Esmond Brooke walked slowly along the Serpent’s darkened iron-deck, seeing the three funnels and upperworks lit up by the bright flashes of gunfire from across the harbour.
Beneath his shoes he could feel the nervous tremble of machinery, as if the ship could sense the danger like an animal catching the scent of blood.
There was little noise from the harbour itself although Brooke knew there were hundreds of small craft going back and forth, picking their way through the cemetery of wrecks, any one of which could tear out a boat’s keel and spew its human cargo into the fast-moving water.
But his seamen could still joke about it, even in the face of disaster.
You couldn’t drown in this harbour, you’d die of poisoning first! he had heard one wag say.
The evacuation of the last mainland troops was under way. Separated from their units, some without supervision or proper leadership, they had flooded down to the Kowloon docks in fear and in desperation.
Brooke had heard how some of the soldiers had lurched from bar to bar, beyond caring for discipline or purpose. Dunkirk had been an orderly disaster. This was a rout.
‘We goin’ to be all right, sir?’
Brooke paused and looked at some men by the motor-boat’s davits. They would not need the skimming-dish now – Serpent was linked to the buoy, the land, only by her slip-wire. Raring to go, as the Chief had said.
‘We’ll do our best, lads.’ He had explained it to them as well as he could. Why they must leave the harbour and head around to the south-west, to the other dockyard at Aberdeen. In all this confusion it was hard to know if it sank in.
The finality of it had been marked by the old wooden depotship H.M.S. Tamar. Lying at her buoy, she had been stripped of her equipment and confidential files and prepared for scuttling. The Ark, so familiar to servicemen and civilians alike. It would seem like part of a betrayal.
Before dusk he had been to see Captain Granville again, this time in a damp, airless cellar that stank of the harbour just yards beyond the walls. Occasionally the building had quaked to bombs in the city, and dust and plaster had filtered over Granville’s maps and signals.
He had told Brooke that the destroyer Islip would be arriving at Aberdeen in a day or so. She was using her radar to make a more secretive approach and avoid enemy patrols. All those who were to be evacuated would be put aboard her. Eventually they would leave in the dark, again using the incredible eyes of Islip’s radar.
Lian was already at Aberdeen with several officers’ wives. Brooke would make certain she left with the others. It was her only chance.
When he had seen her at the hotel her determination to be brave in front of the other women had moved him deeply. Now, as he climbed to the bridge, he paused to touch the little gold dragon medallion which she had put around his neck. ‘It is mine, my dearest love. I will take it off you when we are together again. It will keep you safe.’
He glanced into the darkened wheelhouse where Pike and his telegraphsmen and a boatswain’s mate were standing together, waiting for the order to move.
‘All right, Swain?’
Pike nodded his massive head. ‘Good as gold, sir.’
His eyes flashed in a burst of firing from across the water. The boats were still going back and forth, feeling their way. Exhausted soldiers, and many wounded – what would become of them?
Pike looked at him. ‘Don’t worry, sir.’ He touched the motionless wheel. ‘She won’t let us down!’
Up and on to the open bridge. After the cellar and between decks, it felt surprisingly clean and cool.
Kerr was careful to stay in the forepart of the bridge, away from Kipling and Barrington-Purvis. The latter was in white shirt and shorts whilst Kipling had changed into his shabby khaki. A mixed pair. Brooke had hated having to ask them. But there was nobody else.
‘I can’t order you two to stay behind.’ He looked at their faces as they lit up in the distant gunfire. ‘You will rejoin the ship at Aberdeen when you have finished here, right?’
Kipling said, ‘Won’t take long, sir. I knew those bastards would be here sooner than we were told.’
There was no need to contradict him. They had been assured that the army would be able to hold a line of sorts for a week, maybe two. The Japanese would be over there tomorrow, three days after invading the New Territories. It was incredible.
Barrington-Purvis said, ‘I’m to take charge of the base party who will assist us, sir?’ Like a new pupil repeating a lesson. Very calm, perhaps dangerously so, but equally determined.
Kipling must have been smiling under the sudden curtain of darkness.
‘Tell you one thing, sir, old Tamar won’t sink. The demolition boys haven’t taken those extra deck-houses into account. They’ll keep her afloat like buoyancy bags!’ He held up his luminous watch. ‘Never mind. I’ve got a bit of gear that’ll do the trick.’
Surprisingly, he held out his hand. ‘In case we don’t make it, sir. Been nice knowing you.’
Barrington-Purvis said quietly, ‘I’m glad I stayed in the ship, sir.’
Voices murmured after them as they went to the side where a pilot boat was waiting to carry them ashore. Another pilot was floating nearby, ready to lead them out.
Calvert remarked, ‘In some funny way they’re good for each other.’
Brooke glanced at him. Calvert would be doing just the opposite. He would be leaving the ship at Aberdeen. If possible he was to make certain that the seaplane was ready to fly as soon as the pilot arrived, and take Charles Yeung out of it. Or so Captain Granville had said.
Brooke had asked angrily, ‘Have you told Lieutenant Calvert?’
‘That is your job!’
It had been then, and only then, that Brooke had realised that the urbane captain was losing his nerve, and he wondered if Commander Gould realised it too.
Now, as he climbed on to the gratings beside his tall chair, it felt like every other time. It had to be. Gladstone Dock in Liverpool, St John’s in Newfoundland, or Malta in the middle of an air attack.
‘Ring down stand-by.’
Kerr joined him. ‘Good luck, sir.’ He had his big torch in one hand so that he could watch the slip-wire once it was fixed to whip back through the buoy-ring.
‘Skill will come in handy too!’
Always the joke. Smile, damn you! But it was never a game. If you thought it was, you were dead.
Calvert was bending over his chart, hidden by the table’s hood. Thinking of his girl. Worried about her safety, as I am for Lian’s.
He heard the telegraph jangle faintly below his feet, and imagined the lounging figures he had seen and spoken with at their stations, probably glad to be doing something.
If they did not leave, Serpent would become a sitting target.
Kerr had reached the forecastle and was standing in the eyes of the ship and although he could not see him, he knew that Bill Doggett, the leading hand, and the rest of his party were ready to run aft with the wire as it snaked dangerously inboard.
‘Standing by, sir.’ That was Podger Barlow the Gunner (T), doing his bit on the bridge now that two officers were missing.
‘Pilot boat’s on port bow, sir!’ Onslow, the Yeoman of Signals, a man who had accepted his loss. For the moment.
Lian would know they were leaving. She always did. Thank God she was getting out of it. Their beautiful house would not avoid bombardment much longer. Her sister was still in her hospital as she had firmly declared she would be. Brooke didn’t know about her husband Harry. With America in the war, like it or not, he might have wanted to be back in his own country rather than in a British Colony, as he had called it.
‘Midnight, sir.’
‘Very well.’ He touched the medallion beneath his shirt. Part of her. Midnight. Thirteen days to Christmas. It was better not to think about it.
He stared at the shaded blue light on the pilot boat’s stern. ‘Slow ahead together!’ He pictured the Chief with his throttles. They had discussed this many times. Each trusting the other.
He shouted, ‘Slip!’
He heard Kerr repeat the order and the metallic click of a slip being released. Then men running, the wire rattling over the deck and past A-gun.
‘All clear forrard, sir!’
‘Wheelhouse!’ Brooke leaned over the voicepipe’s bell mouth.
‘Cox’n, sir.’
‘Can you see the pilot’s light?’
‘Yessir. I’ve got younger eyes than mine keeping a look out, too!’
They were moving, the dark water hissing down either flank, while the knife-like stem remained lined up on the blue light.
Occasionally wreckage jagged into the side. It would move up and down with the current for weeks. Bitter reminders.
Brooke thought of the shabby dignity of the Man Mo temple. How she had found him there, knowing it was where he would be.
He heard Kerr come to the bridge, his brief exchange with Calvert.
Hong Kong. Magical city, as she had called it. Would they ever come back? Together?
Calvert said, ‘No course to steer until we drop the pilot boat, sir.’
‘Thank you, Pilot.’ But he was staring at the island, in total darkness but for some flickering fires which still had not been extinguished from the last raid. After tomorrow it would be pointless to sound air-raid warnings any more. The Japs would be using Kai Tak, which was only three and a half miles from the dockyard.
When he looked again, the little naval base had been swallowed up.
He wondered if Kipling and Barrington-Purvis were still there. Watching them leave. In the same breath, he knew that they were.
Sub-Lieutenant Nigel Barrington-Purvis watched wearily while his companion busied himself with a knife and some fresh bread. Kipling’s hands were none too clean but the sight of the bread and the thick slices of corned beef with enough butter for a whole loaf made him realise how hungry he was.
It was five days since they had stood together and yet apart, each with his own thoughts, and watched the destroyer’s pale shape working clear of the buoy, hearing the sudden turbulence of her screws, those so familiar sounds of fans and telegraphs until, it had seemed in seconds, she had gone.
Since then, they had been working to a plan given them by Commander Gould.
Even Barrington-Purvis had been impressed by the nimble way in which Kipling, with the aid of some seamen from the base, had wired up certain machinery, pumps and stores, heedless of the occasional random shots from Kowloon.
The first full day the dockyard had come under heavy shelling, with some air attacks for good measure, the noise had been devastating but casualties were surprisingly minor.
Another Japanese delegation had crossed the harbour in a boat flying a large white flag. They had come from their commander, Lieutenant-General Takashi Sakai, with his demand for surrender. It was refused, and the bombardment started up again.
Barrington-Purvis had almost expected Kipling to detonate some massive explosion right under the Jap delegation. He had never seen him or anyone else so coldly angry.
‘Look at the bastards, will you? All so proper and correct, so sure that we’ll not fire on a white flag while they go round killing and raping innocent people! I’d give ’em bloody flag of truce!’
It was not even safe to move about in the open. The enemy took shots across the eight hundred yards of water on the off chance that they might hit somebody. But the real danger was right here on the island, from snipers in abandoned buildings. Kipling had pitched a grenade through a shattered window and after the sharp explosion they had heard a few short-lived screams.
Kipling looked up, as if he guessed what he was thinking.
‘Cop hold of this. Something like a sandwich!’
Barrington-Purvis took a careful bite. He had never tasted better. Even the mustard was perfect. He could not begin to guess where Kipling managed to obtain his various finds. There was beer too. Kipling had found two mugs, explaining, ‘I’ve been cooling the beer in the harbour, so you can’t be too careful!’
They finished their food and Barrington-Purvis searched for a cigarette.
Kipling opened a tin. ‘Home-rolled, old son. But good Ticklers tobacco!’
They smoked slowly, only half listening to the distant explosions.
‘Er – what do you think Serpent’s doing, Paul?’
Kiping picked a crumb off his chin. ‘Getting ready to leave, I expect. As soon as Islip’s ready to make a dash for it.’ He grimaced. ‘I know I bloody well would!’
Barrington-Purvis looked away. A prisoner of war. It could always happen. But not to this ruthless enemy.
Kipling watched him. ‘The island’s been told to hold out, right? Ordered to do so. Now, you’re the traditional naval officer. What do you think?’
Barrington-Purvis glanced at him, searching for sarcasm or amusement. There was neither.
He got to his feet but sat down again as Kipling dragged at his sleeve and said, ‘Stay here, old son. You’re too young to die just yet!’
Barrington-Purvis dropped his eyes. ‘I want to go, Paul. The ship is different.’ He looked quickly, afraid he had made a mistake by blurting it out.
Kipling nodded, satisfied. ‘Good enough for me.’ He was suddenly serious. ‘I think they’ll be coming at us very soon.’ He glanced at the White Ensign above one of the buildings. It was riddled with holes, but strangely brave and defiant. ‘They’ve made three demands for surrender. Not like the Japs, that isn’t. I think they weren’t quite ready.’ He ground out the cigarette with his shoe. ‘Now they are.’
‘I see.’
Kipling said quietly, ‘We’ve done all we can here. Bloody waste of time anyway.’ He blinked as a shell whined over the dockyard and exploded in the nearby houses. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ Like old men they stumbled, half-crouched, to one of the cellars, and Kipling produced a key for the padlock. Then he opened the door to allow the smoky sunlight to penetrate the interior.
Barrington-Purvis exclaimed, ‘A motor-cycle!’
Kipling smiled. He would call it that. He said, ‘A Royal Enfield, army job by the look of it. Good bikes. I rode one down the Kingston by-pass not too long ago. Went like a bomb.’
Barrington-Purvis stared at him. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘Never mind that. You tell me, Nigel, how far is it to this Aberdeen place?’
He frowned and looked somehow vulnerable, lost without the order and purpose of the life he knew.
‘About three miles, I think. A bit longer on the coast road.’
‘That’s the one we’ll take, old son.’
‘But what about our orders?’
‘We’ve done what we were told to do. Our gallant Captain Granville is in Aberdeen right now.’ He winked. ‘Can’t imagine why. And dear old Commander Gould has enough on his plate. He couldn’t care less about us.’ He added impatiently, ‘Are you game?’
Barrington-Purvis bit his lip. ‘Look, I’m sorry about the way I behaved . . .’
Kipling smiled. ‘Not much of an angel myself, was I?’
He saw the sub-lieutenant’s sudden determination as he said, ‘Let’s do it then!’
‘I’ll just look at the petrol situation. I “borrowed” a can this morning. Hope it’s all right. But as my old granny used to say, you can’t always tell the marmalade by the label on the jar!’
He added in a harder tone, ‘I think it will be tonight. If we don’t make it for any reason, don’t let the bastards take you – alive, that is. Okay?’
He picked up a satchel of grenades, the shabby professional again.
‘All primed, four-second fuses. Just in case we meet anyone argumentative.’
‘When shall we go?’ He had never believed it possible to accept Kipling’s word about anything before.
‘The main gate’s open, what’s left of it. I’ll have a sniff at the petrol. After that, old son, soon as you like.’
Commander Gould appeared out of the dust. ‘You off then? Watch how you go, and thanks for your help.’
They stared after him and Kipling said, ‘See what I mean? He couldn’t care less!’
Fifteen minutes later Kipling straddled the khaki-painted machine and kick-started it into life. He flicked his wrist up and down until the air was quivering to the din.
Then he shouted, ‘All aboard! Don’t drop those bloody things, will you?’
Barrington-Purvis climbed on to a rolled gas cape on the back of the motor-bike and clutched Kipling around the waist and held his breath.
Some soldiers guarding a barricade gave them a cheer as they rattled past, and Kipling hoped that none of them had noted the bike’s number.
He heard his pillion rider shout, ‘What if the ship’s already gone?’
Kipling leaned over to take them around a steep bend. He thought of the Skipper’s face and his voice when he had said good-bye to them.
He shouted back, ‘No chance! He’ll wait!’
He felt the air stinging his eyes while he opened the throttle even further.
It might very well end in total disaster. He leaned over again and felt Barrington-Purvis copying his movements. He was learning.
Disaster or not, at least they would all be together.
Lieutenant Toby Calvert wiped his hands on a clean towel and glanced at the gently swaying aircraft. The big doors that opened on to the water allowed the bright sunshine to glint on the fuselage and cockpit cover. He knew the two mechanics who had been helping him were nervous, very aware of the far off gunfire, the muted rattle of automatic weapons. They had done a good job. He grinned. All we need is a bloody good pilot.
He heard a door slam and then Charles Yeung’s usual outburst of coughing after he had finished another cigarette.
Yeung entered and stared at him, his dark eyes impassive.
‘He is not coming. The boat turned back. The master feared for his life. So you see, my friend, you did all this work for nothing. I am sorry, but I thought . . .’ He twisted round as a car door slammed in the yard. It was dangerous enough at night, but in broad daylight with Jap aircraft flying at will across the island, driving was extremely dangerous.
A shadow fell across the floor. It was Charles Yeung’s valet Robert Tan. He spoke to his master, but was looking at Calvert.
‘You have a visitor, Lieutenant, sir.’
Calvert gasped as the small, slim girl with her uniform jacket over her arm stepped from the sunlight into the hangar’s cool gloom.
‘Sue! What the hell are you doing here?’
She ran the last few yards and threw her arms around him.
‘Islip sailed yesterday at dusk.’ She hugged him, her body pressed against his. ‘Don’t send me away! I want to be with you!’
He held her tightly. ‘Mr Yeung’s pilot isn’t here.’
‘I know, I heard that at Aberdeen. It was nobody’s fault about Islip.’ She stared across at the silver-haired Yeung. ‘You haven’t told him!’
Charles Yeung shrugged. ‘I was going to.’ He looked calmly at Calvert. ‘The enemy landed on the island last night at the place you call North Point and at Taikoo Dockyard. General Chaing Kai-Shek’s promised army could not break through to help us. Now they never will. We are not finished, but by tomorrow the Japanese army will be right across the island.’ He sliced the air with his hand. ‘Cutting us in half!’
He walked across to Calvert and put his arms around him and the girl.
‘I will stay here. Someone must lead. I have risked your lives to no purpose.’ He squeezed their shoulders and smiled. ‘Take the seaplane. Fly this girl who loves you to safety. You could do it. You must do it!’
Calvert felt his mind reeling as he stared at the crouching aircraft with sudden fear.
She looked up at his face, reading every emotion. ‘If we did fly away, Toby, where would we go?’
Calvert took her arm and together they walked to the edge of the dock.
‘Serpent will sail soon.’ In his mind he was seeing it, as if he had already done it. ‘The Japs will be attacking Aberdeen, anywhere that might be used for an escape route.’ He paused, hardly aware of what he was saying. ‘I could find her. It’ll be too late pretty soon. I know which course the Skipper will take. He won’t run until he knows Islip is clear of pursuit.’ His eyes looked bright, feverish. ‘I could make some sort of landing near the ship. No matter what happened after that . . .’ He hugged her shoulder. ‘You crazy little fool, is that why you came? Because you knew I’d never make it without you?’
Charles Yeung said quietly, ‘I will wait here with you until you leave. If you cannot do it, I will try to hide you.’ He looked at them steadily. ‘If they catch you, they will kill you.’ He glanced away. ‘Eventually.’
The girl whispered, ‘Please, Toby. We’ve nothing to lose!’
He could feel her shivering. She was probably thinking of those terrible screams on the landing telephone.
He said abruptly, ‘Serpent will sail right away, if I know my Skipper.’ He made up his mind. ‘We’ll have a go. Right now!’
The doors were hauled open and the sunshine swept over to greet them. It was still early morning: the morning the Dutch pilot should have landed.
He pulled on his best jacket over his stained trousers, the one with the bright wings on the left sleeve and the crimson ribbon on the breast.
He laughed. ‘Better to look the part, eh?’
Yeung helped the girl on to one of the floats and up into the cockpit. ‘Be safe, my friend!’
Then Calvert was beside the girl, testing the controls. ‘No parachutes, remember?’ Then he waved his arm out of the sliding window and held his breath as first one and then the other big Alfa Romeo engine roared into life.
There was a harness of sorts, and he made sure the girl was strapped in. Then quite suddenly he kissed her, feeling her respond with eager desperation. He shouted, ‘You gave me something I thought I’d lost!’
Then he eased open the throttles and felt the seaplane begin to move across the water, rocking slightly as if to test it. There seemed to be nobody watching but when he peered over his shoulder he saw the green Rolls-Royce standing in the yard, the driver William beside it. In his heart he knew Charles Yeung would destroy it, as he would have destroyed the seaplane, rather than allow the Japs to get hold of them.
Anchored merchant ships flashed past, abandoned or bombed he could not tell. He felt a wildness he could scarcely remember. It was like a drug.
He yelled, ‘I’m going for it now, Sue!’ He glanced at her as she gripped the harness with both hands.
‘I love you!’
He saw her nod and then call something to him but the rising roar of the twin engines drowned all of it and made any other thought impossible.
Faster, and faster. Another ship loomed past the starboard engine and he thought Sue had closed her eyes as the wing-tip seemed as though it would collide with the vessel’s listing bridge.
Then Calvert saw the edge of the sea. Open water. They were up. They were flying.
He saw a large launch far below them, thrusting out a great arrowhead of foam. There were soldiers packed into it like sardines. Even a poor old Swordfish couldn’t have missed it. He zig-zagged violently as he saw tracer rising slowly from a solitary gun. But the seaplane’s hawk-like shadow was already streaking across the sea, so near to the water now that it left a pair of deep troughs behind it as if some underwater demons were in pursuit.
He blinked in the glare as he eased the controls. A quick glance at the compass. The rest would be so much guesswork. He looked down and was stunned to see several large bullet holes in the side, sunlight blazing through them like stars. She was reaching out to hold his leg, her body lolling towards him while she tried to speak.
Calvert felt the seaplane diving and veering from side to side, and knew he had lost control.
‘Oh my God, Sue!’
She reached with her free hand but lost the strength to feel her side.
Calvert clung to her. ‘I’m here, darling! Don’t leave me!’
Then she smiled at him, but even as he tried to hope, the smile became fixed and unmoving.
He felt her fall against him and for the first time saw the blood.
How long he flew or on what course he did not know.
He was calling her name. Telling her things, remembering their love.
Then, through a sea-mist, he saw Serpent. Moving slowly on a converging course. The sea all round was pale green, shallow, exactly where the Skipper would choose to be if he was going to fight.
They would see the plane. The guns would be tracking them, but the Skipper would know. He always did.
Calvert began to descend, feeling the wind in his face as he slid open a window. Then he reached over and closed her eyes so that she seemed to be lying against him, asleep.
He tried to speak to her. ‘Just got something to do, darling Sue.’ He could barely see through the blur of pain and emotion. ‘Then I’m taking you home!’
As he flashed over the narrow hull he saw all the faces peering up at him, knew who they were.
He saw, too, the unfamiliar battle ensigns flying from the old destroyer’s gaff and yard.
He picked up the girl’s hat with its blue badge. There was even blood on that.
‘Just so they’ll know, Sue. Nothing can part us!’
The hat was plucked from his fingers, then he shut the window.
The port engine was coughing badly, but they would make it.
There were more anchored ships and burned-out hulks now, and he dived steeply to weave amongst them as tracer lifted past him, bright green, deadly.
Then he saw the ships, two of them, destroyers, in line ahead as they headed for the open sea. After the kill. But first they would have to deal with the little Serpent.
‘And us, you bastards!’
He clutched her small hand on his leg. It was warm, as if she was still alive.
The first bullets hit the seaplane, and Calvert knew he had been badly wounded although he could feel nothing.
Then there was nothing.
‘Char, sir.’
Brooke straightened up in his chair and reached out for the mug in the darkness. He felt stiff and cold. Empty.
As his senses returned he glanced around the bridge. The ship had been at Defence Stations since leaving Aberdeen but with all the short-range weapons closed up.
Like Trafalgar, he thought dully, food and clean clothes before the battle.
Serpent had left harbour soon after Islip. He had dared not risk remaining at anchor once the reports of possible landings had first been received and later confirmed.
It had been a sad moment when the Islip had finally cast off. They had all been shocked to see the damage she had received from enemy bombers when she had stopped to try and pick up survivors from the torpedoed Dumbarton. There had been very few. Stallybrass had not been one of them.
One bomb had exploded right alongside the Islip; another had hit the forecastle. The explosions and the hail of splinters had put both forward guns out of action and had killed twenty men and wounded others. Her captain, the ebullient Ralph Tufnell, had been killed outright and his first lieutenant had taken over.
But her engine room was undamaged and she still had her radar and anti-aircraft weapons intact.
Brooke had been aboard just once to wish them luck and to give them some charts. Many of theirs had been destroyed in the attack.
He had seen Lian only once more. With other women she had been with sailors who were issuing life-jackets and steel helmets. She had watched him through a clamped scuttle, and had placed her palm flat against the thick glass until he covered it with his own. Then she had been moved away, and a seaman had slammed down the steel deadlight even as orders were given to get under way.
Islip had soon been lost in darkness. Granville had assured him that an escort would be ready to see the ship to safety for the last part of the journey. South, all the way to Batavia in Java, two thousand two hundred miles. Islip could do it in three days, and would be with the Australian escorts before that.
But there had been a signal too. Enemy destroyers were reported to be moving from the east. Two in number, the intelligence report had stated. One was said to be a big Asasio Class, the other one much smaller. There might as well have been a whole fleet. The Asasio Class carried six five-inch guns and eight torpedo tubes. If Serpent could not delay them, Islip’s small lead would prove useless.
He thought of Calvert and wondered what he would do. He had been stunned when he had been told about Sue Yorke refusing to sail with Islip. Our Wren.
Brooke glanced at the hooded chart table, remembering Calvert and his girl. They were going to be married, he had said.
He had told his men what they might expect. Earlier they had all seen the old destroyer Thracian, very similar to their own ship but cut down and less well armed, leave Aberdeen under power. She had been severely damaged when chasing junks packed with Japanese troops who had been attempting an early landing. She had destroyed the junks, but had smashed her hull by striking some rocks. Stripped of her weapons and stores she had sailed out of Aberdeen and had been run aground on a small island and abandoned. It had been a sad sight, and a bitter moment for her company. Her fate seemed to have made Serpent’s people even more determined. Perhaps resigned.
The one light moment had been when Kipling and the Sub had appeared on the dockside, filthy but managing to grin and wave before climbing aboard. Within seconds their Royal Enfield motor-bike had vanished, taken by somebody who still nursed some hope of escape.
Before leaving Serpent Granville had told Brooke that Sir Mark Young, the governor of Hong Kong, had made another plea for help to London, explaining that they could not hope to continue resistance once the enemy had landed on the island. Churchill’s reply had been adamant: resistance would be maintained, so that the enemy should be compelled to expend the utmost life and equipment.
With the Japanese on North Point, they could bombard the naval dockyard from the high ground and join the battery at Kowloon in a murderous crossfire.
Kerr came up from the chart table and took a mug of hot tea. He was a good watchkeeping officer, but it seemed wrong not to see Calvert there.
‘Be getting light soon, sir.’
‘Yes.’ Brooke could picture his little ship as if he was a sea bird on the wing. She was steering very slowly to the north-west of Lamma Island. The sea seemed black and vast but in an hour they would sight Hong Kong island again, even Aberdeen, which they had left in the half-light. It was all he could do. It was shallow, not deep enough for a big destroyer to act stupidly. Once within range of the enemy they would attack with torpedoes. They would fire all four of them – the Gunner (T)’s big moment, and he had gathered all his crew of torpedomen for a last instruction. The torpedo tubes had no protection. It would have to be fast. The Chief knew. They all knew what to expect.
They had two extra hands for Damage Control if nothing else, Royal Marine bandsmen, one injured in the leg by a bomb splinter. They had been trying to reach Islip before she sailed. Exhausted and almost delirious when they had seen the White Ensign above Serpent’s deck, they had described the scenes of horror when they had slipped past Jap patrols to reach Aberdeen.
Corpses lay everywhere and much of the city was ablaze. The Japanese were in a frenzy, the corporal had said, shooting, bayoneting and beheading soldiers and civilians alike. Even if Serpent was sunk in this coming fight Brooke knew the two marines wanted to be here with faces and voices they trusted.
Kerr said, ‘All depth charges were set to safe and jettisoned.’ He forced a smile. ‘The Cox’n says the loss of weight makes the old girl as light as a feather!’
Better to lose the charges than to have the stern blown off by an enemy shell.
Brooke looked at his shadow against the pale paintwork. Was it lighter already? He took his time to think. Am I afraid of what will happen?
He felt in his pocket and touched Calvert’s Victoria Cross, which Bert Kingsmill had discovered in a drawer when he had been securing the cabins.
‘Didn’t seem right to leave it there, sir!’ He had been very concerned. Brooke found he was relaxing slowly. It would not be much safer here, he thought.
‘Number One, you know what to do if anything goes wrong up here?’
He heard Kerr swallow hard. ‘Yes, sir. Fight the ship.’
He touched his arm. ‘Remember the motto. Deadly to Foes.’
He saw a glint of water. The moment before dawn. What would the light reveal?
Kerr held his watch to his face. ‘Time, sir.’
‘Thanks, Dick.’ He felt Kerr staring at him. ‘Go round the ship. Action Stations by word of mouth. This is a time for preparation, not panic. Let them see you about.’
Voicepipes began to mutter as the hands went to their proper stations. A few last watertight doors thudded shut, and Brooke heard the squeak of the big rangefinder as Barrington-Purvis prepared himself and his spotters for the inevitable.
We have all changed. From what Kipling had told him, the haughty sub-lieutenant had changed most of all.
‘Cox’n on the wheel, sir. Course zero-two-zero, both engines at seven-zero.’
Brooke stood up and gripped the back of his chair. He could feel the vibrations coursing through it, up his arms, into his body. They were as one.
‘Ship at Action Stations, sir.’ Kipling sounded calm. Then he said, ‘I hope Toby’s all right.’
Onslow was speaking softly to his signalmen, and looked over as Brooke said, ‘Battle Ensigns – what d’you think, Yeo?’
‘Hear that, lads. Off you go, chop-chop!’ To Brooke he said, ‘Make a picture, she will!’
Brooke thought of his father. Now he would never hear about it.
It was much brighter and he could smell smoke drifting on the breeze. Soon they would sight land.
‘Ship, sir! Port bow!’
Brooke lowered his powerful glasses. It was a tall, stately junk moving purposefully under its strange bat-like sails. Standing away. Leaving their homes behind. Like Serpent’s own company, a ship was life itself. The land was the enemy this time.
There was gunfire again, a merciless bombardment on people who could not hit back. There were fires too, spurts of flame and glowing sparks as shells fell somewhere in the centre of the island. Men fighting house to house, room to room, grenade, rifle and bayonet, until there was nothing left to fight with.
The smoke tasted bitter, foul. An empty hull drifted abeam – abandoned, its crew killed, who could tell?
Here was the sea. He watched it reaching out from the ship as the daylight forced its way through the pall of smoke.
Kerr was back again, his eyes everywhere. ‘There’s land, sir. Lamma Island, starboard bow. Not long now.’ There was neither hope nor dread in his voice.
The sun was coming up at last. Red and orange, like the flames below it. The forecastle and four-inch gun with its crouching crew, like monks in their anti-flash gear, the breech already loaded, a seaman gunner waiting with the next shell in his gloved hands.
Brooke picked up the red telephone and heard the Chief’s instant acknowledgement.
‘Approaching the channel, Chief. One hand for the King, eh?’
He could picture him smiling at the old naval joke, then repeating it to his stokers and artificers. Lip-reading was all that counted down there.
Brooke opened his shirt and knew Kipling was watching him as he felt the gold medallion between his fingers.
He stared again. Daylight. A curtain going up. He raised his glasses again and studied the littered vessels that lay outside Aberdeen some three miles away. The smoke was terrible in its depth and intensity, covering the heights and rising unhurriedly towards the sky.
‘Aircraft, sir!’
‘Stand by all guns!’ That was Barrington-Purvis, clipped and precise.
Brooke listened to the distorted growl of engines. It was there somewhere. Out to starboard, perhaps from Repulse Bay.
Kerr exclaimed, ‘That’s no fighter, sir!’ He looked wildly at the others. ‘D’you think it’s him? Toby?’
‘Aircraft at Green eight-zero, sir!’ The look-out sounded dazed. ‘No angle of sight. She’s almost in the drink!’
Brooke steadied his glasses and felt a lump in his throat as the dark seaplane darted past an abandoned freighter and then turned towards him.
Kerr shouted, ‘Tell the Buffer to prepare a net!’ He waved his cap above his head. ‘He made it! I’ll bet he’s got our Wren with him!’
Brooke snapped, ‘Belay that order!’ He moved his glasses with great care while the ship lifted and dipped gently beneath him.
It was all suddenly stark and clear. The holes, silver bright, punched along the side and through one wing. There was smoke too from one of the engines.
Men were cheering and waving as the seaplane lifted over the ship where the battle ensigns looked so clean against the sky. Just as quickly the cheers died while men peered at the damage, the fact that only one face showed in the cockpit. Brooke saw Calvert’s arm, the light glinting on the unfamiliar sight of his best uniform while he waved to the ship. To me.
Something flew from his hand and, once clear of the slipstream, began to float down to the sea.
Her hat. She was with him. Now he had nothing to live for.
The seaplane reeled away again and ten seconds later the gunnery speaker barked, ‘Ship! Bearing Green one-three-oh! Range four thousand yards!’
Brooke climbed into his chair. Serpent’s three guns, puny compared with the enemy, were already swinging on to the bearing. A-Gun, directly below the bridge, was trained round as far as it would bear.
He said, ‘Full ahead!’ He thought of Podger Barlow with his beloved torpedoes. If a shell landed before he could fire them the ship would be torn apart.
He felt the pressure of the chair in his back, the rising bank of surging crests spreading away from either bow.
They will think we’re running to take cover from the land. They must.
He saw the blink of gunfire and heard the shriek of a shell overhead.
‘Starboard ten – Steady! Steer zero-six-zero.’ It would be murder for the torpedomen. Until Serpent made her turn at speed, they had their backs to the enemy.
Two more shells exploded in the sea, one of them throwing up a tall column like a spear of ice. Splinters cracked into the hull.
Kerr shouted, ‘The small destroyer is leading, sir!’
Brooke tried to lick his lips. They were like dust.
A gong rang tinnily and from his control position Barrington-Purvis snapped, ‘Open fire!’
The deck shook to the three sharp explosions, but there was so much smoke in the channel that they could have fallen anywhere.
‘Aircraft, sir!’ It was almost a scream, then the look-out fell silent as the seaplane came round the side of an anchored freighter. It was so low it seemed to be skating on the water. Brooke stared with disbelief, but the understanding hit him like a fist as he yelled, ‘Hard a-starboard! Engage with torpedoes!’
He did not wait to see them fire but staggered up the deck as the wheel went hard over and Serpent pirouetted round to drag the leading destroyer across Podger Barlow’s sights. Brooke’s eyes were fixed on the dark seaplane. He knew it was being hit again and again as it dived, then clawed upwards, then, at the apex of the last climb, he saw smoke streaming from beneath the cockpit and one of the floats spinning away.
He heard himself say brokenly, ‘You damned, idiotic, brave fool, Toby!’
The destroyer was swinging round, presenting her whole length as the plunging seaplane exploded like a bomb on her open bridge. Flames were bursting from everywhere, tiny figures stampeding from what they probably thought was a loaded bomber.
The leading destroyer was turning as well. Three of Barlow’s torpedoes missed, one exploding nearby against some rocks. The remaining torpedo hit the small destroyer on the port side, and a column of water shot from the explosion although there was barely any noise. A pall of steam hung above the stricken ship, and she had already begun to heel over.
The Chief would hear it, feel it. It was the enemy’s engine or boiler-room where the torpedo had burst in on them.
Brooke heard Barrington-Purvis calling through his speaker, ‘I hope they fry, the bastards!’ It sounded as if he was sobbing.
Brooke clung to his chair and stared with surprise at a deep cut on his wrist.
He managed to gasp, ‘Report damage and casualties, Dick!’ Someone was bandaging his injury: another yelled wildly, ‘The big feller’s aground!’ Men who had expected to die and had accepted it whooped and clasped one another like lunatics.
Even Kipling was staring at him with such emotion that he only got out a brief answer. ‘You are our only casualty, sir!’
They helped Brooke back into the chair. He said, ‘Bring her round, Number One.’ His voice was flat, formal. ‘We’re going after Islip.’
Kerr wiped his face and eyes with his cuff but could not look away from his captain, as he reached into his pocket and took out the prized medal. For Valour.
Then Brooke stood up and clung to the screen as the screws brought the ship charging round on to her new course.
He did not salute, but removed his cap while he watched the writhing pall of smoke pouring from the grounded destroyer.
‘Thanks, Pilot. For Valour. They don’t know the bloody half of it.’
By sunset they had still not been attacked from the sea or from the air. But Serpent kept her ensigns flying. She was old, but she was still a destroyer, and would be ready to fight again, torpedoes or not.
Two days later, watching and waiting while they headed south stripped of Barlow’s tin fish and all their depth charges, Brooke called his officers to the bridge. They were tired and unshaven, at their stations day and night. Tea, rum and tinned sausages; but as the miles mounted astern there were no moans from even the biggest grouser.
‘All present, sir.’ Kerr could not help it, as his eyes moved to the chart table, ‘Except one.’
Brooke stared at him. Not now. Not now, for God’s sake! That’s all it needs.
He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve had a signal.’ He saw their eyes move from his face to the flimsy in his hand and was grateful. ‘H.M.S. Islip will enter harbour with her escorts later today. There were no incidents.’
They should be cheering. They had done it. She was safe. But they knew there was more to come.
He looked at their tired, strained faces. After this they might be separated. Sent to other ships as was the navy’s way. He knew that they would not want to leave despite all that had been said. There could never be another Serpent, as his father had told him.
He cleared his throat. ‘I have to tell you that Hong Kong has surrendered. The Admiralty has stated that all transmissions from Hong Kong Radio have ceased.’
He looked away at the wake streaming astern in a white, rulerstraight line.
He knew that the word would be through the whole ship in seconds. It was marked by the silence which hung over the deck like the smoke of a burning island.
He saw the seamen gazing up at the bridge, sharing it, as they had shared all the dangers.
Among them was the Royal Marine corporal.
‘Is that man a bugler, Number One?’
Kerr said quietly, ‘Yes, sir.’
Brooke turned to the voicepipes. ‘Stop engines!’ To Onslow he added, ‘Strike those ensigns, if you please. She’s shown what she can do.’ Onslow nodded, understanding.
The marine corporal appeared in the bridge, his bugle hanging at his hip.
‘Sir?’
Brooke said, ‘Today we lost a lot of good friends.’ He thought of the Wren’s hat floating on the water. He felt the way going off the ship, the bows butting into the sea like something solid. ‘Play the Last Post, will you?’
Then he did salute.
Kerr followed suit, as the familiar call echoed unchecked across the heaving water.
The last Sunset. Just for them.