"Bear off forrard," he said, relieved, "give way together."

  And this time also, even with no captain on board, they tried to break the oars on their way across that darkling water. Between them they rated about fifty years' service at sea; but this, being so intimately close, was a different sea altogether. They couldn't wait to get solid steel beneath their feet.

  Bentley had forgotten the whaler. Cowdray met him on deck. This was acceptably understandable, with the ship under way and the captain on the bridge. Bentley found Cowdray's conversation less acceptable.

  "What do you think now, sir?"

  The smile was slimy and the voice gloating.

  "About what, Number One?" queried Bentley, quickening his pace along the foretop deck.

  "Why, sir, our gunnery. I thought it excellent, just about perfect, in fact. But then, of course, you wouldn't be familiar with such a refined system of fire control, being used to destroyers."

  Bentley had served his time in a cruiser bigger than Tempest, and rating a first-class fire control system, but he wouldn't talk of that to this septic specimen. He glanced sideways at him. Why did Sainsbury put up with those silly bloody side-levers? With the effeminate clown who wore them, for that matter? But the old boy had given him the answer to that.

  "Oh, I see. Yes, your gunnery-officer did a first-class job," said Bentley pointedly.

  The shot seemed to have hit home; anyway, Cowdray did not speak again until on the bridge he said:

  "Captain Bentley, sir."

  Sainsbury' turned. "Evening, Captain. Be with you in a moment."

  He gave orders which got the group under way again at 20 knots in its regular formation, this time with Dalziel in the van, and others which told Benson to rejoin as soon as his rescue job was completed, giving his group's course and speed.

  Bentley smiled to himself at those last instructions Witch had been left alone in the night before; that rescue job would be clewed-up in double quick time.

  Then Sainsbury said to the officer of the watch, "Sea-cabin," and he took his visitor below.

  "Coffee, Peter?"

  "With pleasure."

  It was ready. Sipping, looking at Bentley over the rim of his cup, Sainsbury said:

  "Well, my boy, what do you think now, eh?"

  "Good Lord, not you too!"

  "I beg your pardon?" Then, understanding, Sainsbury added: "Oh, I see." And added, from that vinegary grin: "I could have him appointed to Wind Rode, you know."

  "Sure. And one dark and stormy night I could have him lowered over the side on a piece of very thin string. But to return."

  "Yes, let's," suggested the senior officer.

  Bentley knew the subject of Cowdray was closed. He gained no displeasure from that.

  "I don't think I've seen better gunnery," he said sincerely. "Unless it's Dutchy Holland's marvel of electronics, which I haven't seen in gun action. Nor, by the way, have I seen a more hoggish captain. We could have finished off that third Jap."

  "No doubt. But time, my lad, time. Did you pick up any radio transmissions?"

  "None."

  "Excellent. I imagine those captains were a mite too busy to concern themselves with the implications of a group such as ours."

  "That could be true," Bentley grinned.

  "Hmmm. Actually, though I did not mention it at our last meeting, those destroyers were the specific objective of this patrol. I rather expected to find them, on their way to having another try at Seeadler Harbour."

  So had Bentley; it was this possibility about which he had alerted Craven before sending him to the masthead, thus giving him the psychological advantage of knowing what to look for. Bentley said: "Yes, sir."

  It was unwise to cap a senior captain's joke; it was damned stupid to boast that your predictions were as accurate as his.

  But Bentley wasn't as good an actor as he thought he was. There was something in his tone that had Sainsbury glancing at him shrewdly. Yet the senior man was pleased, not offended; and as much at Bentley's circumspection as at his correctness of prediction. And at something else.

  "He was right," Sainsbury murmured absently. "I did train you."

  Bentley squinted at him. "Of course you did. What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Just thinking aloud. Now, Peter, you really think Tempest's gunnery is first-class?"

  "You're kidding!"

  Sainsbury laid down his coffee cup with a gentle tap.

  "Really, old chap, must you use those American colloquialisms? 1 know you have mixed with them a good deal lately, but while we have accepted their code of signalling-mainly because they found it too difficult to use that of the Royal Navy-I see no reason why we should accept their language."

  "Some of their terms are pretty catchy." Bentley smiled. "And listen. Many of `em are ye pure olde English, taken across in the Mayflower from Chaucer and Shakespeare."

  "Is that so?"

  "Sure thing."

  "Harumph, However, the subject is gunnery."

  "I thought we'd covered that? Tempest admittedly lobs `em where they're supposed to lob-which means she has a good control system, good radar, a good gunnery officer and, of course, a good captain."

  "Thank you," he was answered drily. "With all that admitted, perhaps we may now proceed to the main reason why I called you on board."

  "Which is?"

  "My plan of action in future."

  Interest, not to mention self-preservation, drove Bentley's grin away. This was serious business.

  "Yes, sir?" He leaned forward a little.

  "You know how naval war is. Tempest has not been in action for some time. I really wanted those destroyers, Peter. You understand?"

  Bentley nodded. Maybe "needed" was a better word. As if to make sure his protege understood, Sainsbury went on:

  "I wanted them for the obvious reasons, of course, but more than that, to test if my gunners could do in action what for so long they've been able to do only at drill. Today I got my answer."

  "So did the Japs."

  "And so have you. Now you know why I hogged, as you put it, most of the action to myself."

  "Fair enough."

  "Thank you. And now to my action plan. In fu..."

  "Why not stick to today's operation? God knows it worked bloody well."

  Bentley was reminded of the lapse in his normal circumspection when, with a slight drawing together of his brows, Sainsbury ignored him and went on:

  "In future, in the event of sighting an enemy force comparable to those destroyers, or any force we can expect to handle, today's plan of operation will be repeated. I had been working on the idea for some time, but today was the first chance vouchsafed me of implementing it. With, as you remarked, God-known success."

  Oh, my Lord, Bentley thought-vouchsafed... But:

  "It's a good idea, sir," he said penitently. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's foolproof. Congratulations."

  Sainsbury winced.

  This may strain your credulity-unless, of course, you have been with us so long as to have voyaged with Bruce Thornton before- but beneath that acidulous and school marmish exterior there lurked, to coin a phrase, a subtle, extraordinarily perceptive and, perhaps most hard-to-believe of all, a really quite amiable nature. As well, Captain Sainsbury had not always worn four rings; once, indeed, he had been so low down in the scale of rank as to find himself ashore with, and to have his vocabulary greatly enlarged by, such ineffable characters as Petty-officer Hooky Walter, Petty-officer Dave Hobden, and Petty-officer Pop Barr. It had been a wonderful and instructive night-he'd finished up drinking bottled beer with them in Skeleton Park; which, on entering it, he had been astonished to find was a most unusual place for drinking beer.

  Perceptive, amiable, and strangely vocabularised... Now, in answer to his visitor's last words, Captain Bruce Thornton Sainsbury offered proof of those qualities.

  "Peter," he said pleasantly, "get up off your goddamn belly. If there's one thing that gives me the torn-tits it's a suckholing bastard. At piling up points you're as handy as a cow in a spit-kid. Now pack up all that mundungus and tell me what you really think of my plan."

  Bentley's jaw sagged slowly open. His eyes popped like organ stops.

  "Well I'm buggered," he said weakly.

  "Probably. Is that all you have to say?"

  "No. I'm bloody sorry."

  "Thank you."

  "Sorry that I said it was a good idea!"

  "You don't think it is?"

  "Of course I do. I said I was sorry I said it was. Suckhole! The say I suck up to you will be the day!"

  "You just did," he was reminded gently.

  "Why, you cunning, sneaky old..."

  "Captain..."

  A deep slow, breath. "Yes sir."

  "More coffee, my boy?"

  "I wouldn't take a drink of water!"

  "And no doubt you wouldn't fart in my face if I were gasping for breath?"

  Bentley leaned forward across the table. "Where in God's name," he said to that prim face, "did you learn language like that?"

  "The source does not matter, though in point of fact," Sainsbury returned to his normal delivery, "part of the source is presently resident in your own command. However, the plan of operation."

  Sainsbury lit a cigarette and Bentley said:

  "But damn it all, I know the plan. I was there, remember?"

  "And, dear boy, 1 remember your impetuousness, which seems not have mellowed in the least over the years."

  Bentley gave a sudden grin-remembering the way a certain cruiser had come leaping, very much unmellowed, upon those destroyers.

  "You find my comment humorous?"

  "Not at all, sir. I was thinking of something else. Please go on."

  "Very well. As I was saying, or meant to say before I was so rudely interrupted, you do not know the whole of the plan. As amended, that is."

  "Oh?"

  "There will be one change. We owe a fair deal of luck to the fact that the Japanese ships did not sight my higher topmasts. It is a risk we must obviate. In future, Wind Rode's station will be two miles further ahead than at present. You follow me?"

  "Yes. But from that far ahead you won't be covered by my asdic. We, er, obviate one risk and make another."

  "Quite so. But we have to accept that. In any case, I believe it highly unlikely that a submarine commander would even think of taking on a group such as ours."

  This was the belief of a man who in one day in the Atlantic had sunk four U-boats. It was a belief you accepted.

  "Yes, sir," said Bentley, "two miles further ahead."

  He checked his watch-thinking that they could have been wrong about the scouting intentions of those three destroyers; it was just possible that they could have been scouting far ahead for a cruiser squadron, which could be on an approaching course.

  "If there's nothing else, sir?" he suggested.

  Unfortunately there wasn't, Sainsbury was thinking as he saw and interpreted Bentley's watch checking. He had greatly enjoyed this little tete-a-tete, because at any time a captain is a lonely man, and in this powerful new ship, though he had a good and disciplined team of officers, Sainsbury was especially lonely-for just over there, where this friend was going, so close and so far, were most of the other friends he had made in the Service. He knew them so well, having commanded them for so long...

  But though a squadron captain may be a man of sentiment, even of compassion, he cannot appear to be, unless under unusual and safe conditions; under the conditions obtaining here he must indeed, appear to be nothing but a stern, disciplined and devoted destroyer of his country's enemies.

  Crisply, Sainsbury said

  "No, Peter, that's all. I'll have your boat signalled. You'll excuse my not coming down to see you over the side?"

  "Of course."

  They stood up. But Bentley was also a captain, and thus knew something of loneliness. And neither was Sainsbury as good an actor as he imagined himself to be.

  There was no need for it, of course, with a junior captain leaving his senior to travel a few hundred yards; so that Sainsbury was surprised, and quite failed to cover it, when Bentley held out his hand.

  Sainsbury took it, feeling the warmth in the grip's strength.

  "Goodnight, sir."

  "Goodnight. Peter."

  The cabin door closed. Sainsbury was still looking at it, blinking a bit, when the steward came in from his pantry to clear the coffee things away. Until the day he died that poor steward would never know why, when Sainsbury caught his curious look, he was snappishly ordered to "Get the devil out of here!" If a cat can look at a king... But then the steward was used to captains of all habits and natures, and after he had said a few choice words to his mate in the pantry he forgot the incident.

  Back on his bridge, so did Sainsbury.

  Back on his bridge, Bentley's curiosity was still alive. He saw the seaboat hoisted, got the ship under way, and then he said:

  "Torps."

  "Sir?" answered the officer of the watch.

  "Chief bosun's mate on the bridge, please."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  It was well after full dark by now, with the moon not risen, and Chief Petty-officer Walker could pick out the captain only by his bulk and his position on the sacrosanct stool in the sacrosanct starboard forward corner of the bridge. By reason of the fact that his right hand was steel instead of flesh and bones, the Buffer was the only man in the Royal Australian Navy excused saluting. A huge man, larger by far than Bentley, he stood to attention beside him and said:

  "You send for me, sir?"

  "At ease, Hooky."

  Hooky, was it? the big fellow pondered as he spread a pair of legs like tree trunks to counter Wind Rode's roll: she was at speed to regain her van position. What's all this lot about?

  Bentley gave him the first clue.

  "You've known Captain Sainsbury a long time, haven't you?"

  So it was old Bruce Thornton, eh? Hooky hoped to hell there'd been no nastiness between them over in Tempest. Along with messmates like Jack Rennie and Saunders the gunner's mate, those two captains were the men he respected most in his circumscribed world. He said:

  "Yes sir, quite a while."

  "How long? Before Scimitar and Wind Rode?"

  "Hell yes, long before that." The hook scratched tentatively behind one ear. "Come to think of it, we were in the old Aussie together, well before the war. After that I think he went to a kipper battleship, and I sorta lost touch until we met again in the boats." Hooky chuckled. "Funny thing, sir, but I used to wonder about him, in that battler I mean."

  "Oh? Why?"

  "Well, he's... well, y'know, he's not exactly what you might call a big bloke. In those days he was even skinnier than he is now. Though the face hasn't changed all that much," Hooky said reflectively.

  "Matter of fact- though I reckon you know this anyway-we used to call him Aunty. Jesus, some old aunt he turned out to be! Ah, sorry, sir."

  "That's all right. But what about this battleship?"

  "Oh, yeah. Well, being so small, y'know, I used to think that in a great ship like that he'd be about as handy as a cow in a spit-kid, if you get what I mean."

  "Ah..." said Bentley.

  "Come again, sir?" "Just thinking of your expression. Hooky, just thinking. It is very expressive, don't you think?"

  "I suppose so," Hooky said doubtfully.

  "In station, sir," said Torps.

  "Very well. That cruiser, now, the Australia. I don't imagine you remember... no, it must be too long ago."

  "Nothing wrong with my memory, sir. I can still draw you a diagram of all the watertight doors in my first ship, and that was one of the old V and Ws. the Aussie? A cinch. What d'you want to know?"

  "Nothing about the ship, actually," said Bentley, who had served in her. "But do you remember ever going ashore with an officer?"

  Hooky's laugh was deep and full of reminiscence. "Do I! Only once, except for a couple of times with you and the Jimmy in the old days, but she was one hell of a humdinger pissy run, believe... Hold on a minute. Didn't you ask me something like this once before, years ago?"

  "Not that I recall," Bentley answered truthfully.

  "Oh. Musta been something else, then. Anyhow, what do you want to know about this for "now? The three of us were senior petty-officers, captains of tops in fact, and he was only a green subby. We had one hell of a good night, but there was no harm in it, sir. You know that. I reckon it did him a lot of good, matter of fact, seeing how the other half lives, sorta thing. Anyhow, all that night, no matter where we was, in the pub or the Stardust cabaret, even in Skeleton Park where we clewed-up afterwards with a dozen bottles, he never stopped asking questions. I mean, things about matelots, how they thought and felt about the Andrew, thinks like that. Regular quiz session it was. Yes, sir. I reckon that young subby learned a lot that night."

 

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