Sunset (39 page)

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.

Commander Esmond Brooke, D.S.O., D.S.C., Royal Navy, paused in the warm sunshine beneath the Cenotaph's tall shadow and looked across the harbour towards Kowloon. It was the strangest of feelings, as if he were invisible, or seeing Hong Kong again through someone else's eyes.

On every side there was bustle, noisy traffic, colour and the clamour he had remembered so clearly. There was rebuilding everywhere, some of the construction much higher than he had expected. He noticed that the Chinese workers still scorned steel scaffolding and preferred their hazardous-looking bamboo poles.

The harbour too was packed with shipping, as it had been six years ago when
Serpent
had first arrived here. Six years: it seemed impossible. Two years had passed since the Japanese had finally surrendered.

The misery and brutality of the Japanese occupation were still evident, but there was determination too, with men of skill and vision to restore the Colony's prosperity and growth.

He glanced at a fussy pilot cutter as it headed for open water, to guide in yet another freighter or tanker. Perhaps it was the same cutter which had led the way through the shoals and amongst the wrecks and scuttled ships when
Serpent
had left for Aberdeen . . .

He turned and shaded his eyes to stare up at the austere Cenotaph, a twin of the one in Whitehall. So many names. There would be many more when the final cost was known. He thought of all the thousands and thousands of servicemen and women who were still being released into civvy street, when all their youth had offered them had been war. It would be a new world for them. He smiled.
For me too
.

He swung round, off guard, as a squad of sailors marched past and a petty officer bawled, ‘Eyes,
right
!'

So he was not invisible. He returned the salute and was almost surprised to see his white sleeve after all the months back in the Atlantic again, when he had been given a brand new frigate and had handed over his old
Serpent
.

She, too, had returned to the Atlantic, but he had never seen her again. It was as if she were insisting that it should be that way. All those familiar faces had gone to other ships, except for one, Ian Cusack, the gnome-like Chief who had stayed with her to the end.

A lucky ship: when many others, newer and more powerful, had been destroyed,
Serpent
had survived.

In 1945, within three months of the end of the war in Europe,
Serpent
's famous luck had run out. Somewhere to the east of St John's, Newfoundland, while despatched from a convoy to search for survivors, she had been torpedoed. There were no survivors.

Just a line on the radio news with the usual, ‘Next of kin have been informed.'

So the Chief had been with her even then. He still was.

Kerr had been promoted and given his own corvette, and had managed to come to the formal wedding at Portsmouth Cathedral. Even Kipling had been there, scruffier than ever, but grinning from ear to ear as, with Lian on his arm, Brooke had walked beneath the upraised swords. Two passers-by had stopped to watch, a young lieutenant and an even younger Wren officer.

Only for a moment Brooke had felt her hand tighten on his arm.
It could have been them.
When he had looked again, they had gone.

Brooke walked to the water's edge and watched the tractors and bulldozers hard at work, reclaiming more land, covering the scars.

He glanced at his watch. She would be up on the Peak with her sister Camille. The great house, or what was left of it, was to be sold, the money used for a new wing for the hospital of which Camille was now the senior doctor and administrator.

Like many others who had lived under the Japanese occupation, Camille was withdrawn, distant even with her sister. Brooke could not imagine what she had endured: he suspected that the hospital had been her anchor. Her husband Harry, being an American, had been interned, put in charge of the sick and emaciated prisoners, doing all that he could without drugs or sustaining food. In the end he had died of beri-beri, one of those diseases of deficiency he had originally come to the Far East to study.

Brooke turned away to avoid further salutes from passing sailors. In six months he would be leaving here. Out of the navy. Once he would have dreaded the prospect: now he could barely wait. But a shore appointment in Hong Kong would make all the difference. Lian would be with him. No more separations. No more brave good-byes.

Then back to England. A friend had said,
England will never be the same again, but at least it will be ours
. And they would be together.

Another glance at his watch. She was coming. He could feel it.

He walked along the road and eventually stopped beneath the imposing façade of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank.

He was suddenly unsure. Nervous. Perhaps returning after six years would change her mind?

He heard the taxi pull to a halt and went to meet her. In a white suit, her hair hanging free because she knew he liked it, she stood watching him. Beside her and holding her hand was their daughter Charlotte, a tiny miniature of the lovely girl who was watching the man she loved.

She said quietly, ‘You were early. I knew you would be.'

‘Was everything all right, Lian?'

She touched his arm and nodded gravely. ‘You should not worry, Es-mond. England is my home now.' She glanced at the busy street. ‘
This
will always be my country.' She smiled, shaking away the mood. ‘Come now.' They held hands with the child and together they entered a small leafy garden. There was a plain, simply carved memorial in one corner, with a brass pot of sand for joss-sticks, and there were flowers too, some fresh, others wilted in the sun.

In silence they looked at the square bronze plate. And remembered.

It was writen in English and in Chinese characters.

Brooke picked up his daughter and held her hand on the inscription while Lian placed sprays of orchids in one of the bowls. She bowed briefly, and he knew that she was praying. Then she stood up beside them and said softly, ‘You see, my father. We
did
come back.'

Brooke could imagine he heard him laugh. He would have liked that.

Together they walked out on to the street again, and Hong Kong offered them its welcome.

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