J. E. MacDonnell - 028, page 8
A remembered stir of interest moved in me. We'd heard of these famous dancers though normally they seemed to perform further west in Algiers and Tangier. And then it would be a tourists' show. This, here, should be the unexpurgated version...
"Thanks, cobs." Cocky accepted gracefully, "we'll be in it."
Ten minutes later we breasted a ridge, white in the radiance of the new-risen moon, and saw below an oasis of silent palms, their leaves still, hanging like forged silver in the moonlight.
In the centre, like some fabled tower, rose the white spire of a mosque. Around, on all sides, lay the furrowed expanse of illimitable desert, shining, waiting, still. It was a picture to catch the breath. Slowly, we walked down.
Passing through the outer circle of palms we came to a courtyard surrounded on three sides by walls of the mosque, and lit by flaming torches in sconces upon them.
Arabs in white robes crouched and squatted on the ground smoking their narghiles. Most of them hardly looked up as we entered the palms, but an old man with a long white beard saw the sheikh and nodded and smiled to us.
On a glowing fire stood a copper kettle with bubbling hot water, and an old Negro was making coffee for the Arabs. On the wall on one side of the court a cloth was hung up, of fine brocade, with golden embroidery, on a ground of red and yellow, in fantastic arabesques.
Many cushions were spread on the fine white sand. The Arabs themselves sat on closely-woven yellow mats. At a respectable distance from the men, girls stood and lounged about, lovely, youthful forms with veil-like robes and countless copper ornaments on arms and legs, which tinkled at their slightest movement. All were sipping coffee out of tiny cups. The sheikh whispered:
"When the moon passes the tower."
We were interested in neither moon nor tower. Our eyes went back to those girls, the respectable distance... I remembered something about the strict moral code of followers of the Prophet, and wondered if this might not be a bit tame after all. We had been some weeks at sea, for all practical purposes we still were, and we were not feeling moral...
Suddenly a girl appeared from the arched doorway of the tower. She walked with measured steps, draped in a white fabric that sheathed her supple body in diaphanous and mouth-drying folds, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments.
She carried her head high. She had dainty little slippers of soft hide on her feet, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of gold beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step.
She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent. There was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress; something of the haunting mystery of the moonlight night about her.
She came abreast of us, stood still, and faced us. I heard Cocky's breath hiss in. From her body there was borne a suggestion of perfume, essentially Eastern, strangely exciting.
The moon, like a golden slice of melon, emerged from above the parapet of stone. Her long shadow fell to our feet. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. Fascinated, the Arabs and other women stared at her. Still. Absolutely still.
The girl let the thin veil of a garment she was wearing fall down to her hips. She stood immobile as a statue, her arms stretched out, the head thrown proudly back, bare, taut torso gleaming bronze in the moonlight, her eyes shining in triumph-courting admiration.
Very slowly, the girl of the desert began to dance. The delicate veil swayed and waved in ever-changing folds around her body of pure copper colour. Her dancing was wondrously graceful, it was beautiful beyond dispute. A strange scene it was, enhanced by the play of light and shadow among the palms, and the heavy, sweet smells of unknown perfumes.
We stared in wonder at the dancing of this girl, and the peerless rhythm of her movements. Faster grew the dance, the swinging and circling and posing.
Suddenly, she seized one of the torches and swung it in bright, broad circles round her head. The firelight fell with its ruddy glow on her shining hair of black-blue. The hissing torch seemed to be enveloped in the flying veil; the gauzy skirt lifted until it was a horizontal whirl. That robe was all she was wearing.
Even faster grew that mad, abandoned whirling. My brain seemed to reel with the furious tempo of the dance. She must stop...
Abruptly, after a final lightning circle of the torch, the girl stopped, her arms held high, her legs wide apart. The skirt dropped slowly. For a full minute she held that attitude, absolutely still, only her naked bosom heaving. Then, as suddenly as she'd stopped, she pitched forward on the sand, exhausted. A low growl of applause rose from among the Arabs. Cocky and I, bemused, rose up and slipped away through the silent palms, up the white slope. The boat was waiting.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOME FAMOUS DESTROYERS
A NAVAL MAN in war knows the efficiency and battle-worthiness of every ship in the fleet as well as the form-follower knows the pedigree and performances of last year's Cup winner.
So, although you perhaps have never heard of H.M. Destroyer Duncan, we know she was the ship who sent five U-boats to the bottom of the Atlantic in one convoy during those three months when "Ninety U-boats, an average of one a day, were destroyed."
To close with the enemy, regardless of the odds, has always been the accepted course of action in the British Navy. And though the name Electra may mean nothing to you, to us it means the memory of a single British destroyer speeding to meet an overwhelming force of two Japanese cruisers and four destroyers, A-gun firing to starb'd, B-gun engaging to port.
I have a friend who served aboard Duncan-he is now on another destroyer attached to this fleet-who was aboard that epic trip, when no man bathed or changed his clothes for twenty-five days; it took too long to dress to man your gun in the freezing cold.
He told me of those dark, wintry nights.
The night was dark and rough.Duncan plunged through the murk, to starb'd a long line of dim shapes bulking against the horizon. To port, distant about ten miles, another convoy drew level on its way east to Britain.
The wind was blowing across from it, and suddenly to the ears of the muffled figures on Duncan's bridge came a sullen boom. Far away over the tumbling sea a tongue of flame licked up, then died. They all knew what it meant. The U-boats were striking.
Then the radio-telephone speaker on the chart table crackled. A voice broke out. It was the commodore of the convoy, talking to his escorts.
"There has just been a big flash behind me." A second or two, while the bridge officers stood waiting, then:
"That flash was the frigate Itchen."
So began a new phase of the U-boat war-the plan to send the escort ships down first, then slaughter the merchantmen at will.
There were no survivors from Itchen; the night was dark, it was too rough to lower boats, and pure madness to linger near the spot with that pack watching and waiting.
There was one consolation, dubious as it might be-those men struggling in the dark wouldn't have to wait long. The water was freezing cold, and it takes not much more than three minutes of immersion to paralyse the heart muscles.
The convoy steamed on.
Next day it was evident that the U-boats had picked up and trailed Duncan's convoy. The rear ship of the port wing suddenly erupted into a soaring pillar of flame and black smoke.
She was a tanker. Duncan at once turned to port and increased to full speed. In five minutes her asdic gear had established a firm contact with an underwater object, "length of contact three hundred feet, moving left to right, bearing dead ahead."
The destroyer nosed down her asdic beam like a bloodhound on the trail, depth charge crews ready with their tackles to swing the next pattern of three-hundred-pound canisters into position as soon as the first lot went.
And soon they did. With practised and savage skill the captain had brought his ship right above the diving submarine, caught a nod from his A/S officer, and spoke to the rating on the release levers.
The charges were set to explode above, below and on either side of the steel cylinder. Pattern after pattern went over, each multiple explosion thudding against Duncan's plates with the clang of a giant hammer. Then they ceased. The destroyer nosed round, seeking.
They smelled the oil even before they saw it, a pungent tang. Then the white creaminess of the sea was turned a dirty brown as it seeped up through.
But oil wasn't nearly enough. A cunning U-boat commander could release oil through a torpedo tube. Duncan carried a secret weapon aboard her for antisubmarine use, a terrible machine, which had not before been used against them. Now the captain decided to try it.
Still maintaining asdic contact, the ship moved down on the wounded submarine at a fast, clearing speed. There was a large splash as the thing went over the side. Seconds passed. Duncan thrust on, straining now to get her tender stern as far clear as possible.
They watched. They saw the sea astern, over a breadth of nearly a hundred yards, heave up. The sea fell back. It seemed to gather itself for an enormous effort. Then it geysered skyward in a rushing, thunderous roar! The ship's stern was punched bodily out of the water, then crashed down again.
Once more she steamed slowly back over the still rolling sea.
With another destroyer circling round, it was judged safe to lower a boat, to collect "evidence." The whaler pulled away, with my friend in the bows as scavenger.
The sea was littered with hundreds of pieces of woodwork, but all very small, about the size of half-a-crown. The submarine must have been shattered to pieces.
Floating also in the debris were dozens of spongy objects. These, collected in a bucket, were recognised by the ship's surgeons as lungs, torn or forced from men's bodies by the awful power of the explosion.
The surgeon, examining one pair in the waist of the ship, said with complete and clinical seriousness:
"These belonged to a man living in a confined space."
"Which," grinned my friend, "we all thought very clever of him."
When Duncan rejoined the convoy it was found a part of her radio gear was damaged, so arrangements were made for a spare part to be flown from base and dropped by parachute from a Sunderland.
The destroyer hauled out of line well to the northward, outside the U-boat path, and waited for her plane. The Sunderland arrived all right, with a Morse light flashing urgently from her side:
"Submarine surfaced ten miles bearing 240."
Duncan acknowledged and went up to full speed.
It was dark when she got there, but the unfailing asdic soon had him. The same method of attack-move down the beam, shower of charges from throwers and rails, both sides, then the search. This bloke managed to reach the surface and discharge his crew before settling back into the deep slime. Duncan came slowly up, passing through a group of swimming men, and then:
"We saw a weird sight. Half of the Jerries were dead, floating on their backs. The red lights on their life-jackets were burning, shining into their faces. Open mouths, frozen faces. It was horrible. Until we remembered Itchen."
Two prisoners were picked up, then the destroyer was on her way, for U-boats seldom operate in less than pairs.
One German was a petty-officer, the other a leading-stoker. The latter was quite good at making duffs, and two days after he was picked up, when feeling a bit cockier than he had been, he placed a nicely-browned apple tart on the stokers' mess table, then stood back arrogantly with his arms crossed.
On the crust of the tart, made with left-over pastry, lay a large swastika.
But the sailors laughed at him. Instead of the abuse he had hoped to surface, and braced himself to bear, he heard grunts of approval as the stokers hoed into his tart, swastika and all, demolishing it with something of the same efficiency as they'd applied to his late address.
Next day an Australian-manned Liberator swept out of a cloudbank, circled the convoy, then headed for the north on offensive patrol. A few minutes later Duncan received a W/T message to the effect that she was attacking a surfaced U-boat with depth bombs.
"Would like help."
Duncan turned to oblige. My friend got the story from the five Australians they picked up. The aircraft had swooped in to attack, and was met by a hail of bullets and cannon shells. These weapons were not secret, but most effective. The big plane made a target the German gunners couldn't miss, and she was badly mauled.
But she got her bombs away, and the submarine was lifted partly out of the water. The pilot had time to see her turn turtle before his own plane skidded into the sea.
Some weeks later it was announced in the newspapers that U-boats in the Atlantic were now equipped with anti-aircraft armament. Two Australian airmen paid the price for this knowledge.
The rest of the trip out was comparatively uneventful, except that one destroyer would have to remain in America some weeks. A sister ship of Duncan's, she sighted a U-boat surfaced near the horizon. Increasing to twenty-eight knots, she altered course towards it.
Her engines had just reached the ordered revolutions when another U-boat surfaced just ahead! The captain had time to shout "Hang on!" before the driving bow caught the submarine square amidships.
"The Jerry slid along her hull almost to the asdic dome. Then he dropped off. They gave him a couple of charges just for luck, though it wasn't needed. But it was a bit of a disappointment to see the other bastard get away," my friend told me.
Apparently, the destroyer's nose looked very much like a shark's when they got her into dock. They picked up the return convoy off the dim line of coast, formed them up, and headed back for home. Half the distance was covered before the old routine started again.
This time the oil gushed up in a swirling mess, with a clearly defined trail leading away from it. The destroyer followed leisurely, sitting right on top of him. On the bridge the captain leaned over the side of the bridge, blowing through his cupped hands and staring down at the fouled water.
"Look at the stupid clot," he said, disgustedly. "Why the hell doesn't he sneak back and lie under the big patch?"
Then, turning to the first-lieutenant, he decided:
"I think we'll have the stokers' depth charge crew up, Number One. Give `em some practice."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The stokers got their practice, and the German got a bellyful of amatol.
The Englishman was silent for a bit, his face reflective.
"You mightn't believe this one," he said at last, "but it's true. I saw him myself. A U-boat had got through the screen and was somewhere smack in the middle of the convoy. We dashed in and out like a blue-arsed fly looking for the cheeky mongrel. I was on the bridge beside the signal yeoman, when he pulled my arm. I looked at him. His mouth was open, wide open, but he couldn't speak- only point down.
"I leaned over and looked. Then I yelled! Directly below, not a dozen feet from the ship's side, and travelling along with us, was that Jerry's periscope. It was trained on a big tanker abeam. Underneath you could see the conning tower plain as your hand. Pretty lines of water flowing away from it. Very pretty. Eh? Oh yeah- we let go with everything. That tanker got home that trip."
He stopped again, shaking his face along the knuckle of his finger. He grinned, lopsidedly. "D'you know the skipper of that tanker went through his hoops because a photo of his wife and kids was smashed down from his cabin wall by the blast from our charges. Some nasty words, he said."
"Yes, but the sub.?"
"Oh, him? We claimed him as a probable. It wasn't too healthy in there, looking around for signs." The rest of the trip, "apart from the flippin' weather," was without recordable incident. Here are some extracts from captain's Standing Orders, dealing with that weather:
"All guns are to be trained, laid, and all moving parts moved through their full limits every ten minutes to prevent freezing. "The morning watch, stand-fast depth charge crews, is to be employed before breakfast in chipping ice from the upper-deck and main armament.
"No man is to remove his clothing for bathing or turning in. If hammocks are slung, men are to sleep fully dressed."
These are the clothes worn to keep out the biting cold when closed-up, perhaps for hours, at exposed gun positions, Underpants, half an inch thick, three pairs of woollen socks, then a long pair of seaboot socks, under the seaboots themselves. On the body, a heavy woollen singlet and two big jerseys, followed by the ubiquitous duffle coat.
On one patrol Duncan was twenty-five days at sea, out of which one day was logged "calm." Halfway through the men were on corned beef and rice, with ship's biscuits in lieu of bread.
Maybe that doesn't sound much of an ordeal, till you remember that a destroyer is only three hundred and fifty feet long, carries more than two hundred men in that length, possess no recreational facilities whatever, and in the slightest bit of a lop at speed cavorts and plunges like a stung horse.
