South by Java Head

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hours passed, interminable, breathless hours under a blue, windless sky and the fierce glare of the tropical sun and still number one lifeboat chugged steadily south, towing the other boat behind it. Normally a lifeboat carries a fuel supply good only for a hundred miles steaming at about four knots, and is used solely for emergencies, such as towing other boats clear of a sinking ship, cruising around for survivors, going for immediate help or keeping the boat itself hove to in heavy seas. But McKinnon had had the foresight to throw in extra cans of petrol and, even allowing for the possibility of bad weather, they had enough, and more than enough, to carry them to Lepar, an island about the size of the Isle of Sheppey on the starboard hand as they passed through the Macclesfield Channel. Captain Findhorn, with fifteen years in the Archipelago behind him, knew where he could find petrol on Lepar, and plenty of it. The only unknown quantity was the Japanese: they might have already taken over the island, but with their land forces already so widespread and thinly stretched it seemed unlikely that they could yet have had the time or sufficient reason to garrison so small a place. And with plenty of petrol and fresh water there was no saying how far they might go; the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java was not impossible, especially when the north-east trades started up again and helped them on their way.

But there were no trades just now, not even the lightest zephyr of a breeze; it was absolutely still and airless and suffocatingly hot and the tiny movement of air from their slow passage through the water was only a mockery of coolness and worse than nothing at all. The blazing sun was falling now, slipping far to the west, but still burning hot: Nicolson had both sails stretched as awnings, the jib for the fore end and the lug-sail, its yard lashed half-way up the mast, stretched aft as far as it would go, but even beneath the shelter of these the heat was still oppressive, somewhere between eighty and ninety degrees with a relative humidity of over 85 per cent. It was seldom enough in the East Indies, at any time of the year, that the temperature dropped below eighty degrees. Nor was there any relief to be obtained, any chance of cooling off by plunging over the side into the water, the temperature of which lay somewhere between eighty degrees and eighty-five. All the passengers could do was to recline limply and listlessly in the shade of awnings, to sit and suffer and sweat and pray for the sun to go down.

The passengers. Nicolson, sitting in the sternsheets with the tiller in his hand, looked slowly round the people in the boat, took in their condition and lifeless inertia and tightened his lips. If he had to be afloat in an open boat in the tropics, hundreds ― thousands ― of miles from help and surrounded by the enemy and enemy-held islands, he could hardly have picked a boatload of passengers less well equipped for handling a boat, with a poorer chance of survival. There were exceptions, of course, men like McKinnon and Van Effen would always be exceptions, but as for the remainder…

Excluding himself, there were seventeen people aboard. Of these, as far as sailing and fighting the boat were concerned, only two were definite assets: McKinnon, imperturbable, competent, infinitely resourceful, was worth any two men, and Van Effen, an otherwise unknown quantity, had already proved his courage and value in an emergency. About Vannier it was difficult to say: no more than a boy, he might possibly stand up to prolonged strain and hardship, but time alone would show. Walters, still looking sick and shaken, would be a useful man to have around when he had recovered. And that, on the credit side, was just about all.

Gordon, the second steward, a thin-faced, watery-eyed and incurably furtive individual, a known thief who had been conspicuously and mysteriously absent from his action stations that afternoon, was no seaman, no fighter and could be trusted to do nothing whatsoever that didn't contribute to the immediate safety and benefit of himself. Neither the Muslim priest nor the baffling, enigmatic Farnholme ― they were seated together on the same thwart, conversing in low murmurs ― had shown up too well that afternoon either. There was no more kindly nor better-meaning man than Willoughby, but, outside his engine room and deprived of his beloved books and for all his rather pathetic eagerness to be of assistance, there was no more ineffectual and helpless person alive than the gentle second engineer. The captain, Evans, the quartermaster, Fraser and Jenkins, the young able seaman, were too badly hurt to give any more than token assistance. Alex, the young soldier ― Nicolson had discovered that his name was Sinclair ― was as jittery and unstable as ever, his wide, staring eyes darting restlessly, ceaselessly, from one member of the boat's company to the next, the palms of his hands rubbing constantly up and down the thighs of his trousers, as if desperately seeking to rub off some contamination. That left only the three women and young Peter ― and if anyone wanted to stack the odds even higher, Nicolson thought bitterly, there was always Siran and his six cut-throat friends not twenty feet away. The prospects, overall, were not good.

The one happy, carefree person in the two boats was young Peter Tallon. Clad only in a haltered pair of white, very short shorts, he seemed entirely unaffected by the heat or anything else, bouncing incessantly up and down on the sternsheets and having to be rescued from falling overboard a dozen times a minute. Familiarity breeding trust, he had quite lost his earlier fear of the other members of the crew but had not yet given him his unquestioning confidence: whenever Nicolson, whose seat by the tiller was nearest to the youngster, offered him a piece of ship's biscuit or a mug with some watered down sweet condensed milk, he would smile at him shyly, lean forward, snatch the offering, retreat and eat or drink it, head bent and looking suspiciously at Nicolson under lowered eyelids. But if Nicolson reached out a hand to touch or catch him he would fling himself against Miss Drachmann, who sat on the starboard side of the sternsheets, entwine one chubby hand in the shining black hair, often with a force that brought a wince and an involuntary 'ouch' from the girl, twist his head round and regard him gravely through the spread fingers of his left hand. It was a favourite trick of his, this peeping from behind his fingers, one which he seemed to imagine made him invisible. For long moments at a time Nicolson forgot the war, the wounded men and their own near-hopeless situation, absorbed in the antics of the little boy but always he came back to the bitter present, to an even keener despair, to a redoubled fear of what would happen to the child when the Japanese finally caught up with them.

And they would catch up with them. Nicolson had known that, known it beyond any shadow of doubt, known that Captain Findhorn knew it also despite his encouraging talk of sailing for Lepar and the Sunda Straits. The Japanese had their position to within a few miles, could find them and pick them off whenever they wished. The only mystery was why they had not already done so. Nicolson wondered if the others knew that their hours of freedom and safety were limited, that the cat was playing with the mouse. if they did, it was impossible to tell by their behaviour and appearance. A helpless, useless bunch in many ways, a crushing liability to any man who hoped to sail his boat to freedom, but Nicolson had to concede them one saving grace: Gordon and the shocked Sinclair apart, their morale was magnificent.

They had worked hard and uncomplainingly to get all the blankets and provisions stowed away as neatly as possible, had cleared spaces at the expense of their own comfort for the wounded men ― who themselves, in spite of obvious agony, had never complained once ― and accepted all Nicolson's orders and their own cramped positions cheerfully and willingly. The two nurses, surprisingly and skilfully assisted by Brigadier Farnholme, had worked for almost two hours over the wounded men and done a splendid job. Never had the Ministry of Transport's insistence that all lifeboats carry a comprehensive first-aid kit been more fully justified, and seldom could it have been put to better use: collapse revivers, 'Omnopon,' sulphanilarnide powder, codeine compounds, dressings, bandages, gauze, cotton wool and jelly for burns ― they were all there and they were all used. Surgical kit Miss Drachmann carried herself: and with the lifeboat's hatchet and his own knife McKinnon had perfectly adequate splints iniprovised from the bottom-boards for Corporal Eraser's shattered arm within ten minutes of being asked for them.

And Miss Plenderleith was magnificent. There was no other word for it. She had a genius for reducing circumstances and situations to reassuring normality, and might well have spent her entire life in an open boat. She accepted things as they were, made the very best of them, and had more than sufficient authority to induce others to do the same. It was she who wrapped the wounded in blankets and pillowed their heads on lifebelts, scolding them like unruly and recalcitrant little children if they showed any signs of disobeying: Miss Plenderleith never had to scold anyone twice. It was she who had taken over the commissariat and watched over the wounded until they had eaten the last crumb and drunk the last drop of what she had offered them. It was she who had snatched Farnholme's gladstone bag from him, stowed it beneath her side bench, picked up the hatchet McKinnon had laid down, and informed the seething Brigadier, with the light of battle in her eyes, that his drinking days were over and that the contents of the bag, which he had been on the point of broaching, would be in future reserved for medicinal use only ― and thereafter, incredibly, had produced needles and wool from the depths of her own capacious bag and calmly carried on with her knitting. And it was she who was now sitting with a board across her knees, carefully slicing bully beef and bread, doling out biscuits, barley sugar and thinned down condensed milk and ordering around a grave and carefully unsmiling McKinnon, whom she had pressed into service as her waiter, as if he were one of her more reliable but none too bright school children. Magnificent, Nicolson thought, trying hard to match his bo'sun's deadpan expression, just magnificent: there was no other word for her. Suddenly her voice sharpened, rose almost an octave.

"Mr. McKinnon! What on earth are you doing?" The bo'sun had dropped his latest cargo of bread and corned beef to the bottom-boards and sunk down on his knees beside her, peering out below the awning, ignoring Miss Plenderleim as she repeated her question. She repeated it a third time, received no answer, tightened her lips and jabbed him ferociously in the ribs with the haft of her knife. This time she got a reaction.

"Will you look what you've done, you clumsy idiot?" She pointed her knife angrily at McKinnon's knee: between it and the side bench half a pound of meat was squashed almost flat.

"Sorry, Miss Plenderleith, sorry." The bo'sun stood up, absently rubbing shreds of beef off his trousers, and turned to Nicolson. "'Plane approaching, sir. Green ninety, near enough."

Nicolson glanced at him out of suddenly narrowed eyes, stopped and stared out to the west under the awning. He saw the plane almost at once, not more than two miles away, at about two thousand feet. Walters, the lookout in the bows, had missed it, but not surprisingly: it was coming at them straight out of the eye of the sun. McKinnon's sensitive ears must have picked up the faraway drone of the engine. How he had managed to detect it above the constant flow of Miss Plenderleith's talk and the steady putt-putt of their own engine Nicolson couldn't imagine. Even now he himself could hear nothing.

Nicolson drew back, glanced over at the captain. Findhorn was lying on his side, either asleep or in a coma. There was no time to waste finding out which.

"Get the sail down, Bo'sun," he said quickly. "Gordon, give him a hand. Quickly, now. Fourth?"

"Sir?" Vannier was pale, but looked eager and steady enough.

"The guns. One each for yourself, the brigadier, the bo'sun, Van Effen, Walters and myself." He looked at Farnholme. "There's some sort of automatic carbine there, sir. You know how to handle it?"

"I certainly do!" Pale blue eyes positively gleaming, Farnholme stretched out a hand for the carbine, cocked the bolt with one expert flick of his fingers and cradled the gun in his arms, glaring hopefully at the approaching plane: the old war-horse sniffing the scent of battle and loving it. Even in that moment of haste Nicolson found time to marvel at the complete transformation from the early afternoon: the man who had scuttled thankfully into the safe refuge of the pantry might never have existed. It was incredible, but there it was: far back in his mind Nicolson had a vague suspicion that the brigadier was just too consistent in his inconsistencies, that a purposeful but well-concealed pattern lay at the root of all his odd behaviour. But it was only a suspicion, he couldn't make sense of it and maybe he was reading into Farnholme's strange, see-saw conduct something that didn't exist. Whatever the explanation, now was not the time to seek it.

"Get your gun down," Nicolson said urgently. "All of you. Keep them hidden. The rest of you flat on the boards, as low down as you can get." He heard the boy's outraged wail of protest as he was pulled down beside the nurse and deliberately forced all thought of him out of his mind. The aircraft ― a curious looking seaplane of a type he had never seen before ― was still heading straight for them, perhaps half a mile distant now. Losing height all the time, it was coming in very slowly: that type of plane was not built for speed.

It was banking now, beginning to circle the lifeboats, and Nicolson watched it through his binoculars. On the fuselage the emblem of the rising sun glinted as the plane swung first to the south and then to the east. A lumbering, clumsy plane, Nicolson thought, good enough for low-speed reconnaissance, but that was about all. And then Nicolson remembered the three Zeros that had circled indifferently overhead as they had abandoned the burning Viroma and all at once he had a conviction that amounted to complete certainty.

"You can put your guns away," he said quietly. "And you can all sit up. This character isn't after our lives. The Japs have plenty of bombers and fighters to make a neat, quick job of us. If they wanted to finish us off, they wouldn't have sent an old carthorse of a seaplane that has more than an even chance of being shot down itself. They'd have sent the fighters and bombers."

"I'm not so sure about that." Farnholme's blood was roused, and he was reluctant to abandon the idea of lining the Japanese 'plane up over the sights of his carbine. "I wouldn't trust the beggars an inch!"

"Who would?" Nicolson agreed. "But I doubt whether this fellow has more than a machine-gun." The seaplane was still circling, still at the same circumspect distance. "My guess is they want us, but they want us alive, lord only knows why. This bloke here, as the Americans would say, is just keeping us on ice." Nicolson had spent too many years in the Far East not to have heard, in grisly detail, of Japanese atrocities and barbaric cruelties during the Chinese war and knew that, for an enemy civilian, death was a pleasant, a desirable end compared to being taken prisoner by them. "Why we should be all that important to them I can't even begin to guess. Just let's count our blessings and stay alive a little longer,"

"I agree with the chief officer." Van Effen had already stowed away his gun. "This plane is just ― how do you say- ― keeping tabs on us. He'll leave us alone, Brigadier, "don't you worry about that."

"Maybe he will and maybe he won't." Farnholme brought his carbine into plain view. "No reason then why I shouldn't have a pot at him. Dammit all, he's an enemy, isn't he?" Farnholme was breathing hard. "A bullet in his engine―――"

"You'll do no such thing, Foster Farnholme." Miss Plenderleith's voice was cold, incisive and imperious. "You're behaving like an idiot, an irresponsible child. Put that gun down at once." Farnholme was already wilting under her glare and the lash of her tongue. "Why kick a wasp's nest? You fire at him and the next thing you know he loses his temper and fires at us and half of us are dead. Unfortunately there's no way of guaranteeing that you'll be among that half."

Nicolson struggled to keep his face straight. Where their journey would end he had no idea, but as long as it lasted the violent antipathy between Farnholme and Miss Plenderleith promised to provide plenty of light entertainment: no one had yet heard them speak a civil word to each other.

"Now, then, Constance." The brigadier's voice was half truculent, half placating. "You've no right――-"

"Don't you 'Constance' me," she said icily. "Just put that gun away. None of us wishes to be sacrificed on the altar of your belated valour and misplaced martial ardour." She gave him the benefit of a cold, level stare, then turned ostentatiously away. The subject was closed and Farnholme suitably crushed. "You and the brigadier ― you've known each other for some time?" Nicolson ventured.

For a moment she transferred her glacial stare to Nicolson, and he thought he had gone too far. Then she pressed her lips together and nodded. "A long time. For me, far too long. He had his own regiment in Singapore, years before the war, but I doubt whether they ever saw him. He practically lived in the Bengal Club. Drunk, of course. AE the time."

"By heaven, madam!" Farnholme shouted. His bristly white eyebrows were twitching furiously. "If you were a man―――"

"Oh, do be quiet," she interrupted wearily. "When you repeat yourself so often, Foster, it becomes downright nauseating."

Farnholme muttered angrily to himself, but everybody's attention was suddenly transferred to the plane. The engine note had deepened, and for one brief moment Nicolson thought it was coming in to attack, but realised almost at once that its circle round the boats was widening, if anything. The seaplane had cut its engine booster, but only for extra power for climb. It was still circling, but rising steadily all the time, making a laborious job of it, but nonetheless climbing. At about five thousand feet it levelled off and began to cruise round in great circles four or five miles in diameter.

"Now what do you think he's done that for?" It was Findhorn talking, his voice stronger and clearer than it had been at any time since he had been wounded. "Very curious, don't you think, Mr. Nicolson?"

Nicolson smiled at him. "Thought you were still asleep, sir. How do you feel now?"

"Hungry and thirsty. Ah, thank you, Miss Plenderleith." He stretched out his hand for a cup, winced at the sudden pain the movement caused him, then looked again at Nicolson. "You haven't answered my question."

"Sorry, sir. Difficult to say. I suspect he's bringing some of his pals along to see us and he's giving himself a spot of elevation, probably to act as a marker. Only a guess, of course."

"Your guesses have an unfortunate habit of being too damned accurate for my liking." Findhorn lapsed into silence and sank his teeth into a corned beef sandwich.

Half an hour passed, and still the scout seaplane stayed in the same relative position. It was all rather nerve-racking and necks began to ache from staring up so fixedly into the sky. But at least it was obvious now that the 'plane had no directly hostile intentions towa'rds them.

Another half-hour passed and the blood-red sun was slipping swiftly, vertically down towards the rim of the sea, a mirror-smooth sea that faded darkly towards the blurred horizon to the east, but a great motionless plain of vermilion to the west, stretching far away into the eye of the setting sun. Not quite mirror-smooth on this side ― one or two tiny islets dimpled the red sheen of the water, standing out black against the level rays of the sun, and away to the left, just off the starboard bow and maybe four miles to the south-south-west a larger, low-lying island was beginning to climb imperceptibly above the tranquil surface of the sea.

It was soon after sighting this last island that they saw the seaplane begin to lose height and move off to the east in a long shallow dive. Vannier looked hopefully at Nicolson.

"Knocking-off time for the watch-dog, sir? Off home to bed, likely enough."

"Afraid not, Fourth." Nicolson nodded in the direction of the retreating plane. "Nothing but hundreds of miles of sea in that direction, and then Borneo ― and that's not where our friend's home is. He's spotted a pal, a hundred to one." He looked at the captain. "What do you think, sir?"

"You're probably right again, damn you." Findhorn's smile robbed the words of any offence, and then the smile slowly vanished and the eyes became bleak as the seaplane levelled off about a thousand feet and began to circle. "You are right, Mr. Nicolson," he added softly. He twisted painfully in his seat and stared ahead. "How far off would you say that island there is?"

"Two and a half miles, sir. Maybe three."

"Near enough three." Findhorn turned to look at Wil-loughby, then nodded at the engine. "Can you get any more revs out of that sewing machine of yours, Second?"

"Another knot, sir, if I'm lucky." WiUoughby laid a hand on the tow-rope that stretched back to Siran's boat. "Two, if I cut this."

"Don't tempt me, Second. Give her all you can, will you?"

He jerked his head at Nicolson, who handed over the tiller to Vannier and moved over beside the captain. "What's your guess, Johnny?" Findhorn murmured.

"What do you mean, sir? Kind of ship it is, or what's going to happen?"

"Both."

"No idea about the first ― destroyer, M.T.B., fishing boat, anything. As to the other ― well, it's clear now that they want us, and not our blood." Nicolson grimaced. "The blood will come later. Meantime, they take us prisoner ― then the old green bamboo torture, the toenails and teeth, the water treatment, the silos and all the usual refinements." Nicolson's mouth was only a white gash in his face and his eyes were gazing at the sternsheets where Peter and Miss Drachmann were playing together, laughing at each other, the girl as if she hadn't a care in the world. Findhorn followed his gaze and nodded slowly.

"Yes, me too, Johnny. It hurts ― just to look at them hurts. They go well together." He rubbed his grey-grizzled chin thoughtfully. 'Translucent amber' ― that was the phrase some writing johnny used once about his heroine's complexion. Blasted fool ― or that was what I thought then. I'd like to apologise to him some day. Really incredible, isn't it." He grinned. "Imagine the traffic jam if you brought her back to Piccadilly."

Nicolson smiled in turn. "It's just the sunset, sir, and your bloodshot eyes." He was grateful to the older man for deliberately diverting his train of thought and, remembering, he quickly became serious again. "That bloody awful gash. Our yellow brethren. I think there should be some payment on account."

Findhorn nodded slowly. "We should ― ah ― postpone our capture, perhaps? Let the thumb-screws rust a while longer? The idea is not without its attractions, Johnny." He paused, then went on quietly: "I think I can see something."

Nicolson had his glasses to his eyes at once. He stared through them for a moment, caught a glimpse of a craft hull-down on the horizon with the golden gleams of the setting sun striking highlights off its superstructure, lowered the glasses, rubbed his eyes and looked again. Seconds passed, then he lowered the binoculars, his face expressionless, and handed them in silence to the captain. Findhorn took them, held them steady to his eyes, then handed them back to Nicolson. "No signs of our luck turning, is there? Tell them, will you? Trying to raise my voice above that damned engine is like having a set of fish-hooks dragged up my throat."

Nicolson nodded and turned round.

"Sorry, everybody, but ― well, I'm afraid there's some more trouble coming along. It's a Jap submarine, and it's overtaking us as if we were standing still. If he'd appeared fifteen minutes later we might have made that island there." He nodded forward over the starboard bow. "As it is, he'll be up on us before we're much more than half-way there."

"And what do you think will happen then, Mr. Nicolson?" Miss Plenderleith's voice was composed almost to the level of indifference.

"Captain Findhorn thinks ― and I agree with him ― that they will probably try to take us prisoner." Nicolson smiled wryly. "All I can say just now, Miss Plenderleith, is that we'll try not to be taken prisoner. It will be difficult."

"It will be impossible." Van Effen spoke from his seat in the bows, and his voice was cold. "It's a submarine, man. What can our little pop-guns do against a pressure hull. Our bullets will just bounce off."

"You propose that we give ourselves up?" Nicolson could see the logic of Van Effen's words and knew that the man was without fear: nevertheless he felt vaguely disappointed.

"Why commit outright suicide ― which is what you suggest we do." Van Effen was pounding the heel of his fist gently on the gunwale, emphasising his point. "We can always find a better chance to escape later."

"You obviously don't know the Japs," Nicolson said wearily. "This is not only the best chance we'll ever have ― it's also the last."

"And I say you're talking nonsense!" There was hostility now in every line in Van Effen's face. "Let us put it to the vote, Mr. Nicolson." He looked round the boat. "How many of you are in favour of―――"

"Shut up and don't talk like a fool!" Nicolson said roughly. "You're not attending a political meeting, Van Effen. You're aboard a vessel of the British Mercantile Marine, and such vessels are not run by committees but by the authority of one man only ― the captain. Captain Findhorn says we offer resistance ― and that's that."

"The captain is absolutely determined on that?"

"He is."

"My apologies." Van Effen bowed. "I bow to the authority of the captain."

"Thank you." Feeling vaguely uncomfortable, Nicolson transferred his gaze to the submarine. It was clearly visible now, in all its major details, less than a mile distant. The seaplane was still circling overhead. Nicolson looked at it and scowled.

"I wish that damn' snoop would go on home," he muttered.

"He does complicate things rather," Findhorn agreed. "Time is running out, Johnny. He'll be up with us in five minutes."

Nicolson nodded absently. "We've seen that type of sub before, sir?"

"I rather think we have," Findhorn said slowly.

"We have." Nicolson was certain now. "Light A.A. gun aft, machine-gun on the bridge and a heavy gun for'ard ― 3.7 or 4-inch, something like that, I'm not sure. If they want to take us aboard we'll have to go right alongside the hull ― beneath the conning-tower, probably. Neither of the two guns can depress that far." He bit his lip and stared ahead. "It'll be dark in twenty minutes ― and that island won't be much more than half a mile away by the time he stops us. It's a chance, a damn' poor chance at that, but still…" He raised the glasses again and stared at the submarine, then shook his head slowly. "Yes, I thought I remembered that. That 3.7 or whatever it is has a big armoured shield for its gun-crew. Some sort of hinged, collapsible thing, probably." His voice trailed off and his fingers beat an urgent tattoo on the rim of the gunwale. He looked absently at the captain. "Complicates things rather, doesn't it, sir?"

"I'm not with you, Johnny." Findhorn was beginning to sound tired again. "Afraid my head's not at its best for this sort of thing. If you've got any idea at all――-"

"I have. Crazy, but it might work." Nicolson explained rapidly, then beckoned to Vannier, who handed the tiller to the bo'sun and moved across. "Don't smoke, do you, Fourth?"

"No, sir." Vannier looked at Nicolson as if he had gone off his head.

"You're starting tonight." Nicolson dug into his pocket, fished out a flat tin of Benson and Hedges and a box of matches. He gave them to him, along with a few quick instructions. "Right up in the bows, past Van Effen. Don't forget, everything depends on you. Brigadier? A moment, if you please."

Farnholme looked up in surprise, lumbered over a couple of thwarts and sat down beside them. Nicolson looked at him for a second or two in silence and then said seriously: "You really know how to use that automatic carbine, Brigadier?"

"Good God, man, yes!" the Brigadier snorted. "I practically invented the bloody thing."

"How accurate are you?" Nicolson persisted quietly.

"Bisley," Farnholme answered briefly. "Champion. As good as that, Mr. Nicolson."

"Bisley?" Nicolson's eyebrows reflected his astonishment.

"King's marksman." Farnholme's voice was completely out of character now, as quiet as Nicolson's own. "Chuck a tin over the side, let it go a hundred feet and I'll give you a demonstration. Riddle it with this carbine in two seconds." The tone was matter-of-fact; more, it was convincing.

"No demonstration," Nicolson said hastily. "That's the last thing we want. As far as brother Jap is concerned, we haven't even a fire-cracker between us. This is what I want you to do." His instructions to Farnholme were rapid and concise, as were those given immediately afterwards to the rest of the boat's company. There was no time to waste on lengthier explanations, to make sure he was fully understood: the enemy was almost on them.

The sky to the west was still alive and glowing, a kaleidoscopic radiance of red and orange and gold, the barred clouds on the horizon ablaze with fire, but the sun was gone, the east was grey and the sudden darkness of the tropical night was rushing across the sea. The submarine was angling in on their starboard quarter, grim and black and menacing in the gathering twilight, the glassy sea piling up in phosphorescent whiteness on either side of its bows, the diesels dying away to a muted murmur, the dark, evil mouth of the big for'ard gun dipping and moving slowly aft as it matched the relative movement of the little lifeboat, foot by remorseless foot. And then there had come some sharp, unintelligible command from the conning-tower of the submarine; McKinnon cut the engine at a gesture from Nicolson and the iron hull of the submarine scraped harshly along the rubbing piece of the lifeboat.

Nicolson craned his neck and looked swiftly along the deck and conning-tower of the submarine. The big gun for'ard was pointing in their direction, but over their heads, as he had guessed it would: it had already reached maximum depression. The light A.A. gun aft was also lined up at them ― lined up into the heart of their boat: he had miscalculated about that one, but it was a chance they had to take. There were three men in the conning-tower, two of them armed ― an officer with a pistol and a sailor with what looked like a submachine gun ― and five or six sailors at the foot of the conning-tower, only one of them armed. As a reception committee it was dismaying enough, but less than what he had expected. He had thought that the lifeboat's abrupt, last-minute alteration of course to-port ― a movement calculated to bring them alongside the port side of the submarine, leaving them half-shadowed in the gloom to the east while the Japanese were silhouetted against the after-glow of sunset ― might have aroused lively suspicion: but it must have been almost inevitably interpreted as a panic-stricken attempt to escape, an attempt no sooner made than its futility realised. A lifeboat offered no threat to anyone and the submarine commander must have thought that he had already taken far more than ample precautions against such puny resistance as they could possibly offer.

The three craft ― the submarine and the two lifeboats ― were still moving ahead at about two knots when a rope came spinning down from the deck of the submarine and fell across the bows of number one lifeboat. Automatically Vannier caught it and looked back at Nicolson.

"Might as well make fast, Fourth." Nicolson's tone was resigned, bitter. "What good's fists and a couple of jack-knives against this lot?"

"Sensible, so sensible." The officer leaned over the conning-tower, his arms folded, the barrel of the gun lying along his upper left arm: the English was good, the tone self-satisfied, and the teeth a white gleaming smirk in the dark smudge of the face. "Resistance would be so unpleasant for all of us, would it not?"

"Go to hell!" Nicolson muttered.

"Such incivility! Such lack of courtesy ― the true Anglo-Saxon." The officer shook his head sadly, vastly enjoying himself. Then he suddenly straightened, looked sharply at Nicolson over the barrel of his gun. "Be very careful!" His voice was like the crack of a whip.

Slowly, unhurriedly, Nicolson completed his movement of extracting a cigarette from the packet Willoughby had offered him, as slowly struck a match, lit his own and Willoughby's cigarettes and sent the match spinning over the side.

"So! Of course!" The officer's laugh was brief, contemptuous. "The phlegmatic Englishman! Even though his teeth chatter with fear, he must maintain his reputation ― especially in front of his crew. And another of them!" Up in the bows of the lifeboat Vannier's bent head, a cigarette clipped between his lips, was highlit by the flaring match in his hand. "By all the gods, it's pathetic, really pathetic." The tone of his voice changed abruptly. "But enough of this ― — this foolery. Aboard at once ― all of you." He jabbed his gun at Nicolson. "You first."

Nicolson stood up, one arm propping himself against the hull of the submarine, the other pressed close by his side.

"What do you intend to do with us, damn you?" His voice was loud, almost a shout, with a nicely-induced tremor in it. "Kill us all? Torture us? Drag us to those damned prison camps in Japan?" He was shouting in earnest now, fear and anger in the voice: Vannier's match hadn't gone over the side, and the hissing from the bows was even louder than he had expected. "Why in the name of God don't you shoot us all now instead of――-"

With breath-taking suddenness there came a hissing roar from the bows of the lifeboat, twin streaks of sparks and smoke and flame lancing upwards into the darkening sky across the submarine's deck and at an angle of about thirty degrees off the vertical and then two incandescent balls of flame burst into life hundreds of feet above the water as both the lifeboat's rocket parachute flares ignited almost at the same instant. A man would have had to be far less than human to check the involuntary, quite irresistible, impulse to look at the two rockets exploding into flame far up in the skies, and the Japanese crew of the submarine were only human. To a man, like dolls in the hands of a puppet master, they twisted round to look, and to a man they died that way, their backs half-turned to the lifeboat and their necks craned back as they stared up into the sky.

The crash of automatic carbines, rifles and pistols died away, the echoes rolled off into distant silence across the glassy sea and Nicolson was shouting at everyone to lie flat in the boat. Even as he was shouting, two dead sailors rolled off the sloping deck of the submarine and crashed into the stern of the lifeboat, one of them almost pinning him against the gunwale. The other, lifeless arms and legs flailing, was heading straight for little Peter and the two nurses, but McKinnon got there first. The two heavy splashes sounded almost like one.

One second passed, two, then three. Nicolson was on his knees, staring upwards, fists clenched as he waited in tense expectation. At first he could hear the shuffle of feet and the fast, low-pitched murmur of voices behind the shield of the big gun. Another second passed, and then another. His eyes moved along the submarine deck, perhaps there was someone still alive, still seeking a glorious death for his Emperor ― Nicolson had no illusions about the fanatical courage of the Japanese. But now everything was still, still as death. The officer hanging tiredly over the conning-tower, gun still locked in a dangling hand ― Nicolson's pistol had got him, and the other two had fallen inside. Four shapeless forms lay in a grotesque huddle about the foot of the conning-tower. Of the two men who had manned the light A.A. gun there was no sign: Farnholme's automatic carbine had blasted them over the side.

The tension was becoming intolerable. The big gun, Nicolson knew, couldn't depress far enough to reach the boat, but he had vague memories of stories told him by naval officers of the almost decapitating effects of a naval gun fired just above one's head. Perhaps the blast of the concussion would be fatal to those directly beneath, there was no way of knowing. Suddenly, silently, he began to curse his own stupidity and turned quickly to Willoughby.

"Start the engine up, Bo'sun. Then reverse ― fast as you can. The conning-tower can block off that gun if we――-"

The words were lost, obliterated in the roar of the firing gun. It wasn't a roar, really, but a flat, violent whiplash crack that stabbed savagely at the eardrums and almost stunned in its intensity. A long red tongue of flame flickered evilly out of the mouth of the barrel, reaching down almost to the boat itself. The shell smashed into the sea, throwing up a fine curtain of spray and a spout of water that reached fifty feet up into the sky, and then the sound had died, the smoke had cleared, and Nicolson, desperately shaking a dazed head, knew that they were alive, that the Japanese were frantically trying to load again, knew that the time had come.

"Right, Brigadier." He could see Farnholme heaving himself to his feet. "Wait till I give the word." He looked up swiftly towards the bows as a rifle boomed.

"Missed him." Van EfEen was disgusted. "An officer looked over the edge of the conning-tower just now."

"Keep your gun lined up," Nicolson ordered. He could hear the boy wailing with fear and knew that the blast of the big gun must have terrified him: his face twisted savagely as he shouted to Vannier. "Fourth! The signal set. A couple of red hand flares and heave them into the conning-tower. That'll keep 'em busy." He was listening all the time to the movements of the gun crew. "All of you ― watch the tower and the fore and aft hatches."

Perhaps another five seconds passed and then Nicolson heard the sound he had been waiting for ― the scrape of a shell in the breech and the block swinging solidly home. "Now!" he called sharply.

Farnhome didn't even bother to raise the gun to his shoulder but fired with the stock under his arm, seemingly without taking any aim whatsoever. He didn't need to, he was even better than he had claimed to be. He ripped off perhaps five shots, no more, deflected them all down the barrel of the big gun then dropped to the bottom of the lifeboat like a stone as the last bullet found the percussion nose of the shell and triggered off the detonation. Severe enough in sound and shock at such close range, the explosion of the bursting shell inside the breech was curiously muffled, although the effects were spectacular enough. The whole big gun lifted off its mounting and flying pieces of the shattered metal clanged viciously against the conning-tower and went whistling over the sea, ringing the submarine in an erratic circle of splashes. The gun-crew must have died unknowing: enough T.N.T. to blow up a bridge had exploded within arm's length of their faces.

"Thank you, Brigadier." Nicolson was on his feet again, forcing his voice to steadiness. "My apologies for all I ever said about you. Full ahead, Bo'sun." A couple of sputtering crimson hand flares went arching through the air and landed safely inside the conning-tower, silhouetting the coaming against a fierce red glow. "Well done, Fourth. You've saved the day today."

"Mr. Nicolson?"

"Sir?" Nicolson glanced down at the captain.

"Wouldn't it be better, perhaps, if we stayed here a little longer? No one dare show his head through the hatches or over the tower. In ten or fifteen minutes it'll be dark enough for us to reach that island there without the beggars taking pot-shots at us all the time."

"Afraid that wouldn't do, sir." Nicolson was apologetic. "Right now the lads inside there are shocked and stunned, but pretty soon someone's going to start thinking, and as soon as he does we can look for a shower of hand grenades. They can shuck them into the boat without having to show a finger ― and even one would finish us."

"Of course, of course." Findhom sank back wearily on his bench. "Carry on, Mr. Nicolson."

Nicolson took the tiller, came hard round with both lifeboats through a hundred and eighty degrees, circled round the slender, fish-tail stern of the submarine while four men with guns in their hands watched the decks unblinkingly, and slowed down just abaft the submarine's bridge to allow Farnholme to smash the A.A. gun's delicate firing mechanism with a long, accurate burst from his automatic carbine. Captain Findhorn nodded in slow realisation.

"Exit their siege gun. You think of everything, Mr. Nicolson."

"I hope so, sir." Nicolson shook his head. "I hope to God I do."

The island was perhaps half-a-mile distant from the submarine. A quarter of the way there Nicolson stooped, brought up one of the lifeboat's two standard Wessex distress signal floats, ripped away the top disc seal, ignited it by tearing off the release fork and immediately threw it over the stern, just wide enough to clear Siran's boat. As soon as it hit the water it began to give off a dense cloud of orange-coloured smoke, smoke that hung almost without moving in the windless twilight, an impenetrable screen against the enemy. A minute or two later bullets from the submarine began to cut through the orange smoke, whistling overhead or splashing into the water around them, but none came near enough to do any damage; the Japanese were firing at random and in blind anger. Four minutes after the first smoke float, now fizzling to extinction, had been thrown overboard the second one followed it, and long before it, too, had burnt out they had beached their boats and landed safely on the island.