J. E. MacDonnell - 096, page 8
"Not that again, for Pete's sake," Bentley groaned, and Ferris called:
"Enemy in sight, sir, three destroyers."
As if activated by the one pair of hands their binoculars whipped up together. But Ferris was using a long and very powerful telescope, so that a few seconds passed before Bentley made out what Craven had seen long before.
Yet there was no doubt Craven had been right. So thin and so tall-visible while the directors and bridges below them were not- those sticks could belong only to destroyers. And from the inclination of the yardarms they were heading straight towards him.
With the masts sighted it was not long before the bridge structures hove into view. Then Wind Rode's forepart rose an extra few feet on a swell, and Bentley got a glimpse of a pair of twin white arches. Only for a second, yet those bow-waves said to him-thirty knots, and that said danger.
Randall too had seen, and judged. "What now, gallant leader?"
"They're still well out of range. We'll press on for a bit and see what happens. In the meantime, you might get the ship closed-up for action."
Randall sounded the alarm, though there was small need. The word had passed; it might have been difficult to find a man asleep in his hammock. Even so, in the brief time before Randall reported action stations manned, the enemy destroyers were in almost full view.
Bentley glanced astern. Witch was dead in his wake and keeping her distance. At such long range Wind Rode should be masking her from the Japs. Bentley turned back and said:
"All guns load with semi-armour piercing shell."
Ah! thought Randall, there's my answer. He had the order repeated up to Lasenby in the director, from where it went down to the transmitting station and along to the guns. Clanging sounds, came, followed by the thud of breech-blocks closing. But though loaded, the guns would not fire until the executive order "Broadsides," when the electric firing interceptors would be slammed shut by the palms of the breechworkers. By men like Rohan, back there in Witch.
Both groups of ships rushed to meet. Wind Rode's bridge was a small quiet island of tension. Lasenby's report broke the silence, if not the tension.
"Enemy's opened fire. Salvoes from twin guns on the foc's'les, all ships firing together. They're Sigure-class, same as before."
Now, Randall's sight mind gloated. Sigure-class. mounted only two guns forward, while Wind Rode and Witch rated four apiece up there. Bring Benson up right now, quickly before the bastards turned, and it would be eight forward guns against six.
Then Benson spoke, and to his astonishment Randall understood that he did not have his answer after all, at least not the one he'd expected.
"Port thirty," Bentley ordered, "Steer west, increase to thirty knots. By light, Yeoman."
Ferris was already at his Aldis lamp, realising that a ship on her own does not make a flag hoist, flicking the course and speed to Witch in a blur of dots and dashes. As she began her turn away the enemy shells landed.
"Damn near a mile short," murmured Bentley, "but the spread's quite good."
But you don't need thirty degrees of wheel to avoid a fall of shot, Randall was thinking. He said, keeping his voice low:
"Look, Peter, how about putting me in the picture? We're so close to being in maximum effective range it doesn't matter! What the hell are you up to?"
"Several things, Bob. First, we have to make sure of those three, and we can't risk trying it with just the two of us. If one of `em gets away, and sights a hunting group made up of a cruiser and a destroyer flotilla not much more than a hundred miles from Seeadler Harbour, they'll wake up to the reason for such a group. They won't need to scout the harbour. They'll know there's something mighty important in there.
"Okay, okay," said Randall tensely. "But on this course you're leading `em straight towards the group." His arm japped out. "Look! They're turning to follow!"
"Fine."
"I'm glad you think so."
"Why not? We're opening the range and on this course they'll be squinting straight into the sun."
"I wasn't thinking about that." Less sharp-witted than his captain, but still no fool, Randall had already recognised the advantages of their present course. He also saw its vital disadvantage.
"You're leading `em on to the group." he repeated. "One of `em doesn't have to get away. They just have to sight the group, that's all. Or have you forgotten a thing called radio?"
"Good point, Bob. But you're forgetting our lord and master. He's out of sight now, but you can bet a bee to a bull's foot that the cunning old devil will come down on these bastards from the north. That way, he'll catch `em totally by surprise."
"But he didn't tell you that. You could be wrong. He might come belting in from the west."
"Let's hope I'm right," muttered Bentley "In which case... "snatching a glance astern at the relative positions of the two groups, "I'd better not lead too far to the west. Port thirty, Pilot. Well run back eastward."
"Aye aye, sir."
Wind Rode came round hard left and Witch followed. Randall was still unconvinced. From experience he knew that Bentley's decisions usually turned out to be right- they were still alive-but here he was dealing with another man's decisions. And three other ships' gunnery.
Randall saw that the next fall of shot was no more than two hundred yards short. The bastards were finding the range.
His inactivity irked him. He had to do something. "Captain, sir!"
Intent on his own schemes, Bentley was a little startled by his deputy's abrupt formality. "Yes, Number one?" "Permission to open fire, sir. All guns are now bearing."
"So they are, Number one." This had been part of Bentley's intention, to have a full broadside bearing after he'd made his turn back. "But the Japs mount 5-inch. Their range could be greater than ours."
"I'd like to find out!"
"Very well," Bentley said" to that tough and grimly eager face. "Yeoman, make to Witch..."
But Randall didn't care a damn about their consort. He jumped across the bridge and took the phone from its usual handler, the captain's messenger.
"Bridge, director!"
"Director."
"Guns. Number One here."
"Yessir?"
"Open fire."
"Open fire sir. But I think we're still outside maximum..."
"Never mind that! Target right-hand destroyer. Open with all guns. After the first fall of shot go into rapid broadsides. Understood?"
There was only the briefest hesitation before Lasenby answered:
"Aye aye, sir."
But Randall noticed it. He handed the phone back and waited silent and grim to see if he, the gunnery officer, were wrong, and the gunner right. They had accurate radar range; they also had the range of their guns. Theoretical range, that was. Guns of 4.7-inch calibre were supposed to fire a certain distance, but many variables came into it, one of which was barometric pressure. Flying high over a long-range trajectory, the flight of the shells could be affected by the air's density. The day was hot, the air would be heated and thus thinned. Or so Randall hoped.
Wind Rode jerked. The blast smacked into their faces and the stink of burnt cordite followed. A moment later Witch fired. Randall was not interested in his own blast or hers. His glasses were up, laid on the right-hand destroyer. Over or short, over or short... The refrain seemed to drum in his mind. In front of them all, the gunnery control officer as well as the captain, he had laid his judgement on the line.
Seconds passed. By now the six shells would be high up in the air, about to commence their downward run. Over or short? A Jap salvo landed. The enemy had not turned parallel to the Australian ships but was still coming on, firing only his forward guns, not a full broadside. That salvo landed short. Was it faulty range setting? Randall worried-or were even 5-inch guns still out of range? If so, he'd made a bloody fool of himself, in front of them all. Why the hell hadn't he listened to Bentley' He was a gunnery officer!
Bentley gave a wheel order and the ship swung to avoid the next fall of shot and Randall rode her heel with automatic ease; his glasses never left the right-hand target.
So that he saw. Brightly white against the blue the leaping columns showed-but only their tops, like the tips of asparagus stalks. The target hid the rest of them. Over!
Bentley swung on him. "Nice work, Number One," he said, and meant it. "You can go into rapid broadsides now."
"I've ordered that, sir," Randall croaked, and put up the binoculars again to cover the relief in his face.
He had won his point, but he was given no chance to show if he might win the battle. The R/T speaker crackled and on to Wind Rode's bridge sprang a tartly familiar voice.
"Clear my line of fire!"
The phrase was also familiar, and it meant precisely what it said. Randall had prayed for his shot to fall over. If they didn't get to hell out of there, fast, they stood an excellent chance of collecting other overs-from long-range 6-inch guns.
"Jesus!" someone said, while eyes scanned the horizon. There was nothing-nothing but the group of three Jap destroyers close together to the northward.
Of all the bridge team it was Bentley alone who did not waste time looking for the vehicle carrying that voice. But then he was the captain, he could afford no time whatever, and so he snapped:
"Cease firing! Hard-a-starb'd! Full power both engines! Yeoman!"
Never mind the signal... Benson, too, had a radiotelephone, and a pair of ears. He waited only for the direction of Wind Rode's swing, for the beginning of her swing, and then he was rapping his own orders.
Together, a few cables apart, both destroyers picked up their feet and ran like hell towards the sun.
As with Sainsbury's order, full power meant just that. McGuire gave her the lot, the whole forty thousand. The needle of the electric speed log was nudging 37 when Bentley looked to his right toward the north and saw that he was clear of the Jap group-and saw what a few minutes earlier it had hidden.
There she came, eight thousand tons of ferocious intent, leaping literally from the blue upon the astonished Japs, deck-high arches of spuming white flanking the grey of her body.
But not wholly grey. Several times a minute angry yellow flared against the basic colour, spewed out by the six big rifles on her forepart. Each of those shells weighed a hundred pounds and were flung at a muzzle velocity of nearly two thousand miles per hour. And radar aimed them.
"Holy hell," breathed Randall.
It was his target-or it had been. First there showed the leaping, smothering white, and then that, with shocking vehemence, was flung to nothing by the gargantuan spew of a magazine exploding.
Brief, black-and-yellow, the blaze was too stunning in its implication to surface exultation or cheers, or even grins. To see 200 men and 1400 tons of ship die so quickly, so fiercely, is not a pretty thing.
"Shift target," Randall muttered, more to himself, and in an oddly strained tone the yeoman called:
"Tempest turning to port, sir."
She was, and they all knew why. A few seconds of turning under hard-over rudder brought her full broadside to bear, all twelve main-armament guns.
They fired together. Unlike the Americans, the British have always stuck to controlled broadsides, as opposed to guns firing as soon as they were ready. Tempest was still a good way from Wind Rode, and from that distance the whole of her starboard side seemed one ripple of flame.
Her target was the second Jap ship in the line, the one which earlier had been in the middle of the three. Two broadsides were fired, twenty-four shells, and when the destroyer emerged from its forest of flung white it was seen that her bow hung down so low that the sea was lapping round the barbette of her forward mounting. As a fighting ship she was finished.
But she still floated, the red-balled ensign still flagged its defiance from the staff on the quarterdeck.
"Sir!" said Pilot, pointing.
Bentley followed his direction and understood at once. Whole and under full control, the third Jap was running fast toward the sun-toward Wind Rode and Witch. Clear, the two Australian ships had slowed their desperate rush. But in a few minutes they would be again in the line of fire.
"Hard-a-port, steer east," Bentley ordered. "Go on to thirty knots."
Just in time. ,They were heading back, about midway between the two Jap destroyers but south of them, when the sea leaped-in two different places.
"She's gone into divided control," Randall said.
Bentley nodded. Tempest rated two gunnery directors, the second one just abaft the mainmast and controlling both after turrets on the quarterdeck. Now her forward guns were engaging the crippled Jap, while the after triplets were fastened on the running one; six 6-inch to each target.
But Bentley made no comment on the obvious. His interest was concentrated on Tempest's efficiency, and more importantly her speed of despatch. His wireless office had been warned to listen for transmissions, and so far no report had come up, but there was still time for even the damaged ship to get off the information which would indicate so much to the Japanese High Command.
Then, suddenly, Bentley's interest was elsewhere concentrated. The third Jap was running no more-she had nothing to run with. The blast was not so huge as the first one, but her quarterdeck had been packed with depth charges, and these were more than enough. Now she had no stern.
But both enemy ships remained afloat. Tempest remained in action.
"Why aren't her destroyers firing?" asked a voice.
Randall's blood lust was up; in his eagerness he answered the voice.
"The destroyers are keeping out of it so their fire won't confuse her spotting. She has to correct on her own fall of shot. If there were other columns she might mistake them for her own, and make a wrong correction."
"Thank you, sir," said the surprised bosun's mate, whose questions had been addressed to the director phone number. But Randall didn't notice even then who he had answered so civilly.
Just at that moment, as if to give him the lie, the three destroyers with Tempest did open fire. But their target was the third, sternless Jap, while the cruiser returned her undivided attention to the ship with its bow hanging down like a broken jaw.
The sun was only a couple of degrees above the horizon when the job was finally done. The thunder muttered away to rest and the area of fouled sea was empty at least of ships. A thin voice, quite unexcited, told Witch to pick up survivors and Wind Rode's captain to repair on board.
"I know, I know," said Benson to Pilot's opening mouth. "This time it's us because we're closest. Well take the third ship first. Close the area at twenty knots. Number One, provide heaving lines and scrambling nets, and warn the surgeon. I want only the live ones inboard."
"Aye aye, sir."
"Port thirty," said Bentley, "close Tempest. Number One, away seaboat's crew. You have the ship."
"Aye aye, sir."
Witch went about her grisly task and Wind Rode hurried on to hers. The cruiser had dropped back to an easy fifteen knots, now steaming on the original course of north-west, and in a few minutes Wind Rode's rush brought her up level.
Sainsbury stopped. But about him three asdic-operating destroyers circled, shortly to be joined by Wind Rode. The seaboat was slipped.
"Out oars," said Billson, "give way together. Come on then- bend `em!"
With a captain on board and another watching, they did their best to break `em. After all the excitement Billson must have been feeling a bit light-headed, for he dared to say:
"Starb'd gangway, sir?"
Bentley himself was not feeling exactly depressed, and so he answered, deliberately literal:
"That Jacob's ladder will do. I think they've lowered it for me."
One crack was enough.
"Yessir," said Billson.
He slid the whaler alongside. Bentley jumped for the ladder and said over his shoulder:
"Return to the ship. Stand by for my signal."
"Aye aye, sir."
This suited Billson, and his five oarsmen, fine. Soon it would be night and they didn't relish having to wait all alone on a dark sea, even with a bloody great cruiser and five destroyers around them. Radar was good, but quite easily it could miss echoing from a boat with a freeboard of only a couple of feet...
It never occurred to Billson that there'd be no intention of leaving him to wait there-which would mean that a bloody great, and very valuable, cruiser would have had to wait with him. But then, though he was a good leading-hand and pom-pom layer, Billson never bothered to look much further than his freckled nose. He had officers to do that for him.
