J. E. MacDonnell - 021 Read online

  J E MacDonnell - 021 - The Coxswain

  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 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 wellbeing 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: 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. (* See The Surgeon)

  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 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 time, 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 mouthpiece of their requests and troubles, the knowledge-packed well of information and advice, was the small and weather-wisened 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-marshall. 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. "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:

  "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.

  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.

  "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.