The Lonely Sea (19 page)

Arriving aft, Captain Fegen, his face now chalkwhite and bloodless and wracked by that murderous pain to which he never once gave expression, found himself too weak to climb up to the control position: but he was still the captain, still in command, with no purpose left in life but to shorten the distance between himself and the
Admiral
Scheer, to give the convoy every life-giving moment of grace he could so that they might make good their escape into the swiftly gathering dusk.

And thinking ever of the convoy, he ordered more smoke-floats to be dropped, to hide HX 84 from the
Scheer.
He ordered burning cordite charges to be thrown overboard, fresh crews to man the few guns still firing, in place of those men who lay dead around them. But even yet, those worn and useless guns could not reach the enemy.

Another 11-inch shell, another and another, and now the engine room was destroyed, the engines smashed and drowned under hundreds of tons of water. Fogarty Fegen no longer cared. A 14,000 ton ship travelling at maximum speed has tremendous way on her, and he knew that the
Jervis Bay
had more than enough way in reserve to keep her closing on the
Admiral Scheer
in the brief span of life that was left to both himself and his ship.

A deafening roar, a flash of searing flame and the after control position above Fegen's head vanished in the concussive blast of yet another detonating shell. Undaunted, this incredible man, blood still pouring from his shattered shoulder and head-wounds, lurched his dying way back through the smoke and the flames, intent on reaching the blazing bridge he had so lately abandoned, to continue the fight—if this ghastly massacre could be called a fight—from there.

But he never reached that shattered bridge again. Somewhere in the flames he was struck down by a bursting shell, and death must have been instantaneous for, by any medical standards, he was dead on his feet before that shell finally sheared the slender thread of life to which he had clung with such unbelievable courage and tenacity.

In the one brief hour of a November dusk, Fogarty Fegen won for himself the posthumous Victoria Cross and a name which will always be remembered, with that of Sir Phillip Sydney, as a symbol of defiance and an almost inhuman gallantry in the face of fearful odds. The Victoria Cross and an assured immortality—but probably Captain Fegen would have cared for neither. He had done his job. He had stolen from Kapitän Krancke of the
Admiral Scheer
those vital moments that were never to be regained, and thereby saved the greater part of the convoy.

Fegen was dead, but the victory was his. But not only Fegen's. Every man under his command had fought, till the guns had fallen silent and fighting was no longer possible, with the same gallantry as their captain. For most of them, the price of their magnificent defiance had been the same. Of the 260 of the crew, almost two hundred were already dead or terribly wounded and about to die.

Listing, sinking deeply by the stern and now all but stopped in the water, the
Jervis Bay,
still with shells crashing through the smoke and the flame
that now consumed almost her entire length, was obviously about to go at any moment. Those who were left—and they were not many—abandoned the dying ship just minutes before she slid stern-first under the waves, taking with her all those in the sea too near or too weakened by wounds to resist the tremendous suction.

It is unlikely that any of the others who escaped would have survived for long—the
Admiral Scheer
made no attempt to pick them up—had not Captain Sven Olander, master of the Swedish vessel
Stureholm,
conscious of the great debt they owed to the survivors of the ship that had saved the convoy, ignored all orders and turned back in the darkness of the night to search for the men of the
Jervis Bay.
It was an act of the utmost courage, for all night long the
Admiral Scheer,
robbed of her prey, was prowling around the area, firing off star shells as she hunted for the now far scattered members of HX 84. But the great risk Olander took was justified over and over again: they found and rescued from the freezing night waters of the Atlantic no fewer than sixty-five survivors.

A hopeless sacrifice, many people later called the loss of the
Jervis Bay.
Sheer senseless destruction to send in a cockleshell like
the Jervis Bay
against the might of a pocket battleship, a folly and a bravado that amounted to nothing less than madness. No
doubt such people are right. No doubt it was madness, but one feels that Fegen and his men would have been proud to be numbered among the madmen of this world.

And one feels, too, that it would be unwise, to say the least, to express such harsh sentiments in the hearing of any of the members of the crews of the ships of Convoy HX 84 that came safely home again because Fogarty Fegen and the men of the
Jervis Bay
had moved out into the path of the
Admiral Scheer
and died so that they might live.

I don't know how much old Glass was worth. Come to that, I don't suppose he knew himself. But he was as rich as Croesus, that's a fact.

But Croesus or no, peer of the realm or no, he was still the same old Duncan Glass and hardly a week went by but he came down from the Big House to my harbour office to pass the time of day with me. But he'd something on his mind that Saturday—a sunny breezy morning in late June.

He got his pipe drawing well, then looked round the harbour, at the waves sparkling in the sunshine, at the mast-tops of the fishing boats dancing in the breeze. Then he turned to me, direct as always.

‘Tom,' he said quietly, ‘what do you think of them? Really think of them, I mean.'

‘Think of who?'

‘You know damn well who! The Tallons, of course.' He jerked his pipe stem in the direction of
the two men working round an old varnished yellow pine fishing boat. ‘Look at them. A holiday, every other man going to the Games, and there they are, still at it.'

‘They seem to like working,' I said, mildly enough.

Lord Glass glared at me. ‘I didn't ask you…'

‘All right, all right,' I said quickly. ‘Well, if you must know, I like old John Tallon and his son.'

Glass glared at me again. ‘No one else does.'

‘No?' I nodded through the window, then caught Glass's arm as he reached for the door handle. ‘Leave her be, Duncan. What harm can she come to?'

‘Aye, maybe you're right,' he muttered. ‘For the moment anyway.'

He stood in silence and watched the young girl walking down the quay, dark hair and red kilt blowing in the breeze, one hand holding canvas, paints, and brushes while she waved to the Tallons with the other. As she came opposite the Tallons' boat, the
Jeannie,
a young man jumped up on the quay, smiled and spoke to her. Moments later he was sitting on a bollard, looking at the canvas the young girl was showing him. The black and flaxen heads were very close together.

‘I don't like it.' I could hear Glass's teeth biting hard on his pipe stem, and his voice was kind of savage and quiet at the same time. ‘I don't like it at all.'

‘What you mean is you don't like them.' I knew how old Duncan Glass felt about Mairi—since her parents had been killed his 11-year-old granddaughter was the only person he had left in the world—but I felt he was being a bit hard. ‘Why don't you be honest about it, Duncan?'

‘Can you blame me?' he said angrily.

‘No more than I blame any of the others. You're just as bad as they are. Forty-five years in the city of London, and you're still a West Coaster at heart. The Tallons are East Coasters. Oil and water never did mix.'

Glass growled deep in his throat, but I held up my hand.

‘And you're just as nosy as the others. The Tallons are mysterious, and you don't like mystery. But if they care to sail through the Caledonian Canal and change the
Jeannie
's registration marks in Skye so that they don't know where they come from, surely that's their business. It's certainly none of ours.'

‘You talk like an East Coaster yourself,' Glass said sourly. ‘Admit it man, they're a close, standoffish couple.'

I admitted nothing. I knew he was wrong, but I knew I couldn't convince him. I knew, too, what really rankled with Lord Glass and the others…

The Tallons were far and away the best fishermen in Inverglas. Only six months in the village
and already they caught more every day than any two other boats out together, more than men who had fished these sounds and banks all their lives. It was natural, I suppose, that the men should resent that, the seven other skippers who sailed Lord Glass's boats on a profit-sharing basis. It was natural that they should stand around on the quay, sullen and morose, after a poor day's haul, while the spotted olive green and white of cod, the silver blue of mackerel spilled from the
Jeannie
's overflowing baskets as they were hoisted up for weighing.

However, I couldn't very well say this to Glass, and I knew he thought I'd nothing more to say in their defence. He changed the conversation, slightly.

‘Mairi's down here pretty often, isn't she?'

‘As often as the boats are in. Otherwise she's usually over by Sunda Bay. Always painting. A very gifted young lassie you've got there, Duncan.'

‘She's all that.' Lord Glass permitted himself a proud smile, then remembered what he was about. ‘She sees young Tallon quite often, eh?'

‘Now and again.' I was feeling uncomfortable. ‘When he's not working.'

‘No idea what they talk about?'

‘As a matter of fact, I have.' I was on better ground here. ‘Always about painting. Heard the two of them at it the other day. Young Tallon was telling her how important it was that she should
always
see
—see lines and depths and shadow and above all colour. He was pointing out a particular part of the village or harbour or sea or sky and asking her to describe it for him—just to find out how much she saw, and how much she didn't. I'm sure he helps her.'

‘What the devil does he know about painting?' Glass snorted. ‘Ignorant young lout who's never…'

‘How the devil do you know…' I started angrily, but Glass recognized the signs from 60 long years ago.

‘Sorry, Tom, sorry: let's not fight about it. But I still don't like it. It's gone far enough. I'm going to stop it.'

‘Mairi's safer here than in Sunda Bay. If the tide…'

‘MacArthur'—that was his chauffeur—‘is always with her. She'll come to no harm. See you next week, Tom.'

After he'd gone—and taken Mairi with him—I got to thinking about the Tallons. They were a queer pair all right, father and son. Always they were together, John Tallon with his broad shoulders and grey beard and the useless leg swinging between the crutches, and his son, Michael, half a head again taller than his father, with long blond straight hair and a queer faraway look in the washed-out blue of his eyes.

Always they were together—always. It didn't matter whether they were out fishing, or mending lines, or getting bait or just digging in the kitchen garden behind the little cottage they had rented on the hill, they were as inseparable as Siamese twins. They worked like Trojans, almost inhumanly hard, kept themselves strictly to themselves—and were the most disliked folk in town. Until, that is, the night of the Black Storm.

The Black Storm. It came in the early evening of the day of the Glasgow Fair, in July, and Inverglas was a ghost town for the night. It was the big day of the year in Dalbreath, seven or eight miles away across the bay—gala fete, sideshows, and a dance that lasted far into the morning. Every person who could be there was there.

But not everybody had gone—not quite. I stayed in my harbour office, because the weather forecast had been a bad and bitter one—Force 9 winds with gale seas and thunder—and I had to be there, all the time, in case some ship in distress might be looking for help or shelter.

And the Tallons were there, too—it didn't need any clairvoyant to know that
they
wouldn't be in Dalbreath. It wasn't just that they knew that they weren't wanted there: the Tallons never spent any money on amusement, and not a ha'penny more on drink—and everybody knew you couldn't enjoy a good old-time dance without a dram or two in the right place. Come to think of it, I don't suppose
that helped their popularity any—West Highland fishermen tend to look a bit askance at a man too mean to put his hand in his pocket for a drink.

The Tallons had just finished pumping out the
Jeannie
when the rain started. It didn't just rain—the black skies opened and it came down in pailfuls.

At once the two men turned up their collars and hurried up the quay as fast as old John could hobble, but that wasn't very fast. I slid open the door of the office as they stumbled by and shouted on them to come in.

They were glad enough to come, I can tell you. As I closed the door behind them, old John sunk into a chair and let his breath go in a long gasp.

‘Thank you, Mr Burnett, thank you.' He looked out at the sky, already dark almost as a tomb, and shook his head. ‘It's going to be a wild night.'

‘It's going to be all that.' I nodded at the stove. ‘Just brewed a pot of tea. Plenty for three.'

John Tallon hesitated, then smiled. ‘It's very kind of you, Mr Burnett.'

But we never had that cup of tea. I was just about to pour it when the door crashed open and there was Lord Glass himself, his face wild, grey with exhaustion and his breath coming in great heaving gasps.

‘Where are all the men, Tom, the fishermen?' It took him three long breaths to jerk this out. ‘I can't see…'

‘They're all over at Dalbreath, Duncan. You know that. Fair Friday. What in the name of God…' I broke off suddenly, because I already knew. ‘Mairi?'

‘Aye.' He nodded heavily, his face sunk in his hands.

‘Sunda Bay?'

He nodded again, said nothing.

‘And the tide making more than half already!' I could feel the cold horror in my blood. ‘But MacArthur, the man who looked after her…'

‘Gone to Dalbreath, and never a word to me,' The spirit was back for a moment, the voice savage. ‘When I see him again…' He left the sentence unfinished.

‘You're sure she's there?'

‘I know. When the storm came on, I looked for her. Couldn't find her. Drove to Sunda, saw her pony there.' His fists were clenched, his chest still heaving. ‘I ran down the cliff path—but it was too late. The beach is cut off already and the water wild.'

‘You saw her?'

‘I saw her. Shouted to her to get as far up the cliff as she could. Then I ran all the way here.'

The wind was booming outside now, rising up to gale force. How long, I thought frantically, could a little girl hang on in that. Men, ropes, but no, that overhang of the Sunda cliff…

I started and turned as a sudden blast of wind blew papers all over the office floor. Michael
Tallon had the door open, his father just behind him, crutches already under his arms. It was John Tallon who spoke.

‘We'll be back in the half-hour,' he said quietly. ‘You can come if you like—but it's a wild night.'

And, my heaven, it
was
a wild night. The
Jeannie
rolled and pitched her way across the bar as if every shuddering plunge into the troughs was going to be her last, but she was a tough old craft with a Gleniffer diesel and John knew how every single combing wave was setting towards us even although it was as black as the Earl of Hell's waistcoat. He handled that boat as if he had been born with a tiller under his arm.

We had to quarter our way round Sunda Point—if we had gone broadside into any of these steepwalled troughs we'd have broached to and foundered in a matter of moments—and, by Jove, it's a trip I don't want ever to do again. What with the howling of the wind, the thunder beginning to rumble, the rain and the spray tearing at our faces and the wild staggering of the
Jeannie
—well, as I say, once in a lifetime was once too many.

But we made it, and in a few minutes we were running into Sunda Bay, into the comparative quiet of the water behind the point.

We were maybe 40 yards off the cliff—the sand was already deep under water—when John shoved the Gleniffer into reverse and shouted on
Michael to let go the anchor. Surefooted as a cat in the darkness, picking his way with uncanny precision through the boxes, lines and ropes that lay always in the same tidy positions on deck, Michael Tallon moved to the bows and 30 seconds later the
Jeannie
was anchored head-on to the mouth of the bay, the Gleniffer just ticking over to take part of the strain, the counter swinging wildly only two or three feet from the face of the cliff.

It wasn't really a cliff at the bottom—but it wasn't far off it. Halfway up the rock bulged out a wicked overhang, and it was just below this that we saw Mairi right away, her white blouse plain against the darkness of the rock. She was hanging on to a spur for dear life, and in the sudden lulls between the gusts of wind we could hear the wee soul crying.

We all waited for Michael to fetch her—it wasn't a difficult jump ashore, nor the climb too dangerous for an active young man like himself. Old John couldn't go—not with only one leg. I suppose Glass or myself could have gone, but don't forget neither of us would ever see 65 again.

I don't think I was ever more dumbfounded in my life than when I saw Michael hesitating, making no move at all to go—and I'll never forget the anguished expression on his father's face—I was by his shoulder—as he sat there, just watching him.

‘You despicable young coward!' Duncan Glass, now that he saw his granddaughter still safe, was back on balance again and his voice was the lash of
a whip. ‘You're a damned good man—when you're sitting with a child's sketchbook in your hand. But if I ever see you again within a mile…'

He choked in anger, made to push past Michael, then sat down with a gasp on a coil of rope as an iron arm caught him by the lapels and forced him off his feet. Michael Tallon paused only to say a few soft words to his father, bent his ear to the reply, then leapt ashore.

Not quite three feet, yet he almost missed it. His ankle seem to give under him, he tottered back wildly on his heels, his arms flailing, then recovered his balance at the last moment, caught hold of a projecting rock and started climbing.

I didn't see all of the climb—it was too dark for that—but what I did see I wouldn't have believed. I don't
think
I've ever seen a man so clumsy on a rock face. Cat-footed as a tightrope walker on a rolling deck, he was quite lost on a cliff-face. He fumbled and pawed and slipped his way up to where the little girl lay crying, and my heart was never out of my mouth. But reach her he did, caught her in one arm—the poor wee girl was near exhaustion by this time—and made his way slowly, awkwardly, down again. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that I'll swear he'd have stepped into the sea if old John hadn't shouted a warning.