meant.
"He'll live, yes. He must have been standing side-on to the burst.
Penetration was mainly in the abdomen. It reached to the peritoneum,
but I've sutured that all right. Loss of blood and shock, of course. It
would be a good idea to get him ashore as soon as possible. All of
them for that matter."
Without a word Bentley leaned back and unhooked the flexible
speaking tube from its holder. Randall answered.
"Increase to thirty knots," Bentley ordered, "then come down
here."
"Aye, aye, sir," his friend replied formally. Bentley replaced the
tube and turned around. "Nesbitt?" he asked. "Killed instantly. Rather
a mess."
"Yes-I saw it. All right, Doc. We'll be in tomorrow. I'll let you
know the E.T.A. later."
Landis went out, long and thin in khaki. Bentley tapped slowly at
his cigarette, watching the ash drop. Remembering Nesbitt's tortured
face, and that death would have been instantaneous, Bentley was
inclined to believe that the seaman might have wanted it that way.
Then he castigated himself mentally. How the devil do I know what
he wanted? Frowning, he put the thought of the seaman from his
mind-it was not too difficult, for now he had a real problem.
Smales. His coxswain. Irreplaceable, at least by another man on
board. Hooky Walker would take on acting duties till they got in, but
the chief bosun's mate had more than enough to occupy him in his
own department; he was in charge of the whole upper-deck, the
seamanship of the ship.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 25 -
The gunner's mate was similarly placed. Six big guns, a dozen
smaller weapons, the transmitting-station and the director to drill;
apart from his concern with the magazines. The torpedo gunner's
mate-ditto.
It was an insoluble problem. At peace, or in dock, he could have
overcome it. But Wind Rode was a Fleet destroyer at war, fighting in
an area where every ship was vitally needed to stem the forceful tide
pressing southward. She had been, and would be, at sea and in action
almost every day. All his chiefs would be fully occupied.
He could have spared one of his six seamen petty-officers,
perhaps. But even if the man chosen could do the job, he was junior
to the chief; and the coxswain was senior to them all.
Stirred by his preoccupation with his dilemma, a memory came
to Bentley. A recent judgment. A good ship, a taut ship, he had prided
himself, not more than an hour ago. Now a Jap bomb had altered all
that.She was still as taut as ever, of course. But how long would that
last, without a coxswain? Smales himself had said you had to watch
them, they weren't all angels. How much of her present competence
was due to his and Randall's training programme? How much to the
coxswain's steadfast and unremitting discipline?
Randall knocked and came in.
"All well, Peter," he said, and dropped his cap on the table, "we'll
be up to 30 knots shortly."
Bentley knew that, even if he had not ordered the increase. The
cabin was quivering, he could feel the deck vibrating under his feet,
and from the pantry outside came the musical jingle of pieces of
crockery dancing.
Randall eased his big frame into a chair and Bentley pushed the
box of cigarettes across the table.
"Who were they?"
Randall understood the question at once. The captain wanted,
not names, but gunnery positions. The regret, the compassion, the
letter-writing to next of kin, would come later. They were still at sea,
they had been attacked a matter of minutes before.
"Two loading-numbers of the pom-pom," he answered, "and the
trainer. A cook who'd just stepped out of the galley and a stoker on
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 26 -
his way aft with a fanny of water. Nesbitt. of course-and the cox'n."
Yes, Bentley thought grimly, the cox'n. The important one left
till last. You know it as well as I do.
"You were bloody lucky yourself, old feller," Randall said
seriously. "It burst abreast the galley, a fraction aft of you."
Bentley nodded. He knew there would be no delayed shock-
reaction to that intimate and venomous blast; his mind had been
fully engaged immediately after it, and now he could look back on
the bomb explosion calmly.
But he had no wish for retrospective thought. His problem was
in the future.
"I've got to get a cox'n," he said bluntly, and picked up another
cigarette. "What ships are in Moresby?"
"A couple of Yank cruisers ..."
Bentley squinted at him, disgustedly.
"And one of our destroyers," Randall added. His voice was not
hopeful.
"That's right," Bentley mused, "the old Pelican. Who's got her?"
He answered his own question. " `Dutchy'
Holland."
Randall's head was a little on one side, his tough burned face a
puzzled query.
"What the hell are you getting at?" he asked slowly. "I've got to
get a cox'n," Bentley said again, "and six men." Randall pressed
back in his chair. His laugh was a short
grunt. "Hornblower, yet! The press-gang is out of fashion, or
didn't you know?"
Bentley ignored the sarcasm. His upper teeth roughed thoughtfully
over his bottom lip.
"What's she in Moresby for?" he wondered, almost to himself,
"how long's she been up here?"
"Longer than us-and that's a lot longer than I want to think about,"
Randall growled. "Maybe she's on her way south for leave and refit."
"Exactly," Bentley said softly.
Randall thumped forward in his chair.
"Damn it all, Peter!" he expostulated, "you can't do that! You
won't have a hope. If they're heading south for leave that makes it
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 27 -
worse. Dutchy's a tough nut. He may have an old ship but that boy's
been around. He'll laugh at you!"
"That's what I mean," said Bentley slowly.
"Eh?"
"His ship's old. She's had it as far as Fleet work is concerned.
We, on the other hand, are new. And very much on the required list."
"But those men have been up here a hell of a long time
"So? I mind the time we didn't see Sydney for a year or so. There
is," he reminded his friend with a quick grin, "a war on."
His friend's sceptical face did not mirror the smile.
"There'll be a bloody war on when you come up against old
Dutchy," Randall decided darkly.
"We'll see," Bentley smiled, "we shall see."
A ship, certainly not a destroyer, should not always be judged by
her appearance, Bentley thought as his own gleaming craft slid
carefully up-harbour towards her anchorage. He put his glasses again
on the destroyer they were passing.
H.M.A.S. Pelican had once been the pride of the Australian
destroyer squadron. But it was doubtful if any of the men now aboard
her could remember back that far. She was of earlier vintage than
even the old and valiant Scrap-iron Flotilla, and her age showed in
the rust streaks down her salt-faded sides.
It must be a hopeless and frustrating task to keep her clean,
Bentley decided-if a chipping-hammer after rust dug too deeply it
would chop right through her ancient skin.
But Wind Rode's captain was too experienced to be impressed
solely by the old ship's outward signs of decay. His glasses traversed
slowly along her length and he noted that all the boats were hoisted
square, the falls neatly stowed; none of the guardrails sagged, the
ropes on the deck were cheesed-down neatly, her four-inch guns
were trained dead fore and aft, all at the correct harbour elevation of
ten degrees. Little things . . .
She might be old, a worn-out has-been, but she was run
by a seaman.
And the seaman looked what he was, Bentley thought as he
stepped on board Pelican's quarterdeck an hour later and held out
his hand.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 28 -
A calm, oaken face looked back at him, its skin the dark colour
of a dried leaf, and something of the same juicelessness, and riven
with the maze of wrinkles ploughed into it by thirty years of wind
and sun and salt. A hard dry hand gripped his and a growl of a voice
said: "Morning, sir."
Holland had been a lieutenant-commander when Bentley had his
single sublieutenants ring, and he still was. But he offered the title to
the senior, younger officer without hesitation. He was the sort of
man, Bentley felt, who would call a waiter "sir" if it pleased him,
and be damned to an admiral's wife he didn't like.
"Good morning," Bentley returned, and only just caught himself
from adding "sir." Holland had been at sea while his visitor was still
wearing triangular trousers, but there was something else about him
which commanded respect. Not his intellectual or educational
capabilities-he would never rise above his present rank-but a sort of
gruff, weathered, practical competence. His whole stocky figure and
beaten face exuded experience.
They walked forrard towards the sea-cabin and Bentley was
thinking that Randall could be right; here was a hard nut indeed to
split. On the other hand, Holland's very qualities of experience and
hard-won understanding might swing things Wind Rode's way. And
it was the ship which was really at stake . . .
In the cabin, tiny compared to Bentley's, Holland grunted, "Sun's
over the yardarm. Gin?" "Thanks."
The steward brought the gin and tonic, a cool hint of blue in the
long glasses, and Holland said "Skoll." Bentley murmured
conventionally in answer and they drank.
The older officer's mind was alive with questions-he had heard
of Bentley and his exploits, but he barely knew him, and this was not
a friendly social visit-but politeness kept rein on his wondering. He
said:"I hear you had a bit of a stoush near Jomard?"
"Yes," Bentley nodded. Holland had given him his opening. He
decided to use it at once-frankness might pay off with this veteran.
"That's what I've come to see you about."
"Oh . . .?"
Holland was not yet sure of his visitor's intention, but an
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 29 -
unpleasant doubt began to stir in his mind. The relation of a ship in
action, and casualties, to a visit to a ship about to leave the danger
area was more than a bit obvious. Maybe this bright young fellow
wanted to shanghai one of his stokers, or cooks.
He lifted his glass slowly and over its rim his deep, narrowed
eyes watched Bentley warily. Wind Rode's captain interpreted the
expression accurately-in Holland's position he would have been just
as watchful. But his voice when he went on was casual, as though
what he were about to ask were in the normal order of natural things,
instead of being outrageous.
"I've lost seven men, three killed, four wounded." Holland's eyes
were fixed on him steadily, unwinking. "I can manage without the
cook, but I need a stoker, at least two men for the pom-pom. And a
cox'n."
"You lost your cox'n," Holland said, carefully, "that's bad luck."
"It's calamitous," Bentley nodded definitely. He went on at once.
"That's why I'm asking you to give me yours."
Holland lowered his glass. He leaned forward to place it gently
on the table. In that position, his wide shoulders bent over, he looked
up at Bentley.
"You're not serious!"
His voice was half-mocking, half-doubtful, as if he had heard a
joke in bad taste. It was, as well, hard.
"You don't imagine I like asking for these men?" Bentley said,
beginning his battle.
"You don't imagine you'll get them?" Holland returned, his lips
twisted.
Bentley started to talk. He kept his voice calm, reasonable. He
had to avoid the slightest indication that he was trading on his
seniority; that would have been fatal, for Holland was just as much
lord aboard this old craft as Bentley was in his domain.
For almost ten minutes he reasoned with Holland, and the only
hope he got from the uncompromising weathered face listening to
him was the fact that it was listening.
He said:
"I appreciate your position-naturally you don't want to lose your
cox'n-but surely you can see the hole I'm in?" "So you appreciate
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 30 -
my position," Holland said drily, "I wonder . . . D'you realise these
men have been up here more than a year? That for weeks now they've
known the time's approaching when they'll get back to their families?
And you want me to order half-a-dozen of them to stay? Perhaps for
a further six months, even a year?"
"There are a few soldiers on the Kokoda Trail and Milne Bay
and similar pleasure resorts who've been up here a hell of a long
time," Bentley reminded him. "So have my men, for that matter."
"Are you completely ruddy insensible?" Holland asked him.
"Your men are reconciled to their commission here; mine have been
keyed-up for days at the thought of home. What sort of captain would
deliberately smash those hopes? Would you swing that sort of thing
on to any of your crew?" "It's my crew, and ship, I'm thinking of,"
Bentley told him gravely. "Listen, Dutchy. You've forgotten more
than I know-I realise that. But I've worked bloody hard to train that
ship. You're going home, I'm stuck up here. And I don't have to tell
you what work's ahead of us. Likewise you know damn well enough
that a cox'n's absolutely essential to me. What I've built up over the
past year could fall to pieces in three months without a cox'n. I don't
want that to happen-I've got a good bunch over there."
"I've got a good bunch here," Holland smiled cynically, "except
. . ."He stopped, and Bentley saw a queer expression shade across
his face. That look was hard to define-it seemed a mixture of sudden
realisation, decision, and a sort of sardonic pleasure. "Your father is
Captain Bentley?" Holland asked suddenly.
"That's right."
"M'mm. I served with him-way back. First-class officer."
While Bentley wondered what the devil all this had to do
with his problem, Holland got up and slowly walked across
to the porthole. He stood there a few seconds, his thick
legs astride and his hands on his hips, staring out over the sun-
glinting harbour to the glaring galvanised-iron roofs of the town
sprawling up the hill.
Then he turned abruptly and came back to the table. His craggy
face was bisected by a wide and friendly grin.
"All right," he said, and sat down, "you can have your men."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 31 -
For a moment Bentley was too astonished to thank his benefactor.
His mind automatically searched for the trap, the reason for this
abrupt reversal. His father? Surely an acquaintance of so long ago
could not have swung Holland's adamancy to such sweet
reasonableness.
He got up, looking down at Holland's quizzical grin. It must have
been the appeal to his experience and understanding, he decided, his
own face frowning a little in puzzlement. He appreciates what we've
been through in working-up Wind Rode.
"Well?" Holland queried, "aren't you satisfied?"
"Of course, of course," Bentley said hastily. He picked up his
cap. "Thank you very much-I'm much obliged."
"That's all right." Holland's voice was negligent, but he was still
grinning. "The other half?" He nodded to the empty glass.
"No thanks. I'd better be off-a lot to do, you know . . . And no
doubt you'll be wanting to organise those men over to me."
Now Holland frowned, in wonder.
"You drive a tough bargain," he growled, "I suppose you'll want
`em in ten minutes! There is, of course, the trifling matter of the
drafting office in Flinders . . ."
"I'm sure we won't have to worry them," Bentley put in quickly,
"under the circumstances they'll play along. In any case if I have the
men there's not much they can do. Is there?"
"Hmm," Holland grunted, "you're like your Old Man in more
than looks."
"Well . . . ?" Bentley half smiled.
Holland shoved his squat bulk up and now he too was smiling
with a genuine, more pleasant humour. Smart as new rope, he was
thinking, can't wait to get back and get his new hands on the watchbill;
probably have `em drilling this afternoon, poor beggars. You were
like that once, remember? M'mm ... He said:
"Pity you're in such a hell of a hurry. It's nice drinking weather,
and I'd like to hear first-hand some of the stories of your stoushes.
You've got . . ." grinning, holding the door open, "quite a name,
y'know."
It was nice drinking temperature, and Bentley was un-fictionally
not at all averse to being prompted about some of his exploits-but he
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 32 -
really wanted to get back to his ship, and his only reason for leaving
so hurriedly was a fear that Holland might change his mind.
So that he smiled a little self-consciously at his fellow-captain
and stepped out into the passage.
Required by both junior rank and courtesy, Holland saw his visitor
off at the gangway. Bentley thanked him again and ran down into the
waiting boat. The pipes shrilled their respect and the boat shoved
off.It was still quite close to the ship's side when, sitting in the stern-
sheets and looking back, he saw an officer, whom he judged rightly
to be Pelican's first-lieutenant, come up to Holland on the
quarterdeck. He saw Holland speak to him, and he saw the expression
on the lieutenant's face- puzzlement turning quickly to frowning
anger.
Then Holland said something else; he spoke earnestly and he
took the lieutenant's elbow. Bentley was still close enough to see the
younger officer's face turn towards him. It was turned back almost
at once, but not before Bentley saw the expression on it. The
sunburned face of the first-lieutenant of Pelican was split athwartships
by a wide grin of sheer and appreciative gladness.
Then the boat swung on-course for Wind Rode further up-harbour
and the quarterdeck of her sister destroyer dwindled rapidly astern.
Bentley was worried by that drastically altered expression for
about five seconds. Then the facts came swamping in to drown his
worry-he had gained one coxswain and half-a-dozen replacements;
the first-lieutenant of the ship he'd got them from could grin his silly
head off for all he cared. There was probably some explanation-
Holland might have told him the exact time of their sailing for home;
he might have pointed out that Bentley and his crew were due for
another six months up here: either of which reminders would be
enough to make any seaman grin with delight. He heard the boat
coxswain order "Slow ahead," and he turned his head to look at his
own ship. There she was- smart as paint, long and lean and new and
strong; and now she was fully manned again. He saw the
quartermaster and the bosun's mate drawn up smartly at the gangway
to receive him, and the officer of the day waiting, stiffly at attention.
They'd worked their guts out to get her that way, he thought, and
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 33 -
now they could keep her that way.
His few seconds of worry evaporated. Commander Bentley
jumped from the boat and ran nimbly up the ladder. The pipes pierced
out.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 34 -
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS NOT ALTOGETHER an accident that an hour later
Bentley was walking along the iron-deck when the new hands came
up the gangway.
In harbour he liked to lunch in the wardroom, instead of alone in
his cabin as he did at sea, and he would have been on his way aft
anyway round about this time. But today from his porthole he had
seen Wind Rode's motorboat returning from Pelican, the kitbags and
hammocks piled in the sternsheets. He waited till he heard the boat
coxswain's whistle order "Stop engine," then he put on his cap and
stepped out on to the upper-deck.
When reservations are made, the side set apart for captains is
always the starb'd side: he walks on the starb'd side of the
quarterdeck, his gangway, when two are down, depends from the
starb'd side, and now as he walked aft Bentley approached the
quarterdeck from starb'd. Pelican's men were climbing up the port
gangway, and so without his presence interfering with the routine,
Bentley could look them over.
They looked ordinary enough, half a dozen of them, some short,
some lanky, all dressed the same, and all characterised by another
general distinction-every face was distinguished by as close approach
to a scowl as their position before the officer of the day allowed
them.
But Bentley had expected that: he had not thought to find men
laughing for joy. Give them a day or two to find their way round this
big new ship, to begin their messdeck friendships, to realise what a
snug berth this was compared to the rusty bucket they had left, and
they'd settle in all right.
Even as the thoughts ran through his head Bentley knew that that
was only half the story; Pelican's men would settle in, but the main
inducement would be the designed fatalism of sailors. These six had
been given a pier-head jump, an abrupt transfer from one ship to
another, and after the anger and acrimony had worn down a little
they would not think of their new big ship, nor of their possible new
friends, but of something like this- "What can you expect from a
bloody outfit like this? I want me head read. I shouldn't have joined.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 35 -
But you can't fight the mongrels. Ah well . . ."
And, having arrived at that philosophical point, they would be
ready to be moulded into whatever brand of sailors their new captain
favoured.
Bentley was almost past. There were several of Wind Rode's men
hanging about the gangway-when you've been a year in a destroyer
a new face possesses something of the charm of a new girlfriend, or
a middy of cold beer in Sydney-and he had not sighted the coxswain,
his main interest.
Then the huge bulk of Hooky Walker turned aside for a moment,
and Bentley saw his man. Hooky, acting-coxswain, was allocating
them their messes, and his relief was listening. Bentley saw a chief
petty-officer of about 35, tall and thin in khaki, his face set. Then he
was past the group and stepping over the coaming on to the wardroom
ladder.
The six or seven officers in the mess rose when he entered and
his hand waved them down again. Bentley was officially a guest in
the wardroom, and he noticed that the table was laid for lunch. But
he was not worried that he had kept them' waiting-they were in
harbour after a long stint at sea, and meal times were relaxed now.
He knew, from personal experience, that these officers were more
interested in their frosted glasses of beer and gin than in a meal in
the humid heat. None of them drank at sea.
He settled down beside Randall and the big Lieutenant grinned:
"You did it, I see."
This was intimate talk, and his voice was low. Not that there was
any need. The other officers were deliberately
talking among themselves, and they would neither listen nor
intrude until the captain made known his wish for general
conversation.
Bentley took his beer from the steward. He could feel the sweat
prickling his back under his shirt, and the lip of the glass was icily
welcome against his lips.
"Yes. They don't look overjoyed about it."
"Thank the Lord for discipline." Randall answered cryptically.
"They'll fit in." He snapped his cigarette lighter, looking sideways
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 36 -
at Bentley with cigarette and flame a few inches apart. "You saw the
cox'n?"
"M'mmm. Seemed all right. Though I wouldn't like the chances
of a sailor putting in for leave out of watch at the moment."
"I suppose it was a hell of a thing to do to `em," Randall mused.
"It would also be a hell of a thing to be without a cox'n," Bentley
reminded him.
"Oh, I'm not complaining . . ."
"I'm so glad."
"All right, all right!" Randall looked at the table. "Do you want
to feed now, sir?"
"If you like. Although I'm enjoying this . . ."
"Now that's something!" Randall grinned. "An official order to
drink!"
His raised eyes found the face of the waiting steward. The steward
got the message.
Bentley gave the coxswain an hour to settle in before he sent for
him.When the knock came at the door he was studying the fuel-report
the engineer had just handed him. Wind Rode's big tanks had been
filled to capacity: she was still taking on board fresh vegetables and
meat, but within an hour or so she would be ready for weeks at sea.
Bentley laid aside the report.
"Come," he invited, and swung in his chair to face the door.
The door opened, and the captain saw the same lean height of
man he had first noticed at the gangway. The coxswain still had his
cap on, but as he stepped into the cabin he took it off. Before he
could stop himself. Bentley's eyes squinted in sudden surprise. The
coxswain's face and arms were the usual weathered brown; his hair
above the young face was grey.
Not white, or blonde, but an overall, dead, lustreless grey.
Bentley saw his visitor's own eyes narrow in recognition of the
effect on the captain's face, and he cursed his revealing of it. He got
up. Smiling, he held out his hand.
"Good afternoon, cox'n. My name is Bentley."
His hand was taken in a cool, hard grip.
"Afternoon, sir. Chief Petty-officer Rennie joining, sir."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 37 -
The voice was respectful, and clipped, as expected-and that was
all."Sit down. You use these?"
"I do, sir. Not at the moment, thank you."
You smoke; your captain offers you one, in his cabin; you take
one.This man declined. It showed he was browned-off, Bentley
decided, but that was natural. It showed also he was no yes-man, but
he knew he had certain rights, and had no qualms about claiming
them. It could be good-it might also be sticky.
Wind Rode didn't want a man who obeyed orders. A disciplined
automaton could do that. She wanted, especially in her coxswain, a
man who obeyed willingly and cheerfully and intelligently, an
example to junior ratings. He said:
"All right, cox'n. I won't say I'm sorry I arranged your transfer.
I tried hard to do it, and I'm glad I got you. Of course I regret having
to upset your going south for leave. But you know what a destroyer
is without a cox'n."
"Yes, sir, I know."
The tone was respectful, the words were in direct and truthful
answer to his question. Yet Bentley knew quite certainly that Rennie
was referring to his late ship. His words were in fact a rebuke.
Bentley picked out a cigarette and felt for his lighter. He knew he
was marking time, and the recognition impressed him with the
delicacy of this first meeting: he was not used to resorting to
subterfuge when dealing with any man.
He could, of course, simply order Rennie to get below and carry
out his duties. Sydney leave or no. He was in the Navy, he was at
war. But it was not that attitude which had made
Wind Rode the ship she was, taken her in out of the things she
had done. He said:
"We have a good ship here, `Swain." He drew on his cigarette,
his burned cheeks pinching in, and he saw that neither the pronoun
nor the familiar diminutive of the coxswain's title had any visual
effect. Rennie sat stiffly in the chair, his hands holding his cap in his
lap, his feet together almost at attention, and his eyes were laid
squarely on Bentley's face.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 38 -
Bentley felt a little jab of anger. He crushed it. This man, coxswain
though he was, was thoroughly fed-up with the Navy, the war, and
especially with the ship which dragged him from a snug and familiar
berth and the prospect of three weeks' leave.
"I won't give you any guff about the team, this working-together
business. You know all that," The blue eyes still held his, cool,
waiting. "But you've stepped into a smooth organisation. I need your
help to keep it that way, and that help I know I'll get."
"Yes, sir."
Clipped, noncommittal, dutiful.
Bentley tried again.
"You're married?"
"No, sir."
That was something. Now he had only his own personal
antagonism to overcome; no wailing letters from an equally-
disappointed wife to stoke the fires.
"You were with Lieutenant-commander Holland some time, I
imagine?"
"A long time, sir, about eighteen months."
With destroyer casualties as they were, that was a long time.
"Where were you before that?"
"I was in Bantam, sir."
The voice was the same but the words sparked quick interest in
Bentley.
"She was sunk in the Med.?"
It was a statement. Bantam had been a renowned destroyer, a
fighter like her namesake. Old, and game.
"Yes, sir. Torpedoed."
"Let me see." Bentley's face was interested, kindly. "There were
only about six survivors?"
"Five, sir."
A bit over thirty, and grey hair . . . Bentley had seen many
survivors from torpedoed ships, had himself been one. But no outward
physical effects like this! Rennie's experience must have been
particularly horrible.
Bentley's voice when he spoke now was not deliberately, but
naturally, kind.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 39 -
"You'll find this ship is considerably different from your last
two, `Swain. I hope you'll be happy in it."
For a moment he thought he had him. Rennie lowered his eyes
and the tip of his tongue moved slowly along his upper lip. Then he
looked up again. He was staring into a strong, walnut-hued face, the
planes of it hard with health and confidence and experience, the
eyes grey and clear and direct. He knew about this Bentley fellow,
what he had done with the two ships he'd commanded.
Now he was looking at him, and he knew he was the captain who
had dragooned him into many more months of savage fighting, after
a year of it.
Damn you to hell! his brain shouted silently, damn you and your
glory-hunting ship! He said, his voice flat:
"Yes, sir. Is that all, sir?"
For a long four seconds grey eyes locked on blue. Then Bentley
stabbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.
"That's all, cox'n. The Buffer will put you right on anything you
want to know until you find your legs. If there's anything else-don't
hesitate to come to the first-lieutenant or myself."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Bentley nodded and Rennie got up. He went out and shut the
door quietly. For a minute Bentley stared at the door, his elbow on
the table and his fingers gently rubbing his chin. Then he pressed a
buzzer and sent for the first-lieutenant.
When Randall came in Bentley asked brusquely:
"How are the stores coming?"
"I'll be through in an hour," Randall answered. He recognised
Bentley's tone, but he had also known him a long time. He went on:
"I passed the cox'n on the way up. He wasn't leaping with joy.
Not so good?"
"He will be," Bentley promised grimly. "I appreciate the position,
but we can't coddle the fellow."
Aha, Randall thought, so you're waking up at last, old feller. Kid
gloves are all right-up to a point. He said:
"I quite agree. He's a cox'n, not a seasick ordinary-seaman. I'll
handle him."
Bentley looked sharply at his friend's satisfied face. Then he
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 40 -
lowered his eyes to the table and thoughtfully pulled at his nose.
He'd needed that little reminder.
"No," he said, "don't ride him. Not yet."
"Look, Peter." Randall leaned his big hands on the table. His
face was serious. "I didn't like the idea of grabbing those blokes any
more than you did. I also appreciate the necessity for it. Okay-they're
on board now. There's been lots of things we didn't like having to
do, but we didn't cry in our beards over `em. Same with this crowd.
Sure, they're feeling low. But if we pander to that all we're doing is
making `em feel more sorry for themselves." He pushed himself up
from the table. "If there's one thing I know, it's sailors. I say at the
least sign of slackness, we slam down-hard!"
Bentley lit a cigarette and let the smoke waft up past his nose in
a blue haze. Randall knew sailors, all right, and they knew him-
knew him, with all their native shrewdness, as a hard-working, tough,
completely fair and completely unimaginative first-lieutenant.
They liked him, respected him, and for him they'd work their
guts out. That was all right. But a sullen man could be driven to
dangerous lengths if he thought he was being unfairly treated. Sailors
understood and respected discipline -just so long as they believed it
was fair. These new men believed, with justification, that they had
been most unfairly treated. A tough officer riding them would serve
merely to blind them to reason: he could make them a nucleus of
discontent and disobedience, a focal point for all the imagined wrongs
of their messmates.
"I'll handle this my way, Bob," he said, and smiled- Randall was
more important to him than a dozen coxswains. "If it doesn't work,
then bring on the big stick. Until then we'll take it easy."
"For how long?"
"A week should crystallise matters." Bentley tapped gently at
the end of his cigarette. "Y'know, we might be all up a certain creek.
These fellows might be working like beavers by tomorrow. Maybe .
. ." his grin was self-mocking, quizzical, "maybe we're both a bit
too wrapped up in this confounded ship. We could be developing
into a perfect pair of old schoolmarms."
"That," sneered Randall, though he grinned back, "is a lot of
cock, and you know it! However, you're the boss." He slapped his
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 41 -
open hands against his wide chest. "That's enough of philosophising
about jolly Jack Tars. Sailing time still the same?"
"Three-thirty, yes." His mouth twisted at the question in his
deputy's face. "We rejoin the Fleet off Guadalcanal."
"That one wasn't hard to guess. We go back through Jomard, the
direct route?"
"No."
"Your preference-or higher up?"
"Both. We're ordered down round the Louisiades. The Admiral
wants us to snip round and see what's cooking in those unfriendly
parts. Seems to me we're always doing that -like a ruddy terrier after
rats."
"That puts it fairly enough," Randall grinned. "You want the new
cox'n to take her out through the reef, or Hooky?"
"Rennie, of course."
"Right-I'll warn him."
Randall was turning for the door when Bentley's voice stopped
him."No, Bob," he said quietly, "don't do that at all. He's the cox'n.
I want him to know that we assume he assumes his duties at once.
Just let him close-up on the wheel with special sea-dutymen."
"If he doesn't? If he organises Hooky to take her out?"
"Then," Bentley smiled tautly, "we shall know a good deal about
our new cox'n."
The new coxswain was unpacking his kitbag in the chief's mess
on the starb'd side of the foc's'le when Hooky Walker stepped in
over the coaming. The big fellow's oaken face creased in a grin.
"Hi there, cobs! You pack it, you unpacked it. That's how she
goes in this outfit, eh?"
He threw his cap deftly on top of the hammock-bin and slid his
huge body along the padded seat against the ship's side. The steel
hook went out and pulled a jug of lime-juice towards him.
"Yeah." Rennie answered sourly.
He looked at the man and the hook over his shoulder. He knew,
the whole Navy knew, about the giant chief bosun's mate with the
hook in lieu of a hand.
For a moment Rennie felt a twinge of excitement. This was a
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 42 -
famous ship he had come to join-so well-known that he had taken
the trouble to come up on deck in Pelican and watch her sail in.
Now he was a member of Bentley's crew, a team and a ship whose
exploits, solid enough in fact, had become almost legendary through
the cumulative exaggeration of sailors' yarns.
In the next instant the pulse of excitement was crushed. It was
not difficult for him to manage that. In normal circumstances he
would have felt quietly exultant that he had been drafted to a ship
like this-now all he could feel was the blatant injustice of his transfer.
"We've got a good bunch in here," Hooky said, and grimaced at
the jug. "That flamin' stuff's hot!"
"Seems to me that's all I've heard since 1 joined," Rennie
growled,
"Come again?" Hooky squinted up at him.
"What a wonderful crowd of angels man this hooker!" Rennie
jammed a blue suit into the aluminium locker. "Most ships I've been
in you find at least a couple of messdeck horrors, but aboard here
they seem to be all textbook sailors. Or so I'm told. My God!" he
ended disgustedly.
Hooky quietly laid his cup on the table.
"You seem a bit brassed-off, cobs," he said gently.
Rennie looked at him.
"What the hell d'you expect me to do? Dance round like a fairy."
Hooky's voice was still quiet.
"So you're chokker, fed-up to the gills. That's fair enough. But
there's no reason to go round like a fathom of misery. It'll wear off.
You'll settle in. A week's time'll find you glad you joined. This is a
bloody good ship, cobs-right from the top to the lowest."
Rennie swung on him. His face was taut.
"Not you too, for God's sake! Not in my own blasted mess!"
A muscle twitched along the side of Hooky's jaw. He stared back
into the clean, sharp face, tight now, and he liked what he saw. In his
vision also was the prematurely grey hair. He smiled, and the muscle
relaxed.
"Thanks for showin' me up to myself," he said, "I suppose a man
can get to thinking the sun shines out of his whatname. Here-burn?"
He held out the cigarette packet and Rennie looked down at it.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 43 -
He wanted a smoke-he felt the need for it in his mouth and stomach.
"No thanks, not now," he said, but his voice had lost its acid
tone. He turned back to his unpacking. "D'you know what time we
sail?"
"Sure. The Old Man keeps us informed when there ain't no leave.
Three-thirty."
Rennie nodded, and Hooky stared at his thin back. It was on his
lips to ask if Rennie wanted him to take her out, this first time. There
was that reef fouling the entrance . . . Then he remembered Pelican:
she had made a name, too; and she was a destroyer. He said:
"When we get clear I'll give you a run round the books, if you
like."
The coxswain was responsible for keeping many books and
papers, from captain's defaulters and service certificates to canteen
stores and the registered-letters' book.
"Thanks,"' Rennie said drily over his shoulder, "but books are
books, I'll manage."
Hooky's lips pursed in a soundless whistle behind his new
messmate's back. But he said nothing. A figure darkened the doorway
and a squat, heavy man came in.
"Oh, Pete," Hooky said, glad of the interruption, "this is Jack
Rennie, the new `Swain. Pete Luxton, chief gunner's mate . . ."
Rennie turned and took the proffered hand, nodding curtly. Luxton
reached for the limejuice jug and Hooky made a rude reference to
the incompetence of messmen who forget ice-cubes in limejuice.
Rennie went on unpacking.
At 3.20 that humid afternoon special sea-dutymen were piped to
close-up. Normally Bentley would have remained in his cabin until
the first-lieutenant reported ready for sea. But this afternoon he was
on the bridge shortly after the pipe sounded. He wanted to escape
from the close heat of his cabin up to the wind-cooled bridge, and he
had another reason.
He had the answer to that second reason not much more than a
minute after sea-dutymen closed-up. The voice, competently curt,
sprang from the wheelhouse voice-pipe:
"Bridge? Cox'n on the wheel, sir."
"Very good," Bentley acknowledged formally. Then he
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 44 -
straightened and caught Randall's eye. A small smile twitched
between them.
Bentley gave his wheel and engine-orders and the long destroyer
moved smoothly out towards the reef. He had his eyes on the froth-
fringed gap but he was thinking: He's passed that test all right. And
then because he had been long trained to consider every facet of a
problem, his mind ran on: Maybe Rennie knew he would be sent for
and ordered to the wheel anyway; maybe he was so quick with this
particular duty of a coxswain because his own life depended on the
safe handling of the ship through the reef.
The doubt lingered, an annoying irritant to mar his satisfaction
in the clean getaway from the anchorage.
"On the bearing, sir," Pilot reported.
"Port fifteen," Bentley ordered.
She came round, as quickly as if Smales had been handling her.
But the alteration was a simple exercise-an ordinary seaman could
have done it as well. The real test would come when they were in the
gap. It was almost ahead of them now, and Bentley could see the
long smooth hills of water rolling down and smashing into abrupt
white on the coral.
He steadied her for the middle of the gap. Rennie's replies to his
orders came back clipped and economical. They were almost there.
Bentley snatched a swift look around- he did not want another craft
fouling his approach at the last minute.
The harbour nearby and the sea outside were clear. The ship began
to lift a little in the oncoming swell; the result of the roots of the long
ocean rollers striking the shallow bottom, being retarded, and sending
their heavy crests toppling forward.
The bow lifted. It hung there, poised, the forefoot almost clear.
The motion was made more alarming through contrast with the
smooth passage of a minute before. Then the wave ran on past the
point of balance and the bow swooped down, the flares spraying out
a fan of white water on either side.
They were in the gap.
Her speed seemed to increase abruptly, an illusion caused by the
closeness of the coral on both sides. The crash of the rollers on this
resistant barrier was a long, continuing roar. She was compassed by
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 45 -
a frothing maelstrom of white and green, flashing above the ugly
black of the reef itself.
Bentley was directly behind the binnacle. His eyes never left the
compass-card. She rolled wickedly, and he felt her shaking as the
screws lifted clear. The lee gunwhale dipped and the sea reached up
for her, spouting from the feet of the guardrail stanchions.
She lifted, hesitated, then reeled over on the opposite side. He
saw the black lubber's line, which indicated the ship's head, begin
to swing. The black coral waited a few yards to port. He was leaning
towards the voice-pipe, his eyes riveted on the compass, when he
saw the lubber's line steady.
Twenty seconds more and she was through. The confused rolling
of the confined space eased into the rhythmic swooping of the open
ocean. The reef and the roar and the flung spray dwindled rapidly
astern. Bentley glanced at Randall standing beside him.
"He can handle her." he said quietly, And, crisply into the voice-
pipe:
"Special sea-dutymen fail out."
The coxswain acknowledged and a moment later the
quartermaster reported closed-up at the wheel. Wind Rode sailed on
across the trackless reach of blue, alone on an empty sea, running
south-south-east into the approaching night.
The night came on from the east in a sable flood and she ran to
meet it darkened, quiet, alert.
It was a night like this that the torpedo had struck.
Just like this, Rennie remembered, standing on the upper-deck
below B-gun, the wind and the sea whispering about him. Just before
the moon rose, before they had a chance to sight the periscope aimed
with such malignant purpose on the old ship's belly.
The bow-wave flashed briefly below him and the wind sighed its
tune in the rigging above him, and his memory
raced back to that night. He did not try to stop it-the memory
came often, and often he had tried to force it down. But the terror
always squeezed up again through his consciousness.
He had not been on the upper-deck that night, He was in his
coxswain's office after supper, a tiny cubicle with shelves of books
and one porthole. Preparing the list of captain's defaulters for the
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 46 -
next morning's session.
No one had seen the torpedo in the blackness before moon rise;
the outworn asdic set had failed to pick up the screech of the screws.
The missile struck a little forward of the engine-room, which had
given the engineer, before he died, time to open the safety-valves.
The coxswain's office rocked as though a giant hand had punched
the ship in the guts; she reeled like a clubbed man, and when she
came back from that punishing roll the water was pouring into the
passage outside the office.
He knew this because from where he had been flung to the deck
he felt the cold salt filling his mouth and eyes. He struggled out into
the passage and the ship lurched and a giant cataract plunged down
the ladder leading to the upper-deck.
Swept back bodily, he grabbed the door-jamb of his office. The
emergency lights had come on, and in their subdued glimmer he
stared into his office and he saw green water against the glass of the
porthole.
Water . . . against the glass. It was then he knew, with a numbing
paralysis of shock, that the ship was sinking. Not damaged, not split
open; sinking, Already beneath the surface.
The horror of the realisation acted as a catalyst, reversed the
trend of his mind's dissolution. He clawed his way back into the
office, knowing in one flash of certitude what he must do. With all
his force he strained to shut the door. He managed it, and then he
locked it, feeling no sense of the ludicrous in that action; all his
senses were occupied by the silent threat of what was behind the
door. From down all its sides, through the keyhole, water sprayed in
a forceful, menacing promise.
He knew the door would not hold back that weight for very much
longer. But now he had another weight to overcome. Stumbling, half
falling, he groped for the brass dogs of the porthole. They would not
move at first-there was an increasing tonnage pressing against them
from the outside.
He took up his portable typewriter and with the edge he struck at
the clips, struck again and again. The edge crumpled and he twisted
the machine and struck with the other side. The first clip moved.
He had no sense of time. The whole concentration of his mind-
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 47 -
power was on moving those clips. He had the third and last clip
almost screwed off its thread when the heavy porthole snapped open.
The whipping brass took him on one arm but it was the solid jet
of water which picked him up and flung him back against the door.
He stayed there, pinned against the wood, seeing the thick column
of water jetting in, knowing at least that now with the pressure
equalised the door would not cave in. Then the emergency lighting
went out.
He leaned back against the door, feeling the pressure of the jet
easing against his stomach as the office filled, straining his head to
keep his mouth and nose above the creeping liquid cold.
Floating things bumped against him, swirled by the incoming
current, brushed across his face in the utter blackness. He knew the
deckhead was not much above his head, and still he waited, knowing
that he would not have the strength to battle forward against the
water jet, waiting now for the pressure to approach equalisation inside
the office and outside in the sea.
He stood strained against the door, feeling the water reaching up
for his mouth. His face was set in a forced mask of composure and
the terror mounted in his brain.
The first water lapped into his mouth. He stretched his head as
far back as he could and filled his lungs. But when he brought his
face forward again to make the plunge under towards the porthole
his nerve failed him.
Gasping, he jerked his head out of the water, wiping his eyes
with dripping hands. The small pocket of foul air seemed like
salvation. And then, without halting to think, knowing that thought
would paralyse his will, he ducked under and pushed himself towards
the porthole.
It was as though the sea had tried him, found him not wanting,
and had finished with him. He squeezed through
easily, his thin body snaking out and upwards under the frantic
thrust of his hands.
With all his unreasoning, animal will he forced himself upwards.
He had no idea how deeply the ship had sunk, and when a few seconds
later he broke the surface it was some time before he realised he was
safe and ceased the senseless thrashing of his arms.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 48 -
Spluttering, gulping in the cool night air, he saw only the forrard
end of the ship had sunk beneath the surface. While he stared, the
moon came up, flooding with its silent silver the macabre scene: the
debris fouled water, the broken boats and rafts, the two bronze
propellers still slowly turning in mid-air.
He paddled towards a smashed seaboat, its bow-end kept afloat
by the buoyancy chamber, and hanging there on the lifelines he
watched the stern begin to lower itself under the oil-scummed sea.
As far up as the after gun it sank quite slowly. Then a bulkhead
somewhere inside must have burst open. With a hissing and frothing
all that was left of the old ship was sucked down into the lightless
deeps of the Mediterranean.
A destroyer picked him up in the morning; him and the four who
had been on deck and escaped the hammer of the explosion. At first
in the sickbay, he had wondered mildly at the surgeon's concern
with him-he felt physically well, hungry in fact, and only a little
shaky. The night clinging to the boat had relaxed his tautened nerves.
"Nice night."
Then, later that clay, he had gone to the bathroom to shave. And
had looked at himself in the mirror ... his hair had changed colour.
"I said it's a pearl of a night. What the hell's up with you, `Swain?
You often go off into trances like this?"
Rennie's head jerked round. Hooky was staring at him, his lips
smiling and his eyes concerned.
"Ah . . . Can't a man think if he wants to? Even on this hooker?"
"Sure, sure. Except I wouldn't like you to have them deep sort of
thoughts while we're steaming through a reef." Hooky chuckled.
"I'm thinking in my own time," Rennie told him curtly. He nodded
and walked off.
Hooky stared after the thin figure, its hair shining whitely in the
new moonlight,
"Brother,'' he muttered, `'something's eating you!"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 49 -
CHAPTER FOUR
IT IS CLOSE ON 600 miles from Moresby to the Louisiade
Archipelago in the Coral Sea, and at her economical cruising speed
it took Wind Rode a shade under two days to get there.
The day following her departure from Moresby passed quietly
enough. The ship was as clean as she would ever be, yet Randall had
no difficulty in finding productive work for his hands.
Two hundred men living in a space three hundred feet long must
of course dirty that space: so there were always men working between
decks to keep clean mess-tables and bulkheads and decks. But it
was on the upper-deck that the first-lieutenant had most of them
working.
Salt-laden air can put a sheen of green verdigris on highly-
polished metal in a matter of hours, and most of that brass and steel
was on guns; guardrail pins can be scraped clean one day and carry
the beginnings of rust the next; she carried many reels of steel-wire
rope, and as her safety alongside in a blow depended on that wire it
had to be regularly unwound and oiled; her paintwork was gleaming,
but only constant washing-off of crystallised salt kept it that way.
Then there were the men engaged in drilling and the normal
running of the ship-the bridge team, asdic-operators, radar-men,
lookouts, lifebuoy sentries, telegraphsmen.
So that twice that day Randall walked round his domain and found
it good.
Randall had been no more than just in his claim to know sailors.
Added to his experience was the man's own nature-he was a first-
class officer, yet in certain attributes -toughness, directness, lack of
social graces and a contempt for sham-he was more sailor than officer.
Now, about three o'clock of the afternoon after their departure,
he was walking forrard on the foc's'le. The captain of the top saluted
him, and together they strolled on towards the bow, talking
seamanship. But Randall's eyes were on a man chipping rust from
the anchor cable.
He knew the face and name of every man in the ship- it is not
only businessmen who like to have their names remembered ... So
that, watching this man from the bridge, he had known at once he
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 50 -
was one of Pelican's seamen.
What had attracted Randall's interest was the fact that the new
man every minute or so turned his head to look up at the bridge. At
first Randall had put this interest down to novelty in his surroundings,
for Wind Rode's big bridge and aerial-cluttered foremast was a
considerable departure from Pelican's comparative simplicity.
But the watching had gone on too long. The man's action, he
decided, was furtive. He was not watching the bridge so much as he
was concerned about his being watched.
Officer and petty-officer came up to the seaman. In the next ten
seconds Randall knew that here they had a snag,
"What is your name?" he asked pleasantly.
The seaman was sitting on the cable, chipping at a link between
his legs. He turned his head round and up. A smalt, sharp-faced,
cunning visage looked at Randall.
"Pascoe," he answered. And went on chipping.
The petty-officer's reaction was automatic and instant.
"On your feet when you talk to an officer!" he snapped, "and
answer, sir."
Pascoe got up immediately, the hammer in his hand.
"Able-seaman Pascoe, sir," he said, humbly. His eyes were on
Randall's chest. They shifted from side to side.
Randall felt disgust. He knew this fellow, recognised his type
infallibly. On the surface belligerent, in reality gutless; waiting and
ready to take advantage of any weakness in authority, and falsely
humble when faced with strength. A messdeck whinger who had
tried the first-lieutenant on for size, and was now ready, in front of
him, to play along. In the mess he would boast of how he had
answered him, sitting on his backside, without describing the end of
the scene.
Randall would have preferred outright and genuine dis-
gruntledness. Then he could have reasoned with an honest complaint.
But any attempt at reasoning here would be construed as a weakness,
to be played upon for all it might be worth.
"What part of ship were you in Pelican?" he asked brusquely.
The answer came with a leering, almost fawning smile, eager:
"1 was on the quarterdeck, sir. I'm pretty well up on all the fittin's
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 51 -
there, sir. I'd be rnore use down there, sir.'
For a moment Randall remembered Bentley's injunction to go
easy on the new men. But not with this fellow, he decided; this man
had to be shown promptly exactly where he stood.
"You'll stay where you are," he said curtly, and held the shifty
eyes with the penetrating force of his own. "Where I can keep an eye
on you."
He turned and the petty-officer walked off with him. Randall
was sorely tempted to turn round again. He knew he would surprise
a look of malevolence on Pascoe's face. But sometimes with those
types, once they knew you were awake up to them, they gave the
game away as not worth the effort. It might be better not to overdo
the effect he had made.
He walked on and climbed down the iron ladder to the deck below.
This was the iron-deck division, and comprised, between foc's'le
and quarterdeck, the midships portion of the ship.
Here he saw two more new men but they were working well and
seemed members of the normal breed of sailors. He spoke for a few
minutes with the captain of the top and then moved on to the
quarterdeck.
The man was big and dark and hard. He was sitting on a centre-
line bollard splicing an eye in a length of guardrail wire, dressed in
khaki shorts and sandals. As he pulled the tough strands through, the
muscles in his biceps and back rippled beneath the sunburned skin.
"Who's that?" Randall asked the captain of the quarterdeck.
"Beuring, sir."
"How do you spell that?"
The petty-officer spelt it out. Randall nodded and walked up to
the splicer.
"Able-seaman Buering?"
The big man's head turned round. Randall looked into a dark,
almost swarthy face, its expression saturnine. There was none of
Pascoe's shiftiness here-his brown eyes stared boldy into Randall's.
At once he rose to his feet, the wire dangling from one large fist.
"Yes, sir?"
The voice was respectful, enquiring. Randall, hefty himself, felt
the force of the man. This was the type who might make a good
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 52 -
leading-seaman. Might ... To make a sound leader of men you needed
more than physical strength. He said:
"You seem to be handling that wire all right . . ." His eyes
completed the question.
"I was in the bosun's party in a cruiser, sir."
"I see."
Aboard Wind Rode each part of ship did its own wire and rope
work; in a cruiser a man in the bosun's party would be splicing and
knotting all day. This man could be useful.
The dark eyes were still on him, watchful. Randall felt a vague
disquiet. The man's attitude, his speech, were guiltless. It was those
eyes . . .
"Have you ever gone through for leading-seaman?"
"No, sir."
"Why not?"
"1 ... I'm not interested, sir. I'm only in for the duration. It's not
worth it."
"The war might go on for years."
"Yes, sir."
Randall realised that his own thoughts had trapped him into what
almost amounted to a request to this fellow to put in for his leading-
rate. Normally seamen worked their guts out to get a first-lieutenant's
recommend. He said, more brusquely than the conversation
warranted:
"Carry on with your work."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Over on the other side of the deck, beside the starb'd depth-
charge thrower, Randall said quietly:
"Know anything about him? He works all right?"
"Yes, sir," the petty-officer answered. Randall looked at him
sharply.
"Well?"
"Ah ... I was with him in that cruiser, sir. The Canberra. Just
after the stoush started," He stopped.
"He got into it early then," Randall said.
"Yes, sir."
The petty-officer looked out at the brightly blue sea and Randall
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 53 -
glanced at his face shrewdly. He was a senior seaman rating,
completely trustworthy and professionally competent-he wouldn't
have lasted a dogwatch where he was if he hadn't been. Now,
obviously, he knew something about Beuring, and just as patently
he didn't want to talk about it.
Maybe Beuring had committed some offence in the cruiser, and
surely he would have paid for it. Now his immediate superior wasn't
holding it against him. Just so long as the offence wasn't repeated
here. Let sleeping dogs lie was also Randall's philosophy. He said,
casually:
"I'd keep him on wire-work. He's happy at it and there's plenty
of it around."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Randall returned the salute and walked slowly forward towards
tea in the wardroom. His face was thoughtful. Pascoe, Beuring . . .
One certainly a fowl, a messdeck horror; the other . . . ? He wasn't
sure.What he was sure of, as he halted at the head of the ladder and
took an automatically cautionary stare about him at the smiling sea,
was that in a ship as well-run and disciplined as Wind Rode any
stepping out of line by those two would be promptly and effectively
hammered down. If not by the petty-officers, then by the coxswain.
Lieutenant Randall knew sailors, all right. Unfortunately he was
unimaginative. Forgetting Pascoe and Beuring, happy with his ship
and the work going on aboard her, he ran down the ladder and strode
into the wardroom.
Events have a habit of happening quickly in a destroyer, whether
they concern the raising of speed or the fighting off of an air-attack-
or the machinations of men.
Wind Rode's crew certainly were as highly-trained a unit as was
afloat in the area. They were also men. And these men, for months
on end, had enjoyed practically no diversion, no recreation, whatever,
Commander Bentley was perfectly aware of this; and
normally he would have had his crew ashore playing sport or
ridding themselves of inhibitions in a pub. But up in this unfriendly
area, where the lines of Allied naval shipping were stretched so
dangerously thin, there was nothing he could do about this other,
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 54 -
important, side of his training. So, with more important considerations
to concern him, he forgot it.
He was to regret the omission bitterly. But, as he reasoned with
himself later, there was nothing he could have done to circumvent
what happened.
A catspaw is a brief ruffling of the surface of the sea, a
forewarning of the wind to follow. It is a small thing, not significant
in itself, but a seaman will note it, and prepare for the squall behind
it. The first catspaw to ruffle the serenity of Wind Rode's calm and
efficient life came into the coxswain's office about nine o'clock that
night, in the bulking form of Hooky Walker, chief bosun's mate.
This office was larger than Pelican's. It opened from the
passageway near the sickbay, but it had no porthole. Rennie had
noted that fact, almost subconsciously, as soon as he had stepped
into it the day before. Somehow the absence of his former terrible
escape route had soothed him; it was not there to remind him, and
exit from the place lay only a few yards along a passage which led
straight out on to the iron-deck.
The coxswain was sitting at his tiny workbench, the captain's
book of defaulters before him, when Hooky stepped in. The big man's
bulk seemed to fill the little office. Rennie looked up, and nodded.
Hooky sat down, pulling out the makings.
He said nothing while he rolled the white cylinder, and Rennie
felt impelled to break the silence.
"I've never seen a book like this before," he said, gesturing with
a finger at the defaulters' book, hardly a name in it. "Not worth
keeping."
"Like I said," Hooky replied soberly, "she's a taut ship. Though
. . ." slowly poking the strands of tobacco down with a match-end,
"things could change. Fast."
The tone of his voice brought Rennie's head round.
"Meaning?" he asked.
"Meaning we've got trouble," Hooky said seriously, and lit his
cigarette, Rennie's hand went out to his own packet.
"Let's have it."
"Here it is then. A bloke on the foc's'le messdeck's just reported
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 55 -
to me that there's three quid missing from his locker."
"Oh hell, it's on again!" Rennie muttered.
"What's that?" Hooky asked sharply.
Rennie glanced sideways at him.
"Nothing, nothing at all. You're sure the money was pinched? It
could easily have been mislaid."
"It wasn't mislaid," Hooky shook his head heavily. "The bloke
looked everywhere for it before he came to me. There's a tea-leaf
loose up forrard. And he's got to be stopped."
"Why didn't he come to me?" Rennie queried sharply.
"Fair enough," Hooky nodded. "But I happened to meet him
outside the canteen. He looked so worried I asked him what was up.
He told me."
"I see." Rennie rested his chin on the back of his hand. His face
in the electric light looked drawn, tired. Hooky waited, silent. Then
Rennie jerked his head round to face him.
"What the hell d'you expect me to do about it?" he flashed.
"Eh . . . ? You're the coxswain, ain't you? What d'you do? You
tell the Jimmy and we organise a search, that's what!"
Rennie laid down his cigarette in the ashtray. The surge of anger
had left him. Slowly he shook his head.
"No. That won't get us anywhere. How the hell are you going to
pinpoint three quid? I've got five in my pocket right now." He leaned
back in the chair. "A search would be a waste of time."
"We've gotta do something!" Hooky growled. His voice was made
angry by realisation of the truth of what Rennie had said, and by the
coxswain's apparent defeatism. "You know what thieving can do in
a ship, especially a destroyer!"
"I know," Rennie nodded soberly.
There was some element of worried knowledge in his face that
made the big chief look at him with squinted eyes.
"It's a funny thing," he said slowly, "we had none of this before,
not until those bods you brought come along."
"I didn't bring them!" Rennie stepped. "You can put that down
to your precious bloody captain!"
Hooky was too interested by the coxswain's sudden heat to be
angry at this reflection on Bentley. He thought for a moment, rolling
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 56 -
the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, before he said:
"Listen, `Swain, this is ruddy serious. I know you're brassed-off,
and I can guess why. But you and me got to work in together on this
thing. I was in a ship once where thievin' started-it bloody near split
the crew to pieces. A man got that way he couldn't trust his best go-
ashore oppo. I don't want that happenin' here. Searches, kit-lockers
locked, a man not game to go to his cobber's locker for a packet of
fags . . ."
He paused, his eyes intent on Rennie's pinched face. Rennie
breathed in, then slowly out through his pursed lips.
"You don't have to tell me," he said tiredly, "I've just come from
that sort of thing."
He might have struck Hooky in the face.
"What!" The big man jumped up, staring down at Rennie. "You
had a tea-leaf in Pelican? Why the hell didn't you tell the Old Man?"
Rennie glanced up at him, then down again.
"Button your flap, for hell's sake," he said in a patient voice.
"Why should 1 pass on all the gossip to Bentley? What happened
there is Holland's business."
Hooky swore.
"Now it's happenin' here! And the mongrel came over with you!"
"You can prove that?"
"Eh?"
"You see what I mean? Sure we had thieving on board the old
hooker. But how the hell do 1 know the bloke responsible is not still
over there? Listen to me, Buffer- some decent matloes came over
with me, don't you make any mistake about that! They're just as
browned-off as I am, but that don't make `em crooks."
"Some, eh?" Hooky said quietly, "what about the others? Pascoe's
one of them others, I'll bet me deferrers."
"Pascoe's a bludger and a messdeck lawyer, yes, but no one's
got any proof he's a thief."
"But it narrows the field down, chum."
"You think so?"
"I sure do. And I'm gonna tell the Jimmy what I think, right
now!"
He swung, and had the sliding door half-open, when Rennie's
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 57 -
hard voice cut across the room.
"Chief bosun's mate!"
The title, as much as the tone, jerked Hooky's head round. He
looked at Rennie, his eyes narrowed, waiting. Rennie didn't keep
him waiting.
"I'm the cox'n of this ship," he rasped, "if there's anything to be
passed on up top, I'll look after it. Is that clear?"
There were several things on the tip of Hooky's tongue, all of
them vehement. Then into his angered consciousness the impression
of Rennie's face crystallised-hard now, but deadly weary, the skin
pallid under that crown of tell-tale hair. Hooky nodded.
"Okay, `Swain, it's clear." He pulled the door open. "Remember-
I'm with you when you want me."
For a few minutes after his visitor had gone Rennie sat at his
bench, his forehead resting against his fingertips. Beneath the hands
his face was creased in lines of tiredness and worry. He was trying to
think, and decide, through the turmoil in his mind.
At that moment it was not the happiness and efficiency of the
ship which was at sake, but Rennie's judgment and loyalty. He knew
what he should do about Pascoe and the stealing report, at the same
time as he knew he couldn't care less. What he didn't know was why
he felt that way.
It was not an abstruse psychological problem; any normally acute
observer, apart from the patient, could have diagnosed his condition
accurately enough. Rennie had been at sea, at war, a long time. He
had had a medically shocking experience in an old destroyer, and he
had been sent almost immediately to another ship of the same vintage.
In those early days a man's condition was judged mainly by his
physical health, and the coxswain's wound was deep and invisible.
He had served and fought eighteen months in the old Pelican.
Now, with surcease at long last in sight, he found himself in another
ship-new routine to master, more work, strange ways and faces to
become accustomed to. Normally he would have compassed those
problems easily enough, but
he was not normal. And, most bitter of the forces arraigned against
him, was the enervating blow to his hopes of relief
The measure of his moral debilitation was indicated, not by the
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 58 -
fact of his sending for Pascoe, but in the way lie handled him.
He caught a passing seaman in the passage.
"Tell Able-seaman Pascoe I want him."
"Pascoe, Chief?"
"One of the men from Pelican. Foc's'le messdeck."
"Oh. Right, Chief."
When the sharp face showed at the door Rennie gestured him in
and told him to shut the door. Pascoe did this and turned round, his
face as watchful as a fox.
"Pascoe," Rennie started, "some money's been stolen from your
messdeck."
The coxswain watched, disinterested and expectant, the outraged
protest form on Pascoe's narrow face. The words came, glib and
vehement in denial:
"So you send for me? Anything goes wrong anywhere and who
do they send for? Me! Two hundred blokes aboard this hooker and
who do they send for? I tell yer, `Swain, I've had a gutful of this!
Over there 1 was the one they always picked on and here it's the
bloody same! Some silly sailor loses his dough and kicks up a squeal.
It ain't fair, I tell yer! I'm gonna see the Old Man about this, I tell yer
straight! I've had a gutful! No proof, no nothin'. Just send for Pascoe!
You just watch me-right now I smack in me request to see the Old
Man about unfair treatment. I ain't gonna take . . ."
"Oh, get to hell out of here!" Rennie said wearily.
Pascoe did not put in his request to see the captain. Captains,
Rennie knew, were people his compulsory shipmate kept away from.
The day dawned bright and clear, as it did most times in that
tropical area, and Wind Rode ran on for the archipelago. Her daily
routine moved as smoothly as her own powered progress through
the turquoise water, and when night once again shrouded her she
was fifty miles from her objective, out of sight below the curve of
the earth from watchful eyes ashore.
By the time the islands were visible through night-glasses, the
cool night air had condensed the sun's vaporisation into an overall
cape of clouds; which absence of moonlight suited Bentley perfectly.
He closed the ship up at action stations and took her at a fast clip
round the islands. He did not really expect to find any significant
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 59 -
build-up of Japanese naval forces-the Admiral would not have sent
him in alone if there had been a chance of that-and so he was not
surprised when the circuit was completed and they had found nothing.
Wind Rode's presence there was meant to be a cautionary check-
just in case the enemy had ideas about mounting an attack to retake
Guadalcanal. Apparently he did not. At a little before midnight
Bentley slowed his speed back to the economical knottage and had
her laid on course for Guadal canal, several hundred miles to the
north-east.
Action stations fell-out. There was no clatter or loud talking.
Through long experience-a surfaced submarine charging its batteries
might have listened eagerly to noises in the quiet-the men filed below
to their hammocks and the watch on deck took over their duties.
Hooky Walker did not go below at once: he waited in the shadow
of the port seaboat.
He was not taking the air, nor a last surreptitious smoke before
turning-in-his wait was deliberate. Randall knew sailors, but Hooky
had forgotten more about that complex subject than the lieutenant
ever knew-he had been one himself.
Now Hooky was not only suspicious, he was worried. Thieving,
with the ship about to enter Brisbane or Sydney, he could understand.
But not up here, where every port was either embattled, in the hands
of the Japs, or else newly-occupied after a destructive landing. There
was no scope whatever for shore-leave, for the spending of money.
A thief would be a fool to steal now and alert the whole ship.
Certainly there was plenty of money about, but a cunning man would
wait and make a rich haul a few hours from a place where he could
take it ashore and enjoy it.
That was what had Hooky worried; the fact that the thief would
act now. There must be a reason for his wanting cash at this time,
and the sailor-wise chief bosun's mate had a pretty good idea what
that reason was.
He waited another ten minutes. Now all about him the
ship was still. Above him he could see the outline of the starb'd
lookout's head as he quartered the sea, complementary eyes to what
radar might miss; further aft a shadow moved now and then about
X-gun, the duty mounting. Wind Rode never moved from harbour
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 60 -
without a third of her main armament ready to open fire.
Quietly, his steel hand glinting faintly against the brown of his
shirt, Hooky eased from the seaboat and walked slowly to the passage
leading to the mess-decks.
Had he been returning to his own mess he would have diverged
at the passage entrance and climbed the ladder to the foc's'le head.
His entry into the passage meant only one destination-so that he was
not surprised, but convinced of the accuracy of his suspicions, when
from the canteen door some yards along the passage a dark shape
detached itself and hurried forward.
Hooky did not increase his pace, nor did he call out. The man
ahead was unrecognisable, and already he was through the first
messdeck door-the alarm would have been given. All the chief
bosun's mate hoped to do on this first night was to verify his
suspicions. Then, later, the trap could be laid.
He passed through the iron-deckmen's messdeck. All quiet there,
the space lit dimly by the blue police-lights, the cocoons of hammocks
swinging a little as Wind Rode eased herself from side to side. But
he had not expected to find anything so close to the upper-deck-the
trouble would be as far forrard as they could get.
He stepped over the foot-high coaming and was in the foc's'le
messdeck.
They had no time to douse the lights and swing into their
hammocks. He knew they were going to brave it out. He knew
something else-the first to speak of those six men sitting at the mess-
table, shrouded in cigarette smoke, would be his man.
"What's all this?" Hooky demanded, and his eyes ran over the
table, seeing, as expected, nothing but cigarette packets. "Lights-out
went long ago."
"Hullo, Buffer. These blokes were just putting me in the picture
about the ship-you know, what she's been up to. Sorry-didn't realise
it was so late."
The speaker was big. His voice was reasonable and his smile
was twisted.
"What's your name?" Hooky asked, and kept his tone normally
stern, the accents of a chief who had discovered a misdemeanour.
The time was not yet for action.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 61 -
"Beuring, chief-just joined from Pelican."
He said nothing more, made no further excuses. Their offence
was not serious. The others kept their eyes on the table, silent.
"If you birds can't sleep I'll find some work to keep you awake,"
Hooky promised. "I'll give you three minutes to turn in."
"Sure, chief," Beuring smiled, and his eyes held Hooky's. "We
were about to break it up anyway."
"Then start breaking!"
They pushed up from the table and Hooky walked back on to the
upper-deck, pulling the darken-ship screen carefully to behind him.
He climbed the ladder, and outside his own mess he leaned for a
moment on the guard-rails.
There it was. Now he knew. Beuring had brought with him a
curse more virulent in a small ship without recreation than smallpox.
It might have been banker, but he was almost certain it was crown
and anchor. There were rich pickings on the celibate ship, and once
the word got round Beuring would be knocking them back with a
stick.
Hooky saw again the narrow watchful face of Pascoe sitting beside
the big man. There you had the perfect example of cause and effect.
Already the poison had begun to act. Pascoe had stolen money to
gamble. If he lost, he would steal again. But it wasn't only Pascoe.
He himself, as well as Smales, knew that though Wind Rode was a
taut ship, there were more than a few men who would return their
haloes to store just as soon as the slightest slackening in disciplinary
supervision allowed them to.
Beuring would reef their money from them; he was cunning,
experienced, completely ruthless. The man's face was a living portrait
of his character. They would lose, and because they were so desperate
for entertainment, they would not wait a fortnight till payday. There
was hardly a kit-locker in the ship which didn't hold twenty pounds.
And there wouldn't be one in fifty which was locked.
He could see the old vicious pattern repeating itself, the same
disruptive cancer which had spread in the ship he had warned Rennie
about.
Rennie ... If only old Smales were here. By now both of them
would be closeted with Randall. Then up to Bentley's sea-cabin.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 62 -
First thing in the morning the captain would clear lower-deck and he
would put the fear of God into guilty hearts. From then on there
would be hardly a moment when a petty-officer or leading-seaman
wasn't prowling through the messdecks.
He pushed himself up from the rail. He felt he should go to Randall
right this minute. And he knew he would not.
Hooky Walker was absolutely loyal to his captain and officers.
But there are more loyalties than one man can hold. He had just as
strong an obligation to his messmates. He was the chief bosun's mate,
a very senior rating in charge on the upper-deck. But there was a
chief even senior to him, a man whose specific task it was to handle
this situation. Bentley would be the first to query the absence of the
coxswain.
The picture of Rennie's face came back easily in his memory.
What a hell of a thing to hit him with so soon, to go over his head
about. He couldn't, and he wouldn't, do it. Rennie must be told, of
course. Then wait and see how he handles it.
Relieved at his decision, Hooky stepped into his mess. He saw at
once that the coxswain's hammock was empty. Rennie must be still
down in his office. Hooky undressed and swung up. The morning
would do.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 63 -
CHAPTER FIVE
THE MORNING DID NOT do, at all.
Even a cheetah like a destroyer is bound inexorably by the law
of mathematics. From midnight to dawn round the Louisiades is five
hours, and five multiplied by fifteen knots makes a figure which
patrolling fighter aircraft can cover in fifteen minutes.
In accordance with his usual practice, Bentley was on the bridge
a few minutes before dawn action-stations was due to be sounded.
So that he heard at first-hand the radar report:
"Bearing 225 degrees, angle of sight 45, two aircraft. Identified
enemy. Coming towards."
Bentley's first reaction was not to look astern on the reported
bearing, but at the sea about him. He knew that radar would have
picked up the aircraft at long range, and that they had a few minutes
of grace. What concerned him immediately was the state of visibility.
There was no doubt about the breaking dawn. But the lightness
was ahead to the east; the ship herself was steaming in dark-grey,
semi-opaqueness. From ten thousand feet she would make a difficult
target to sight. The only trouble was that, just as there is no twilight
in the tropics, nor is there any dilatory nonsense about the sun's
rising.
"Sound action," he ordered.
The clangour shrilled out and the feet began to run.
It would be true to assume that Commander Bentley had been to
action stations more than a thousand times in that war. Just as true is
the fact that the strident ringing of the bells never failed to jump his
stomach-and increased his alertness to bow-string tautness.
It is not surprising therefore that even on this latest of his
multiplicity of action-stations he knew that something was wrong.
He knew, and in the next second diagnosed what had concerned his
watchful mind.
"What's wrong with the close-range armament?" he queried
Randall.
"They haven't reported closed-up yet, sir," Randall, now the
gunnery-officer, answered.
"I know that! Find out why."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 64 -
"Aye, aye, sir."
It took ten seconds on the phone for Randall to find out why.
"Two men adrift from the pom-pom mounting, sir," he reported.
Bentley's frown was more puzzled than angry. The pompom was
normally one of the smartest weapons in the ship. And now its
efficiency was crucially important.
"Names?"
"Pascoe and Hawkins, sir."
There was no doubt now which feeling predominated in the
captain's face.
"They're from Pelican," he stated, more to himself than Randall.
"What are you doing about it?"
"I've sent below to rout `em out," Randall answered.
Bentley nodded and turned back to the binnacle. He thought of
increasing speed, but that might serve to make their wake more plainly
visible. He was listening to the radar reports coming in, and outwardly
he was his normal, briskly competent self.
But he was really thinking of the pom-pom, not even yet fully
manned. If those fighters came in, and if they got through the barrage
of the big guns, then the multiple-barrelled pom-pom was the ship's
main protection. It fired a total of something like 500 explosive rounds
a minute from its four barrels, but to maintain that rate of fire,
especially when under menacing attack, it had to be completely
manned with loading numbers.
"Pom-pom crew closed-up, sir," Randall reported quietly.
"Where were they?"
"In their hammocks."
"What!" The connotation of hammocks, sleeping, and the rest of
the ship closed-up, with two enemy aircraft about to dive on her,
shocked Bentley. His lips drew down at the corners and his face was
tight.
"See to it afterwards," he ordered Randall.
"Aye, aye, sir!" the big lieutenant promised grimly.
The director-phone buzzed and Mr. Lasenby reported:
"They've sighted us. Peeling off now."
"All right, Guns. Usual procedure." And to Rennie: "Full ahead
both engines! I'll be swinging quite a lot, `Swain."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 65 -
He had his pom-pom. His voice was controlled, assured.
"Standing-by, sir," Rennie answered confidently.
Bentley had his pom-pom. But it might as well have been mounted
down in the gunner's store.
The two aircraft got safely through Lasenby's barrage, due partly
to their speed and more to the dim target they presented in the bad
light. Bentley swung the ship to throw them off and the pom-pom
opened fire.
The four lines of tracer reached out efficiently enough, and the
shells elevated and were about to bite into the leading fighter when
both aircraft rocketed overhead in a bellow of sound. That was all
right. Next time the pom-pom layer should have them nicely.
But the Jap pilots didn't play the same way twice. On the second
run they came in low above the lightening sea. They were plainly
visible now, but the big guns could not fire nearly as fast-their barrels
were almost horizontal, and the breeches had to be brought down to
the loading level after each broadside.
Even so, Lasenby had his guns beautifully laid. They got through
the long barrage, but the short-range wall of bursting shells took the
leader. It was very quick. He was only a few feet above the sea,
spearing in at better than 400 knots, and when the shells fired his
engine his nose dipped and he went straight in. The second fighter
came on.
She had her oerlikons, but they were much lighter than the pom-
pom and they were single-barrelled. Every man watching knew that
it would be between the fighter's four cannon and the pom-pom-
armaments that were almost exactly equal in firepower.
Aircraft and pom-pom exchanged fire and a lacework of tracer
glowed between them. Both pilot and layer were, momentarily, aiming
low. The ship's shells fled beneath the fighter and the cannons'
messengers lashed the water off her side into abrupt white.
The plane's nose came up a fraction and her shells followed. The
pom-pom's tracer also elevated. Bentley watched, one part of his
brain waiting to give the course-alteration order, the other fascinated
by the intimate due!.
He saw a single red explosion on the leading edge of one wing
and he waited for the destruction to be completed. The pom-pom
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 66 -
ceased firing.
He noticed it at once because the hammering crash of the cannon-
shells bursting on the upper-deck was a sound quite distinct from
the pom-pom's rattling cough. "Hard-a-starb'd!" he roared, "get it
on, man!" She was built to turn fast and her life depended on this
turn. Her skin was thin to give her speed and behind that outer layer
waited the boilers, straining to hold their contents of super-heated
steam. They could hold it all right-provided there were no sharp-
pointed explosive shells hammering to get in.
On the quarterdeck, in the open, lay thirty depth-charges, each
dark-grey cylinder packed with 300 lbs. of amatol.
Fast as she was, it was the after oerlikon which saved them.
Smaller than the pom-pom's the shells stitched out and needled into
the fighter's fuselage behind the cockpit. The pilot felt their shaking
arrival and swung his machine violently. With a supercharged snarl,
red-balled wings canted, the plane skated past the careering stern
and headed back towards the islands.
On the bridge Bentley watched it go, his lips beneath the glasses
a tight line. Before the machine dwindled too far he saw a ragged
strip reaching back along the fuselage where the oerlikon had
sheathed its claws.
"I think he's had enough," he muttered to Randall.
"He might have friends."
"He might. We'll alter course to north. If they come out after us
they should patrol to the east. Keep her at thirty knots."
"Aye, aye, sir."
An hour later they had gained 30 miles and the sky was still
guiltless of threat. The ship was still closed-up at action-stations.
Randall came up the ladder from his visit to the pom-pom mounting.
His face was hard.
"Well?" Bentley looked at him.
"Faulty loading," Randall growled. "That new man Pascoe."
Bentley walked from the binnacle to his long-legged stool in the
starb'd forrard corner. The lieutenant followed.
"Why were they put on the pom-pom?" Bentley snapped.
"Two reasons. The pom-pom crew was down two men, and the
chief-gunner's mate tells me both Pascoe and Hawkins claimed they
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 67 -
were on Pelican's pom-pom."
"You've seen them? As defaulters?"
"Not yet. The cox'n's still on the wheel. But I will!"
Bentley looked out over the racing bow. It was a long time since
he had felt so bitter. In their hammocks after the alarm had sounded,
responsible for the pom-pom's misfiring
"What was their excuse for being adrift on the gun?" "The old
one. Didn't hear the pipe. When someone shook them they thought
it was the normal closing-up for dawn action. Thought they had
another five minutes before they had to get up there. Of course I
asked them if in Pelican the bells were rung only for actual action,
as they are here,"
"And they knew that?" Bentley asked, very quietly.
"Yes," Randall nodded, "they admitted that."
Bentley did not hesitate. He was not thinking of clean punishment
returns now.
"I want them placed in my report," he ordered, "just as soon as
we fallout action-stations."
"That," said Randall, "had been my intention!"
She ran on fast speed for another half-hour. Lookouts were
doubled and every radar set she mounted was in constant searching
operation. But the islands astern sent out nothing more to hinder her.
Randall pulled out cigarettes and offered one to Bentley. He lit
both cylinders and said through the smoke:
"We're all alone, a juicy trophy. Yet they're not doing anything
about it. If they were they would have been howling all around us by
now. I can't understand it."
"I think I can," Bentley answered grimly. Randall glanced at him,
but the captain went on: "We'll fall out now. I'll see those two as
soon as you put them through."
"Aye, aye, sir," Randall acknowledged formally.
Naval justice is prompt and definite. There are no legal lights on
the lower-deck, and the only time a man is run in is when he's palpably
committed an offence.
Even so, Rennie had never attended a captain's session as brief,
or as definite, as this one.
Bentley had both men brought before him together-their offences
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 68 -
were identical. The coxswain doubled them up to the table and
ordered, "Off caps!"
They stood there at the table, judge and offenders. Pascoe and
Hawkins saw a tall and broad-shouldered officer, and gold on his
shoulders and cap peak glittering in the hot sunlight, the face beneath
the cap as uncompromising as granite.
Bentley, his fingertips resting on the table, saw a watchful,
unlovely face, flanked by another whose heaviness of outline was
overlaid by sullenness mixed with apprehension.
"You admit the charges?" he asked formally.
"Yes, sir," they mumbled together.
He did not ask to hear their excuses. He knew they were absent
from their gun in the face of enemy attack. A broken leg could be the
only acceptable excuse for that.
"I am not here," he went on, his voice and eyes arctic cold, "to
discuss the failure of your drill on the pom-pom. That will be
remedied." Pascoe swallowed at the utter finality of those four words.
"What I'm concerned with is your failure to man the gun. I'm not
interested in the routine aboard your last ship, nor how it was run.
Aboard this ship you fly when you're piped to action or the bells
ring." The tap of his fingers on the table emphasised the words. "Your
actions could, and damn near did, lose the ship. Seven days' stoppage
of leave."
The coxswain's mouth opened to repeat the judgment and
Bentley's raised hand closed it.
"You'll think you've got off lightly," he rasped, "considering
where we are. But remember this-that leave stoppage will be
considered when you put in for privilege of leave out of watch in
Brisbane or Sydney. And remember this, and don't forget it!-if you're
adrift from your gun again I'll have you in cells!"
For five seconds his stare probed into their eyes. Then he nodded
to the coxswain.
For some minutes Bentley sat on his stool on the bridge, his face
set and thoughtful.
It was not that he'd had to hand out punishment; what worried
him was the offence. His ship could be likened to a racing car. A
tractor would bullock its way along with fouled plugs and incorrect
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 69 -
settings: a racer required a constant refinement of attention.
His ship's efficiency had been finely-tuned; honed to a razored
cutting-edge. Because of this quality, a fault which in a less-sensitive
organisation might be without effect, here could blunt and clog the
weapon he and Randall had gone to such trouble to forge.
He remembered what Smales had said to him, on this very spot,
about weak links in the chain. They had to be watched, the wizened
coxswain had warned him. Now he had two more rotten apples. The
rot could spread, fast.
He thought of the famous crooner who had come on board for a
drink after entertaining the troops on a shell-blasted island. It was a
good party. Someone had asked how it felt to be at the top of the
tree. The singer's face had momentarily lost its happy smile,
. "That's what worries me," he'd said, "when you're on the top
there's only one direction you can go."
It was the same with Wind Rode's efficiency. But that singer,
judging by the radio, was still on top. He had staved off his fall. It
could be done. It had to be done here.
Another consideration slid into his worrying mind. Because the
ship was so soundly trained she had come out of almost every action
on top of her enemies. Weapons, whether aircraft cannon or
submarine torpedo or destroyer guns, were aimed and fired by men.
Wind Rode's men to date had proved superior in the handling of
theirs.
Now, a couple of hours back, the train of successes had been
broken. They had six big guns and a multiplicity of smaller weapons;
they should have got both those Jap aircraft. Definitely, no mistake
about it, long before the fighters got within damaging range. As it
was, only a lucky shot from the oerlikon saved them from possible
damage.
It was no matter for the chief gunner's mate or the Buffer-the
men's seamanship was seasoned for sure, they could fire their guns
with their eyes shut. It was, simply and nakedly, a problem of morale.
For the coxswain.
"Bosun's mate?"
The young seaman came running.
"Ask the cox'n to speak to me."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 70 -
"Cox'n. Aye, aye, sir."
The coxswain was in his office, entering in permanent ink the
captain's quickly pencilled judgment. He wrote shakily, because the
ship was shuddering with her speed. Down here, where he was not
much above the level of the engine-room, the movement was more
pronounced than on the bridge.
Rennie was not interested in his work. He laid his pen down and
wiped his face with a sodden handkerchief. The action against the
aircraft had not lasted long, and normally it would not have affected
him. But now he felt drained, tired and despondent.
He simply had no interest in his job, neither in this immediate
task nor in his wider sphere of duties. And absence of interest in a
seaman for long at sea in a small ship like a destroyer can be insidious
poison.
The coxswain, in short, was fed right up to the back teeth.
Nevertheless, his mind, probably because of the inherent
soundness of his training and nature, persisted in revolving around
his problem.
Hooky had told him, after the action had been broken off, of his
suspicions about gambling on the foc's'le messdeck. The big Buffer's
warning had not been needed-no man knew better than Rennie what
that sort of thing could lead to.
But Rennie's problem was not the suspicion of thieving and
gambling, but whether he should tell the captain about it. If he did,
he felt sure, the furore would start: the emphatic instructions to petty-
officers, the fruitless searches, the upsetting of the whole damned
ship.Even while the thoughts swirled in his mind he knew he was
merely indulging his own dislike of the expected results of his
revelations; he knew that there was no question about what he would
have to do. If he kept silent the able-seaman who had lost the money
would surely put in a formal complaint about his loss to the first-
lieutenant. Then it would all come out, with the coxswain, already
informed on the matter, on the nasty end of a very sticky stick.
A knock sounded at the door and the bosun's mate poked his
head in.
"You sent for me, sir?"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 71 -
Bentley turned in his chair.
"Yes, `Swain." His tone was crisp, not unpleasant. "I want to talk
to you about this morning's business."
"Sir?"
"Go on."
"I have something to tell you, sir. It might be better down below."
Bentley looked shrewdly at the thin brown face. He said:
"Is this personal?"
"No, sir. Ship matter."
"I see."
Bentley slid from the high-legged stool and his eyes went to
Randall, talking to the officer of the watch beside the binnacle.
"Number One?"
"Yes, sir?"
"My sea-cabin, please." "Aye, aye, sir."
"Go on down," Bentley said to Rennie, "I'll follow shortly."
While the two men climbed down the ladder Bentley took his
normal precautions. His was not the nature to worry about what the
coxswain had to say-he would know in a few minutes. He checked
with both asdic and radar offices, scanned the horizon himself with
his binoculars, and warned the officer of the watch to keep asdic and
radar sets on their toes.
He had a look at the chart, and measured off their distance from
the Louisiades. They were more than a hundred miles clear, and
increasing that distance fast. A hundred miles of ocean was a large
area for aircraft to sight a destroyer in.
Satisfied, he hung his glasses on their strap round the binnacle
and went below.
They got to their feet when he stepped into the cabin and he
waved them down again. He thought of his steward, and dismissed
the thought. The man had been chosen for his reliability, and sending
him off somewhere would have served only to rouse a curiosity which
probably now was dormant. It was not at all unusual for a coxswain
to be in his captain's cabin.
"Well, `Swain," Bentley started, "what's the trouble?"
A coxswain is used to giving concise reports; and this one was
talking to his captain.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 72 -
"I think there's thieving and gambling on board, sir."
Automatically the eyes of Bentley and Randall met. Both men's
faces were grim.
"You're sure?" Bentley asked. The shock of concern he felt made
his voice curt.
"Pretty sure, sir. A seaman reported the theft of three pounds.
The Buffer thinks he's on to a gambling ring on the foc's'le
messdeck."
Bentley took up a cigarette and lit it. He breathed the smoke out
slowly.
"All right," he said, "let's have all of it-names, times, everything."
The coxswain gave it to him. He finished, and he looked
into the hard burned face. Here it comes, he thought- stand-by
for panic stations!
He was disappointed. Or relieved. The captain of a ship is of
necessity a man whose brain can encompass several problems of
considerations at once. Bentley was a very competent captain. He
was listening to Rennie's flat voice, judging the picture the words
projected, at the same time as his mental vision was in a sea-cabin
aboard an old destroyer in Moresby.
He saw Holland turning abruptly from the porthole, and the
sudden smile on his rugged face. He remembered the strange collapse
of Holland's opposition to his request for men, and he recalled his
exact words:
"I've got a good bunch here," Holland had asserted in answer to
Bentley's own claim, "except . . "
It was then that the queer, cynical expression had crossed the
older man's face, and his opposition had changed to genial
acquiescence. Holland must be still grinning his head off-he and the
first-lieutenant who had been angered, and then delighted, on the
quarterdeck.
Now Bentley had all the answers. Holland, cunning as an old
fox, had unloaded his fowls, his mess-deck malingerers, on to him.
Rennie stopped talking. In the silence Bentley's voice came low
and clear.
"The old bastard! It had nothing to do with my father at
all!"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 73 -
"What's that, sir?" Randall queried quickly.
Bentley gave a self-conscious laugh. It sounded more like a grunt.
"Nothing, nothing at all. I was thinking." He glanced at Randall.
"We've been taken-bamboozled by an old devil I should have had
more sense than to try to handle."
Then his eyes trained on to Rennie, and his voice changed.
"You knew that at least three of the men who joined with you
from Pelican were fowls. Why didn't you tell me?"
Alarm bells rang suddenly in Rennie's head. This was a
completely unexpected development. He had to think, fast.
"It all depends what you mean by fowls, sir," he sparred.
Bentley looked at him. Grey eyes, cold, penetrating; mouth a
taut line, curved down at the corners.
Perversely, Rennie felt a stirring of anger at that bleak, knowing
look; at the ease with which his evasion had been dissected for what
it was. His own face tightened.
"I'll admit those three weren't the best aboard Pelican, sir," he
said, defensively, "but different ships, different cap tallies. They might
have made out here all right. It's not right that I ..." The idea came to
him: it was tailor-made, and it was true. "I didn't want to cruel their
chances in a new ship." His voice after the minute pause had firmed.
"It's not right that I should put their weights up before they had time
to prove themselves."
The steady stare was still fixed on him and he knew that the only
person in that room he was kidding was himself.
"Not right at all," Bentley nodded. "But now they have proved
themselves. I want to know everything you know about those three
men."
Disgust at his own pretence, as well as irritation at Bentley's
prescience, made Rennie still resist.
"Excuse me, sir, but I don't agree that they have proved
themselves."
He stopped, his face stubborn. Bentley said, very quietly:
"Go on."
The need for a cigarette in this unfriendly atmosphere was a
physical sensation in Rennie's mouth. He said:
"Pascoe fouled up the pom-pom's shoot, and he was adrift. But
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 74 -
we're not talking about that, sir. The question is thieving and
gambling. There's no proof Pascoe took that money, and none that
Beuring was running the crown and anchor. There are two hundred
men in this ship, sir," he ended.
Bentley saw Randall fidget impatiently in his chair. He could
appreciate his deputy's irritation-he was fighting to contain his own.
He took up the box of cigarettes and offered it to Rennie.
"No, thank you, sir."
"As you wish." Bentley laid the box down on the table and leaned
forward with his elbows astride it. "Now, cox'n, you listen to me."
The voice was level, reasonable. Rennie's eyes narrowed
watchfully. He had seen captains like this before-reasonable until
they'd got you to admit your wrong, and then the change, the
whipcrack of accusation.
Bentley noted Rennie's expression. He said;
"I don't for one moment believe you're being loyal to those men
for the reasons you've given. There is another reason. What it is
doesn't concern me at this time. What interests me is this. You mention
Pascoe in connection with the stolen money, you said it was a crown
and anchor board in the foc's'le. You mentioned those things, cox'n.
Therefore it's quite obvious that those two men fit the offences. And
that you know they do."
Rennie opened his mouth to speak and Bentley raised his
forefinger. He was the captain. It was enough.
"This is not a legal court ashore, cox'n. You know damned well
we haven't the time or the skill to worm our way through the accepted
processes of proof and prosecution. Damn it all, man!" he snapped
abruptly, "it's the efficiency of my ship at stake!"
Silence hung heavy in the sun-dappled cabin. A searchlight of
sunshine came through the porthole and speared the pistol cupboard,
the circle of brightness moving rhythmically up and down as the
ship rolled.
Bentley breathed in. He tapped his forefinger gently on the table
His voice was controlled.
"I must know whether you suspect Pascoe and Beuring of these
things. Knowing that, we can watch them. Instead of two hundred
men, we narrow it down to two. You understand that? Of course you
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 75 -
understand it." He paused. "I must remind you you're the cox'n," he
finished evenly.
Yes, you must remind me of that! Rennie thought. Even though
no man in this bloody Navy's ever had to do it before! His thoughts
were confused. He rubbed his chin uncertainly, and Bentley's eyes
on him were not watchful, or condemning-they were oddly
sympathetic.
"Well?" he said, gently, and Randall cleared his throat,
angrily.
"Yes, sir," Rennie said slowly, "I suspect those two. We had
trouble in Pelican . . . Nothing proved, but it was there." His eyes
came up and held Bentley's. "I tried everything I knew to clamp
down on it there," he said, his voice defensively bitter, "but you
can't identify money, you can't beat a cockatoo placed at every hatch
to the messdeck. And try and find a rolled-up crown and anchor
sheet in a ship! You'd search for a month. You can't do it!"
"Yes, `Swain, we can do it," said Bentley quietly. The familiar
title made Randall stare at him. "We'll bring the Buffer in on it and
have a talk later. That's all for now."
"Yes, sir."
Rennie got up. His face was still stubborn, but there was misery
in his eyes. He stepped out into the passage and dosed the door
behind him.
"Well!" Randall exploded, "that old coot unloaded his fowls on
to us, all right-but he might have kept his bloody cox'n! In all my
experience . . ." He shook his head angrily. "He's worse than those
three chooks put together!"
"You're dead wrong, Bob," Bentley said slowly.
"Eh? Wrong about that . . .! Any cox'n worth his salt would've
had those slobs up here with their caps off now!"
"And I would have had to dismiss the case," Bentley answered
drily. "No ..." he shook his head slowly. "Rennie's all right. There's
something bothering him, that's for certain. I think I know what it is.
Right or wrong, we've got to find out, fast. There's a hell of a lot
depends on just how fast."
Wind Rode's men had been trained by their captain-so had her
officers. Many doubts in his time had entered Randall's practical
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 76 -
and unimaginative brain, but never the slightest regarding Bentley's
intelligence.
"All right," he said now, "let's have it. What's up with our touchy
cox'n?"
"You've hit it in one," Bentley said soberly. "He is touchy, and in
a way I don't blame him. Normally I'd expect a senior rating to get
on top of his grouch in double-quick time. But Rennie's got more to
overcome than an outsize whinge."
"The hair?" Randall asked. His face was interested, thoughtful.
"I'd say so, yes. He must have had a pretty nasty time in Bantam
to shock him like that. In fact, I'd say it was some incredible
experience. The man is tired out. All interest in the job and the ship
has been wrung out of him. Our job is to revive that interest. We've
got to ... we'll make him proud of the ship."
"You seem sure of yourself," Randall said curiously, "how did
you get on to all this?"
"I've given it a deal of thought. Cox'ns are a pretty taut bunch,
you know that. When one comes along who's off the beam there's a
damn good reason. Somewhere."
"I imagine you're right," Randall sighed, "though how we go
about ramming discipline and pride into a man who's supposed to
be responsible for it beats me."
"There's another thing," Bentley went on musingly. "Rennie must
have heard we're a pretty sharp bunch. In fact, I claimed that for us
myself ... So what happens? We come up against two lousy Jap
fighters and they come near to towling the hide off us."
"But that was only one action!" Randall expostulated. "That's
right-the only one he judges us on." Bentley's hand went out to the
cigarette box, and he pulled it back. His mouth felt dry. "What we
have to do," he said deliberately, "is get into another action and
show that fellow just what we can do."
Randall looked at him, his eyes squinted. "It's as important as
that?" His voice was incredulous. "As important as that," Bentley
nodded definitely. "Without a solid cox'n we're sunk. You might
even take that literally. None of the chiefs of petty-officers will act
over the cox'n's head to stop this rotten business. Nor should they.
It's Rennie's job, exclusively. Surely you see that?"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 77 -
"I see it," Randall growled. His big fingers fumbled in the cigarette
box. "What in hell are you going to do? Make a signal to Tojo?
Please come and get us, chum?"
"Not quite," Bentley smiled, "but we can deliver a few messages."
"To who?" his friend asked ungrammatically. "To the sponsors
of that little raid this morning. Their airfield could do with a visit."
"My God!" the big man ejaculated, "you're not going to send a
landing party?"
"Not on your life-once is more than enough." Bentley grinned
reminiscently. "But there's nothing to stop us bombarding."
Randall leaned back in his chair. He breathed in. and out, very
slowly.
"All right, chum, you've got the chair. But next time I ship to sea
I'll be in a cruiser-where there's a bloody admiral with some sense
always hanging around!"
"You'd die of boredom in half a dogwatch," Bentley
grinned.
He bent forward and this time took up a cigarette. He lit it and
for a moment stared at the circle of light from the porthole. There
was an intent, speculative expression on his face. Randall, watching,
had seen that look before . . . Bentley's mind now was meshing
smoothly along the tracks of judgment and experience. He had had
this idea nebulously in his head ever since, on the bridge, he had
come to his decision as to why the second fighter had broken off the
attack, and why nothing had been sent out to get them. Wind Rode
was on a more or less detached mission: she had been ordered by the
Admiral to those islands back there. There was nothing to prevent
his putting his idea into operation.
"Right!" Bentley swung in his chair to face Randall. "Have you
wondered why that tighter didn't send out his friends after us? So
have I. And I came up with this. They wanted us to clear out. My bet
is they could have mounted an attack that would have swamped us.
Why didn't they? Because that would have shown their hand. Those
fighters came from the Archipelago-they must have, with their limited
range. I say the Japs have built a long-range airstrip-and already
they've got it very well-stocked!" Randall lacked his captain's
perceptive imagination, but when he was confronted with a familiar
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 78 -
situation his reaction was quick enough. And to Randall fighting
was more than familiar.
"Guadalcanal?" he said quickly.
"It must be. The Americans have been there only a bit over a
fortnight. The harbour's crammed. Even if the Japs don't intend
landing and retaking the island, a large bomber raid on that shipping
would return very juicy dividends. And as soon as the build-up of
shipping is completed, then the Japs send over another raid. The
strategy's perfect, and simple. The Yanks have to keep their men
ashore supplied -the fighting's not over by a long shot. AH our friends
back there have to do is to wait each time for the transport position
to improve again, and then-bombs away!"
"M'mm." Randall sounded a little doubtful. "it looks plain
enough-but you're basing all this intention of the Japs on the fact
that they simply didn't send a flock out to do us over."
Bentley was not worried.
"What more do you want? They sighted us, they had a crack at
sinking us. Obviously, there is an airfield back there. And just as
obviously it carries more than two fighters. I tell you they wanted us
to get to hell out of it! I wouldn't be surprised if that bloke who got
away hasn't already been hauled over some very hot coals for
attacking us in the first place."
He got up and walked to the porthole, looking out at the iridescent
blue. But he wasn't seeing the water. He turned suddenly and came
back.
"I'm sure of it, Bob! Those two fighters were a patrol, nothing
more. When they saw we were scooting on our way clear they
shouldn't have attacked at all. But they had big ideas. They didn't
come off. But do you think the Japs would let a lone destroyer get
away? Unless they wanted it to?" Randall was convinced. He nodded
his heavy head. "Okay, I'm with you. We sneak back tonight and
bombard. Providing we can find the airstrip . . ." He pulled
thoughtfully at the loose skin of his throat. "But there's one thing
that still bothers me."
"The airstrip? There's sure to be some activity on it. And don't
tell me you're concerned about whether we can hit a ruddy great
airfield?"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 79 -
"No, I'm not worried about hitting the strip. It's our other
problem." "The cox'n?"
"Damn it all, haven't I convinced you yet how important it is to
bring him back on the ball!"
"Don't jump down my blasted throat!" his friend growled, "let a
man get a word in, will you?"
"All right," Bentley smiled, "word away." "Thanks!" The big
lieutenant squinted up at his chief. "I know it's important to get him
moving again-what d'you think I am? A Wren or something?"
"I could make one or two interesting suggestions if you were,"
the captain answered crudely.
"I bet! Seriously-there's one thing that bothers me. You think
Rennie's okay. In short, a normal cox'n." "I'm sure of that, too,"
Bentley nodded. "All right, then. Then tell me this, bright boy. If
Rennie's such a crack hand why in hell did Holland unload him?
You've spent the past half-hour convincing me just how important a
cox'n is. I wouldn't be surprised if old Dutchy Holland wasn't of the
same opinion. Then why? I can understand his offloading his fowls.
But why his cox'n?"
"I can answer that one too."
Bentley sat down and smiled into the waiting, sceptical face.
"I'll have to delve a bit into psychology," he warned.
"You always do," Randall grunted. "But we've got till nightfall."
"Just a minute."
Bentley leaned sideways and juggled out of its containing hooks
the flexible speaking-tube to the bridge. His buzz was answered
almost at once.
"Officer of the watch sir?"
"Decrease to 15 knots, Pilot."
`'Fifteen knots. Aye, aye, sir."
Randall heard this exchange clearly. It jolted him a little. Now
that he had heard Bentley's order the reason for it was immediately
apparent. But he, the first-lieutenant, hadn't thought to decrease
speed. The ship was careering on at thirty knots, gulping up fuel and
distance-at a time when it had already been decided to return to the
archipelago after nightfall.
But maybe, he solaced himself for his remissness of forethought,
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 80 -
if I were the captain I'd have thought of it. The solace gained was
consciously minute. He looked at Bentley, and behind his facade of
tough, burned face the old admiration and respect for a superior
ability was tingling.
We make a good team, you and I, Randall thought-just so long as
you're there, on top. What he omitted to think was anything at all
about his complete lack of envy and chagrin at his friend's superiority.
That, he would have been surprised to know, formed the basis of
Bentley's respect and liking for him.
"All right, Freud," Randall grunted, "lay it on the couch."
"It's nothing complicated," Bentley smiled. "Certainly, old
Dutchy's as foxy as they come, and tough as overdone steak. He got
rid of his offal, and he's probably still grinning his ugly old head off
about it. But I happened to mention-probably because he's an older
man, and you sort of feel you can talk to him like that-about how
hard we'd worked to get this bucket up to scratch.
"He's shrewd, but he's fair. Also . . ." his smile as he looked at
his friend widened a little, but the significance of that facial gesture
was lost on Randall. "Also, he hasn't an envious or really nasty bone
in his leathery old body. To him I must have been a young commander
who'd worked fairly hard and who now saw all that work going down
the drain for lack of a senior rating. So, to compensate for the fowls,
he handed over a taut hand."
Bentley pressed back in his chair and crossed his legs.
"Diagnosis completed," he grinned.
"You're probably right," Randall conceded, believing Bentley
implicity. "There's only one snag. Holland thinks Rennie's a taut
hand, so do you. The only bod who doesn't know about that is
Rennie."
"He's just forgotten it-temporarily. We might find him a different
character in the morning."
There's a few of us might be different in the morning," Randall
growled. He was looking at the circular patch of blue sky and now
he had forgotten Rennie. "What do we use? Direct-action shell?"
"Yes."
Bentley knew that Randall's question was rhetorical. He was the
gunnery-officer, and he knew that direct-action stuff, shells which
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 81 -
burst on impact, was the only ammunition for a mission of this nature.
They did not want to burrow in with armour-capped projectiles-the
object was to lace the airstrip and its cargo with explosive force and
white-hot splinters.
Randall wished to discuss the mission further.
"Once we find the strip," Bentley went on, only too willing to
talk, "we'll open in rapid broadsides. Everything can join in-pom-
poms, oerlikons, the lot." He nodded appreciatively, his mind eight
hours ahead. "With full broadsides from the main armament we can
drop 60 shells a minute on that strip. Training slowly from left to
right we can lambast the whole area in a few minutes, then come
back and do it over again."
Randall picked up a cigarette slowly from the box. His stomach
was beginning to churn, just a little. Bentley was right. Shells
weighing 45 pounds and a little under five
inches in diameter against a battleship's armoured hide were
slightly more dangerous than flung potatoes: against parked aircraft
they would be smashingly efficient.
One shell, if it landed favourably, could completely destroy the
nearest aircraft, and badly damage another two. Wind Rode could
land six of these shells every six seconds, in a concentrated blast
against which nothing on a hastily-built airfield could stand.
A battleship or cruiser could fire much heavier projectiles. But a
destroyer's were more than heavy enough for this job, and her rate
of fire was immeasurably greater. Wind Rode-modern, fast, her guns
radar-controlled-was the perfect weapon for this type of
bombardment.
Randall brought his thoughts back to practicality.
"We'll need the weather with us," he warned.
"No doubt about that," Bentley agreed. "The least promise of a
moon and the whole thing's off. If they sight us snooping around
they'll let go with everything. We must have a night like last night."
"That's a pleasant thought."
"What's that?"
"Last night. There we were stooging around like a Manly ferry .
. . Brother! If they've got there what you think they have, why the
blazes didn't they get on to us?"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 82 -
"I've thought about that little possibility, too," Bentley grinned,
"and promptly heaved the thought overboard! But I like to think the
reason for our getting away with it is simple enough. First of all a
patrolling aircraft's not much good, high up there on a dark night;
second, the Jap boys would have been madly working, I should think-
finishing the strip, servicing aircraft, stowing bombs, fuel-a thousand
things. Third, and probably the main reason, is that from landward
on a cloudy night we'd show practically no silhouette at all. The
only thing visible about us would be a piled-up white wake."
"Which means," Randall said throatily, "we go in there tonight
at a bit under two knots!"
"Message understood," Bentley laughed. He stood up. "We've
got a hell of a lot to do. Pilot's on watch now. Get hold of the Gunner
and bring him up to the bridge."
For the next hour or so Bentley was closeted with his
officers on the bridge. His first consideration was chartwork.
Though he had been round the archipelago once, this time he would
be setting different courses. He would need to take her in quite close-
last night he had been looking for ships; tonight his object would be
activity on an airfield. And the Louisiades were not one whit different
from other coral islands in the Pacific in their possession of sub-
surface reefs running out from innocent-looking points of jungle-
clad land.
With Pilot laying-off courses on the white parchment and making
notes of shoals and reefs, tidal currents and identifying features,
Bentley turned to the gunnery side.
He was a gunnery specialist himself, and Lasenby listened
attentively to the captain's instructions.
There was much to do. Now at the guns, and handy in the
magazines, Wind Rode carried armour-piercing shell for ship-to-ship
action and time-fused for aircraft. AH this would have to be changed.
She would be firing as fast as ever she'd fired in her violent
young life, and the correct ammunition had to be ready in the ready-
use lockers and close to the shell-hoists in the magazines. Her other
ammunition had to be struck down out of the way, clear, and stowed
securely against the possibility of her rolling under full helm.
The other, more important, consideration was in the field of fire-
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 83 -
control. The controlling table in the transmitting-station was now
set up for ship action. It could be switched in a moment to handle
aircraft. But bombardment was a different problem altogether.
The most significant difference was that the target would be
stationary. Enormous research and development had gone into the
equipment which allowed the ship's mountings to compensate for
target-speed, whether it was the thirty knots of another destroyer or
the 400 of a diving aircraft.
Now the bombardment procedure against an immobile target had
to be drilled into the gunnery team. It was a long time since she'd
bombarded, and the procedure for correcting fall of shot, perhaps
barely visible behind clumps of trees, had to be brought out, studied,
and learned with meticulous efficiency.
These things were important. But the over-riding factor was
timing.
The ship had steamed more than a hundred miles since dawn,
some of it to the east, lately to the north. At high speed she could
cover the backward ground easily, but it was desirable that she
commence her attack not too early- but not too late.
Too early would find the enemy still busy, awake and alert; too
late would catch him bedded-down, with no activity to reveal his
whereabouts. Bentley had to try to find his enemy tired, but still
about.
There was another nice calculation he had to make: just how far
he could run to the north, away from the target, with the minimum
use of precious fuel, at the same time allowing himself time to get
back to it before it was too late.
It was not merely a schoolboy exercise concerning distance and
speed; there were several other complicated calculables.
He had to be back on-target at a precise moment which Would
conserve his fuel and which would allow him sufficient time to
bombard efficiently, at the same time as it allowed him enough to
get well clear before dawn brought its retribution. He had to surround
his ship with a large area of water to puzzle the searchers.
Again, he had to try and estimate how long it would take him to
pinpoint the airstrip. If he wandered round the islands all night he
might discover his target too late for him to do anything about it.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 84 -
Then the whole purpose of the operation would be humiliatingly
negatived; possibly producing the exact effects he was planning to
circumvent.
For half an hour after the gunner had gone about his business
Bentley worked at the little chart-table on the bridge. Then he dropped
his pencil and sat down on his stool for ten minutes, thinking, judging,
striving to find the loophole he might have missed.
Then he jumped down from the stool and at the chart-table
checked his calculations again. Then he called Pilot over.
"Yes, sir?"
"We'll make our landfall at twelve-thirty tonight," Bentley said
flatly.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 85 -
CHAPTER SIX
ABLE-SEAMAN BEURING'S EXPERIENCE of ships and the
sea was not large, nor was it of long duration. He had been in the
Navy two years, and he would leave it just as soon as Tojo's demise
allowed him to.
But Beuring's knowledge of men was very comprehensive indeed;
especially of those types who frequented pool-rooms, two-up schools
and similar gambling establishments, experts and suckers alike. And
especially of policemen.
This last knowledge was simply a necessary requirement of his
livelihood, as automatic as Rennie's experience of steering. And, as
well as being a highly competent steersman, Rennie was the ship's
policeman.
So that Beuring wasted no time in setting-up his crown and anchor
board that afternoon.
He was guided in his decision by two factors-the ship was in
tropical routine, which meant all work for the day ceased after lunch,
and the men were idle; and Beuring was well-versed in the axiom
that, being suspected of a crime, you repeated that crime quickly,
while authority was congratulating itself that you'd beep scared off.
Hooky's apparent casualness on the messdeck last night had not
deceived Beuring for a second. He knew several things from the
Buffer's visit: first, the coxswain would have been told; second,
sooner or later the axe would fall; third, he had to hop in and trap as
much of this gold-mine as he could before that fall; fourth, neither
Rennie nor the Buffer would suspect that he would begin operating
again so quickly.
In all of these assumptions Beuring was absolutely accurate.
Bentley had not yet informed the ship's company of his decision
regarding the airfield; whether they went back or not depended
directly on the weather. There would be time enough to make his
broadcast when the ship was committed.
So that hot afternoon the men had their dinner at noon and, bored,
sat around on the messdecks or tried to cool off on the upper-deck.
The brief excitement of the air attack had worn off quickly-for Wind
Rode it was a minor break in the routine. And they had not even the
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 86 -
mild inducement to sunbake-there wasn't a man on board who through
his long sojourn up north wasn't burned coppery brown.
Sitting against the ship's side in his mess, Beuring knew all this.
He knew also that his little game of last night would by now be
common knowledge throughout the ship. So that he was not surprised,
but secretly and cynically amused, when men in twos and threes
began casually to wander into the foc's'le messdeck.
Expecting a brisk trade, he had already posted his cockatoos at
ladders and hatchways. No one in authority could now approach the
foc's'le without his knowing about it. The minimum warning time
he had was two minutes. More than enough for him to stand up and
stuff the painted square of canvas into the ventilating shaft above his
head.
It mattered little to him if the crown and anchor board were found
in its hiding-place. Nothing could be proved against him. The most
minor of his worries was that one of his messmates would inform on
him. A sailor's loyalty to an erring messmate might be misguided,
but it was unshakable. Added to this safeguard was the fact that
there was hardly a man in Wind Rode who did not want to enliven
his routine-ridden existence with a little gambling excitement. That
the diversion was illegal served only to savour it.
Beuring was safe, and he knew it.
An hour later he had won for himself a little over fifty pounds.
The game was willing, and for high stakes. There were some 150
non-ranking ratings in the ship, and all had at least ten pounds
compulsorily saved.
Beuring sat behind his board, his saturnine face unsmiling and
watchful, the competent banker; the dice rolled and the green notes
changed hands. Some he paid out, and put more into his pockets. He
kept most of his winnings out of sight -partly from the eyes of
authority, but mainly from the sight of his victims. They might begin
to wonder . . .
A figure sidled on to the bench beside him and an envious voice
decided:
"You're doin' all right, Beuring."
The big man's dark eyes glanced down at the sharp, avaricious
face turned up sideways to his.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 87 -
"You did your roll last night, Pascoe," he said curtly, "terms here
are strictly cash. Beat it and make room."
Pascoe's face tightened. He said nothing, but put his hand on the
scrubbed white of the table. The notes were crumpled, but they were
legal enough.
"All right," Beuring nodded, "but I don't want no whingeing if
you lose it."
"I ain't lost it yet," Pascoe snarled, "stow the gab and get on with
it!" Beuring's face showed no resentment at the smaller man's tone.
His money was as good as any other's . . . While it lasted.
An hour later and the pockets of his overalls bulged. His face
was composed, still watchful, and his mind was exulting. Never since
the old days in the Canberra had he fallen amongst pickings like
this.Two stokers were also winning. They were happy, and Beuring
was happier. As in any other business, satisfied customers were good
for trade . . .
A voice, half-whine, half-snarl, spoke beside him:
"You got the vest of it, you bastard-you might as well have this."
Pascoe threw down a dirty ten-shilling note. The dice were picked
up but Beuring's eyes were on Pascoe. All of the large group of
players were interested, but Pascoe's face was intent-the waiting,
dedicated expression of the helpless gambler.
Once again he had lost all his stake. The warning twitched in
Beuring's mind. He didn't like either the bulging of his pockets. It
was time to pack up, to stash the winnings. It was a criminal shame
to stop the plucking, but Beuring lived by another axiom-too much
of a good thing . . .
"AH right, boys," he said crisply, and clawed Pascoe's note in
with the others, "we'll break it up for now."
"Like hell!" one of the winning stokers complained, "it's just
getting interesting."
Beuring played that cunningly.
"I know it is," he smiled, and his nod took in the other heavy
winner, "you boys have collected a packet there. Ah well, you've
got to be in it to win. But this school's a bit big, fellers. Let's knock
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 88 -
it off for half an hour. Don't want the cox'n smellin' around."
"He's spine-bashing in his mess," someone called from the back.
"Come on, I just got here!" Brother, oh brother! Beuring exulted.
Aloud, he snapped: "Look, I'm runnin' this game. It's my neck,
remember. I say we break it up for half an hour. Then if you want to
have a burl, you know where to find it." He rolled up the canvas and
edged his way along the seat. Pascoe's eyes followed him, staring at
his pockets. The group dwindled away.
"What d'you say, Pilot?"
"No doubt about it, sir. That lot's up there to stay. I'd say it will
get thicker during the night. There could be patches of moonlight,
but I think the cloud cover will be close to a hundred per cent."
Bentley liked the conviction with which the lanky navigator
committed himself. He also agreed with him.
Late that afternoon a sweep of air had come cooling up from the
south. The temperature drop had been almost ten degrees. The sun
had worked hard during the day, and now the result of its evaporation
was cooling and condensing into thick banks of vapour.
His head tilted back. Bentley conned the sky. He was thinking: I
can turn round now; there'll be plenty of time for the weather picture
to develop further. If the cloud thins and the moon shows we can
still turn tail and get to hell out of it.
In a destroyer you act quickly when your judgment has decided.
He leaned over to the wheelhouse voice-pipe:
"Starb'd twenty, Increase to 250 revolutions."
The acknowledgment came back and the engine-room bells
pealed. She began to lean almost at once. By the time she was halfway
round she felt the increased thrust of her screws. Further she tilted,
faster wiped the slim bow round the horizon.
"Ease to ten."
"Ease to ten, sir."
"Midships. Steady."
"Steady, sir. Course 205."
"Steer 205 degrees."
"Steer 205, sir." A moment, then: "Course 205, sir."
Shaking, but not too much-she was held down to 25
knots-the ship sliced back over her wake. The sun was poised
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 89 -
above the watery edge to starb'd, a huge orange ball whose almost
level rays had lost most of their heat.
Able-seaman Beuring was playing his board, a brief harvest
before the pipe to supper would deprive him of customers. At the
end of the table Pascoe watched the game, his tongue sliding between
his lips, his mind full of avaricious envy and his pockets empty.
In his hotbox of an office Rennie was checking over his
predecessor's books, a necessary torture before the ship was darkened
for the night and closed scuttles and darken ship screens made of her
innards a sour, sweaty furnace.
All afternoon he had waited for the captain's summons, for the
conference with the chief bosun's mate and then the spate of
unenforceable orders.
Rennie knew that there were only two ways to fix a gambler. You
had to catch him in the act, or you had to have an informer. The first
method was impossible because of cockatoos, and the second was
not the complete answer.
You knew who your gambler was, but you had still to prove his
operations. All you could do was to front him with the charge, which
of course he would deny, and then warn him off. Sometimes it worked,
but not, he was sure, with a man like Beuring.
Beuring had nothing to lose through his superiors' suspicions-he
was not after promotion, the Navy was not his career, and even
stoppage of leave suited, rather than negatived, his purpose. The
only object forfeiture of leave would achieve would be to retain him
in his sphere of operations.
So Rennie waited for the summons, distrustful of its results and
not eager for the extra work it would entail.
But the hours had passed and nothing had come down from the
bridge. Against his inclination a slight interest in what Bentley was
up to began to stir. This captain's name was a byword in the Fleet,
and he could be expected to come up with something original.
Then he felt the ship heel and noted the shaking of her speed.
The loudspeaker outside in the passage cleared its throat and the
captain's voice boomed out, and then Rennie thought he understood
the full reason why his summons had been delayed. Bentley had
been merely planning an offensive operation.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 90 -
"This is the captain."
The captain spoke only for the delivery of a significant message.
But the ship's sudden alteration of course had commanded their
attention anyway.
The gambling on the messdeck stopped. Men in the steamy
bathroom looked up from their dhobeying. B-gun's crew lowered
their magazines and moved to the speaker on the face of the bridge.
Hooky Walker sat up in his mess, leaving the leather cushion behind
him dark with sweat. Rennie leaned over and heaved the door further
open.
"I have reason to believe that the Japs have built up a considerable
force of aircraft in the islands we reconnoitred last night. Object is
almost certainly a strike at the shipping at Guadalcanal. I hope to
pinpoint the airfield. We will be in a position to bombard at a little
after midnight tonight.
"It's been a long time since we carried out a bombardment against
a shore target. But the control teams have been drilling this afternoon
and we can expect some fast and accurate shooting. Once we find
the airstrip we should do considerable damage.
"Our handling of the air-attack this morning was not at all
satisfactory. We should have got both those boys. I expect a much
better effort tonight. That's all."
The speaker clicked off.
Rennie's first reaction to the captain's information was natural
and involuntary-his nerves tautened and the old stirring of tension
began in his stomach. Unless you were a completely insensitive clod
you always felt that way when your captain told you he was taking
the ship into action.
But as he sat there, sopping the sweat from his face and chest, his
brain took over from his instinctive reflexes.
This is how he got his name, he thought-always willing and eager
to hop in where another commander would have gathered
reinforcements about him. They had beaten off an air-attack, and
now they were well in the clear towards Guadalcanal. Yet this gong-
hunting nitwit had to decide to take on half the blasted Jap air-force
on his lonesome.
To be successful, a strike against Guadalcanal would require not
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 91 -
less than fifty aircraft. Fifty-against one destroyer. Did the clot believe
they wouldn't take off once he started banging? And what the hell
did he base his superiority on? That stoush this morning wasn't so
hot. Not by a bell of a long shot. He admitted it himself.
Now they were headed back at high speed into a suicidal trap.
Now he should be somewhere between Moresby and Townsville
course south, no worries, content in his job, three weeks leave coming
up ...Rennie slammed shut the ledger he was working on and shoved
his chair back. He was in the passage when a young seaman came up
to him.
"Excuse me, `Swain. I've got my first badge coming up. Can I
see you for a moment?"
"No!" Rennie snapped, and strode down the passage.
Commander Bentley was, happily for his peace of mind, unaware
of his coxswain's reaction to an operation which was designed partly
for his benefit.
He watched the night falling wide and dense on all sides of the
ship and he listened to the whine of the wind in the rigging and the
wet swish of the water rushing down her sides.
But these normal sights and sounds impinged only casually on
his consciousness. As always when a decision to engage had been
made, his brain was planning far ahead, judging, forecasting, allowing
for eventualities, remembering past experiences.
A recent memory slid into his mind. His head turned to Randall
beside him. The ship was closed-up at night action-stations, the
complementary precaution to her routine at dawn.
"That fellow Pascoe," he said, "what've you done with him? He's
not still on the pom-pom?"
"Like hell he is!" Randall, the gunnery-officer, growled. "I've
shifted him to the port oerlikon, ammunition supply; He can't bugger-
up anything there. Even a Girl Guide can carry drums of
ammunition!"
Bentley grinned slightly. The reference was perhaps unfair to a
fine body of young womanhood, but the meaning was clear enough.
He said nothing, but he was thinking of the training and sense of
responsibility which had caused Randall, without orders, to remove
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 92 -
the weakness from the important pom-pom.
Suddenly he felt confident again. They would do it-they would
lambast that Jap airfield and they would get away and they would
hold the ship together.
They had to. The whole ship's company would know that he had
planned and decided on this operation by himself. He was the
instigator, he was responsible, he was not acting on senior-officer
orders.
Already, perhaps foolishly, he had planted in their minds a
conception of their own inadequacy. It might have been better if he
hadn't mentioned that air-attack. If they failed this time, if the shooting
was not accurate, if they could not lather that strip before a vengeful
enemy could get off to them, it could take months of painful
rehabilitation before they could be lifted back to their old efficiency.
If they were still alive to care . . .
He thought these things, standing beside the binnacle in the cool
night, grateful for the rush of air past his face, and he was perfectly
aware of the strangeness of his thoughts.
Two months ago they would not have entered his head. Two
months ago his sole consideration would have been the planning of
the operation. His weapons and their men were seasoned and sure-
all he had to do was to order them into triumphant action.
But now he had a disinterested coxswain and at least three rotten
members affecting his crew. Now he had a thief and a gambler. And
now his crew, hard-worked, denied leave, were ripe for disaffection.
You can drill men for hours every day; you can drive yourself to
set an example of alertness and application to duty; but you cannot
prevent them from gambling, and stealing, and listening to whining
voices which bring their dissatisfactions out into the open. Not when
their grievances are soundly based.
The abrupt realisation of where his thoughts were taking him
had an actual physical effect. He stepped down from the wooden
grating and walked quickly to his stool. He hoisted himself up and
his thought moved on:
Damn it all! He was condemning his men without a shade of
proof. Assuming in them weaknesses which had no real base other
than his suspicions and prophecies. He had trained them well,
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 93 -
certainly, but the basic material had to be there. You don't mould
steel out of dross. They would come out of this just as solidly as they
had out of the other actions. He must ding to that, be must believe in
it completely.
His problem was not what might happen to his men, but to root
out the cancer now growing amongst them. The surgery of action
was required, not the unfounded, gnawing doubts of presumption as
to the future.
His head swung round.
"Bosun's mate?"
"Sir?"
"Cox'n on the bridge!"
The coxswain had picked up his lifebelt-you never moved without
it at night at sea-and was about to seek the coolness of the upper-
deck when the bosun's mate poked his head into the chief's mess.
His eyes found Rennie in the hot red lighting-ordinary light destroyed
night vision.
"Captain, Cox'n-on the bridge."
The head withdrew and Rennie glanced at Hooky's interested
face."Looks like the flap's started," Rennie said sourly, "you'd better
join the happy throng."
"He didn't mention me," Hooky answered doubtfully.
"He did in his cabin this morning. Talked about a conference.
Come on-it'll be hard enough listening to all the guff about detection
without having to repeat it to you afterwards.
"Okay," Hooky said, and kept the anger out of his voice.
They climbed up to the bridge together.
Bentley was still on his stool, and remained sitting there when
Rennie said:
"Cox'n, sir. I brought the Buffer in case you want him."
"Good idea," Bentley said at once, and Rennie knew his
forebodings had been right. "We'll talk here."
"Yes, sir."
"Now," Bentley started, and he deliberately kept his voice at
normal pitch-it would not hurt for the word to get around that authority
was on to the business down below. "Have there been any more
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 94 -
reports of thieving or gambling?"
Reports of gambling . . .? Rennie *mentally sneered. He said:
"No, sir. Nothing more."
"You've been through the messdeck this afternoon? The petty-
officers are helping you?"
Watch it, Rennie's mind warned. This bloke doesn't muck about.
"Well ... no, sir."
"Oh? Why not?"
Bentley's voice was curt. He knew that the bosun's mate and the
signalman would hear it, but he didn't mind that. The news that the
Old Man was on the cox'n's back about this wouldn't do any harm.
"Because, sir," Rennie answered, his tone also crisp under
Bentley's, "the chief bosun's mate was on the messdeck last night. I
consider that anyone running a board-if they were-wouldn't be such
a fool as to set it up so soon after that."
"I couldn't agree less, cox'n," Bentley said levelly. "If I were
running this crown and anchor board I'd have it going again ten
minutes after the Buffer did his rounds. For precisely the reason you
have just put forward, And, it seems, I'd be doing the right thing.
Eh?""Not necessarily, sir," Rennie answered, needled. "We don't know
it was running again."
"There's lots of things we don't know," Bentley said flatly, "what
we have to do is start assuming. And I'd say it's safe to assume that
board's been in operation this afternoon- maybe even now."
"Yes, sir," Rennie said.
There was little else he could say. He was still, as Bentley believed
him to be, a taut hand; and he was before his captain.
"We've got to stamp on this, hard," Bentley continued, "and keep
the pressure on. If we can't catch them we'll frighten `em. I want
you two to go below right now. You forrard, cox'n, you aft, Buffer.
And don't be at all shy about broadcasting why you're on the prowl.
All right?"
"And the cockatoo, sir?" Rennie asked drily.
At that moment Bentley came very close to delivering as
scorching a blast as anyone had heard on that bridge. Rennie's tone
did not escape him, and the defeatism of the man exasperated him.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 95 -
But he was still the coxswain, and a patent reduction of his authority
through a publicly delivered rocket could do great harm.
There was also to be remembered Rennie's mental state. Bentley
tried consciously to remember that when he spoke.
"The cockatoos will screech," he said evenly, "but that won't
worry us. My main concern now is stopping this business, scaring it
off. Sooner or later thief or gambler will slip up. Then we pounce.
Until then, I want the messdecks regularly patrolled. Is that clear?"
"Clear, sir," Hooky answered heartily, and didn't give a damn
what the coxswain thought.
"Very well, then, get to it. I also want lights-out at ten o'clock
enforced. Tired men, with what we've got on our hands, are not a
pleasant prospect."
He nodded, and the two men saluted and turned for the ladder.
They did not speak on the way down, and at the foot of the ladder
Hooky turned aft, heading for the quarterdeck mess-deck beyond
the tubes. The coxswain walked slowly forrard. His face set, for
though Bentley had made no specific charges Rennie felt he had
been reprimanded.
Stirring in his mind, as Bentley had meant it to, was a secondary
animosity, this one directed against Beuring,
In Pelican he had had little trouble with the big dark man. There
had been occasional pilfering, but nothing serious, nor had there
been wide-spread gambling. Pelican's men numbered fewer than
Wind Rode's, and for long they had been awake up to Beuring, and
had kept their lockers secure against the suspected Pascoe.
But here the field was unharvested, lush. Only for this gambling,
and its inevitable effect, Rennie felt he might have made of his new
berth a tolerable experience. Now he was in the middle of trouble.
So that when he saw the shadow merge into the night ahead of
him, Rennie's thin face firmed into a mask of anger. Could he have
seen it, Bentley, the psychologist, would have been grimly satisfied.
They were quicker this time, for now Beuring knew for certain
that authority was on to him. When Rennie stepped into the messdeck
Beuring was sitting at the table with only three men for company.
Before him, the page half-covered with handwriting, was a letter-
pad.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 96 -
"Night, `Swain," he greeted the visitor casually, "how d'you find
the new berth?" His hand took in the larger messdeck. "Like the
Troc. after the old bird, eh?"
Rennie was as much deceived as he felt like sparring.
"You've been at it again, Beuring," he stated flatly.
"What's that, chief? Writing letters? Ah well, you know me-
always one for keeping the floosies happy!"
He grinned, and Rennie's next words tightened the gesture.
"You're a quarterdeckman. What are you doing on the foc's'le
messdeck?"
Beuring's eyes narrowed. He hadn't thought of that-he couldn't
say he was visiting, not with the writing-pad ostensibly in use before
him."I reckoned it'd be cooler up here, `Swain." He tried to make his
voice easy.
"You're a liar!" Rennie answered deliberately.
"Now look here . . ."
"Shut up and sit down!" Rennie's voice was vicious; several heads
poked up from hammocks. "You're up here to run a crown and anchor
board! I'm warning you, Beuring -I'm going to get you for this."
Beuring was on his feet, his eyes hot.
"You can't call me a liar, cox'n! I can put in to see the skipper
about that!"
"You can," Rennie sneered, "but you won't You haven't the guts
to stand before the captain. But I'm telling you this, Beuring-one
more step out of line, one more cockatoo who cringes away when I
walk along the upper-deck and you'll be standing before the captain
all right!"
His spare frame turned to take in the messdeck.
"And that goes for any sucker dumb enough to fall for this fowl's
crooked racket! D'you hear me? The heat's on."
The thin face swung back to Beuring. The seaman was several
stone heavier than his opponent, and rank did not matter in those
few tense seconds. But it was Beuring's eyes which fell before the
cold anger in Rennie's.
"Dingo," said Rennie in a hard clear voice, and then he swung on
his heel and strode from the messdeck.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 97 -
Outside near the guard-rail he halted. He was breathing quickly,
and he felt enervated after the vehement few minutes in there. He
put his face up to the cool clear stars and gradually the tension eased.
It was then he wondered, idly
and briefly, at the sudden return to his old form which the
exchange on the messdeck had represented.
"Anything forrard?" Hooky's deep voice spoke beside him.
"No," Rennie answered without turning. "If they were up to
anything they got rid of it damned quick." He was about to tell his
messmate what he had said to Beuring, but the anger had evaporated.
"I'm turning in," he grunted, and walked off to the mess.
The bridge was quiet, and tense.
Radar had reported a land echo half an hour before. Bentley had
worried about the enemy's possessing radar, but he solaced himself
with the reflection that if they had, they would have spotted the ship
last night. It seemed they had not had time to establish aerials on the
hills in the middle of the island.
At 20 knots, silent, not a chink of light showing in the blackness
of the cloudy night, Wind Rode slid on towards the black bulk of the
land. Bentley had delayed closing-up for action so that his men would
gain the maximum of rest, but now as he lowered his glasses he
knew he must wait no longer.
"All right," he said quietly to Randall, "get them closed-up. And
warn the petty-officers to keep them quiet about it."
The warning was not needed. Hit and run forays like this were
peculiarly suited to a destroyer's function, and Wind Rode's men
were acutely aware of the requirement of silence.
All armament had been tested through during night-action
stations. Now there was no calling of orders and reports, but a muted
whine of the hydraulic pumps as the three heavy mountings followed
director, pointing where it pointed, out over the starb'd bow towards
the land.
Ail down her length black barrels fingered the sky as the pom-
pom and oerlikons trained on to the target bearing.
From captain to ordinary-seaman supply-number, the ship was
one tensed and watchful brain. The time was forty minutes past
midnight.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 98 -
Bentley had allowed himself two hours for cruising round the
island in search of betraying activity. He was not concerned about
last night's failure to sight any of it-then he had been looking for
ships, and he had kept his own vessel well off the coast, and the
glasses of his lookouts concentrated on the shoreline.
This time he would be much closer in, looking for a different
target.
He had allowed himself two hours, but he was not surprised when
the first sign came within twenty minutes of the beginning of their
patrol. Destroyer warfare was full of surprises-what you had to do
was not to waste time marvelling, but instead grab Lady Luck
fervently by both hands.
Every man on the bridge heard it at almost the same time. The
sound was so clear, and sudden, that only the starb'd lookout made
a half-hearted report.
They waited on the bridge, every head turned to the land, listening-
the sound reached them in a pulsing drum of noise: the rhythmic
thunder of massed aircraft engines. Bentley heard, and acted.
"Stop both engines!" Then, "Anything on radar?"
"No radar contact, sir," the answer came at once.
It those aircraft were air-borne he was taking a risk in stopping
her. But he had to weigh the risk against the chance of a pilot spotting
their white wake. She eased to a stop, and in the next second they
knew the position of those aircraft.
In the middle of the large, eastern island, off whose coast they
lay, a fairly high hill rose, clothed to its peak in thick jungle. From
behind that hill, exhaust pipes glowing like red meteors in the dark
sky, surged suddenly a large group of aircraft.
"Radar office, bridge!" the voice sprang from a pipe, "large
formation aircraft, coming towards!"
Somebody answered that report, but all eyes were on the
thundering group. Radar was a precious ally, but it was never more
unneeded than at that moment.
"Heavy bombers!" Randall said huskily, "almost certainly flown
in from Rabaul."
"At least twenty," Bentley answered from under his glasses, "twin-
engined Bettys. They're coming in . . ."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 99 -
His voice broke off abruptly. The second sign was even more
vehement and obvious than the first. And once again nobody reported
it-the double line of flares which sprang into red life directly opposite
the ship.
Nobody commented on their luck. Good fortune was mingled
with the most critical danger. It needed only one of twenty pilots to
pick out the long grey shape.
"Those flares will help us," Bentley said suddenly, "they won't
be able to see a thing to seaward from the strip."
"First aircraft coming in to land," the signal-yeoman reported
flatly.
Bentley swung his glasses. He could see the plane clearly, every
detail of it in the upflung light of the flares, and the sight confirmed
what he had already guessed-the Japanese working parties who had
built the strip had cleared most of the trees from this, seaward, side.
The reasons were obvious, just as was the advantage the clear line
of fire would give to his guns. He picked up the director phone.
"Keep your eyes on that first aircraft, Guns. It should taxi up to
the right-hand end of the strip. That will be your aiming point."
He juggled the phone back and Randall said, raising his voice
against the multi-engined thunder:
"You're going to wait till they're all down?"
"Yes." Bentley clipped. He knew what Randall was getting at,
and he had made his decision. It would be spectacular to catch each
aircraft as it touched down-and suicidally dangerous. First, they would
be firing at a speeding target; second, it was not hard to guess what
the rest of the bomber flight would do to the revealed firer.
"I'll wait till ten minutes after the last one's down," he went on.
"If they've come from Rabaul they'll be low on fuel. The ground-
crews will service them right away. That means the planes will be
inoperable, plenty of petrol about."
"A very nice set-up," Randall nodded.
Neither man spoke of what was foremost in his mind- there would
be another very nice set-up if the ship were discovered. But, Bentley
was thinking, projecting himself as he always did into the enemy's
point of view, it was highly probable that every pilot of those circling
planes was watching the flare-edged landing strip. As well, there
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 100 -
would be no suspicion amongst them. The strip had been lit, therefore
it naturally followed that the area was safe from intruders.
Bentley took up the engine-room phone. The engineer answered
it. "Chief? Captain here. About twenty aircraft are in the process of
touching-down." He paused, but Mr. Fry made no comment. His
silence was comment enough, Bentley thought grimly.
"There's a slight set here, drifting us in towards land. I'll have to
make a few engine movements, but until further notice all orders
will come down by phone. It's possible the bells could be heard
ashore."
"We're that close in?" Mr. Fry grunted.
"We've got to be. Every shell must count."
"Mmmm. I suppose you'll want full power once we start to run?"
"You're so right! Every ounce you've got."
"You'll get it!" The gruff voice paused. Then: "Happy hunting
with those bloody bang-bangs!" He hung up.
The next fifteen minutes were as queer a space of time as any
man on that quiet bridge could remember. They were used to danger,
but not this sort-here a Damocles bomb hung over their heads, and
their chief aid, their speed, they could not use to avoid it. There was
no doubt that any sort of wake would be spotted instantly from the
air. They might as well burn a searchlight.
They had to sit there and wait; and every aircraft had to be down
before they could take a hand in the game. But, spicing the tension,
making a familiar sensation unique, was the exultant thought of what
they could do to those parked machines once they did start to fire.
Another aircraft bellowed in. They were so close they heard
plainly the abrupt screech of rubber as the tyres bit, and spun. The
bomber slowed, then taxied on up to the end of the strip. The engines
spluttered, died.
Silence. No one spoke. Eight pairs of binoculars on the bridge
were scanning the sky. The signal-yeoman broke the quiet.
"I think that's the last one, sir."
Randall stepped to the radar voice-pipe. He spoke into its mouth,
listened, then came upright.
"No further radar contacts, sir," he reported to Bentley.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 101 -
"Right."
Still the captain made no move. He had a few minutes before he
irrevocably committed the ship. The doubts came back again: there
were at least twenty bombers on that strip; could one ship handle a
force like that? Should he get to hell out of it, organise
reinforcements? Was this a calculated risk-or suicidal stupidity?
And would those bombers be still there tomorrow night? Or would
they take-off at dawn for Guadalcanal?
He took up the director phone.
"Guns?"
"Sir."
"We'll open in divided control. A and B mountings will take the
aircraft, under director control. I want X-mounting to crater the
airstrip. No need to hole the lot of it-a line of craters across the strip
half-way down will hold them on the ground. When that's completed
X-mounting will revert to primary control. Clear?"
"Have got, sir. That's a damn good idea."
"I hope so," Bentley said drily. Then he added, in a different
tone of voice:
"Stand-by to open fire."
He put the phone back and the flares went out.
At once his eyes went to the right-hand end of the runway, the
target area. And he knew that the Japs could do what they liked with
their flares-just so long as those half-a-dozen pin-points of light
among the parked aircraft remained to show him where they were.
"What's the ship doing?"
"No forward movement, sir," Pilot answered-he had kept
continual watch on his bearing points. "We're being set inshore very
slightly. Almost negligible."
"Watch it," Bentley ordered automatically.
His gunnery mind was judging-you've got your targets, no wind
across the line of fire, no enemy speed, no own-ship speed, range
near enough to point blank. A gunnery picnic.
Now . . . But a matter of seconds after he opened fire? What if he
failed? What if his ship was crippled, even if she were not blasted to
pieces? What would be the Admiral's reaction to that? You
commanded a destroyer, you were encouraged to take calculated
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 102 -
risks. Wonderful-providing you brought it off.
He could still swing the ship's head and sneak safely away. If he
gave the order to fire he would be staking his career, his life, his ship
on the accuracy and efficiency of his gunners.
That, he knew with absolute certitude, was the really vital point
of his doubts. Could he trust the training and morale and plain guts
of his men?
Abruptly he swung to Randall. His voice was a curt snap in the
silence of the bridge.
"Open fire!"
There was no radar control in this shoot. Radar is uncannily
accurate, by day or night, but the system needs a distinct target to
echo from. Here the target was a flat strip of beaten coral, the aircraft
it held, with trees to confuse a radar-aerial's function.
It was Mr. Lasenby, Gunner, who controlled the shoot. Visually,
personally, as he had been trained to do under the Navy's insistent
maxim that you never know when your complicated instruments might
fail.He was firing his four forrard guns in almost the same way as his
bearded predecessor had done at the Battle of Jutland nearly 30 years
before: staring through his powerful monocular sight at the ranks of
silver wings and the lights of the servicing-parties, sighting his fall
of shot and ordering verbal corrections.
These last were few. His range-finder had for the past ten minutes
been ranging on the target, and the layers and trainers at the guns
were following with meticulous attention the director's guiding
pointers.
The first broadside of four shells landed, abrupt stabs of
red, a few yards short. Lasenby ordered "Up two hundred, rapid
broadsides!" and the next quartet of messengers burst smack in the
middle of the parked planes.
At first, no petrol flamed. It took three broadsides before a sheet
of red leaped vividly into life. The fiery wall lit the target area
beautifully. Through his glasses Bentley could see men striving to
shift the doomed aircraft, some shackling tractors on to
undercarriages, some with desperate intent trying to push the bombers
bodily.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 103 -
But you can't move an aeroplane very far in six seconds, and
that was all the time it took for Wind Rode's sweating gunners to ram
fresh food into the guns' hot maws.
He knew then that he would bring it off; knew that his doubts
were wrong and his careful calculations correct. All they had needed
was to remain undetected while the planes were landing. The Japs
had failed to sight them, and now they were paying for their omission.
Bentley had known his fire would be effective against a target
like this, but he was grimly pleased to see by how much his
expectations had fallen short.
It was slaughter. The big aircraft were as helpless under the ship's
flail as if they had been stranded on the sea from which destruction
was plunging upon them.
Not even an answering shot challenged the sea-raider; the surprise
was complete and numbing. And it was doubtful, he decided, if the
Japs had had time to mount any sizeable guns-they would naturally
rely on aircraft to beat off an attack.
Those aircraft were now almost wiped out as a recognisable threat.
The whole target area was aflame, and still the forceful deluge poured
ashore. He transferred his glasses left, to where X-mounting's shells
were bursting in a steady line across the strip. It looked as though he
had been overcautious there-he would bring the two after guns back
on to the main target.
He spoke to Randall and the gunnery-officer gave the order to
the director phone-number. There was no appreciable diminution in
Wind Rode's bellowing but the red bursts on the strip died out.
Bentley leaned to the wheelhouse voice-pipe and gave the order
which would swing the ship slightly so that X-mounting could bear
on the end of the strip. He came upright and the signal yeoman's
voice came, unemotional, efficient:
`Two fighters taking off, sir."
Bentley saw at once the two moving shapes-gleaming, reflecting
in the waxing firelight. His reaction was immediate.
"Burn the searchlight on those fighters! Close-range weapons
engage!"
The fighters, low and squat, were moving slowly clear of the
holocaust, but shortly they would pick up speed down the runway.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 104 -
No one thought, or had time, to light the flares. The aircraft were
heading into darkness.
Then a great yellow eye opened from the destroyer's midships
and the shining finger was laid upon them. The pompom opened fire
in a staccato snarl of sound which pierced through the deeper roar of
the big guns.
It was long range for a pom-pom, but the target was clear and
comparatively slow. The stitches of red tracer curved out over the
sea and shore and bit into the leading fighter's fuselage.
"This will be good," Randall said viciously, "if X-gun did its
work properly!"
X-gun had. The leading plane was on fire, a few yards in front of
its companion, when its nose dipped abruptly and its tail flung
skywards. The second pilot must have seen the shell craters in the
light of the bright beam. He jerked back on his column. His nose,
the propeller a spinning arc of silver in the searchlight, lifted-and
the next second smashed forcefully into the upflung tail of its mate.
There was a splatter of chopped pieces, clear in the light, then
the second fighter thumped back to earth and rocketed on in a slewing
rush of spurting coral and petrol-driven flame.
"Close shutters," Bentley ordered, "close-range weapons cease
fire."
The big eye winked shut and the pom-pom stuttered, to silence.
There remained the timed crash of the ship's full broadsides.
Then Bentley put into operation a small facet of his plans, one he
had decided on well before radar had made its landfall.
"Cox'n?" he said into the voice-pipe.
"Sir?"
"You've got your deadlights closed down there?"
The coxswain hesitated a second-of course the shutters were down
over the wheelhouse portholes. Wondering, he answered:
"Yes, sir, they're down."
Bentley kept his voice normally crisp-he must not reveal that his
next words had been planned.
"We're pretty safe now, I think. Open the deadlights for a moment
and let your team have a look. It's worth seeing."
He knew he had succeeded when he recognised the controlled
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 105 -
eagerness in Rennie's voice.
"Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir!"
Bentley straightened behind the binnacle, staring at the inferno
off the port bow, hearing the slam of each broadside and feeling the
blast of displaced air like a hard slap on the face.
What he was doing was perhaps as dangerous as anything he had
planned for that violent night. He had succeeded completely in his
mission. Now he was deliberately jeopardising that success. It would
not take the Japs long to fill in a few craters and make the strip
operable; he should be taking the ship out at top speed, making the
most of every second left to him of their disorganisation.
Yet still he waited, letting the guns loose off more destruction.
Below him Rennie had the deadlight unscrewed. He leaned
forward past the mouth of the voice-pipe and stared with
concentration at the sight before him.
He could see the shells bursting, and in the lurid light the broken,
twisted remains of many aircraft. But the most spectacular effect
was a little to the right of the strip. A shell had found the fuel dump.
A solid sheet of flame fluxed a hundred feet into the air, and from its
lofty peak the smoke poured continuously at the sky.
Rennie too could hear each regular broadside, and feel the
concussion against his face, and the jerking of the ship. He was quite
close to B-mounting, and clearly to him in the loading intervals come
the stamp of feet, the metallic clang of the power-rammers, the
shouted "Ready!" and then the warning note of the fire-gong.
He was not gunnery-trained, but he had been at sea more than
long enough for him to know that this ship was drilling faster and
firing more accurately than most he had known.
The telegraphsman said, "Let's have a gander, `Swain," and
Rennie came back to his wheel. He said into the belled mouth of the
pipe:
"Some sight, sir. We're really doing `em over!"
Not till afterwards did he reflect that Bentley must have been
waiting at his end of the pipe. His voice came back at once.
"Yes, I think we've done what we came for. Ail right, `Swain-
stand-by to get under way."
"Aye, aye, sir."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 106 -
The coxswain could not know that his captain had a small, tight
smile on his face; nor that Bentley had recognised in his voice an
appreciativeness which came very close to pride.
But the captain had put thought of his coxswain from his busy
mind.
"Let's get out of here." he grunted to Randall. "Starb'd twenty!
Full ahead both engines!"
This time the engine-room bells clanged, triumphant, uncaring.
There were other eyes engaged apart from Rennie's while he
was staring out the porthole-searching eyes.
When Beuring had broken up the crown and anchor game that
afternoon, and had walked off with his pockets bulging, Pascoe had
quietly followed him. He knew the gambler would not hide his takings
in his kit-locker, but he was disappointed when he saw Beuring step
into the bath-room. He waited at the canteen, and his cunning little
eyes lost their disappointment when he saw the big man emerge,
minus
bulges. Beuring's pile, then, was hidden somewhere in the bath-
room.
Pascoe was too experienced in his craft to step into the bath-
room at once. Now that he knew the compartment, he could afford
to wait. His chance, the perfect chance, came as soon as the fighters
had been disposed of and the captain ordered "Cease-fire".
The rest of the oerlikon's crew clustered to the guardrail, exulting
among themselves, their eyes riveted on the destruction ashore.
Pascoe had slipped quietly away.
Now he was in the bath-room, and his eyes went at once to the
ventilating shafts. There was not a soul within a hundred feet of him,
and those who were below decks were closed-up at ammunition-
supply posts. But he had to be quick, for to be missed, and reported,
at a time like this would very definitely mean his neck.
Swiftly his eager eyes scanned the white-painted shafts. In all of
them, spaced regularly through each compartment, were fitted small
access doors, about four inches square. There was one directly above
the mirror.
Pascoe reached up and twisted the handle. He knew he had struck
pay-dirt when on the inside of the handle his groping fingers found
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 107 -
tied a piece of small, strong cord. He pulled. A moment later and the
white cotton bag was in his avaricious fingers.
He had stuffed most of the notes into his overall pockets when he
froze. Quick footsteps sounded outside in the passage. Desperately
he glared about him, but there was nowhere he could hide. He was
trapped.
The steps came closer, right up to the door, and passed He blew
out his restricted breath. Some seaman sent on a mission, he judged.
Shaking, he emptied the bag and flipped it back in the shaft. Half a
minute later he was back on the oerlikon platform. He would not
need to steal again on this commission.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 108 -
CHAPTER SEVEN
ONCE DURING THE REST of that exultant, apprehensive night,
they heard, somewhere to the south of them, the sound of aircraft.
Bentley closed the ship up again, but when radar reported the contact
opening the range to the south he fell the gun-crews out.
He remained on the bridge till dawn, and when he finally went
below for a shower and breakfast she had put 150 miles behind her.
Now, to find her, a Jap aircraft had more than twenty thousand square
miles as a haystack for this needle.
They did not find her. She made her Guadalcanal landfall on a
clear, hot morning and every man who could gathered on the upper-
deck to stare at the huge concourse of shipping.
Rennie stood outside the chiefs' mess, waiting for special sea-
dutymen to be piped to close-up. Hooky Walker came up beside him
and leaned his good hand on the rail.
"Strike me purple!" he invited in a wondering tone, "look at that
lot, will you? Wouldn't those Jap mongrels've liked to get in amongst
it!" "They would have-only for Bentley," Rennie said quietly.
Hooky glanced at him curiously, then up again at the row upon
row of transports.
"Oh, I dunno," he grinned, "we lent a bit of a hand, y'know. Ah
... what'd you think of the old bucket now?"
He felt he had been too obvious, too soon, when the cool grey
eyes looked back at him.
"What I've always thought," Rennie said evenly, "as far as I'm
concerned she's a good ship-to be out of. By now I should be pulling
into Brisbane, not this forsaken dump!"
The words were plain enough, but the tone lacked something of
its earlier acidity. Hooky thought: You're all right, Rennie, but you're
not with us-not yet. He said:
"Yeah. And tonight you'd have blown all your dough on some
floosie. Speakin' of dough. . . . The messdeck's
been quiet since we put the heat on. And is that slob Beuring
ropeable!"
"Eh?" Rennie turned his head to look at him.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 109 -
"Yeah. You don't see him like I do. Ever since we beat it away
from the island he's been goin' round like a bear with three sore
heads. I reckon we've hit that gent bloody hard."
Rennie was silent a moment.
"I don't know about that," he said thoughtfully. "I know that bird
pretty well by now."
At least you're willing to talk about it now, Hooky reasoned. He
asked:
"What d'you mean, Jack?"
It was the first time he had used the Christian name. Rennie did
not show if he noticed it.
"Beuring's been at this game a long time," he said, "he must
have felt the heat on before. He's had the board out at least twice,
and you can bet he's made a nice packet already. Even if he hadn't,
that boy's the sort who'd bend with the storm, lie low till the panic
died down. No," he shook his head, "he'd be going about as usual,
the willing seaman to our faces and grinning his great head off behind
our backs. If something's bothering him now, it's not our efforts on
the messdeck."
"Then what the hell is it?"
"Search me. But you can bet your deferrers something, or
somebody, has got at Beuring."
Rennie stopped. He turned his head from the shipping in the
harbour and he looked at Hooky speculatively.
"I wonder . . ." he said, softly.
"Eh?"
"Nothing. . . . Just thought."
Hooky waited. When Rennie did not add to his words, he said:
"You want to clobber this business, don't you?" It was more a
statement.
"Damn it all! Of course I do! I'm the ruddy cox'n, aren't I?"
Well now! Hooky thought, that's more like it. I dunno what's
changed you, cobs, but something's got under the old skin. He said,
warmly:
"Don't worry, Jack-we'll trap these birds!"
When he had moved off to the foc'sle, Rennie lingered a moment
at the rails. Hooky's attitude of friendliness was not lost on him, and
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 110 -
the knowledge started a train of introspective thought. Most men in
authority are self-analysts, and Rennie's mind went smoothly and
subconsciously into the process of dissection.
There was no doubt, he acknowledged to himself, that a good
deal of the earlier bitterness had watered down. Why? His heartfelt
outburst against Beuring, probably, and almost certainly because of
the effect the ship's superb shooting had had upon him last night.
His mind went back to the scene he had witnessed through the
porthole, and, diagnostically, he found something about that porthole
to exercise his curiosity.
It wasn't the flames, or the shell-bursts, or the sustained rate of
fire. There'd been not a week when he hadn't been in action in any
one of three ships himself, No, it was the porthole itself which held
the odd element.
And then he had it. Never before had a captain granted permission
to open the deadlights: first, he had more to do in action than think
about a triviality like that, and second the deadlights were shut for a
very good reason-to keep light in and flying splinters out.
And now the whole reason was clear in Rennie's vitalised mind.
The captain's action had been deliberate. He had planned to have
him see just what the ship could do. Of course he was right in this
judgment-hadn't Bentley been ready and waiting at the voice-pipe
for his comment?
Anger sharp and bitter twisted in Rennie's guts. He had been
treated like a child, like a raw ordinary-seaman; shown the working
of the ship with a paternal pat on the back and a "Now, sonny, you
must try and be as good as the other boys."
For a moment he let the anger rise unchecked, enjoying its
righteous fierceness. But the diagnostic analysis went on also
unchecked. And with rueful honesty he admitted that his anger was
against himself more than Bentley; that his lack of interest had been
so apparent that the captain had been forced into a tactic like that.
His self-analysis did not go deep enough to make him
wonder at the change which had made him admit his fault; instead
his thoughts ran on to encompass another interesting point-Bentley
was a very clever officer indeed. He could have come his rank and
ordered him to buck up- with sullen results. Instead he had chosen
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 111 -
the subtle method. With-and an inward grin twitched-solid results.
There were only two flies in the healing ointment- Beuring and
Pascoe. With them out of the way, off his mind; with a ship as good
as this one, commanded by an intelligent, perceptive man as well as
a skilled officer, he could put in his time comfortably enough. Sooner
or later they must be sent south for leave. And with a bloke like
Bentley deciding what they would get into, shell or bomb damage
might make it sooner than later. . . .
He gazed out over the sun-sparkling water towards the shell-
riven island and suddenly he felt more content than at any time since
he'd joined the ship. Unthought of, there was another element working
on Rennie's mind-the peculiar fatalism of sailors, the knowledge
that whatever "they" do to you, it's not worth a fried frankfurt trying
to kick against it. You're in the outfit, you do what you're told. As
simple as that.
A pipe shrilled and the bosun's mate called:
"Special sea-dutymen close-up. Cable party muster on the
foc's'le."
The coxswain put aside his soliloquising and mounted the ladder
to the wheelhouse.
The interview with the Admiral aboard his battleship was pleasant.
It could hardly have failed to be, with what Bentley had to tell
him. But is was not his professional prospect which had made the
destroyer commander's heart lighter that morning.
They had anchored, and the coxswain had come to the bridge to
make his usual report. Bentley had listened, and then he said:
"That was a nice come-to, `Swain. You seem to have the hang of
her now."
Rennie had smiled back into the lean burned face.
"She's a pearl to handle, sir."
That was all. The words were not even vehemently, or
enthusiastically, delivered. But Rennie had said them with a little
appreciative sideways nod of his head, and he had spoken completely
naturally. No forced respect, no disciplined agreement-and no
wariness, or withholding; simply the easy maturalness of a man
pleased with his work and his tool.
"Well," said the Admiral when his visitor had finished, and tried
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 112 -
to keep the wonder out of a face which he had thought had seen too
much to feel that sensation ever again, "you seem to have done what
I'd call a complete job back there. I guess you're mighty pleased
with yourself?"
His voice was pleasantly nasal, drawling. His uniform was
different from that of the British admirals Bentley had met, but his
weathered face held the same stamp of surety and experience and
wisdom.
"I'm pleased to have got out of it sir," Bentley replied truthfully.
"1 guess so, I guess so," the older man chuckled. The smile eased
away and the voice changed.
"You think you got all of them?"
"I can't say that for sure, sir. They may have had some stowed in
dispersal bays. We counted fifteen aircraft burning, and there was a
hell of a fire from the fuel dump. I think this, sir," he ended definitely,
"there certainly aren't enough serviceable aircraft left to mount an
attack on Guadalcanal."
"M'mm. Trouble is, they could fly in reinforcements."
"Even when they know we're on to them, sir?"
"Even then. This target here is tempting enough for `em to take
all sorts of risks." He slowly took up his pipe. The lined face was
thoughtful.
"What I expected, actually, was a seaborne attack. I know there's
a Jap cruiser force operating somewhere in the area. But the monkeys
have avoided my reconnaissance." His eyes flicked up to Bentley's
face-quick, probing, seaman eyes. "You sighted nothing of surface
craft?"
"No, sir. There are a couple of harbours, hut I was right
round the area night before last. And if there'd been anything
there last night I think they might have made their presence known."
"They sure would have," grinned the Admiral. The gesture again
was brief. "All right, then," he ended crisply, "there's nothing else?"
There was certainly something else. Bentley wanted to ask for a
relief, for his ship and his men to be sent south for leave. He could
imagine how the waiting face before him now would change if he
asked for a favour like that, especially after an action on which it
would be assumed he was trading. There were many ships out through
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 113 -
those portholes which had been out here longer than his own.
He wanted to ask this favour, and he said:
"No, sir, nothing else."
"Good. Now I have something for you, Bentley. You've earned a
few days' leave. I'm sending you back to Moresby."
"Thank you, sir." Moresby was better than nothing- shore-leave,
fresh milk and food, mail.
"It's a busman's holiday, young fellow," the admiral said shrewdly,
reading correctly the expression on Bentley's face, "you should know
by now you get nothing for nothing in my outfit."
"Yes, sir."
"I have some important despatches I want delivered personally
in Moresby. And I want you to take another look at that airstrip.
They won't expect you back so soon." The short grin came again.
"Only a damn fool would do that. But I want to know if there's any
build-up activity going on there. And remember this, young feller-
if you do sight anything in the way of a build-up, get to blazes out of
it and then signal me. Understand? You won't bring it off a second
time."
"Yes, sir."
"All right, then." The Admiral nodded and Bentley stood up. A
hand came out and Bentley's fingers were taken in a hard grip. "Nice
work, son. Damn it all! You brought off a brilliant action! Now get
on your way!"
"Yes, sir," Bentley grinned, and got on his way.
The sea about them was beautifully and monotonously blue.
Guadalcanal was an hour astern, its shattered palms dropped below
the liquid curve.
"This is the captain speaking."
There was no urgency, only curiosity, as they settled down to
listen. They expected this-Bentley, like all sensible captains,
believed in putting his men into the picture as soon as he could. He
gave the important news first.
"We are bound for Moresby. I can't tell you, of course, how long
our stay will be, but you can count on shore-leave-and mail, and
cold beer. Perhaps even a dance."
He paused, and if he could have seen them he would not have
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 114 -
been surprised at the unsmiling faces on the messdecks. Twenty mails
a day, bathing in cold beer, would not make of Moresby anything
but what it was-a steaming dump.
"We have a little chore to do on the way across. It is possible,
though not very probable, that the Japs have begun already to build-
up their aircraft on the base we visited last night. Naturally the
Admiral is interested in proceedings there. So we have been ordered
to joke around and see what we can see. However, we . . ."
He was about to tell them that they would not this time engage
the enemy. But Bentley knew better than most that a destroyer looking
for trouble usually found it. There was no point in establishing in
their minds an expectation of running from danger.
". . . we should not be long on the job. I doubt very much if the
Japs have the aircraft so quickly available to reinforce their stocks,
even if they wanted to, now that they know the game's up as regards
their secret strip. We should make Moresby in the afternoon of the
twentieth. Incidentally, the Admiral was more than slightly pleased
at last night's effort. So was I. Good work. That's all."
The crackle in the speakers died and Pascoe sneered:
"So that's all we get! `Good work, boys!' "
"What are you griping about, mate?" a voice jeered, "he wasn't
talkin' about you."
Pascoe muttered obscenely and got up from the mess-stool. He
had little fat on his frame but he was sweating as
profusely as the others. The wind had changed to dead astern,
and Wind Rode was running under the sun wrapped in her own heated
miasma.
The time was two o'clock, and work had ceased for the day.
Scowling with his own unlovely temperament and with the humid
heat Pascoe made his way into the passage, heading for the upper-
deck. Men came behind him, for there was some shade on deck, and
the wind might change.
Pascoe was passing the bathroom when the memory came back
again. He indulged it consciously, as he had done forty times since
he'd found the shaft's treasure. Now his thin mouth curved in a
cunning, secret smile.
Not only had he lifted that big slob's roll, but he had it hidden in
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 115 -
a place which was less safe than the captain's cabin, but not by much.
It was this thought which pleased Pascoe almost as much as the
actual possession of Beuring's money. He was sure in his own mind
that nobody else would have thought of such an inviolate hiding
place.
Two thefts of money had been reported to the coxswain, and
every man in the ship knew a thief was loose. Those who had locks
had secured their kit-lockers. A man would as soon have gone
uninvited to his best friend's locker as he would have poked the
captain on the nose. So rottenly potent had been the effect of Pascoe's
thieving throughout the ship that a man disliked even being found
on the messdeck alone. He did his business, and got out quickly.
Kit-lockers were absolutely taboo. Beuring's stolen money was
now resting in Pascoe's kit-locker.
Men filed out on to the upper-deck, leaving the ovens below
empty. Pascoe wandered aft, looking for a place to squat. Between
the engine-room fans and the wired cage of the potato-locker was a
passage about three feet wide and six feet long. It would have held
three or four men comfortably in its cool shade, but now Pascoe saw
it was occupied, by a man on a stretcher.
His mouth had opened to remonstrate. Then he saw the dark-
coloured bulk of Beuring lying on the stretcher, his eyes closed.
Pascoe changed his mind, and walked on. He solaced the
consciousness of his cowardice with the helpful reflection that with
what he had of Beuring's the big lout could have the passage.
Unknown to Pascoe, the coxswain was a few paces behind him.
And he was looking for Beuring.
He saw the skinny figure halt, look into the passage, and then
hurry on. When Rennie came up he also halted, and looked
thoughtfully down at Beuring.
The coxswain was no Sherlock Holmes in deduction, but neither
was he dull. And for years his official functions had kept him
acquainted with the characters and operations of men like Beuring
and Pascoe. It was a different Rennie who had listened to Hooky's
description of the gambler's morose attitude, and he had given
considerable thought to the reason for it.
He knew Beuring, he knew his type. Also he knew, naturally,
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 116 -
that Beuring was in no official trouble. Therefore it required only a
minor exercise in deduction to conclude that Beuring's trouble was
money. The gambler must have hauled in a nice pile during his
operations. The point which interested Rennie was-did he still have
it? And, if not, who did?
"You've got a good spot there, Beuring," he said casually.
The dark eyes opened. Rennie saw the belligerence in them
change to watchfulness.
"It's not bad," Beuring grunted.
"Then I'd like to get in on it." Rennie's hand brushed the feet
aside. Beuring sat up.
"You wouldn't like the whole bloody stretcher?"
"No thanks, this bit will do me fine."
Beuring waited, and Rennie recognised his wariness. He said:
"Anything worrying you, Beuring?"
"You ought to know there ain't. You're the C.I.B. all rolled into
one."
"I don't think you'd come to me with your worries," Rennie
answered easily. It was not part of his plan to get nettled.
"I tell you I ain't got none!"
"My spies tell me different. They say you won a packet
with that little canvas board, but you look like a bloke who's lost
the lot."
"Who're you kidding?" Beuring sneered, and Rennie knew he
was up against experienced cunning. "You got spies? They say I run
a board? Why ain't I up before the Old Man then? I hear it's worth a
few days' stoppage."
"Not a few days' stoppage of leave, Beuring-at least fourteen
days' cells."
"Well, well! Only trouble with that lash-up of fourteen days is
that we don't rate cells aboard this hooker."
"Oh, that can be easily fixed. I've no doubt the captain would
settle you in the cable-locker-until we got to Moresby, then you'd
be shipped south to Garden Island. They've got cells there, Beuring,"
Rennie ended solemnly.
"So I hear. But there's another snag. I don't run a crown and
anchor board-and you ain't caught me."
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 117 -
Rennie shifted his attack.
"No, I haven't caught you, but you do run a board. I don't suppose
I'll ever catch you. Not the way you pay your cockatoos."
For a second he thought he'd laid it on too thick. Then Beuring
chuckled, an odd prideful sound, and he knew that his enemy's ego
was his target.
"You're smart, Beuring, I'll hand you that. This is strictly
unofficial, of course." He stopped, and fumbled for cigarettes. Several
men went past, their eyes curious at sight of the oddly-assorted pair.
"So smart that I can't understand how you let a drongo like that
beat you to it."
His voice was casual, but he was nearly taken by surprise at the
big man's reaction. Beuring's dark face tightened and his eyes
glowered.
"What the hell d'you mean by that?"
Rennie camouflaged the exultation surging through him.
"Come off it," he chided, "I know he lifted your roll. What makes
you think he'd stop at you? The Number One target? I bet it took
you hours to work out a place to stash it in." He shook his head.
"Time you learned the safest place is the most obvious. Like a kit-
locker, for instance."
That was a purely lucky stab in the dark, unintentional. He didn't
know it then.
"I dunno what the hell you're gabbin' about," Beuring snarled.
Rennie saw that his hands were balled fists.
"Look." He leaned forward confidentially. "I said I'd get you,
Beuring. And if you slip up I will. But the tea-leafs more important
to me than a gambler. This bloke made a sucker out of you. I want
him. I want him stopped, fast. You make out a complaint about him
and I'll have his locker searched within ten minutes. Now-how
about it?"
The hot eyes stared into his.
"Who's this bloke you're talkin' about?"
Rennie's small smile was patient.
"You know damn well who I mean. Well?"
"So that's what you pratted yourself in on me for?" Beuring
snarled. "You can get . . .!"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 118 -
Rennie had no difficulty at all in feigning anger. He said coldly:
"You talk like that to me and you're up before the Bloke, smart!"
"That'll do me! You come along here makin' charges against
innocent men . . . Ah, leave me alone!"
Rennie left him alone. He walked quickly forrard and be had
reached the door of his mess before he allowed the jubilation he felt
to show through the angered mask of his face.
Hooky looked up as he stepped in.
"Hullo, hullo," the big man growled, "you look like a six-weeks'
leave pass. In this flamin' heat . . . !"
"I think I've got him!" Rennie exulted. Hooky looked at him.
"You remember you said Beuring was liverish. I reckoned someone
had pinched his roll. I've just had a few choice words with him, and
now I know it went off."
Hooky lifted himself from the bench.
"Pascoe?"
"Who else? I needled Beuring. He's ropeable. I also mentioned
a safe place these days would be a kit-locker. If he goes down there
we've got him!"
"Like hell! What if Pascoe hasn't stashed it in his locker?"
"That won't matter a damn. There have been reports of stealing.
I find Beuring at another man's locker."
"Yeah, I see what you mean," Hooky said slowly. Then he swung
his feet to the deck. "Come on-it won't take him long to go through
a locker."
"Hold your horses, chum! I might as well take the Eighth Army
down there. I'll handle it."
"He's tough."
"This is the Navy, not Woolloomooloo. If I catch him, he comes
quietly."
Hooky nodded, and Rennie slipped from the mess.
He had guessed, rightly, that Beuring would watch him enter his
mess before, and if, he made his move. He also guessed that the
gambler would waste no time if he had convinced him-there would
be hardly a man below decks in this heat.
He went quickly round the foc's'le and then down the ladder and
into the passage on the opposite side to his mess. He was quite aware
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 119 -
that he was relying on Beuring's believing that his real reason for
accosting him was to enlist his help in trapping Pascoe. On that, and
the ugly seeds he had planned about Pascoe's superiority in cunning.
He was dressed in shorts and sandals and his feet made no sound
on the cortisone. He passed swiftly through the deserted iron-deck
messes, and stepped over the coaming into the foc's'le.
He saw at once that the bait had been swallowed. Beuring was
not only at Pascoe's kit-locker-his right hand clutched a bundle of
notes.
Rennie stepped up behind him and Beuring swung.
"Able-seaman Beuring," Rennie said, "I'm charging you with
stealing money on the mess-deck. Get your cap and muster on the
bridge."
Rennie's voice was genuinely formal. He had laid the trap and he
had caught his man. Now his whole interest was in the official
presenting of the charge, and bringing the offender before the officer
of the watch. Not till after did he appreciate the beautiful irony of
the situation-he had not caught a gambler, but a thief stealing his
own ill-gotten money.
But Beuring was more perceptive. He stared into the coxswain's
face and he knew he was trapped-not accidentally, but deliberately.
Trapped getting back his own money, money which he could not
claim as his own without revealing where he got it.
Red rage flooded into his brain. The man standing stiffly before
him was the epitome of everything he had lost-of Pascoe, of his
money, of the lush racket which was now blasted. But most of all of
Pascoe.
That rotten little mongrel had pinched his dough, this man here
had used him to trap him. The redness flooded, blinded.
"You slimy bastard!" he mouthed.
"That's enough!" Rennie ordered harshly, "you're in bad enough
as it is!"
"Then this won't hurt me!" Beuring snarled, and struck.
Rennie had never in his time as a petty-officer or chief had a
hand raised against him. Nor was he a boxer. The fist took him on
the cheek and spun him round against the mess-table.
Beuring struck again. The blow, aimed more with blind rage than
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 120 -
science, smashed into Rennie's thin chest. He gasped with the force
and hurt of it, but he forced himself up from the table and flung
himself at the big man.
A fist took him on the mouth. He felt the numbing shock of the
pain and he tasted the warm blood. He tried to close with Beuring
knowing he could not match him, feeling the savage blows on his
chest and face and striving to get a hold on those viciously-striking
arms.
His body was thin and wiry, but it weighed almost three stone
lighter than Beuring's. And he was an older man. He was almost
exhausted by the killing punishment. Yet still he kept on his feet,
even though all he could see of Beuring was a snarling, sweat-running
face through a mist of pain and exhaustion.
He felt a hand clutch round his throat and he saw dimly the
bunched fist go back and he waited for the blow which
would finish him. Then he heard the voice. He did not know who
had spoken, but he recognised the words:
"All right, you bastard!"
Then what looked like a thin flash of light swept down before his
eyes. The hand let go his throat.
He fell, gasping, back against the mess-table. He did not see
Hooky's steel hand jerk, and swing Beuring round by the wrist; nor
the glare of astonishment on the dark man's face and the huge fist
which smashed that face back clear to the ship's side.
He felt, some seconds later, a powerful arm about his shoulders
and a concerned voice saying:
"Come on, old feller, come on ... Up now. Take it easy. We'll get
somethin' on that face. Easy does it."
"Beuring . . ." Rennie panted.
"Don't you worry about Beuring!" Hooky growled, and the, hate
in his voice was naked. His big arm went around the coxswain's
shoulder and he half-led, half-carried him to the sickbay.
"I'll see Pascoe first," Bentley ordered curtly.
"Aye, aye, sir," Rennie acknowledged, and turned and spoke
through the sticking plaster on the side of his mouth:
"Able-seaman Pascoe! Double to the table! Off cap!"
Pascoe stood there, his eyes on the table, and Rennie read the
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 121 -
charge. "Money found in his kit-locker on the foc's'le mess-deck
suspected of being stolen."
Every officer in the ship not actually on-watch was mustered
round the table abaft the bridge. It was eleven o'clock of the following
morning, and the sun shone down hotly on the attentive scene.
"Able-seaman Pascoe," Bentley said in a controlled voice, "there
was a little more than £175 in the notes Beuring was found removing
from your locker."
The implication in his voice was obvious, and it was
meant to be.
"Do you admit the charge?" "Yes, sir."
Pascoe's voice was low, subservient. Since he had been charged
the day before he had thought a lot about his defence, such as it was.
He knew that no one would believe him if he claimed the money was
not in his locker with his knowledge-this was a court of summary
justice, not the labyrinthine maze of legal quibbling ashore. And he
couldn't say he'd saved a sum as large as that. He was in, up to his
neck, and he had decided to do the only thing which might mitigate
his sentence.
"But it wasn't my money, sir."
"You admitted the charge," Bentley said coldly.
"Yes, sir, but the money belonged to Beuring. I took it from where
he'd stashed it, sir. He won it gambling on the foc's'le mess-deck . .
." The eager betrayal ran on. Bentley did not interrupt. His secretary
was getting it all down. The seaman gabbled and the captain listened,
the composed sternness of his face hiding his disgust.
Pascoe stopped and Bentley said:
"Have you finished?"
"Yes, sir."
Bentley looked at the downcast eyes and worried face and he
knew what Pascoe was after and he knew he had wasted his time.
This fellow was unworthy of the slightest leniency. Bentley wasted
no time.
"Remanded for punishment," he rapped, and the coxswain
repeated the sentence.
Pascoe doubled away, his face strained. "Remanded" meant that
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 122 -
lower-deck would be cleared and a warrant read out against him.
And that meant fourteen days' cells.
"Able-seaman Beuring," the coxswain said, and he succeeded in
keeping his tone down to that unimpassioned correctness he would
have used to caff up a man requesting to grow a beard.
Beuring did not double up to the table as Pascoe had done. His
was just about as serious a crime as he could have committed-he
had struck a senior rating. Even gambling and thieving took second
place to that. Now he was under escort, guarded by a leading-hand
and a hefty able
seaman, both with belts and bayonets slung round their waists.
The leading-hand ordered:
"Prisoner and escort, quick march!" And, at the table, "Off cap!"
Beuring's cap came off and the leading-hand quickly bent and
took it from his hand. A prisoner on a charge like this must be allowed
no incentive to increase his culpability, and a cap flung in a captain's
face would be even more unthinkable than striking the coxswain.
In the same unemotional voice Rennie read the charge. Bentley
said:"Have you anything to say?"
"No."
"Answer `sir'!" Rennie snapped, his body taut.
"No, sir."
Bentley looked sideways.
"Coxswain?"
"At about two o'clock yesterday afternoon, sir," Rennie started,
"I spoke to Able-seaman Beuring on the upperdeck . . ."
Bentley, who knew all the circumstances from Randall, to whom
Beuring had been first taken, listened impatiently behind his facade
of impartiality. He had never felt less impartial in his life. But the
officers heard Rennie's story with open interest-most cases they
attended were simple uncomplicated offences against regulations;
but this one as Rennie's voice unfolded it possessed a novel touch of
sublety. And none of them had been present at a charge so serious.
"... then he struck me, sir. 1 tried to grapple with him and secure
his arms. I ..." For the first time Rennie's voice faltered. He was
admitting his physical inadequacy. "I failed to do that, sir. He
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 123 -
continued his attack and I was almost unconscious when Chief Petty-
officer Walker came on the scene. The offender was subdued and
taken under escort before the officer of the watch, sir."
"And you, Cox'n?" Bentley said, very softly.
"I was taken to the sickbay, sir."
Silence fell on the little group. From down near the quarterdeck
came the muted clang of a chipping hammer. Above their heads the
search radar-aerial swung disinterestedly, its noise of operation a
rhythmic electronic whirr.
For a moment Bentley kept his eyes on the table, where they had
been all the time Rennie was talking. Vivid in his boxer's mind was
that scene on the mess-deck-easily he could fill in the details omitted
in the coxswain's terse and official account. The savagery of the big
man's attack, the guts it must have taken to withstand it-and the
mental picture of Hooky bounding into the mess-deck . . .
His head came up and for the first time he looked into Beuring's
eyes.
"You still have nothing to say?"
"No, sir. Except that I wasn't runnin'. no board and the Buffer
struck me." "Is that all?" "Yes, sir."
Then Bentley started to speak. He leaned forward a little with
his finger-tips resting on the table, his face a few feet from Beuring's
and his eyes, cold with anger, fixed in a condemning stare.
They would remember those words for a long time. And what
did most to sear them in their memories was the odd impression that
it was not the captain talking, but a man. A tall, wide-shouldered
man, the boxing champion of the Fleet, telling what he thought of
another man.
There wasn't a man aboard that ship, and very few in the entire
Navy, who did not know of Commander Bentley's heavyweight title.
Things like that about a captain get about much more efficiently and
comprehensively than stories about his professional competence.
And now it was Bentley the boxer, his voice biting with contempt,
assessing a charge and a subject on which he was expert.
"Able-seaman Beuring," he said, and his quiet tone cut like a
knife across the intent silence, "you are a thief and a gambler and a
liar. You were struck by the chief bosun's mate in a legitimate attempt
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 124 -
to prevent further injury to a senior rating. You attacked a man at
least three stone lighter
than yourself. You knew that man could not hope to fight against
your size and strength. Able-seaman Beuring . . ."
He paused, and Randall, watchful, saw the dull red mounting up
Beuring's neck.
"You are a mongrel and a coward," Bentley finished. "Remanded
for court-martial!"
The escort marched off their prisoner.
"Cox'n."
"Sir?"
"I want Pascoe held in the cable-locker flat. Beuring is to go in
the tiller-flat aft. The usual guards. We'll get rid of them in Moresby."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The officers were still there. Bentley was still behind the table.
The scene was still official.
"I want to say this to you, cox'n. You've conducted yourself in a
manner which brings the highest credit to your branch." A recent
memory of other praise delivered slipped into his mind. He smiled.
`'Damn it all, Rennie! You did a fine job. I'm glad and proud to
have you in my ship!"
They all smiled, Hooky with a creasing grin that threatened to
disturb the anchorage of his ears. Rennie smiled, and behind the
gesture was the thought that the pain in his mouth and the bruises on
his chest were worth it.
In a destroyer at sea at war there is little of interest to talk about.
You know your messmate's pay, his ambitions, his prospects, his
family, how many suits he owns, even how he handles his women.
So that for the next twenty-four hours the ship buzzed. There
were endless variations on the coxswain's staunchness, on Beuring
and what the captain had said about him.
The whole ship was familiar with Bentley's words-Hooky had
deliberately passed them on. It was the captain's attitude which
intrigued them most. Bentley had said practically nothing about the
charges of gambling and stealing-he had dealt with Beuring as a
man. That was something they could relish and appreciate completely.
And there was another fascinating facet of that novel trial. The
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 125 -
layer of the pom-pom put it succinctly at teatime that afternoon:
"What tickles me," he grinned, "is that Beuring can't say the Old
Man was pulling his rank. The bastard can't say what he'd do if
Bentley took his rings off. Because if he did the skipper could take
that slob with one hand tied behind his back!"
The talk went on; interested, vehement talk. The whole ship was
revitalised. But the most significant effect of Rennie's action was
one of relief. They talked and joked and swore about what had
happened, but underneath every man was glad that the cancer had
been chopped out.
Now you didn't have to skulk on the mess-deck, ready to bolt
when the cockatoo whistled; now you could leave your locker open,
pinch a packet of fags from your cobber's overcoat, be received
when you were alone on the mess-deck with nothing but a "G'day,
bloody hot, ain't it?"
By the second day, shortly before the ship was due to make her
island landfall, the excitement had eased. But the rejuvenation
remained. They had been given a salving interest, something they
could talk to men in other ships about. And they had been reminded
that they had a captain who was all man, clean through.
The night was clear, moonless and dark. The shape of the island
was a merging black bulk ahead. Closed-up for action, Wind Rode
slid slowly on, her radar and a score of binoculars searching.
"I see no evil," Randall grinned under his glasses, "not that I'm
complaining."
"It looks quiet enough," Bentley agreed. "But I didn't expect
any activity. Not so soon, anyway."
"You'll take a look right round the island?"
"Yes. Then we'll get to hell out of it. The memory of a certain
night is tingling up the old backbone ..."
"Enough's enough," Randall nodded, "I'll take her round, shall
I?" "Yes, please."
The ship turned a little to port and headed for the southern end of
the island, aiming for the side opposite the scene of their night-action.
They had the tip of the island abeam when Pilot remarked casually:
"You'll remember there's a harbour just round the corner, sir?"
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 126 -
"Yes, Pilot. But you needn't worry about sending a berthing
signal."
"No, sir." Pilot smiled dutifully at his captain's humour.
She crept on, a black shadow in the quietness of the night, her
reduced speed keeping the telltale wake to a mini-mum of whiteness.
There certainly would be Japs ashore, and they could have guns.
But their main defence lay in the Admiral's psychology:
"They won't expect you. Only a damn fool would go back so
soon."
He might be a fool, Bentley was thinking, but at least he was
ready for any result his foolishness might precipitate. Ready with a
full head of steam straining in his boilers. Apart from aircraft, which
he did not fear here, the only thing which could catch him would be
a motor-torpedo boat, and the Japs did not go in for that sort of
animal.
A minute later he knew with a jolt of alarm in his guts that he
might have to use that steam, that he had a hell of a lot to fear.
It was the signal-yeoman again, as it usually was:
"Captain, sir! I can see ships in that harbour!"
Bentley's sight was keen, but it was some seconds before he could
verify what the yeoman's hawk eyes had picked out. The harbour
entrance was narrow, and its inner end was backed by confusing
jungle, but dimly he could distinguish against the dark background
at least two objects of a lighter grey.
He called, quietly:
"What do you make of them?"
"Cruisers, sir," Ferris answered at once, "1 can see two, and what
looks like the stern of a third."
Through the tense alertness of Bentley's mind another recent
memory came crowding. The Admiral had mentioned a cruiser force
in the area, had said he expected a seaborne attack. Here it was,
holed-up, probably refuelling from a tanker for the strike at
Guadalcanal.
The Japs had been cunning, too. Though the island was patently
a handy fuelling stop for the attack on Guadalcanal, they could
reasonably expect that no Allied ships would be sent to investigate
it after the devastating attack of a few nights before. Nor would a
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 127 -
ship have been sent; Wind Rode was there only because she was on
her way back to Moresby.
The harbour mouth slid slowly abeam and for an electrifying
second the thought exercised Bentley's mind. But he tossed it aside
at once. To do any good in there, to make sure his torpedoes took
crippling effect, he would have to get inside the harbour. Once inside
he would be able to manoeuvre only at slow speed; those cruisers,
once he was sighted, would blow him out of the water.
And his attack would need to be wholly successful. If he
succeeded only in giving the alarm, the cruisers would get clear in a
hurry. Then they could either deliver their attack on Guadalcanal, or
else be lost to the Admiral's bomber squadrons.
His attack on the airfield had been a calculated risk. An attack
now would be calculated suicide.
"Port twenty," he ordered down the voice-pipe, and sub-
consciously kept his voice low. "Half ahead both engines. Pass that
order by . . ."
The clang of the engine-room bells rode over his voice. In the
silence of the night they sounded like a fire-alarm. The telegraphsman,
standing close to Rennie's voice-pipe, was efficient-too efficient.
"Pass all orders by phone," Bentley snapped.
"Aye, aye, sir."
The shaking started and her bow began to swing. Now her life
depended not on offensive action but on just how quietly and quickly
she could get away from it.
Her line of advance on the turn was taking her, as Bentley had
known it would, past the harbour entrance. Her wake was higher,
but he had to risk that. Those cruisers could fire just as easily from
an anchorage as in the open
sea, and he had to give her enough speed to manoeuvre to slip
the salvoes.
What worried him was the sound of the bells. They would carry
clearly on a night like this. And they could not be expected to be
mistaken for cow-bells . . .
Two minutes later, with the ship past the entrance, out of sight of
what was inside, and no slam of guns behind them, he knew that the
bells had not been heard.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 128 -
"Full ahead both engines!" he ordered Rennie, "by phone,
remember!"
"By phone, sir," Rennie acknowledged, and the order went down.
Mr. Fry must have guessed something was up in this unhealthy
neighbourhood. He gave her her power quickly, and she shuddered
and the wake piled up high under her squat counter.
At 35 knots she surged away from the island into the friendly
opacity of the night.
Randall turned from staring astern and lowered his glasses.
"I take it," he said drily, his voice a little throaty, "you don't
intend to take on that cruiser squadron?"
"You were never more right in your life," Bentley said fervently.
"Thank God for that," his friend and deputy answered in the same
tone. "Ah . . . might I ask why we've grown cautious-and sensible-
all of a sudden?"
"Surely." Bentley was smiling-his nerves had let go. "The
Admiral gave me orders to clear out if I found a build-up of enemy
activity."
"And to send him a little note to that effect, no doubt."
"No doubt at all. I'll stay at this speed for an hour, then get a
coded signal off. His bombers should be over before dawn."
"Thank Gawd for the Air Force!" Randall said, only half joking.
"Yes," Bentley said musingly. He hung his glasses by their strap
round the binnacle. "There's another reason why I didn't go in there,
Bob."
"Oh? Apart from the obvious one that we'd have been blown to
hell?"
"That's right. You see," the captain said gently, "I don't have to
prove anything to anybody any more. Not now."
He leaned to one side and his voice was brisk.
"Cox'n? You can hand over the wheel now. Fall out special sea-
dutymen."
"Fall out special sea-dutymen. Aye, aye, sir!" the coxswain
answered.
His voice, too, was brisk.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 129 -