A Prayer for the Ship by Douglas Reeman Read Free Book Online Page A

saw their own bow lift before him, as all boats raced off in perfect twin lines, throwing up the great, curving streams, their stems slicing through the water. He flung himself down the ladder to the gun-platform, with a brief impression of Harston hanging over the bucking torpedo sighting mechanism. He seemed to be laughing.
    Now the sky was criss-crossed with tracers, and a small fire blossomed into a full, orange glow, showing a small ship burning and listing on to her side. As they closed the battle, they saw the M.G.B.s circling four trawlers, firing rapidly, and even as they watched, another of them burst into flames, throwing up a fountain of sparks.
    Harston leaned over the screen, beckoning urgently, and as Royce climbed up, he shook his fists wildly. “For Christ’s sake, what are those fools doing? Look at them! They’ve broken formation, and for what?” His voice rose almost to a scream. “Four bloody trawlers! There’s your convoy, Number One! Are you satisfied? No? Well they apparently are!”
    Royce was dumbfounded. “But I don’t see—”
    â€œDo you want me to spell it for you? They are a decoy! A decoy, and our so-called escorts fell for it, and now we’re in the trap!”
    Royce’s heart went cold as he realized the implication of this new menace, and tried to force his mind to function, but he seemed numb, until Harston seized his arm roughly.
    â€œGet aft and stand by to jettison smoke floats, and get ready for some fancy shooting.”
    Paskins, too, fully realized their position, and unless he acted promptly, there was nothing to prevent the hunters becoming the hunted. Frantically, he signalled the jubilant gunboats to reform and cease fire, and then formed the torpedo boats into one line, his own boat leading, and Harston’s now fifth, with Emberson following in the rear. There was only one thing to do now, get out into the open sea as soon as possible.
    It was at the very moment of decision, even as the boats began to move off, that the trap was sprung.
    There was a sullen detonation astern of the flotillas, and many thought that it was a trawler blowing up, but doubts were short, as a star shell burst with savage brilliance in the sky at their backs. In a split second the night became day, as they were silhouetted and sharply defined to anything that lay ahead. Blinded, the gunners hugged their weapons. A lifetime passed, in fact four more seconds, then the black wall ahead of them flamed into life, a mad, whirling cone of red and white tracer shells, that screamed overhead and hissed into the churning waters around them, with such a crescendo of noise that they were stunned. Two seconds later, Paskins’s boat reached the maelstrom, and was ablaze from stem to stern, sharp little flames licking out of the bridge superstructure joining those which were eagerly consuming the upper deck. There were two sickening explosions which shattered the craft into a hundred sections, and sent flaming wreckage whirling skywards, and she was gone! Before they could recover from this awful spectacle, they were all in it, twisting and turning to avoid the probing, searching avalanche of fire which flew about their ears! Royce sent the smoke floats thudding into the sea, and soon a pall of smoke would be forming to provide cover or confusion for friend and foe alike. He scrambled to the gun-platform, as the twin pom-poms groped blindly for a target, his head splitting with the crash and rattle of the enemy salvoes. Then, for the first time, they all saw their hunters, for the sea seemed full of them. E-boats, their long, dark hulls gleaming with spray as they tore down towards them, and astern of them were half a dozen armed trawlers, not in the accepted sense, but floating gun batteries, protected by steel plates and huge blocks of concrete, behind which the German gunners fired and reloaded as fast as a combination of training and hatred would