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  ‘Action stations,’ came the call, and the weary men hurried to what remained of their guns. The ship was got underway again, making ten knots to the south west, but the approaching ships overhauled her very rapidly. A great cheer went up when they were discovered to be two American destroyers. ‘It was a shambles up there,’ the captain of one of them reported over the short wave radio. ‘Sheer bloody murder. When we had expended our torpedoes, the admiral commanded us to withdraw. Heck, we didn’t want to, but the battle was already lost. De Ruyter went down only minutes after sending the order.’

  ‘Houston?’ Exeter asked.

  ‘She’s still floating. She’s making south, like us.’

  ‘Didn’t we get any Japs?’

  ‘One destroyer was burning.’ The voice was dejected. ‘But we got a couple of transports.’

  It was, despite all, good to see the Americans. It was almost possible to suppose they were a small squadron again. And the destroyers insisted on remaining by the crippled British cruiser. All day they proceeded slowly down the coast of Java, and that evening sighted Bali. They scanned the skies all day too, and soon after lunch saw a lone plane, high above them.

  ‘Think she’s spotted us?’ Clive asked.

  ‘I would suppose so,’ Bryson said. ‘There isn’t an inch of cloud.’

  Yet no bombers appeared, and towards dusk they began to relax again. Then smoke was sighted astern of them.

  ‘Could be some more of our people,’ the Americans suggested.

  They could only hope they were right.

  Night fell, and they continued on their way, all three ships in complete darkness, save for the Aldis lamps they used to signal their positions to one another. Bali fell astern, then Lombok, and by dawn they were abeam of Sumbawa. They were within a hundred miles of the strait by which they hoped to escape. But then they looked astern, and saw the mass of smoke, and even the outline of the enemy ships.

  ‘Four cruisers, and some destroyers,’ Bryson said. ‘It’s that same fucking task force.’

  ‘Action stations,’ came the call.

  The after turret was undamaged, and both Clive and Bryson took their positions there; they would have to decide their range by eye, which effectively meant by trial and error.

  Once again Captain Bell suggested the American destroyers make off as fast as they could, and once again they refused to abandon their allies. By now the Japanese had opened fire, and plumes of water were rising out of the sea close by, causing Exeter to vibrate violently. ‘Fire as you can,’ came the command from the bridge.

  The turret exploded, and again. ‘Not too bad,’ Bryson commented, peering through his binoculars. ‘Up three, port two.’

  The range was adjusted, and Clive made a routine sweep of the sky. ‘Oh, shit,’ he remarked.

  Bryson looked up too, saw the squadron of bombers dropping out of the blue. ‘That’s it, then,’ he said, in matter of fact tones. ‘But I would like to take one of those big bastards with us.’

  The guns roared again, but scored no hits, while the Japanese cruisers, closing fast, continued to pour shot at the little allied group. Now the storm of shot and water was accentuated by the whine and crump of the bombs. Bryson and Clive could hardly see through the flying spray, and were firing blind; what they could see was not reassuring — one of the American destroyers was sinking, the other standing by to take off her people.

  ‘Didn’t I read somewhere that your old man had a unique experience at the Battle of Jutland?’ Bryson asked. ‘Down three, starboard four.’

  ‘Yes,’ Clive said. ‘He was sunk twice. First when Queen Mary went up, and then when the destroyer which rescued him went down.’

  ‘I have a notion it runs in families,’ Bryson said. ‘Even if this isn’t the same battle.’

  The ship bucked and black smoke belched from the foredeck where one of the Japanese shells had struck. A moment later a bomb hit what was left of the bridge. Exeter lost way and turned slowly to port, a sitting duck.

  ‘Get those guns round,’ Bryson shouted. But all power was gone, and a moment later they were struck by another bomb. Clive inhaled the smoke which was swirling about him and knew there were only seconds left. The ship was heeling, a so familiar, so dreadful feeling.

  ‘Inflate lifejackets. Goodbye, and good luck,’ came a voice over the tannoy. ‘Abandon ship.’

  Bryson looked at Clive and winked, then waved his men out of the turret. ‘Come on chaps. The water’s warm.’

  The men went over the side, and Bryson and Clive looked at each other. ‘I think your family has some very bad habits,’ Bryson remarked, and they went into the water together.

  The sea was turbulent, whipped up by the explosions, and the Japanese were still firing. A shell struck the water only fifty yards away, and Clive was picked up by the resulting wave and hurled several feet. He lost all his wind, but the lifejacket kept him up, and he twisted his head left and right. Bryson had disappeared, and Exeter was going. Dimly he saw the last remaining American destroyer nosing towards him. Fools, he wanted to shout; you’ll be next. But what gallant fools.

  Nets were down, and men were clambering up. And the bombing at least had stopped. Clive saw Bryson, and his heart surged. He had a wild notion that they would survive everything, together, as they had twice, already. ‘Mark!’ he shouted, and swam towards him. But third time wasn’t lucky. Bryson didn’t respond; he was sagging in his jacket, his head almost in the water. Clive reached him, touched him, realised he was dead.

  ‘Come on, buddy,’ came a shout from the destroyer, looming above him. ‘We gotta get the hell out of here.’

  Clive turned towards the net.

  Chapter 3

  Hawaii and Australia — 1942

  ‘Prepare to enter harbour,’ came the command from the conning tower. ‘Shore stations.’

  Ensign Walter McGann hurried to take his place on the afterdeck of the USS Tempest, his squad falling in beside him to form a line of blue-jacketed sailors standing rigidly to attention, as Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach opened up to starboard; Hawaii, Maui, Lanai and Molokai were astern of them now.

  The sea was calm, although it was a cool, crisp March day. The crossing from the mainland had been uneventful, disappointingly so for the new ensign, who had so wanted to be blooded before reaching Honolulu, to be sure of his own response to battle and danger. ‘It’s all happening down south,’ Commander Larter had said.

  Larter was pleased to have a McGann on board his ship, even if there were the inevitable jokes about submarines not being built to accommodate giants. But the boy was a son of a famous father and grandfather, and Larter had no doubt he would do well. The sailors had waited to be shown, but on the passage from San Diego they had realised Walt at least knew his seamanship, and his own mind. They could ask for only one thing more, courage in battle, from an officer, and were content to wait on that as well.

  Walt was at least relieved to learn that the claustrophobic conditions on board the submarine did not affect him; he had been worried about it as he had had only two brief underwater trips while at Annapolis, once he had volunteered for this very specialised service. He would indeed have been a totally happy man, but for the appalling circumstances with which he was surrounded. If obviously a part of him had remained in Annapolis, it had been a very small part — because he had not known

  Linda well enough. Whereas his entire life had been dedicated to joining the Navy, and the last two years of it to serving on a submarine. Tempest was the answer to that lifelong dedication, and she was taking him to Pearl Harbour, and Dad. But to be told, what, about his family?

  She was a new ship, only completed in the spring of 1941. Three hundred and seven feet overall length, she displaced one thousand four hundred and seventy-five tons. Powered by twin-shaft diesel-electric engines, which could develop over five thousand shaft horsepower, she was capable of twenty knots on the surface, and very nearly nine submerged. She was armed with ten twenty-one-inch torp
edo tubes, six forward and four aft, and carried twenty-four of the deadly missiles, sixteen for the bow tubes and eight for the aft. She also possessed a three-inch gun and two anti-aircraft half-inch. Her complement was sixty officers and men, and she had an endurance of seventy-five days; for all his feeling of reassurance, Walt had no idea what seventy-five days at sea might entail — they had crossed from the mainland in two weeks, never at full speed, and almost entirely on the surface. Such dives as they had made were for experience and practice; Tempest could submerge to two hundred and fifty feet without danger, and, theoretically, could exist down to five hundred feet without breaking up. Commander Larter had taken her down to three hundred, and they had listened to the creaks and groans as the hull had been subjected to the enormous pressure of the sea, but only a few minor leaks had been found, and these had soon been put right. A more troubling problem was a persistent oil leak in one of the diesels. But that could be fixed in Pearl.

  The war had then seemed very far away. They had maintained radio silence since leaving San Diego on 20 February. Then the news of the fall of Singapore had just been received, with dismay, and a good deal of adverse comment. ‘Fucking British,’ Lieutenant Crossby, the executive officer, had remarked. ‘What God damned use are they gonna be as allies? Tell me that, McGann? Ain’t we still holding on to Bataan? While they’re surrendering all over the shitting place. First Hong Kong, now Singapore; they’ll be hoisting the white flag in Australia next.’

  Walt hadn’t known what to reply to that. He had been as shocked by the news as anyone, just as he had been shocked by the news of the fall of Hong Kong, and of the stories which had arisen from that catastrophe. He had to suppose that Joan was dead. Now he had to suppose that Clive was also dead, or at best a prisoner of war. They had learned of his survival from the loss of Prince of Wales, and that he was in Singapore. Now, presumably, he would never leave there.

  While he, Walt thought bitterly, had never heard a shot fired in anger. Never seen a dead man or a sinking ship, except at the movies. And he was the only one left. Save for Father.

  But now he was seeing the effects of war for the first time, as Tempest nosed her way round Fort Kamehameha, and Hickam Field, and Ford Island and battleship row came into sight. He caught his breath, as did the sailors beside him. The great ships still lay there, one on its side, another half submerged, a third capsized, its hull just breaking the surface like the back of a whale. These were alongside. Further off only a buoy marked where Oregon had gone down; Dad’s ship! But reassuringly the bulk of an aircraft carrier also lay alongside, loading stores. USS Hornet. With Enterprise and Yorktown she represented all the naval strength the United States now possessed in the Pacific. Except for the submarines.

  Tempest was signalled into her berth, and her mooring lines secured. Shore patrolmen saluted as Commander Larter crossed the gangplank. ‘We don’t know how long we have here,’ he told his officers. ‘We have to fuel and replenish, but I imagine we will be under orders immediately. And we have to have that engine fixed. That means limited furloughs. Six hours each. Mr Crossby.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The executive officer looked over his juniors. ‘You have family here, McGann,’ he said. ‘Get off.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Report for duty twenty hundred.’

  ‘I can wait, Lieutenant,’ Walt protested.

  ‘Listen, boy, get off,’ Crossby snapped. ‘Hogan, you can take first shift too.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Lieutenant (JG) Hogan slapped Walt on the shoulder. ‘You been to Pearl before?’

  ‘Sure,’ Walt said. ‘Some years ago.’

  ‘When you were a kid, eh? Heck, you’re still a kid. Listen, you nip out and see your folks, then meet me in Pearl City, and I’ll teach you how to live. Here, I’ll write down the address.’

  Walt didn’t recognise it, and he didn’t know if he would make it, in six hours, nor was he sure he wanted to: he hadn’t seen his father for more than a year, and a lot had happened in that year. But when the taxi dropped him at the bungalow outside the town he found it locked up. ‘Captain McGann and the missee gone back Stateside,’ explained the Hawaiian gardener.

  ‘Damnation,’ Walt said. ‘When?’

  ‘All last week,’ the gardener told him.

  While he was still at sea. And because of censorship, he hadn’t been able to let Dad know he was coming to Honolulu in the first place.

  And he had let the taxi go, certain that Dad would drive him back into the naval base. Dejectedly he turned and began walking. After fifteen minutes, however, a car stopped beside him, and the driver, a Hawaiian businessman, offered him a ride. ‘Of course I know Captain McGann,’ he said, when Walt gave his name. ‘And you are his son? Well, I should have known that too. Things aren’t so good, eh?’

  ‘No,’ Walt said. He was thinking of his personal affairs rather than the war.

  ‘You going back to Pearl?’

  ‘Yes. Ah … ‘ he felt in his pocket, took out the piece of paper Hogan had given him; he had still four hours of furlough left — it seemed pointless to return to the ship already, and Crossby would only swear at him. ‘To Pearl City.’

  ‘Sure. That’s where I live. Where in Pearl City?’

  Walt showed him the address.

  ‘Is that a fact,’ the man said. ‘You look kind of young for that place.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Walt asked.

  The man glanced at him. ‘You know what it is?’

  ‘No,’ Walt said, frowning.

  ‘Well, it’s a brothel. A high class brothel, but one none the less. It’ll cost you a week’s pay to get the clap.’

  ‘Oh,’ Walt said.

  The man glanced at him again. ‘Why don’t you come home with me, if you’ve time to spare.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘My name is John Te Hota.’ He grinned. ‘I’m an American citizen, like you, Ensign McGann.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ Walt said. ‘But I couldn’t possibly … ‘

  ‘Forget it. You thought you were going to a bar, right?’

  ‘Well … I guess so.’

  ‘So I’ll give you a drink. On the house. A nice boy like you don’t want to go getting the clap.’

  Walt didn’t know if he was a nice boy, but he knew his new friend was right in his advice. While one half of him wanted to visit the brothel … it had something to do with manhood … the other kept reminding him that he was engaged to a stunning girl who was as innocent as himself. It would be a betrayal of Linda even to touch another woman, much less get diseased by her. It would be a betrayal of his name, too. His business was to fight a war, to avenge Clive and Joan.

  ‘It’s very nice of you,’ he said again.

  *

  John Te Hota lived in a rather grand house in Pearl City, a place of external verandahs and inner courtyards, rustling blinds and chirping parakeets — he had a cage full of them in the lounge. The traffic outside faded into a distant hum as Walt was taken through a reception room to the inner patio, where he was introduced to three women. Mrs Te Hota was about the same age as her husband: Walt put them down as mid forties. Her daughters were about his age, he estimated, two extremely pretty girls, with wavy black hair, liquid black eyes, and plumply perfect figures; they were each about half his size.

  ‘Captain McGann’s son!’ Mrs Te Hota exclaimed. ‘It is a great pleasure, Mr McGann.’

  ‘What ship are you with, Mr McGann?’ asked Janice Te Hota.

  ‘Now you know you cannot ask Mr McGann that, Janice,’ her father said severely, rattling a cocktail shaker full of pina colada. ‘Not in wartime.’

  ‘Oh,’ Janice bit her lip, while her sister, Melanie, giggled at her discomfort.

  ‘Well, I suppose your dad is right,’ Walt agreed. ‘Just let’s say I’m on my way to lick the Japs.’

  John Te Hota filled his glass with the creamy white liquid. ‘We will all say amen to that. After Pearl Harbour … ‘

  ‘You must have seen it,’ Walt said, eagerly. />
  ‘Oh, indeed. It was early that Sunday morning … ‘

  ‘We were still in bed,’ Melanie said, and giggled again.

  ‘Oh, the noise,’ said Mrs Te Hota.

  ‘We were scared,’ Janice confessed. ‘I hid under the bed.’

  ‘It really was terrible,’ John Te Hota said. ‘We did not know what was happening. I mean, we knew the base was being attacked, but we did not know if it was the beginning of an invasion or just a raid.’

  ‘It was so awful to see the ships exploding, and watch the planes being shot down,’ Mrs Te Hota said.

  ‘Such gallant men,’ John Te Hota said. ‘Taking off when they knew they never had a chance.’

  ‘But they shot down some of the Japs,’ Janice objected.

  ‘Your father’s ship was sunk,’ John Te Hota said.

  ‘I know,’ Walt said.

  ‘And then they came back again, yesterday,’ Melanie said.

  ‘Did they?’ Walt was astounded. ‘They attacked Pearl again, yesterday?’ He had seen no recent damage.

  ‘Oh, the air force was ready for them, this time,’ John Te Hota explained. ‘They never even got over the land. We only knew about it because the planes were scrambled and we saw them going off. Then it was reported on the news last night.’

  ‘But … ‘ Walt bit his lip. If the Japanese could launch another attack, then there had to be a task force in the vicinity.

  Mrs Te Hota squeezed his hand. ‘But we are going to beat them, Mr McGann. Aren’t we.’

  ‘We sure are,’ Walt agreed.

  There were more pina coladas, and more reminiscences of the attack. Then John Te Hota drove him over to the base. Before he left the house he was kissed and hugged by Mrs Te Hota and both her daughters, and Janice, who had hugged him more tightly than her sister or her mother, gave him a photograph of Melanie and herself to take to sea. ‘To remember we are here when next you visit Pearl,’ she said, blushing. He couldn’t help but wonder if he had not been as unfaithful to Linda as if he had gone to the brothel: he didn’t actually have a photo of her — there hadn’t been time.