Lieutenant Richard Kerr leaned under the chart table’s hood and switched on the small light. It was all so different after the Atlantic and Western Approaches, where a casual match or uncovered light could bring the hidden periscope swinging in your direction.
He peered at the chart and checked his watch. Five in the morning, the ship plunging and gently rolling in a slow quartersea. Kerr had been on watch for an hour.
Serpent had been at sea for three days, patrolling a huge rectangle one hundred miles long and fifty wide. A place without danger, or what they considered danger, and the work was boring and monotonous after the first thrill of excitement when they had entered Hong Kong. Back and forth, up and down. Showing the flag, warning off pirates and smugglers; part of Britain’s naval presence here, as it had been since the 1840s.
Like some of the others, Kerr had been shocked by the run-down in naval strength at Hong Kong. A few old destroyers, some equally ancient gunboats and a flotilla of M.T.B.s. Submarines, the aircraft carrier, even the crack Fifth Cruiser Squadron had been sent elsewhere, or sunk in the fiercely contested waters of the Mediterranean.
He heard Kipling chatting with the duty signalman. He seemed to feel more at ease with the ratings in the bridge team.
Kerr had ticked him off for expounding his own views on the situation in the Far East.
‘Like everywhere else! Old duffers who are still fighting Jutland – don’t have a clue about real war!’
The fact that he was probably right made it worse.
He stooped over the chart again and adjusted the dividers against the pencilled calculations of the morning watch so far.
Time to alter course again very soon. His thoughts drifted to the captain, in his hutch beneath the upper bridge. Brooke had been like someone else since they had made their landfall. The telling strain was gone, and he looked years younger. The shift of responsibilities, maybe. And Kipling had blurted out some fantastic story about a smashing Chinese girl who had been seen talking to Brooke at the buffet reception on the Peak. Perhaps she had something to do with it.
Kerr jotted down some notes and glanced at the place-name to the north of Hong Kong: Taya Wan, and in brackets beside it, Bias Bay. Out there somewhere beyond the black arrowhead of Serpent’s bows, with the endless mass of China sprawling beyond that. As a boy Kerr had enjoyed reading about the pirates of Bias Bay. He had never expected to be toiling up and down an invisible rectangle some thirty miles away from it.
It was hard to measure or visualise the internal war between the Chinese Nationalist Army and the invading Japanese. He had expected to find the people of Hong Kong nervous or apprehensive about it, but he had discovered nothing of the sort. The social round went on, and the only war that intruded was our war, somewhere else where men were dying for their country and ships went down with guns blazing in the tradition of Nelson.
He thought of Kipling again and smiled. Brooke had told him it was likely that Kipling would get his second stripe shortly, advanced with even more alacrity than usual by the Admiralty. He wondered why. Barrington-Purvis would not be pleased.
‘Char, sir?’
He took the hot mug and sipped it. He had hated the Atlantic. Was it possible to miss it now, in these untroubled seas?
He walked back and forth along the wooden gratings, which would soon be getting their morning scrub, and listened to the endless creaks and groans of the ship beneath him as she rolled along at her most economical rate of twelve knots. At speed she was something else, one of the Grand Fleet’s greyhounds, the envy of every would-be skipper. He smiled to himself. Like me. A quarter of a century of service. As the Chief had remarked with his usual defensive pride, ‘She’s just getting older, like the rest of us!’
Kipling’s pale shape moved out of the darkness.
Time to make peace again, Kerr decided. A sharp telling-off was one thing, but he never allowed grudges to build up.
‘Be dawn soon,’ he said. ‘Best time of the day.’
Kipling turned to look at him, and then his eyes seemed to light up like lamps.
‘What the hell!’ Kerr swung round and saw the light die in the black water, like blowing out a candle. Seconds later the thud, and it was little more than that, bounced off the hull like a hammer.
Kerr snatched up the handset, but before he could speak he heard Brooke snap, ‘I’m coming up!’
‘Anyone get a bearing?’
A boatswain’s mate called, ‘Fine on the starboard bow, sir!’
Brooke strode from the gate, his unruly hair blowing in the breeze coming over the screen.
‘Starboard bow, sir. One flash and an explosion. Not very big.’
Kipling said flatly, ‘About six miles, sir. A grenade.’
Brooke glanced towards him but saw only his pale outline.
‘Sound off action stations, Number One. I’m not getting involved in their war.’ He gestured towards the invisible mainland. ‘I’m not ignoring it either.’ He slung his glasses round his neck even as the alarm bells tore through the ship. After weeks of empty ocean, and their safe arrival in Hong Kong, this rude awakening would bring some stark memories to those who heard it. Was it just a fool’s paradise after all?
Kipling turned to leave the bridge but Brooke said, ‘No. You stay. I might need you.’
The voicepipes were chattering and being acknowledged while the bridge team changed round yet again.
‘Cox’n on the wheel, sir!’
The Gunner (T)’s rough voice: ‘Transmitting station closed up!’
‘Main and close-range weapons closed up!’ Barrington-Purvis, still very cut-glass despite his obvious irritation.
Kerr said, ‘Ship at action stations, sir.’
Lieutenant Calvert was polishing his binoculars and speaking softly to his yeoman by the chart table. He seemed very calm.
Brooke picked up his bridge microphone and pressed down the button.
‘This is the Captain. Sorry to get you out of your hammocks so early. We are investigating some vessel or vessels.’ He glanced towards Kipling and added, ‘A grenade was exploded.’
Kipling was so sure, when others less confident would have kept quiet. What kind of a war had he left to join Serpent?
He replaced the microphone and picked up the engine room handset.
‘Chief?’
‘Aye, sir.’ It sounded as though he had been waiting.
‘Bring her up to one-one-zero revs, but be ready to give all you’ve got. We have plenty of depth hereabouts . . .’
He saw the salt-smeared glass of the screen light up with a brief flash, then felt the explosion.
The Chief said sharply, ‘Ready when you are!’
Brooke thought of the men he commanded. They had seen and done it all. Depth-charge attacks, dive-bombers, sinking merchantmen, sailors screaming in the water as they had cut through them to detect a lurking U-boat. Crying for help when there was none, waiting for the depth-charges to explode. Ordinary men, gutted like raw fish when the charges found their set depth. They would be thinking of it now.
He raised his glasses as the deck levelled to the increased speed, and saw the creaming bow-wave churning away from the straight stem when earlier they had barely raised a ripple.
The sea was already opening up. It was surprising how quickly the dawn came.
Calvert said, ‘I got a fix on that last one, sir!’
‘Good. Do it.’
Brooke heard Calvert speaking to the wheelhouse, Pike’s muffled reply. Like the ship itself, each man was responding, an extension of his own ability, or lack of it.
‘Yeoman!’ He stopped himself in time. He had been about to snap his fingers as the same old tension took charge of his senses. As first lieutenant of Murray in a hard-pressed escort group, he had often been forced to the limit. And yet he had never forgotten one small incident when he had nervously snapped his fingers at a seaman on the bridge and turned in time to see the resentment on his young features. Only a single brushstroke of war. But he had not allowed himself to forget it.
Onslow lowered his glasses. ‘Sir?’
‘Pass a signal to the W/T office. To Commander-in-Chief repeated Admiralty. Our position is so-and-so . . .’ From one corner of his eye he saw Calvert scribble it on a signal pad. ‘Am investigating surface explosions.’
Kerr turned and saw Brooke’s tanned features split into a grin. ‘But tell W/T not to send it until I say so.’ He saw Kerr and added, ‘Otherwise they might interfere!’
Kerr watched the first milky daylight laying the ship bare and giving depth to the green water. A Chinese junk revealed herself, perched on her shadow, motionless, as if she were about to topple over as they surged past.
But Kerr was thinking of the captain’s last remark. Did Brooke know about the rift between himself and the previous captain, and why Greenwood had never put him forward for a command of his own?
The convoy had been a bad one, harried all the way by submarines, and then as they got closer to home the big Focke-Wulf Condors had joined in the uneven battle. Serpent’s lower decks, from stokers’ mess to wardroom, had been crammed with survivors they had managed to drag from the sea. Burned, blinded, choking on oil; they had been even beyond gratitude. Greenwood had snapped, ‘Discontinue the action and rejoin convoy, Number One.’
There had been one last freighter, sinking so slowly that they could see the survivors trying to launch a small raft. All the boats had been destroyed by the fatal torpedo.
‘What about them, sir?’
The merchant sailors had been staring at the destroyer. Their only hope.
Greenwood had climbed into his tall chair, the same one Brooke was holding on to now while the ship pushed ahead from the retreating darkness.
Kerr could still hear his answer. ‘We’ve made our gesture. Now do as I say and resume position and course.’
When he had looked again, Kerr had seen the men still standing by the remaining raft. One of them had actually waved as Serpent’s wash had rolled over them.
Kerr glanced inboard across the bridge and realised that Brooke was watching him. Crumpled shirt, hatless, and wearing the old plimsolls he usually kept in his hutch. But he could not have looked more like Serpent’s captain if he had been in full dress.
His words were almost drowned by the fans and the rattle of loose gear as he said, ‘Take it off your back, Number One.’ He gave a smile which afterwards Kerr remembered as being incredibly sad. ‘We’ve both been there, haven’t we? It’s not going to get any better.’
Barrington-Purvis’s voice rang sharply over the bridge intercom.
‘Control – Forebridge! Two vessels stopped, side by side at Green one-zero! Eight thousand yards!’
Even as he snatched up the red handset they all heard the distant roar of powerful engines, more like an M.T.B. than a coaster.
‘There she goes! Off like a bloody rocket!’
Brooke called, ‘Full ahead together, Chief!’ His mind only barely recorded Cusack’s curt acknowledgement and the clang of telegraphs from the wheelhouse.
What was it? Instinct? Probably nothing, or perhaps some modern pirate had pounced on an unsuspecting prey.
Onslow was saying, ‘Large fishing vessel.’ His voice was devoid of everything but professional interest. ‘I can just read her number.’ He spoke to his leading signalman, Railton. ‘Got it, Harry?’ Then he said, ‘Local boat, sir. Out of Hong Kong, Aberdeen most likely.’
The P.O. Steward, Bert Kingsmill, stepped carefully into the bridge, although his action station was in the sick bay. He was obviously feeling out of place, but he walked stiffly to the forepart and held out Brooke’s best cap with the new, gleaming badge.
‘They wouldn’t let me through to your sea-cabin, sir, so I fetched this for you.’
Calvert and Kerr watched as Brooke tugged the gleaming cap down on his tangled hair.
Another small brushstroke. One that these men who shared his life would all remember.
As the hastily lowered motor-boat hit the water and veered away from the ship’s side on the attached line, Kerr had to cling to the cockpit canopy in the heavy motion. The sea, which had looked so calm from the upper bridge, heaved and dipped around their small craft in deep, irregular troughs, and when he looked back at the destroyer he saw her frothing wash already mounting again as she appeared to begin another change of course.
The boat-rope was slipped and instantly the engine roared into full power, Macaskie, the boat’s coxswain, riding easily to the motion despite his weight and size.
Kipling was also one of the small boarding-party, although Kerr was not sure why.
The captain had merely said, ‘Take him with you. I imagine he’s done quite a lot of this sort of thing.’ He had found time to touch Kerr’s arm as he had scrambled from the bridge. ‘No risks, Number One. All right?’
The motor-boat was moving at her best speed, planing over the swell like a Cowes racer.
Kerr squinted through the spray and saw the big fishing boat drawing closer by the minute. Even she seemed much larger from down here.
Kipling released his grip with one hand to turn and stare at Serpent’s lean grey shape. She seemed to shine in the first sunlight, her pendant number, H-50, more silver than white in the glare. He saw that her twenty-millimetre Oerlikons were being trained round towards them as if to sniff after their progress.
Kerr shouted above the noise, ‘The boat’s been damaged! The grenades probably!’ He could smell burned wood and paint and see deep scars on her hull.
He had half expected Brooke to give chase after the powerful attacker, but even Serpent would not catch the boat in time to do anything. It might even have provoked an incident with the Japanese, if there were any of them nearby. The chart was marked as if the invading Japs had seized just about every piece of the coast near here, and Kerr realised for the first time how close they were to the New Territories and Hong Kong island itself.
Kipling said, ‘I suggest we board her from the opposite side.’
Kerr had to clear his thoughts to grapple with the comment.
‘What the hell for? We’ll lose sight of the ship!’
Kipling poked one of his teeth with a forefinger. He might even have shrugged, as if the whole thing was a waste of time.
But his words said the opposite. ‘Our gun crews won’t be able to fire with us in the middle. If they have to, of course.’
Kerr called to the coxswain, ‘Take her round, Macaskie!’
‘Aye aye, sir!’ He was careful to keep his heavy features impassive. But it would make a good yarn in the mess, how the scruffy subbie told Jimmy the One what to do.
They were so near now they could smell the diesel oil, and the clinging stench of fish.
Kerr cupped his hands. ‘Boat ahoy! This is the Royal Navy!’
The boat’s stoker nudged one of the armed seamen. ‘Better than a bloody film, eh, Teddy?’
There was no response and the fishing boat continued to drift, unmanned. Perhaps the attacking boat had kidnapped the crew on some pretext.
‘Slow ahead.’ Kerr readjusted the heavy webbing holster on his hip, and did not see Kipling’s wry grin.
‘You two stay in the boat!’ He felt the fisherman’s shadow rise over them. After the sun it was cold. Unnerving.
Macaskie said, ‘I think the old girl’s sinking, sir.’
‘What?’ Kerr stared at the hull’s filthy waterline. It did look lower in the water, or were things getting him down so much he couldn’t see straight? He seemed to hear Brooke’s voice again. It’s not going to get any better.
He said harshly, ‘Follow me! Grapnel!’
The boat’s engine died away as the bowman hurled his grapnel up and over the scarred bulwark, and Kerr was on the crowded, unfamiliar deck without any recollection of leaving the motor-boat.
His eyes took in the piles of nets, marker floats and other fishing gear. Nothing moved. There was an open hold and he saw what might have been the marks of a crowbar or jemmy where the covers had been forced off. The hold was empty. No catch this time. Maybe they were carrying something else?
He saw a child’s woolly coat hanging up to dry and remembered that Hong Kong fishermen often lived in these boats with all the members of their families.
Kipling peered into the hold. ‘She’s taking water, right enough. The grenades might have done it.’ He did not sound convinced. He glanced at the wheelhouse and the nearby hatch, which led to the crew’s or living quarters. ‘Shall I go?’
Kerr snapped, ‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘What’s the matter, man?’
Kipling did not raise his voice. ‘Can’t you smell it?’ When Kerr remained silent he spat it out. ‘Death!’
A glance at the apprehensive boarding party was enough to tell Kerr to take action.
‘Uncover your weapons.’ He stared across the water but Serpent’s outline was almost lost in a bank of drifting sea-mist.
Then, angrily, he dragged open the hatch and hurried down the ladder. The boat had been completely taken apart. Cupboards and boxes ripped open, contents scattered and broken on the deck. Menzies, a tough leading torpedoman who was in charge of the party, sniffed the unmoving air. Like a dog, Kerr thought.
‘Over here, sir!’
Kerr strode across the crew-space and swallowed hard as he saw the blood, mingling with water in the leaking hull.
‘What the hell’s been going on here?’
He saw a closed door, and with Menzies close behind him he kicked it open.
There were two oil lamps swinging from the deckhead: a poor light, but more than enough to reveal the horror which had visited this small place.
On a large wooden bunk against the curved hull were the bodies of two women. One was older than the other, probably mother and daughter. Both were naked. There was more blood on the bunk, and Kerr guessed that each of them had been raped many times: their contorted faces and savage bruises said something of their terrible ordeal. A small Chinese child lay dead in a corner.
Menzies was breathing hard and someone else was retching, unable to stop.
Kerr reached out and touched the girl’s skin. It was still warm. As he made to cover her he saw that both women had been stabbed between the legs.
He could feel the vomit hard in his throat. Any moment now, and . . .
Menzies exclaimed hoarsely, ‘Over there, sir! ‘Nother door!’
Kerr nodded. He was bitterly cold: it was like some deathly fever. He could scarcely move. The door probably led right forward, to the toilet arrangements and finally the chain-locker. How could he think so logically after what he had just seen?
He pushed open the door and stared down at another corpse. His wrists had been pinioned, and his body had been the source of all the blood in the cabin. He must have died under torture. But first he had been forced to watch the rape and brutal murder of his wife and family.
Something rolled across the deck, and one of the seamen gave a startled cry. The fishing boat was settling down.
He spoke between clenched teeth. ‘Go on deck and tell Burns to signal the ship . . .’
But Menzies was staring at the dead man’s mutilated face, his teeth bared like a snarl of defiance.
‘There’s another over there, sir.’ He tried to make light of it. ‘Covered him up to spare our feelings!’
Kerr thought of Brooke waiting and wondering at the delay. He must do something.
As Menzies groped over to uncover the body, the ‘corpse’ leapt to its feet, so that the seaman fell sprawling in the blood.
Kerr could not move. The man was squat and powerful, perhaps a pirate who had been trapped below when his boat had dashed away as Serpent had been sighted. He was staring at Kerr without appearing to blink; then he revealed the heavy-bladed knife, which was still black with blood.
Menzies rolled over and gasped, ‘Watch out!’
Two things happened in a second. The glass of a filthy skylight shattered overhead, and the crash of a shot exploded in the confined space like a bomb.
Kerr saw the man’s forehead burst open, and the bullet flung him down on to the mutilated corpse.
Feet pounded down the ladder and Kipling pushed through the door, one swift glance taking in the butchered women and the man he had just shot from above.
‘All right, Number One?’
‘You killed him.’ Kerr had to prop himself against the door as the hull rolled heavily around him.
Kipling thrust what looked like a heavy German Luger back into his belt, but his eyes remained on the corpse.
‘You know what it says in the good book, Number One? Don’t draw your gun unless you intend to use it. Well, I did, as it happened.’ He brushed past him, but paused to tap Kerr’s sealed holster. ‘If you see what I mean.’
Menzies was on his feet again, gasping in air like a partly-drowned man. ‘Jesus, I thought I was done for!’
Kerr watched Kipling as he stooped over the gaping corpse; he had shot him right between the eyes, and the back of his head had been blown out. Nevertheless he saw Kipling kick the blade from his fist before opening his jerkin to look for other weapons, his expression detached, only his thin nostrils dilating slightly to show what it was costing him.
A yell came from overhead, ‘Signal, sir! Recall!’
Somebody was being sick, and another gasped, ‘Thank Christ for that!’
Kerr made himself wait as Kipling slipped a few small items into his pockets.
He wiped his face with his forearm. ‘Oddly enough, I was thinking about pirates when I was on watch.’ He wanted to laugh, but knew he would not be able to stop.
Kipling straightened up. ‘There won’t be any charts or log books. We might as well clear out an’ let her go under.’ He stared at the naked women as if he needed to remember everything here.
Kerr released the door. ‘You saved my life just now.’
Kipling answered casually, ‘Worthwhile then, wasn’t it?’ He waited for Menzies to go and muster the boarders.
Then, when they were alone, he said, ‘He may look like a pirate, Number One, but he’s a Jap soldier. I hope our people know what they’re doing.’
They stood side by side on the listing deck and waited for the motor-boat’s engine to roar into life.
Kipling was very aware of Kerr’s distress. A true gentleman, he thought. Completely out of his depth in this sort of war.
‘Sea’s the best place for these poor sods.’ He pulled out the leather wallet he had taken from the dead man’s jacket. Details of his army service, no doubt. The Skipper’s brother would be interested in that, if anybody would listen to him.
He opened the wallet in the warm sunshine and saw the photograph of a young girl. Daughter or lover, sister or wife? She was not unlike the girl down in the cabin.
Kerr said, ‘I’ll tell the captain what you did. I’ll never forget it.’
He was thinking of the woman’s smooth skin under his fingers. How could anyone do that?
Kipling smiled. He was learning.
‘I know what I was taught, Number One. The quick and the dead. No third party allowed.’
As the motor-boat pushed off from the listing hull Kerr saw the ship slowing down again, men already lining the iron-deck ready to hoist it up to the davits. The Oerlikon guns were still trained towards the fishing boat. Serpent was, at that moment, the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
Kipling turned and looked back. The fishing boat was already raising her bows to the cloudless sky. Where were the other members of the crew, he wondered. Murdered and thrown overboard? Or were they in league with their attackers?
They might never know. Nobody would want to speak of it.
Kerr said, ‘What were they doing there in the first place? They know the risks of going so close to the mainland.’
What would he say if I told him? It might almost be worth it to discover.
Kerr was saying, ‘Oh – by the way, you should be getting your second stripe very soon.’
Kipling shaded his eyes and peered at the ship. Barrington-Purvis was climbing down from his control position. He grinned evilly.
‘Oh good. Mummy will be pleased!’
Kerr felt suddenly weary. Empty.
While the boat’s crew busied themselves hooking on to the falls, he stared back at the oily whirlpool where the fisherman had given up the fight.
Menzies said quietly, ‘Thanks, sir.’
Kerr asked, ‘For what?’
The leading hand looked at his ship alongside, the searching, anxious faces.
‘For gettin’ us home. That’s what.’
Kipling waited for Menzies to leave and then said, ‘I’d very much appreciate it if you forgot about the Luger, Number One.’
Kerr gripped his arm tightly. It had been a close thing.
‘What Luger?’
Even as the motor-boat’s dripping keel rose from the water alongside, the bridge telephones rang out and the surge of froth beneath the stern showed that the Chief’s hands had been itching to open the throttles.
It was as if the ship herself knew what had happened and shared the shame with those who had seen it. She was eager to go.
Kerr looked up at the bridge and saw Brooke silhouetted against the blue sky. Waiting for him.
‘When we get back to H.K. I’ll buy you the biggest drink you’ve ever had, Sub!’
But there was no reply. Kipling had melted away.
Just for an instant he recalled his attacker’s fixed stare as he had raised the bloodstained blade. He himself had not been able to move. At least he now had the chance to live with the realisation.
I was afraid.