J. E. MacDonnell - 028 Page 3

  On the foc's'le the watch was mustered, the chief bosun's mate standing-by with a heaving line. In accordance with the British Navy's tradition of doing a thing always the difficult way, in case you had to, we were assuming the time was night.

  Therefore the flash from a line-throwing gun could disclose our position to a waiting enemy, and human muscle and skill had to take the place of a gun. If the line were badly thrown, if it fell short and had to be recoiled and heaved again, some minutes would be wasted, and with many ships to refuel, a similar mistake at each ship would add up to many minutes lost, and in so many minutes lost...

  The chief bosun's mate was a small man, but chunky. He leaned back, right back until his right, throwing, hand almost touched the deck. For a second he crouched back there, and all the experience of a lifetime at sea was in his judging eye and the strength of his throw.

  Then he threw. The weight arced across the wave-tossed gap, trailing the line behind it, and the Buffer gave a grunt of satisfaction as the line caught and held. Someone on the battleship's foc's'le grabbed it. Megaphones shouted orders over the wind, and the heaving line ran steadily out to the big ship. There was a two-inch messenger rope attached to the heaving line, and by the time the two-inch line was hauled aboard us, the battleship was ready to follow it with a three-and-a-half-inch line, and that was strong enough to have entrusted to it the immense manial spring towline on which the rest of the operation depended.

  From other parts of the ship other heaving lines had been thrown, other messengers passed, now that the two ships were riding more or less comfortably harnessed together with the heavy manila.

  The cable officer stood by the capstan forrard as the ships surged and plunged over the waves. It was up to him to ease the strain or take it up, keeping the ships at a constant distance apart without allowing the towline to part under the continual jerks to which the waves subjected it.

  On the bridges the captains were fighting with screw and rudder against the other tendency of the ships to crash together.

  Further aft, abreast the bridge, the first-lieutenant and petty-officer of the watch were supervising the swinging out of the boom and cradle which was to take the oil hose from the battleship.

  A loftier wave than usual squeezed into the narrow passage between the ships, came slapping over the deck and soused the petty-officer thoroughly. He said again the expletive he's used when the swinging boom had caught his head-his vocabulary in these uncomfortable circumstances was not over extensive...

  Two stokers struggled with the heavy hose connection when it was hauled inboard, there was a moment of feverish and cursing activity in which spanners and feelings played the most part, then backs were straightened and an oily hand waved to an engineer across the way. He in turn waved to a rating on the engine-room telephone. The hose pulsed, and the destroyer drank thirstly.

  The ship's black-room gang looked on, wet and tired, but pleased. The ship's first-lieutenant looked on, wet, untired, and unpleased. He normally worried as little over fuel as the black-gangers concerned themselves with the state of the ammunition supply. But now that viscous black liquid which some called "gold" was right up out of its usual element-ready to drip through the connection on to his precious deck, be washed aft by the lathering water, and be slopped up over the paintwork in a greasy patina of filth.

  But the stokers, who valued their leave just as highly as the upper-deck swabs, had secured the connection tightly. Number One's fears and mental vows of reprisals were unjustified. The oiling progressed.

  Oil wasn't all we wanted, however. On those other messengers rigged across, bundles began to dip and sway over the water-bags of freshly-baked bread, of old magazines and papers (for those poor bastards on the "boats"), a can of ice-cream for our tiny canteen; and, lastly, a small, official-looking canvas bag which the first-lieutenant grabbed as soon as it came inboard and hurried with it up to the bridge.

  That bag contained important documents and orders for one of the aircraft carriers to starb'd, and we were to be the postman.

  I slipped up on to the bridge to try to catch a glimpse of the admiral. He was a full admiral, and you don't see those every day- in Whitehall, perhaps, but not at sea.

  Above me, tier upon tier of bridges, conning-towers and control-tops, towered the superstructure of the battleship. Above all, on a slender t'gallant mast, stood out in the wind the white and red-crossed flag of the admiral. Everything about her was massive; from her jutting bow and bulging sides to the great guns, thicker than a man's waist, stretching from her turrets.

  There was one man standing with a group of officers on one of the lower bridges, but a little apart. He was a man of middle height, chunkily built, dressed in khaki, and the heavy gold on his cap glittered in the sunlight. It was the commander-in-chief.

  He was looking down at us, now and then pointing out some feature to his staff. Once, he had driven a destroyer himself, in another war. This was the man on whom Mountbatten depended for the prosecution of his plans in the Indian Ocean.

  We'd worked mighty hard during our boiler clean in harbour just before, and the ship was the cleanest I'd seen her. We found later what he had been saying to his staff.

  On the notice-board of a Dutch destroyer we secured alongside on return to base, I saw a signal from the commander-in-chief to the effect that the Dutchman, who apparently was a bit below standard, should with benefit model herself on Nepal's appearance. It was worth the scrubbing and polishing to read that. And it must have made Dad's day.

  But though she dwarfed us in size, hauling us along like a motorboat, it was pretty to watch the difference in motion. The battleship, like some great juggernaut, ploughed solidly on through the waves, her bows throwing out a colossal wave each time one hit her.

  We, on the other hand, light and responsive, rose and swooped like a swallow in an effortless grace of motion. And, big as she was, it was subtly satisfying to know that those ten tubes now pointing fair at her great guts could rip her wide open to the sea...

  We were ready to slip now. This was the part I liked to watch. The captain leaned over the bridge and gestured to the first-lieutenant; the chief bosun's mate bent over the guard-rail, a hammer swung, the towing ship dropped open and free, then a splash as the towing hawser fell into the sea. Quickly it was hauled in on the battleship.

  The captain, watching, judging, saw the big wave come rolling down between the two ships. Choosing his moment with practised skill, he ordered:

  "Starb'd twenty."

  Just as the bow swung off under the rudder's pressure the wave caught her. With incomparable grace, decks heeled over till the sea raced past level with the lee gunnel, she wheeled away, her stern whipping round within a few feet of the battleship's side, in every line a careless insouciance. In two minutes the battler was a mile astern.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SOME ASPECTS

  THE SURGEON-LIEUTENANT pulled himself along the bucking upper-deck, one hand gripping the lifeline running the length of the slippery waist, the other fending himself off the motor-boat, then whaler, as the ship tossed and screwed in a full gale. He staggered through the lane which instantly opened in the group of men outside the sickbay, and stepped inside. The figure on the bed, eyes closed and jaws clamped tight, rolled from side to side. The sick-berth petty-officer dropped the bone forceps he was holding on the sterile tray and grabbed him quickly. A stifled groan squeezed through the white lips.

  The surgeon hesitated a second. It was quite impossible to stand without support. Every now and then a wall of green water washed over the clamped portholes. Then he looked again at the patient's leg. He nodded to his assistant.

  "We will operate," he said.

  The figure on the bed was the captain's cook, and the projected operation was the setting of a compound fracture of his right leg. Through the skin of his shin the tibia point thrust in a sharp, splintered point.

  The ship was running at twenty knots before a big sea. It was on
the starb'd quarter, and she rode like a surfboard, each wave threatening to swing the stern round and broach her to, broadside on to the huge rollers. Only the most concentrated care on the helmsman's part prevented this.

  The captain's cook was down aft behind the depth charge throwers when it happened, waiting for a chance to dash forrard between rolls.

  The ship shuddered as the wave hit, then over she went, further, until the lee waist was under a foaming maelstrom of white. He hung on desperately. Slowly she came upright, but before she could labour back to an even keel the next one caught her down.

  The wave crashed down on the upper-deck in a thump and smother of white foam and green water. The cook was washed clean over the guard-rails. When the captain, manoeuvring with everything he knew, had brought the ship up to the swimmer so that he had only to reach his hand out and grab the scrambling net lowered over the side, we couldn't understand why he didn't get his legs in the mesh and climb up.

  But we realised when he was hauled inboard on the end of a line.

  The first-aid party was in the sickbay now, a stoker petty-officer who'd just come up from the boiler room, three officers' stewards, and a petty-officer cook. Their faces were tight and white beneath their tan as they involuntarily glanced at the leg.

  These men constituted the surgeon's theatre nurse, his trained nurses, and assistant-surgeon-had he been in any sort of a hospital ashore. Under his sterile cape the boiler-room man still wore his greasy overalls; the petty-officer cook followed the doctor at the tiny sink, washing the flour from his hands.

  While a steward washed the sea lice from the patient's body-he was covered in a thick scale of them-the surgeon's quick hands had a sterile dressing over the wound. Then the splints were applied.

  The sick-berth petty-officer was busy with a table which on closer inspection could be recognised as that one before which the Old Man saw defaulters. On it he placed a compact little Oxford vaporiser, the last word in extempore anaesthetist's equipment. It had a small plate attached, with the legend:

  "Presented by Lord Nuffield."

  I wondered what other philanthropy of the motor-magnate was more appreciated...

  The patient's squinted eyes followed the preparations. Then he pursed his lips. I lit the cigarette and held it there; he drew deeply. The sick-berth petty-officer took up the bone forceps, then quickly laid them below the level of the patient's eyes. But he'd seen-and guessed. Then he grinned. Guts.

  Soon all was ready. The surgeon eased himself along the swaying bulkhead and placed the ether mask on the patient's face. In a little while the clenched fingers opened, slowly, just a little. The surgeon beckoned his anaesthetist, the stoker petty-officer, to the machine. His voice came muffled through his mask.

  "Keep the lever between ten and twelve."

  The stoker nodded. The sick-berth petty-officer handed a case of instruments to each of the stewards-they would have been tossed off a table. Scalpels, forceps, muscle retractors gleamed silver in the glare of the yard-arm group slung above. That cluster of lights was normally fitted above the boat-boom while the ship was in harbour.

  The surgeon moved to the right side of the bed.

  Like a breath of wind it went through the mess-decks and up to the bridge. The bosun's mate saluted the captain and reported:

  "He's under, sir."

  The captain leaned over and spoke into a voice-pipe:

  "Decrease to Nine O revolutions," then, to the chief petty-officer waiting beside him: "Take the wheel, cox'n."

  The waves came rolling up from astern like moving mountains of green, the wind's voice in the rigging was a strained sort of scream, but nothing, not the wild sea nor the wind, could alter the steadiness of the coxswain's big hands on the wheel. The ship, the men, were with the captain's cook.

  Down in the sick-bay the surgeon worked laboriously, every minute or so bracing himself against the bulkhead as she rolled.

  The wound was shaved, then cleaned with ether soap. The scalpel moved slowly, surely, and the broken shin came away. But the wound was too small to allow of satisfactory examination.

  From one inch it grew to two, three. The surgeon looked into his assistant's eyes and pointed to the dead muscle flanking the bone. The S.B.A. looked, mentally noted, and nodded. Noted, too, the uncommon strength of a wave and the frailty of human tissue when flung against a taut guard-rail on its way over.

  The surgeon, one hand braced against the patient's thigh, took up a pair of long forceps and withdrew carefully the slivers of splintered bone. When the useless muscle had been dissected they were ready to set the bone.

  The stewards laid their trays on the deck and moved up to the patient's shoulders. The sick-berth P.O. took a firm grip on the foot. Beside the vaporiser the stoker kept the fluctuating level "between ten and twelve."

  The surgeon stood abreast the break and nodded. Gently at first, they pulled. The two ends of creamy bone drew apart as they stretched further, until the lower spear-shaped point lay an inch below the V of the upper part. Gloved hands guiding, at a spoken word they eased carefully back; the two bones, point and V, came together perfectly.

  It didn't take long for the wound to be dusted with sulphanilamide powder, filled with vaseline gauze, and the plaster-of-paris splint applied. Then the gear was stowed away.

  The patient was covered up warmly, still unconscious. The stoker petty-officer climbed down to A-boiler-room. The chief cook finished off his batch of bread in the galley. And in a little notebook the surgeon wrote:

  "The anterior tibial artery is not always completely inaccessible."

  It wasn't until Jap torpedo-bombers attacked us one night, off Sabang in Sumatra, and I spent a most appreciative quarter of an hour at B-gun watching the firework display from the battlers, that I fully realised what it must mean to those unseen heroes down below when the guns join action up top.

  Theirs is nothing of the heart-jumping thrill of sustained and accurate gunfire, nor the exultation which leaps in your throat when you see a yellow-balled aircraft plummeting seaward, spuming smoke and red flame.

  Shut up in a windowless space crammed tight with pounding machinery and roaring furnaces, pipes carrying superheated steam a few inches above their heads, between them and the sea outside less than an inch of the ship's skin, they listen, and wait.

  I went down below in the after engineroom, five minutes before the ship carried out a depth-charge attack on a suspected submarine, screening the Battle Fleet off Ceylon-and had to stay there.

  The engine-room artificer was showing me some entries in the log, when from the alarm bell on the bulkhead above our heads an abrupt, nerve-shocking clamour shrilled out. Action!

  Both E.R.A's dropped everything and leaped for the big throttle wheels, one on each engine, standing ready with their eyes magnetised to the indicators before them. I could imagine the captain on the bridge leaning sideways to the voice-pipe.

  The pointers on the indicators moved suddenly. They steadied again, pointing with urgent and peremptory fingers to "FULL AHEAD." Before the clang of the bells had died the throttles were turning, spinning till they jammed wide open against the stops.

  From the encased turbines on either side came a fierce and rising whine. The propeller shafts whirled till they were single flashes of spinning silver. And the quiet engine-room hum was changed into a mighty, powered scream.

  The atmosphere was already murky with hot oil fumes, my ears deafened with the scream of tremendous power unleashed. Just through the watertight bulkhead were the boilers supplying the steam to drive those thrashing screws. It was almost unbearably hot in there, yet the stokers must keep their overalls up, for a stumble against hot steel or the bursting of a high-pressure steam main would mean flesh peeling off like a boiled beetroot.

  As soon as the action alarm had sounded the stoker petty-officer in charge of the boiler-room had jumped to the oil fuel and increased the pressure to maximum. The pump forces the thick fluid through a nozzle in the
furnace in a fine spray, which burns with a roaring, white-hot flame.

  The ship had raised full speed, the hull throbbing with restless power. As the engines took more and more steam with the opening of the throttles so the petty-officer and his men watched carefully their pressure dials and water-gauges. A slight slackening of vigilance with that fire of seven hundred degrees F and the safety valve blows up the funnel with a roar and loss of steam.

  The atmosphere was tense. We were all waiting for it to come. Soon it did. A voice through the pipe, thinned with the distance from the bridge:

  "Stand-by for depth-charge attack."

  A minute, two, then a hammering thud belted against her thin sides. The boiler face seemed to leap out at them; loose deck plates jumped a good four inches from the deck. Again and again the ship shook as the patterns exploded behind her, the hull receiving the full blast transmitted through the water.